Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/261

248 for the foreman—and immediately fell off himself into strong hysterics. The morning came at last—ten minutes to nine—I suppose over-tasked nature had been exacting an instalment of over-due sleep. Flora was doing her back hair at the glass, with a succession of fascinating little tosses of the head as the brush accomplished each sweep. I must have remained for a few minutes in contemplation of this—not unpleasing—performance, when memory vaulted once more into the saddle, and I recollected that there was work to be done before that day’s sun had set. Barber, look to yourself!

The dressing-process was executed with wonderful despatch. In a general way I love to linger over this period of my existence; to trifle now with a book—now with a letter; and to add a storey or two to that castle in the air which has already attained the proportions of a magnificent pile indeed. Not so upon this eventful day. I felt I was assisting to form square in order to repel Mr. Barber and his unprincipled advisers. When it came to the turn of the shower-bath—although upon ordinary occasions throughout the winter months there is a certain exhibition of coquetry on my part, before I can make up my mind to give the fatal jerk to the string which hangs in readiness to pull down the Arctic regions on my warm, comfortable shoulders—upon this day I was so fully possessed with my subject, that I imagined I had thrust Mr. Barber into that ungenial hermitage, and without a moment’s hesitation gave him the cold drench with savage glee.

“That will teach you—wretched man!—to shear off your poor wife’s hair! Do it again, sir, and I will keep you there all day!”

I must in fairness add, that before the refreshing operation was over, I became quite aware that this was but the fancy of an overwrought and heated imagination.

By a quarter past ten I was in Great George Street; and wished to hurry off with Lamb at once to the Court, although the lady had not yet arrived, lest we should be too late. Lamb laughed at my precipitancy, and informed me, that there was no such hurry, because it had been arranged that the Court was to take a short case— v. and —before the great trial of v. was called on. and would probably occupy about half an hour. However, Mr. Lamb, in tender consideration of my inexperience, and supposing that it would be agreeable to me to be initiated into the mysteries of the Divorce Court, entrusted me to the care of one of his clerks, and gave me a bundle of papers duly tied up with red tape, and indorsed " v. .” The deposit was a sacred one in my hands—not even the policeman with the red whiskers should tear that from my possession. The clerk was charged with a message for Mr. Muddle, Q.C., in the robing room, a circumstance which was so far fortunate that we were able by a series of back passages to get into the Court without passing through Westminster Hall; and therefore without being compelled to face that band of outraged Mænads, whom I had seen but two days back waiting for wicked husbands.

This time all was easy. The policeman smiled upon us, and the doors flew open at our approach. It would be a mere waste of time to describe at length the old Chancellor’s Court at Westminster; but, for the benefit of the uninitiated, let me say, in a very few words, that it is not large—square in shape—with a gallery cut in a circular form—and a gas chandelier in the middle. There is a canopy and a bench with three desks for the Judges—the Judge Ordinary sits in the middle—on one side. Beneath their position is a long table at which sits a gentleman in barrister’s robes; no doubt an official of the Court, and possibly the person whose voice I heard the other day, through the trap, reading out that impassioned appeal to somebody’s “Adored Louisa.” If so, I am glad to see that he has partially recovered from his cold. He is perpetually opening and shutting a despatch-box, and looks like a man who would be always losing and finding his papers. Beneath him again is a well, where sit the Solicitors, with their backs to the Judges and their faces to the Bar. On the same level with them, but facing the other way, are the Queen’s Counsel, and the chief matrimonial gladiators from the Commons. Behind these, but slightly elevated, sit the junior practitioners who have devoted themselves to the honourable undertaking of promoting the domestic happiness of their country. Right at the back of their benches—divided from it by a species of “Fops’ Alley”—and against the wall, facing the Judges, is the box for the jurymen in waiting. It would seem as though the desire had been to exclude the public as much as possible, by leaving very little room for their accommodation. Against the wall, to the left of the Judges, and forming one side of the well, is the box for the Jury who are trying the case. The witnesses are made to ascend three or four steps to the raised platform on which the Judges sit. A portion of this, between the seats of the Judges and the Jury-box, has been railed off into a kind of pen. If a gross man is under examination, he is shouted and growled at until he stands well forward in sight of the Jury; if it be a delicate and susceptible lady who is invited to impart her sorrows into the sympathising ears of the Court, she is blandly invited by the Judges to be seated at the end of their own bench, though always within the pen. As the dividing rail is very slight, a stranger who entered the Court for the first time would imagine that, as all four are seated in a row, and as, on the same bench, there are three elderly Judges and an extremely fascinating member of the opposite interest, the lady was sitting there as assessor or adviser of the Court. This is not so. What adds to the illusion is, that when the Judges are seated two heavy red curtains are drawn, which inclose them and the lady in their gorgeous sweep. Mr. Lamb’s clerk was obliging enough to point out this fact to me, with the additional information, that no circumstance connected with the arrangements of the Court had given his “Governor” more trouble; indeed, he added, that my poor friend often lay awake for nights thinking how to get over the difficulty, which consisted in the fact that when the curtain was drawn the Jury were debarred from the privilege of scanning the face of the lady-witness under examination.