A Marriage of Convenience (40 page)

Pained by the letter, but thankful to be able to exonerate her, Clinton showed it to Serjeant Alderson at their next interview. The lawyer’s sceptical response surprised him. Certainly restoration of conjugal rights would be of greater value to the lady. But she could still sue him for them afterwards. And if she did, though the first trial could not be referred to, it would be most unlikely that a later jury could be entirely ignorant of the earlier proceedings. The lady would also know that by appearing in an action brought by her father, she could seem reluctant to testify, and this would win her the immediate sympathy of the jury.

Unimpressed by these remarks, another of Alderson’s suggestions did disconcert Clinton, since it arose from questions that had already troubled him. Why had Theresa never spoken to him before writing to the priest for the wedding certificate? And how had it then been allowed to fall into Louise’s hands? Alderson’s inevitable explanation was that Theresa had always doubted the validity of the marriage and had therefore set about strengthening it. As soon as her father and daughter were persuaded that a genuine marriage had taken place, the later chances for retraction would be greatly reduced. Clinton rejected this at once, but still could not
satisfactorily
explain why she had at first kept the certificate a secret from him. But remembering how fears of her reaction had originally discouraged him from quickly disclosing the true basis of their marriage, he did not feel inclined to leap to definite conclusions.

Nothing said by Alderson against the other side, made Clinton as bitter as the humiliating interviews he had with Sophie and her father later that week. The wedding invitations had not been sent out, but Sophie had already discussed her dress with her
dressmaker
, and the bridesmaids and pages had been chosen. Worse for Clinton than Sophie’s grief, had been her unshakable belief that the court would vindicate him. He did his best to warn her what to expect, but her powers of self-deception seemed invincible. He tried to persuade her that they ought not to be seen together until the case ended, but she hotly disagreed. He had told her about Theresa before proposing, and she had not rejected him then. Should she do so now because he was being threatened by the woman? The girl’s
unswerving faith in him hurt Clinton more than any indignation could have done.

Sophie had listened in stricken silence while he had explained matters. Her normally phlegmatic father wept, and later became uncontrollably angry. He told Clinton that if Sophie refused to break off her engagement, it was his duty to break it for her. Clinton refused; offering to retract only if it were put in writing that he did so solely to avoid involving Sophie in his public difficulties and had stated his willingness to honour his contract with her. Clinton suspected that Lucas wanted to sue him for misrepresentation, but since this would be impossible to prove until judgment in
Simmonds
’s case, there was nothing further the outraged father could do, except to forbid all further meetings with his daughter till the conclusion of the case.

Two days later,
The
Times
carried a terse statement on the Court page to the effect that the marriage between the Viscount Ardmore and Miss Sophie Lucas, previously announced for April, had been postponed. From the country, Sophie sent Clinton a miniature of herself, but in spite of the note enclosed with it, promising never to give him up, Clinton was sure that her father would cut her off rather than let her keep her pledge. If she did not realise this now, newspaper accounts of the proceedings would soon persuade her.

In late June Theresa was served with a subpoena to give evidence in the forthcoming trial of Simmonds v Ardmore. A month earlier she had warned her father that if he went ahead, she would reveal in court that she had been Clinton’s mistress before her supposed marriage, and had also stood in the same relation to his brother. But the old man had remained unmoved—his composure evidently founded on his absolute certainty that Clinton was bluffing and would back down before the trial opened. Convinced by his lawyers that Ardmore had no chance of winning, the major thought it out of the question that he would risk adding a galling public defeat to his other humiliations.

With the trial still a month away, Theresa accepted a part in a burlesque at the Marylebone Theatre; anything seeming better to her than sitting thinking about what lay ahead. During the first private dress rehearsal, just as she was leaving the stage at the end of the second act, she was astonished to see her father arguing with the prompter and several stagehands. She led him away from the scene flats to the back of the wings. Above them shaded gas-lights burned blankly against bare brickwork. The property man and a carpenter pushed past, dragging a large table towards the stage. Her father said dully:

‘He’s going to go through with it.’

‘It’s what I’ve always told you. What’s finally changed your mind?’

‘His counsel’s made an application for a change of venue. He wants the case tried in Ireland.’

Theresa’s eyes conveyed faint derision.

‘I thought your lawyers told you he’d never dare invoke the Irish Marriage Act.’

‘It won’t help him,’ he replied sharply; his confidence belied by the nervous movements of his hands. ‘He’ll outrage every Catholic in court, and lose any chance of a fair trial.’

Theresa said mildly:

‘Possibly his counsel has other ideas?’

‘Just shows the funk they’re in. They can’t deny a marriage took place, so they’re reduced to that despicable Act of Parliament as a last resort.’

A crowd of loud-voiced perspiring girls in short fancy petticoats clattered past them in the direction of the dressing rooms. A call boy came up and told Theresa that her dresser was looking for her. She turned to her father, whose face seemed grey in the dim light. He looked haggard and very frail.

‘You’d better say what you want,’ she said gently.

He did not answer at once, but looked at a group of men clustered around the limelights, changing the glass filters to red. Smoke braziers were being put in place. The last act started with the hero escaping from a fire.

‘Father, please,’ she whispered.

He nodded and raised his hands.

‘I know … I know. The fact is … though there’s still plenty of time for him to throw in the towel … he may not.’

‘He won’t. He thinks I’ve betrayed him.’

The major flapped the loose sleeves of his cape like some enormous bat.

‘
You
did … that’s good, very good.’ The smoke had started to swirl about and made him cough. He moved closer to her and took her hand tenderly. ‘You’ve got to see my counsel. They’ll try to blacken your character … he’s got to take you through the sort of questions you’ll face in cross-examination.’

‘I won’t deny what happened in church.’

‘They’ll try to make out you knew it was a fraud.’

‘Then I’ll disagree.’

‘Just one interview with the man … just one,’ he implored.

She hesitated a moment before shaking her head. He said flatly:

‘I’m done for if we lose.’

‘Then stop it now,’ she cried. ‘You can’t owe counsel much yet.’

‘I can’t stop. Do you think I haven’t been tempted to? Haven’t seen myself as a fool for my pains? I’m not just fighting him, but you too … and that damned Act gives him a chance of a verdict. Listen, if you let yourself down in the witness box …’ He broke off and hung his head.

‘Give it up then,’ she said coaxingly. ‘None of us gain by it. Why should we be estranged from one another … you and I?’
Somewhere
above them a bell clanged noisily.

‘But you
married
him,’ he burst out at last. ‘You still believe it. I’m not blind … I know that.’ His voice had sunk very low. ‘You might have had his child, and he deserted you … Did
that,
and you still want to protect him.’ He shook his head helplessly, and she saw
tears glistening in his eyes. He turned away abruptly and said in a shaking voice: ‘He’ll not dishonour you. Not while I’ve strength left to prevent it. How can I let you cheat yourself? See another woman’s child get everything yours should have had?’ As she moved away he came after her. ‘If you prove yourself his wife you won’t have to live with him. There’ll be a judicial separation.’

‘I want to forget,’ she shouted, suddenly distraught.

He leant against the wall, apparently drained; but as she hurried away, he still pursued her.

‘Would you rather see him tried for bigamy in a few years time?’ Again the smoke caught in his throat and he doubled up coughing. ‘It’ll come out in the end,’ he gasped as his parting shot, but she was already too far away to hear. One of the men near the limelight clapped him on the back.

‘Don’t you worry about bigamy, old man. Just you keep asking.’ He broke into a spluttering laugh. ‘Ain’t it bloody marvellous … at his age … and with that one too.’

All around him people were laughing. The major looked at them in disbelief.

Clinton’s counsel’s application to the High Court to have the trial conducted in the Irish Courts—on the grounds that they alone had jurisdiction in cases involving points of law arising from specifically Irish statutes—was contested by the other side. Because of the complex judicial and constitutional relationship of the two
countries
bequeathed by the Act of Union, three months were to pass before the legal argument was finally resolved in Clinton’s favour.

Before embarking on this preliminary litigation, Mr Serjeant Alderson had been at pains to give his client vivid examples to show the weight of public prejudice that would be arrayed against him if he claimed immunity under the Irish Marriage Act. He would probably need protection during the trial, and it would be unsafe for him to stay in a hotel or visit any public resort. To the serjeant’s surprise, Lord Ardmore had seemed entirely undismayed by the prospect of events which the barrister himself viewed with such apprehension. Nevertheless, after careful consideration of Father Maguire’s proof of evidence, the serjeant had felt that opposing counsel’s chance of establishing the
fact
of a marriage was too good to justify pinning the defence too tightly to that issue. If the judge seemed likely to rule that a marriage had taken place, then its legal validity could only be challenged under Irish legislation. Alderson prided himself on having won cases for a number of exceptionally unpopular defendants.

Having started by believing Lord Ardmore a scoundrel, the serjeant had soon revised this opinion. Placed in a similar
predicament
, he had no doubt at all that he, and most other men he knew, would have attempted to make almost any compromise to avoid defending such an action in court—hoping that as time passed and tempers cooled, a day would come when the other side would agree to settle for money. This course should have been particularly tempting to a man with expectations from an elderly relative. But when the serjeant-at-law had tactfully tried to suggest that there could be ways to smother the scandal, Lord Ardmore had hardly listened. Failure to defend himself, he had argued, would not only
be seen as an admission that he had proposed to a girl, knowing he had no right to do so, but also as proof that he had all along considered himself married to somebody else; and worse still, to a woman whose loyalty and forebearance he had exploited in order to desert and betray. Alderson had pointed out that, if matters were carefully handled, very few people would ever have the opportunity to entertain such partisan suspicions. These few people, Ardmore had replied, were the only ones who concerned him. Society at large could think what it pleased.

In spite of an habitual mistrust of anything that smacked of
self-righteousness
, or chivalrous fidelity to a lost cause, Serjeant
Alderson
had been unusually impressed. When shortly afterwards, Clinton had shown a wonderfully astringent sense of humour, the barrister had been entirely won over. A week or so after the first appearance of speculative press comments linking Lord Ardmore’s name with an impending scandal, the secretary of the Cavalry Club had asked for his resignation in front of several witnesses. While Clinton had been able to forgive journalists for being curious when a nobleman decided to defend an action for the recovery of a small debt in the Irish Courts, he had been less charitable to the club secretary and had served him with a writ for slander. Afraid that they had made a mistake, and not wanting to pay for it, the committee had not supported the secretary, who had been obliged to make an
unreserved
apology. A few days later Clinton had resigned, telling the secretary in front of a roomful of members that he did not care to belong to a club where an official could remain in office after admitting he had slandered a fellow member.

In due course all the witnesses required by both sides had been traced and interviewed, material documents secured, and the original pleadings amended. In September a trial date was fixed for 3 November.

There was a good deal about the case that interested Serjeant Alderson professionally and personally; but he had a number of worries, and the worst by far was his uncertainty about what Lord Ardmore would say in the witness box. Alderson’s strong impression was that his client had decided to reserve his position until he heard what colouring his former mistress chose to give her evidence. The barrister therefore reluctantly made up his mind not to press any more emphatically until the trial was under way. On balance he believed he would be able to shake Ardmore’s faith in her
sufficiently
during the opening stages to make him reconsider his evidence.

The serjeant-at-law was keenly aware that the first two days would win or lose him the case. Success would largely depend on his
cross-examination of the actress. That she would be accomplished and beautiful, he had no doubt. Lord Ardmore was not a fool, and yet, because of this woman, he had done a remarkably foolish thing. The other side’s solicitors had disclosed three letters written by her to the defendant, and these very clearly showed that she was
quick-witted
and intelligent. The impetuous tone of various passages encouraged Alderson to believe that he would do best to make her lose her temper. Even a clever actress would find it hard to maintain a pose of pathetic innocence while trying to hide burning
indignation
. The serjeant counted on learning a lot from her examination by opposing counsel, which would precede his own.

When he left Holyhead for Dublin two days before the trial was due to begin, Mr Serjeant Alderson was not despondent. As always before a case, he thought victory possible, but he could not remember any other action, in which, at this stage in the
proceedings
, he had been quite so incapable of forming a realistic estimate of his chances. The case would largely swing on the behaviour of the two protagonists in the witness box, and any predictions on this score could only be guesswork. Whether the judge would direct the jury fairly was also an open question. Public pressure on him to do otherwise would inevitably be very great.

The serjeant had many attributes envied by his colleagues, and one was his ability to snatch moments of sleep in almost any circumstances. Though the sea crossing to Dublin was unpleasantly rough that week, while most of the other passengers were being sick, Lord Ardmore’s advocate slept soundly.