“If you think he will not object, why must you be so secret?” asked Meg reasonably.
“Because it will be better for you not to know anything about it,” explained Kitty.
Meg gave a rnoati of protest. “Oh, heavens, I have never had a Spasm in my life, but I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I have one now! You are going to do something dreadful I”
“No, I am not. At least, some persons may say so, but Freddy will not, and I am sure you will not either. Only consider, Meg! How could I do anything dreadful, when Miss Plymstock goes with me? And I will faithfully promise to return here the very next day!”
Meg was a little reassured by this. She made several attempts, during the course of the day, to coax the secret out of Kitty, but Kitty would do nothing but shake her head, and giggle. This was exasperating, but it did not seem likely that she would have giggled had she been bent on some desperate action, so Meg gave it up at, last, shrugging her shoulders, and saying: “Oh, very well, though I think it is very disagreeable of you, and I beg you will not blame me if you find yourself in a scrape!”
“No, that I won’t!” Kitty said, in the throes of composing e letter to Freddy.
This missive soon covered several sheets of Meg’s elegant, gilt-edged writing-paper, for it seemed a very natural thing to tell Freddy the whole story, not omitting any detail which she felt sure he would enjoy, such as the clever arrangement she had made for the journey in the carriage Lady Dolphinton doubtless considered to be her own, and poor Dolph’s woebegone face when he said that he had come to sweep her off her feet.
She could not help feeling a trifle anxious, next day; and she would not have been altogether surprised had she received a visit from Lady Dolphinton. To have entrusted so important a share in the arrangements to Dolphinton did indeed seem a hazardous thing to have done, and made her fearful of the issue. However, when Miss Plymstock arrived in Berkeley Square, shortly after ten o’clock, and heard of these qualms, she said confidently that all would be well. “He don’t understand things quickly, Miss Charing, but once you fix a thing in his head, which I don’t doubt you did, he don’t forget it. The only thing is that he may be in a sad pucker, what with the excitement, and being scared his mother will find him out.”
She was right on both counts. Txventy minutes later, a travelling-carriage drew up outside the house, Lord Dolphinton alighted from it, and, after casting around him a glance suggestive of a hare hotly pursued by hounds, hurried up the steps to the front-door. He was soon ushered into the saloon where Kitty and Hannah were sitting, and barely waited until Skelton had withdrawn before gasping: “Did it! Got the carriage. Told a lot of lies. Remembered everything you said!”
“That’s right,” said Hannah, in a motherly voice. “You’ve done very well, Foster, just as I knew you would, and now you may be easy.”