The Man of Last Resort; Or, The Clients of Randolph Mason

by Melville Davisson Post

II

Robert dalton was of good blood, having descended from colonial families of degree. He was perhaps in his middle thirties, in appearance no usual man, straight as a spire, with a powerful face in which every feature seemed prominent; hair rather prematurely gray, and soft and clinging as a woman's, and withal a manner courtly to such a degree that the young, and those others unskilled in divining the natures of men, associated with Mr. Dalton relations of a so-called romantic nature. This conclusion was grossly erroneous, and led to much profitless gossip. In fact, Robert Dalton was a stern and practical man of large legal acquirements, with no more romance in his composition than a ship carpenter. In the practice of his profession he was always cold, clear headed, and technical, believing no man, and fearing no man; in truth, the wags asserted, his courtesy was in itself a libel, because of all members of the bar no one was more rigid, more exacting, or more relentless than Robert Dalton, of Carpenter, Lomax, & Dalton.

The mental build of young Dalton rendered him especially valuable as a chancery lawyer, and this department of the business he gradually assumed until it was almost entirely in his hands. For years he drafted all difficult pleadings, especially difficult under the rigid practice of the common law obtaining in the Virginias. He drafted likewise all deeds, wills, and papers of like tenor, with such unusual care and skill that he rapidly gained a reputation,—the sort of reputation which it usually requires a lifetime to establish, and the value of which is above rubies.

When the judges spoke of him they said, “If Mr. Dalton prepared this paper it is probably correct.”

It would be unwise to attribute to young Dalton an utter disregard for social relations. The error of such an assertion would readily be detected by those who knew him. In fact, he was usually present at prominent social functions, and largely sought after by reason of his magnetic nature and the charm of his vigorous mind.

The father of young Dalton had been a man of improvident habits, and, immediately upon the death of his wife, squandered his large estate in the riot of dissipation, so that his son inherited nothing but a dilapidated manor-house and a single slave. This servant, a pure negro, was deeply attached to young Dalton, and the two continued to reside in the manor-house near the city suburbs, the negro acting as cook, valet, and man-of-all-work. This manor house was one of the first built in the Virginias. It was surrounded by a long, ill-kept lawn, in which the ancient knotted oaks seemed to stand guard over the memory of some departed greatness. The house itself, covered with the green Virginia creeper, was little better than a ruin. The plaster had fallen away from the great pillars, and the walls were cracked, in places, almost to the roof.

Strangely enough, Robert Dalton never attempted to repair the estate, taking pride rather in its air of decay. This statement is not entirely accurate. He did, indeed, fit up the ancient drawing-room for the purposes of a library, thrusting in rows of bookcases beside long antique mirrors and mahogany window seats. These bookcases were filled entirely with reports of courts, late digests, the decisions of tribunals of last resort, and volume after volume on wills, contracts, and corporations, but scarcely a volume on standard or current literature. For these latter he had no inclination, and, as he apologetically explained, no time.

In this library, Dalton did most of his legal work, obtaining here freedom from interruption and the quiet which he required.

As the city developed, this neglected suburban street was seized upon and assumed as the fashionable quarter by the wealthy Eastern families. They paved it far into the country, and ruthlessly wiped out the splendid old homesteads, erecting on their ruins ostentatious palaces with prim lawns, reminding one not a little of that civilized vandalism which would cut out from its frame the superb painting of a landscape and replace therein a practical and entirely accurate map of the same landscape.

These wealthy families swept out, too, the old social customs of this city, setting up elaborate formalities and impoverishing standards of dress and entertainment.