Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress amounting almost to anguish in her mind. Yet though she might suffer, there was no weakness in Ruth's nature. She knew how to endure. Diana, bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to him, was alarmed for him. Besides, her own interests urged the averting of this encounter. And so she held in accents almost tearful that something must be done to save him.
This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently—within a few minutes of Blake's departure—he came to join them. They watched his approach in silence, and both noted—though with different eyes and different feelings—the pallor of his fair face, the dark lines under his colourless eyes. His condition was abject, and his manners, never of the best—for there was much of the spoiled child about Richard—were clearly suffering from it.
He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
“Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here,” said he, and it was not clear from his manner which of them he addressed. “Not a doubt but he will have brought you the news.” He seemed to sneer.
Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of pitying concern. She placed a hand upon his sleeve. “My poor Richard...” she began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily—a mere cackle of irritability.
“Odso!” he interrupted her. “It is a thought late for this mock kindliness!”
Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been standing. Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
“Richard!” she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes. “Richard!”
He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. “Had you known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause for this affair,” he chid her peevishly.
“What are you saying?” she cried, and it occurred to her at last that Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
“I am saying,” said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, “that it is your fault that I am like to get my throat cut before sunset.”
“My fault?” she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim about her. “My fault?”
“The fault of your wanton ways,” he accused her harshly. “You have so played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself killed by him to save the family honour.”
He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song; in the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It was Diana who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when stirred, she knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
“I think, indeed,” said she, her voice crisp and merciless, “that the family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you. It is in danger while you live. You are a coward, Richard.”
“Diana!” he thundered—he could be mighty brave with women—whilst Ruth clutched her arm to restrain her.
But she continued, undeterred: “You are a coward—a pitiful coward,” she told him. “Consult your mirror. It will tell you what a palsied thing you are. That you should dare so speak to Ruth...”
“Don't!” Ruth begged her, turning.
“Aye,” growled Richard, “she had best be silent.”
Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. “It asks a braver man than you to compel my obedience,” she told him. “La!” she fumed, “I'll swear that had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you would have little to fear from his sword. A cane would be the weapon he'd use on you.”
Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him and flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive truth. Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm, seeking to soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off. And then to save the situation came a servant from the house. So lost in anger was all Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention of the man would not have been enough to have silenced him could he have found adequate words in which to answer Mistress Horton. But even as he racked his mind, the footman's voice broke the silence, and the words the fellow uttered did what his presence alone might not have sufficed to do.
“Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir,” he announced.
Richard started. Vallancey! He had come at last, and his coming was connected with the impending duel. The thought was paralyzing to young Westmacott. The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden hue returned and he shivered as with cold. At last he mastered himself sufficiently to ask:
“Where is he, Jasper?”
“In the library, sir,” replied the servant. “Shall I bring him hither?”
“Yes—no,” he answered. “I will come to him.” He turned his back upon the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute. Then, as by an effort, he followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied porch.
As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched with transient pity. “My poor Ruth...” she murmured soothingly, and set her arm about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in the eyes Ruth turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat and sank to it side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth, her elbows on her knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared straight before her.
“It was untrue!” she said at last. “What Richard said of me was untrue.”
“Why, yes,” Diana snapped, contemptuous. “The only truth is that Richard is afraid.”
Ruth shivered. “Ah, no,” she pleaded—she knew how true was the impeachment. “Don't say it, Diana.”
“It matters little that I say it,” snorted Diana impatiently. “It is a truth proclaimed by the first glance at him.”
“He is in poor health, perhaps,” said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse him.
“Aye,” said Diana. “He's suffering from an ague—the result of a lack of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience, Heaven!”
Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an ineffable sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana for counsel. But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
“If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man and woman that bears the name of Westmacott,” said she, and struck a new fear with that into the heart of Ruth.
“He must not go!” she answered passionately. “He must not meet him!”
Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. “And if he doesn't, will things be mended?” she inquired. “Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come and cane him?”
“He'd not do that?” said Ruth.
“Not if you asked him—no,” was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught her breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the seed of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
“Diana!” Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast. Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already—in her fancy—bloom and fruit.
“Why not?” quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle, her tone innocent beyond compare. “Why should you not ask him?” Ruth frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with the lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration. “Ruth!” she exclaimed. “Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo this duel?”
“How, how could I?” faltered Ruth.
“He'd not deny you; you know he'd not.”
“I do not know it,” answered Ruth. “But if I did, how could I ask it?”
“Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both, remember—unless between this and then he undergoes some change. Were I in your place, I'd straight to Wilding.”
“To him?” mused Ruth, sitting up. “How could I go to him?”
“Go to him, yes,” Diana insisted. “Go to him at once—while there is yet time.”
Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in thought. Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and fall of her maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her as she waited—like a gamester—for the turn of the card that would show her whether she had won or lost. For she saw clearly how Ruth might be so compromised that there was something more than a chance that Diana would no longer have cause to account her cousin a barrier between herself and Blake.
“I could not go alone,” said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still battling with a notion that is repugnant.
“Why, if that is all,” said Diana, “then I'll go with you.”
“I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation.”
“Consider Richard rather,” the fair temptress made answer eagerly. “Be sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you. At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to push the matter forward—acknowledge himself in the wrong, do whatever you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It has been proved too often.” She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin's indecision. “To-night you'll thank me for this thought,” she assured her. “Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the little humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and honour?”
“No, no,” Ruth protested feebly.
“What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?”
“I'll go,” said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk, impatient. “Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland Chase at once.”
They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with Vallancey, and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road that, skirting Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with little said until they came to the point where the road branches on the left, throwing out an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so short of Zoyland Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain. Ruth checked, and cried to know what ailed her.
“It is the sun, I think,” muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. “I am sick and giddy.” And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an instant Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which lent colour to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor sprang from her agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted would succeed or not.
A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back from the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened, water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the wings of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better soon if she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to sit beside her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in consequence she should reach Zoyland Chase too late—to find that Mr. Wilding had gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it seemed that the same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl leaned forward, thrusting—as if by an effort—some of her faintness from her.
“Do not wait for me, Ruth,” she begged.
“I must, child.”
“You must not;” the other insisted. “Think what it may mean—Richard's life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow you in a few minutes.”
“I'll wait for you,” said Ruth with firmness.
At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. “Then we'll push on at once,” she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
“But you are in no case to stand!” said Ruth. “Sit, Diana, sit.”
“Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At any moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not have Richard's blood upon my head.”
Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice. Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not; ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very strength of her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme. She saw that her hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no ordinary occasion. It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on, nor could she consent to take Diana.
And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she would follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
“MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam,” announced old Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
“He rode... at dawn?” faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared porch. Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock when she had left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first, and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning home. “Said he at what hour he would return?” she asked.
“He bade us expect him by noon, madam.”
This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour to noon already. “Then he may return at any moment?” said she.
“At any moment, madam,” was the grave reply.
She took her resolve. “I will wait,” she announced, to the man's increasing if undisplayed astonishment. “Let my horse be seen to.”
He bowed his obedience, and she followed him—a slender, graceful figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver—across the stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into the spacious library of which he held the door.
“Mistress Horton is following me,” she informed the butler. “Will you bring her to me when she comes?”
Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy, had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.
She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair to wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the distance.
Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase. And then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
Men's voices reached her—a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick Trenchard.
“A lady!” she heard him cry. “'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for trafficking with doxies?” She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word and set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were lowered so that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she recognized to be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered. There followed a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then came swift steps and jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened suddenly, and Mr. Wilding, in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white with dust, stood bowing to her from the threshold.
“Your servant, Mistress Westmacott,” she heard him murmur. “My house is deeply honoured.”
She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then closed the door and came forward into the room.
“You will forgive that I present myself thus before you,” he said, in apology for his dusty raiment. “But I bethought me you might be in haste, and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an hour. Will you not sit, madam?” And he advanced a chair. His long white face was set like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He guessed the reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven him to the very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair before him. Under the impassive face his soul exulted fiercely.
She disregarded the chair he proffered. “My visit... has no doubt surprised you,” she began, tremulous and hesitating.
“I' faith, no,” he answered quietly. “The cause, after all, is not very far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf.”
“Not on Richard's,” she answered. “On my own.” And now that the ice was broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage flowing fast. “This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding,” she informed him.
He raised his eyebrows—fine and level as her own—his thin lips smiled never so faintly. “It is, I think,” said he, “for Richard to prevent it. The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we meet. If he will express regret...” He left his sentence there. In truth he mocked her, though she guessed it not.
“You mean,” said she, “that if he makes apology...?”
“What else? What other way remains?”
She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance steady.
“That is impossible,” she told him. “Last night—as I have the story—he might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward.”
Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. “It is difficult, perhaps,” said he, “but not impossible.”
“It is impossible,” she insisted firmly.
“I'll not quarrel with you for a word,” he answered, mighty agreeable. “Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I can suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in expressing my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret I am proving myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is you who ask it—and whose desires are my commands—I should let no man go unpunished for an insult such as your brother put upon me.”
She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself once more her servant.
“It is no clemency that you offer him,” she said. “You leave him a choice between death and dishonour.”
“He has,” Wilding reminded her, “the chance of combat.”
She flung back her head impatiently. “I think you mock me,” said she.
He looked at her keenly. “Will you tell me plainly, madam,” he begged, “what you would have me do?”
She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it; but she lacked—as well she might, all things considered—the courage to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that he himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he would grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then himself have told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively. She felt that she hated him in very truth. She marked the upright elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the fine aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in profile; and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must commend him to no lack of women. He was too masterful. He made her realize too keenly her own weakness and that of Richard. She felt that just now he controlled the vice that held her fast—her affection for her brother. And because of that she hated him the more. “You see, Mistress Westmacott,” said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to the point of sadness, “that there is nothing else.” She stood, her eyes following the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing it; her courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a pause he spoke again, still without turning. “If that was not enough to suit your ends”—and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness, there glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery—“I marvel you should have come to Zoyland—to compromise yourself to so little purpose.”
She raised a startled face. “Com... compromise myself?” she echoed. “Oh!” It was a cry of indignation.
“What else?” quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
“Mistress Horton was... was with me,” she panted, her voice quivering as on the brink of tears.
“'Tis unfortunate you should have separated,” he condoled.
“But... but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you a gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that... I came to you? You will keep my secret?”
“Secret!” said he, his eyebrows raised. “'Tis already the talk of the servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater.”
Air failed her. Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken face. Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to her, and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his nervous grasp.
“Ruth, Ruth!” he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. “Give it no thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal can hurt you.”
She swallowed hard. “As how?” she asked mechanically.
He bowed low over her hand—so low that his face was hidden from her.
“If you will do me the honour to become my wife...” he began, but got no further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
“Oh!” she panted. “It is to affront me! Is this the time or place...”
He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
“All time is love's time, all places are love's place,” he told her, his face close to her own. “And of all time and places the present ever preferable to the wise—for life is uncertain and short at best. I bring you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and you shall come to love me in very spite of your own self.”
She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast about her would allow. “Air! Air!” she panted feebly.
“Oh, you shall have air enough anon,” he answered with a half-strangled laugh, his passion mounting ever. “Hark you, now—hark you, for Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour. You know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it. But you overlooked the thing on which you should have counted. You overlooked my love. Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to fear. Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I, it is I who will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong to introduce your name into that company last night, and that what Richard did was a just and well-deserved punishment upon me. This will I do if you'll but count upon my love.”
She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope. “What is't you mean?” she asked him faintly.
“That if you'll promise to be my wife...”
“Your wife!” she interrupted him. She struggled to free herself, released one arm and struck him in the face. “Let me go, you coward!”
He was answered. His arms melted from her. He fell back a pace, very white and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now turned dull and deadly.
“So be it,” he said, and strode to the bell-rope. “I'll not offend again. I had not offended now”—he continued, in the voice of one offering an explanation cold and formal—“but that when first I came into your life you seemed to bid me welcome.” His fingers closed upon the crimson bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
“Wait!” she gasped, and put forth her hand. He paused, the rope in his, his eye kindling anew. “You... you mean to kill Richard now?” she asked him.
A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer. He tugged the cord. From the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
“Oh, wait, wait!” she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks. He stood impassible—hatefully impassible. “....... if I were to consent to... this... how... how soon...?” He understood the unfinished question. Interest warmed his face again. He took a step towards her, but by a gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
“If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands.”
She seemed now to be recovering her calm. “Very well,” she said, her voice singularly steady. “Let that be a bargain between us. Spare Richard's life and honour—both, remember!—and on Sunday next...” For all her courage her voice quavered and faltered. She dared add no more, lest it should break altogether.
Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath. Again he would have advanced. “Ruth!” he cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in his purpose. At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate unconditionally; to tell her that Richard should have naught to fear from him, and yet that she should go free as the winds. Her gesture checked him. It was so eloquent of aversion. He paused in his advance, stifled his better feelings, and turned once more, relentless. The door opened and old Walters stood awaiting his commands.
“Mistress Westmacott is leaving,” he informed his servant, and bowed low and formally in farewell before her. She passed out without another word, the old butler following, and presently through the door that remained open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat, the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed, the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing with it in the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose, he must assuredly have lost it then.
He observed his friend through narrowing eyes—he had small eyes, very blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
“My sight, Anthony,” said he, “reminds me that I am growing old. I wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?”
“The lady who left,” said Wilding with a touch of severity, “will be Mistress Wilding by this day se'night.”
Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke and stared at his friend. “Body o' me!” quoth he. “Is this a time for marrying?—with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over.”
Wilding made an impatient gesture. “I thought to have convinced you they are idle,” said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg swinging in the air. “And what of this matter of the intercepted letter from London to our Taunton friends?”
“I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the Duke's friends.”
“Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present.”
Wilding smiled. “If you were me, you'd never marry at all.”
“Faith, no!” said Trenchard. “I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or 'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner done with.”
Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton—the relict of that fine soldier Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm that Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
“I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!” the dame reproached her. “I can scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana, for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this! You go alone to Mr. Wilding's house—to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!”
“It was no time for ordinary measures,” said Ruth, but she spoke without any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. “It was no time to think of nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved.”
“And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?” quoth Lady Horton, her colour high.
“Ruining myself?” echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. “I have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean.”
Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. “Your good name is blasted,” said her aunt, “unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you his wife.” It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation, repress.
“That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose,” Ruth answered bitterly, and left them gaping. “We are to be married this day se'night.”
A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look on Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result could better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the moment—under the first shock of that announcement—she felt guilty and grew afraid.
“Ruth!” she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. “Oh, I wish I had come with you!”
“But you couldn't; you were faint.” And then—recalling what had passed—her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid her own sore troubles. “Are you quite yourself again, Diana?” she inquired.
Diana answered almost fiercely, “I am quite well.” And then, with a change to wistfulness, she added, “Oh, I would I had come with you!”
“Matters had been no different,” Ruth assured her. “It was a bargain Mr. Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and honour.” She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides. “Where is Richard?” she inquired.
It was her aunt who answered her. “He went forth half an hour agone with Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland.”
“Sir Rowland had returned, then?” She looked up quickly.
“Yes,” answered Diana. “But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub would be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as Sir Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard. He has gone with them to the meeting.”
“At least, he has no longer cause for his distress,” said Miss Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair. Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness and a folly.
Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the death he was anon to die.
Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
“The day is yours, Dick,” he had cried, when Richard entered the library where he awaited him. “Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning and is to be back by noon. Odsbud, Dick!—twenty miles and more in the saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness? He'll be stiff as a broom-handle—an easy victim.”
Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
“What ails you, man?” cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He felt the quiver of the other's limb. “Stab me!” quoth he, “you are in no case to fight. What the plague ails you?”
“I am none so well this morning,” answered Richard feebly. “Lord Gervase's claret,” he added, passing a hand across his brow.
“Lord Gervase's claret?” echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some outrageous blasphemy. “Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!” he exclaimed.
“Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach,” Richard explained, intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine—since he could think of nothing else—for his condition.
Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. “My cock,” said he, “if you're to fight we'll have to mend your temper.” He took it upon himself to ring the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If he was to get his man to the ground at all—and young Vallancey had a due sense of his responsibilities in that connection—it would be well to supply Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed out overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before him. Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk of the Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland—returning from Scoresby Hall—came to bring the news of his lack of success. Richard hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding, with a burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve Anthony Wilding. His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
Blake listened to him and grunted. “Body o' me!” swore the town gallant. “If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start.”
Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
“Damn me!” quoth he. “Your want of faith dishgraces me—and 't 'shgraces you. Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back—and not before.”
“Hum!” quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these bankrupt days. “And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to draw?”
The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it gave him was reflected on his face.
“Damn you, Blake!” swore Vallancey between his teeth. “Is that a decent way to talk to a man who is going out? Never heed him, Dick! Let him wait for his dirty guineas till we return.”
“Thirty guineas?” hiccoughed Richard. “It was only eight. Anyhow—wait'll I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding.” He checked on a thought that suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Vallancey with a ludicrous solemnity. “'Sbud!” he swore. “'S a scurvy trick I'm playing the Duke. 'S treason to him—treason no less.” And he smote the table with his open hand.
“What's that?” quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
“It's the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream,” said he with a laugh, and rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should set out. Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business from Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his quest for information. But the mischief was done, and Blake's suspicions were awake. He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard had let fall to Vallancey in the past few days, and of hints less dark with which Vallancey—who was a careless fellow at ordinary times—had answered. And now this mention of the Duke and of treason to him—to what Duke could it refer but Monmouth?
Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he began to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend Westmacott in it?
If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value, and it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes. The haste with which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of Richard's words, the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard and Sir Rowland from the house to get to horse and ride out to Bridgwater were in themselves circumstances that went to heighten those suspicions of Sir Rowland's. But lacking all opportunity for investigation at the moment, he deemed it wisest to say no more just then lest he should betray his watchfulness.
They were the first to arrive upon the ground—an open space on the borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not long to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom. Their arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for which Mr. Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to fear that he had carried too far the business of equipping his principal with artificial valour.
Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion that Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the horses of Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to them. Vallancey thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the groom—instructed by Trenchard—led the five horses some distance from the spot.
It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey went forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At that same moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with his whip in an absent manner.
“Mr. Vallancey,” he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
“You can leave it safely to me, Tony,” he growled. “But there is something I wish to say, Nick,” answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild. “By your leave, then.” And he turned again to Valiancey. “Will you be so good as to call Mr. Westmacott hither?”
Vallancey stared. “For what purpose, sir?” he asked.
“For my purpose,” answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. “It is no longer my wish to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
“Anthony!” cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
“I propose,” added Mr. Wilding, “to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the necessity of fighting.”
Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his principal. Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained, and said so.
“You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request,” Wilding insisted, and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a shrug, turned away to comply.
“Do you mean,” quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, “that you will let live a man who has struck you?”
Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm. “It is a whim of mine,” said he. “Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford to indulge?”
“I say not so,” was the ready answer; “but...”
“I thought you'd not,” said Mr. Wilding, interrupting. “And if any does—why, I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies.” He laughed, and Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with him. Then Nick set himself to urge the thing that last night had plagued his mind: that this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause; that in the Duke's interest, if not to safeguard his own person from some vindictive betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing a reliable silence upon him.
“But why vindictive?” Mr. Wilding remonstrated. “Rather must he have cause for gratitude.”
Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously. “There is,” said he, “no rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended you and whom you have spared. I beg you'll ponder it.” He lowered his voice as he ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott were coming up, followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward. His heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him, but out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night he had gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure. It had dismayed him then, as we have seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any affront from him out of consideration for his sister, should have ended by calling him to account. He concluded now that upon reflection Wilding had seen his error, and was prepared to make amends that he might extricate himself from an impossible situation, and Richard blamed himself for having overlooked this inevitable solution and given way to idle panic.
Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad—for the sake of their association with him—that things were as they were.
“Mr. Westmacott,” said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, “I am here not to fight, but to apologize.”
Richard's sneer was audible to all. Oh, he was gathering courage fast now that there no longer was the need for it. It urged him to lengths of daring possible only to a fool.
“If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding,” said he offensively, “that is your own affair.”
And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
“Just so,” said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and Trenchard, who had expected something very different from him, swore aloud and with some circumstance of oaths. “The fact is,” continued Mr. Wilding, “that what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine, and I am sorry for it. I recognize that this quarrel is of my provoking; that it was unwarrantable in me to introduce the name of Mistress Westmacott, no matter how respectfully; and that in doing so I gave Mr. Westmacott ample grounds for offence. For that I beg his pardon, and I venture to hope that this matter need go no further.”
Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard livid with fury. Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger unmistakable in his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
“Why,” said he, his voice mighty disdainful, “if Mr. Wilding apologizes, the matter hardly can go further.” He conveyed such a suggestion of regret at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
“But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him,” he snapped, very tartly, “I am his humble servant, and he may call upon me to see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take.”
Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
“I have no quarrel with you, sir,” said he, with an uneasy assumption of dignity.
“It's a want that may be soon supplied,” answered Trenchard briskly, and, as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that moment, he had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the bearing of his principal.
“Mr. Wilding,” said he, “this is very handsome in you. You are of the happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your courage.”
Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly. “You are vastly kind, sir,” said he.
“You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is with an increased respect for you—if that were possible—that I acknowledge it on my friend's behalf.”
“You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies,” said Mr. Wilding, and Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at. Whether he was or not, he conceived that he had done the only seemly thing. He had made handsome acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness of Richard.
And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to carry it himself to a different consummation. Wilding prevailed upon him, and withdrew him from the field. But as they rode back to Zoyland Chase the old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's folly and weakness.
“I pray Heaven,” he kept repeating, “that it may not come to cost you dear.”
“Have done,” said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience. “Could I wed the sister having slain the brother?”
And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that he had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity Richard had been spared.