B-Berry and I Look Back Read Online Free Page B

matter. And while we were driving back I spoke of other things. But my brain was unruly. For some reason I kept on wondering what, if she did appeal, would be the cook’s emotions when she first perceived the composition of the court.
    “Now that is the plain truth. And Daphne will bear me out.”
    “It’s perfectly true,” said Daphne. “When he came back he was like a man in a dream.”
    “I believe you,” said Jonah. “But I don’t think everyone will.”
    “I’m afraid they won’t,” said Berry. “I should add that she didn’t appeal. Possibly she inquired, as I did, by whom the appeal would be heard – and on being informed, as I was, decided that her chance of success was rather too thin.” He looked at me. “Such procedure belongs to the Magistrate’s Court at Fiddle in The Stolen March .”
    “That,” said I, “is undeniable. In fact, if I’d known it in time, I’d have put it into the book.”
    “Well, that was France – some time in the nineteen-twenties. We can all remember many maddening examples of their unbelievable inefficiency: but until that afternoon it had never entered my head that their judicial system was distinguished by an absurdity so grotesque that even Gilbert would have hesitated to introduce it into one of his incomparable extravaganzas.
    “And now it’s Boy’s turn.”
    “I can’t approach that,” I said.
    “Something intimate,” said Jonah, “that you won’t get anywhere else. For instance, can you remember your first appearance in Court? As counsel, I mean.”
    I nodded.
    “With considerable shame. I assume that you mean the first time I rose to my feet and lifted my voice.”
    “I do.”
    “It was at the Sessions at Maidstone. I appeared for the Crown in a very simple case. More. It was a plea of guilty, so I simply couldn’t go wrong. More. The presiding Justice or Chairman was Coles Child, a member of my own Club. For all that and wide as my experience already was, I was quite painfully nervous. I didn’t stammer, but I did everything else. I was quite unable to remember the conventional phrases and words – and Coles Child smiled very gently and put them into my mouth. I never felt so grateful – and so much ashamed.”
    “Darling,” said Jill, “it was understandable.”
    “It wasn’t, my sweet, for I’d seen so much of the Courts. For a year I’d been in one or the other every day – High Court, Police Court, Old Bailey. I knew the procedure backwards, as few young counsel did. And then, when my turn came, I went to bits.”
    “Did it happen again?” said Jonah.
    “Never, thank God. That dreadful occasion cured me for good and all. I bearded Eve J once, when not even the head of my chambers would touch the brief. I was, of course, terribly lucky to be before Coles Child in the second Court. For he was a most charming man. Cranbrook, presiding in the first, would have been less tolerant. He got very cross with me when I was conducting the first real case I had. To be honest, I don’t know that I blame him.”
    “Why d’you say that?”
    “It was a miscarriage of justice. I was for the defence and I got my man off.”
    Jill put in her oar.
    “Was he really guilty, Boy?”
    “I’m afraid he was.”
    “And you sit there,” said Berry, “you have the effrontery to—”
    “Let’s have it,” said Jonah. “Boy’s doing as I desired. Heaps of big shots at the Bar have written memoirs: but they never report the painful figure they cut when first they rose to their feet or how they fooled a jury into setting a felon free.”
    “Possibly,” said Berry, “they had a sense of decency.”
    “Rubbish,” said Daphne. “They didn’t want people to know. Boy mayn’t have been a big shot, but at least he’s honest about it.”
    I began to laugh.
    “There you are,” said Berry. “He finds this outrageous memory matter for mirth. Never mind. Don’t keep us waiting.”
    “As a matter of fact,” said I, “I was thinking of