Mrs. Warren's Daughter Part 9

What did Bridget think of all this, of the spiritual evolution of her nursling, of his ident.i.ty with the vicious, s.h.i.+fty, idle youth whose uncanny gift of design seemed to have been completely lost after his stay in South Africa? David Vavasour Williams had left home to the relief of his father and the whole village, if even to the half-pitying regret of his old nurse, in 1896. He had spent a year or more in Mr. Praed's studio studying to be an architect or a scene painter. Then somehow or other he did not get on with Mr.

Praed and he enlisted impulsively in a South African Police force (in the Army, it seemed to Bridget). He had somehow become involved in a war with a South African people, called by Bridget "the Wild Boars"; he is wounded or ill in hospital; is little heard of, almost presumed dead. Throughout all these five years he scarcely ever writes to his forgiving father; maintains latterly a sulky silence.

Then, suddenly in the summer of 1901, returns; preceded only by a telegram but apparently vouched for by this Mr. Praed; and announces himself as having forgotten his Welsh and most of the events of his youth, but having acquired a changed heart, and an anxiety to make up for past ill-behaviour by a present good conduct which seems almost miraculous.

Well: miracles were easily believed in by Bridget. Perhaps his father's prayers had been answered. Providence sometimes meted out an overwhelming boon to really good people. David was certainly a Vavasour, if there was nothing Williamsy about his looks.... His mother, in Mrs. Bridget Evanwy's private opinion, had been a hussy.... Was David his father's son? Hadn't she once caught Mrs.

Howel Williams kissing a young stranger behind a holly bush and wasn't that why Bridget had really been sent away? She had returned to take charge of the pretty, motherless little boy when she herself was a widow disappointed of children, and the child was only three.

Would she ever turn against her nursling now, above all, when he was showing himself such a son to his old father? Not she. He might be who and what he would. He was giving another ten years of renewed life to the dear old Druid and the continuance of a comfortable home to his old Nannie.

They talked a great deal up at Little Bethel of a "change of heart." Perhaps such things really took place, though Bridget Evanwy from a shrewd apprais.e.m.e.nt of the Welsh nature doubted it. She would like to, but couldn't quite believe that an angel from heaven had taken possession of David's body and come here to play a divine part; because David sometimes talked so strangely--seemed not only to doubt the existence of a heavenly host, but even of Something beyond, so awful in Bridget's mind that she hardly liked to define it in words, though in her own Welsh tongue it was so earthily styled "the Big Man."

However, at all costs, she would stand by David ... and without quite knowing why, she decided that on all future visits she herself would "do out" his room, would attend to him exclusively. The "girl"

was a chatterer, albeit she looked upon Mr. David with eyes of awe and a most respectful admiration, while David on his part scarcely bestowed on her a glance.

CHAPTER IX

DAVID IS CALLED TO THE BAR

1902 was the year of King Edward's break-down in health but of his ultimate Coronation; it was the year in which Mr. Arthur Balfour became premier; it was the year in which motors became really well-known, familiar objects in the London streets, and hansoms (I think) had to adopt taximeter clocks on the eve of their displacement by taxi-cabs. It was likewise the year in which the South African War was finally wound up and the star of Joseph Chamberlain paled to its setting, and Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel founded the Women's Social and Political Union at Manchester.

In 1903, the Fiscal controversy absorbed much of public attention, the War Office was once more reformed, women's skirts still swept the pavement and enc.u.mbered the ball-room, a Peeress wrote to the _Times_ to complain of Modern Manners, Surrey beat Something-or-other at the Oval, and modern Cricket was voted dull.

In 1904, the Russo-j.a.panese War was concluded, and _Fraser and Warren_ received a year's notice from the Midland Insurance Co. that they must vacate their premises on the fifth floor of Nos. 88-90 Chancery Lane. The business of _F. and W._ had grown so considerable that, as the affairs of the Midland Insurance Co. had slackened, it became intolerable to hear the lift going up and down to the fifth floor all through the day. The housekeeper also thought it odd that a well-dressed young gentleman should steal in and up, day after day, after office hours to work apparently alone in _Fraser and Warren's_ partners' room. _Fraser and Warren_ over the hand of its junior partner, Mrs. Claridge, accepted the notice. Their business had quite overgrown these inconveniently situated offices and a move to the West End was projected. Mrs. Claridge's scheme for week-end cottages had been enormously successful and had put much money not only into the coffers of _Fraser and Warren_ but into the banking account of that clever architect, Francis Brimley Storrington.

[I find I made an absurd mistake earlier in this book in charging the too amorous architect with a home at "Storrington." His home really was in a midland garden city which he had designed, but his name--a not uncommon one--was Storrington.]

In the autumn of 1902, poor Lady Fraser died. In January, 1903, Honoria married the impatient Colonel Armstrong. In January, 1904, she had her first baby--a boy.

At the close of 1904 Beryl Claridge made proposals to Honoria Fraser relative to a change in the const.i.tution of _Fraser and Warren_.

Honoria was to have an interest still as a sleeping partner in the concern and some voice in its management and policy. But she was to take no active share of the office work and "Warren" was to pa.s.s out of it altogether. Beryl pointed out it was rather a farce when the middle partner--she herself had been made the junior partner a year before--was perpetually and mysteriously absent, year after year, engaged seemingly on work of her own abroad. Her architect semi-husband moreover, who if not in the firm was doing an increasing share of its business, wanted to know _more_ about Vivien Warren. "Was she or was she not the daughter of the 'notorious' Mrs.

Warren; because if so..." He took of course a highly virtuous line.

Like so many other people he compounded for the sins he was inclined to by being severe towards the misdoings of others. _His_ case--he would say to Beryl when they were together at Chelsea--was _sui generis_, quite exceptional, they were really in a way perfectly good people--_Tout savoir c'est tout pardonner, etc._; whereas the _things_ that were _said_ about Mrs. Warren!... And though Vivien was nothing nearer sin than being her daughter, still if it were known or known more widely that _she_ was the Warren in _Fraser and Warren_, why the wives of the wealthier clergy, for example, and a number of Quakeresses would withdraw their affairs from the firm's management. Whereas if only his little Berry could become the boss, _he_ knew where to get "big money" to put behind the Firm's dealings. The idea was all right; an a.s.sociation for the special management on thoroughly honest lines of women's affairs.

They'd better get rid of that hulking young clerk, Bertie Adams, and staff the entire concern with capable women. He himself would always remain in the background, giving them ideas from time to time, and if any were taken up merely being paid his fees and commissions.

David Vavasour Williams, privately consulted by Norie, put forward no objection. He disliked Beryl and was increasingly shy of his rather clandestine work on the fifth floor of the Midland Insurance Chambers; besides, if and when he were called to the Bar, he would have to cease all connection with _Fraser and Warren_. The consent of Vivie was obtained through the Power of Attorney she had left behind. A new deed of partners.h.i.+p was drawn up. Honoria insisted that Vivien Warren must be bought out for Three Thousand pounds, which amount was put temporarily to the banking account of David Vavasour Williams; she herself received another Three Thousand and a small percentage of the future profits and a share in the direction of affairs of THE WOMEN'S CO-OPERATIVE a.s.sOCIATION (_Fraser and Claridge_) so long as she left a capital of Five Thousand pounds at their disposal.

So in 1905 David with Three Thousand pounds purchased an annuity of 210 a year for Vivien Warren. That investment would save Vivie from becoming at any time penniless and dependent, and consequently would subserve the same purpose for her cousin and agent, David V.

Williams.

Going to the C. and C. Bank, Temple Bar branch, to take stock of Vivie's affairs, he found a Thousand pounds had been paid in to her current account. Ascertaining the name of the payee to be L.M.

Praed, he hurried off at the first opportunity to Praed's studio.

Praed was entertaining a large party of young men and women to tea and the exhibition of some wild futurist drawings and a few rather striking designs for stage scenery and book covers. David had perforce to keep his questions bottled up and take part in the rather vapid conversation that was going on between young men with _glabre_ faces and high-pitched voices and women with rather wild eyes.

[It struck David about this time that women were getting a little out of hand, strained, over-inclined to laugh mirthless laughter, greedy for sensuality, sensation, sincerity, sweetmeats. Something.

Even if they satisfied some fleeting pa.s.sion or jealousy by marrying, they soon wanted to be de-married, separated, divorced, to don male costume, to go on the amateur stage and act Salome parts on Sunday afternoons that most ladies of the real Stage had refused; while the men that went about with them in these troops from restaurant to restaurant, studio to studio, music hall to cafe chantant, Brighton to Monte Carlo, Sandown to Goodwood, were s.h.i.+fty, too well-dressed, too near neutrality in s.e.x, without defined professions, known by nicknames only, spend-thrifts, spongers, bankrupts, and collectors of needless bric-a-brac.]

However this mob at last quitted Praddy's premises and he and David were left alone.

Praed yawned, and almost intentionally knocked over an easel with a semi-obscene drawing on it of a Sphynx with swelling b.r.e.a.s.t.s embracing a lean young man against his will.

_David_: "Praddy! why do you tolerate such people and why prost.i.tute your studio to such unwholesome art?"

_Praed_: "My dear David! This is _indeed_ Satan rebuking sin. Why there are three designs here--one I've just knocked over--beastly, wasn't it?--that _you _ left with me when you went off at a tangent to South Africa.... Really, we ought to have _some_ continuity you know....

"But I agree with you.... I'm sick of the whole business of this Nouvel Art and L'Art Nouveau, about Aubrey Beardsley and the disgusting 'nineties generally--But what _will_ you? If Miss Vivie Warren had condescended to accept me as a husband she might have brought a wholesome atmosphere into my life and swept away all this ... inspired me perhaps with some final ambition for the little that remains of my stock of energy.... Heigh-ho! Well: what is the quarrel now? The life I lead, the people who come here?"

_David_: "No. I hardly came about that; though dear old Praddy, I wish I had time to look after you ... Perhaps later.... No: what I came to ask was: what _did_ you mean the other day by paying in a Thousand Pounds to Vivie Warren's account at her bank? She's not in want of money so far as I know, and you can't be so very rich, even though you design three millionaire's houses a year. Who gave you the money to pay in to my--to Vivie's account?"

_Praed_: "Well, when Vivie herself comes to ask me, p'raps I'll tell; but I can't see how it concerns _you_. Why not stop and dine--a l'imprevu, but I dare say my housekeeper can rake something together or it may not be too late to send out for a pate. We can then talk of other things. When are you going to get your call?"

_David_: "Sorry, dear old chap, but I can't stay to dinner. I'm not going anywhere else but I've got some papers I _must_ study before I go to bed. But I'll stop another half-hour at any rate. Don't ring for lights or turn up the electric lamps. I would sooner sit in the dark studio and put my question. Who has given me that thousand pounds?"

_Praed_: "That's _my_ business: _I_ haven't! I shan't give or lend Vivie a penny till she consents to marry me. As to the rest, take it and be thankful. You're not certain to get any more and I happen to know it had what you would call a 'clean origin.'"

_David_: "You mean it didn't come from those 'Hotels'?"

_Praed_: "Well, at any rate not directly. Don't be a romantic a.s.s, a tiresome fool, and give me any trouble about it. A certain person I imagine must have heard that _Fraser and Warren_ had been wound up and couldn't bear the thought of your being hard up in consequence ... doesn't know you got a share of the purchase-money..."

David decided at any rate for the present to accept the addition to his capital--you can perhaps push principle _too_ far; or, once you plunge into affairs, you cease to be quite so high-souled. At any rate nothing in David's middle-cla.s.s mind was so horrible as penury and the impotence that comes with it. How many months or years would lie ahead of him before fees could be gained and a professional income be earned? Besides he wanted to take Bertie Adams into his service as a Clerk. A barrister must have a clerk, and David in his peculiar circ.u.mstances could only engage one acquainted more or less with his secret.

So Bertie Adams fulfilled the ambition he had cherished for three years--he felt all along it was coming true. And when David was called to the Bar--which he was with all the stately ceremonial of a Call night at the Inner Temple in the Easter term of 1905, more elbow room was acquired at Fig Tree Court, and Bertie Adams was installed there as clerk to Mr. David Vavasour Williams, who had residential chambers on the third floor, and a fair-sized Office and small private room on the second floor. Bertie's mother had "washed"

for both Honoria and Vivie in their respective dwellings for years, and for David after he came to live at Fig Tree Court. A substantial douceur to the "housekeeper" had facilitated this, for in the part of the Temple where lies Fig Tree Court the residents do not call their ministrants "laundresses," but "housekeepers." Curiously enough the accounts were always tendered to the absent Vivie Warren, but Mrs. Adams noted no discrepancy in their being paid by her son or in an unmarried lady living in the Temple under the name of David Williams.

Installed as clerk and advised by his employer to court one of the fair daughters of the housekeeper (Mrs. Laidly) with a view to marriage and settling down in premises hard-by, Bertie Adams (who like David had spent his time well between 1901 and 1905 and was now an accomplished and serviceable barrister's clerk) soon set to work to chum up with other clerks in this clerical hive and get for his master small briefs, small chances for defending undefended cases in which hapless women were concerned.

But before we deal with the career of David at the Bar, which of course did not properly commence--even as a brilliant junior--till the early months of 1906, let us glance at the way in which he had pa.s.sed the intervening s.p.a.ce of time between his return from Wales in May, 1902, and the spending of his Long Vacation of 1905 as an Esquire by the Common Law of England called to the Bar, and ent.i.tled to wear a becoming grey wig and gown.

He had begun in 1900 by studying Latin, Norman French--so greatly drawn on in law terms--and English History. In the summer of 1901, by one of those subterfuges winked at then, he had obtained two rooms, sublet to him by a member of the Inn, in Fig Tree Court, Inner Temple. In the autumn of that year, having made sure of his parentage and his finance, he had approached the necessary authorities with a view to his being admitted a member of the Inner Temple, which meant filling up a form of declaration that he, David Vavasour Williams, of Pontystrad, Glamorgan, a British subject, aged twenty-four, son of the Revd. Howel Vaughan Williams, Clerk in Holy Orders, of Pontystrad in the County of Glamorgan, was desirous of being admitted a Student of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple for the purpose of being called to the Bar or of practising under the Bar; and that he would not either directly or indirectly apply for or take out any certificate to practise directly or indirectly as a Pleader, Conveyancer or Draftsman in Equity without the special permission of the Masters of the Bench of the said Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

Further, David declared with less a.s.surance but perhaps within the four corners of the bare truth that he had not acted directly or indirectly in the capacity of a Solicitor, Attorney-at-law, Writer to the Signet or in about thirteen other specified legal positions; that he was not a Chartered, Incorporated or Professional Accountant ("A good job we changed the device of the Firm," he thought), a Land Agent, a Surveyor, Patent Agent, Consulting Engineer, or even as a clerk to any such officer. Which made him rather s.h.i.+very about what he _had_ been doing for _Fraser and Warren_, but there was little risk that any one would find out--And finally he declared that he was not in Trade or an undischarged bankrupt.

The next and most difficult step was to obtain two separate Certificates from two separate barristers each of five years'

standing, to the effect that he was what he stated himself to be.

This required much thinking out, and was one of the reasons why he did not go down as promised and spend his Christmas and New Year with his father.

Instead he wrote to Pontystrad explaining how important it was he should get admitted as a Student in time to commence work in Hilary term. Did his father know any such luminary of the law or any two such luminaries? His father regretted that he only knew of one such barrister of over five years' standing: the distinguished son of an old Cambridge chum. To him he wrote, venturing to recall himself, the more eagerly since this son of an old friend was himself a Welshman and already distinguished by his having entered Parliament, served with the Welsh Party, written a book on Welsh history, and married a lady of considerable wealth.

Next David applied to Rossiter with the result--as we have seen--that he got an introduction to Mr. Stansfield. So he obtained from Mr. Price and Mr. Stansfield the two certificates to the effect that "David Vavasour Williams has been introduced to me by letter of introduction from the Revd. Howel Williams" (or "Professor Michael Rossiter, F.R.S.") "and has been seen by me; and that I, Mark Stansfield, Barrister-at-law, King's Counsel" (or "John Price, Barrister-at-law, Member of Parliament") "believe the said David Vavasour Williams to be a gentleman of respectability and a proper person to be admitted a Student of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple with a view to being called to the Bar."

Copies of the letters of introduction accompanied the two certificates. These of course were not obtained without several visits to the unsuspicious guarantors; or at least one to Mr. Price in Paper Buildings, for whom it was enough that David claimed to be Welsh and showed a very keen interest in the Welsh tongue and its Indo-German affinities, and three or four to Mr. Mark Stansfield, K.C., one of the nicest, kindliest and most learned persons David had ever met, whom he grieved deeply at deceiving. Stansfield had a high opinion of Rossiter. The fact that he recommended David was quite sufficient to secure his "guarantee." But apart from that, he felt himself greatly drawn towards this rather shy, grave, nice-looking young fellow with the steady eyes and the keen intelligence. He had him to dine and to lunch; drew him out--as far as David thought it prudent to go--and was surprised David had never been to a University ("Only to Malvern--and then I studied with an architect in London--Who? Mr. Praed, A.R.A.--but then I travelled for a bit, and after that I felt more than ever I wanted to go in for the Bar"--said David, with a charming smile which lit up his young face ordinarily so staid). Stansfield consented that David should come and read with him, and in many ways facilitated his progress so materially and so kindly that more than once the compunctious young Welshman thought of discarding the impersonation; and might have done so had not this most estimable Stansfield died of pneumonia in the last year of David's studenthood.

Of course the preliminary examination was easily and quickly pa.s.sed.

David translated his bit of Caesar's commentaries, answered brilliantly the questions about Alfred the Great, the Anglo-Norman kings, the Const.i.tutions of Clarendon, Magna Charta and Mortmain, Henry the Eighth and the Reformation, the Civil War and Protectorate of Cromwell, the Bill of Rights and the Holy Alliance.

He paid his fees and his "caution" money; he ate the requisite six dinners--or more, as he found them excellent and convenient--in each term, attended all the lectures that interested him, and pa.s.sed the subsidiary examinations on them with fair or even high credit; and finally got through his "Call-to-the-Bar" examination with tolerable success; at any rate he pa.s.sed. A friend of the deceased Stansfield--whose death was always one of the scars in Vivie's memory--introduced him to one of the Masters of the Bench who signed his "call" papers. He once more made a declaration to the effect that he was not a person in Holy Orders, that he was not a Solicitor, Attorney-at-law, Writer to the Signet, etc., etc., a Chartered, Incorporated or Professional Accountant; and again that if called to the Bar, he would never become a member of the abhorred professions over and over again enumerated; and was duly warned that without special permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple he might not practise "under the Bar"--whatever that may mean (I dare say it is some low-down procedure, only allowed in times of scarcity). Then after having his name "screened" for twelve days in all the Halls of the four Inns, and going in fear and trembling that some one might turn up and object, he finally received his call to the Bar on April 22 (if April 22 in that year was on a Sunday, then on the following Monday) and was "called" at the Term Dinner where he took wine with the Masters. He remembered seeing present at the great table on the dais, besides the usual red-faced generals and whiskered admirals, simpering statesmen, and his dearly loved friend, Michael Rossiter--representing Science,--a more sinister face. This was the well-known philanthropist and race-horse breeder, Sir George Crofts, Bart., M.P. for a Norfolk borough. Their eyes met, curiously interlocked for a moment. Sir George wondered to himself where the dooce he had seen that, type of face before, those grey eyes with the dark lashes. "Gad! he reminds me of Kitty Warren!