Free The Gale of the World by Henry Williamson

Now Mrs. Maddison, I must, with regret, ask you if there was any issue from this liaison with your husband and this woman.”
    “You mean issue in the sense of a child or children, Mr. Strangeways?”
    “Yes, m’lud. I understand that there was one child, Mrs. Maddison?”
    “Yes.” Lucy breathed deeply, and told the truth. “I thought a child would be good for her, she was unhappy at the idea of nothaving it. My husband,” said Lucy blushing again, “was the direct means of the child being born.”
    “Does that mean that he wanted the child, to acknowledge it as the father? Pray tell his Lordship.”
    “He didn’t want it to grow up feeling without a father, I think, my lord,” faltered Lucy.
    “And did he bring his child into his household with you, Mrs. Maddison?”
    “Only when he was a grown boy, my lord. It was on the farm we had in East Anglia, so that he should know his brothers and sisters.”
    “Did the mother come too?” interposed Counsel. “Reply to his Lordship.”
    “No, my lord. She had married, and lived in another district.”
    “I see,” said the judge, making a note. “Now Mr. Strangeways, may we come to the evidence of your case for cruelty, if you find you can present the case within the short time that remains with us before we go into Court.”
    More and more irritable as the war went on; moody; constantly complaining that she was hindering his life; spoiling it by her presence; until the neighbours had to close their windows to avoid hearing his chronic shouting; and finally he used violence against her in the presence of the children and threatened to shoot them all and then himself, so that she began to believe that this might happen and when he was away she left home and took the younger children with her, feeling that she could not go on any longer.
    Lucy’s face was pale, almost sallow, when the judge asked, “And has the plaintive remained apart from her husband, Mr. Strangeways?”
    “M’lud, my client wishes to ask for the discretion of your Lordship—”
    “Does that mean the discretion of the Court, Mr. Strangeways?”
    “With great respect, Yes, m’lud, in that my client returned to her husband, but did not share the matrimonial bed, because the farm had declined, with the ending of the war, to a standstill.”
    “What is the connection between sharing a matrimonial bed and a farm which has come to a standstill?”
    “M’lud, with all respect due to the Court, I am trying to establish the point that both the farm and the matrimonial bed had come to a standstill. After the war the farm was sold, and a trust made for my client and her children. The husband thendeparted, and has paid only a couple of visits since.”
    “To the farm which had come to a standstill, Mr. Strangeways?”
    “My client’s spouse, m’lud, included in the trust a house elsewhere, but has not shared the matrimonial home for a year and more.”
    “Where does your husband live?” the judge asked Lucy.
    “On Exmoor, my lord.”
    “Does he write to you?”
    “Yes, he does, my lord.”
    “Has he shown violence towards you since giving up the farm, during the two visits he has made to your new home?”
    “No, my lord.”
    “Where is your new home?”
    “In Suffolk, my lord.”
    “And he is supporting you, and the children, by the income from the trust he made in your favour, and that of the children?”
    “He also sends extra money, from his writing, my lord.”
    “Is he living with anyone else, any other woman on Exmoor?”
    “My lord, with great respect, I was coming to that point.”
    “I have already come to it, Mr. Strangeways. Perhaps you will be good enough not to interrupt any remarks from this direction. Now, Mrs. Maddison. Is your husband living with another woman?”
    “I don’t think so. It’s only a tumbledown shepherd’s hut, my lord.”
    “Does he live there alone?”
    “Yes.”
    The judge made notes. “Pray proceed, Mr. Strangeways.”
    “M’lud, I have