In Their Wisdom

by C. P. Snow

  Jenny and Liz, private women, had to bear with the old-fashioned speed. That wouldn’t have been an interesting reflection as they sat in court, nerves stretched and jangling.

  It was not only an old-fashioned process, it was to both of them, clever people, who had by this time learned something of the law, semi-incomprehensible. That is, neither could judge, during almost any of the dialogue, whether the point was going for her or against. Lander was arguing, with manifest pleasure and enthusiasm, about ‘influence’ as discussed in a High Court judgement thirty years before. March called on his computer memory for verbal passages in 1891, 1903 and 1920. To Jenny and Liz, it was remote from themselves, or anything which had happened to people of flesh and bone in old Massie’s house, or Jenny’s memories of her father.

  The counsel, and the three judges, seemed to be stirring with intellectual interest. Volumes with slips of paper protruding were opened and read as though the reproduction of printed documents hadn’t been invented. To an outsider it would have seemed peculiarly amateur. The judges were industriously writing away in long hand. Harwood and Baker, Hargreaves and Gray, to Jenny meaningless names, significantly repeated. Readings by both counsel from old judgements. It had something of the air of a theological argument between people with faith in revealed truth, Calvinists trumping each other with a text, or a Marxist producing six lines from Lenin. There were interludes in which one of the judges and the counsel became engaged, like a session of modern philosophers, in semantic or even grammatical exchanges.

  Later on, but not in the court, Jenny might recognise that the law got more abstract as you went higher up. Before magistrates, in obscure courts of first instance (which she hadn’t seen) you met people and heard what were supposed to be facts. At the assizes, or in her case before Mr Justice Bosanquet, people still entered and facts were talked about. But in Appeal Court number two people and facts had somehow been purified away.

  Later on, Jenny might recognise that that was part of the process. Not now in court. She had to concentrate on the sentences they were speaking, and then let them drift away. She was at the same time apprehensive, painfully more so than she had been at the earlier trial, and seepingly bored: apprehensive and bored, which was a state with little to recommend it. Though she felt it unsuitable or almost improper, in the middle of suspense, she even welcomed the odd diversion. There weren’t many, but late on the Thursday morning, not long before the lunchtime break, her eye was caught by the sight of a very large man padding in behind the Underwood party. She wondered who it could be. She couldn’t hear the conversation which began as soon as the court rose, but it would have distracted her.

  This was Dr Pemberton. He had touched Liz on the shoulder and asked: ‘Aren’t you Elizabeth Fox-Milnes?’ She looked round into the big dominating face.

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘I’d better introduce myself. I’m Archibald Pemberton.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, uncomprehending, uninterested.

  ‘I’ve just taken your father’s seat.’

  ‘Really?’ Now she did comprehend.

  ‘So in that way I’m the head of the family. I thought I ought to make myself known.’

  ‘Really?’ Liz went through the courtesies, and introduced him to Mrs Underwood and Julian as Lord Hillmorton.

  ‘How’s this business going?’ Pemberton was at his most assertive.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘I keep telling her it’s all right,’ said Julian, casually possessive.

  Pemberton ignored him, and exerted his maximum weight on Liz.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, should you?’ Liz replied. ‘That is, unless you can corrupt their lordships up there.’

  ‘I can tell you how to reduce the stress.’

  ‘I think we’re coping,’ said Liz. ‘We shall have to go to lunch, shan’t we, Julian? Thank you so much for coming,’ she said to Pemberton. ‘I expect we’ll meet again.’

  Pemberton, enraged, felt as violent as when young, and could have smashed her teeth in. He felt he was being snubbed, which was true, and snubbed on social grounds, which wasn’t. Liz might be a drop-out of an aristocrat, but she was enough of one not to cherish the dear old middle-class illusion that aristocrats were incapable of snobbery: she was still more than capable of it herself. Not, however, with her father’s heir, however he had arrived there (about which she was vague) and whatever he was like.

  Her motive for snubbing Pemberton was quite different, singular, and unexpected. She was repelled by his overwhelming masculinity. Oh yes, she liked men, but they had to be men of a special kind, subtle, devious, weaving veils of sexuality, not just embodying the plain brute fact itself. Although she had not yet accepted it, her instinct for men had been, at least in the eyes of other people, remarkably defective. As her father had remarked one night, she was one of those women who couldn’t avoid being a bad picker. If Pemberton had been the only man around, she would never have picked him.

  Pemberton watched them depart. With a total lack of hypocrisy or delicate forgiveness, he was devoutly wishing that ‘that gang’ would lose their case.

  Jenny did not have to remain in that special fog, bored and apprehensive, for long. At half past four on the Thursday afternoon Lord Justice Fowke announced, conversationally, rattily, that they had heard enough. Bland nods from Shingler on his right, expressionless nods from Gimson on his left. They would need, Fowke continued, a certain time to write their judgements and would deliver them at eleven thirty the following day.

  The following day, when it at last arrived, was a sparkling December morning. In the court, the chandelier as usual presided over what would without it have been a tenebrous room. The same company as the day before, not a single spectator, not even Ryle: he thought he could guess the verdict, and preferred to read it in the law reports. Front row, lawyers, next row, the Underwood party on the left, Jenny and Lorimer on the right. The two back rows, quite empty, as in a remarkably unsuccessful backroom theatre. All the visitors, who had spent hours at Bosanquet’s hearing, had dropped away. Curiosity about other people’s concerns didn’t last so long. As for disinterested stamina, that didn’t last at all.

  At eleven thirty precisely, flanked by his colleagues, Lord Justice Fowke began to read. He read without drama, without much intonation, and in a tone dry and only just over the audible threshold. Parliamentarians might have quoted the old maxim, the worst spoken speech was better than the best read one, though it was a maxim they didn’t obey. Lord Justice Fowke’s first words were: ‘Among the many wise remarks Mr Justice Bosanquet delivered in his judgement in this case, I wish to select two.’

  For Lander and March, he needn’t have said more. They knew what his decision was to be: none of the rest did.

  The judgement went on: ‘I wish to give my support to Mr Justice Bosanquet on the desirability, to put it no higher, of settling such cases as this without having recourse to legal process. The parties concerned should have reached an amicable agreement as soon as the will was disclosed. That is what all lawyers advise, and will continue to advise.’ He then proceeded to agree with Bosanquet on the state of the law about ‘undue influence’. Of all the cases that came before him, these were the most unsatisfactory.

  ‘But I have to deal with the law as it exists. I have studied the precedents introduced by learned counsel, and I have come to the conclusion that there is only one tenable basis on which to form an opinion. That is, what I shall define as the degree of influenceability of the testator. I have no doubt that we make the area of dubiety, which is already too great to be tolerable, enormously greater if we pay excessive attention to the environment and the personalities around him. Some men could be in such a state of mind and body that they could be influenced by the merest acquaintance. Some men could be uninfluenceable by those nearest to them, however strong their personality, uninfluenceable, that is, in any sense that the law should re
cognise or define. It is here, with reluctance, that I depart from the position of Mr Justice Bosanquet. In his judgement, there is comparatively little reference to the character and condition of Mr Massie, though a great deal of interesting material about the environment of his last years. I have no doubt that we shall decide the question of influence upon Mr Massie if we search the evidence for how influenceable he was.’

  As the words had muttered on, Jenny accepted (almost without emotion, as in shock) that this judgement was going against her. Would the three judges have conferred together? Did he know what the others were going to say? Was there still a hope?

  The judgement proceeded to analyse the evidence about old Massie (there was almost nothing said about Mrs Underwood: March afterwards remarked that Fowke was deep, sharp and narrow, liked something he could get his teeth into, and was the last man to have patience with Bosanquet’s intuition). There was little sign at any stage that he was more influenceable than other men, and many signs that he was less so. He had allowed his household to be rearranged by a competent woman. That could be interpreted as the attitude of a normal man having regard to his comfort. It had not been suggested, much less proved, that there had been any loss of efficiency. A reasonable man, who had been demonstrated in evidence not to have strong family ties, however unusual that might be, could decide without influence to alter his disposition about a daughter whom he had not seen, nor as the evidence again demonstrated, wished to see, for many years. This was no reproach to Lady Lorimer, the previous Mrs Rastall. She had behaved with complete propriety in what must have been for her painful circumstances. The attitude of Mr Massie was however as clear as a quantity of evidence could make it. He was regarded on all sides as a man of strong convictions and strong character. There is no effective evidence that those convictions and that character were seriously impaired by age, certainly not to the extent of his not knowing what he wished to do or merely acting as a passive tool. The position of Mr Massie came out clear. He was as difficult to influence as most men could be, and that was the only certain ground which they could isolate for the purpose of decision in law.

  Lord Justice Fowke looked up over his spectacles, although the words were in his script, and said with no emphasis: ‘On this ground I would allow the appeal.’

  Lord Justice Shingler read in a rich good-natured voice.

  ‘I can be very brief in the expression of my assent that the appeal should be allowed.’

  It was over for Jenny. They must have conferred last night, she thought. She stared, still blank-faced, at Lorimer, who didn’t whisper but went on patting her arm.

  She was too bemused to realise that Shingler was paying her compliments, to the last trying to act as a provider of goodwill. (‘She mustn’t depart from this court thinking there is the slightest reflection on her integrity or good standing. Nothing is further from any of our minds.’) If there had been, or ever were, a clash of wills, or even opinions, between himself and Fowke, he wouldn’t stand a chance: but he wasn’t to be stopped putting in a bit of conciliation – and, as it turned out, a bit of practical charity.

  The third Lord Justice, Gimson, took off his spectacles, shelved his appearance of repose, and read: ‘I have to dissent from the judgements which have been delivered.’ A cool onlooker, such as Muriel Calvert, would have complained about the stage management: if Gimson had spoken second, she would have had a few minutes more of pleasurable suspense. However, Muriel Calvert wasn’t present, having long forgotten the entire process: actually, she had become occupied not, for the first time, with a man younger than herself.

  Gimson had little to say about influence or uninfluenceability. His point was simple, and given with sharp, quite undormouse-like authority. ‘It is not enough that any of us trying the case might have come to a different conclusion. There must be such a preponderance of evidence as to make it unreasonable that the judge should deliver the verdict which he did. I find no such preponderance of evidence. The evidence is complicated and could be interpreted in several different ways. The judge interpreted it in a way any one of us might have differed from, but his verdict is not unreasonable. I should disallow the appeal.’

  Two to one for the appeal, and so the end. No, not quite the end. Lord Justice Fowke said, in his unpropitiatoring mutter: ‘There is the question of costs. In the normal course, the appellants would be granted costs. In the somewhat unusual and needlessly complex circumstances of this case, it is considered that a somewhat different distribution should be made. I do not wish to hear submissions from learned counsel. It is decided that half the costs shall be paid from the estate. The other half to be discharged by the unsuccessful party.’

  To Jenny, that was more background noise. She didn’t recognise until some time afterwards that this must have been a compromise, or in Aesopian language even a gesture of sympathy: presumably forced, so the lawyers agreed among themselves, by Gimson, with Lord Justice Shingler trapped between two strong minds. She didn’t take in any of that. She turned to her husband, and as the judges made their bows and were departing through the door backstage, whispered: ‘We’ve had it.’ She said it bright-eyed, without feeling, which had still not returned to her. She rose, back straight, and tapped Symington, sitting in the row in front, on the shoulder.

  ‘Leslie. I want to thank you for all you’ve done.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Symington said. ‘I am sorry, Jenny.’ He meant it. He had come to respect her, and be fond of her. He would deal with Swaffield. He would make arrangements to see her again. But Symington was a professional, and a professional couldn’t carry too much weight of personal regret. Even then, he was thinking that the conduct of the case had been sensible, not perfect: his own judgement had been right throughout: the proper tactic had been, as he had pressed, to reach a settlement: the only margin of doubt was whether they should have accepted the one and only offer.

  In the same sharp, firm manner Jenny spoke to Lander, who was talking confidentially to David March. When she thanked him, he found himself, since she was smiling, smiling back.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ he said. ‘It’s an awful shame.’ Then he sobered down. ‘I must say, it was a very near thing.’

  ‘A miss is as good as a mile, isn’t it?’ said Jenny.

  He was an affectionate man, and an unusually kind one, but his piece of tactless comfort – far more than his hyper-reactive smiles – made her sag, as she left the court on Lorimer’s arm.

  Alone, March’s wig thrown on to the seat, the two counsel were continuing their talk.

  ‘This is a turn-up for the book all right,’ said David March.

  ‘You did pretty well,’ said his friend.

  ‘No. No.’ It was pleasant to win, but March had become cagey about success. He had had plenty, he liked to be honest about it when it was deserved. He said: ‘This was a piece of cake for anyone. The old boy had made up his mind before we started.’

  ‘That comes better from you than me,’ said Lander. ‘Far be it from me to disagree. Which leaves the interesting speculation: why do you get more than your share of pieces of cake, and I don’t?’

  That was said innocently, with a freedom from envy which no one but March would have believed. March did believe it, gave a slow grin, and said that, as this was their ritual night in the club, he would pay for dinner. On their way through the great hall of the Law Courts, they were wondering how long Fowke’s doctrine of uninfluenceability would stand: it was explicit, it must have been thought out for the wrong reasons (said Lander, with his lively unsuppressible tongue), and yet it might make some sort of unsympathetic, intelligible sense.

  ‘The only disadvantage,’ said March, ‘being that that’s not the way that people operate in real life.’

  While those two were confiding, Jenny was sitting in a bus on the way back to Pimlico. She sat beside her husband, but didn’t speak until they got home. Then, as they closed the sitting-room door behind them, she burst out: ‘God, I’m furious.’


  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘What’s the good of saying that?’ She began to cry. Lorimer had seen her cry before, but only at sentimental films on television, at which, to their mutual pleasure, he was prone to tears himself. Now she was crying in wretchedness – in disappointment, and also in something like impotence. Lorimer stroked her head as though she were a dog, and then went and poured her a drink.

  ‘Making a fuss,’ she said, as she put down a stiff whisky.

  ‘Never mind. Who wouldn’t?’ He added, jerky, shy: ‘I was proud of you. In court. You took it on the chin.’

  ‘Bless you, Jarvey.’ She could do with being praised. He might be jerky and shy, but to her he was by no means always inept. Yet he wouldn’t fake his praise, and she couldn’t fake it either.

  ‘No, it was easy, you know. I hadn’t got round to it then. Do you know when I realised? Not till we were waiting for the bus.’ (In fact, it was a few moments earlier, but that she suppressed.)

  ‘Never mind,’ said Lorimer.

  ‘It’s miserable. I can’t do the things I wanted to do. For us. I never shall.’

  Her face began to smooth, as though she were going to cry again.

  Lorimer said: ‘Perhaps we’re better off without it.’

  This time he was inept.

  She said: ‘Oh, save me from that. How the hell can we be?’

  Then he muttered: ‘I didn’t like that man Fowke. I don’t know what he was up to.’

  Strangely, that helped. She didn’t want to cry. Her face flushed and lined and became active. They became conspirators, like innocents in trouble, in a kind of fighting paranoia. Yes, Fowke had been working against her. There must be some personal reason (this was absolutely without foundation, but nothing could have persuaded them, and it was a support). Whom did he know? Lorimer went off to fetch an old copy of Who’s Who. Who was behind all this? Where was the enemy?