Chapter 24 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini
JUSTICE
It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr. Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange. But the strangest yet remains to be related. For in spite of all that had passed between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable night of Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost and won, towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only back at Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's widow. For effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted whether history furnishes a parallel. Indeed, until the circumstances are sifted it seems wild and incredible. So let us consider these.
On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became invested—infested were no whit too strong a word—by the King's forces under Feversham and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror for the town. The prisons were choked with attainted and suspected rebels. From Bridgwater to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue of gallows, each bearing its repulsive grimace-laden burden; for the King's commands were unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life was safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeffries and his four associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could compare in ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least, when Jeffries came, men were given a trial—or what looked like it—and there remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as many lived to prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such chance. And it was of this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the fullest and the cowardliest advantage.
There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be urged for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had circumstances been other it is possible he had been a credit to his name. But he was weak in character, and out of that weakness he had developed a Herculean strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in everything he undertook. Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of town by creditors, he was in desperate straits to repair his fortunes and, as we have seen, he was not nice in his endeavours to achieve that end.
Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer, and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh hand—a hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself mad in what he had done on that Sunday night—mad with despair and rage at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend an ear to it—and a forgiving one.
“You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper,” he had said, when Jasper told him that they could not receive him, “that he would be unwise not to see me, and the same to Mistress Wilding.”
And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the wicked smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his eyes he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed, Richard found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took for pattern. He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained thereby a healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark. He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers, and even took to saying grace to his meat. Indeed—for conversion, when it comes, is a furious thing—the swing of his soul's pendulum threatened now to carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. “O Lord!” he would cry a score of times a day, “Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit!”
But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of his nature—indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made this sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the baronet might have to say.
It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and exhausted with her grief—believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation. The thing he went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw but the slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had argued, why console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days the headsman might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so might be to give her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by the thought that, in spite of all, it may have been pity that had so grievously moved her at their last meeting. Better, then, to wait; better for both their sakes. If he came safely through his ordeal it would be time enough to bear her news of his preservation.
In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes to tell the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the withdrawing-room, her brother at her side. To his expressions of deep penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what disastrous results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this attitude of theirs towards him.
“I have come,” he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, “to do something more than speak of my grief and regret. I have come to offer proof of it by service.
“We ask no service of you, sir,” said Ruth, her voice a sword of sharpness.
He sighed, and turned to Richard. “This were folly,” he assured his whilom friend. “You know the influence I wield.”
“Do I?” quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.
“You think that the bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?” quoth Blake. “With Feversham, perhaps. But Albemarle, remember, trusts me very fully. There are ugly happenings in the town here. Men are being hung like linen on a washing-day. Be not too sure that yourself are free from all danger.” Richard paled under the baronet's baleful, half-sneering glance. “Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for you may find me useful.”
“Do you threaten, sir?” cried Ruth.
“Threaten?” quoth he. He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of them. “Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you how I can serve you?—than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven. A word from me, and Richard need fear nothing.”
“He need fear nothing without that word,” said Ruth disdainfully. “Such service as he did Lord Feversham the other night...”
“Is soon forgotten,” Blake cut in adroitly. “Indeed, 'twill be most convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have it known that 'twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his army?” He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, “The times are full of peril. There's Kirke and his lambs. And there's no saying how Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do that night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!”
“Would you inform him of it?” cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation. “Richard!” he cried in deep reproof and again, “Richard!”
“What other tongue has he to fear?” asked Ruth.
“Am I the only one who knows of it?” cried Blake. “Oh, madam, why will you ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend—my dearest friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me his, as you shall find me yours.”
“It is a boon I could dispense with,” she assured him, and rose. “This talk can profit little, Sir Rowland,” said she. “You seek to bargain.”
“You shall see how unjust you are,” he cried with deep sorrow. “It is but fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But you shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see how I shall befriend and protect him.”
That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved to receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken scorn, in spite of Richard's protests—for though afraid, yet he would not have it so—in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace again—to peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to Taunton, and Blake lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an undeniable guest.
His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the house and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him wait until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales Sir Rowland might elect to carry.
And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance. Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself to reckon.
Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of a debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned. One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not coxcomb enough to think—coxcomb though he was—might be dispensed with.
At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall appreciate anon.
They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an oppressively hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them, and their talk was of Sir Rowland. Diana—gall in her soul to see the baronet by way of gaining yet his ends—chid Richard in strong terms for his weakness in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House. And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
Sir Rowland, all unconscious—reckless, indeed—of this, sauntered with Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly to draw her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
“Ruth,” said he pensively, “I mind me of the last evening on which you and I walked here alone.”
She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and abiding ebb of blood in her face—grown now so thin and wistful—and he realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
“Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?” he sighed.
She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her soul. He sat a hand upon her arm. “Wait!” said he, and the tone in which he uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a little. “I am tired of this,” said he.
“Why, so am I,” she answered bitterly.
“Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.”
“It is all I ask.”
“Yes, but—alas!—in a different way. Listen now.”
“I will not listen. Let me go.”
“I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape. Richard is under suspicion.”
“Do you hark back to that?” The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.
“It has become known,” he continued, “that Richard was one of the early plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's, thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King James's, will be enough to hang him.”
Her hand clutched at her heart. “What is't you seek?” she cried. It was almost a moan. “What is't you want of me?”
“Yourself,” said he. “I love you, Ruth,” he added, and stepped close up to her.
“O God!” she cried aloud. “Had I a man at hand to kill you for that insult!”
And then—miracle of miracles!—a voice from the shrubs by which they stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was answered there and then.
“Madam, that man is here.”
She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the cottage that was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes fell upon Sir Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked in and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes wild with fright. What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her cousin, and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the sweep of lawn.
Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and reason told her that this was no ghost.
She held out her arms to him. “Anthony! Anthony!” She staggered forward, and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
He held her fast against him and kissed her brow. “Sweet,” he said, “forgive me that I frightened you. I came by the orchard gate, and my coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry.”
Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled closer to him. “Anthony!” she murmured again, and reached up a hand to stroke his face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost, recovered his lost courage. He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew it, leaving the weapon sheathed. Here was a hangman's job, not a swordsman's, he opined—and wisely, for he had had earlier experience of Mr. Wilding's play of steel.
He advanced a step. “O fool!” he snarled. “The hangman waits for you.”
“And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland,” came the voice of Mr. Trenchard, who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his friend's approach. “A Mr. Swiney. 'Twas I sent him from town. He's lodged at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe him. There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's gaol for you, sweetheart.”
A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. “They may have me, and welcome, when I've told my tale,” said he. “Let me but tell of Anthony Wilding's lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest of you are doomed for harbouring him. You know the law, I think,” he mocked them, for Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up, stood now a pace or so away in deepest wonder. “You shall know it better before the night is out, and better still before next Sunday's come.”
“Tush!” said Trenchard, and quoted, “'There's none but Anthony may conquer Anthony.'”
“'Tis clear,” said Wilding, “you take me for a rebel. An odd mistake! For it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant of the Secretary of State.”
Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter. He would have spoken, but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to Trenchard.
“Show it him,” said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office. He looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
“You were a spy?” he said, his tone making a question of the odious statement. “A dirty spy?”
“Your incredulity is flattering, at least,” said Wilding pleasantly as he repocketed the parchment, “and it leads you in the right direction. I neither was nor am a spy.”
“That paper proves it!” cried Blake contemptuously. Having been a spy himself, he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
“See to my wife, Nick,” said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer her to the care of his friend.
“Nay,” said Trenchard, “'tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the other for you.” And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the shoulder. “Sir Rowland,” said he, “you're a knave.” Sir Rowland stared at him. “You're a foul thing—a muckworm—Sir Rowland,” added Trenchard amiably, “and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may Heaven forgive you—I can't.”
“Stand aside,” Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks. “My affair is with Mr. Wilding.”
“Aye,” said Trenchard, “but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can settle what other affairs you please—including, belike, your business with Mr. Swiney.”
“Not so, Nick,” said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. “Here, Richard! Take her,” he bade his brother-in-law.
“Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own diversions. Sir Rowland,” he reminded the baronet, “I have called you a knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need but step down the orchard with me.”
He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the last of the whip he carried. “I'd grieve to do a violent thing before the ladies,” he murmured deprecatingly. “I'd never respect myself again if I had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of honour with a horsewhip. But, as God's my life, if you don't go willingly this instant, 'tis what will happen.”
Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters be, and his humanity prevailed. Diana watched this foreshadowing of tragedy with tight lips, pale cheeks. Justice was to be done at last, it seemed, and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew not whether to exult or weep. Her mother—understanding nothing—plied her meanwhile with whispered questions.
As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with wicked mirth, and rage welled up to choke him. He must kill this man.
“Come,” said he. “I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards.”
“Excellent,” said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to the orchard.
Ruth, reviving, looked up. Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened into understanding, and she stirred. “Is it true? Is it really true?” she cried. “I am being tortured by this dream again!”
“Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true. I am here. Say, shall I stay?”
She clung to him for answer. “And you are in no danger?”
“In none, sweet. I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go as best shall seem to me.” He begged the others to leave them a little while, and he led her to the stone seat by the river. He set her at his side there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party, and of the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use of the letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth in the hour of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had arrived in Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the council. There was never another opportunity, nor did he again think of the package in the stressful hours that followed. It was not until the following morning that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered, and bethought him that it might prove a weapon to win him delivery from the dangers that encompassed him.
“It was a slender chance,” he told her, “but I employed it. I waited in London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of seeing Sunderland. He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me with the Tower. But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would remain there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me arrested it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own head to the block more surely even than my own. It frightened him; but it had scarcely done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter was still in my boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the room with the rest of me.
“He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard and I—for I stipulated for old Nick's safety too—were His Majesty's accredited agents in the West. I loathed the title. But...”—he spread his hands and smiled—“it was that or widowing you.”
She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat thus until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous silence. Mr. Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye tucked farther under his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
“'Tis a thirsty evening,” he informed them.
“Go, tell Richard so,” said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's altered ways.
“I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking with me again. He has done it twice to his undoing.”
“He'll do it a third time, no doubt,” said Mr. Wilding curtly, and Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn towards the house. He found Richard in the porch, where he had lingered fearfully, waiting for news. At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim, weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
“How has it sped?” he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
“Yonder they sit,” said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
“No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland.”
“Oh, Sir Rowland?” cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were some matter long forgotten. He sighed. “Alas, poor Swiney! I fear I've cheated him.”
“You mean?”
“Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour of villainy.”
Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to heaven.
“May the Lord have mercy on his soul!” said he.
“May He, indeed!” said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his surprise. “But,” he added pessimistically, “I doubt the rogue's in hell.”
Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm, “'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.'”
Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was Westmacott's mind unhinged, Trenchard scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and misinterpreted it for one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was unrighteous. He stifled it, and forced his lips to sigh “Poor Blake!”
“Poor, indeed!” quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his play-acting days to suit the case. “The tears live in an onion that shall water his grave. Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney.” Then, in a brisker tone, “Come, Richard. What like is the muscadine you keep at Lupton House?”
“I have abjured all wine,” said Richard.
“A plague you have!” quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less. “Have you turned Mussulman, perchance?”
“No,” answered Richard sternly; “Christian.”
Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. “Hum,” said he at length. “Peace be with you, then. I'll leave you here to bay the moon to your heart's content. Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a brain-wash.” And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
“Shall we home, sweet?” whispered Mr. Wilding. The shadows befriended her, a veil for her sudden confusion. She breathed something that seemed no more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.