John Galsworthy - Over the River

“Is it true, Lady Corven, that you have been unfaithful to your husband?”

“It is not.”

“You swear that?”

“I do.”

“There have been no love passages between you and Mr. Croom?”

“None.”

“You swear that?”

“I do.”

“Now it is said—”

To question on question on question Dinny sat listening, her eyes not moving from her sister, marvelling at the even distinctness of her speech and the motionless calm of her face and figure. Instone’s voice today was so different that she hardly recognised it.

“Now, Lady Corven, I have one more question to ask, and, before you answer it, I beg you to consider that very much depends on that answer. Why did you leave your husband?”

Dinny saw her sister’s head tilt slightly backwards.

“I left because I did not feel I could remain and keep my self-respect.”

“Quite! But can you not tell us why that was? You had done nothing that you were ashamed of?”

“No.”

“Your husband has admitted that he had, and that he had apologised?”

“Yes.”

“What had he done?”

“Forgive me. It’s instinct with me not to talk about my married life.”

Dinny caught her father’s whisper: “By Gad! she’s right!” She saw the Judge’s neck poked forward, his face turned towards the box, his lips open.

“I understood you to say you felt you could not remain with your husband and keep your self-respect?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Did you feel you could leave him like that and keep your self-respect?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Dinny saw the Judge’s body raise itself slightly, and his face moving from side to side, as if carefully avoiding any recipient of his words: “Well, there it is, Mr. Instone. I don’t think you can usefully pursue the point. The respondent has evidently made up her mind on it.” His eyes under drooped lids continued to survey what was unseen.

“If your Lordship pleases. Once more, Lady Corven, there is no truth in these allegations of misconduct with Mr. Croom?”

“No truth whatever.”

“Thank you.”

Dinny drew a long breath and braced herself against the pause and the slow rich voice to the right behind her.

“You, a married woman, would not call inviting a young man to your cabin, entertaining him alone in your room at half-past eleven at night, spending a night with him in a car, and going about with him continually in the absence of your husband, misconduct?”

“Not in itself.”

“Very well. You have said that until you saw him on the ship you had never seen the co-respondent. Could you explain how it was that from, I think, the second day at sea you were so thick with him?”

“I was not thick with him at first.”

“Oh, come! Always together, weren’t you?”

“Often, not always.”

“Often, not always—from the second day?”

“Yes, a ship is a ship.”

“Quite true, Lady Corven. And you had never seen him before?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Ceylon is not a large place, is it, from a society point of view?”

“It is not.”

“Lots of polo matches, cricket matches, other functions where you are constantly meeting the same people.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you never met Mr. Croom? Odd, wasn’t it?”

“Not at all. Mr. Croom was on a plantation.”

“But he played polo, I think?”

“Yes.”

“And you are a horsewoman, very interested in all that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you never met Mr. Croom?”

“I have said I never did. If you ask me till tomorrow I shall say the same.”

Dinny drew in her breath. Before her sprang up a mental snapshot of Clare as a little girl being questioned about Oliver Cromwell.

The slow rich voice went on:

“You never missed a polo match at Kandy, did you?”

“Never, if I could help it.”

“And on one occasion you entertained the players?”

Dinny could see a frown on her sister’s brow.

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“I believe it was last June.”

“Mr. Croom was one of the players, wasn’t he?”

“If he was, I didn’t see him.”

“You entertained him but you did not see him?”

“I did not.”

“Is that usual with hostesses in Kandy?”

“There were quite a lot of people, if I remember.”

“Come now, Lady Corven, here is the programme of the match—just take a look at it to refresh your memory.”

“I remember the match perfectly.”

“But you don’t remember Mr. Croom, either on the ground, or afterwards at your house?”

“I don’t. I was interested in the play of the Kandy team, and afterwards there were too many people. If I remembered him I should say so at once.”

It seemed to Dinny an immense time before the next question came.

“I am suggesting, you know, that you did not meet as strangers on the boat?”

“You may suggest what you like, but we did.”

“So you say.”

Catching her father’s muttered: “Damn the fellow!” Dinny touched his arm with her own.

“You heard the stewardess give her evidence? Was that the only time the co-respondent came to your state-room?”

“The only time he came for more than a minute.”

“Oh! He did come at other times?”

“Once or twice to borrow or return a book.”

“On the occasion when he came and spent—what was it?—half an hour there—”

“Twenty minutes, I should say.”

“Twenty minutes—what were you doing?”

“Showing him photographs.”

“Oh! Why not on deck?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that it was indiscreet?”

“I didn’t think about it. There were a lot of photos—snapshots and photos of my family.”

“But nothing that you couldn’t have shown him perfectly in the saloon or on deck?”

“I suppose not.”

“I take it you imagined he wouldn’t be seen?”

“I tell you I didn’t think about it.”

“Who proposed that he should come?”

“I did.”

“You knew you were in a very dubious position?”

“Yes, but other people didn’t.”

“You could have shown him those photographs anywhere? Looking back on it, don’t you think it was singular of you to do such a compromising thing for no reason at all?”

“It was less trouble to show them to him in the cabin; besides, they were private photos.”

“Now, Lady Corven, do you mean to say that nothing whatever took place between you during those twenty minutes?”

“He kissed my hand before he went out.”

“That is something, but not quite an answer to my question.”

“Nothing else that could give you satisfaction.”

“How were you dressed?”

“I regret to have to inform you that I was fully dressed.”

“My Lord, may I ask to be protected from these sarcasms?”

Dinny admired the stilly way in which the Judge said:

“Answer the questions simply, please.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Clare had moved out from under the shadow of the canopy and was standing with her hands on the rail of the box; spots of red had come into her cheeks.

“I suggest that you were lovers before you left the ship?”

“We were not, and we never have been.”

“When did you first see the co-respondent again after you left him on the dock?”

“I think about a week later.”

“Where?”

“Down near my people’s at Condaford.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was in a car.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, I had been canvassing and was going home to tea.”

“And the co-respondent?”

“He was in a car, too.”