Three millions! or, The way of the world
“I was not aware of it.”
“In such matters, other folks sometimes know better what is going to
happen than you do yourself.”
“I seldom met her.”
“That didn’t seem to make much difference. When you went to school
together, the story was started. But you saw her once in a while, and I
know she used to be thinking of you all the time. Well, she didn’t say
so, but I was just as well satisfied as though she had told me with her
own mouth that she liked you. I hadn’t any doubts till the money came.”
“Did you think that would make any difference with me?” asked Eugene,
anxiously.
“Perhaps I didn’t exactly think so, but I was afraid it might make some
difference with you. I knew Mary liked you, and for her sake I couldn’t
help wishing things had got a little further along. I knew the money
wouldn’t break anything off with you, but I was afraid it would keep
them from going on. Besides, folks in the village had a good deal to
say about it.”
“What did they say?”
“They didn’t talk of anything but you and your money for a week after
the news came. I didn’t ask any questions; I generally pay attention to
my own business; but it was said, that, according to your uncle’s will,
you would have to get married right off.”
“They did not know me, and they did not understand the provision of the
will,” added Eugene, petulantly.
“They said you wouldn’t marry Mary now; that you would find some lady
in the city! and such things as that. I didn’t pay much attention to
what they said. Mary did not talk about you to me, after that, as much
as she used to before. As near as I could make it out, she thought the
money would come between you and her.”
“Why should she have thought so?”
“It wasn’t very strange, I think. I talked with her the day I went away
about things in general. I asked her if you and she were good friends
still; she said you were, but she didn’t think you were quite as
cordial--that’s the word she used--as you were formerly.”
Eugene stamped his foot impatiently upon the ground. The analysis of
his conduct which Dick Birch had given him had assured him of this
fact, and it was now confirmed from Mary’s own mouth. He did not
curse himself, for he had meant well; but he severely blamed his own
blindness, and wondered that he had not been permitted to see what had
been so plain to others.
“I am sorry I did not understand her better.”
“I know that Mary was sorry any money had come to you. I’m sure she
liked you for yourself, Mr. Hungerford, and not for what you had.”
“Would that I had known it before!”
“I should think you might have known it. Mary did not keep things to
herself much.”
“I was wrong.”
“When I saw that she felt bad, and was disappointed, I could not help
feeling hard towards you, myself,” added Ross. “Still, as I looked at
it more, I concluded that it was hardly fair to expect a man with your
money would marry a poor girl like her, and with things in the family
as they have been with us.”
“That would have made no difference with me.”
“Well, I suppose it is of no use to cry for spilt milk. It’s done now,
and can’t be helped. I only hope the man she has married is the right
sort of person, though I didn’t think much of him the day I saw him
here.”
Ross, though a quiet and well-behaved young man in the main, was
belligerent, like his father, upon provocation. Eugene did not dare to
hint even a suspicion that Mary had been deceived; that Mr. Buckstone
was capable of deluding an innocent maiden with the mockery of a
fictitious marriage; but he could not banish the idea from his own
mind. At his instigation, Dick had been engaged for a month past,
through a legal friend in Providence, in an investigation of the
circumstances attending Mr. Buckstone’s visit to that city with Mary.
It had been ascertained that a marriage, real or pretended, had taken
place at the house of the artist; but the legal gentleman having the
matter in charge had been unable to find the person who had performed
the ceremony. The artist was reserved and taciturn; the lawyer had
coaxed and threatened him without effect. No record of the marriage
had been made, and the obstinacy of the artist, who naturally dreaded
a criminal prosecution, if anything was wrong, was a suspicious
circumstance. Eugene feared the worst.
“Ross, what are you going to do this fall and winter?” asked Eugene, as
they walked down to the landing-place.
“I don’t know yet; very likely I shall go a fishing once more.”
“I will give you a thousand dollars a year to work for me.”
“A thousand dollars!” exclaimed Ross; for the sum was twice as much as
he had ever earned before. “Of course I will take it.”
“Then the year shall commence to-day.”
“What am I to do?”
“I am going to build a yacht of a hundred tons. I have the model and
draughts all made. You shall superintend the work, and Mr. Birch will
employ you part of the time in taking charge of my houses at the Port
and at the Mills. While I am gone, he will keep you busy.”
“Thank you, sir; I am very much obliged to you.”
“When the yacht is done, you will have charge of her.”
Nothing could have suited Ross better, and he was Eugene’s friend for
life. Dick wanted such a person to assist him, and it had been decided,
weeks before, that Mary’s brother should be employed as soon as he
returned.
“Ross,” said Eugene, as he stepped into his boat, “if you hear anything
from Mary, I want you to write me.”
“I will.”
“Give your letter to Mr. Birch, and he will forward it to me.”
“Yes, sir; I will. I hope she will do well. If her husband don’t do the
right thing by her,”--he paused, and looked what he meant,--“it will be
all the worse for him.”
“I hope he will be a good husband to her.”
“I hope so; but I wish she hadn’t gone off with him,” added Ross. “I
suppose I may as well go over and see Mr. Birch, and go to work to-day.”
“You need not commence till you are ready. You have just returned, and
you may wish to stay at home a few days.”
“There is nothing there I care for now,” he replied, sadly.
“How is your father now?”
“About the same; he don’t improve any. He is very hard on Mary, and if
she came home, I shouldn’t dare to have her go near him.”
Ross went up to the Port with Eugene, and reported to Dick Birch for
duty. He was a ship carpenter by trade, and worked at the business
when there was anything doing at the Port; and his natural tact and
ingenuity, as well as the miscellaneous occupations in which he had
been engaged, rendered him an exceedingly useful person to Eugene’s
agent. He made the contract with the builders for the yacht, and the
keel was immediately laid down.
In the mean time, the eminent trustees in Baltimore continued to
forward the income of the three millions to Eugene, and there was no
want of money to carry on the operations which had been commenced.
A general power of attorney was given to Dick by his principal, to
transact all business in his absence. The agent moved from the cottage
to the hotel, and the Hungerford family started for Boston to embark
for Europe on the first Wednesday in September. It was observed that
Dick Birch was a little shaken when he took leave of Julia; that though
he kept up a running fire of sharp words all the time, he could hardly
conceal a disposition to mope and to relapse into moodiness.
“Good by, Dick; do for me as you would do for yourself, but remember
that only half a million, instead of three millions, is to come to me
at the end of the seven years,” said Eugene.
“That matter cannot be decided at present,” replied Dick. “You may
bring a wife home with you.”
“No!”
“Good by, Mr. Birch,” said Julia, taking his hand.
“Good by, Miss Hungerford. Don’t forget me while you are gone.”
“Forget you!” laughed she. “Of course I shall not forget you.”
“Thank you.”
“How strange you are!”
A new phase in Dick’s character seemed now to present itself, and she
blushed slightly in spite of herself. His words were strange; his look
was stranger. Perhaps before she had gone many miles, the look and the
words were more intelligible.
The train bore the family away from Poppleton, and it was nine months
before they saw it again. We do not purpose to follow the party across
the ocean, and in their wanderings through Europe. They went the grand
rounds, and beneath Italy’s sunny skies Eugene did think of all his
friends at home, and especially of Mary, though not as he had intended
when his unwitting coldness banished hope from her heart.
Every steamer bore a letter to him from Dick Birch, and one which
reached him in May, just before he sailed for home, enclosed another
from Ross Kingman. Eugene, with trembling eagerness, tore open the
envelope of the latter, for he knew to whom it alluded, and he had
impatiently longed for some intelligence of Mary for months; not that
it could give him even a ray of hope, but it might assure him that she
was happy, and had not come to harm. Ross Kingman’s letter contained
a brief note from Mary to himself, with a few lines which he had
evidently penned in great haste, and under the most intense excitement.
Mary’s letter, brief as it was, filled Eugene with grief and
indignation. It gave him a shock more terrible than any he had yet
received, and only confirmed the fears which had so long haunted him.
Mary’s note was as follows:--
NEW YORK, April 20, 1856
DEAR BROTHER: Three days ago I became a mother, but my poor baby
died yesterday, and to-day they bore it from me. I have not seen my
husband for four weeks. I fear he has deserted me. He has neglected
me for some months. I reproached him for it; he was very angry,--he
had been drinking too much,--and told me that _I was not his wife_.
O Ross, I could have borne everything but that! He has left me no
money, and the people where I board look very coldly upon me. Could
you come to me, Ross?
Your affectionate sister,
MARY K. BUCKSTONE.
Ross Kingman’s letter breathed nothing but vengeance, dire and
terrible, upon the man who had wronged his sister. He was about to
take the train for New York. Eugene was paralyzed by the intelligence
contained in these letters. Poor Mary! How terribly was she suffering
for his indecision! He could take no other view, and his anguish was
pitiable. He gave the letters to his mother, but even she had no power
to console him.
Poor Mary! The miserable villain had even declared to her that she was
not his wife. The curse of the cup, from which she had escaped when
she fled from her home, had followed her, and stung her again. She had
been a mother, but not a wife! She had been deceived by the wretch; she
had not swerved a hair’s breadth from the law of purity and innocence
in her heart, but her good name was blasted. She was cast down and
destroyed, with no fault of her own, unless her hasty departure with
the villain, when all earth seemed to conspire against her, was a
fault; her reputation was ruined; the finger of scorn and contempt
would point at her. IT WAS THE WAY OF THE WORLD.
“Poor Mary!” groaned Eugene, as in the silence of his chamber he
thought of the hard lot to which she had been reduced. It was not
enough that she had been wronged and deceived, cheated of her
honorable name as a wife; but to these were added poverty and neglect.
The people in the house looked coldly upon her. They regarded her as a
despised creature, and repudiated her with scorn and loathing.
“O God! that she should come to this! She whom I loved with all my
soul, whom I would have made my wife,” he moaned, as he paced his
chamber. “God pity her, and take her up, when others have cast her off!”