The young girl's thoughts were very busy as she rode from the Sycamores to Poynings, but not exclusively with Paul Ward.
Her life presented itself in a more serious aspect to her then than it had ever before worn. All things seemed changed. Her uncle's letters to her had undergone a strange alteration. He wrote now to her as to one whom he trusted, to whom he looked for aid, on whom he purposed to impose a responsible duty. The pompousness of Mr. Carruthers's nature was absolutely inseparable from his style of writing as from his manner of speech, but the matter of his letters atoned for their faults of manner. He wrote with such anxious affection of his wife, he stepson, whose name Clare had never heard pronounced by his lips or in his presence. Above all, he seemed to expect very much from Clare. Evidently her life was not to be empty of interest for the future, if responsibility could fill it; for Clare was to be intrusted with all the necessary arrangements for Mrs. Carruthers's comfort, and Mrs. Carruthers was very anxious to get back to England, to Poynings, and to Clare! The girl learned this with inexpressible gladness, but some surprise. She was wholly unaware of the feelings with which Mrs. Carruthers had regarded her, and the intentions of maternal care and tenderness which she had formed--feelings she had hidden, intentions she had abandoned from motives of prudence founded on her thorough comprehension of the besetting weakness of her husband's character.
Clare had not the word of the enigma, and it puzzled her. But it delighted her also. Instinctively she felt there was something of Mark Felton's doing in this. He had impressed her as favourably as she had impressed him. She had recognized his possession of the two great qualities, feeling and intelligence, and her own kindred endowments had answered to them at once.
Was she going to be happy and useful? Was she going to be something more than the rich Miss Carruthers, the heiress of Poynings, who had every luxury life could supply, except that of feeling herself of active individual importance to any living creature? Was Poynings going to be as pleasant as the Sycamores, and for a more worthy reason? Clare felt in her honest young heart that the superiority of the Sycamores consisted principally in the fact that the uncle who inhabited that abode was never in her way, whereas the uncle who ruled at Poynings was generally otherwise, and unpleasant. It was very ungrateful of her to feel this; but she did feel it. Was all this going to be altered? Was she going to have the sort of feeling that might have been hers if she had not been the heiress of Poynings, but the real, own daughter of a kind lady who needed and would accept all her girlish love and eager, if unskilful, care? It must be so, Clare thought, now Mrs. Carruthers had her son with her, and she no longer felt that there was injustice done to her, for which Clare was made the reason or the pretext, she would allow her to be all she had always desired to be. How much uselessness, unreality, weariness, fell away from Clare Carruthers as she rode on, the beautiful healthful colour rising higher in her cheeks as the glad thoughts, the vague, sweet, unselfish hopes of the future, expanded in her young heart! She would tell Mrs. Carruthers some day when she was quite well, when there should be no longer any danger of doing her harm by the revelation, about the mystery which had caused her so much suffering, and then, when there should be perfect confidence between them, she would tell her how she had discovered that she, too, was acquainted with Paul Ward. Clare had never speculated seriously upon the cause of Mrs. Carruthers's illness. Her first convictions were, that it had originated in some trouble about her son. The old housekeeper's manner, the removal of the portrait, had sufficed for Clare. This was a sacred sorrow, sacred from Clare's curiosity, even in her thoughts. And now it was at an end, probably thanks to Mark Felton; but, at all events, it was quite over. In the time to come, that future which Clare's fancy was painting so brightly, as her horse carried her swiftly over the familiar road, Mrs. Carruthers might even love her well enough to tell her the story of the past, and what that terrible grief had been.
"I am to take Thomas up to town with me, Mrs. Brookes, and I only wish you were coming too," said Clare to the housekeeper at Poynings, as a concluding item of the budget of news she had to tell. Clare was in high spirits by this time. Mrs. Brookes was much more friendly than usual to the young lady, whom she, too, had always regarded with jealousy, and almost dislike, as the enemy of George.
"I am better here, Miss Carruthers," said Mrs. Brookes. "I daresay there won't be much delay in London--for Mrs. Carruthers and master, I mean. You'll stay awhile with Mrs. Stanhope, belike?"
"O dear no--I certainly shall not," replied Clare, with the prettiest air of importance. "I shall come down with my uncle and aunt. My uncle says we are to come as soon as the doctors will let us go."
"And Mr. Felton also, you say, Miss Carruthers?"
"Yes, and Mr. Dallas. How delighted I am, Mrs. Brookes--how delighted you must be!" The girl's face flushed deeply. She was all glowing with the generous ardour of her feelings. She had taken off her hat, and was standing before the open window in the morning-room, her habit gathered up in one hand, her slight figure trembling, her beautiful face radiant.
"I am sure it has been almost as hard for you as for his mother. I could not say anything about it before, Nurse Ellen"--it was the first time Clare had ever called the old woman by this name--"because--because I knew nothing--no one ever told me anything, and I must have seemed to blame my uncle. But, indeed, it pained me very much, and now--now I am so happy!"