Ayala's Angel Part 87

"Yes, Lady Tringle. As I have come back from abroad I thought that I might as well come and call. I did see Sir Thomas in the City."

"Was not that a very foolish thing you did?"

"Perhaps it was, Lady Tringle. Perhaps it would have been better to ask permission to address your daughter in the regular course of things. There was, perhaps,--perhaps a little romance in going off in that way."

"It gave Sir Thomas a deal of trouble."

"Well, yes; he was so quick upon us you know. May I be allowed to see Gertrude now?"

"Upon my word I hardly know," said Lady Tringle, hesitating.

"I did see Sir Thomas in the City."

"But did he say you were to come and call?"

"He gave his consent to the marriage."

"But I am afraid there was to be no money," whispered Lady Tringle.

"If money is no matter I suppose you may see her." But before the Captain had resolved how he might best answer this difficult suggestion the door opened, and the young lady herself entered the room, together with her sister.

"Benjamin," said Gertrude, "is this really you?" And then she flew into his arms.

"My dear," said Augusta, "do control your emotions."

"Yes, indeed, Gertrude," said the mother. "As the things are at present you should control yourself. n.o.body as yet knows what may come of it."

"Oh, Benjamin!" again exclaimed Gertrude, tearing herself from his arms, throwing herself on the sofa, and covering her face with both her hands. "Oh, Benjamin,--so you have come at last."

"I am afraid he has come too soon," said Augusta, who however had received her lesson from her husband, and had communicated some portion of her husband's tidings to her sister.

"Why too soon?" exclaimed Gertrude. "It can never be too soon. Oh, mamma, tell him that you make him welcome to your bosom as your second son-in-law."

"Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, without consulting your father."

"But papa has consented," said Gertrude.

"But only if--"

"Oh, mamma," said Mrs. Traffick, "do not talk about matters of business on such an occasion as this. All that must be managed between the gentlemen. If he is here as Gertrude's acknowledged lover, and if papa has told him that he shall be accepted as such, I don't think that we ought to say a word about money. I do hate money.

It does make things so disagreeable."

"n.o.body can be more n.o.ble in everything of that kind than Benjamin,"

said Gertrude. "It is only because he loves me with all his heart that he is here. Why else was it that he took me off to Ostend?"

Captain Batsby as he listened to all this felt that he ought to say something. And yet how dangerous might a word be! It was apparent to him, even in his perturbation, that the ladies were in fact asking him to renew his offer, and to declare that he renewed it altogether independently of any money consideration. He could not bring himself quite to agree with that n.o.ble sentiment in expressing which Mrs.

Traffick had declared her hatred of money. In becoming the son-in-law of a millionaire he would receive the honest congratulations of all his friends,--on condition that he received some comfortable fraction out of the millions, but he knew well that he would subject himself to their ridicule were he to take the girl and lose the plunder. If he were to answer them now as they would have him answer he would commit himself to the girl without any bargain as to the plunder.

And yet what else was there for him to do? He must be a brave man who can stand up before a girl and declare that he will love her for ever,--on condition that she shall have so many thousand pounds; but he must be more than brave, he will be heroic, who can do so in the presence not only of the girl but of the girl's mother and married sister as well. Captain Batsby was no such hero. "Of course," he said at last.

"Of course what?" asked Augusta.

"It was because I loved her."

"I knew that he loved me," sobbed Gertrude.

"And you are here, because you intend to make her your wife in presence of all men?" asked Augusta.

"Oh certainly."

"Then I suppose that it will be all right," said Lady Tringle.

"It will be all right," said Augusta. "And now, mamma, I think that we may leave them alone together." But to this Lady Tringle would not give her a.s.sent. She had not had confided to her the depth of Mr.

Traffick's wisdom, and declared herself opposed to any absolute overt love-making until Sir Thomas should have given his positive consent.

"It is all the same thing, Benjamin, is it not?" said Augusta, a.s.suming already the familiarity of a sister in-law.

"Oh quite," said the Captain.

But Gertrude looked as though she did not think it to be exactly the same. Such deficiency as that, however, she had to endure; and she received from her sister after the Captain's departure full congratulations as to her lover's return. "To tell you the truth,"

said Augusta, "I didn't think that you would ever see him again.

After what papa said to him in the City he might have got off and n.o.body could have said a word to him. Now he's fixed."

Captain Batsby effected his escape as quickly as he could, and went home a melancholy man. He, too, was aware that he was fixed; and, as he thought of this, a dreadful idea fell upon him that the Honourable Mr. Traffick had perhaps played him false.

In the meantime Mr. Traffick was true to his word and went into the City. In the early days of his married life his journeys to Lombard Street were frequent. The management and investing of his wife's money had been to him a matter of much interest, and he had felt a gratification in discussing any money matter with the man who handled millions. In this way he had become intimate with the ways of the house, though latterly his presence there had not been encouraged.

"I suppose I can go in to Sir Thomas," he said, laying his hand upon a leaf in the counter, which he had been accustomed to raise for the purpose of his own entrance. But here he was stopped. His name should be taken in and Sir Thomas duly apprised. In the meantime he was relegated to a dingy little waiting-room, which was odious to him, and there he was kept waiting for half-an-hour. This made him angry, and he called to one of the clerks. "Will you tell Sir Thomas that I must be down at the House almost immediately, and that I am particularly anxious to see him on business of importance?" For another ten minutes he was still kept, and then he was shown into his father-in law's presence. "I am very sorry, Traffick," said Sir Thomas, "but I really can't turn two Directors of the Bank of England out of my room, even for you."

"I only thought I would just let you know that I am in a hurry."

"So am I, for the matter of that. Have you gone to your father's house to-day, so that you would not be able to see me in Queen's Gate?"

This was intended to be very severe, but Mr. Traffick bore it. It was one of those rough things which Sir Thomas was in the habit of saying, but which really meant nothing. "No. My father is still at his house as yet, though they are thinking of going every day. It is about another matter, and I did not want to trouble you with it at home."

"Let us hear what it is."

"Captain Batsby has been with me."

"Oh, he has, has he?"

"I've known him ever so long. He's a foolish fellow."

"So he seems."

"But a gentleman."

"Perhaps I am not so good a judge of that. His folly I did perceive."

"Oh yes; he's a gentleman. You may take my word for that. And he has means."