Anthony Wilding

by Rafael Sabatini

  At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at the outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other, in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be here at last.

  The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in their dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper’s startled countenance showing behind him.

  He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw that though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed no sign of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last they had seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and pressed him to her.

  “Oh, Richard, Richard!” she sobbed in the immensity of her relief. “Thank God! Thank God!”

  He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her from him almost roughly. “Have done!” he growled, and, lurching past her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a measure. He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered. “Where is Blake?” he asked.

  “Blake?” echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair, watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had encompassed.

  Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. “Is he not here?” he asked, and groaned, “O God!” He flung himself all limp into a chair. “You have heard the news, I see,” he said.

  “Not all of it,” said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. “Tell us what passed.”

  He moistened his lips with his tongue. “We were betrayed,” he said in a quivering voice. “Betrayed! Did I but know by whom…” He broke off with a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering till his shoulders shook. “Blake’s party was set upon by half a company of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington’s orchard. Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead.” He poured himself more wine.

  Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice. “But…but oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!”

  “How did you escape?” quoth Diana.

  “How?” He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “How? Perhaps it is just as well that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps…” He checked on the word, and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognisable, so smeared was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken. His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn and disordered.

  Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward, baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as he bore straight down upon Richard.

  “You damned, infernal traitor!” he cried. “Draw, draw! Or die like the muckworm that you are.”

  Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her palsied brother.

  “Out of my way, mistress, or I’ll be doing you a mischief.”

  “You are mad, Sir Rowland,” she told him in a voice that did something towards restoring him to his senses.

  His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to offer an explanation. “The twenty that were with me lie stark under the stars in Newlington’s garden,” he told her, as Richard had told her already. “I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in Bridgwater there will be a short shift for me at the rebel hands – for my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And why?” he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. “Why? Because that craven villain there betrayed me.”

  “He did not,” she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his head in wonder.

  Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. “I left him to guard our backs and give me warning if any approached,” he informed her. “I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me – failed me because he had betrayed and sold me.”

  “He had not. I tell you he had not,” she insisted. “I swear it.”

  He stared at her. “There was no one else for it,” he made answer, and bade her harshly stand aside. Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of these consequences of her work.

  Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it, when Ruth’s next words arrested him, petrified him.

  “There was someone else for it, Sir Rowland,” she cried. “It was not Richard who betrayed you. It…it was I.”

  “You?” The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the immensity of his astonishment. “You?” Then he laughed loud in scornful disbelief. “You think to save him,” he said.

  “Should I lie?” she asked him, calm and brave.

  He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked at Diana. “Oh, it is impossible!” he said at last.

  “You shall hear,” she answered, and told him how at the last moment she had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was to sup at Newlington’s with the Duke’s party.

  “I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke,” she said. “I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed overlong, and…”

  A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point. One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands were run. And, indeed, Blake’s intention was just then to kill her. That he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save Wilding – Wilding of all men! – that was the last straw.

  Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth’s party at Mr Newlington’s, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had carried to it. And now he learned that not only had she thwarted his schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust; Diana huddled into her chair, too horror-stricken to speak or move; Richard – immediately behind his sister – saw nothing of what was passing, and thought of nothing but his own safety.

  Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and, bending himself – but whether to bow or not was not quite plain – he took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that might have warned them his withdrawal was not quite the retreat it seemed.

  They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief, and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.

  “Come,” she said, and sought to lead her from the room. But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the palsy was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn. He had his back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a semblance of resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows bent together in a frown.

  “Wait,” he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost flitted across Diana’s face. He stepped to the door and, opening it, held it wide. “Go, Diana,” he said. “Ruth and I must understand each other.”

 
; Diana hesitated. “You had better go, Diana,” said her cousin, whereupon Mistress Horton went.

  Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard’s lips when he and his sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it was stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly reappeared. He came forward from the window; his manner composed and full of resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out of him. But Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all for Ruth, who watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.

  “Madam,” he said, “’tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much thought for a husband’s safety could find room for any concern as to another’s. I will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear Lord Feversham.”

  “What tale?” said she.

  “Aye, that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of his and twenty men.”

  “Why ask me this?” she demanded half angrily; then, suddenly bethinking her of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which she had placed him, she softened. Her clean mind held justice very dear. She approached. “Oh, I am sorry – sorry, Sir Rowland,” she cried. He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still looked terrible enough.

  “Sorry!” said he, and laughed unpleasantly. “You’ll come with me to Feversham and tell him what you did,” said he.

  “I?” She recoiled in fear.

  “At once,” he informed her.

  “Wha…what’s that?” faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and coming forward. “What are you saying, Blake?”

  Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. “Come, mistress,” he said, and putting forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly towards him. She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon her, no whit discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature, he was a man of considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was slight of frame. He released her wrist, and before she realised what he was about he had stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round her waist, and, swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his arms. He turned about, and a scream broke from her.

  “Hold!” cried Richard. “Hold, you madman!”

  “Keep off, or I’ll make an end of you before I go,” roared Blake over his shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the window, apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a doll. Richard sprang to the door. “Jasper!” he bawled. “Jasper!” He had no weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to use them.

  Ruth got a hand free and caught at the window frame as Blake was leaping through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It was unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling, and with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose her grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse was tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.

  She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her to his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm still holding her. “Look you, mistress,” he told her fiercely, “living or dead, you come with me to Feversham. Choose now.”

  His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat. And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be a gentleman and would recognise and respect a lady. Half fainting, she allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate. It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over the bridge and clear of the town.

  Chapter 21

  THE SENTENCE

  Mr Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of collecting from Mr Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him. It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realised the fullness of the tragedy at the merchant’s house, and whether he understood that, stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a portion of his fortune, Mr Newlington had not merely fainted, but had expired under His Grace’s eyes. If he did realise it he was cynically indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming this, we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle’s army at Sedgemoor, he thought no more either of Mr Newlington or of Mr Wilding. The latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came, yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth’s landing the more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged for the months that had preceded it.

  So it befell that when Monmouth’s army marched out of Bridgwater at eleven o’clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr Wilding was left behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of horse, and Mr Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the singular happenings of that busy night.

  He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The thought of it embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his retrospective mind almost a wanton’s part – for all that in name she was his wife. And yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the reflection that, after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It would have been a sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that other bitterness, had he not insisted upon setting it down entirely to her gratitude and her sense of justice. She intended to repay the debt in which she had stood to him since, at the risk of his own life and fortune, he had rescued her brother from the clutches of the lord-lieutenant at Taunton.

  He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in the blindness of his vanity, which made him confident – gloriously confident – that did he make himself her husband, she herself would make of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of which it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would – out of gratitude, if out of no other feeling – come to think more kindly of him; and that night it seemed to him, as he sat alone in that mean chamber, that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure of her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her hatred and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he disbelieved the protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him. They were – he was assured – a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him while Monmouth and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone the length of saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was convinced of its untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him, and because she hated him she did not scruple to lie to him – once with suggestions and this time with actual expression of affection – that she might gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland Blake. Sir Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and despair.

  He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly in his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the weariness of his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast off or forgotten. He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of Spanish leather, but as luck would have it – little though he guessed the extent just then – he found them ha
rdening, though still damp from the dews of Mr Newlington’s garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked an oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy boots in which he had ridden from town. He drew them on and, taking up his hat and sword, went down the creaking stairs and out into the street.

  Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and the townsfolk were in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was happening here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?

  The figure called to him in a quavering voice. “Mr Wilding! Mr Wilding!” for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr Wilding.

  “What is it, Jasper?” he asked, recognizing the old servant.

  “Mistress Ruth!” wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. “She…she has been…carried off.” He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run and by the excitement that possessed him.

  No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding, and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the arm. “Blake has carried her off,” he cried.

  “Blake?” said Mr Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was it an ordinary running away. But Richard’s next words made it plain to him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.

  “He has carried her to Feversham…for her betrayal of his tonight’s plan to seize the Duke.”

  That stirred Mr Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler complainings. “How long since?” he asked, and it was he who clutched Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.