Walter Besant - The Ivory Gate, a new edition

Mr. Dering lay back in his chair, gazing at the door – the unromantic office door – through which Elsie had just passed. I suppose that even the driest of old bachelors and lawyers may be touched by the sight of a young girl made suddenly and unexpectedly happy. Perhaps the mere apparition of a lovely girl, dainty and delicate and sweet, daintily and delicately apparelled, so as to look like a goddess or a wood-nymph rather than a creature of clay, may have awakened old and long-forgotten thoughts before the instincts of youth were stifled by piles of parchment. It is the peculiar and undisputed privilege of the historian to read thoughts, but it is not always necessary to write them down.

He sat up and sighed. 'I have not told her all,' he murmured. 'She shall be happier still.' He touched his hand-bell. 'Checkley,' he said, 'ask Mr. Austin kindly to step this way. – A day of surprise – of joyful surprise – for both.'

It was indeed to be a day of good fortune, as you shall see.

He opened a drawer and took out a document rolled and tied, which he laid upon the table before him.

George obeyed the summons, not without misgiving, for Elsie, he knew, must by this time have had the dreaded interview, and the call might have some reference to his own share in the great contumacy. To incur the displeasure of his employer in connection with that event might lead to serious consequences.

Astonishing thing! Mr. Dering received him with a countenance that seemed transformed. He smiled benevolently upon him. He even laughed. He smiled when George opened the door: he laughed when, in obedience to a gesture of invitation, George took a chair. He actually laughed: not weakly or foolishly, but as a strong man laughs.

'I want ten minutes with you, George Austin' – he actually used the Christian name – 'ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, or perhaps half an hour.' He laughed again. 'Now, then' – his face assumed its usual judicial expression, but his lips broke into unaccustomed smiles – 'Now then, sir, I have just seen my ward – my former ward, for she is now of age – and have heard – well – everything there was to hear.'

'I have no doubt, sir, that what you heard from Elsie was the exact truth.'

'I believe so. The questions which I put to her I also put to you. How do you propose to live? On your salary? You have been engaged to my late ward without asking the permission of her guardians – that is, her mother and myself.'

'That is not quite the case. We found that her mother opposed the engagement, and therefore it was not necessary to ask your permission. We agreed to let the matter rest until she should be of age. Meanwhile, we openly corresponded and saw each other.'

'It is a distinction without a difference. Perhaps what you would call a legal distinction. You now propose to marry. Elsie Arundel is no longer my ward; but, as a friend, I venture to ask you how you propose to live? A wife and a house cost money. Shall you keep house and wife on your salary alone? Have you any other resources?'

There are several ways of putting these awkward questions. There is especially the way of accusation, by which you charge the guilty young man of being by his own fault one of a very huge family – of having no money and no expectations – nothing at all, unless he can make it for himself. It is the manner generally adopted by parents and guardians. Mr. Dering, however, when he put the question smiled genially and rubbed his hands – a thing so unusual as to be terrifying in itself – as if he was uttering a joke – a thing he never had done in his life. The question, however, even when put in this, the kindest way, is one most awkward for any young man, and especially to a young man in either branch of the law, and most especially to a young man beginning the ascent of the lower branch.

Consider, of all the professions, crowded as they are, there is none so crowded as this branch of the law. 'What,' asks anxious Quiverful Père, 'shall I do with this boy of mine? I will spend a thousand pounds upon him and make him a solicitor. Once he has passed, the way is clear for him.' 'How,' asks the ambitious man of trade, 'shall I advance my son? I will make him a lawyer; once passed he will open an office and get a practice and become rich. He will be a gentleman. And his children will be born gentlemen.' Very good; a most laudable custom it is in this realm of Great Britain for the young men still to be pressing upwards, though those who are already high up would fain forget the days of climbing and sneer at those who are making their way. But, applied to this profession, climbing seems no longer practicable. This way of advance will have to be abandoned.

Consider, again. Every profession gets rich out of its own mine. There is the mine Ecclesiastic, the mine Medical, the mine Artistic, the mine Legal. The last-named contains leases, covenants, agreements, wills, bonds, mortgages, actions, partnerships, transfers, conveyances, county courts, and other treasures, all to be had for the digging. But – and this is too often forgotten – there is only a limited quantity to be taken out of the mine every year, and there is not enough to go round, except in very minute portions. And since, until we become socialists at heart, we shall all of us continue to desire for our share that which is called the mess of Benjamin, and since all cannot get that mess – which Mr. Dering had enjoyed for the whole of his life – or anything like that desirable portion, most young solicitors go in great heaviness of spirit – hang their heads, corrugate their foreheads, write despairing letters to the girls they left behind them, and with grumbling gratitude take the hundred or two hundred a year which is offered for their services as managing clerks. Again, the Legal mine seems of late years not to yield anything like so much as formerly. There has been a cruel shrinkage all over the country, and especially in country towns: the boom of building seems to have come to an end: the agricultural depression has dragged down with it an immense number of people who formerly flourished with the lawyers, and, by means of their savings, investments, leases, and partnerships and quarrels, made many a solicitor fat and happy. That is all gone. It used to be easy, if one had a little money, to buy a partnership. Now it is no longer possible, or, at least, no longer easy. Nobody has a business greater than he himself can manage; everybody has got a son coming in.

These considerations show why the question was difficult to answer.

Said George in reply, but with some confusion: 'We are prepared to live on little. We are not in the least extravagant: Elsie will rough it. Besides, she has her Art – '

'Out of which she makes at present nothing a year.'

'But she will get on – and I may hope, may reasonably hope, some time to make an income larger than my present one.'

'You may hope – you may hope. But the position is not hopeful. In fact, George Austin, you must marry on ten times your present income, or not at all.'

'But I assure you, sir, our ideas are truly modest, and we have made up our minds how we can live and pay our way.'

'You think you have. That is to say, you have prepared a table of expenses showing how, with twopence to spare, you can live very well on two hundred pounds a year. Of course you put down nothing for the thousand and one little unexpected things which everybody of your education and habits pays for every day.'

'We have provided as far as we can see.'

'Well, it won't do. Of course, I can't forbid the girl to marry you. She is of age. I can't forbid you – but I can make it impossible – impossible for you, Master Austin – impossible.'

He rapped the table. The words were stern, but the voice was kindly, and he smiled again as he spoke. 'You thought you would do without me, did you? Well – you shall see – you shall see.'