Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend Part 11

"ELLIS, my son."

There was a little break and tremor in the voice. The young man addressed was pa.s.sing the door of his mother's room, and paused on hearing his name.

"What is it?" he asked, stepping inside and looking curiously into his mother's face, where he saw a more than usually serious expression.

"Sit down, Ellis; I want to say a word to you before going to Mrs.

Birtwell's."

The lady had just completed her toilette, and was elegantly dressed for an evening party. She was a handsome, stately-looking woman, with dark hair through which ran many veins of silver, large, thoughtful eyes and a mouth of peculiar sweetness.

The young man took a chair, and his mother seated herself in front of him.

"Ellis."

The tremor still remained in her voice.

"Well, what is it?"

The young man a.s.sumed a careless air, but was not at ease.

"There is a good old adage, my son, the remembrance of which Has saved many a one in the hour of danger: _Forewarned, forearmed_."

"Oh, then you think we are going into danger to-night?" he answered, in a light tone.

"I am sorry to say that we are going where some will find themselves in great peril," replied the mother, her manner growing more serious; "and it is because of this that I wish to say a word or two now."

"Very well, mother; say on."

He moved uneasily in his chair, and showed signs of impatience.

"You must take it kindly, Ellis, and remember that it is your mother who is speaking, your best and truest friend in all the world."

"Good Heavens, mother! what are you driving at? One would think we were going into a howling wilderness, among savages and wild beasts, instead of into a company of the most cultured and refined people in a Christian city."

"There is danger everywhere, my son," the mother replied, with increasing sobriety of manner, "and the highest civilization of the day has its perils as well as the lowest conditions of society. The enemy hides in ambush everywhere--in the gay drawing-room as well as in the meanest hovel."

She paused, and mother and son looked into each other's faces in silence for several moments. Then the former said:

"I must speak plainly, Ellis. You are not as guarded as you should be on these occasions. You take wine too freely."

"Oh, mother!" His voice was, half surprised, half angry. A red flush mounted to cheeks and forehead. Rising, he walked the room in an agitated manner, and then came and sat down. The color had gone out of his face:

"How could you say so, mother? You do me wrong. It is a mistake."

The lady shook her head:

"No, my son, it is true. A mother's eyes rarely deceive her. You took wine too freely both at Mrs. Judson's and Mrs. Ingersoll's, and acted so little like my gentlemanly, dignified son that my cheeks burned and my heart ached with mortification. I saw in other eyes that looked at you both pity and condemnation. Ah, my son! there was more of bitterness in that for a mother's heart than you will ever comprehend."

Her voice broke into a sob.

"My dear, dear mother," returned the young man, exhibiting much distress, "you and others exaggerated what you saw. I might have been a trifle gay, and who is not after a gla.s.s or two of champagne? I was no gayer than the rest. When young people get together, and one spurs another on they are apt to grow a little wild. But to call high spirits, even noisy high spirits, intoxication is unjust. You must not be too hard on me, mother, nor let your care for your son lead you into needless apprehensions. I am in no danger here. Set your heart at rest on that score."

But this was impossible. Mrs. Whitford knew there was danger, and that of the gravest character. Two years before, her son had come home from college, where he had graduated with all the honors her heart could desire, a pure, high-toned young man, possessing talents of no common order. His father wished him to study law; and as his own inclinations led in that direction, he went into the office of one of the best pract.i.tioners in the city, and studied for his profession with the same thoroughness that had distinguished him while in college. He had just been admitted to the bar.

For the first year after his return home Mrs. Whitford saw nothing in her son to awaken uneasiness. His cultivated tastes and love of intellectual things held him above the enervating influences of the social life into which he was becoming more and more drawn. Her first feeling of uneasiness came when, at a large party given by one of her most intimate friends, she heard his voice ring out suddenly in the supper-room. Looking down the table, she saw him with a gla.s.s of champagne in his hand, which he was flourishing about in rather an excited way. There was a gay group of young girls around him, who laughed merrily at the sport he made. Mrs. Whitford's pleasure was gone for that evening. A shadow came down on the bright future of her son--a future to which her heart had turned with such proud antic.i.p.ations. She was oppressed by a sense of humiliation. Her son had stepped down from his pedestal of dignified self-respect, and stood among the common herd of vulgar young men to whom in her eyes he had always been superior.

But greater than her humiliation were the fears of Mrs. Whitford. A thoughtful and observant woman, she had reason for magnifying the dangers that lay in the path of her son. The curse of more than one member of both her own and husband's family had been intemperance.

While still a young man her father had lost his self-control, and her memory of him was a shadow of pain and sorrow. He died at an early age, the victim of an insatiable and consuming desire for drink. Her husband's father had been what is called a "free liver"--that is, a man who gave free indulgence to his appet.i.tes, eating and drinking to excess, and being at all times more or less under the influence of wine or spirits.

It was the hereditary taint that Mrs. Whitford dreaded. Here lay the ground of her deepest anxiety. She had heard and thought enough on this subject to know that parents transmit to their children an inclination to do the things they have done from habit--strong or weak, according to the power of the habit indulged. If the habit be an evil one, then the children are in more than common danger, and need the wisest care and protection. She knew, also, from reading and observation, that an evil habit of mind or body which did not show itself in the second generation would often be reproduced in the third, and a.s.sert a power that it required the utmost strength of will and the greatest watchfulness to subdue.

And so, when her son, replying to her earnest warning, said, "I am in no danger. Set your heart at rest," she knew better--knew that a deadly serpent was in the path he was treading. And she answered him with increasing earnestness:

"The danger may be far greater than you imagine, Ellis. It _is_ greater than you imagine."

Her voice changed as she uttered the last sentence into a tone that was almost solemn.

"You are talking wildly," returned the young man, "and pay but a poor compliment to your son's character and strength of will. In danger of becoming a sot!--for that is what you mean. If you were not my mother, I should be angry beyond self-control."

"Ellis," said Mrs. Whitford, laying her hand upon the arm of her son and speaking with slow impressiveness, "I am older than you are by nearly thirty years, have seen more of life than you have, _and know some things that you do not know._ I have your welfare at heart more deeply than any other being except G.o.d. I know you better in some things than you know yourself. Love makes me clear-seeing. And this is why I am in such earnest with you to-night. Ellis, I want a promise from you. I ask it in the name of all that is dearest to you--in my name--in the name of Blanche--in the name of G.o.d!"

All the color had, gone out of Mrs. Whitford's face, and she stood trembling before her son.

"You frighten me, mother," exclaimed the young man. "What do you mean by all this? Has any one been filling your mind with lies about me?"

"No; none would dare speak to me of you in anything but praise, But I want you to promise to-night, Ellis. I must have that, and then my heart will be at ease. It will be a little thing for you, but for me rest and peace and confidence in the place of terrible anxieties."

"Promise! What? Some wild fancies have taken hold of you."

"No wild fancies, but a fear grounded in things of which I would not speak. Ellis, I want you to give up the use of wine."

The young man did not answer immediately. All the nervous restlessness he had exhibited died out in a moment, and he stood very still, the ruddy marks of excitement going out of his face. His eyes were turned from his mother and cast upon the floor.

"And so it has come to this," he said, huskily, and in a tone of humiliation. "My mother thinks me in danger of becoming a drunkard--thinks me so weak that I cannot be trusted to take even a gla.s.s of wine."

"Ellis!" Mrs. Whitford again laid her hand upon the arm of her son.

"Ellis," her voice had fallen to deep whisper, "if I must speak, I must. There are ancestors who leave fatal legacies to the generations that come after them, and you are one accursed by such a legacy. There is a taint in your blood, a latent fire that a spark may kindle into a consuming flame."

She panted as she spoke with hurried utterance. "My father!" exclaimed the young man, with an indignant flash in his eyes.

"No, no, no! I don't mean that. But there is a curse that descends to the third and fourth generation," replied Mrs. Whitford, "and you have the legacy of that curse. But it will be harmless unless with your own hand you drag it down, and this is why I ask you to abstain from wine.

Others may be safe, but for you there is peril."

"A scarecrow, a mere fancy, a figment of some fanatic's brain;" and Ellis Whitford rejected the idea in a voice full of contempt.

But the pallor and solemnity of his mother's face warned him that such a treatment of her fears could not allay them. Moreover, the hint of ancestral disgrace had shocked his family pride.

"A sad and painful truth," Mrs. Whitford returned, "and one that it will be folly for you to ignore. You do not stand in the same freedom in which many others stand. That is your misfortune. But you can no more disregard the fact than can one born with a hereditary taint of consumption in his blood disregard the loss of health and hope to escape the fatal consequences. There is for every one of us 'a sin that doth easily beset,' a hereditary inclination that must be guarded and denied, or it will grow and strengthen until it becomes a giant to enslave us. Where your danger lies I have said; and if you would be safe, set bars and bolts to the door of appet.i.te, and suffer not your enemy to cross the threshold, of life."