Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated Part 20

Who ever thought that he would be Mr. Morgan's son-in-law? He did, and so had his daughter, Elsie, lately concluded, for the country air and scenery are provocatives to that end.

"Ask father."

"Enough said."

He did. He took care to ask him just at the right time.

"Why, George, my boy, good fellow to fish. Did not think you had your hook there. Got any bait? No. Well I have. Enough for both of us. I will bait your hook, boy. That is my business."

"Thank you, sir. When shall it be?"

George knew the art of fis.h.i.+ng with a fresh bait, and never losing sight of the fish after he had tasted it, until he had him safe bagged.

"When shall it be? Now, now--right off to-night. Nothing like going to sea while the tide serves."

He was a prompt man always. It was no use to say no, after he had said yes, or, "that is my business;" so in half an hour after that, Elsie Morgan was Elsie Wendall.

Of course more wine was drank, after which a letter was brought to him, from his head clerk, marked, "Important--in haste." So Mrs. Morgan told him.

"That is my business; take it up to my room. Do you think I am going to read the stupid letters of old Precision at this time of the evening, and my daughter just married?"

At ten o'clock next morning, after the mail had gone, he read:

"Sir:--

"We have advices by telegraph from London, just as the steamer was leaving port, of the failure of the London insurance office, in Which the Matilda is insured. She is now over-due, and not yet reported. Shall I insure her? Be sure to answer by first mail.

"JAMES PRECISION."

How the bell did ring; how he stamped, and swore, and wrote, and yet he could not send his letter till next morning.

"Why did not old Precision insure at once? Every dollar on earth would be swallowed up if that s.h.i.+p were lost."

Simply because he was Precision, and the merchant, who had directed him for forty years, had never given him leave to act, upon his own discretion, in an emergency like this.

"That is my business," was the unvarying answer.

Two days after, he had another letter from his precise clerk. He did not order it up to his room, to wait till next morning, for he was in a tearing pa.s.sion when it was handed him; and he felt as though he would have opened it if the biggest rocks in that mountainous region had been piled upon it.

What had so disturbed the rich merchant? Those who have them not, are apt to fancy that, riches and happiness are handmaids. What was the matter? His son, his only son, had just approached him, taking advantage, as Wendall had, of a propitious hour, when wine had done its work--he drank brandy since the news in that letter, and that fired, not soothed him--he approached him with a beautiful sweet girl upon his arm, to ask his consent to their marriage.

Mrs. Wendall screamed and fainted--that is, in appearance.

Matilda said,

"Why, Walter! to that girl--marry that thing--a dressmaker"

Mrs. Morgan simply said, "Walter, you have disgraced yourself and the mother that bore you. And I never wish to see you again."

Athalia trembled and quailed before the storm of angry words and envenomed looks that surrounded her. How gladly would she have escaped.

It was too late.

"Father, your consent."

"Never! You, my only son, marry a common sewing girl, never."

"It is too late. Here is my marriage certificate."

His father opened his mouth to curse him. What for? He had married a girl he loved--a girl, handsome, virtuous, industrious, but poor--a seamstress.

"A letter, sir;" said a servant.

"Give it me."

He tore it open and read;

"SIR:--

"Yours of the 12th inst. came too late. News reached the city an hour before that the Matilda was----"

He did not say lost. He looked it. He looked at his son and his poor trembling little wife, as though he wished them both at the bottom of the sea, with the Matilda and her cargo--all his fortune! He felt all the envenomed bitterness that a violent natural temper can feel, when heated and inflamed by drunkenness; for he was drunk, fas.h.i.+onably drunk; but not so much so but he could feel how irretrievably ruined he was, and that the failure to insure was occasioned by drunkenness, such drunkenness as the highest cla.s.s of society indulge in, when they take an "extra bottle," after dinner, upon extraordinary occasions. He knew the fault was all his own. He had said, when urged to open the letter, an answer to which would have saved all, "that is my business."

It was a sad, sad business. That one more bottle had beggared himself, and all that were dependant upon him. He had just married one daughter to a man whose only qualification was "a good fellow," who could shoot, fish, smoke, drink, drive fast horses, cheat his tailor, and the poor widow boarding-house keeper, and, finally, take advantage of a besotted old rich merchant, when he had drunk just to the point of good-nature--when the indulger in strong drink feels like hugging everybody and "all the rest of mankind,"--to get his consent for him to marry his ugly daughter. It was a marriage of convenience, the obligations of which he intended to keep just as many other such obligations are kept in this city. All this ran through his mind upon the electric telegraph of the brain. Flash after flash it went through, and then came the heavy thunderbolt. He could have endured all the rest; he could not endure that his son should marry a sewing girl. Why? His father was a tailor, and he married a tailor's daughter, and he hated everything that could remind him of his own needle-and-thread origin. He hated her too, because she was so much more lovely than his own daughters.

For five minutes he sat with the letter in his hand, glaring at that, then at his wife and Matilda with a look of sorrow; then at Elsie and her half-drunken husband, with contempt; then his eye came back with a fixidity of hatred upon Walter and Athalia.

At length Walter ventured to break the awful silence.

"Father."

"Don't call me father again. I disown you, you poor milliner's apprentice. Beggar! Don't speak to me."

Walter paid no heed to the order, but said mildly, "is the Matilda lost."

"That is my business. Leave the room."

His sisters took up the cue.

"Yes, you had better go now. Go, and set up shop. You can carry home dresses for your wife."

He came to that afterwards. Then Elsie's husband put in a word of insult.

"I say, Walter, it strikes me, that is rather a costly topsail for a beggar's wife. I hope she gets her bonnets in an honest way. Who pays the milliners' bills?"

Walter raised his cane to strike the villain that could utter such a vile insinuation upon the character of a virtuous girl, and would have paid all his tailors' bills at one blow, but Athalia sprung upon his arm, and held it down. His father either thought, or pretended to think, that he raised his cane to strike him; probably not having heard the remark of Wendall, and thinking only of his own wrongs. He seized a bottle--a weapon that has knocked down its thousands--and sprang forward to strike down his son. His arm was already up, a horrid oath was struggling in his throat, his face turned black from the effects of suffocation, he reeled, the bottle fell to the floor with a crash, and he would have fallen down among the broken gla.s.s and spilt wine, but for Walter, who caught him in his arms, and bore him from the room towards his chamber. Athalia rushed out for a physician. It was too late!--Death had already said, "That is my business."

While these events were transpiring in the country, others of great import to the rich merchant's family were enacting in the city.