Nor Many Waters

by Alec Waugh

  It was signed “Jack”; and Merrick, who knew well from Marian’s conversation who “Jack” referred to, and from his stage friends what manner of reputation Jack Rutterthorpe possessed, whistled pensively. The case had grown foully complicated. Bradshaw had been right when he had said that any case looked simple till you had seen the other side. And the other side had on this occasion done their business well. They had disarmed attack. They had admitted everything and contended nothing. They had not even levelled a counter charge of infidelity. They had employed tactics of understatement. They had done no more than maintain that Marian’s conduct had been sufficiently free to warrant jealousy, but they had produced so much evidence that the Judge was very likely to believe the worst of her, and believing the worst to feel respect for the side that had made no attempt to substantiate the graver charge, that had only brought forward that of which it could be certain. The Judge would be prejudiced in their favour. He would be ready to believe everything they brought forward.

  “They’re clever brutes,” thought Merrick. “I suppose I’ve got to see what Rutterthorpe has to say about it.”

  §

  The name Jack Rutterthorpe is not one that to-day would sound familiarly in the ears of many; nor even ten years ago was there more than a short paragraph in the evening papers when a stray machine-gun bullet of the Somme set a limit to its owner’s career. It was, indeed, a rather charitable bullet. The career is brief of the theatrical favourite who depends for his reputation not on the solid basis of stage technique, but on youth and energy and a clean-cut profile. And Jack Rutterthorpe had outlived his hour and his looks. He would have stood little chance after the war, and after a four years’ break, of competing successfully with younger and established rivals. But in his hour in the early days of the twentieth century his photograph was to be found on the mantelpiece of many a dreaming damsel, and the servant girls were many who had closed their eyes beneath the kisses of a rustic swain in a fond illusion that they were the arms of Jack Rutterthorpe that were about them. If legend is true he was a very dashing, very debonair, infinitely seductive person. He was also, if legend does not lie, extremely vain, extremely selfish, completely untrustworthy and disloyal. He was the type of man that other men dislike and distrust intuitively.

  The moment he came into the room James Merrick felt a shudder of irritation. He had several times seen Rutterthorpe act and been amused by him, and now and again he had been in the same room with him. It was the first time, however, that they had met, and he disliked the effusive manner and the limp handshake of this too well-dressed, too self-satisfied young dandy who was in part responsible for the mess in which Marian now found herself. How ridiculous, how maddeningly ridiculous it was that a Judge could be persuaded that such a girl as Marian could ever treat such a creature seriously. His sense of irritation was so acute that it pleased him to think what a shock to that complacence the news he had for him would be.

  “I’m afraid,” he said, “that it’s not over too pleasant a matter that I have asked you to come and see me. You know Marian Eagar, don’t you?”

  “Why, yes, of course.”

  “Then perhaps you’ll remember writing her this letter?”

  And Merrick watched with amusement that thriftless, handsome face assume an expression of furtive, suspicious fear. Rutterthorpe hesitated, uncertain whether he would commit himself by speaking.

  “You needn’t worry,” said Merrick with a smile.

  “You can say what you like here. We’re on Mrs. Eagar’s side.”

  “Side?”

  “Yes, it’s the other side that’s putting the letter into court.”

  Jack Rutterthorpe drew a pale mauve silk handkerchief from his pocket and tapped his forehead with it nervously. “Is it in connection with a divorce suit?” he asked. And his alarm was so pitiable that Merrick could not resist the temptation to prolong it. He nodded his answer.

  “And I’m being cited as a co-respondent?”

  Merrick laughed. “Oh no,” he said. “Mrs. Eagar filed a petition against her husband, and the production of this letter is part of the husband’s defence. There’s no counter-charge, so there is no need for you to get frightened about damages.”

  The expression of relief was as pitiable as had been the expression of alarm. “There’s not much fight to this creature,” thought Merrick, as he proceeded to explain the situation.

  “I see,” said Rutterthorpe when he had finished.

  “And this letter is produced merely to show that Marian Eagar is the kind of woman about whom a husband would be justified in feeling jealous?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And what is it that you are asking me to do about it?”

  “I am asking you to go into the witness-box and assure the court that Mrs. Eagar may seem a flighty and irresponsible person, but that no one knowing her as well as you know her, and as her husband must be assumed to know her, could ever doubt that her conduct was anything but completely innocent.”

  Rutterthorpe raised his eyebrows, and there came into his face the sly expression that people assume when they are about to impart some scandal.

  “Are you quite sure,” he said, “that I should be telling the truth?”

  Merrick gave him no encouragement. “Quite,” he snapped: snapped so fiercely that Rutterthorpe started back in his chair. He had been unprepared for so dogmatic a vindication. “Oh, yes, yes, yes, I’m sure,” he stammered. And leaning forward he hesitated, so deeply occupied with his thoughts that he forgot the theatrical gesture, the finger along the temple, the lips pursed and the forehead creased, with which ordinarily he would have accompanied such a process. After a few moments’ reflection he had sufficiently recovered his composure to nod his head, in such a way as befitted the hero of romance who has fathomed the machinations of an opposition.

  “This letter will, I take it,” he said slowly, “be read out in court?”

  “It will.”

  “And what interpretation will be put on it?”

  “It will be imagined that you and Mrs. Eagar saw quite a lot of one another, that she was in the habit of taking baths in your flat, and that you had hopes of making successful love to her.”

  “And this letter will be printed in all the papers?”

  “In view of your prominence I should say most certainly.”

  “And with the whole of England putting the same interpretation as the Judge on it. Yes, I see.” And he paused thoughtfully. “Look here,” he went on, “are the opposition likely to call me as a witness?”

  “It’s unlikely.”

  “Unlikely, well,” and again he hesitated. “You know, I’m not at all sure that I want to be mixed up in this. I’m not at all sure that it will do me any good. What do you think?”

  “I’m afraid,” Merrick replied, “that I hadn’t been thinking of it from your point of view particularly. I had been looking at it from Mrs. Eagar’s. You will be a most important witness for her. The word of a person in your position will carry weight. If you tell the Judge that, in spite of the fact that you were in love with her, you are convinced, and you consider that her husband should be convinced, that there is no cause for jealousy, why, that will mean a good deal to Mrs. Eagar.”

  “I know, I know, but at the same time,” Rutterthorpe paused, and there was a fretful expression on his face. “It’s all very well,” he said, “for people like Marian Eagar; they can afford this sort of thing; they aren’t public figures; their living doesn’t depend on what the public thinks of them. This’ll do me a frightful lot of harm. I’d much rather be out of it.”

  Merrick did not find it easy to control his patience. He managed to succeed, however. “My dear Mr. Rutterthorpe, you surely must see,” he said, “that letter is entered as evidence. It’ll be read out in court.”

  “It doesn’t force me to stand in the box, though.”

  “Does that make any difference?”

  Rutterthorpe shrugged his shoulders, and the
sly, knowing expression seemed to be about to creep into his smile; it seemed to think better of it, however, and withdrew. “I don’t think,” he said quietly, “that I’m very anxious to appear.” For a minute or two Merrick could not follow the actor’s reasoning. When he at last did reach the track of it, the implied vanity was so monstrous that he could scarcely believe even Jack Rutterthorpe capable of it.

  “Are you trying to tell me,” he said, “that while you don’t mind being held up before the world as a philanderer with other men’s wives, you feel your reputation as the most attractive man in London would be damaged if you confessed that you had made love unsuccessfully?”

  Jack Rutterthorpe shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair. He did not care for having things put into words. He replied obliquely:

  “Shall we say that I would prefer not to go into the witness-box on this occasion?”

  The attitude was so grotesque that Merrick could scarcely control his temper. It was unthinkable that this man, simply in order to maintain a reputation among shopgirls as the perfect lover, should be prepared to allow a girl who had been his friend to face false accusations undefended. He could not argue with a man who could take up such an attitude.

  “I’m very sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid in this instance we shall be unable to consider your feelings to that extent. In our client’s interests we shall have to call you as a witness.”

  Into Rutterthorpe’s face came the cunningly malicious look of a spoilt child whose play is thwarted.

  “If you do that,” he said, “I can’t prevent you. I shall, however, give such evidence as I choose in such manner as I choose. And I shall give to the Judge and public such impressions as I shall choose them to receive. If you care to run the risk of calling such a witness in your defence, you do it at your own cost. I thank you, and good morning.”

  §

  There could be no doubt as to what he meant, and it was in a fury of indignation that James Merrick stamped down the passage to his father’s room. In such a fury was he that he did not pause to worry over the need of tact, did not wait till his father had looked up from the letter he was writing, did not arrange any suitable setting for his information. He broke straight out into a tirade.

  “My lord!” he said, “but in our job one does see human beings in the nude. You meet them at dances and dinner parties, and they seem decent and honest and agreeable, and you think the world must be a pleasant place if it can contain such pleasant people. And then you see them here with their mask down; something’s frightened them, something that they value is in danger, and they are like wolves, snarling and vindictive. And you feel that civilization is a show and that we’re all wild beasts under our veneer. Heavens, it sickens me!”

  He was in such a fury of indignation that he addressed his father as though he were an audience.

  “I wonder if we’re all like that beneath the surface,” he went on. “If we only don’t behave as cads because we haven’t had the opportunity or the need. I daresay we’ld be all in our different ways the equivalents of that wretched creature if the need goaded us. Cowards. What do you think?”

  And he turned interrogatively towards his father, as a schoolmaster turns towards his class. But his father had by now recovered from his astonishment.

  “Now what, my dear James,” he said testily, “is all this about?”

  “That Eagar divorce suit, Father.”

  “Then tranquillize yourself and tell me quietly all about it.”

  Himself, Mr. Merrick was the reverse of tranquil. He fidgeted impatiently as his son spoke, shifting in his chair, tapping his finger-nails against the desk, interrupting with petulant acclamations. His irritability had, however, as always, a calming effect on his son. It was as though James Merrick were saying to himself in sheer perverseness: “Let the old man get worried if he likes. I’ll show him that there’s nothing here to fluster the restraint of an orderly thinking man.” By the time he had finished his explanation he was as urbane as his father was agitated.

  “So that’s how it stands, Father,” he concluded.

  “Yes, yes, I see, but… really, really, you know, I never wanted to go into this case. It’s against all my principles. And now we look like losing it: and that’ll do us a lot of harm. A firm like ourselves ought never to be beaten in a divorce suit. We ought never to touch a suit in which the law isn’t incontestably on our side.”

  “But, Father, we haven’t lost the case.”

  “We seem quite likely to. I don’t know. I don’t know. What your grandfather would have said to all of this I daren’t imagine. The law was a gentleman’s profession then.”

  “It still is, Father, only gentlemen behave differently nowadays.”

  “Do they? I don’t know. The men that I meet don’t. You’d better send for Bradshaw. He’s the man to put us straight over this business. I’m out of my depth, frankly.”

  And that Benjamin Bradshaw never was.

  As James Merrick explained to him the changed conditions of the Eagar case, the gleam of battle came into his eyes. He was the true man of law. He loved the law in all its complexities, its ramifications, its contradictions. He loved the ferreting into old records, the splitting of hairs, the setting of precedent against precedent. He loved it as one loves a jigsaw puzzle. It existed for him as an abstract science unconnected with human problems, human privileges, human courage. He did not see the Eagar v. Eagar suit as a drama on whose outcome depended the intimate happiness of at least two people. He saw it as a ‘pretty problem.’ And when it was a question of a ‘pretty problem’ there was no sounder nor under certain circumstances more encouraging ally than Benjamin Bradshaw.

  For if there was one thing that Bradshaw loathed, it was the straightforward case. The case that could not tax the ingenuity of the legal brain was merely a wasting of precious hours. He was unhappy when he could find no inconsistencies. He loved nothing more than the unearthing of weak points in a will or contract, even if his discoveries were to the disadvantage of his own side. There were times when he was infinitely infuriating. But on such occasions as this he was invaluable. His eyes gleamed, and he rubbed his hands together happily as though the fire of contention were warming his thickened arteries.

  “Very pretty,” he murmured, “very pretty. I’m afraid our young client has not been by any means discreet.”

  “There’s nothing in it,” retorted Merrick.

  Bradshaw leant his head drolly on one side.

  “The great advantage,” he said, “of our profession is that there exists one standard of truth only, the decision of the court. I have every reason to believe that we shall be able to establish as truth the fact of Mrs. Merrick’s innocence.

  “There is no need,” he went on, “for us to be at all alarmed. For a moment it is inevitable that we should feel a trifle flustered. But we must remember that this document of theirs is in the nature of a surprise attack. We had no idea beforehand in which direction the attack was coming. We were off our guard. But we must remember that, while they have launched their complete attack, we have not even begun to reorganize our forces for the counter. And there are one or two little points that occur to me.

  “For instance,” and his long, lean, hard-nailed finger tapped authoritatively against the table’s ledge. “It is all very well for this young actor —what’s his name, let me see? yes, Jack Rutterthorpe—to threaten that he will only give evidence as he chooses and in such manner as he chooses. But he is a young person, I am very sure, whom it would by no means be difficult to frighten in our turn into giving whatever evidence we might wish. He is a young person who is extremely anxious about the impression that he makes before the public. And if we sought carefully, I am certain that we could find things about him that he would be far more unwilling to have published in the evening papers than a suggestion that his skill as the perfect lover was on one solitary occasion insufficient. We shall have no difficulty if we set about things in the right manner
in extracting from that young gentleman the exact evidence that we require.

  “There is also Mrs. Eagar’s evidence. That, I am certain, could be supplemented. We know that he struck her once. But the man who would go to such extreme lengths on one occasion must have shown signs of brutality on others. There must be little things that Mrs. Eagar has forgotten or not thought worth mentioning which would, though trivial in themselves, be extremely valuable as marking the stages that led to the decisive scene. Mrs. Eagar’s evidence can and should be supplemented. Those are the two points that leap immediately to my mind in connection with this case. There must of course be others. It will be only a matter of a little thought.”

  And he smiled blandly and encouragingly upon his principals.

  “And that is all that occurs to you at the moment?” asked Mr. Merrick. “Yes? Well then, we are most grateful to you for your co-operation. I will let you know later what I decide.”

  The senior partner had listened quietly and attentively to all that his managing clerk had had to say, but the moment that the door had closed behind Bradshaw he turned towards his son with a frown set heavily between his eyes. The testiness, however, had passed. For while Mr. Merrick was fretful about little matters, during the opening of a discussion, he was invariably calm in the presence of a serious situation. There was a genuine dignity about his pose, as he sat back in his chair with his hands linked across its arms.

  “This is a bad business, James,” he said. “We’ll be better out of it.”

  It was the comment that James Merrick had expected from his father, and both because he was afraid that he might lose his patience in a discussion and because he felt that his position would be stronger if he let his father set forth an argument in which he could subsequently point out the weaknesses, he made no reply.

  “It’s a bad business,” his father said. “As you know I was opposed at the beginning to our taking up this case. It was only on your insistence that I consented. That, however, is past history. Let the present situation suffice. We are now faced with the necessity of employing blackmail if we are to carry on our suit!”