It is nine o'clock in the morning, and breakfast is on the table in the pretty breakfast-room at Poynings. Mrs. Carruthers presides over the breakfast-table, and Clare is occupied in arranging some flowers which have just been sent in by the head gardener--sweet, fresh flowers, partaking alike of the brightness of spring and the sweetness of summer, for the April showers have fulfilled their mission, and the earth is alike glowing and redolent. Through the bow-window, opened in fear and trembling by Clare before her uncle's appearance, and hitherto unnoticed by that potentate, who has a vivid dread of rheumatism, comes a soft air laden with delicious scent of new-mown grass; for close underneath three men are busily engaged in trimming the broad lawn, and the sound of their swiftly plied whetstones and the hum of their talk in their occasional intervals of rest has penetrated into the room, and makes a kind of human accompaniment to Mr. Carruthers's strictly unhuman and intonative manner of reading the morning prayers. Spreading far away, and bordered in the extreme distance of a sloping shoulder of Surrey down, lies the glorious Kentish landscape, dotted here and there with broad red-faced farmsteads and lowly labourers' cots, with vast expanse of green and springing wheat and hop-grounds, where the parasite has as yet scarcely taken the tall poles within its pliant embrace, with thick plantations and high chalk cuttings, over which the steam from the flying train hangs like a vaporous wreath. In the immediate neighbourhood of the house the big elm-trees, guarding on either side the carriage-drive, tossed their high heads and rustled their broad arms in all the delight of their freshly acquired greenery; dew-bathed broad upland and mossy knoll sparkle alike in the morning sun; in the silvery bosom of the little lake the reflection of the slowly-drifting clouds rears quaint impalpable islands of strange fantastic form; within the magic square of the old red kitchen-garden wall, where rusty nails and fragments of last year's list still hung, large cucumber and melon frames blink in the sunlight, and every little handlight lends a scintillating ray. Over all hangs a sense of stillness and composure, of peace and rest and quietude, such as might bring balm and healing to any wounded spirit.
External influences have, however, very little effect on one of the persons in the breakfast-room, for Mrs. Carruthers is bodily ill and mentally depressed. A racking nervous headache has deprived her of sleep during the past night, and has left its traces in deep livid marks underneath her eyes. She has a worn-out look and a preoccupied manner, and while she is superintending the preparation of the Grand Lama's tea--a process about which he is particular, and which is by no means to be lightly undertaken--her thoughts are far away, and her mind is full of doubts and misgiving. Why did her husband come back so suddenly from the agricultural meeting yesterday? Could be by any means have been aware of George's presence in the neighbourhood; and, if so, had he hastened his return with the view of detecting him? If so, he had providentially been thwarted in his plan. Nurse Ellen had seen the boy, and had conveyed to him the bracelet; the means of release from his surrounding difficulties were now in his hands, and the mother felt sure, from his manner, that he would keep his word, and never again subject himself to such a fearful risk. All danger surely must be over; no hint had been dropped by her husband of the slightest suspicion, and yet Mrs. Carruthers watches every change of his countenance, listens nervously to every footfall on the stairs, hears with a heart-beat the creak of every opening door, and is, obviously, constrained and wretched and ill at ease.
Clare notices this pityingly and with wonder; Mr. Carruthers notices it too, with wonder, but without any pity, but he resents it, in point of fact, silently and with dignity. That Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings should "mope" and be "out of sorts" is a kind of reflection on Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, which that gentleman by no means approves of. Over the top of his rustling newspaper he looks at his wife with severe glances levelled from under knitted brows; between his occasional bites of toast he gives a short, sharp, irritable cough; now and then he drums with his fingers on the table, or taps his foot impatiently on the floor. No notice of these vagaries is taken by either of the ladies, it being generally understood at Poynings that the Grand Lama will always find vent in speech when the proper times arrives. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carruthers moodily broods over the breakfast equipage, and Clare continues her handiwork with the flowers.
The Grand Lama becomes more and more irate, glares through his gold double eye-glasses at the newspaper, wherein he is reading atrociously "levelling" views promulgated by a correspondent, gives utterance to smothered sounds indicative of indignation and contempt, and is just about to burst forth in a torrent of rage, when the door opens, and a footman, entering, hands a card on a salver to his master. As when, in full pursuit of the flying matador, the bull in the arena wheels round and engages the lithe picador who has just planted a flag-bearing dart in his quivering carcass, so Mr. Carruthers turns upon the servant who had interposed between him and the intended objects of his attack.
"What's this?" said he, in a sharp voice.
"Card, sir," said the footman, utterly unmoved, and with the complacent expression of an ancient gurgoyle on a Saxon church.
"Do you think I'm blind?" said his master. "I see it's a card. Where did it come from?"
"Gentleman in the library, sir. Said you was at breakfast; told me no 'urry, and giv' me his card."
Mr. Carruthers looks up suspiciously at Thomas footman, but Thomas footman is still gurgoylesque. Then Mr. Carruthers replaces his eye-glasses, and, looking at the card, reads thereon, in old English characters, "Mr. Dalrymple," and in pencil the words "Home Office." "I will be with the gentleman in a moment." Only stopping at the looking-glass to run his fingers through his hair and to settle the tie of his checked cravat, Mr. Carruthers creaks out of the room.
Mr. Dalrymple, of the Home Office, has established himself in a comfortable chair, from which he rises on Mr. Carruthers's entrance. He is a tall, bald-headed man, and, to Mr. Carruthers's horror, wears a full-flowing brown beard. The Grand Lama, whose ideas on this point are out of date, knows that beards are now generally worn by members of the aristocracy as well as foreigners and billiard-sharpers, but cannot conceive that any government has been so preposterously lax as to permit its officials to indulge in such nonsense. Consequently he refers to the card again, and, his first impressions being verified, is dumb with astonishment. Nevertheless, he controls his feelings sufficiently to bow and to point to a chair.