THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.
The April day had been very long, and very, very dull in the handsome
Walraven Fifth Avenue palace. Long and lamentable, as the warning cry
of the banshee, wailed the dreary blast. Ceaselessly, dismally beat the
rain against the glass. The icy breath of the frozen North was in the
wind, curdling your blood and turning your skin to goose-flesh; and the
sky was of lead, and the streets were slippery and sloppy, and the New
York pavements altogether a delusion and a snare.
All through this bad, black April day, Mollie Dane had wandered through
the house, upstairs and down-stairs, like an uneasy ghost.
Some evil spirit of unrest surely possessed her. She could settle
nowhere. She threw herself on a sofa in her pretty bedroom, and tried
to beguile the forlorn hours with the latest novel, in vain. She yawned
horribly over the pages and flung it from her in disgust.
She wandered down to the drawing-room and tried the grand piano, whose
tones were as the music of the spheres. Still in vain. The listless
fingers fell aimlessly on the ivory keys.
She strove to sleep, but the nervous restlessness that possessed her
only drove her to the verge of feverish madness in the effort. The girl
was possessed of a waking nightmare not to be shaken off.
"What is it?" cried Mollie, impatiently, to herself. "What the
mischief's the matter with me? I never felt like this before. It can't
be remorse for some unacted crime, I never committed murder that I know
of. It can't be dyspepsia, for I've got the digestive powers of an
anaconda. It can't be the weather, for I've struggled through one or two
other rainy days in my life-time; and it can't be anxiety for to-night
to come, for I'm not apt to get into a gale about trifles. Perhaps it's
a presentiment of evil to come. I've heard of such things. It's either
that or a fit of the blue-devils!"
The long, wet, windy day wore on. Mr. Walraven slept through it
comfortably in his study. Mrs. Walraven had a _tête-à-tête_ luncheon
with her cousin, the doctor, and dawdled the slow hours away over her
tricot and fashion magazines.
Old Mme. Walraven rarely left her own apartments of late days.
Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law detested each other with an intensity
not common even in that relationship. How she ever killed time was a
mystery unknown. Mollie good-naturedly devoted a couple of her precious
daily hours to her. The house was as still as a tomb. Downstairs,
Messrs. Johnson and Wilson, Mr. Coachman, Mme. Cook and Mlle.
Chambermaid may have enjoyed themselves in one another's society, but
above the kitchen cabinet all was forlorn and forsaken.
"Awfully slow, all this!" said Miss Dane to herself, with a fearful
yawn. "I'll die of stagnation if this sort of thing keeps on. Mariana,
howling in the Moated Grange, must have felt a good deal as I do just at
present--a trifle worse, maybe, for I don't wish I were dead altogether.
The Tombs is gay and festive compared to Fifth Avenue on a rainy day. I
wish I were back playing Fanchon the Cricket, free and happy once more,
wearing spangles as Ophelia of Denmark, and a gilt paper crown as
Cleopatra of Egypt, I wasn't married then; and I didn't go moping
about, like an old hen with the distemper, every time it was wet and
nasty. If it keeps on like this I shall have a pretty time of it getting
to Fourteenth Street, at ten o'clock to-night. And I'll surely go, if it
were to rain cats, dogs, and pitchforks!"
She stood drearily at the drawing-room window, looking forlornly out at
the empty street.
The eerie twilight was falling, rain and wind rising and falling with
it, the street lamps twinkling ghostily through the murky gloaming, the
pavement black and shining. Belated pedestrians hurried along with bowed
heads and uplifted umbrellas, the stages rattled past in a ceaseless
stream, full to overflowing. The rainy night was settling down, the
storm increasing as the darkness came on. Mollie surveyed all this
disconsolately enough.
"I don't mind a ducking," she murmured, plaintively, "and I never take
cold; but I don't want that man to see me looking like a drowned rat.
Oh, if it should turn out to be Hugh--dear, dear Hugh!" Her face lighted
rapturously at the thought. "I never knew how much I loved him until I
lost him. If it isn't Hugh, and Hugh asks me to run away with him
to-morrow, I'll do it--I declare I will--and the others may go to
grass!"
At that moment, voices sounded on the stairs--the voices of Mrs.
Walraven and her cousin.
The drawing-room door was ajar, Mollie's little figure hidden in the
amber drapery of the window, and she could see them plainly, without
herself being seen.
"You won't fail?" Mrs. Walraven said, impressively. "I will do my part.
Are you equal to yours?"
"I never fail where I mean to succeed," answered Dr. Guy, with equal
emphasis. "Sooner or later, I triumph! I shall triumph now! 'All things
are possible to him who knows how to wait.' I have waited, and this
night gives me my reward."
The house door closed after the young man. Mrs. Walraven peeped into the
drawing-room, never seeing the slender figure amid the voluminous golden
damask, and then reascended the stairs. Mollie was again in silence and
solitude.
"Now, what are those two up to, I should like to know?" soliloquized the
young lady. "Some piece of atrocious mischief, I'll be bound! He looks
like the Miltonic Lucifer sometimes, that man, only not one half so
good-looking; but there is a snakish, treacherous, cold-blooded glare
in his greenish-black eyes that makes me think of the arch-tempter; and
some people have the bad taste to call him handsome."
The twilight had ended in darkness by this time. Mollie put her hand to
her belt to find her watch, but it was not there.
"I have left it on my dressing-table," she thought, moving away. "I will
have a cup of tea in my room this evening, and let guardy and Madame
Blanche dine together. I wish it were time to start. I abominably hate
waiting."
Mollie found her watch on the table, and was rather surprised to see it
past eight.
"I had no idea it was so late," she said to herself. "I shall leave here
at half past nine. There is nothing like keeping tryst in season."
She rang for Lucy, ordered a little supper in her room, and then
dismissed the maid.
"I shan't want you again to-night, Lucy," she said. "You can go out, if
you like, and see your mother."
Lucy tripped away, right well pleased, and Mollie dawdled the time over
her supper and a book.
Half past nine came very soon.
"Time to get ready," thought Mollie, starting up. "Dear, dear! it's
highly romantic and highly sensational, this nocturnal appointment with
a masked man, and that man one's mysterious husband. I can't say much
for the place; there's precious little romance around the Maison Dorée.
Does it still rain, I wonder?"
She opened the blind and looked out. Yes, it still rained; it still blew
in long, shuddering gusts; the low-lying sky was inky black; athwart the
darkness flashed the murky street lamps.
Mollie dropped the curtain, with a little shiver.
"'The night is cold, and dark, and dreary,
It rains, and the wind is never weary.'
It's a horrible night to be abroad, but I'll keep my word, if I drown
for it!"
She hunted up the long water-proof mantle she had worn the night of her
abduction, drew the hood far over her head and face, wrapped it around
her, opened the window, and resolutely stepped out on the piazza.
She paused an instant--a blinding rush of wind and rain almost took her
off her feet; the next, the brave little heroine was flitting along the
slippery piazza, down the stairs, out of the wicket gate and into the
black, shining street.
Away sped Mollie--swift as a little, wingless Mercury--down the avenue,
through Union Square, to the place of tryst.
She expected every moment to hear the city clocks chime ten, but she
reached Broadway without hearing them. Little wonder, when it was but
half past nine.
Drenched through, blown about, breathless, panting, almost scared at
the dreary forlornness of the deserted streets, the adventurous little
damsel reached the place of tryst.
Was she too soon? Surely not. There stood a cab, drawn close to the
curbstone, and there, in the shadow of the cab, stood a tall man in a
cloak, evidently waiting.
The lamps of the carriage shone upon him, but the cloak collar was so
turned up, the slouched hat so pulled down, such a quantity of dark
beard between, that nothing was visible of the face whatever.
Mollie paused, altogether exhausted; the man advanced a step out of the
shadow.
"White Mask?" he asked, in a cautious whisper.
"Black Mask!" responded Mollie, promptly.
"All right, then!" replied the man, speaking in French, and speaking
rapidly. "It's impossible to stand here in the rain and talk. I have
brought a carriage--let me assist you in."
But Mollie shrunk back. Some nameless thrill of terror suddenly made her
dread the man.
"You must--you must!" cried the man, in an impetuous whisper. "We can
not stand here in this down-pour. Don't you see it is impossible? And
the first policeman who comes along will be walking us off to the
station-house."
He caught her arm and half led her to the carriage. Shrinking
instinctively, yet hardly knowing what to do, she found herself in it,
and seated, before she quite knew it.
He sprung after her, closed the door, the carriage started at once at
a great pace, and the poor little fly was fairly caught in the spider's
web.
"I don't like this," said Mollie, decisively. "I had no idea of entering
a carriage when I appointed this meeting. Where are you taking me to?"
"There is no need to be alarmed, pretty Mollie," said the man, still
speaking French. "I have given the coachman orders to rattle along
through the streets. We can talk here at our leisure, and as long as we
please. You must perceive the utter impossibility of conversation at a
street corner and in a down-pour of rain."
Mollie did, but she fidgeted in her seat, and felt particularly
uncomfortable, all the same. Now that it was too late, she began to
think she had acted unwisely in appointing this meeting.
"Why didn't I let well enough alone?" thought the young lady. "At a
distance, it seemed the easiest thing in the world; now that I am in
the man's power, I am afraid of him, more so than I ever was before."
The man had taken his seat beside her. At this juncture he put his arm
around her waist.
"Why can't we be comfortable and affectionate, as man and wife
should--eh, Mollie? You don't know how much obliged to you I am for
this interview."
There was a ring of triumph in his tone that Mollie could not fail to
perceive. Her heart gave a great jump of terror, but she angrily flung
herself out of his arm.
"Keep your distance, sir! How dare you? You sing quite a new song since
I saw you last! Don't you lay a finger on me, or I'll--"
"What, pretty Cricket?" with a sardonic laugh.
Mollie caught her breath. That name, that tone--both were altogether new
in the unknown man.
The sound of the voice, now that he spoke French, was quite unlike that
of the man she had come to meet. And he was not wont to call her
Cricket.
Had she made some horrible mistake--been caught in some dreadful trap?
But, no; that was impossible.
"Look here, Mr. Mask," said Mollie, fiercely, "I don't want any of
your familiarity, and I trust to your honor to respect my unprotected
situation. I appointed this meeting because you kept your word, and
behaved with tolerable decency when we last parted. I want to end this
matter. I want to know who you are."
"My precious Mollie, your husband!"
"But who are you?"
"One of your rejected suitors."
"But which of them?--there were so many."
"The one who loved you best."
"Pshaw! I don't want trifling! What is your name?"
"Ernest."
"I never had a lover of that name," said Mollie, decidedly. "You are
only mocking me. Are you--are you--Hugh Ingelow?"
Her voice shook a little. The man by her side noted it, and burst into
a derisive laugh.
"You are not Hugh Ingelow!" Mollie cried in a voice of sharp, sudden
pain--"you are not!"
"And you are sorry, pretty Mollie? Why, that's odd, too! He was a
rejected lover, was he not?"
"Let me out!" exclaimed the girl, frantically--"let me go! I thought you
were Hugh Ingelow, or I never would have come! Let me out! Let me out!"
She made a rush at the door, with a shrill cry of affright. A sudden
panic had seized her--a horrible dread of the man beside her--a stunning
sense that it was not the man she loved.
Again that strident laugh--mocking, sardonic, triumphant--rang through
the carriage. Her arms were caught and held as in a vise.
"Not so fast, my fair one; there is no escape: I can't live without
you, and I see no reason why a man should live without his wife. You
appointed this meeting yourself, and I'm excessively obliged to you. I
am taking you to the sea-side to spend the honey-moon. Don't struggle
so--we'll return to New York by and by. As for Hugh Ingelow, you mustn't
think of him now; it isn't proper in a respectable married woman to know
there is another man in the scheme of the universe except her husband.
Mollie! Mollie! if you scream in that manner you'll compel me to resort
to chloroform--a vulgar alternative, my dearest."
But Mollie struggled like a mad thing, and screamed--wild, shrill,
womanly shrieks that rang out even above the rattle and roll of the
carriage wheels.
The man, with an oath, placed his hand tightly over her mouth. They were
going at a frightful pace, and already the city, with its lights and
passengers, was left far behind. They were flying over a dark, wet road,
and the wind roared through distant trees, and the rain fell down like a
second deluge.
"Let me go--let me go!" Mollie strove madly to cry, but the tightening
grasp of that large hand suffocated her.
The carriage seemed suddenly to reel, a thousand lights flashed before
her eyes, a roar like the roar of many waters surged in her ears, a
deathly sickness and coldness crept over her, and with a gasping sob she
slipped back, fainting away for the first time in her life.