"Somebody got round him about Septimus Traffick.""That was different," said Lady Tringle. "Mr Traffick is in Parliament, and that gives him an employment. He is a son of Lord Boardotrade, and some of these days he will be in office.""Of course, you know that if Gertrude sticks to it she will have her own way. When a girl sticks to it her father has to give way. What does it matter to him whether I have any business or not? The money would be the same in one case as the other, only it does seem such an unnecessary trouble to have it put off."All this Lady Tringle seemed to take in good part, and half acknowledged that if Frank Houston were constant in the matter he would succeed at last. Gertrude, when the time for his departure had come, expressed herself as thoroughly disgusted by her father's sternness.
"It's all bosh," she said to her lover. "Who is Lord Boardotrade that that should make a difference? I have as much right to please myself as Augusta." But there was the stern fact that the money had not been promised, and even Frank had not proposed to marry the girl of his heart without the concomitant thousands.
Before he left Glenbogie, on the evening of his departure, he wrote a second letter to Miss Docimer, as follows --DEAR COUSIN IM, Here I am at Glenbogie, and here I have been for a week, without doing a stroke of work. The father still asks "of his house and his home" and does not seem to be at all affected by my reference to the romantic grandeur of my own peculiar residence. Perhaps I may boast so far as to say that I have laughed on the lass as successfully as did Allan-a-Dale. But what's the good of laughing on a lass when one has got nothing to eat? Allan-a-Dale could pick a pocket or cut a purse, accomplishments in which I am altogether deficient. I suppose I shall succeed sooner or later, but when I put my neck into the collar I had no idea that there would be so much uphill work before me. It is all very well joking, but it is not nice to be asked "of your house and your home"by a gentleman who knows very well you've got none, and is conscious of inhabiting three or four palaces himself. Such treatment must be described as being decidedly vulgar. And then he must know that it can be of no possible permanent use. The ladies are all on my side, but I am told by Tringle mere that I am less acceptable than old Traffick, who married the other girl, because I'm not the son of Lord Boardotrade! Nothing astonishes me so much as the bad taste of some people. Now, it must all be put off till Christmas, and the cruel part is, that one doesn't see how I'm to go on living.
"In the meantime I have a little time in which to amuse myself, and I shall turn up in about three weeks at Merle Park. I wish chiefly to beg that you will not dissuade me from what I see clearly to be a duty. I know exactly your line of argument. Following a girl for her money is, you will say, mercenary. So, as far as I can see, is every transaction in the world by which men live. The judges, the bishops, the poets, the Royal academicians, and the Prime Ministers, are all mercenary -- as is also the man who breaks stones for 2s. 1d. a day. How shall a man live without being mercenary unless he be born to fortune? Are not girls always mercenary? Will she marry me knowing that I have nothing? Will you not marry someone whom you will probably like much less simply because he will have something for you to eat and drink? Of course I am mercenary, and I don't even pretend to old Tringle that I am not so. I feel a little tired of this special effort -- but if I were to abandon it I should simply have to begin again elsewhere. I have sighted my stag, and Imust go on following him, trying to get on the right side of the wind till I bring him down. It is not nice, but it is to me manifestly my duty -- and I shall do it. Therefore, do not let there be any blowing up. I hate to be scolded.
Yours always affectionately, F. H.
Gertrude, when he was gone, did not take the matter quite so quietly as he did, feeling that, as she had made up her mind, and as all her world would know that she had made up her mind, it behoved her to carry her purpose to its desired end. A girl who is known to be engaged, but whose engagement is not allowed, is always in a disagreeable plight.
"Mamma," she said, "I think that papa is not treating me well.""My dear, your papa has always had his own way.""That is all very well -- but why am I to be worse used than Augusta? It turns out now that Mr Traffick has not got a shilling of his own.""Your papa likes his being in Parliament.""All the girls can't marry Members of Parliament.""And he likes his being the son of Lord Boardotrade.""Lord Boardotrade! I call that very mean: Mr Houston is a gentleman, and the Buncombe property has been for ever so many hundreds of years in the family. I think more of Frank as to birth and all that than I do of Lord Boardotrade and his mushroom peerage.
Can't you tell papa that I mean to marry Mr Houston at last, and that he is making very little of me to let me be talked about as I shall be?""I don't think I can, Gertrude."
"Then I shall. What would he say if I were to run away with Frank?""I don't think Frank Houston would do that.""He would if I told him -- in a moment." There Miss Tringle was probably in error. "And unless papa consents I shall tell him.