In their Wisdom by C.P. Snow

Until that summer neither Jenny nor Liz had been inside a court of law. Julian had, since as a young man he had read for the Bar, with the secret intention of never practising. To both Jenny and Liz, it all struck strange, with the kind of discomfort an apprehensive person feels on entering a sick room or happening on a service in a foreign church.

In the courtroom, on a midsummer morning, there didn't seem much to inspire any superstitious dread, yet Liz was feeling something close to that. True, the room, one of the courts nearest to the Strand, was the wrong shape, much too high for its floor space, like a basilica gone mad: but, waiting for the judge, the officials, the barristers, the solicitors, most of the spectators, including Hillmorton, looked comfortable enough. The benches were hard, it was going to be a long trial, trust this judge, someone was chattering, it was going to be hard on the backside. On opposite halves of the room, though separated by only three or four yards, Jenny and Liz were glancing at their solicitors for reassurance.