Mistress Wilding (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

by Rafael Sabatini

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

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE SENTENCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "He has carried her to Feversham . . . for her betrayal of his tonight's plan to seize the Duke."

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

  "Not ten minutes ago," was the quavering answer.

  "And you were at hand when it befell?" cried Wilding, the scorn in his voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. "You were at hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?"

  "I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase," whimpered Richard, feeling himself for once the craven that he was.

  "If?" echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up towards the house even as he spoke. "Is there room for a doubt of it? Have you horses, at least?"

  "To spare," said Richard as they hurried on.

  They skirted the house and found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.

  "It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater," said Richard as they rode. "How came you to be left behind?"

  "I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return tomorrow," Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his mind full of — anguished by — thoughts of Ruth.

  "Against the Duke's return?" cried Richard, first surprised and then thinking
that Wilding spoke at random. "Against the Duke's return?" he repeated.

  "That is what I said?"

  "But the Duke is marching to Gloucester."

  "The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor," answered Wilding, never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the slightest imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of what he said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier matter.

  "To Sedgemoor?" gasped Westmacott.

  "Aye — to take Feversham by surprise — to destroy King James's soldiers in their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But there! Spur on and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland."

  They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound, where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred ahead shouting "Albemarle," and the soldiers fell back and gave them passage. On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping in utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham was lodged.

  They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner, without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too late to rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve? His hope had been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir Rowland before the latter reached his destination. But now — to enter Feversham's presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr. Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not savour. Indeed, had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.

  But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him by the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past the two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him, straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that night's failure.

  Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet, and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of the room. There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock of his fall.

  A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth — by whose side he had now come to stand in Blake's room.

  There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward. But Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested at that moment.

  "Be assured, gentlemen," he said, "that I have no further rudeness to offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me." And he took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to him. That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom experience had taught her to have faith.

  Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with mock discreetness under cover of his hand. "Ahem!"

  He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak, good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted by Blake's arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his head — divested of his wig — was bound up in a scarf of many colours.

  At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for orders.

  "I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland," said Feversham composedly in his bad English. "Who are you, sare?"

  "This lady's husband," answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared and Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.

  "So-ho! T'at true?" quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it explained everything to him. "T'is gif a different' colour to your story, Sare Rowlan'." Then he added in a chuckle, "Ho, ho — l'amour!" and laughed outright.

  Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made shift to rise.

  "What a plague does their relationship matter?" he began. He would have added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed answering.

  "Parbleu!" he swore, his amusement rising. "It seem to matter somet'ing."

  "Damn me!" swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. "Do you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I had fetched her to you?" He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his distance from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.

  Feversham bowed sardonically. "You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan'," said he, laughter bubbling in his words.

  Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting what appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the man who had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part of which Sir Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth — a time-serving gentleman — smiled with this French general of a British army that he might win the great man's favour.

  "I have told your lordship," said Blake, froth on his lips, "that the twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to ruin, all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further privilege to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us."

  Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry, scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his face.

  "Yes, yes, I remember," said he; "t'is lady, you have tole us, betray you to t'is lady." But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady." And he looked inquiringly at Blake.

  The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He was stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong against a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so transparent that he had not seen it.

  "So!" said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. "Captain Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard."

  Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake had looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.

  "By heaven!" he cried, "I can more than answer your lordship's question."

  Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.

  "Voyon," said the General.

  "I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He is there," and he pointed theatrically to Richard.

  Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was having a most bewildering evening — or morning, rather, for it was even then on the stroke of one o'clock. "An' who are you, sare?" he asked.

  Richard came forward, nerving himself for
what was to follow. It had just occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of Sir Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted him.

  "I am this lady's brother, my lord," he answered, and his voice was fairly steady.

  "Tiens!" said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.

  "Quite a family party, sir," said the captain, smiling back.

  "Oh! mais tout-à-fait," said the General, laughing outright, and then Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. "Ah, yes," said Feversham airily, "let Madame sit."

  "You are very good, sir, said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.

  "But somewhat lacking in spontaneity," Wilding criticized, which set Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.

  "Shall I call the guard, my lord?" asked Wentworth crisply.

  "I t'ink yes," said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and spoke a word to one of the soldiers without.

  "But, my lord," exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, "I vow you are too ready to take this fellow's word."

  "He 'as spoke so few," said Feversham.

  "Do you know who he is?"

  "You 'af 'eard 'im say — t'e lady's 'usband."

  "Aye — but his name," cried Blake, quivering with anger. "Do you know that it is Wilding?"

  The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man to whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air of persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and his brow grew dark.

  "T'at true?"— he asked sharply. "Are you Mistaire Wildin' — Mistaire Antoine Wildin'?"

  "Your lordship's most devoted servant," said Wilding suavely, and made a leg.

  Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently well known.