"I am sure Mrs. Bransby is not insensible," she answered. "And she loved your father dearly."
"I am not disputing it. But she was, and is, a doating mother, and her feelings are greatly engrossed by her children. In one way this is happy for her. She does not feel the void, the loneliness, which oppresses me."
It seemed to May that there might be some truth in this. Theodore was not generally beloved. Cold as he seemed, he doubtless missed his father's affection. He would feel isolated and forlorn. This might be in great part his own fault; but May pitied him. She softened towards him still more when he went on to speak of his plans for assisting his young step-brothers. He had already offered to send Martin to school at his own expense. He was endeavouring to be of use to Mrs. Bransby. She was, unfortunately, very unpractical, and rather impracticable; but he hoped that, when her grief calmed down, she would listen to reason and take advice.
"Is she not well off?" asked May, moved by genuine interest in the widow and her family.
Theodore shook his head. "I may tell you," he said, "that she is in very straitened circumstances. I do not proclaim this generally, because people who know how indefatigably my poor father worked, and what a large income he earned, are apt to blame her, and accuse her of extravagance."
While he was still speaking, a message came from Mrs. Dormer-Smith asking Mr. Bransby to go to her in the drawing-room. She, too, was touched by his mourning garb and pale face, and received him with sympathetic gentleness. May's report of his behaviour in Oldchester had been favourable, in so far that he had not attempted to renew his suit. But what most of all conciliated Mrs. Dormer-Smith was the thought of Mr. Bragg. Now that her niece was so near making a splendid marriage, it was easier to forgive Theodore's presumption. Doubtless the young man had already seen his error; and really, putting aside that one aberration, he was very nice!
Her good opinion was increased in the course of their private conversation, which turned on matters very interesting to Pauline. Theodore had seen her uncle lately; he had, moreover, had a good deal of talk with him about matters political. A vacancy was likely to occur shortly in the representation of that division of the county where Lord Castlecombe's landed property was situated. The Castlecombes were anxious to oppose a threatened Radical candidate, and Theodore had offered to stand.
On his elder brother's death, Lucius Cheffington had resigned his post in the Civil Service, and, under normal circumstances, his father would have desired that he should return to the House of Commons; but his health was at present too feeble to warrant his attempting any exertion. Then old Lord Castlecombe thought it would be well to put some one into the vacant seat who might be willing to resign it whenever Lucius should be able and willing to come forward again as a candidate. This was not expressed, but understood; and Lord Castlecombe had approved of Theodore's ready comprehension of the state of the case, and his clear view of the advantages such an arrangement would afford to himself. Election expenses, even in these days of purity and the ballot, retain as mysterious a rapidity of growth as Jack's beanstalk, and the assistance of Lord Castlecombe would be very solidly valuable. On the other hand, Theodore considered that, ambition apart, it would be useful to him in his career as a barrister to write M.P. after his name, and was willing to assume some share of the cost of the canvass. The old lord discovered in this sententious young gentleman two merits—the possession of money, and the knowledge how to spend it advantageously.
Lucius acquiesced passively in all his father's arrangements; but he could not be induced to thaw half a degree in his personal relations with Theodore.
"The fellow is an intolerable prig," he said to his father; "and his vulgarity is of a particularly objectionable kind—the fine pretentious kind."