A woman in armor :: :: University of Virginia Library

In this office Mr. Chancery sat opening his
morning mail. Books were on the table at his
hand; books lined his walls; the air smelt of
books; the very dust dancing on the sunbeams
was the dust of old law books.

Myron D. Chancery was a tall, dark, deliberate
man, who stood at the head of his profession in
Little Boston. The powers of his youth had
been given to the study of law. Law was now
the only wife he had. Personally he was an
enigma—as your polished lawyer always is. You
never could guess at his opinion by the play of
feeling on his face. He listened to everybody
courteously without committing himself. His

gestures were always slow, except in the heat
of argument or appeal, when he lashed courts
and juries with swift eloquence, and moved like
a lion before them.

He lifted his eyes when his door opened, perhaps
expecting to see some driving farmer, with
a title-deed in his fist; perhaps some town
client, who had a case in the next session; or
an excited German, with currency, coming to
buy legal powder for the blowing up of some
man “dot no vill pays!” When he saw, instead
of any of these, a young lady hesitating
on his threshold, he arose with the same courtesy
he accorded all his clients, and seated her.
Perhaps you would not believe that Mr. Chancery—while
he sorted his envelopes and put
several letters on file—observed that she had a
beautiful figure, and a fine, earnest face; that
she had the self-respecting air of a woman who
holds her own in the world; and even that her
hair was disposed of gracefully, and her dress
had an air of style independent of material. But
he did observe these things without turning his
eye upon her. He was a lawyer.

She told him she came to find out the legal
relations of parents and children. Using no
names, she mapped Nina's position before him,
and waited anxiously for him to speak.

Mr. Chancery leaned on his elbows and drove
the case into a nutshell; that is, into a crack of
his table.

“The lady in question wishes for a divorce?”

“Don't mention divorces in my hearing!”
Helen Dimmock threw the subject aside with
impetuous hand. “She married this man, and
cannot be un-married! She only asks him now
to leave her alone with her child. Will not the
law protect the child and her?”

The lawyers jaws relaxed. He was amused
at her simplicity. “The law can afford little
protection,” he said, “to a woman who, even
nominally, keeps up the relation of wife.”

At that same instant Helen's eyes were caught
by a sentence in a book which was spread open
on the table. “The theory is”—said this
author, concluding some exposition—“that
marriage makes husband and wife one person,
and that person is the husband!”

Helen Dimmock's heart and eyes sunk.

Divining what she had read, Mr. Chancery took
up the gauntlet for his love, the Law, with an
ardor he rarely used in private. “But the law,”
he said, “was made to insure happiness and
protection to the many. It is a ponderous system—the
outgrowth of centuries; but with all
its changes and modern additions it cannot be
always fitted satisfactorily to exceptional cases.
I could wish it dealt more liberally with your
sex in some respects, while in others I cannot
but admire the latitude which it gives you.”

“But, putting women aside, how does it deal
with young children?”

Mr. Chancery looked seriously at his client
and satisfied himself that she was not a caviller;
she simply asked to know the truth, not that
she might find fault, but that she might govern
herself by it. (He supposed, of course, the case
she stated was her own.) So he began and expounded
to her how a father has legal custody
of his own child; the mother may simply exact
respect from the child. But a court of equity,
by virtue of its guardianship of minors, can interfere,
on its being shown that the father is
what the court regards as an improper person
to have such custody. In that case the custody
of the child may be given to the mother or other
suitable person. A jury would be bound to
give a child to his father, but such cases fall under
the discretion of the judge.

“What constitutes an `improper person'?”
asked Helen Dimmock.

“Well, if the man were a common drunkard, or
dishonest, or grossly immoral, he would be an improper
person to have the custody of his child.”

Then G. Guest, Esq.—who was not a common
drunkard; who—as far as Helen could learn—
was not of a nature to bestir himself enough to
be even dishonest; and whose immoralities were
all quite refined!—G. Guest, Esq., was a proper
person in the eyes of the court to seize the custody
of his child from its mother. The court
cannot be too nice.

She went no farther. There might be a way

of escape. But the way of escape looked as
dark for her Nina as the way of endurance. She
was hemmed in, and had but this choice: to
give up her child or to come up in public and
let the eyes of the law and the fingers of the law
probe all her sorrow and shame, and then have
that law sit gravely on the question as to whether
it should give her her own or not.

Mr. Chancery, with his arms folded on the
table, began in his turn to ask questions.

“Why did this father return after a four years'
absence, so desirous of obtaining possession of
the child?” Miss Dimmock did not know.
“Was there property involved in the case?”
Miss Dimmock knew of none. “Had she ever
known any person who, in dying, would be
likely to make a bequest to the child?” No.
The mother's foster parents had never forgiven
her her marriage. Besides, they were still living.

Myron D. Chancery rubbed his temple and
mediated. He had an interesting problem in
his hand, for he knew human nature well. Like
a skilled naturalist, from one or two words
spoken by Helen Dimmock, he had supplied
and built up to himself the whole character of
G. Guest, Esq., and he knew such a man never
would be impelled to the course he had marked
by natural affection. He had some other
motive? What was the motive?

After the young lady passed from his sight
the lawyer surveyed his problem with glittering

eyes. He would “investigate” that. He went
on with his affairs, thinking of a thousand matters
at once; but he found time to make a few
notes and to lay in a convenient corner of his
memory this case which he meant for his own
satisfaction to “investigate.”

Helen Dimmock almost flew through the
streets that day. She hurried her lessons feverishly,
omitted her luncheon, and made every
effort to reach her home early.

Her thoughts fermented. “There was an
old heathen law-giver,” she reminded herself, as
her feet turned into the familiar home-street,
“who regarded children as the wards of the
State. They were citizens from birth, and
trained as such in public. This free and enlightened
republic makes them the chattels of their
father. If he were a good father they would not
love and respect him less by being taught to respect
themselves. But he may be a fool. He
may be so selfish as to lie down on their young
hands for support; he may half starve, half
clothe them, work them like slaves, but in any
case all their duty and their belongings are his
till they reach majority. A man in Illinois two
years since burnt his child to death and buried
him in the garden till Judge Lynch ferreted him
out. Ah! why is there never a cry about children's
rights? I could head a child's crusade!”
—shutting her teeth.

University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX. MYRON D. CHANCERY, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

9. CHAPTER IX.
MYRON D. CHANCERY, ATTORNEY AT LAW.