University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING?

THE question as to the inheritance of the Aylesford-Berwick
property was not decided without a lawsuit. The
case was put into the courts, and kept there many months.
The heavy legal expenses to which Charlton was subjected,
and his reluctance to meet them, protracted the contest by
alienating his lawyers. Pompilard went straight to the point
by promising his counsel a fee of a hundred thousand dollars
in the event of success; and thus he enlisted and kept active
the best professional aid. Still the prospect was doubtful.

But even the law's delay must finally have an end. The
hour of the final settlement of the great case by the ultimate
court of appeal had come at last. The judges had entered and
taken their seats. Charlton, pale and haggard, sat by the side
of his lawyer, Detritch. Pompilard, still masking his age,
entered airy as a maiden just stepping forth into Broadway in
her new spring bonnet. He wore a paletot of light gray, a
choker girt by a sky-blue silk ribbon, a white vest, checked
pantaloons, and silk stockings under low-cut patent-leather
shoes. Taking a seat at a little semicircular table near his
lawyers, he exchanged repartees with them, and then tranquilly
abided his fate. Charlton looked with anguish on the
composure of his antagonist.

Just as the case was expected to come on, one of the judges
was found to have left a certain document at home. They all
retired, and a messenger was sent for the important paper.
Hence a delay of an hour. Charlton could not conceal his
agitation. Pompilard took up the morning journal, and read
with sorrow of the death of an old friend.

“Poor old Toussaint! I see he has left us,” said Pompilard.

“Yes,” replied Girard, “All-Saint has gone. He was well
named. He has never held up his head since he lost his wife.”

“Toussaint was a gentleman, every inch of him,” said Pompilard.
“He believed in the elevation of the black man, not
by that process of absorption or amalgamation which some of
our noodles recommend, but by his showing in his life and
character that a negro can be as worthy and capable of freedom
as a white man. He was for keeping the blacks socially
separate from the whites, though one before the law, and teaching
them to be content with the color God had given them. A
brave fellow was Toussaint. I remember — that was before
your day — when the yellow fever prevailed here. Maiden
Lane and the lower parts of the city were almost deserted.
But Toussaint used to cross the barricades every day to tend
on the sick and dying, and carry them food and medicine.”

“Did you know him well?” asked Girard.

“Intimately, these thirty years. In his demeanor exquisitely
courteous and respectful, there was never the slightest tinge
of servility. You could not have known him as I did without
forgetting his color and feeling honored in the companionship
of a man so thoroughly generous, pious, and sincere. He
would sometimes make playful allusions to his color. He
seemed much amused once by my little Netty, who, when
she was about three years old, said to him, after looking him
steadily in the face for some time, `Toussaint, do you live in
a black house?' The other day, knowing he was quite ill, my
wife called on him, and while by his bedside asked him if she
should close a window, the light of which shone full in his face.
`O non, madam,' he replied, `car alors je serai trop noir.'”[1]

Here Pompilard ceased, and looked up. There was a stir
in the court-room. Their Honors had re-entered and taken
seats. The messenger with the missing paper had returned.
The presiding judge, after a long and tantalizing preamble, in
the course of which Charlton was alternately elevated and depressed,
at length summed up, in a few intelligible words, the
final decision of the court. Charlton fainted.

Pompilard's lawyers bent down their heads, as if certain

papers suddenly demanded their close scrutiny; but Pompilard
himself was radiant. Everybody stared at him, and
handsomely did he baffle everybody by his imperturbable good
humor. It is not every day that one has an opportunity of
seeing how a fellow-being is affected by the winning or the
losing of a million of dollars. No one could have guessed
from Pompilard's appearance whether he had won or lost.
Unfortunately he had lost; and Charlton had reached the
acme of his hopes, mortal or immortal, — he was a millionnaire.

Pompilard took the news home to his wife in the little old
double house at Harlem; and her only comment was: “Poor
dear Melissa! I had hoped to make her a present of a furnished
cottage on the North River.”

The conversation was immediately turned to the subject of
Toussaint, and one would have thought, hearing these strange
foolish people talk, that the old negro's exit saddened them far
more than the loss of their fortune. Angelica, Pompilard's
widowed daughter, entered. After her came Netty, the elf,
now almost a young lady. She carried under her arm a portfolio,
filled with such drawings of ships, beaches, and rocks as
she could find in occasional excursions to Long Island, under
the patronage of Mrs. Maloney, the tailor's wife.

Julia and Mary Ireton, daughters of Angelica, came in.

“Which of my little nieces will take my portfolio up-stairs?”
asked Netty.

“I will, aunt,” said the dutiful Mary; and off she ran with it.

“Poor Melissa! We shall now have to put off the wedding,”
sighed Angelica, on learning the result of the lawsuit.

“No such thing! It sha'n't be put off!” said Pompilard.

Netty threw her arms round the old man's neck, kissed him,
and exclaimed: “Bravo, father of mine! Stick to that! It
is n't half lively enough in this house. We want a few more
here to make it jolly. Why can't we have such high times as
they have in at the Maloneys'? There we made such a noise
the other night that the police knocked at the door.”

Maloney, by the way, be it recorded, had, under the pupilage
of Pompilard, given up strong drink and wife-beating, and risen
to be a tailor of some fashionable note. Pompilard had found
out for him an excellent cutter, — had kept him posted in regard

to the fashions, — and then had gone round the city to all
the clubs, hotels, and opera-houses, blowing for Maloney with
all his lungs. He did n't “hesitate to declare” that Maloney
was the only man in the country who could fit you decently to
pantaloons. Pantaloons were his specialité. His cutter was
a born genius, — “an Englishman, sir, whose grandfather used
to cut for the famous Brummel, — you 've heard of Brummel?”
The results of all this persistent blowing were astonishing.
Soon the superstition prevailed in Wall Street and
along the Fifth Avenue, that if one wanted pantaloons he must
go to Maloney. Haynes was excellent for dress-coats and
sacks; but don't let him hope to compete with Maloney in
pantaloons. You would hear young fops discussing the point
with intensest earnestness and enthusiasm.

How many fortunes have a basis quite as airy and unsubstantial!
Soon Maloney's little shop was crowded with customers.
He was obliged to take a large and showy establishment
in Broadway. Here prosperity insisted on following him.
Wealth began to flow steadily in. He found himself on the
plain, high road to fortune; and by whom but Pompilard had
he been led there? The consequence was perpetual gratitude
on the tailor's part, evinced in daily sending home, with his
own marketing, enough for the other half of the house; evinced
also in the determination to stick to Harlem till his benefactor
would consent to leave.

While the Pompilards were discussing the matter of the
wedding, Melissa and Purling entered from a walk. Melissa
carried her years very well; though hope deferred had written
anxiety on her amiable features. Purling was a slim, gentlemanly
person, always affecting good spirits, though certain
little silvery streaks in the side-locks over his ears showed that
time and care were beginning their inevitable work. In
aspiring to authorship he had not thought it essential that he
should consume gin like Byron, or whiskey like Charles Lamb,
or opium like De Quincey. But if there be an avenging deity
presiding over the wrongs of undone publishers, Purling must
be doomed to some unquiet nights. There was something
sublime in the pertinacity with which he kept on writing after
the public had snubbed him so repeatedly by utter neglect;

something still more sublime in the faith which led publishers
to fall into the nets he so industriously wove for them.

The result of the lawsuit being made known to the newcomers,
Melissa, hiding her face, at once left the room, and was
followed by her sisters and step-mother.

Purling keenly felt the embarrassment of his position.
Pompilard came to his relief. “We have concluded, my dear
fellow,” said he, “not to put off the wedding. Don't concern
yourself about money-matters. You can come and occupy
Melissa's room with her till I get on my legs once more. I
shall go to work in earnest now this lawsuit is off my hands.”

“My dear sir,” said Purling, “you are very generous, —
very indulgent. The moment my books begin to pay, what is
mine shall be yours; and if you can conveniently accommodate
me for a few months, till the work I 'm now writing is —”

“Accommodate you? Of course we can! The more the
merrier,” interrupted Pompilard. “So it 's settled. The
wedding comes off next Wednesday.”

And the wedding came off according to the programme. It
took place in church. Pompilard was in his glory. Cards had
been issued to all his friends of former days. Many had conveniently
forgotten that such a person existed; but there were
some noble exceptions, as there generally are in such cases.
Presents of silver, of dresses, books, furniture, and pictures were
sent in from friends both of the bride and bridegroom; so that
the trousseau presented a very respectable appearance; but the
prettiest gift of the occasion was a little porte-monnaie, containing
a check for two thousand dollars signed by Pat Maloney.

As for Charlton, young in years, if not in heart, good-looking,
a widower unencumbered with a child, what was there he might
not aspire to with his twelve hundred thousand dollars?

He was taken in charge by the J—s, and the M—s,
and the P—s, and introduced into “society.” Yes, that is
the proper name for “our set.” A competition, outwardly calm,
but internally bitter and intense, was entered upon by fashionable
mothers having daughters to provide for. Charlton became
the sensation man of the season. “Will he marry?” That
was now the agitating question that convulsed all the maternal
councils within a mile's radius of the new Fifth Avenue Hotel.