"I hope you were properly entertained there?" said Mr. Carruthers, in the old "of Poynings" manner.
"Perfectly, my dear sir--perfectly. As I was saying, all I heard at Poynings, and what George told me"--he cast a quick glance at his nephew here, in which there was already hearty liking--"made me more than ever anxious to see Laura. Besides, I was exceedingly anxious to make your acquaintance without any further delay."
"A wish which I reciprocated, I assure you, Mr. Felton."
"In bringing George with me, I acted on my own judgment, and on a conviction that you would regard the matter as I do. I believed you would consider him entitled to see his mother, and would be glad to learn from me that his prospects in life are as much improved as his inclination and determination to do them honour are genuine and strong."
"You are quite right, Mr. Felton," said the honourable old gentleman, who had begun to feel himself somehow beaten by fate, and was, secretly, immensely relieved that his stepson had made his appearance without having been sent for, and in such unexceptionable company. "It is necessary now that Mr. Dallas--that--that George" (he got out the word with an immense effort, and it meant everything) "should be near his mother. I am glad to know he has found a friend in you."
"And I am still more glad to believe," said Mr. Felton, not precisely interrupting Mr. Carruthers, but taking advantage of a slight pause to speak--"I am glad to know that he found me just when he was learning to do without any one."
It is possible that a good deal of Mr. Carruthers's trouble--and he had suffered severely since he had left England--had had its origin in a conviction, which had stolen upon him at first, and latterly had threatened to overwhelm him, that he had not been faultless in his conduct towards his wife and his treatment of her son. He had found out very shortly after they had left Poynings--for in the deadening of her faculties, forgetfulness of her fear of him had come--how mistaken he had been in supposing that he had suppressed her love for George, her constant remembrance of him, or had supplied by all he had given her for the boon he had withheld. In her placid way, when she would sit for hours talking softly to herself, his wife had administered some very telling lessons to Mr. Carruthers. It was with an uneasy surprise that he came to feel how very dear she was to him, how indispensable to his life, how strangely the things which had held the first places in his estimation, behind which he had ranked her, and she had been content humbly to follow, fell away into complete insignificance. He actually forgot Poynings at times, and was not worried by fears that the lawn was not properly mown and smoothly rolled, or by visions of fallen leaves lying about in the sacred places. His "business papers" were duly forwarded to him, but they did not interest him much; his mind dwelt almost entirely on his wife's state, and he was rapidly passing, as might be expected from a man whose moral perceptions had been suddenly awakened and enlarged, from the recognition of his true share of blame in the calamity which had befallen them, to an exaggeration of that share, which rendered him almost oblivious of the provocation he had received. Had George Dallas suddenly appeared before his stepfather at Poynings, he might not have been well received; the influences of old habits, and associations, in the sense of the promulgation of the old edict of banishment, might have successfully overpowered the new influences striving with pride and obstinacy in the by no means bad heart of Mr. Carruthers. But the occasion had been most auspicious. Here, in a foreign place, where Mr. Carruthers was positively oppressed with a sense of strangeness, and where no one was present to know anything about the concession he was making, he had but trifling difficulties to overcome, and the meeting between the three gentlemen had been kindly, unreserved, and cordial.
The report of his wife's condition, which Mr. Carruthers had made to her son and brother, was not very reassuring, and was doubly distressing to George, in consequence of the stress which his stepfather laid upon the good effect to be anticipated by his restoration to her. Had Mr. Carruthers been in a less charitable frame of mind, he might have taken the silence and sadness with which George received his assurances on this point for sullenness; but he did not, he was actually learning to make allowance for the temperaments and the feelings of other people.
Mr. Felton and his nephew had arrived at Homburg on the preceding evening, and Mr. Felton had communicated by letter with Mr. Carruthers, who had named an early hour on the following day for receiving his unknown brother-in-law and his little-known stepson. Their interview had lasted some time, when Mr. Carruthers expressed his belief that good might result to his mother from seeing George.
The young man turned his face from the speaker, and made no answer.