Stories by American Authors Volume VII Part 16

The image stood on the table, and the candle was flaring low in the socket. Her arms were stiff, her body cold--hours must have elapsed.

She shivered, a sob burst from her throat, and she sought her bed.

Mrs. Denvil returned from her ball at that moment. The dressing-room had been restored to order by the sleepy maid. The lady drew a slip of perfumed note-paper from her glove. Her eyes were very bright, her lips parched. The note implored her, in the most flowery Italian, to consent to the Nile voyage, as the Countess di Moccoli would also go in that case. Mrs. Denvil laughed her carefully acquired little laugh of studied indifference, and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was not too old to be admired, although her daughter was fifteen.

The dream of Alfredo, Count Martellini, was to make a Nile voyage in her company. People would talk, of course. People always talk scandal about somebody. The pretty woman, with her insatiable vanity, was already drifting on a rapid current from which there was no escape. Well, she was not alone. All the gay ladies and men of her acquaintance were also afloat on the same perilous stream. By and by they would reach the Niagara brink; then, with a dash and a plunge, all would be over. The end? They would have lived, drained the goblet, and flung it away. When it is fashionable to exaggerate sentiment in every phase, women of Mrs. Denvil's type, fond of luxury and extravagance, intoxicated with dissipation in foreign cities, do not place themselves in the rear ranks.

She tore the note into bits, and smiled again in the mirror. A pale light pa.s.sed over the gla.s.s surface, blue and ghostly; the reflected face grew haggard; patches of rouge stood out on the cheeks; dark shadows gathered beneath the eyes; even the careful coiffure was dishevelled; a stain of wine was visible on the satin gown; powder became glaringly apparent on the dimpled shoulder. The enemy was dawn of a day destined to mark the crisis in Augusta Denvil's life. She shrank from it, without knowing why, and drew the heavy curtains.

Five o'clock on the Pincian Hill, with the setting sun casting its ruddy rays over the city spires and roofs. The band was playing, the carriages wending slowly up the drive, the children darting about the flower beds, where the fountain sparkled. Mrs. Denvil's maroon liveries and spirited horses had already made the circuit, the lady in pale turquoise blue betraying none of the fatigue of dawn, and receiving complacently that homage of admiration which Italy never fails to bestow on an attractive woman in a fine equipage. The Countess di Moccoli had left her own phaeton for a seat beside Mrs.

Denvil--an attention the most gratifying in public--to discuss the Nile voyage. Also the Count Martellini, in faultless attire, a jasmine blossom in his b.u.t.tonhole, and yellow gloves, having a.s.sisted at this exchange, had consented to take a seat opposite the two ladies. He seldom drove with Mrs. Denvil. The count punctiliously observed appearances. He did not dislike the circulation of a rumor which elected him as the devoted cavalier of the rich American lady--a position which kept other men at a distance.

Cecilia darted forward from a sheltered path and laid her hand on the carriage door. Her look was troubled and perplexed. Suspicion had taken no positive form in her mind; she was merely striving to read San Donato's message, which had haunted her memory all day: "These through great affliction came, but they never swerved from duty. Are you afraid?"

"Mamma, come home with me!" she cried, clinging to the door.

"You here, Cecilia!" the mother exclaimed.

"Yes; come home," she reiterated.

"You must sit beside me and take a drive instead," interposed the count, quick to avert a scene.

"No; do not touch _me_," said Cecilia, her large eyes flashing.

"Jealousy," thought the Countess di Moccoli.

Mrs. Denvil shook her finger playfully at the intruder, and resumed her conversation. She supposed mademoiselle was back among the trees.

Mademoiselle was at home; Cecilia had run away from her to follow her mamma. This was the girl's reading of San Donato's message. She drew back, hurt and offended. She had failed. The slight childish form crossed to the parapet, and stood there, looking down on the Piazza del Popolo, where the pedestrians were dwarfed to pigmies. She thought of her absent father, who represented ever an earthly providence to her, by reason of mademoiselle's admonition, the supply of pin-money, and the letters she wrote under dictation. She idealized this distant yet benign influence. Behind her the crowd increased, the music rose and fell, the carriages moved rapidly past each other in a maze of wheels. On the horizon the red ball of a sun dipped, shedding a tremulous rosy mist over St. Peter's dome.

Cecilia turned, saw her mother's landau again approaching, yielded to a childish impulse, and ran toward it, repenting of her rudeness to the count. He had always been so gentle, so tender with her, from the first. Her eyes were fixed on the maroon liveries; she strove to attract the count's notice, approached the brink of gliding vehicles, then her foot slipped on the freshly sprinkled gravel; she fell, and the carriage pa.s.sed over her.

A little heap lay in the road; other horses were reined in furiously, not to trample on it as well. The American lady had run over her own child. That blood-curdling shriek of horror! that jolt on a soft yielding substance was the pa.s.sage of her wheels on her flesh, the additional weight of stout Countess di Moccoli and of Count Martellini aiding, if possible, in crushing out a fragile existence.

Later the count was confronted by a white stricken woman. He was full of sympathy and pity for his playmate; tears stood in his beautiful eyes.

"Leave us alone!" she said, fiercely, even wildly.

The count shrugged his shoulders, frowned, and departed. Palpable injustice in the capricious creature woman. He was a philosopher, and appeared at a diplomatic reception that evening. Matters might have been worse. As a sentimentalist he had made as much love as he dared to a pretty married woman whose husband was absent, while she was manifestly flattered by his attentions. Practically speaking, he as an impoverished n.o.ble had reaped advantage from his place as habitue of the circle of a rich American in a land where a nice percentage exists on custom. He had directed the money of Henry Denvil into those channels of expenditure which would benefit himself by skilful advice.

The Nile voyage would set the world wholly at defiance.

Stout, good-natured Countess di Moccoli also appeared at the diplomatic reception that evening, and we may rest a.s.sured no mention was made of a young girl having been run over at the Pincio in the gilded salons where both moved. One does not mention illness and death in gilded salons, amid the ripple of music and laughter. One frequents these resorts to forget, if possible, such grim and ghastly realities.

Thus closed the 23d of November, 18--.

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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.shopper, 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 antic.i.p.ate 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, inst.i.tuted 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 circ.u.mstance.

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 a.s.sociation 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 s.p.a.ce 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 hoa.r.s.e 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," a.s.sented 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.