"I HAVE come," said Mrs. Whitford, after she was seated and had
composed herself, "to perform the saddest duty of my whole life."
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 appetite 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 passion 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 pass. 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 God,"
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 passion. Such a passion 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 passive. 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
passionate outbreak, but with a calm assertion 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 attitude 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 God. Another life and another destiny are bound up in mine,
and there is no help for me. God 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! God 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 passed 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.
"Stay!" she called. Then, while the servant paused, she let her
thoughts go from herself to, Ethel and her father.
"Tell the young lady to wait for a little while," she said. "I will
ring for you in a few minutes." The servant went out, and Mrs.
Birtwell turned to her secretary and wrote a few lines, saying that
she was not feeling well and could not see Miss Ridley then, but
would be glad to have her call in two or three days. Placing this
with a bank-bill in an envelope, she rang for the servant, who took
the letter down stairs and gave it to Ethel.
But Mrs. Birtwell did not feel as though she had done her whole duty
in the case. A pressure was left upon her feelings. What of the
father? How was it faring with him? She hesitated about recalling
the servant until it was too late. Ethel took the letter, and
without opening it went away.
A new disquiet came from this cause, and Mrs. Birtwell could not
shake it off. Happily for her relief, Mr. Elliott, whose interest in
the fallen man was deep enough to take him to the Home that morning,
called upon her with the most gratifying intelligence. He had seen
Mr. Ridley and held a long interview with him, the result of which
was a strong belief that the new influences under which he had been
brought would be effectual in saving him.
"I have faith in these influences," said the clergyman, "because I
understand their ground and force. Peter would have gone down
hopelessly in the Sea of Galilee if he had depended on himself
alone. Only the divine Saviour, on whom he called and in whom he
trusted, could save him; and so it is in the case of men like Mr.
Ridley who try to walk over the sea of temptation. Peter's
despairing cry of 'Save, Lord, or I perish,' must be theirs also if
they would keep from sinking beneath the angry waters, and no one
ever calls sincerely upon God for help without receiving it. That
Mr. Ridley is sincere I have no doubt, and herein lies my great
confidence."
At the end of a week Blanche returned from her wedding-tour, and was
received by her parents with love and tenderness instead of
reproaches. These last, besides being utterly useless, would have
pushed the young husband away from them and out of the reach of any
saving influences it might be in their power to exercise.
The hardest trial now for Mrs. Birtwell was the separation from
Blanche, whose daily visits were a poor substitute for the old
constant and close companionship. If there had not been a cloud in
the sky of her child's future, with its shadow already dimming the
brightness of her young life, the mother's heart would have still
felt an aching and a void, would have been a mourner for love's lost
delights and possessions that could nevermore return. But to all
this was added a fear and, dread that made her soul grow faint when
thought cast itself forward into the coming time.
The Rev. Mr. Brantley Elliott was a wiser and truer man than some
who read him superficially imagined. His churchmanship was sometimes
narrower than his humanity, while the social element in his
character, which was very strong, often led him to forget in mixed
companies that much of what he might say or do would be judged of by
the clerical and not the personal standard, and his acts and words
set down at times as favoring worldliness and self-indulgence. Harm
not unfrequently came of this. But he was a sincere Christian man,
deeply impressed with the sacredness of his calling and earnest in
his desire to lead heavenward the people to whom he ministered.
The case of Mr. Ridley had not only startled and distressed him, but
filled him with a painful concern lest other weak and tempted ones
might have fallen through his unguarded utterance or been bereaved
through his freedom. The declaration of Paul came to him with a new
force: "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no
meat while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend;"
and he resolved not only to abstain from wine hereafter in mixed
companies, but to use his influence to discourage a social custom
fraught, as he was now beginning to see, with the most disastrous
consequences.
The deep concern felt for Mr. Ridley by Mr. Elliott and Mrs.
Birtwell drew them oftener together now, and took them frequently to
the Home for inebriates, in which both took a deep interest. For
over three weeks Mr. Ridley remained at the institution, its
religious influences growing deeper and deeper every day. He met
there several men who had fallen from as high an estate as
himself--men of cultured intellect, force of character and large
ability--and a feeling of brotherhood grew up between them. They
helped and strengthened each other, entering into a league offensive
and defensive, and pledging themselves to an undying antagonism
toward every form of intemperance.
When Mr. Ridley returned to his home, he found it replete with many
comforts not there when love and despair sent him forth to die, for
aught he knew, amid nameless horrors. An office had been rented for
him, and Mr. Birtwell had a case of considerable importance to place
in his hands. It was a memorable occasion in the Court of Common
Pleas when, with the old clear light in his eyes and bearing of
conscious power, he stood among his former associates, and in the
firm, ringing voice which had echoed there so many times before,
made an argument for his client that held both court and jury almost
spellbound for an hour.