"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, ecarte, 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.