Читать книгу Priscilla's Spies - George A. Birmingham - Страница 8

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The train, as Priscilla prophesied, was strictly punctual. It was drawn up at the platform when she leaped off her bicycle in front of the station. As she passed through the gate she came face to face with Frank Mannix supported by the station master and the guard.

“Hullo!” she said. “You’re my cousin Frank, I suppose. You look rather sick.”

Frank gazed at her.

“Are you Priscilla?” he asked.

He had formed no very definite mental picture of his cousin beforehand. Little girls of fifteen years of age are not creatures of great interest to prefects who have made remarkable catches in the long field and look forward to establishing their manhood among the salmon and the grouse. So far as he had thought of Priscilla at all he had placed her in the background, a trim, unobtrusive maiden, who came down to dessert after dinner and was kept under proper control at other times by a governess. It shocked him a little to see a girl in a tousled blue cotton frock, with a green stain on the front of it, with a tangle of damp fair hair hanging round her head in shining strings, with unabashed fearless eyes which looked at him with a certain shrewd merriment.

“You look wobbly,” said Priscilla. “Can’t you walk by yourself?”

“I’ve met with an accident,” said Frank.

“That’s all right. I was afraid just at first that you might be the sort that collapsed altogether after being seasick. Some people do, you know, and they’re never much good for anything. I’m glad you’re not one of them. Accidents are different of course. Nobody can ever be quite sure of not meeting an accident.”

She glanced at the stain on the front of her dress as she spoke. It was the result of an accident.

“I’ve sprained my ankle,” said Frank.

“It’s my belief,” said the guard, “that the young gentleman’s leg is broke on him. That’s what the ticket-collector was after telling me at the junction any way.”

“Would you like me to cut off your sock?” said Priscilla. “The station-master’s wife would lend me a pair of scissors. She’s sure to have a pair. Almost everybody has.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” said Frank.

There had been trouble enough in getting the sock on over the damp table napkin. He had no wish to have it taken off again unnecessarily.

“All right,” said Priscilla, “I won’t if you’d rather not of course; but it’s the proper thing to do for a sprained ankle. Sylvia Courtney told me so and she attended a course of Ambulance lectures last term and learnt all about first aid on the battle-field. I wanted to go to those lectures frightfully, but Aunt Juliet wouldn’t let me. Rather rot I thought it at the time, but I saw afterwards that she couldn’t possibly on account of her principles.”

Frank, following Priscilla’s rapid thought with difficulty, supposed that Ambulance lectures, dealing necessarily with the human body, might be considered by some people slightly unsuitable for young girls, and that Aunt Juliet was a lady who set a high value on propriety. Priscilla offered a different explanation.

“Christian Science,” she said. “That’s Aunt Juliet’s latest. There’s always something. Can you sit on a car?”

“Oh yes,” said Frank. “If I was once up I could sit well enough.”

“Let you make your mind easy about getting up,” said the station-master. “We’ll have you on the side of the car in two twos.”

They hoisted him up, Priscilla giving advice and directions while they did so. Then she took her bicycle from a porter who held it for her.

“The donkey-trap will bring your luggage,” she said. “It will be all right.”

She turned to the coachman.

“Drive easy now, James,” she said, “and mind you don’t let the cob shy when you come to the new drain that they’re digging outside the court house. There’s nothing worse for a broken bone than a sudden jar. That’s another thing that was in the Ambulance lectures.”

The car started. Priscilla rode alongside, keeping within speaking distance of Frank.

“But my ankle’s not broken,” he said.

“It may be. Anyhow I expect a jar is just as bad for a sprain. Very likely the lecturer said so and Sylvia Courtney forgot to tell me. Pretty rotten luck this, for you, Cousin Frank, on account of the fishing. You can’t possibly fish and the river’s in splendid order. Father said so yesterday. But perhaps Aunt Juliet will be able to cure you. She thinks she can cure anything.”

“I shall be all right,” said Frank, “when I can rest my leg a bit—I don’t think it’s really bad I daresay at the end of a week——”

“If Aunt Juliet cures you at all she’ll do it quicker than that. She had Father out of bed the day after he got influenza last Easter hols. He very nearly died afterwards on account of having to travel up to Dublin to go to a nursing home when his temperature was 400 and something, but Aunt Juliet said he was perfectly well all the time; so she may be able to fix up that ankle of yours.”

They have, so it is understood, tried experiments in vegetarianism at Haileybury; but Christian Science is not yet part of the regular curriculum even on the modern side. Frank Mannix had only the vaguest idea of what Miss Lentaigne’s beliefs were. He knew nothing at all about her methods. Priscilla’s account of them was not very encouraging.

“All I want,” he said, “is simply to rest my ankle.”

“Do you think,” said Priscilla, “that you could sit in a boat? That’s mine, the green one beside the slip. If you turn your head you’ll see her. But perhaps it hurts you to turn your head. If it does you’d better not try. The boat will be there all the same even if you don’t see her.”

They were passing the quay while she spoke, and Priscilla, who was a little behind at the moment, pointed to the Blue Wanderer. Frank discovered one of the disadvantages of an Irish car. The view of the passengers, even if each one is alone on his side, is confined almost entirely to objects on one side of the road. Only by twisting his neck in a most uncomfortable way can any one see what lies directly behind him. Frank made the effort and was unimpressed by the appearance of the Blue Wanderer. She was exceedingly unlike the shining outriggers in which he had sometimes rowed on the upper reaches of the Thames during earlier summer holidays.

“I expect,” said Priscilla, “that the salt water will be jolly good for your ankle, in reality, though Aunt Juliet will say it wont. She’s bound to say that, of course, on account of her principles. All the same it may. Peter Walsh was telling me the other day that it’s perfectly splendid for rheumatism. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if sprained ankles and rheumatism are much the same sort of thing, only with different names. But of course we can’t go this afternoon. Aunt Juliet will demand to have first shy at you. If she fails we may manage to sneak off to-morrow morning. But perhaps you don’t care for boats, Cousin Frank.”

“I like boats very much.”

He spoke in a slightly patronising tone, as an elderly gentleman might confess to a fondness for chocolates in order to please a small nephew. He felt it necessary to make it quite clear to Priscilla that he had not come to Rosnacree to be her playmate and companion. He had come to fish salmon in company with her father and such other grown men as might from time to time present themselves. Nursery games in stumpy green boats were not consonant with his dignity. He did not want to hurt Priscilla’s feelings, but he was anxious that she should understand his position. She seemed unimpressed.

“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll row you. You can sit in the stern and let your legs dangle over in the water. I’ve often done that when Peter Walsh has been rowing. It’s quite a jolly thing to do.”

It was a thing which Frank Mannix was quite determined not to do. The suggestion that he should behave in such a way struck him as “cheeky” in a very high degree. A lower schoolboy in Edmondstone House, if he had ventured to speak in such a way, would have been beaten with a fives bat. But Priscilla was a girl and, as Frank understood, girls are not beaten. He answered her with kindly condescension.

“Perhaps we’ll be able to manage it some day,” he said, “before I leave.”

They arrived at Rosnacree House and Frank was helped up the steps by the butler and the coachman. Sir Lucius expressed the greatest regret when he heard of his nephew’s accident.

“It’s too bad,” he said, “too bad, and the river in such fine condition after a fortnight’s rain. I was looking forward to seeing you get into your first salmon. But cheer up, Frank, I daresay it won’t turn out to be very tedious. We’ll have you hobbling along in a week or a fortnight. We’ve a good while before us yet. I’ll get up O’Hara this afternoon, our local practitioner. Not a bad fellow at all, though he drinks a bit. Still he’ll know what to do with a sprained ankle. Oh! by the way perhaps——”

Sir Lucius’ sentence ended abruptly. His sister entered the room. She greeted Frank and inquired whether he had enjoyed his journey. The story of the accident was told to her. It was evident at once that she took a keen interest in the sprained ankle. Priscilla, describing the scene afterwards to Rose, the under housemaid, said that Miss Lentaigne’s eyes gleamed and sparkled with joy. Every one in the household had for many weeks carefully refrained from illness or disability of any kind. If Miss Lentaigne’s eyes really did sparkle they expressed a perfectly natural delight. There is nothing more trying than to possess a power of healing and to find no opportunity for exercising it.

“Perhaps,” she said, “Frank and I may have a little talk together after luncheon.”

Sir Lucius was a man of hospitable instincts with high old-fashioned ideas of the courtesy due by a host to his guest. He did not think it quite fair to subject Frank to a course of Christian Science. But he was also very much afraid of his sister, whom he recognised as his intellectual superior. He cleared his throat and made a nervous protest on Frank’s behalf.

“I’m not sure, Juliet,” he said, “I’m really not at all sure that your theory quite applies to sprains, especially ankles.”

Miss Lentaigne smiled very gently. Her face expressed a tolerant patience with the crude ideas entertained by her brother.

“Of course,” Sir Lucius went on, “there’s a great deal in your idea. I’ve always said so. In the case of any internal disease, nerves you know, and that kind of thing where there’s nothing actually visible, I’m sure it works out admirably, quite admirably, but with a sprained ankle! Come now, Juliet, there’s the swelling you know. You can’t deny the swelling. Hang it all, you can measure the swelling with a tape. Is your ankle much swelled, Frank?”

“A good deal. But it’s not worth making a fuss about. It’ll be all right.”

Miss Lentaigne smiled again. In her opinion it was all right already. There was not really any swelling, although Frank, in his ignorance, might honestly think there was. She hoped, after luncheon, to convince him of these pleasant truths.

Sir Lucius was a coward at heart. He was exceedingly sorry for his nephew, but he made no further effort to save him from the ministrations of Miss Lentaigne. Nor did he venture to mention the name of O’Hara, the excellent, though occasionally inebriate, local practitioner. Frank, as yet unaware of the full beauty of the scientific Christian method of dealing with illness, was very polite to Miss Lentaigne during luncheon. He talked to her about Parliament and its doings as a subject likely to interest her, assuming the air of a man who knows the inner secrets of the Cabinet. He did, in fact, know a good deal about the habits and manners of our legislators, having picked up details of an interesting kind from his father. Miss Lentaigne was greatly delighted with him. So was Priscilla, who winked three times at her father when neither Frank nor her aunt was looking at her. Sir Lucius was uneasy. He feared that his nephew was likely to turn out a prig, a kind of boy which he held in particular abhorrence.

When luncheon was over he said that he intended to take his rod and go up the river for the afternoon. He invited Priscilla to go with him and carry his landing net. Frank, preceded by Miss Lentaigne, was conducted by the butler to a hammock chair agreeably placed under the shade of a lime tree on the lawn. When Sir Lucius and Priscilla, laden with fishing gear, passed him, he was still making himself politely agreeable to Miss Lentaigne. Priscilla winked at him. He returned the salutation with a stare which was intended to convince her that winking was a particularly vicious kind of bad form. Miss Lentaigne, as Priscilla noticed, sat with two treatises on Christian Science in her hand.

Priscilla, returning without her father at half past six o’clock, found Frank sitting alone under the lime tree. He was in a singularly chastened mood and inclined to be companionable and friendly, even with a girl of no more than fifteen years old.

“I say, Priscilla,” he said, “is that old aunt of yours quite mad?”

There was something in the way he expressed himself which delighted Priscilla. He had reverted to the phraseology of an undignified schoolboy of the lower fifth. The veneer of grown manhood, even the polish of a prefect, had, as it were, peeled off him during the afternoon.

“Not at all,” said Priscilla. “She’s frightfully clever, what’s called intellectual. You know the sort of thing. How’s your ankle?”

“She says it isn’t sprained. But, blow it all, it’s swelled the size of the calf of your leg.”

He did not mean Priscilla’s leg particularly; but with a slight lift of an already short skirt she surveyed her own calf curiously. She wanted to know exactly how thick Frank’s injured ankle was.

“Then she didn’t cure it?”

“Cure it!” said Frank, “I should think not. She simply kept on telling me I only thought it was sprained. I never heard such rot talked in all my life. How do you stand it at all?”

“That’s nothing,” said Priscilla. “We’re quite glad she’s taken to Christian Science; though she did nearly kill poor father. Before that she was all for teetotallity—that’s not quite the right word, but you know the thing I mean, drinking nothing but lemonade, either homemade or the kind that fizzes. I didn’t mind that a bit for I like lemonade, both sorts, but father simply hated it. He told me he’d rather go up to that nursing home in Dublin every time he feels ill than live through another six months on lemonade. Before that she was frightfully keen on a thing called uric acid. Do you know what that is, Cousin Frank?” “No,” he said, “I don’t. How did it take her?” “She wouldn’t give us anything to eat,” said Priscilla, “except queer sort of mashes which she said were made of nuts and biscuits and things. I got quite thin and as weak as a cat.” “I wonder you stuck it out.” “Oh, it didn’t last long. None of them do, you know. That’s our great consolation; though we rather hope the Christian Science will on account of its doing us no particular harm. She doesn’t mind what we eat or drink, which is a great comfort. She can’t you know, according to her principles, because when there’s no such thing as being sick it can’t matter how much whipped cream or anything of that sort you eat just before you go to bed at night. She didn’t like it a bit when I got up on Christmas night and foraged out nearly a quarter of a cold plum pudding. She was just going up to bed and she caught me. She wanted awfully to stop me eating it, but she couldn’t without giving the whole show away, so I ate it before her very eyes. That’s the beauty of Christian Science.” “But I say, Priscilla, weren’t you sick?” “Not a bit. When Father heard about it next morning he said he thought there must be something in Aunt Juliet’s theory after all. He has stuck to that ever since, though he says it doesn’t apply to influenza. She had a great idea about fresh air one time, and got up a carpenter to take the window frames, windows and all, clean out of my room. I used to have to borrow hairpins from Rose—she’s the under housemaid and a great friend of mine—so as to fasten the bedclothes on to the mattress. Otherwise they blew away during the night, while I was asleep. That was one of the worst times we ever had, though I don’t think Father minded it so much. He used to go out and smoke in the harness room. But I hated it worse than anything except the uric acid. You never knew where your clothes would be in the morning if it was the least stormy, and my hair used to blow into soup and tea and things, which made it frightfully sticky.”

“Do you think,” said Frank, “that she’ll leave me alone now? Or will she want to have another go at me to-morrow?”

“Sure to,” said Priscilla, “unless you give in that your ankle is quite well.”

“But I can’t walk.”

“That won’t matter in the least. She’ll say you can. Aunt Juliet is tremendously determined. Poor Rose—I told you she is the under housemaid, didn’t I? She is any way. Poor Rose once got a swelled face on account of a tooth that she wouldn’t have out. Aunt Juliet kept at her, reading little bits out of books and kind of praying, in passages and pantries and places, wherever she met Rose. That went on for more than a week. Then Rose got Dr. O’Hara to haul the tooth and the swelling went down. Aunt Juliet said it was Christian Science cured her. And of course it may have been. You never can tell really what it is that cures people.”

“I wonder,” said Frank, “if I could manage to get down to the boat to-morrow. You said something about a boat, didn’t you, Priscilla? Is it far?”

“I’ll work that all right for you. As it just happens, luckily enough there’s an old bath-chair in a corner of the hay-loft. I came across it last hols when I was looking for a bicycle pump I lost. I was rather disappointed at the time, not thinking that the old chair would be any use, whereas I wanted the pump. Now it turns out to be exactly what we want, which shows that well directed labour is never really wasted. The front-wheel is a bit groggy, but I daresay it’ll hold all right as far as the quay. I’ll go round after dinner to-night and fish it out. I can wheel you quite easily, for it’s all down hill.”

Frank had not intended when he left England to go about the country in a bath-chair with a groggy front-wheel. For a moment he hesitated. A wild fear struck him of what the Uppingham captain—that dangerous bat whose innings his brilliant catch had cut short—might say and think if he saw the vehicle. But the Uppingham captain was not likely to be in Rosnacree. Christian Science was a more threatening danger. He pictured to himself the stare of amazement on the countenance of Mr. Dupré and the sniggering face of young Latimer who collected beetles and hated washing. But Mr. Dupré, Latimer and the members of the house eleven, were, no doubt, far off.

Miss Lentaigne was very near at hand. He accepted Priscilla’s offer.

“Right,” she said. “I’ll settle the chair, if I have to tie it together with my hair ribbon. It’s nice to think of that old chair coming in useful in the end. It must have been in the loft for ages and ages. Sylvia Courtney told me that her mother says anything will come in useful if you only keep it long enough; but I don’t know whether that’s true. I don’t think it can be, quite, for I tried it once with a used up exercise-book and it didn’t seem to be the slightest good even after years and years, though it got most frightfully tattered. Still it may be true. You never can tell about things of that sort, and Sylvia Courtney says her mother is extremely wise; so she may be quite right.

“Christian Science,” said Frank bitterly, “wouldn’t be of any use if you kept it for centuries. What’s the use of saying a thing isn’t swelled when it is?”