Free (3/13) News from Thrush Green by Miss Read

herself, since she had talked to Phil, but this was not surprising. One's next-door neighbours, however dear, tend to be neglected for the plain reason that they are next-door. It is the friends at a distance whom one makes the effort to meet. But she had caught a glimpse of her at the typewriter, and knew that she was busy.
    She was calling now to see if she could persuade her to collect for Poppy Day. The Misses Lovelace who had quartered Lulling and Thrush Green between them for decades, had decided that their arthritis and general frailty would not allow them to continue the good work. To find one noble soul willing to turn out in November to rattle a collecting tin, is hard enough. To find three was proving a headache.
    Full of hope, Winnie knocked with the late admiral's great brass dolphin on Tullivers' front door. It was opened by Phil herself, white of face and red of eye. Winnie Bailey, used as a doctor's wife to seeing men and women in misery, thought she had never seen quite such a tragic face.
    'Phil, tell me!' she said impulsively, and then checked herself. 'No, my dear, let me creep away. You won't want to be bothered with callers just now.'
    'Do please come in,' cried the girl. 'I need a friend badly.'
    She led the way into the little sitting-room and motioned the older woman to take a seat. Winnie watched her as. she put two logs on the dying fire. Her hands were trembling and tears were running unheeded down her cheeks.
    'What is it?' begged Winnie. 'Someone ill? Or worse?'
    'Worse,' choked the girl. 'It's my husband.'
    'Not dead!' Winnie whispered.
    'Oh no, thank God!' She gave a high, cracked laugh, frightening to hear. 'Though why I should thank God, I don't know. He's left me.'
    'You poor dear,' said Winnie, patting the arm that was near her. She felt the gnawing pity and the tragic impotence which captures those who are in the presence of grief which they are powerless to assuage.
    The girl fumbled for a damp handkerchief, mopped her eyes, and took a deep shuddering breath.
    'He left me almost six months ago. Another woman, of course. A French woman - a buyer for one of the Paris houses. I met her once.'
    She stopped, and mopped her eyes again.
    'Perhaps it's just an infatuation,' said Winnie. 'Is she very attractive?'
    'Not a bit,' cried Phil. She smiled damply. 'Well, I know I'm biased, but I don't think anyone - except John - would find her attractive. She's one of those bony Frenchwomen with a long face like a disapproving horse. Marvellous figure, of course, and dresses superbly, but no glamour-girl, I assure you.
    'When he wrote and said that they were in love, I laughed out loud. It seemed so ludicrous, I just couldn't believe it - like some awful unspeakable joke.'
    She helped herself to a cigarette, and lit it shakily.
    'But it was no joke, as you can imagine. He came back several times to the flat, and was more determined each time to break with me. I tried desperately to keep my head. I was sure he would get tired of her - that it was, as you said, an infatuation. But the day came when he told me flatly that he was going to bring her to live in our house, and I must get out.
    'Then I really did grovel! I told him I loved him still. I pleaded for Jeremy's sake. I swore I'd never throw this affair in his face if he'd think again. All useless!'
    She stood up and walked restlessly about the little room.
    'When I saw it was hopeless, and that she'd won, we made a scratch agreement to part. He gives me a regular amount each month, and he let me take the things I wanted from the Chelsea flat. But I absolutely refuse to give him a divorce. I still hope that he will come to his senses - or she will. Meanwhile, I try to keep it all from Jeremy. He adores John. It turns the knife pretty keenly, as you can imagine, when he prattles on about Daddy.'
    She rolled the damp handkerchief into a ball and thrust it into her cardigan pocket.
    'But this morning I had another letter. It's so terrible - so