Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

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