Mistress Wilding Part 37

"It... it shall be forthcoming by morning," stammered Newlington.

"By morning?" cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of it.

"You knew that I march to-night," Monmouth reproached the merchant.

"And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you the honours of supping with you here," put in Wade, frowning darkly.

The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.

"The circ.u.mstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd--or would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your Majesty, that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds as he had promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not as a loan as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence of... his lack of care in the matter of his orchard."

Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. "You have heard Mr.

Wilding's suggestion," said he. "You may thank the G.o.d of traitors it was made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay the money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave behind for the sole purpose of collecting it." He turned from Newlington in plain disgust. "I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are the streets safe, Mr. Wilding?"

"Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own life-guards are waiting to escort you."

"Then in G.o.d's name let us be going," said Monmouth, sheathing his sword and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer the honour of knighthood upon his saviour.

Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's cry broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington, purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air with his hands. Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms flung out amid the gla.s.s and silver of the table all spread with the traitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.

His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved. But Mr. Newlington answered not their call, for he was dead.

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 pa.s.sed; 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 pa.s.sed '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 rea.s.sure her. But as moments pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!"

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 encompa.s.sed.

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

"Not all of it," said Diana hoa.r.s.ely, leaning forward. "Tell us what pa.s.sed."

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 G.o.d that you at least are safe, d.i.c.k!"

"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 d.a.m.ned, 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 pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.sured 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."