Three millions! or, The way of the world
The artist took her hand to assist her to another seat. It was a
delicate and prettily shaped hand, and Mr. Buckstone, in spite of the
emergency of the moment, glanced at it with an artist’s eye. He was
sufficiently enraptured by the touch to press the hand, if he had dared
to do so; but he prudently refrained, and placed himself in the stern
with the oar he had improvised.
Mr. Buckstone, in the pursuit of his art, had accustomed himself to
marine occupations. He succeeded in putting the boat’s head up to
the wind, but that was about all he succeeded in doing, for the pine
board twisted and behaved itself in a most unseamanlike manner; or
Mr. Buckstone did, for the fault lay somewhere between them; and as
far as the boatman or the lady could discover, no progress was made.
Then he essayed to row the stubborn craft; but she whirled around,
and resolutely went to seaward with the wind and tide. Miss Kingman
hoped he would not wear himself out in fruitless exertions; but Mr.
Buckstone seemed to have “enlisted for the war,” and to be determined
to carry his point in spite of the obstinacy of the boat, the treachery
of the oar, and the adverse influence of the wind and tide. Finally,
after resorting to various expedients, he turned the craft towards the
lighthouse on The Great Bell, so that her intended course was diagonal
with the force of the breeze and the current, and pulled his oar on the
seaward side. By this strategy, with the utmost exertion at the pine
board, he realized that he was making a little progress through the
water.
The labor was very great, and the headway very slight. It would be
hours before he could reach the lighthouse at this rate, and he was
soon discouraged by the prospect before him. But what added to his
discomfort and discouragement was the fact that his beautiful companion
sat behind him, and he could derive no inspiration in his arduous
labors from the contemplation of her sweet face and graceful form. Mr.
Buckstone was really in no haste to reach the shore, and nothing but
a proper regard for appearances and the proprieties of the occasion
induced him to struggle so hard to attain what he did not wish to
attain. The marine painter was young, sentimental, and susceptible.
Never before in flesh and blood had he so distinctly seen his ideal of
a beautiful woman, as in the being who now sat behind him in the boat.
In spite of his wet garments, and in spite of the terrors of the ocean
upon which the boat was drifting, he found himself very pleasantly
situated, and not the least in a hurry to escape from the perils which
were as yet too far off to be dreaded. There was a greater peril nearer
at hand, of which neither of them was conscious.
“There comes a boat out of the river!” exclaimed the lady, just as Mr.
Buckstone had given up his useless labor, and turned round to gaze into
the speaking eyes of his lovely companion.
“I am sorry for it,” said he, incautiously; “that is, I am sorry it did
not come before.”
Miss Kingman was eighteen years old, and if she was deceived by the
change in his words, she was undeceived when she felt the earnest gaze
of admiration he bestowed upon her. The artist turned, and saw a sail
boat dash out from behind the point of The Great Bell, on which the
lighthouse was located.
“She makes good time, and you will soon be relieved of my presence,
Miss Kingman,” said he, with a sigh.
She hoped so, but it would have been cruel to say it.
“It is Mr. Hungerford,” continued Miss Kingman, when the sail boat had
come within hailing distance; and there was a smile of pleasure on her
countenance which did not escape the keen observation of the artist.
“And pray, who is Mr. Hungerford?” he asked.
“Haven’t you heard of him? Eugene Hungerford, the heir of the Baltimore
_millionnaire_?”
Mr. Buckstone had never heard of him; but he hailed the sail boat, and
begged the loan of a pair of oars.
CHAPTER III.
THE HUNGERFORD FAMILY.
The Hungerford family, after uncle John had been solemnly and
ceremoniously committed to the tomb, returned to Poppleton. Everything
had a kind of unsubstantial look to them, as though they had been
suddenly lifted from the cares and trials of this sublunary sphere to
a region of golden clouds which were very beautiful to look upon, but
which would not bear the solid tramp of mortal feet. Whereas they had
gone to Baltimore, ten days before, in very moderate and even humble
circumstances, now they were rolling in wealth; at least the will of
the late John Hungerford had so declared them to be, though they found
it exceedingly difficult to realize the stupendous change which had
come over them. They reached Poppleton with all these doubts unsolved,
and with these cloudy sensations still hanging about them.
Mrs. Hungerford was the most practical person of the three. She was a
well-educated, well-informed lady, who knew something of books, and a
great deal of the world. She had brought up her little family on three
hundred dollars a year, and she had necessarily been a very practical
person; but as she journeyed home from Baltimore, she was troubled with
a dread lest the golden clouds should suddenly roll away, the misty
curtain be lifted, and the bright dream of ease, luxury, and happiness
be dissipated even before she had tasted its sweetness. Twenty thousand
dollars had been left to her, independently of all contingencies; and
this to a woman of high aims, who had been struggling all her life
with the inconveniences of a small income, was a fortune in itself. By
degrees, as the train thundered along towards her home, she reasoned
herself into the belief that her own legacy and that of her daughter
were as real as the solid earth beneath them. Of the golden clouds, the
silver fountains, and the glittering mists from Pactolian streams, that
enveloped her son Eugene, she had not the courage to think. Her own
little fortune was large enough and suggestive enough to satisfy the
highest flights of her imagination.
So far as thought and feeling were concerned, the Hungerford family
were only one individual. I do not mean to say there was never any
difference of opinion among its members, for that would be saying
they were all dolts and fools, and that the cottage in which they
dwelt was the dullest and most insipid place in the world; but there
was a rich harmony of thought and feeling, even while thought and
feeling ran in different channels. Simple-minded, Christian people, of
intelligence and cultivation, always remarked what a beautiful family
the Hungerfords were. The mother and her children were unselfish; they
lived for each other, and there was not a joy or a sorrow for one
that was not for all. It made no difference, therefore, what members
of the family had been mentioned in the will of John Hungerford as
the recipients of legacies, or which one as the residuary legatee; by
the ties of nature, what belonged to one belonged to all; and if the
_millionnaire_ had known them better, he might have left his bounty to
the whole, instead of mentioning individuals.
Eugene Hungerford appeared to take his altered circumstances with
the utmost composure; but he only appeared to do so. While he was
universally acknowledged to be a generous, noble, and high-minded
young man, he had the reputation of being odd and strange. He never
did things as other people did them; not apparently for the sake of
being odd and strange, but because he had a will and a way of his
own. As the train bore him north, he did not seem to be elated: nor
was he; for, like his mother and his sister, he was troubled with that
feeling of insecurity and unsubstantialness--the fear that things would
not work according to the programme laid down in John Hungerford’s
will. Perhaps the old man was crazy, and had made his magnificent
will without the means of doing a tithe of what the labored document
proposed to accomplish. He had heard of men making wills who had not a
dollar to leave behind them.
But in spite of this want of confidence in the reality of the golden
era which had dawned upon him, he could not help building castles in
the air: certain brilliant projects flitted through his mind, some
relating to personal comforts, luxuries, and enjoyments, and others
to the reformation and improvement of the world at large, but more
especially to the world of Poppleton society; though this, as being
within the sphere of his knowledge and experience, was only the
representative of a general idea. “No pent-up Utica” was to contract
his powers, when he became the sole possessor of the three millions.
When he did! Eugene regarded the terms of the will as contingent,
rather than conditional. They were disagreeable to him. He did not
relish them. To have the holiest and dearest relations of life even
mentioned in connection with money was repulsive to him.
In a worldly point of view, he must marry as soon as practicable;
otherwise the contingency which would give him the three millions,
absolutely, could not occur. There was certainly a worldly inducement
for him to make some lady Mrs. Eugene Hungerford. He did not like it.
Why should he marry, if he did not wish to do so? Why should he be
bribed to enter into the holy state of matrimony? He could not very
clearly define to himself his feelings on this delicate point; but
there was a certain sense of compulsion which fretted and annoyed him,
and which tempted him to be obstinate even against his moral, social,
and pecuniary interests. To be compelled to marry in order to obtain
the three millions, went exactly across the grain of his sensitive
and high-strung nature. If the question had been between the three
millions and taking to his bosom one whom he did not love, one to
whom he was indifferent, he would not have hesitated an instant in
making a decision, even if poverty and single blessedness had been the
alternative.
But Eugene Hungerford was doomed to be rich in spite of himself. No
obstinacy or hardship could deprive him of his entire wealth--always
supposing that John Hungerford’s will was not a vision. He was to
receive the income of the three millions for seven years; and then, if
the conditions were not complied with, he was to have the sixth part of
the whole sum. Let him be as obdurate as he pleased, he could hardly
help being a _millionnaire_; let him be denied the blessed boon of a
little John Hungerford in the future, and then even a fortune of which
he had never been extravagant enough to dream, would still be coming to
him. His position would not be a very hard one, though he should choose
to be ugly and uncompromising.
With this view he came back to the original question, Why should he
marry if he did not wish to marry? Why should he call his first born
son John if it did not suit him so to call him? But in this connection
there came up before him, unbidden, the image of a beautiful girl,
upon whom he had long looked with admiration, and to whose virtues and
gentleness his heart had yielded homage. She was all that he could ask
for as the partner of his joys and his sorrows in the pilgrimage of
life, though never before had he ventured to think of her as his wife.
Though she was poor like himself, though her family relations were
overshadowed by griefs and sorrows, she was so fair and so good, that
crowds of suitors thronged her path. She could choose from a score, if
not a hundred, and perhaps her choice was already made.
This beautiful girl was Mary Kingman, whom we left in the boat with
Eliot Buckstone. Though only twenty, she had taught the grammar school
at Poppleton Mills, and the one at the Port. Her last service had
been in the High School, and she had just resigned her situation there
on account of family troubles. She had been a pupil in this school