THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE.
The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in
his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his
cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with
iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch
at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy
purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in his own portly
person.
The world went well with the Reverend Raymond. Silks rustled and
diamonds flashed every Sunday in the cushioned pews of his "uptown"
church; the _élite_ of Gotham sat under his teaching, and his sixty
years and the cares of life rested lightly on his broad shoulders.
It had been a very smoothly flowing life--those sixty years--gliding
along as sluggishly calm as the waters of a canal. But on this night the
still surface was destined to be ruffled--on this night, so strange, so
extraordinary an adventure was destined to happen to him, that it
actually compensated, in five brief hours, for all the lack of
excitement in those sixty years.
A wet and stormy night. The rain beat ceaselessly against the curtained
windows; the wild spring wind shrieked through the city streets, icily
cold; a bad, black night--starless, moonless.
The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh gave a little comfortable shiver as he
listened to it. It was very pleasant to listen to it in that cozy little
room. He poked the blazing coals, sipped his red port, stroked pussy,
who bore a most absurd feline resemblance to himself, and took up his
paper again.
For the second time he read over a brief paragraph among the
"Personals:"
"LEFT HER 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.