B-Berry and I Look Back

by Dornford Yates

  “Sorry,” I said. “Of the Judges of today, I know almost next to nothing. They’re probably very good. One or two, I know, are outstanding. But how they compare with those of The Golden Age, I cannot tell.” I hesitated. “A photograph I once saw made me think. It was taken in the early thirties, and it was a close-up of the two Judges who were taking some Summer Assize. They were walking side by side in procession from their coach to the doors of the Court.

  “I think we’ve all seen that procession – I’ve seen it many times. As the Judges leave the coach, a fanfare of trumpets is blown and they pass slowly up the steps, with the High Sheriff walking before them, wand in hand. The little ceremony is one of the shreds of pageantry which survive, and it can be very impressive.

  “Well, now for the photograph – of Her Majesty’s Justices in Eyre.

  “The taller of the two cut a very dignified figure, wearing his robes with an air, looking straight before him – and wholly ignoring his ‘brother’, who was poking his head towards him, talking as if they were strolling in some back-garden, with his right hand thrust up and out, to emphasize some point. He made me think of a charwoman arguing with a statue; and, remembering other days, I was profoundly shocked. I mean, it showed that the dignity of his high office, the tradition with which it is endowed and the honour which was at that moment being done it meant no more to him than did the bananas which were probably being hawked half a dozen streets away.”

  “A very vulgar exhibition,” said Berry.

  “‘Vulgar,’ I’m afraid,” said I, “is the appropriate word. After all, the Red Judge is Her Majesty’s representative, and the honour and dignity which he is accorded is rendered to him as such. To disregard it is, therefore, offensive. If the Lord Chief saw the photograph – and it was certainly in The Telegraph, if not in The Times – I hope and believe that he fairly put it across him.”

  “Who was the Lord Chief then?”

  “Trevethin, I think. How he did, I don’t know: but he wasn’t up to Alverstone’s weight. I remember him as Lawrence J. I may be prejudiced, for he once gave me a bad time.”

  “How was that?” said Daphne.

  “Well, I was defending a fellow at, we’ll say, the Lewes Assizes. His crime was pardonable, and I did my best to get him off. And Lawrence embarrassed me by interrupting – not once, but again and again.”

  “Please tell us the facts.”

  “The accused had been a grocer’s assistant. Then he was left a legacy – five hundred pounds. So he determined to set up for himself.

  “Now, before I go any further, I think I should make it clear that he was a full-marks fool. Not a knave. There was in the man no guile. He meant to be ‘The Poor Man’s Grocer’ – and make his own fortune in his peculiar way.

  “The first thing he did was to get a shop in a poor quarter of the town. Then he went to an established grocer. ‘What is the price,’ he said, ‘of, say, ‘Rainbow soap?’ ‘Threepence a cake,’ said the grocer. ‘What’s the price to me, if I take a thousand cakes?’ Well, after a little discussion, the grocer sold him a thousand at twopence a cake. So he carted them off to his shop and started to sell Rainbow soap at twopence halfpenny. You see the idea? Small profits, quick returns. He did that with all kinds of goods. But it didn’t occur to him that no one, not even a grocer, likes being under-cut. Still less did it occur to him that the wholesale price of Rainbow soap was a penny a cake. But it certainly shook him up, when he found one afternoon that a cake of Rainbow soap was being sold for twopence at every shop except his. And it was the same thing with everything. The grocers showed him what undercutting meant. After all, it was only a temporary measure. As soon as he was broken, the price of soap would rise.

  “Well, the poor fool tried to go on. With the inevitable result that he ordered more stuff than he could pay for. He had to sell much at a loss, to pay his bills. And in the end he was summoned for obtaining goods by false pretences. In fact, he’d been robbing Peter to pay Paul.

  “I tried my best to make the poor man plead guilty, but that he would not do. So the case came to be tried. I had only one good card – and that was this. That before he started business, he’d been to see the Chief Constable of the Borough, laid his plan before him and had asked whether there was any objection in law to what he proposed to do. And the Chief Constable said there wasn’t and wished him luck. And now that same Chief Constable headed the list of witnesses for the Crown.

  “Well, you may imagine that when I rose to cross-examine, I didn’t spare him. To my mind, he’d failed in his duty. When the accused had submitted his scheme, it was for him, as Chief Constable, to tell him not to be a fool and that, if he really meant to set up his shop, he must buy his stock from the wholesalers. But he didn’t even do that: he said that the absurd idea was unobjectionable and wished its creator luck. And so, as I say, I didn’t spare him. You know. ‘When you applied for a summons against the accused, did you tell the Bench that this scheme had been submitted to you and that you had approved it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why didn’t you?’ ‘I didn’t think it was necessary.’ ‘Necessary or advisable?’ Well, it was easy money – at least it should have been. But Lawrence kept pulling me up. ‘What’s the point of that question, Mr Pleydell?’ Well, it’s distracting you know, to have to stop and explain – and then pick up the thread. To a more experienced counsel, it wouldn’t have mattered at all. But it greatly embarrassed me: and it helped and encouraged the witness, who naturally felt that the Judge was taking his part. When he’d interrupted me for about the fourth time, I looked at him in silence. Then, ‘My lord,’ I said, ‘my task is difficult enough… If your lordship feels that it is not for me to question the propriety of this officer’s behaviour, so be it.’ He looked damned hard at me, and I looked back. Then, ‘Go on,’ he said. And he didn’t interrupt me again. But I found the flurry upsetting – inexperience again, of course – and so I lost a case which I think I ought to have won.”

  “You have all my sympathy,” said Berry. “If Lawrence had left you alone, your cross-examination would have won the case.”

  “I don’t know that mine would. That of a better man would have got the prisoner off. Still, if he’d have pleaded guilty, I think I could have got him bound over. I mean, he’d lost all his money, and, generally, I had a very strong case for mitigation. But, there you are. That is the way things go.”

  “But what was biting Lawrence?” said Jonah. “I mean, the Chief Constable merited censure for what he’d done.”

  “I’ve no idea,” I said. “Channel would have put it across him – I’m sure of that. Lawrence may have had some notion of maintaining the dignity of the police.”

  “And Lord Alverstone?”

  I laughed.

  “I’ll tell you what he would have done. He’d have taken the cross-examination out of my hands, asked four or five deadly questions and then told me to go on. And I should have bowed and sat down.”

  “No reflection on you, I hope.”

  “Oh no. He’d have done it to anyone – any junior, any way. In one of my books, somebody says, ‘Have you ever watched a fool untying a knot?’ Well, Alverstone’s brain was so great and his discernment so swift that in court he continually found himself in that most trying position. Hence his impatience, which I have mentioned before. But I never saw him lose his temper. And considering that, compared with him, nearly all men were fools, I think that does him infinite credit.”

  My sister lifted her voice.

  “Wasn’t it rather frightening to appear before him?”

  I shook my head.

  “I never found it so. I was always conscious of the benevolence of his tremendous personality. And so I was never afraid. There’s room for a fable there – ‘The Mouse and the Elephant’.”

  “What about Darling?”

  “Darling was nobody’s fool. If he’d been trying the case, he’d have asked the Chief Constable if he’d ever heard of Machiavelli. And when the Chief Constable said no, he’d h
ave said, ‘Oh, I only wondered. He was rather a believer in not letting his right hand know what his left hand had done. There’s a lot in it, you know. According to the best traditions, you did your alms in secret. And then to go and tell the Bench would have spoiled everything.’”

  “Lovely,” said Berry. “Lost on the jury, of course.”

  “I’m afraid so. But the Chief Constable would have felt he was being got at and have got all hot and bothered, as a result.”

  “I think it was a shame,” said Jill. “After all, he’d lost all his money. What did the Judge give him?”

  “I can’t remember,” I said. “I think perhaps three months. Darling would have given him one, which would have meant that he was immediately released, and the Lord Chief, I think, would have done the same.”

  “Why,” said Daphne, “would he have been immediately released?”

  “Because, my sweet, he’d lain in jail for a month, waiting for the Assizes.”

  “Supposing he’d been found ‘Not Guilty’. He’d have been in prison a month, although he was innocent.”

  “I know. But that can’t be helped. A man must await his trial. And if he can’t get bail – well, that’s just too bad. It’s just one of those things. It’s obviously impossible to try every prisoner the instant he has been committed for trial. And those who are acquitted are so glad to get off that they never worry about their temporary detention.

  “And now please let me qualify something which I have just said. I think that in my day the sentence of one month would have meant the prisoner’s immediate release. But I may be wrong. In any event to ensure his immediate release today, the Judge would have to sentence him to two days’ imprisonment only.”

  “Why two days?” said Berry.

  “Because today – and possibly in my time – all sentences passed at the Assizes run from the Commission Day, which is the day before the Judge opens the Assize.”

  “I see. So that if a man is given fifteen years on the first day he will have the consolation of knowing that he’s only got fourteen years three hundred and sixty-three days to serve. I wonder what his reactions are when he is told of that munificence.”

  “I don’t suppose they tell him till the last week. By that time it’s a pleasant surprise.”

  “I see,” said Berry, thoughtfully. “Oh, and I do wish you’d remember better. These afterthoughts are most distracting.”

  “How dare you?” said Daphne. “He remembers wonderfully. And it’s only because he’s so anxious to be accurate—”

  “All right, all right,” said Berry. “But I had a most valuable question on the tip of my tongue, and now—”

  “Exactly,” said Daphne. “Two minutes later you’ve forgotten what it was. But Boy goes back fifty years.”

  “That,” said her husband, “is a perversion of the – Oh, I know. I’ve recaptured it. What a tour de force! Never mind.” He addressed himself to me. “Protests such as that you made to Lawrence were rarely made?”

  “In my day they were. Counsel had to be pretty desperate before taking such a course. I remember that Lawson Walton, the very distinguished ‘silk’ who was defending Whitaker Wright, protested to Bigham J in much the same way. But his plight was worse than mine, for, as I have said elsewhere, all through that case Bigham showed a remarkable bias against the accused. I have never understood this, for Bigham was a very good Judge. There was then no Court of Criminal Appeal. If there had been, and Whitaker Wright had appealed, I really believe that the Court would have quashed the conviction upon that ground. Still, no injustice was done, for Wright deserved to go down.

  “But that’s by the way. To have to make such a protest upset me very much. And I was very uneasy, in case I had gone too far. After all, a Judge is a Judge, and I was very young. But Arthur Denman was there, as Clerk of Assize, and he never looked at me or summoned me afterwards: and I think that he would have done both, if he’d disapproved. And so I was comforted.”

  “Denman was a stickler?”

  “An unofficial elegantiae arbiter. His own manner was above reproach. No man did more than Denman to uphold the dignity of the Court. He had a great admiration for Darling – an admiration which, as you know, I shared. And I often feel that, when people speak lightly of Darling as a Judge, they would do well to remember the high esteem in which Arthur Denman held him. And Denman was the son of a High Court Judge and the grandson of a Lord Chief Justice of England.”

  “Am I right in saying,” said Jonah, “that the Lord Chancellor is a Judge?”

  “You are, indeed. He seldom sits now, except to deal with appeals to the House of Lords. But he can sit anywhere. In Bleak House the Lord Chancellor is sitting as a Chancery Judge in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. And in our own time, shortly after the first great war, Birkenhead sat in the Law Courts day after day. I always think it did him great credit.”

  “How so?” said Berry.

  “Well, the Lord Chancellor’s job is quite tiring enough. But during the war the Divorce Courts got terribly behind with their lists. All the time, more and more divorces were being sought. So morning after morning Birkenhead came down and helped to reduce the lists. He was very expeditious and stood no nonsense at all, with the happy result that very great progress was made and the lists which had been so swollen, began to assume their normal proportions.”

  “What about Jeffreys?”

  “So far as I know, he never sat as a Judge after he became Lord Chancellor. When he behaved so ruthlessly in Somerset, he was Lord Chief Justice. I don’t think it’s realized that he was an extraordinarily brilliant man. He was called to the Bar when he was twenty, rose very fast, became Common Serjeant when he was twenty-three and Recorder of London seven years later. Five years later he was made Lord Chief Justice, and two years later Lord Chancellor. For a short life of only forty-one years, I don’t think that’s too bad.”

  “I should think it’s a record,” said Daphne.

  “Isn’t it a fact,” said Jonah, “that he was not so bad as he’s painted?”

  “I believe that’s accepted now. He was sent on the Bloody Assize with instructions to ‘weigh it out’, and he certainly did. I’m not defending him, but the times were hard times and the unhappy people he tried were charged with high treason. ‘Judge Jeffreys’ is, of course, a misnomer. He should be known as ‘Jeffreys, LCJ’ or ‘Lord Jeffreys’.”

  “The Garrick Club,” said Berry. “Weren’t some members of the Bar members of that?”

  I nodded.

  “Only a few, I think. Treasury Counsel, mostly. Marshall Hall was a member, I know.”

  “Why Treasury Counsel?”

  “I fancy it was because they belonged to the Criminal Bar, and their cases were, therefore, more dramatic than those of the Civil Courts. And, while Marshall Hall was a Common Lawyer, I don’t have to tell you how often he was briefed for the defence of those committed for trial. I was a guest at the Garrick once or twice. It was a very nice Club. But it really belonged to the Stage and to those connected with the stage. If you couldn’t keep the hours the Stage kept, to my mind it wasn’t much fun. I mean, a feature of the Club was the great supper table, at which members would sit to all hours; and at eight or half past, when most people used to dine, most of the members of the Garrick were on the stage. Then, again, a member of the Bar could seldom sit over his lunch. But it was a great institution, and they’ve got some beautiful pictures.”

  “Who took you in?”

  “I can’t, for the life of me, remember, but it wasn’t a member of the Bar. It may have been Arthur Bourchier, or, possibly, Harry Irving. Or both, on different occasions.”

  “Tree?”

  “No. I never went there with Tree.” I hesitated. Then, “But the mention of Tree has made me remember something. Dion Clayton Calthrop once told me that it was his father, John Clayton, who taught Tree how to make up. I think that is of interest: for Beerbohm Tree was famous for his makeup.”

  “How did you come to know
Calthrop?”

  “He was the Master of the Robes of the Oxford Pageant. I don’t suppose you could have had a better man. He was a delightful fellow, and very talented. His book on English Costume is still the standard work upon that subject.”

  “Shall you ever forget Tree’s make-up as Fagin?”

  “I shall not. Nor his interpretation, either.”

  “Don’t,” said Daphne.

  “The death of Nancy?”

  “Yes. It was the most dreadful thing that I’ve ever seen.”

  “It was very shocking,” said Berry. “But you must give Tree full marks. It’s not in the book, of course. It was his idea.”

  “I never saw it,” said Jonah. “I was abroad when he put up Oliver Twist.”

  My sister rose.

  “Well, they can tell you about it. Jill and I’ll go on up. But do come up when it’s done – it’s long past twelve.”

  My wife laid her head against mine.

  “Mustn’t I hear it, darling?”

  “I don’t think I should, my sweet.”

  She got to her feet.

  “All right. But don’t sit up.”

  As the door closed behind them –

  “Well, you know the story,” said I. “Nancy is overheard putting a spoke in Fagin’s wheel. Although pressed to do so, she refuses to give the gang away. But Fagin is so mad at having his plans spoiled that he tells Sikes that Nancy has betrayed them all. And Sikes murders her. The murder is done off stage, but the audience hear it take place. This was the scene. Fagin is standing in a passage, listening, beside a closed door. The stage is dark, except for the candle which Fagin is holding, close to his face. You hear Nancy’s frantic protests of her innocence and then her pleading for mercy: then you hear her struggles, as she tries to avoid her doom, and, finally, her screams as the murderer has his way. But all you ever see is Fagin’s face, and the hideous satisfaction which lights it, as the screams sink to whimpers and then die out. When the last whimper has died, with a smile of extraordinary evil, the Jew blows the candle out.”