The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

however, she had become reconciled to it, and taken up this habit of economizing with unflinching severity, and down to the smallest details. At present, she felt in these very privations a kind of secret satisfaction which results from the sense of having accomplished a duty,—a satisfaction all the greater, the harder the duty is.

What duty, she did not say.

“That lady is a noble creature among many!” said Henrietta to herself that night, when she retired after a modest repast.

Still she could not get over the mystery which surrounded the lives of these two personages, whom fate, relenting at last, had placed in her way. What was the mystery in the past of this brother and sister? For there was one; and, so far from trying to conceal it, they had begged Henrietta not to inquire into it. And how was their past connected with her own past? How could their future depend in any way on her own future?

But fatigue soon made an end to her meditations, and confused her ideas; and, for the first time in two years, she fell asleep with a sense of perfect security; she slept peacefully, without starting at the slightest noise, without being troubled by silence, without wondering whether her enemies were watching her, without suspecting the very walls of her room.

When she awoke next morning, calm and refreshed, it was broad daylight, nearly ten o’clock; and a pale ray of the sun was playing over the polished furniture. When she opened her eyes, she saw the dealer’s sister standing at the foot of her bed, like a good genius who had been watching over her slumbers.

“Oh, how lazy I am!” she exclaimed with the hearty laugh of a child; for she felt quite at home in this little bedroom, where she had only spent a night; she felt as much at home here as in her father’s palace when her mother was still alive; and it seemed to her as if she had lived here many a year.

“My brother was here about half an hour ago to talk with you,” said the old lady; “but we did not like to wake you. You needed repose so much! He will be back in the evening, and dine with us.”

The bright smile which had lighted up Henrietta’s face went out instantly. Absorbed in the happiness of the moment, she had forgotten every thing; and these few words brought her back to the reality of her position, and recalled to her the sufferings of the past and the uncertainty of the future.

The good widow in the meantime assisted her in getting up; and they spent the day together in the little parlor, busily cutting out and making up a black silk dress for which Papa Ravinet had brought the material in the morning, and which was to take the place of Henrietta’s miserable, worn-out, alpaca dress. When the young girl had first seen the silk, she had remembered all the kind widow had told her of their excessive economy, and with difficulty only succeeded in checking her tears.

“Why should you go to such an expense?” she had said very sadly. “Would not a woollen dress have done quite as well? The hospitality which you offer me must in itself be quite a heavy charge upon you. I should never forgive myself for becoming a source of still greater privations to such very kind friends.”

But the old lady shook her head, and replied,—

“Don’t be afraid, child. We have money enough.”

They had just lighted the lamp, when they heard a key in the outer door; and a moment later Papa Ravinet appeared. He was very red; and, although it was freezing outdoors, he was streaming with perspiration.

“I am exhausted,” he said, sinking into, an armchair, and wiping his forehead with his broad checkered handkerchief. “You cannot imagine how I have been running about to-day! I wanted to take an omnibus to come home, but they were all full.”

Henrietta jumped up, and exclaimed,—

“You have been to see my father?”

“No, madam. A week ago already, Count Ville-Handry left his palace.”

A mad thought, the hope that her father might have separated from his wife, crossed Henrietta’s mind.

“And the countess,” she asked,—“the Countess Sarah?”

“She has gone with her husband. They live in Peletier Street, in a modest apartment just above the office of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Company. Sir Thorn and Mrs. Brian are there also. They have only kept two servants,—Ernest, the count’s valet, and a certain Clarissa.”

The name of the vile creature whose treachery had been one of the principal causes of Henrietta’s misfortunes did not strike her ear.

“How could my father ever be induced to leave his home?” she asked.

“He sold it, madam, ten days ago.”

“Great God! My father must be ruined!”

The old man bowed his head.

“Yes!”

Thus were the sad presentiments realized which she had felt when first she had heard Count Ville-Handry speak of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Company. But never, oh, never! would she have imagined so sudden a downfall.

“My father ruined!” she repeated, as if she were unable to realize the precise meaning of these words.

“And only a year ago he had more than a hundred thousand dollars a year. Six millions swallowed up in twelve months!—six millions!”

And as the enormous amount seemed to be out of all proportion to the shortness of time, she said,—

“It cannot be. You must be mistaken, sir; they have misled you.”

A smile of bitter irony passed over the old dealer’s lips. He replied, as if much puzzled by Henrietta’s doubts,—

“What, madam, you do not see yet? Alas! what I tell you is but too true; and, if you want proofs”—

He drew a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to Henrietta, pointing out to her on the first page an article marked with a red pencil.

“There!” he said.

It was one of those financial sheets which arise every now and then, and which profess to teach the art of becoming rich in a very short time, without running any risk. This paper bore a title calculated to reassure its readers. It was called “Prudence.” Henrietta read aloud,—

“We shall never tire repeating to our subscribers the words which form our motto and our heading, ‘Prudence, prudence! Do not trust new enterprises!’

“Out of a hundred enterprises which appear in the market, it may safely be said that sixty are nothing but the simplest kind of wells, into which the capital of foolhardy speculators is sunk almost instantly. Out of the remaining forty, twenty-five may be looked upon as suspicious enterprises, partaking too much of gambling speculations. Among the last fifteen even, a careful choice must be made before we find out the few that present safe guarantees.”