Priscilla's Spies Part 35

"Is mother with him?" said Lady Isabel.

"She is," said Priscilla. "But it's all right. Aunt Juliet will keep her in play. You can count on Aunt Juliet until she finds out that you're married?after that??? But it will be all right. We have come to conduct you to a place of safety."

"An inviolable sanctuary," said Miss Rutherford. "But we shall all have colds in the head before we get there if we don't do something to dry ourselves."

"Barnabas," said Lady Isabel, "do go and change your clothes. He fell into the sea the other day, and he is so liable to take cold."

"We saw him," said Priscilla. "Go and change your clothes, Mr.

Pennefather. By the time you've done that Jimmy Kinsella will have arrived and you can be oflf at once with Miss Rutherford. The sooner we're all out of this the better. Though Lord Torrington doesn't look like a man who would come out in a thunder storm even to catch his daughter."

"Your black suit is in the hold-all in my tent," said Lady Isabel.

The Reverend Barnabas Pennefather disappeared into the tent which was still standing. Priscilla looked around her cheerfully.

"It's clearing up," she said. "There's quite a lot of blue sky to be seen over Rosnacree. We'll all dry soon."

She gathered the bottom of her skirt tight into her hands and wrung the water out of it.

"Where are you going to take him to?" she said to Miss Rutherford.

"Am I to take him?" said Miss Rutherford. "I didn't know that was part of the plan. I thought we were all going together to Inishbawn, the sanctuary."

"Didn't I tell you," said Priscilla. "We decided that you were to have charge of Barnabas for a few days until the trouble blows over a bit.

You're to pretend that he's your husband. You don't mind, do you?"

"I'd much rather have Frank," said Miss Rutherford.

"What on earth would be the use of that?" said Priscilla.

"But, of course, I'll marry Barnabas with pleasure," said Miss Rutherford, "if it's really necessary and Lady Isabel doesn't object."

"I won't be separated from Barnabas," said Lady Isabel, "and I'm sure he'll never agree to leave me."

"All the same you'll have to," said Priscilla, "both of you. We can't pretend you're not married if you're going about together on Inishbawn."

"But I don't want to pretend I'm not married. I'm proud of what we've done."

"You'll sacrifice the respect and affection of Aunt Juliet," said Priscilla, "the moment it comes out that you're married. As long as she thinks you're out on your own defying the absurd conventions by which women are made into what she calls 'bedizened dolls for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the brutalised male s.e.x,' she'll be all on your side. But once she thinks you've given up your economic independence she'll simply turn round and help Lady Torrington to hunt you down."

Mr. Pennefather emerged from the tent. He wore a black suit of clothes of strictly clerical cut and a collar which b.u.t.toned at the back of his neck. Except that he was barefooted and had not brushed his hair he would have been fit to attend a Church Conference. His self-respect was restored by his attire. He walked over to Frank, who was dripping on a stone, and handed him a visiting card. Frank read it.

"Reverend Barnabas Pennefather?St. Agatha's Clergy House?Grosvenor Street, W."

"I am the senior curate," he said. "The staff consists of five priests besides the vicar."

"They want to take you away from me," said Lady Isabel. "But you won't go, say you won't, Barnabas."

Mr. Pennefather took his place at his wife's side. He held her hand in his.

"Nothing on earth," he said, "can separate us now."

"Very well," said Priscilla. "You're rather ungrateful, both of you, considering all we're doing for you, and I don't think you're exactly polite to Miss Rutherford, however??"

"Don't mind about me," said Miss Rutherford. "I feel snubbed, of course, but I wasn't really keen on having him for a husband, even temporarily."

Mr. Pennefather looked at her with shocked surprise. A deep flush spread slowly over his face. His eyes blazed with righteous indignation.

"Woman??" he began.

"If you don't mind," said Priscilla, "I think we'll call you Barnabas.

It's rather long, of course, and solemn. The natural thing would be to shorten it down to Barny, but that wouldn't suit you a bit. The rain's over now. I think I'll go down and bail out the _Tortoise_. Then we'll all start You people can be taking down the tent that's standing, and folding up the other one."

"Where are we going to?" said Mr. Pennefather.

"To a sanctuary," said Miss Rutherford, "an inviolable sanctuary.

Priscilla has that written down on the cover of a jam pot, so there's no use arguing about it."

"She says we'll be safe," said Lady Isabel.

"I refuse to move," said Mr. Pennefather, "until I know where I'm going and why."

"You talk to him, Cousin Frank," said Priscilla. "I see Jimmy Kinsella coming round the corner in his boat and I really must bail out the _Tortoise_."

"If you don't move out of this pretty quick," said Frank to Mr.

Pennefather, "Lord Torrington will have you to a dead cert."

"'And fast before her father's men," said Miss Rutherford, "'three days we fled together. And should they find us in this glen??'"

"Oh, Barnabas," said Lady Isabel, who knew Campbell's poem and antic.i.p.ated the end of the quotation, "Oh, Barnabas, let's go, anywhere, anywhere."

"I never saw any man," said Frank, "in such a wax as Lord Torrington."

"I haven't met him myself," said Miss Rutherford, "but I expect that when he begins to speak he'll shock you even worse than I did."

"We don't mind Father," said Lady Isabel. "It's Mother."

"They're both on your track," said Frank.

Mr. Pennefather looked from one to another of the group around him. Then he turned slowly on his heel and began to roll up his tent. Lady Isabel and Miss Rutherford set to work to pack the camp equipage. Frank took off his coat and wrung the water out of it. Then he spread it on the ground and looked at it It was the coat worn by members of the First Eleven. He had won his right to it when he caught out the Uppingham captain in the long field. Now such triumphs and glories seemed incredibly remote. The voices of Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella reached him from the sh.o.r.e. They were arguing hotly.

Frank looked at them and saw that they were both on their knees in the _Tortoise_ scooping up water in tin dishes.

The bailing was finished at last The packing was nearly done. Priscilla walked up to the camp dragging Jimmy Kinsella with her by the collar of the coat.

"Barnabas," she said, "have you got a revolver?"

Mr. Pennefather looked up from a roll of blankets which he was strapping together.