The Unseen Bridgegroom by May Agnes Fleming (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

HOME.--On the fifteenth instant--whether forcibly or of her own free will is unknown--a young lady of sixteen years, by name Mollie Dane. Is undersized, very slight of figure, a profusion of light, curling hair, large blue eyes, handsome features, and remarkably self-possessed and straightforward of manner. Was dressed as a bride, in white silk and lace. Any information concerning her will be thankfully received and liberally rewarded by her afflicted friends. Apply personally or by letter to MR. CARL WALRAVEN, No ---- Fifth Avenue, New York." Very slowly the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh read this paragraph to its end. He laid down the paper and looked thoughtfully at the cat.

"Extraordinary!" murmured the Reverend Raymond, half aloud--"most extraordinary! Like a scene in a novel; like nothing in real life. Has the earth opened and swallowed her up? Has she gone off with some younger and handsomer lover? Or has she been decoyed from home by the machinations of some enemy? She had many, poor child! That unfortunate Sir Roger is like a man insane. He is offering half his fortune for her recovery. It is really very, very extraordinary. Quite a romance in real life. Come in!"

There had been a tap at the study door; a maid-servant entered.

"There's a young woman down-stairs, sir, wishes to see you most particular."

"Ah, indeed! Who is she? What is her business with me?"

"I don't know, sir. Something very important, she says."

"Show her up."

The girl departed, ran down-stairs, ran up again, followed by a respectable-looking young woman of pleasing aspect.

"Well, my child,"--he was very fatherly and bland, was the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh--"and what may you want with me?"

"My Mistress sent me, sir. I am Mrs. Holywell's maid."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rashleigh, vividly interested at once; "and how is Mrs. Holywell?"

"Very poorly, sir. She thinks she's dying herself. She wants to make her will to-night; that's why she sent for you."

Mr. Rashleigh rose with very unwonted alacrity.

She was a distant relative of his, this dying Mrs. Holywell; ridiculously rich for a childless widow, and with no nearer heir than the reverend pastor of St. Pancras' Church.

"I will accompany you at once, my dear! Poor Mrs. Holywell! But it is the fate of all flesh! How did you come, pray? It rains, does it not?"

A fierce gust of wind rattled the double windows, and frantically beat the rain against them by way of answer.

"I came in a carriage, sir. It is at the door now."

"That is well. I will not detain you an instant. Ah! poor Mrs. Holywell!"

The parson's hat and overcoat hung in the room. In a moment they were on; in another he was following the very respectable young woman down-stairs; in a third he was scrambling after her into the carriage; in a fourth they were rattling wildly over the wet, stony streets; in a fifth the reverend gentleman was grasped in a vise-like grip, and a voice close to his ear--a man's voice--hissed:

"Speak one word, make the least outcry, and you are a dead man!"

The interior of the carriage was in utter darkness.

The Reverend Mr. Rashleigh gave one panting gasp, and fell back in his seat. High living and long indolence had made him a complete craven. Life was inestimably precious to the portly pastor of St. Pancras'. After that one choking gasp, he sat quivering all over, like calves'-foot jelly.

"Bandage his eyes, Sarah, while I tie his hands," said the man's voice. "My dear sir, don't shake so; it is almost impossible to do anything with you in this hysterical state. Now, bind his mouth, Sarah. There! I think that will do."

Bound hands, and eyes, and mouth, half suffocated, wholly blinded, the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh was a pitiable object at that instant. But there was no one to pity him, no one to see him, no one to help him.

The carriage whirled on, and on, and on at dizzy speed, the wind sighing by in long, lamentable gales, the rain dashing clamorously against the closed glass.

Paralyzed with intense terror, Mr. Rashleigh sat trembling to that extent that he threatened to topple off his seat.

"Pray calm yourself, my reverend friend," said that masculine voice beside him. "No personal harm is intended you, and I have no designs upon your watch and purse. I merely want the loan of you in your clerical capacity, to perform the ceremony of marriage over a runaway couple. I knew you wouldn't come of your own free will; therefore, I took the trouble to ascertain about those little expectations of yours from Mrs. Holywell, and used that good lady, whose health, I trust, is no worse than usual, as a cat's-paw. You must pardon the deception, dear sir, and you must perform the marriage ceremony without inconvenient scruples, or hesitation, or questions. Be thankful, for the sake of morality, we see the propriety of getting married at all. You are listening to me and paying attention to me, I hope?"

Paying attention! Yes, his whole soul was absorbed in listening.

"Where I take you, who I am, you will never find out. Don't try, my dear Mr. Rashleigh, even if you have the opportunity. Marry me--for I am to be the happy bridegroom--and don't utter another word, save and except the words of the ceremony, from the time you enter my house until you leave it. If you do your part like the prudent, elderly gentleman I take you to be, you will find yourself back in your pleasant study, safe and sound, before morning dawns. If not--"

There was an awful sound, the sharp click of a pistol. No words in any known language--and the parson knew all the languages, dead and alive--could have filled up the hiatus so eloquently or so convincingly.

The cold perspiration started from every pore, and each tooth in his clerical jaws clattered like pairs of castanets.

They drove, and they drove, and they drove through the wild, wet night, as if they meant to drive forever.

But they stopped, after a horribly long interval, and the parson was helped out into the rain, out of the rain into a house, led up a flight of stairs, and seated in a chair.

"Now, my dear sir, permit me to remove these uncomfortable incumbrances, and do, do try to overlook the painful necessity which compelled me to use them. It goes to my heart, I assure you. There!"

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