This place, so vast and bare that the largest cloud of witnesses would leave it uncrowded, so high and dim that even at noon its vaulted roof seems lost in a brown haze, exercised a peculiar fascination over Julia Cavendish's only son. The Wixton in him saw it as the gigantic anteroom of traditional justice, a symbol whose hugeness hushed even scoffers to an awed silence.
For he loved his profession, this diffident, difficult young man; and, loving it, held its code, despite all the imperfections he was first to acknowledge, very high.
But this afternoon, somehow or other, the inhumanity of the place depressed him. Outside, there was sunshine, traffic, life, even love; here, only gloom and rules. As he strode diagonally across the flagstones up the tortuous staircase to "king's bench division," he met Thurston, the divorce specialist.
"Hello, Cavendish," greeted Thurston; "you've got the spicy case to-day."
Lady Hermione was standing by the embrasure of the corridor-window, talking to Sir Peter. Already a little crowd had foregathered round the glass-paneled oak doors of the court-room. She smiled at Ronnie over their heads. He smiled back at her reassuringly; caught Sir Peter's conference-forbidding eye; and pushed his way through the swing-doors and the red curtain into court.
The square, high apartment, paneled in dark oak as a church--judge's daïs, jury-box, clerk's table, and pulpit-like witness-box dominating its raked pews (above which the spectators' and judge's galleries already rustled anticipatory silks and feathers),--was still half-empty. Ronnie insinuated his long body into the junior's pew, which is behind that reserved for king's counsel, and began turning over his brief. Turning it, he could not help thinking of his "leader"--of Brunton--Brunton whose "war service" had not cost him five years' loss of briefs--Brunton, who had fame, and fat fees, and a house in Lancaster Gate . . . and Aliette for wife. The court began to fill. Twelve "special" jurymen, equally fed up with a bad lunch and the disappointment at not having been dismissed after the last case, clattered into their box. The clerk and the reporters took their places. Barristers, some with applications to present before the opening of Ellerson v. Ellerson, some mere spectators, pushed their way along the front pews. In the back pews crowded various witnesses, solicitors' clerks, and a favored few among the public who had bluffed or bribed their way in.
Lord Arthur arrived with his solicitor. They stood talking for some moments, and finally sat down. Ronnie, looking up from his brief, could see their two heads, still conferring, below him to his left. The opposing K.C., Sir Martin Duckworth, a smooth-faced, smooth-voiced politician, arrived in a very new silk gown, and asked audibly of his junior if he'd seen the plaintiff. The plaintiff and Sir Peter sidled to their places in front of the clerk's table, turning courteous backs on the defendant. Last of all, five seconds before the opening, Brunton rushed in.
Aliette's husband, looking dignified enough in full legal trappings, nodded at Ronnie; and leaned over to greet his client just as the bewigged clerk announced "Silence"; and Mr. Justice Mallory, a benevolent-looking old image--scarlet baldrick across his wide-sleeved gown, winking spectacles across his creased forehead--appeared through the curtain at the back of his daïs; was risen to by the court; and took his seat.
Various barristers rose up; presented various applications; and sat down again to hear "Ellerson v. Ellerson" or withdrew--according to the degree of busyness they had attained.
For Ellerson v. Ellerson, as "opened" a moment later by Hector Brunton, was more than a cause célèbre: it might, if fought to a decision, go down to legal history as a "test" case, a precedent established for all time. Wherefore the barristers--such as could--stayed.