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

and flung it to the manager, turned and went out, and left that individual staring in blank bewilderment.

Golden-haired Mollie was pacing impatiently up and down the parlor when Mr. Walraven walked in again, his face aglow with triumph.

"It is all right, Mollie. I told you I was more than a match for your manager. You have trod the boards for the last time."

"Excuse me, Mr. Walraven; I am going to tread the boards again to-night. It is Cricket still. Don't you want to be enchanted once more?"

"Just as you please. Once is neither here now there. But you will be ready for the eight A.M. train to-morrow, Mollie?"

"I have promised, Mr. Walraven, and I always keep my word. So Mr. Harkner has consented? Now, that is not flattering, is it? What winning ways you must possess to make all the world do as you say!"

Mr. Walraven held up his purse, gold shining through its silken meshes.

"Behold the magic key to every heart, Cricket! Here, you shall be my purse-bearer now."

He tossed it into her lap. Mollie's blue eyes sparkled. She was only seventeen, poor child, and she liked money for what money brought.

"I shall leave you now," Mr. Walraven said, looking at his watch. "Three o'clock, Mollie, and time for rehearsal. I shall go and see Cricket to-night, and to-morrow morning Cricket must be ready to go with me. Until then, my adopted daughter, adieu!"

That night, when the green curtain went up, the strange gentleman sat in the front seat for the second time, and gazed on the antics of Fanchon, the Cricket.

The girl played it well, because she played her own willful, tricky self, and she kissed her taper fingers to the enraptured audience, and felt sorry to think it might be for the last time.

Next morning, as demure as a little nun, in her traveling suit of gray, Miss Cricket took her seat beside her new-made guardian, and was whirled away to New York.

"Pray, what am I to call you?" she asked, as they sat side by side. "Am I to keep at a respectful distance, and say 'Mr. Walraven,' or, as I am your adopted daughter, is it to be papa?"

"Well, Cricket, personally I have no objection, of course; but, then, 'papa'--don't you think 'papa' might set people asking questions, now?"

"Very true; and some clever person might get investigating, and find out you were my papa in reality."

"Mollie!" said Mr. Walraven, wincing.

"That's the way in the melodramas, you see, and you are very like the hero of a five-act melodrama. Well, Mr. Walraven, decide what I shall call you!"

"Suppose you say guardian. That will hit the mark, I think. And we will tell people who ask troublesome questions that you are the orphan daughter of a dead cousin of mine. What do you say?"

"As you please, of course. It is all one to me."

The train thundered into the depot presently, and there was the usual turmoil and uproar. Mr. Walraven called a cab, and half an hour's rattling over the stony streets brought them to the Walraven mansion.

Mollie Dane, accustomed all her life to dingy hotels and lodgings, glanced up at the grand staircase and imposing hall in rapturous surprise. Mme. Walraven stood graciously waiting to receive her.

"Here's a granddaughter for you, mother," said Mr. Walraven--"a companion to cheer and brighten your future life. My adopted daughter--Mollie Dane."

The stately old lady bent and kissed the bright, fresh face.

"I am very happy to welcome you, my dear, and will try heartily to make your new home pleasant. You are tired, of course? Here, Margaret, show Miss Dane to her room."

A spruce waiting-maid appeared at the old lady's summons, and led Miss Dane, through carpeted corridors, into the daintiest of dainty bed-chambers, all blue silk and white lace drapery, and rich furniture, and exquisite pictures.

In all her life long, Mollie had never beheld anything half so beautiful, and she caught her breath with one little cry of delight.

"Shall I help you, miss?" very respectfully asked the girl. "I'm to be your maid, please, and luncheon will be ready by the time you are dressed."

Miss Dane permitted her to remove her traveling-dress in ecstatic silence, and robe her in azure silk, just a shade less blue than her eyes.

Very, very pretty she looked, with all her loose golden ringlets, and that brilliant flush on either cheek; and so Mrs. Walraven and her son thought when she appeared, like a radiant vision, in the dining-room.

The afternoon and evening went like a swift dream of delight in viewing the house and its splendors. She retired early, with a kiss from guardian and grandmamma, her head in a whirl with the events of the day.

Margaret's tasks were very light that night; her little mistress did not detain her ten minutes. When she had gone, and she was fairly alone, Mollie sprung up and went whirling round the room in a dance of delight.

"To think of it!" she cried--"to think all my wildest dreams should come true like this, and my life go on like a fairy tale! There is Mr. Walraven, the good genii of the story; Mrs. Walraven, the old but well-meaning fairy godmother; and I'm Cinderella, with the tatters and rags turned to cloth of gold, and nothing to do but wait at my ease for the fairy prince, and marry him when he comes. Cricket! Cricket! you're the luckiest witch's granddaughter that ever danced to her own shadow!"


CHAPTER III.

MR. WALRAVEN'S WEDDING.

Mollie Dane made herself very much at home at once in the magnificent Walraven mansion. The dazzle of its glories scarcely lasted beyond the first day, or, if it did, nobody saw it. Why, indeed, should she be dazzled? She, who had been Lady Macbeth, and received the Thane of Cawdor at her own gates; who had been Juliet, the heiress of all the Capulets; who had seen dukes and nobles snubbed unmercifully every night of her life by virtuous poverty, on the stage. Before the end of the first week Mollie had become the light of the house, perfectly indispensable to the happiness of its inmates.

Miss Dane was launched into society at a dinner-party given for the express purpose by "grandmamma". Wondrously pretty looked the youthful _débutante_, in silvery silk and misty lace and pearls, her eyes like blue stars, her cheeks like June roses.

In the wintery dusk of the short December days, Mrs. Walraven received her guests in the library, an imposing room, oak-paneled, crimson-draped, and filled from floor to ceiling with a noble collection of books. Great snow-flakes fluttered against the plate glass, and an icy blast howled up the avenue, but in the glittering dining-room flowers bloomed, and birds sung, and tropical fruits perfumed the air; and radiant under the gas-light, beautiful Miss Dane flashed the light of her blue eyes, and looked like some lovely little sprite from fairy-land.

Miss Blanche Oleander, darkly majestic in maize silk and jewels, sat at Miss Dane's right hand, and eyed her coldly with jealous dislike. Mollie read her through at the first glance. "She hates me already," thought Mr. Walraven's ward; "and your tall women, with flashing black eyes and blue-black hair, are apt to be good haters. Very well, Miss Oleander; it shall be just as you like."

A gentleman sat on her other hand--a handsome young artist--Mr. Hugh Ingelow, and he listened with an attentive face, while she held her own with the sarcastic Blanche, and rather got the best of the battle.

"The little beauty is no dunce," thought Mr. Hugh Ingelow. "Miss Blanche has found a foe worthy of her best steel."

And coming to this conclusion, Mr. Ingelow immediately began making himself agreeable to his fair neighbor. Miss Oleander was a pet aversion of his own, and this bond of union drew him and her saucy little antagonist together at once.

"Rather a sharp set-to, Miss Dane," the artist remarked, in his lazy voice. "Miss Oleander is a clever woman, but she is matched at last. I wonder why it is? You two ought to be good friends."

He glanced significantly at Mr. Walraven, devoting himself to Miss Oleander, and Mollie gave her white shoulders a little shrug.

"If we ought, we never will be. Coming events cast their shadows before, and I know I shall detest a guardianess. Who is that brigandish-looking gentleman over there, Mr. Ingelow? He has been staring at me steadily for the last ten minutes."

"Lost in speechless admiration, no doubt. That gentleman is the celebrated Doctor Oleander, own cousin to the fair Blanche."

The gentleman in question certainly was staring, but his staring was interrupted at this moment by a general uprising and retreat to the drawing-room. Mr. Ingelow, on whose arm she leaned, led her to the piano at once.

"You sing, I know--Mrs. Walraven has told me. Pray favor us with one song before some less gifted performer secures this vacant seat."

"What shall it be?" Mollie asked, running her white fingers over the keys.

"Whatever you please--whatever you like best. I shall be sure to like it."

Mollie sung brilliantly, and sung her best now. There was dead silence; no one had expected such a glorious voice as this. Hugh Ingelow's rapt face showed what he felt as Mollie rose.

"Miss Dane ought to go upon the stage; she would make her fortune," said a deep voice at her elbow.

She turned sharply round and met the dark, sinister eyes and pale face of Dr. Oleander.

"Miss Dane forgets me," he said, with a low bow, "among so many presentations. Will you kindly reintroduce me, Mr. Ingelow?"

Mr. Ingelow obeyed with no very good grace; the sparkling, blue-eyed coquette had made wild work with his artist heart already.

"Mrs. Walraven desired me to bring you to her for a moment," the suave doctor said, offering his arm. "May I have the honor?"

Mr. Ingelow's eyes flashed angrily, and Mollie, seeing it, and being a born coquette, took the proffered arm at once.

It was the merest trifle grandmamma wanted, but it served the doctor's turn--he had got the beauty of the evening, and he meant to keep her.

Mollie listened to his endless flow of complimentary small-talk just as long as she chose, and then glided coolly away to flirt with a third adorer, the eminent young lawyer, Mr. Joseph Sardonyx.

Mollie hovered between those three the livelong evening; now it was the handsome artist, now the polished doctor, now the witty, satirical lawyer, flirting in the most unpardonable manner.

Even Mr. Walraven was a little shocked, and undertook, in the course of the evening, to expostulate.

"Flirting is all very well, Mollie," he said, "but it really mustn't be carried too far. People are beginning to make remarks."

"Are they?" said Mollie; "about which of us, pray? for really and truly, guardy, you have been flirting the worst of the two."

"Nonsense, Mollie! You mean Miss Oleander, I suppose? That is no flirtation."

"Indeed! then it is worse--it is serious?"

"Yes, if asking her to marry me be serious. And she has said yes, Mollie."

Miss Dane looked at him compassionately.

"You poor, unfortunate guardy! And you are really going to marry Blanche Oleander! Well, one comfort is, you will be ready to blow your brains out six months after; and serve you right, too!