17
There was no reason why the ringing of the doorbell the following night should have made the hairs rise on the back of Austin’s neck unless he expected, when he opened the front door, to see the disembodied spirit that lived in the cellar, in the butler’s pantry, and on the stairs.
“Oh,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine who it was. Come in, Nora.”
“I saw your light,” Nora said. “I won’t stay but a minute. I know you’re very busy.”
“I brought some work home from the office,” Austin said, as he closed the door. “How is Mrs. Beach?”
“She’s feeling better,” Nora said as she followed him into the study. “Cousin Austin, there’s something that I want very much to talk to you about.”
“Yes?”
“Something of the utmost importance. To me, I mean,” she added. She sat down in the chair Martha King used when she was doing her mending, and tucked her legs up under her skirt.
Austin’s eyebrows rose, conveying both a question and a slight apprehensiveness.
“I spent the afternoon in the public library,” she said, “reading Blackstone’s Commentaries.”
This piece of information was delivered in such a way as to suggest that Nora expected Austin to be amazed by it. If he was amazed, his face failed to show it. He said, “Is that so?”
“I read the first forty-two pages,” Nora said.
“What did you make of it?”
“There were lots of things I didn’t understand,” Nora said. “The language was new to me, but I found it very interesting.… Cousin Austin, do you think I could be a lawyer?”
“That’s a hard question to answer.”
“I know it is,” Nora said, “and I don’t expect you to tell me right off. I didn’t know whether you’d even listen to the idea. Really I didn’t. I thought, I’ll tell him and then see what he——”
“Why should you want to be a lawyer, Nora, when there are other fields that are just as rewarding and much more——”
“Because it’s the one thing that appeals to me,” Nora said. “I know there are other things I could do, but I want something where I can do some good. All day I’ve hardly allowed myself to hope. I was afraid that if I did and then it turned out that there was no chance for me, the disappointment would be too—tell me this much: Do you think, knowing me as you do, that it’s impossible?”
“It’s not impossible,” Austin said, “but on the other hand, it’s not easy.”
“Oh I know that,” Nora said quickly.
“There was a girl in my class at Northwestern, quite a nice girl as I remember. It was generally assumed that a girl in law school wouldn’t last more than one semester, and as a matter of fact, this girl did drop out. I never knew why or what became of her, but I do know that there are several women practising law in this State at the moment. They may not have an easy time of it, at first, but then nobody does. It all depends on how serious you are about wanting to do it, and whether you’re willing to apply yourself. You’d have to work very hard for a long time. Otherwise there’s no use even considering it.”
“I’m very serious,” Nora said. “Terribly serious. Something inside of me says I can do it. I know I can if you’ll only help me. I wouldn’t want to embarrass or inconvenience you, but would it be possible for me to come to your office in the afternoons and read there? For a short while, I mean. Just long enough for you to decide whether or not there is any use in my trying.”
The case against women in the practice of law has been nobly expressed in an opinion by Chief Justice Ryan (39 Wis. Page 352):
This is the first application for admission of a female to the bar of this court. And it is a just matter for congratulation that it is made in favour of a lady whose character raises no personal objections; something perhaps not always to be looked for in the women who forsake the ways of their sex for the ways of ours.… So we find no statutory authority for the admission of females to the bar of any court in this State. And, with all the respect and sympathy for this lady which all men owe to all good women, we cannot regret that we do not. We cannot but think the common law wise in excluding women from the profession of the law. The profession enters largely into the well being of society; and, to be honourably filled and safely to society, exacts the devotion of life. The law of nature destines and qualifies the female sex for the bearing and nurture of the children of our race and for the custody of the homes of the world and their maintenance in love and honour. And all life-long callings of women, inconsistent with these radical and sacred duties of their sex, as is the profession of the law, are departures from the order of nature; and when voluntary, treason against it. The cruel chances of life sometimes baffle both sexes, and may leave women free from the peculiar duties of their sex. These may need employment, and should be welcome to any not derogatory of their sex and its proprieties, or inconsistent with the good order of society. But it is public policy to provide for the sex, not for its superfluous members; and not to tempt women from the proper duties of their sex by opening to them duties peculiar to ours. There are many employments in life not unfit for the female character. The profession of law is surely not one of these.… Discussions are habitually necessary in courts of justice, which are unfit for female ears. The habitual presence of women at these would tend to relax the public sense of decency and propriety. If, as counsel threatened, these things are to come, we will take no voluntary part in bringing them about.
The habitual presence of women in courts of law was to come, even though Chief Justice Ryan took a voluntary part in preventing Miss Lavinia Goodell from practising before the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin.
Nora’s interest in the law had taken Austin by surprise and appeared to be rather sudden, but it was also true that she had a very good mind, clear and logical, except where her emotions were involved. The fact that she had ploughed through forty pages of Blackstone was in itself remarkable. Very few women would have got past the first page. With help, and if she applied herself …
“Let me think about it, a day or two,” he said. “Mr. Holby will be back in town on Tuesday. I’ll talk the matter over with him. He may object to your being in the office, in which case——”
“If you only knew what it means to me,” Nora said.
As she said good night, her face, under the porchlight, was transformed with radiance and hope.
18
“If you want Nora near you,” Martha said as she dealt herself a hand of solitaire.
“But that’s not the point,” Austin said. “I don’t want her near me, I’m merely trying to help her. It will be something of an inconvenience having her in the office, day in and day out. It means giving her a certain amount of my time, if she is going to make any progress——”
“Well, if you have the time, why not?”
“I don’t have. I’ve never been entirely caught up since they were here last summer. And Mr. Holby does less and less. From a purely selfish point of view, there’s no use even considering the idea. It’s bound to cause a certain amount of talk, and it may lead to friction with Mr. Holby. Since I’m doing three-quarters of his work and he is taking sixty per cent of the profits of the firm, I suppose I shouldn’t worry about exerting pressure on him.”
“The person I’d worry about is Miss Ewing.”
“I’m going to have a talk with him about that, too,” Austin said. “The time has come when the percentage should be reversed. I’m going to insist on at least a fifty-fifty basis.… Why Miss Ewing?”
“I don’t know, but I rather imagine she won’t like having another woman in the office, especially under the arrangement you’re considering.”
“She’ll have to like it,” Austin said. “In the old days I used to be able to come to you with problems that were bothering me, and we could talk them over. Now, when I try to talk something over with you, you seem to resent it. I always understand things better after I’ve talked to you, and I often
follow your suggestions.”
“Not recently,” Martha said, glancing over the rows of cards for a black ten that the nine of diamonds could go on.
“Maybe not recently,” Austin said, “but that’s because you have a kind of blind spot where Nora is concerned, and always have had. There’s more at stake here than Nora. Every time a woman manages to break through the barrier of prejudice that keeps them out of the professions——”
“This interest in feminism is fairly recent with you, isn’t it?”
“Not as recent as you think.”
“Well, in any case, this much I do know,” Martha said, scooping the cards into a pile. “If you were a doctor, Nora would be spending her time poring over a medical dictionary, and persuading the nurses to let her into the operating room at the hospital. And if you were a school teacher, she’d care terribly about education.”
“You’re not being fair to her.”
“I’m being quite fair to Nora, and you’re wrong in thinking I dislike her,” Martha said. “I not only like Nora, I admire and respect her courage. The last three months can’t have been easy for her. The person I am unfair to is you, Austin, because you want to be helpful, you want to help everybody, and instead of encouraging you to do that—after all, it’s a perfectly natural desire——”
She began shuffling and reshuffling the cards, as if shuffling were all that there was to the game.
19
“Well, my boy,” Mr. Holby said, “I’m glad you brought the subject up. It’s time we gave it some consideration. I have a tendency to let things ride, as long as they seem to be going well, and it didn’t occur to me that you might not be satisfied with the present arrangement.”
“I’m not dissatisfied,” Austin said, feeling, from Mr. Holby’s tone of voice, from the kindness and also a certain sadness in his manner, that Mr. Holby was not going to put up a fight; that his case was won. “It’s just that when I came into the firm, it was with the understanding that someday——”
“I know,” Mr. Holby said, nodding. “I realize all that, and I’ve been aware for some time that you were carrying perhaps a little more than your share of the burden. But that’s what happens, of course. As a young man I went through the same thing, and charged it off to valuable experience, figuring that it would eventually correct itself, as of course, it did. Part of it has been beyond my control. As you know, Mrs. Holby’s health hasn’t been any too good this last year. I’m quite worried about her. I wouldn’t want anybody but you to know this, but I can talk to you as I would talk to my own son. I’ve had to think about her more than I would have if she’d been as strong and active as most women of her age. I’ve had to take her to Hot Springs and other places that we hoped would do her good, which means, of course, spending a good deal of money, but these things come up in family life, and there’s really no choice. They have to take precedence, for a time, over everything else. I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand that it hasn’t been just my own pleasures and desires that I’ve had to consider.”
“Oh, I know that,” Austin said quickly.
“As we get older, we tend to lean more on the younger men around us, to depend on their energy and willingness to see that the details are carried out, without which, of course, the maturer wisdom and judgment that come with age and that are concerned with broader matters, would be seriously hampered. I fancy that an outside viewpoint would consider that the two just about cancel each other out. At least they make a very good working team. You’ve done extremely well for so young a man, and I’m confident that some day your name will mean as much, will command the same respect that your father’s did. But it takes time, and you mustn’t be impatient. It will all come to you, everything that you hope for and deserve in the way of recognition. I’ve done what I could to guide you and keep you from making rash mistakes, and I intend to go on giving you the benefit of my experience and knowledge, so that when the time comes that I have to step down and you have to carry on alone or with the help of some younger man, the ideals that the firm of Holby and King has always stood for will be ably represented. I look forward to that day, as I’m sure you do, too. Meanwhile, of course, there are other, more pressing matters to consider. In your eagerness to get ahead, I think you under-estimate one or two angles of the situation. I’m the last man in the world to countenance an injustice. Not even for five minutes. My life has been dedicated to the cause of truth and fair play. People who complain that lawyers are interested only in their fee fail to take into consideration that the Law is the only profession whose aim is to correct the evils of society, defend the innocent, and see to it that the guilty are meted out their due punishment. Without the legal profession the world we live in would be chaos. In Law you have order, you have responsibility, you have decency, you have the only arrangement whereby society can function. It isn’t enough to pass laws. They must be interpreted. One cause, one legal claim must be balanced against another. You and I, sitting in this room, cannot—and still be worthy of the name we call ourselves by—see the question of partnership in any but the broadest light. When I’ve been away from the office, it may have seemed to you that I was frittering away my time in social pleasures, enjoying the company and cultivation of time-honoured associates, reaping my just rewards, probably, but nevertheless—and for the moment—allowing my mind to be diverted from the work that lies waiting for me, this very minute, on my desk. I wouldn’t blame you if you had thought that. It would be a very natural mistake for you to make under the circumstances. The truth of the matter is that my mind is never idle. I am continually deliberating and meditating upon some legal problem, so that when the times comes and the decision must be made, I have covered the whole question, every crack and cranny of it, and am ready to act. In a world where people are continually acting on some blind impulse, never stopping to consider what is the wise, what is the right course to pursue, the intellectual faculties are not always given their due, but without them where would we be? What hope would there be for mankind? On the one hand, you’d have barbarism and ruthless aggression, on the other, slavery. Someone must digest, must ponder and weigh the consequences, study the causes, give thought to the ultimate values that must never be lost sight of, and dismiss those considerations that are trivial or misleading, that are mere side issues. Now as things stand, I find myself in agreement with you about the division of profits of this firm—that an equal sharing, even though it tends to set a valuation on certain qualities that cannot in the very nature of things be evaluated, is reasonable and fair. Or if not precisely and mathematically so, then it will so soon become that way that we ought to feel ourselves free to anticipate the future and act according to it, with a certain amount of confidence that we are acting properly. I say ‘as things stand.’
“A short time ago you mentioned to me the possibility of taking a young woman into the office—Miss Potter—with the understanding that she would read and prepare herself for the bar examination. It is perhaps a rather radical departure from what is customary, but even so, I have no objection. I believe, as I’m sure you know, that conditions change, that we must abide by the Law of Progress in so far as we can interpret it. I’m sure you have looked into Miss Potter’s qualifications thoroughly and would not countenance such a step if she were lacking in the requisite mentality. And I appreciate also that, in view of your association with her family, you would want to offer her any assistance that lies in your power. But I hope you have also considered what it means to the firm. She will require desk space, it will put an added burden on Miss Ewing, who is already overworked. And if Miss Potter is to advance with any speed towards her goal, she will require a great deal of your time and guidance. So much of each, in fact, that it seems to me quite to upset the balancing of values, yours and mine, that we were just now speaking of. If you want to have her here, I am willing to withdraw any objections I might have to it, with the understanding that, for the time at least—I don’t mean that the question of
division of profits cannot be reopened in the future, you understand—until we see how this new arrangement works out, I feel that it is better to let things ride along the way they have been going. I leave it entirely up to you, my boy. Whatever you decide will be satisfactory with me.”
Part Five
The Province of Jurisprudence
1
Of the literary arts, the one most practised in Draperville was history. It was informal, and there was no reason to write it down since nothing was ever forgotten. The child born too soon after the wedding ceremony might learn to walk and to ride a bicycle; he might go to school and graduate into long pants, marry, move to Seattle, and do well for himself in the lumber business; but whenever his or his mother’s name was mentioned, it was followed inexorably by some smiling reference to the date of his birth. No one knew what had become of the energetic secretary of the Chamber of Commerce who organized the Love-Thy-Neighbour-As-Thyself parade, but they knew why he left town shortly afterward, and history doesn’t have to be complete. It is merely a continuous methodical record of events. These events can be told in chronological order but that isn’t necessary any more than it is necessary for the historians to be concerned with cause and effect. Research in Draperville was carried on over the back fence, over the telephone, in kitchens and parlours and upstairs bedrooms, in the back seat of carriages, in wicker porch swings, in the bell tower of the Unitarian Church, where the Willing Workers met on Wednesdays and patiently, with their needles and thread, paid off the mortgage on the parsonage.
Time Will Darken It Page 23