Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (interesting books to read TXT) 📖

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the reasoning; but he felt himself unable to rebel, and he therefore,

remained there, comforting himself, as best he might, with the

eloquence of the Honourable George, and the sporting humours of the

Honourable John.

 

Mr Moffat’s was the earliest arrival of any importance. Frank had

not hitherto made the acquaintance of his future brother-in-law, and

there was, therefore, some little interest in the first interview. Mr

Moffat was shown into the drawing-room before the ladies had gone up

to dress, and it so happened that Frank was there also. As no one

else was in the room but his sister and two of his cousins, he had

expected to see the lovers rush into each other’s arms. But Mr Moffat

restrained his ardour, and Miss Gresham seemed contented that he

should do so.

 

He was a nice, dapper man, rather above the middle height, and

good-looking enough had he had a little more expression in his face.

He had dark hair, very nicely brushed, small black whiskers, and a

small black moustache. His boots were excellently well made, and

his hands were very white. He simpered gently as he took hold of

Augusta’s fingers, and expressed a hope that she had been quite well

since last he had the pleasure of seeing her. Then he touched the

hands of the Lady Rosina and the Lady Margaretta.

 

“Mr Moffat, allow me to introduce you to my brother?”

 

“Most happy, I’m sure,” said Mr Moffat, again putting out his hand,

and allowing it to slip through Frank’s grasp, as he spoke in a

pretty, mincing voice: “Lady Arabella quite well?—and your father,

and sisters? Very warm isn’t it?—quite hot in town, I do assure

you.”

 

“I hope Augusta likes him,” said Frank to himself, arguing on the

subject exactly as his father had done; “but for an engaged lover he

seems to me to have a very queer way with him.” Frank, poor fellow!

who was of a coarser mould, would, under such circumstances, have

been all for kissing—sometimes, indeed, even under other

circumstances.

 

Mr Moffat did not do much towards improving the conviviality of

the castle. He was, of course, a good deal intent upon his coming

election, and spent much of his time with Mr Nearthewinde, the

celebrated parliamentary agent. It behoved him to be a good deal

at Barchester, canvassing the electors and undermining, by Mr

Nearthewinde’s aid, the mines for blowing him out of his seat, which

were daily being contrived by Mr Closerstil, on behalf of Sir Roger.

The battle was to be fought on the internecine principle, no quarter

being given or taken on either side; and of course this gave Mr

Moffat as much as he knew how to do.

 

Mr Closerstil was well known to be the sharpest man at his business

in all England, unless the palm should be given to his great rival

Mr Nearthewinde; and in this instance he was to be assisted in the

battle by a very clever young barrister, Mr Romer, who was an admirer

of Sir Roger’s career in life. Some people in Barchester, when they

saw Sir Roger, Closerstil and Mr Romer saunter down the High Street,

arm in arm, declared that it was all up with poor Moffat; but others,

in whose head the bump of veneration was strongly pronounced,

whispered to each other that great shibboleth—the name of the Duke

of Omnium—and mildly asserted it to be impossible that the duke’s

nominee should be thrown out.

 

Our poor friend the squire did not take much interest in the matter,

except in so far that he liked his son-in-law to be in Parliament.

Both the candidates were in his eye equally wrong in their opinions.

He had long since recanted those errors of his early youth, which

had cost him his seat for the county, and had abjured the de Courcy

politics. He was staunch enough as a Tory now that his being so would

no longer be of the slightest use to him; but the Duke of Omnium,

and Lord de Courcy, and Mr Moffat were all Whigs; Whigs, however,

differing altogether in politics from Sir Roger, who belonged to

the Manchester school, and whose pretensions, through some of those

inscrutable twists in modern politics which are quite unintelligible

to the minds of ordinary men outside the circle, were on this

occasion secretly favoured by the high Conservative party.

 

How Mr Moffat, who had been brought into the political world by Lord

de Courcy, obtained all the weight of the duke’s interest I never

could exactly learn. For the duke and the earl did not generally act

as twin-brothers on such occasions.

 

There is a great difference in Whigs. Lord de Courcy was a Court

Whig, following the fortunes, and enjoying, when he could get it, the

sunshine of the throne. He was a sojourner at Windsor, and a visitor

at Balmoral. He delighted in gold sticks, and was never so happy as

when holding some cap of maintenance or spur of precedence with due

dignity and acknowledged grace in the presence of all the Court.

His means had been somewhat embarrassed by early extravagance; and,

therefore, as it was to his taste to shine, it suited him to shine at

the cost of the Court rather than at his own.

 

The Duke of Omnium was a Whig of a very different calibre. He rarely

went near the presence of majesty, and when he did do so, he did it

merely as a disagreeable duty incident to his position. He was very

willing that the Queen should be queen so long as he was allowed to

be Duke of Omnium. Nor had he begrudged Prince Albert any of his

honours till he was called Prince Consort. Then, indeed, he had,

to his own intimate friends, made some remark in three words, not

flattering to the discretion of the Prime Minister. The Queen might

be queen so long as he was Duke of Omnium. Their revenues were

about the same, with the exception, that the duke’s were his own,

and he could do what he liked with them. This remembrance did not

unfrequently present itself to the duke’s mind. In person, he was a

plain, thin man, tall, but undistinguished in appearance, except that

there was a gleam of pride in his eye which seemed every moment to be

saying, “I am the Duke of Omnium.” He was unmarried, and, if report

said true, a great debauchee; but if so he had always kept his

debaucheries decently away from the eyes of the world, and was not,

therefore, open to that loud condemnation which should fall like a

hailstorm round the ears of some more open sinners.

 

Why these two mighty nobles put their heads together in order that

the tailor’s son should represent Barchester in Parliament, I cannot

explain. Mr Moffat, was, as has been said, Lord de Courcy’s friend;

and it may be that Lord de Courcy was able to repay the duke for his

kindness, as touching Barchester, with some little assistance in the

county representation.

 

The next arrival was that of the Bishop of Barchester; a meek, good,

worthy man, much attached to his wife, and somewhat addicted to his

ease. She, apparently, was made in a different mould, and by her

energy and diligence atoned for any want in those qualities which

might be observed in the bishop himself. When asked his opinion, his

lordship would generally reply by saying—“Mrs Proudie and I think so

and so.” But before that opinion was given, Mrs Proudie would take

up the tale, and she, in her more concise manner, was not wont to

quote the bishop as having at all assisted in the consideration of

the subject. It was well known in Barsetshire that no married pair

consorted more closely or more tenderly together; and the example of

such conjugal affection among persons in the upper classes is worth

mentioning, as it is believed by those below them, and too often with

truth, that the sweet bliss of connubial reciprocity is not so common

as it should be among the magnates of the earth.

 

But the arrival even of the bishop and his wife did not make the

place cheerful to Frank Gresham, and he began to long for Miss

Dunstable, in order that he might have something to do. He could not

get on at all with Mr Moffat. He had expected that the man would at

once have called him Frank, and that he would have called the man

Gustavus; but they did not even get beyond Mr Moffat and Mr Gresham.

“Very hot in Barchester to-day, very,” was the nearest approach to

conversation which Frank could attain with him; and as far as he,

Frank, could see, Augusta never got much beyond it. There might be

tête-à-tête meetings between them, but, if so, Frank could not

detect when they took place; and so, opening his heart at last to the

Honourable George, for the want of a better confidant, he expressed

his opinion that his future brother-in-law was a muff.

 

“A muff—I believe you too. What do you think now? I have been with

him and Nearthewinde in Barchester these three days past, looking up

the electors’ wives and daughters, and that kind of thing.”

 

“I say, if there is any fun in it you might as well take me with

you.”

 

“Oh, there is not much fun; they are mostly so slobbered and dirty. A

sharp fellow in Nearthewinde, and knows what he is about well.”

 

“Does he look up the wives and daughters too?”

 

“Oh, he goes on every tack, just as it’s wanted. But there was

Moffat, yesterday, in a room behind the milliner’s shop near

Cuthbert’s Gate; I was with him. The woman’s husband is one of the

choristers and an elector, you know, and Moffat went to look for his

vote. Now, there was no one there when we got there but the three

young women, the wife, that is, and her two girls—very pretty women

they are too.”

 

“I say, George, I’ll go and get the chorister’s vote for Moffat; I

ought to do it as he’s to be my brother-in-law.”

 

“But what do you think Moffat said to the women?”

 

“Can’t guess—he didn’t kiss any of them, did he?”

 

“Kiss any of them? No; but he begged to give them his positive

assurance as a gentleman, that if he was returned to Parliament he

would vote for an extension of the franchise, and the admission of

the Jews into Parliament.”

 

“Well, he is a muff!” said Frank.