Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  Both Silks stood up and, in unison said ‘My Lord,’ with an exaggerated respect that struck Clara as ludicrous theatricality.

  ‘Everyone be upstanding in the court,’ declared the Clerk of the Court stentoriously, maintaining the tone set by the Silks.

  At that, everyone stood up. Mr Justice Landsworth rose with a flourish, swishing his robes as if he were a drag queen sashaying across the stage of a dingy nightclub in Lower Manhattan. All the members of the legal teams bowed exaggeratedly towards the departing judge as if they were Catholics genuflecting before an altar dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

  As soon as the door to the judge’s chambers swung shut, Conkers turned around to Clara. ‘I thought that went jolly well,’ he said within earshot of Bianca and Philippe, who were sitting side by side no more than four feet away from his client. ‘Well done, Marchesa. You certainly gave as good as you got.’ With that, he laughed appreciatively.

  Before he had even finished laughing, Sir Alfred tugged Conkers’ sleeve. ‘I’ll catch up with you later,’ he said.

  This was just a bit too cosy for Clara, who felt a surge of anger well up within her. ‘It’s so refreshing to see how civilized the English legal system is,’ she said, removing all trace of anything but approval from her voice. ‘There you are with Sir Alfred, such good friends, representing sworn enemies like my sister-in-law and myself.’

  ‘It’s the civility of it all that makes this the best legal system in the world,’ Conkers said, unaware of the irony and failing to appreciate that Clara was being sarcastic. ‘I know you’re smarting under the lash of Sir Alfred’s tongue. All his victims do. But don’t underestimate the power of a reasoned argument. He may be all thunder and lightning and insinuation, but that doesn’t necessarily sway judges the way it does juries. I think you’ll find at the end of the day that our way is the winning way. What say you, Clewth?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Adrian Clewth agreed, nodding his bewigged head as he gathered up his papers and stuffed them into a well-worn brief case that he then proceeded to put underneath the table where he was sitting.

  ‘You’re surely not leaving those there?’ said Rodolfo.

  ‘There’s no danger. The court will be locked within minutes. No one will have access until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘But what happens if we come back later than the other side?’

  ‘Oh, they’d never look at our papers. It just isn’t done.’

  Rodolfo shot Clara a doubtful look. Was he being overly suspicious or was Adrian Clewth being incredibly naïve? Clara agreed with her husband that these English legal practitioners were expecting reasonable people to suspend an unreasonable degree of disbelief in the probity of humankind but indicated by the flicker of an eyelid that he was to leave the subject alone. The British system, she concluded, certainly was bizarre.

  But was her trust in it misplaced?

  That night, as Clara and Rodolfo were dining together in an exclusive little restaurant in Knightsbridge, Mary Landsworth was introducing Bianca Barnett Calman Piedraplata Antonescu to her good friend Clarissa Coningby. ‘Lady Ralph Coningby, Madame Antonescu,’ she said in those braying tones for which the upper-middle classes of the day were renowned. ‘I know you ladies have a lot to talk about, so I’ll leave you to it while I circulate.’

  After the usual niceties, Clarissa came straight to the point. ‘Mary tells me you want to sponsor our little cause,’ she said brightly and appreciatively.

  ‘It’s such a worthy one,’ replied Bianca, careful to present herself as the quintessence of benevolence. ‘You and Mary should be congratulated for starting it up. I was amazed to discover the trouble you’ve been having with funding.’

  ‘Not everyone cares about Distressed Gentlefolk,’ said Her Ladyship plaintively, ‘especially when you narrow it down, the way we have, to the widows and orphans of judges, barristers and solicitors who have fallen on hard times.’

  ‘I’d have thought you’d get a lot of support from the legal profession,’ Bianca said astutely, getting to the heart of the matter.

  ‘To an extent, we do. They’re always happy to lend us venues such as Lincoln’s Inn or Gray’s Inn for our fundraising efforts, but the legal profession in this country is not rich the way it is in America. By the time you’ve bought the wine and laid on food, you’re lucky to break even, much less make a profit.’

  ‘I know from experience of my own country how difficult fundraising can be,’ said Bianca, who had never done a stroke of charity work in her life. ‘That’s why, when I saw the brochure for the Distressed Legal Gentlefolk Society in Mary’s waiting room, I decided to offer my support.’

  Bianca had actually noticed it on her second visit to Darter and Co’s offices, around the corner on Chancery Lane from the High Courts of Justice in The Strand. It was prominently displayed on the coffee table in front of the large red Chesterfield sofa in the waiting room, where it had been laid out beside the latest copies of Tatler and Harper’s & Queen. This had been done by Mary Landsworth’s secretary on her instructions.

  Rightly concluding that the brochure was bait, Bianca had sweetly asked Mary for a brief explanation of the Distressed Legal Gentlefolk Society as she was ushered into her office. Mary had launched into an enthusiastic explanation about its aims, stressing its nobility of purpose, as if these relicts of prosperous legal practitioners could ever qualify, in real terms, as hardship cases, and had given her client a brochure to take home so that she could familiarize herself with the work they were trying to do.

  Back at the Dorchester, where she and Philippe had the old suite she and Ferdie used to share, while Ion was in the suite beside it - the one that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton used to occupy in those days – Bianca discussed what to do about the Society with her lover. ‘Of course, your solicitor’s doing nothing less than subtly soliciting your support for a cause she has control over,’ Philippe observed. ‘Presumably its true purpose is to advance her career and that of her colleagues by currying favour with their superiors in the legal profession. I gather the English legal profession is like that. It’s an old boys’ network. They all know one another and further one another’s careers with the proviso, of course, that you play ball with them. Not only does she have her own career to consider - and the best way of getting work and becoming an eminent solicitor is to obtain good results by befriending judges, with the possibility of even ending up as Solicitor General - but her husband’s a judge. As you know, the other co-founder, Lady Ralph Coningby, is married to a Queen’s Counsel, who’s a hotshot barrister. Both husbands are tipped for high office, which means that they’re moving heaven and earth behind the scenes to achieve their goals. It is said that Mr Justice Landsworth aims to become Lord Justice Landsworth, a Court of Appeal Judge or a Law Lord, while Lord Ralph Coningby hopes to move up the scale from being just another Queen’s Counsel to a judge and preferably a senior one at that. And how, my dear, do you think they’ll get there? I’ll tell you. They’ll earn and peddle influence. That’s how it’s done in England.’

  ‘You make it sound even more underhand than the Mexican judiciary,’ Bianca said.

  ‘It is. The way barristers’ and judges’ careers are advanced in England is shrouded in secrecy for the simple reason that the legal profession doesn’t want to create influential judges and advocates whom it can’t control. The ultimate goal of the legal profession in England isn’t the administration of justice. It sees to it that the justice system is administered by tame judges and lawyers who protect the interests and the power of the legal profession.’

  ‘Are you saying that the real pay-off isn’t money - it’s power?’

  ‘That’s right. And I’ll tell you how they do it too. Promotion from a junior barrister to a Silk, or from a Silk to a judge, and from the more junior levels such as District Judge through the more mundane levels such as Circuit Judge to the senior levels such as High Court judge, comes from secret meetings of the most senior members of the legal
profession. Ability has little or nothing to do with advancement. Playing ball with the powers-that-be is the only way a barrister will move up the professional ladder. It’s also the way he wins his cases. Most judgements have little or nothing to do with the merits of a case. They’re determined by who is most in favour with the Judge. That’s why I directed you to Mary Landsworth. She has what the English call “impeccable connections”, which means that she knows which strings to pull. My take on what’s happening is that she’s giving you a message: “Support my charity, and I’ll go that extra mile for you.” Your father was right to despise the English, Bianca. They’re real hypocrites. My advice is to ring Mary Landsworth up tomorrow and tell her that you’re very moved by the objectives of her charity. You want to become a supporter and so you’ll make an initial donation of £20,000. Then dangle a carrot in front of her. Say you’ll endow her society to the tune of £20,000 per annum over the next five years, as long as she keeps you abreast of her plans for the charity. Lay on your own brand of heartfelt moralizing with a trowel. She’ll like that.’

  ‘Do you really think they’re as bad as that?’ Bianca asked.

  ‘Worse, my darling, worse.’

  Philippe continued to call the shots behind the scenes and advised Bianca to wait until her next meeting with Mary before implementing his suggestion regarding her endowment of the Distressed Legal Gentlefolk’s Society. Bianca did as he suggested, and thereafter the matter of her future endowment of the charity remained a tantalizing possibility to keep Mary dangling on the line that he had hooked her upon.

  Throughout this crucial period, Philippe continued to nurse the rod, waiting until the week before the trial was due to begin before he deemed the time appropriate for Bianca to reel in the fish. He chose the moment carefully, tipping her the wink as they were leaving Mary’s Chancery Lane offices late in the afternoon after they had gone over their witness statements with her. It was with real pleasure that Bianca heard herself saying: ‘You know, I’m so impressed with the work your Distressed Legal Gentlefolk Society is doing that I’d like to donate another £20,000 immediately. But I don’t want to do it in my own name, as it might create the wrong impression. Would you mind awfully if I got one of my Isle of Man offshore companies to make the donation?’

  ‘That’s very generous of you, Bianca,’ Mary said, pushing her spectacles back onto the top of her head and failing, as she did so, to conceal the look of pure glee that lit up her horsy features. ‘We have a great deal of expenses and we have been rather concerned that we might sink instead of swim.’ With that, her lips rolled over teeth that a Derby winner might have envied.

  Although Bianca was pleased with Mary’s response, Philippe was not. He rightly decided that she was dropping a major hint that the more Bianca could pay the better. He rightly suspected that Mary milked the charity financially under the guise of ‘legal costs’ and ‘expenses’ to divert funds to herself. He therefore stepped into the breach he detected. ‘Bianca was telling me yesterday,’ he said to Mary, ‘that she really wants to provide you with an endowment of £50,000 in addition to her previous donation, but she needs to meet your co-founder to make sure that she’s the sort of person she can trust.’

  The co-founder, of course, was the key: she was none other than Clarissa Coningby, whose husband, Conkers Coningby, was Clara d’Offolo’s barrister. Bianca was awestruck at Philippe’s daring. It had never have occurred to her that Mary would find it acceptable for her to make an approach to Clara’s barrister’s wife through her. Bianca remained motionless, not even daring to look at Mary lest she jeopardize the delicate negotiations. She need not have worried, however.

  ‘I’ll give her a ring this evening and set something up,’ Mary said, taking the bait. ‘Shall we say at my house as soon as possible?’

  Philippe’s resourcefulness was rewarded, as he knew it would be. Mary Landsworth not only arranged the meeting between the wife of Clara’s barrister and Bianca at her own house, while her husband was also there, but also did it during the trial itself, despite the fact that her husband was judge in the case.

  That was how Bianca, with Philippe at her side, found herself attending a drinks party at the end of the second day of the trial. While Mary Landsworth was in her drawing-room, setting up the pay-off by introducing Clarissa Coningby to Bianca and Philippe, Mr Justice Landworth made sure that he stayed in his study.

  It was, of course, no surprise to either Mary Landsworth or Clarissa Coningby that Bianca, who stood to lose hundreds of millions if the verdict went against her, agreed to donate the munificent - to them - sum of £50,000. They were pleasantly taken aback, however, when Philippe offered them a further £20,000 on the grounds that he too was moved by the plight of all those distressed legal gentlefolk.

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said to Mary and Clarissa, ensuring that each party would get what they wanted, ‘that you wouldn’t want anyone misinterpreting our support for your charity by linking our donations to the case, and in the circumstances I feel the most judicious course of action is to wait until the verdict is in before we transfer the money. In the meantime, we can give you post-dated pledges, if you feel the need for such assurances.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mary. ‘Do give us the pledges. I’ll have the charity’s secretary draft something.’ Clearly she trusted Philippe as little as he trusted her.

  The following morning the various parties assembled in the High Court for the latest instalment of what became, to Clara, a Kafkaesque affair. As the trial ground to its inevitable conclusion, she became transfixed by the grotesque and ephemeral way in which the matter was being conducted. Even though she did not yet know what the outcome would be, she had a hunch it was going in Bianca and Philippe’s favour, so when the Defence rested and Mr Justice Landsworth began the preamble to his verdict, she was not surprised that his tone was heavily slanted in favour of the defendants.

  What did come as a surprise, however, was when Clara discovered by pure chance, several years later, how the verdict had been arrived at through influence peddling and bribery. When she stumbled upon this information, conveyed to her through Conkers Coningby’s ex-son-in-law, she could only mirror Philippe’s estimation of how cheaply English justice sold out the interests of those who sought legal redress within its system.

  By the time Clara learned how Bianca and Philippe had achieved their victory, over two and a half decades had elapsed, and Lord Justice Landsworth had reached the position on the bench he had always aimed at. Dame Mary Landsworth was one of the most eminent solicitors in the land and a figure who featured on so many government-affiliated boards that she was known as the ‘Quango Queen’. Conkers Coningby had died a High Court judge, halfway up the ladder he wished to scale, but bitterly disappointed that his only daughter had married the son of a grocer.

  Only Sir Alfred Kindersley remained a feared and fearsome advocate, caring nothing for advancement as a judge but coining money as few other English barristers had ever done. He lived as high off the hog as only someone with no style and little taste could, swanning around the most famous restaurants with the latest of his mistresses, all of whom had to sign confidentiality agreements. That way, none of the tabloids would get to publish their recollections of the whippings that she had administered to this most eminent of English barristers, stripped of his robes and kneeling, his neck encased in a dog collar, as the blows rained down on his pink behind and spotty back until he ejaculated with the invariable cry of ‘Mother’.

  Part Three: Philippe

  Chapter Seventeen

  The month following the end of the trial was a time of great uncertainty, for Clara had that length of time in which to lodge an appeal, and the defendants had no guarantee that, if she did, the Court of Appeal Judge would be as amenable as Mr Justice Landsworth had been.

  However, Clara did not know the full extent of Conkers Coningby’s complicity, nor did she know about the party that had taken place at Mr Justice Landsworth’s house during the trial.
She consequently decided that there was little point in pursuing justice through the courts and instructed Henry Spencer not to file an appeal.

  ‘But we stand a good chance on appeal, Marchesa,’ he advised, which Clara rightly took to be an invitation to spend more of her money.

  ‘I’d rather get on with my life than prolong the distress of seeking justice for my brother through your courts. I’ve got the message. There is no justice here. But one day my sister-in-law and that partner of my brother’s will make a mistake, and when they do, I intend to be right there, ready and waiting, to get a fairer approximation of justice than I’ll ever see in any court of law.’

  ‘It’s your decision, of course, and I respect it, but Conkers feels we stand a good chance of reversing the judgement on appeal. He’s even informally looked up some helpful case law.’

  ‘My mind’s made up,’ she said simply, and that was the end of the matter.

  Bianca was with her gardeners, tending to the azalea bushes, when the butler came outside to inform her discreetly she was wanted on the telephone.

  ‘Mary Landsworth here. I have good news. The Marchesa isn’t filing an appeal.’

  Bianca was genuinely puzzled by her sister-in-law’s conduct. If the roles had been reversed, she would never have thrown in the towel. Bianca was a fervent believer that persistence wins the day - or, at very least, sours your adversary’s victory.

  ‘Does that mean that the case is closed, once and for all?’ she asked, needing to be reassured that the danger had passed.

  ‘The judgement is now set in stone,’ Mary said.

  ‘I can’t tell you what a relief that is,’ Bianca said, meaning every word. ‘Clara would have completely destroyed my reputation if she’d won that case. As it is, she’s hopelessly sullied it in Mexico. Every time I’m there, I have to rise above the sniggers and whispers that accompany me everywhere I go. People have no idea how painful it is to be suspected of something you didn’t do.’