"That may be, Kate, but they must vote for him, or be turned out of"——
"Oh, I've no patience, Charles, to hear of such things!" interrupted his sister, with not a little petulance in her manner.
"Do you mean to say, that you should like to see a rival start to contest your dear old borough with Mr. Titmouse?" inquired Mr. Delamere, who had been listening to the foregoing brief colloquy in silence, his eyes fixed with eager delight on the animated and beautiful countenance of Miss Aubrey.
"Indeed I should, Mr. Delamere," cried Kate, eagerly—"I would give five guineas, if I had it"—adding, however, with a sudden sigh, looking at her brother; "but—heigh-ho!—as Charles says, how absurd it is to fret one's self about it—about a thing we can't help—and—a place one has no longer—alas!—any concern with!" As she said this, her voice fell a little, and her eyes filled with tears. But her little sally had been attended with consequences she never could have dreamed of.
Mr. Delamere took leave of them shortly afterwards, without communicating a word of any intentions he might have conceived upon the subject to any of them. But the first place he went to, in the morning, was a great banker's, who had been appointed the principal acting executor of the Marquis of Fallowfield, a very recently deceased uncle of Delamere's, to whom his Lordship had left a legacy of £3,000; and 'twas to get at this same legacy that was the object of Delamere's visit to Sir Omnium Bullion's. For some time the worthy baronet—who had not then even proved the will—would not listen to the entreaties of the eager young legatee: but the moment that he heard of the purpose for which it was wanted, Sir Omnium being a very fierce Tory, and who had lost his own snug borough by the Bill for Giving Everybody Everything, instantly relented. "There, my fine fellow, that's a piece of pluck I vastly admire! Sign that," said Sir Omnium, tossing to him an "I. O. U. £3,000," and drawing him a check for the amount: wishing him, with all imaginable zeal and energy, good speed. Delamere's excitement would not allow him to wait till the evening, for the mail; so, within a couple of hours' time of effecting this delightful arrangement with Sir Omnium, he was seated in a post-chaise and four, rattling at top-speed on his way to Yorkshire.
Sufficiently astonished were Lord and Lady De la Zouch, when he presented himself to them at Fotheringham; but infinitely more so, when he named the object of his coming down, and with desperate entreaties besought his father's sanction for the enterprise. 'Twas very hard for Lord De la Zouch to deny anything to one on whom he doted as he did upon this, his only child. His Lordship, moreover, was one of the keenest politicians living; and as for elections, he was an old campaigner, and had stood several desperate contests, and spent immense sums upon them. And here was his son, to use a well-known phrase, indeed a chip of the old block!—Lord De la Zouch, in short, really felt a secret pleasure in contemplating the resemblance to his early self—and after a little demur he began to give way. He shook his head, however, discouragingly; spoke of Delamere's youth—barely two-and-twenty; the certainty of defeat, and the annoyance of being beaten by such a creature as Titmouse; the suddenness and lateness of the move—and so forth.
More and more impetuous, however, became his son.
"I'll tell you what, sir," said Lord De la Zouch, scarce able to speak with the gravity he wished, "it strikes me that this extraordinary, expensive, absurd, and hopeless scheme of yours, is all the result of—eh? I see—I understand! It's done to please—Come, now, be frank, sir! how long, before you left town, had you seen Miss"——
"I pledge my word, sir," replied Delamere, emphatically, "that neither Miss Aubrey, nor Mr. nor Mrs. Aubrey—whom, however, I certainly saw the very night before I quitted town, and even conversed with on the subject of Mr. Titmouse's Address—has interchanged one syllable with me on the subject of my starting for the borough; and I believe them to be at this moment as ignorant of what I am about as you, sir, were, the moment before you saw me here."