‘And are you certain that you would find Miss Charlecote in town? I thought her stay was to be short.’
‘I’m certain of nothing, but that every place is detestable.’
‘What would you do if you did not find her?’
‘Go on to Euston-square. Do you think I don’t know my way to Hiltonbury, or that I should not get welcome enough—ay, and too much—there?’
‘Then if you are so uncertain of her movements, do you not think you had better let me learn them before you start? She might not even be gone home, and you would not like to come back here again; if—’
‘Like a dog that has been out hunting,’ said Lucilla, who could bear opposition from this quarter as from no other. ‘You won’t take the responsibility, that’s the fact. Well, you may go and reconnoitre, if you will; but mind, if you say one word of what brings you to town, I shall never go near the Holt at all. To hear—whenever the Raymonds, or any other of the godly school-keeping sort come to dinner—of the direful effects of certificated schoolmistresses, would drive me to such distraction that I cannot answer for the consequences.’
‘I am sure it is not a fact to proclaim.’
‘Ah! but if you run against Mr. Parsons, you’ll never abstain from telling him of his stray lamb, nor from condoling with him upon the wolf in Cat-alley. Now there’s a fair hope of his having more on his hands than to get his fingers scratched by meddling with the cats, and so that this may remain unknown. So consider yourself sworn to secrecy.’
Mr. Prendergast promised. The good man was a bit of a gossip, so perhaps her precaution was not thrown away, for he could hardly have helped seeking the sympathy of a brother pastor, especially of him to whose fold the wanderer primarily belonged. Nor did Lucy feel certain of not telling the whole herself in some unguarded moment of confidence. All she cared for was, that the story should not transpire through some other
source, and be brandished over her head as an illustration of all the maxims that she had so often spurned. She ran after Mr. Prendergast after he had taken leave, to warn him against calling in Woolstone-lane, and desired him instead to go to Masters’s shop, where it was sure to be known whether Miss Charlecote were in town or not.