Priscilla's Spies · OmniClassics

PRISCILLA’S SPIES By George A. Birmingham Copyright, 1912, By George H. Doran Company To M. E. M., M. S. R., D. P., and L. K. The vision of whose tents I have panned about the bay. PRISCILLA’S SPIES CHAPTER I The summer term ended in a blaze of glory for Frank Mannix. It was a generally accepted opinion in the school that his brilliant catch in the long field--a catch which disposed of the Uppingham captain--had been the decisive factor in winning the most important of matches. And the victory was particularly gratifying, for Haileybury had been defeated for five years previously. There was no doubt at all that the sixty not out made by Mannix in the first innings rendered victory possible in the “cock house” match, and that his performance as a bowler, first change, in the second innings, secured the coveted trophy, a silver cup, for Edmonstone House. These feats were duly recorded by Mr. Dupré, the house master, in a neat speech which he made at a feast given in the classroom to celebrate the glory of the house. When the plates of the eleven were finally cleared of cherry tart and tumblers were refilled with the most innocuous claret cup, Mr. Dupré rose to his feet. He chronicled the virtues and successes of the hero of the hour. The catch in the Uppingham match was touched on--a dangerous bat that Uppingham captain. The sixty not out in the house match had been rewarded with a presentation bat bearing a silver shield on the back of it. No boy in the house, so Mr. Dupré said, grudged the sixpence which had been stopped from his pocket money to pay for the bat. Then, passing to graver matters, Mr. Dupré spoke warmly of the tone of the house, that indefinable quality which in the eyes of a faithful schoolmaster is more precious than rubies. It was Mannix, prefect and member of the lower sixth, who more than any one else deserved credit for the fact that Edmonstone stood second to no house in the school in the matter of tone. The listening eleven, and the other prefects who, though not members of the victorious eleven, had been invited to the feast, cheered vigorously. They understood what tone meant though Mr. Dupré did not define it. They knew that it was mainly owing to the determined attitude of Mannix that young Latimer, who collected beetles and kept tame white mice, had been induced to wash himself properly and to use a clothes brush on the legs of his trousers. Latimer’s appearance in the old days before Mannix took him in hand had lowered the tone of the house. Mannix’ own appearance--though Mr. Dupré did not mention this--added the weight of example to his precepts. His taste in ties was acknowledged. No member of the school eleven knotted a crimson sash round his waist with more admired precision. Nor was the success of the hero confined to the playing fields and the dormitory. Mr. Dupré noted the fact that Mannix had added other laurels to the crown of the house’s glory by winning the head master’s prize for Greek iambics. Mr. Dupré sat down. Mannix himself, blushing but pleasurably conscious that his honours were deserved, rose to his feet. As President of the Literary Society and a debater of formidable quality, he was well able to make a speech. He chose instead to sing a song. It was one, so he informed his audience, which Mr. Dupré had composed specially for the occasion. The tune indeed was old. Every one would recognise it at once and join in the chorus. The words, and he, Frank Mannix, hoped they would dwell in the memory of those who sang them, were Mr. Dupré’s own. The eleven, the prefects and Mr. Dupré himself joined with uproarious tunefulness in a chorus which went tolerably trippingly to the air of “Here’s to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen.” “Here’s to the House, Edmonstone House. Floreat semper Edmonstone House.” Mannix trolled the words out in a clear tenor voice. One after another of the eleven, even Fenton, the slow bowler who had no ear for music, picked them up. The noise flowed through the doors and windows of the classroom. It reached the distant dormitory and stimulated small boys in pyjamas to thrills of envious excitement It was Mannix again, Mannix at his greatest and best, who half an hour later stood up in his place. With an air of authority which became him well, he raised his hand and stilled the babbling voices of the enthusiastic eleven. Then, pitching on a note which brought the tune well within the compass of even Fenton’s growling bass, he began the school songs, “Adsis musa canentibus Laeta voce canentibus Longos clara per annos Haileyburia floreat.” House feeling, local patriotism to the tune of “The Maiden of Bashful Fifteen,” was well enough. Behind it, deep in the swelling heart of Mannix, lay a wider thing, a kind of imperialism, a devotion to the school itself. Far across the dim quadrangle rang the words “Haileyburia Floreat.” It was Mannix’s greatest moment. Three days later the school broke up. Excited farewells were said by boys eagerly pressing into the brakes which bore them to the Hertford station. Mannix, one of the earliest to depart, went off from the midst of a group of admirers. It was understood by his friends that he was to spend the summer fishing in the west of Ireland--salmon fishing. There would be grouse shooting too. Mannix had mentioned casually a salmon rod and a new gun. Happy Mannix! The west of Ireland is a remote region, wild no doubt, half barbarous perhaps. Even Mr. Dupré, who knew almost all things knowable, admitted, as he shook hands with his favorite pupil, that he knew the west of Ireland only by repute. But Mannix might be relied on to sustain in those far regions the honour of the school. Small boys, born hero-worshippers, gathered in groups to await the brakes which should carry them to less splendid summer sports, and spoke to each other in confidence of the salmon which Mannix would catch and the multitude of grouse which would fall before the explosions of his gun. CHAPTER II Edward Mannix, Esq., M. P., father of the fortunate Frank, holds the office of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the War Office, a position of great importance at all times, but particularly so under the circumstances under which Mannix held it. His chief, Lord Tolerton, Secretary of State for War, was incapacitated by the possession of a marquisate from sitting in the House of Commons. It was the duty, the very onerous duty, of Mr. Edward Mannix to explain to the representatives of the people who did not agree with him in politics that the army, under Lord Torrington’s administration, was adequately armed and intelligently drilled. The strain overwhelmed him, and his doctor ordered him to take mud baths at Schlangenbad. Mrs. Mannix behaved as a good wife should under such circumstances. She lifted every care, not directly connected with the army, from her husband’s mind. The beginning of Frank’s holidays synchronised with the close of the parliamentary session. She arranged that Frank should spend the holidays with Sir Lucius Lentaigne in Rosnacree. She had every right to demand that her son should be allowed to catch the salmon and shoot the grouse of Sir Lucius. Lady Lentaigne, who died young, was Mrs. Mannix’s sister. Sir Lucius was therefore Frank’s uncle. Edward Mannix, M. P., worried by Lord Torrington and threatened by his doctor, acquiesced in the arrangement. He ordered a fishing rod and a gun for Frank. He sent the boy a ten-pound note and then departed, pleasantly fussed over by his wife, to seek new vigour in the mud of Germany. Frank Mannix, seventeen years old, prefect and hero, stretched himself with calm satisfaction in a corner of a smoking carriage in the Irish night mail. Above him on the rack were his gun-case, his fishing-rod, neatly tied into its waterproof cover, and a brown kit-bag. He smoked a nice Egyptian cigarette, puffing out from time to time large fragrant clouds from mouth and nostrils. His fingers, the fingers of the hand which was not occupied with the cigarette, occasionally caressed his upper lip. A fine down could be distinctly felt there. In a good light it could even be seen. Since the middle of the Easter term he had found it necessary to shave his chin and desirable to stimulate the growth upon his upper lip with occasional applications of brilliantine. He was thoroughly satisfied with the brown tweed suit which he wore, a pleasant change of attire after the black coats and grey trousers enjoined by the school authorities. He liked the look of a Burberry gabardine which lay beside him on the seat. There was a suggestion of sport about it; yet it in no way transgressed the line of good taste. Frank Mannix was aware that his ties had set a lofty standard to the school. He felt sure that his instinctive good taste had not deserted him in choosing the brown suit and the gabardine. Of his boots he was a little doubtful. Their brown was aggressive; but that, so the gentleman in Harrod’s Stores who sold them had assured him, would pass away in time. Aggressiveness of colour is inevitable in new brown boots. At Rugby he lit a second cigarette and commented on the warmth of the night to an elderly gentleman who entered the carriage from the corridor. The elderly gentleman was uncommunicative and merely growled in reply. Mannix offered him a match. The gentleman growled again and lit his cigar from his own matchbox. Mannix arrived at the conclusion that he must be, for some reason, in a bad temper. He watched him for a while and then decided further that he was, if not an actual “bounder,” at all events “bad form.” The elderly gentleman had a red, blotched face, a thick neck, and swollen hands, with hair on the backs of them. He wore a shabby coat, creased under the arms, and trousers which bagged badly at the knees. Mannix, had the elderly gentleman happened to be a small boy in Edmonstone House, would have felt it his duty to impart to him something of the indefinable quality of tone. Shortly before reaching Crewe, the old gentleman having smoked three cigars with fierce vigour, left the carriage. Mannix, feeling disinclined for more tobacco, went to sleep. At Holyhead he was wakened from a deep and dreamless slumber. A porter took his kit-bag and wanted to relieve him also of the gun-case, the fishing-rod, and the gabardine. But Mannix, even in his condition of half awakened giddiness clung to these. He followed the porter across a stretch of wooden pier, got involved in a crowd of other passengers at the steamer’s gangway, and was hustled by the elderly gentleman who had smoked the three cigars. He still seemed to be in a bad temper. After hustling Mannix, he swore, pushed a porter aside and forced his way across the gangway. Mannix, now almost completely awake, resented this behaviour very much and decided that the elderly gentleman was not in any real sense of the word a gentleman, but simply a cad. Indignation, though a passion of a harassing nature, does not actually prevent sleep in a man of seventeen years of age who is in good general health. Mannix coiled himself up on one of the sofas which line the corridors of the Irish mail steamers. He was dimly conscious of seeing the old gentleman who had hustled him trip over the gun case which lay at the side of the sofa. Then he fell asleep. He was wakened--it seemed to him rather less than five minutes later--by a steward who told him that the steamer was rapidly approaching Kingstown Pier. He got up and sought for means to wash. It is impossible for a self-respecting man who has been brought up at an English public school to begin the day in good