Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
MISTRESS WILDING
By Rafael Sabatini
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I -- POT-VALIANCE
CHAPTER II -- SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER III -- DIANA SCHEMES
CHAPTER IV -- TERMS OF SURRENDER
CHAPTER V -- THE ENCOUNTER
CHAPTER VI -- THE CHAMPION
CHAPTER VII -- THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
CHAPTER VIII -- BRIDE AND GROOM
CHAPTER IX -- MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
CHAPTER X -- THEIR OWN PETARD
CHAPTER XI -- THE MARPLOT
CHAPTER XII -- AT THE FORD
CHAPTER XIII -- "PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE"
CHAPTER XIV -- HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
CHAPTER XV -- LYME OF THE KING
CHAPTER XVI -- PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
CHAPTER XVII -- MR. WILDING'S RETURN
CHAPTER XVIII -- BETRAYAL
CHAPTER XIX -- THE BANQUET
CHAPTER XX -- THE RECKONING
CHAPTER XXI -- THE SENTENCE
CHAPTER XXII -- THE EXECUTION
CHAPTER XXIII -- MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
CHAPTER XXIV -- JUSTICE
CHAPTER I. POT-VALIANCE
Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contentsof his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, onhis feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, abrooding, expectant stillness, fell upon the company--and it numbereda round dozen--about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the softcandlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which werereflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to floatupon it.
Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less floridthan its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Underits golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkenedby a scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummedfretfully upon the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby--their host, abenign and placid man of peace, detesting turbulence--turned crimson nowin wordless rage. The others gaped and stared--some at young Westmacott,some at the man he had so grossly affronted--whilst in the shadows ofthe hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the winetrickling from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than itshabit, a vestige of the smile with which he had proposed the toast stilllingering on his thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegantgentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue ofhis exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair,which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were hissombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyesof his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness tempered bya gentle melancholy. For the rest, it was scored by lines that stampedit with the appearance of an age in excess of his thirty years.
Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpledand ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat adark patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the pointof insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. Itwas Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence--broke it with an oath, athing unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
"As God's my life!" he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. "Tohave this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!"
"With his dying breath," sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words,his tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased thecompany's malaise.
"I think," said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessivesweetness, "that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because heapprehended me amiss."
"No doubt he'll say so," opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had cautiondug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to provehim wrong by saying the contrary.
"I apprehended you exactly, sir," he answered, defiance in his voice andwine-flushed face.
"Ha!" clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. "He's bent on self-destruction.Let him have his way, in God's name."
But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he couldbe. He gently shook his head. "Nay, now," said he. "You thought, Mr.Westmacott, that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it notso?"
"You mentioned her, and that is all that matters," cried Westmacott."I'll not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place--no,nor in any manner." His speech was thick from too much wine.
"You are drunk," cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
"Pot-valiant," Trenchard elaborated.
Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued tohold until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knucklesdownward, and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face verygrave; and those present--knowing him as they did--were one and all lostin wonder at his unusual patience.
"Mr. Westmacott," said he, "I do think you are wrong to persist inaffronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, andyet, when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving..." Heshrugged his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness.There was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purposeset, and under the calm mask of his long white face his mind workedwickedly and deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature wasnotoriously timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading theboy's mind as readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for hisinstruction, he saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his positionas his sister's brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowedcourtship of the lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her,despite the aversion she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacottassurance that Mr. Wilding would never elect to shatter his all tooslender chances by embroiling himself in a quarrel with her brother.And--reading him, thus, aright--Mr. Wilding put on that mask ofpatience, luring the boy into greater conviction of the security ofhis position. And Richard, conceiving himself safe in his entrenchmentbehind the bulwarks of his brothership to Ruth Westmacott, and heartenedfurther by the excess of wine he had consumed, persisted in insults hewould never otherwise have dared to offer.
"Who seeks to retrieve?" he crowed offensively, boldly looking up intothe other's face. "It seems you are yourself reluctant." And he laugheda trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.
"You are overrash," Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
"Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table," put inTrenchard by way of explanation, and might have come to words with Blakeon that same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
"Reluctant to do what?" he questioned amiably, looking Westmacottso straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on hishigh-backed chair.
Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of hisposition, the mad youth answered, "To cleanse yourself of what I threwat you."
"Fan me, ye winds!" gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy athis friend Wilding.
Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such cravenshrewdness his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister,young Richard had not reckoned. He was not to know that Wilding,bruised and wounded by Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached thatborderland where love and hate are so merged that they are scarce to bedistinguished. Embittered by the slights she had put upon him--slightswhich his sensitive,
lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold--AnthonyWilding's frame of mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would havenone; his kindness she seemingly despised. So be it; she should tastehis cruelty. If she scorned his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, atleast it was not hers to deny him the power to hurt; and in hurtingher that would not be loved by him some measure of fierce and bitterconsolation seemed to await him.
He realized, perhaps, not quite all this--and to the unworthiness of itall he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat withmouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her throughthe worthless person of this brother whom she cherished--and whopersisted in affording him this opportunity--a wicked vengeance would behis.
Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet atWestmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
"In Heaven's name..." he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence. But thatpersisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard. Herose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself. It was time, he thought,he took a hand in this.
In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt forWestmacott, he was filled with a fear that the latter might becomedangerous if not crushed at once. Gifted with a shrewd knowledge ofmen, acquired during a chequered life of much sour experience, oldNick instinctively mistrusted Richard. He had known him for a fool,a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber of wine. Out of such elements avillain is soon compounded, and Trenchard had cause to fear the formof villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand. For it chanced that Mr.Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John Trenchard, so latelytried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of the sectaries of theWest, and still more lately--but yesterday, in fact--fled the country toescape the rearrest ordered in consequence of that excessive joy. Likehis more famous cousin, Nick Trenchard was one of the Duke of Monmouth'smost active agents; and Westmacott, like Wilding, Vallancey, and oneor two others at that board, stood, too, committed to the cause of theProtestant Champion.
Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if hewere leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to realizethe grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood of its beingforgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect himself he mightbetray Wilding's share in the plot that was being hatched. That initself would be bad enough; but there might be worse, for he couldscarcely betray Wilding without betraying others and--what matteredmost--the Cause itself. He must be dealt with out of hand, Trenchardopined, and dealt with ruthlessly.
"I think, Anthony," said he, "that we have had words enough. Shall yoube disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it foryou?"
With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confrontthis fresh and unsuspected antagonist. What danger was this that he hadoverlooked? Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his ear,and each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water onWestmacott's overheated brain.
"I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have thepleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott." And his smile fell now in mockeryupon the disillusioned lad.
Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the flushreceding from his face until his very lips were livid. The shock hadsobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done. Andyet even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with suchsecurity he had leaned should have proved rotten. True he had put muchstrain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much strain.
He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he. And evenhad he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calmwas of a sudden turned to garboil. Every man of that company--withthe sole exception of Richard himself--was on his feet, and all werespeaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
Wilding alone--the butt of their expostulations--stood quietly smiling,and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn. Dominatingthe others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland Blake--impecuniousBlake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold his commission as theonly thing remaining him upon which he could raise money; Blake, thatother suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the suitor favoured by herbrother.
"You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding," he shouted, his face crimson. "No,by God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk."
Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughedunpleasantly. "You should get yourself bled one of these days, SirRowland," he advised. "There may be no great danger yet; but a man can'tbe too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth."
Blake--a short, powerfully built man--took no heed of him, but lookedstraight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the gaze ofthose prominent blue eyes.
"You will suffer me, Sir Rowland," said he sweetly, "to be the judge ofwhom I will and whom I will not meet."
Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone. "But heis drunk," he repeated feebly.
"I think," said Trenchard, "that he is hearing something that will makehim sober."
Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently."Well?" quoth he. "Have you nothing to say? You did a deal of pratingjust now. I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were tomake apology..."
"It would be idle," came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hopekindling anew in Richard's breast. The lad saw that he was lost, and heis a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst isshown to be irrevocable. He rose with some semblance of dignity.
"It is as I would wish," said he, but his livid face and staring eyesbelied the valour of his words. He cleared his huskiness from histhroat. "Sir Rowland," said he, "will you act for me?"
"Not I!" cried Blake with an oath. "I'll be no party to the butchery ofa boy unfledged."
"Unfledged?" echoed Trenchard. "Body o' me! 'Tis a matter Wilding willamend to-morrow. He'll fledge him, never fear. He'll wing him on hisflight to heaven."
Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire. It wasno part of his views that this encounter should be avoided. If RichardWestmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were toomany tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left--young Vallancey,a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained gentlemanwho was his own worst enemy.
"May I count on you, Ned?" he asked.
"Aye--to the death," said Vallancey magniloquently.
"Mr. Vallancey," said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,"you grow prophetic."