Mistress Wilding

CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS

Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of June, and rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the meanwhile a good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had fallen far short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind, now by one circumstance, now by another. In reaching London he had experienced no difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not subjected to the scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling from it towards the West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the Government; for Wilding had more than one opportunity of observing how very lax and indifferent were the constables and tything-men—particularly in Somerset and Wiltshire—in the performance of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned as a matter of form, but in no case did Wilding hear of any one being detained upon suspicion. This was calculated to raise his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the general favouring of Monmouth that was toward. He grew less despondent on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to hope that the efforts he went to exert would not be fruitless.

But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's partisans were not disposed to rashness.

Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by Colonel Danvers, and there—an outlaw himself—he threw himself with a will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by the Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was married to the late King. He attended meetings at the "Bull's Head," in Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but though they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught besides. Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have a hand in anything that was not properly organized, and in common with the others urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen, as was reported that it must.

Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news that was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's advisers—before coming over from Holland—had represented that it would be. They had thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person, King James would have been compelled to keep near him what troops he had, sparing none to be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not done; he had all but emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the general disaffection, no moment could have been more favourable than this for a rising in London itself. The confusion that must have resulted from the recalling of troops would have given Monmouth not only a mighty grip of the West, but would have heartened those who—like Sunderland himself—were sitting on the wall, to declare themselves for the Protestant Champion. This Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the moment was a resolute leader. But the Colonel still held back; indeed, he had neither truth nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask his timidity; he urged frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding waxed impatient with him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head the rising if he were so confident of its success. And Wilding would have done it but that, being unknown in London, he had no reason to suppose that men would flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.

Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that Monmouth had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's forces were falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the commissioning of Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed the matter upon Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious. But again he received the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to organize matters sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by surprise.

Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each of whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse that Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to transact to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's affairs; that the latter had broken faith with him and the promise he had made him in having himself proclaimed King. He protested that Monmouth had done ill, and prophesied that his act would alienate from him the numerous republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to him for the country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the news for Monmouth was indeed going further than men had been given to understand. Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now, if out of no motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the fortunes of this man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might have quarrelled before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which threw Danvers into such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning in body, as he already appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the Monmouth Cause.

The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received from the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He had carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having a certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster affair, and the tale—of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel Berkeley as "the shamefullest story that you ever heard"—of how Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in spite of their own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James, particularly when it was perceived as perceived it was—that this running away was not all cowardice, not all "the shamefullest story" that Phelips accounted it. It was an expression of good-will towards Monmouth on the part of the militia of the West, and it was confidently expected that the next news would be that these men who had decamped before him would presently be found to have ranged themselves under his banner.

Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's communication. And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the Secretary of State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later—when London was settling down again from the diversion of excitement created by the news of Argyle's defeat in Scotland—before Mr. Wilding attempted to approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and this he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming news of the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless he had them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not get the militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled and mostly gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.

This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale defeat of the loyal army, and it was reported—on, apparently, such good authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited for official news—that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.

It was while this news was going round that Sunderland—in a moment of panic—at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and he vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding—particularly since Disney's arrest—was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening to Mr. Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely muffled, and he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon an hour, at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for the Duke, very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him Monmouth's most devoted servant.

"You may well judge, sir," he had said at parting, "that this is not such a letter as I should entrust to any man."

Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.

"And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for which it is intended."

"As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me," Mr. Wilding solemnly promised. "Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the preservation of this letter."

"I had already thought of that," was Sunderland's answer, and he placed before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which enjoined all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to pass and repass and to offer him no hindrance.

On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall and his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as soon as he saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to Somerset to the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with whom his fortunes were irrevocably bound up.

Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation of which town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour. The inhabitants had suffered enough already from his first visit; his return there, after the Philips Norton affair of which such grossly exaggerated reports had reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little better than a drawn battle—had been looked upon with dread by some, with disfavour by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in this an augury of failure.

Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and Trenchard on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had—in spite of his failure on that occasion—been more or less in the service of Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to himself.

He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding—this to the infinite chagrin of Miss Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.

In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence to Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne of England. His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and these disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they rendered difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London creditors. It happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an individual will lead to enmity to the cause which that individual espouses. Thus may it have been with Sir Rowland. His hatred of Wilding and his keen desire to see Wilding destroyed had made him a zealous partisan of the loyal cause. Richard Westmacott, easily swayed and overborne by the town rake, whose vices made him seem to Richard the embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in man, had become practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned Monmouth's Cause. Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of his name and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that made him more or less a spy. And so reliable had been the information he had sent Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of the town, that he had won by now their complete confidence.

The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who earlier—if lukewarm—had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the number of loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired Sir Rowland with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the rebellion.

This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament. He needed a tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist him. This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous merchant and one of the richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.

He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to pay dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke—he had no faith whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing—and that he, as one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might be amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality. This neutrality he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected town for a man to proclaim himself a loyalist.

To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of this gallant—ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town—placed himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour was late. Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable to any scheme that should achieve the salvation of his purse and industries, Blake boldly laid his plan before him. Startled at first, Mr. Newlington upon considering it became so enthusiastic that he hailed Sir Rowland as his deliverer, and heartily promised his cooperation. Indeed, it was Mr. Newlington who was, himself, to take the first step.

Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He had all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of his inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it was this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very presence of Ruth.

They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room, the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge, swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.

Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her brother.

"You are not looking well, Richard," she said, which was true enough, for much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and young as he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness that was exceedingly unhealthy.

"Oh, I am well enough," he answered almost peevishly, for these allusions to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.

"Gad!" cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, "you'll need to be well. I have work for you to-morrow, Dick."

Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. "I am sick of the work you discover for us, Rowland," he answered ungraciously.

But Blake showed no resentment. "Maybe you'll find the present task more to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man to satisfy you." He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at Ruth, who was observing him, listening.

Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.

"I see," said Blake, "that I shall have to tell you the whole story before you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But..." and he checked on the word, his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, "I would not have it overheard—not for a king's ransom," which was more literally true than he may have intended it to be.

Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.

"We have no eavesdroppers," he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt of the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the importance of them. "What are you considering?" he inquired.

"To end the rebellion," answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.

Richard laughed outright. "There are several others considering that—notably His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the Earl of Feversham. Yet they don't appear to achieve it."

"It is in that particular," said Blake complacently, "that I shall differ from them." He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his plans could other than meet her approval. "What do you say, Mistress Ruth?" Presuming upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to calling her by that name in preference to the other which he could not bring himself to give her. "Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's endeavour?"

"If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be doing a worthy deed."

Blake rose, and made her a leg. "Madam," said he, "had aught been wanting to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan is simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal agents, and deliver them over to the King. And that is all."

"A mere nothing," croaked Richard.

"Could more be needed?" quoth Blake. "Once the rebel army is deprived of its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not shrewd?"

"You are telling us the object rather than the plan," Ruth reminded him. "If the plan is as good as the object..."

"As good?" he echoed, chuckling. "You shall judge." And briefly he sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr. Newlington. "Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money. Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under the circumstances, and the Duke cannot—dare not refuse it."

"But how will that advance your project?" Ruth inquired, for Blake had paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.

"In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men, well armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater folk. I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take Monmouth at supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to have accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with all speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to await me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We shall join them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist General. Could aught be simpler or more infallible?"

Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the subject of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by it, he clapped his friend on the back approvingly.

"A great plan!" he cried. "Is it not, Ruth?"

"It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives," said she, "and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who may be with the Duke?" she inquired.

"There are not likely to be many—half a dozen, say. We shall have to make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm." He saw her glance clouding. "That is the ugly part of the affair," he was quick to add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. "What help is there?" he asked. "Better that those few should suffer than that, as you yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before this rebellion is put down. Besides," he continued, "Monmouth's officers are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to promote their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty and religion—it is these whom I am striving to rescue."

His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then she thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he? Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme, and that Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana, who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would readily have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself with tears in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her feet.

She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in the panoply of heroic achievement.

"I think," she said, "that you are setting your hand to a very worthy and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must attend your efforts." He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.

Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. "A great enterprise, Dick," he cried; "I may count upon you for one?"

"Aye," said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed, "you may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the venture."