CHAPTER VIII.

TO EUROPE AND BACK.

The city architect in due time completed his plans for the mansion at Pine Hill, and the building was commenced. The improvements upon the grounds were continued with unabated vigor. One model house at the Port and two at the Mills were in process of erection. Eugene Hungerford’s extensive operations kept business good in the place; his enterprise was appreciated, and he was regarded with a respect bordering upon reverence.

Meanwhile, the preparations for the European tour were completed. Mrs. Hungerford had always been “a home body,” and at her time of life was not much inclined to go abroad. She dreaded the ocean voyage, but as Julia desired to go, she preferred to join the party. It would be home wherever her children were, and as she was still hale and healthy, she thought she could enjoy life better with them, even at sea, than alone in the cottage at Poppleton. Besides, she was greatly troubled by the melancholy which had brooded over Eugene, since the flight of Mary Kingman. It worried her to see him, with every worldly prospect so bright, become so moody and depressed. She and Julia, as well as Dick Birch, did everything that could be done to restore his former cheerfulness.

With these loved ones at home, Eugene talked freely of his sorrows; it was all the solace he had. He could not banish from his mind the feeling that he had indirectly been the cause of Mary’s misfortune, if, indeed, it was a misfortune, which had not yet been demonstrated. Many were the tricks and expedients to which his kind and loving friends resorted to overcome his melancholy. Picnics and parties, visitings and merrymakings, were liberally encouraged. Eugene, to please his mother and sister, attended them all; yet the gloom still hung over him. Independent of his princely fortune, he was a favorite with the ladies of Poppleton. He was a man of noble mien and bearing, and the fairest would have been flattered by his attentions. And now, the wealthiest man of all the region round, he was not only the object of a vast amount of solicitude on the part of managing mothers, but the fair ones, who would willingly have taken him without a “bonus,” fluttered when he smiled, and blushed when he glanced at them. In vain they fluttered, and in vain they blushed. Eugene treated them with the utmost respect and deference, but his heart was away with Mary.

Even Mrs. Hungerford and Julia, with the kindest intentions, did not scruple to bring him frequently into the presence of ladies whom they deemed worthy of him, with the hope that he might be fascinated by some one of them; but it was only to steal him away from the corroding care upon which he fed, and win him from the dead thought to which he was still hopelessly wedded. He was calm, and even cheerful most of the time; but the worm still kept on gnawing. It was hoped by all at home that the tour in Europe would produce a salutary effect upon him.

Just before Eugene’s departure, Ross Kingman returned from his fishing cruise, and a letter for him, which had lain in the post office, was opened. Carefully as the lover and his friends had striven to conceal his disappointment, the village gossips made all the capital they could of it. The postmaster had shown this letter to Eugene, who at once recognized Mary’s handwriting, and he had impatiently awaited the brother’s return, in order to learn what tidings it contained of the absent one. On the day of his arrival, Eugene went to the island, and had a long interview with Ross, and the letter was shown to him. It was written a month after her arrival at her new home. She spoke of Eliot Buckstone as her husband, and simply assured her brother that she was pleasantly situated; but Eugene, who was permitted to read the letter, saw, or thought he saw, indications that she was not happy. She alluded to her husband in the kindest terms, but she did not speak of him as one of her gentle, loving nature would have spoken, if he had fully realized her hopes and expectations.

The letter did not improve Eugene’s mental condition. He could not help feeling that she was disappointed and unhappy, and he continued to charge himself with the misfortunes which had fallen upon her. He frankly told her brother his feelings in regard to her.

“Well, I always thought, Mr. Hungerford, that she was fond of you. She always used to speak of you to me just as though it was a settled thing with her, and, up to the time you got this money, I supposed you understood each other perfectly,” said Ross.

“Nothing particular ever passed between us, Ross,” replied Eugene.

“I didn’t suppose there had; but anybody can see through a millstone when there is a hole in it. I hadn’t much doubt as to how the thing would turn out. I suppose everybody in the place had the same idea.”

“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!”

Ross Kingman, with the true instincts of a noble brother, had hastened to her assistance. He did not despise her; he did not look coldly upon her; the way of the world was not his way. Eugene was comforted by the reflection that she had a friend in Ross, but he hoped the passionate young man, justly roused to the highest pitch of indignation by his sister’s wrongs, would not encounter Eliot Buckstone. There would be blood shed if he did.

Long and weary to Eugene Hungerford were the days and the hours which intervened between the receipt of the intelligence and the sailing of the steamer in which he had engaged passage. Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle had lost their attractions to him; he was anxious to be where he could assure himself that poor Mary was not still suffering. Just as the tug-boat was leaving the landing stage in Liverpool, to convey her passengers to the steamer, lying in the Mersey, the porter of the Washington Hotel, where he had stopped, brought him a package of letters, which had been forwarded by his banker from London. Eagerly he tore them open, to obtain fresh tidings of her who was now always in his thoughts. There was none from Ross Kingman, but Dick Birch wrote that Mary was still in New York; that her brother was with her, and would remain there until she could gain strength to bear the journey to Poppleton. “If I had known what was in that letter of Kingman’s, which I enclosed for you, I would not have sent it,” wrote Dick. “You must be miserable if you have received it. Buckstone is a villain, but everything we can do for poor Mary shall be done.”

Dick wrote page upon page about the new residence at Pine Hill, the grounds around it, the model houses in the villages, and the receipts from the trustees; but Eugene read them without interest. The agent had completed the mansion, furnished it, employed a housekeeper, stocked the conservatory, partially filled up the book shelves in the library; indeed, he had put the place in complete readiness for occupancy. His description was glowing and eloquent, and Eugene would not have believed, a year ago, that he could look so coldly upon the realization of his dreams of splendor and comfort. If Mary could have been at his side to enter the new house with him, it would have been a fairy palace.

The steamer sped on her way over the ocean, and safely landed her passengers in Boston. Eugene telegraphed his arrival to Dick Birch, and took the first train for home. When the family reached the station at Poppleton Mills, Dick was there.

“How are you, old fellow?” exclaimed the enthusiastic agent, as he seized the hand of Eugene. “How pale you are!”

“I am very well, Dick. How are you?”

“Never better. Ah, Miss Hungerford, I welcome you home,” he added, grasping the hand of Julia.

For some reason or other both of them blushed a little. Mrs. Hungerford was greeted in her turn, which was after Julia.

“What’s the news in Poppleton, Dick?” asked Eugene.

“Nothing special; there was a man drowned to-day, off The Great Bell.”

“Who was he?” asked the returned wanderer, fearing that this might be the preface to a story informing him that some friend had been lost.

“His name was Goodwin; he was a stranger--came down here gunning.”

“What a shock you gave me!” added Eugene, greatly relieved.

“This way, Hungerford,” continued Dick, leading the way to an elegant carriage which stood by the platform, with the driver holding the open door.

“Whose is this, Dick?” asked Eugene.

“Yours, of course. I purchased it for the use of the ladies.”

Avoiding as much as possible the greetings of friends and neighbors, who had heard of his coming, and had collected at the station to welcome him, Eugene got into the carriage with his mother and sister.

“Home,” said Dick to the driver, as he joined the party inside.

“Now, Dick, what news is there?” demanded Eugene. “You know what I mean.”

“I hoped you would not say anything about that at present, for the news is not pleasant.”

“My God!” groaned Eugene.

“No, no, Hungerford; it is not as bad as it might be. She is not dead.”

“That would be good news,--I had almost said. Where is she?”

“At home.”

“At her father’s?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No; she is too ill; but she is improving.”

“What does her father say? Is he reconciled?”

“No; but he can’t help himself; he has been confined to his bed, for a couple of months, with rheumatism.”

“Where is Ross?”

“At home. Your yacht lies in the river.”

“Never mind the yacht.”

“I have made Ross stay at home, and attend to the affairs of the family.”

“I am glad you did. What does Mary say?”

“She suffers severely--not physically, perhaps.”

“I see. Do you know anything about Buckstone?”

“He is in New York, I suppose. Mary had a letter from him the other day: what it was I don’t know.”

“Send for Ross. I must see him to-night.”

“Keep cool, Hungerford; the matter might be worse.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Eugene, as he settled back in the carriage.

From the window might be seen the improvements of Pine Hill. He did not look at them. The carriage stopped in front of his elegant mansion. He hardly glanced at it. They were nothing to him: Mary was all in all.