The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(291)

‘No, but she had refused to come back, and I had to make up my mind.’

‘Within two months of her leaving your house?’

‘More than two months.’

‘Well, not three. I suggest, you know, that you practically forced her to leave you; and then took the earliest opportunity open to you to ensure that she shouldn’t come back?’

‘No.’

‘So you say. Very well. These inquiry agents you employed – had you seen them before you left England to return to Ceylon?’

‘No.’

‘Will you swear that?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you come to hit upon them?’

‘I left it to my solicitors.’

‘Oh! then you had seen your solicitors before you left?’

‘Yes.’

‘In spite of your having no suspicions?’

‘A man going so far away naturally sees his solicitors before he starts.’

‘You saw them in relation to your wife?’

‘And other matters.’

‘What did you say to them about your wife?’

Again Dinny looked up. In her was growing the distaste of one seeing even an opponent badgered.

‘I think I simply said that she was staying behind with her people.’

‘Only that?’

‘I probably said that things were difficult.’

‘Only that?’

‘I remember saying: “I don’t quite know what’s going to happen.” ’

‘Will you swear you did not say: “I may be wanting you to have her watched”?’

‘I will.’

‘Will you swear that you said nothing which conveyed to them the idea that you had a divorce in your mind?’

‘I can’t tell you what was conveyed to them by what I said.’

‘Don’t quibble, sir. Was the word divorce mentioned?’

‘I don’t remember it.’

‘You don’t remember it? Did you or did you not leave them with the impression that you might be wanting to take proceedings?’

‘I don’t know. I told them that things were difficult.’

‘So you have said before. That is not an answer to my question.’

Dinny saw the Judge’s head poked forward.

‘The petitioner has said, Mr Instone, that he does not know the impression left on his lawyers’ minds. What are you driving at?’

‘My Lord, the essence of my case – and I am glad to have this opportunity of stating it succinctly – is that from the moment the petitioner had acted in such a way – whatever it was – as caused his wife to leave him, he was determined to divorce her, and ready to snatch at anything that came along to secure that divorce.’

‘Well, you can call his solicitor.’

‘My Lord!’

Those simple words were like a shrug of the shoulders put into sound.

‘Well, go on!’

With a sigh of relief Dinny caught the sound of finality in the voice of the ‘handicapped’ Instone.

‘You wish to suggest to the jury that although you instituted these proceedings on the first and only gossip you heard, and although you added a claim for damages against a man you have never spoken to – that in spite of all this you are a forbearing and judicious husband, whose only desire was that his wife should come back to him?’

Her eyes went for the last time to the face up there, more hidden by its mask than ever.

‘I wish to suggest nothing to the jury.’

‘Very well!’

There was a rustling of silk behind her.

‘My Lord,’ the slow, rich voice intoned, ‘since my friend has made so much of the point, I will call the petitioner’s solicitor.’

‘Very young’ Roger, leaning across, said:

‘Dornford wants you all to lunch with him…’

Dinny could eat practically nothing, afflicted by a sort of nausea. Though more alarmed and distraught during Hubert’s case, and at the inquest on Ferse, she had not felt like this. It was her first experience of the virulence inherent in the conduct of actions between private individuals. The continual suggestion that the opponent was mean, malicious and untruthful, which underlay every cross-examining question, had affected her nerves.

On their way back to the court, Dornford said:

‘I know what you’re feeling. But remember, it’s a sort of game; both sides play according to the same rules, and the Judge is there to discount exaggeration. When I try to see how it could be worked otherwise, I can’t.’

‘It makes one feel nothing’s ever quite clean.’

‘I wonder if anything ever is.’

‘The Cheshire cat’s grin did fade at last,’ she murmured.

‘It never does in the Law Courts, Dinny. They should have it graven over the doors.’