With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to St Mary’s Church at noon, and there she found Mr Wilding – very fine in a suit of sky-blue satin, laced with silver – awaiting her. And with him was old Lord Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of benignity and ruddy health.
For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr Wilding’s side. But Nick had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasising his refusal by certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.
Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses – and little did they guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which Mr Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume hung heavy as incense in the temple.
“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” droned the parson’s voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him, “No man. I have taken her for myself.”
Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt her hand lying in Mr Wilding’s cool, firm grasp.
The ecclesiastic’s voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of some great insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they were welded each to the other until death should part them.
Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering, her face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and cousin and Lord Gervase. On Mr Wilding’s aquiline face a pale smile glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained from head to foot.
He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr Wilding – for he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom’s coat. His voice came harsh with excitement and smouldering rage.
“A word with you, Anthony!”
Mr Wilding turned placidly to regard him. “What now?” he asked, his bride’s hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
“Treachery!” snapped Trenchard in a whisper. “Hell and damnation! Step aside, man.”
Mr Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of Mistress Wilding. “I deplore this interruption,” he told her, no whit ruffled by what he had heard. “But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile, his lordship will do the honours for me.” This last he said with his eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin’s calm, took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin. Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led his friend. Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
“Shenke,” said he, “who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from the Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this side Taunton.”
“Highwaymen?” inquired Mr Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had hardened.
“Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he says – for I have the tale from himself – and they met him at the ‘Hare and Hounds’ at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave him the password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards, growing suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed him, it appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they knocked him from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his wallet, and left him for dead – with his head broken.”
Mr Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wits worked quickly. He was, he realised, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst came to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The reflection cut through him like a sword. He would be loath to die until he had taught her to regret him. Then his mind returned to what Trenchard had told him.
“You said a Government agent,” he mused slowly. “How would a Government agent know the password?”
Trenchard’s mouth fell open. “I had not thought…” he began. Then ended with an oath. “’Tis a traitor from inside.”
Wilding nodded. “It must be one of those who met at White Lackington three nights ago,” he answered.
Idlers – the witnesses of the wedding – were watching them with interest from the path, and others from over the low wall of the churchyard, as well they might, for Mr Wilding’s behaviour was, for a bridegroom, extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.
“We had best away,” said he. “Indeed,” he added, “we had best out of England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble’s pricked.”
Wilding’s hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding’s eyes met his, and their gaze was calm.
“Where have you bestowed this messenger?” quoth he.
“He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for you to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself.”
“Come then,” said Wilding. “We’ll go talk with him. This matter needs probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use to know.”
“Rat me!” swore Trenchard. “I was in haste to bring you news of it. Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that Albemarle has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell have been ordered to Taunton by the King.”
Mr Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
“Odso!” he exclaimed. “Is King James taking fright at last?” Then he shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“Pshaw!” he cried. “They are starting at a shadow.”
“Heaven send,” prayed Trenchard, “that the shadow does not prove to have a substance immediately behind it.”
“Folly!” said Wilding. “When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack forewarning. Come,” he added briskly. “We’ll see this messenger and endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him.” And he drew Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus from the churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
Chapter 8
BRIDE AND GROOM
And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride, escorted by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which she was now the mistress.
But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold. For scarcely were they over the river when a horseman barred their way and called upon the driver to pull up. Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself in the great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust his head from the window to discover that the rider who stayed their progress was Richard Westmacott. His lordship hailed the boy who, thereupon, walked his horse to the carriage door.
“Lord Gervase,” said he, “will you bid the coachman put about and drive to Lupton House?”
Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. “Drive to Lupton House?” he echoed. The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he understood of it. It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites. “Surely, sir, it is for Mistress Wilding to say whither she will be driven,” and he drew in his head and turned to Ruth for her commands. But, bewildered herself, she had none to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask her brother what he meant.
“I mean you are to drive home again,” said he. “There is something I must tell you. When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland
Chase.”
Hers to decide? How was that possible? What could he mean? She pressed him with some such questions.
“It means, in short,” he answered impatiently, “that I hold your salvation in my hands. For the rest, this is not the time or place to tell you more. Bid the fellow put about.”
Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions. But from none did she receive the least helpful suggestion. Lady Horton made great prattle to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst Diana, whose alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered assistance, sat silent. Ruth pondered. She bethought her of Trenchard’s sudden arrival at St Mary’s, his dust-stained person and excited manner, and of how he had drawn Mr Wilding aside with news that seemed of moment. And now her brother spoke of saving her; it was a little late for that, she thought. Outside the coach his voice still urged her, and it grew peevish and angry, as was usual when he was crossed. In the end she consented to do his will. If she were to fathom this mystery that was thickening about her there seemed to be no other course. She turned to Lord Gervase.
“Will you do as Richard says?” she begged him.
His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he hesitated a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug, he leaned from the window and gave the order she desired. The carriage turned about, and with Richard following lumbered back across the bridge and through the town to Lupton House. At the door Lord Gervase took his leave of them. He had acted as Ruth had bidden him; but he had no wish to be further involved in this affair, whatever it might portend. Rather was it his duty at once to go and acquaint Mr Wilding – if he could find him – with what was taking place, and leave it to Mr Wilding to take what measures might seem best to him. He told them so, and having told them, left them.
Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed together into the library. His manner was restless; he trembled with excitement, and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
“You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage with this fellow Wilding,” he began; “or that for other reasons I thought it wiser not to interfere. If you thought that you wronged me. I – Blake and I – have been at work for you during these last days, and I rejoice to say our labours have not been idle.” His manner grew assertive, boastful as he proceeded.
“You know, of course,” said she, “that I am married.”
He made a gesture of disdain. “No matter,” said he exultantly.
“It matters something, I think,” she answered. “O, Richard, Richard, why did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of sparing me this thing?”
He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of temper. “Oons!” he cried; “I came as soon as was ever possible, and, depend upon it, I am not come too late. Indeed, I think I am come in the very nick of time.” He drew a sheet of paper from an inside pocket of his coat and slapped it down upon the table. “There is the wherewithal to hang your fine husband,” he announced in triumph.
She recoiled. “To hang him?” she echoed. With all her aversion to Mr Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
“Aye, to hang him,” Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full height of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved. “Read it.”
She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she studied the crabbed signature before realising whose it was. Then she started.
“From the Duke of Monmouth!” she exclaimed.
He laughed. “Read it,” he bade her again, though there was no need for the injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand and the atrocious spelling – for His Grace of Monmouth’s education had been notoriously neglected. The letter, which was dated from The Hague, was addressed “To my good friend W, at Bridgwater.” It began, “Sir,” spoke of the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave certain instructions for the collection of arms and the work of preparing men for enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations of His Grace’s friendship and esteem.
Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed. Then she raised troubled eyes to her brother’s face, and in answer to the question of her glance, he made clear to her the shrewd means by which they had become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy, Mr Wilding.
Blake and he, forewarned – he said not how – of the coming of this messenger, had lain in wait for him at the “Hare and Hounds,” at Taunton. They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without violence. But, having failed in this through having aroused the messenger’s suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him on a lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents of his wallet. Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of several sent over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution among his principal agents in the West. It was regrettable that they should have endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as this had forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the letter’s outer wrapper – which, no doubt, bore Wilding’s full name and address – against the chance of such an attack as they had made upon him. Nevertheless, as it was, that letter “to my old friend W,” backed by Richard’s and Blake’s evidence of the destination intended for it, would be more than enough to lay Mr Wilding safely by the heels.
“I would to Heaven,” he repeated in conclusion, “I could have come in time to save you from becoming his wife. But at least it is in my power to make you very speedily his widow.”
“That,” said Ruth, still retaining the letter, “is what you propose to do?”
“What else?”
She shook her head. “It must not be, Richard,” she said. “I’ll not consent to it.”
Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly. “Odds my life! Are you in love with the man? Have you been fooling us?”
“No,” she answered. “But I’ll be no party to his murder.”
“Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?”
Her shrewd eyes searched his face. “How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr Wilding?” she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot, assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect – a suspicion which at the same time started from and explained much that had been mysterious in Richard’s ways of late. “You had knowledge of this conspiracy,” she pursued, answering her own question before he had time to speak, “because you were one of the conspirators.”
“At least I am so no longer,” he blurted out.
“I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge you came by in that manner. It were a Judas’ act.” He would have interrupted her, but her manner dominated him. “You will leave this letter with me, Richard,” she continued.
“Damn me! No…” he began.
“Ah, yes, Richard,” she insisted. “You will give it to me, and I shall thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never fear.”
“It shall, indeed,” he cried, with an ugly laugh; “when I have ridden to Exeter to lay it before Albemarle.”
“Not so,” she answered him. “It shall be a weapon of defence – not of offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr Wilding. Trust me, I shall know how to use it.”
“But there is Blake to consider,” he expostulated, growing angry. “I am pledged to him.”
“Your first duty is to me…”
“Tut!” he interrupted. “Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to lay this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do I.”
“Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this,” she answered him.
“Folly!” he cried, now thoroughly aroused. “Give me that le
tter.”
“Nay, Richard,” she answered, and waved him back. But he advanced nevertheless.
“Give it me,” he bade her, waxing fierce. “Gad! It was folly to have told you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a fool as to oppose yourself to the thing we intend.”
“Listen, Richard…” she besought him. But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
“Give me that letter,” he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other hand, however – the one that held the sheet – was already behind her back.
The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. “Ruth,” she announced, “Mr Wilding is here.”
At the mention of that name, Richard let her free. “Wilding!” he ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him. He had imagined that already Mr Wilding would be in full flight. Was the fellow mad?
“He is following me,” said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard in the passage.
“The letter!” growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now. “Give it me! Give it me, do you hear?”
“Sh! You’ll betray yourself,” she cried. “He is here.”
And at that same moment Mr Wilding’s tall figure, still arrayed in his bridegroom’s finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the abstraction of the messenger’s letter, nor Ruth’s strange conduct – of which he had heard from Lord Gervase – had sufficed to ruffle, outwardly at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He paused to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance at Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
“You appear to have ridden far, Dick,” said he, smiling, and Richard shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring faintly at the words. “I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the garden,” he added. “I think he waits for you.”
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