Chapter 67

BEE'S HANDKERCHIEF.

"I would bend my spirit o'er yon." "I am humbled, who was humble! Friend! I bow my head before you!"

--_E.B. Browning_.

But a mist fell before Ishmael's eyes, and when it cleared away Claudia was gone.

The young bridesmaids were chattering gayly in a low, melodious tone with each other, and with the gentlemen of the party filling the room with a musical hum of many happy voices.

But all this seemed unreal and dreadful, like the illusions of troubled sleep. And so Ishmael left the drawing room and went up to the office, to see if perhaps he could find real life there.

There lay the parcels of papers tied up with red tape, the open books that he had consulted the day before, and the letters that had come by the morning's mail.

He sat down wearily to the table and began to open his letters. One by one he read and laid them aside. One important letter, bearing upon a case he had on hand, he laid by itself.

Then rising, he gathered up his documents, put them into his pocket, took his hat and gloves and went to the City Hall.

This day of suffering, like all other days, was a day of duties also.

It was now one o'clock, the hour at which the train started which carried Claudia away.

It was also the hour at which a case was appointed to be heard before the Judge of the Orphan's Court--a case in which the guardianship of certain fatherless and motherless children was disputed between a grandmother and an uncle, and in which Ishmael was counsel for the plaintiff. He appeared in court, punctually to the minute, found his client waiting for him there, and as soon as the judge had taken his seat the young counsel opened the case. By a strong effort of will he wrested his thoughts from his own great sorrow, and engaged them in the interests of the anxious old lady, who was striving for the possession of her grandchildren only from the love she bore them and their mother, her own dead daughter; while her opponent wished only to have the management of their large fortune.

It was nature that pleaded through the lips of the eloquent young counsel, and he gained this case also.

But he was ill in mind and body. He could scarcely bear the thanks and congratulations of his client and her friends.

The old lady had retained him by one large fee, and now she placed another and a larger one in his hands; but he could not have told whether the single banknote was for five dollars or five hundred, as he mechanically received it and placed it in his pocketbook.

And then, with the courteous bow and smile, never omitted, because they were natural and habitual, he turned and left the courtroom.

"What is the matter with Worth?" inquired one lawyer.

"Can't imagine; he looks very ill; shouldn't wonder if he was going to have a congestion of the brain. It looks like it. He works too hard," replied another.

Old Wiseman, the law-thunderer, who had been the counsel opposed to Ishmael in this last case, and who, in fact, was always professionally opposed to him, but, nevertheless, personally friendly towards him, had also noticed his pale, haggard, and distracted looks, and now hurried after him in the fear that he should fall before reaching home.

He overtook Ishmael in the lobby. The young man was standing leaning on the balustrade at the head of the stairs, as if unable to take another step.

Wiseman bent over him.

"Worth, my dear fellow, what is the matter with you? Does it half kill you to overthrow me at law?"

"I--fear that I am not well," replied Ishmael, in a hollow voice, and with a haggard smile.

"What is it? Only exhaustion, I hope? You have been working too hard, and you never even left the courtroom to take any refreshments to-day. You are too much in earnest, my young friend. You take too much pains. You apply yourself too closely. Why, bless my life, you could floor us all any day with half the trouble! But you must always use a trip-hammer to drive tin tacks. Take my arm, and let us go and get something."

And the stout lawyer drew the young man's arm within his own and led him to a restaurant that was kept on the same floor for the convenience of the courts and their officers and other habitues of the City Hall.

Wiseman called for the best old Otard brandy, and poured out half a tumblerful, and offered it to Ishmael. It was a dose that might have been swallowed with impunity by a seasoned old toper like Wiseman; but certainly not by an abstinent young man like Ishmael, who, yielding to the fatal impulse to get rid of present suffering by any means, at any cost, or any risk, took the tumbler and swallowed the brandy.

Ah, Heaven have mercy on the sorely-tried and tempted!

This was only the third glass of alcoholic stimulants that Ishmael had ever taken in the whole course of his life.

On the first occasion, the day of Claudia's betrothal, the glass had been placed in his hand and urged upon his acceptance by his honored old friend, Judge Merlin.

On the second occasion, the morning of this day, of Claudia's marriage, the glass had also been offered him by Judge Merlin.

And on the third occasion, this afternoon of the terrible day of trial and suffering, it was placed to his lips by the respectable old lawyer, Wiseman.

Alas! alas!

On the first occasion Ishmael had protested long before he yielded; on the second he had hesitated a little while; but on the third he took the offered glass and drank the brandy without an instant's doubt or pause.

Lord, be pitiful!

And oh, Nora, fly down from heaven on wings of love and watch over your son and save him--from his friends!--lest he fall into deeper depths than any from which he has so nobly struggled forth. For he is suffering, tempted, and human! And there never lived but one perfect man, and he was the Son of God.

"Well?" said old Wiseman as he received the glass from Ishmael's hand and sat it down.

"I thank you; it has done me good; I feel much better; you are very kind," said Ishmael.

"I wish you would really think so, and go into partnership with me. My business is very heavy--much more than I can manage alone, now that I am growing old and stout; and I must have somebody, and I would rather have you than anyone else. You would succeed to the whole business after my death, you know."

"Thank you; your offer is very flattering. I will think it over, and talk with you on some future occasion. Now I feel that I must return home, while I have strength to do so," replied Ishmael.

"Very well, then, my dear fellow, I will let you off."

And they shook hands and parted.

Ishmael, feeling soothed, strengthened, and exhilarated, set off to walk home. But this feeling gradually passed off, giving place to a weakness, heaviness, and feverishness, that warned him he was in no state to appear at judge Merlin's dinner table.

So when he approached the house he opened a little side gate leading into the back grounds, and strayed into the shrubbery, feeling every minute more feverish, heavy, and drowsy.

At last he strayed into an arbor, quite at the bottom of the shrubberies, where he sank down upon the circular bench and fell into a deep sleep.

Meanwhile up at the house changes had taken place. The wedding guests had all departed. The festive garments had had been laid away. The decorated dining room had been shut up. The household had returned to its usual sober aspect, and the plain family dinner was laid in the little breakfast parlor. But the house was very sad and silent and lonely because its queen was gone. At the usual dinner-hour, six o'clock, the family assembled at the table.

"Where is Ishmael, uncle?" inquired Beatrice.

"I do not know, my dear," replied the judge, whose heart was sore with the wrench that had torn his daughter from him.

"Do you, papa?"

"No, dear."

"Mamma, have you seen Ishmael since the morning?"

"No, child."

"Nor you, Walter?"

"Nor I, Bee."

Mr. Brudenell looked up at the fair young creature, who took such thought of his absent son, and volunteered to say:

"He had a case before the Orphans' Court to-day, I believe. But the court is adjourned, I know, because I met the judge an hour ago at the Capitol; so I suppose he will be here soon."

Bee bowed in acknowledgment of this information, but she did not feel at all reassured. She had noticed Ishmael's dreadful pallor that morning; she felt how much he suffered, and she feared some evil consequences; though her worst suspicions never touched the truth.

"Uncle," she said, blushing deeply to be obliged still to betray her interest in one whom she was forced to remember, because everyone else forgot him, "uncle, had we not better send Powers up to Ishmael's room to see if he has come in, and let him know that dinner is on the table?"

"Certainly, my dear; go, Powers, and if Mr. Worth is in his room, let him know that dinner is ready."

Powers went, but soon returned with the information that Mr. Worth was neither in his room nor in the office, nor anywhere else in the house.

"Some professional business has detained him; he will be home after a while," said the judge.

But Bee was anxious, and when dinner was over she went upstairs to a window that overlooked the Avenue, and watched; but, of course, in vain. Then with the restlessness common to intense anxiety she came down and went into the shrubbery to walk. She paced about very uneasily until she had tired herself, and then turned towards a secluded arbor at the bottom of the grounds to rest herself. She put aside the vines that overhung the doorway and entered.

What did she see?

Ishmael extended upon the bench, with the late afternoon sun streaming through a crevice in the arbor, shining full upon his face, which was also plagued with flies!

She had found him then, but how?

At first she thought he was only sleeping; and she was about to withdraw from the arbor when the sound of his breathing caught her ear and alarmed her, and she crept back and cautiously approached and looked over him.

His face was deeply flushed; the veins of his temples were swollen; and his breathing was heavy and labored. In her fright Bee caught up his hand and felt his pulse. It was full, hard, and slowly throbbing. She thought that he was very ill--dangerously ill, and she was about to spring up and rush to the house for help, when, in raising her head, she happened to catch his breath.

And all the dreadful truth burst upon Bee's mind, and overwhelmed her with mortification and despair!

With a sudden gasp and a low wail she sank on her knees at his side and dropped her head in her open hands and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, Ishmael, Ishmael, is it so? Have I lived to see you thus? Can a woman reduce a man to this? A proud and selfish woman have such power so to mar God's noblest work? Oh, Ishmael, my love, my love! I love you better than I love all the world besides! And I love you better than anyone else ever did or ever can; yet, yet, I would rather see you stark dead before me than to see you thus! Oh, Heaven! Oh, Saviour! Oh, Father of Mercies, have pity on him and save him!" she cried.

And she wrung her hands and bent her head to look at him more closely, and her large tears dropped upon his face.

He stirred, opened his eyes, rolled them heavily, became half conscious of someone weeping over him, turned clumsily and relapsed into insensibility.

At his first motion Bee had sprung up and fled from the arbor, at the door of which she stood, with throbbing heart, watching him, through the vines. She saw that he had again fallen into that deep and comatose sleep. And she saw that his flushed and fevered face was more than ever exposed to the rays of the sun and the plague of the flies. And she crept cautiously back again, and drew her handkerchief from her pocket and laid it over his face, and turned and hurried, broken-spirited from the spot.

She gained her own room and threw herself into her chair in a passion of tears and sobs.

Nothing that had ever happened in all her young life had ever grieved her anything like this. She had loved Ishmael with all her heart, and she knew that Ishmael loved Claudia with all of his; but the knowledge of this fact had never brought to her the bitter sorrow that the sight of Ishmael's condition had smitten her with this afternoon. For there was scarcely purer love among the angels in heaven than was that of Beatrice for Ishmael. First of all she desired his good; next his affection; next his presence; but there was scarcely selfishness enough in Bee's nature to wish to possess him all for her own.

First his good! And here, weeping, sobbing, and praying by turns, she resolved to devote herself to that object; to do all that she possibly could to shield him from the suspicion of this night's event; and to save him from falling into a similar misfortune.

She remained in her own room until tea-time, and then bathed her eyes, and smoothed her hair, and went down to join the family at the table.

"Well, Bee," said the judge, "have you found Ishmael yet?"

Bee hesitated, blushed, reflected a moment, and then answered:

"Yes, uncle; he is sleeping; he is not well; and I would not have him disturbed if I were you; for sleep will do him more good than anything else."

"Certainly. Why, Bee, did you ever know me to have anybody waked up in the whole course of my life? Powers, and the rest of you, hark ye: Let no one call Mr. Worth. Let him sleep until the last trump sounds, or until he wakes up of his own accord!"

Powers bowed, and said he would see the order observed.

Soon after tea was over, the family, fatigued with the day's excitement, retired to bed.

Bee went up to her room in the back attic; but she did not go to bed, or even undress, for she knew that Ishmael was locked out; and so she threw a light shawl around her, and seated herself at the open back window, which from its high point of view commanded every nook and cranny of the back grounds, to watch until Ishmael should wake up and approach the house, so that she might go down and admit him quietly, without disturbing the servants and exciting their curiosity and conjectures. No one should know of Ishmael's misfortune, for she would not call it fault, if any vigilance of hers could shield him. All through the still evening, all through the deep midnight, Bee sat and watched.

When Ishmael had fallen asleep, the sun was still high above the Western horizon; but when he awoke the stars were shining.

He raised himself to a sitting posture, and looked around him, utterly bewildered and unable to collect his scattered faculties, or to remember where he was, or how he came there, or what had occurred, or who he himself really was--so deathlike had been his sleep.

He had no headache; his previous habits had been too regular, his blood was too pure, and the brandy was too good for that. He was simply bewildered, but utterly bewildered, as though he had waked up in another world.

He was conscious of a weight upon his heart, but could not remember the cause of it; and whether it was grief or remorse, or both, he could not tell. He feared that it was both.

Gradually memory and misery returned to him; the dreadful day; the marriage; the feast; the parting; the lawsuit; the two glasses of brandy, and their mortifying consequences. All the events of that day lay clearly before him now--that horrible day begun in unutterable sorrow, and ended in humiliating sin!

Was it himself, Ishmael Worth, who had suffered this sorrow, yielded to this temptation, and fallen into this sin? To what had his inordinate earthly affections brought him? He was no longer "the chevalier without fear and without reproach." He had fallen, fallen, fallen!

He remembered that when he had sunk to sleep the sun was shining and smiling all over the beautiful garden, and that even in his half-drowsy state he had noticed its glory. The sun was gone now. It had set upon his humiliating weakness. The day had given up the record of his sin and passed away forever. The day would return no more to reproach him, but its record would meet him in the judgment.

He remembered that once in his deep sleep he had half awakened and found what seemed a weeping angel bending over him, and that he had tried to rouse himself to speak; but in the effort he had only turned over and tumbled into a deeper oblivion than ever.

Who was that pitying angel visitant?

The answer came like a shock of electricity. It was Bee! Who else should it have been? It was Bee! She had sought him out when he was lost; she had found him in his weakness; she had dropped tears of love and sorrow over him.

At that thought new shame, new grief, new remorse swept in upon his soul.

He sprang upon his feet, and in doing so dropped a little white drift upon the ground. He stooped and picked it up.

It was the fine white handkerchief that on first waking up he had plucked from his face. And he knew by its soft thin feeling and its delicate scent of violets, Bee's favorite perfume, that it was her handkerchief, and she had spread it as a veil over his exposed and feverish, face. That little wisp of cambric was redolent of Bee! of her presence, her purity, her tenderness.

It seemed a mere trifle; but it touched the deepest springs of his heart, and, holding it in both his hands, he bowed his humbled head upon it and wept.

When a man like Ishmael weeps it is no gentle summer shower, I assure you; but as the breaking up of great fountains, the rushing of mighty torrents, the coming of a flood.

He wept long and convulsively. And his deluge of tears relieved his surcharged heart and brain and did him good. He breathed more freely; he wiped his face with this dear handkerchief, and then, all dripping wet with tears as it was, he pressed it to his lips and placed it in his bosom, over his heart, and registered a solemn vow in Heaven that this first fault of his life should also, with God's help, be his last.

Then he walked forth into the starlit garden, murmuring to himself:

"By a woman came sin and death into the world, and by a woman came redemption and salvation. Oh, Claudia, my Eve, farewell! farewell! And Bee, my Mary, hail!"

The holy stars no longer looked down reproachfully upon him; the harmless little insect-choristers no longer mocked him; love and forgiveness beamed down from the pure light of the first, and cheering hope sounded in the gleeful songs of the last.

Ishmael walked up the gravel-walk between the shrubbery and the house. Once, when his face was towards the house, he looked up at Bee's back window. It was open, and he saw a white, shadowy figure just within it.

Was it Bee?

His heart assured him that it was; and that anxiety for him had kept her there awake and watching.

As he drew near the house, quite uncertain as to how he should get in, he saw that the shadowy, white figure disappeared from the window; and when he went up to the back door, with the intention of rapping loudly until he should wake up the servants and gain admission, his purpose was forestalled by the door being softly opened by Bee, who stood with a shaded taper behind it.

"Oh, Bee!"

"Oh, Ishmael!"

Both spoke at once, and in a tone of irrepressible emotion.

"Come in, Ishmael," she next said kindly.

"You know, Bee?" he asked sadly, as he entered.

"Yes, Ishmael! Forgive me for knowing, for it prevented others finding out. And your secret could not rest safer, or with a truer heart than mine."

"I know it, dear Bee! dear sister, I know it. And Bee, listen! That glass of brandy was only the third of any sort of spirituous liquor that I ever tasted in my life. And I solemnly swear in the presence of Heaven and before you that it shall be the very last! Never, no, never, even as a medicine, will I place the fatal poison to my lips again."

"I believe you, Ishmael. And I am very happy. Thank God!" she said, giving him her hand.

"Dear Bee! Holy angel! I am scarcely worthy to touch it," he said, bowing reverently over that little white hand.

"'There shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.' Good-night, Ishmael!" said Bee sweetly, as she put the taper in his hand and glided like a spirit from his presence.

She was soon sleeping beside her baby sister.

And Ishmael went upstairs to bed. And the troubled night closed in peace.

The further career of Ishmael, together with the after fate of all the characters mentioned in this work, will be found in the sequel to and final conclusion of this volume, entitled, "Self-Raised; or, From the Depths."