Sir Thomas took the real holiday of the year at Glenbogie — where he was too far removed from Lombard Street to be drawn daily into the vortex of his millions. He would stay usually six weeks at Glenbogie — which were by no means the happiest weeks of the year. Of all the grand things of the world which his energy and industry had produced for him, he loved his millions the best. It was not because they were his — as indeed they were not. A considerable filing off them — what he regarded as his percentage — annually became his own; but it was not this that he loved. In describing a man’s character it is the author’s duty to give the man his due. Sir Thomas liked his own wealth well enough. Where is the rich man who does not? — or where is the poor man who does not wish that he had it to like? But what he loved were the millions with which Travers and Treason dealt. He was Travers and Treason, though his name did not even appear in the firm, and he dealt with the millions. He could affect the rate of money throughout Europe, and emissaries from national treasuries would listen to his words. He had been Governor and Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. All the City respected him, not so much because he was rich, as that he was one who thoroughly understood millions. If Russia required to borrow some infinite number of roubles, he knew how to arrange it, and could tell to a rouble at what rate money could be made by it, and at what rate money would certainly be lost. He liked his millions, and was therefore never quite comfortable at Glenbogie. But at Merle Park he was within easy reach of London. At Merle Park he was not obliged to live, from week’s end to week’s end, without a sight of Lombard Street. The family might be at Merle Park, while he might come down on a Friday and remain till Tuesday morning. That was the plan proposed for Merle Park. As a fact he would spend four days in town, and only two down in the country. Therefore, though he spent his so-named holiday at Glenbogie, Merle Park was the residence which he loved.
In this autumn he went up to London long before his family, and then found them at Merle Park on the Saturday after their arrival there. They had gone down on the previous Wednesday. On the Saturday, when he entered the house, the first thing he saw was Mr Traffick’s hat in the hall. This was Saturday, 23rd November, and there would be three months before Parliament would meet! A curse was not muttered, but just formed between his teeth, as he saw the hat. Sir Thomas, in his angriest mood, never went so far as quite to mutter his curses. Will one have to expiate the anathemas which are well kept within the barrier of the teeth, or only those which have achieved some amount of utterance? Sir Thomas went on, with a servant at his heels, chucking about the doors rather violently, till he found Mr Traffick alone in the drawing-room. Mr Traffick had had a glass of sherry and bitters brought in for his refreshment and Sir Thomas saw the glass on the mantelpiece. He never took sherry and bitters himself. One glass of wine, with his two o’clock mutton chop, sufficed him till dinner. It was all very well to be a Member of Parliament, but, after all, Members of Parliament never do anything. Men who work don’t take sherry and bitters! Men who work don’t put their hats in other people’s halls without leave from the master of the house! “Where’s your mistress?” said Sir Thomas, to the man, without taking any notice of his son-in-law. The ladies had only just come in from driving, were very cold, and had gone up to dress. Sir Thomas went out of the room, again banging the door, and again taking no notice of Mr Traffick. Mr Traffick put his hand up to the mantelpiece, and finished his sherry and bitters.
“My dear,” said Mr Traffick to his wife, up in her bedroom, “your father has come down in one of his tantrums.”
“I knew he would,” said Augusta.
“But it does not signify the least. Give him a kiss when you see him, and don’t seem to notice it. There is not a man in the world has a higher regard for me than your father, but if anyone were to see him in one of his tantrums they would suppose he meant to be uncivil.”
“I hope he won’t be downright unkind, Septimus,” said his wife.
“Never fear! The kindest-hearted man in the world is your father.”
“So he’s here!” That was the first word of greeting which Sir Thomas addressed to his wife in her bedroom.
“Yes, Tom — they’re here.”
“When did they come?”
“Well — to tell the truth, we found them here.”
“The — !” But Sir Thomas restrained the word on the right, or inside, of the teeth.
“They thought we were to be here a day sooner, and so they came on the Wednesday morning. They were to come, you know.”
“I wish I knew when they were to go.”
“You don’t want to turn your own daughter out of your own house?”
“Why doesn’t he get a house of his own for her? For her sake why doesn’t he do it? He has the spending of ￡6,000 a year of my money, and yet I am to keep him! No — I don’t want to turn my daughter out of my house; but it’ll end in my turning him out.”
When a week had passed by Mr Traffick had not been as yet turned out. Sir Thomas, when he came back to Merle Park on the following Friday, condescended to speak to his son-in-law, and to say something to him as to the news of the day; but this he did in an evident spirit of preconceived hostility. “Everything is down again,” he said.
“Fluctuations are always common at this time of the year,” said Traffick; “but I observe that trade always becomes brisk a little before Christmas.”
“To a man with a fixed income like you, it doesn’t much matter,” said Sir Thomas.
“I was looking at it in a public light.”
“Exactly. A man who has an income, and never spends it, need not trouble himself with private views as to the money market.” Mr Traffick rubbed his hands, and asked whether the new buildings at the back of the Lombard Street premises were nearly finished.
Mr Traffick’s economy had a deleterious effect upon Gertrude, which she, poor girl, did not deserve. Sir Thomas, deeply resolving in his mind that he would, at some not very distant date, find means by which he would rid himself of Mr Traffick, declared to himself that he would not, at any rate, burden himself with another son-in-law of the same kind. Frank Houston was, to his thinking, of the same kind, and therefore he hardened his heart against Frank Houston. Now Frank Houston, could he have got his wife with ￡6,000 a year — as Mr Traffick had done — would certainly not have troubled the Tringle mansions with too much of his presence. It would have been his object to remove himself as far as possible from the Tringles, and to have enjoyed his life luxuriously with the proceeds of his wife’s fortune. But his hopes in this respect were unjustly impeded by Mr Traffick’s parsimony. Soon after leaving the hotel in the Tyrol at which we lately saw him, Frank Houston wrote to his lady-love, declaring the impatience of his ardour, and suggesting that it would be convenient if everything could be settled before Christmas. In his letter he declared to Gertrude how very uncomfortable it was to him to have to discuss money matters with her father. It was so disagreeable that he did not think that he could bring himself to do it again. But, if she would only be urgent with her father, she would of course prevail. Acting upon this Gertrude determined to be urgent with her father on his second coming to Merle Park, when, as has been explained, Sir Thomas was in a frame of mind very much opposed to impecunious sons-in-law. Previous to attacking her father Gertrude had tried her hand again upon her mother, but Lady Tringle had declined. “If anything is to be done you must do it yourself,” Lady Tringle had said.
“Papa,” said Gertrude, having followed him into a little sitting-room where he digested and arranged his telegrams when at Merle Park, “I wish something could be settled about Mr Houston.”
Sir Thomas at this moment was very angry. Mr Traffick had not only asked for the loan of a carriage to take him into Hastings, but had expressed a wish that there might be a peculiar kind of claret served at dinner with which he was conversant and to which he was much attached. “Then”, said he, you may as well have it all settled at once.”
“How, papa?”
“You may understand for good and all that I will have nothing to do with Mr Houston.”
“Papa, that would be very cruel.”
“My dear, if you call me cruel I will not allow you to come and talk to me at all. Cruel indeed! What is your idea of cruelty?&r............