As Berry and I Were Saying (4 page)

“Before the Judge took his seat, Gill approached Travers Humphreys, who was appearing for the Crown. ‘You probably know,’ he said, ‘that one of your witnesses dislikes my client very much.’ ‘Yes,’ says Humphreys, ‘I do.’ ‘Well, you’ll be careful, won’t you, to keep his nose to his proof?’ ‘I promise you that.’

“The case was tried by Bosanquet. He was the Common Serjeant – a first-rate lawyer and a delightful man. He was aged and pale as death, and there were times when he sat so still and so silent that a man might be pardoned for thinking that he was dead. I once heard this unusual appearance commented upon – by a lady who had hoped for six months, to whom of his wisdom he had given five years. ‘You – old corpse,’ she said. And Bosanquet led the laughter against himself.

“Well, he came on to the Bench and Cammy entered the dock. He was something over-dressed. The cut of his morning dress left nothing to be desired, but the slip to his waistcoat, his button-hole and his patent-leather boots looked out of place. He was given a chair, and sat on it, lolling and smiling and watching Gill.

“The Crown presented its case, and it was painfully clear that the jury was unimpressed. I never remember a jury that looked so bored.

“The last witness we called was Cammy’s enemy. Humphreys was as good as his word and took the greatest care to ‘keep his nose to his proof’.”

“What does that mean?” said Jill.

“A witness’ proof is a statement of what he is going to say. It is by no means a statement of all he knows. But it is a statement of all that he is allowed to say in any particular case.

“Now the evidence he gave was not of great importance: it certainly rounded our case, but it did Cammy’s next to no harm. It was very short, and very soon Humphreys sat down. And then Gill made a mistake…

“I know that’s a big thing to say, for Gill was a brilliant man, whose little finger was thicker than my loins. But I can’t help that. Perhaps it was Homer nodding. Be that as it may, he made a bad mistake. He failed to leave well alone. In other words, he rose to cross-examine a witness who had done his case no harm, who he knew was dangerous.”

“But that’s elementary,” said Berry.

“I know. I hate to say it of Gill, for nobody could have been kinder than he was to me. He asked me to enter his Chambers, which I always felt was a very high compliment. He was almost the finest cross-examiner of his day. But that was nothing. I have sat beside him and seen him extended. And Gill extended made a man hold his breath. By the sheer force of his tremendous personality, I have seen him bend to his will five most hostile Justices of the Peace. Not a jury, mark you. Five cultured English gentlemen, accustomed to dispensing justice. And against their better judgment, he made those men grant bail. It was a great achievement, and only a very great man could have brought it about.

“And now we’ll go back to Cammy.

“Gill rose to cross-examine. And these were his only words. ‘In fact, you know very little about it?’ The witness laughed. Then he pointed at Cammy. ‘I only know he’s the biggest receiver in London – an’ so does everyone else.’

“‘Stand down,’ says Bosanquet, sternly.

“The witness left the box.

“But the damage was done. At the witness’ words, the jury sat up as one man. It was just as though they had had an electric shock. And Cammy turned a very unpleasant green.

“When he summed up the case, the Judge did his best. He told the jury plainly that the witness had no right to say what he did and that they must put his words right out of their minds. But he might as well have told the sun to stand still. At any rate, good as he was, he wasn’t up to Joshua’s standard.

“The jury retired, and Gill sat comforting himself with the reflection that he would have little difficulty in getting the conviction quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

“And then the jury returned – and blew his hopes sky-high. They found Cammy guilty, of course. But they added a rider. ‘We should like to say,’ said the foreman, ‘that the irrelevant remark made by the witness – has in no way influenced the decision to which we have come.’ Well, no one – not even Gill – could have won an appeal after that. If you remember, I said that City of London juries were very shrewd.”

“My God, what a show,” said Berry. “What did Bosanquet give him?”

“As far as I can remember – eighteen months.”

“I always find it,” said Berry, “matter for regret that I have never been accorded the privilege of observing an apparition. All sorts and conditions of people, whose qualifications and merits in no way compare with mine, have been so accommodated. But though, on more than one occasion, I have passed lack-lustre hours in the most sinister surroundings – because, of course, I had accepted some liar’s advice – never has any apparition stalked or stumbled or floated into my view. Once I undoubtedly heard the note of a bell, but, though my host assured me that that was a phantom sound, I found myself unable to ignore the indisputable fact that there were within earshot quite thirty old-fashioned swing-bells, any one of which, had it been set in motion, could have produced the note. I am, therefore, forced to the conclusion that, while ghosts interest me, I do not interest ghosts: my addresses have been rejected: it is now, indeed, some years since I made up my mind no longer to seek the acquaintance of personalities so ungracious and so blind. But I must confess to disappointment. I’ve heard so many reports of spectres that have been seen and sometimes heard, of lights that have been extinguished by no known agency, of doors that were shut – and have opened, of stairs that have creaked beneath some unseen weight… Still, my disappointment is tempered by this – that only on one occasion have I been rendered such a report by a man who saw a spectre with his own eyes. His statement diminished all hearsay, once for all. For reasons which will appear, I have no hesitation in passing it on.

“I was staying at a château in France before the first war, and among the guests was a Major Andrew —, of a famous Scottish Regiment, to which the sons of his house had always gone. He was a very quiet man and kept a lot to himself: but we always got on very well, and I think he knew me better than anyone else. One thing about him stood out – he was intensely practical. His lack of imagination hit me between the eyes. This emerged from our conversation over and over again. While such a trait in a soldier used to be a good fault, I had a definite feeling that such a man would never go very far. I may have been wrong there, for he was most intelligent.

“Now it was the custom at the château for the women to retire in good time and the men to bid them good night and repair to a smoking-room. This was a spacious apartment, very well found. And there we would sit and talk for an hour or more. The company included more than one eminent man, whose light conversation was most agreeable: but one night a foolish, rich man decided to take the floor. Accordingly, he retailed a ghost story which I had been told as a child: when he had done, some other fool had to beat this well-worn tale, and for the next half hour all the old stock ghost stories were trotted out. Before they were done, the eminent men had withdrawn, and the audience gradually shrivelled, until Major — and I were almost the only two left. He had said nothing at all, and I remember thinking of the contempt with which so practical a man must have regarded such reports. Discouraged by our demeanour, the last of the fabulists made some excuse to retire, and Major — and I were left to ourselves.

“For a little we did not speak, but savoured the blessed silence which supervened. It was rather like turning off the wireless. I was just about to break this – by a singularly destructive criticism of our late tormentors, when he addressed me.

“‘I once saw an apparition.’

“I hope I didn’t show it, but I never was so much astonished in all my life. It was as if an archangel had said, ‘I once had an affair with a chorus-girl.’ Then I realized I was on to something extremely rare – a first-hand report by a man who was quite incapable not only of lying, but of embellishing the truth.

“‘Please tell me,’ I said.

“‘I’m afraid it’s a rather long story.’

“‘So much the better,’ said I.

“‘Well, I live in Lincolnshire. The house is too big for us, so we’ve shut up two-thirds of the building and live in one of the wings. Once a month, I take the carpenter with me and go round the whole of the bit we keep shut up – in case the rain’s come in or something like that. One day we were on the first floor, when I opened the door of a room, and there was an old fellow, wading across the floor. He was wearing black breeches and stockings and a good-looking plum-coloured coat. He had a wig on his head and an ebony cane in his hand. His face was whimsical.

“‘Well, my first impulse was to run downstairs, to see if his legs were sticking out of the ceiling below.’ (Is that or is that not the statement of a practical man?) ‘Then I decided to wait and see where he went. He crossed the floor, still wading, and disappeared into a cupboard.

“‘If I’d had any sense, I should have run into the next room, but I never thought of that until too late. Instead, I called the carpenter, who was a room or two behind, and told him to take up a floor-board. Sure enough, there was another floor, about twelve inches below. So I think there can be no doubt that the apparition was treading the original floor. Then we examined the cupboard. This was very shallow, and once had been a doorway which led to the adjoining room.

“‘A few days after this my wife and I went out to tea. We went to a country house about the same size as ours, in which, as a matter of fact, my people had resided a good many years ago. But the strange thing was this – that our house was really the home of the people that lived in it now. In a word, about a hundred years ago, the two families had exchanged houses. The present owner was a contemporary of my father and he lived there with his daughter who was about my age. And though they lived very quietly, we had been asked to tea, because he wanted to meet his old friend’s son.

“‘When we got there, the daughter received us and said that, to his distress, her father was not well enough to leave his bed: but he hoped very much that I would go up and see him, after I’d had some tea. So, of course, I did. Directly I saw him, I was sure that he’d never get up. He was very plainly failing… I stayed with him for a little, and we said the usual things. He was very insistent that I should see the pictures before we went: and he made me promise to ask his daughter to take us round the gallery.

“‘And so she did. And she told us about the portraits, as she went. We’d got down to George the Third, when damn it, there was the very old fellow I’d seen a week before. Coat, breeches, wig and cane, and the same whimsical face – I’d have known him anywhere. Fortunately, I held my tongue. “This,” says the daughter, “is William (or Samuel or some such name). And he’s always supposed to appear before one of us dies.”

“‘Well, of course, he had appeared – in the house which was his own home, when he was alive. Naturally, I said nothing. Ten days later, I think, her father died.

“‘Wasn’t that a queer business?’

“That’s the only ghost story I ever tell, and for me its virtue lies in the fact that it was related to me by the most unimaginative man I have ever met and a man who would see no sense in telling a lie. For all that, it’s hearsay. I cannot say that I’ve seen a spectre myself.”

“At any rate,” said my wife, “it’s very well worth putting in.”

“It’s hardly a side-light on history.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said I. “The discerning should find it of interest. In any event your own personality has been entirely subjected, if not suppressed. Which is more than I seem to do.”

“No one,” said Jill, “can talk about something they’ve seen without saying ‘I’. And if they try to do it, it’s awfully dull.”

“There’s a lot in that,” said Berry. “When I was of tender years, I saw a fat Royalty get stuck in a carriage’s door. I mean, people had to shove from behind – I saw it done. No, I shan’t say who it was, for she was a very good sort; and she took it awfully well and laughed like anything. The point is I saw it happen: and if I say as much, the incident seems more vivid than it would seem in
oratio oblique
? Is that right, partner?

“Perfectly right.
Oratio recta
is the more vivid of the two.”

“Translation, please,” said my sister.

“Straight speech, as opposed to bent: a speaker’s actual words as opposed to a report of what he said.”

“Take
Treasure Island
,” said Berry. “That work of art would lose quite half its charm if
Jim
didn’t tell it himself.”

Jill looked at me.

“Is that why you always do it?”

“In my romances? Yes. At least, I suppose it is. I started like that in
Blind Corner,
and never looked back.”

“Stevenson knew,” said Berry. “ For such tales, it is the right way. But, of course, it limits the narrator, because he can only report what he saw or heard. Don’t you find that embarrassing sometimes?”

“I can’t say I do,” said I. “But I know what you mean. I suppose I’ve got into the knack. Of course, one character sometimes reports to the narrator what he has done.”

“That’s perfectly natural. But Stevenson did get stuck.”

I laughed.

“I know. In
Treasure Island
the doctor takes over the tale. But Stevenson does it so beautifully that it does no damage at all.”

“You don’t always do it, Boy. Use the first person, I mean.”

“Oh, no. Not in most short stories – I don’t know why. And not in some of the others.
This Publican
, for instance. I couldn’t have done it there.”

“I hated
This Publican
,” said Jill.

“The best thing I ever did.”

“
Rowena
was so awful.”

“True to life, my darling.”

“Have you ever known a woman like that?”

“No. But she combined the worst characteristics of three women that I did know.”

“Which is your worst book?” said Berry.

“That answer I keep to myself.”

My sister addressed her husband.

“You are a brute,” she said.

“No, he’s not,” said I. “Some books must be weaker than others, as every writer knows.”

“An author can judge his own work?”

“If he can’t, he’s not a craftsman. If a silversmith makes a poor tankard, he knows it’s a bad one far better than anyone else. But he must be a silversmith.”

“Meaning…?”

“Many people who cannot write, write books today. For all I know, they think they’re terribly good. In fact, they’re beneath contempt.”

“That’s a true saying,” said Berry. “What I don’t understand is why the publisher takes such filthy tripe. He’s the retailer, and the retailer must know. Bauble and Levity wouldn’t accept a dud tankard.”

“I know,” said I, “but some retailers would.”

“Listen,” said Daphne. “You said just now that you could judge your own work. Don’t you care what reviewers say?”

“I care very much. Whether it’s good or bad, I value an honest review. So long as they’re honest, I value the bad ones most. I can’t pretend I enjoy them, but – well, to more than one unknown reviewer, I owe a great debt; for he has picked out some fault to which I was blind, and I’ve taken very good care not to – What d’you do with a fault? ‘Commit’ it?”

“‘Serve’,” said Berry.

“‘Commit’ must serve. Not to commit it again.
Punch
made me wince once; but, even while I was smarting, I was immensely obliged.”

“‘Honest’?” said Jill.

“Sorry,” I said. “But I’m bound to put that in. But malice can be instantly recognized and should be ignored. I don’t think you got much in the old days, but now the reviewer by profession seems to be rather rare. Nowadays all sorts review books – very often, I fear, authors. And that, for obvious reasons, is utterly wrong.”

“Dog eating dog?” said Berry.

“It can amount to that. And now let me please say this – reviewers as a whole have been far kinder to me than I have deserved. Of the debt I owe them, I am extremely conscious. They have, of course, helped my sales; but, what is of much more importance, they have encouraged me. Only a very few have been malicious. When they are, I summon the memory of things which real reviewers have said. St John Ervine and, for all I said about authors, Compton Mackenzie himself, though he can’t have known it was I. And
Punch
and
The Spectator
. Those are reviews that matter, when all is said and done.”

“Oh, I know,” said Daphne, “you mentioned
This Publican
just now. That was founded on a theory I know you hold – that a man who looks like another will be found to have the same nature.”

“That, I have always maintained; and on very many occasions I’ve proved it true. I was taught it by a fellow of Jesus, who all his life had studied his fellow men. He was one of the founders of the OUDS, and Arthur Bourchier once told me that he was the finest amateur actor that he had ever known. To say he was of the old school is nothing at all. He might have stepped straight out of Dickens: face, manner, clothes – everything about him was forty years out of date. He was a survival of a forgotten time. Anyway, he taught me that theory, and I’ve always proved it true. Over and over again. You know a man called A. Ten years later, perhaps, you meet a man called B. And B resembles A very closely indeed. If you can watch B, you’ll find he has the same nature, the same characteristics, the same outlook. If A was a gambler, B will gamble, too. If A was very particular about his clothes, B will be very particular about his. If A had a violent temper, B will have one, too. And so on. If B reminds you of A, and is not exactly like him, his ways will resemble A’s in a lesser degree. I mean, if you didn’t trust A, you’d be wiser not to trust B. Thanks to John Morris – that was the old don’s name – ever since I was at Oxford I’ve studied my fellow men: but the six years I had of the law gave me a splendid chance of observation. Witnesses, jurymen, Judges, counsel – there was always someone to study, and so I was never dull. I mean, you can do in court what you cannot do in a restaurant or a club.”

“Just as well,” said Berry, “you never had any briefs.”

“I had to do something while waiting for my case to be reached.”

“The big shot’s cases had to wait upon him.”

“You are a beast,” said Jill.

“He’s within his rights,” said I. “My practice was very slight. But, unless you were pushed or had a big chance and grasped it, the Bar was always a very steep ladder to climb. I once saw a man seize his chance.”