Free The Gale of the World by Henry Williamson Page B

summoning up resolution she walked towards him, feeling the dreaded colour coming into her face, and smiling nervously, but maintaining her fortitude. He was looking as though he hadn’t seen her when she stopped by him.
    “I haven’t seen you,” he said, out of the corner of his mouth. “Every peeler, bluebottle, copper, bogey or slop is an agent of the King’s Proctor. Maintain a stiff upper lip, harden your eyes, be remote. Like me!” he said, turning to her with a smile. “I’m awfully sorry to have put you to all this inconvenience, but in six months you should be entirely free of me, when your decree nisi is made absolute. Why do you look so sad?”
    “You’ll never forgive me, Pip, but I didn’t get a divorce. The judge said I did not make out a case.”
    “Well, now we can have some coffee in the Strand together! And if you’ve nothing better to do, will you come with me afterwards to St. Paul’s Cathedral? I want to make notes, also to hear a service; for it was there, in November nineteen fourteen, my mother and Grandfather. Thomas Turney attended the memorial service for the funeral of Lord Roberts who died in France. It was also a service in mourning for those of the original B.E.F. who were killed during the first battle of Ypres. I could not be present, for I was one of the survivors.”
    Lucy thought, This is a new Phillip. How quietly he talks. They went down some stairs. Sitting at a table, he went on, “Altogether in my territorial battalion we lost more than five hundred of our chaps, when the battle ended on the fourteenth of November.” He sighed. “But that war is now as far away as Waterloo or Hastings. Perhaps no-one will ever want to read about it again.”
    During a second cup of coffee in the Mecca basement room hetold her about meeting Laura Wissilcraft. “She’s rather a wonderful girl, you know. She seems to know everything I am thinking . Almost we don’t need to speak. We’ve got the same sort of eyes, only her’s are young and beautiful, unlike mine now, one of them dead, and the other misty at times.”
    “Do try to do less, and not strain your sight, Pip. We’re all rather worried about you, you know. You seemed to bear the whole war, both sides that is, when we lived at Banyards. Do you know,” she said, turning to him and speaking with a decisiveness he had never seen in her before, “I used to hate Luke, the steward! It was he who led Billy to be untruthful! He was what they call two-faced. He used to say one thing to you, and then behind your back tell the men to do another!”
    “Poor old Luke, he felt awfully frustrated by me, I feel sure. He was always anxious lest we were getting in a muddle. After all, he knew only what he knew. And he was but a labourer, suddenly promoted. And had never left the village. That was his entire world. No, I can’t blame Luke. I failed as a leader, and I know it. Look how I was always shouting—not at him, thank God—but usually when I was alone—like an overheated threshing machine!”
    “Poor Pip, you had always far too much to do.”
    This use of his intimate name before marriage made him wary, which in turn made him feel mean. Poor Lucy. Then he thought how she had always strained to interest herself in what he was writing, the music he loved—far beyond her capacity as a mother happy with her children.
    Lucy divined what he was feeling, and said, “Well, perhaps you will find someone cleverer than I am, and then you can divorce me for desertion. I shall be quite happy with the children at Hill House, with Tim and Brenda and their little family.”
    “And wash your hands of me, Lucy?” he said gently.
    “Not at all, my dear. But if you are free, we shall be able to meet as friends, won’t we? Anyway, do let’s see St. Paul’s Cathedral! I’ve never been inside, and I would so like to.”
    Laura Wissilcraft came down the stairs. She saw Phillip at once, but went to sit alone at a table.
    “It’s the girl I