Mistress Wilding (12 page)

Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird to escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly defend himself from such an imputation — so
dangerously true.

"'S a lie!" he gasped.

Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the other. "They say," he added, "that you're for forsaking 'Duke's party."

"Villainous!" Richard protested. "I'll sli' throat of any man't says so." And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the table to emphasize his seriousness.

Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in his tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had equipped himself.

"'I think I espy,'" he quoted presently, "'virtue and valour crouched in thine eye.' And yet . . . and yet . . . if I had cause to think it true, I'd . . . I'd run you through the vitals
— jus' so," and he prodded Richard's waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face darkened, his eyes glittered fiercely. "Are ye sure ye're norrer foul traitor?" he demanded
suddenly. "Are y' sure, for if ye're not . . ."

He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was nonetheless understood. It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of Richard, and startled him.

"'Swear I'm not!" he cried. "'Swear mos' solemnly I'm not."

"Swear?" echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still. "Swear? A man may swear and yet lie — 'a man may smile and smile and be a villain.' I'll have proof of your loyalty to us. I'll
have proof, or as there's a heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up."

His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that it was not raised above a whisper.

Richard sat back appalled, afraid.

"Wha' . . . what proof'll satisfy you?" he asked.

Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. "Pledge me the Duke," said he at length. "Ther's truth 'n wine. Pledge me the Duke and confusion to His Majesty the goldfinch." Richard
reached for his pewter, glad that the test was to be so light. "Up on your feet, man," grumbled Trenchard. "On your feet, and see that your words have a ring of truth in them."

Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler. He rose to his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a
bang. He never heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a hush fell in the chamber. Dominating this came Richard's voice, strident with intensity, if thick of utterance.

"Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!" he cried. "Down with Popery!" And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance that Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to
quarrel with him.

Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy. Men nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned at the treasonable words.

A swift change came over Trenchard. His drunkenness fell from him like a discarded mantle. He sat like a man amazed. Then he heaved himself to his feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem
on the wooden table, sending its fragments flying.

"Damn me!" he roared. "Have I sat at table with a traitor?" And he thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send
him sprawling on the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them, some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord, came hurrying to assist Richard to his
feet.

"Mr. Westmacott," he whispered in the rash fool's ear, "you were best away."

Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside the veil that obscured his wits. What had happened?
What had he said? What had Trenchard done? Why did these fellows stand and gape at him? He heard his companion's voice, raised to address the company.

"Gentlemen," he heard him say, "I trust there is none present will impute to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott has expressed. But if there is any who questions my
loyalty, I have a convincing argument for him — in my scabbard." And he struck his sword-hilt with his fist.

Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig, and, taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the door. He looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he
was leaving behind him, listened a moment to the voices that already were being raised in excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly to the stable-yard, where he called for his
horse. He rode out of Bridgwater ten minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon was rising big and yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton towards ten o'clock that night,
having ridden hell-to-leather. His first visit was to the Hare and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had overtaken the courier. His next to the house where Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell
— the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His Majesty — had their lodging.

The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenanťs
warrant to arrest Mr. Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man still abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and dress himself — though
little did he dream of the full extent to which Mr. Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any hand at all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes with a
tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his window, the constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search of the house. All they found of interest was a letter signed
"Monmouth," which they took from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library; but that, it seemed, was all they sought, for having found it, they proceeded no further with their reckless and
destructive ransacking.

With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm and sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair
poor Ruth was all for following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence of how that letter came into his possession she might do something to assist him. But knowing, as she did,
that he had had his share in the treason that was hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would not lack for other proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead to the only man upon
whose resource she might depend, provided he were willing to exert it. That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana urged it from motives of her own or out of concern for Richard, it would be
difficult to say with certainty.

The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed, was repugnant to Ruth. And yet what choice had she? Convinced by her cousin and urged by her affection and duty to Richard,
she repressed her aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase, attended by a groom. Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at work upon a mass of documents in that same library
where she had talked with him on the occasion of her first visit to his home — to the home of which she remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress. He was preparing for circulation in
the West a mass of libels and incendiary pamphlets calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant Duke.

Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters — who left her waiting in the hall whilst he went to announce her — to admit her instantly, and he advanced to the door to receive and
welcome her.

"Ruth," said he, and his face was oddly alight, "you have come at last."

She smiled a wan smile of self-pity. "I have been constrained," said she, and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested for high treason, and that the constable in searching
the house had come upon the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.

"And not a doubt," she ended, "but it will be believed that it was to Richard the letter was indited by the Duke. You will remember that its only address was 'to my good friend, W.,' and that
will stand for Westmacott as well as Wilding."

Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor suspicion of the machinations of his friend
Trenchard, to which these events were due. But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother, he curbed his natural amusement.

"It is a judgment upon you," said he, nevertheless.

"Do you exult?" she asked indignantly.

"No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice. If you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should follow your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform
the lieutenants of how the letter came into your power."

She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. "Would he believe me, think you?"

"Belike he would not," said Mr. Wilding. "You can but try."

"If I told them it was addressed to you," she said, eyeing him sternly, "does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you, and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman
you could not lie away my brother's life."

"Why, yes," said he quite calmly, "it does occur to me. But does it not occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?" He laughed at her dismay. "I thank you, madam, for
this warning," he added. "I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long already have I tarried."

"And must Richard hang?" she asked him fiercely.

Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it deliberately. "If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows that he has built himself — although
intended for another. I'faith! He's not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth, they are two things I
have ever loved?" And he took a pinch of choice Bergamot.

"Will you be serious?" she demanded.

"Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the rule of my life," he assured her, smiling. "Yet even that might I do at your bidding."

"But this is a serious matter," she told him angrily.

"For Richard," he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. "Tell me, what would you have me do?"

Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. "Save him."

"At the cost of my own neck?" quoth he. "The price is high," he reminded her. "Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?"

"And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?" she counter-questioned. "Are you capable of such a baseness?"

He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. "You have not reflected," said he slowly, "that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's life. There is a great cause weighing in the
balance against all personal considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set him free by taking his place. As it is,
however, I think I am of the greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards perished — frankly — their loss would be something of a gain, for Richard has played
a traitor's part already. That is with me the first of all considerations."

"Am I of no consideration to you?" she asked him. And in an agony of terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him.
"Listen!" she cried.

"Not thus," said he, a frown between his eyes. He took her by the elbows and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. "It is not fitting you should kneel save at your prayers."

She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it. To release them was easy, and the next second her hands
were on his shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.

"Mr. Wilding," she implored him, "you'll not let Richard be destroyed?"

He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her lissom waist. "It is hard to deny you, Ruth," said he. "Yet not my love of my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty
to the cause to which I am pledged. I were a traitor were I now to place myself in peril."

She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath fanned his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response. Despite herself almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she
exerted the weapons of her sex to bend him to her will.

"You say you love me," she whispered. "Prove it me now, and I will believe you."

"Ah!" he sighed. "And believing me? What then?"

He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong enough to hold himself for long.

"You . . . you shall find me your . . . dutiful wife," she faltered, crimsoning.

His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head to hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they had been living fire.

Anon, she was to weep in shame — in shame and in astonishment — at that instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save for her brother. Exultation filled her. She
accounted that she had conquered, and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed man. The next instant,
however, she was cold again with dismay and newborn terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the hands she had rested upon his shoulders. His white face — the flush had faded
from it again — smiled a thought disdainfully.

"You bargain with me," he said. "But I have some knowledge of your ways of trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman."

"You mean," she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a deathly white, "you mean that you'll not save him?"

"I mean," said he, "that I will have no further bargains with you."