Anthony Wilding

by Rafael Sabatini

  Grey interrupted him. “You have a rare effrontery, sir – ay, by God! Do you dare call Danvers a coward?”

  “It is not I who so call him, but the facts. Colonel Danvers has run away.”

  “Danvers gone?” cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.

  Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey’s eye was offensively upon him. He elected to answer the challenge of that glance. “He has followed the illustrious example set him by other of your Majesty’s devoted followers,” said Wilding.

  Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. “I’ll not endure it from this knave!” he cried, appealing to Monmouth. Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.

  “What have I said that should touch your lordship?” asked Wilding, and, smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey’s eyes.

  “It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred.”

  “And to call me knave!” said Wilding in a mocking horror. The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in his mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of those five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of being called to account for that offensive epithet. He made just an exclamatory protest, such as he might have made had a woman applied the term to him.

  Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. “It might be well,” said he, in his turn controlling himself at last, “to place Mr Wilding under arrest.”

  Mr Wilding’s manner quickened on the instant from passive to active anger.

  “Upon what charge, sir?” he demanded sharply. In truth it was the only thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke’s melancholy face, and his anger was such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this suggestion of Grey’s he should not have so much as the consolation of Sunderland’s letter.

  “You have been wanting in respect to us, sir,” the Duke answered him. He seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. “You return from London empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner.” He shook his head. “We are not pleased with you, Mr Wilding.”

  “But, your Grace,” exclaimed Wilding, “is it my fault that your London agents had failed to organise the rising? That rising should have taken place, and it would have taken place had your Majesty been more ably represented there.”

  “You were there, Mr Wilding,” said Grey with heavy sarcasm.

  “Would it no’ be better to leave Mr Wilding’s affair until afterwards?” suggested Ferguson at that moment. “It is already past eight, your Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr Newlington awaits your Majesty to supper at nine.”

  “True,” said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another. “We will confer with you again later, Mr Wilding.”

  Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. “Before I go, your Majesty, there are certain things I would report…” he began.

  “You have heard, sir,” Grey broke in. “Not now. This is not the time.”

  “Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr Wilding,” echoed the Duke.

  Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.

  “What I have to tell your Majesty is of importance,” he exclaimed, and Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.

  “We have little time, your Majesty,” Ferguson reminded Monmouth.

  “Perhaps,” put in friendly Wade, “your Majesty might see Mr Wilding at Mr Newlington’s.”

  “Is it really necessary?” quoth Grey.

  This treatment of him inspired Mr Wilding with malice. The mere mention of Sunderland’s letter would have changed their tone. But he elected by no such word to urge the importance of his business. It should be entirely as Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these gentlemen about his council-table.

  “It would serve two purposes,” said Wade, whilst Monmouth still considered. “Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers having this other matter to prepare for. Mr Wilding would form another to swell your escort of gentlemen.”

  “I think you are right, Colonel Wade,” said Monmouth. “We sup at Mr Newlington’s at nine o’clock, Mr Wilding. We shall expect you to attend us there. Lieutenant Cragg,” said His Grace to the young officer who had admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door, “you may reconduct Mr Wilding.”

  Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved expression. Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.

  “An insolent, overbearing knave!” was Grey’s comment upon him after he had left the room.

  “Let us attend to this, your lordship,” said Speke, tapping the map. “Time presses,” and he invited Wade to continue the matter that Wilding’s advent had interrupted.

  Chapter 18

  BETRAYAL

  Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr Wilding came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the crowd of officers and men that thronged the yard.

  Nick linked his arm through his friend’s and led him away. They quitted the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the High Street, Nick waiting for Mr Wilding to speak, Mr Wilding’s mind still in turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted suddenly and looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.

  “What a plague ails you, Tony?” said he sharply. “You are as silent as I am impatient for your news.”

  Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they had given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.

  Trenchard snarled viciously. “’Tis that mongrel Grey,” said he. “O, Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper with that fellow in it.” He laid his hand on Wilding’s arm and lowered his voice. “As I have hinted before, ’twould not surprise me if time proved him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly that one wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth! Pshaw! See what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place and the country disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by now.”

  Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms in wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her walk, arresting her companion.

  “Mr Wilding!” she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.

  “Mr Wilding!” cried Diana, her companion. Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.

  “We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again,” said the mother, her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her to behold him safe and sound.

  “There have been moments,” answered Wilding, “when myself I scarce expected to return. Your ladyship’s greeting shows me what I had lost had I not done so.”

  “You are but newly arrived?” quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.

  “From London, an hour since.”

  “An hour?” she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and dust-stained. “You will have been to Lupton House?”

  A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of which watchful Diana did not fail to observe. “Not yet,” said he.

  “You are a laggard,” she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven back upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested that he should be welcome, that his wife’s feelings towards him had undergone a change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford had been ever in his mind.

  “I have had weighty business to transact,” he replied, and Trenchard snorted,
his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and what his friend had told him.

  “But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us,” said Lady Horton, who was convinced that, since Ruth had gone to the altar with him, he was Ruth’s lover in spite of the odd things she had heard. Appearances with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that glittered was gold to her.

  “I would,” he answered, “but that I am to sup at Mr Newlington’s with His Majesty. My visit must wait until tomorrow.”

  “Let us hope,” said Trenchard, “that it waits no longer.” He was already instructed touching the night attack on Feversham’s camp on Sedgemoor, and thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.

  “You are going to Mr Newlington’s?” said Diana, and Trenchard thought she had turned singularly pale. Her hand was over her heart, her eyes wide. She seemed about to add something, but checked herself. She took her mother’s arm. “We are detaining Mr Wilding, mother,” said she, and her voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some gusty agitation. They spoke their farewells briefly and moved on. A second later Diana was back at their side again.

  “Where are you lodged, Mr Wilding?” she inquired.

  “With my friend Trenchard – at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross.”

  She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and hurried away with her.

  Trenchard stood staring after them a moment. “Odd!” said he; “did you mark that girl’s discomposure?”

  But Wilding’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Come, Nick! If I am to render myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we’ll need to hasten.”

  They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her protesting and short-winded mother.

  “Where is your mistress?” the girl asked excitedly of the first servant she met at Lupton House.

  “In her room, Madam,” the man replied, and to Ruth’s room went Diana breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding nothing.

  Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana’s impetuous entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the low-cut bodice.

  “Diana!” she cried. “You startled me.”

  “Not so much as I am yet to do,” answered Diana, breathing excitement. She threw back the whimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak, tossed it on to the bed. “Mr Wilding is in Bridgwater,” she announced.

  There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth’s gown. “Then…” her voice shook slightly. “Then…he is not dead,” she said, more because she felt that she must say something than because her words fitted the occasion.

  “Not yet,” said Diana grimly.

  “Not yet?”

  “He sups tonight at Mr Newlington’s,” Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice pregnant with meaning.

  “Ah!” It was a cry from Ruth, sharp, as if she had been stabbed. She sank back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.

  There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what might be passing in her cousin’s mind. She advanced towards Ruth and laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the ivory neck. “He must be warned,” she said.

  “But…but how?” stammered Ruth. “To warn him were to betray Sir Rowland.”

  “Sir Rowland?” cried Diana in high scorn.

  “And…and Richard,” Ruth continued.

  “Yes, and Mr Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in this murderous business. Well?” she demanded. “Will you do it, or must I?”

  “Do it?” Ruth’s eyes sought her cousin’s white, excited face in the quasi-darkness. “But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and this rebellion brought to an end?”

  “Thought of it?” repeated Diana witheringly. “Not I. I have thought that Mr Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is past.”

  “Tell me, are you sure of this?” asked Ruth.

  “I have it from your husband’s own lips,” Diana answered, and told her in a few words of her meeting with Mr Wilding.

  Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that Diana had brought her. “Diana,” she cried at last, “what am I to do?”

  “Do?” echoed Diana. “Is it not plain? Warn Mr Wilding.”

  “But Richard?”

  “Mr Wilding saved Richard’s life…”

  “I know. I know. My duty is to warn him.”

  “Then why hesitate?”

  “My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor misguided folk who are to be saved by this,” cried Ruth in an agony. “If Mr Wilding is warned they will all be ruined.”

  Diana stamped her foot impatiently. “Had I thought to find you in this mind, I had warned him myself,” said she.

  “Ah! Why did you not?”

  “That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay him the debt in which you stand.”

  “Diana, I can’t!” The words broke from her in a sob.

  But whatever her interest in Mr Wilding for her own sake, Diana’s prime intent was the thwarting of Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned of what manner of feast was spread at Newlington’s, Sir Rowland would be indeed undone.

  “You think of Richard,” she exclaimed, “and you know that Richard is to have no active part in the affair – that he will run no risk. They have assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers if any danger threatens them.”

  “It is not of Richard’s life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his trust in me. Ta warn Mr Wilding were…to commit an act of betrayal.”

  “And is Mr Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?” Diana asked her. “Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too late.”

  That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration. Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him, and, whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save himself, not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others. Thus she would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and Sir Rowland. She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that had confronted her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.

  “Give me your cloak and whimple,” she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do her bidding. “Where is Mr Wilding lodged?” she asked.

  “At the sign of The Ship – overlooking the Cross, with Mr Trenchard. Shall I come with you?”

  “No,” answered Ruth without hesitation. “I will go alone.” She drew the whimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana’s cloak.

  She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth’s presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King’s followers having come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband and brother, before the army marched – as was still believed – to Gloucester.

  The half-hour was striking from St Mary’s – the church in which she had been married – as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship. She was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr Wilding himself, with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight of him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used riding garments into a suit of roughly-corded black silk, which threw into relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown hair was carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace at hi
s throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood aside to make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the house.

  “Mr Wilding,” said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. “May I… may I speak with you?”

  He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her whimple; he had thought he recognised the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and yet he disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the light streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.

  “Ruth!” he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind him, looked on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr Wilding’s philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake’s approval. Too much trouble already had resulted from them.

  “I must speak with you at once. At once!” she urged him, her tone fearful.

  “Are you in need of me?” he asked concernedly.

  “In very urgent need,” said she.

  “I thank God,” he answered without flippancy. “You shall find me at your service. Tell me.”

  “Not here; not here,” she answered him.

  “Where else?” said he. “Shall we walk?”

  “No, no.” Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her. “I will go in with you.” And she signed with her head towards the door from which he was barely emerged.

  “’Twere scarce fitting,” said he, for being confused and full of speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony through which they had gone together, Mr Wilding still mostly thought of her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.

  “Fitting?” she echoed, and then after a pause, “Am I not your wife?” she asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.

  “Ha! ’Pon honour, I had almost forgot,” said he, and though the burden of his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.

  Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her whimple closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the house.