The Unseen Bridgegroom, May Agnes Fleming [ebook reader for surface pro .TXT] 📗

before her.

"Mollie!" he gasped, in consternation.

The girl stamped her foot on the floor.

"Don't call me Mollie:" she screamed, passionately. "Don't dare to speak to me, to look at me, to come near me! I have heard of women murdering men, and if I had a loaded pistol this moment, God help you, Doctor Oleander!"

She looked like a mad thing--like a crazed pythoness. Her wild, fair hair fell loose about her; her blue eyes blazed steely flame; her face was crimson with the intensity of her rage, and shame, and despair, from forehead to chin.

"Go!" she cried, fiercely, "you snake, you coward, you felon, you abductor of feeble girls, you poisoner! Yes, you poison the very air I breathe! Go, or, by all that is holy, I will spring at your throat and strangle you with my bare hands!"

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the petrified doctor, retreating precipitately, "what a little devil it is! Mollie, Mollie, for pity's sake--"

Another furious stamp, a spring like a wild cat toward him, and the aghast doctor was at the door.

"There, there, there, Mollie! I'm going. By Jove! what a little fiend you are! I didn't think you would take it like this. I--Great powers! Yes, I'm going!"

He flew out, closing the door with a bang. Then he opened it an inch and peeped in.

"I'll come again to-morrow, Mollie. Try, for goodness' sake, to calm yourself in the meantime. Yes, yes, yes, I'm going!"

For, with a shriek of madness, she made a spring at him, and the doctor just managed to slam the door and turn the key before her little, wiry hands were upon his throat.

"Great Heaven!" Dr. Oleander cried to himself, pale and aghast, wiping the cold perspiration off his face; "was ever such a mad creature born on the earth before? She looked like a little yellow-haired demon, glaring upon me with those blazing eyes. Little tiger-cat! I told them she was a raving lunatic, and, by George! she's going to prove me a prophet. It's enough to make a man's blood run cold."


CHAPTER XVI.

MOLLIE'S DESPAIR.

Dr. Oleander descended the stairs, passed through the lower hall, and entered the kitchen--a big, square room, bleak and draughty, like all the rest of the old, rickety place, but lighted by a roaring fire.

Old Sally was bustling about over pots and stew-pans, getting supper; old Peter stood at the table peeling potatoes. In an arm-chair before the fire sat another old woman with snaky-black eyes, hooked nose, and incipient black mustache.

Old Sally was volubly narrating what had transpired upstairs, and cut herself short upon the entrance of her master.

"How are you, mother?" said Dr. Oleander, nodding to the venerable party in the arm-chair. "Sally's telling you about my patient, is she?"

His mother's answer was a stifled scream, which Sally echoed.

"Well, what now?" demanded the doctor.

"You look like a ghost! Gracious me, Guy!" cried his mother, in consternation; "you're whiter than the tablecloth."

Dr. Oleander ground out an oath.

"I dare say I am. I've just had a scare from that little, crazy imp that would blanch any man. I thought, in my soul, she was going to spring upon me like a panther and choke me. She would have, too, by Jove, if I hadn't cleared out."

"Lor'!" cried Sally, in consternation, "and I've just been a-telling the missis how sweet, and gentle, and innocent, and pretty she looked."

"Innocent and gentle be--hanged!" growled the doctor. "She's the old Satan in female form. If you don't look out, Sally, she'll throttle you to-morrow when you go in."

Sally gave a little yelp of dismay.

"Lor' a massy, Master Guy! then I'll not go near her. I ain't a-going to be scared out of my senses by mad-women in my old age. I won't go into her room a step to-morrow, Master Guy. If you wants to turn honest people's houses into lunatic asylums, then set lunatic-keepers to see after them. I shan't do it, and so I tell you."

With which short and sharp ultimatum Sally began vigorously laying the cloth for supper.

Before Dr. Oleander could open his mouth to expostulate, his mother struck in:

"I really don't think it's safe to live in the house with such a violent lunatic, Guy. I wish you had taken your crazy patient elsewhere."

"Oh, it's all right, mother. She's only subject to these noisy fits at periodical times. On certain occasions she appears and talks as sanely as you or I. Sally can tell you."

"That I can," said Sally. "You'd oughter heerd her, missis, when she fust came in, a-pleading, you know, with me to assist her, and not help to keep her a prisoner here. I declare, it quite went to my heart. And she looked so little, and so young, and so helpless, poor creature!"

"You're sure her room's all safe and secure, Sally--windows and all?"

"Sure as sure, master. Jack the Giant Killer couldn't remove them 'ere bars."

"Because," said Dr. Oleander, "she is quite capable, in her mad fits, of precipitating herself out of the window and breaking her neck. And be careful, Sally, you cut up her food when you take it to her. Don't bring her any knives or forks."

"I said I wouldn't go near her," said old Sally, facing him resolutely; "and I won't! And what's more, Peter won't! And if you fetches mad-women here, Doctor Guy, you've got to 'tend onto 'em yourself, sir. I won't be 'sassynated in my old age by crazy lunatics; and no more my old man won't, neither. There now!"

Sally finished with a shower of resolute nods. Dr. Oleander knew her a great deal too well to remonstrate. When Sally "put her foot down" all the powers of earth and Hades couldn't put it up again.

"You will be here yourself to-morrow, Guy," said his mother, decisively. "Wait upon her yourself, then."

"But I must return to New York to-morrow afternoon."

"Very well; get an attendant for your crazy patient and send her down. If the young lady's friends are as wealthy as you say, they will surely let her have a keeper."

"They will let her have a dozen if necessary; that is not the question."

"What, then?"

"Have you accommodation for another in this old barn? Can you put up with the trouble?"

"We'll endeavor to do so for your sake. It is easier to put up with another person in the house than be at the beck and call of a lunatic ourselves. Send one from New York capable of taking care of your crazy young lady, and Sally and I will take care of her."

"Thanks! And meantime?"

"Meantime, I will wait upon her myself--if you will assure me she will not be violent."

"I think I can. She is only violent with me, poor soul. She has got an idea into her weak, deranged little head that she is as sane as you or I, and that I have carried her off by force and keep her prisoner here. She goes raving mad at sight of me, but with you she may probably be cool enough. She will tell you a piteous story of how she has been entrapped and carried off from home, if you will listen to her. You had better not; it only encourages her unfortunate delusion."

Mrs. Oleander shrugged her broad shoulders. She was an old woman of strong mind and iron resolution, and nothing in the way of heart to speak of. Her accomplished son took after her in these admirable qualities.

"I have other fish to fry than listening to the empty babble of a maniac. By the bye, what did you say her name was?"

"Miss Dane," responded the doctor, after a slight pause.

He knew he might as well tell the truth about it, or Mollie herself would for him.

"And she is a relative of Blanche's husband?"

"A very near though unacknowledged relation. And now, mother mine, I'll take my supper and turn in if you'll permit me. I've had a very long and fatiguing drive this stormy night."

He sat down to the table and fell to work with an appetite. Old Sally waited upon him, and gazed at his performance with admiring eyes.

"Won't your young lady want something, Guy?" his mother asked, presently.

"Let her fast a little," replied the doctor, coolly; "it will take some of the unnecessary heat out of her blood. I'll fetch her her breakfast to-morrow."

Mrs. Oleander upon this retired at once, and the doctor, after smoking old Peter's pipe in the chimney-corner, retired also.

Then the old man hobbled upstairs to bed, and Sally, after raking out the fire, and seeing to the secure fastening of doors and windows, took up her tallow candle and went after him.

Outside the door of the poor little captive she paused, listening in a sort of breathless awe. But no sound came forth: the tumult of wind, and sea, and rain had the inky night all to themselves.

"She's asleep, I reckon," said old Sally, creeping away. "Poor little, pretty creeter!"

But Mollie was not asleep. When the door had closed after Dr. Oleander, she had dropped on the floor like a stone, and had never stirred since.

She was not in a faint. She saw the ruddy blaze of the fire, as the tongues of flame leaped like red serpents up the chimney; she heard the wild howling of the night wind, the ceaseless dash and fall of the rain, the indescribable roar of the raging sea; she heard the trees creak and toss and groan; she heard the rats scampering overhead; she heard the dismal moaning of the old house itself rocking in the gale.

She saw, she heard, but as one who neither sees nor hears; like one in a drugged, unnatural stupor. She could not think; an iron hand seemed to have clutched her heart, a dreadful despair to have taken possession of her. She had made a horrible, irreparable mistake; she was body and soul in the power of the man she hated most on earth. She was his wife!--she could get no further than that.

The stormy night wore on; midnight came and the elemental uproar was at its height. Still she lay there all in a heap, suffering in a dulled, miserable way that was worse than sharpest pain. She lay there stunned, overwhelmed, not caring if she ever rose again.

And so morning found her--when morning lifted a dull and leaden eye over the stormy sea. It came gloomy and gray, rain falling still, wind whispering pitifully, and a sky of lead frowning down upon the drenched, dank earth and tossing, angry ocean.

All in a heap, as she had fallen, Mollie lay, her head resting on a chair, her poor golden ringlets tossed in a wild, disheveled veil, fast asleep. Pitifully, as sleep will come to the young, be their troubles ever so heavy, sleep had sealed those beaming blue eyes, "not used to tears at night instead of slumber." Tears, Mollie had shed none--the blow that had fallen had left her far beyond that.

Nine o'clock struck; there was a tap at the prison door. Dr. Oleander, thinking his patient's fast had lasted long enough, was coming with a bountiful breakfast. There was no reply to the tap.

"Mollie," the doctor called, gently, "it is I with your breakfast. I am