Priscilla's Spies Part 10

"I'd give a lot this minute," said Priscilla, "for a pair of gla.s.ses. I can't think why I was such a fool as not to take father's when we were starting."

"I can see well enough," said Frank. "What I'd like would be to be able to hear what he's saying."

"I don't take any interest in bad language, and in any case I don't believe he's capable of it. He looked to me like the kind of man who wouldn't say anything much worse than 'Dear me.'"

"Wouldn't he? Look at him now. If he isn't cursing I'll eat my hat."

The spy had shaken himself free of his companion's pocket handkerchief.

He was waving his arms violently and shouting so loudly that his voice reached the _Tortoise_ against the wind.

"I suppose," said Priscilla, "that that's his way of trying to get dry without catching a chill. Horrid a.s.s, isn't he? It'd be far better for him to run. What's the good of yelling? I expect in reality it's simply temper."

But Priscilla underestimated the intelligence of the spy. It appeared very soon that he was not merely giving expression to emotion, but had a purpose in his performance. The lady, too, began to shout, shrilly. She waved her damp pocket handkerchief round and round her head. Priscilla and Frank turned and saw that another boat, a small black boat, with a very dilapidated lug sail, had appeared round the corner of the next island, and was making towards Inishark.

"Bother," said Priscilla, "that man, whoever he is, will bring them back their boat."

The steersman in the lug-sailed boat altered his course slightly and reached down towards the derelict As he neared her he dropped his sail and got out oars.

"That's young Kinsella," said Priscilla. "I know him by the red sleeve his mother sewed into that gray shirt of his. No one else has a shirt the least like it. He's a soft-hearted sort of boy who'd do a good turn to any one. He's sure to take their boat back to them."

"He has a lady with him," said Frank.

"He has. I can't see who she is; but it doesn't look like his mother.

Can't be, in fact, for she has a baby to mind. I collared a lot of flannel out of a box in Aunt Juliet's room last 'hols' and gave it to her for the baby. It's a bit of what I gave her that was made into a sleeve for Jimmy's shirt. I wonder now who it is he has got with him?"

Jimmy Kinsella overtook the drifting boat, took her painter, and began to tow her towards Inishark.

"That lady," said Priscilla, "is a black stranger to me. Who can she possibly be?"

Jimmy Kinsella rowed hard, and in about ten minutes ran his own boat aground on Inishark. He disembarked, dragged at the painter of Flanagan's boat and handed her over to the lady on the island. A long conversation followed. The whole party, Jimmy Kinsella, his lady, the dripping spy, and the original lady with the damp pocket handkerchief, consulted together eagerly. Then they took the hold-all out of Flanagan's boat. There was another conversation, and it became plain that the two ladies were expostulating with the dripping gentleman.

Jimmy Kinsella stood a little apart and gazed placidly at the two boats.

Then the hold-all was unpacked and a number of garments laid out on the beach. They were sorted out and a bundle of them handed to the spy.

He walked straight up the slope of the island and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

"Gone to change his clothes," said Priscilla.

The two ladies repacked the hold-all. Jimmy Kinsella stowed it in the bow of Flanagan's boat. Then the lady of the island got it out again, unpacked it once more, and took something out of it.

"Clean pocket-handkerchief, I expect," said Priscilla.

The guess was evidently a good one, for she spread the wet handkerchief on a stone. Her companion reappeared over the crest of the island, clad in another pair of white trousers and another sweater. He carried his wet garments at arm's length. Jimmy Kinsella went to meet him. They talked together as they walked down to the boats. Then the two ladies kissed each other warmly. Priscilla watched the performance with a sneer.

"Awful rot, that kind of thing," she said.

"All women do it," said Frank.

Here at last he was unquestionably Priscilla's superior. Never, to his recollection, had he kissed any one except his mother, and he was generally content to allow her to kiss him.

"I don't; Sylvia Courtney tried it on with me when we were saying good-bye at the end of last term, but I jolly soon choked her off. Can't think where the pleasure is supposed to come in."

Jimmy Kinsella placed the spy lady in the stern of Flanagan's boat and handed in her companion. He arranged the oars and the rowlocks and then, standing ankle deep in the water, shoved her off. The spy took his oars and pulled away. Priscilla and Frank watched the boat until she disappeared.

"Pretty rough luck on us," said Priscilla, "Jimmy Kinsella turning up just at that moment. I wonder if that woman is a man in disguise. She might be, you know. They sometimes are."

"Couldn't possibly. No man would have been such a fool as to go trying to dry anybody with a pocket handkerchief. Only a woman??"

"If it comes to that," said Priscilla, "no woman would have been such a fool as to let that boat go the way he did. Girls aren't the only a.s.ses in the world, Cousin Frank."

"Besides," said Frank, "she evidently took a lot of trouble to persuade him to change his clothes. That looks as if??"

"It does, rather. I daresay she's his aunt. It's just the kind of thing Aunt Juliet would have done before she took to Christian Science.

Now, of course, it would be against her principles. Let's have another Californian peach to fill in the time."

Frank handed the tin to her and afterwards helped himself.

"Have you drunk all your beer, Cousin Frank?"

"No. Want some?"

"I was only thinking," said Priscilla, "that perhaps you'd better not.

I've just recollected King John."

"What about him?"

"It was peaches and beer that finished him off, after he'd got stuck in crossing the Wash. That's rather the sort of position we're in now, and I shouldn't like anything to happen to you."

Frank, by way of demonstrating his courage, took a long draught of lager beer, then he looked across at Inishark. Priscilla's eyes followed his.

For a minute or two they gazed in silence.

Jimmy Kinsella's boat still lay on the sh.o.r.e. Jimmy Kinsella's lady had taken off her shoes and stockings and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. Her skirt was kilted high and folded over a broad band which kept it well above her knees. Jimmy Kinsella himself, who was modest as well as chivalrous, sat on a stone with his back to her and gazed at the slope of the island. The lady waded about in the shallow water. Now and then she plunged her arms in and appeared to fish something up from the bottom. Priscilla and Frank looked at each other in amazement.

"I wonder what on earth's she's doing," said Priscilla. "Can she possibly be taking soundings?"

"No," said Frank. "Soundings aren't taken that way. You do it with a line and a lead from the deck of a ship."

"All the same," said Priscilla, "she's in league with the other spies.

You saw the way they kissed each other."

"She may," said Frank, "be taking specimens of the sea bottom. That's a very important thing, I believe."

"It is, frightfully; but that's not the way it's done. There was a curious old johnny last term who gave us a lecture on hydrography?that's what he called it?and he said you gather up small bits of the bottom by putting tallow on the end of a lump of lead. I expect he knew what he was talking about, but, of course, he may not You never can tell about those scientific lecturers. They keep on contradicting each other so."

"If she's not doing that, what is she doing?"

"She may possibly be trying to cure her rheumatism," said Priscilla.

"They generally bathe for that; but she may not feel bad enough to go to such extremes. She looks rather fat. Fat people do have rheumatism, don't they?"

"No, gout."