Three millions! or, The way of the world
gift was acknowledged was so warm and earnest, that the old man’s heart
was kindled to finer issues than he had ever before known. He wrote
again, insisting that Mrs. Hungerford and her two children should visit
him in Baltimore without delay. He was too old and feeble to go to
them, and they must come to him. Of course the widow could raise no
objections to a project so reasonable, and she immediately announced
her intention to accept the invitation. Though she was an independent
and high-minded woman, who would not thrust herself or her children
upon the notice of her wealthy brother-in-law, very likely she felt
that it would be trifling with Providence to neglect this opportunity
to improve the relations subsisting between them and the childless
_millionnaire_.
John Hungerford told his wife what he had done, and announced the visit
of his relatives. She turned pale, and trembled for the future of her
son. She would have rebelled, if policy had not suggested a milder
course, and she only declared that the house was in no condition to
receive guests. The only practical result of the lady’s protest was, a
few hundred dollars were spent in “tidying” up the establishment.
Mrs. Hungerford and her children came. They were kindly welcomed by the
old man, and prudentially welcomed by the old man’s wife. It is true
the visitors were astonished to find that the man of millions dwelt in
a mean, poorly furnished house, without the slightest pretension to
luxury or style; but they made no comments. Uncle John was kind and
attentive to them; and this was all they could expect of him. Eugene
was a fine, manly youth of seventeen, gentle and winning in all his
ways; and the fond mother could hardly conceal her satisfaction, when,
at the expiration of a week, she realized that her boy was a decided
favorite of the old man. The boy was too artless to be mercenary; so he
resorted to no tricks to win the regards of his uncle.
John Hungerford was too keenly schooled in human nature to be deceived
by a false show of attention. He read his nephew’s noble nature; he
understood it perfectly; and day by day the old man’s wife became more
troubled and anxious about the prospects of her son. The visit was
terminated only when Eugene was obliged to return home to attend the
examination for admission to Harvard College. The uncle expressed his
desire that the visit should be repeated, and Mrs. Hungerford readily
promised to come again.
Tom Lynch went home to spend his vacation a few months after the
departure of the widow and her family. His mother imparted to him the
appalling intelligence that he was in danger of being supplanted in
the regards of her husband; but the young man was confident, and by
every art and device which his ingenuity could suggest, he labored to
make himself useful and agreeable to his step-father. His mother still
dreaded the impending evil. John Hungerford, so far as she knew, had
made no will. As the case now stood, the children of James Hungerford
were his sole heirs. Nothing but a wife’s portion could come to her,
and her son would be utterly excluded from the division. She did not
dare to suggest the propriety of his making a will; but she commenced
upon a series of hints, and a course of expedients, which were intended
to effect her purpose. Thus months and years wore away, and Eugene
Hungerford was graduated at Harvard; but the visit to Baltimore was not
repeated.
Long and not very patiently had Mrs. Hungerford been waiting for the
old man to die. He was aged and feeble, and he would be better off in
heaven than upon the earth. It would be better for him to die, even
though she obtained no more than her legal share of his estates. More
must be obtained if possible, and while she was hinting and studying up
expedients, which the superannuated _millionnaire_ persistently refused
to notice, she died herself: a violent attack of disease carried her
off even before her son could arrive to close her eyes in death.
John Hungerford was alone in the world again. Perhaps his experience
of wedded life had not been wholly satisfactory; at any rate, he
bore his bereavement with much calmness and resignation, and meekly
submitted to the necessity of supplying the place of the departed
one by employing a housekeeper. If this sudden death in his little
family had no other influence upon him, it forcibly reminded him of
the uncertainty of life. For two whole years he labored upon his will,
elaborating whole pages of details, freely consulting his business
friends, before he instructed the lawyer to embody his intentions in
legal forms. Strange as it may seem, he did not send for his brother’s
family, as he had intimated he should, at least once a year. Mrs.
Hungerford wrote to him occasionally, and with business-like promptness
he answered her letters; but no invitation came for the family to
repeat the visit. After the death of his wife, his sister-in-law had
even proposed to move to Baltimore, and take care of him in his age and
feebleness; but the old man, evading a direct reply, continued to study
upon the details of his will, which document certainly promised to be
the crowning work of his life. He wrote that he was so much occupied,
the visit must be deferred; and he continued to postpone it, until one
morning his housekeeper found him dead in his bed.
Three staid, dignified, elderly merchants had been John Hungerford’s
most intimate friends--friends only in the worldly and business sense.
They had been his advisers, and during those two years of patient toil
over his will--the master-work of his career--they had been occasional
visitors in the little back parlor where the _millionnaire_ now spent
most of his time. They had furnished him with all his information of
the outer world, and assisted him, so far as they could, in performing
the task on which all his remaining energies were concentrated. For
two weeks the best lawyer in the city had been closeted with John
Hungerford during a portion of each day; and the great deed which
finally disposed of the old man’s immense property was completed only a
few days before his death. Perhaps he felt that he had nothing more to
live for; and permitting his energies to relax, this suspension of his
wonted activity had hastened his death.
The housekeeper sent for John’s trio of business friends as soon as
she discovered that the vital spark had fled. One after the other they
came, and when all had arrived, a solemn and dignified conference was
held. There were no friends to be sent for but the Hungerfords of
Poppleton, and Tom Lynch, who was attempting to establish himself as a
physician in an interior town of Ohio, though reports came to Baltimore
that he was too unsteady to achieve a success. Telegraph messages were
immediately sent to Mrs. Hungerford and Tom Lynch. The former, with her
family, arrived in season to attend the funeral, but the despatch did
not promptly reach the young physician, and he did not appear.
John Hungerford went to his grave in greater state than he had ever
moved in the flesh, for the three eminent merchants who managed the
affair had a high regard for the proprieties of the solemn occasion.
A long procession of carriages, occupied by men and women who were
willing to join the brilliant funeral _cortége_ for the gloomy
excitement of the scene, though they had no interest in, and only a few
had any acquaintance with, the deceased, followed the plumed hearse
to the cemetery, and the tomb closed upon all that was mortal of the
Baltimore _millionnaire_.
After the old man’s dust had been solemnly disposed of, there was
an intense curiosity to ascertain what disposition he had made of
his princely fortune. This was really the most interesting question
connected with the life or death of the departed. Few, if any, asked
what he was; all, what he had. Hardly one wanted to know what pleasant
memories he had left behind him; all, the sum total of his worldly
possessions. None but fanatics asked where the old man had gone; but
every one, where his fortune was to go.
What John Hungerford had been doing in the little back parlor for the
last two years was to be made manifest. It had cost the old man fifty
years of severe struggles to get his three and a half millions; it had
cost him two years of diligent thought, and what struggles none could
know,--it had cost him two years of hard labor, more trying, perhaps,
in his age and feebleness, than the half century of toil in the vigor
of his healthy life,--to give it away. The will was read. There were
present at the reading only the three eminent merchants, the Hungerford
family from Poppleton, and the housekeeper.
Mrs. Hungerford was quiet and self-possessed. The neglect to send for
her, as had been arranged with her brother-in-law, to pay the proposed
annual visits, had prepared her to expect nothing more than a simple
remembrance. Her son, Eugene, was calm and dignified, but there was
something in the expression of his manly face which indicated his
dislike of the proceedings. Like his mother, he was independent and
self-reliant; and, very likely, he felt that the position of the family
before the lawyer and the merchants was an exceedingly unpleasant one.
They were to be regarded as expectants, if not supplicants, before
the still closed coffers of the dead man; but Eugene repudiated the
position. He asked nothing, expected nothing. He was deeply grateful
to his uncle for the means of obtaining his education, and he was
prepared to be entirely satisfied if this proved to be the total of his
indebtedness to the deceased.
Julia Hungerford was nineteen, and she was so fair to look upon that
even the dignified merchants stole frequent glances at her, as she
sat annoyed and embarrassed, like her brother and her mother, by the
awkwardness of the situation.
The lawyer read, and two mortal hours were consumed in the reading; and
more of John Hungerford’s life and thought was revealed than the world
had ever known before. No one had ever suspected the _millionnaire_ of
any family ambition, or of any special affection for the name he bore;
but this posthumous document convinced the listeners that the old man
regarded the word “Hungerford” as the apple of his eye. The two years
of hard reflection had been employed in devising schemes to prevent the
name of Hungerford from being forgotten. He had labored to honor it
and to perpetuate it.
The great disappointment of John Hungerford’s life, as the truth was
educed from the will, was, that no son had blessed his lot--no son
to be called John Hungerford, to live like a prince, and to keep the
name alive. The testator, however, was not to be wholly balked. He was
strenuous for the whole name of John Hungerford; and in spite of his
disappointment, he determined to have a representative in the future
who should be known and called as he had been known and called. It
appeared that he had intended at one time to make Tom Lynch change his
name, and become the fortunate owner of the appellation; but the young
man had shown a disposition to follow after strange gods, and was not
therefore a suitable person to support the honor and dignity of the
Hungerford name, and the plan was discarded for the one which was now
shadowed forth in the will. But even this might fail, and the old man,
in this event, had finally resolved to satisfy himself by rendering
immortal and glorious the single name of Hungerford, though his hopes
and expectations still coupled it with the dearly beloved John.
To the end that his intentions might be clearly understood, the
deceased had compelled the unwilling lawyer to preface the will with
the matter from which the information we have given is derived; and it