Mistress Wilding Part 35

She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he would escape her. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Answer me that, and I will tell you why I came."

"I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.

"His Majesty's?"

"King Monmouth's," he explained impatiently. "Come, Ruth. Already I am late."

"If I were to ask you not to go," she said slowly, and she held out her hands to him, her glance most piteous--and that was not acting--as she raised it to meet his own, "would you not stay to pleasure me?"

He considered her from under frowning eyes. "Ruth," he said, and he took her hands, "there is here something that I do not understand. What is't you mean?"

"Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you."

"But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to go."

She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. "Yet if I ask you--I, your wife?" she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.

But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of her own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.

"Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?"

She drew back from him, crimsoning. "I think I had better go," said she.

"You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?" she sighed as she took up her mantle. "Had you but observed more gentle ways, you... you..." She paused, needing to say no more. "Good-night!"

she ended, and made s.h.i.+ft to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified.

She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.

"Wait!" he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her hand apparently upon the latch. "You shall not go until you have told me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?" he asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind.

"Is there some treachery afoot?" he asked her, and his eye went wildly to the clock. A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. "What are you doing?" he cried. "Why have you locked the door?" She was tugging and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her nervous haste. He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in her hand. She wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.

"Here is some devilry!" he cried. "Give me that key."

He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent than words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in some plot for the Duke's ruin--perhaps a.s.sa.s.sination. Had not her very words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He was out of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see his throat cut. She would have the plot succeed--whatever it might be and yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only for a moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once--and for all time, indeed--that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.

He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with it. She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which she might yet gain a few moments more. She would cling to the key, and though he should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a struggle, and that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to make it too late for him to save the Duke, and--what imported more--thus save herself from betraying her brother's trust. Another fear leapt at her suddenly. If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared that night, Blake, in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance upon Richard.

"Give me that key," he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.

"No, no," she cried, setting her hand behind her. "You shall not go, Anthony. You shall not go."

"I must," he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined. "My honour's in it now that I know."

"You'll go to your death," she reminded him.

He sneered. "What signifies a day or so? Give me the key."

"I love you, Anthony!" she cried, livid to the lips.

"Lies!" he answered her contemptuously. "The key!"

"No," she answered, and her firmness matched his own. "I will not have you slain."

"'Tis not my purpose--not just yet. But I must save the others. G.o.d forgive me if I offer violence to a woman," he added, "and lay rude hands upon her. Do not compel me to it." He advanced upon her, but she, lithe and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He wheeled about, his self-control all slipping from him now. Suddenly she darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she smote a pane with all her might. There was a smash of s.h.i.+vering gla.s.s, followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the hand that she still held out covered itself all with blood.

"O G.o.d!" he cried, the key and all else forgotten. "You are hurt."

"But you are saved," she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing recklessly her spotless, s.h.i.+mmering gown.

He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the door--a frail barrier after all. "Nick!" he roared. "Nick!" He tossed the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a s.h.i.+rt of Trenchard's--the first piece of linen he could find.

She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way.

He bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's fine cambric s.h.i.+rt to shreds--a matter on which Trenchard afterwards commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan dramatists. He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at the splintered door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his fingers. He was followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other person in the house, for every one was out of doors that night.

Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine as they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction to Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.

CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET

It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her object, Wilding imagined that all was lost. It needed the more tranquil mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment, after Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the situation.

"What are you going to do?" asked Trenchard.

"Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke--if still in time."

"And thereby precipitate the catastrophe? Oh, give it thought. It is all it needs. You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the hour appointed for King Monmouth's butchery."

"What else?" asked Wilding, impatient to be off.

They were standing in the street under the sign of The s.h.i.+p, by which Jonathan Edney--Mr. Trenchard's landlord--distinguished his premises and the chandler's trade he drove there. Trenchard set a detaining hand on Mr. Wilding's arm.

"Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper. It is odds the Duke will be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does arrive, the a.s.sa.s.sins will wait until the company is safely at table and lulled by good eating and drinking. You had overlooked that, I see. It asks an old head for wisdom, after all. Look you, Anthony. Speed to Colonel Wade as fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men. Then find some fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only you do not arrive too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats in the rear and destroy them to a man before they realize themselves attacked. I'll reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front of the house.

Away with you!"

Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not thought it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes at a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater, in the direction of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths followed him from these and from others whom he rudely jostled out of his path. Wade was gone with Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape, who had a company of scythes and musketeers incorporated in the Duke's own regiment, and to him Wilding gasped out the news and his request for a score of men with what breath was left him.

Time was lost--and never was time more precious--in convincing Slape that this was no old wife's tale. At last, however, he won his way and twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they left the Castle. He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a thought for the circ.u.mstance that they would need their breath anon, perhaps for fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by back streets that they might attract as little attention as possible.

Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one forward to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from the absence of uproar--sounds there were in plenty from the main street, where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in--Mr. Wilding inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But the danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the a.s.sa.s.sins were penetrating--or had penetrated--to the house; and at any moment such sounds might greet them as would announce the execution of their murderous design.

Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging his long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an appet.i.te for supper. He strolled past the Cross and on until he came to the handsome mansion--one of the few handsome houses in Bridgwater--where opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence. A small crowd had congregated about the doors, for word had gone forth that His Majesty was to sup there. Trenchard moved slowly through the people, seemingly uninterested, but, in fact, scanning closely every face he encountered. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he espied in the indifferent light Mr. Richard Westmacott.

Trenchard pa.s.sed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had also turned and was now watching him as he approached. He was all but upon the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.

"Mr. Westmacott!" he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.

Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give pa.s.sage to the other.

But Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pa.s.s. He clapped a hand on Richard's shoulder. "Nay," he cried, between laughter and feigned resentment. "Do you bear me ill-will, lad?"