by Bram Stoker
Rafe did not return to supper, for he felt that it would be easier for Betty if he were not present to notice — and perhaps to cause — her brother’s rudeness. So at the gate he said farewell, not in his usual style but in a ceremonious way befitting a public occasion, and went back to the Temple in a waterman’s wherry.
The legend on the sword had given him an idea. He would have it worked out in some jewel for Betty! And as he was rowed down the river with the ebbing tide his idea took a definite form. He would have wrought, by some cunning goldsmith, a set of buttons in gold of some old Spanish device, such as that which embellished the sword, and on each should be graven a word of the legend. Then he bethought him whether it would be better in Spanish or English, for the wording of the sentence allowed either; and the happy idea came to him that he would have each button to contain a word of Spanish and a word of English, but in such a way that the sentence should run the reverse way, the last of one series being the first of the other.
The perfecting of his idea pleased him, and he forgot all the disagreeable part of his meeting with Betty’s brother; and so he landed at the stairs at Westminster and sought the sign of the “Golden Ball” at Windmill Street in the Haymarket. There he confided to Paul de Lamerre, the Crown goldsmith, his wishes. He rejoiced that the latter liked, the idea, and would therefore produce something which should be a pleasure to Betty.
CHAPTER IV
RAFE’S OPPORTUNITY
RAFE paid one more visit during Robert’s stay, for he did not wish it to appear as though he avoided the house on account of Betty’s brother; but he was secretly rejoiced when, on his following visit, Abigail told him that Master Robert had gone back to York. The young gentleman had returned to his regimental duties somewhat richer in worldly goods than when he had come; but he was also richer in certain caution and advice of a sisterly kind which rankled in his breast during the whole of the journey between London and York. Betty had impressed upon him the necessity of at least some measure of prudence in his expenditure, lest he should have to end his military duties before they were well, begun; she had also, but in a more guarded way, made it perfectly plain to him that his attitude to his new brother-in-prospect was not such as to insure in the family that peace and affection whence bounty for the prodigal had its only possible source.
“In fact,” summed up that fairly shrewd young gentleman, “I have made a cursed fool of myself, and Betty sends me packing with a flea in my ear!” — a conclusion which, though somewhat coarsely expressed, did infinite credit to his judgment. Henceforth he passes out of our story. He loved his life while it lasted; and his calls on Betty’s liberality became so extravagant that had he not had the misfortune to challenge a more expert and soberer swordsman than himself, it might have become necessary for her guardians to interfere. His one touch with Rafe had been truly but a slight one, but it had the consequence that the mind of the latter was made up to bestow on his lady a gift worthy of her, though at an expense which, when the goldsmith had received his payment, left only a few lonely guineas in the treasury of the kinsman of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Rafe kept the buttons in a case in. his pocket, waiting for a suitable opportunity of giving them to Betty; and when he found that the house was rid of the embarrassing presence of Robert he knew that the time had come.
That evening, when the sun was going down in the west, he asked Betty to come with him to the river bank and watch the sunset. She put on her hat, and they went out together. They walked by the rows of trees opposite the King’s House, and, passing up the marshlands, came to the jutting bank whence they could look over the watery waste and see the sunset mirrored in every bend of the river, every little tidal stream, and every stagnant pool.
Here there was a grove or clump of trees, and passing through these they stood on the edge of the bank with the full tide brimming right up to their very feet. All the pools and rivulets of the marshes of the opposite bank to right and left were full of water, and the marsh-land looked as if shot with gold or silver as the water caught the glow of the sunset or showed cold without it. The sun sank slowly down towards the far-off bend of the river, where the willows fringed the banks between Wandsworth and Putney and the river blazed in a glory.
The rise of the ground towards Clapham and Wandsworth seemed bolder than in a colder light, and on the further edge rose the gibbet, black and grim, which marked the winding of the Portsmouth road. As she pointed out the ‘beauties and answered Rafe’s queries Betty had a strange pleasure, for it was sweet beyond measure to be able to instruct her lover; but she shuddered when, in answer to his query, she told him of the black gibbet.
Then, as the sun sank, he took the case with the golden buttons from his pocket and handed them to her and told her, with sweet words and a look that was an anthem, that he had tried to get something which she would like and which might be worthy of her. When she opened the case and saw the buttons she gave a cry of delight and kissed his gift; then she took out a button and saw that there were words on it in Spanish and English, and at once she guessed at the legend and read it right through both ways. Then she turned to Rafe, and, secure that the grove of trees hid them from the gaze of any prying wanderer, put her-arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth and told him that she would value his dear gift till her dying day.
And so the sun sank into the water in a last flood of crimson and gold; and then in an instant the whole colour of the scene changed, the gold of the sunshine turning to the silver of the moonlight. The air seemed colder as the lovers retraced their steps to home, where they found Priscilla looking anxiously for them, for they had never been out so long together before. That evening, before he began to say good-night, Betty said to him very gravely, after a painful and manifest hesitation —
“Rafe dear, there is something troubling me. May I speak of it to you? May I ask you a question?”
“My darling, there is nothing in all the wide world that you may not say to me.” “Thank you, Rafe dear; you are kind to help me in what I want Rafe, I know you are not rich. Can you really afford to give me so valuable a present? My love, I fear lest my. brother’s taunt may have worried you.”
“How do you mean?” asked Rafe, for he hardly knew what to answer.
“Rafe, you will forgive me, but perhaps they” — and here she laid her hand on her bosom, wherein she had placed her lover’s gift — ”may come to more than you calculated, and indeed something cheaper will suit me as well.”
Rafe drew a long breath. He saw a way of answering without lying and without committing himself to the truth.
“Betty dear,” he said, “the buttons are already paid for, and with my own money — a part of my inheritance.” Then, wishing to divert her thoughts, he started up and said — “Come, I shall sing you a song,” and forthwith burst out the following in a rich baritone voice —
“Let Gallants pledge in wine their loves
And all such other trumpery!
But faith! not I — no toasts for me: —
My Heart and I are company.
“In gory fields good fellows rot —
And all for love of Country!
No fields for me, save furrowed ones —
And my old Heart for company.
“Your loves and wars alike bring tears,
And naught care I to pump any!
My quiet laugh sufficeth well —
And my old Heart for company.
“And yet, and yet when wars were on
And frightened maids would run to me,
I never shirked the blows a jot
Or shunned the maidens’ company.
“Perhaps my Heart remembers well,
Adds up and reads the sum to me,
And pleasured stores are spread again
When bygone days are company.
“So pass I on my way — alone,
Till Death shall sound his tramp to me.
Nor doubt I then my weary
&nbs
p; Heart Shall find him right good company!”
Despite Rafe’s resolute bearing and the strong, masculine roundness of his voice, which is so comforting to a woman, Betty felt full of sadness as the last note of her lover’s song died away. Looking at him through the dimness of her own eyes, she saw that some subtle emotion had so wrought upon him that his eyes too were full of tears. So she tried to comfort him — and succeeded. The rest of the evening was very sweetly and peacefully happy.
When he had said good-night, not in the ceremonious but in the usual fashion, Rafe Otwell took himself back to his chambers in the Temple, a man of about as desperate fortunes, in so far as the present and the immediate future were concerned, as any between London and Westminster.
It was still nearly two years to Betty’s majority, and how Rafe was to live in the interim he did not know. The Law was ever a waiting profession, and the Services were denied him as he had no money and he could therefore only join in the humblest ranks; moreover such would take him from Betty, the mere thought of which he could not endure. He had no knowledge of Commerce and no capital to embark in it. He had thoughts, desperate though they seemed, of asking the advice of the Alderman; but the remembrance of the stern bearing of the latter made them seem chimerical, for the old gentleman had thought it right, as Betty’s trustee, to always assume an additional gravity in his intercourse with the younger man. Moreover, the thought that if the trustees should know how really penniless he was they might forbid the marriage altogether, created a new fear. Rafe was not a fortune-hunter. He loved Betty dearly and truly, and he only regarded her fortune in so far that it might become a help or a bar to his happiness. Having turned in his mind over and over again every means of earning at least a living, and having brooded on the difficulty, day by day and through sleepless nights, he made up his mind that he would once more consult his kinsman.
When he made known to the great man his wish to see him, he received a courteous though curt summons, and on the afternoon of the same day was ushered into the spacious apartment where Sir Robert controlled the destinies of England. He had evidently given some special orders, for on Rafe’s entrance the two secretaries, who sat before masses of State papers, withdrew silently.
Sir Robert looked after them till he saw that the door was shut; then he bowed to Rafe, smiled, and pointed to a chair and sat down himself. For a moment or two he eyed Rafe keenly, and then, leaning over, to his intense astonishment laid his hand on his shoulder — a piece of condescension and familiarity which he had never before even approached.
“Courage, kinsman,” he said kindly; “it is not so bad as this. You look quite woebegone! ‘Fore Gad, Lady Mary will want to see more sunshine, or the matter may not be so easy as I thought.”
Rafe felt a sort of paralysis creeping over him. Sir Robert had evidently taken it for granted that he had made up his mind to fall in with his scheme of marriage. He did not know how to get out of the difficulty, and so remained silent; his want of moral courage had never stood him in worse stead. Walpole went on —
“You see, I have sent away my secretaries. This matter concerns you and me alone; and let me tell you this: With such an alliance your fortune may yet be a greater one than you think. You and I will be brought into very close relations, and many secrets of State, hidden — and of necessity most carefully — from men so young as you are, must become known to you. Knowledge is power, young man; and nowhere is it more patent than in the world of politics. I feared from the first that you had not sufficient ambition for public life; but I am glad to find that my fears were false. Moreover, I am personally well pleased that you have fallen in with my views, for there is none other of my kinsmen, distant or near, that I could count on for such an alliance. Without you one of the greatest strokes of my life cannot be accomplished. You see I speak frankly — more frankly perhaps than a statesman in my position should speak; but inasmuch as you are to fill, and very shortly, a high office and one in close confidence with myself, it is well that you should know it at once.”
Here Rafe, who found that every word uttered was putting him in a more difficult position, tried to speak. He felt that a confidence so given and unjustified by facts would turn a useful friend into an implacable enemy.
“Oh! sir,” he began, “your ideas of me are not correct; indeed they are not.”
Sir Robert smiled. “The ingenuousness of your youth palliates the folly of your selfdepreciation. When you enter the political world, my dear young friend, you must put such modesty in the lumber-room with your childish toys. Take all you can get, and ask for more. Never thank any one as though you were satisfied. Be willing to assume the responsibility of the whole Government. That is the statesman’s attitude in these troublesome times! Now to business. Here is your appointment to a secretaryship of State subject to his Majesty’s approval, and only waiting to be dated. For this you must have a seat in the House. This shall be done within the week, and then, Mr. Secretary, I shall have the honour of introducing to the Lady Mary, under the best auspices, my young kinsman Rafe Otwell, Member of Parliament — the rising hope of the Whig party. Thenceforward your fortune rests in your own hands!” Having so spoken Sir Robert leaned back in his chair, holding his finger-tips together with an indescribable air of friendly patronage.
Rafe now began to grow desperate — in fact so desperate that he straightway abandoned the idea of asking for a more modest post He grew red and stammered, and altogether so bore himself that the shrewd statesman guessed his conclusion, though not the reason of it. Standing up he said, with withering sarcasm —
“Have I then been so mistaken in you that I have told you what I would have told no other living man? I thought there was better metal in you than I find there is!”
As a matter of fact he had not been mistaken as to the metal of the man. Rafe had, like other young men, his ambitions and adaptability; and but for the fact of his engagement to Betty, Sir Robert would have had little difficulty in engaging him to such an enterprise, as he contemplated. His very lack of moral courage would have been an aid to the ambitious statesman, who would have moulded him to his will. For answer Rafe blurted out the truth straightway —
“Sir, I have every desire to meet your wishes in all ways I can. Indeed I am in a desperate plight, and unless I can get some place soon I am ruined; but I cannot marry the lady you had destined for me, as already I am betrothed to another lady.”
Without a word Sir Robert rang the bell that stood on his table and a servant appeared. But in the instant a new thought had come to the statesman, and instead of ordering him to show Rafe out he simply gave a trivial direction as to the time at which his chair was to be in waiting. Sir Robert’s idea was a wise one enough, for it struck him that he had to a degree placed himself in the young man’s power, and he knew well how, had the circumstances been his own, he would have availed himself of such a knowledge. This young gentleman should perhaps be dealt with gently! He should be encouraged to hope for awhile, so that his intentions should have time to manifest themselves harmlessly; and then, if need be, he could be shelved by presentation to some minor appointment It was not for nothing that the English Minister had fixed the Civil List on the occasion of the Hanoverian succession at £700,000 per annum.
Sir Robert walked up and down the room two or three times, and then stopping opposite Rafe again regarded ‘him intently. This scrutiny seemed in some measure to satisfy him, for his face cleared. After some more turns he stopped and said, with a seeming geniality —
“I will not deny that this unexpected attitude of yours has thwarted my plans gravely. However, we must see what can be done. You said that without office you would be a ruined man; I presume therefore that you are without friends — of course I mean friends able to help you!”
“That is so.”
“Then you must in the meantime let me arrest the impending ruin — from this cause at any rate.” And then and there he wrote an order on his banker for the sum of one hundred gu
ineas. As he handed this to Rafe, he said —
“Now, of course, it is understood between us that your acceptance of the money binds you, were you not already bound in honour, to keep absolutely secret the plan of your advancement which I broached to you in ignorance of your inability to concur with my views. I shall try if I can obtain for you some post to meet your permanent wants; but I need not tell you that such posts as suit quite neutral persons who can receive from a party but yield nothing to it are few in number and are much sought after. You must husband the sum I have had the pleasure of lending you, for months must elapse before you can be suited. Indeed, I fear that there is little hope within a year.” Then he rang the bell again; the servant appeared and Rafe was dismissed with a wave of the hand.
As the door closed Sir Robert sank into his seat with a smile upon his face such as is not as a rule calculated, if seen by those causing it, to beget confidence, and murmured to himself — “We shall see! we shall see! A little pinching of the shoe, my dear young kinsman! A few jovial friends now and then, just to ensure a fair amount of debt, and these I shall make it my care to have provided for you; a proper spell of waiting and hoping — just long enough to make the existing young lady, whoever she may be — and for my part I don’t want to know for I am freer to act without such knowledge — seem a rock ahead in life. And then another chance. Lady Mary need not despair of a young husband yet!”
That day Rafe went down to Chelsea and found Betty sweeter and more amiable than ever. She was very grave and evidently had something on her mind. When it was growing towards the twilight she asked him to come for a walk by the river bank, and then, when they were quite away from the possibility of interruption, she opened the subject at heart.
“Rafe dear, you know that you and I are to be husband and wife.” With a man’s, and especially a young man’s, wish to seize the occasion for an amatory episode, he made as though to kiss her; but she motioned such an idea aside and took his hand in hers and looked him in the face.