Mistress Wilding

CHAPTER XX. THE RECKONING

Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come, heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from those she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand, for the agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings of the flesh.

In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton at supper, and her appearance—her white and distraught face and blood-smeared gown—brought both women to their feet in alarmed inquiry, no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with ready solicitude. Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that she was quite well—had scratched her hand, no more; and with that dismissed him. When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank into a chair and told them what had passed 'twixt her husband and herself and most of what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.

"Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke," she ended, and the despair of her tone was tragical. "I sought to detain him until it should be too late—I thought I had done so, but.., but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!"

"Afraid of what?" asked Diana. "Afraid of what?"

And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.

"Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed with him," her cousin answered. "Such a warning could but hasten on the blow."

Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror when—from Diana—enlightenment was hers. Her sympathies were all with the handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore be triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals. That her nephew and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond words. She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's action in warning Mr. Wilding—unable to understand that it should be no part of Ruth's design to save the Duke—and went to her room to pray for the preservation of the late King's handsome son.

Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for Richard by which she was being tortured. Diana poured wine for her and urged her to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her. But as moments passed and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear, Ruth's fears that he had come to harm were changed to certainty. There was a moment when, but for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in quest of news. Bad news were better than this horror of suspense. What if Wilding's warning should have procured help, and Richard were slain in consequence? Oh, it was unthinkable! Diana, white of face, listened to and shared her fears. Even her shallow nature was stirred by the tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread lest Richard should indeed have met his end that night. In these moments of distress, she forgot her hopes of triumphing over Blake, of punishing him for his indifference to herself.

At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at the outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other, in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be here at last.

The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in their dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled countenance showing behind him.

He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw that, though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed no sign of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last they had seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and pressed him to her.

"Oh, Richard, Richard!" she sobbed in the immensity of her relief. "Thank God! Thank God!"

He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her from him almost roughly. "Have done!" he growled, and, lurching past her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a measure. He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered. "Where is Blake?" he asked.

"Blake?" echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair, watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had encompassed.

Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. "Is he not here?" he asked, and groaned, "O God!" He flung himself all limp into a chair. "You have heard the news, I see," he said.

"Not all of it," said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. "Tell us what passed."

He moistened his lips with his tongue. "We were betrayed," he said in a quivering voice. "Betrayed! Did I but know by whom..." He broke off with a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering till his shoulders shook. "Blake's party was set upon by half a company of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard. Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead." He poured himself more wine.

Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice. "But...but.., oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!"

"How did you escape?" quoth Diana.

"How?" He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. "How? Perhaps it is just as well that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps..." He checked on the word, and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer aifright. Behind her the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken. His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.

Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward, baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as he bore straight down upon Richard.

"You damned, infernal traitor!" he cried. "Draw, draw! Or die like the muckworm that you are."

Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her palsied brother.

"Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief."

"You are mad, Sir Rowland," she told him in a voice that did something towards restoring him to his senses.

His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to offer an explanation. "The twenty that were with me lie stark under the stars in Newlington's garden," he told her, as Richard had told her already. "I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands—for my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And why?" he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. "Why? Because that craven villain there betrayed me."

"He did not," she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his head in wonder.

Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. "I left him to guard our backs and give me warning if any approached," he informed her. "I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had betrayed and sold me."

"He had not. I tell you he had not," she insisted. "I swear it."

He stared at her. "There was no one else for it," he made answer, and bade her harshly stand aside.

Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of these consequences of her work.

Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it, when Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.

"There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland," she cried. "It was not Richard who betrayed you. It... it was I."

"You?" The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the immensity of his astonishment. "You?" Then he laughed loud in scornful disbelief. "You think to save him," he said.

"Should I lie?" she asked him, calm and brave.

He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked at Diana. "Oh, it is impossible!" he said at last.

"You shall hear," she answered, and told him how at the last moment she had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.

"I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke," she said. "I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr. Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed overlong, and..."

A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point. One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save Wilding—Wilding of all men!—that was the last straw.

Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust; Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move: Richard—immediately behind his sister—saw nothing of what was passing, and thought of nothing but his own safety.

Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and bending himself—but whether to bow or not was not quite plain—he took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it seemed.

They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief, and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.

"Come," she said, and sought to lead her from the room.

But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the palsy was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn. He had his back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a semblance of resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows bent together in a frown.

"Wait," he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost flitted across Diana's face. He stepped to the door, and, opening it, held it wide. "Go, Diana," he said. "Ruth and I must understand each other."

Diana hesitated. "You had better go, Diana," said her cousin, whereupon Mistress Horton went.

Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and his sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it was stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly reappeared. He came forward from his window; his manner composed and full of resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out of him. But Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all for Ruth, who watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.

"Madam," he said, "'tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much thought for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to another's. I will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear Lord Feversham."

"What tale?" said she.

"Aye—that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of his and twenty men.

"Why ask me this?" she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking her of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which she had placed him, she softened. Her clear mind held justice very dear. She approached. "Oh, I am sorry—sorry, Sir Rowland," she cried.

He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still looked terrible enough.

"Sorry!" said he, and laughed unpleasantly. "You'll come with me to Feversham and tell him what you did," said he.

"I?" She recoiled in fear.

"At once" he informed her.

"Wha... what's that?" faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and coming forward. "What are you saying, Blake?"

Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. "Come, mistress," he said, and putting forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly towards him. She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon her, no whit discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature, he was a man of considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was slight of frame. He released her wrist, and before she realized what he was about he had stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round her waist, and, swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his arms. He turned about, and a scream broke from her.

"Hold!" cried Richard. "Hold, you madman!"

"Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go," roared Blake over his shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the window, apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a doll.

Richard sprang to the door. "Jasper!" he bawled. "Jasper!" He had no weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to use them.

Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It was unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling, and with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose her grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse was tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.

She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her to his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm still holding her.

"Look you, mistress," he told her fiercely, "living or dead, you come with me to Feversham. Choose now."

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.