CHAPTER XIX
IT was late in the afternoon when Mrs. Voss came out of the deep sleep into which the quieting draught administered by Doctor Hillhouse had thrown her. She awoke from a dream so vivid that she believed it real.
"Oh, Archie, my precious boy!" she exclaimed, starting up and reaching out her hands, a glad light beaming on her countenance.
While her hands were still outstretched the light began to fade, and then died out as suddenly as when a curtain falls. The boy who stood before her in such clear presence had vanished. Her eyes swept about the room, but he was not there. A deadly pallor on her face, a groan on her lips, she fell back shuddering upon the pillow from which she had risen.
Mr. Voss, who was sitting at the bedside, put his arm under her, and lifting her head, drew it against his breast, holding it there tightly, but not speaking. He had no comfort to give, no assuring word to offer. Not a ray of light had yet come in through the veil of mystery that hung so darkly over the fate of their absent boy. Many minutes passed ere the silence was broken. In that time the mother's heart had grown calmer. She was turning, in her weakness and despair, with religious trust, to the only One who was able to sustain her in this great and crushing sorrow.
"He is in God's hands," she said, in a low voice, lifting her head from her husband's breast and looking into his face.
"And he will take care of him," replied Mr. Voss, falling in with her thought.
"Yes, we must trust him. He is present in every place. He knows where Archie is, and how to shield and succor him. O heavenly Father, protect our boy! If in danger, help and save him. And, O Father, give me strength to bear whatever may come."
The mother closed her eyes and laid her head back upon her husband's bosom. The rigidity and distress went out of her face. In this hour of darkness and distress, God, to whom she looked and prayed for strength, came very close to her, and in his nearer presence there is always comfort.
But as the day declined and the shadows off another dreary winter night began to draw their solemn curtains across the sky the mother's heart failed again, and a wild storm of fear and anguish swept over it. Neither policemen nor friends had been able to discover a trace of the missing young man, and advertisements were given out for the papers next morning offering a large reward for his restoration to his friends if living or for the recovery of his body if dead.
The true cause of Archie's disappearance began to be feared by many of his friends. It did not seem possible that he could have dropped so completely out of sight unless on the theory that he had lost his way in the storm and fallen into the river. This suggestion as soon as it came to Mrs. Voss settled into a conviction. Her imagination brooded over the idea and brought the reality before her mind with such a cruel vividness that she almost saw the tragedy enacted, and heard again that cry of "Mother!" which had seemed to mingle with the wild shrieks of the tempest, but which came only to her inner sense.
She dreamed that night a dream which, though it confirmed all this, tranquilized and comforted her. In a vision her boy stood by her bedside and smiled upon her with his old loving smile. He bent over and kissed her with his wonted tenderness; he laid his hand on her forehead with a soft pressure, and she felt the touch thrilling to her heart in sweet and tender impulses.
"It is all well with me," he said; "I shall wait for you, mother."
And then he bent over and kissed her again, the pressure of his lips bringing an unspeakable joy to her heart. With this joy filling and pervading it, she awoke. From that hour Mrs. Voss never doubted for a single moment that her son was dead, nor that he had come to her in a vision of the night. As a Christian woman with whom faith was no mere ideal thing or vague uncertainty, she accepted her great affliction as within the sphere and permission of a good and wise Providence, and submitted herself to the sad dispensation with a patience that surprised her friends.
Months passed, and yet the mystery was unsolved. The large reward offered by Mr. Voss for the recovery of his son's remains kept hundreds of fishermen and others who frequented the river banks and shores of the bay leading down to the ocean on the alert. As the spring opened and the ice began to give way and float, these men examined every inlet, cove and bar where the tide in its ebb and flow might possibly have left the body for which they were in search; and one day, late in the month of March, they found it, three miles away from the city, where it had drifted by the current.
The long-accepted theory of the young man's death was proved by this recovery of his body. No violence was found upon it. The diamond pin had not been taken from his shirt-bosom, nor the gold watch from his pocket. On the dial of his watch the hands, stopping their movement as the chill of the icy water struck the delicate machinery, had recorded the hour of his death—ten minutes to one o'clock.
It was not possible, under the strain of such an affliction and the wear of a suspense that no human heart was able to endure without waste of life, for one in feeble health like Mrs. Voss to hold her own. Friends read in her patient face and quiet mouth, and eyes that had a far-away look, the signs of a coming change that could not be very far off.
After the sad certainty came and the looking and longing and waiting were over, after the solemn services of the church had been said and the cast-off earthly garments of her precious boy hidden away from sight for ever, the mother's hold upon life grew feebler every day. She was slowly drifting out from the shores of time, and no hand was strong enough to hold her back. A sweet patience smoothed away the lines of suffering which months of sorrow and uncertainty had cut in her brow, the grieving curves of her pale lips were softened by tender submission, the far-off look was still in her eyes, but it was no longer fixed and dreary. Her thought went away from herself to others. The heavenly sphere into which she had come through submission to her Father's will and a humble looking to God for help and comfort began to pervade her soul and fill it with that divine self-forgetting which all who come spiritually near to him must feel.
She could not go out and do strong and widely-felt work for humanity, could not lift up the fallen, nor help the weak, nor visit the sick, nor comfort the prisoner, though often her heart yearned to help and strengthen the suffering and the distressed. But few if any could come into the chamber where most of her days were spent without feeling the sphere of her higher and purer life, and many, influenced thereby, went out to do the good works to which she so longed to put her hands. So from the narrow bounds of her chamber went daily a power for good, and many who knew her not were helped or comforted or lifted into purer and better lives because of her patient submission to God and reception of his love into her soul.
It is not surprising that one thought took a deep hold upon her. The real cause of Archie's death was the wine he had taken in the house of her friend. But for that he could never have lost his way in the streets of his native city, never have stepped from solid ground into the engulfing water.
The lesson of this disaster was clear, and as Mrs. Voss brooded over it, the folly, the wrong—nay, the crime—of those who pour out wine like water for their guests in social entertainments magnified themselves in her thought, and thought found utterance in speech. Few came into her chamber upon whom she did not press a consideration of this great evil, the magnitude of which became greater as her mind dwelt upon it, and very few of these went away without being disturbed by questions not easily answered.
One day one of her attentive friends who had called on her said:
"I heard a sorrowful story yesterday, and can't get it out of my mind."
Before Mrs. Voss could reply a servant came in with a card.
"Oh, Mrs. Birtwell. Ask her to come up."
The visitor saw a slight shadow creep over her face, and knew its meaning. How could she ever hear the name or look into the face of Mrs. Birtwell without thinking of that dreadful night when her boy passed, almost at a single step, from the light and warmth of her beautiful home into the dark and frozen river? It had cost her a hard and painful struggle to so put down and hold in check her feelings as to be able to meet this friend, who had always been very near and dear to her. For a time, and while her distress of mind was so great as almost to endanger reason, she had refused to see Mrs. Birtwell; but as that lady never failed to call at least once a week to ask after her, always sending up her card and waiting for a reply, Mrs. Voss at last yielded, and the friends met again. Mrs. Birtwell would have thrown her arms about her and clasped her in a passion of tears to her heart, but something stronger than a visible barrier held her off, and she felt that she could never get as near to this beloved friend as of old. The interview was tender though reserved, neither making any reference to the sad event that was never a moment absent from their thoughts.
After this Mrs. Birtwell came often, and a measure of the old feeling returned to Mrs. Voss. Still, the card of Mrs. Birtwell whenever it was placed in her hand by a servant never failed to bring a shadow and sometimes a chill to her heart.
In a few moments Mrs. Birtwell entered the room; and after the usual greetings and some passing remarks, Mrs. Voss said, speaking to the lady with whom she had been conversing:
"What were you going to say—about some sorrowful story, I mean?"
The pleasant light which had come into the lady's face on meeting Mrs. Birtwell, faded out. She did not answer immediately, and showed some signs of embarrassment. But Mrs. Voss, not particularly noticing this, pressed her for the story. After a slight pause she said:
"In visiting a friend yesterday I observed a young girl whom I had never seen at the house before. She was about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and had a face of great refinement and much beauty. But I noticed that it had a sad, shy expression. My friend did not introduce her, but said, turning to the girl a few moments after I came in:
"'Go up to the nursery, Ethel, and wait until I am disengaged!'
"As the girl left the room I asked, 'Who is that young lady?' remarking at the same time that there was something peculiarly interesting about her.
"'It's a sad case, remarked my friend, her voice falling to a tone of regret and sympathy. 'And I wish I knew just what to do about it.'
"'Who is the young girl?' I asked repeating my question.
"'The daughter of a Mr. Ridley,' she replied."
Mrs. Birtwell gave a little start, while an expression of pain crossed her face. The lady did not look at her, but she felt the change her mention of Mr. Ridley had produced.
"'What of him?' I asked; not having heard the name before.
"'Oh, I thought you knew about him. He's a lawyer, formerly a member of Congress, and a man of brilliant talents. He distinguished himself at Washington, and for a time attracted much attention there for his ability as well as for his fine personal qualities. But unhappily he became intemperate, and at the end of his second term had fallen so low that his party abandoned him and sent another in his place. After that he reformed and came to this city, bringing his family with him. He had two children, a boy and a girl. His wife was a cultivated and very superior woman. Here he commenced the practice of law, and soon by his talents and devotion to business acquired a good practice and regained the social position he had lost.
"'Unhappily, his return to society was his return to the sphere of danger. If invited to dine with a respectable citizen, he had to encounter temptation in one of its most enticing forms. Good wine was poured for him, and both appetite and pride urged him to accept the fatal proffer. If he went to a public or private entertainment, the same perils compassed him about. From all these he is said to have held himself aloof for over a year, but his reputation at the bar and connection with important cases brought him more and more into notice, and he was finally drawn within the circle of danger. Mrs. Ridley's personal accomplishments and relationship with one or two families in the State of high social position brought her calls and invitations, and almost forced her back again into society, much as she would have preferred to remain secluded.
"'Mr. Ridley, it is said, felt his danger, and I am told never escorted any lady but his wife to the supper-room at a ball or party, and there you would always see them close together, he not touching wine. But it happened last winter that invitations came, for one of the largest parties of the season, and it happened also that only a few nights before the party a little daughter had been born to Mrs. Ridley. Mr. Ridley went alone. It was a cold and stormy night. The wind blew fiercely, wailing about the roofs and chimneys and dashing the fast-falling snow in its wild passion against the windows of the room in which his sick wife lay. Rest of body and mind was impossible, freedom from anxiety impossible. There was everything to fear, everything to lose. The peril of a soldier going into the hottest of the battle was not greater than the peril that her husband would encounter on that night; and if he fell! The thought chilled her blood, as well it might, and sent a shiver to her heart.
"'She was in no condition to bear any shock or strain, much less the shock and strain of a fear like this. As best she could she held her restless anxiety in check, though fever had crept into her blood and an enemy to her life was assaulting its very citadel. But as the hour at which her husband had promised to return passed by and he came not, anxiety gave place to terror. The fever in her blood increased, and sent delirium to her brain. Hours passed, but her husband did not return. Not until the cold dawn of the next sorrowful morning did he make his appearance, and then in such a wretched plight that it was well for his unhappy wife that she could not recognize his condition. He came too late—came from one of the police stations, it is said, having been found in the street too much intoxicated to find his way home, and in danger of perishing in the snow—came to find his wife, dying, and before the sun went down on that day of darkness she was cold and still as marble. Happily for the babe, it went the way its mother had taken, following a few days afterward.
"'That was months ago. Alas for the wretched man! He has never risen from that terrible fall, never even made an effort, it is said, to struggle to his feet again. He gave up in despair.
"'His eldest child, Ethel, the young lady you saw just now, was away from home at school when her mother died. Think of what a coming back was hers! My heart grows sick in trying to imagine it. Poor child! she has my deepest sympathy.
"'Ethel did not return to school. She was needed at home now. The death of her mother and the unhappy fall of her father brought her face to face with new duties and untried conditions. She had a little brother only six years old to whom she must be a mother as well as sister. Responsibilities from which women of matured years and long experience might well shrink were now at the feet of this tender girl, and there was no escape for her. She must stoop, and with fragile form and hands scarce stronger than a child's lift and bear them up from the ground. Love gave her strength and courage. The woman hidden in the child came forth, and with a self-denial and self-devotion that touches me to tears when I think of it took up the new life and new burdens, and has borne them ever since with a patience that is truly heroic.
"'But new duties are now laid upon her. Since her father's fall his practice has been neglected, and few indeed have been willing to entrust him with business. The little he had accumulated is all gone. One article of furniture after another has been sold to buy food and clothing, until scarcely anything is left. And now they occupy three small rooms in an out-of-the-way neighborhood, and Ethel, poor child! is brought face to face with the question of bread.'"
CHAPTER XX
THE voice of the speaker broke as she uttered the last sentence. A deep silence fell upon the little company. Mrs. Birtwell had turned her face, so that it could not be seen, and tears that she was unable to keep back were falling over it. She was first to speak.
"What," she asked, "was this young lady doing at the house of your friend?"
"She had applied for the situation of day-governess. My friend advertised, and Ethel Ridley, not knowing that the lady had any knowledge of her or her family came and offered herself for the place. Not being able to decide what was best to be done, she requested Ethel to call again on the next day, and I came in while she was there."
"Did your friend engage her?" asked Mrs. Birtwell.
"She had not done so when I saw her yesterday. The question of fitness for the position was one that she had not been able to determine. Ethel is young and inexperienced. But she will do all for her that lies in her power."
"What is your friend's name?" asked Mrs. Birtwell.
"The lady I refer to is Mrs. Sandford. You know her, I believe?"
"Mrs. Sandford? Yes; I know her very well."
By a mutual and tacit consent the subject was here dropped, and soon after Mrs. Birtwell retired. On gaining the street she stood with an air of indetermination for a little while, and then walked slowly away. Once or twice before reaching the end of the block she paused and went back a few steps, turned and moved on again, but still in an undecided manner. At the corner she stopped for several moments, then, as if her mind was made up, walked forward rapidly. By the firm set of her mouth and the contraction of her brows it was evident that some strong purpose was taking shape in her thoughts.
As she was passing a handsome residence before which a carriage was standing a lady came out. She had been making a call. On seeing her Mrs. Birtwell stopped, and reaching out her hand, said:
"Mrs. Sandford! Oh, I'm glad to see you. I was just going to your house."
The lady took her hand, and grasping it warmly, responded:
"And I'm right glad to see you, Mrs. Birtwell. I've been thinking about you all day. Step into the carriage. I shall drive directly home."
Mrs. Birtwell accepted the invitation. As the carriage moved away she said:
"I heard something to-day that troubles me. I am told that Mr. Ridley, since the death of his wife, has become very intemperate, and that his family are destitute—so much so, indeed, that his daughter has applied to you for the situation of day-governess in order to earn something for their support."
"It is too true," replied Mrs. Sandford. "The poor child came to see me in answer to an advertisement."
"Have you engaged her?"
"No. She is too young and inexperienced for the place. But something must be done for her."
"What? Have you thought out anything? You may count on my sympathy and co-operation."
"The first thing to be done," replied Mrs. Sandford, "is to lift her out of her present wretched condition. She must not be left where she is, burdened with the support of her drunken and debased father. She is too weak for that—too young and beautiful and innocent to be left amid the temptations and sorrows of a life such as she must lead if no one comes to her rescue."
"But what will become of her father if you remove his child from him?" asked Mrs. Birtwell.
Her voice betrayed concern. The carriage stopped at the residence of Mrs. Sandford, and the two ladies went in.
"What will become of her wretched father?"
Mrs. Birtwell repeated her question as they entered the parlors.
"He is beyond our reach," was answered. "When a man falls so low, the case is hopeless. He is the slave of an appetite that never gives up its victims. It is a sad and a sorrowful thing, I know, to abandon all efforts to save a human soul, to see it go drafting off into the rapids with the sound of the cataract in your ears, and it is still more sad and sorrowful to be obliged to hold back the loving ones who could only perish in their vain attempts at rescue. So I view the case. Ethel must not be permitted to sacrifice herself for her father."
Mrs. Birtwell sat for a long time without replying. Her eyes were bent upon the floor.
"Hopeless!" she murmured, at length, in a low voice that betrayed the pain she felt. "Surely that cannot be so. While there is life there must be hope. God is not dead."
She uttered the last sentence with a strong rising inflection in her tones.
"But the drunkard seems dead to all the saving influences that God or man can bring to bear upon him," replied Mrs. Sandford.
"No, no, no! I will not believe it," said Mrs. Birtwell, speaking now with great decision of manner. "God can and does save to the uttermost all who come unto him."
"Yes, all who come unto him. But men like Mr. Ridley seem to have lost the power of going to God."
"Then is it not our duty to help them to go? A man with a broken leg cannot walk to the home where love and care await him, but his Good Samaritan neighbor who finds him by the way can help him thither. The traveler benumbed with cold lies helpless in the road, and will perish if some merciful hand does not lift him up and bear him to a place of safety. Even so these unhappy men who, as you say, seem to have lost the power of returning to God, can be lifted up, I am sure, and set down, as it were, in his very presence, there to feel his saving, comforting and renewing power."
"Perhaps so. Nothing is impossible," said Mrs. Sandford, with but little assent in her voice. "But who is to lift them up and where will you take them? Let us instance Mr. Ridley for the sake of illustration. What will you do with him? How will you go about the work of rescue? Tell me."
Mrs. Birtwell had nothing to propose. She only felt an intense yearning to save this man, and in her yearning an undefined confidence had been born. There must be away to save even the most wretched and abandoned of human beings, if we could but find that way, and so she would not give up her hope of Mr. Ridley—nay, her hope grew stronger every moment; and to all the suggestions of Mrs. Sanford looking to help for the daughter she supplemented something that included the father, and so pressed her views that the other became half impatient and exclaimed:
"I will have nothing to do with the miserable wretch!"
Mrs. Birtwell went away with a heavy heart after leaving a small sum of money for Mrs. Sandford to use as her judgment might dictate, saying that she would call and see her again in a few days.
The Rev. Mr. Brantly Elliott was sitting in his pleasant study, engaged in writing, when a servant opened the door and said:
"A gentleman wishes to see you, sir."
"What name?" asked the clergyman.
"He did not give me his name. I asked him, but he said it wasn't any matter. I think he's been drinking, sir."
"Ask him to send his name," said Mr. Elliott, a slight shade of displeasure settling over his pleasant face.
The servant came back with information that the visitor's name was Ridley. At mention of this name the expression on Mr. Elliott's countenance changed:
"Did you say he was in liquor?"
"Yes, sir. Shall I tell him that you cannot see him, sir?"
"No. Is he very much the worse for drink?"
"He's pretty bad, I should say, sir."
Mr. Elliott reflected for a little while, and then said:
"I will see him."
The servant retired. In a few minutes he came back, and opening the door, let the visitor pass in. He stood for a few moments, with his hand on the door, as if unwilling to leave Mr. Elliott alone with the miserable-looking creature he had brought to the study. Observing him hesitate, Mr. Elliott said:
"That will do, Richard."
The servant shut the door, and he was alone with Mr. Ridley. Of the man's sad story he was not altogether ignorant. His fall from the high position to which he had risen in two years and utter abandonment of himself to drink were matters of too much notoriety to have escaped his knowledge. But that he was in the slightest degree responsible for this wreck of a human soul was so far from his imagination as that of his responsibility for the last notorious murder or bank-robbery.
The man who now stood before him was a pitiable-looking object indeed. Not that he was ragged or filthy in attire or person. Though all his garments were poor and threadbare, they were not soiled nor in disorder. Either a natural instinct of personal cleanliness yet remained or a loving hand had cared for him. But he was pitiable in the signs of a wrecked and fallen manhood that were visible everywhere about him. You saw it most in his face, once so full of strength and intelligence, now so weak and dull and disfigured. The mouth so mobile and strong only a few short months before was now drooping and weak, its fine chiseling all obliterated or overlaid with fever crusts. His eyes, once steady and clear as eagles', were now bloodshotten and restless.
He stood looking fixedly at Mr. Elliott, and with a gleam in his eyes that gave the latter a strange feeling of discomfort, if not uneasiness.
"Mr. Ridley," said the clergyman, advancing to his visitor and extending his hand. He spoke kindly, yet with a reserve that could not be laid aside. "What can I do for you?"
A chair was offered, and Mr. Ridley sat down. He had come with a purpose; that was plain from his manner.
"I am sorry to see you in this condition, Mr. Ridley," said the clergyman, who felt it to be his duty to speak a word of reproof.
"In what condition, sir?" demanded the visitor, drawing himself up with an air of offended dignity. "I don't understand you."
"You have been drinking," said Mr. Elliott, in a tone of severity.
"No, sir. I deny it, sir!" and the eyes of Mr. Ridley flashed. "Before Heaven, sir, not a drop has passed my lips to-day!"
His breath, loaded with the fumes of a recent glass of whisky, was filling the clergyman's nostrils. Mr. Elliott was confounded by this denial. What was to be done with such a man?
"Not a drop, sir," repeated Mr. Ridley. "The vile stuff is killing me. I must give it up."
"It is your only hope," said the clergyman. "You must give up the vile stuff, as you call it, or it will indeed kill you."
"That's just why I've come to you, Mr. Elliott. You understand this matter better than most people. I've heard you talk."
"Heard me talk?"
"Yes, sir. It's pure wine that the people want. My sentiments exactly. If we had pure wine, we'd have no drunkenness. You know that as well as I do. I've heard you talk, Mr. Elliott, and you talk right—yes, right, sir."
"When did you hear me talk?" asked Mr. Elliott, who was beginning to feel worried.
"Oh, at a party last winter. I was there and heard you."
"What did I say?"
"Just these words, and they took right hold of me. You said that 'pure wine could hurt no one, unless indeed his appetite were vitiated by the use of alcohol, and even then you believed that the moderate use of strictly pure wine would restore the normal taste and free a man from the tyranny of an enslaving vice.' That set me to thinking. It sounded just right. And then you were a clergyman, you see, and had studied out these things and so your opinion was worth something. There's no reason in your cold-water men; they don't believe in anything but their patent cut-off. In their eyes wine is an abomination, the mother of all evil, though the Bible doesn't say so, Mr. Elliott, does it?"
At this reference to the Bible in connection with wine, the clergyman's memory supplied a few passages that were not at the moment pleasant to recall. Such as, "Wine is a mocker;" "Look not upon the wine when it is red;" "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? … They that tarry long at the wine;" "At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."
"The Bible speaks often of the misuse of wine," he answered, "and strongly condemns drunkenness."
"Of course it does, and gluttony as well. But against the moderate use of good wine not a word is said. Isn't that so, sir?"
"Six months ago you were a sober man, Mr. Ridley, and a useful and eminent citizen. Why did you not remain so?"
Mr. Elliott almost held his breath for the answer. He had waived the discussion into which his visitor was drifting, and put his question almost desperately.
"Because your remedy failed." Mr. Ridley spoke in a repressed voice, but with a deliberate utterance. There was a glitter in his eyes, out of which looked an evil triumph.
"My remedy? What remedy?"
"The good wine remedy. I tried it at Mr. Birtwell's one night last winter. But it didn't work. And here I am!"
Mr. Elliott made no reply. A blow from the arm of a strong man could not have hurt or stunned him more.
"You needn't feel so dreadfully about it," said Mr. Ridley seeing the effect produced on the clergy man. "It wasn't any fault of yours. The prescription was all right, but, you see, the wine wasn't good. If it had been pure, the kind you drink, all would have been well. I should have gained strength instead of having the props knocked from under me."
But Mr. Elliott did not answer. The magnitude of the evil wrought through his unguarded speech appalled him. He had learned, in his profession, to estimate the value of a human soul, or rather to consider it as of priceless value. And here was a human soul cast by his hand into a river whose swift waters were hurrying it on to destruction. The sudden anguish that he felt sent beads of sweat to his forehead and drew his flexible lips into rigid lines.
"Now, don't be troubled about it," urged Mr. Ridley. "You were all right. It was Mr. Birtwell's bad wine that did the mischief."