Joyce was perplexing to Bertram after that midnight scene with Susan and Dennis. He had expected a painful quarrel on the subject, a denunciation by Joyce of his behaviour, a defence on his part, an argument beginning with generalities and ending with personalities, always dangerous between a young husband and wife, both inclined to passionate temper. But Joyce declined to discuss the matter. She had stayed late in bed next day, and had come down to luncheon with her wrist bound up. He did not understand the cause of that bandage until he enquired and received the answer:
“You nearly broke my wrist over the telephone last night. Perhaps you’re not aware of the violence you used.”
No, he was unaware of it, and made abject apology, horribly ashamed that he should have used physical force to his wife. It was a coster’s way of argument.
“Joyce! I’m immensely sorry and ashamed. But you see my difficulty last night. I had given my word—”
“I refuse to discuss the affair,” said Joyce. “You know my views. If you say another word about it I’ll leave the house.”
That was that. She was not even curious to know whether O’Brien had spent the night in Bertram’s study. Perhaps she had enquired from the maids and had satisfied herself on that point. Yet Bertram was certain that the incident was not regarded as trivial in her mind, and that it had caused something like estrangement between them. She went her own way, deliberately shutting him out of her plans, or, at least, not consulting him, nor giving him a chance of joining her. She was rarely at home to luncheon during the few weeks that followed Susan’s visit, and generally returned only in time to dress for dinner. Even then he had no chance of private conversation, for she invited friends to dine night after night—was it with the deliberate intention of avoiding intimate contact with him?—and afterwards filled her drawing-room with a miscellaneous crowd, or went out with a party to the theatre or the dancing clubs.
Bertram was lonely whether she stayed at home or not. He was beginning to feel lonely in body and soul. Joyce answered him when he spoke to her, but no more than that. She was quite gay at times—nearly always—but it was not into his eyes that she laughed.
Kenneth Murless used the house as his own, “dropped in” for dinner, or after dinner, always civil to Bertram, never disconcerted by Bertram’s sulky manner, always bright and paradoxical, and entertaining to everybody but Joyce’s husband, who hated him—for no reason but that Joyce liked him.
There were other men whom Joyce liked, and who liked to be liked by Joyce. The Reverend Peter Fynde, who came from the church round the corner, was what Bertram called a “parlour cat,” and came purring round to tea, or at nine-thirty, after “Evensong,” with gossipy anecdotes about Lady This and Lady That, and soulful sayings about the “Healing Power of Faith,” the “Beauty of the Unattainable,” and communication with the “Dear Remembered Dead.” At dinner, when the ladies had left the table, he was inclined to tell somewhat Rabelaisian stories, drawn from his experience as an army chaplain. “A human fellow,” was the general verdict about him, “a perfect dear” by the women. Bertram thought him a perfect ass, but did not tell them so.
He had nothing in common with the people who gathered round Joyce. They irritated him. Listening to their conversation, he found their point of view “poisonous,” if not idiotic. It was at least—and he wanted to be fair—hopelessly reactionary. They still had a habit of talking about the people of England as “the mob” or “the masses,” and they spoke about “Labour” as if it were a sinister, evil, destructive monster, and not a class of men, quite human, for the most part rather decent, many of them the real heroes of the war—keen to earn a living wage, desperately anxious not to be forced back to the edge of the poverty line, or over the edge. Millions of Bill Huggetts, and better men than Bill—rather neurotic, always a “grouser”—but not out for blood and terror, or anything beyond food and shelter for a family left on his hands by a poor mad wife.