Mistress Wilding Part 4

"Why, if that is all," said Diana, "then I'll go with you."

"I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation."

"Consider Richard rather," the fair temptress made answer eagerly. "Be sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you.

At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to push the matter forward--acknowledge himself in the wrong, do whatever you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It has been proved too often." She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin s indecision. "To-night you'll thank me for this thought," she a.s.sured her. "Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the little humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and honour?"

"No, no," Ruth protested feebly.

"What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?"

"I'll go," said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk, impatient. "Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland Chase at once."

They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with Vallancey, and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road that, skirting Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with little said until they came to the point where the road branches on the left, throwing out an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so short of Zoyland Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain.

Ruth checked, and cried to know what ailed her.

"It is the sun, I think," muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. "I am sick and giddy." And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an instant Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which lent colour to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor sprang from her agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted would succeed or not.

A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back from the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened, water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.

She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the wings of the great chair, and languidly a.s.sured them she would be better soon if she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to sit beside her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in consequence she should reach Zoyland Chase too late--to find that Mr. Wilding had gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it seemed that the same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl leaned forward, thrusting--as if by an effort--some of her faintness from her.

"Do not wait for me, Ruth," she begged.

"I must, child."

"You must not;" the other insisted. "Think what it may mean--Richard's life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow you in a few minutes."

"I'll wait for you," said Ruth with firmness.

At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. "Then we'll push on at once," she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.

"But you are in no case to stand!" said Ruth. "Sit, Diana, sit."

"Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At any moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not have Richard's blood upon my head."

Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.

Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not; ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very strength of her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme.

She saw that her hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no ordinary occasion. It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on, nor could she consent to take Diana.

And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble a.s.surances that she would follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER IV. TERMS OF SURRENDER

"MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam," announced old Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.

"He rode... at dawn?" faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared porch. Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock when she had left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first, and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning home. "Said he at what hour he would return?" she asked.

"He bade us expect him by noon, madam."

This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour to noon already. "Then he may return at any moment?" said she.

"At any moment, madam," was the grave reply.

She took her resolve. "I will wait," she announced, to the man's increasing if undisplayed astonishment. "Let my horse be seen to."

He bowed his obedience, and she followed him--a slender, graceful figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver--across the stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into the s.p.a.cious library of which he held the door.

"Mistress Horton is following me," she informed the butler. "Will you bring her to me when she comes?"

Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy, had built the Chase upon the severe and n.o.ble lines which there he had learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.

She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair to wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time pa.s.sed, and in the silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the distance.

Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.

She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase.

And then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.

Men's voices reached her--a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick Trenchard.

"A lady!" she heard him cry. "'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for trafficking with doxies?" She crimsoned an instant at the coa.r.s.e word and set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were lowered so that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she recognized to be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered.

There followed a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then came swift steps and jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened suddenly, and Mr. Wilding, in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white with dust, stood bowing to her from the threshold.

"Your servant, Mistress Westmacott," she heard him murmur. "My house is deeply honoured."

She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then closed the door and came forward into the room.

"You will forgive that I present myself thus before you," he said, in apology for his dusty raiment. "But I bethought me you might be in haste, and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an hour. Will you not sit, madam?" And he advanced a chair. His long white face was set like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He guessed the reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven him to the very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair before him. Under the impa.s.sive face his soul exulted fiercely.

She disregarded the chair he proffered. "My visit... has no doubt surprised you," she began, tremulous and hesitating.

"I' faith, no," he answered quietly. "The cause, after all, is not very far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf."

"Not on Richard's," she answered. "On my own." And now that the ice was broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage flowing fast. "This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding," she informed him.

He raised his eyebrows--fine and level as her own--his thin lips smiled never so faintly. "It is, I think," said he, "for Richard to prevent it.

The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we meet. If he will express regret..." He left his sentence there. In truth he mocked her, though she guessed it not.

"You mean," said she, "that if he makes apology...?"

"What else? What other way remains?"

She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance steady.

"That is impossible," she told him. "Last night--as I have the story--he might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward."