Mistress Wilding (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

  CHAPTER VII

  THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT

  HERE was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer inspection of it, however, he came to realize — as Richard had realized earlier — that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy. For to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to ruin Richard — a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as Richard was himself concerned — would be to ruin his own hopes of winning Ruth.

  Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to fret in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was invalided, his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for an opportunity to apply the knowledge he had gained. Richard mentioned the subject no more, so that Blake almost came to wonder whether the boy remembered what in his cups he had betrayed.

  Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way. Daily there were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House — his lover's offering to his mistress — and no day went by but that some richer gift accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's. Ruth received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection. It were idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet it hurt her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions for the marriage, but went about her daily tasks as though she were to remain a maid at Lupton House for a time as yet indefinite.

  In Diana, Wilding had — though he was far from guessing it — an entirely exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed towards him. A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's surface, nor indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to which her five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate the advantages that must accrue to her niece from this alliance.

  And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause with his refractory bride-elect. But they pleaded it to little real purpose. Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or less resigned to the fate that awaited her. By repeating to herself the arguments she had employed to Richard — that she must wed some day, and that Mr. Wilding would prove no doubt as good a husband as another — she came in a measure to believe them.

  Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her. Lacking the courage to adopt the heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace enough to take shame at his inaction. But if he was idle so far as Mr. Wilding was concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other connections. The clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and about to loose the storm gestating in them upon that fair country of the West, and young Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of Monmouth's party, was forced to take his share in the surreptitious bustle that was toward. He was away two days in that week, having been summoned to a meeting of the leading gentlemen of the party at White Lackington, where he was forced into the unwelcome company of his future brother-in-law, to meet with courteous, deferential treatment from that imperturbable gentleman.

  Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever existed between them. For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm, as if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House. Thrice in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland Chase to pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded on each occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him. Indeed, how could she well refuse?

  His manner was ever all that could be desired. Gallant, affectionate, deferential. He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient servant. Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner, for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced his, and not to triumph.

  It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal of his duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and undertake tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.

  At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at Taunton, Wilding remained convinced — as did most of the other leading partisans of the Protestant Cause — that no such madness as this premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke. Besides, were it so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they had none.

  Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.

  On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality of a lover, and was received by her in the garden. He found her looking paler than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her brow, a haunting sadness in her eyes. It touched him to the soul, and for a moment he wavered in his purpose. He stood beside her — she seated on the old lichened seat — and a silence fell between them, during which Mr. Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his habit to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company, and seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing belonging to the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this sudden and enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she had absorbed some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up suddenly into his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he stooped to her suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She feared his kiss, yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as if fascinated by his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her upturned face as hovers the hawk above the dove.

  "Child," he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very sadness, "child, why do you fear me?"

  The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the strength that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his wild but inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to such a man as this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own nature would be dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet, though the truth was now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.

  "I do not fear you," said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.

  "Do you hate me, then?" he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell away from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the sunset. There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened himself from his bending posture.

  "You should not have sought thus to compel me," she said presently.

  "I own it," he answered a thought bitterly. "I own it. Yet what hope had I but in compulsion?" She returned him no answer. "You see," he said, with increasing bitterness, "you see, that had I not seized the chance that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all."

  "It might," said she, "have been better so for both of us."

  "Better for neither," he replied. "Ah, think it not! In time, I swear, you shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth," he added with a note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze. He answered the wordless question of her eyes. "There is," said he, "no love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse response." She smiled a little pitiful smile of unbelief. "Were I a boy," he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was usually so calm and level, "offering you protestations of a callow worship, you might have cause to doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth — a tried, and haply a sinful man, alas! — a man who needs you, and who will have you at all costs."

  "At all costs?" she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. "And you call this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right," she continued with an irony that stung him, "for love it is — love of yourself."

  "And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?" he asked her, startling
her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted mind a truth undreamed of. "When some day — please Heaven — I come to find favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness? Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine? I love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same."

  "You are very sure that I shall come to love you," said she, shifting woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place on which at first she had taken her stand.

  "Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church tomorrow?"

  She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that what he said might come to pass.

  "Since you bear such faith in your heart," said she, "were it not nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and wed me afterwards?"

  "It is the course I should, myself, prefer," he answered quietly. "But it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost denied your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you, whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from constant repetition?"

  "Do you say that these tales are groundless?" she asked, with a sudden lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.

  "I would to God I could," he cried, "since from your manner I see that would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who think a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the youth of cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels 'twixt myself and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you receive this fellow Blake — a London night-scourer, a broken gamester who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your fortune he may close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to receive him."

  "This is unworthy in you," she exclaimed, her tone indignant — so indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.

  "It would be were I his rival," he answered quietly. "But I am not. I have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to marry me."

  "That I may become the prey of such as you, instead," was her retort.

  He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now compared himself, "Surely," said he, "it is better to become the prey of the lion than the jackal."

  "To the victim it can matter little," she answered, and he saw the tears gathering in her eyes.

  Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a weaker man had triumphed. Mr, Wilding bent his knee and went down beside her.

  "I swear," he said impassionedly, "that as my wife you shall never count yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title of your husband." He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose and looked at her. "Tomorrow," he said, and bowing low before her went his way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but defied her maiden mind to understand them.

  The morrow came — her wedding-day — a sunny day of early June, and Ruth — assisted by Diana and Lady Horton — made preparation for her marriage as spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold, determined to show the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was necessary for Richard's sake. That was a thing long since determined. Yet it would have been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her side; it would have lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks for the holocaust which for him she was making of all that a woman holds most dear and sacred. But Richard was away — he had been absent since yesterday, and none could tell her where he tarried.

  With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding — very fine in a suit of sky-blue satin, laced with silver — awaiting her. And with him was old Lord Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of benignity and ruddy health.

  For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side. But Nick had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.

  Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses — and little did they guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume hung heavy as incense in the temple.

  "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" droned the parson's voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him, "No man. I have taken her for myself."

  Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt her hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.

  The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of some great insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they were welded each to the other until death should part them.

  Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering, her face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and cousin and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained from head to foot.

  He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding — for he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom' coat. His voice came harsh with excitement and smouldering rage.

  "A word with you, Anthony!"

  Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. "What now?" he asked, his bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.

  "Treachery!" snapped Trenchard in a whisper. "Hell and damnation! Step aside, man."

  Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of Mistress Wilding. "I deplore this interruption," he told her, no whit ruffled by what he had heard. "But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile, his lordship will do the honours for me." This last he said with his eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.

  Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm, took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin. Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led his friend. Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.

  "Shenke," said he, "who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from the Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this side Taunton."

  "Highwaymen?" inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had hardened.

  "Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he says — for I have the tale from himself — and they met him at the Hare and Hounds at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave him the password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards, growing suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed him, it appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they knocked him from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his wallet, and left him for dead — with his head broken."

  Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wi
ts worked quickly. He was, he realized, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst came to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The reflection cut through him like a sword. He would be loath to die until he had taught her to regret him. Then his mind returned to what Trenchard had told him.

  "You said a Government agent," he mused slowly. "How would a Government agent know the password?"

  Trenchard's mouth fell open. "I had not thought . . ." he began. Then ended with an oath. "'Tis a traitor from inside."

  Wilding nodded. "It must be one of those who met at White Lackington three nights ago," he answered.

  Idlers — the witnesses of the wedding — were watching them with interest from the path, and others from over the low wall of the churchyard, as well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a bridegroom, extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.

  "We had best away," said he. "Indeed," he added, "we had best out of England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble's pricked."

  Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding's eyes met his, and their gaze was calm.

  "Where have you bestowed this messenger?" quoth he.

  "He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for you to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself."

  "Come, then," said Wilding. "We'll go talk with him. This matter needs probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use to know."

  "Rat me!" swore Trenchard. "I was in haste to bring you news of it. Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that Albemarle has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell have been ordered to Taunton by the King."