Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend Part 37

She paused, her white lips quivering, then rallied her strength and went on:

"Even to dishonor my son."

She caught her breath with a great sob, and remained silent for nearly half a minute, sitting so still that she seemed like one dead. In that brief time she had chained down her overwrought feelings and could speak without a tremor in her voice.

"I have come to say," she now went on, "that this marriage must not take place. Its consummation would be a great wrong, and entail upon your daughter a life of misery. My son is falling into habits that will, I sadly fear, drag him down to hopeless ruin. I have watched the formation and growth of this habit with a solicitude that has for a long time robbed my life of its sweetness. All the while I see him drifting away from me, and I am powerless to hold him back. Every day he gets farther off, and every day my heart grows heavier with sorrow.

Can nothing be done? Alas! nothing, I fear; and I must tell you why, Mrs. Birtwell. It is best that you should see the case as hopeless, and save your daughter if you can."

She paused again for a few moments, and then continued:

"It is not with my son as with most young men. He has something more to guard against than the ordinary temptations of society. There is, as you may possibly know, a taint in his blood--the taint of hereditary intemperance. I warned him of this and implored him to abjure wine and all other drinks that intoxicate, but he was proud and sensitive as well as confident in his own strength. He began to imagine that everybody knew the family secret I had revealed to him, and that if he refused wine in public it would be attributed to his fear of arousing a sleeping appet.i.te which when fully awake and active might prove too strong for him, and so he often drank in a kind of bravado spirit. He would be a man and let every one see that he could hold the mastery over himself. It was a dangerous experiment for him, as I knew it would be, and has failed."

Mrs. Whitford broke down and sobbed in an uncontrollable pa.s.sion of grief. Then, rising, she said:

"I have done a simple duty, Mrs. Birtwell. How hard the task has been you can never know, for through a trial like mine you will never have to pa.s.s. It now remains for you to do the best to save your child from the great peril that lies before her. I wish that I could say, 'Tell Blanche of our interview and of my solemn warning.' But I cannot, I dare not do so, for it would be to cast up a wall between me and my son and to throw him beyond the circle of my influence. It would turn his heart against his mother, and that is a calamity from the very thought of which I shrink with a sickening fear."

The two women, sad partners in a grief that time might intensify, instead of making less, stood each leaning her face down upon the other's shoulder and wept silently, then raised their eyes and looked wistfully at each other.

"The path of duty is very rough sometimes; but if we must walk it to save another, we cannot stay our feet and be guiltless before G.o.d,"

said Mrs. Whitford. "It has taken many days since I saw this path of suffering and humiliation open its dreary course for me to gather up the strength required to walk in it with steady feet. Every day for more than a week I have started out resolved to see you, but every day my heart has failed. Twice I stood at your door with my hand on the bell, then turned, and went away. But the task is over, the duty done, and I pray that it may not be in vain."

What was now to be done? When Mr. Birtwell was informed of this interview, he became greatly excited, declaring that he should forbid any further intercourse between the young people. The engagement, he insisted, should be broken off at once. But Mrs. Birtwell was wiser than her husband, and knew better than he did the heart of their daughter.

Blanche had taken more from her mother than from her father, and the current of her life ran far deeper than that of most of the frivolous girls around her. Love with her could not be a mere sentiment, but a deep and all-pervading pa.s.sion. Such a pa.s.sion she felt for Ellis Whitford, and she was ready to link her destinies with his, whether the promise were for good or for evil. To forbid Ellis the house and lay upon her any interdictions, in regard to him would, the mother knew, precipitate the catastrophe they were anxious to avert.

It was not possible for either Mr. or Mrs. Birtwell to conceal from their daughter the state of feeling into which the visit of Mrs.

Whitford had thrown them, nor long to remain pa.s.sive. The work of separation must be commenced without delay. Blanche saw the change in her parents, and felt an instinct of danger; and when the first intimations of a decided purpose to make a breach between her and Ellis came, she set her face like flint against them, not in any pa.s.sionate outbreak, but with a calm a.s.sertion of her undying love and her readiness to accept the destiny that lay before her. To the declaration of her mother that Ellis was doomed by inheritance to the life of a drunkard, she replied:

"Then he will only the more need my love and care."

Persuasion, appeal, remonstrance, were useless. Then Mr. Birtwell interposed with authority. Ellis was denied the house and Blanche forbidden to see him.

This was the condition of affairs at the time Mrs. Birtwell became so deeply interested in Mr. Ridley and his family. Blanche had risen, in a measure, above the deep depression of spirits consequent on the att.i.tude of her parents toward her betrothed husband, and while showing no change in her feelings toward him seemed content to wait for what might come. Still, there was something in her manner that Mrs. Birtwell did not understand, and that occasioned at times a feeling of doubt and uneasiness.

"Where is Blanche?" asked Mr. Birtwell. It was the evening following that on which Mr. Ridley bad been taken to the Home for inebriates. He was sitting at the tea-table with his wife.

"She is in her room," replied Mrs. Birtwell.

"Are you sure?" inquired her husband.

Mrs. Birtwell noticed something in his voice that made her say quickly:

"Why do you ask?"

"For no particular reason, only she's not down to tea."

Mr. Birtwell's face had grown very serious.

"She'll be along in a few moments," returned Mrs. Birtwell.

But several minutes elapsed, and still she did not make her appearance.

"Go up and knock at Miss Blanche's door," said Mrs. Birtwell to the waiter. "She may have fallen asleep."

The man left the room.

"I feel a little nervous," said Mr. Birtwell, setting down his cup, the moment they were alone. "Has Blanche been out since dinner?"

"No."

"All right, then. It was only a fancy, as I knew it to be at the time.

But it gave me a start."

"What gave you a start?" asked Mrs. Birtwell.

"A face in a carriage. I saw it for an instant only."

"Whose face?"

"I thought for the moment it was that of Blanche."

Mrs. Birtwell grew very pale, leaned back in her chair and turned her head listening for the waiter. Neither of them spoke until he returned.

"Miss Blanche is not there."

Both started from the table and left the room, the waiter looking after them in surprise. They were not long in suspense. A letter from Blanche, addressed to her mother, which was found lying on her bureau, told the sad story of her perilous life-venture, and overwhelmed her parents with sorrow and dismay. It read:

"MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER: When you receive this, I shall be married to Ellis Whitford. There is nothing that I can say to break for you the pain of this intelligence. If there was, oh how gladly would I say it!

My destiny is on me, and I must walk in the way it leads. It is not that I love you less that I go away from you, but because I feel the voice of duty which is calling to me to be the voice of G.o.d. Another life and another destiny are bound up in mine, and there is no help for me. G.o.d bless you and comfort you, and keep your hearts from turning against your loving

BLANCHE."

In all their fond looks forward to the day when their beautiful child should stand in bridal robes--and what parents with lovely daughters springing up toward womanhood do not thus look forward and see such visions?--no darkly, brooding fancy had conceived of anything like this. The voice that fell upon their ears was not the song of a happy bride going joyously to the altar, but the cry of their pet lamb bound for the sacrifice.

"Oh, madness, madness!" exclaimed Mr. Birtwell, in anger and dismay.

"My poor unhappy child! G.o.d pity her!" sobbed the white-lipped mother, tearless under the sudden shock of this great disaster that seemed as if it would beat out her life.

There was no help, no remedy. The fatal step had been taken, and henceforth the destiny of their child was bound up with that of one whose inherited desire for drink had already debased his manhood. For loving parents we can scarcely imagine a drearier outlook upon life than this.

The anger of Mr. Birtwell soon wasted its strength amid the shallows of his weaker character, but the pain and hopeless sorrow grew stronger and went deeper down into the heart of Mrs. Birtwell day by day. Their action in the case was such as became wise and loving parents. What was done was done, and angry scenes, coldness and repulsion could now only prove hurtful. As soon as Blanche returned from a short bridal-tour the doors of her father's house were thrown open for her and her husband to come in. But the sensitive, high-spirited young man said, "No." He could not deceive himself in regard to the estimation in which he was held by Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell, and was not willing to encounter the humiliation of living under their roof and coming in daily but restrained contact with them. So he took his bride to his mother's house, and Mrs. Birtwell had no alternative but to submit, hard as the trial was, to this separation from her child.

This was the shadow of the great evil in which Mrs. Birtwell was sitting on the day Mr. Ridley found himself amid the new influences and new friends that were to give him another start in life and another chance to redeem himself. She had pa.s.sed a night of tears and agony, and though suffering deeply had gained a calm exterior. Ethel, after leaving the Home, came with a heart full of new hope and joy to see Mrs. Birtwell and tell her about her father.

The first impulse of the unhappy mother, sitting in the shadows of her own great sorrow, was to send the girl away with a simple denial.

"Say that I cannot see her this morning," she said coldly. But before the servant could leave the room she repented of this denial.