“I said nothing. I was gasping.”
“You may well gasp. In fact, it will be all right with me if you choke. It was you who started all this. Of course, he had got us cold. It has been our dearest wish that he should win the Children’s Cup, and we have spent money lavishly to have his short game polished up. Naturally, when he put it like that, we had no alternative. I kissed William, shook him by the hand, tied a wet towel around his head, gave him pencil and paper and locked him up in the morning-room with lots of hot coffee. When I asked him just now how he was making out, he said that he had had no inspiration so far but would keep on swinging. His voice sounded very hollow. I can picture the poor darling’s agony. The only thing he has ever written before in his life was a stiff letter to the Greens Committee beefing about the new bunker on the fifth, and that took him four days and left him as limp as a rag.”
She then turned the conversation to what she described as my mischief-making meddling, and I thought it advisable to hang up.
A thing I have noticed frequently in the course of a long life, and it is one that makes for optimism, is that tragedy, while of course rife in this world of ours, is seldom universal. To give an instance of what I mean, while the barometer of William and Jane Bates pointed to “Further Outlook Unsettled”, with Anastatia Spelvin the weather conditions showed signs of improvement.
That William and his wife were in the depths there could be no question. I did not meet Jane, for after the trend of her telephone conversation I felt it more prudent not to, but I saw William a couple of times at luncheon at the club. He looked weary and haggard and was sticking cheese straws in his hair. I heard him ask the waiter if he knew any good rhymes, and when the waiter said “To what?”, William replied “To anything”. He refused a second chop, and sighed a good deal.
Anastatia, on the other hand, whom I overtook on my way to the links to watch the final of the Rabbits Umbrella a few days later, I found her old cheerful self again. Rodney was one of the competitors in the struggle which was about to begin, and she took a rosy view of his chances. His opponent was Joe Stocker, and it appeared that Joe was suffering from one of his bouts of hay fever.
“Surely,” she said, “Rodney can trim a man with hay fever? Of course, Mr Stocker is trying Sneezo, the sovereign remedy, but, after all, what is Sneezo?”
“A mere palliative.”
“They say he broke a large vase yesterday during one of his paroxysms. It flew across the room and was dashed to pieces against the wall.”
“That sounds promising.”
“Do you know,” said Anastatia, and I saw that her eyes were shining, “I can’t help feeling that if all goes well Rodney may turn the corner.”
“You mean that his better self will gain the upper hand, making him once again the Rodney we knew and loved?”
“Exactly. If he wins his final, I think he will be a changed man.” I saw what she meant. A man who has won his first trophy, be it only a scarlet umbrella, has no room in his mind for anything but the improving of his game so that he can as soon as possible win another trophy. A Rodney Spelvin with the Rabbits Umbrella under his belt would have little leisure or inclination for writing poetry. Golf had been his salvation once. It might prove to be so again.
“You didn’t watch the preliminary rounds did, you?” Anastatia went on. “Well, at first Rodney was listless. The game plainly bored him. He had taken a notebook out with him, and he kept stopping to jot down ideas. And then suddenly, half-way through the semi-final, he seemed to change. His lips tightened. His face grew set. And on the tenth a particularly significant incident occurred. He was shaping for a brassie shot, when a wee little blue butterfly fluttered down and settled on his ball. And instead of faltering he clenched his teeth and swung at it with every ounce of weight and muscle. It had to make a quick jump to save its life. I have seldom seen a butterfly move more nippily. Don’t you think that was promising?”
“Highly promising. And this brighter state of things continued?”
“All through the semi-final. The butterfly came back on the seventeenth and seemed about to settle on his ball again. But it took a look at his face and moved off. I feel so happy.”
I patted her on the shoulder, and we made our way to the first tee, where Rodney was spinning a coin for Joe Stocker to call. And presently Joe, having won the honour, drove off.
A word about this Stocker. A famous amateur wrestler in his youth, and now in middle age completely muscle bound, he made up for what he lacked in finesse by bringing to the links the rugged strength and directness of purpose which in other days had enabled him to pin one and all to the mat: and it had been well said of him as a golfer that you never knew what he was going to do next. It might be one thing, or it might be another. All you could say with certainty was that he would be in there, trying. I have seen him do the long fifteenth in two, and I have seen him do the short second in thirty-seven.
To-day he made history immediately by holing out his opening drive. It is true that he holed it out on the sixteenth green, which lies some three hundred yards away and a good deal to the left of the first tee, but he holed it out, and a gasp went up from the spectators who had assembled to watch the match. If this was what Joseph Stocker did on the first, they said to one another, the imagination reeled stunned at the prospect of the heights to which he might soar in the course of eighteen holes.
But golf is an uncertain game. Taking a line through that majestic opening drive, one would have supposed that Joe Stocker’s tee shot at the second would have beaned a lady, too far off to be identified, who was working in her garden about a quarter of a mile to the south-west. I had, indeed, shouted a warning “Fore!”
So far from doing this, however, it took him in a classical curve straight for the pin, and he had no difficulty in shooting a pretty three. And as Rodney had the misfortune to sink a ball in the lake, they came to the third all square.
The third, fourth and fifth they halved. Rodney won the sixth, Stocker the seventh. At the eighth I fancied that Rodney was about to take the lead again, for his opponent’s third had left his ball entangled in a bush of considerable size, from which it seemed that it could be removed only with a pair of tweezers.
But it was at moments like this that you caught Joseph Stocker at his best. In some of the more scientific aspects of the game he might be forced to yield the palm to more skilful performers, but when it came to a straight issue of muscle and the will to win he stood alone. Here was where he could use his niblick, and Joe Stocker, armed with his niblick, was like King Arthur wielding his sword Excalibur. The next instant the ball, the bush, a last year’s bird’s nest and a family of caterpillars which had taken out squatter’s rights were hurtling toward the green, and shortly after that, Rodney was one down again.
And as they halved the ninth, it was in this unpleasant position that he came to the turn. Here Stocker, a chivalrous antagonist, courteously suggested a quick one at the bar before proceeding, and we repaired thither.
All through these nine gruelling holes, with their dramatic mutations of fortune, I had been watching Rodney carefully, and I had been well pleased with what I saw. There could be no doubt whatever that Anastatia had been right and that the game had gripped this backslider with all its old force. Here was no poet, pausing between shots to enter stray thoughts in a note-book, but something that looked like a Scotch pro in the last round of the National Open. What he had said to his caddy on the occasion of the lad cracking a nut just as he was putting had been music to my ears. It was plain that the stern struggle had brought out all that was best in Rodney Spelvin.
It seemed to me, too, an excellent sign that he was all impatience to renew the contest. He asked Stocker with some brusqueness if he proposed to spend the rest of the day in the bar, and Stocker hastily drained his second ginger ale and Sneezo and we went out.
As we were making our way to the tenth tee, little Timothy suddenly appeared from nowhere, gambolling up in an arch
way like a miniature chorus-boy, and I saw at once what Jane had meant when she had spoken of him putting on an act. There was a sort of ghastly sprightliness about the child. He exuded whimsicality at every pore.
“Daddee,” he called, and Rodney looked round a little irritably, it seemed to me, like one interrupted while thinking of higher things.
“Daddee, I’ve made friends with such a nice beetle.”
It was a remark which a few days earlier would have had Rodney reaching for his note-book with a gleaming eye, but now he was plainly distrait. There was an absent look on his face, and watching him swing his driver one was reminded of a tiger of the jungle lashing its tail.
“Quite,” was all he said.
“It’s green. I call it Mister Green Beetle.”
This idiotic statement—good, one would have thought, for at least a couple of stanzas—seemed to arouse little or no enthusiasm in Rodney. He merely nodded curtly and said “Yes, yes, very sensible”.
“Run away and have a long talk with it,” he added.
“What about?”
“Why—er—other beetles.”
“Do you think Mister Green Beetle has some dear little brothers and sisters, Daddee?”
“Extremely likely. Good-bye. No doubt we shall meet later.”
“I wonder if the Fairy Queen uses beetles as horses, Daddee?”
“Very possibly, very possibly. Go and make inquiries. And you,” said Rodney, addressing his cowering caddy, “if I hear one more hiccough out of you while I am shooting—just one—I shall give you two minutes to put your affairs in order and then I shall act. Come on, Stocker, come on, come on, come on. You have the honour.”
He looked at his opponent sourly, like one with a grievance, and I knew what was in his mind. He was wondering where this hay fever of Stocker’s was, of which he had heard so much.
I could not blame him. A finalist in a golf tournament, playing against an antagonist who has been widely publicized as a victim to hay fever, is entitled to expect that the latter will give at least occasional evidence of his infirmity, and so far Joseph Stocker had done nothing of the kind. From the start of the proceedings he had failed to foozle a single shot owing to a sudden sneeze, and what Rodney was feeling was that while this could not perhaps actually be described as sharp practice, it was sailing very near the wind.
The fact of the matter was that the inventor of Sneezo knew his stuff. A quick-working and harmless specific highly recommended by the medical fraternity and containing no deleterious drugs, it brought instant relief. Joe Stocker had been lowering it by the pailful since breakfast, and it was standing him in good stead. I have fairly keen ears, but up to now I had not heard him even sniffle. He played his shots dry-eyed and without convulsions, and whatever holes Rodney had won he had had to win by sheer unassisted merit.
There was no suggestion of the hay fever patient as he drove off now. He smote his ball firmly and truly, and it would un-questionably have travelled several hundred yards had it not chanced to strike the ladies’ tee box and ricocheted into the rough. Encouraged by this, Rodney played a nice straight one down the middle and was able to square the match again.
A ding-dong struggle ensued, for both men were now on their mettle. First one would win a hole, then the other: and then, to increase the dramatic suspense, they would halve a couple. They arrived at the eighteenth all square.
The eighteenth was at that time one of those longish up-hill holes which present few difficulties if you can keep your drive straight, and it seemed after both men had driven that the issue would be settled on the green. But golf, as I said before, is an uncertain game. Rodney played a nice second to within fifty yards of the green, but Stocker, pressing, topped badly and with his next missed the globe altogether, tying himself in the process into a knot from which for an instant I thought it would be impossible to unravel him.
But he contrived to straighten himself out, and was collecting his faculties for another effort, when little Timothy came trotting up. He had a posy of wild flowers in his hand.
“Smell my pretty flowers, Mr Stocker,” he chirped. And with an arch gesture he thrust the blooms beneath Joseph Stocker’s nose.
A hoarse cry sprang from the other’s lips, and he recoiled as if the bouquet had contained a snake.
“Hey, look out for my hay fever!” he cried, and already I saw that he was beginning to heave and writhe. Under a direct frontal attack like this even Sneezo loses its power to protect.
“Don’t bother the gentleman now dear,” said Rodney mildly. A glance at his face told me that he was saying to himself that this was something like family teamwork. “Run along and wait for Daddy on the green.”
Little Timothy skipped off, and once more Stocker addressed his ball. It was plain that it was going to be a close thing. A sneeze of vast proportions was evidently coming to a head within him like some great tidal wave, and if he meant to forestall it he would have to cut his customary deliberate waggle to something short and sharp like George Duncan’s. And I could see that he appreciated this.
But quickly though he waggled, he did not waggle quickly enough. The explosion came just as the club head descended on the ball.
The result was one of the most magnificent shots I have ever witnessed. It was as if the whole soul and essence of Joseph Stocker poured into that colossal sneeze, had gone to the making of it. Straight and true, as if fired out of a gun, the ball flew up the hill and disappeared over the edge of the green.
It was with a thoughtful air that Rodney Spelvin prepared to play his chip shot. He had obviously been badly shaken by the miracle which he had just observed. But Anastatia had trained him well, and he made no mistake. He, too, was on the green and, as far as one could judge, very near the pin. Even supposing that Stocker was lying dead, he would still be in the enviable position of playing four as against the other’s five. And he was a very accurate putter.
Only when we arrived on the green were we able to appreciate the full drama of the situation. Stocker’s ball was nowhere to be seen, and it seemed for a moment as if it must have been snatched up to heaven. Then a careful search discovered it nestling in the hole.
“Ah,” said Joe Stocker, well satisfied. “Thought for a moment I had missed it.”
There was good stuff in Rodney Spelvin. The best he could hope for now was to take his opponent on the nineteenth, but he did not quail. His ball was lying some four feet from the hole, never at any time an easy shot but at the crisis of a hard fought match calculated to unman the stoutest, and he addressed it with a quiet fortitude which I like to see.
Slowly he drew his club back, and brought it down. And as he did so, a clear childish voice broke the silence.
“Daddee!”
And Rodney, starting as if a red-hot iron had been placed against the bent seat of his knickerbockers, sent the ball scudding yards past the hole. Joseph Stocker was the winner of that year’s Rabbits Umbrella.
Rodney Spelvin straightened himself. His face was pale and drawn.
“Daddee, are daisies little bits of the stars that have been chipped off by the angels?”
A deep sigh shook Rodney Spelvin. I saw his eyes. They were alight with a hideous menace. Quickly and silently, like an African leopard stalking its prey, he advanced on the child. An instant later the stillness was disturbed by a series of reports like pistol shots.
I looked at Anastatia. There was distress on her face, but mingled with the distress a sort of ecstasy. She mourned as a mother, but rejoiced as a wife.
Rodney Spelvin was himself again.
That night little Braid Bates, addressing his father, said:
“How’s that poem coming along?”
William cast a hunted look at his helpmeet, and Jane took things in hand in her firm, capable way.
“That,” she said, “will be all of that. Daddy isn’t going to write any poem and, we shall want you out on the practice tee at seven sharp to-morrow, my lad.”
“B
ut Uncle Rodney writes poems to Timothy.”
“No he doesn’t. Not now.”
“But …”
Jane regarded him with quiet intentness.
Does Mother’s little chickabiddy want his nose pushed sideways?” she said. “Very well, then.”
CHAPTER VII
Tangled Hearts
A MARRIAGE was being solemnized in the church that stands about a full spoon shot from the club-house. The ceremony had nearly reached its conclusion. As the officiating clergyman coming to the nub of the thing, addressed the young man in the cutaway coat and spongebag trousers, there reigned throughout the sacred edifice a tense silence, such as prevails upon a racecourse just before the shout goes up, “They’re off!”
“Wilt thou,” he said, “—hup—Smallwood, take this—hup— Celia to be thy wedded wife?”
A sudden gleam came into the other’s horn-rimmed spectacled eyes.
“Say, listen,” he began. “Lemme tell you what to—”
He stopped, a blush mantling his face.
“I will,” he said.
A few moments later, the organ was pealing forth “The Voice that breathed o’er Eden”. The happy couple entered the vestry. The Oldest Member, who had been among those in the ringside pews, walked back to the club-house with the friend who was spending the week-end with him.
The friend seemed puzzled.
“Tell me,” he said. “Am I wrong, or did the bridegroom at one point in the proceedings start to ad lib with some stuff that was not on the routine?”
“He did, indeed,” replied the Oldest Member. “He was about to advise the minister what to do for his hiccoughs. I find the fact that he succeeded in checking himself very gratifying. It seems to show that his cure may be considered permanent.”
“His cure?”
“Until very recently Smallwood Bessemer was a confirmed adviser.”