Читать книгу Priscilla's Spies - George A. Birmingham - Страница 9

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A night’s rest restored self-respect to Frank Mannix. He felt when his clothes were brought to him in the morning by a respectful footman that he had to some extent sacrificed his dignity in his confidential talk with Priscilla the day before. He had committed himself to the bath-chair and the boating expedition, and he had too high a sense of personal honour to back out of an engagement definitely made. But he determined to keep Priscilla at a distance. He would go with her, would to some extent join in her childish sports; but it must be on the distinct understanding that he did so as a grown man who condescends to play games with an amusing child. With this idea in his mind he dressed himself very carefully in a suit a cricket flannels. The garments were in themselves suitable for boating as he understood the sport. They were also likely, he thought, to impress Priscilla. The white flannel coat, bound round its edges with crimson silk, was at Haileybury part of a uniform set apart for the sole use of members of the first eleven who had actually got their colours. The crimson sash round his waist was a badge of the same high office. Small boys, who played cricket on the house pitches in the Little Side ground, bowed in awed humility before a member of the first eleven when he appeared before them in all his glory and felt elated if they were allowed to walk across the quadrangle with any one who wore the sacred vestments. Frank had little doubt that Priscilla, who was to be his companion for the day would realise the greatness of her privileges.

But Priscilla seemed curiously unimpressed. She met him in the breakfast room before either Sir Lucius or Miss Lentaigne came down.

“Great Scot! Cousin Frank,” she said, “you are a howler!”

Frank drew himself up; but realised even as he did so that he must make some reply to Priscilla. It was impossible to pretend not to know that she was speaking about his clothes.

“An old suit of flannels,” he said with elaborate carelessness. “I hope you didn’t expect me to be grand.”

“I never saw anything grander in my life,” said Priscilla. “I thought Sylvia Courtney’s summer Sunday hat was swankey; but it’s simply not in it with your coat. I suppose that belt thing is real silk.”

“School colours,” said Frank.

“Oh! Ours are blue and dark yellow. I have them on a hockey blouse.”

The bath-chair turned out to be rather more dilapidated and disreputable than Frank expected. The front-wheel—bound to its place with string, not hair ribbon—seemed very likely indeed to come off. He eyed it doubtfully.

“If you’re afraid,” said Priscilla, “that it will dirty your beautiful white trousers, I’ll give it a rub-over with my pocket-handcher. But I don’t think that’ll be much use really. You’ll be filthy from head to foot in any case before we get home.”

Frank, limping with as much dignity as possible, sat down in the chair. He got out his cigarette case and asked Priscilla not to start until he had lit his cigarette.

“You don’t object to the smell, I hope,” he said politely.

“Not a bit. I’d smoke myself only I don’t like it. I tried once—Sylvia Courtney was shocked. That’s rather the sort she is—but it seemed to me to have a nasty taste. You’re sure you like it, Cousin Frank? Don’t do it simply because you think you ought.”

Priscilla pushed the bath-chair from behind. Frank guided the shaky front wheel by means of a long handle. They went down the avenue at an extremely rapid pace, Priscilla moving in a kind of jaunty canter. When they reached the gate Frank’s cigarette had gone out. There was a pause while he lit it again. Then he asked Priscilla to go a little less quickly. He wished his approach to the public street of the village to be as little grotesque as possible.

“By the way,” said Priscilla, “have you any money?”

“Certainly. How much do you want?”

“That depends. I have eightpence, which ought to be enough unless you want something very expensive to drink.”

“Why should we take anything to drink? We said at breakfast that we’d be back for luncheon.”

“We won’t,” said Priscilla, “nor we won’t for tea. Lucky if we are for dinner.”

“But Miss Lentaigne said she’d expect us. If we stay out she won’t like it.”

“Let her dis.,” said Priscilla. “Now what do you want to drink? I always have lemon flavoured soda. It’s less sticky than regular lemonade. Stone ginger beer is better than either, of course, but Brannigan doesn’t keep it, I can’t imagine why not.”

“If we’re going to stay out,” said Frank, “I’ll have beer, lager for choice.”

“Right. Lager is twopence. Lemon flavoured soda twopence if we bring back the bottles. That will leave fourpence for biscuits which ought to be enough.”

Fourpence worth of biscuits seemed to Frank an insufficient supply of food for two people who are to be on the sea for the whole day. He saw, besides, an opportunity of asserting once for all his position of superiority. He made up his mind to tip Priscilla. He fumbled in his pocket for a coin.

“You get quite a lot of biscuits for fourpence,” said Priscilla, “if you go in for plain arrowroot. Of course they’re rather dull, but then you get very few of the better sorts. Take macaroons, for instance. They’re nearly a halfpenny each in Brannigan’s. Sheer robbery, I call it.”

Frank, determined to do the thing handsomely if he did it at all, passed half a crown to Priscilla over the back of the bath chair.

“My dear child,” he said, “buy macaroons by all means if you like them. Buy as many as you want.”

Priscilla received the half-crown without any appearance of shame.

“If you’re prepared to lash out money in that way,” she said, “we may as well have a tongue. Brannigan has small ones at one and sixpence. Brawn of course is cheaper, but then if you have brawn you want a tin-opener. The tongues are in glass jars which you can break with a stone or a rowlock. The lids are supposed to come off quite easily if you jab a knife through them, but they don’t really. All that happens is a sort of fizz of air and the lid sticks on as tight as ever. Things hardly ever do what they’re supposed to according to science, which makes me think that science is rather rot, though, of course, it may have its uses only that I don’t know them.”

Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair for some distance along the road without speaking. Then she asked another question.

“Which would you rather have, the tongue or a tin of Californian peaches. They’re one and sixpence too, so we can’t have both, for it would be a pity to miss the chance of one and fourpence worth of macaroons. I don’t remember ever having so many at one time before. Though of course they’re not really so many when there are two of us to eat them.”

“I’ll give you another one and sixpence,” said Frank, “and then you’ll be able to get the peaches too if you want them. I rather bar those tinned fruits myself. They have no flavour.”

On Saturday evenings, when prefects and all self-respecting members of the upper and middle schools have tea in their studies, Frank was accustomed to eat tinned lobsters and sometimes tinned salmon, but he knew that superiority to such forms of food was one of the marks of a grown man. He hoped, by speaking slightingly of the Californian peaches, to impress Priscilla with the idea that he was a sort of uncle of hers. The luncheon was involving him in considerable expense, but he did not grudge the money if it produced the effect he desired. Unfortunately it did not.

“Well have a gorgeous bust,” said Priscilla. “I shouldn’t wonder if Brannigan got some kind of fit when we spend all that in his shop at once. He’s not accustomed to millionaires.”

Frank, not being able to find a shilling and a sixpence in his pocket, handed over another half crown. Priscilla promised to give him his change. She stopped the bath-chair at the door of Brannigan’s shop. The men of leisure who sat on the window sills stared curiously at Frank. Young gentlemen dressed in white flannels and wheeled in bath-chairs are rare in Rosnacree. Frank felt embarrassed and annoyed.

“Excuse me half a mo.,” said Priscilla. “I’ll just speak a word to Peter Walsh and then do the shopping. Peter, you’re to get the sails on the Tortoise at once.”

She spoke with such decisive authority that Peter Walsh felt quite certain that she had no right to give the order.

“Is it the Tortoise, Miss?”

“Didn’t I say the Tortoise. Go and get the sails at once.”

“I don’t know,” said Peter, “whether would your da be pleased with me if I sent you out in the Tortoise. Sure you know——”

“Mr. Mannix and I,” said Priscilla, “are going out for the day in the Tortoise.”

Peter Walsh took a long look at Frank. He was apparently far from satisfied with the result of his inspection.

“Of course if the young gentleman in the perambulator is going with you, Miss—the Tortoise is a giddy kind of a boat, your honour, and without you’d be used to her or the like of her—but sure if you’re satisfied—but what it is, the master gave orders that Miss Priscilla wasn’t to go out in the Tortoise without either himself or me would be along with her.”

Frank was painfully aware that he was not used to the Tortoise or to any boat the least like her. He had never in his life been to sea in a sailing boat for the management of which he was in any way responsible. He was, in fact, entirely ignorant of the art of boat sailing. But the men who sat on the window sills of Brannigan’s shop, battered sea dogs every one of them, had their eyes fixed on him. It would be deeply humiliating to have to own up before them that he knew nothing about boats. Sir Lucius’s order applied, very properly, to Priscilla who was a child. Peter Walsh looked as if he thought that Frank also ought to be treated as a child. This was intolerable. The day seemed very calm. It was difficult to think that there could be any real risk in going out in the __Tortoise__. Priscilla nudged him sharply with her elbow. Frank yielded to temptation.

“Miss Lentaigne,” he said, “will be quite safe with me.”

He spoke with lordly self-confidence, calculated, he thought, to impress the impudent loafers on the window sills and to reduce Peter Walsh to prompt submission. Having spoken he felt unreasonably angry with Priscilla who was grinning.

Peter Walsh ambled down to the quay. He climbed over the dredger, which was lying alongside, and dropped from her into a small water-logged punt. In this he ferried himself out to the Tortoise. Priscilla bounded into Brannigan’s shop. The sea dogs on the window sills eyed Frank and shook their heads. It was painfully evident that his self-confident tone had not imposed on them.

“There’s not much wind any way,” said one of them, “and what there is will be dropping with the ebb.”

“It’ll work round to the west with the flood,” said another. “With the weather we’re having now it’ll follow the sun.”

Priscilla came out of the shop laden with parcels which she placed one by one on Frank’s lap.

“Beer and lemonade,” she said. “The beast was out of lemon flavoured soda, so I had to get lemonade instead, but your lager’s all right. You don’t mind drinking out of the bottle, do you, Cousin Frank? You can have the bailing tin of course, if you like, but it’s rather salty. Macaroons and cocoanut creams. They turned out to be the same price, so I thought I might as well get a mixture. The cocoanut creams are lighter, so one gets more of them for the money. Tongue. I told him not to put paper on the tongue. I always think brown paper is rather a nuisance in a boat. It gets so soppy when it’s the least wet. There’s no use having more of it than we can help. Peaches. He hadn’t any of the small one and sixpenny tins, so I had to spend your other shilling to make up the half-crown for the big one. I hope you don’t mind. We shall be able to finish it all right I expect. Oh, bother! I forgot that the peaches require a tin-opener. Have you a knife? If you have we may be able to manage by hammering it along through the lid of the tin with a rowlock.”

Frank had a knife, but he set some value on it He did not want to have it reduced to the condition of a coarse toothed saw by being hammered through a tin with a rowlock. He hesitated.

“All right,” said Priscilla, “if you’d rather not have it used I’ll go and try to stick Brannigan for the loan of a tin-opener. He may not care for lending it, because things like tin-openers generally drop overboard and then of course he wouldn’t get it back. But he’ll hardly be able to refuse it I offer to deposit the safety pin in my tie as a hostage. It looks exactly as if it is gold, and, if it was, would be worth far more than any tin-opener.”

She went into the shop again. It was nearly ten minutes before she came out. Frank was seriously annoyed by a number of small children who crowded round the bath-chair and made remarks about his appearance. He tried to buy them off with macaroons, but the plan failed, as a similar one did in the case of the Anglo-Saxon king and the Danes. The children, like the Norse pirates, returned almost immediately in increased numbers. Then Priscilla appeared.

“I thought I should have had a frightful rag with Brannigan over the tin-opener,” she said, “but he was quite nice about it. He said he’d lend it with pleasure and didn’t care whether I left him the safety pin or not. The only trouble was that he couldn’t find one. He said that he had a gross of them somewhere, but he didn’t know where they’d been put. In the end it was Mrs. Brannigan who found them in an old biscuit tin under some oilskins. That’s what delayed me.”

Peter Walsh was hoisting a sail, a gunter lug, on the Tortoise. He paused in his work now and then to cast a glance ashore at Frank. Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair down to the slip and hailed Peter.

“Hurry up now,” she said, “and get the foresail on her. Don’t keep us here all day.”

Peter pulled on the foresail halyards with some appearance of vigour. He slipped the mooring rope and ran the Tortoise alongside the slip, towing the water logged punt behind her.

“Joseph Antony Kinsella,” said Peter, “was in this morning on the flood tide and he was telling me he came across that young fellow again near Illaunglos.”

“Was he talking to him?” said Priscilla.

“He was not beyond passing the time of day or the like of that for Joseph Antony had a load of gravel and he couldn’t be wasting his time. But the young fellow was in Flanagan’s old boat and it was Joseph Antony’s opinion that he was trying to learn himself how to row her.”

“He’d need to. But if that’s all that passed between them I don’t see that we’re much further on towards knowing what that man is doing here.”

“Joseph Antony did say,” said Peter, “that the young gentleman was as simple and innocent as a child and one that wouldn’t be likely to be doing any harm.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“You cannot, Miss. There’s a terrible lot of fellows going round the country these times, sent out by the government that would be glad enough to be interfering with the people and maybe taking the land away from them. You’d never know who might be at such work and who mightn’t, but Joseph Antony did say that the fellow in Flanagan’s old boat hadn’t the look of it. He’s too innocent like.”

“Hop you out now, Peter,” said Priscilla, “and help Mr. Mannix down into the boat. He has a sprained ankle and can’t walk by himself. Be careful of him!”

The task of getting Frank into the Tortoise was not an easy one for the slip was nearly as slimy as when Priscilla fell on it the day before. Peter, with his arm round Frank’s waist, proceeded very cautiously.

“Settle him down on the starboard side of the centre-board case,” said Priscilla. “We’ll carry the boom to port on the run out.”

“You will,” said Peter, “for the wind’s in the east, but you’ll have to jibe her at the stone perch if you’re going down the channel.”

“I’m not going down the channel. I mean to stand across to Rossmore and then go into the bay beyond.” Priscilla stepped into the boat and took the tiller.

“Did I hear you say, Miss, that you’re thinking of going on to Inishbawn?”

“You did not hear me say anything about Inishbawn; but I may go there all the same if I’ve time. I want to see the Kinsellas’ new baby.”

“If you’ll take my advice, Miss,” said Peter, “you’ll not go next nor nigh Inishbawn.”

“And why not?”

“Joseph Antony Kinsella was telling me this morning that it’s alive with rats, such rats nobody ever seen. They have the island pretty near eat away.”

“Talk sense,” said Priscilla.

“They came out on the tide swimming,” said Peter, “like as it might be a shoal of mackerel, and you think there’d be no end to them climbing up over the stones and eating all before them.”

“Shove her bow round, Peter; and keep that rat story of yours for the young man in Flanagan’s boat. He’ll believe it if he’s as innocent as you say.”

Peter shoved out the Tortoise. The wind caught the sail. Priscilla paid out the main sheet and let the boom swing forward. Peter shouted a last warning from the slip.

“Joseph Antony was telling me,” he said, “that they’re terrible fierce, worser than any rats ever he seen.”

The Tortoise slipped along and was soon beyond the reach of his voice. She passed the heavy hookers at the quay side, left buoy after buoy behind her, bobbed cheerfully through a tide race at the stone perch, and stood out, the wind right behind her, for Rossmore Head.