The Unseen Bridgegroom by May Agnes Fleming (books to read for self improvement TXT) 📕

and the blessing, if meant for your best friend, should have been kept for Hugh Ingelow. I but obey his orders."

Mollie turned radiantly red. Mrs. Susan Sharpe, with a significant smile at her own keenness, immediately quitted the room.

Dr. Oleander did not disturb Mollie. He departed half an hour after Mrs. Sharpe quitted her for the night. The account his mother and Sally gave of the nurse made him disposed to trust her.

"I will take her with me," he thought, "since she is so trustworthy. It would be too horribly dreary for Mollie without one companion of her own sex."

So he offered liberal terms, and Mrs. Sharpe closed with his offer readily enough.

"I'd as lief go to Cuba as not," she said, in her sedate way. "One place is the same as another to me. But it's very soon to be ready."

"Never mind," replied the doctor. "We'll find dry-goods stores in Havana, I dare say, and, meantime, I'll provide some ready-made things from New York."

Dr. Oleander departed very well satisfied. He would have liked very much to see Mollie, but his approach always threw her into such a fury, and he wanted her kept as quiet as possible until the hour of departure.

"I'll have to resort to the vulgar alternative of chloroform, I dare say," he thought. "She'll make a fight for it at the last. I can quiet her, however."

And so Dr. Oleander went back to New York without one suspicion that his new nurse was playing him false.

Within an hour after breakfast, the peddler presented himself next morning. Again Mrs. Oleander and Sally were vividly interested, and again each purchased something. Again Mrs. Sharpe said she wanted nothing, and again she knelt down to examine the contents of the pack. The peddler pressed his goods, Mrs. Sharpe obdurately declined. He persisted, Mrs. Sharpe grew angry.

"Take these here gloves, then, for massy sake!" cried the peddler in desperation, "ef yer won't take nothin' else. They're the richest of silk gloves, and, bein' it's you, only fifty cents. Just you feel 'em."

He looked Mrs. Sharpe full in the face. She took the gloves--a slip of paper was to be felt inside--a moment's demur, then she purchased and put them in her pocket.

The peddler departed; Mrs. Sharpe went upstairs, and drew forth the slip of paper. There were but three lines:

"Meet me this afternoon at two. I will be waiting in the woods near the shore, where you saw my boat yesterday. I know he was with you last night."

Mrs. Sharpe read this, destroyed it, and sat ruminating.

"What if they won't let me go? But no, they wouldn't dare keep me a prisoner, and if it came to fisticuffs," smiling to herself, "I could beat the three of them--poor old bodies! I'll go by strategy, if possible--by main force, if necessary. But I'll go."

Five minutes longer the nurse sat thinking. Then she arose, walked down-stairs, and complained drearily of a shocking bad headache.

Mrs. Oleander recommended a woman's cure--a cup of strong tea and going to bed. But Susan Sharpe shook her head.

"Tea never does me no good, and going to bed only makes me worse. I suppose it's staying in-doors so much. I ain't used to it. I always take a walk every afternoon. I'll wait and see if it gets better. If it don't, I'll go and take a little walk along the shore. A mouthful of fresh air will do me good."

Mrs. Sharpe waited accordingly, but the headache did not get better. On the contrary, it grew so much worse that when the one-o'clock dinner was ready, she was unable to eat a mouthful. She lay with her head on the table in a sort of stupor.

"I think you had better take a walk," said Mrs. Oleander, who was not an ill-natured old woman on the whole. "I don't want you to be laid up on our hands."

Mrs. Sharpe glanced at the clock; it wanted a quarter of two. She rose at once.

"I think I must, or I'll be fit for nothing for a week. I'll go and put on my things."

In five minutes, Susan Sharpe walked out of the garden gate and down to the shore. Old Peter closed the gate, watched her out of sight, and went back to the house, unsuspectingly.

Mrs. Sharpe sauntered slowly over the sandy beach to the strip of dark woods, skirted them, to avoid being seen from the windows of the house, and called:

"Mr. Ingelow."

"Here," answered a voice, and the peddler emerged from the trees and stood beside her. "You're a treasure, Mrs. Susan Sharpe," said the peddler--"worth your weight in crown diamonds. How is she?"

"As well as can be expected. A good deal the better for seeing you from her window last evening."

"I saw you both watching. She knows I have come to rescue her?"

"Of course. She is a woman."

"Does she recognize you?"

"No," with a laugh. "She called me her best friend last night. If she only knew!"

"She would still call you her best friend, perhaps. Your 'make-up' is a good one, Sarah, since she has failed to recognize you. What brought the doctor?"

Susan Sharpe briefly told him.

Mr. Ingelow whistled expressively.

"So soon? But I have thought so. He is not the man to wait. Well, we must be ahead of him, Sarah."

Sarah nodded.

"Yes--how?"

"I have it all arranged. Miss Dane must escape to-night. Look at this."

He pointed to a basket at his feet.

Mrs. Sharpe lifted the cover, and saw two lumps of raw beef.

"Well?" she asked, wonderingly.

"'A sop for Cerberus,'" laughed Hugh Ingelow; "a supper for the dogs. They'll never want another after."

"What do you mean?"

"The meat is poisoned; there is strychnine enough in these two pieces to kill a dozen dogs. I mean to throw that to them this evening."

"But how?"

"Over the wall, of course. What's their names? They'll come when I call them."

"Tiger and Nero."

"So be it. Tiger and Nero will devour the beef and ask no questions. An hour after they'll be as dead as two door-nails."

"Poor fellows! But it can't be helped, I suppose?"

"I suppose not. Save your sympathy, Sarah. You must do for the three old folks."

"Poison them, too?" asked Sarah, grimly.

"Not quite. Just put them to sleep."

"Indeed! How?"

Mr. Ingelow produced a little white paper from his vest pocket.

"You see this powder?" holding it up. "Drop it into the tea-pot this evening, and don't drink any of the tea."

The woman shrunk a little.

"I'm almost afraid, Mr. Ingelow. I don't like drugging. They're old and feeble; I daren't do it."

"You must do it," Hugh Ingelow said, sternly. "I tell you there is no danger. Do you take me for a murderer?"

"No; but there might be a mistake."

"There is none. The powder is an opiate; it will harm no one. They will go to sleep a little earlier, and sleep a little longer and a little sounder than usual--that is all."

Mrs. Sharpe took the paper, but with evident reluctance.

"I tell you it is all right," reiterated Hugh Ingelow; "no one is to be murdered but the dogs. Doctor Oleander will have no scruple about drugging Miss Dane on Friday night, you will see. The choice lies between her and them. Are you going to fail me at the last, Sarah?" sternly.

"No," said the woman. She dropped the little package in her pocket, and looked him firmly in the face. "I'll do it, Mr. Ingelow. And then?"

"And then the dogs will be dead, and the people asleep, before ten o'clock. At ten I'll be at the gate; a vehicle will be waiting down below in the clump of cedars. You will open the house door and the garden gate, and let me in. Before another day we'll be in the city."

"So be it. And now," said Mrs. Sharpe, drawing her shawl around her, "I must go. I came to walk off a bad headache; I find it is gone, so I had better return."

"Good-bye, and God speed you!" said Hugh Ingelow.

Mrs. Sharpe walked back to the house. Old Peter admitted her, and all three were solicitous about her headache.

"Much better," Mrs. Sharpe said, quietly. "I knew that walk would cure it."

All the rest of the afternoon she helped old Sally to manufacture pies. Tea-time came, and, ever willing, she volunteered to make the tea.

"Do so," said old Sally. "I can't abear to take my hands out o' dough when they're into it."

The tea was made, the supper-table set, and then Mrs. Sharpe begged permission to make herself a cup of coffee.

"I find it better for my head than tea. It will cure me quite, I know."

Mrs. Oleander assented, and the coffee was made. The quartet sat down to supper, and Susan Sharpe felt an inward quaking as she watched them drink the tea. Mrs. Oleander complained that it was weak; Sally said it must have boiled, it had such a nasty taste; but they drank it for all that.

Supper over, Mrs. Sharpe brought up her patient's. But she carried her coffee, and left the doctored tea behind.

"We are to escape to-night," she said to Mollie. "Be ready. We will start at ten. Don't ask me to explain now. I feel nervous and am going down."

Before an hour had elapsed the drug began its work. Mrs. Oleander nodded over her knitting; Sally was drowsy over her dishes; Peter yawned audibly before the fire.

"I don't know what makes me so sleepy this evening," Mrs. Oleander said, gaping. "The weak tea, I suppose. Peter, close up early to-night; I think I'll go to bed."

"I'll let the dogs loose now," said Peter. "I'm blamed sleepy myself."

The old man departed. Very soon the hoarse barking of the dogs was heard as they scampered out of their kennel. Peter returned to find the two old women nodding in company.

"You had better go to bed," suggested Mrs. Sharpe. "I'm going myself. Good-night."

She quitted the kitchen. Mrs. Oleander, scarcely able to keep her eyes open, rose up also.

"I will go. I never felt so sleepy in my life. Good-night; Sally."

"Good-night," said Sally, drowsily. "I'll go after you."

Before the kitchen clock struck nine, sleep had sealed the eyelids of Mrs. Oleander and her servants more tightly than they were ever sealed before. And out in the yard, stiff and stark, lay Nero and Tiger. They had eaten the poisoned beef, and, like faithful sentinels, were dead at their posts.


CHAPTER XXII.

A MOONLIGHT FLITTING.

The big Dutch clock on the kitchen mantel struck nine. The silence of the grave reigned within the house. With the first clear chime Mrs. Susan Sharpe rose from the bed on which she had thrown herself, dressed and prepared for action.

She drew the curtain and looked out. The night was celestial. A brilliant, full moon flooded the dark earth and purple sea with silvery radiance; the sky was cloudless--blue as Mollie Dane's eyes, the stars beyond number, big and bright.

A faint sea-breeze just stirred the swaying trees; the surf broke in a dull, monotonous