by Alec Waugh
“Ah, and from what section of society was she taking them?”
“Bohemian, mostly.”
“I see. Young, fast people, with whom you as a serious-minded, serious-living business man had little in common: of whom you disapproved, in fact. The Judge’ll understand that. And I suppose she was gadding about in the evenings—theatres, parties, dances?”
“A good deal.”
“And leaving you with an empty home to come back to at the end of the day’s work. You never went out with her?”
“Not often. I didn’t care for her friends or for that life. We both realized that it was better for her to go alone.”
“I see. Now, tell me, Mr. Eagar, in other ways was she a satisfactory wife?”
“In what ways?”
“Were your marital relations happy?”
Eagar flushed. “Is that a necessary question?”
“In my opinion, exceedingly.”
There was a silence. Herbert Eagar was not by any means a modern. There were certain subjects that he had imagined it impossible for a gentleman to discuss. When he replied it was with a delicacy of perception of which not only Merrick but Marian would have believed him to be incapable.
“I suppose,” he said, “that when one is at odds in other things, one’s at odds in that as well.”
Joshua Ephraim was, however, both a precisian and a realist.
“They were not, I take it though, entirely discontinued? Not exactly? You shared different rooms? And for how long? During the last twelve months? You started the habit, you say, because you didn’t want to be disturbed by her coming back in the small hours. Well, I don’t know that we need mention that, unless we have to. The point is that you were occupying separate rooms. And that’s a good deal to go on, certainly. Now, you say you disliked your wife’s friends. Was there any particular one you objected to?”
“No, it was just the crowd.”
“You thought it was an unsuitable crowd for a young woman, certainly for your wife, to be mixing in. I suppose you discussed it with her fairly often?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll assume that before you went down to this party and during the course of it, this situation had again arisen. This is how I picture it—correct me if I am wrong. You feel you and your wife are drifting apart and you are desperately anxious to restore happy relations. You feel that that is only possible if she will desert this frivolous and worthless set of people. You beg and beseech, but she will not listen. That is how the situation stands on the particular evening we have in mind. It is a situation in which you will have the complete sympathy of the court. And what we have to do now to retain that sympathy is to show the Judge that what happened on that evening was the logical outcome of a state of continued and increasing provocation, that your wife’s conduct on that evening was, if not inexcusable, at least unwarranted, that the blow was struck by a man tortured beyond endurance. The impression that you have got to give the Judge is that any man under those particular circumstances would have been tempted to strike his wife. That is what we have got to show; I think it is only a question of arranging the sequence of events logically.”
And Joshua Ephraim leant back in his chair, his eyes protruding, and his thin dry hands passing slowly over upon each other.
“There are,” he said, “one or two points that occur immediately to me. The witness that your wife’s lawyers have called was your partner. He was sitting opposite you and was therefore not in a position to hear what your wife said to you. Only one man at the table could have heard: the man who was on your left-hand side when your wife leant cross between you. Our opponents have not called that witness.”
“They probably did not know that he was in the country. He’s only been back three days.”
“Then that, very fortunately, leaves him free for us. Very fortunately indeed.” And the dry fingers twined about themselves as affectionately as though there had been real blood in them. “It may be,” continued Joshua Ephraim, “that he will prove a most valuable witness.” And the huddled figure sank lower in its chair, and the watery eyes appeared to protrude increasingly. “A very valuable witness,” he repeated. “The sooner that the three of us can have a little conference the better. The day after to-morrow you will endeavour? That could not be better. In the meantime there is just one other little point. It was in October, I think you said, that this incident took place?”
“The beginning of October.”
“And as far as I remember the first weeks of it were very fine.”
“The sun shone the whole time.”
“Then it would have been a warm night. And your wife, you say, had been dancing. Then she would be a little flushed probably. Quite, exactly. Well, till the day after to-morrow, Mr. Eagar.”
§
At half-past five two days later the conference took place. And Mr. Ephraim’s eyes gleamed wanly as he rose to greet the tall, thin, nondescript-appearanced man whom Eagar presented to him. An invaluable because a tractable witness was Mr. Ephraim’s mental comment.
“It is very good of you to come round, Mr. Hedges. Very good indeed. I am extremely sorry to have to bother you in this unfortunate affair. But we will try to make the trouble as inconsiderable as possible. Mr. Eagar has no doubt acquainted you with the circumstances?”
Mr. Hedges was clearly abundantly embarrassed. He fidgeted with his gloves, the handle of his umbrella, and the bearded extremity of his chin.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “yes. Mr. Eagar has explained to me. I need hardly say—well, it is all, you will understand, extremely distasteful. The publicity, the… I am very doubtful if I am competent to withstand the type of cross-examination to which in this type of trial witnesses are, I am given to understand, submitted.”
Mr. Ephraim smiled reassuringly.
“You need have no alarm, my dear sir, no alarm. Your examination by our counsel will be a matter of three minutes at the outside, and I do not think that your evidence will contain anything that will give opportunities to our opponents. There will be no question of motives or implications. We shall keep ourselves rigidly to the facts. You remember, of course—it’s a question that really I need hardly ask—exactly what happened on that night?”
“Yes, yes, exactly.”
“Very well, then. I will recapitulate. You were playing bridge in the room opening out of the hall where the dancing was in progress. You were seated on the left of Mr. Eagar. You could see the door. The door opened, and Mrs. Eagar appeared on the threshold. Beside her was the young man with whom she had been dancing. She was flushed and seemed excited. On seeing that there was a bridge four in progress she stopped and was about to leave the room; then changed her mind and coming into the room alone, ran up to her husband. That’s right so far, I believe?”
He paused, and Mr. Hedges, who had been listening with tranced attention and a nodding head, dropped both his gloves and his umbrella on realizing that corroborative comment was required of him.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “that is so.”
Mr. Joshua Ephraim bowed affably and continued.
“Mrs. Eagar came across the room,” he said, “bent over her husband’s left shoulder—that is, between the pair of you—and said something in his ear.”
“Yes.”
“You heard what she said?”
“Yes.”
“She spoke in a low voice and it is unlikely that any of the others would have heard her?”
“That is so, yes.”
“You, Mr. Hedges, heard her quite distinctly, though?”
“Yes, quite.”
“And the moment afterwards Mr. Eagar struck her in the face with his open hand?”
“Yes.”
Slowly Mr. Ephraim crouched backwards into his chair; like some fossilized animal endowed suddenly with the capacity to spring. “Thank you, Mr. Hedges,” he said, “thank you. That is admirable. It is most distressing for you, I know, to have to attend this case. It is the kind
of unpleasant duty that comes from time to time the way of all of us. And we are both anxious to spare you all we can. So we shan’t bother you to make any comment or impute any motives. I don’t suppose that you’ll be in the box five minutes altogether. We’ll just keep you to the facts. We shan’t ask you any more than I have already; except, of course,” he added, smiling in genial recognition of the gradual glow of relief that had usurped the harassed expression on Mr. Hedges’ face,—“except of course, that we shall want you to tell the Judge what Mrs. Eagar did say to her husband. You heard quite clearly, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Hedges, who for the first time in the interview had shown the least sign of willing co-operation.
“That’s splendid, then,” said Mr. Ephraim. “And the exact words were, if I remember accurately, ‘I’m having such fun, and my partner’s being ever so charming to me’?”
On his left Herbert Eagar made a gesture as though he were about to interrupt, but Mr. Ephraim raised a cautionary finger.
“Those,” repeated Mr. Ephraim, “were the exact words, I think?”
“Why, yes,” asserted Mr. Hedges eagerly in the manner of one who was prepared to make any admission that would hasten the ending of the interview.
“And if you’re asked,” Mr. Ephraim persisted, “in what tone of voice she spoke, how would you describe it? Yes, yes, I know that it is very difficult to describe a tone, the mot juste, how easily it escapes one. Let me see now, Mr. Eagar, what was your phrase for it? Provocative, I believe it was. Now, would you say, Mr. Hedges, that ‘provocative’ would be a happy description for it?”
Mr. Hedges was already fumbling his left hand into his right-hand glove, and a murmuring stammer gave the impression that than the word ‘provocative’ no happier epithet could have been chosen. And, “I think,” said Mr. Ephraim as the door closed behind their liberated guest, “that thanks to that gentleman we are appreciably nearer a happy issue.”
Eagar, who, except for his solitary attempted interruption, had listened and watched in silence, shrugged his shoulders. “If you think we are, I’m of course delighted.”
Mr. Ephraim smiled knowingly. In much the same way that Cinderella’s fairy Godmother smiled knowingly at the innocent pumpkin which concealed a chariot.
“But you don’t see how I’ve arrived at my optimism? Ah, well, why should you? The whole object of cross-examination is to extract admissions without allowing your witness to realize that they are admissions. A good counsel will be able to make very pretty copy out of that evidence. You see,” he said, and as always when he was in a good humour with himself, Mr. Ephraim receded into gnomelike proportions, “the position is frankly this:—you have committed adultery; of that there is no doubt, and you have struck your wife in public; of that there is no doubt, and you will be divorced unless we can show that that blow was not a proof of cruelty, of persistent cruelty, but was the solitary outbreak on the part of a husband who endured with exemplary—with unusual—patience, the really inexcusable behaviour of an unsatisfactory and provoking wife. We have got to prove that in spite of that blow you were anything but a cruel husband.”
“And can you prove it?”
“I shall have a good case anyhow to present,” and he paused and smiled and passed his hands over and over one another. “A case,” he proceeded, “that may with a little strengthening prove unassailable. I shall present it,” he said, “like this.”
§
“I shall,” said Mr. Joshua Ephraim, “present you to the Judge as a serious, well-intentioned man; a man of influence in business, the kind of man on whom, we are always assured, the man in the street believes the security and future of the empire to rest. It is of the greatest importance to the Empire that men such as yourself should marry and rear families. And when you married it was with the firm resolve to rear a family that should leave the country, as you hoped yourself to leave it, better than it found it. Unfortunately you did not select the type of woman best fitted to co-operate with you in such a resolve. Not by any means.
“Your wife proved herself to be a shallow, frivolous, pleasure-seeking creature; she had no use for the decent, quiet, domestic life you hoped for; she wanted theatres, dances, parties: a constant succession of excitements. Naturally she did not want children. That would be a tie upon her. And naturally she found herself drifting into the only set in London where such a life can be procured: the fast, cheap, Bohemian set in which the ordinary standards of decent conduct are derisively ignored.
“You, of course, had nothing in common with such people. You hated their parties, their noise, their behaviour, their late hours. You begged her to cut away from them. You told her how much you disliked it all. She refused to listen. Finally you told her that you could not accompany her to such places. Her retort was that she would go alone. It was a decision that led inevitably to constant discussion and constant friction. You were trying to lead her back into decent habits; and she persistently refused. You began to drift apart. She was a breach that was symbolized in your occupying of separate rooms.
“This state of tension was at its height when you went down to this week-end party. You had been telling your wife that she was moving in a rotten set, that it is impossible to touch pitch without being contaminated, that there was only one climax to that life. As usual she refused to listen. You had reached the limit of your patience. You were, through abnormal conditions, in an abnormal state of mind. You were capable of doing things that would be at a normal time unthinkably impossible. This is how our counsel will present the drama of that evening.
“’ Here, my lord,’ he will say, ‘is a worthy sincere citizen reduced to a condition bordering on hysteria by a selfish, frivolous, self-indulgent wife. And it is to a man in such a mood that the following incident occurs. The door of the room is flung open and his wife is standing on the threshold. She is flushed and excited, and a young man is at her side. She had come into the room believing it to be empty. And when a young woman searches for an empty room with the young man she is dancing with, it is natural that a husband’s jealousy should be roused. The wife, on seeing the room occupied, is about to turn away, but a spirit of recklessness seizes her. She cannot resist the temptation of a parting shot. She runs across to her husband, leans over his shoulder and whispers provocatively, “I’m having such fun. My partner’s being so charming to me.” Is it unnatural that the exasperated husband should for a second lose his self-control? “Fun.” She knows how he detests her idea of fun. And “charming.” Can the word “charming” in that context, with the knowledge that she has been looking for an empty room, mean anything but that her partner has been making love to her?’
“That is how our counsel will present your case.
“Afterwards we shall point out, of course, how miserable, how disgusted with yourself you were. And you tried harder than ever to wean your wife away from that Bohemian set; you longed to reestablish harmony. It was useless, however. She would not listen. Things went from bad to worse. Your wife was a wife to you in little more than name. You became more and more unhappy. And finally, when temptation came your way, you yielded to it. We shall not, I think, make any particular attempt to palliate that yielding. No one, we shall say, regrets it more than you do. It was the yielding of a distracted, tortured man. You wanted to forget. Some men seek forgetfulness in wine. You sought for it in an intrigue. You were disgusted, however, and abandoned it. And when you had recovered from it, you tried all the harder to make things happy in your home. You still believed that it was possible for you to rescue something from the wreck. Even when she left you, without the least warning, the least explanation, you went on believing that. To such an extent indeed, that you devised the scheme of starting a new life in a new country with her. Her only answer to your letter was the filing of a petition for divorce.
“We shall show, in fact, that that petition was not the attempt of a wronged woman to regain her rights, but the final example of an irresponsible wom
an’s effort to avoid her responsibilities.
“And I think,” concluded Mr. Ephraim, “that we shall be able to make a pleasantly convincing case of it.”
§
Herbert Eagar had listened in silence while Mr. Ephraim talked. He had made no interruption, but once or twice he had frowned uncertainly.
“As far as I can see,” he said, “it’s going to be less of a defence of me than a blackguarding of my wife.”
Joshua Ephraim shrugged his shoulders.
“It amounts to the same thing,” he said. “We establish contrast. And it is easier to run a person down than to run a person up. People are always readier to believe the worst.”
“All the same, you…” and Eagar hesitated. “You see,” he went on after a pause, “Marian isn’t really much like that.”
Ephraim was ready with his retort.
“People very rarely are much like the picture that an opposing counsel tries to make of them,” he said. “Do you think you’ll recognize yourself in the portrait our opponents are busying themselves on?”
“Perhaps not.” He remembered savagely his talk with Merrick, the insolent young cub. It would be foolish to look for much decency at his hands. They would be anxious enough to blackguard him. “Oh, very well,” he said, “if that’s all there is to it. I suppose it is all, isn’t it?” he added sharply, on observing that the compressed dimensions of Mr. Ephraim were growing even narrower. “That is all there is going to be to it, isn’t it?”
Joshua Ephraim cocked his head sagaciously. “There is one very weak point about the evidence,” he replied.
“And that point?”
“I think we shall find it a little difficult to convince the Judge that the mere fact of your seeing your wife in the doorway at a young man’s side, even if she was flushed and excited, and was looking possibly for an empty room, would make you so jealous that the mere suggestion that her partner had been flirting with her, and the word ‘charming’ has to be quite generously interpreted if it is to hold that meaning… well, a blow in the face is a fairly serious thing.”
