In the draw for partners Wallace had had Peter Willard allotted to him; and he muttered to me in a quite audible voice that it was as bad as handicapping him half a dozen strokes to make him play with such a hopeless performer. I do not think Peter heard, but it would not have made much difference to him if he had, for I doubt if anything could have had much effect for the worse on his game. Peter Willard always entered for the medal competition, because he said that competition-play was good for the nerves.
On this occasion he topped his ball badly, and Wallace lit his pipe with the exaggeratedly patient air of an irritated man. When Peter topped his second also, Wallace was moved to speech.
“For goodness’ sake,” he snapped, “what’s the good of playing at all if you insist on lifting your head? Keep it down, man, keep it down. You don’t need to watch to see where the ball is going. It isn’t likely to go as far as all that. Make up your mind to count three before you look up.”
“Thanks,” said Peter, meekly. There was no pride in Peter to be wounded. He knew the sort of player he was.
The couples were now moving off with smooth rapidity, and the course was dotted with the figures of players and their accompanying spectators. A fair proportion of these latter had decided to follow the fortunes of Raymond Gandle, but by far the larger number were sticking to Wallace, who right from the start showed that Gandle or anyone else would have to return a very fine card to beat him. He was out in thirty-seven, two above bogey, and with the assistance of a superb second, which landed the ball within a foot of the pin, got a three on the tenth, where a four is considered good. I mention this to show that by the time he arrived at the short lake-hole Wallace Chesney was at the top of his form. Not even the fact that he had been obliged to let the next couple through owing to Peter Willard losing his ball had been enough to upset him.
The course has been rearranged since, but at that time the lake-hole, which is now the second, was the eleventh, and was generally looked on as the crucial hole in a medal round. Wallace no doubt realized this, but the knowledge did not seem to affect him. He lit his pipe with the utmost coolness: and, having replaced the matchbox in his hip-pocket, stood smoking nonchalantly as he waited for the couple in front to get off the green.
They holed out eventually, and Wallace walked to the tee. As he did so, he was startled to receive a resounding smack.
“Sorry,” said Peter Willard, apologetically. “Hope I didn’t hurt you. A wasp.”
And he pointed to the corpse, which was lying in a used-up attitude on the ground.
“Afraid it would sting you,” said Peter.
“Oh, thanks,” said Wallace.
He spoke a little stiffly, for Peter Willard had a large, hard, flat hand, the impact of which had shaken him up considerably. Also, there had been laughter in the crowd. He was fuming as he bent to address the ball, and his annoyance became acute when, just as he reached the top of his swing, Peter Willard suddenly spoke.
“Just a second, old man,” said Peter. Wallace spun round, outraged.
“What is it? I do wish you would wait till I’ve made my shot.”
“Just as you like,” said Peter, humbly.
“There is no greater crime that a man can commit on the links than to speak to a fellow when he’s making his stroke.”
“Of course, of course,” acquiesced Peter, crushed.
Wallace turned to his ball once more. He was vaguely conscious of a discomfort to which he could not at the moment give a name. At first he thought that he was having a spasm of lumbago, and this surprised him, for he had never in his life been subject to even a suspicion of that malady. A moment later he realized that this diagnosis had been wrong.
“Good heavens!” he cried, leaping nimbly some two feet into the air. “I’m on fire!”
“Yes,” said Peter, delighted at his ready grasp of the situation. “That’s what I wanted to mention just now.”
Wallace slapped vigorously at the seat of his Plus Fours.
“It must have been when I killed that wasp,” said Peter, beginning to see clearly into the matter. “You had a match-box in your pocket.”
Wallace was in no mood to stop and discuss first causes. He was springing up and down on his pyre, beating at the flames.
“Do you know what I should do if I were you?” said Peter Willard. “I should jump into the lake.”
One of the cardinal rules of golf is that a player shall accept no advice from anyone but his own caddie; but the warmth about his lower limbs had now become so generous that Wallace was prepared to stretch a point. He took three rapid strides and entered the water with a splash.
The lake, though muddy, is not deep, and presently Wallace was to be observed standing up to his waist some few feet from the shore.
“That ought to have put it out,” said Peter Willard. “It was a bit of luck that it happened at this hole.” He stretched out a hand to the bather. “Catch hold, old man, and I’ll pull you out.”
“No!” said Wallace Chesney.
“Why not?”
“Never mind!” said Wallace, austerely. He bent as near to Peter as he was able.
“Send a caddie up to the club-house to fetch my grey flannel trousers from my locker,” he whispered, tensely.
“Oh, ah!” said Peter.
It was some little time before Wallace, encircled by a group of male spectators, was enabled to change his costume; and during the interval he continued to stand waist-deep in the water, to the chagrin of various couples who came to the tee in the course of their round and complained with not a little bitterness that his presence there added a mental hazard to an already difficult hole. Eventually, however, he found himself back ashore, his ball before him, his mashie in his hand.
“Carry on,” said Peter Willard, as the couple in front left the green. “All clear now.”
Wallace Chesney addressed his ball. And, even as he did so, he was suddenly aware that an odd psychological change had taken place in himself. He was aware of a strange weakness. The charred remains of the Plus Fours were lying under an adjacent bush; and, clad in the old grey flannels of his early golfing days, Wallace felt diffident, feeble, uncertain of himself. It was as though virtue had gone out of him, as if some indispensable adjunct to good play had been removed. His corrugated trouser-leg caught his eye as he waggled, and all at once he became acutely alive to the fact that many eyes were watching him. The audience seemed to press on him like a blanket. He felt as he had been wont to feel in the old days when he had had to drive off the first tee in front of a terrace-full of scoffing critics.
The next moment his ball had bounded weakly over the intervening patch of turf and was in the water.
“Hard luck!” said Peter Willard, ever a generous foe. And the words seemed to touch some almost atrophied chord in Wallace’s breast. A sudden love for his species flooded over him. Dashed decent of Peter, he thought, to sympathize. Peter was a good chap. So were the spectators good chaps. So was everybody, even his caddie.
Peter Willard, as if resolved to make his sympathy practical, also rolled his ball into the lake.
“Hard luck!” said Wallace Chesney, and started as he said it; for many weeks had passed since he had commiserated with an opponent. He felt a changed man. A better, sweeter, kindlier man. It was as if a curse had fallen from him.
He teed up another ball, and swung.
“Hard luck!” said Peter.
“Hard luck!” said Wallace, a moment later.
“Hard luck!” said Peter, a moment after that.
Wallace Chesney stood on the tee watching the spot in the water where his third ball had fallen. The crowd was now openly amused, and, as he listened to their happy laughter, it was borne in upon Wallace that he, too, was amused and happy. A weird, almost effervescent exhilaration filled him. He turned and beamed upon the spectators. He waved his mashie cheerily at them. This, he felt, was something like golf. This was golf as it should be—not the dull, mechanical thing which ha
d bored him during all these past weeks of his perfection, but a gay, rollicking adventure. That was the soul of golf, the thing that made it the wonderful pursuit it was—that speculativeness, that not knowing where the dickens your ball was going when you hit it, that eternal hoping for the best, that never-failing chanciness. It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and at last this great truth had come home to Wallace Chesney. He realized now why pro’s. were all grave, silent men who seemed to struggle manfully against some secret sorrow. It was because they were too darned good. Golf had no surprises for them, no gallant spirit of adventure.
“I’m going to get a ball over if I stay here all night,” cried Wallace Chesney, gaily, and the crowd echoed his mirth. On the face of Charlotte Dix was the look of a mother whose prodigal son had rolled into the old home once more. She caught Wallace’s eye and gesticulated to him blithely.
“The cripple says he’ll give you a stroke a hole, Wally!” she shouted.
“I’m ready for him!” bellowed Wallace.
“Hard luck!” said Peter Willard.
Under their bush the Plus Fours, charred and dripping, lurked unnoticed. But Wallace Chesney saw them. They caught his eye as he sliced his eleventh into the marshes on the right. It seemed to him that they looked sullen. Disappointed. Baffled.
Wallace Chesney was himself again.
17
THE AWAKENING OF ROLLO PODMARSH
DOWN ON THE new bowling-green behind the club-house some sort of competition was in progress. The seats about the smooth strip of turf were crowded, and the weak-minded yapping of the patients made itself plainly audible to the Oldest Member as he sat in his favourite chair in the smoking-room. He shifted restlessly, and a frown marred the placidity of his venerable brow. To the Oldest Member a golf-club was a golf-club, and he resented the introduction of any alien element. He had opposed the institution of tennis-courts; and the suggestion of a bowling-green had stirred him to his depths.
A young man in spectacles came into the smoking-room. His high forehead was aglow, and he lapped up a ginger-ale with the air of one who considers that he has earned it.
“Capital exercise!” he said, beaming upon the Oldest Member.
The Oldest Member laid down his Vardon On Casual Water, and peered suspiciously at his companion.
“What did you go round in?” he asked.
“Oh, I wasn’t playing golf,” said the young man. “Bowls.”
“A nauseous pursuit!” said the Oldest Member, coldly, and resumed his reading.
The young man seemed nettled.
“I don’t know why you should say that,” he retorted. “It’s a splendid game.”
“I rank it,” said the Oldest Member, “with the juvenile pastime of marbles.”
The young man pondered for some moments.
“Well, anyway,” he said at length, “it was good enough for Drake.”
“As I have not the pleasure of the acquaintance of your friend Drake, I am unable to estimate the value of his endorsement.”
“The Drake. The Spanish Armada Drake. He was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe when they told him that the Armada was in sight. ‘There is time to finish the game,’ he replied. That’s what Drake thought of bowls.”
“If he had been a golfer he would have ignored the Armada altogether.”
“It’s easy enough to say that,” said the young man, with spirit, “but can the history of golf show a parallel case?”
“A million, I should imagine.”
“But you’ve forgotten them, eh?” said the young man, satirically.
“On the contrary,” said the Oldest Member. “As a typical instance, neither more nor less remarkable than a hundred others, I will select the story of Rollo Podmarsh.” He settled himself comfortably in his chair, and placed the tips of his fingers together. “This Rollo Podmarsh⎯”
“No, I say!” protested the young man, looking at his watch.
“This Rollo Podmarsh⎯”
“Yes, but⎯”
This Rollo Podmarsh (said the Oldest Member) was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and like other young men in that position he had rather allowed a mother’s tender care to take the edge off what you might call his rugged manliness. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had permitted his parent to coddle him ever since he had been in the nursery; and now, in his twenty-eighth year, he invariably wore flannel next his skin, changed his shoes the moment they got wet, and—from September to May, inclusive—never went to bed without partaking of a bowl of hot arrowroot. Not, you would say, the stuff of which heroes are made. But you would be wrong. Rollo Podmarsh was a golfer, and consequently pure gold at heart; and in his hour of crisis all the good in him came to the surface.
In giving you this character-sketch of Rollo, I have been at pains to make it crisp, for I observe that you are wriggling in a restless manner and you persist in pulling out that watch of yours and gazing at it. Let me tell you that, if a mere skeleton outline of the man has this effect upon you, I am glad for your sake that you never met his mother. Mrs. Podmarsh could talk with enjoyment for hours on end about her son’s character and habits. And, on the September evening on which I introduce her to you, though she had, as a fact, been speaking only for some ten minutes, it had seemed like hours to the girl, Mary Kent, who was the party of the second part to the conversation.
Mary Kent was the daughter of an old school-friend of Mrs. Podmarsh, and she had come to spend the autumn and winter with her while her parents were abroad. The scheme had never looked particularly good to Mary, and after ten minutes of her hostess on the subject of Rollo she was beginning to weave dreams of knotted sheets and a swift getaway through the bedroom window in the dark of the night.
“He is a strict teetotaller,” said Mrs. Podmarsh.
“Really?”
“And has never smoked in his life.”
“Fancy that!”
“But here is the dear boy now,” said Mrs. Podmarsh, fondly.
Down the road towards them was coming a tall, well-knit figure in a Norfolk coat and grey flannel trousers. Over his broad shoulders was suspended a bag of golf-clubs.
“Is that Mr. Podmarsh?” exclaimed Mary.
She was surprised. After all she had been listening to about the arrowroot and the flannel next the skin and the rest of it, she had pictured the son of the house as a far weedier specimen. She had been expecting to meet a small, slender young man with an eyebrow moustache, and pince-nez; and this person approaching might have stepped straight out of Jack Dempsey’s training-camp.
“Does he play golf?” asked Mary, herself an enthusiast.
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Podmarsh. “He makes a point of going out on the links once a day. He says the fresh air gives him such an appetite.”
Mary, who had taken a violent dislike to Rollo on the evidence of his mother’s description of his habits, had softened towards him on discovering that he was a golfer. She now reverted to her previous opinion. A man who could play the noble game from such ignoble motives was beyond the pale.
“Rollo is exceedingly good at golf,” proceeded Mrs. Podmarsh. “He scores more than a hundred and twenty every time, while Mr. Burns, who is supposed to be one of the best players in the club, seldom manages to reach eighty. But Rollo is very modest—modesty is one of his best qualities—and you would never guess he was so skilful unless you were told.”
“Well, Rollo darling, did you have a nice game? You didn’t get your feet wet, I hope? This is Mary Kent, dear.”
Rollo Podmarsh shook hands with Mary. And at her touch the strange dizzy feeling which had come over him at the sight of her suddenly became increased a thousand-fold. As I see that you are consulting your watch once more, I will not describe his emotions as exhaustively as I might. I will merely say that he had never felt anything resembling this sensation of dazed ecstasy since the occasion when a twenty-foot putt of his, which had been going well off the line, as his putts generally did, had h
it a worm-cast sou’-sou’-east of the hole and popped in, giving him a snappy six. Rollo Podmarsh, as you will have divined, was in love at first sight. Which makes it all the sadder to think Mary at the moment was regarding him as an outcast and a blister.
Mrs. Podmarsh, having enfolded her son in a vehement embrace, drew back with a startled exclamation, sniffing.
“Rollo!” she cried. “You smell of tobacco-smoke.”
Rollo looked embarrassed.
“Well, the fact is, mother⎯”
A hard protuberance in his coat-pocket attracted Mrs. Podmarsh’s notice. She swooped and drew out a big-bowled pipe.
“Rollo!” she exclaimed, aghast.
“Well, the fact is, mother⎯”
“Don’t you know,” cried Mrs. Podmarsh, “that smoking is poisonous, and injurious to the health?”
“Yes. But the fact is, mother—”
“It causes nervous dyspepsia, sleeplessness, gnawing of the stomach, headache, weak eyes, red spots on the skin, throat irritation, asthma, bronchitis, heart failure, lung trouble, catarrh, melancholy, neurasthenia, loss of memory, impaired will-power, rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, neuritis, heartburn, torpid liver, loss of appetite, enervation, lassitude, lack of ambition, and falling out of hair.”
“Yes, 1 know, mother. But the fact is, Ted Ray smokes all the time he’s playing, and I thought it might improve my game.”
And it was at these splendid words that Mary Kent felt for the first time that something might be made of Rollo Podmarsh. That she experienced one-millionth of the fervour which was gnawing at his vitals I will not say. A woman does not fall in love in a flash like a man. But at least she no longer regarded him with loathing. On the contrary, she found herself liking him. There was, she considered, the right stuff in Rollo. And if, as seemed probable from his mother’s conversation, it would take a bit of digging to bring it up, well—she liked rescue-work and had plenty of time.