Over the River

Walking away with Hilary to see a party of youths off to Canada from Euston Station, Di

“What I don’t like, Di

“Cheer up, Uncle,” murmured Di

Hilary smiled.

“Well! Well! But you see what I mean. The public eye is a mean, cold, parroty thing; it loves to see the worst of everything. Where there’s real love I can accept most things; but I don’t like messing about with sex. It’s unpleasant.”

“I don’t think you’re being just to Clare,” said Di

“Well,” said Hilary shrewdly, “I perceive that you’re sitting on a tale you could unfold. Here we are. If you knew the bother I’ve had to get these youths to consent to go, and the authorities to consent to take them, you’d realise why I wish I were a mushroom, springing up over-night and being eaten fresh for breakfast.”

Whereon, they entered the station, and proceeded towards the Liverpool train. A little party of seven youths in cloth caps, half in and half out of a third-class carriage, were keeping up their spirits in truly English fashion, by passing remarks on each other’s appearance and saying at intervals: “Are we daown-‘earted? Naoo!”

They greeted Hilary with the words:

“‘Ello, Padre!… Zero hour! Over the top!… ‘Ave a fag, sir?”

Hilary took the ‘fag.’ And Di

“Wish you was comin’ too, sir!”

“Wish I were, Jack.”

“Leavin’ old England for ever!”

“Good old England!”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Tommy?”

She lost the next remarks, slightly embarrassed by the obvious interest she was arousing.

“Di

She moved up to the carriage.

“Shake hands with these young men. My niece.”

In the midst of a queer hush she shook the seven hands of the seven capless youths, and seven times said: “Good luck!”

There was a rush to get into the carriage, a burst of noise from uncouth mouths, a ragged cheer, and the train moved. She stood by Hilary’s side, with a slight choke in her throat, waving her hand to the caps and faces stretched through the window.

“They’ll all be seasick to-night,” muttered Hilary, “that’s one comfort. Nothing like it to prevent you from thinking of the future or the past.”

She went into Adrian’s after leaving him, and was rather disconcerted to find her Uncle Lionel there. They stopped dead in their discussion. Then the Judge said:

“Perhaps you can tell us, Di

“None, Uncle.”

“Oh! Then seeing as I do rather much of the law, I should suggest Clare’s not appearing and letting the thing go undefended. If there’s no chance of their coming together again, what is the use of prolonging a state of stalemate?”

“That’s what I think, Uncle Lionel; but, of course, you know the charges aren’t true.”

The Judge grimaced.

“I’m speaking as a man, Di

“Very vaguely, and in confidence.”

“Great pity!” said the Judge: “If they knew as much as I do, people would never fight these things.”

“There IS that claim for damages.”

“Yes, Adrian was telling me—pretty medieval, that.”

“Is revenge medieval, Uncle Lionel?”

“Not altogether,” said the Judge, with his wry smile; “but I shouldn’t have thought a man in Corven’s position could afford such luxuries. To put his wife into the scales! Thoroughly unpleasant.”

Adrian put his arm round Di

“Nobody feels that more than Di

“I suppose,” murmured the Judge, “Corven will at least have them settled on her.”

“Clare wouldn’t take them. But, why shouldn’t they win? I thought the law existed to administer justice, Uncle Lionel.”

“I don’t like juries,” said the Judge abruptly.

Di

“Tell Clare to keep her voice up and her answers short. And don’t let her try to be clever. Any laughter in court should be raised by the judge.”

So saying, he again smiled wryly, shook her hand, and took himself away.

“Is Uncle Lionel a good judge?”

“Impartial and polite, they say. I’ve never seen him in court, but from what I know of him as a brother, he’d be conscientious and thorough; a bit sarcastic at times. He’s quite right about this case, Di

“I’ve felt that all along. It’s Father, and that claim for damages.”

“I expect they regret that claim now. His lawyers must be bunglers. Angling for position!”

“Isn’t that what lawyers are for?”

Adrian laughed.

“Here’s tea! Let’s drown our sorrows, and go and see a film. There’s a German thing they say is really magnanimous. REAL magnanimity on the screen, Di

CHAPTER 29

Over was the shuffling of seats and papers, which marks the succession of one human drama by another, and ‘very young’ Roger said:

“We’ll go into the well of the court.”

There, with her sister and her father, Di

“Is this,” she whispered, “the well at the bottom of which truth lies, or LIES?”

Unable to see the rising ‘body’ of the court behind her, she knew by instinct and the sense of hearing that it was filling up. The public’s unerring sense of value had scented out a fight, if not a title. The Judge, too, seemed to have smelt something, for he was shrouded in a large bandana handkerchief. Di

“Corven versus Corven and Croom—husband’s petition,” and she gave Clare’s arm a convulsive squeeze.

“If your Lordship pleases—”

Out of the tail of her eye she could see a handsome, small-whiskered visage, winy under it’s wig.