Chapter Two

The Beginning

 

‘For my next song,’ said the baritone from abroad, ‘I have chosen a German one. I shall sing it in the original language but, to help you follow it, I will first give you a fairly literal translation. “In the woods the birds sing and the other animals make their personal noises. But I sit by the disused well and weep. Where there once was up-drip now there is down-drip.”’

‘Drip’s the word,’ whispered Roger to Sally. ‘Can’t we slip out before he makes his personal noises?’

‘Be quiet,’ said Sally.

He had to endure that song and the next, which was called – Roger thought most reasonably – “Torment”, and then he managed to persuade Sally to leave.

‘It really is too bad,’ he said when they were safely outside the hall. ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating my “call” and you have to drag me there. Anyway, we’re out now. Let’s go and celebrate. I can do with some down-drip.’

‘We’ve missed mother,’ said Sally.

‘Was she going to sing too?’

‘You don’t imagine I’d have made you come otherwise. I told you about it.’

‘I believe you did, now I come to think of it – but my mind’s been so full up with my “call” that I haven’t been taking in much else. Have we really missed your mother?’

‘Don’t sound so pleased. She hasn’t a bad voice at all.’

‘I’m sure it’s lovely. Like you are. But, oh, Sally, I can’t think of anything except that I’m a barrister, a real live one. I’ve been one for twenty-four hours. I could defend you for murder or shoplifting. I could get you a divorce or appear at your inquest. Am I being very silly? Anyway,’ he went on, without giving Sally a chance to answer, ‘I haven’t talked about it all the time. I did ask you to marry me, didn’t I?’

‘In a sort of way, I suppose – in the intervals.’

‘Why did you say “no”?’

‘It wasn’t a definite “no”.’

‘It wasn’t a definite “yes”.’

‘I suppose you’ll be wanting everything “yes” or “no” now. You lawyers! Let me tell you one thing. You’ll have to keep your law for the Courts. I’m not just going to be black or white. I’ll be grey when I please.’

‘I love you in grey. What’ll you wear when you come to hear my first case?’

‘First catch your fish,’ said Sally. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘you said you’d thought of asking Joyce to marry you.’

‘That was an alternative. Not both at the same time.’

‘Look,’ said Sally. ‘You keep your beautiful legal mind for your unfortunate clients – if you get any.’

‘I’m sorry, Sally. I didn’t mean to be flippant – at least – I did. I am sorry, Sally. I don’t know what to say. D’you think I’ll ever grow up?’

‘Well, twenty-one isn’t all that old. Come on, cheer up. Now we will go and celebrate. I didn’t mean to be beastly.’

A few minutes later they were drinking.

‘Here’s to Roger Thursby, barrister-at-law.’

‘Here’s to Roger Thursby, Esquire, QC.’

‘Here’s to Mr Justice Thursby.’

‘Here’s to us.’

When they parted later that evening Roger was very, very happy, though he was still uncertain whether it should be Sally or Joy. But he forgot them both when he went to sleep and all his dreams were of judges and barristers, beautiful clients and criminals. Sometimes they got a bit mixed up, but, even if they had not, they would not have borne much resemblance to the real thing.

The next day he kept an appointment at No. 1 Temple Court, the chambers of Mr Kendall Grimes, a junior of many years’ standing with a substantial practice, to whom he had been given an introduction. His appointment was for 9.30 and he arrived ten minutes early and introduced himself to Mr Grimes’ clerk, Alec Blake.

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Alec pleasantly. ‘I’m glad you’ve come early. Gives me a chance to put you in the picture. Don’t suppose you know anything about the Temple, sir?’

‘I don’t,’ said Roger. ‘Not a thing.’

‘Well, there’s lots to learn, sir.’

He might have added, as Roger soon appreciated, that the first thing to learn on going into chambers in the Temple is the importance of the clerk.

‘One thing, if I may say at once, sir,’ went on Alec, ‘is always to be on the spot. Stay in chambers late. Come early. You never know what may happen.’

As he made this last remark Alec sucked his teeth, and gave Roger a knowing look. It was not that there was anything in his teeth to suck, but it was a method, not entirely unknown in the Temple, of indicating that the sucker knew a thing or two. Roger shivered slightly. It was to him as cleaning windows is to some people and much as he came to like Alec he could never reconcile himself to this particular sound. On this, his introduction to it, he was too thrilled at his first contact with chambers in the Temple to be as affected by it as he became later. At that moment the telephone rang.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Alec as he answered it. ‘Hullo. Yes. Mr Grimes’ clerk speaking. Oh – Albert. Look, old boy, we can’t do it, really we can’t. Must be thirty-three. What’s that? Yes, of course, I know they’ve a leader. I’m only asking for the junior’s fee. I ought to ask for the leader’s by rights. Letting you off lightly. What! Now really, old boy, it’s a bit late to come that one. I dare say you don’t like the two-thirds rule – but it hasn’t gone yet. What’s that? If we weren’t on the telephone I’d tell you what you could do with that Report. No, I can’t send him in for twenty-five. All right, I won’t, if you like. Now look, old boy, what about a coffee and we’ll talk it over. See you over the way? About half-eleven? OK.’

Alec turned to Roger.

‘Sorry, sir. One of the things we have to do,’ and he gave a loud suck. Roger tried to look as though he didn’t mind the suck and had understood something of what had happened, whereas he had not the faintest idea what it was all about, and he didn’t like the suck at all.

‘It’s most interesting,’ he said. ‘Is that Mr Grimes by any chance?’ he went on, pointing to a photograph of someone in uniform which was hanging on the wall above Alec’s table.

‘It is, sir,’ said Alec. ‘He doesn’t like my keeping it there, as a matter of fact, but I put my foot down. There were quite a number of people who stayed at home in 1914. He was in it from the start. Don’t see why I shouldn’t say so, even if he won’t. Anyway, it’s my photo and I can put it where I like. It’s amazing, really, sir. You’d never think of him as a soldier. You wait and you’ll see what I mean. But he went in just as a private, just as a private, sir – no pulling strings for our Mr Grimes, and how d’you think he ended up?’

‘How?’ asked Roger.

‘As a sergeant-major, sir. If I hadn’t seen him myself – I was a boy in the Temple then, sir – I wouldn’t have believed it. Amazing. You’ll see what I mean, sir. Mentioned twice in despatches he was, sir.’

‘Jolly good,’ said Roger.

The telephone rang again and just as Alec was answering it there was a noise on the staircase rather like a small express train coming up it and a second later Mr Grimes burst into the room, panting. Roger at first thought there had been an accident but he soon found out that this was Mr Grimes’ normal method of entrance. Mr Grimes looked, panting, at Alec for a moment.

‘It’s Mr Brookes,’ whispered Alec, putting his hand over the mouthpiece.

Mr Grimes nodded and then noticed Roger. He did not know whether he was a client or the prospective pupil or another barrister’s clerk. So he gave him a ‘Good morning’ which would do for any of them and bolted into his room, which was next to the clerk’s room.

Alec finished his conversation with Mr Brookes. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll have him there, sir. Don’t you worry, sir. That’s very nice of you, sir.’ He turned from the telephone, obviously pleased at what Mr Brookes had said and, with one last violent suck, winked at Roger plainly indicating that there were no flies on Mr Alec Blake. Then with a: ‘He’ll see you in a moment, sir,’ he went hurriedly into Mr Grimes’ room.

Roger started to collate his first impressions of a barrister’s chambers, with a view to telling Sally and Joy and his mother. It was exciting to be about to start his career, though a barrister’s chambers looked very different from what he had imagined. It was not that they were clean. They weren’t. Nor did he yet know that the lavatory was old-fashioned and that there was no hot water, unless you used a gas ring. He was as yet unaware that the system of cleaning was for a lady called a laundress to come in every morning, make herself a cup of tea and go on to the next set of chambers. It was just that he couldn’t imagine, say, Crippen, being defended by anyone who worked in No. 1 Temple Court, which, it will be understood, was not one of the new buildings in the Temple. And Mr Grimes looked indeed very different from his idea of a busy barrister. He was tallish, thin, quite bald, except for two large tufts of coal-black hair which stood up obstinately on either side of the bald expanse and which equally obstinately refused to change their colour with the years. At the time Roger first saw him he also had bushy side whiskers which came halfway down his cheek on one side and not quite halfway down on the other. They, too, were obstinately black. Roger subsequently learned that he had once worn a drooping black moustache but that one day he had shaved it off and, like the disappointed witch in the fairy tale, it was never seen again.

There were other things, too, which Roger had yet to learn about Mr Grimes – that he was unmarried and lived near the Essex marshes with an old and feeble housekeeper who looked after him when he was not looking after her, that he kept bees, to which he was devoted, that his work, his bees, and his housekeeper appeared to be his only interests in life, that every morning he sat meekly in the driving-seat of a very fast car and drove it anything but meekly to the Temple, and that, on reaching the Temple, he jumped out as though his life depended on it and rushed to his chambers, with the result which Roger had just witnessed. His sight appeared to be extremely good, and it was said that the large horn-rimmed glasses which he wore in Court contained plain glass and were used by him simply because he found them useful for taking off when cross-examining a witness. Roger never discovered whether this rumour was based on fact or not, but he was quite satisfied that the story that Mr Grimes once appeared before the judge in chambers with each tuft of hair full of bees was entirely apocryphal.

Roger was still wondering at what he had just heard from Alec and seen in Mr Grimes when Alec came out and conducted him into Mr Grimes’ room.

‘This is Mr Thursby, sir.’

Mr Grimes held out his hand. ‘How are ye, my dear fellow?’ he said. ‘How are ye?’ He had a rather high-pitched sing-song way of speaking. ‘So ye’ve come to the Bar, have ye? That’s the way. Have a chair, my dear fellow. That’s right, that’s right.’

‘Mr Milroy said you might have a vacancy for a pupil,’ said Roger. ‘Do you think you might be able to take me?’

‘Do I think we might be able to take ye, my dear fellow? Well, my dear fellow, we might, you know, we might. Have ye been called?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who proposed ye?’

‘Well, my mother knows Mr Milroy. He’s a Bencher of my Inn, and he introduced me to Mr Sanderson.’

‘When were ye called, my dear fellow?’

‘The day before yesterday, as a matter of fact.’

‘Just out of the egg, my dear fellow, just out of the egg. D’ye think ye’re going to like it?’

‘I’m sure I shall, but, of course, I don’t really know much about it yet. I suppose the more important question really is whether it will like me.’

‘Quite right, my dear fellow, quite right. Yes, I think we can take ye, I think we can take ye. When would ye like to start?’

‘Straight away, if I may.’

‘Of course ye may, my dear fellow, of course ye may. Take these papers and have a look at them. Alec will show ye where the pupils’ room is. Ye’ll find a couple of others there. They’ll tell ye how the wheels go round. Now, off ye go, my dear fellow. Ask me anything you want to. Goodbye, my dear fellow – goodbye, bye, bye.’ And Mr Grimes showed Roger to the door.

‘All right, sir?’ said Alec.

‘Mr Grimes said I could start at once,’ said Roger.

‘Very well, sir. That’s the pupils’ room over there. I’ll show you in. I hope you’ll be happy here, sir.’

They started to go together towards the pupils’ room door when Alec stopped for a moment.

‘Oh, sir, would you make out two cheques, please. One for a hundred guineas for Mr Grimes and one for me for ten.’

‘Now?’

‘No – any time, sir, thank you.’

At that moment, Alec was sent for hurriedly by Mr Grimes. ‘Would you mind showing yourself in, sir?’ said Alec to Roger. ‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ and Alec rushed away.

Roger opened the door of the pupils’ room and walked in. ‘My name’s Thursby,’ he said. ‘I’m a new pupil.’

‘How are ye, my dear fellow, how are ye?’ said a man of about thirty-three, giving a very creditable imitation of Mr Grimes.