Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [108]
‘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 is 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 that 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.
CHAPTER XVI
Miss Dunstable
AT last the great Miss Dunstable came. Frank, when he heard that the heiress had arrived, felt some some slight palpitation at his heart. He had not the remotest idea in the world of marrying her; indeed, during the last week past, absence had so heightened his love for Mary Thorne that he was more than ever resolved that he would never marry anyone but her. He knew that he had made her a formal offer of his hand, and that it behoved him to keep to it, let the charms of Miss Dunstable be what they might; but, nevertheless, he was prepared to go through a certain amount of courtship, in obedience to his aunt’s behests, and he felt a little nervous at being brought up in that way, face to face, to do battle with two hundred thousand pounds.
‘Miss Dunstable has arrived,’ said his aunt to him, with great complacency, on his return from an electioneering visit to the beauties of Barchester which he made with his cousin George on the day after the conversation which was repeated at the end of the last chapter. ‘She has arrived, and is looking remarkably well; she has quite a distingué air, and will grace any circle to which she may be introduced. I will introduce you before dinner, and you can take her out.’
‘I couldn’t propose to her tonight, I suppose?’ said Frank, maliciously.
‘Don’t talk nonsense, Frank,’ said the countess, angrily. ‘I am doing what I can for you, and taking an infinity of trouble to endeavour to place you in an independent position; and now you talk nonsense to me.’
Frank muttered some sort of an apology, and then went to prepare himself for the encounter.
Miss Dunstable, though she had come by the train, had brought with her her own carriage, her own horses, her own coachman and footman, and her own maid, of course. She had also brought with her half a score of trunks, full of wearing apparel; some of them nearly as rich as that wonderful box which was stolen a short time since from the top of a cab. But she brought all these things, not in the least because she wanted them herself, but because she had been instructed to do so.
Frank was a little more than ordinarily careful in dressing. He spoilt a couple of white neckties before he was satisfied, and was rather fastidious as to the set of his hair. There was not much of the dandy about him in the ordinary meaning of the word;