The Caverel Claim

by Peter Rawlinson

  She had loved them both but they were old, and she was lonely. And when she was fourteen, she had taken some dollars from the tea caddy in the kitchen where the old woman kept the housekeeping money and caught the bus and left.

  ‘I never told them where I’d gone,’ she said. ‘Secretly I suspect they were glad I had run away. It couldn’t have been easy for them at their age raising a teenage girl.’

  She smiled, and it was an infectious smile which made even the correct and decorous Sir Percy smile in return as he shepherded her through the story of her life. The craggy features of the Vice Chancellor noticeably softened when she looked at him. Andrea watched the judge watching Fleur. I knew, she said to herself, I knew.

  Willoughby Blake was preening himself. She was doing well; and the longer she was in the box, the more confident he became. Today he was savouring the culmination of the months of endeavour, of planning, of grooming and training – and of expensive cultivation of the press. Today he was harvesting the return on his investment.

  Fleur had reached the time in her story when she’d arrived in Paris after a year or two in Atlanta and then New Orleans. This was the part of her story which had caused Percy concern, fearing the effect the night-club background might have on the prudish Nonconformist elder of the kirk. But he had no need. Fleur had been told that it would be up to her to make the judge understand and sympathise when she spoke of being driven to appear on the stage in those places, so at this point she turned to face the judge and there were no smiles as gravely, even sadly, she explained that she had run away from the old couple because she had no friends of her own age who lived near their home and she’d always dreamt of going on the stage and becoming a famous singer. Since she’d been small, at home she’d danced and sung while the old man played his fiddle and the old woman clapped her hands. Music, she told the Vice Chancellor who nodded gravely, was her love. She supposed she inherited this from her father because, as she later came to learn, he had been a musician, a professional pianist.

  When she’d run away, she’d gone to the house in Atlanta of a much older girl she’d met on one of the family’s few visits to the Chapel of St John’s at Lakeside. This girl had come as a member of a visiting choir and she and Fleur had talked at the supper after the service and afterwards had gone for a long walk together along the bank of the river. Fleur had told her new friend about her dreams and ambitions and the friend had given Fleur her address in Atlanta. So she had not been altogether surprised when Fleur turned up on her doorstep. The girl and her flat-mate had let Fleur sleep on the sofa in the living-room and a few days later they took her to the manager of a piano-bar for an audition. But in Atlanta they’d only been interested in her figure not her voice, and they made her into a dancer – although, Fleur said, smiling at Murray, at first she was not very good. But they taught her to do what they called bump and grind and strike poses in time to the music.

  When she said this, Mordecai leaned forward to Oliver. ‘She means, of course, her Attitudes,’ he said in his penetrating stage whisper, ‘the modern Attitudes of a modern Emma Hamilton.’

  Murray looked at him, frowning but not catching the words, only aware that counsel for the defendant must have said something derogatory.

  After about two years in Atlanta, Fleur continued, she got the chance to go to New Orleans where she stayed for eighteen months. Then she’d been offered an engagement in Paris which she’d accepted eagerly. Since she’d left home, she’d never told the old people where she was but used to send them postcards without any address. From Paris she sent them one of the Eiffel Tower so that they would know she was in France. But no message, and again no address.

  It turned out to be a hard life in the clubs, she said, two shows a night, very long hours, no glamour. Just work. And management often exploited the dancers, failing to pay what they’d promised so they were driven to take any engagement wherever it was offered, which meant travelling to cities all over Europe. But she never wanted to go home. She’d always felt she was different, she said. She did not know why, although she knew she had a lighter skin. Once she’d arrived in Paris, she felt far more European than American. Placing a hand to her throat and looking directly at the judge, she said, ‘I hope you’ll understand when I say this, but for the first time I felt more white than black.’

  There was a stir among some of the spectators in the gallery, and Percy hurried her along to the time, after many years touring from city to city, when she’d been told about the advertisement in the Herald Tribune.

  ‘How did that come about?’ Percy asked.

  ‘It was in Paris. A friend who’d helped me in my career called Paul Valerian told me about it. Paul came from Warsaw in Poland. Originally his family had come from Russia. They were White Russians. He owned the club in Paris where I was dancing. He showed the advert to me and said it must be me they were looking for.’

  ‘Where had you met Mr Valerian?’

  ‘In Instanbul where I was working, and then later in Berlin. He was very kind because when I was stranded in Berlin after the club there folded, he brought me to Paris and engaged me to dance in his club.’

  ‘Was he a married man?’

  ‘He was. I’d met his wife with him.’

  ‘Will you, please, look at this.’ Percy handed a newspaper to the usher, who showed it to the witness. ‘Is that a copy of the advertisement Mr Valerian showed you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is.’

  ‘Will you read out what it says?’

  Fleur read. ‘If Sarah Wilson, last heard of in Paris, France, will get in touch with Mr Isaac Walker, attorney-at-law, of 387 Station Street, St John’s, Lakeside, Charleston, South Carolina, USA, she will learn something to her advantage. A reward of fifty dollars will be paid to anyone who can inform the above-named Mr Isaac Walker of the whereabouts of Miss Sarah Wilson or of her last known address.’

  ‘What did you do when you first read that in the newspaper?’

  ‘I talked about it with Mr Valerian and –’

  ‘Before you tell the court more, can you say what happened to Mr Valerian?’

  She hesitated and looked down at her hands folded on the edge of the witness box. ‘He was killed in a terrible accident in London last year.’ She fumbled in her bag and brought out a small handkerchief.

  ‘Take your time,’ said the judge solicitously.

  Don’t spoil it, Fleur darling, Willoughby thought. You’re doing so well. Don’t let the bloody Pole ruin it. Don’t overplay. And she didn’t. She just held the handkerchief in her hands twisting it round her fingers but not raising it to her eyes.

  ‘He tripped and fell in front of a train in the subway during the rush hour and was killed. I’m afraid he’d been drinking.’

  ‘Were you in London at the time?’

  ‘Yes, he’d come with me to London to help me.’

  ‘The death of the man who had helped you in the past and was helping you at that time must have been a great shock as well as a great loss.’

  ‘She’s more than capable of telling her own story without you putting words into her mouth,’ growled Mordecai. ‘Don’t lead.’

  Murray heard him. ‘Technically it may have been a leading question,’ he said sternly, ‘but –’

  ‘It was a statement,’ said Mordecai.

  ‘Perhaps it was, but it was hardly appropriate for an objection.’

  Mordecai shrugged and swivelled in his seat until he had turned sideways on away from the judge and sat with his hand over his eyes muttering to himself. Murray watched him. There was a pause. Murray turned to the witness.

  ‘Pray continue.’

  ‘Paul was a dear friend. As I said, he’d helped me in the past, saved my life almost in Berlin, and when he showed me the advert he wanted me to do something about it. But I didn’t want to. I knew the old people back in South Carolina had very little money and I wasn’t going to do anything about it. But Paul insisted I find out what it was all about and he�
��d lend me the money to go to see Mr Walker. So I did. My foster mother had died just before I arrived – it was because she was so ill they’d thought of the advertisement. The old man had died some years before. It was then that I learnt who my real parents were.’

  The court was very quiet, people leaning forward in their seats to catch every word she spoke. Except Mordecai, who remained sitting with his back almost to the witness box and the judge, looking bored and cynical. In front of him Andrea, white-faced and agitated, looked mostly at the witness, but sometimes turned to look at Percy Braythwaite, or behind her at Mr Rogers who had slipped into a place by the aisle several rows back.

  ‘How did you learn about your real mother?’

  ‘The old lawyer gave me a letter from my real mother which my foster mother had kept to give me when I was grown. But I’d run away and she didn’t know where I was, except that I was in France. So when she became very ill, the lawyer had advised her to put an advert in the Paris Herald Tribune.’

  ‘Where is the letter your real mother wrote?’ Braythwaite asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Mr Walker gave it to me when I came to see him and I read it in his office in front of him. But later I couldn’t find it. I know Mr Walker didn’t have it. He told me so when I asked him before he too died. I must have lost it on my journeys.’

  ‘What happened after you’d returned to Paris?’

  ‘I spoke to Paul and he urged me to go to London. He said I ought to get from my father’s family what he called my rights. So we came to London and Paul found me Mr Stevens, my solicitor, who made my claim for me.’

  Percy next took Fleur in detail over the meeting with Walker and in even greater detail over the missing letter, before turning to her arrival in London. The letter Stevens had written to the family, telling them of her existence, was produced.

  ‘Was none of even the formal correspondence agreed?’ Murray asked Percy.

  ‘No, my lord, none.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I cannot help your lordship about that.’

  ‘This is a perfectly proper and ordinary letter from a lawyer advising the family of the existence of the young lady. Why was not this agreed?’

  ‘All I can tell your lordship is that none of the correspondence, none of the documents, nor the marriage and birth certificates were agreed, all have to be proved. Only the formal letter before action which commenced the legal proceedings has been agreed.’

  Murray looked over his spectacles at Mordecai, who still had his shoulder turned towards him. There was a pause. The judge waited. Mordecai said nothing.

  ‘Have you anything to say, Mr Ledbury?’

  Mordecai rose. ‘Only that as Mr Justice Mellor once said, when the matter is in the hands of attorneys on one side or the other, it’s not worth a farthing.’

  ‘Mr Justice Mellor?’

  ‘Yes, the late Mr Justice Mellor, a judge in the nineteenth century who was one of the judges in the great trial at bar of the Tichborne Claimant, of which your lordship has possibly heard.’

  Murray stared hard at Mordecai, before at last replying, ‘I certainly have heard of that trial, at the conclusion of which, as I remember, the counsel for the defendant was disbarred because of his conduct towards the bench. Now I repeat, why were none of the formal documents agreed?’

  Mordecai shrugged. ‘I have no idea,’ he said and sat.

  After a pause Murray went on. ‘I am offered no explanation. Very well. I shall make a note of that. Please proceed, Sir Percy.’

  Fleur then told of the refusal of the family to have anything to do with her, except for Julian’s mother who was living in BA in the Argentine and who had immediately come to London to support her. Then Percy asked, almost casually, ‘Who is Mr Willoughby Blake?’

  ‘He’s a great friend of Mr Stevens and after Mr Valerian had been killed, he supported me. He was convinced of the rightness of my claim and offered to help. So when my grandmother arrived I went to live at the Kensington Park Hotel with her and her companion.’

  ‘Who paid for that?’

  ‘Mr Blake.’

  ‘Who is providing the funds for you to bring your claim to court?’

  ‘Friends, people who believe in me and want me to get my rights. Mr Blake organised it. He has been very kind. In September he even drove me down to Ravenscourt on one of the open days so that I could see where my ancestors lived. But when we got there, Lady Caverel ordered us from the house.’

  ‘Do you see the lady here in court?’

  ‘Yes, she’s sitting there.’ Fleur pointed.

  ‘She did what?’ asked Murray.

  ‘She told us to get out.’

  Murray looked at Andrea who stared straight ahead of her. Murray picked up his pen. ‘I was ordered from the house,’ he said as he wrote, ‘by the lady calling herself Lady Caverel.’

  Mordecai began to struggle to his feet. One of his sticks fell from the desk with a crash. Murray looked up, surprised by the noise. Mordecai, his normally saturnine face flushed, said thunderously, ‘The lady sitting in front of me rightly calls herself the Lady Caverel. She does so because she is the Lady Caverel, and it was as Lady Caverel that the witness spoke of her. Your lordship, however, purporting to quote the witness, wrote down in your notebook, “the lady calling herself Lady Caverel”. Is your lordship minded at this stage of the trial when your lordship has heard only a part and a small part of the evidence, to call her anything other than the Lady Caverel?’

  Startled, Murray replied, ‘I thought that the witness had referred to the lady as calling herself Lady Caverel?’ He looked at Percy, who shook his head.

  ‘Apparently I was wrong,’ Murray said at last.

  Mordecai remained on his feet. ‘The shorthand writer will have a note of what the witness said.’

  Murray was ruffled. ‘I appear to have made a mistake, Mr Ledbury. Please do not take it as any indication of how my mind was working. Of course, Lady Caverel. I have corrected my note. I am sorry if any wrong impression was gained.’ He paused. ‘Now may we go on?’ he said mildly.

  ‘Very well,’ Mordecai said, staring hard at the judge before once more slumping down. ‘He had better be more careful,’ he said to Oliver in his stage whisper. Murray heard but ignored him.

  Oliver’s junior clerk came into court and spoke to Freeman who tapped Mr Rogers on the shoulder. Mr Rogers slipped from his seat which was taken by Freeman to keep for him until he returned. In the conference room, Mr Rogers said to the junior clerk, ‘I was sorry to have to leave court. It was becoming rather entertaining.’

  In court, Percy saw from the clock that the time for the adjournment was approaching. He did not want to expose Fleur to cross-examination when she’d been in the witness box for some hours. It was better she face Ledbury in the morning when she was fresh, so he took her slowly over the rest of the story, even going back over some parts until Murray announced he was rising for the day.

  As the judge got to his feet, Ledbury said, ‘The witness is under examination and –’

  Murray interrupted. ‘I know that, Mr Ledbury,’ he said testily. He looked towards Percy. ‘Although she is not under cross-examination, it would be better for the witness not to speak to anyone about the case during the adjournment.’

  In his room he flung his wig on to the table. Once again he was angry with himself. As he strode up and down his room, he promised himself to keep a better guard on his tongue. What on earth had led him to make that stupid mistake over what the witness had said? What was it about that fellow Ledbury that had the effect of driving him into making slips?

  He was, he admitted to himself, greatly taken by the evidence of the Claimant. She was giving her evidence well and proving an impressive witness, and it had already been established that there was a daughter, born in wedlock, of the elder son. That could be the end of it. She was the rightful heir. Was it, then, his present inclination to accept the plaintiff’s evidence that had led him into the mistake of ref
erring to the other woman as ‘the lady calling herself Lady Caverel’? Or was it his irritation at the sight of her fidgeting, her apparent inability to keep still, while at the same time looking supercilious with her disapproving nose stuck in the air? The more he watched her, the more she reminded him of those friends of Freda’s. And today Freda was much on his mind for tomorrow, Friday evening, he was due to pay one of those visits to her which he so greatly disliked. His annoyance with himself and his gloom at the prospect of the weekend made him dislike the other woman even more. But he must, he knew, be more careful. When the evidence was complete and when he gave judgement that would be the time when he could say what he liked. Until then, he must check himself.

  In the corridor outside the court Mordecai had taken Andrea’s hand.

  ‘Tomorrow will decide the matter, Lady Caverel. So you must be prepared.’ He smiled. ‘Now Oliver and I have work to do. Tomorrow, then, we shall meet at Philippi.’ He stumped off, leaving Andrea marvelling once again at the change that came over his twisted face whenever he smiled.

  When Fleur had come out of court with Stevens, Willoughby darted up to her and embraced her. ‘Marvellous, darling,’ he breathed in her ear, ‘you were quite marvellous.’

  ‘You’d better not speak to her. She must go home alone. I’ll take her to the car.’ Stevens bustled Fleur on. Turning the corner in the corridor, they came face to face with Greg. He was leaning against the wall. Fleur halted.

  ‘I hoped you would come,’ she said simply.

  ‘I was in at the beginning when you first arrived, so I thought I had a right to be here at the end. I just wanted to wish you luck.’ He stared at her and then turned on his heel and disappeared down the stairs.

  She watched him go. ‘You needn’t come with me,’ she said to Stevens.