Complete Works of Bram Stoker (138 page)

The Alderman blew his nose violently, and said in a choky voice  — 

“Young sir, your words are brave; and on my soul and honour I believe them. But they should be spoken in a young maid’s ear  —  nay, in the very ear of our young maid herself  —  rather than to an old loveless and childless man, as I am.”

Then Betty stood up. Her heart had beat heavily all through Rafe’s saying, and, though in her secret heart her mind was made up as to what she should do, she wanted the endorsement of others as to its wisdom in order to complete her happiness. She was only a young maid, after all, and the care of choosing between good and bad is not rightly for young heads and hearts that are not steeled to the ways of the world. But she waited, covering her eyes with her hot hands, and listened a little longer. Rafe’s voice came now more eagerly, the hope in his heart was growing; his long penance had done its work in purging his soul, and he spoke now more like a free man  —  more like the old Rafe  — 

“Nay, but, sir, will you not help me?  —  not for my sake, but for Betty’s. It is of her that I think, and it is for her that I would act. Will you give me a hint as to what is for her good, or rather for her happiness?”

The old man was evidently troubled in his mind, for he paused. Betty waited in an agony of expectation. But when the Alderman spoke her heart leaped, for he answered in tones that she had seldom heard from him  —  “God forbid that I, or such a poor opinion as mine, should stand in the way when the Lord has been doing His own work and leading back a lost sheep to the fold. But oh! sir, search your own heart. Think of what a terrible responsibility you take upon yourself if you win the right to guard the happiness of that young life. Think what it would be  —  what it must be  —  if you were to take even the smallest step backward from the way that you have won. Think of the harrowing anxiety that for many a long year would be in her heart regarding your every step, no matter how well intentioned or well ordered it might be.

“Ah! sir, I see you are moved. That is good. Then let me tell you more  —  more than I ever dreamed of telling you till now. In my heart I feel  —  nay, I know  —  that our dear Betty loves you still. That for all these years.she has been watching the hands of the clock as they crawled round the dial. That her thoughts have been of you and for you. And then think how every act or word of yours, if not of the highest, would shatter that high ideal in her mind  —  nay, would even reveal to her that you are only a man like the rest of us, with a man’s failings, and compact of clay. It would break that tender, loving, patient heart. This is a battle, sir, that a man must fight out alone. Judge for yourself, sir, and may the good God aid you in the task of judging wisely! Ah! that is right. You can never be wrong, sir, whilst you take counsel like that. Would that Betty might be here to see you on your knees in such a cause!”

Betty, with her eyes still shut, put out her arms instinctively as though to embrace  —  she did not know which, her lover or the old friend who so comforted him in his trouble. Then Rafe spoke again  — 

“I shall take your kindly warning, sir, and spend the night in thought. I have looked at the matter hitherto perhaps selfishly and in too great self-belief. To-morrow, if I see that my duty is to go without seeing Betty, I shall send you word; and, if this be the sad result of my thought, then I charge you on your faith and honour that never-by word or deed shall you even hint of this day, for its end may be that I shall simply pass away. If I think I am justified in staying, that I have learned sufficiently to trust myself, then I shall go to Chelsea. Whatever be the result, let me say that to the last hour of my life I shall be grateful to you for your attitude to me to-day  —  you from whom I deserve so little, and on whose loved one I have brought such trouble and such pain.”

“Stay, sir! you must not go without some assurance that I shall see you again. You may miscalculate your own strength in this matter, and be driven to some desperate act.” “No, sir; be not alarmed on that score. I have, since we met last, been through too many bitter experiences to do aught rashly. And if it be that you fear that some time I may foredo my own life, again I say, be not alarmed. It is true that I do not fear death. In the years that have gone, I have seen too many souls take flight; I have looked too often into the eyes of Death to fear them. I have come to regard dying only as a means to an end; and with that new insight that end is too holy to be tampered with by any fell act of mine. But if it will give you ease, I promise that I shall not leave England without coming to see you again, without taking hope from your kindness, without bearing comfort and fortitude from the grasp of your honest hand.” “Then when may I expect you, if, indeed, we are to lose you?  —  and I pray that such may not be.”

“At this hour the day after to-morrow. If I feel that I may see Betty and learn her wishes’ from her own true lips, I shall go to Chelsea in the afternoon of to-morrow. If not, or, if, as it may be, Betty will not or cannot let all things be as they were before I shut the gates of that Paradise on myself, then I shall see you, as I said, at this hour of the day following; and shall then beg you of your goodness to be my almoner for that sum for charity of which I spoke.”

Betty here could stand no more. She felt, now that the torturing fears of her heart were stilled, that she had no right to be an unknown confidant of such secrets. It came upon her with a rush that she had been an eavesdropper, though sure it was that the angels themselves could not have blamed one in her plight. She wished to be away  —  away anywhere  —  where she could hide her joy and, in its vastness, this little shame; where she could sink,, unchallenged, to her, knees and unburden her glad soul to God. In the midst of all the thought was one fixed and dominant idea  —  that she must not interfere with Rafe’s project. This was the struggle, the final struggle and test of his own soul; and it must be wrought out alone. Well she knew that if he failed to know her glad and perfect happiness to take all risks with him, she would herself come to him and tell him to be of good cheer. She knew now where to find him, if there should be need. The doubt was a very small one, for she seemed to know that the morrow afternoon would see him at Cheyne Walk.

And so she stole away out of the room, trembling lest a rustle of her dress should betray her. Down the steps she went, and out into the garden. The shrubs hid her from the house, and, not stopping to notice the new beauty which had come upon the flowers, she stole, feeling like a guilty thing, through the garden and out noiselessly through the wicket into the quiet lane-way behind the house.

Before long she was at the “Saracen’s Head,” and having ordered her carriage with all speed, was on her way to Chelsea before the sun began to set.

CHAPTER IX

AT CHEYNE WALK

IN the twilight that night Betty stole out alone, and walked by herself up the path by the river where Rafe had given her the golden buttons. Here, all hidden by the trees, turning to the west where the afterglow was like the rosy blush on her own face, she let out her soul in thankfulness to God. Then she went home. That night she slept like a tired child, and never woke till the glad sun, peering in at her windows, recalled her to what the day might bring forth.

All that morning she moved with the ordered routine of her life, and no one in the household saw enough change to cause a thought.

When, however, the noon had turned, Betty went to her room and made her toilet most carefully, The time since Rafe had seen her seemed so long that she feared it might have left some stamp upon her, and anxiously she used her glass as every good woman does; for a good woman is a true woman, and her glass  —  next to her Bible  —  is ever her help in self-respect. She put on once again the white dress in which she had parted from Rafe, and the gaps where the two buttons were missing were unmistakable. Then she stole down to the drawing-room and sat in her old place on the sofa where she had used to sit with Rafe. It was many a day since she had sat in the spot, for she had felt that to sit there was to hope too much, and if she hoped too much some tinge of blame might rest on Rafe. But now she was assured, and she need no longer deny herself the sweet luxury.

After a while Abigail came into the room and looked around, but not seeing her mistress in her accustomed seat by the window, turned to go out. Betty called to her  — 

“I am here, Abigail!”

“Dear heart alive! Miss Betty, I never looked for you in that seat. I did but want to ask if you will walk or ride after dinner.” “Neither, Abigail. I think I shall sit quiet this afternoon. I had a long day in London yesterday, and I daresay it tired me.”

“‘Deed, then, Miss Betty, I feared so at first; but when I saw you come home I thought you never looked less tired in your life. But it’s the way with young maids  —  they’re not tired when they are, and when they are they’re not!” with which seemingly incomprehensible piece of wisdom she withdrew.

The time seemed to Betty to fly with leaden wings that afternoon. She would not let herself come to any definite conclusion as to what she even hoped, but held surmise, of joy and pain alike, at arm’s length. Of one thing she was certain  —  that she knew what she intended as to the result. The manner of it and the means were all that were left open. After dinner she took her seat in the window, ostensibly reading the last part of Mr. Pope’s “Homer”; but the pages were unturned. From her seat she could watch the roadway for some little distance; no one could come near the house without being seen by her, though the screen of flowers which grew in their pots on the window-ledge hid her from strange eyes.

The clock had just struck four when her heart leaped, for her eyes, raised from her book, had lighted on the form she looked for. There was no fear of her mistaking that upright carriage, that swinging gait. She peered between the leaves of the plants, and her hungry eyes lit on Rafe’s face. And then, oh! the tumult of joy in her heart! He was unchanged save in all manly and noble ways. The pain, and suffering, and responsibility, and high endeavour of the years that had passed had only purified and ennobled his face. Her glance well justified the opinion she had formed the evening before from his voice and words. She did not dare to look long, but with a light bound and with noiseless foot flew back to her old seat on the sofa, and waited with the throbbing of her heart stilled by the magnitude of her expectancy. Then came the knock, and Abigail herself flew to open the door. The old woman may have taken some hint from seeing Betty in her old seat, and her intuition grasped the rest; or it may simply have been that she recognised the knock. None ever knew, not even she herself, for none ever asked; but she threw open the door, and recoiled with a halfsmothered cry  — 

“Master Rafe! oh my dear young master!” She threw her arms impulsively round him, and instantly drew back. “Forgive me,” she said, “I forgot my duty.” Then in a louder and more ceremonious voice, and with a certain ominous stiffening of her back which of old the children had come to recognise as a sort of storm signal, she went on: “The mistress has been looking out for you, sir. She was much distressed that you had not called sooner.”

“Looking out for me!” said Rafe, in amazement, for in his new simplicity of thought, and with his mind concentrated on the last twenty-four hours, he overlooked the longer time. “Looking for me! Since when?”

“Only for the last five years, sir!” said the old nurse, with mingled dignity and sarcasm. A sweet smile broke over Rafe’s face as he took her by the hand:’

“You are right, my dear, good soul. The time has been long; but be assured it has not gone quickly with me. I can only hope that you who so love Miss Betty will in time forgive me.”

“Dear heart! but I must go break it to the child that you are come.” She retired demurely as far as the foot of the staircase, and then ran with what speed her old legs could make to the drawing-room. Her method of breaking it was her own. She darted into the door and called in a fierce, joyous whisper  —  “He is here, Miss Betty! He is here! and looking finer than ever. Let me see, darling, that you are looking your best!” and she eyed her mistress critically for an instant.

Then she retired, seemingly satisfied, as Betty said in grand simplicity  — 

“Tell him to come up, Abigail dear. You need not announce!”

Abigail flew to the stair-head; and thence coming down with sedateness and decorum, gave her message  — 

“My mistress will receive you, sir, in the drawing-room. You will excuse me accompanying you, but my orders are that I am not to announce you!”

Rafe smiled at her so sweetly that in her secret heart she forgave him on the spot. Then she stayed silent, keeping a jealous watch lest any of the maids should by any bungling accident make interruption of her mistress.

Betty sat silent  —  silent and still as death. She heard Rafe’s footsteps on the carpeted stair, and wondered why they were so slow. How she would have flown had she been going to him! But he was a man, and it was her place to await him; the sweetness of the coming moments was not to be forestalled.

The door opened and closed again, and she looked up. Before her stood Rafe, more erect than ever as to his body, for his years of soldiering had perfected his bearing. But his head was slightly drooped; the long years of hopes, of fears, of imaginings, told their tale when now he stood in the presence of the woman who had been his very sunlight. There was no need for him to speak. Had she not known already, Betty would have understood by instinct the meaning of that humble bearing. The lesson of her own patient years of hoping and waiting were not lost; and face to face these two loving hearts realised that for them time had stood still, and the golden days of their lives had even to begin. All Betty’s joy and pride and hope and love shone in her sweet eyes as she rose to her feet, and with one glad word  —  “Rafe!”  —  whose tone was music to the man who heard, and to the angels who smiled approvingly  —  fairly leaped to the arms which opened to receive her.