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 Saint 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 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 realizing 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 good 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's 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 letter.”
“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.”
Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he
was minded at first to disregard it. But Mr. Wilding, turning, held the
door, addressing Diana.
“Mistress Horton,” said he, “will you give us leave?”
Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow her
example. But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to leave
that precious document behind him.
As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown. He turned to
her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
“This is ill done, Ruth,” said he.
“Ill done, or well done,” she answered him, “done it is, and shall so
remain.”
He raised his brows. “Ah,” said he, “I appear, then, to have
misapprehended the situation. From what Gervase told me, I understood it
was your brother forced you to return.”
“Not forced, sir,” she answered him.
“Induced, then,” said he. “It but remains me to induce you to repair
what I think was a mistake.”
She shook her head. “I have returned home for good,” said she.
“You'll pardon me,” said he, “that I am so egotistical as to prefer
Zoyland Chase to Lupton House. Despite the manifold attractions of the
latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here.”
“You are not asked to.”
“What, then?”
She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to
imply that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but that
when he did use it, hers must it be to obey him. Again she felt that
everlasting calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she hated
most in him.
“I think I had best be plain with you,” said she. “I have fulfilled my
part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised
that if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day.
I have carried out my contract to the letter. It is at an end.”
“Indeed,” said he; “I think it has not yet begun.” He advanced towards
her, and took her hand. She yielded it, unwilling though she was. “This
is unworthy of you, madam,” said he, his tone grave and deferential.
“You think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering
to the letter of it. Not so,” he ended, and shook his head, smiling
gently. “The carriage is still at your door. You return with me to
Zoyland Chase to take possession of your home.”
“You mistake,” said she, and tore her hand from his. “You say that what
I have done is unworthy. I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that we
must combat unworthiness. Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?”
“I'll make amends for it if you'll come home,” said he.
“My home is here. You cannot compel me.”
“I should be loath to,” he admitted, sighing.
“You cannot,” she insisted.
“I think I can,” said he. “There is a law..”
“A law that will hang you if you invoke it,” she cut in quickly. “This
much can I safely promise you.”
She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times half a
word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another. She saw
the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond which he
gave no other sign that she had hit him.
“I see,” said he. “It is another bargain that you make. I do suspect
there is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins. Let us be clear.
You hold the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist
upon my husband's rights. Is it not so?”
She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
the situation.
“I admit,” said he, “that you have me between sword and wall.” He
laughed shortly. “Let me know more,” he begged her. “Am I to understand
that so long as I leave you in peace--so long as I do not insist upon
your becoming my wife in more than name--you will not wield the weapon
that you hold?”
“You are to understand so,” she answered.
He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful. Not of himself was he
thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth. Trenchard had told him some
ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared to have
shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched. If this letter got
to Whitehall there was no gauging--ignorant as he was of what was in
it--the ruin that might follow; but they had reason to fear the worst.
He saw his duty to the Duke most clearly, and he breathed a prayer of
thanks that Richard had chosen to put that letter to such a use as this.
He knew himself checkmated; but he was a man who knew how to bear defeat
in a becoming manner. He turned suddenly.
“The letter is in your hands?” he inquired.
“It is,” she answered.
“May I see it?” he asked.
She shook her head--not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts lest
he should use force to become possessed of it--a thing, indeed, that was
very far from his purpose.
He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
interest than his own.
“You know,” quoth he, “the desperate enterprise to which I stand
committed. But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me nor
that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence.”
“That is the bargain I propose,” said she.
He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal. Besides,
it may be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which he
stood, which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
“Ruth,” he said at length, “it may well be that that which you desire
may speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this
rebellion that is hatching you may be widowed. But at least I know that
if my head falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to the axe.
For that much, believe me, I am supremely grateful.”
He advanced. He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his lips,
bowing low before her. Then erect and graceful he turned on his heel and
left her.