Free The Governor's Lady by Norman Collins Page B

taller than those around him, with his gold-braided uniform buttoned up to the neck in that suffocating heat, and with his plumed hat stuck under his arm, he dominated. His mere presence seemed to give a grandeur to death that would otherwise have been missing.
    Lady Anne, dressed in black from head to foot and with a black veil that hid her face, was almost entirely obscured by him. Harold caught a brief glimpse of her; shoulders bowed, and eyes lowered to the ground. Then the Governor’s gold braid and medals and plumes got in the way, and he lost sight of her again.
    With the entrance of the Governor, the West Door of the Cathedral had been closed, and the temperature inside began to mount steadily. Sweat drops started to run down the Bishop’s face, and he could see Sybil Prosser using the Order of Service as a fan.
    Immediately in front of her, Lady Anne was sitting. Against the magnificence of the Governor’s uniform, the black that Lady Anne was wearing seemed blacker still. She was motionless, with her head bent forward, her hands folded in her lap.
    â€˜My God, doesn’t she look like a widow,’ he suddenly found himself thinking.
    He did not see Lady Anne again until the Service was over. Then she came down the aisle on the near side of the Governor. Against the blackness of her dress, her face showed paler than ever. It seemed to be quite drained of blood; of life almost. As she passed his pew, she momentarily pushed back her veil as though gasping for breath in that asphyxiating air. It was a tired, pathetic gesture. If the service had gone on any longer, he doubted if she could have survived it.
    Then he looked across at Sir Gardnor. He was still as upright and tightly buttoned-up as ever. The gold braid and the medals shone in the light from the West doorway, and his plumed hat was being carried at exactly the correct angle.
    He had, however, been weeping: his eyes were still red and moist-looking. After all, Henderson had been one of his men. He had picked and promoted him. And it was only natural that the service should have moved the Governor deeply; so deeply, in fact, that he seemed scarcely to be aware that Lady Anne was beside him.
    When she faltered for a moment and put out her hand instinctively for some support, it was Sybil Prosser who caught hold of her. Sir Gardnor was already half a pace ahead, chin up and staring out into the distance.
    The final gesture of respect to the dead man—it was a volley of blanks fired into the air by the exhausted Shropshires—sent the kites, that hadbeen monotonously wheeling overhead, into a sudden pattern of power-dives and spirals, and raised a black and white cloud of all the crows in Amimbo which took off with a noise like surf, and made helter-skelter for the peace and safety of the marshalling-yards.
    As the last echo of the volley was still dying away, Harold saw that Mr. Frith was beckoning. He seemed to be agitated and Harold noticed that his tic had grown worse again.
    â€˜It’s H.E.,’ Mr. Frith said as soon as Harold had managed to reach him through the dispersing crowd. ‘He wants you back at the House. Straightaway. And he wants me to come along, too. You’d better be ready for it. This may be your return ticket.’
    The tone of voice and Mr. Frith’s state of nerves annoyed him. If the Governor felt like being bloody-minded, Harold was perfectly ready to be equally bloody-minded in return.
    â€˜Okay,’ he told him. ‘Let’s go along together.’ He paused, and then added: ‘I shouldn’t think there’s any particular hurry. From the way he was looking just now he can’t be exactly ready for receiving visitors.’
    But Mr. Frith was not so sure.
    â€˜You don’t know H.E.,’ he said. ‘Wants us round as soon as we can get there. A.D.C. said so.’
    Even with the flag on the front of Mr. Frith’s car, it was a little difficult to get through the