Mistress Wilding

CHAPTER VI. THE CHAMPION

As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at his hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that gentleman grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of Richard's earlier stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by his blustering tone and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's courage sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter. Richard so disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company soon, he would be quarrelling with him himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy termination of the affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake at the cross-roads, pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them to proceed without him to Bridgwater.

Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey and Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his companion much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton House, and as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the ladies—Ruth and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the circular seat about the great oak in the centre of the lawn—he was a very different person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there some few hours earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation, and so indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile, half wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he sneeringly told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour which discretion is alleged to be.

It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly as he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir Rowland was still of the company.

"Mr. Wilding afraid?" she cried, her voice so charged with derision that it inclined to shrillness. "La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of any man."

"Faith!" said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was slight and recent. "It is what I should think. He does not look like a man familiar with fear."

Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale eyes glittering. "He took a blow," said he, and sneered.

"There may have been reasons," Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's eyes narrowed at the hint.

Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.

"You speak, ma'am," said he, "as if you knew that there were reasons, and knew, too, what those reasons might be."

Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was, indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter could not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening, looked a question at her daughter.

And so, after a pause: "I know both," said Diana, her eyes straying again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance and understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat there before him.

Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his voice harsh:

"What do you mean, Diana?" he inquired.

Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. "You had best ask Ruth," said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.

They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning, his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.

Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile. She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion that things were other than she desired.

"I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding," said she.

Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.

"It is a jest," said he, but his accents lacked conviction.

"It is the truth," Ruth assured him quietly.

"The truth?" His brow darkened ominously—stupendously for one so fair. "The truth, you baggage...?" He began and stopped in very fury.

She saw that she must tell him all.

"I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your life and honour," she told him calmly, and added, "It was a bargain that we drove." Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him was too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow degrees.

"So now," said Diana, "you know the sacrifice your sister has made to save you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you, perhaps you'll speak of it in a tone less loud."

But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana watched his countenance in vain.

"You shall not do it!" cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. "Ruth, you shall not do this for me. You must not."

"By Heaven, no!" snapped Blake before she could reply. "You are right, Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not play the part of Iphigenia."

But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question, "Where is the help for it?"

Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once—for just a moment—he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.

"I can take up this quarrel again," he announced. "I can compel Mr. Wilding to meet me."

Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause of the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she knew; inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood, she had no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile it was this foolish habit—nothing more—that undermined the inherent firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him. Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time to cool.

"It were idle," said Ruth at last—not that she quite believed it, but that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.

"Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made."

"No doubt," growled Blake, "but he shall be forced to unmake it."

He advanced and bowed low before her. "Madam," said he, "will you grant me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding from your path?"

Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake, partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.

Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.

"I thank you, sir," said she. "But it were more than I could permit. This has become a family affair."

There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness, gave Sir Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen sensibilities; yet even so, he could not mistake the request to withdraw that was implicit in her tone and manner. He took his leave, registering, however, in his heart a vow that he would have his way with Wilding. Thus must he—through her gratitude—assuredly come to have his way with Ruth.

Diana rose and turned to her mother. "Come," she said, "we'll speed Sir Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone."

Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.

"Ruth," he faltered, "Ruth!"

She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in a look of pity—and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much herself she needed pity.

"Take it not so to heart," she urged him, her voice low and crooning —as that of a mother to her babe. "Take it not so to heart, Richard. I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr. Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe," she added, her only intent to comfort Richard; "that he loves me; and if he loves me, surely he will prove kind."

He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to the lips, his eyes bloodshot. "It must not be—it shall not be—I'll not endure it!" he cried hoarsely.

"Richard, dear..." she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from hers in his gust of emotion.

He rose abruptly, interrupting her. "I'll go to Wilding now," he cried, his voice resolute. "He shall cancel this bargain he had no right to make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you went to him."

"No, no, Richard, you must not!" she urged him, frightened, rising too, and clinging to his arm.

"I will," he answered. "At the worst he can but kill me. But at least you shall not be sacrificed."

"Sit here, Richard," she bade him. "There is something you have not considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you..." she paused.

He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept gradually into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been stamped upon it but a moment since.

He swallowed hard. "What then?" he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside her.

She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line, pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance of her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry somebody some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in attaching too much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr. Wilding. Probably he was no worse than other men, and after all he was a gentleman of wealth and position, such a man as half the women in Somerset might be proud to own for husband.

Her arguments and his weakness—his returning cowardice, which made him lend an ear to those same arguments—prevailed with him; at least they convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life in this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought, hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling the bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case he promised readily in answer to her entreaties—for her faith in him was a thing unquenchable—that he would do nothing without taking counsel with her.

Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse, awaiting him.

"Sir Rowland," said she at parting, "your chivalry makes you take this matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin may have good reason for not desiring your interference."

He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been on the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have suggested to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience and inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.

"What shall that mean, madam?" he asked her.

Diana hesitated. "What I have said is plain," she answered, and it was clear that she held something back.

Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read her, never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he should.

He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. "Not plain enough for me," he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. "Tell me," he besought her.

"I can't! I can't!" she cried in feigned distress. "It were too disloyal."

He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with jealous alarm. "What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton."

Diana lowered her eyes. "You'll not betray me?" she stipulated.

"Why, no. Tell me."

She flushed delicately. "I am disloyal to Ruth," she said, "and yet I am loath to see you cozened."

"Cozened?" quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. "Cozened?"

Diana explained. "Ruth was at his house to-day," said she, "closeted alone with him for an hour or more."

"Impossible!" he cried.

"Where else was the bargain made?" she asked, and shattered his last doubt. "You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here."

Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.

"She went to intercede for Richard," he protested. Miss Horton looked up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her shoulders 'very eloquently. "You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in any cause?"

Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and perplexed.

"You mean that she loves him?" he said, between question and assertion.

Diana pursed her lips. "You shall draw your own inference," quoth she.

He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.

"But her talk of sacrifice?" he cried.

Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his perceptions. "Her brother is set against her marrying him," said she. "Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?"

Doubt stared from his eyes. "Why do you tell me this?"

"Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland," she answered very gently. "I would not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend."

"Which I am not desired to mend, say rather," he replied with heavy sarcasm. "She would not have my interference!" He laughed angrily. "I think you are right, Mistress Diana," he said, "and I think that more than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding."

He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he sought out Wilding.

But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.

So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.

Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his hat—a black castor trimmed with a black feather—rudely among the dishes on the board.

"I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding," said he, "to be so good as to tell me the colour of that hat."

Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.

"I could not," said Mr. Wilding, "deny an answer to a question set so courteously." He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. "You'll no doubt disagree with me," said he, "but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as white as virgin snow."

Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled viciously. "You mistake, Mr. Wilding," said he. "My hat is black."

Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him opportunities to indulge it. "Why, true," said he, "now that I come to look, I perceive that it is indeed black."

And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he had taught himself.

"You are mistaken again," said he, "that hat is green."

"Indeed?" quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. "What is your own opinion of it, Nick?"

Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. "Why, since you ask me," said he, "my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a gentleman's table." And he took it up, and threw it through the window.

Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea. It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action. But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.

"Blister me!" he cried. "Must I sweep the cloth from the table before you'll understand me?"

"If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out of the house," said Mr. Wilding, "and it would distress me so to treat a person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose, although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?"

"I said it was green," answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.

"Nay, I am sure you were wrong," said Wilding with a grave air. "Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black."

"And if I were to say that it is white?" asked Blake, feeling mighty ridiculous.

"Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it," answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. "And since we are agreed on that," continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, "I hope you'll join us at supper."

"I'll be damned," roared Blake, "if ever I sit at table of yours, sir."

"Ah!" said Mr. Wilding regretfully. "Now you become offensive."

"I mean to be," said Blake.

"You astonish me!"

"You lie! I don't," Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it out at last.

Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face inexpressibly shocked.

"Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland," he wondered, "or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?"

"Do you mean..." gasped the other, "that you'll ask no satisfaction of me?"

"Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I hope you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now."

Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.

"Give you a good night, Sir Rowland," Mr. Wilding called after him. "Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door."

Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands—for what can be more humiliating to a quarrel—seeking man than to have his enemy refuse to treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and each time spared the London beau, who still insisted—each time more furiously—upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been forced to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case of continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and did credit to Mr. Wilding.

Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding for the patience and toleration he had displayed.

There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir Rowland's nature—mean at bottom—was spurred to find him some other way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a score mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in that encounter from which—whatever the issue—he had looked to cull great credit in Ruth's eyes.

He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard had let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours that were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two together, and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then he realized—as he might have realized before had he been shrewder—that Richard's mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought that he was much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding himself and the world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to approach the subject, when it happened that one night when Richard sat at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative through excess of wine. It happened naturally enough that Richard sought an ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their fortunes—so far as Ruth was concerned—were bound up together. The baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences that might aim at the destruction of his enemy. He questioned him adroitly, and drew from him the story of the rising that was being planned, and of the share that Mr. Wilding—one of the Duke of Monmouth's chief movement-men—bore in the business that was toward.

When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.