II.
“The house rests not on the earth, but on the wife.”—Servian Proverb.
Mr. Henry Denvil arose at ten o’clock on the morning of the 24th of November. His head ached; his recollections of the previous evening were confused, further than a conviction that he had partaken of a champagne supper at the hotel, and played cards for money afterward with Jacques Robin and his wife. A man must occupy his evenings in some way.
The habits of earlier life were still sufficiently strong to render him ashamed of having slept until ten o’clock. He drank his coffee hastily, pressed his slouch hat down over his brow, and did not glance at the hotel as he walked along the village street to the foundry. Eyes were watching him from a window of that same hotel, however—keen eyes, given to studying the world for their own ends, and which now observed the figure and gait of Henry Denvil as he passed with a certain speculative interest. These eyes belonged to a woman, plain, no longer young, her sole attractions a soft voice and pleasing manner; and a small, meagre man, wiry as a grasshopper, with gray hair, a yellow skin, large nose, and a peevish mouth. In the faces of both husband and wife was a hungry, pinched look. Years of poverty sometimes sets such a seal on the human countenance.
This couple were Monsieur Jacques Robin and his wife, emigrants from Heaven knows what past life in their native land, and now dwelling drearily, it must be confessed, in the one tavern of Foundryville—a mere hamlet back among the mountains of Pennsylvania. A year previously Monsieur Robin had applied for the post of clerk in the foundry, and obtaining the modest situation, madame had subsequently appeared on the scene. If existence had been dull for Mrs. Denvil up here among the hills, how much more so was it likely to prove for a woman of Madame Robin’s abilities! She took to studying Henry Denvil, and her sky cleared. She knew every particular of his history and family before he even saw her. When he did observe her, Madame Robin made no impression on him beyond being genteel and modest in appearance. Wait! A foreigner soured by poverty, endowed by nature with artfulness, knowledge of humanity in its baser aspects, a certain feline patience, may achieve much in a hamlet among the hills.
On this morning Monsieur Robin had run up from the foundry with a letter for his wife. She read it eagerly.
“It is as I thought!” she exclaimed. “Gustave was always clever at discovery. He has managed to communicate with Mrs. Denvil’s own maid at Rome, and learned enough. She will always make excuse to live in Europe, the people flatter her, and she is already much talked about as having fallen in love with the Roman Count Martellini.”
“Well?” said the husband, doubtfully, irritably.
“I tell you I have them all here in the palm of my hand,” retorted madame, with kindling excitement. “In another year I shall be installed as housekeeper in the proprietor’s house. You will not only amuse him with cards in the evening, but gain his confidence. Chut! There are secrets to be sold in business to rival houses if necessary. He is a stupid man, without intimate friends, and wholly unsuspicious. He is no match for us. If madame deserts her home for Paris and Rome, ma foi! it is our opportunity.”
The speaker’s dark face flushed, and her eyes glittered. Monsieur Robin returned to the foundry with his figure rather more erect than usual. Feminine enthusiasm is frequently contagious.
In the mean while Henry Denvil had reached his place of business. The European mail also brought him a letter from his wife, inclosing another from his little Cecilia. In this home correspondence Mrs. Denvil always dwelt on the development of her children. Was she not living abroad to educate them? Was she not wintering in Rome to benefit Cecilia’s delicate throat? For this end she required more and more money.
Mr. Denvil read his daughter’s note first, and smiled at the request that he should come to Rome for Christmas-day. Then he leaned his head on his hand, and tapped his desk with his penknife, absently. How the years slipped away! What had he to anticipate in the clouded future? Would these children, now receiving a foreign education, ever return contentedly to live at Foundryville? Well, they were Augusta’s children, and she was an ambitious mother. He made no complaint at the prolonged absence of his family; he was used to it. He never failed to send the required remittances. “The money belongs to Augusta,” he always said to himself. Besides, his own expenses were small. One by one the rooms of his large house had been closed through disuse, and a half-grown boy waited on him in the wing. Dust had settled on the rich furniture ordered years ago with such pride to make a fitting nest for his bride; rust gnawed the mute strings of his daughter’s piano; the conservatory had been abandoned; the garden was neglected. Henry Denvil had never been an epicure; now he lived from hand to mouth.
Seventeen years before, he had arrived at Foundryville, a man of forty, who had worked hard for the money he was prepared to invest in the foundry. The death of the previous owner compelled his widow to sell out at a sacrifice. Henry Denvil made a good bargain, instituted energetic reforms in the works, lived altogether at Foundryville, gained the confidence of his miners and “hands” by being one of them, and prospered. His predecessor’s widow adjusted the exchange of property in the presence of her daughter Augusta, a beautiful girl of eighteen. Plain Henry Denvil, accustomed to toil-worn women in calico gowns, was dazzled by the graceful manners, white hands, and elegance of these two fashionable ladies. He fell in love for the first time, was encouraged to pay his addresses, married Augusta, and built the large house at Foundryville. His wife was above him in birth, education, and social position; his mother-in-law, during her lifetime, never permitted him to forget this circumstance.
Augusta accepted his devotion at first very sweetly, as a matter of course, then a little wearily. The climate of Foundryville gave her neuralgia. She spent whole winters at Washington and in Florida. He could not leave his business for a day without anxiety. The master’s hand must never relax its hold of the helm. He was a proud husband and father; his own nature, sound to the core, accepted without thought of self-sacrifice the enjoyment of his wife in travel. He knew nothing of society, or of the world in which she lived at present. That he placed his family in the peril of evil association in Europe, without himself there as the natural protector, had not once occurred to his mind. Like all men who have earned their own fortune, his first aim had been to bestow on his son and daughter those advantages of study in which his own youth had been deficient. Hence his acquiescence in the plan of sending Jack to Switzerland and Cecilia to Paris, Dresden, or Rome. Mrs. Denvil’s arguments in favor of this arrangement had prevailed. Would not the children have been sent away from Foundryville in any case?
The foundry absorbed his day as the great furnace devoured its fuel. As for his evenings? He was not a reading man; his home was silent and dull. He had acquired the habit of dropping in at the tavern and playing cards with his clerk, M. Jacques Robin. He learned many new games, écarté, baccarat, rouge et noir, among the number. The diversion amused him. Often he found himself speculating as to a mistake made the previous evening in the midst of daily business, or a different plan of playing a winning card the ensuing night.
When the hearthstone is cold, a man seeks forgetfulness elsewhere.
The character of Henry Denvil was on the verge of rapid deterioration. He failed to perceive it. He was puzzled to account for having lost so much money in so short a space of time. That was all. Instinct was at work in the little community, the foundry, where swarthy creatures with bared arms flitted like demons about the great furnace, moulding the fused metal into shapes. These found leisure to curse the “sneaking Frenchman” at the hotel; but the imprecations were gathered up in the whirl and clash of machinery, the din of bells, the hoarse shouting of many voices, and went no further. Outside, the hills towered high above the little hamlet, and the river foamed along the valley. The world was very remote.
“Come to Rome for Christmas,” mused Henry Denvil, still resting his head on his hand, and idly scrawling figures on the back of the letter with a pencil.
The request stung him to the quick. He was not needed to complete the happiness of a Roman Christmas. Was not Madame Robin always so interested to hear about Cecilia? This poor mother had once possessed such a daughter. From these conversations invariably resulted doubt, cynicism, depression. Would his family dwell in peace at dull Foundryville? Alas! no. The coming years were as blank in prospect as was the present in reality, under the subtle suggestions of Madame Robin’s sympathy.
M. Jacques Robin quitted his desk in the corner of the office and approached on tip-toe. Henry Denvil had drawn a card, the ace of diamonds, on the back of his daughter’s letter. M. Robin smirked.
“If you are disengaged at eight o’clock, I should like to show you another game,” he said, in a discreet and respectful tone.
“Yes,” assented the master, moodily.
The November night settled gloomily on Foundryville. Mist swathed the hill-tops and rolled along the slopes, the rain fell monotonously, and the river, invisible in the darkness, mingled its melancholy music with the fitful soughing of the wind. Lights gleamed in the windows of the houses; occasionally a great glare illuminated the whole village; the withered foliage glowed in the shaft of crimson fire; far below, the water twinkled and rippled as if reflecting a conflagration: it was the hour of casting at the foundry, when the chimney belched its volumes of smoke, and the molten iron poured forth in rivulets, like a lava torrent, in the black void of the vast building.
Up in the master’s home a single feeble ray was visible in the inhabited wing. Henry Denvil had fallen asleep in his chair. He awoke, looked at his watch, and rose. Eight o’clock. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the glass; it was pale and worn. He resumed his chair. The clock ticked in-doors; the rain fell steadily out-of-doors. The lamp had been so placed that its rays fell on a portrait opposite his chair. This portrait represented his daughter Cecilia at the age of ten—a charming blonde head, skilfully treated by the artist, and the large eyes were turned full upon him with a frank intelligence. Henry Denvil was not of an imaginative temperament; his prime had been too fully occupied for idle reveries; but now solitude was rendering him sensitive to morbid influences. When he awoke he became vividly, intensely conscious of the gaze of this picture fixed on himself. He sat motionless, and studied it, instead of going out. Nine o’clock. A tap at the door, and M. Jacques Robin stood on the threshold, deferential in manner, wet as to garments, having awaited his guest for an hour. Henry Denvil laughed loudly, almost roughly, seized his hat, and sought the village tavern.
The play was reckless that night. The visitor was in the mood for high stakes. Monsieur Robin lost and won without the quiver of an eyelash or a change of hue in the dull opacity of his complexion. Henry Denvil lost and won with the veins growing knotted and prominent in forehead and temple, and his color deepening from red to crimson. Madame Robin, cool and quiet, crocheted little threads of silk together into a golden mesh with a sharp and slender needle, and from time to time served the gentlemen with wine.
Eleven o’clock. Some person tapped Henry Denvil on the shoulder. He glanced up impatiently, with bloodshot eyes. The landlord of the tavern gave him a telegram, while the official who had brought it waited at the door. He read:
“Come to us immediately. Cecilia has been run over. Tell me what to do.—Augusta Denvil.”
Then he was standing outside in the dark night, the rain, chill and dreary as destiny, beating on his bare head, while the clouds rolled low, and the river sent up its murmur from the valley below. His little girl would be dead, he felt convinced, before he could reach her.