by Ellen Wood
Mrs. Danesbury laughed. “Arthur has a book at home, describing the glories and wonders of the towers in days gone by,” she said; “lions, giants, dwarfs, soldiers in armor, and scaffolds. He can not separate those marvels from the present tower by any process of reasoning whatever: so I fear disappointment will be in store for him when he shall visit it.”
Mr. St. George could scarcely take his eyes from the boy, who was still bending forward, so remarkably intelligent did he think his countenance. Fair, with a broad, white, intellectual forehead, his features gave promise of the same high order of beauty that distinguished his Other’s, and he possessed the same large, clear, earnest blue eyes. He was in his eighth year, his sister two years younger. A servant placed a glass of porter by his side, and recalled him to his dinner.
“Oh, water for me, if you please,” said the child.
“Water, sir?”
“Yes,” replied Arthur, “and for my sister also. We always drink water.”
There was no water on the side-board; it was a beverage not frequently called for at Mrs. Serle’s, and one of the servants had to go down stairs for some. Matthew and Charlotte Serle had each their small silver mug of porter.
“Your children are not going to drink water?” exclaimed Mrs. Serle, when she saw the water placed for them. “This can not hurt them, Mrs. Danesbury; it is only porter, not stout.”
“Thank you,” replied Mrs. Danesbury, “they never take any thing but water.”
“You don’t know what’s good for them, I see,” interposed Mr. Serle. But the subject dropped.
To be resumed, however, at dessert. In pouring out the port wine, Mr. Serle filled four glasses three parts full, and passed them to the children.
“Oh! I beg your pardon for not speaking sooner,” interrupted Mrs. Danesbury; “I did not observe. Arthur and Isabel do not take it.”
“Not take wine! and not take beer!” uttered Mr. Serle; “why, do you intend to make little hermits of them? I can assure you, these children, when they are indulged by dining with us, and on Sundays, look for their glasses of wine, filled ‘up to the pretty,’ as eagerly as we look for ours.”
“I never heard of such a thing as punishing children in that way,” cried Miss St. George.
“It is no punishment,” was Mrs. Danesbury’s reply.
“They are not accustomed to it, and therefore do not wish for it.”
“All moonshine!” laughed Mr. Serle. “Drink it up, children.”
“No; I must repeat that I prefer they should not,” returned Mrs. Danesbury.
Her manner and tone, though perfectly courteous and lady-like, were unmistakably decisive, and no more was said. The little Series drank their wine, and when the children had eaten some pears and oranges, they were all dispatched to the nursery to play.
“How can you force those nice children of yours to drink water?” began Mrs. Serle, turning to her guest. “Do you do it upon principle, as people say!”
“I do it because I believe it to be good for them,” was Mrs. Danesbury’s answer.
“But you can not possibly think that the small portion of beer and wine which our children have just taken can have done them any harm?”
“Whether it has done them harm I can not say; but I will say that water would have done them more good, even for their health’s sake.”
“Even for their health’s sake!” repeated Mrs. Serle. “I scarcely follow you. There is nothing else that could be benefited by it.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Danesbury, “their taste. We should be very cautious what tastes we impart to, or cultivate in a child. A child can not dislike water naturally; it is its natural beverage, as, rely upon it, it was intended to be the natural beverage of man. A child should never be allowed to drink any thing else (except at those seasons, tea and breakfast, when milk is substituted); whether at dinner, or when thirsty, let it have its appointed drink — water. Confine a child’s drink to water, and he will obey the law of nature, and grow up loving the water. I believe that it is of the utmost importance that he should be allowed to do so.”
“I don’t see why.”
“As soon as a child can sit down to table and eat dinner, how many parents give that child beer to drink with it! Take your own children, for example; have you accustomed them to drink water?”
“No,” was Mrs. Serle’s reply; “but then, London water is such wretched stuff. Since the children could sit at table, they have always had a little sup of beer.”
“Just so,” returned Mrs. Danesbury; “you debar your children from tasting water, and in a few years’ time they will have lost their relish for it — if they have not done so already. You impart to them a taste (a forced, acquired taste, mind)! for stronger beverage, and indulge the taste until they learn to love it; naturally, after that, water appears insipid. Once let a child lose his liking for water, through disuse, through accustoming him to drink an artificial beverage, and you will rarely find him regain it in after life. Many grown persons will say, ‘I can not bear water; I could not drink it!’”
“I could not,” interrupted Mr. St. George. “I never did drink it, and I am sure I could not begin now.”
Mrs. Danesbury smiled; for she saw they all could have joined in his words, and it illustrated her theory. “Just so, Walter,” she remarked; “you were not allowed to drink water when your tastes, for good or for ill, were being formed. As our tastes are trained in childhood, so will our after likings be.”
‘‘Then, it is not that you think so ill of beer and wine, as that you wish your children to grow up fond of water,” observed Mr. Serle.
“That is chiefly it: they must grow up fond of one or of the other. My objection to children’s taking beer or wine would be less strong, could I make sure that they would always partake of them in strict moderation: but who can answer for the future? I think,” continued Mrs. Danesbury, smiling upon them pleasantly, but with deprecation, “though you must not take offense at my saying it, that when parents do not oblige their children to drink water as their common beverage, they are guilty of a positive sin.”
“Oh, Mrs. Danesbury!”
“A sin against the child: and perhaps,” she added, in a lower tone, “against God, who has sent him into the world to be trained to morality and goodness.”
There was a pause. It was Mr. Serle who broke it. “Are these your own sentiments chiefly, Mrs. Danesbury, or your husband’s?”
“They are mine. I believe my husband thinks with me, but his hands and head are so full of business that he gives but little heed to what he would call domestic points. He has entire confidence in my management.”
“Well; it is hard upon the children.” “Hard upon the children! how can you take up so mistaken an idea? It is quite the contrary. Had I said to my children at dinner, just now, take which you like best, beer or water, they would have chosen the water. Water, I say, assimilates itself naturally with a child’s palate; beer does not. Give a glass of beer to my children, who have never had any, and they would find it salt, bitter; disagreeable as a dose of medicine.”
“But, Mrs. Danesbury, if you keep your children — let us say the boy — to water, so long as you have control over him, you can not expect that he will confine himself to water when he becomes a man.”
“I don’t know that,” she answered; “I trust to be able to implant in him other wholesome training, besides that of drinking water; I mean, touching his own responsibility of action. But, whether he shall confine himself to water or not, I shall have the comforting consciousness of knowing that I have done my duty by him, in bringing him up to like it. When Matthew and Arthur, your boy and mine, shall stand side by side in after years, the one loving water, the other despising it, the one regardless of stimulants, the other craving for them, what will have made the difference, but the opposite mode in which they were reared? You do what you can to eradicate the natural liking for water implanted in the child, I do all I can to foster it. Believe me, Mr. Serle,
we should all do well to bring up our children to drink water.”
“Madam,” interrupted a servant, entering the room and addressing Mrs. Danesbury, “there’s a gentleman below, asking to see you.”
“A gentleman!” repeated Mrs. Danesbury in surprise, who had no friends in London, and thought the man must be mistaken. “For me! Are you sure?”
“He asked for Mrs. Danesbury. He has a plaid shawl round his neck, madam, and a white top coat on. He said he came from Eastborough, and his name was Harding — Thomas Harding.”
The words seemed to electrify Mrs. Danesbury, and she turned pale as death, as she started from her seat. “What can be the matter?” she uttered. “Something must be amiss with my husband or my child!”
She quitted the room, and hurried to the one where Thomas Harding had been shown. He stood in the middle of it, his hat in his hand. Mr. and Mrs. Serle caught a glimpse of a most respectable looking man, with gray hair and an honest countenance.
“Tell me the worst at once,” breathed Mrs. Danesbury. “Something is amiss with Mr. Danesbury! He has not been caught in the machinery?’’ she gasped, the dreadful thought occurring to her.
“Dear lady, pray don’t alarm yourself: it’s nothing so bad as that. Mr. Danesbury is quite well, and it was he sent me to you. Little Master William is poorly, and he thought you might like to know it.”
Mrs. Danesbury sunk on a chair, inexpressibly relieved. “Sit down, Mr. Harding,” she said; “what is the matter with him?”
“Well, ma’am, it may sound awkward to you in telling, but Mr. Pratt had little doubt he’d be all right,” replied Thomas Harding, improving upon the hint given him by Mr. Danesbury, “and that was the last thing the master charged me to say to you. Mrs. Glisson lost his cough-mixture, and she found it, as she thought, and gave him some, but it turned out to be a bottle containing some tincture of opium. Mr. Pratt was there directly with his emetics, but the master bade me come up here and tell you, ma’am, thinking you might like to go home.”
Mrs. Danesbury sat quite still for a minute, her hands pressed upon her chest. The news surprised and perplexed her — apart from the shock and grief: but she had no time to spare for superfluous questions. “How did you come?” she inquired.
“I posted up, ma’am, in one of the chaises from the Bam. It is at the door.”
“Order fresh horses to it instantly,” she said, leading the way from the room. Mr. and Mrs. Serle were standing outside, not liking to intrude, and scarcely daring to inquire what had happened. She burst into tears as she gave them the news.
“Going down at once I” uttered Mr. Serle. “But how are you going?”
“Mr. Harding posted up. There is no difficulty.”
She had been walking up the stairs as she replied, too anxious to lose a moment. When her things were on, she went to say farewell to her children, who, it had been hastily decided, should remain for the present The ready tears rose to Arthur’s great blue eyes.
“Why do you leave us here, mamma? it won’t be nice when you are gone. When shall you come back?”
“The beginning of the week, I hope, Arthur. My darling,” she added in his ear, as she held his face to hers, “Mr. and Mrs. Serle may press you to take beer and wine, but you will remember that I wish you not to do so. And tell Isabel what I say. Touch neither.”
Arthur gave his head a very decided shake. His mother’s word was law with him. “I will be sure to remember, mamma.”
She kissed him twenty times; she kissed Isabel, breathing a blessing on them both: she bade firewall to the rest. The two children ran down to shake hands with Thomas Harding, who was in the dining-room with Mr. Serle swallowing some hasty refreshment. The chaise, with its fresh horses, drove to the door, and Mrs. Danesbury entered it, scarcely giving time for the step to be lowered. Thomas Harding prepared to mount to the seat in front — the dicky, as it was called in those days.
“No, no, Mr. Harding,” interposed Mrs. Danesbury, “you must not sit there this cold night. Come inside.”
“Ma’am,” he answered, in his respectful, modest way, hesitating to obey, “I feel that I should be intruding.”
“Not at all. Step in.”
And the chaise whirled from the door, and speedily left London behind it.
CHAPTER II.
THE NIGHT JOURNEY.
Mrs. Danesbury naturally felt impatient for particulars, and pressed Thomas Harding to relate them, as they sped on their way. He was enabled to do so, having had them detailed over to him at length by Jessy. Mrs. Danesbury listened to the end, but she was not satisfied.
“I can not comprehend it,” she remarked. “The tincture of opium has been in the closet in my bedroom undisturbed since the night it was first brought into the house. I had the toothache badly, and sent to the chemist’s for some. Sarah went for it; and, knowing I was in pain, she brought it away without giving time to label it. I placed it in my closet, and how it is possible for Glisson to have gone thither for it and taken it, believing it was the baby’s cough-mixture, which she kept in her own nursery, I can not conceive. It is an understood thing in the house, that nobody interferes with what may be in that closet but myself. I should not be so much surprised had it been one of the other servants; but for Glisson to go to the closet, and to commit such an error, is incomprehensible. It is as though she acted in her sleep.”
Thomas Harding was silent. He was debating a question with himself. Ought he to impart to Mrs. Danesbury a rumor which had come to his ears?
“A faithful, cautious, tried old servant like Glisson!” repeated Mrs. Danesbury. “Does it not strike you as being very extraordinary, Mr. Harding?”
“Ma’am,” he said, with straightforward simplicity, “I am thinking whether I ought not to tell you something which Jessy mentioned to my wife.”
“If it is any thing that can bear upon this case, you certainly must inform me,” replied Mrs. Danesbury.
“It was the Sunday Jessy had leave to drink tea with us,” he resumed. “My wife got asking her whether she should be able to reconcile herself to service, and how she liked her place: and in talking of her various duties, she said that Glisson — that Glisson—”
“Go on,” interposed Mrs. Danesbury, wondering at his hesitation.
Thomas Harding leaned toward Mrs. Danesbury, and continued in a whisper, “That Glisson drank.”
“That she — what?” uttered Mrs. Danesbury.
“Ma’am,’ that Glisson drank. Took sometimes more than was good for her.”
“That Glisson drank!” repeated Mrs. Danesbury, in the very extreme of surprise. “Impossible. What could Jessy have meant by saying so.”
“My wife said it was impossible, and took Jessy to task for traducing Mrs. Glisson. But Jessy persisted that it was so — that she does drink, and is often stupid through it.”
Mrs. Danesbury was silent, utterly confounded.
“Nearly every night she has one big tumbler of hot gin-and-water, sometimes more; besides drinking plenty of ale at supper, too much, in fact; Mrs. Glisson being allowed the strong ale at that meal, while most of the other servants take beer.”
“Mrs. Glisson is older than most of them,” interrupted Mrs. Danesbury. “And when Mr. Danesbury suggested that Glisson might drink ale with her supper, if she preferred it to table-beer, neither he nor I imagined she would take an unseemly quantity. It is incredible!”
“I fear it is true,” returned Thomas Harding. “Jessy is a clear-sighted, keen girl, and is not likely to be deceived. She has seen Glisson with a black bottle to her lips in the daytime, and believed it contained gin. In speaking of this misfortune to-day, she told me Glisson was ‘stupid’ again, and it was in consequence of seeing she was so, that put it into her head the cough-mixture might really be on the mantle-piece, overlooked by Mrs. Glisson. Jessy says she reproached her with it, in the fright of the discovery.”
“But, were it true that Glisson takes gin, how can it have escaped my detection?” urge
d Mrs. Danesbury. “The smell would betray her.”
“Jessy thinks that it is not very often she takes it in the daytime, and you don’t see her, ma’am, after she has had it at night. But she has got a trick of sucking things. Sometimes it will be a bit of camphor, sometimes a peppermint-drop: Jessy says she always knows what the nurse has been supping, when she sees her put one of these things into her mouth; and of course they take off the smell of any thing else.”
Mrs. Danesbury remembered to have smelled peppermint and camphor when the nurse had been talking; and she also remembered that Glisson had occasionally seemed stupid — bewildered — and she had wondered; but she had never suspected the cause now hinted at. “I wish Jessy had said this to me,” she observed. “I should not have quitted home and left the child in her charge.”
“I wish she had, ma’am, as things have turned out,” responded Thomas Harding. “But very few young women, going fresh into a house, would Venture to bring such a charge against an old and valued servant.”
“Very true. And my perfect confidence in Glisson may have tended to blind me. The puzzle is, where can she get the gin?”
“Oh, ma’am, people who give way to drink are never at a fault to get it.”
Mrs. Danesbury gathered herself into her comer of the chaise, buried in an unpleasant reverie. She was casting blame to herself. Not for having failed to detect Glisson’s fault; no, blame lay not with herself there; but for having suffered the laudanum bottle to be without a label. Several times had she thought of placing a label on it, but the time had gone on, and on, and this was the result. Had there been a label, Glisson was certainly not so far gone but she might have read it. “Have you or Mrs. Harding mentioned this doubt of Glisson to any one?” suddenly asked Mrs. Danesbury.
“Certainly not,” was his reply. “And we cautioned Jessy not to let it escape her lips again.”
“I am glad of that. I scarcely see my way clear, with regard to Glisson. Mr. Danesbury thinks highly of her, and she served his mother faithfully for many years, so that I feel it would not be kind or just to turn her away, as I might a less valued servant I think I must bury this in silence, even to Mr. Danesbury, and keep her on for a while, and be watchful over her, and try and recall her to what she used to be. I am convinced she can not have taken to it long. I must question Jessy: perhaps she will tell me more than she told you.”