Sarah Caudwell - The Shortest Way to Hades

“Oh yes she can,” said Ragwort.

“I wouldn’t say,” said Julia, draining her glass and gazing thoughtfully into its depths, “that my client says no, exactly.” She brightened, as at some happy inspiration. “It would be better to say, I think, that she instructs me to ask for an amendment to the Arrangement. A very small amendment, really — there would hardly be any re-drafting required. I do like this claret, I’m feeling much better now — may I have some more?”

“Of course,” said Selena. “Would you like to tell us the precise nature of this small amendment?”

“The Arrangement as at present drafted provides, if my memory serves me, for a sum of twenty thousand pounds to be paid to my client on the termination of the existing life interest?” They nodded. “The amendment we have in mind,” said Julia, “is the substitution of a figure of one hundred thousand pounds.”

There was a shocked silence.

“A hundred thousand quid?” said Cantrip eventually, with apparent difficulty in finding his voice. “If you think my client’s going to fork out an extra eighty thousand quid, you must be even further round the twist than I’ve always thought. Come off it, Larwood old thing.” The professional exchanges of Chancery Counsel are not always characterized by such robust informality; but Julia and Cantrip were once on those terms conventionally called more intimate than friendship, and this perhaps accounts for it.

“My dear Cantrip,” said Julia, “it’s no use your saying ‘come off it.’ If your client wants our consent to the Arrangement, it will cost her a hundred thousand pounds. I should add that the figure is not negotiable. No doubt you will wish to take instructions — I gather Camilla’s in London this evening, so there should be no difficulty.”

“Well, I’m going to advise her to tell your client to get lost. It’s blackmail.”

“I’m sorry you feel like that about it, Cantrip, Isn’t ‘arm’s length negotiation’ more the phrase you’re looking for?”

“No, it jolly well isn’t. ‘Blackmail’ is the phrase I’m looking for.”

“Ah, well — we have been friends too long, I hope, to quarrel over a question of semantics. You must advise your client as you think best, of course. I understand, however, that the prospective liability to capital transfer tax, if nothing is done in the lifetime of the widow, is not less than three million pounds. You will surely not allow a temporary sense of pique to expose your client to so severe an encroachment on her inheritance?”

“Look here, Larwood, do be reasonable — you can’t seriously expect me to tell Tancred’s to drag Camilla out of bed in the middle of the night—”

“It’s only half past seven,” said Selena mildly.

“—well, drag her away from dinner in the middle of the evening, and tell her she’s got to cough up another eighty thousand quid—”

“I’m afraid,” said Timothy, “that it will be another hundred and sixty thousand. I’m sorry to add to your troubles, Cantrip, but if Deirdre’s going to get a hundred thousand, I don’t see how Ragwort and I can agree to less for the minor and unborn issue of Dorothea. The judge would think it very odd, you must see that.”

“Sweet suffering swordfish,” said Cantrip, clutching his forehead in an interesting dramatic gesture, “there ought to be a law against it. All right — tell Camilla that she’s got to cough up an extra hundred and sixty thousand if she wants this thing to go through and she’s got until ten-thirty tomorrow morning to decide about it.”

“The urgency,” said Julia, “is of not of my client’s making. If Camilla needs more time to reach a decision, no doubt the application can be adjourned. I don’t know, of course, how soon we could have another date for the hearing — I hear that the list is rather crowded… and the widow, I gather, is in her late eighties, and not, alas, in the best of health… Still, Cantrip, it’s entirely for you to advise your client.”

“Time was,” said Ragwort, “when a young woman just of age would not have thought it proper to obstruct the arrangements made by her elders for the preservation of the family fortune. Or, if indifferent to propriety, would not have thought it expedient. Has your client considered, Julia, how her present conduct may affect her expectations?”

“My client seems to think,” said Julia, “that she can expect little from the generosity of her relations. In reaching this conclusion, she is perhaps influenced by the fact that the occasion of her eighteenth birthday passed entirely unnoticed by the rest of the family.” Julia, a sentimental woman, looked reproachfully at Cantrip, as if holding him personally responsible for this neglect.

“Oh dear,” said Selena. “You mean they forgot it altogether? Not just its legal significance?”

“Altogether. There was not so much as a postcard. It was in striking contrast, I gather, to the celebration of Camilla’s coming of age four years ago. So my client feels that she should take advantage of the present opportunity to secure her financial independence, and it seems to her that a sum of a hundred thousand pounds is the minimum required. She realizes that she won’t have it until her grandmother dies, and that in the meantime the atmosphere in the home may be a little strained, but the prospect does not seem to trouble her unduly.”

“I see,” said Selena, rising from her chair. “I’d better ring Tancred’s, I suppose, and see if they can arrange for us all to have further instructions from our clients before half past ten tomorrow. After that, perhaps we can all go and eat something. Aren’t you joining us, Julia?” For Julia had begun that process of gathering things together which signifies her intention to depart.

“I’m afraid I can’t. Deirdre’s waiting for me in the bar at Guido’s — I said I’d take her to dinner there.” She again looked reproachfully at Cantrip. “Someone ought to do something to celebrate the poor girl’s birthday.”

On the following morning, having accepted the hospitality of the spare bed in Timothy’s flat, I woke to find him making a hurried breakfast. At nine o’clock, if the efforts of their solicitors could achieve it, the parties to the Remington-Fiske application were to be gathered together in 62 New Square to receive advice and give instructions on Julia’s minor amendment. In order to discuss certain preliminary matters with the other Counsel concerned, Timothy proposed to be there at half past eight.

There had been aroused in me a measure of curiosity about the family: I thought it would be of some interest to observe them at first hand, and I supposed there could be no objection to my presence.

“My dear Hilary,” said my former pupil, “there is every objection. The relationship between Counsel and client is one of absolute confidentiality. We could hardly expect our clients to speak frankly to us of their most intimate personal affairs”—in Lincoln’s Inn this means their financial affairs—“before an audience of gossip-mongering academics.”

When Timothy decides to be pompous, it is no use arguing with him. “Very well,” I said. “If that is your view, then naturally I respect it. I shall stay here and have a leisurely breakfast.”

“You can come to the hearing, if you like,” said Timothy, generously offering me the same freedom to sit in the public benches as is enjoyed by every citizen, and every visitor to our shores, with an hour or two to wile away in the Law Courts. “I think we’re in Court 25.”

My mind was occupied, as I finished breakfast, with musing on the English law of entails, molded through the centuries by the conflicting ambitions of the landowner and his heirs — his for a dynasty, theirs for cash. I was familiar, naturally, with the medieval procedures for barring the entail by way of fine or recovery. It occurred to me, however, that I was wholly unfamiliar with the modern form of disentailing assurance, and had no idea what signs it might give of its ancestry. Impatient, as is the way of the Scholar, to remedy immediately such a lacuna in my knowledge, I realized with vexation that the libraries of the neighborhood would not yet be open; but was pleased to remember, after a few moments, that a full set of the Encyclopædia of Forms and Precedents was to be found a mere five minutes’ walk away, in the waiting-room at 62 New Square. I could consult it at once without disturbing anyone; and none of my friends, I hoped, would grudge me so modest a favor.