‘What evidence has she got to support those words?’ Michael racked his memory. This was going to be a game of bluff. That Walter Nazing and Marjorie Ferrar had flown to Paris together appeared to him of next to no importance. People could still fly in couples with impunity; and as to what had happened afterwards in the great rabbit-warren Outre Manche – Pff! The Bertie Curfew affair was different. Smoke of a year’s duration probably had fire behind it. He knew Bertie Curfew, the enterprising director of the ‘Ne Plus Ultra Play Society’, whose device was a stork swallowing a frog – a long young man, with long young hair that shone and was brushed back, and a long young record; a strange mixture of enthusiasm and contempt, from one to the other of which he passed with extreme suddenness. His sister, of whom he always spoke as ‘Poor Norah’, in Michael’s opinion was worth ten of him. She ran a Children’s House in Bethnal Green, and had eyes from which meanness and evil shrank away.
Big Ben thumped out eight strokes; the Dandie barked, and Michael knew that Soames had come.
Very silent during dinner, Soames opened the discussion over a bottle of Lippinghall Madeira by asking to see the writ.
When Fleur had brought it, he seemed to go into a trance.
‘The old boy,’ thought Michael, ‘is thinking of his past. Wish he’d come to!’
‘Well, Father?’ said Fleur at last.
As if from long scrutiny of a ghostly Court of Justice, Soames turned his eyes on his daughter’s face.
‘You won’t eat your words, I suppose?’
Fleur tossed her now de-shingled head. ‘Do you want me to?’
‘Can you substantiate them? You mustn’t rely on what was told you – that isn’t evidence.’
‘I know that Amabel Nazing came here and said that she didn’t mind Walter flying to Paris with Marjorie Ferrar, but that she did object to not having been told beforehand, so that she herself could have flown to Paris with somebody else.’
‘We could subpoena that young woman,’ said Soames.
Fleur shook her head. ‘She’d never give Walter away in Court.’
‘H’m! What else about this Miss Ferrar?’
‘Everybody knows of her relationship with Bertie Curfew.’
‘Yes,’ Michael put in, ‘and between “everybody knows” and “somebody tells” is a great gap fixed.’
Soames nodded.
‘She just wants money out of us,’ cried Fleur; ‘she’s always hard up. As if she cared whether people thought her moral or not! She despises morality – all her set do.’
‘Ah! Her view of morality!’ said Soames, deeply; he was suddenly seeing a British jury confronted by a barrister describing the modern view of morals: ‘No need, perhaps, to go into personal details.’
Michael started up.
‘By Jove, sir, you’ve hit it! If you can get her to admit that she’s read certain books, seen or acted in certain plays, danced certain dances, worn certain clothes –’ He fell back again into his chair; what if the other side started asking Fleur the same questions? Was it not the fashion to keep abreast of certain things, however moral one might really be? Who could stand up and profess to be shocked, today?’
‘Well?’said Soames.
‘Only that one’s own point of view isn’t quite a British jury’s, sir. Even yours and ours, I expect, don’t precisely tally.’
Soames looked at his daughter. He understood. Loose talk – afraid of being out of the fashion – evil communication corrupting all profession of good manners! Still, no jury could look at her face without – who could resist the sudden raising of those white lids? Besides, she was a mother, and the older woman wasn’t; or if she was – she shouldn’t be! No, he held to his idea. A clever fellow at the Bar could turn the whole thing into an indictment of the fast set and modern morality, and save all the invidiousness of exposing a woman’s private life.
‘You give me the names of her set and those books and plays and dancing clubs and things,’ he said. ‘I’ll have the best man at the Bar.’
Michael rose from the little conference somewhat eased in mind. If the matter could be shifted from the particular to the general; if, instead of attacking Marjorie Ferrar’s practice, the defence could attack her theory, it would not be so dreadful. Soames took him apart in the hall.
‘I shall want all the information I can get about that young man and her.’
Michael’s face fell.
‘You can’t get it from me, sir, I haven’t got it.’
‘She must be frightened,’ said Soames. ‘If I can frighten her, I can probably settle it out of Court without an apology.’