_ CHAPTER XV
Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair up the hill from the town, chatting cheerfully as she went.
"It'll be rather exciting," she said, "to see these Torrington people. I don't think I've ever come across a regular, full-blown Marquis before. Lord Thormanby is a peer of course, but he doesn't soar to those giddy heights. I suppose he'll sit on us frightfully if we dare to speak. Not that I mean to try. The thing for me to do is to be 'a simple child which lightly draws its breath, and feels its life in every limb.' That's a quotation, Cousin Frank. Wordsworth, I think. Sylvia Courtney says it's quite too sweet for words. I haven't read the rest of it, so of course, can't say, but I think that bit's rather rot, though I daresay Lord Torrington will like it all right when I do it for him."
Frank felt a certain doubt about the policy. Lord Torrington was indeed pretty sure to prefer a simple child to Priscilla in her ordinary mood; but there was a serious risk of her over-doing the part. He warned Priscilla to be exceedingly careful. She brushed his advice aside with an abrupt change of subject.
"I expect," she said, "that Mrs. Geraghty will be up at the house again. Aunt Juliet wouldn't trust anybody else to hook up Lady Torrington's back. I can do my own, of course; but nobody can who is either fat or dignified. I'm pretty lean, but even I have to wriggle a lot."
Mrs. Geraghty was up at the house. This became plain to Priscilla when she reached the gate-lodge. Mr. Geraghty, who was a gardener by profession, was sitting on his own doorstep with the baby in his arms. The baby, resenting the absence of his mother, was howling. Priscilla stopped.
"If you like," she said, "I'll wheel the baby up to the house and give him to Mrs. Geraghty. Aunt Juliet won't like it if I do. In fact she'll dance about with insatiable fury. But it may be the right thing to do all the same. We ought always to do what's right, Mr. Geraghty, even if other people behave like wild boars; that is to say if we are quite sure that it is right; I think it's nearly sure to be right to give a baby to its mother; though there may be times when it's not. Solomon did, and that's a pretty good example; though I don't suppose that even Solomon always knew for certain when he was doing the rightest thing there was. Anyhow, I'll risk it if you like, Mr. Geraghty. You won't mind having the baby on your knee for a bit, will you, Cousin Frank?"
Frank did mind very much. The ordinary healthy-minded, normal prefect dislikes having anything to do with babies even more than he dislikes being called a child by maiden ladies.
He looked appealingly at Mr. Geraghty. The baby, misunderstanding Priscilla's intentions, yelled louder than before.
Mr. Geraghty, fortunately for Frank, was not a man of the heroic kind. Abstract right was less to him than expediency and he missed the point of the comparison between his position and King Solomon's. He thought it better that his baby should suffer than that Miss Lentaigne's anger should be roused. He declined Priscilla's offer.
Near the upper end of Rosnacree avenue there is a corner from which a view of the lawn is obtained. Sir Lucius and another gentleman were pacing to and fro on the grass when Priscilla and Frank reached the corner and caught sight of them.
"Stop," said Frank, suddenly. "Turn back, Priscilla. Go round some other way."
"Priscilla stopped. The eager excitement of Frank's tone surprised her.
"Why?" she asked. "It's only father and that Lord of his. We've got to face them some time or other. We may as well get it over at once."
"That's the beast who shoved me over the steamer's gangway," said Frank, "and sprained my ankle."
Sir Lucius and Lord Torrington turned at the end of the lawn and began to walk towards Priscilla and Frank.
"Now I can see his face," said Priscilla, "I don't wonder at your rather loathing him. I think you were jolly lucky to get off with a sprained ankle. A man with a nose like that would break your arm or stab you in the back."
Lord Torrington's nose was fleshy, pitted in places, and of a purple colour.
"Curious taste the King must have," said Priscilla, "to make a man like that a Marquis. You'd expect he'd choose out fairly good-looking people. But, of course, you can't really tell about kings. I daresay they have to do quite a lot of things they don't really like, on account of being constitutional. Rather poor sport being constitutional, I should say; for the King that is. It's pleasanter, of course, for the other people."
Frank knew that the present King was blameless in the matter of Lord Torrington's marquisate. It was inherited from a great-grandfather, who may have had an ordinary, possibly even a beautiful nose. But he attempted no explanation. His anxiety made him disinclined for a discussion of the advantages of having an hereditary aristocracy.
"Do turn back, Priscilla," he said.
"If he is the man who sprained your ankle," she said, "it's far better for you to have it out with him now when I'm here to back you up. If you put it off till dinner time you'll have to tackle him alone. I'm sure not to be let in. Anyhow, we can't go back now. They've seen us."
Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius approached them. Frank plucked nervously at his tie, unbuttoned and then re-buttoned his coat. He felt that he had been entirely blameless during the scrimmage on the gangway of the steamer, but Lord Torrington did not look like a man who would readily own himself to be in the wrong.
"Your daughter, Lentaigne?" said Lord Torrington. "H'm, fifteen, you said; looks less. Shake hands, little girl."
Priscilla put out her right hand demurely. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Her lips were slightly parted in a deprecating smile, suggestive of timid modesty.
"What's your name?" said Lord Torrington.
"Priscilla Lentaigne."
Nothing could have been meeker than the tone in which she spoke.
"H'm," said Lord Torrington, "and you're Mannix's boy. Not much like your father. At school?"
"Yes," said Frank. "At Haileybury."
"What are you doing in that bath-chair with the young lady wheeling you? Is that the kind of manners they teach at Haileybury?"
"Please," said Priscilla, speaking very gently. "It's not his fault."
"He has sprained his ankle," said Sir Lucius. "He can't walk."
"Oh," said Lord Torrington. "Sprained ankle, is it?"
He turned and walked back to the lawn. Sir Lucius followed him.
"Rather a bear, I call him," said Priscilla. "But, of course, he may be one of those cases of a heart of gold inside a rough skin. You can't be sure. We did 'As You Like It' last Christmas--dramatic club, you know--and Sylvia Courtney had a bit to say about a toad ugly and venomous which yet wears a precious jewel in his head. I'd say he's just the opposite. If there is a precious jewel--and there may be--it's not in his head. Anyhow one great comfort is that he doesn't remember spraining your ankle."
Frank, who recollected Lord Torrington with disagreeable distinctness, did not find any great comfort in being totally forgotten. He would have liked, though he scarcely expected, some expression of regret that the accident had occurred.
"It'll be all the easier," said Priscilla, "to pay him back if he hasn't any suspicion that we have an undying vendetta against him. I rather like vendettas, don't you? There's something rather noble in the idea of pursuing a man with implacable vengeance from generation to generation."
"I don't quite see," said Frank, "what good a vendetta is. We can't do anything while he's in your father's house. It wouldn't be right."
"All the same," said Priscilla, "well score off him. For the immediate present we've got to wait and watch his every movement with glittering eyes and cynical smiles concealed behind our ingenuous brows. You needn't say 'ingenuous' isn't a real word, because it is. I put it in an English comp. last term and got full marks, which shows that it must be a good word."
Priscilla was right in supposing that she would not be allowed to dine in the dining-room. Frank faced the banquet without her support. It was not a very pleasant meal for him. Lady Torrington shook hands with him and asked him whether he were the boy whom she had heard reciting a prize poem on the last Speech Day at Winchester. Frank told her that he was at Haileybury.
"I thought it might have been you," said Lady Torrington, "because I seem to remember your face. I must have seen you somewhere, I suppose."
She took no further notice of him during dinner. Lord Torrington took no notice of him at all. The dinner was long and, in spite of the fact that he had a good appetite, Frank did not enjoy himself. He was extremely glad when Lady Torrington and Miss Lentaigne left the dining-room. He was casting about for a convenient excuse for escape when Sir Lucius spoke to him.
"You and Priscilla were out on the bay all day, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Frank, "we started early and sailed about."
"I daresay you'll be able to give us some information then," said Sir Lucius. "Shall I ask him a few questions, Torrington? The police sergeant said----"
"The police sergeant is a damned fool," said Lord Torrington. "She can't be going about in a boat. She doesn't know how to row."
"Frank," said Sir Lucius, "did you and Priscilla happen to see anything of a young lady----"
"You may just as well tell him the story," said Lord Torrington. "It'll be in the papers in a day or two if we can't find her."
"Very well, Torrington. Just as you like. The fact is, Frank, that Lord Torrington is here looking for his daughter, who has----well, a week ago she disappeared."
"Disappeared!" said Lord Torrington. "Why not say bolted?"
"Ran away from home," said Sir Lucius.
"According to your aunt----" said Lord Torrington.
"She's not my aunt," said Frank.
"Oh, isn't she?" Lord Torrington's tone suggested that this was a distinct advantage to Frank. "According to Miss Lentaigne then, the girl has asserted her right to live her own life untrammelled by the fetters of conventionality. That's the way she put it, isn't it, Lentaigne?"
"Lady Isabel," said Sir Lucius, "came over to Ireland. We know that."
"Booked her luggage in advance from Euston," said Lord Torrington, "under another name. I had a detective on the job, and he worried that out. Women are all going mad nowadays; though I had no notion Isabel went in for--well, the kind of thing your sister talks, Lentaigne. I thought she was religious. She used to be perpetually going to church, evensong on the Vigil of St. Euphrosyne, and that kind of thing, but I am told lots of parsons now have taken up these advanced ideas about women. It may have been in church she heard them."
"From Dublin," said Sir Lucius, "she came on here. The police sergeant----"
"Who's a dunderheaded fool," said Lord Torrington.
"He says there's a young lady going about the bay for the last two days in a boat."
"That's the wrong tack altogether," said Lord Torrington. "Isabel would never think of going in a boat. I tell you she can't row."
"Now, Frank," said Sir Lucius, "did you see or hear anything of her?"
Frank would have liked very much to deny that he had seen any lady. His dislike of Lord Torrington was strong in him. He had been snubbed in the train, injured while leaving the steamer, and actually insulted that very afternoon. He felt, besides, the strongest sympathy with any daughter who ran away from a home ruled by Lord and Lady Torrington. But he had been asked a straight question and it was not in him to tell a lie deliberately.
"We did meet a lady," he said, "in fact we lunched with her today, but her name was Rutherford."
"Was she rowing about alone in a boat?" said Lord Torrington.
"She had a boy to row her," said Frank. "She'd hired the boat. She said she came from the British Museum and was collecting sponges."
"Sponges!" said Sir Lucius. "How could she collect sponges here, and what does the British Museum want sponges for?"
"They weren't exactly sponges," said Frank, "they were zoophytes."
"It's just possible," said Lord Torrington, "that she might--Sponges, you say? I don't know what would put sponges into her head. But, of course, she had to say something. What was she like to look at?"
"She had a dark blue dress," said Frank, "and was tallish."
"Fuzzy fair hair?" said Lord Torrington.
"I don't remember her hair."
"Slim?"
"I'd call Miss Rutherford fat," said Frank. "At least, she's decidedly stout."
"Not her," said Lord Torrington. "Nobody could call Isabel fat. That police sergeant of yours is a fool, Lentaigne. I always said he was. If Isabel is in this neighbourhood at all she's living in some country inn."
"The sergeant said he'd make inquiries about the lady he mentioned," said Sir Lucius. "We shall hear more about her tomorrow."
"She had a Primus stove with her," said Frank.
"That's no help," said Lord Torrington. "Anybody might have a Primus stove."
"She said she'd borrowed it from Professor Wilder," said Frank.
"Who the devil is Professor Wilder?"
"He's doing the rotifers," said Frank. "At least Miss Rutherford said he was. I don't know who he is."
"That's not Isabel," said Lord Torrington. "She wouldn't have the intelligence to invent a professor who collected rotifers. I don't suppose she ever heard of rotifers. I never did. What are they?"
"Insects, I fancy," said Sir Lucius. "I daresay Priscilla would know. Shall I send for her?"
"No," said Lord Torrington. "I don't care what rotifers are. Let's finish our cigars outside, Lentaigne. It's infernally hot."
Frank had finished his cigarette. He had no wish to spend any time beyond what was absolutely necessary in Lord Torrington's company. He felt sure that Lord Torrington would insist on walking briskly up and down when he got outside. Frank could not walk briskly, even with the aid of two sticks. He made up his mind to hobble off in search of Priscilla. He found her, after some painful journeyings, in a most unlikely place. She was sitting in the long gallery with Lady Torrington and Miss Lentaigne. The two ladies reclined in easy chairs in front of an open window. There were several partially smoked cigarettes in a china saucer on the floor beside Miss Lentaigne. Lady Torrington was fanning herself with a slow motion which reminded Frank of the way in which a tiger, caged in a zoological garden, switches its tail after being fed. Priscilla sat in the background under a lamp. She had chosen a straight-backed chair which stood opposite a writing table. She sat bolt upright in it with her hands folded on her lap and her left foot crossed over her right Her face wore a look of slightly puzzled, but on the whole intelligent interest; such as a humble dependent might feel while submitting to instruction kindly imparted by some very eminent person. She wore a white frock, trimmed with embroidery, of a perfectly simple kind. She had a light blue sash round her waist. Her hair, which was very sleek, was tied with a light blue ribbon. Round her neck, on a third light blue ribbon, much narrower than either of the other two, hung a tiny gold locket shaped like a heart. She turned as Frank entered the room and met his gaze of astonishment with a look of extreme innocence. Her eyes made him think for a moment of those of a lamb, a puppy or other young animal which is half-frightened, half-curious at the happening of something altogether outside of its previous experience.
Neither of the ladies at the window took any notice of Frank's entrance. He hobbled across the room and sat down beside Priscilla. She got up at once and, without looking at him, walked demurely to the chair on which Miss Lentaigne was sitting.
"Please, Aunt Juliet," she said, "may I go to bed? I think it's time."
Miss Lentaigne looked at her a little doubtfully. She had known Priscilla for many years and had learned to be particularly suspicious of meekness.
"I heard the stable clock strike," said Priscilla. "It's half-past nine."
"Very well," said Miss Lentaigne. "Good-night."
Priscilla kissed her aunt lightly on her left cheek bone. Then she held out her hand to Lady Torrington.
"You may kiss me," said the lady. "You seem to be a very quiet well behaved little girl."
Priscilla kissed Lady Torrington and then passed on to Frank.
"Good-night, Cousin Frank," she said. "I hope you're not tired after being out in the boat, and I hope your ankle will be better tomorrow."
Her eyes still had an expression of cherubic innocence; but just as she let go Frank's hand she winked abruptly. He found as she turned away, that she had left something in his hand. He unfolded a small, much crumpled piece of blotting paper, taken, he supposed, by stealth from the writing table beside Priscilla's chair. A note was scratched with a point of a pin on the blotting paper.
"Come to the shrubbery, ten sharp. Most important. Excuse scratching. No pencil."
"Priscilla," said Lady Torrington, "is a sweet child, very subdued and modest."
Frank's attention was arrested by the silvery sweetness of the tone in which she spoke. He had a feeling that she meant to convey to Miss Lentaigne something more than her words implied. Miss Lentaigne struck a match noisily and lit another cigarette.
"She may be a little wanting in animation," said Lady Torrington, "but that is a fault which one can forgive nowadays when so many girls run into the opposite extreme and become self-assertive."
"Priscilla," said Miss Lentaigne, "is not always quite so good as she was this evening."
"You must be quite pleased that she isn't," said Lady Torrington, with a deliberate, soft smile. "With your ideas about the independence of our sex I can quite understand that Priscilla, if she were always as quiet and gentle as she was this evening, would be trying, very trying."
Frank became acutely uncomfortable. He had entered the room noisily enough, hobbling on his two sticks; but neither lady seemed to be aware of his presence. He began to feel as if he were eavesdropping, listening to a conversation which he was not intended to hear. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he ought to say a formal good-night, or get out of the room as quietly as he could without calling attention to his presence. Miss Lentaigne's next remark decided him.
"Your own daughter," she said, "seems to have imbibed some of our more modern ideas. That must be a trial to you, Lady Torrington."
Frank got up and made his way out of the room without speaking. _