Lawyer Royall

            Within Edith Wharton’s Summer, Lawyer Royall represents a number of things (including, but not limited to): social mobility (or the lack thereof), Charity’s ability to ‘escape’ North Dormer (and the Mountain), and the ‘nature of men’ and men’s sexuality. Towards the beginning of the novel, the most interesting and apparent of these aspects of Lawyer Royall is how he stands as an obstacle to Charity’s freedom and independence, along with how Charity navigates this obstacle.

            Chapter 8 is a turning point in Charity and Royall’s relationship (though not the only one, nor the most climactic), notable for the fact that “until then, [Charity] had never really noticed [Royall] or thought about him” (Wharton 153). It is the point where, for Charity, Royall goes from a nuisance and a boring fact of life to, in a sense, a real person. As the paragraph continues:

Except on the occasion of his one offense he had been to her merely the person who is always there, the unquestioned central fact of life, as inevitable but as uninteresting as North Dormer itself, or any of the other conditions fate had laid on her. Even then she had regarded him only in relation to herself, and had never speculated as to his own feelings, beyond instinctively concluding that he would not trouble her again in the same way. But now she began to wonder what he was really like. (153)

            For Charity, Royall is very much a part of North Dormer life, a fixture in a town she wants desperately to escape. He is, however, not among the typical class or type or person in North Dormer. He is, in his own words, “’head and shoulders above this place and everybody in it’” (156), which is to say that he is more educated and wealthier than the other residents of North Dormer. All the same (and in fact, likely because of these differences), Charity realizes that she is “the only being between him and solitude” (109), and decides to stay in North Dormer with him.

            Regardless, early in the novella Royall’s house is referred to as Charity’s “prison-house” (102). She does not stay with him because it is the best choice for herself, she stays out of a sense of pity for Royall. That conflict – between what she wants for herself and how she sees (or doesn’t see) Royall forms the cornerstone of their relationship. They are together in the capacities they find themselves in because of what the other can offer them. For Charity, it’s relative comfort and security, for Royall it is an escape from lonliness.

            However, at the end of Charity’s showdown with Royall in chapter 8, she says “’I don’t want any chance you can give me…’” (157). Charity is between a rock and a hard place, so to speak, with Royall: he can get her the things she wants, if she only asks (or gives Royall what he wants). Their relationship is characterized by a back-and-forth maneuvering and manipulation by both of them.

            Granted, the relationship between Charity and lawyer Royall is not static, even after this point. However, a man such as myself can only do so much when he hasn’t yet finished the book. I will say, however, that while Charity’s relationship with Lucius Harney is the cornerstone of her ‘sexual awakening’ and is an important thematic facet of the novella, Charity’s relationship with Royall informs the way she relates and reacts to the other characters in the novel. It is the most formative and influential relationship she has.