Now George's cleverness was a direction of the required kind, and Mr. Carruthers proceeded to remark that George must make drawings for his mother of all the favourite points of view at Poynings.
"There's the terrace, George," he said, "and the 'Tangle,' where your mother loves to spend the summer afternoons, and there's the beech-wood, from the hill behind the garden, and the long avenue. There are several spots you will like, George, and--and," said Mr. Carruthers, magnanimously, and blushing all over his not much withered face, like a woman, "I'm only sorry you are to make acquaintance with them so late in the day."
He put out his hand, with true British awkwardness, as he spoke, and the young man took it respectfully, and with an atoning pang of shame and self-reproach. But for his mother's presence, and the imperative necessity of self-restraint imposed by the consideration of her health and the danger of agitation to her, George would have inevitably told his stepfather the truth. He felt all the accumulated meanness of an implied falsehood most deeply and bitterly, and might have been capable of forgetting even his mother, but for a timely warning conveyed to him by the compressed lips and frowning brows of his uncle. As for his mother, neither he nor Mr. Felton could judge of the effect produced upon her by the words of her husband. She had turned away her head as he began to speak.
"I was just going to tell Laura what I thought of doing, if you and she approve," Mr. Felton hastened to say. "You see, I am getting more and more anxious about Arthur, and I don't think he will turn up here. I thought if George and I were to go on to Paris and make some inquiries there--I know pretty well where he went to there, and what he did--we need not make more than a few days' delay, and then go on to London, and join you and Laura there. What do you say?"
"I think it would do nicely," said Mr. Carruthers. "You and George would hardly like our rate of travelling under any circumstances." It would have afforded any individual endowed with good humour and a sense of the ludicrous great amusement to observe the pleasure and importance with which Mr. Carruthers implied the seriousness of his charge, and the immense signification of a journey undertaken by Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings. "We shall stay some time in town," he continued, "for additional medical advice; and then, I hope, we shall all go down to Poynings together."
"I have secured rooms for George and myself in Piccadilly," said Mark Felton, in a skilfully off-hand manner. "It would never do for two jolly young bachelors like him and me to invade Sir Thomas Boldero's house. Even "--and here Mr. Felton's countenance clouded over, and he continued absently--"even if Arthur did not join us; but I hope he will--I hope he will."
Mr. Carruthers was singularly unfortunate in any attempt to combine politeness with insincerity. He had a distinct conviction that his wife's nephew was a "good-for-nothing," of a different and more despicable order of good-for-nothingness from that which he had imputed to his stepson in his worst days; and though he would have been unfeignedly pleased had Mr. Felton's inquietude been set at rest by the receipt of a letter from his son, he was candidly of opinion that the longer that young gentleman abstained from joining the family-party, the more peaceful and happy that family-party would continue to be.
However, he endeavoured to rise to the occasion, and said he hoped "Mr. Arthur" would accompany his father to Poynings, with not so very bad a grace considering.
The diversion had enabled George to recover himself, and he now drew a chair over beside his mother's, and began to discuss the times and distances of their respective journeys, and other cognate topics of conversation. Mr. Carruthers liked everything in the planning and settling line, and it was quite a spectacle to behold him over the incomprehensible pages of Bradshaw, emphasizing his helplessness with his gold spectacles.
"I suppose ten days will see us all in London," he said to Mr. Felton, "if you leave this with George to-morrow, and we leave on Monday. I have written to my niece. Sir Thomas and Lady Boldero never come to town at this season, so I have asked Clare to come up and see that the house is all comfortable for Laura. Clare can stay at her cousin's till we arrive."