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 Burgamot.
“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 new-born 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 over-shrewd 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.”
There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She had yielded her lips to his kisses, and – husband though he might be in name – shame was her only guerdon.
One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for one who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then he returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the papers with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now had need. Through the open window he heard the retreating beat o
f her horse’s hoofs. He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square chin in his hand and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn outside.
And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had just learnt that Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that he had been carried to Taunton together with Richard, and, as a consequence, she was as eager now that Ruth should repair to Albemarle as she had erstwhile been earnest in urging her to seek out Mr Wilding; indeed, Diana went so far as to offer to accompany her, an offer that Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
Within an hour Ruth and Diana – in spite of all that poor, docile Lady Horton had said to stay them – were riding to Taunton, attended by the same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
Chapter 10
THEIR OWN PETARD
In a lofty spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at the room’s end, attended by two secretaries.
Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their hands pinioned behind them – Blake’s arm was healed by now – stood Mr Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was very fearful – having through his connection with the Cause every reason so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous. It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged gentleman was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His nether-lip was thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lacklustre, with great pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously, thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
“We are informed, sir, of your antecedents,” he staggered Blake by answering. “We have learnt the reason why you left London and your creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of battered fortunes.”
Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. “I’m forejudged, it seems,” he made answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his judges. “May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?”
“You shall receive impartial justice at our hands,” put in Phelips, whose manner was of a dangerous mildness. “Depend on that. Not only shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by him. Meanwhile, sirs,” and his glance strayed from Blake’s flushed and angry countenance to Richard’s, pale and timid, “meanwhile, are we to understand that you deny the charge?”
“I have heard none as yet,” said Sir Rowland insolently.
Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. “Read them the indictment,” said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners, whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took up. It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr Richard Westmacott of holding treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of plotting against His Majesty’s life and throne and the peace of His Majesty’s realms.
Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end. Albemarle looked at him darkly. “I do thank God,” said he, “that through Mr Westmacott’s folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this fire ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?”
“I have to say that the whole charge is a foul and unfounded lie,” said Sir Rowland bluntly. “I never plotted in my life against anything but my own prosperity, nor against any man but myself.”
Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott. “And you, sir?” he said. “Are you as stubborn as your friend?”
“I incontinently deny the charge,” said Richard, and he contrived that his voice should ring bold and resolute.
“A charge built on air,” sneered Blake, “which the first breath of truth should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will your Grace with the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay bare their falseness? It should not be difficult.”
“Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?” quoth the Duke, and smote a paper sharply.
Blake shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?” he asked. “I say I have no share in any, that I am acquainted with none.”
“Call Mr Trenchard,” said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand. Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of Mr Trenchard.
Colonel Luttrell – lean and wiry – now addressed the prisoners, Blake more particularly. “Still,” said he, “you will admit that such a plot may indeed exist?”
“It may, indeed, for aught I know – or care,” he added incautiously.
Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. “By God!” he cried in that deep booming voice of his, “there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty’s life and crown! Yet you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject.”
Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he floundered further into the mire. “I have not asked your Grace to believe me anything,” he answered hotly. “It is all one to me what your Grace believes me. I take it I have not been fetched hither to be confronted with what your Grace believes. You have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not your Grace’s beliefs and opinions.”
“By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!” cried Albemarle.
Sir Rowland’s eyes blazed. “Anon, your Grace, when, having failed of your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall ask your Grace to unsay that word.”
Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked smile on his wizened face. Leaving Blake’s veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old rake. “These rogues,” said he, pointing to the prisoners, “demand proofs ere they will admit the truth of the impeachment.”
“Those proofs,” said Trenchard, “are already in your Grace’s hands.”
“Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser.”
Trenchard bowed. “Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the counts on which I have based the accusation I laid before your Grace?”
“If you will condescend so far,” said Albemarle.
“Blister me…!” roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
“By God, sir!” he cried, “I’ll have no such disrespectful language here. You’ll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you damned rogue, or by God! I’ll commit you forthwith.”
“I will endeavour,” said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, “to follow your Grace’s lofty example.”
“You will do well, sir,” said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard should laugh at such a moment.
“I was about to protest, sir,” said Blake, “that it is monstrous I should be accused by Mr Trenchard. He has but the slightest acquaintance with me.”
Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. “Admitted, sir,” said he. “What should I be doing in bad company?” An answer this that set Albemarle bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. “I will begin, and it please your Grace, with the expressions used last night in my presence at the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr Richard Westmacott, and I will confine myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony can be corroborated by that of other witnesses.”
Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. “Do you recall those expressions, sir?” he asked him.
Richard winced under the question. Nevertheless, he braced himself to make the best defence he could.
“I have not yet heard,” said he, “what those expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow that I recognise them as my own. I must admit to having taken more wine, perhaps, than…than…”
Whilst he sought the expression that he needed Trenchard cut in with a laugh, “ In vino veritas, gentlemen,” and His Grace and Sir Edward nodded sagely; Luttrell preserved a stolid exterior. He seemed less prone than his colleagues to forejudging.
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