Danger; or Wounded in the House of a Friend

T >> T. S. Arthur >> Danger; or Wounded in the House of a Friend

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"If he escapes the dangers that lie too thickly in the way of all
young men," returned Mrs. Whitford, speaking almost involuntarily of
what was in her heart, and in a voice that betrayed more concern
than she had meant to express.

The doctor gave a little shrug, but replied:

"His earnest purpose in life will be his protection, Mrs. Whitford.
Work, ambition, devotion to a science or profession have in them an
aegis of safety. The weak and the idle are most in danger."

"It is wrong, I have sometimes thought," said Mrs. Whitford speaking
both to the physician and the clergyman, "for society to set so many
temptations before its young men--the seed, as some one has forcibly
said, of the nation's future harvest."

"Society doesn't care much for anything but its own gratification,"
replied Dr. Hillhouse, "and says as plainly as actions can do it
'After me the deluge.'"

"Rather hard on society," remarked Mr. Elliott.

"Now take, for instance, its drinking customs, its toleration and
participation in the freest public and private dispensation of
intoxicating liquors to all classes, weak or strong, young or old.
Is there not danger in this--great danger? I think I understand you,
Mrs. Whitford."

"Yes, doctor, you understand me;" and dropping her voice to a lower
tone, Mrs. Whitford added: "There are wives and mothers and sisters
not a few here to-night whose hearts, though they may wear smiles on
their faces, are ill at ease, and some of them will go home from
these festivities sadder than when they came."

"Right about that," said the doctor to himself as he turned away, a
friend of Mrs. Whitford's having come up at the moment and
interrupted the conversation--" right about that; and you, I greatly
fear, will be one of the number."

"Our friend isn't just herself to-night," remarked Mr. Elliott as he
and Dr. Hillhouse moved across the room. "A little dyspeptic, maybe,
and so inclined to look on the dark side of things. She has little
cause, I should think, to be anxious for her own son or husband. I
never saw Mr. Whitford the worse for wine; and as for Ellis, his
earnest purpose in life, as you so well said just now, will hold him
above the reach of temptation."

"On the contrary, she has cause for great anxiety," returned Dr.
Hillhouse.

"You surprise me. What reason have you for saying this?"

"A professional one--a reason grounded in pathology."

"Ah?" and Mr. Elliott looked gravely curious.

"The young man inherits, I fear, a depraved appetite."

"Oh no. I happen to be too well acquainted with his father to accept
that view of the case."

"His father is well enough," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "but as much
could not be said of either of his grandfathers while living. Both
drank freely, and one of them died a confirmed drunkard."

"If the depraved appetite has not shown itself in the children, it
will hardly trouble the grandchildren," said Mr. Elliott. "Your fear
is groundless, doctor. If Ellis were my son, I should feel no
particular anxiety about him."

"If he were your son," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "I am not so sure
about your feeling no concern. Our personal interest in a thing is
apt to give it a new importance. But you are mistaken as to the
breaking of hereditary influences in the second generation. Often
hereditary peculiarities will show themselves in the third and
fourth generation. It is no uncommon thing to see the grandmother's
red hair reappear in her granddaughter, though her own child's hair
was as black as a raven's wing. A crooked toe, a wart, a
malformation, an epileptic tendency, a swart or fair complexion, may
disappear in all the children of a family, and show itself again in
the grand-or great-grandchildren. Mental and moral conditions
reappear in like manner. In medical literature we have many curious
illustrations of this law of hereditary transmission and its strange
freaks and anomalies."

"They are among the curiosities of your literature," said Mr.
Elliott, speaking as though not inclined to give much weight to the
doctor's views--"the exceptional and abnormal things that come under
professional notice."

"The law of hereditary transmission," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "is as
certain in its operation as the law of gravity. You may disturb or
impede or temporarily suspend the law, but the moment you remove the
impediment the normal action goes on, and the result is sure. Like
produces like--that is the law. Always the cause is seen in the
effect, and its character, quality and good or evil tendencies are
sure to have a rebirth and a new life. It is under the action of
this law that the child is cursed by the parent with the evil and
sensual things he has made a part of himself through long
indulgence."

There came at this moment a raid upon Mr. Elliott by three or four
ladies, members of his congregation, who surrounded him and Dr.
Hillhouse, and cut short their conversation.

Meanwhile, Ellis Whitford had already half forgotten his painful
interview with his mother in the pleasure of meeting Blanche
Birtwell, to whom he had recently become engaged. She was a pure and
lovely young woman, inheriting her mother's personal beauty and
refined tastes. She had been carefully educated and kept by her
mother as much within the sphere of home as possible and out of
society of the hoydenish girls who, moving in the so-called best
circles, have the free and easy manners of the denizens of a public
garden rather than the modest demeanor of unsullied maidenhood. She
was a sweet exception to the loud, womanish, conventional girl we
meet everywhere--on the street, in places, of public amusement and
in the drawing-room--a fragrant human flower with the bloom of
gentle girlhood on every unfolding leaf.

It was no slender tie that bound these lovers together. They had
moved toward each other, drawn by an inner attraction that was
irresistible to each; and when heart touched heart, their pulses
took a common beat. The life of each had become bound up in the
other, and their betrothal was no mere outward contract. The manly
intellect and the pure heart had recognized each other, tender love
had lifted itself to noble thought, and thought had grown stronger
and purer as it felt the warmth and life of a new and almost divine
inspiration. Ellis Whitford had risen to a higher level by virtue of
this betrothal.

They were sitting in a bay-window, out of the crowd of guests, when
a movement in the company was observed by Whitford. Knowing what it
meant, he arose and offered his arm to Blanche. As he did so he
became aware of a change in his companion, felt rather than seen;
and yet, if he had looked closely into her face, a change in its
expression would have been visible. The smile was still upon her
beautiful lips, and the light and tenderness still in her eyes, but
from both something had departed. It was as if an almost invisible
film of vapor had drifted across the sun of their lives.

In silence they moved on to the supper-room--moved with the light
and heavy-hearted, for, as Dr. Hillhouse had intimated, there were
some there to whom that supper-room was regarded with anxiety and
fear--wives and mothers and sisters who knew, alas! too well that
deadly serpents lie hidden among the flowers of every
banqueting-room.

How bright and joyous a scene it was! You did not see the trouble
that lay hidden in so many hearts; the light and glitter, the flash
and brilliancy, were too strong.

Reader, did you ever think of the power of spheres? The influence
that goes out from an individual or mass of individuals, we
mean--that subtle, invisible power that acts from one upon another,
and which when aggregated is almost irresistible? You have felt it
in a company moved by a single impulse which carried you for a time
with the rest, though all your calmer convictions were in opposition
to the movement. It has kept you silent by its oppressive power when
you should have spoken out in a ringing protest, and it has borne
you away on its swift or turbulent current when you should have
stood still and been true to right. Again, in the company of good
and true men, moved by the inspiration of some noble cause, how all
your weakness and hesitation has died out! and you have felt the
influence of that subtle sphere to which we refer.

Everywhere and at all times are we exposed to the action of these
mental and moral spheres, which act upon and impress us in thousands
of different ways, now carrying us along in some sudden public
excitement in which passion drowns the voice of reason, and now
causing us to drift in the wake of some stronger nature than our own
whose active thought holds ours in a weak, assenting bondage.

You understand what we mean. Now take the pervading sphere of an
occasion like the one we are describing, and do you not see that to
go against it is possible only to persons of decided convictions and
strong individuality? The common mass of men and women are absorbed
into or controlled by its subtle power. They can no more set
themselves against it, if they would, than against the rush of a
swiftly-flowing river. To the young it is irresistible.

As Ellis Whitford, with Blanche leaning on his arm, gained the
supper-room, he met the eyes of his mother, who was on the opposite
side of the table, and read in them a sign of warning. Did it awaken
a sense of danger and put him on his guard? No; it rather stirred a
feeling of anger. Could she not trust him among gentlemen and
ladies--not trust him with Blanche Birtwell by his side? It hurt his
pride and wounded his self-esteem.

He was in the sphere of liberty and social enjoyment and among those
who did not believe that wine was a mocker, but something to make
glad the heart and give joy to the countenance; and when it began to
flow he was among the first to taste its delusive sweets. Blanche,
for whom he poured a glass of champagne, took it from his hand, but
with only half a smile on her lips, which was veiled by something so
like pain or fear that Ellis felt as if the lights about him had
suddenly lost a portion of their brilliancy. He stood holding his
own glass, after just tasting its contents, waiting for Blanche to
raise the sparkling liquor to her lips, but she seemed like one
under the influence of a spell, not moving or responding.

CHAPTER X.

BLANCHE still held the untasted wine in her hand, when her father,
who happened to be near, filled a glass, and said as he bowed to
her:

"Your good health, my daughter; and yours, Mr. Whitford," bowing to
her companion also.

The momentary spell was broken. Blanche smiled back upon her father
and raised the glass to her lips. The lights in the room seemed to
Ellis to flash up again and blaze with a higher brilliancy. Never
had the taste of wine seemed more delicious. What a warm thrill ran
along his nerves! What a fine exhilaration quickened in his brain!
The shadow which a moment before had cast a veil over the face of
Blanche he saw no longer. It had vanished, or his vision was not now
clear enough to discern its subtle texture.

"Take good care of Blanche," said Mr. Birtwell, in a light voice.
"And you, pet, see that Mr. Whitford enjoys himself."

Blanche did not reply. Her father turned away. Eyes not veiled as
Whitford's now were would have seen that the filmy cloud which had
come over her face a little while before was less transparent, and
sensibly dimmed its brightness.

Scarcely had Mr. Birtwell left them when Mr. Elliott, who had only a
little while before heard of their engagement, said to Blanche in an
undertone, and with one of his sweet paternal smiles:

"I must take a glass of wine with you, dear, in, commemoration of
the happy event."

Mr. Elliott had not meant to include young Whitford in the
invitation. The latter had spoken to a lady acquaintance who stood
near him, and was saying a few words to her, thus disengaging
Blanche. But observing that Mr. Elliott was talking to Blanche, he
turned from the lady and joined her again. And, so Mr. Elliott had
to say:

"We are going to have a glass of wine in honor of the auspicious
event."

Three glasses were filled by the clergyman, and then he stood face
to face with the young man and maiden, and each of them, as he said
in a low, professional voice, meant for their ears alone, "Peace and
blessing, my children!" drank to the sentiment. Whitford drained his
glass, but Blanche only tasted the wine in hers.

Mr. Elliott stood for a few moments, conscious that something was
out of accord. Then he remembered his conversation with Dr.
Hillhouse a little while before, and felt an instant regret. He had
noted the manner of Whitford as he drank, and the manner of Blanche
as she put the wine to her lips. In the one case was an enjoyable
eagerness, and in the other constraint. Something in the expression
of the girl's face haunted and troubled him a long time afterward.

"Our young friend is getting rather gay," said Dr. Hillhouse to Mr.
Elliott, half an hour afterward. He referred to Ellis Whitford, who
was talking and laughing in a way that to some seemed a little too
loud and boisterous. "I'm afraid for him," he added.

"Ah, yes! I remember what you were saying about his two
grandfathers," returned the clergyman. "And you really think he may
inherit something from them?"

"Don't you?" asked the doctor.

"Well, yes, of course. But I mean an inordinate desire for drink, a
craving that makes indulgence perilous?"

"Yes; that is just what I do believe."

If that be so, the case is a serious one. In taking wine with him a
short time ago I noticed a certain enjoyable eagerness as he held
the glass to his lips not often observed in our young men."

"You drank with him?" queried the doctor.

"Yes. He and Blanche Birtwell have recently become engaged, and I
took some wine with them in compliment."

The doctor, instead of replying, became silent and thoughtful, and
Mr. Elliott moved away among the crowd of guests.

"I am really sorry for Mrs. Whitford," said a lady with whom he soon
became engaged in conversation.

"Why so?" asked the clergyman, betraying surprise.

"What's the matter? No family trouble, I hope?"

"Very serious trouble I should call it were it my own," returned the
lady.

"I am pained to hear you speak so. What has occurred?"

"Haven't you noticed her son to-night? There! That was his laugh.
He's been drinking too much. I saw his mother looking at him a
little while ago with eyes so full of sorrow and suffering that it
made my heart ache."

"Oh, I hope it's nothing," replied Mr. Elliott. "Young men will
become a little gay on these occasions; we must expect that. All of
them don't bear wine alike. It's mortifying to Mrs. Whitford, of
course, but she's a stately woman, you know, and sensitive about
proprieties."

Mr. Elliott did not wait for the lady's answer, but turned to
address another person who came forward at the moment to speak to
him.

"Sensitive about proprieties," said the lady to herself, with some
feeling, as she stood looking down the room to where Ellis Whitford
in a group of young men and women was giving vent to his exuberant
spirits more noisily than befitted the place and occasion. "Mr.
Elliott calls things by dainty names."

"I call that disgraceful," remarked an elderly lady, in a severe
tone, as if replying to the other's thought.

"Young men will become a little gay on these occasions," said the
person to whom she had spoken, with some irony in her tone. "So Mr.
Elliott says."

"Mr. Elliott!" There was a tone of bitterness and rejection in the
speaker's voice. "Mr. Elliott had better give our young men a safer
example than he does. A little gay! A little drunk would be nearer
the truth."

"Oh dear! such a vulgar word! We don't use it in good society, you
know. It belongs to taverns and drinking-saloons--to coarse, common
people. You must say 'a little excited,' 'a little gay,' but not
drunk. That's dreadful!"

"Drunk!" said the other, with emphasis, but speaking low and for the
ear only of the lady with whom she was talking. "We understand a
great deal better the quality of a thing when we call it by its
right name. If a young man drinks wine or brandy until he becomes
intoxicated, as Whitford has done to-night, and we say he is drunk
instead of exhilarated or a little gay, we do something toward
making his conduct odious. We do not excuse, but condemn. We make it
disgraceful instead of palliating the offence."

The lady paused, when her companion said:

"Look! Blanche Birtwell is trying to quiet him. Did you know they
were engaged?"

"What!"

"Engaged."

"Then I pity her from my heart. A young man who hasn't self-control
enough to keep himself sober at an evening party can't be called a
very promising subject for a husband."

"She has placed her arm in his and is looking up into his face so
sweetly. What a lovely girl she is! There! he's quieter already; and
see, she is drawing him out of the group of young men and talking to
him in such a bright, animated way."

"Poor child! it makes my eyes wet; and this is her first humiliating
and painful duty toward her future husband. God pity and strengthen
her is my heartfelt prayer. She will have need, I fear, of more than
human help and comfort."

"You take the worst for granted?"

The lady drew a deep sigh:

"I fear the worst, and know something of what the worst means. There
are few families of any note in our city," she added, after a slight
pause, "in which sorrow has not entered through the door of
intemperance. Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through
this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young
and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the
way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness
and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement,
we step inside of the door to show them the way."

In her ardor the lady half forgot herself, and stopped suddenly as
she observed that two or three of the company who stood near had
been listening.

Meantime, Blanche Birtwell had managed to get Whitford away from the
table, and was trying to induce him to leave the supper-room. She
hung on his arm and talked to him in a light, gay manner, as though
wholly unconscious of his condition. They had reached the door
leading into the hall, when Whitford stopped, and drawing back,
said:

"Oh, there's Fred Lovering, my old college friend. I didn't know he
was in the city." Then he called out, in a voice so loud as to cause
many to turn and look at him, "Fred! Fred! Why, how are you, old
boy? This is an unexpected pleasure."

The young man thus spoken to made his way through the crowd of
guests, who were closely packed together in that part of the room,
some going in and some trying to get out, and grasping the hand of
Whitford, shook it with great cordiality.

"Miss Birtwell," said the latter, introducing Blanche. "But you know
each other, I see."

"Oh yes, we are old friends. Glad to see you looking so well, Miss
Birtwell."

Blanche bowed with cold politeness, drawing a little back as she did
so, and tightening her hold on Whitford's arm.

Lovering fixed his eyes on the young lady with an admiring glance,
gazing into her face so intently that her color heightened. She
turned partly away, an expression of annoyance on her countenance,
drawing more firmly on the arm of her companion as she did so, and
taking a step toward the door. But Whitford was no longer passive to
her will.

Any one reading the face of Lovering would have seen a change in its
expression, the evidence of some quickly formed purpose, and he
would have seen also something more than simple admiration of the
beautiful girl leaning on the arm of his friend. His manner toward
Whitford became more hearty.

"My dear old friend," he said, catching up the hand he had dropped
and giving it a tighter grip than before, "this is a pleasure. How
it brings back our college days! We must have a glass of wine in
memory of the good old times. Come!"

And he moved toward the table. With an impulse she could not
restrain, Blanche drew back toward the door, pulling strongly on
Whitford's arm:

"Come, Ellis; I am faint with the heat of this room. Take me out,
please."

Whitford looked into her face, and saw that it had grown suddenly
pale. If his perceptions had not been obscured by drink, he would
have taken her out instantly. But his mind was not clear.

"Just a moment, until I can get you a glass of wine," he said,
turning hastily from her. Lovering was filling three glasses as he
reached the table. Seizing one of them, he went back quickly to
Blanche; but she waved her hand, saying: "No, no, Ellis; it isn't
wine that I need, only cooler air."

"Don't be foolish," replied Whitford, with visible impatience. "Take
a few sips of wine, and you will feel better."

Lovering, with a glass in each hand, now joined them. He saw the
change in Blanche's face, and having already observed the
exhilarated condition of Whitford, understood its meaning. Handing
the latter one of the glasses, he said:

"Here's to your good health, Miss Birtwell, and to yours, Ellis,"
drinking as he spoke. Whitford drained his glass, but Blanche did
not so much as wet her lips. Her face had grown paler.

"If you do not take me out, I must go alone," she said, in a voice
that made itself felt. There was in it a quiver of pain and a pulse
of indignation.

Lovering lost nothing of this. As his college friend made his way
from the room with Blanche on his arm, he stood for a moment in an
attitude of deep thought, then nodded two or three times and said to
himself:

"That's how the land lies. Wine in and wit out, and Blanche troubled
about it already. Engaged, they say. All right. But glass is sharp,
and love's fetters are made of silk. Will the edge be duller if the
glass is filled with wine? I trow not."

And a gleam of satisfaction lit up the young man's face.

With an effort strong and self-controlling for one so young, Blanche
Birtwell laid her hand upon her troubled heart as soon as she was
out of the supper-room, and tried to still its agitation. The color
came back to her cheeks and some of the lost brightness to her eyes,
but she was not long in discovering that the glass of wine taken
with his college friend had proved too much for the already confused
brain of her lover who began talking foolishly and acting in a way
that mortified and pained her exceedingly. She now sought to get him
into the library and out of common observation. Her father had just
received from France and England some rare books filled with art
illustrations, and she invited him to their examination. But he was
feeling too social for that.

"Why, no, pet." He made answer with a fond familiarity he would
scarcely have used if they had been alone instead of in a crowded
drawing-room, touching her cheek playfully with his fingers as he
spoke. "Not now. We'll reserve that pleasure for another time. This
is good enough for me;" and he swung his arms around and gave a
little whoop like an excited rowdy.

A deep crimson dyed for a moment the face of Blanche. In a moment
afterward it was pale as ashes. Whitford saw the death-like change,
and it partially roused him to a sense of his condition.

"Of course I'll go to the library if your heart's set on it," he
said, drawing her arm in his and taking her out of the room with a
kind of flourish. Many eyes turned on them. In some was surprise, in
some merriment and in some sorrow and pain.

"Now for the books," he cried as he placed Blanche in a large chair
at the library-table. "Where are they?"

Self-control has a masterful energy when the demand for its exercise
is imperative. The paleness went out of Blanche's face, and a tender
light came into her eyes as she looked up at Whitford and smiled on
him with loving glances.

"Sit down," she said in a firm, low, gentle voice.

The young man felt the force of her will and sat down by her side,
close to the table, on which a number of books were lying.

"I want to show you Dore's illustrations of Don Quixote;" and
Blanche opened a large folio volume.

Whitford had grown more passive. He was having a confused impression
that all was not just right with him, and that it was better to be
in the library looking over books and pictures with Blanche than in
the crowded parlors, where there was so much to excite his gayer
feelings. So he gave himself up to the will of his betrothed, and
tried to feel an interest in the pictures she seemed to admire so
much.

They had been so engaged for over twenty minutes, Whitford beginning
to grow dull and heavy as the exhilaration of wine died out, and
less responsive to the efforts made by Blanche to keep him
interested, when Lovering came into the library, and, seeing them,
said, with a spur of banter in his voice:

"Come, come, this will never do! You're a fine fellow, Whitford, and
I don't wonder that Miss Birtwell tolerates you, but monopoly is not
the word to-night. I claim the privilege of a guest and a word or
two with our fair hostess."

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