Ten days at Stradlings left Mungo with four weeks at home. He was obliged to break his journey in Edinburgh because he had to see – or rather be interrogated by – Mr Mackellar S.S.C. This lawyer had been an intermittent and mysterious power in Mungo’s life for as long as he could remember. If he was even to have a bicycle, Mr Mackellar S.S.C. had to be written to. As he never heard the name uttered without these appended initials, he had at one time concluded that Mr Essessee would be a legitimate and more compendious form of address, and had even so employed it upon the only occasion of Mr Mackellar’s appearing in Moray. Whereupon Mr Mackellar had explained to Mungo that he enjoyed the distinction of being a Solicitor before the Supreme Court. Mungo received this with proper awe (if also with a tincture of precocious religious scepticism), and it was some time before he could wholly free himself from the persuasion that Mr Mackellar was claiming to be an archangel. The general meaning of ‘solicitation’, which he managed to extract from a dictionary, supported on the whole this portentous view. Mungo had been required to spend considerable periods every Sunday listening, with properly screwed-up eyes, to extended exercises in intercessory prayer, and it seemed conceivable to suppose that Mr Mackellar was privileged to engage in the same activity on a direct access basis – like the saints who cast down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. For the universe, after all, could have one supreme court only.
The prosaic truth about Mr Mackellar had emerged later. He controlled a small trust, vaguely intimated as of a charitable nature, which stumped up something towards the orphan Mungo’s keep and education from time to time. Mungo now knew that such institutions were quite in order; at his own college, as he had recently discovered, there was a similar benefaction for such of its junior members as were ‘ingenious, diligent, and of a godly conversation’. Roughly speaking, Mr Mackellar conceived it his duty to keep an eye on Mungo’s rating in qualities of this sort; and this was the purpose of the present interview. Mungo didn’t pretend to himself that he wasn’t ingenious; his having scrambled into Oxford must count as diligence, at least for a term or two; and as for godly conversation – well, he wasn’t likely to chuck at Mr Mackellar’s bald head the sort of words and images that so agreeably adorned Pons’s Cambridge Boat Song. So with luck Mr Mackellar should just be a bit of routine.
Mungo left his bags at the station and climbed to windy George Street. He knew quite a lot about George Street. It contained more than the office of Mr Mackellar – which was as dingy as a lawyer’s office in Dickens, and filled with a metaphysical Calvinistic gloom almost as palpable as the superbly metaphorical fog in Bleak House. (Mungo was rather pleased with this; it wasn’t quite right, but it would work up.) In George Street Shelley and Harriet had lodged on their wedding-journey – about the time when Scott, a stone’s throw away, was thinking of getting busy on Waverley. Next to Frederick Street Peacock had stayed; and at the end of the vista, in St Andrew Square, had lived Peacock’s butt, Lord Brougham, and David Hume who had apparently been the Bertrand Russell of the eighteenth century. Even Kenneth Graham, who had thought up Toad and Ratty, had managed to get himself born in George Street; and from George Street had issued the number of Blackwood’s that had attacked Keats.
Mungo Lockhart, Oxford undergraduate, quickened his pace (an operation easy enough to one with his length of leg). He hurried forward, if not like a guilty thing, at least like one who has made an ass of himself by selling out of a sound investment. It is the penalty of being ingenious to be susceptible to such awkward feelings. But as he mounted Mr Mackellar’s staircase he cheered up. He could have done without the coming inspection. But mild comedy was probably to be extracted from it.
So he entered the lawyer’s room confidently, remembering not to trip on the holes in the carpet, and rather taking to the smell of mouldering leather that issued from the ranked volumes of Scots Law Reports on the shelves. There was an attractively weird picture on the wall. It showed a hundred or more legal characters (no doubt including Mr Mackellar’s father) assembled in an imposing hall, and its oddity consisted in its being a fake photograph – a collage, in fact, fabricated from individual portraits ranked with a rough and ready attempt at linear perspective. Mungo kept his eye away from this, having recalled that on a previous occasion the philosophic problem posed by this Assembly-that-Never-Was had distracted his attention from the admonitions of his paymaster.
‘Let me hear about you,’ Mr Mackellar said briefly.
Mungo gave an account of himself – neither too bleak (he thought) nor too spirited, and certainly with a tight rein on the fancy.
Mr Mackellar heard him out in silence. And when Mr Mackellar attacked (as it were) it was from an unexpected angle.
‘I seem,’ he said, ‘to detect a considerable alteration in your speech.’
‘Sir?’ As he produced this, Mungo realised that it was itself such an alteration; ten weeks before, he would have produced half a dozen words instead of this economical challenge.
‘Your accent has been influenced by your new environment to a degree which I judge remarkable in a mere two months.’
‘I didn’t know. I haven’t intended anything of the sort. I’m assimilative, I suppose. And in more important things, too.’
‘You would make a very tolerable advocate.’ Mr Mackellar, who, in a general way, could in the matter of grimness have given points to Lord Auldearn himself, distinguishably smiled at Mungo for the first time in their acquaintance. ‘A change in speech habits is inoffensive if involuntary; it is instantly resented if an element of intention or pretension appears.’
‘Well, that gets me clear.’ Mungo, encouraged by the smile, responded with his hit-or-miss grin. ‘And I don’t much mind what noises I make. I’m not going to be an actor.’
‘You certainly are not.’ Mr Mackellar, all Scottish thistle again, gave this a mandatory emphasis which Mungo didn’t quite like. ‘So let us talk sense. If you were to be called to the Scottish bar, Mungo, you would not derive any advantage from having come to speak what is called received standard English. Before the Senators of the College of Justice the point would be immaterial. It might not be so when pleading before a Scottish jury.’
‘I suppose not.’ Mungo wondered what was going on.
‘Several young advocates who were sent to English schools have made the point to me.’
‘I can imagine they have something there,’ Mungo said colloquially. He was a good deal startled by a new and unsuspected Mungo Lockhart who appeared to exist in Mr Mackellar’s eye. He had always supposed himself to be receiving, from this trust or whatever, assistance designed to place him, at the most, on some respectable office stool. This wasn’t his own idea of himself, and it hadn’t troubled him that it might be other people’s. He’d make his own way, he believed, when the time came. Mackellar had always treated him – not particularly offensively – as a plebeian on some sort of dole. Of course it was natural that this business of going to Oxford should a little alter the lawyer’s view. But that the old chap should be planning for him a career as a fellow legal shark was something of a facer. At the moment, it might be a good idea if diversionary tactics were applied. ‘About my work,’ Mungo said virtuously. ‘It looks as if I ought to tell you that I’ll be requiring a good many books. Not just out of libraries, I mean. You see—’
‘There will be no difficulty.’ Mr Mackellar had raised an authoritative hand. ‘Any reasonable disbursement by you in that regard will be honoured by me. And waste no time about it. Your tutor writes to me that vacation study is regarded as of the highest importance.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Mungo wasn’t too pleased at the revelation of this correspondence. For a moment, indeed, his indignation was such that he resolved to tell his tutor off about it at his next tute. Then he reflected that the poor man was probably obliged to reply to enquiries from properly accredited persons. And anybody who pays you money out of some fund or other certainly regards himself as that. ‘I’ve got a course of reading mapped out,’ Mungo added, as with a consciousness of modest worth.
‘I am glad to hear it – the more so in that I observe some part of your vacation to be already elapsed.’
‘Oh, yes. I went to stay with a friend.’
‘Ah.’ Mr Mackellar didn’t give this an overtly interrogative intonation. He paused on it, all the same.
‘A man called Ian Cardower. He’s in my own year, and reading History.’
‘Cardower, did you say?’
‘Yes. I found myself sharing rooms with him, which is how we got to know each other. His people live at a place called Stradlings, which is where I’ve been staying. It’s rather a nice house.’
‘Very pleasant,’ Mr Mackellar said. ‘Most agreeable.’ He was regarding Mungo curiously, and appeared momentarily at a loss. ‘Did you happen to discover if your friend is any relation of the well-known Scottish family of the same name?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.’ At this point, Mungo allowed himself to look beautifully vague. ‘Perhaps there are several well-known families called Cardower? Ian’s grandfather is a Lord Auldearn. We went to see him at a house called Bamberton Court. I don’t know whether you’ll have heard of him.’
‘Of course I have heard of the Marquis of Auldearn.’ Mr Mackellar was now looking at Mungo hard. ‘He has had a most distinguished public career. But he must be a very old man now.’
‘Oh, yes. His clothes don’t fit him any more, and he wears carpet slippers all the time. Only, in the evening he changes into tartan ones.’ Mungo was unable to resist this single flight of fancy in the midst of so much perfectly veridical, if mischievously slanted, reporting. But he added hastily, ‘But he’s awfully impressive, all the same. He reminded me of Cicero’s cum dignitate otium.’
It would have been hard to tell whether Mr Mackellar was impressed – and, if so, whether it was by this young Oxford scholar’s Latinity or his rapid progression into aristocratic circles. But he certainly had the appearance of a man confronted by a problem. As to what it might be, Mungo hadn’t a clue – until Mr Mackellar looked at his watch and stood up behind his desk.
‘I judge, Mungo, that our business is concluded.’ And then – as Mungo prepared to make himself scarce, with suitable expressions of gratitude – he added, ‘If your departure-time admits of it, I should be happy if you would lunch with me in my club.’
‘Thank you. I’d like to, very much.’
Mungo got out this social prevarication with commendable expertness. He didn’t dislike Mr Mackellar, but he did dislike their relationship. This business of being periodically paraded as a charity boy was something he couldn’t even give Ian a burlesque account of. No doubt the old man was constrained by the terms of the trust to hold these interviews, and he did so quite decently, according to his lights. But Mungo thought they were now a bit out of time, as well as a shocking waste of the trust’s money on railway tickets. He had resolved to write Mackellar a letter or two over the next year which would be both a civil report on himself and a hint that these confrontations were a bore to somebody who was now quite grown up. And here was this invitation, which suddenly set the relationship on a new basis.
They left the office, walked down Hanover Street side by side, and turned into Princes Street. But Edinburgh’s east wind was now blowing so strongly and freezingly that any words they uttered would either have been whirled away in the direction of Glasgow or simply congealed on their lips. Mungo employed the resulting silence in telling himself that he mustn’t be obtuse. A rocky old person like Mackellar S.S.C. was unlikely to be a guileless snob, or to have changed gear simply because the youth from Forres had been hob-nobbing with the nobility. He was merely effecting what might be called a necessary transition in rather an abrupt way. And it was quite possible that this lunch was going to be a valedictory occasion.
Mr Mackellar’s club was in Princes Street; it appeared to be one of the few remaining islets of dignified repose among the increasingly commonplace shops. Pausing in its portico, and being thus a little sheltered from the blast, Mr Mackellar animadverted unfavourably upon the incursions of modern commerce – controlled, he pointed out, by people in London, who were themselves controlled by people in New York. He named august establishments, all with good Scottish names, now departed from the scene. Could his mother, he declared, be set down at one end of this historic thoroughfare today she would undoubtedly walk to its other extremity without remarking anything that warranted purchase. Mungo, although he judged this to be an exaggerated view of the matter, began to feel there was more to be said for Mr Mackellar than he had hitherto been prepared to admit. Scotland for the Scots was one of the few political persuasions with which he had equipped himself.
He had never been in a club – except, indeed, for a forlorn and crumbling affair tenuously maintained in Oxford by undergraduates of Ian’s sort. So he prepared to make useful observations. There was, for a start, a man in a glass box, just as in college. He hadn’t a bowler hat, however, and he was dressed in a kind of muted uniform which somehow suggested to Mungo the sort of character who locks and unlocks the gates of a gaol. This effect was enhanced by the fact that he was plainly keeping a vigilant eye on two elderly gentlemen who, although obviously of considerable consequence, were huddled on an uncomfortable bench close to the door. Mungo divined that the wretches were guests who had arrived in advance of their hosts, and must remain under close surveillance until these chose to turn up. Mungo himself, being beneath Mr Mackellar’s wing, was quite in the clear, although Mr Mackellar had to hasten to inscribe his name in an enormous book. It must all be rather like this, Mungo thought, when one visits somebody in a top security prison.
Apart from these appearances, there was nothing on view that could be at all unexpected to a reader of English novels. The somnolent silence, the enormous leather chairs, the barricades of newspapers and journals behind which sundry members were sheltering from any possibility of social intercourse, etc., etc., – all these were duly on parade. Mungo became aware that he was a good deal less observant than simply hungry. As he stood in a vast bay window overlooking the street and the gardens and the Castle, and consumed a glass of sherry while Mr Mackellar discoursed on the history of the Leith wine trade, he was hoping that all these old men didn’t diet themselves in their club on the same frugal scale that he remembered at Bamberton.
Two or three drably attired characters – perhaps they were fellow S.S.C.’s – passed the time of day with Mr Mackellar, and Mr Mackellar gravely introduced Mungo to them as a client of his, Mr Lockhart, now at Oxford. But this didn’t exactly start any ball rolling, and Mungo was presently led off to the dining-room. It had never occurred to him that he was a client of Mackellar’s, and he doubted whether it had ever previously occurred to Mackellar either. It was all part of this business of rather sudden promotion. He felt distrustful of it, but that didn’t spoil his lunch. At least as a nosh-house, the club got high marks, and in addition to the eats he was provided with a little decanter holding a third of a bottle of claret. Under the influence of this he talked to Mackellar quite a lot, for his head was still as light as Ian had once discovered it to be. He retained enough sense, however, to decline a glass of port with his cheese and before his coffee. It was just as well, after all, to continue to chalk up a good mark with the old chap every now and then. Moreover he had become aware – perhaps it was a matter of the antennae – that something more was brewing. Mackellar had a surprise up his sleeve – or perhaps to get off his chest. There were several preliminary hums and haws that came to nothing. It was only when the old boy had returned from a desk where he had been signing his bill, and the moment to turn Mungo out had patently arrived, that he uttered.
‘My dear Mungo, this is the moment to say a further word about your affairs. I have to inform you that, upon the occasion of your coming of age, I shall have a communication to make to you.’
‘A communication?’ It was pretty blankly that Mungo repeated this.
‘Precisely. A communication. You must understand, however, that nothing more is to be said about it now.’
‘But I have come of age. There’s a new law, isn’t there? And I’m over eighteen.’
‘Ah, yes. And you are undoubtedly of mature years.’ As he said this, Mackellar smiled – and in a way that Mungo quite liked. ‘But I have expressed myself loosely. The instructions I hold explicitly designate the twenty-first anniversary of your birth – unless, indeed, a certain event, which I am not at liberty to explain to you, should take place before that date. In that event, and in that event only, I should be at liberty to use my discretion. And there we must let the matter rest at present.’ Mackellar made a weighty pause; he seemed absolutely to enjoy this idiotic mystery-mongering. ‘Although I think I may go so far as to say that there is nothing portentous about it, or that will effect any marked change in your circumstances. So, for the present, you may dismiss it from your mind. Shall I have them call a taxi to get you to the station?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve time to walk. But I don’t see—’ Something obscure but powerful in Mungo made him break off. Conceivably it was pride. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said – formally and in what might have been called his most Stradlings manner. ‘It was a splendid lunch. Should you ever be in Oxford, I hope you’ll allow me to show you round. Good-bye.’
Mungo shook hands with Mackellar S.S.C. – this rather than let Mackellar S.S.C. shake hands with him – and tumbled himself out of the club and into Princes Street. A howling gale from somewhere off Norway assisted his progress towards the railway station.