Читать книгу The Unseen Bridegroom; Or, Wedded For a Week - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 10

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There was a blank pause; every eye fixed on the towering form of the specter-like woman.

"I forbid the marriage!" exclaimed Miriam. "Clergyman, on your peril you unite those two!"

"The woman is mad!" cried Carl Walraven, white with rage. "Men, turn her out!"

"Stop!" said Mollie—"stop one moment I know this woman, and will see what she means."

No one interfered; every one gazed in breathless interest as Miss Dane quitted her post and confronted the haggard apparition. The woman uttered a cry at sight of her, and caught her impetuously by the arm.

"Mad girl! have you forgotten what I told you? Would you marry that man?"

"Marry what man? What do you mean? I am not going to marry any man to-day. It is you who have gone mad, I think."

"Why, then, do you wear those bridal robes?"

"Bride-maid robes, if you please. Gracious me, Miriam, you didn't think I was going to marry Mr. Walraven, did you?"

Miriam passed her hand over her brow with a bewildered air.

"Whom, then, is it, if not you?"

"Miss Blanche Oleander, of course, as anyone could have told you, if you had taken the trouble to ask before rushing in here and making a scene."

"I only heard last night he was to be married," Miriam said, with a bewildered face, "and took it for granted that it must be you."

"Then you must have had a poorer opinion of my taste than I should have thought it possible for you to have. Come in and beg everybody's pardon, and tell them it was all a shocking mistake."

"One word first: Are you well and happy?"

"Perfectly well, and happy as a queen. Come on; there is no time to lose. People are staring dreadfully, and the bride is glaring with rage. Quick—come!"

She flitted back to her place, and Miriam, stepping forward, addressed the assembly:

"I ask your pardon, ladies and gentlemen. I have made a mistake. I thought the bride was Miss Dane. I beg the ceremony will proceed."

She pulled a veil she wore down over her gaunt face, and with the last word hurried out and disappeared. Mr. Walraven, suppressing his rage, turned to the minister.

"Proceed!" he said, impatiently, "and make haste."

The bride, very white with anger and mortification, resumed her place; the ceremony recommenced. This time there was no interruption, and in ten minutes the twain were one flesh.

Half an hour later they were back at the Walraven mansion to eat the wedding-breakfast, and then the new-made Mrs. Walraven, with an eye that flashed and a voice that rang, turned upon her liege lord and demanded an explanation. Mr. Walraven shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.

"My dearest Blanche, I have none to give. The woman must be mad. Speak to Mollie."

"Carl Walraven, do not dare to deceive me on my wedding-day. You know more of this than you choose to say."

"Mrs. Walraven, do not raise your angel voice to such a pitch for nothing. I said before, speak to Mollie. I say again, speak to Mollie; and here she is."

"So she is," said Miss Dane, sauntering in. "Do you want me to allay a post-nuptial storm already? Auspicious beginning! What is it?"

"Who was that woman?" demanded the bride.

"A very old friend of mine, madame."

"Why did she come to the church and try to stop the marriage?"

"Because she thought I was the bride. She said so, didn't she? And being very well acquainted with me, she was moved with compassion for the deluded man and came to warn him in time. I explained her little mistake, as you saw, and she apologized handsomely, and—exit, Miriam. Isn't that satisfactory?"

"Are you speaking the truth?"

Miss Dane laid her hand upon her heart, and bowed profoundly.

"Doesn't Mr. Walraven know her?"

"That is a question I can not take it upon myself to answer. Mr. Walraven is of age. Let him speak for himself."

"I told you before," said the bridegroom, angrily. "Let us have no more about it, Blanche, or I may chance to lose my temper."

He turned on his heel and walked off whistling, and the bride, in her snowy robes and laces, went down to breakfast, trying vainly to clear her stormy brow. Mollie puckered up her rosy lips into a shrill whistle.

"And this is their wedding-day! I told him how it would be, but of course nobody ever minds what I say. Poor guardy! what ever would become of him traveling alone with that woman! How thankful he ought to be that he has me to go along and take care of him!"

For Mollie had made it an express stipulation, contrary to all precedent, that she was to accompany the happy pair on their bridal tour. Miss Oleander's ante-nuptial objections had been faint; Mrs. Walraven, less scrupulous, turned upon her husband at the eleventh hour, just previous to starting, and insisted that she should be left at home.

"It will be ridiculous in the extreme," exclaimed the bride, "having your ward traveling with us! Let her remain at home with your mother."

Mr. Walraven looked his bride steadfastly in the eye for a moment, then sat down deliberately.

"Look here, Mrs. Walraven," said Mr. Walraven, perfectly cool, "you have made a little mistake, I fancy. Permit me to rectify it. Wearing the breeches is a vulgar expression, I am aware, and only admissible in low circles; still, it so forcibly expresses what I am trying to express, that you will allow me to use it. You are trying to don the inexpressibles, Blanche, but it won't do. My ward goes with us on our bridal tour, or there shall be no bridal tour at all. There! you have it in plain English, Mrs. Carl Walraven!"

Five minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Walraven descended to the carriage, Mrs. Walraven with her veil drawn down, and making her adieus in a smothered sort of voice. Mr. Walraven handed in his ward next, then followed; the coachman flourished his whip and they were gone.

The happy pair were merely going to Washington. Mr. Walraven had had a surfeit of Europe, and Washington, this sparkling winter weather, was at its gayest and best. The Walraven party, with plethoric purses, plunged into the midst of the gayety at once.

"I like this sort of thing," said Mollie to her guardian; "the theater, and the opera, and a ball, and two or three parties every night. I like dancing until broad daylight, and going to bed at six in the morning, and getting up to breakfast at one. I like matinees at three in the afternoon, and dinners with seventeen courses, and going to the White House, and shaking hands with the President, and sailing around the East Room, and having people point me out as the beauty of the season. It's new and it's nice, and I never get tired, or pale, or limpy, like most of the girls. I never enjoyed myself so much in my life, and you would say the same thing, guardy, only you're in your honey-moon, and not capable of enjoying anything."

"But, Mollie," Mr. Walraven remonstrated, "it isn't right to flirt so much as you do. There's young Ingelow. The way you devoted yourself to that young man last night set everybody talking."

"Let 'em talk," responded Miss Dane, loftily. "When Mr. Ingelow followed me all the way from New York, I think it was the very least I could do in common politeness. He found it a waste and howling wilderness without me—yes, he did; he said so. And then, Mr. Walraven, I like him."

"You like him?"

"Yes, ever and ever so much; and I'm dreadfully sorry for him, because I know it'll break his heart when I refuse him."

"He hasn't proposed yet, then?"

"Not yet, but I expect it shortly. I know the symptoms. He looked almost as sheepish last night as you used to before you proposed to Miss Oleander."

It was quite true; the handsome young artist had followed Miss Dane to Washington. He had hardly known how much he was in love with her until she was gone, and all young-ladydom grew flat, stale, and insipid as dish-water.

Mr. Ingelow, of rather an indolent temperament, disposed to take things easy and let the world slide, was astonished himself at the sudden heat and ardor this little girl with the sunny smile had created within him.

"It isn't her beauty," thought the handsome artist, "although she is pretty as an angel; it isn't her blue eyes and her golden hair, for I see blue eyes and golden hair every day of my life, and never give them a second thought; it isn't her singing or dancing, for half the girls I know sing and dance as well; and it can't be her spirited style of conversation, for that's not so very new, either. Then what is it?"

Mr. Ingelow, at this point, always fell into such a morass of pros and cons that his brain grew dazed, and he gave the problem up altogether. But the great, incontrovertible fact remained—he was headlong in love with Mollie, and had followed her to Washington expressly to tell her so.

"For if I wait, and she returns to New York," mused Mr. Ingelow, "I will have Oleander and Sardonyx both neck and neck in the race. Here there is a fair field and no favor, and here I will try my luck."

But Mr. Ingelow was mistaken, for here in his "fair field" appeared the most formidable rival he could possibly have had—a rival who seemed likely to eclipse himself and Oleander and Sardonyx at one fell swoop.

At the presidential levees, on public promenades and drives, Miss Dane had noticed a tall, white-haired, aristocratic-looking gentleman attentively watching her as if fascinated. Every place she appeared in public this distinguished-looking gentleman hovered in the background like her shadow.

"Who is that venerable old party," she demanded, impatiently, "that haunts me like an uneasy ghost? Can I be a lost daughter of his, with a strawberry mark somewhere, or do I bear an unearthly resemblance to some lovely being he murdered in early life? Who is he?"

And the answer came, nearly taking away Cricket's breath:

"Sir Roger Trajenna, the great Welsh baronet, worth nobody knows how many millions, and with castles by the dozen in his own land of mountains."

It was Mr. Ingelow who gave her the information, and the occasion was a brilliant ball. Mollie had often heard of the Welsh baronet, but this was the first time she had encountered him at a ball or party.

"I thought that Sir Roger Trajenna never accepted invitations," she said, opening and shutting her fan. "This is the first time I ever saw him at a private party."

"I think I know the reason," responded Mr. Ingelow. "Rumor sets him down as the last in Miss Dane's list of killed and wounded."

"So I have heard," said Mollie, coolly; "but it is too good to be true. I should dearly love to be my lady and live in a Welsh castle."

"With sixty-five years and a hoary head for a husband?"

"How painfully accurate you are! With his countless millions and his ancestral castles, what does a little disparity of years signify?"

"Miss Dane," asked Mr. Ingelow, very earnestly, "would you accept that old man if he asked you?"

"My dear Mr. Ingelow, what a dreadfully point-blank question! So very embarrassing! I thought you knew better!"

"I beg your pardon. But, Miss Dane, as a sincere friend, may I ask an answer?"

"Well, then, as a friend, I can't say for certain, but I am afraid—I am very much afraid I would say—"

"Miss Dane, permit me!" exclaimed a voice at her elbow—"Sir Roger Trajenna, Miss Dane."

Miss Dane turned calmly round to her hostess and the guest of the evening, and graciously received the venerable baronet's profound bow. At the same instant the music of a waltz struck up, to the jealous artist's infinite relief.