Read Online The Gale of the World by Henry Williamson - Free Book Online Page B

suppose. The old forms are gone.”
    “It was the same in nineteen nineteen.”
    “History repeating itself, what?”
    Phillip felt foolish. He had obtruded on another, who might well be in pain, mental and physical. He was about to make an excuse to go away when Lord Cloudesley turned to him and said,
    “After the politicians have killed off the soldiers, what next? We’ll be run by heroes of the New Statesmen. Then God help us all.” His impassivity broke, he flashed a sudden grin, gentlemen into fox. He brushed up his moustaches, as he had done at the bar of the Medicean after putting a pint pot under his nose.
    “I believe that you have written somewhere that Hess, when he flew over in nineteen forty one, fell among thieves. Do you still agree? Not that I’m all that struck on ‘the old Hun’ as he was respectfully called in my father’s day, but I don’t find myself standing with the politicians in this matter. If we are out for justice, why did we sit with the Russians? They should be in the dock, too. There are eighteen million slaves working in Russian labour camps, sixteen hours a day. They talk of ‘genocide’, but what about the massacres of Polish officers in Katyn forest?”
    The speaker again brushed up his moustaches, while looking casually around the room by moving his head in sections, as it were: examining first one section then another, then a third and a fourth, as though descending under a parachute. “Surveying the form what?”
    “Or the formlessness.”
    “Ah, yes.” The glance was no longer guarded, the eyes impersonal; there was sadness, friendliness, gentleness in the glance. There was communication. “I must look you up when you return to Exmoor, Maddison. We must foregather.” He appeared to be searching again, then turning to Phillip he said, “It is probably a foolish question, but do you happen to know anyone who has a four-and-a-half-litre supercharged Bentley cylinder block for sale?”
    “I can think only of a certain maltings on the coast of North Norfolk, in a village where some of the Bentley boys had their workshop. It was the headquarters of one of the Le Mans teamwho died of burns, after his motorcar had crashed in a race.”
    “I know who you mean, and I know the village. Thank you so much. I’ll do a recce there, and let you know if I have any luck. Well, I think it’s about time I did my drill in order to retain some semblance of what I’m supposed to say. God bless.”
    *
    Lucy in chambers. Dark grey coat and skirt, her one hoarded pair of black silk stockings, black shoes, small close-fitting hat of black straw with grey goose feather to match her eyes.
    “Pray come forward, Mrs. Maddison.” Lucy swore on the Bible. “Now, learned Counsel, will you be so good as to proceed.”
    It was the young barrister’s first brief.
    “M’Lord, I have the honour to represent this lady. Mrs. Maddison—”
    Lucy heard it all as from another world—even her voice seemed to be coming from far away—Skirr Farm and the division in her husband’s mind, deepened by his inability to forget his first wife—yes, she died in childbirth, and he was really a writer, but was always trying to help other people—yes, she was afraid it was usually to the disadvantage of, well, himself and therefore of those near him. Yes, he had given up sleeping with her. Lucy blushed, hesitated, sought for words that would not hurt him too much, well yes, there was someone else. At Flumen Monachorum, yes. Yes, she had condoned the adultery. Flumen Monachorum, yes happy sometimes, yes, she was made to feel apart.
    “Why did you condone the adultery? Were you greatly unhappy at this intrusion of another woman in your home? Tell his Lordship.”
    “I tried to conceal it.” Should she say, “My lord”?
    “Why did you conceal your distaste at the intrusion?”
    “For the sake of his happiness, my lord.”
    “Pray continue with your questions, Mr. Strangeways.”
    “Thank you, m’lud.