by Ellen Wood
“Oh, my son Robert,” wailed out his anguished father, as did David of old. “My son, my son! would God I had died for thee, oh, Robert, my son, my son!”
CHAPTER XX.
HOPES AND FEARS. AN UNEXPECTED EVENT.
It was autumn weather, and unusually cold; but the glow of a cheerful fire diffused its pleasant warmth over a commodious bed-chamber, and the gale outside was not felt within. A lady, young and fair, lay there on a sofa, her dark eyes were bent on the fire, as they had been for the last half hour, as if she were in a reverie; and it would seem that it was not a pleasant one, for a contraction of pain flitted, ever and anon, over her brow. It was Anna Danesbury, William’s wife.
In the adjoining room, the door opening between them, sat a woman before another fire, nursing an infant. It was three weeks old; and very precious was the little life to its mother, for she had not before had a child to live. Suddenly a visitor’s knock resounded through the house, and the nurse arose, laid down the little bundle of flannel, and entered her mistress’s chamber.
“Of course, ma’am, you will not see visitors this afternoon,” she said, in a half-remonstrating, half-authoritative tone. “You are not strong enough for it.”
Mrs. William Danesbury dared her ham and looked up. “I suppose not, nurse. And yet it seems to me that they could not do me much harm.”
But, instead of visitors, it proved to be Mrs. Philip Danesbury, who was scarcely regarded in the light of one. She had been out for some weeks with her niece, Miss Heber.
“Why did Mary not come with you?” demanded the invalid, as her aunt embraced her.
“Because I feared there might be too much chattering,” replied Mrs. Philip. “I heard you were not so well as you might be. Mary will come and see you to-morrow. What has been the matter with you, my dear? Baby three weeks old, and you lying here!”
Anna did not answer at first. “I have had so much fever,’’ she slowly said. “Aunt, I have wanted you at home.”
“My dear, I did hope and intend to be back before your illness, but—”
“Not for that,” interrupted Anna. “I did very well without you. Aunt,” she repeated, in a whisper of emotion, her trembling hands sizing those of Mrs. Philip Danesbury, “my husband is going all wrong. It is that which makes me ill.”
“Is he worse?”
“A great deal. Some one or other is always calling, to induce him to go out in the evening. Sometimes it is Laughton, sometimes it is Lionel — when Lionel is in a fit state to call for any one — sometimes it’s others. Not one night since baby was born, has he been in until the public-houses were closed; and almost always in a state that he can not come to my room, to say ‘Good-night.’ Here I lie listening for him, waiting for him, unable to get to sleep, and when I hear him, he is not well enough to come and speak to me.”
“I am truly grieved to hear this,” exclaimed Mrs. Philip Danesbury. “But do not talk of it now, Anna?”
“I must talk of it,” she vehemently answered, while a burning, hectic spot appeared on her cheek. “Aunt, I have not spoken of it, and the silence is preying upon me: to tell you will be a relief.”
“I thought William’s resolutions were so good!” lamented Mrs. Philip Danesbury.
“He does make good resolutions, and sometimes he will keep them for ever so long. And then again, he breaks out, and for several days will not be sober. Did you hear about the loss at the Works, aunt?” she added, dropping her voice.
“No.”
“It was all through William. Something in the making of the machinery. I do not understand it; for Mrs. Danesbury, who told me, did not enter into details — perhaps she did not know them herself — and I was too much annoyed to inquire. But it seems they had a great deal of valuable work in process, and William went in one day in an incapable state, gave wrong orders, and it was spoiled. The loss was some hundreds of pounds.”
“Poor Mr. Danesbury! poor Mr. Danesbury!” uttered Mrs. Philip. “What sons! When will his cares end?”
“William came home almost like a madman. He was sobered then, and knew the mischief he had caused. I never saw him so cut up, so full of sorrow. I inquired what was amiss, but he would not tell me.”
“And I suppose he drank more to drown it”
“No, indeed, aunt. He did not touch a drop of any thing for days afterward. He is full of good hopes and resolves, if he had but strength to keep them.”
“Do you know how the poor old gentleman is, Anna?”
“Much the same, I believe. He was here on Sunday, and I could scarcely keep my eyes from him, he looks so broken with care; every time I see him it strikes me more forcibly. Mrs. Danesbury is ill now. You are aware, perhaps, that the influenza has broken out at Eastborough?”
“It was the first news one of the servants received us with, when we reached home to-day. She said it was raging badly, and two or three had died. I told her she was a Job’s comforter, to give us that for welcome.”
“Mrs. Danesbury was attacked with it several days ago,” returned Anna, “and I hear she is very ill.”
“She has never got over the shock of Robert’s death last spring,” observed Mrs. Philip Danesbury.
Anna clasped her hands together, as if her emotions were too much for her. “Aunt, when I think of Robert’s fate, of Lionel’s certain death—”
“Lionel is no better, I fear?” interrupted Mrs. Philip Danesbury.
“Better!” ejaculated Anna. “He can not live long, as he goes on now: or, if he does live, he will become insane. Mr. Pratt says his brain is softening rapidly. When I dwell upon Lionel’s state, upon Robert’s dreadful death, and remember that William may come to the same, my senses seem as though they would desert me.”
“Now, do you know what?” exclaimed Mrs. Philip, in the peremptory tone we use to an offending child; “if you say another word upon this topic, I shall be gone. You are doing yourself incalculable harm.”
“I am always dwelling upon it,” was Anna’s answer: “how can I help it?”
“You must try and help it. You will never get strong if you don’t,” replied Mrs. Philip; “nothing retards recovery so much as brooding over ills, real or imaginary.”
She was resolute not to permit it, and Anna, perforce, was silent, and presently dropped into a doze. Mrs. Philip took the opportunity to leave, telling the nurse she would look in again in the evening.
William Danesbury came home at tea-time, and ran up to his wife’s room. He was quite himself. He edged himself on to the sofa, and Anna drew his hand between hers, and held it there.
“Have tea in my room, William,” she whispered. “Nurse will make it and send it in for us.”
“If you like,” he cheerily answered. “When do you mean to get out of this room, Anna?”
“Soon. But I am not quite so strong as I might be. As I should be if — I—”
“If what?” he said, leaning over her.
She drew his face down, so that it rested on hers, and whispered: “If I were not so anxious about you.”
He could not pretend to misunderstand her, but he strove to turn it off with some disjointed, careless words — that he was all right, and meant to keep so.
“Oh that you would, William!” she murmured. “If not for my sake, for” — she pulled aside her shawl and disclosed a little red face nestled to her— “this child’s”
“Do not fear, Anna. I know the responsibility that is upon me. Nay, you must not cry. My dear wife, I will be all you wish me.”
Thus, when himself, he was ever ready to say. A kind, loving husband, an attractive man was ‘William Danesbury, so long as he kept his brain and mind clear.
Tea was over: the nurse had the baby in the other room, and William Danesbury was alone with his wife. He began to show symptoms of weariness; looked at his watch, pulled aside the curtain to gaze out at the night, walked about the room, and stirred the fire. His wife understood it all. She called him to her.
“William, you s
aid before tea that you would be all you ought to be. Begin now: do not go out to-night.”
He did not answer.
“Oh, William, for my sake, for your own sake! If you do not make the first effort, you will never carry out your resolve. Begin at once. Do not go out to-night.”
“Anna, I am sure it is not right for you to excite yourself like this.”
“No, it is not; it is very bad for me. But how can I help it? If you would but stay with me this one evening!”
“Well, I will, Anna.”
“You will! you mean it?” she eagerly asked.
“I will. I promise you.”
“Oh, William! how happy you might make me!” she said, the anxious expression facing from her eyes. “See, my trouble is gone, and I am all at rest.”
Scarcely had she so spoken, when a servant came in and addressed her master.
“Mr. Laughton is waiting for you, sir.”
Anna turned her large, yearning eyes upon him. The anxious look had come back again.
“Tell him,” began William to the servant— “Stay, I will go and speak to him.”
“No I send the message. William, send the message,” she broke forth, in terror.
“I will not go out, Anna. Have I not promised?” he answered.
He went down stairs. Soon Anna heard the front door close on Mr. Laughton, and her husband came back again. She took his hand and held it, by way of thanks.
“How dull you must be, lying here all day!” he exclaimed.
“I read a good deal, and that passes the time. I wish
I could see by candlelight to do so, but my eyes are not strong yet.”
“Shall I read you something, Anna?”
“I was thinking how much I should like to hear something read. But perhaps you will not like to read that”
“Yes, I will. What is it?”
“A chapter in the Bible,” she said, in a low tone.
William smiled. “I suppose you think that is not much in my line. It is more in Arthur’s. I do believe he reads the Bible night and morning.”
“As you will some time, William, I hope.”
“Well, I will to-night,” he said. “Where shall I find a Bible?”
She pointed to her own, on the dressing-table, and he brought it forward. “Which chapter?” he asked.
She opened the book at the third chapter of Revelation. William Danesbury read it reverently. To him it was especially applicable: he felt it to be so, and knew why his wife had chosen it.
“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and I will write upon him my new name.
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit down with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”
Those three verses were especially applicable. Would he overcome?
“William,” she murmured, “we all have something to overcome, ere we can inherit; all, all. Christ himself says, ‘Even as I also overcame.’ ‘Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.’ William, those promises were not made for nothing.”
William Danesbury was closing the book again, when the same servant appeared and called him out. He went down stairs. Anna wondered, for she had not heard any one come to the house; but her attention had been occupied with other things. Immediately she caught the sound as of more than one going out, and the front door closed, and her husband did not return. She rang her bell, and her maid came up.
“Is Mr. Danesbury gone out?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Gone out!” she could not help repeating.
“With Mr. Lionel,” added the servant. “Master said I was to tell you, if you inquired, that he should not be long.”
Her heart sickened within her. What! in the very face of his promise to the contrary: in the very echo of that warning chapter! Could he not “overcome” for that one night? She buried her aching head on the sofa-pillow, and moaned aloud in her fullness of despair.
When Mrs. Philip Danesbury entered, which she did soon afterward, she found her flushed, harassed, and excited. “Not to stop in for this one night!” she reiterated. “After promising me! It is of no use hoping, aunt: he is a lost man.”
Two hours passed away, and William did not come in. Mrs. Philip was unwilling to leave her, she was so restless. Too ill to sit up, she yet would not go to bed. The nurse came in and exerted her eloquence, and went away again in a temper, when she found it of no effect. Suddenly, they heard the church bell toll out.
“There’s the passing bell!” exclaimed Anna. “I wonder who is gone. Somebody is released from a world of care and suffering.” And she sighed so painfully that it almost seemed to intimate a regret that she was not released.
“It’s somebody of consequence, whoever it is,” cried the nurse, having returned to make her comments, “or they would not trouble themselves to ring it out so late as this.”
Another half hour, and then William Danesbury entered. They heard him come in and go into the parlour.
“There!” exclaimed Anna to her aunt, “you hear! He does not come up stairs: that will tell you how he is.”
“I will go down and see,” said Mrs. Philip.
William was leaning over the fire when she entered, his elbow resting on the mantle-piece. His face looked pale and sad; not, Mrs. Philip thought, as does that of a man in drink.
“Aunt, how do you do? I heard you were hack. I am glad you came in: Anna is lonely alone.”
Neither was his tone, neither was the expression of his eyes like that of a man in drink. Mrs. Philip looked keenly, and felt convinced that he was sober.
“Anna has been worrying herself much at your staying out,” she said to him. “She is in so excited a state, thinking you have now come in from the — the public-houses.”
“No,” he sighed, “I have come from a very different scene. Of course you have not heard the tidings?”
“What tidings? We have heard nothing.”
“Mrs. Danesbury is dead.”
Mrs. Philip was shocked and startled. ‘‘Mrs. Danesbury dead!” she uttered, after a dread pause.
“Lionel came here and said his mother was dying, and begged me to go to her without a moment’s delay, for she had asked for me,” resumed William. “I thought I should soon be home again, and I did not like to tell Anna the cause of my going out lest it should alarm her.”
“Then the passing bell was for Mrs. Danesbury! What can have caused her sudden death?”
“She has died from this influenza that is going about,” was William’s answer. “She has been evidently sinking ever since Robert’s death, and when this disease attacked her she had no stamina wherewith to struggle against it. A physician was telegraphed for from town this morning at five o’clock, and was here by ten, but he could do her no good. Poor thing! she was sensible, and took leave of us all. Aunt,” he added, lowering his voice, “she asked me to pardon her for having forced me to drink wine and beer in my childhood.”
“William! Did she? She is another gone to her grave wishing that her life could be lived over again, that she might reject the evil and choose the good.”
“She held my hand and Arthur’s, and begged us to forgive past unkindnesses. But the parting with Lionel — it was grievous to see.”
“Robert and Lionel have sent her to her grave between them,” impressively resumed Mrs. Philip Danesbury.
“Lionel is saying so. I took him home and left him there in a stale of excitement that you can scarcely imagine. Cry
ing one minute, talking the next; and, should he fly to drink in the midst of it, he will inevitably bring on another of those dangerous attacks.”
“William,” spoke up Mrs. Philip, in a solemn tone, “all this ought to tell upon you as a warning. Will you not accept it?”
“Yes, I will.”
“How does your father bear his loss?”
“Calmly. He has experienced too much sorrow for any thing to affect him greatly now. My poor father will not be long after her,” he added, with a sigh.
Drink! drink! the evils of indulging in strong drink!” aspirated Mrs. Philip Danesbury.
William passed by the remark without observation. “May we tell Anna?” he asked. “Or will it excite her injuriously?”
“Tell her — oh yes. Her fears and excitement all tend to one point, William.”
He knew what that was.
Reader I how the close approach of death changes us! Mrs. Philip Danesbury did not suspect how literally near the truth she was, when she said that Mrs. Danesbury had gone to her grave wishing that her life could be lived over again, that she might reject the evil and choose the good. It was a strangely impressive scene that William had come from, one which might suffice for a whole life’s lesson: Mrs. Danesbury lay on her bed, a dying woman; Lionel close to her, the others dispersed round her, her husband, Arthur and William, and Mr. Pratt; the physician had returned to town again after his fruitless mission. Mrs. Danesbury had repented: her days had been one scene of bitter repentance ever since the death of Robert: but remorse she never could put away from her; she could not recall the evil done. If she had made her peace with God, so far as she herself went, she could not make it for the lost Robert: she could not make it for Lionel. She took William’s hands in hers, “Forgive me, as I have asked God to forgive me, for having forced you to drink wine and beer in your childhood,” she gasped. “William, be you warned while there is yet time; and put them from you. Do not let me have another lost soul upon my hands! It seems, I would give my own soul if God would but grant me my existence over again, that I might bring up my children to strive for life everlasting. I brought them up for this world, not for the next; and I ruined them for both. Oh, Lionel, if I could but take your sins upon me, and bear them now before my Maker!”