As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke
with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at
his hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that
gentleman grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of
Richard's earlier stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by
his blustering tone and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the
steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's courage
sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter. Richard so
disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company soon, he would
be quarrelling with him himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic
manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy termination of the
affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake at the cross-roads,
pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them to proceed without
him to Bridgwater.
Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey
and Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which
might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of
the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his
companion much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton
House, and as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the
ladies--Ruth and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the
circular seat about the great oak in the centre of the lawn--he was a
very different person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there
some few hours earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation,
and so indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile,
half wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he
sneeringly told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour
which discretion is alleged to be.
It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly
as he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also
be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir
Rowland was still of the company.
“Mr. Wilding afraid?” she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
it inclined to shrillness. “La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
any man.”
“Faith!” said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
slight and recent. “It is what I should think. He does not look like a
man familiar with fear.”
Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
eyes glittering. “He took a blow,” said he, and sneered.
“There may have been reasons,” Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
eyes narrowed at the hint.
Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
“You speak, ma'am,” said he, “as if you knew that there were reasons,
and knew, too, what those reasons might be.”
Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter
could not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening,
looked a question at her daughter.
And so, after a pause: “I know both,” said Diana, her eyes straying
again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance
and understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat
there before him.
Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his
voice harsh:
“What do you mean, Diana?” he inquired.
Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. “You had best ask Ruth,”
said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile.
She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion
that things were other than she desired.
“I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding,” said she.
Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as
suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and
raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
“It is a jest,” said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
“It is the truth,” Ruth assured him quietly.
“The truth?” His brow darkened ominously--stupendously for one so fair.
“The truth, you baggage...?” He began and stopped in very fury.
She saw that she must tell him all.
“I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
life and honour,” she told him calmly, and added, “It was a bargain that
we drove.” Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him
was too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow
degrees.
“So now,” said Diana, “you know the sacrifice your sister has made to
save you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you,
perhaps you'll speak of it in a tone less loud.”
But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very
humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last
how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of
the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near
to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his
own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her
heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her
with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake
stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and
the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana
watched his countenance in vain.
“You shall not do it!” cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid
his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. “Ruth,
you shall not do this for me. You must not.”
“By Heaven, no!” snapped Blake before she could reply. “You are right,
Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not
play the part of Iphigenia.”
But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question, “Where is
the help for it?”
Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once--for just a
moment--he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
“I can take up this quarrel again,” he announced. “I can compel Mr.
Wilding to meet me.”
Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It
warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he
was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no
doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause
of the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she
knew; inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood,
she had no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile
it was this foolish habit--nothing more--that undermined the inherent
firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this
proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him.
Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer
was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time
to cool.
“It were idle,” said Ruth at last--not that she quite believed it, but
that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.
“Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made.”
“No doubt,” growled Blake, “but he shall be forced to unmake it.” He
advanced and bowed low before her. “Madam,” said he, “will you grant
me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
from your path?”
Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
“I thank you, sir,” said she. “But it were more than I could permit.
This has become a family affair.”
There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness,
gave Sir Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen
sensibilities; yet even so, he could not mistake the request to
withdraw that was implicit in her tone and manner. He took his leave,
registering, however, in his heart a vow that he would have his way with
Wilding. Thus must he--through her gratitude--assuredly come to have his
way with Ruth.
Diana rose and turned to her mother. “Come,” she said, “we'll speed Sir
Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone.”
Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with
bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained
until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself
wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.
“Ruth,” he faltered, “Ruth!”
She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in
a look of pity--and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
herself she needed pity.
“Take it not so to heart,” she urged him, her voice low and crooning
--as that of a mother to her babe. “Take it not so to heart, Richard.
I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr.
Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe,” she
added, her only intent to comfort Richard; “that he loves me; and if he
loves me, surely he will prove kind.”
He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to
the lips, his eyes bloodshot. “It must not be--it shall not be--I'll not
endure it!” he cried hoarsely.
“Richard, dear...” she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from
hers in his gust of emotion.
He rose abruptly, interrupting her. “I'll go to Wilding now,” he cried,
his voice resolute. “He shall cancel this bargain he had no right to
make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you
went to him.”
“No, no, Richard, you must not!” she urged him, frightened, rising too,
and clinging to his arm.
“I will,” he answered. “At the worst he can but kill me. But at least
you shall not be sacrificed.”
“Sit here, Richard,” she bade him. “There is something you have not
considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you...” she paused.
He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept
gradually into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been
stamped upon it but a moment since.
He swallowed hard. “What then?” he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying
her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside
her.
She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance
that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line,
pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance
of her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the
perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry
somebody some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in
attaching too much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr.
Wilding. Probably he was no worse than other men, and after all he was
a gentleman of wealth and position, such a man as half the women in
Somerset might be proud to own for husband.
Her arguments and his weakness--his returning cowardice, which made him
lend an ear to those same arguments--prevailed with him; at least they
convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life in
this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that
he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought,
hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling
the bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case
he promised readily in answer to her entreaties--for her faith in
him was a thing unquenchable--that he would do nothing without taking
counsel with her.
Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
awaiting him.
“Sir Rowland,” said she at parting, “your chivalry makes you take this
matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
may have good reason for not desiring your interference.”
He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been
on the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have
suggested to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience
and inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
“What shall that mean, madam?” he asked her.
Diana hesitated. “What I have said is plain,” she answered, and it was
clear that she held something back.
Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read
her, never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he
should.
He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. “Not plain enough
for me,” he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. “Tell me,” he
besought her.
“I can't! I can't!” she cried in feigned distress. “It were too
disloyal.”
He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with
jealous alarm. “What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton.”
Diana lowered her eyes. “You'll not betray me?” she stipulated.
“Why, no. Tell me.”
She flushed delicately. “I am disloyal to Ruth,” she said, “and yet I am
loath to see you cozened.”
“Cozened?” quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. “Cozened?”
Diana explained. “Ruth was at his house to-day,” said she, “closeted
alone with him for an hour or more.”
“Impossible!” he cried.
“Where else was the bargain made?” she asked, and shattered his last
doubt. “You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here.”
Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
“She went to intercede for Richard,” he protested. Miss Horton looked
up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
shoulders very eloquently. “You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You
cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in
any cause?”
Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
perplexed.
“You mean that she loves him?” he said, between question and assertion.
Diana pursed her lips. “You shall draw your own inference,” quoth she.
He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
“But her talk of sacrifice?” he cried.
Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his
perceptions. “Her brother is set against her marrying him,” said she.
“Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?”
Doubt stared from his eyes. “Why do you tell me this?”
“Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland,” she answered very gently. “I would
not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend.”
“Which I am not desired to mend, say rather,” he replied with heavy
sarcasm. “She would not have my interference!” He laughed angrily. “I
think you are right, Mistress Diana,” he said, “and I think that more
than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding.”
He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she
had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he
sought out Wilding.
But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West
Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the
insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by
proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of
foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington
in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his
hat--a black castor trimmed with a black feather--rudely among the
dishes on the board.
“I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding,” said he, “to be so good as to
tell me the colour of that hat.”
Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
“I could not,” said Mr. Wilding, “deny an answer to a question set so
courteously.” He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with
the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. “You'll no doubt disagree with
me,” said he, “but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as
white as virgin snow.”
Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
viciously. “You mistake, Mr. Wilding,” said he. “My hat is black.”
Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in
a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
opportunities to indulge it. “Why, true,” said he, “now that I come to
look, I perceive that it is indeed black.”
And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he
had taught himself.
“You are mistaken again,” said he, “that hat is green.”
“Indeed?” quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. “What is your own opinion of it,
Nick?”
Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. “Why, since you ask
me,” said he, “my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
gentleman's table.” And he took it up, and threw it through the window.
Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea.
It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action.
But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
“Blister me!” he cried. “Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
you'll understand me?”
“If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out
of the house,” said Mr. Wilding, “and it would distress me so to treat
a person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our
memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?”
“I said it was green,” answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
“Nay, I am sure you were wrong,” said Wilding with a grave air.
“Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best
judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black.”
“And if I were to say that it is white?” asked Blake, feeling mighty
ridiculous.
“Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,”
answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight
of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. “And since we are
agreed on that,” continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, “I hope you'll
join us at supper.”
“I'll be damned,” roared Blake, “if ever I sit at table of yours, sir.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Wilding regretfully. “Now you become offensive.”
“I mean to be,” said Blake.
“You astonish me!”
“You lie! I don't,” Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it
out at last.
Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
inexpressibly shocked.
“Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,”
he wondered, “or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?”
“Do you mean...” gasped the other, “that you'll ask no satisfaction of
me?”
“Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I
hope you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now.”
Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
“Give you a good night, Sir Rowland,” Mr. Wilding called after him.
“Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door.”
Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands--for what can be more
humiliating to a quarrel--seeking man than to have his enemy refuse to
treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
each time spared the London beau, who still insisted--each time more
furiously--upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been forced
to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case of
continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and did
credit to Mr. Wilding.
Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and
was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding
for the patience and toleration he had displayed.
There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir
Rowland's nature--mean at bottom--was spurred to find him some other
way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a score
mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in
that encounter from which--whatever the issue--he had looked to cull
great credit in Ruth's eyes.
He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard
had let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours
that were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two
together, and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then
he realized--as he might have realized before had he been shrewder--that
Richard's mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought
that he was much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard
would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding
himself and the world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to
approach the subject, when it happened that one night when Richard sat
at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative through
excess of wine. It happened naturally enough that Richard sought an
ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their
fortunes--so far as Ruth was concerned--were bound up together. The
baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences
that might aim at the destruction of his enemy. He questioned him
adroitly, and drew from him the story of the rising that was being
planned, and of the share that Mr. Wilding--one of the Duke of
Monmouth's chief movement-men--bore in the business that was toward.
When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.