From the Irish women’s magazine ‘The Lady of the House’ (1896), Part 1 of the entertaining fictional series, ‘A Junior Barrister,’ about the marital vicissitudes of a young Irish barrister practising in the Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland in the last decade of the 19th century. Read in full below! More to follow.

“A JUNIOR BARRISTER.

By the Author of “Marry in Haste,” “The House by the Liffey,” &c.

ARTHUR MORRIS was a rising barrister, at least he was spoken of by his friends as “rising rapidly,” at the present moment, although he had not made enough money to make him giddy. Indeed, there was a little cloud of deep depression, when he sat as though he was rather going down than up. The arrival of a fresh brief or two, however, generally dispelled these gloomy impressions, combined with the assurances of his friends that “he was sure to get on,” and he was the sort of man who liked to be told so. In fact, nothing on the subject, but in question he was very sensitive to public opinion, and Arthur was especially open to conviction, as he wished to believe himself well off enough to get married.

If his male friends encouraged him in being hopeful, his female acquaintances were not behindhand in trying to serve him. They made it a special duty to endeavour to open his eyes to the defects of Eveleen Campbell, as a present daughter and a future wife. But here Arthur’s ears were as tightly closed as they were widely open to the whisper of hope. If his lady friends ventured to suggest that, for the daughter of a poor man, the fair Eveleen was inclined to extravagance in her dress, he would answer that it was a pity everyone had not her exquisite taste, and casting a disparaging eye over the attire of the speaker, remark that our ballrooms and racecourses would present a very different appearance if more girls looked like Eveleen. If they hinted that as the eldest sister of a large family she might assist in teaching the younger members, he declared such drudgery totally unfit for a highly-strung nervous temperament such as hers. Again, if it was remarked that she spent an unconscionable amount of time on a sofa with a novel, while her mother slaved from morning to night, he acknowledged that so highly developed a taste for literature was unusual in so young a woman. So that his well-wishers were at last obliged, though very unwilling, to leave him in his delusion, and consoled themselves by reflecting that he would find out his mistake some (they hoped it might not be too late), and that there was no doubt that if among the crowd of admirers by whom she was generally surrounded a more eligible mate should offer, Arthur would be dismissed with very little ceremony.

It was in the midst of this crowd of admirers that Arthur found her one night during the tennis week at the house of a mutual friend in Fitzwilliam Square. He searched for her in vain in the dancing and tea rooms, and at length discovered her high up on the staircase, sitting out a set of lancers with a certain captain of militia called Archer, whom Arthur particularly disliked.

“Can you give me the next waltz?” he asked, breathlessly. “I want to have a talk with you particularly.”

“I’m afraid really I haven’t one left,” she answered in the same way, “I think if you wanted me to dance with you, you might have come a little earlier.”

“I couldn’t get away a minute earlier away a minute earlier. I had some work to do for Tracy & Williams, and you know,” lowering his voice still more, “what reason I have to work hard just now.”

“Oh, well, we really can’t carry on a confidential conversation here unless we want to make ourselves quite ridiculous” she said, “You’d better come up tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be sure to be in as I know I’ll be too tired for anything.”

“I thought this is our dance,” said Captain Archer, as the first notes of ‘Beauty’s Eyes’ were heard from the drawing-room, and Arthur was obliged to resign his position, and bear with what complacency he might the sight of a large bunch of magnificent yellow roses on Eveleen’s dress, which he certainly had not sent her.

I shouldn’t have forgotten, he said to himself, as he stood for a few minutes leaning against the wall, watching her flying gracefully round with Captain Archer. “After all, I’m the proper person to give her flowers. I wish she wouldn’t dance with that fellow. I hate the sight of him. However, it’ll be all right after to-morrow.”

And with this hope he went home to bed, as Eveleen’s friend, Mrs Carter, had promised to give her a seat in her cab.

The next day Arthur was ushered by the slatternly maid -of-all-work into the small drawing-room of Mr. Campbell’s small house. It stood in one of the dingier suburbs of Dublin, and, although the day was hot and glaring, the window-blinds were drawn up, letting in the full blaze of the afternoon sun, and bringing into cruel prominence the shabbiness of the furniture and the worn threadbareness of the carpet. The dingy chairs were made still dingier by the number of tawdry ‘drapings’ disposed upon them, and the faded wallpaper of an obsolete pattern was ineffectually covered with every variety of bazaar ingenuity in the way of ‘tidies’.

Eveleen, as she reclined languidly on the sofa, in a becoming blouse of the latest pattern, looked strangely out of keeping with her surroundings, but these, sordid and shabby as they were, were entirely lost upon Arthur, who had eyes for nothing but the beauty and the elegance of his fiancée.

“I’m so glad to find you alone,” he began, when she had returned his affectionate greeting in a style of dignified composure. “I never slept all last night, thinking the day would never come, until I could see you and tell you of my plans.”

“Has anything particular happened? Are you going to be made Lord Chancellor, or what?” asked Eveleen, with rather flagging interest.

“Oh, no one, dear, nothing so great as that; at least, not yet. Only I’ve got one of the revising appointments, which Frank Blake tells me will be worth £100, and last month, he went on hurriedly, “I made £20. If that goes on, and I’m sure it will, that makes £240 a year and then the £100 for the revising makes £340 so, if you think, dear, you could possibly manage to begin life on that…”

“Oh,” exclaimed Eveleen, whose interest was now thoroughly roused, “Papa’s got very little more, so I daresay it might do for a beginning, not that I’d like to look forward to a life like mother’s, slaving from morning toil night, making things in the kitchen (such weather as this too), and rubbing and scrubbing these chairs and tables, as if anything in the world would make them look commonly respectable,” casting a contemptuous glance round the dingy apartment.

“I was thinking,” said Arthur timidly, “that perhaps the wisest plan for us would be to go into lodgings just at first, you know, till we begin to see our way a little…”

“Oh no, thank you,” she answered sharply, “No lodgings for me, I’ve seen enough of that kind of thing. Oh no, Arthur, let us have a house of our own. Frank Blake and his sister have a home, and I’m sure he’s not making as much as you, certainly not more.”

Arthur could have reminded her that Kathleen Blake was earning enough herself to be a substantial assistance in keeping the house, but he would not have harboured the thought of his wife working for the world.

“Well, you see, dear,” he said, in a hesitating tone, “a house means furniture, and furniture means ready money and that’s exactly what I haven’t got.”

“Nonsense Arthur, you needn’t pay ready money for everything, I know papa never does. We can put by part of our income to pay off the bill. All the Dublin tradesmen have to wait for their money, and the fact is, dear,” she went on, laying her hand caressingly on his shoulder, and leaning her chin on her hand, “I’ve set my heart on having a house of my own dear, and you really must let me have it.”

And the unusually affectionate tone and unaccustomed caress made Arthur feel that he would be a perfect brute if he did not let her have it.

The important matter decided she ran off to tell her mother who, as soon as she could make herself presentable, hurried in, in her usual anxious, nervous way, to express her delight. She followed up her congratulations with an invitation to dinner, which she felt herself secure in giving. for Mr. Campbell’s dinner was the daily event of his life, and the poor woman spent all of her morning in connecting delicacies, which could not be left to the tender care of the maid of all work.

Arthur was otherwise engaged, much to Eveleen’s relief. She had no desire for his beholding the shabby appointments and slovenly serving of the family meal. Nothing now remained to be done but to excite the envy of her younger sisters, Mabel and Muriel, who, however derived considerable satisfaction from the prospect of getting rid of a sister who had hitherto kept them altogether in the background. They spent a pleasant and exciting evening discussing their chances of presents in the shape of discarded blouses etc. when the trousseau should be finished…”

TO BE CONTINUED…