Mrs. Carruthers's son had always been an object of tacit interest to Clare. She had not been fully informed of the circumstances of her uncle's marriage, and she understood vaguely that George Dallas was an individual held in disfavour by the august master of Poynings; so her natural delicacy of feeling conquered her curiosity, and she abstained from mentioning George to his mother or to Mr. Carruthers, and also from giving encouragement to the gossip on the subject which occasionally arose in her presence.
In Mrs. Carruthers's dressing-room a portrait hung, which Clare had been told by Mrs. Brookes was that of her mistress's son, when a fine, brave, promising boy of ten years old. Clare had felt an interest in the picture, not only for Mrs. Carruthers's sake, but because she liked the face which it portrayed--the clear bright brown eyes, the long curling hair, the brilliant dark complexion, the bold, frank, gleeful expression. Once or twice she had said a few words in praise of the picture, and once she had ventured to ask Mrs. Carruthers if her son still resembled it. The mother had answered her, with a sigh, that he was greatly changed, and no one would now recognize the picture as a likeness of him.
The dignified and decorous household at Poynings pursued its luxurious way with less apparent disunion among its principal members than is generally to be seen under the most favourable circumstances, but with little real community of feeling or of interest. Mrs. Carruthers was a popular person in society, and Clare was liked as much as she was admired. As for Mr. Carruthers, he was Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, and that fact sufficed for the neighbourhood almost as completely as it satisfied himself.
The unexpected return of her uncle from York had caused Clare no particular emotion. She was standing at the French window of the breakfast-room, feeding a colony of birds, her outdoor pensioners, when the carriage made its appearance. She had just observed the fact, and was quietly pursuing her occupation, when Mrs. Carruthers, who had left the breakfast-room half an hour before, returned, looking so pale, and with so unmistakeable an expression of terror in her face, that Clare looked at her in astonishment.
"Your uncle has come back," she said. "I am not well, I cannot meet him yet. Go to the door, Clare, and tell him I am not well, and am still in my room. Pray go, my dear; don't delay a moment."
"Certainly I will go," answered Clare, leaving the window and crossing the room as she spoke; "but--"
"I'll tell you what ails me another time, but go now--go," said Mrs. Carruthers; and, without another word, the girl obeyed her. She had seen the carriage at a turn in the avenue; now the wheels were grinding the gravel of the sweep opposite the hall-door. In a minute Clare was receiving her uncle on the steps, and Mrs. Carruthers, having thrown the bonnet and shawl she had just taken out for her proposed expedition to the shrubbery back into the wardrobe, removed her gown, and replaced it by a dressing-gown, was awaiting her husband's approach with a beating heart and an aching head. Had he met her son? Had he passed him unseen upon the road? Would Mrs. Brookes succeed, unseen and unsuspected, in executing the commission with which she had hurriedly charged her?
"She is in a scrape of some sort," Clare thought, as she accompanied her uncle to his wife's dressing-room. "What can have happened since he left home? Can it have anything to do with Paul Ward?"