Hugh Barton

Hugh Barton marries into the Gant family and becomes one of its few reliable anchors, a man of sober judgment and steady nerves who drives through the night when crisis comes. He is patient with Helen's volatility and useful in emergencies, the kind of man who gets things done without drama. His presence in the novel's darker passages, especially around Ben's illness, gives the family a figure of quiet strength against its own chaos.