The Outsider | Benjamin
Thirty | Mr. Benjamin Ayles Untitled Gentry, Barrister
Formally or Informally Announced: Mr. Benjamin Ayles
Addressed on Formal or Informal Social Correspondence: Mr. Benjamin Ayles
Formal Correspondence Salutation: âSir,â or âDear Sir,â
Informal Correspondence Salutation: "Dear Mr. Ayles,â or, more familiarly, âDear Ayles,â
Addressed in Speech: Mr. Benjamin Ayles, Mr. Ayles, or, more familiarly, Ayles
Referred to in Speech: Mr. Benjamin Ayles or Mr. Ayles
Social Correspondence Signature: Benjamin Ayles
Biography
Benjamin Ayles has never had any illusions about his lot in life. Born to Ephraim and Marjorie Ayles, a struggling barrister and a nursemaid, his childhood was punctuated by certain events. First, the birth of his sister, Isabella, a skinny, sickly thing; second, the death of his mother. Collapsed together inside their family home, he and his sister spent all their hours by one anotherâs side - reading books, stealing squares of dark chocolate from the kitchen, Benjamin holding back Isabellaâs hair as she coughed and struggled. It was not, however, an unhappy home; the whistling wind through cracked windows covered by the scratch of quill upon parchment, by Isabella humming a tune. They were not poor, but neither were they comfortable. Their father was a busy, irritable man - wrinkles and frown deepening as he trudged through the underbelly of Londonâs belching streets, seeking justice where perhaps there was none; light in the shadow when the night grew ever darker.
By the time Benjamin was himself a man grown, Ephraim had provided what he could for his family, and when he found he could do no more, his passing came as nothing quite as explosive as a shock, rather more an eventuality. Accordingly, as the only male left in the Aylesâ line, Benjamin was thrust upward to the head of his family, the sole protector of his sister - although it had been that way since her untimely birth. He had never found himself wanting for ambition; his deepest cause in life to simply see that Isabella was looked after, however it was not until one of his late fatherâs clients came knocking on their family home that he truly realised his calling.
The next seven years of his life were dedicated to Inns of Court in London, his studies turning his palm-prints blue and black and scratched with ink. Becoming a barrister was a long, arduous and often thankless task. Many of the people he wished to represent could not afford it, or were simply disregarded entirely. To Benjamin, this callousness - this cruelty - toward the poorer of the town, sickened him. It was within these years that something hardened in his heart, as he himself took those same steps down winding streets into the coil of London that his father had; saw with his own eyes the plight and destitution of its people, and wished to do more.
As a barrister, he had a sharpened tongue and a quick wit; as a brother and surrogate father, his smiles began to fade. It was not to the detriment of his affection for his sister, rather the natural response to the beating a manâs soul endures when forced to witness what Benjamin had. Men and women sentenced to death for crimes they had not committed, taken from one dark, damp corner of London and thrust into another - this one with the promise of the sling of a rope around their necks. He took to drinking in his study, late nights with several books cracked open before him, taking down feverish notes, only retiring to his bed when the sun was bleeding through the smog in the sky.
It was just another ordinary day when it happened. At the court offices, he received a letter - the words nonsensical and at first, thought to be a farce. But there - in elegant script and crisp ink, a promise: for the rest of his life, Benjamin Ayles would be entitled to seven thousand pounds a year, deposited into his account, free for him to do whatever he liked with. It would elevate him - his status, his position, his family, Isabella - provide her comfort for the rest of her life. His benefactor remained anonymous, despite all of Benjaminâs attempt to unmask them. But he would be a fool not to take it, no matter what his gut said.
It felt⌠wrong.
To become a gentleman, to leave his work behind, everything he had built from his fatherâs legacy, and join their ranks - that of the elite, the unassailable, those who got away with anything and everything for merely the sheer fortune of their birth and rank. It stifled him. The expectation, the looks, the comments behind folded hands. Heâs still not used to it, by any means. Itâs only been a few months since Benjamin Ayles stepped out into society, a far flung location from trawling the grimy streets of London, shoulder-to-shoulder with Bow Street Runners and thief-takers. For his sister, though, heâll do it.
