Part 1 (2/2)
CHAPTER TWO.
UNDER A CLOUD.
Mr Huntingdon was a country gentleman of good fortune and popular manners, warm in his temper, hasty in his speech, upright in his transactions, and liberal in his dealings. No man could make a better speech, when he had those to address who substantially agreed with him; while in ordinary conversation he generally succeeded in silencing an opponent, though, perhaps, more by the vehemence of his utterances than by the cogency of his reasonings. He had a considerable knowledge of field-sports and farming, rather less of literature, and less still of character. Naturally, he had a high opinion of his own judgment, in which opinion his dependants agreed with him before his face, but differed from it behind his back. However, every one allowed that he was a worthy man, a good landlord, a kind master, and a faithful friend.
A cloud, however, rested on his home.
He had married early, and had made, in the estimation of his friends and of the county generally, an excellent choice of a wife in the person of the eldest daughter of a neighbouring squire. The marriage was apparently a very happy one; for the bride brought her husband a fair face, a loving heart, and a good fortune, and entertained his friends with due courtesy and cordiality. Moreover, she neither thwarted his tastes nor squandered his money; while he, on his part, pursued his hunting, shooting, and fis.h.i.+ng, and his occasional magisterial duties, with due consideration for his wife's domestic and social engagements, so that their married life ran its course with as little friction or creaking as could reasonably be expected. Then there came, in due time, the children: first, a little girl, the object of her mother's pa.s.sionate love, and as dear to her father as the mistake of her not having been a boy would allow her to be; then, after an interval of three years, came a son.
Now it so happened that at the time of this son's birth there was residing as a guest at the Manor-house a middle-aged gentleman reputed to be very rich. His name was Amos Sutterby. Mr Huntingdon had met him abroad in the second year after his marriage when taking a tour in Switzerland with his wife. Mr Sutterby was an old bachelor, rather bluff in his manners, but evidently in easy circ.u.mstances. The Huntingdons and himself had met on the Rigi, and the squire had taken to him at once--in a great measure, it may be, because Mr Amos was a good listener, and was very ready to ask Mr Huntingdon's opinion and advice.
So the squire gave his new acquaintance a general invitation to Flixworth Manor, which the other cordially accepted: and in a little while this acquaintances.h.i.+p ripened into a steady friends.h.i.+p, though by no means entirely to the satisfaction of Mrs Huntingdon. The result, however, was that Mr Sutterby spent several weeks of every year, at the close of the summer and beginning of the autumn, at the Manor, and was the constant companion of the squire in his field-sports. Mr Huntingdon had taken care to satisfy himself that his new friend, though somewhat of an oddity, was a man of substance. True, he was only living in bachelor style, and possessed no landed property; but then he was able at all times to command ready money, and was reputed by persons who had long known him to be the holder of a large amount in the funds, an impression which seemed to be justified by some elegant and costly presents of which Mr Sutterby begged his friend's acceptance, as a token of his esteem and a mark of his appreciation of that kind hospitality which, as he said, an eccentric old bachelor living in lodgings in London was unable to return in kind.
Now it was, as has been said, during a visit of Mr Sutterby to Flixworth Manor that a son and heir was given to the Huntingdons. Of course there were great rejoicings, and no one seemed more glad than Mr Sutterby; and when he was asked if he would stand G.o.dfather to the child, he declared that nothing could please him more. So the christening day was fixed, and now the question of a name for the child was discussed, as father, mother, and their guest were sitting round the fire after dinner on the first day of Mrs Huntingdon's appearing downstairs.
”Of course he must be 'Walter,' after yourself,” said the lady.
”Unless you would like to call him 'Amos,' after his G.o.dfather,” said the squire, laughing.
”Capital!” exclaimed Mr Sutterby, with a roar of merriment. ”In that case, of course, I shall feel it nothing less than my duty to make him my heir.”
Now these words of their guest, though spoken just on the spur of the moment, and probably only in jest, made an impression on the mind of Mr Huntingdon which he could not get rid of. Why should not his friend have really meant what he said? He was rich, and an old bachelor, and had no near relations, so far as the squire knew; and though Mr Huntingdon's estate and fortune were large, yet his open-house way of living left him little to spare at the year's end, so that Mr Sutterby's money would be very acceptable, should he see fit to leave it to his G.o.dson. He therefore represented this view of the matter to his wife in private; but she would not hear of such a name as Amos being given to her son.
”Better lose a thousand fortunes, and quarrel with every friend they had or might have, rather than bring such an odious combination as 'Amos Huntingdon' into the family genealogy.” The squire's temper, however, was roused by this opposition, and he wound up the only sharp altercation which had occurred between himself and his wife since their marriage by a vehement a.s.severation that ”Amos” and nothing but ”Amos”
should be the Christian name of his first-born son.
Sorely against her will, his wife was obliged to yield; for though Mr Huntingdon had his own secret regrets that he had gone so far, yet he was one of those who, wanting that true greatness of character which leads its possessor to change a hastily adopted decision for one resulting from a maturer judgment, abide by what they have said simply because they have said it, and thus mistake obstinacy for a right-minded firmness. ”Amos,” therefore, was the name given, considerably to the satisfaction of Mr Sutterby, who made his G.o.dson handsome presents from time to time, and often spoke of him playfully as ”my G.o.dson and heir.”
His mother, however, never forgave his name, and it was clear to all that the poor child himself had but a cold place in that mother's heart.
What wonder, then, that the boy grew up shy and reserved, dreading the sound of his own name, and shrinking within himself; for seldom was he gladdened by a father's or mother's smile. Added to this, he was not naturally of a lively temperament, and so never exhibited those boisterous spirits which might have won for him in a measure his father's heart. So he was brought up with all due care, as was suitable for an eldest son, and was sent to a public school as soon as he could be safely trusted from home. Indeed, all his wants were supplied but one, and that one was what his heart craved with a painful intensity-- love. They gave him no real love, at least none that came like suns.h.i.+ne to his spirit. Such love as they did measure out to him was rather like the feeble sunlight on a cloudy winter day, that seems to chill as it scarcely struggles through the mists that almost quench it.
Such was Amos Huntingdon in his early childhood. But the cloud grew darker over him when he had reached the age of ten. It was then that the news came one morning that Mr Sutterby had died, leaving no will, for indeed he had nothing to bequeath except a few small personal effects, which went to some distant cousin. The fact was that, having an eye to his own personal comfort and well-doing, he had sunk a nice little fortune, which he had inherited from a maiden aunt, in a handsome annuity. Thus he was able to travel and spend his money like a man of wealth, and was very glad of the opportunity of making Mr Huntingdon's acquaintance, which gave him access to a house where he could spend a portion of every year amidst bountiful hospitality and in good society.
He had no deliberate intention of deceiving Mr Huntingdon about his son, but having once given him the impression that he would leave that son a fortune, he did not trouble himself to undeceive his friend on the subject; but being a man in whom self-interest spoke with a louder voice than conscience, he was not sorry to find the conviction strongly rooted in the squire's mind that Amos was to be his G.o.dfather's heir, as this conviction evidently added to the warmth of the welcome with which he was received at the Manor-house whenever he chose to take up his quarters there. And as he had always carefully avoided making any definite statement of his intentions, and had only thrown out hints from time to time, which might be either serious or playful, he was content that a state of things should continue which brought considerable satisfaction to himself, and could not deprive the squire or his son of anything to which either had a legal claim. The disgust, however, of Mr Huntingdon, when he found out how he had, as he considered it, been taken advantage of and imposed upon, was intense in the extreme. No one dared refer to Mr Sutterby in his presence, while the very name of the poor boy Amos was scarcely ever spoken by him except in a tone of bitterness; and even his mother looked forward to his holidays with more of apprehension than rejoicing.
There was one, however, who felt for that desolate-hearted child, and loved him with a mother's tenderness. This was his aunt, Miss Huntingdon, his father's unmarried and only sister. Half his holidays would be spent at her house; and oh, what happy days they were for him!
Happy, too, at last in the brightest and fullest sense; for that loving friend was privileged to lead her nephew gently to Him who says to the shy schoolboy, as much as to the mature man, in his sorrows, ”Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
In the meanwhile, when Amos was five years old, another son was born at Flixworth Manor. The baby was christened Walter, and nearly all the love that was the share of the elder brother was poured by both father and mother on the younger son. Years rolled on, and when our story opens Amos was twenty-two years of age. He had pa.s.sed creditably through the university course at Oxford, but had not settled down to any profession. Walter was seventeen; his father's delight and constant companion in his holidays; full of life, energy, and fun, with an unlimited good opinion of himself, and a very limited good opinion of his brother; while all around who knew him only a little were loud in his praises, which were not, however, echoed by those who knew him more thoroughly. At present he was remaining at home, after completing his school education, neither his father nor himself being able to make up their minds as to the sphere in which his abilities would s.h.i.+ne the best.
And where was his sister, the eldest of the three, who was now twenty- five years of age? Alas! she had grievously disappointed the hopes of both father and mother, having clandestinely married, when not yet arrived at womanhood, a man altogether beneath her in position. From the day of that marriage Mr Huntingdon's heart and house were closed against her. Not so the heart of her mother; but that mother pleaded with her husband in vain for a reconciliation, for permission even to have a single meeting with her erring child. And so the poor mother's mind came under partial eclipse, and herself had been some years away from home under private superintendence, when the accident above recorded occurred to her husband and his sister.
CHAPTER THREE.
A TALK AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
The morning after the accident, Miss Huntingdon, who was now keeping her brother's house, and had been returning with him the night before after a visit to a friend, appeared as usual at the breakfast-table, rather to Mr Huntingdon's surprise.
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