Priscilla's Spies Part 27

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 appet.i.te, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 a.s.serted 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. "n.o.body 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.