Volume I Part 20 (2/2)
Mr. Bragg eyed him with his usual heavy deliberation. ”Oh,” said he slowly, ”this is Mr.--I don't call to mind your Christian name--eh? Oh yes--Mr. Theodore Bransby.”
Mr. Lucius Cheffington made an unusually low bow, his pride being of the sort which manifests itself in the most ceremonious politeness.
He was a small, lean man, with a pale face deeply lined by ill-health and a fretful temperament. He had closely shaven cheeks and chin; heavy, grizzled moustaches; and very thick, grizzled hair, which he wore rather long. His voice was harsh, though subdued, and he spoke very slowly, making such long pauses as occasionally tempted unwary strangers to finish his sentences for him. A double eyegla.s.s with tortoise-sh.e.l.l rims was set astride his nose; and behind the gla.s.ses two dark, near-sighted eyes looked out, somewhat superciliously, upon a world which fell sadly short of what a Cheffington had a right to expect.
”I have the pleasure of knowing your cousin, Captain Augustus Cheffington, very well indeed,” said Theodore.
Lucius bowed again and adjusted his eyegla.s.s. A shade of surprise and annoyance pa.s.sed over his face. His Cousin Augustus had been a sore subject with the family for years; and latterly such rumours as had reached England about him had not made the subject more agreeable.
”I have often thought,” pursued Theodore, quite unaware that his listener was regarding him with a mixture of astonishment and disfavour, ”that it is a great pity a man of Captain Cheffington's abilities and accomplishments should live out of England; unless, indeed, he held some diplomatic appointment abroad. In my opinion these are times in which the great old families should hold fast by the public service. As I ventured to say to one of our county members the other day----” And so on, and so on. Having thus happily launched himself, Theodore proceeded in his best Parliamentary style: holding forth with a power of self-complacent and steady boredom beyond his years. A sensitive person would have been petrified by the unsympathizing stare from behind those tortoise-sh.e.l.l-rimmed gla.s.ses; but Theodore was not sensitive to such influences: being fortified by the _a priori_ conviction that he must naturally make a favourable impression. And since Lucius Cheffington could not, compatibly with his own dignity, plainly tell him that he considered him a presumptuous young a.s.s, there was nothing to check his flow of eloquence.
But at length the cold stare was softened, and the pale, peevish, furrowed face turned to Theodore with a faint show of interest. Some casual word of this intrusive young man's seemed to show that he came from Oldchester.
”Do you know--a--Mrs.--a--Dobbs?” asked Lucius, speaking for the first time, and edging in this point-blank question between two of Theodore's neatly-turned sentences setting forth a political parallel between the late Lord Tweedledum and the present Right Honourable Tweedledee.
It was a shock; but Theodore bore it stoically.
”Not exactly. I have spoken with her. Mrs. Dobbs is not precisely----in our set,” he answered, with a slight smile at one corner of his mouth, intended to demolish Mrs. Dobbs.
”I thought that, being a native of Oldchester, you might--a--be----”
begun Mr. Cheffington in his low, harsh tones.
”Be acquainted with her? Really----”
”I thought that, being a native of Oldchester, you might--a--be able to tell me something about her.”
”Not much, I fear,” replied Theodore. He felt tempted to add that in Oldchester there were natives and natives.
”She's--a--rich, isn't she?” pursued Mr. Cheffington.
”Not that I know of,” answered Theodore, staring a little.
”Rich is, perhaps, too much to say. At any rate, she is--a--quite well----”
”Well off? Oh, as to that----”
”At any rate, she is quite well-to-do, I presume!”
Theodore had never considered the question, but he said, ”Oh yes,” at a venture; and then suddenly a light flashed upon his mind. Perhaps Mrs.
Dobbs _was_ rich, after all. Though she lived in so humble a style she might, perhaps, have laid by money.
”She appears to be a person of--a--great--good sense,” said Mr. Lucius Cheffington, remembering how Mrs. Dormer-Smith had stated that she declined to give any money-a.s.sistance to Augustus. And after that he made a second very low bow, and brought the interview to an end.
Little had Theodore Bransby expected to hear Mrs. Dobbs discussed and approved by a member of the n.o.ble house of Castlecombe. He had noticed that Mrs. Dormer-Smith systematically avoided any mention of the vulgar old woman. But then Mrs. Dormer-Smith was a person of the very finest taste. And, to be sure, it could scarcely be expected that Mr. Lucius Cheffington should feel Augustus's _mesalliance_ as acutely as it was felt by Augustus's own sister. Besides, if, as really seemed possible, the ironmonger's widow turned out to be a moneyed person----! But it must be recorded of Theodore, that not even the idea of her having money reconciled him to Mrs. Dobbs. He said to himself afterwards, when he was meditating on what he had heard, that nothing so convincingly proved how much he was in love with Miss Cheffington, as his being ready to forgive her even her grandmother!
CHAPTER XV.
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