Lucifer Before Sunrise Read Online Free
Author: Henry Williamson
North Sea.
There were office details to attend to: the labourer-farmer must be a business man at night. So out with typewriter and account books when the children had gone to bed.
As Phillip was arranging pen, blotter, and books, the telephone bell on the window ledge rang, and the voice of his neighbour Charles Box said, “Oh, about your farm classification, Maddison, an error was made.”
So I am a ‘C’ farmer after all, he thought.
The voice continued. “It should have been ‘A’ category.”
A man of deeds and not words, Major Box rang off.
*
The next morning, in jubilation, Phillip decided to dash up to London in the Silver Eagle and call on the features editor of a London daily paper, with the aim of getting some work. Recently Phillip had published a book about his farm: Pen and Plow , and had good reviews, and his name was perhaps not altogether ‘mud’, as the Chief Constable of the county had told him when he was arrested, during the fall of France, under Regulation 18b. Another reason for London was to see a young woman called Melissa Watt-Wilby, a cousin of Lucy. She was working in St. George’s hospital as a nurse. He had known her before he met Lucy, when Melissa was a small child in her grandfather’s house in Gaultshire, then a hospital for officers during 1918.
When Phillip arrived in London he went at once to Fleet Street and called on his friend, the features editor. Chettwood told him that no articles from outside writers were being taken, owing tothe reduction in newsprint. However, he might shortly want something , though nothing about the war. He would let him know.
It was with a clear, happy feeling that Phillip met Melissa at her hospital. They went by tube to a theatre in Hammersmith, to see Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma. He had seen this play before, but she hadn’t. She was entranced, held by the passion for his art of Dubetat the painter. Phillip thought it was not a true portrait, although the playwright covered himself by the phrase which affected him deeply—‘The greatest tragedy in the world is a man of genius who is not also a man of honour.’
The play had begun early, at 6 p.m., owing to the black-out. Afterwards they went by tube to Piccadilly, for supper at a place Phillip remembered from the first war, when his Uncle Hilary had taken both his sisters and himself to dine at what was then called the Elysée. Phillip recalled with shame how he had left half-way through dinner, to meet some friends in the Regiment at the Alhambra, and they were not there; so he had gone back to the Elysée, and found the table empty where they had sat.
Now, nearly a quarter of a century afterwards, he was taking Melissa to dine there. He remembered the stairs down to the dance-floor. There were more stairs leading to the balconies above. The place was said to be a replica of the ballroom of the Titanic , which had struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in the early spring of 1912, an event well-remembered, he told Melissa, because he could still see in his mind the placards at Victoria Station upon returning with his mother, his sister Elizabeth, and Uncle Joe, his mother’s youngest brother, from Belgium, where Elizabeth was at an Ursuline convent school. It was Easter, she was coming home for the holidays.
He ordered. They waited. Then they heard sirens warning that German aircraft were approaching London. Everybody appeared not to notice the banshee wailings, as Churchill called them. The band was playing Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, how you can love. He asked Melissa what she would feel if they were in the Titanic, owing to a revisitation in time, and struck an iceberg. While he waited for a reply he noticed that the wine-waiter was pouring champagne at the next table ——————— BLUE FLASH ———————
Dust in eyes and nose. Darkness. Ears ringing. Unbearable thin wire bisecting head. Staring bright blackness rushing, rushing past silently.
Noises of
There were office details to attend to: the labourer-farmer must be a business man at night. So out with typewriter and account books when the children had gone to bed.
As Phillip was arranging pen, blotter, and books, the telephone bell on the window ledge rang, and the voice of his neighbour Charles Box said, “Oh, about your farm classification, Maddison, an error was made.”
So I am a ‘C’ farmer after all, he thought.
The voice continued. “It should have been ‘A’ category.”
A man of deeds and not words, Major Box rang off.
*
The next morning, in jubilation, Phillip decided to dash up to London in the Silver Eagle and call on the features editor of a London daily paper, with the aim of getting some work. Recently Phillip had published a book about his farm: Pen and Plow , and had good reviews, and his name was perhaps not altogether ‘mud’, as the Chief Constable of the county had told him when he was arrested, during the fall of France, under Regulation 18b. Another reason for London was to see a young woman called Melissa Watt-Wilby, a cousin of Lucy. She was working in St. George’s hospital as a nurse. He had known her before he met Lucy, when Melissa was a small child in her grandfather’s house in Gaultshire, then a hospital for officers during 1918.
When Phillip arrived in London he went at once to Fleet Street and called on his friend, the features editor. Chettwood told him that no articles from outside writers were being taken, owing tothe reduction in newsprint. However, he might shortly want something , though nothing about the war. He would let him know.
It was with a clear, happy feeling that Phillip met Melissa at her hospital. They went by tube to a theatre in Hammersmith, to see Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma. He had seen this play before, but she hadn’t. She was entranced, held by the passion for his art of Dubetat the painter. Phillip thought it was not a true portrait, although the playwright covered himself by the phrase which affected him deeply—‘The greatest tragedy in the world is a man of genius who is not also a man of honour.’
The play had begun early, at 6 p.m., owing to the black-out. Afterwards they went by tube to Piccadilly, for supper at a place Phillip remembered from the first war, when his Uncle Hilary had taken both his sisters and himself to dine at what was then called the Elysée. Phillip recalled with shame how he had left half-way through dinner, to meet some friends in the Regiment at the Alhambra, and they were not there; so he had gone back to the Elysée, and found the table empty where they had sat.
Now, nearly a quarter of a century afterwards, he was taking Melissa to dine there. He remembered the stairs down to the dance-floor. There were more stairs leading to the balconies above. The place was said to be a replica of the ballroom of the Titanic , which had struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in the early spring of 1912, an event well-remembered, he told Melissa, because he could still see in his mind the placards at Victoria Station upon returning with his mother, his sister Elizabeth, and Uncle Joe, his mother’s youngest brother, from Belgium, where Elizabeth was at an Ursuline convent school. It was Easter, she was coming home for the holidays.
He ordered. They waited. Then they heard sirens warning that German aircraft were approaching London. Everybody appeared not to notice the banshee wailings, as Churchill called them. The band was playing Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, how you can love. He asked Melissa what she would feel if they were in the Titanic, owing to a revisitation in time, and struck an iceberg. While he waited for a reply he noticed that the wine-waiter was pouring champagne at the next table ——————— BLUE FLASH ———————
Dust in eyes and nose. Darkness. Ears ringing. Unbearable thin wire bisecting head. Staring bright blackness rushing, rushing past silently.
Noises of
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