The Unseen Bridgegroom by May Agnes Fleming

M >> May Agnes Fleming >> The Unseen Bridgegroom

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

The last bandage dropped to the ground--eyes, hands, mouth were free.
But Mr. Rashleigh could make no use of his freedom; he sat pale,
benumbed, confounded, helpless.

"Rouse yourself, my dear sir," said his persecutor, giving him a gentle
shake; "don't drop into a cataleptic trance. Look up and speak to me."

The reverend gentleman did look up, and uttered a sort of scream at
sight of the ugly black mask frowning ghastily down upon him.

"Don't be alarmed," said the masked man, soothingly; "no harm is meant
you. My mask won't hurt you. I merely don't want you to recognize me
to-morrow, should we chance to meet. My bride will be masked, too, and
you will marry us by our Christian names alone. Hers is Mary; mine is
Ernest. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes!" responded Mr. Rashleigh, quaking with unutterable terror.
Oh! was this a dreadful nightmare, induced by a too luxurious dinner,
or was it a horrible reality?

"And you are ready to perform the ceremony? to ask no questions? to
marry us, and be gone?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Oh, good heavens!" groaned the Reverend Raymond: "am I
asleep or awake?"

"Very well, then," said this dreadful man in the mask; "I will go for
the bride. She is Mary, remember; I am Ernest I will return in a
moment."

He quitted the room. Mr. Rashleigh stared helplessly about him, in a
pitiable state of terror and bewilderment. The room was large, well,
even elegantly, furnished, with nothing at all remarkable about, its
elegance; such another as Mr. Rashleigh's own drawing-room at home. It
was lighted by a cluster of gas-jets, and the piano, the arm-chairs, the
sofas, the tables, the pictures, were all very handsome and very common,
indeed.

Ten minutes elapsed. The commonplace, everyday look of the mysterious
room did more toward reassuring the trembling prelate than all the
masked man's words.

The door opened, and the masked man stalked in again, this time with a
lady hanging on his arm.

The lady was small and slender, robed in flowing white silk; a rich
veil of rare lace falling over her from head to foot like a cloud; a
wreath of orange-blossoms on her fair head; jewels sparkling about
her--everything just as it should be, save that, the face was hidden. A
mask of white silk, giving her a corpse-like and ghastly look, covered
it from forehead to chin.

The very respectable young woman who had inveigled him out of his study,
and a slouchy-looking young man followed, and took their places behind
the masked pair.

"Begin," authoritatively commanded the bridegroom.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh stood up. It was a wild and lawless
proceeding, and all wrong; but life is sweet to portly prelates of
sixty, and he stood up and began at once.

Mr. Rashleigh needed no book--he knew the marriage service as pat as his
prayers. The ring was at hand; the questions were asked; the responses
made.

In five minutes the two masks were man and wife.

"Make out a certificate of marriage," said the bridegroom; "these two
people will be witnesses. Their names are Sarah Grant and John Jones."

Pens, ink and paper were placed before him. Mr. Rashleigh essayed to
write, as well as his trembling fingers would allow him, and handed a
smeared and blotted document to the bridegroom.

"You will enter this marriage on your register, Mr. Rashleigh," said the
man. "I am very much obliged to you. Pray accept this for your trouble."

_This_ was a glistening rouleau of gold. Mr. Rashleigh liked gold, and
in spite of his trepidation, managed to put it in his pocket.

"Now, my dear," the happy man said, turning to the little white bride,
"you and Sarah had better retire. Our reverend friend will wish to
return home. I must see him there."

The bride and her attendant left the room without a word. The bridegroom
produced the bandages again.

"I regret the necessity, but I must bind you again. However, it will not
be for long; in a couple of hours you will be at home."

With wonderful skill and rapidity, hands, eyes, and mouth were bound
once more; the parson was led down-stairs, out into the wet night, and
back to his seat in the carriage. The masked man took his place beside
him. John Jones mounted to the driver's perch, and they were off like
the wind.

The promised two hours were very long to the rector, but they ended at
last. The carriage stopped abruptly; he was helped out, and the bandage
taken from his eyes and hands.

"The other must remain for a moment or two," said the mysterious man
with the mask, speaking rapidly. "You are at the corner of your own
street. Good-bye, and many thanks!"

He sprung into the carriage, and it was gone like a flash. And the
Reverend Raymond Rashleigh, in the gray and dismal dawn of a wet
morning, was left all agape in the deserted street.

CHAPTER IX.

ONE WEEK AFTER.

On that eventful night of wind and rain upon which the Reverend Raymond
Rashleigh performed that mysterious midnight marriage, Mr. Carl Walraven
paced alone his stately library, lost in thought--painful thought; for
his dark brows were contracted, and the Grecian heads in the brackets
around him had no severer lines than those about his mouth.

While he paces up and down, up and down, like some restless ghost, the
library door opens, and his wife, magnificently arrayed, with jewels in
her raven hair, a sparkling fan dangling from her wrist, an odor of rich
perfume following her, appears before him like a picture in a frame.

She is superbly handsome in that rose-colored opera-cloak, and she knows
it, and is smiling graciously; but the swarth frown on her husband's
face only grows blacker as he looks at her.

"You are going, then?" said Mr. Carl Walraven.

"Going?" Mrs. Walraven arches her black eyebrows in pretty surprise at
the word. "Of course, my dear. I would not miss 'Robert le Diable' and
the charming new tenor for worlds."

"Nor would you obey your husband for worlds, madame. I expressly desired
you to stay at home."

"I know it, my love. Should be happy to oblige you, but in this case it
is simply impossible."

"Have you no regard for the opinion of the world?"

"Every regard, my dear."

"What do you suppose society will say to see you at the opera, dressed
like a queen, while we are all mourning poor Mollie's loss?"

"Society will say, if society has common sense, that Mrs. Walraven
scorns to play hypocrite. I don't care for Mollie Dane--I never did
care for her--and I don't mourn her loss in the least. I don't care
that"--the lady snapped her jeweled fingers somewhat vulgarly--"if I
never see her again. It is as well to tell you the truth, my dear. One
should have no secrets from one's husband, they say."

She laughed lightly, and drew her opera-cloak up over her superb bare
shoulders. Mr. Walraven's darkest scowl did not intimidate her in the
least.

"Leave the room, madame!" ordered her husband, authoritatively; "and
take you care that I don't assert my right and compel you to obey me,
before long."

"Compel!" It was such a good joke that Mrs. Blanche's silvery laugh rang
through the apartment. "You compelled me once, against my will, when you
took your ward with you on your wedding-tour. I don't think it will ever
happen again, Mr. Walraven. And now, how do you like my dress? I came in
expressly to ask you, for the carriage waits."

"Leave the room!" cried Carl Walraven, in a voice of thunder. "Be gone!"

"You are violent," said Blanche, with a provoking shrug and smile, but
prudently retreating. "You forget your voice may be heard beyond this
room. Since you lost your ward you appear also to have lost your
temper--never of the best, I must say. Well, my love, by-bye for the
present. Don't quite wear out the carpet before I return."

With the last sneer and a sweeping bow, the lady quitted the library. As
she closed the door, the house-bell rang violently.

"The devoted baronet, no doubt," she said to herself, with an unpleasant
smile; "come to condole with his brother in affliction. Poor old noodle!
Truly, a fool of forty will never be wise! A fool of seventy, in his
case."

One of the tall footmen opened the door. But it was not the stately
baronet. The footman recoiled with a little yelp of terror--he had
admitted this visitor before. A gaunt and haggard woman, clad in rags,
soaking with rain--a wretched object as ever the sun shone on.

"Is Carl Walraven within?" demanded this grisly apparition, striding in
and confronting the tottering footman with blazing black eyes. "Tell him
Miriam is here."

The footman recoiled further with another feeble yelp, and Blanche
Walraven haughtily and angrily faced the intruder.

"Who are you?"

The blazing eyes burning in hollow sockets turned upon the glittering,
perfumed vision.

"Who am I? What would you give to know? Who are you? Carl Walraven's
wife, I suppose. His wife! Ha! ha!" she laughed--a weird, blood-curdling
laugh. "I wish you joy of your husband, most magnificent madame! Tell
me, fellow," turning with sudden fierceness upon the dismayed
understrapper, "is your master at home?"

"Y-e-e-s! That is, I think so, ma'am."

"Go and tell him to come here, then. Go, or I'll--"

The dreadful object made one stride toward the lofty servitor, who
turned and fled toward the library.

But Mr. Walraven had heard loud and angry voices, and at this moment the
door opened and he appeared on the threshold.

"What is this?" he demanded, angrily. "What the deuce do you mean,
Wilson, wrangling in the hall? Not gone yet, Blanche? Good Heaven!
Miriam!"

"Yes, Miriam!" She strode fiercely forward. "Yes, Miriam! Come to demand
revenge! Where is Mollie Dane? You promised to protect her, and see how
you keep your word!"

"In the demon's name, hush!" cried Carl Walraven, savagely. "What you
have to say to me, say to me--not to the whole house. Come in here, you
hag of Satan, and blow out as much as you please! Good Lord! Wasn't I in
trouble enough before, without you coming to drive me mad?"

He caught her by one fleshless arm in a sort of frenzy of desperation,
and swung her into the library. Then he turned to his audience of two
with flashing eyes:

"Wilson, be gone! or I'll break every bone in your body! Mrs. Walraven,
be good enough to take yourself off at once. I don't want eavesdroppers."

And having thus paid his elegant lady-wife back in her own coin, Mr.
Walraven stalked into the library like a sulky lion, banged the door and
locked it.

Mrs. Carl stood a moment in petrified silence in the hall, then sailed
in majestic displeasure out of the house, into the waiting carriage, and
was whirled away to the Academy.

"Turn and turn about. Mr. Carl Walraven," she said, between set, white
teeth. "My turn next! I'll ferret out your guilty secrets before long,
as sure as my name is Blanche!"

Mr. Walraven faced Miriam in the library with folded arms and fiery
eyes, goaded to recklessness, a panther at bay.

"Well, you she-devil, what do you want?"

"Mary Dane."

"Find her, then!" said Carl Walraven, fiercely. "I know nothing about
her."

The woman looked at him long and keenly. The change in him evidently
puzzled her.

"You sing a new song lately," she said with deliberation. "Do you want
me to think you are out of my power?"

"Think what you please, and be hanged to you!" howled Mr. Walraven.
"I am driven to the verge of madness among you! Mollie Dane and her
disappearance, my wife and her cursed taunts, you and your infernal
threats! Do your worst, the whole of you! I defy the whole lot!"

"Softly, softly," said Miriam, cooling down as he heated up. "I want an
explanation. You have lost Mollie! How was she lost?"

"Yes--how? You've asked the question, and I wish you would answer it.
I've been driving myself wild over it for the past few days, but I don't
seem to get to the solution. Can't your Familiar," pointing downward,
"help you guess the enigma, Miriam?"

Miriam frowned darkly.

"Do you really intend to say you have not made away with the girl
yourself?"

"Now what does the woman mean by that? What the deuce should I make away
with her for? I liked Mollie--upon my soul I did, Miriam! I liked her
better than any one in this house--the little, saucy, mischievous witch!
She was on the eve of marrying a baronet, and going to her castle in
Spain--I mean in Wales--when, lo! she vanishes like a ghost in a child's
tale. I've scoured the city after her--I've paid detectives fabulous
amounts. I've been worried, and harassed, and goaded, and mystified
until I'm half mad, and here you come with your infernal nonsense about
'making away' with her. That means murdering her, I suppose. I always
took you to be more or less mad, Miriam Dane, but I never before took
you to be a fool."

The woman looked at him keenly--he was evidently telling the truth. Yet
still she doubted.

"Who but you, Carl Walraven, had any interest in her, one way or the
other? What enemies could a girl of sixteen have?"

"Ah! what, indeed? If a girl of sixteen will flirt with every eligible
man she meets until she renders him idiotic, she must expect to pay the
penalty. But I don't pretend to understand this affair; it is wrapped in
blacker mystery than the Man in the Iron Mask. All I've got to say is--I
had no hand in it; so no more of your black looks, Mistress Miriam."

"And all I've got to say, Mr. Walraven," said Miriam, steadfastly
fixing her eyes upon him, "is that if Mollie Dane is not found before
the month is out, I will publish your story to the world. What will
Madame Walraven, what will Mrs. Carl, what will the chief metropolitan
circles say then?"

"You hag of Hades! Ain't you afraid I will strangle you where you stand?"

"Not the least," folding her shawl deliberately around her, and moving
toward the door: "not in the slightest degree. Good-night, Carl
Walraven--I have said it, and I always keep my word."

"Keep it, and--"

But Miriam did not hear that last forcible adjuration. She was out of
the library, and out of the house, ere it was well uttered--lost in the
wet, black night.

Left alone, Carl Walraven resumed his march up and down the apartment,
with a gloomier face and more frowning brows than ever.

It was bad enough before, without this tiger-cat of a Miriam coming to
make things ten times worse. It was all bravado, his defiance of her,
and he knew it. He was completely in her power, to ruin for life if she
chose to speak.

"And she will choose!" growled Carl Walraven, in a rage, "the accursed
old hag! if Mollie Dane doesn't turn up before the month ends. By the
Lord Harry! I'll twist that wizen gullet of hers the next time she shows
her ugly black face here! Confound Mollie Dane and all belonging to her!
I've never known a day's rest since I met them first."

There was a tap at the door. The tall footman threw it open and ushered
in Sir Roger Trajenna. The stately old baronet looked ten years older in
these few days. Anxiety told upon him more hardly than his seventy yews.

"Good-evening, Sir Roger!" cried Mr. Walraven, advancing eagerly. "Any
news of Mollie?"

He expected to hear "No," but the baronet said "Yes." He was deeply
agitated, and held forth, in a hand that shook, a note to Carl Walraven.

"I received that an hour ago, through the post-office. For Heaven's
sake, read, and tell me what you think of it!"

He dropped exhausted into a chair. Carl Walraven tore open the brief
epistle, and devoured its contents:

"SIR ROGER TRAJENNA,--Give up your search for Mollie Dane. It is useless;
a waste of time and money. She is safe and well, and will be at home in a
week, but she will never be your wife.

"ONE WHO KNOWS."

Mr. Walraven read and reread these brief lines, and stood and stared at
Sir Roger Trajenna.

"Good heavens! You got this through the post-office?"

"I did, an hour ago, and came here at once. Do you believe it?"

"How can I tell? Let us hope it may be true. It is of a piece with the
rest of the mystery. The writing, as usual in these anonymous letters,
is disguised. Can Mollie herself be the writer?"

"Mollie!" The baronet grew fearfully pale at the bare suggestion. "Why
on earth should my affianced wife write like that? Don't you see it say
a there, 'She will never be your wife?' Mollie, my bride, would never
say that."

Mr. Walraven was not so sure, but he did not say so. He had very little
faith in Miss Dane's stability, even in a matter of this kind.

"It is the work of some enemy," said Sir Roger, "and, as such, to be
disregarded. Like all anonymous letters, it is only worthy of contempt."

People always say that of anonymous communications; but the anonymous
communications invariably have their effect, notwithstanding.

"I will continue my search," pursued Sir Roger, firmly. "I will offer
yet higher rewards. I will employ still more detectives. I will place
this letter in their hands. No stone shall be left unturned--no money
shall be spared. If I lose Mollie, life is not worth the having."

He rose to go. Mr. Walraven folded up the mysterious epistle and handed
it back.

"I see it is postmarked in the city. If the writer really knows aught of
Mollie, she must be nearer at hand than we imagine. Would to Heaven the
week were up."

"Then you have faith in this?" said the baronet, looking astonished.

"I have hope, my dear sir. It is very easy believing in what we wish to
come true. There may be something in it. Who knows?"

The baronet shook his head.

"I wish I could think so. I sometimes fear we will never see her again.
Poor child! Poor little Mollie! Heaven only knows what you may not have
suffered ere this!"

"Let us not despair. Pray, resume your seat. I am quite alone this
stormy night, Sir Roger. Mrs. Walraven has gone to the opera."

But the baronet moved resolutely to the door.

"Thanks, Mr. Walraven; but I am fit company for no one. I have been
utterly miserable since that fatal night. I can find rest nowhere. I
will not inflict my wearisome society upon you, my friend. Good-night!"

The week passed. As Sir Roger said, the inquiries and rewards were
doubled--trebled; but all in vain. No trace--not the faintest shadow of
trace--of the lost one could be found. The mystery deepened and darkened
every day.

The week expired. On its last night there met at the Walraven mansion a
few friends, to debate what steps had better next be taken.

"In the council of many there is wisdom," thought Mr. Carl Walraven; so
that there were present, besides Sir Roger Trajenna, Dr. Oleander, Mr.
Sardonyx, Hugh Ingelow, and one or two more wiseacres, all anxious about
the missing bride.

The bevy of gentlemen were assembled in the drawing-room, conversing
with solemn, serious faces, and many dubious shakes of the head.

Sir Roger sat the picture of pale despair. Mr. Walraven looked harassed
half to death. The other gentlemen, were preternaturally grave.

"It is of no use." Sir Roger was saying. "Those who abducted her have
laid their plans too well. She will never be found."

"Are you sure she was abducted?" asked Dr. Oleander, doubtfully. "Is it
not just possible, my dear Sir Roger, she may have gone off of herself?"

Everybody stared at this audacious suggestion.

"There is no such possibility, Doctor Oleander," said Sir Roger,
haughtily. "The bare insinuation is an insult. Miss Dane was my plighted
wife of her own free will."

"Your pardon, Sir Roger. Yet, please remember, Miss Dane was a highly
eccentric young lady, and the rules that hold good in other cases fail
here. She was accustomed to do most extraordinary things, for the mere
sake of being odd and uncommon, as I take it. Her guardian will bear me
out; therefore I still cling to the possibility."

"Besides, young ladies possessing sound lungs will hardly permit
themselves to be carried off without raising an outcry," said Mr.
Sardonyx; "and in this case there was none. The faintest cry would have
been heard."

"Neither were there any traces of a struggle," put in Mr. Ingelow, "and
the chamber window was found unfastened, as if the bride had loosed it
herself and stepped out."

Sir Roger looked angrily around, with a glance that seemed to ask if
they were all in a conspiracy against him; but, before he could speak,
the door-bell rang loudly.

Mr. Walraven remembered the anonymous note, and started violently. An
instant later, they heard a servant open the door, and then a wild,
ringing shriek echoed through the house.

There was one simultaneous rush out of the drawing-room, and
down-stairs. There, in the hall, stood Wilson, the footman, staring and
gasping as if he had seen a ghost; and there, in the door-way, a
silvery, shining vision, in the snowy bridal robes she had worn last,
stood Mollie Dane!

CHAPTER X.

THE PARSON'S LITTLE STORY.

There was a dead pause; blank amazement sat on every face; no one
stirred for an instant. Then, with a great cry of joy, the Welsh baronet
sprung forward and caught his lost bride in his arms.

"My Mollie--my Mollie! My darling!"

But his darling, instead of returning his rapturous embrace, disengaged
herself with a sudden jerk.

"Pray, Sir Roger, don't make a scene! Guardy, how d'ye do? Is it after
dinner? I'm dreadfully tired and hungry!"

"Mollie! Good heavens, Mollie! is this really you?" gasped Mr. Walraven,
staring aghast.

"Now--now!" cried Miss Dane, testily; "what's the good of your asking
ridiculous questions, Guardy Walraven? Where's your eyesight? Don't you
see it's me? Will you kindly let me pass, gentlemen? or am I to stand
here all night on exhibition?"

Evidently the stray lamb had returned to the fold in shocking bad
temper. The gentlemen barring her passage instantly made way, and Mollie
turned to ascend the staircase.

"I'm going to my room, Guardy," she condescended to say, with her foot
on the first carpeted step, "and you will please send Lucy up with tea
and toast immediately. I'm a great deal too tired to offer any
explanation to-night. I feel as if I had been riding about in a
hackney-carriage for a century or two, like Peter Rugg, the missing
man--if you heard of Peter;" with which Miss Dane toiled slowly and
wearily up the grand staircase, and the group of gentlemen were left in
the hall below blankly gazing in one another's faces.

"Eminently characteristic," observed Mr. Ingelow, the first to break the
silence, with a soft laugh.

"Upon my word," said Dr. Oleander, with his death's-head smile, "Miss
Mollie's return is far more remarkable than her departure! That young
lady's _sang-froid_ requires to be seen to be believed in."

"Where can she have been?" asked Lawyer Sardonyx, helplessly taking
snuff.

The two men most interested in the young lady's return said nothing:
they were far beyond that. They could only look at each other in mute
astonishment. At last--

"The anonymous letter did speak the truth," observed Mr. Walraven.

"What anonymous letter?" asked Lawyer Sardonyx, sharply.

"Sir Roger received an anonymous letter a week ago, informing him Mollie
would be back a week after its date. We neither of us paid any attention
to it, and yet, lo! it has come true."

"Have you that letter about you, Sir Roger?" inquired the lawyer. "I
should like to see it, if you have no objection."

Mechanically Sir Roger put his hand in his pocket, and produced the
document. The lawyer glanced keenly over it.

"'One Who Knows.' Ah! 'One Who Knows' is a woman, I am certain. That's a
woman's hand, I am positive. Look here, Oleander!"

"My opinion exactly! Couldn't possibly be Miss Dane's own writing, could
it?" once more with his spectral smile.

"Sir!" cried the baronet, reddening angrily.

"I beg your pardon. But look at the case dispassionately, Sir Roger.
My previous impression that Miss Dane was not forcibly abducted is
continued by the strange manner of her return."

"Mine also," chimed in Lawyer Sardonyx.

"Suppose we all postpone forming an opinion on the subject," said the
lazy voice of the young artist, "until to-morrow, and allow Miss Dane,
when the has recovered from her present fatigue and hunger, to explain
for herself."

"Thanks, Ingelow"--Mr. Walraven turned a grateful glance upon the
lounging artist--"and, meantime, gentlemen, let us adjourn to the
drawing-room. Standing talking here I don't admire."

He led the way; the others followed--Sir Roger last of all, lost in a
maze of bewilderment that utterly spoiled his joy at his bride's return.

"What can it mean? What can it mean?" he kept perpetually asking
himself. "What is all this mystery? Surely--surely it can not be as
these men say! Mollie can not have gone off of herself!"

It was rather dull the remainder of the evening. The guests took their
departure early. Sir Roger lingered behind the rest, and when alone with
him the master of the house summoned Lucy. That handmaiden appeared, her
eyes dancing with delight in her head.

"Where is your mistress, Lucy?" Mr. Walraven asked.

"Gone to bed, sir," said Lucy, promptly.

"You brought her up supper?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did she say to you?"

"Nothing much, sir, only that she was famished, and jolted to death in
that old carriage; and then she turned me out, saying she felt as though
she could sleep a week."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19