Mistress Wilding | Page 5

the only
course remaining was that of direct antagonism - that is to say, direct as
Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in that
secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr.
Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were
unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of
humour into that alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given
this dog its bad name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his
reputation. So it exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those
exaggerations in his turn, had some details, as interesting and
unsavoury as they were in the main untrue, to lay before his sister.
Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander.
The robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but
further strengthened by malign representations of his character. She
seizes with joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty, and
defies the world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom she
has given her trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with the
first timid bud of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost; in
deadliness it is second only to ridicule.

Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and
from that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told
her, which, incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too,
did the tale of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed
between Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in
his time - as everybody knew - had come so low, despite his gentle
birth, as to have been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr.
Wilding been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not
cherish an attachment for a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they
were birds of a plumage.
And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she had
crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of
throwing out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter in
manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster for
Mr. Wilding.
Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning
way he had wrought this change - that cunning which so often is given
to the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
withheld them.
And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in
vain, Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from his
creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens. He dazzled
the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand of Diana
Horton - Ruth's cousin. Her heart, indeed, he had without the asking,
for Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it, just as he
showed that he was not without response to her affection. There were
some tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his fine exterior,
was a beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode his feelings with
a hard grip upon the reins. And then, in an evil hour for poor Diana,
young Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House, and Sir Rowland
had his first glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge of her fortune. He
went down before Ruth's eyes like a man of heart; he went down more

lowly still before her possessions like a man of greed; and poor Diana
might console herself with whom she could.
Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this
broken gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be
ready enough for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough
to sell what rags might be left him of his honour so that he came by the
wherewithal to mend his broken fortunes.
The twain made terms. They haggled like any pair of traders out of
Jewry, but in the end it was settled - by a bond duly engrossed and
sealed - that on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make
over to her brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter of
her possessions. There was no cause to think that Ruth would be
greatly opposed to this - not that that consideration would have
weighed with Richard.
But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed
nowise taken with Sir Rowland. She