Three millions! or, The way of the world
He turned the boat’s head towards the Point, and waited till the
torrent of her grief had spent itself.
“O, Mr. Buckstone!” exclaimed she, suddenly raising her head, and
gazing earnestly at him.
“What has happened, Mary? Won’t you tell me?”
“I cannot stay at home any longer. I shall not dare to enter my
father’s house again.”
“I feared it would come to this. Where are you going?”
“To Newington.”
“Have you friends there?”
“I shall find friends,” she answered, evasively.
Then she told him what had occurred during the night; and for an hour,
until the sun had risen far above the heaving waters, they talked of
the past and the present. There was a future which was still nearer to
the thoughts of Eliot Buckstone. What he had spoken before, he spoke
again. Once more he told his story of love, and begged her, in her
present extremity, to give him the legal right to become her friend
and protector. Now he spoke to more willing ears than ever before.
Without saying that she loved him with her whole heart and soul, she
accepted his proffered love; and when she had done so, the great black
clouds seemed to be rolled back, and she smiled upon him.
“Mine, mine, forever!” said the rapturous artist, as he seated himself
by her side in the boat, and passing his arm around her waist, he
imprinted upon her lips the first kiss.
“Will you always love me thus?” she replied, feeling that, if he did,
he would soon become to her more than all the world beside, if he was
not now.
“Always, Mary, always! There shall be no change, or suspicion of
change, in me--never, Mary! I have loved you with all my heart from the
first moment I saw you. When I looked into the boat, still struggling
for breath, I was almost petrified by the vision of loveliness which
greeted me. Mary, I had seen you thousands of times before.”
“Seen me before?”
“In my dreams of paradise! In my visions of the glorious and the
beautiful of earth! I have seen you on my canvas ere the pencil had
traced a line, and I would have given my life for the power to transfer
my bright ideal upon its waiting surface. But even fairer than the
thought is the loving, breathing being I press to my heart;” and he
suited the action to the word.
“I am afraid this is too poetic to be real,” replied she, her
confidence in the man she had accepted not increased by the glowing
strains in which he spoke.
“It is all real. I see you; I touch you. Mary, you know not what I have
felt, what I have hoped and feared, how I have trembled for myself,
since I first saw you. Mary, let me live for you. I ask nothing better
of this world; and if I have you in the next, I can dream of no purer
happiness.”
“But I am a wanderer and an outcast now,” she said, looking sad again.
“Not a wanderer, and you can never be an outcast from my heart, Mary.”
“I have no place to lay my head. Let us go to the village now. I would
have gone without your knowledge, but Providence has thrown you into my
path. Let us return now, Mr.----”
“Eliot,” he interposed.
“Eliot! I will go on my way rejoicing now. When I reach Newington, I
will write to you, and then----”
“No, Mary, you shall not go to Newington, or anywhere else, without
me,” protested Mr. Buckstone, earnestly. “I should be a villain if I
permitted you, in our present relations, to expose yourself to the
perils and privations which would surround you in a strange place,
where you had none to care for you.”
“But what shall I do? I cannot go home. My father would kill me if he
knew what has just transpired,” added she, as she glanced inquiringly
into his face.
“Neither go home, nor go to Newington alone,” he continued; and it was
evident from his look and his manner, that he had a proposition to
make, though there was some embarrassment about mentioning it.
“I must do something.”
“Of course you must, Mary.”
“What shall I do?”
“You shall be my wife before the sun goes down to-night, Mary!”
exclaimed he, rapturously.
She shrank from him, apparently offended, while her cheeks were redder
than the sun when he rose from his watery bed.
“Don’t shrink from me, Mary. I meant no harm.”
It was some time before he could restore her to her former
self-possession.
“Mary, I love you with all my soul. I could die for you this moment,
even without possessing you for a single instant. You don’t think I
would propose anything which I did not believe was best for you?”
“No, Eliot, I do not.”
“If you had even the humblest home, I could wait without a murmur whole
years. But you are alone in the world, without a roof to cover you,
without a friend to comfort you. You are mine; but what can I do for
you? I cannot even give you a shelter. I cannot even conduct you to a
place of safety, without subjecting you to the breath of slander.”
It was kind of him, harsh and abrupt as the proposition had seemed.
He meant well, she thought, and she did not reproach him when he
again brought up the subject. Mr. Buckstone argued the question like
a lawyer, and in the end he overcame all her maidenly scruples. Her
situation was a desperate one, and if she was to be the wife of this
man, it might as well be to-day, as a year hence. She consented,
unwillingly, shrinkingly, almost revoltingly, but she consented.
“We shall reach Boston by half past two, and Providence by six. I have
friends there, and you shall be a bride before the sun goes down,”
he added, exultingly, pressing her to his bosom. “We have no time to
spare;” and he took up the oars, and pulled up the river again.
Landing, he carried her bundle to the hotel. A valise was purchased for
her use, and she was soon employed in packing it with her clothing.
Her breakfast was sent to her room. A private vehicle was procured,
and they hastened to the railroad station at Poppleton Mills. But they
were seen together; seen to depart together, with the valise and other
baggage; seen together at the hotel. If the whole truth was not known
to the busybodies of Poppleton, it was fully surmised.
And on this morning, as Eliot Buckstone and his intended bride were
speeding on their way to Providence, Eugene and his friend commenced
the work which they had planned during the week of vacation. All the
laborers that could be procured at the Port and at the Mills were
employed upon the projected roads through Pine Hill. A practical man
had been engaged to superintend the operations.
Eugene was not content with this beginning: he and Dick were hastening
down to the Port, intent upon purchasing a ruined mansion, in which
swarmed a dozen Irish families. There was no great difficulty in the
way, and the estate was at once secured. Half of one night during the
preceding week had been spent in perfecting a plan for the model house,
and our practical philanthropist was impatient to have the building in
progress. The parties next went to the office of Squire Perkins to have
the deeds drawn.
“There is a strange story circulating through the place this morning,
Mr. Hungerford,” said the squire, after he had satisfactorily ridiculed
the fancy of his former student for purchasing Irish shanties.
“There are always strange stories circulating,” replied Eugene,
indifferently, for he was too intent upon the business before him to be
moved by the reports of the village gossips.
“They say that Mr. Buckstone, the artist, left town rather suddenly
this forenoon,” continued the squire.
“Indeed? Where has he gone?”
“Nobody knows. They say Captain Kingman’s oldest daughter has gone with
him.”
“Mary?” gasped Eugene, starting back with horror.
“So they say.”
“So they say! Who says so?” demanded Eugene, fiercely.
“Well, perhaps twenty people saw them go. Why, what’s the matter, Mr.
Hungerford?”
“Nothing, nothing,” replied he, struggling to recover his
self-possession. “Is that a fact?”
“I didn’t see them go; but that’s what they all say, and I suppose
there can be no doubt of it.”
Eugene felt giddy and sick. The story was too terrible and revolting
for him to believe, and while he struggled with the tumultuous
emotions that rolled up from his heart, he refused to credit it.
“They say this Buckstone isn’t any better than he ought to be,”
proceeded the matter-of-fact squire, opening the old deed by which he
was to draw the new one. “There was a gentleman from New York up here
last week who said he was a notorious rascal. I think he said Buckstone
ran away with another man’s wife, and there was----”
“My God!” groaned Eugene, rushing madly out of the office, followed by
Dick Birch.
“What’s the matter with him?” demanded the honest squire, with no
little perturbation, as he jumped out of his chair; and he had not a
suspicion that he was rending the very soul of Eugene by his words.
“He seemed to be struck up all in a heap,” replied the late owner of
the Milesian hovel.
“Bless me! now I think of it, Hungerford was rather fond of that
Kingman girl. I’m sorry,” continued the squire, rubbing his bald head
vigorously. “She was a nice girl, and it’s a pity any harm should come
to her;” and sadly worried by the shock he had given the young man, he
turned again to the deed.
CHAPTER VII.
POOR MARY!
“Don’t be disturbed, Hungerford; it is nothing but an idle story,” said
Dick Birch, taking the arm of his friend as he joined him in the street.
“Dick, I shall go mad!” exclaimed Eugene; and a cold shudder ran
through his frame.
“Never mind the story; it is only gossip.”
“Let us get out of sight, Dick,” continued Eugene, as he convulsively
clutched the arm of his friend, and dragged him down the street towards
the river. “I must go down to the island and learn the truth at once.”
“Keep cool, Hungerford.”
“How can I keep cool in the face of such a wretched rumor?”
“This is not like you.”
“I shall go mad, Dick!”
“No, you won’t do anything of the sort. What are you going mad for?”
said Dick, rather impatiently.
“Don’t mock me.”
“Then don’t make a fool of yourself. You are attracting attention now
by your furious pace. Slow down a little, and be reasonable.”
“You can’t understand it Dick,” groaned Eugene.
“Yes, I can understand it better than you do.”
“Let us get out of sight.”
“You won’t make much by getting out of sight, if you insist upon
showing yourself off to the people in the streets beforehand.”
Eugene reduced his pace, and labored to be calm; but it was utterly
impossible for him to control his emotions. It required all of Dick’s
strategy to prevent him from exposing his weakness to the people in the
streets. When they reached the river, the sail boat seemed to be the
only available resort, and Eugene threw himself on the cushions in the
standing-room, the very picture of despair and desolation. The conduct
of Mary Kingman was as mysterious as it was painful.
Dick hoisted the sails, and took charge of the boat, leaving his
companion to vent his sorrows by himself. The wind was very light,
and the boat slowly receded from the shore. Eugene did not speak, and
his common-sense friend watched the sails in silence, deeming it best
to let the first transports of grief spend themselves. At last the
disappointed lover looked up into the face of Dick, but the anguish of
his heart was still visible in his countenance.
“What shall I do, Dick?” he asked.
“Do nothing,” replied Dick, rather sternly.
“You don’t understand it.”
“I do, perfectly. I don’t want to say anything to hurt your feelings,
Hungerford, but I congratulate you upon this thing.”
“You are making sport of me.”
“On my soul, I am not! I mean what I say. It is fortunate for you that
this thing happened when it did, and as it did.”
“No, Dick!”
“I mean so.”
“You cannot be so barbarous.”