Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Divorce a vinculo - Part 1
DIVORCE A VINCULO; or, THE TERRORS OF
SIR CRESSWELL CRESSWELL.
young gentleman who had spent his early life in those pleasant regions which lie immediately around the Primate’s residence in Lambeth, and at the Surrey end of Westminster Bridge, was asked who, in his opinion, was the most powerful man in the world? He replied, without a moment’s hesitation, “Mr. Norton, the Lambeth Beak.” From his own point of view, the boy was perfectly in the right. The worthy magistrate named was the Nemesis of his little world—omnipresent—omniscient—omnipotent.
I am inclined, however, to think that had this smutty young neophyte of civilisation enjoyed wider opportunities of observation; could he have enlarged the sphere of his mental vision so as to take in the territory and population comprised within the limits of the British empire—Scotland and Ireland excepted—he would have reconsidered his cruder and earlier decision. It may be that he would finally have agreed with me that, powerful and dreadful as Mr. Norton undoubtedly is, if we wish to arrive at a notion of incarnate omnipotence—always within the limits named—Sir Cresswell Cresswell is the man.
What can Queen Victoria—God bless her!—do to me, or for me, either of good or harm? I am not a courtier, nor in the way of preferment. What do I care for Lord Chancellor Campbell? I feel humbly, but deeply and unfeignedly, grateful to the All-wise Disposer of events that I have not, nor am I likely to have, one shilling in the world over which the gentlemen of the Chancery Bar can wrangle, and charge me eighteenpence for talking about it. The fifteen judges of the land—with the exception of those two sly Puisnes who, from time to time, clutch hold of awful Sir Cresswell’s mantle, and shine for an hour or two by borrowed light—are to me but as fifteen cabbages—or, let me rather say, regard being had to their head-dress—fifteen goodly cauliflowers. I am not a murderer, nor a burglar, nor a joint-stock-bank director, nor a family solicitor. As they pass me by in full assize majesty with their attendant javelin-men, I can put my hands in my pockets and hum, under their very parchment noses—
“Shepherds, tell me, have you seen
My Flora pass this way?”
But, even as I say the word, my mind misgives me: not, as I before stated, that I care one button about their Nisi Prius trumpery—but, Flora dear! even as I pronounce thy beloved name, and my mind goes pleasantly lounging amongst pink bonnets of the sweetest kind—Twickenham eyots—shadow dances contemplated from easy stalls with abundant leg-room—snug little suppers in perspective—jaunts in Helvetia, where I propose to myself to show you (I mean thee) snowy mountains for the first time—I mark two little clouds rising in the far west, each no bigger than a man’s hand, but, gracious powers! they assume the form of two capital letters—
CC
Oh! Flora, Flora! will you ever tell Sir Cresswell about my unguarded observations when that last pair of boots “wouldn’t go” into the carpet-bag, despite of my best and continuous exertions? And that other time at Crewe, when the railway porter put our “things”—be just, it was not I who gave the order!—into the train for Liverpool, and when we arrived at Windermere, I admit, I said something beginning with a big D? Surely you would never have the heart, Flo, under any circumstances, to mention that to Sir Cresswell? Besides, you little witch! (the term “witch” is not abusive: “witch” means “fairy,” and “fairy” means—can’t you guess?) you know you condoned—yes; condoned—the offence, if offence there were, the same evening under the mountain ash in front of the Lowood Hotel, when the sun was going down over Coniston Old Man, and the bright golden lake lay at thy tiny feet like Beauty’s mirror—and all that sort of thing. If ever you tell about the big D, Flo, it will become my friend Dr. Pink’s painful duty to cross-examine you upon the results which grew out of the incident, and we’ll see with whom Sir Cresswell will side when he knows the truth—and he always knows the truth about young ladies—that’s the awful part of the business. Did you ever hear what happened the other day when he caught Mrs. Mulock—you know Henrietta Prim that was—out in a fib about the crochet? She has not been heard of since: but there was a painful rumour about the clubs, last week, that the body of a young female had been washed ashore at Erith, in a sack, with the device upon it—
C⩚C
There may be nothing in the report, but it is as well to be careful.
Well, then, as I said above, the magnates of this world and their huge proceedings, with one terrible exception, are nothing to me. I can’t even say that I seriously care about the eloquent Chancellor of the Exchequer and his last addition to the Income Tax. As far as I am concerned personally, one afternoon’s work will set that to rights; and I can take the value out in after-dinner prose at any time, Louis Napoleon is not likely to get to Brompton in my day; and if the British Parliament will only take a little more care about the purity of the Serpentine, as a citizen I am satisfied. The exception is Sir Cresswell Cresswell. I confess I stand in awe of that man—if, indeed, he is a man—upon which point I entertain some doubts. Is it not written, “Those who have been joined in a very solemn way, let no man put asunder!” But Sir Cresswell Cresswell does put them asunder, as easily as he would two pats of butter. Therefore the inference is clear.
Talk of the House of Commons as a powerful body, what do they represent but a parcel of miserable county voters and 10l. freeholders? but Sir Cresswell Cresswell represents 5,000,000 of English wives. Five millions of Mrs. Caudles, all in one, are sitting there in that dreadful Divorce Court. Lieutenant-General Sir Cresswell Cresswell commands an army, I say, of five millions of able-bodied matrons. He is in military possession of the country: he has billeted his followers in two out of every three houses in the land. He knows—or can know any time he chooses—what we say, what we do, nay, what we think about. No human being, that is if he be indeed a man, has ever wielded such authority since the First Valentine first changed hands. Nay, by Cupid’s shafts, a mature bachelor, with a taste for Gothic architecture, is not safe in his very seclusion in the Albany, although St. Senanus might be a man about town in comparison with him. The bachelors can’t laugh at us married men. There are such beings as Co-Respondents. Shade of O. Smith! indulge us with one genial Ha! ha!
The Co-Respondents, however, must take care of themselves. An English husband has enough to do in these hard times so to order his own ways that he may avoid an official interview with awful Sir Cresswell.
I am an English husband. I write for husbands—and in the husband interest. Brother husbands! we are betrayed!
As far as I can yet see my way, our only chance of safety lies in combination, but we must combine secretly indeed; for the avengers are ever beside us, and the Fouquier-Tinville of matrimony is ready there at Westminster to slice off our heads for an unguarded word. Perhaps something may be done through the Masonic Lodges, if we can trust each other; but we must be speedy, for it will soon be held that to be a Mason is to be a brute, and to be a brute is cruelty, and cruelty entitles a wife to summary remedies indeed.
This awful truth has been recently forced upon my apprehension. In an idle moment, but a few weeks back, I resolved to make my way into the Divorce Court, to see how that dreadful class of business in which the Court deals is conducted. I had expected little more than a certain amount of amusement at the exhibition, with perhaps a little melodramatic thrill of horror if “The Dead Heart” in real life might happen to be on for trial. Little did I anticipate the result.
It is not so easy to get into these connubial shambles as you might suppose. Enter Westminster Hall by the great door, and the first indication that you are near the Grand Stand will be the presence of a group of firm-featured women at the right and upper hand of the hall by the steps leading into the old Chancellor’s Court. There they are—they know their power—they look at you just as a group of tall brawny Horse Guards might look at a feeble civilian. Yes! there they stand, upon their own ground, and any one of them could give you a back-fall at a moment’s notice; and, what is more—I repeat it—they all know it. They are not showily dressed, but like the Ironsides of the old Puritan days—fit for service. Time was, as I have been given to understand, when the Court was first opened for business, that ladies of a different kind used to come down to Westminster to obtain a glimpse of the judge who was henceforward to be the supreme arbiter of the destinies of the female world. I have also been told by the gentlemen who frequented the Court in those days, that as far as they could judge from the exclamations they overheard, the result was very favourable to the presiding judge.
“Oh! what a dear man! I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything unkind! Well, I’m not afraid of him!”
Such were the flowers with which the earlier steps of this Rhadamanthus of hearts were greeted by his devotees. Since these times, however, matters have been much changed. The nature of many of the trials, since the Court has settled down to serious work, of course excludes all notion of the presence of women, save of those who may unfortunately be mixed up with the case under discussion. For the most part the group of which I have made mention consists of witnesses, most of whom are there two or three days before they are wanted, with vengeance clearly written on their features. I should not like to have that rigid looking woman with the pinched lips engaged in the capacity of my own wife’s confidential maid. I should fear that she might be disposed to take a somewhat one-sided view—not in my favour—should it ever happen that one of the rose-leaves in my matrimonial bower became at all crumpled through somebody’s fault; nor do I think her presence generally calculated to inspire harmony and good-will in a household. She will swear hard.
The first effort is to make your way from this group in the outer hall to a narrow passage inside. A policeman at the door keeps on repeating “The Court is full,” and repelling the applicants for admission even into the passage; although the gain is small even when you have secured a position there. You tap quietly at the door of the Court; but instead of admitting you the policeman inside quietly opens a little trap, and if you are not a barrister or attorney, or otherwise professionally engaged with the business in hand, you are again informed that “The Court is full!” At this moment your heart is in your mouth, for although you cannot even see through the trap into the body of the Court—a horrid red curtain is in the way—and the first surge of matrimonial agony here rolls upon your ear.
“Did you, or did you not come home in a beastly state of intoxication at four o’clock in the morning, although your poor wife—”
Bang goes the little trap, and you are cut off from hearing the answer of the miserable husband. What will happen next? Will Sir Cresswell with smiling lips intimate to the accused, that “he is free;” and will he be turned out into the body of the Hall rejoicing in his liberty, but to fall under the blows of those hard women outside? One has read of the Septembrists in Revolutionary France, and of the sly way in which the victims were consigned to the untender charge of the “travailleurs” outside. I did not, indeed, notice any marks of gore upon the pavement of the Hall; but with a little saw-dust, and a few buckets of water all traces of each incident might soon be washed away. The bodies, no doubt, would be removed into the Common Pleas. Besides, the case of Tubbs v. Tubbs is the first one taken this morning, so nothing can have yet occurred—of consequence.
I am standing in that awful passage still. There is a young and pretty woman leaning with her back against the door. I dare scarcely raise my eyes to note the fact. She gives me an awful idea of power—like a lithe hunting leopard in the Zoological Gardens. There is a stout, rather shabbily dressed man, of middle age, who has come down in a great hurry—for his first act is to take off his hat and swab his poor moist head; his second, to fix a pair of spectacles on his nose; and his third, to produce from his pocket a slip of paper, a subpœna, or sub-agony, or something of that sort, which he hands triumphantly to the policeman on guard in the passage, as entitling him to instant admission to the body of the court. Admission there, indeed! The policeman in the passage taps at the trap. The policeman in the court opens the trap, and you catch a glimpse of, I think, a somewhat well-disposed face—(but by this time you are in a frame of mind in which you would be ready to thank Jack Ketch for his obliging attentions)—with two red whiskers. There it is—Portrait of Policeman, 23 Z, in a frame. Whilst he inspects the slip of paper, which is held up by his brother officer, a thin, maundering voice reaches me from inside,—it is clearly that of some official personage, reading what I suppose is called a document here. The words I catch are these:—
“If ever, dearest Louisa, you could mark the palpitations of my feverish heart, you would know that every moment is an endless age of torment whilst I am separated from thy dear side. Could I but gaze for one instant on thy deep-blue eyes”
Here there is a sharp dogmatic interruption—like that of a cracker during a cathedral-service.
“My Lud—clear grey in my copy.”
“Deep blue, my Lud—deep blue, in mine.”
Then follow some courteous tones.—Yes.—This must be Sir Cresswell at last!
“It is not of much consequence, Doctor Dobbs.” (Gracious Powers, what do these stony-hearted men then reckon of consequence?) “As we have the ‘original’ before us, we need not dispute about copies. Go on.”
“Deep blue eyes,” the reader was proceeding, when it became necessary for him,—I must tell the truth,—to blow his nose, which he did in a very sonorous way, and then, “the rapture of that glance—”
Bang goes the trap again! It appeared that the policeman inside had taken counsel with the usher, and the result of their deliberations was, that the middle-aged man in the perspiration was informed through the trap that the case of Moppet v. Moppet and Boiling was not likely to occupy the attention of the court until next week, and that he could not be admitted, as “he was neither a professional man, nor a witness in the case.” The poor fellow drew back:—as his eye fell for a moment upon the young lady with her back to the door, I thought I marked in it a vindictive gleam. Could this be Moppet? and was that glance an expression of his feeling to the sex in general, since Boiling had glided like a serpent into his paradise. However, my reflections soon took another turn. How about a man’s love-letters?
Is it possible, dear Flora, that those remarkable compositions, in which I endeavoured to disclose the nature of my sufferings to—as I then believed—thy not wholly unsympathising heart, shall ever be copied out at the rate of seventy words to the folio, and for the charge of three half-pence per folio, and delivered into the hands of those objectionable, heartless men in wigs and gowns, that they may serve as nets of my own knitting to entrap and bind me in my struggles? Shall I, like a foolish, thoughtless—but at the same time well-meaning—bee, be smothered in honey of my own collection? I know that thou hast preserved them—not without a few rose-leaves, and, I believe, some sprigs of lavender, in allusion to a playful passage which occurs in one of the later documents. It runs thus:—
Roses are red,
Diddle—diddle:
Lavender’s blue—
Flora, by George!
Diddle—diddle—
How I love you!
Although it expresses the emotions of an honest heart, I should not like to have that passage read out in full court by the gentleman with the cold in his head—not only on account of the poetical liberty which I have taken with the metre (I mean with reference to the patent discrepancy in sound between the words “red” and “George”)—but because, even as far as the floral illustrations of my passion are concerned, I think I could do better with a view to publication. As I stand pondering over these things, another letter rises to my recollection, which I had addressed: “To my Flora, then in her Rose-Bower at Twickenham.” You were then stopping, dear Flo, with Mrs. Madrigal—Bessie Hincks was of the party. I remember that I had been torn away from thy beloved side (as I presume the writer in the case of Tubbs v. Tubbs, now sub judice) by some inconsiderate friends, and compelled by them, sorely against my own will, to dine with them at the Crown and Sceptre. When I returned home it was 1.45 a.m., or thereabouts. The passion pent up within my breast throughout that tedious banquet would have its way, and poured on in impetuous current through seven sheets of note-paper. This time I expressed myself in prose—but such prose!—a Niagara from a furnace—seething, burning, boiling, bubbling—red-hot from my manly heart. I cannot but fear that if this document were submitted to Sir Cresswells inspection on a cold morning in February, at 11 a.m., that learned judge might find the imagery over-wrought, and of a somewhat Eastern and voluptuous character. Indeed, there was one contrast between a supposed Alhambra and a foul pot-house, and another between my Flora and the friends who had torn me from her beloved presence, of which I should never hear the last if my friend Molyneux—Molyneux the Black, we used to call him—were to get hold of it. He has a courteous but distant way of making allusions to any disagreeable little incident of this kind—the result of which would, in the long run, be my own disappearance from London life, and emigration to British Columbia. Then there was another letter in which I had confided to my Flora the aspirations of my youthful ambition. I looked forward then to driving my Triumphal Car through the British Forum at a slapping pace indeed, although, for reasons not worth entering upon just now, I have not followed up the profession. But, as I remember, in the letter in question I had ventured to speak of the fifteen judges as of fifteen mature matrons, and perhaps Sir C. C. might not take this well, as he was upon the judicial bench at the time, and I have not had the opportunity I anticipated of setting him right upon points of law. There is but one thing to do. I will invite my Flora to accompany me this very afternoon upon a long walk, and fairly weary out her tender limbs. When sleep has sealed up her gentle eyelids, I will steal softly forth, and glide with that desk of my beloved one into my dressing-room, and abstract the documents. One never knows what may happen.
Whilst these thoughts are passing through my mind, and my cheeks are uncomfortably red—two young men have strolled into the passage, and tapped at the door with little ceremony. They have come down to enjoy the fun—they are obvious Clubbists—and it needs not any long experience to inform me that they must have chucked away the ends of their cigars at the entrance of Westminster Hall. The trap is summarily shut in their faces. Sir Cresswell does not keep open Court for them. Their turn will come—but not yet. Nature has set the indelible mark of “Co-Respondent” upon the brow of each of them. There will surely be a day when the policeman at the trap will give them admission to the Court without any difficulty, if they care to claim it. They try a little quiet joking—but it won’t do—you might as well offer a slice of nicely toasted bacon to a French gentleman, when halfway between Calais and Dover, as try joking here—that is, what they would call joking. One of the youths—the one with the mandarin hat—unless my eyes deceive me—has distinctly made ocular overtures to the young female leopard before alluded to. The young lady simply glares at him in reply: he might as well have winked at Medusa. I am sorry for him—so awful and stony is the gaze of that young Sphinx, in the leghorn, trimmed with black, at the foolish boy. Away, young Co-Respondents—back to your pool and your muddled betting-books—your time will come!
Then an elderly clergyman-looking man drops in, and tries the door, with a bland smile, just as though he were about to claim admission to his own vestry. The trap opens, and the usual few words of dialogue are exchanged, the result of which is that the reverend gentleman is left smiling in the passage just like one of us ordinary people. What can he be doing here? I should as soon have expected to meet such a man at Cremorne or the Cyder Cellars. His respectable consort cannot, I am very confident, have the smallest idea of the way in which he intended to occupy his morning. When that reverend gentleman left home after breakfast—he looks like a person who would have lodgings in Suffolk Street—he spread false reports of his intention to assist at a meeting of the society for the S.P.G., or the S.P.C.K. His wife is gone with the children to the Soho Bazaar, or is spending her day with the friend of her childhood—now married to the Reverend Josiah Chasuble, and resident in the Polygon, Camberwell—with an abundant nursery. He is balked, and I am glad of it; but whom can one trust? When the trap opened this last time, there were no contentious voices—only dead silence broken by a low female moaning, and stifled sobs. Can Sir Cresswell have caused Mrs. Dobbs to be placed on the rack, and is the policeman with the red whiskers giving a last turn to the screw? I can’t stand this—as a man—as a husband—as an Englishman—in the name of Flora, and womanhood—here goes! Down with Haynau and Sir Cresswell! Just as, in defiance of all constituted authority, I was about to make a violent assault on the door, in order to relieve Mrs. Dobbs from her agony, it suddenly opened, and, to my surprise, a gentleman stepped out who was evidently making strong efforts to suppress his laughter. With difficulty I repressed my indignation to the articulating point, and was about to give him a bit of my mind; when, on glancing at him a second time, I fancied I recognised the face—could it be? No. Yes it was my old friend—Horatio Lamb. We exchanged the friendly grasp—he passed his arm under mine, and led me out into the Hall.
My friend Lamb had, I believe, in early life, been upon the provincial boards, but he was not fond of alluding to this period of his career. He had subsequently been articled to an attorney, but, though admitted, I never heard that he had practised his profession on his own account. He had subsequently been secretary to a steam-packet company with enormous pretensions, but owing to a series of untoward circumstances they never succeeded—as far as I am aware—in getting a vessel afloat, and the affairs of the company were subsequently wound up. Lamb next turned up in the wine-trade, in connection with a speculation for bringing South African sherry home to every Englishman’s door; and during the epoch of his eventful career, he was much engaged with a project for amending the currency. I do not pretend to understand the question myself, but as he often explained to me in those days, when I invited him to dinner—poor fellow! I was sometimes afraid that he did not dine every day in the week—the result of his system, if adopted, would have been to add 800,000,000l. immediately to the national wealth, with unlimited powers of expansion—and it was based upon credit. Certainly no man knew more about that part of the subject than Lamb; but somehow or other there seemed to be some hitch about the adoption of his ideas. The successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, as he used to tell me, were “stupid dogs—stupid dogs, sir; slaves of routine.” I fear he was sadly out at elbows when we last parted; it was some years since we had met; and now he presented every appearance of a smiling, prosperous gentleman. “Come along,” said he, “come along; my brougham is waiting, and it will take us round to Great George Street,—my offices, you know.”
I knew nothing about the matter, and I confess I was thunderstruck, but not even in the midst of my surprise could I lose sight of Sir Cresswell’s horrid cruelties, and the agonies which Mrs. Dobbs must at that moment bo undergoing. I stopped my friend in the middle of the Hall, and seizing him solemnly by the coat, said:—
“Lamb—friend of my youth—I rejoice to see you well, and to all appearance a prosperous man, and at any other time I would cheerfully go with you, and a proud man I should be to sit by your side in your own brougham, with your own horse in shafts before you—”
“My own horse,” broke in Lamb, “pooh! pooh! pair of horses—as neat a pair of greys as ever stepped. I gave a cheque for 240l. for them the other day to our friend Hinchinbroke.”
Now Hinchinbroke was Sir Jasper Hinchinbroke, Bart., of Sloply Mead, Lincolnshire, and I had myself endeavoured, but in vain, to procure for Lamb, some years ago, the situation of clerk in the office of his bailiff; but this was neither here nor there just then. I couldn’t get that poor creature’s agony out of my mind.
“Lamb,” I continued. “I won’t stir from this Hall, till I know what is taking place within that horrid den of iniquity.”
“What den? The Divorce Court? Sweetest spot in town!”
“But those sobs—that moaning—those groans—it was a woman’s woe. I tell you, Lamb, Sir Cresswell is torturing a female in there!”
The unfeeling man actually burst into a long fit of laughter.
“Groans—agony—woe—stuff and nonsense. That’s only my client, Mrs. Dobbs, repeating her lesson; and devilish well she does it, too. I gave her the first principles myself; but, egad! she has so far outstripped her teacher, that I was fairly obliged to leave the Court lest the jury should catch me laughing—and that would have done for our case in no time. We had to prove cruelty in order to entitle us to dissolution, and so I called Mrs. Dobbs, and left her to make out her own case. Women have a surprising genius for these things. But, come along, and we’ll talk as we go. By the way, what brought you down to the Divorce Court? Nothing wrong at home, eh?”
I was enabled to give my friend Lamb the honest assurance, dearest Flora, that despite of the few occasions on which our peculiarities of character slightly clash, there was no disposition on the side of either of the partners, trading under the name of the matrimonial firm of “Mr. and Mrs. Jones,” to dissolve their connection, and wind up the concerns of that well-known establishment. It may be that we have both discovered that there are other flowers of the field besides roses, and other birds in the air besides the nightingale and the lark—that Romeo will lose his figure, and Juliet suffer from occasional nervous attacks. Still, and on the whole, Flora is quite prepared to scratch out the eyes of any lady who should venture upon any disparaging remarks with regard to her beloved Frederick; and Frederick stands equally ready and willing to punch any gentleman’s head who may insinuate that improvements in his Flora are possible. Petrarchs and Lauras of XL can you hope for more?
In return for my explanations, my friend H. Lamb related to me, that after having made many attempts to improve his condition in the world, and as often failed, the opening of the Divorce Court had given him the opportunity of which he had been so long in search. He had now established himself as lady’s solicitor in Great George Street, Westminster—a genteel address, and handy to the Court. He added, that as the business in which he had engaged required the most opposite qualifications, he had taken to himself a partner, the Antipodes to himself in all respects. This gentleman’s name was Rackem. The door-plate in Great George Street bore the inscription of
LAMB
AND
RACKEM
Solicitors.
Mr. Lamb took the lady department; Mr. Rackem looked after the gentlemen. Mr. Lamb avenged the wives; Mr. Rackem the husbands. Mr. Lamb used as a seal a stricken dove; Mr. Rackem, Waller’s eagle, with the device, “That eagle’s fate and mine are one.” Mr. Lamb gave little dinners in a charming little house in Chapel Street, Park Lane; Mr. Rackem lived at Camberwell, in a stern stucco villa, protected by two stucco dogs sitting upon their own hard tails, and never entertained anybody. Mr. Lamb was the Corinthian, Mr. Rackem the Doric, pillar of the establishment in Great George Street.
“But, my dear fellow,” he said, “I’ll tell you all about it another time—here we are in Maddox Street. A thought of my own. I have established business relations with a French lady who has undertaken to dress my clients for the Court. Madame Leocadie Lareine is a most remarkable woman; she can enter into the spirit of a case. She has, as you may say, a feeling for an allegation, and can dress a lady up to the mark. You can’t conceive what a mess the ladies would make of it for themselves. They overdo or underdo the thing. No woman her own client—no client her own mantua-maker. Madame Lareine is a decided genius. I have known her dress a lady, who couldn’t be brought up to town until the last moment, from the affidavits.”
We entered the ingenious French lady’s establishment by a private door, and were shown up-stairs to a drawing-room, with a table in the centre with a few bonnets and caps upon it. Two or three dresses were spread out upon the sofas, and as we came in Madame Lareine was gesticulating away in a very energetic manner, to a pretty, but somewhat overdressed lady, about eight-and-twenty years of age, as I should judge.
“Madame, if you present yourself so before the court vous êtes perdue. That bonnet would even turn what you call de common jury. See here, Monsieur Lamb, here is Madame Barbar, who is to go to de court to-morrow, and all depends upon cruauté, and her idea is a green shot gros, with de pink bonnet. Oh, mais, madame, your husband—le barbare—would give that in justification."
Lamb whispered to me: “A client of my own. Barber v. Barber,—on to-morrow at eleven:” and then aloud,—
“Mrs. Barber, I have the responsibility of your case, and you must allow Madame Lareine to decide what is for the best. Have you read the evidence, Madame—and what is it to be?”
“Oh, yes, sare, I have sat up three night, and here is de result. Robe of black gros, wid tree flounces—de usual robe à la divorcée; crinoline not prononcée—chapeau à la Cresswell; and here was de thought. After reading de letters of Madame’s from Florence, I put in that small bunch of pensées—violets. Indian shawl, leetel collar aux trois larmes, leetle muff also wid mouchoir not too fine. What you say to that?” And then turning round to Mrs. Barber:—
“Madame, you are half away across between de British matron and la femme abandonnée: not too stern, not too mild: you have a right to your Opera box, for you have de dot, and to your small shild.”
After some discussion, Mrs. Barber accepted her fate, having only compromised for permission to wear a pair of gold ear-rings.
“Madame—it must be—but vous vous compromttez—de Scotch lawyer against you will say you are fond of admiration. Ah! quel horrreur! but it must be so. Have you seen my special jury sleeves, Monsieur Lamb, and le petit bonnet a l’évanouie? Dat is very good.”
It was finally settled, Mrs. Barber making no objection, that I was to be the next morning at his offices, and attend the great trial of Barber v. Barber.