Mistress Wilding (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

by Rafael Sabatini

  Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He had all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of his inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it was this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very presence of Ruth.

  They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room, the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir Rowland, his stiff, short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge, swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.

  Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her brother.

  "You are not looking well, Richard," she said, which was true enough, for much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and young as he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness that was exceedingly unhealthy.

  "Oh, I am well enough," he answered almost peevishly, for these allusions to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.

  "Gad!" cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, "you'll need to be well. I have work for you tomorrow, Dick."

  Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. "I am sick of the work you discover for us, Rowland," he answered ungraciously.

  But Blake showed no resentment. "Maybe you'll find the present task more to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man to satisfy you." He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at Ruth, who was observing him, listening.

  Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.

  "I see," said Blake, "that I shall have to tell you the whole story before you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But . . ." and he checked on the word, his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, "I would not have it overheard — not for a king's ransom," which was more literally true than he may have intended it to be.

  Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.

  "We have no eavesdroppers," he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt of the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the importance of them. "What are you considering?" he inquired.

  "To end the rebellion," answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.

  Richard laughed outright. "There are several others considering that — notably His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the Earl of Feversham. Yet they don't appear to achieve it."

  "It is in that particular," said Blake complacently, "that I shall differ from them." He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his plans could other than meet her approval. "What do you say, Mistress Ruth?" Presuming upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to calling her by that name in preference to the other which he could not bring himself to give her. "Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's endeavour?"

  "If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be doing a worthy deed."

  Blake rose, and made her a leg. "Madam," said he, "had aught been wanting to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan is simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal agents, and deliver them over to the King. And that is all."

  "A mere nothing," croaked Richard.

  "Could more be needed?" quoth Blake. "Once the rebel army is deprived of its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not shrewd?"

  "You are telling us the object rather than the plan," Ruth reminded him. "If the plan is as good as the object . . ."

  "As good?" he echoed, chuckling. "You shall judge." And briefly he sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr. Newlington. "Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money. Newlington goes today to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke is to do him the honour of supping at his house tomorrow night to fetch the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under the circumstances, and the Duke cannot — dare not refuse it."

  "But how will that advance your project?" Ruth inquired, for Blake had paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.

  "In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men, well armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater folk. I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take Monmouth at supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to have accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with all speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to await me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We shall join them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist General. Could aught be simpler or more infallible?"

  Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the subject of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by it, he clapped his friend on the back approvingly.

  "A great plan!" he cried. "Is it not, Ruth?"

  "It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives," said she, "and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who may be with the Duke?" she inquired.

  "There are not likely to be many — half a dozen, say. We shall have to make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm." He saw her glance clouding. "That is the ugly part of the affair," he was quick to add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. "What help is there?" he asked. "Better that those few should suffer than that, as you yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before this rebellion is put down. Besides," he continued, "Monmouth's officers are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to promote their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty and religion — it is these whom I am striving to rescue."

  His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then she thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he? Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme, and that Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana, who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would readily have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself with tears in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her feet.

  She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in the panoply of heroic achievement.

  "I think," she said, "that you are setting your hand to a very worthy and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must attend your efforts." He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.

  Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. "
A great enterprise, Dick," he cried; "I may count upon you for one?"

  "Aye," said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed, "you may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the venture."

  CHAPTER XVII

  MR. WILDING'S RETURN

  THE preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at Somerton to enlist the general's coöperation to the extent that we have seen he looked for. That done, he was to return and ripen his preparations for the business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite of all that lay before him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton House without stepping out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through the window, whilst he and Richard were at their ale, he had watched her between whiles, and had lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and it was not his wish to seek her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with her, ere he went, he must. He was an opportunist, and now, he fondly imagined, was his opportunity. He had made that day, at last, a favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he had revealed himself in an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the emotion she had shown before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he strike now victory must attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and pleasurable anticipation. He had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him, he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he frowned, as another glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a constant obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that she had come to reciprocate his sentiments — to hate him with all the bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted. At first her object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading his cause, and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see revived — faute de mieux, since possible in no other way — the feelings that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation was rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering courtship of her cousin in despite of all that she could do.

  In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed it into venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his disaffection by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees for a full twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could thwart his purpose. On that she was resolved.

  Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for her to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all the afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of the circumstance — believing that he had already left the house — she presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.

  "Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?" she asked him, and a less sanguine man had been discouraged by the words.

  "It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time," said he, "when we consider that I go, perhaps — to return no more." It was an inspiration on his part to assume the rôle of the hero going forth to a possible death. It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain for a change of colour, be it never so slight, or a quickening of the breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to soften as they observed him.

  "There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?" said she, between question and assertion.

  "It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the risk may be."

  "It is a good cause," said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble folk that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to rescue from impending ruin and annihilation," and "surely Heaven will be on your side."

  "We must prevail," cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought him a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. "We must prevail, though some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a foreboding . . ." He paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head, as if throwing off some weight that had oppressed him.

  It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned. It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned — from the school of foul experience — in the secret ways that lead to a woman's favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.

  "Will you walk, mistress?" he said, and she, feeling that it were an unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely. They moved down the sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded, his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet of copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.

  A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke. "With this foreboding that is on me," said he, "I could not go without seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another chance of saying; something that — who knows? — but for the emprise to which I am now wedded you had never heard from me."

  He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure of her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with a ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.

  "You exaggerate, I trust," said she. "Your forebodings will be proved groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed I hope you may."

  That was his cue. "You hope it?" he cried, arresting his step, turning, and imprisoning her left hand in his right. "You hope it? Ah, if you hope for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have some welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think . . ." his voice quivered cleverly, "I think, perhaps, it were well if . . . if my forebodings were not as groundless as you say they are. Tell me, Ruth . . ."

  But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her hand.

  "What is't you mean?" she asked. "Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly, that I may give you a plain answer."

  It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to utter rout.

  "Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed," he answered her. "I mean . . ." He almost quailed before the look that met him from her intrepid eyes. "Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?"

  "That which I see," said she, "I do not believe, and as I would not wrong you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me."

  Yet the egregious fool went on. "And why should you not believe your senses?" he asked her, between anger and entreaty. "Is it wonderful that I should love you? Is it . . .?"

  "Stop!" She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence, during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and, in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a sudden relaxing of th
e stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, "I think you had better leave me, Sir Rowland," she advised him. She half turned and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside her.

  "Do you hate me, Ruth?" he asked her hoarsely.

  "Why should I hate you?" she counter-questioned, sadly. "I do not even dislike you," she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by way of explaining this phenomenon, "You are my brother's friend. But I am disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done."

  "As how?" he asked.

  "Knowing me another's wife . . ."

  He broke in tempestuously. "A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple stands between us . . ."

  "I think there is more," she answered him. "You compel me to hurt you; I do so as the surgeon does — that I may heal you."

  "Why, thanks for nothing," he made answer, unable to repress a sneer. Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, "I go, mistress," he told her sadly, "and if I lose my life tonight, or tomorrow, in this affair . . ."

  "I shall pray for you," said she; for she had found him out at last, perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.

  He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that welled up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the sort — as Trenchard had once reminded him — that falls a prey to apoplexy, and surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a profound bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony of deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.

  The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked to cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could it profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For whether she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding, nominally, at least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted; not her heart, indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a stumbling-block to him since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding he might have run a smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug that dear illusion to his soul. Somewhere in England — if not dead already — this Wilding lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at sight. Sir Rowland swore he would not rest until he knew that Anthony Wilding cumbered the earth no more — leastways, not the surface of it.