‘Quite!’ said Michael; ‘Hadn’t you an Uncle George?’
‘Old George! Rather! Always gave me ten bob at school, and tipped me the name of a horse to put it on.’
‘Did it ever win?’
‘No.’
‘Well, tell us, frankly: What’s going to win tomorrow?’
‘Frankly,’ said the solicitor, looking at Dinny, ‘it depends on your sister, Miss Cherrell. Corven’s witnesses have done well. They didn’t claim too much, and they weren’t shaken; but if Lady Corven keeps her head and her temper, we may pull through. If her veracity is whittled away at any point, then –!’ he shrugged, and looked – Dinny thought – older. ‘There are one or two birds on the jury I don’t like the look of. The foreman’s one. The average man, you know, is dead against wives leaving without notice. I’d feel much happier if your sister would open up on her married life. It’s not too late.’
Dinny shook her head.
‘Well, then, it’s very much a case of the personal appeal. But there’s a prejudice against mice playing when the cat’s away.’
Dinny went to bed with the sick feeling of one who knows she has again to watch some form of torture.
Chapter Thirty-one
DAY by day the Courts of Law are stony and unchanged. The same gestures are made, the same seats taken; the same effluvium prevails, not too strong, but just strong enough.
Clare was in black on this second day, with a slim green feather in a close-fitting black hat. Pale, her lips barely touched with salve, she sat so still that one could not speak to her. The words ‘Society Divorce Suit,’ and the ‘perfect’ headline, ‘Night in a Car,’ had produced their effect; there was hardly standing room. Dinny noticed young Croom seated just behind his counsel. She noticed, too, that the birdlike jurywoman’s cold was better, and the foreman’s parroty eyes fixed on Clare. The Judge seemed to be sitting lower than ever. He raised himself slightly at the sound of Instone’s voice.
‘If it please your Lordship, and members of the jury – the answer to the allegation of misconduct between the respondent and co-respondent will be a simple and complete denial. I call the respondent.’
With a sensation of seeing her sister for the first time, Dinny looked up. Clare, as Dornford had recommended, stood rather far back in the box, and the shade from the canopy gave her a withdrawn and mysterious air. Her voice, however, was clear, and perhaps only Dinny could have told that it was more clipped than usual.
‘Is it true, Lady Corven, that you have been unfaithful to your husband?’
‘It is not.’
‘You swear that?’
‘I do.’
‘There have been no love passages between you and Mr Croom?’
‘None.’
‘You swear that?’
‘I do.’
‘Now it is said –’
To question on question on question Dinny sat listening, her eyes not moving from her sister, marvelling at the even distinctness of her speech and the motionless calm of her face and figure. Instone’s voice today was so different that she hardly recognized it.
‘Now, Lady Corven, I have one more question to ask, and, before you answer it, I beg you to consider that very much depends on that answer. Why did you leave your husband?’
Dinny saw her sister’s head tilt slightly backwards.
‘I left because I did not feel I could remain and keep my self-respect.’
‘Quite! But can you not tell us why that was? You had done nothing that you were ashamed of?’
‘No.’
‘Your husband has admitted that he had, and that he had apologized?’
‘Yes.’
‘What had he done?’
‘Forgive me. It’s instinct with me not to talk about my married life.’
Dinny caught her father’s whisper: ‘By Gad! she’s right!’ She saw the Judge’s neck poked forward, his face turned towards the box, his lips open.
‘I understand you to say you felt you could not remain with your husband and keep your self-respect?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘Did you feel you could leave him like that and keep your self-respect?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
Dinny saw the Judge’s body raise itself slightly, and his face moving from side to side, as if carefully avoiding any recipient of his words: ‘Well, there it is, Mr Instone. I don’t think you can usefully pursue the point. The respondent has evidently made up her mind on it.’ His eyes under drooped lids continued to survey what was unseen.
‘If your Lordship pleases. Once more, Lady Corven, there is no truth in these allegations of misconduct with Mr Croom?’