Wedded for a Week; or, The Unseen Bridegroom
248 pages
We begin on a dark and stormy November night at a ball hosted by Mrs Walraven, matriarch of the New York Walravens, at her Fifth Avenue mansion. Prodigal son Carl is in attendance, having recently returned from two decades spent in parts unknown. A greying thirty-nine-year-old, he still attracts the ladies, and not only because he is sole heir to the Walraven fortune. This Gilded Age-adjacent evening with its alabaster lamps and belles in silk, pearls, and diamonds – so many diamonds – is nearly spoiled by the appearance of a haggard woman dressed in rags, soaked with rain, who insists on speaking with the son of the hostess.
Carl Walraven knows better than to turn her away. This woman, Miriam, whom he'd believed long dead, holds something over him, but what exactly? The more Miriam speaks, the further the mystery grows. This line is key:
"Mary Dane's daughter lives not twenty miles from where we stand. Justice to the dead is beyond the power of even the wealthy Carl Walraven. Justice to the living can yet be rendered, and shall be to the uttermost farthing."
The haggard figure – is "hag" inappropriate? – demands that Carl bring the girl into his home, "educate her, dress her, and treat as your own child."
The second chapter – "Cricket" – finds the Walraven heir seated in a smelly provincial theatre for a performance of Fanchon the Cricket, the lead being played by "distinguished and beautiful young English actress, Miss Mollie Dane."
Carl, who one assumes has been around and has seen a thing or two, finds the sixteen-year-old golden haired actress enchanting:
The stars in the frosty November sky without were not brighter than her dark, bright eyes; no silvery music that the heir of all the Walravens had ever heard was clearer or sweeter than her free, girlish laugh; no golden sunburst ever more beautiful than the waving banner of wild, yellow hair. Mollie Dane stood before him a beauty born.Mollie Dane's talent and good looks make it all the easier to do as Miriam instructed and treat the girl as his own. Carl pays off theatre manager Mr Harkner, takes her home, and introduces the young actress to his mother: "'Here’s a granddaughter for you, mother,' said Mr. Walraven – 'a companion to cheer and brighten your future life. My adopted daughter – Mollie Dane.'”
Just how young is Joseph Sardonyx? I'd wager he has several more years than Mollie's sixteen.
While male guests fixate on the girl, Carl Walraven has eyes only for Blanche Orleander, the doctor's cousin.
And Blanche Orleander?
All night long, her dark eyes cast daggers at Mollie Dane.
Is Carl Walraven in love with Blanche? I wasn't convinced, though I understood the attraction. A statuesque, elegant woman, she moves through the novel in the finest silk and satin gowns, and with the greatest poise.
Carl proposes, Blanche accepts, and the two marry quickly in a ceremony marred by the sudden appearance of apparition-like Miriam:
“I forbid the marriage!” exclaimed Miriam. “Clergyman, on your peril you unite those two!”As it turns out, Miriam had mistakenly thought that Mollie was the bride. Once corrected, the hag apologizes and makes her departure, but not before checking in with Mollie, who assures that she is perfectly well and is being treated like a queen.
Mr. Walraven had had a surfeit of Europe, and Washington, this sparkling winter weather, was at its gayest and best. The Walraven party, with plethoric purses, plunged into the midst of the gayety at once.
Sexagenarian Sir Roger is smitten with the sixteen-year-old; so smitten that despite "asthmatic and rheumatic afflictions," he proposes marriage. Mollie is so smitten with the idea of becoming Lady Trajeuna and living in a Welsh castle that she accepts. She then has her hoary-haired fiancé promise to keep the engagement a secret for the time being:
Miss Dane returned to New York "engaged," and with the fact known to none save herself and the enraptured Welshman:
“There is no need to be in a hurry,” the young lady said to her elderly adorer; “and I want to be safely at home before I overwhelm them with the news. There is always such fussing and talking made over engagements, and an engagement is dreadfully humdrum and dowdyish anyhow.”That was what Miss Dane said. What she thought was entirely another matter.""I do want Doctor Oleander and Mr. Sardonyx to propose; and if they discover I've accepted the baronet, they won't. I am dying to see the wry faces they will make over 'No, thanks!' Then there is Hugh lngelow–”
Mollie achieves her objective and more on the first evening the newlywed couple are "at home" in the Fifth Avenue mansion. Blanche is "superb in her bridal robes," but is shown up by Mollie "in shimmering silk that blushed as she walked, and clusters of water-lilies drooping from her tinseled curls." Before the evening is out, Mollie receives three marriage proposals, the first being from Orleander, then Sardonyx, and then Ingelow. The last is unexpected. Mollie mentions nothing about her betrothal to Sir Roger, instead leads them on, telling each to visit the next morning for her answer. They arrive apart and wait in separate rooms, each unaware that his was not the only marriage proposal. Eventually, the men are ushered into the dining room, where they are surprised to see each other, old Sir Roger, and Mollie. The girl delights in revealing that she'd already agreed to take wealthy Welshman's aged hand in marriage.
The wedding day arrives nearly as quickly as it had for Carl and Blanche. Bridesmaids abound and the reverend and groom await. Mollie is completing her toilette when she receives a letter from an unknown person who offers to reveal the mystery of her origins. All the girl has to do is leave immediately and accompany the mysterious woman who had served as courier. This she does.
At last, we'll know the secret of Mollie Dane and why Carl Walraven adopted her!
Wedded for a Week being my seventh May Agnes Fleming read, this being chapter six of twenty-nine, I knew better than to expect the answer to that mystery in chapter seven. Mrs Fleming's plots are nowhere near so simple. That said, what happened next was entirely unexpected, plunging the story into a deeper hole.
"Why this deception – this abduction? Who am I? Where are you being taken? When are you to be restored to your friends? This is what you would ask, is it not? Very well; now to answer you. What does this mean? Why, it means that you have made an enemy, by your atrocious flirting, of one whom you cruelly and shamefully jilted, who has vowed vengeance, and who knows how to keep that vow. Why this deception – this abduction? Well, without deception it was impossible to get you away, and we know just enough about you to serve our purpose. Miriam never sent that note; but Miriam exists. Who am I? Why, I am that enemy – if one can be your enemy who loves you to madness – a man you cruelly taught to love you, and then scornfully refused. Where are you being taken? To a safe place, my charming Mollie – safe as 'that deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat’ which you have read of. When are you to be restored to your friends? When you have been my wife one week – not an instant sooner.”
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| The Unseen Bridegroom; or, Wedded for a Week May Agnes Fleming Chicago: Donahue, 1895 |
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| The Strange Case of Patty Hearst John Pascal and Francine Pascal New York: Signet, 1974 |
Three days later, my concerns remain.
Mrs. Walraven descended to breakfast at half past ten, and announced her intention of spending the remainder of the morning shopping.Mollie, in a charming demi-toilet, and looking as fresh as though she had not danced incessantly the whole night before, heard the announcement with secret satisfaction.“Are you going, too, Mollie?” asked her guardian.“No,” said Mollie; “I’m going to stay at home and entertain Sir Roger Trajenna. He is coming to luncheon.”“Seems to me, Cricket,” said Mr. Walraven, “Sir Roger Trajenna hangs after you like your shadow. What does it mean?”“It means — making your charming ward Lady Trajenna; if he can, of course.”“But he’s as old as the hills, Mollie.”“Then I’ll be a fascinating young widow all the sooner.”“Disgusting!” exclaimed Mrs. Carl Walraven. “You are perfectly heartless, Mollie Dane!”
The original year suggests the presidential ball attended by Carl Walraven, Blanche Walraven, Mollie Dane, Guy Orleander, Hugh Ingelow, Joseph Sardonyx, and Sir Roger Trajeuna would have been hosted by James Buchanan.
Gee, if only there'd been a White House ballroom.
Trivia II: A second honeymoon is mentioned in the novel, this on the next to last paragraph of he novel. Unlike Carl Walraven and Blanche Orleander, these newlyweds are very much in love. This second couple – no names as I don't want to spoil – take their honeymoon in "the Canadas," a reference to Canada East and Canada West.
Trivia III: Fanchon, the Cricket, the play in which Mollie stars was a real thing. Based on George Sand's 1849 novel Le Petite Fadette, the novel has been adapted to the English-language stage at least three times, once by way of a German adaptation. Hollywood took it on in 1915 with a feature starring Toronto girl Mary Pickford. Of her 245 films, Fanchon, the Cricket was Pickford's favourite as the only one feature both her siblings, Lottie and Jack. A lost film at the time of her death in 1979, it has since been discovered and restored.
Object and Access: An attractive book bound in brown boards. The novel itself is followed by eight pages of Milner's other offerings, including May Agnes Fleming's Heir of Charlton and The Midnight Queen. Also included: Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. My copy was purchased three year ago from a UK bookseller. Price: £19.00.
It once belonged to Edith Smith of 16 Asylum Street, Leicester. The street has since been renamed Gateway. Her home has long since been razed. Though I did go down a bit of a rabbit hole, the only concrete thing I have to add is that the head of the household in 1899 was a man named John Smith.
Sarah Dorwald's invaluable 'Working Bibliography of Texts by May Agnes Fleming' has it that the novel was first published in 1869 as The Unseen Bridegroom; Or, Wedded for a Week by New York publisher Munro. It would seem that American readers knew it only by this title. I expect this Street and Smith undated early twentieth-century paperback edition was the last.
Wouldn't you prefer an attractive19th-century copy to a 21st-century print-on-demand monstrosity like this?
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