Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend

"Still," replied Dr. Hillhouse, "it may all come out right. He may have gone to a hotel. There are a dozen theories to set against those of his friends."

After remaining silent for several moments, he said:

"The boy had been drinking too much?"

"Yes; and I judge from, his manner, when I saw him on his way to the street, that he was conscious of his condition and ashamed of it. He went quietly along, evidently trying not to excite observation, but his steps were unsteady and his sight not true, for in trying to thread his way along the hall he ran against one and another, and drew the attention he was seeking to avoid."

"Poor fellow!" said Dr. Hillhouse, with genuine pity. "He was always a nice boy. If anything has happened to him, I wouldn't give a dime for the life of his mother."

"Nor I. And even as it is, the shock already received may prove greater than her exhausted system can bear. I think you had better see her, doctor, as early as possible."

"There were no especially bad symptoms when you left, beyond the state of partial coma?"

"No. Her respiration had become easy, and she presented the appearance of one in a quiet sleep."

"Nature is doing all for her that can be done," returned Dr. Hillhouse. "I will see her as early as practicable. It's unfortunate that we have these two cases on our hands just at this time, and most unfortunate of all that I should have been compelled to go out so early this morning. That doesn't look right."

And the doctor held up his hand, which showed a nervous unsteadiness.

"It will pass off after you have taken breakfast."

"I hope so. Confound these parties! I should not have gone last night, and if I'd given the matter due consideration would have remained at home."

"Why so?"

"You know what that means as well as I do;" and Dr. Hillhouse held up his tremulous hand again. "We can't take wine freely late at night and have our nerves in good order next morning. A life may depend on a steady hand to-day."

"It will all pass off at breakfast-time. Your good cup of coffee will make everything all right."

"Perhaps yea, perhaps nay," was answered. "I forgot myself last night, and accepted too many wine compliments. It was first this one and then that one, until, strong as my head is, I got more into it than should have gone there. We are apt to forget ourselves on these occasions. If I had only taken a glass or two, it would have made little difference. But my system was stimulated beyond its wont, and, I fear, will not be in the right tone to-day."

"You will have to bring it up, then, doctor," said the assistant. "To touch that work with an unsteady hand might be death."

"A glass or two of wine will do it; but when I operate, I always prefer to have my head clear. Stimulated nerves are not to be depended upon, and the brain that has wine in it is never a sure guide. A surgeon must see at the point of his instrument; and if there be a mote or any obscurity in his mental vision, his hand, instead of working a cure, may bring disaster."

"You operate at twelve?"

"Yes."

"You will be all right enough by that time; but it will not do to visit many patients. I am sorry about this case of child-bed fever; but I will see it again immediately after breakfast, and report."

While they were still talking the bell rang violently, and in a few moments Mr. Ridley came dashing into the office. His face wore a look of the deepest distress.

"Oh, doctor, he exclaimed can't you do something for my wife? She'll die if you don't. Oh, do go to her again!"

"Has any change taken place since we left?" asked Dr. Hillhouse, with a professional calmness it required some effort to assume.

"She is in great distress, moaning and sobbing and crying out as if in dreadful pain, and she doesn't know anything you say to her."

The two physicians looked at each other with sober faces.

"You'd better see her again," said Dr. Hillhouse, speaking to his assistant.

"No, no, no, Dr. Hillhouse! You must see her yourself. It is a case of life and death!" cried out the distracted husband. "The responsibility is yours, and I must and will hold you to that responsibility. I placed my wife in your charge, not in that of this or any other man."

Mr. Ridley was beside himself with fear. At first Dr. Hillhouse felt like resenting this assault, but he controlled himself.

"You forget yourself, Mr. Ridley," he answered in a repressed voice. "We do not help things by passion or intemperance of language. I saw your wife less than half an hour ago, and after giving the utmost care to the examination of her case made the best prescription in my power. There has not been time for the medicines to act yet. I know how troubled you must feel, and can pardon your not very courteous bearing; but there are some things that can and some things that cannot be done. There are good reasons why it will not be right for me to return to your house now—reasons affecting the safety, it may be the life, of another, while my not going back with you can make no difference to Mrs. Ridley. Dr. Angier is fully competent to report on her condition, and I can decide on any change of treatment that may be required as certainly as if I saw her myself. Should he find any change for the worse, I will consider it my duty to see her without delay."

"Don't neglect her, for God's sake, doctor!" answered Mr. Ridley, in a pleading voice. His manner had grown subdued. "Forgive my seeming discourtesy. I am wellnigh distracted. If I lose her, I lose my hold on everything. Oh, doctor, you cannot know how much is at stake. God help me if she dies!"

"My dear sir, nothing in our power to do shall be neglected. Dr. Angier will go back with you; and if, on his return, I am satisfied that there is a change for the worse, I will see your wife without a moment's delay. And in the mean time, if you wish to call in another physician, I shall be glad to have you do so. Fix the time for consultation at any hour before half-past ten o'clock, and I will meet him. After that I shall be engaged professionally for two or three hours."

Dr. Angier returned with Mr. Ridley, and Dr. Hillhouse went to his chamber to make ready for breakfast. His hands were so unsteady as he made his toilette for the day that, in the face of what he had said to his assistant only a little while before, he poured himself a glass of wine and drank it off, remarking aloud as he did so, as if apologizing for the act to some one invisibly present:

"I can't let this go on any longer."

The breakfast-bell rang, and the doctor sat down to get the better nerve-sustainer of a good meal. But even as he reached his hand for the fragrant coffee that his wife had poured for him, he felt a single dull throb in one of his temples, and knew too well its meaning. He did not lift the coffee to his mouth, but sat with a grave face and an unusually quiet manner. He had made a serious mistake, and he knew it. That glass of wine had stimulated the relaxed nerves of his stomach too suddenly, and sent a shock to the exhausted brain. A slight feeling of nausea was perceived and then came another throb stronger than the first, and with a faint suggestion of pain. This was followed by a sense of physical depression and discomfort.

"What's the matter, doctor?" asked his wife, who saw something unusual in his manner.

"A feeling here that I don't just like," he replied, touching his temple with a finger.

"Not going to have a headache?"

"I trust not. It would be a bad thing for me today."

He slowly lifted his cup of coffee and sipped a part of it.

"Late suppers and late hours may do for younger people," said Mrs. Hillhouse. "I feel wretched this morning, and am not surprised that your nerves are out of order, nor that you should be threatened with headache."

The doctor did not reply. He sipped his coffee again, but without apparent relish, and, instead of eating anything, sat in an unusually quiet manner and with a very sober aspect of countenance.

"I don't want a mouthful of breakfast," said Mrs. Hillhouse, pushing away her plate.

"Nor I," replied the doctor; "but I can't begin to-day on an empty stomach."

And he tried to force himself to take food, but made little progress in the effort.

"It's dreadful about Archie Voss," said Mrs. Hillhouse.

"Oh he'll come up all right," returned her husband, with some impatience in his voice.

"I hope so. But if he were my son, I'd rather see him in his grave than as I saw him last night."

"It's very easy to talk in that way; but if Archie were your son, you'd not be very long in choosing between death and a glass or two of wine more than he had strength to carry."

"If he were my son," replied the doctor's wife, "I would do all in my power to keep him away from entertainments where liquor is served in such profusion. The danger is too great."

"He would have to take his chances with the rest," replied the doctor. "All that we could possibly do would be to teach him moderation and self-denial."

"If there is little moderation and self-denial among the full-grown men and women who are met on these occasions, what can be expected from lads and young men?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply.

"We cannot shut our eyes to the fact," continued his wife, "that this free dispensation of wine to old and young is an evil of great magnitude, and that it is doing a vast amount of harm."

The doctor still kept silent. He was not in a mood for discussing this or any other social question. His mind was going in another direction, and his thoughts were troubling him. Dr. Hillhouse was a surgeon of great experience, and known throughout the country for his successful operations in some of the most difficult and dangerous cases with which the profession has to deal. On this particular day, at twelve o'clock, he had to perform an operation of the most delicate nature, involving the life or death of a patient.

He might well feel troubled, for he knew, from signs too well understood, that when twelve o'clock came, and his patient lay helpless and unconscious before him, his hand would not be steady nor his brain, clear. Healthy food would not restore the natural vigor which stimulation had weakened, for he had no appetite for food. His stomach turned away from it with loathing.

By this time the throb in his temple had become a stroke of pain. While still sitting at the breakfast-table Dr. Angier returned from his visit to Mrs. Ridley. Dr. Hillhouse saw by the expression of his face that he did not bring a good report.

"How is she?" he asked.

"In a very bad way," replied Dr. Angier.

"New symptoms?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Intense pain, rigors, hurried respiration and pulse up to a hundred and twenty. It looks like a case of puerperal peritonitis."

Dr. Hillhouse started from the table; the trouble on his face grew deeper.

"You had better see her with as little delay as possible," said Dr. Angier.

"Did you make any new prescription?"

"No."

Dr. Hillhouse shut his lips tightly and knit his brows. He stood irresolute for several moments.

"Most unfortunate!" he ejaculated. Then, going into his office, he rang the bell and ordered his carriage brought round immediately.

Dr. Angier had made no exaggerated report of Mrs. Ridley's condition. Dr. Hillhouse found that serious complications were rapidly taking place, and that all the symptoms indicated inflammation of the peritoneum. The patient was in great pain, though with less cerebral disturbance than when he had seen her last. There was danger, and he knew it. The disease had taken on a form that usually baffles the skill of our most eminent physicians, and Dr. Hillhouse saw little chance of anything but a fatal termination. He could do nothing except to palliate as far as possible the patient's intense suffering and endeavor to check farther complications. But he saw little to give encouragement.

Mr. Ridley, with pale, anxious face, and eyes in which, were pictured the unutterable anguish of his soul, watched Dr. Hillhouse as he sat by his wife's bedside with an eager interest and suspense that was painful to see. He followed him when he left the room, and his hand closed on his arm with a spasm as the door shut behind them.

"How is she, doctor?" he asked, in a hoarse, panting whisper.

"She is very sick, Mr. Ridley," replied Dr. Hillhouse. "It would be wrong to deceive you."

The pale, haggard face of Mr. Ridley grew whiter.

"Oh, doctor," he gasped, "can nothing be done?"

"I think we had better call in another physician," replied the doctor. "In the multitude of counselors there is wisdom. Have you any choice?"

But Mr. Ridley had none.

"Shall it be Dr. Ainsworth? He has large experience in this class of diseases."

"I leave it entirely with you, Dr. Hillhouse. Get the best advice and help the city affords, and for God's sake save my wife."

The doctor went away, and Mr. Ridley, shaking with nervous tremors, dropped weak and helpless into a chair and bending forward until his head rested on his knees, sat crouching down, an image of suffering and despair.

CHAPTER IX

"ELLIS, my son."

There was a little break and tremor in the voice. The young man addressed was passing 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 assumed 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 glass 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 practitioners 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 glass 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 anticipations. 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 appetites, 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 assert 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 God. 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 God!"

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 glass 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 appetite, and suffer not your enemy to cross the threshold, of life."

Mrs. Whitford spoke with regaining calmness, but in tones of solemn admonition.

A long silence followed, broken at length by the young man, who said, in a choking, depressed voice that betrayed a quaver of impatience:

"I'm sorry for all this. That your fears are groundless I know, but you are none the less tormented by them. What am I to do? To spare you pain I would sacrifice almost anything, but this humiliation is more than I am strong enough to encounter. If, as you say, there has been intemperance in our family, it is not a secret locked up in your bosom. Society knows all about the ancestry of its members, who and what the fathers and grandfathers were, and we have not escaped investigation. Don't touch wine, you say. Very well. I go to Mrs. Birtwell's to-night. Young and old, men and women, all are partakers, but I stand aloof—I, of all the guests, refuse the hospitality I have pretended to accept. Can I do this without attracting attention or occasioning remark? No; and what will be said? Simply this—that I know my danger and am afraid; that there is in my blood the hereditary taint of drunkenness, and that I dare not touch a glass of wine. Mother, I am not strong enough to brave society on such an issue, and a false one at that. To fear and fly does not belong to my nature. A coward I despise. If there is danger in my way and it is right for me to go forward in that way, I will walk steadily on, and fight if I must. I am not a craven, but a man. If the taint of which you speak is in my blood, I will extinguish it. If I am in danger, I will not save myself by flight, but by conquest. The taint shall not go down to another generation; it shall be removed in this."