"What will you do, Sir Thomas?"

"I'll say as little as possible about the Ostend journey."

"And as to money, Sir Thomas?"

"I think I have promised quite enough for you. You are not in a position, Captain Batsby, to ask me as to money;--nor is she. You shall marry her without a shilling,--or you shall not marry her at all. Which is it to be? I must have an end put to all this. I won't have you hanging about my house unless I know the reason why. Are you two engaged to each other?"

"I suppose we are," said Batsby, lugubriously.

"Suppose is not enough."

"We are," said Batsby, courageously.

"Very well. Then, from this moment, Ostend shall be as though there weren't such a seaport anywhere in Europe. I will never allude to the place again,--unless, perhaps, you should come and stay with me too long when I am particularly anxious to get rid of you. Now you had better go and settle about the time and all that with Lady Tringle, and tell her that you mean to come and dine to-morrow or next day, or whenever it suits. Come and dine as often as you please, only do not bring your wife to live with me pertinaciously when you're not asked." All this Captain Batsby did not understand, but, as he left Lombard Street, he made up his mind that of all the men he had ever met, Sir Thomas Tringle, his future father-in-law, was the most singular. "He's a better fellow than Traffick," said Sir Thomas to himself when he was alone, "and as he has trusted me so far I'll not throw him over."

The Captain now had no hesitation in taking himself to Queen's Gate.

As he was to be married he might as well make the best of such delights as were to be found in the happy state of mutual affection.

"My dear, dearest Benjamin, I am so happy," said Lady Tringle, dissolved in tears as she embraced her son-in-law that was to be.

"You will always be so dear to me!" In this she was quite true.

Traffick was not dear to her. She had at first thought much of Mr.

Traffick's position and n.o.ble blood, but, of late, she too had become very tired of Mr. Traffick. Augusta took almost too much upon herself, and Mr. Traffick's prolonged presence had been an eyesore.

Captain Batsby was softer, and would be much more pleasant as a son-in-law. Even the journey to Ostend had had a good effect in producing a certain humility.

"My dear Benjamin," said Augusta, "we shall always be so happy to entertain you as a brother. Mr. Traffick has a great regard for you, and said from the first that if you behaved as you ought to do after that little journey he would arrange that everything should go straight between you and papa. I was quite sure that you would come forward at once as a man."

But Gertrude's delight was, of course, the strongest, and Gertrude's welcoming the warmest,--as was proper. "When I think of it," she said to him, "I don't know how I should ever have looked anybody in the face again,--after our going away with our things mixed up in that way."

"I am glad rather now that we didn't find the clergyman."

"Oh, certainly," said Gertrude. "I don't suppose anybody would have given me anything. Now there'll be a regular wedding, and, of course, there will be the presents."

"And, though nothing is to be settled, I suppose he will do something."

"And it would have been very dreadful, not having a regular trousseau," said Gertrude. "Mamma will, of course, do now just as she did about Augusta. He allowed her 300! Only think;--if we had been married at Ostend you would have had to buy things for me before the first month was out. I hadn't more than half-a-dozen pair of stockings with me."

"He can't but say now that we have done as he would have us," added the Captain. "I do suppose that he will not be so unnatural as not to give something when Augusta had 200,000."

"Indeed, she had not. But you'll see that sooner or later papa will do for me quite as well as for Augusta." In this way they were happy together, consoling each other for any little trouble which seemed for a while to cloud their joys, and basking in the full sunshine of their permitted engagement.

The day was soon fixed, but fixed not entirely in reference to the wants of Gertrude and her wedding. Lucy had also to be married from the same house, and the day for her marriage had already been arranged. Sir Thomas had ordered that everything should be done for Lucy as though she were a daughter of the house, and her wedding had been arranged for the last week in May. When he heard that Ayala and Colonel Stubbs were also engaged he was anxious that the two sisters should be "buckled," as he called it, on the same occasion,--and he magnanimously offered to take upon himself the entire expense of the double arrangement, intimating that the people in Kingsbury Crescent had hardly room enough for a wedding. But Ayala, acting probably under Stalham influences, would not consent to this. Lady Albury, who was now in London, was determined that Ayala's marriage should take place from her own house; and, as Aunt Margaret and Uncle Reginald had consented, that matter was considered as settled. But Sir Thomas, having fixed his mind upon a double wedding, resolved that Gertrude and Lucy should be the joint brides. Gertrude, who still suffered perhaps a little in public estimation from the Ostend journey, was glad enough to wipe out that stain as quickly as possible, and did not therefore object to the arrangement. But to the Captain there was something in it by which his more delicate feelings were revolted.

It was a matter of course that Ayala should be present at her sister's wedding, and would naturally appear there in the guise of a bridesmaid. She would also, now, act as a bridesmaid to Gertrude,--her future position as Mrs. Colonel Stubbs giving her, as was supposed, sufficient dignity for that honourable employment. But Captain Batsby, not so very long ago, had appeared among the suitors for Ayala's hand; and therefore, as he said to Gertrude, he felt a little shamefaced about it. "What does that signify?" said Gertrude.

"If you say nothing to her about it, I'll be bound she'll say nothing to you." And so it was on the day of the wedding. Ayala did not say a word to Captain Batsby, nor did Captain Batsby say very much to Ayala.

On the day before his marriage Captain Batsby paid a fourth visit to Lombard Street in obedience to directions from Sir Thomas. "There, my boy," said he, "though you and Gertrude did take a little journey on the sly to a place which we will not mention, you shan't take her altogether empty-handed." Then he explained certain arrangements which he had made for endowing Gertrude with an allowance, which under the circ.u.mstance the bridegroom could not but feel to be liberal. It must be added, that, considering the shortness of time allowed for getting them together, the amount of wedding presents bestowed was considered by Gertrude to be satisfactory. As Lucy's were exhibited at the same time the show was not altogether mean.

"No doubt I had twice as much as the two put together," said Mrs.

Traffick to Ayala up in her bedroom, "but then of course Lord Boardotrade's rank would make people give."

CHAPTER LXIII.

AYALA AGAIN IN LONDON.

After that last walk in Gobblegoose Wood, after Lady Tringle's unnecessary journey to Stalham on the Friday, and the last day's hunting with Sir Harry's hounds,--which took place on the Sat.u.r.day,--Ayala again became anxious to go home. Her anxiety was in its nature very different from that which had prompted her to leave Stalham on an appointed day lest she should seem to be waiting for the coming of Colonel Stubbs. "No; I don't want to run away from him any more," she said to Lady Albury. "I want to be with him always, and I hope he won't run away from me. But I've got to be somewhere where I can think about it all for a little time."

"Can't you think about it here?"

"No;--one can never think about a thing where it has all taken place.

I must be up in my own little room in Kingsbury Crescent, and must have Aunt Margaret's work around me,--so that I may realise what is going to come. Not but what I mean to do a great deal of work always."

"Mend his stockings?"

"Yes,--if he wears stockings. I know he doesn't. He always wears socks. He told me so. Whatever he has, I'll mend,--or make if he wants me.

'I can bake and I can brew, And I can make an Irish stew;-- Wash a shirt, and iron it too.'"

Then, as she sang her little song, she clapped her hands together.

"Where did you get all your poetry?"

"He taught me that. We are not going to be fine people,--except sometimes when we may be invited to Stalham. But I must go on Thursday, Lady Albury. I came for a week, and I have been here ever since the middle of February. It seems years since the old woman told me I was perverse, and he said that she was right."

"Think how much you have done since that time."

"Yes, indeed. I very nearly destroyed myself;--didn't I?"

"Not very nearly."

"I thought I had. It was only when you showed me his letter on that Sunday morning that I began to have any hopes. I wonder what Mr.

Greene preached about that morning. I didn't hear a word. I kept on repeating what he said in the postscript."

"Was there a postscript?"

"Of course there was. Don't you remember?"

"No, indeed; not I."

"The letter would have been nothing without the postscript. He said that Croppy was to come back for me. I knew he wouldn't say that unless he meant to be good to me. And yet I wasn't quite sure of it. I know it now; don't I? But I must go, Lady Albury. I ought to let Aunt Margaret know all about it." Then it was settled that she should go on the Thursday,--and on the Thursday she went. As it was now considered quite wrong that she should travel by the railway alone,--in dread, probably, lest the old lady should tell her again how perverse she had been,--Colonel Stubbs accompanied her. It had then been decided that the wedding must take place at Stalham, and many messages were sent to Mr. and Mrs. Dosett a.s.suring them that they would be made very welcome on the occasion. "My own darling Lucy will be away at that time with her own young man," said Ayala, in answer to further invitations from Lady Albury.

"And so you've taken Colonel Stubbs at last," said her Aunt Margaret.

"He has taken me, aunt. I didn't take him."

"But you refused him ever so often."

"Well;--yes. I don't think I quite refused him."