“I know it’s used of secrets as well as sanctuaries,” said Priscilla, “because Aunt Juliet used to say it about the Confessional when she was thinking of being a Roman Catholic. I told you about that, didn’t I?”
“No,” said Frank. “But will they be able to stop him landing, really?”
“Of course they will. That was one of the worst times we ever had with Aunt Juliet. Father simply hated it, expecting the blow to fall every day, especially after she took to fasting frightfully hard with finnan haddocks. That was just after the time she was tremendously down on all religion and wouldn’t let him have prayers in the morning, which he didn’t mind as much; though, of course, he pretended. Fortunately she found out about uric acid just before she actually did the deed, so that was all right. It always is in the end, you know. That’s one of the really good points about Aunt Juliet. All the same I wish I could remember that word.”
“I don’t quite see,” said Frank, “how they’ll stop him landing on Inishbawn if he wants to.”
“Nor do I; but they will. If Peter Walsh and Joseph Antony Kinsella and Flanagan and Patsy the smith--they’re all in the game, whatever it is--if they determine not to let him land on Inishbawn he won’t land there.”
“But even if they keep him off for a day or two they can’t for ever.”
“Well,” said Priscilla, “he can’t stay here for ever either. There’s sure to be a war soon and then he’ll jolly well have to go back to London and see after it. You told me it was his business to look after wars, so of course he must. Now that we’ve got everything settled I’ll sneak off again and get to bed. If I recollect that word during the night I’ll write it down.”
Priscilla, leaving Frank to make his own way back to the house as best he could, crept through the laurel bushes to the edge of the lawn. Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius had gone indoors. She could see them through the open window of the long gallery. She stole carefully across the lawn and entered the house by way of the dining-room window. She went very quietly to her bedroom. Before undressing she opened her wardrobe, lifted out two dresses which lay folded on a shelf and took out the store of provisions which she had secured at dinner time. She wrapped up the duck and the fish in paper, nice white paper taken from the bottoms of the drawers in her dressing table. The herrings’ roes on toast, originally a savoury, she put in the bottom of the soap dish and tied a piece of paper over the top of it. The caramel pudding rather overflowed the jam pot. It was impossible to press it down below the level of the rim. Priscilla sliced off the bulging excess of it with the handle of her tooth brush and dropped it into her mouth. Then she tied some paper over the top of the jam pot, and wrote, “pudding” across it with a blue pencil. The remainder of her spoil--some rolls, two artichokes and a sweetbread--she wrapped up together.