The Unseen Bridegroom; Or, Wedded For a Week. May Agnes Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ and now, dark and mysterious as Count Lara, returned to lord it in his ancestral halls. He was a very hero of romance—a wealthy hero, too—and all the pretty man-traps on the avenue, baited with lace and roses, silk and jewels, were coming to-night to angle for this dazzling prize.

      The long-silent drawing-rooms, shrouded for twenty years in holland and darkness, were one blaze of light at last. Flowers bloomed everywhere; musicians, up in a gilded gallery, discoursed heavenly music; there was a conservatory where alabaster lamps made a silver moonlight in a modern Garden of Eden; there was a supper-table spread and waiting, a feast for the gods and Sybarites; and there was Mrs. Walraven, in black velvet and point lace, upright and stately, despite her sixty years, with a diamond star of fabulous price ablaze on her breast. And there by her side, tall, and dark, and dignified, stood her only son, the prodigal, the repentant, the wealthy Carl Walraven.

      "Not handsome," said Miss Blanche Oleander, raising her glass, "but eminently interesting. He looks like the hero of a sensation novel, or a modern melodrama, or one of Lord Byron's poems. Does he dance, and will he ask me, I wonder?"

      Yes, the dusky hero of the night did dance, and did ask Miss Blanche Oleander. A tall, gray-eyed, imperious sort of beauty, this Miss Blanche, seven-and-twenty years of age, and frightfully passée, more youthful belles said.

      Mr. Walraven danced the very first dance with Miss Oleander, to her infinite but perfectly concealed delight.

      "If you can imagine the Corsair, whirling in a rapid redowa with Medora," Miss Oleander afterward said, "you have Mr. Walraven and myself. There were about eighty Guinares gazing enviously on, ready to poniard me, every one of them, if they dared, and if they were not such miserable little fools and cowards. When they cease to smell of bread and butter, Mr. Walraven may possibly deign to look at them."

      It seemed as if the dashing Blanche had waltzed herself straight into the affections of the new-found heir, for he devoted himself to her in the most prononcé manner for the first three hours, and afterward led her in to supper.

      Miss Blanche sailed along serene, uplifted, splendidly calm; the little belles in lace, and roses, and pearls, fluttered and twittered like angry doves; and Mme. Walraven, from the heights of her hostess-throne, looked aslant at her velvet and diamonds with uneasy old eyes.

      "The last of all you should have selected," she said, waylaying her son after supper. "A woman without a heart, Carl—a modern Minerva. I have no wish to interfere with you, my son; I shall call the day happy that brings me your wife, but not Blanche Oleander—not that cold-blooded, bold-faced, overgrown grenadier."

      Madame hissed out the words between a set of spiteful, false teeth, and glared, as women do glare, upon the gray-eyed Blanche. And Carl listened, and laughed sardonically.

      "A woman without a heart. So much the better, mother; the less heart the more head; and I like your clever, dashing women, who are big and buxom, and able to take care of themselves. Don't forget, mother mine, I haven't proposed to the sparkling Blanche, and I don't think I shall—to-night. You wouldn't have me fall at the feet of those mealy-winged moths fluttering around us, with heads softer than their poor little hearts—you wouldn't, I hope?"

      With which Mr. Walraven went straight back to Miss Oleander and asked her to dance the lancers.

      Miss Oleander, turning with ineffable calm from a bevy of rose-robed and white-robed young ladies, said, "Yes," as if Mr. Walraven was no more than any other man, and stood up to take his arm.

      But there is many a slip. Miss Oleander and Mr. Walraven never danced that particular set, for just then there came a ring at the door-bell so pealing and imperious that it sounded sharply even through the noisy ball-room.

      "The Marble Guest, surely," Blanche said, "and very determined to be heard."

      Before the words were well uttered there was a sound of an altercation in the hall—one of the tall footmen pathetically protesting, and a shrill female voice refusing to listen to those plaintive protests. Then there suddenly fell peace.

      "After a storm there cometh a calm," Mr. Walraven said. "Miss Oleander, shall we move on? Well, Johnson, what is it?"

      For Johnson, the taller of the two tall footmen, stood before them gazing beseechingly at his master.

      "It's a woman, sir, all wet and dirty, and horrid to look at. She says she will see you, and there she stands, and Wilson nor me we can't do nothing with her. If you don't come she says she'll walk up here and make you come. Them," said Johnson, plaintively, "were her own language."

      Blanche Oleander, gazing up at her companion's face, saw it changing to a startled, dusky white.

      "Some beggar—some troublesome tramp, I dare say." But he dropped her arm abruptly as he said it. "Excuse me a moment, Miss Oleander. I had better see her to prevent noise. Now, then, Johnson."

      Mr. Johnson led the way down a grand, sweeping staircase, rich in gilding and carving, through a paved and vaulted hall, and out into a lofty vestibule.

      There a woman stood, dripping wet and wretchedly clad, as miserable-looking a creature as ever walked the bad city streets. The flare of the gas-jets shone full upon her—upon a haggard face lighted up with two blazing eyes.

      "For God's sake! Miriam!"

      Carl Walraven started back, as if struck by an iron hand. The woman took a step forward and confronted him.

      "Yes, Carl Walraven—Miriam! You did well to come at once. I have something to say to you. Shall I say it here?"

      That was all Messrs. Johnson and Wilson ever heard, for Mr. Walraven opened the library door and waved her in, followed, and shut the door again with a sounding slam.

      "Now, then," he demanded, imperiously, "what do you want? I thought you were dead and—"

      "Don't say that other word, Mr. Walraven; it is too forcible. You only hoped it. I am not dead. It's a great deal worse with me than that."

      "What do you want?" Mr. Walraven repeated, steadily, though his swarth face was dusky gray with rage or fear, or both. "What do you come here for to-night? Has the master you serve helped you bodily, that you follow and find me even here? Are you not afraid I will throttle you for your pains?"

      "Not the least."

      She said it with a composure the best bred of his mother's guests could not have surpassed, standing bolt upright before him, her dusky eyes of fire burning on his face.

      "I am not afraid of you, Mr. Walraven (that's your name, isn't it?—and a very fine-sounding name it is), but you're afraid of me—afraid to the core of your bitter, black heart. You stand there dressed like a king, and I stand here in rags your kitchen scullions would scorn; but for all that, Carl Walraven—for all that, you're my slave, and you know it!"

      Her eyes blazed, her hands clinched, her gaunt form seemed to tower and grow tall with the sense of her triumph and her power.

      "Have you anything else to say?" inquired Mr. Walraven, sullenly, "before I call my servants and have you turned out?"

      "You dare not," retorted the woman, fiercely—"you dare not, coward! boaster! and you know it! I have a great deal more to say, and I will say it, and you will hear me before we part to-night. I know my power, Mr. Carl Walraven, and I mean to use it. Do you think СКАЧАТЬ