BASENESS OF CHARACTER.
WHILE the events detailed in the last few chapters were progressing,
the time for Dunbar's marriage with the wealthy Miss Gay was drawing
near. A handsome house was taken in Arch street, at a rent of eight
hundred dollars, 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 a hundred
thousand dollars he could make quite an impression. The hundred
thousand dollars were 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 Gay, 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
degraded themselves 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, pray?" 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 intercourse with them, and never will.
That matter I settled long and 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 slight 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 you spurn 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! Go!" 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 without insulting 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 the seeds he had at first planted in his
mind. He had been taught to look at eminence 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 of Mary Lee, and how different it
must have been if she had become the wife of his son.
The gay 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 that it had
occurred. If the old people were going to hold on to his sisters and
their husbands, 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
informed that Harrison was 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, and 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 precious
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 should 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 as 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.