Then Mrs. Ray told her elder daughter of the letter, and told her also that she intended to consult Mr. Comfort. "Oh, Mr. Comfort!" said Mrs. Prime, signifying her opinion that her mother was going to a very poor counsellor. "And what sort of a letter was it?" said Mrs. Prime, with a not unnatural desire to see it.
"It was an honest letter enough,—very honest to my thinking; and speaking as though everything between them was quite settled."
"That's nonsense, mother."
"Perhaps it may be nonsense, Dorothea; but I am only telling you what the letter said. He called his mother a goose; that was the worst thing in it."
"You cannot expect that such a one as he should honour his parents."
"But his mother thinks him the finest young man in the world. And I must say this for him, that he has always spoken of her as though he loved her very dearly; and I believe he has been a most excellent son. He shouldn't have said goose;—at any rate in a letter;—not to my way of thinking. But perhaps they don't mind those things up in London."
"I never knew a young man so badly spoken of at a place he'd left as he is in Baslehurst. I think it right to tell you; but if you have made up your mind to ask Mr. Comfort—"
"Yes; I have made up my mind to ask Mr. Comfort. He has sent to say he will call the day after to-morrow." Then Mrs. Prime went back home, having seen neither the letter nor her sister.
It may be remembered that an election was impending over the town of Baslehurst, the coming necessities of which had induced Mrs. Butler Cornbury to grace Mrs. Tappitt's ball. It was now nearly the end of July, and the election was to be made early in September. Both candidates were already in the field, and the politicians of the neighbourhood already knew to a nicety how the affair would go. Mr. Hart the great clothier from Houndsditch and Regent Street,—Messrs. Hart and Jacobs of from 110 to 136 Houndsditch, and about as many more numbers in Regent Street,—would come in at the top of the poll with 173 votes, and Butler Cornbury, whose forefathers had lived in the neighbourhood for the last four hundred years and been returned for various places in Devonshire to dozens of parliaments, would be left in the lurch with 171 votes. A petition might probably unseat the Jew clothier; but then, as was well known, the Cornbury estate could not bear the expenditure of the necessary five thousand pounds for the petition, in addition to the twelve hundred which the election itself was computed to cost. It was all known and thoroughly understood; and men in Baslehurst talked about the result as though the matter were past a doubt. Nevertheless there were those who were ready to bet on the Cornbury side of the question.
But though the thing was thus accurately settled, and though its termination was foreseen by so many and with so perfect a certainty, still the canvassing went on. In fact there were votes that had not even yet been asked, much less promised,—and again, much less purchased. The Hart people were striving to frighten the Cornbury people out of the field by the fear of the probable expenditure; and had it not been for the good courage of Mrs. Butler Cornbury would probably have succeeded in doing so. The old squire was very fidgety about the money, and the young squire declared himself unwilling to lean too heavily upon his father. But the lady of the household declared her conviction that there was more smoke than fire, and more threats of bribery than intention of bribing. She would go on, she declared; and as her word passed for much at Cornbury Grange, the battle was still to be fought.