Rising in the World CHAPTER 12.
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While the events detailed in the last few chapters were progressing — the time for Dunbar's marriage with the wealthy Miss Merton was drawing near. A handsome house was taken in Arch-street, at a rent of eight hundred dollars per year, and furnished at an expense of nearly ten thousand. The young attorney had a great idea of style, and was anxious to make an impression on the public mind. The fact that he was rising in the world, he wished all to know, and he thought that with one hundred thousand dollars, he could make quite an impression. The one hundred thousand dollars was to be made up by his future wife's fortune, his share of the thirty thousand dollars to be received from Harrison for betraying and ruining his client, and by what he had already accumulated.
The wedding occasion was to be celebrated by a large party given by the aunt of Miss Merton, at which the most fashionable people in the city were to be present.
Long before this period, Dunbar had removed from his father's house as too obscure and humble for one of his standing, and for three or four years boarded at a large hotel in Chestnut-street. He did not go home very often, and when he did, there was something in his manner that affected his parents disagreeably. Evidently he felt as much contempt for their low condition and ignorance — as he felt pride in his own elevation.
In thinking of the large wedding party to be, and of the crowd of great and fashionable people who were to be there, he could not help feeling unpleasant at the idea of having such plain, common-looking people present as his parents, and especially under the acknowledgment of bearing so important a relation to him. As to his sisters, they had degradedthemselves in his eyes, and he had no thought of inviting them and their "vulgar husbands." He was under no obligation, he felt, to do that.
"You will, of course, be at the wedding," he said to his father and mother, about a week before the event named was to take place. His tone belied his words. If he had said," Of course you will not be at the wedding" — the words and tone would have been in true correspondence.
"I suppose we ought to be there," replied old Mr. Dunbar, a little coldly, "I hardly think there are any who have a better right."
"You will invite Ellen and Mary," said the mother.
"I can't invite them, without inviting their husbands, and I certainly shall not introduce them to my friends as brothers-in-law."
"And why not, please?" asked the father, with some sternness of manner.
"Low, vulgar mechanics — among the first people of the city? I must beg to be excused." And the young attorney drew himself up proudly.
"They are honest and honorable men; characters not too plenty even among your first people, as you call them." There was an indignant expression in the old man's voice.
"I don't care what they are, father. They occupy one position — and I another. I never approved of my sisters marrying them, and never will. I never intended to have any interaction with them, and never will. That matter, I settled long ago. I shall not invite them to my wedding, nor insult Mary and Ellen by inviting them alone."
"You are an unnatural brother!" said Mrs. Dunbar, speaking with great warmth. She could no longer control her indignant feelings. She well knew the worth of Ellen and Mary, and the excellence of the men they had married. From both she received, at all times, the most affectionate attentions, while her son Lawrence had, for years, treated her with neglect or ill-concealed contempt.
"You may think of me as you please, mother," replied the young man, in a light insulting manner. "But I know what is due to myself and to my standing in society, and shall not be tempted to forget it. It is no fault of mine, that my sisters degraded themselves."
"Silence!" exclaimed the old man, sternly, "I will not hear language so false and insulting. They have not degraded themselves. They cannot! Better children than are Mary and Ellen, no parents ever had. I wish we could say as much for our son, for whose sake they were deeply wronged. To elevate you, Lawrence — they were depressed; and now youspurn them with your foot contemptuously. Truly have you risen in the world — risen above all that is just, noble, and honorable! Thus is our folly, thus is our injustice to those good girls, your sisters, repaid!"
"If you can receive me at home in no better spirit, I shall remain away." This was said coldly and deliberately.
"Cockatrice! Leave!" said the father, passionately.
Lawrence Dunbar turned suddenly on his heel and left the house.
"That was too harsh, father," said Mrs. Dunbar to her husband, as the tears fell slowly over her time-marked face.
"I don't know. Such language from a child stings worse than the fang of a serpent. I could not bear it."
"He will hardly come home again."
"Let him stay away then. His visits have never been frequent nor pleasant. He has come in mere shame at his neglect whenever he has come, and rarely went away withoutinsulting us in word or manner. Our hope was that he might rise in the world, and we denied ourselves and wronged our daughters, that he might have the fullest opportunity; and thus he repays us!"
Old Mr. Dunbar did not see that the fruit of his son's mature life, was but a legitimate growth from seeds he had at first planted in his mind. He had been taught to look ateminence in the world as an end, and not as the means to a higher end — usefulness to mankind. The son was to rise; but he was not taught that discrimination as to the means of rising must be used. The end was the main thing, and whatever means were considered favorable to its attainment, were adopted without a moment's hesitation. But he did think ofMary Lee, and how different it must have been, if she had become the wife of his son.
The mirthful wedding took place without the presence of a single member of Dunbar's family. The interview with his parents had disturbed the lawyer a good deal, but, upon the whole, he was not sorry it had occurred. If the old people were going to hold on to his sisters and their husbands — then a separation would have to take place at any rate, and the earlier, he felt, the better.
Among others present at the wedding was Mr. Harrison, who had been able, just three days before, to throw Malcolm's case out of court by means of the defect which Dunbar had purposely left in his bill. The latter observed, with some surprise, that Harrison was on the most intimate and even familiar terms with his bride. On inquiry, he was found to be an old and intimate friend of his bride's father, and her legal guardian. This surprised him more, and did not make him feel altogether comfortable. On the very day before, he had received thirty thousand dollars from Harrison, for playing false to his client, he had given the old man a receipt, the tenor of which he thought peculiar, but which Harrison insisted upon having before paying the money. It was as follows:
"Received of Malcolm Harrison, the sum of thirty thousand dollars in full of all demands, past, present, and to come, it being understood that the parties know each other too well ever to venture upon any new transactions. Lawrence Dunbar."
Dunbar thought, that in case any new transactions should ever occur, he could take good care to get the pay before any service was rendered. The receipt was made less objectionable than one expressing the true nature of the transaction would have been.
"Of course I owe you nothing now, I never shall owe you anything," said Harrison, as he folded the receipt and placed it carefully in his pocket. "If, at any time hereafter, you should happen to stumble upon a claim against me, don't think of presenting it, for I pledge you my word, if you do, that I will shake this receipt in your face and bid you defiance. The day may come, young man, when you and I will know each other better — or rather when you will know me better than you now do. As for you, I believe I understand your character pretty well, and cannot refrain from telling you that I think you the most vile scoundrel I ever met."
"I will not compliment you so much as to be angry at that fine speech," returned Dunbar, with great composure. "As far as scoundrelism is concerned, I apprehend that we stand somewhere upon the same level."
A bright spot burned instantly on the old man's cheek, but he did not lose his self-command, and merely answered —
"Time will show that," and waived the lawyer to retire.
The discovery that this man was the guardian of his wife, could not, in the very nature of things, be very agreeable to Dunbar. It caused, instantly, sundry ugly suggestions to arise in his mind, that by no means added to the joy of his wedding night.
"Thank God that she is off my hands," said old Mr. Harrison to his wife, as they returned from the festive scene, "and that she has another guardian."
"You've had trouble enough with her," returned the wife.
"Yes; and but for her father's sake, I would have been tempted long ago to place her property in her hands, and have nothing more to do with her."
"Her husband appears like a very fine young man."
"She's quite as good as he is. I think them well matched."
"Suppose he should, by any means, hear of her improper conduct. Would not the consequence be bad?"
"He can't hear much worse of her, than she can hear of him. She never was guilty of direct impropriety of conduct that could touch her moral character, although there is no telling what she would have done, had there not been, always, the most careful guardianship over her. If we had not brought her to Philadelphia when we did, I'm afraid she would have been lost!"
"It's a relief that she's married, certainly."
"Isn't it; even if only married for her money, which I hear her husband sets down at seventy thousand dollars."
"He'll find himself mistaken!"
"Won't he! As bitterly as ever a man did."
So much for the prospect of happiness in the married life of Lawrence Dunbar.
We must now glance back for a few years, and bring up the history of other characters in our story.
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