Mrs. Prendergast was less pleased after than before this promise. It was again that freedom of expression that the girl had learnt among the Charterises, and the ideas that she accepted as mere matters of course, that jarred upon the matron, whose secluded life had preserved her in far truer refinement. She did not know how to reply, and, as a means of ending the discussion, gave her Mr. Prendergast’s letter, but was amazed at her reception of it.
‘Passed the living! Famous! He will stick to Wrapworth to the last gasp! That is fidelity! Pray tell him so from me.’
‘You had better send your message through Dr. Prendergast. We cannot but be disappointed, though I understand your feeling for Wrapworth, and we are sorry for the dispirited tone about the letter.’
‘Well he may be, all alone there, and seeing poor Castle Blanch going to rack and ruin. I could cry about it whenever I think of it; but how much worse would it have been if he had deserted too! As long as he is in the old vicarage there is
a home spot to me in the world! Oh, I thank him, I do thank him for standing by the old place to the last.’
‘It is preposterous,’ thought Mrs. Prendergast. ‘I won’t tell the Doctor. He would think it so foolish in him, and improper in her; I verily believe it is her influence that keeps him at Wrapworth! He cannot bear to cross her wishes nor give her pain. Well, I am thankful that Sarah is neither beautiful nor attractive.’
Sincere was Lucilla’s intention to resume her regular habits, and put a stop to Francis Beaumont’s attentions, but the attraction had already gone so far that repression rendered him the more assiduous, and often bore the aspect (if it were not absolutely the coyness) of coquetry. While deprecating from her heart any attachment on his part, her vanity was fanned at finding herself in her present position as irresistible as ever, and his eagerness to obtain a smile or word from her was such an agreeable titillation, that everything else became flat, and her hours in the schoolroom an imprisonment. Sarah’s methodical earnestness in study bored her, and she was sick of restraint and application. Nor was this likely to be merely a passing evil, for Francis’s parents were in India, and Southminster was his only English home. Nay, even when he had returned to his tutor, Lucilla was not restored to her better self. Her craving for excitement had been awakened, and her repugnance to mental exertion had been yielded to. The routine of lessons had become bondage, and she sought every occasion of variety, seeking to outshine and dazzle the ladies of Southminster, playing off Castle Blanch fascinations on curates and minor canons, and sometimes flying at higher game, even beguiling the Dean himself into turning over her music when she sang.
She had at first, by the use of all her full-grown faculties, been just able to keep sufficiently ahead of her pupil; but her growing indolence soon caused her to slip back, and not only did she let Sarah shoot ahead of her, but she became impatient of the girl’s habits of accuracy and research; she would give careless and vexatious answers, insist petulantly on correcting by the ear, make light of Sarah and her grammar, and hastily reject or hurry from the maps, dictionaries, and cyclopædias with which Sarah’s training had taught her to read and learn. But her dislike of trouble in supporting an opinion did not make her the less pertinacious in upholding it, and there were times when she was wrathful and petulant at Sarah’s presumption in maintaining the contrary, even with all the authorities in the bookshelves to back her.
Sarah’s temper was not her prime quality, and altercations began to run high. Each dispute that took place only prepared the way for another, and Mrs. Prendergast, having taken a governess chiefly to save her daughter from being fretted by interruptions, found that her annoyances were tenfold increased,
and irritations were almost habitual. They were the more disappointing because the girl preserved through them all such a passionate admiration for her beautiful and charming little governess, that, except in the very height of a squabble, she still believed her perfection, and was her most vehement partisan, even when the wrong had been chiefly on the side of the teacher.