There was a throbbing silence. Then Agnes Flack spoke.
'Important, if true,' she said. 'All square again. I will say one thing for you two – you make this game very interesting.'
And once more she sent the birds shooting out of the treetops with that hearty laugh of hers. John Gooch, coming slowly to after the shattering impact of it, found that he was clutching Frederick Pilcher's arm. He flung it from him as if it had been a loathsome snake.
A grimmer struggle than that which took place over the next six holes has probably never been seen on any links. First one, then the other seemed to be about to lose the hole, but always a well-judged slice or a timely top enabled his opponent to rally. At the eighteenth tee the game was still square; and John Gooch, taking advantage of the fact that Agnes had stopped to tie her shoe-lace, endeavoured to appeal to his one-time friend's better nature.
'Frederick,' he said, 'this is not like you.'
'What isn't like me?'
'Playing this low-down game. It is not like the old Frederick Pilcher.'
'Well, what sort of a game do you think you are playing?'
'A little below my usual, it is true,' admitted John Gooch. 'But that is due to nervousness. You are deliberately trying to foozle, which is not only painting the lily but very dishonest. And I can't see what motive you have, either.'
'You can't, can't you?'
John Gooch laid a hand persuasively on the other's shoulder.
'Agnes Flack is a most delightful girl.'
'Who is?'
'Agnes Flack.'
'A delightful girl?'
'Most delightful.'
'Agnes Flack is a delightful girl?'
'Yes.'
'Oh?'
'She would make you very happy.'
'Who would?'
'Agnes Flack.'
'Make me happy?'
'Very happy.'
'Agnes Flack would make me happy?'
'Yes.'
'Oh?'
John Gooch was conscious of a slight discouragement. He did not seem to be making headway.
'Well, then, look here,' he said, 'what we had better do is to have a gentleman's agreement.'
'Who are the gentlemen?'
'You and I.'
'Oh?'
John Gooch did not like the other's manner, nor did he like the tone of voice in which he had spoken. But then there were so many things about Frederick Pilcher that he did not like that it seemed useless to try to do anything about it. Moreover, Agnes Flack had finished tying her shoe-lace, and was making for them across the turf like a mastodon striding over some prehistoric plain. It was no time for wasting words.
'A gentleman's agreement to halve the match,' he said hurriedly.
'What's the good of that? She would only make us play extra holes.'
'We would halve those, too.'
'Then we should have to play it off another day.'
'But before that we could leave the neighbourhood.'
'Sidney McMurdo would follow us to the ends of the earth.'
'Ah, but suppose we didn't go there? Suppose we simply lay low in the city and grew beards?'
'There's something in it,' said Frederick Pilcher, reflectively.
'You agree?'
'Very well.'
'Splendid!'
'What's splendid?' asked Agnes Flack, thudding up.
'Oh – er – the match,' said John Gooch. 'I was saying to Pilcher that this was a splendid match.'
Agnes Flack sniffed. She seemed quieter than she had been at the outset, as though something were on her mind.
'I'm glad you think so,' she said. 'Do you two always play like this?'
'Oh, yes. Yes. This is about our usual form.'
'H'm! Well, push on.'
It was with a light heart that John Gooch addressed his ball for the last drive of the match. A great weight had been lifted from his mind, and he told himself that now there was no objection to bringing off a real sweet one. He swung lustily; and the ball, struck on its extreme left side, shot off at right angles, hit the ladies' tee-box, and, whizzing back at a high rate of speed, would have mown Agnes Flack's ankles from under her, had she not at the psychological moment skipped in a manner extraordinarily reminiscent of the high hills mentioned in Sacred Writ.
'Sorry, old man,' said John Gooch, hastily, flushing as he encountered Frederick Pilcher's cold look of suspicion. 'Frightfully sorry, Frederick, old man. Absolutely unintentional.'
'What are you apologizing to him for?' demanded Agnes Flack with a good deal of heat. It had been a near thing, and the girl was ruffled.
Frederick Pilcher's suspicions had plainly not been allayed by John Gooch's words. He drove a cautious thirty yards, and waited with the air of one suspending judgement for his opponent to play his second. It was with a feeling of relief that John Gooch, smiting vigorously with his brassie, was enabled to establish his bona fides with a shot that rolled to within mashie-niblick distance of the green.
Frederick Pilcher seemed satisfied that all was well. He played his second to the edge of the green. John Gooch ran his third up into the neighbourhood of the pin.
Frederick Pilcher stooped and picked his ball up.
'Here!' cried Agnes Flack.
'Hey!' ejaculated John Gooch.
'What on earth do you think you're doing?' said Agnes Flack.
Frederick Pilcher looked at them with mild surprise.
'What's the matter?' he said. 'There's a blob of mud on my ball. I just wanted to brush it off.'
'Oh, my heavens!' thundered Agnes Flack. 'Haven't you ever read the rules? You're disqualified.'
'Disqualified?'
'Dis-jolly-well-qualified,' said Agnes Flack, her eyes flashing scorn. 'This cripple here wins the match.'
Frederick Pilcher heaved a sigh.
'So be it,' he said. 'So be it.'
'What do you mean, so be it? Of course it is.'
'Exactly. Exactly. I quite understand. I have lost the match. So be it.'
And, with drooping shoulders, Frederick Pilcher shuffled off in the direction of the bar.
John Gooch watched him go with a seething fury which for the moment robbed him of speech. He might, he told himself, have expected something like this. Frederick Pilcher, lost to every sense of good feeling and fair play, had double-crossed him. He shuddered as he realized how inky must be the hue of Frederick Pilcher's soul; and he wished in a frenzy of regret that he had thought of picking his own ball up. Too late! Too late!
For an instant the world had been blotted out for John Gooch by a sort of red mist. This mist clearing, he now saw Agnes Flack standing looking at him in a speculative sort of way, an odd expression in her eyes. And beyond her, leaning darkly against the club-house wall, his bulging muscles swelling beneath his coat and his powerful fingers tearing to pieces what appeared to be a section of lead piping, stood Sidney McMurdo.
John Gooch did not hesitate. Although McMurdo was some distance away, he could see him quite clearly; and with equal clearness he could remember every detail of that recent interview with him. He drew a step nearer to Agnes Flack, and having gulped once or twice, began to speak.
'Agnes,' he said huskily, 'there is something I want to say to you. Oh, Agnes, have you not guessed—'
'One moment,' said Agnes Flack. 'If you're trying to propose to me, sign off. There is nothing doing. The idea is all wet.'
'All wet?'
'All absolutely wet. I admit that there was a time when I toyed with the idea of marrying a man with brains, but there are limits. I wouldn't marry a man who played golf as badly as you do if he were the last man in the world. Sid-nee!' she roared, turning and cupping her mouth with her hands; and a nervous golfer down by the lake-hole leaped three feet and got his mashie entangled between his legs.
'Hullo?'
'I'm going to marry you, after all.'
'Me?'
'Yes, you.'
'Three rousing cheers!' bellowed McMurdo.
/> Agnes Flack turned to John Gooch. There was something like commiseration in her eyes, for she was a woman. Rather on the large side, but still a woman.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'Don't mention it,' said John Gooch.
'I hope this won't ruin your life.'
'No, no.'
'You still have your Art.'
'Yes, I still have my Art.'
'Are you working on anything just now?' asked Agnes Flack.
'I'm starting a new story to-night,' said John Gooch. 'It will be called Saved from the Scaffold.'
7 SOMETHING SQUISHY
There had been a gap for a week or so in our little circle at the Angler's Rest, and that gap the most serious that could have occurred. Mr Mulliner's had been the vacant chair, and we had felt his absence acutely. Inquiry on his welcome return elicited the fact that he had been down in Hertfordshire, paying a visit to his cousin Lady Wickham, at her historic residence, Skeldings Hall. He had left her well, he informed us, but somewhat worried.
'About her daughter Roberta,' said Mr Mulliner.
'Delicate girl?' we asked sympathetically.
'Not at all. Physically, most robust. What is troubling my cousin is the fact that she does not get married.'
A tactless Mild-and-Bitter, who was a newcomer to the bar-parlour and so should not have spoken at all, said that that was often the way with these plain girls. The modern young man, he said, valued mere looks too highly, and instead of being patient, and carrying on pluckily till he was able to penetrate the unsightly exterior to the good womanly heart within . . .
'My cousin's daughter Roberta,' said Mr Mulliner with some asperity, 'is not plain. Like all the Mulliners on the female side, however distantly removed from the main branch, she is remarkably beautiful. And yet she does not get married.'
'A mystery,' we mused.
'One,' said Mr Mulliner, 'that I have been able to solve. I was privileged to enjoy a good deal of Roberta's confidence during my visit, and I also met a young man named Algernon Crufts who appears to enjoy still more and also to be friendly with some of those of the male sex in whose society she has been moving lately. I am afraid that, like so many spirited girls of to-day, she is inclined to treat her suitors badly. They get discouraged, and I think with some excuse. There was young Attwater, for instance . . .'
Mr Mulliner broke off and sipped his hot Scotch and lemon. He appeared to have fallen into a reverie. From time to time, as he paused in his sipping, a chuckle escaped him.
'Attwater?' we said.
'Yes, that was the name.'
'What happened to him?'
'Oh, you wish to hear the story? Certainly, certainly, by all means.'
He rapped gently on the table, eyed his re-charged glass with quiet satisfaction, and proceeded.
In the demeanour of Roland Moresby Attwater, that rising young essayist and literary critic, there appeared (said Mr Mulliner) as he stood holding the door open to allow the ladies to leave his uncle Joseph's dining-room, no outward and visible sign of the irritation that seethed beneath his mud-stained shirt-front. Well-bred and highly civilized, he knew how to wear the mask. The lofty forehead that shone above his rimless pince-nez was smooth and unruffled, and if he bared his teeth it was only in a polite smile. Nevertheless, Roland Attwater was fed to the eyebrows.
In the first place, he hated these family dinners. In the second place, he had been longing all the evening for a chance to explain that muddy shirt, and everybody had treated it with a silent tact which was simply maddening. In the third place, he knew that his uncle Joseph was only waiting for the women to go to bring up once again the infuriating topic of Lucy.
After a preliminary fluttering, not unlike that of hens disturbed in a barnyard, the female members of the party rustled past him in single file – his aunt Emily; his aunt Emily's friend, Mrs Hughes Higham; his aunt Emily's companion and secretary, Miss Partlett; and his aunt Emily's adopted daughter, Lucy. The last-named brought up the rear of the procession. She was a gentle-looking girl with spaniel eyes and freckles, and as she passed she gave Roland a swift, shy glance of admiration and gratitude. It was the sort of look Ariadne might have given Theseus immediately after his turn-up with the Minotaur: and a casual observer, not knowing the facts, would have supposed that, instead of merely opening a door for her, Roland had rescued her at considerable bodily risk from some frightful doom.
Roland closed the door and returned to the table. His uncle, having pushed port towards him, coughed significantly and opened fire.
'How did you think Lucy was looking to-night, Roland?'
The young man winced, but the fine courtly spirit which is such a characteristic of the younger members of the intelligentsia did not fail him. Instead of banging the speaker over the head with the decanter, he replied with quiet civility:
'Splendid.'
'Nice girl.'
'Very.'
'Wonderful disposition.'
'Quite.'
'And so sensible.'
'Precisely.'
'Very different from these shingled, cigarette-smoking young women who infest the place nowadays.'
'Decidedly.'
'Had one of 'em up before me this morning,' said uncle Joseph, frowning austerely over his port. Sir Joseph Moresby was by profession a metropolitan magistrate. 'Charged with speeding. That's their idea of life.'
'Girls,' argued Roland, 'will be girls.'
'Not while I'm sitting at Bosher Street police-court, they won't,' said his uncle, with decision. 'Unless they want to pay five-pound fines and have their licences endorsed.' He sipped thoughtfully. 'Look here, Roland,' he said, as one struck by a novel idea, 'why the devil don't you marry Lucy?'
'Well, uncle—'
'You've got a bit of money, she's got a bit of money. Ideal. Besides, you want somebody to look after you.'
'Do you suggest,' inquired Roland, his eyebrows rising coldly, 'that I am incapable of looking after myself ?'
'Yes, I do. Why, dammit, you can't even dress for dinner, apparently, without getting mud all over your shirt-front.'
Roland's cue had been long in coming, but it had arrived at a very acceptable moment.
'If you really want to know how that mud came to be on my shirt-front, uncle Joseph,' he said, with quiet dignity, 'I got it saving a man's life.'