And it was here that I observed an almost equally surprising change in the demeanour of Horace Bewstridge.
Until this moment, Horace had been going through the motions with something of the weary moodiness of a Volga boatman, his face drawn, his manner listless. But now he had become a different man. As he advanced to the ninth tee, his eyes gleamed, his ears wiggled and his lips were set. He looked like a Volga boatman who has just learned that Stalin has purged his employer.
I could see what had happened. Intoxicated with this unexpected success, he was beginning to rebel against those instructions from up top. The almost religious fervour which comes upon a twenty-four handicap man when he sees a chance of winning his first cup had him in its grip. Who, he was asking himself, was R. P. Crumbles? The man who paid him his salary and could fire him out on his ear, yes, but was money everything? Suppose he won this cup and starved in the gutter, I could almost hear him murmuring, would not that be better than losing the cup and getting his three square a day?
And when on the ninth green, by pure accident, he sank a thirty-foot putt, I saw his lips move and I knew what he was saying to himself. It was the word “Excelsior.”
It was as he stood gaping at the hole into which his ball had disappeared that Sir George Copstone spoke for the first time.
“Jolly good shot, what?” said Sir George, a gallant sportsman. “Right in the old crevasse, what, what? I say, look here,” he went on, jerking his shoulders in a convulsive gesture, “do you mind if I go and shake out the underlinen? Got a beetle or something down my back.”
“Certainly,” said Horace.
“Won’t keep you long. I’ll just strip off the next-the-skins and spring upon it unawares.”
He performed another complicated writhing movement, and was about to leave us, when along came R. P. Crumbles.
“How’s it going?” asked R. P. Crumbles.
“Eh? What? Going? Oh, one down at the turn.”
“He is?”
“No, I am,” said Sir George. “He, in sharp contradistinction, is one up. Sank a dashed find putt on this green. Thirty feet, if an inch. Well, excuse me, I’ll just buzz off and bash this beetle.”
He hastened away, twitching in every limb, and R. P. Crumbles turned to Horace. His face was suffused.
“Do I get no co-operation, Bewstridge?” he demanded. “What the devil do you mean by being one up? And what’s all this nonsense about thirty-foot putts? How dare you sink thirty-foot putts?”
I could have told him that Horace was in no way responsible for what had occurred and that the thing must be looked on as an Act of God, but I hesitated to wound the young man’s feelings, and R. P. Crumbles continued.
“Thirty-foot putts, indeed! Have you forgotten what I told you?”
Horace Bewstridge met his accusing glare without a tremor. His face was like granite. His eyes shone with a strange light.
“I have not forgotten the inter-office memo, to which you refer,” he said, in a firm, quiet voice. “But I am ignoring it. I intend to trim the pants off this stranger in our midst.”
“You do, and see what happens.”
“I don’t care what happens.”
“Bewstridge,” said R. B. Crumbles, “nine more holes remain to be played. During these nine holes, think well. I shall be waiting on the eighteenth to see the finish. I shall hope to find,’ he added significantly, “that the match has ended before then.
He walked away, and I think I have never seen the back of any head look more sinister. Horace, however, merely waved his putter defiantly, as if it had been a banner with a strange device and the other an old man recommending him not to try a pass.
“Nuts to you, R P. Crumbles!” he cried, with a strange dignity. “Fire me, if you will. This is the only chance I shall ever have of winning a cup, and I’m going to do it.”
I stood for a moment motionless. This revelation of the nobility of this young man’s soul had stunned me. Then I hurried to where he stood, and gripped his hand. I was still shaking it, when an arch contralto voice spoke behind us.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bewstridge.”
Mrs. Botts was in our midst. She was accompanied by her husband, Ponsford, her son Irwin, and her dog, Alphonse.
“How is the match going?” asked Mrs. Botts.
Horace explained the position of affairs.
“We shall all be on the eighteenth green, to see the finish,” said Mrs. Botts. “But you really must not beat Sir George. That would be very naughty. Where is Sir George?”
As she spoke, Sir George Copstone appeared, looking quite his old self again.
“Bashed him!” he said. “Whopping big chap. Put up the dickens of a struggle. But I settled him in the end. He’ll think twice before he tackles a Sussex Copstone again.”
Mrs. Botts uttered a girlish scream.
“Somebody attacked you, Sir George?”
“I should say so. Whacking great brute of a beetle. But I fixed him.”
“You killed a beetle?”
“Well, stunned him, at any rate. Technical knockout.”
“But, Sir George, don’t you remember what Coleridge said—He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small?”
“Not beetles?”
“Of course. Some of my closest chums are beetles.”
The other seemed amazed.
“This friend of yours, this Coleridge, really says—he positively asserts that we ought to love beetles?”
“Of course.”
“Even when they get under the vest and start doing buck and wing dances along the spine?”
“Of course.”
“Sounds a bit of a silly ass to me. Not the sort of chap one would care to know. Well, come on, Bewstridge, let’s be moving, what? I say,” went on Sir George, as they passed out of earshot, “do you know that old geezer? Potty, what? Over in England, we’d have her in a padded cell before she could say ‘Pip, pip’. Beetles, egad! Coleridge, forsooth! And do you know what she said to me this morning? Told me to be careful where I stepped on the front lawn, because it was full of pixies. Can’t stand that husband of hers, either. Always talking rot about Irishmen. And what price the son and heir? There’s a young blister for you. And as for that flea storage depot she calls a dog . . . Well, I’ll tell you If I’d known what I was letting myself in for, staying at her house, I’d have gone to a hotel. Carry on, Bewstridge. It’s your honour.”
It was perhaps the exhilaration due to hearing these frank criticisms of a quartette whom he had never liked, though he had striven to love them for Vera Witherby’s sake, that lent zip to Horace’s drive from the tenth tee. Normally, he was a man who alternated between a weak slice and a robust hook, but on this occasion his ball looked neither to right nor left. He pasted it straight down the middle, and with such vehemence that he had no difficulty in winning the hole and putting himself two up.
But now the tide of fortune began to change again. His recent victory over the beetle had put Sir George Copstone right back into the old mid-season form. Once more he had become the formidable Frozen Horror whose deliberate methods of play had caused three stout men to succumb before his onslaught in the preliminary rounds. With infinite caution, like one suspecting a trap of some kind, he selected clubs from his bulging bag; with unremitting concentration he addressed and struck his ball. And for a while there took place as stem a struggle as I have ever witnessed on the links.
But gradually Sir George secured the upper hand. Little by little he recovered the ground he had lost. He kept turning in steady sevens, and came a time when Horace began to take nines. The strain had uncovered his weak spot. His putting touch had left him.
I could see what was wrong, of course. He was being much too scientific. He was remembering the illustrated plates in the golf books and trying to make the club head move from Spot A. through Line B. to ball C. and that is always a fatal thing for a high handicap man to do. I have talked to a great many of our most successful hig
h handicap men, and they all assured me that the only way in which it was possible to obtain results was to shut the eyes, breathe a short prayer and loose off into the unknown.
Still, there it was, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Horace went on studying the line and taking the Bobby Jones stance and all the rest of it, and gradually, as I say, Sir George recovered the ground he had lost. One down on the thirteenth, he squared the match at the fifteenth, and it was only by holing out a fortunate brassie shot to win on the seventeenth that Horace was enabled to avoid defeat by two and one. As it was, they came to the eighteenth on level terms, and everything, therefore, depended on what Fate held in store for them there.
I had a melancholy feeling that the odds were all in favour of the older man. At the time of which I am speaking, the eighteenth was not the long hole which we are looking at as we sit here, but that short, tricky one which is now the ninth—the one where you stand at the foot of the hill and pop the ball up vertically with a mashie, trusting that you will not overdrive and run across the green into the deep chasm on the other side. At such a hole, a cautious, calculating player like Sir George Copstone inevitably has the advantage over a younger and more ardent antagonist, who is apt to put too much beef behind his tee shot.
My fear, however, that Horace would fall into this error was not fulfilled. His ball soared in a perfect arc, and one could see at a glance that it must have dropped very near the pin. Sir George’s effort, though sound and scholarly, was not in the same class, and there could be no doubt that on reaching the summit we should find that he was away. And so it proved. The first thing I saw as I arrived, was a group consisting of Ponsford Botts, little Irwin Botts and the poodle, Alphonse; the second, Horace’s ball lying some two feet from the flag; the third, that of his opponent at least six feet beyond it.
Sir George, a fighter to the last, putting to within a few inches of the hole, and I heard Horace draw a deep breath.
“This for it,” he said. And, as he spoke, there was a rapid pattering of feet, and what looked like a bundle of black cotton-wool swooped past him, seized the ball in its slavering jaws and bore it away. At this crucial moment, with Horace Bewstridge’s fortunes swaying in the balance, Alphonse had got the party spirit.
The shocked “Hoy!” that sprang from my lips must have sounded to the animal like the Voice of Conscience, for he started visibly and dropped the ball. I had at least prevented him from going to the last awful extreme of carrying it down into the abyss.
But the spot where he had dropped it was the very edge of the green, and Horace Bewstridge stood motionless, with ashen face. Once before, in the course of this match, he had sunk a putt of this length, but he was doubting if that sort of thing happened twice in a lifetime. He would have to concentrate, concentrate. With knitted brow, he knelt down to study the line. And, as he did so, Alphonse began to bark.
Horace rose. Almost as clearly as if he had given them verbal utterance, I could read the thoughts that were passing through his mind.
This dog, he was saying to himself, was the apple of Irwin Botts’s eye. It was also the apple of Ponsford Botts’s eye. To seek it out and kick it in the slats, therefore, would be to shoot that system of his to pieces beyond repair. Irwin Botts would look at him askance. Ponsford Botts would look at him askance. And if they looked at him askance, Vera Witherby would look at him askance, too, for they were presumably the apples of her eye, just as Alphonse was the apple of theirs.
On the other hand, he could not putt with a noise like that going on.
He made his decision. If he should lose Vera Witherby, it would be most unfortunate, but not so unfortunate as losing the President’s Cup. Horace Bewstridge, as I have said, was a golfer.
The next moment, the barking had broken off in a sharp yelp, and Alphonse was descending into the chasm like a falling star. Horace was descending into the chasm like a falling star. Horace returned to his ball, and resumed his study of the line.
The Bottses, Irwin and Ponsford, had been stunned witnesses of the assault. They now gave tongue simultaneously.
“Hey!” cried Irwin Botts.
“Hi!” cried Ponsford Botts.
Horace frowned meditatively at the hole. Even apart from the length of it, it was a difficult shot. He would have to allow for the undulations of the green. There was a nasty little slope there to the right. That must be taken into consideration. There was also, further on, a nasty little slope to the left. The thing called for profound thought, and for some reason he found himself unable to give his whole mind to the problem.
Then he saw what the trouble was. Irwin Botts was standing beside him, shouting “Hey!” in his left ear, and Ponsford Botts was standing on the other side, shouting “Hi!” in his right ear. It was this that was affecting his concentration.
He gazed at them, momentarily at a loss. How, he asked himself, would Bobby Jones have handled a situation like this? The answer came in a flash. He would have taken Irwin Botts by the scruff of his neck, led him to the brink of the chasm and kicked him into it. He would then have come back for Ponsford Botts.
Horace did this, and resumed the scrutiny of the line. And at this moment, accompanied by a pretty, soulful-looking girl in whom I recognized Vera Witherby, R. P. Crumbles came on to the green. As his eye fell on Horace, his face darkened. He asked Sir George Copstone how the match stood.
“I should have thought,” he said, chewing his cigar ominously, “that it would have been over long before this. I had supposed that you would have won on about the fifteenth or sixteenth.”
“It is a point verging very decidedly on the moot,” replied Sir George, “if I’m going to win on the eighteenth. He’s got this for it, and I expect him to sink it, now that there’s nothing to distract his mind. He was being a bit bothered a moment ago,” he explained, “by Botts senior, Botts junior and the Botts dog. But he has just kicked them all into the chasm, and can now give his whole attention to the game. Capable young feller, that. Just holed out a two hundred yard brassie shot. Judged it to a nicety.”
I heard Vera Witherby draw in her breath sharply. R. P. Crumbles, switching his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, strode across to where Horace was bending over his ball, and spoke rapidly and forcefully.
It was a dangerous thing to do, and one against which his best friends would have advised him. There was no “Yes, Mr. Crumbles”, “No, Mr. Crumbles” about Horace Bewstridge now. I saw him straighten up with a testy frown. The next moment, he had attached himself to the scruff of the other’s neck and was adding him to the contents of the chasm.
This done, he returned, took another look at the hole with his head on one side, and seemed satisfied. He rose, and addressed his ball. He was drawing the club head back, when a sudden scream rent the air. Glancing over his shoulder, exasperated, he saw that their little group had been joined by Mrs. Botts. She was bending over the edge of the chasm, endeavouring to establish communication with its inmates. Muffled voices rose from the depths.
“Ponsford!”
“Wah, wah, wah.”
“Mr. Crumbles!”
“Wah, wah, wah.”
“Irwin!”
“Wah, wah, wah.”
“Alphonse!”
“Woof, woof, woof.”
Mrs. Botts bent still further forward, one hand resting on the turf, the other cupped to her ear.
“What? What did you say? I can’t hear. What are you doing down there? What? I can’t hear. What is Mr. Crumbles doing down there? Why has he got his foot in Irwin’s eye? Irwin, take your eye away from Mr. Crumbles’ foot immediately. What? I can’t hear. Tell whom he is fired, Mr. Crumbles? I can’t hear. Why is Alphonse biting Mr. Crumbles in the leg? What? I can’t hear. I wish you would speak plainly. Your mouth’s full of what? Ham? Oh, sand? Why is your mouth full of sand? Why is Alphonse now biting Irwin? Skin whom, Mr. Crumbles? What? I can’t hear. You’ve swallowed your cigar? Why? What? I can’t hear.”
&nbs
p; It seemed to Horace Bewstridge, that this sort of thing, unless firmly checked at the source, might go on indefinitely. And to attempt to concentrate while it did, was hopeless. Clicking his tongue in annoyance at these incessant interruptions, he stepped across to where Mrs. Botts crouched. There was a sound like a pistol shot. Mrs. Botts joined the others. Horace came back, rubbing his hand, studied the line again and took his stance.
“Mr. Bewstridge!”
The words, spoken in his left ear just as he was shooting, were little more than a whisper, but they affected Horace as if an ammunition dump had exploded beneath him. Until this moment, he had evidently been unaware of the presence of the girl he loved, and this unexpected announcement of it caused him to putt rather strongly.
His club descended with a convulsive jerk, and the ball, as if feeling that now that all that scientific nonsense was over, it knew where it was, started off for the hole at forty miles an hour in a dead straight line. There were slopes to the right There were slopes to the left. It ignored them. Sizzling over the turf, it struck the back of the cup, soared into the air like a rocket, came down, soared up again, fell once more bounced and rebounced and finally, after rattling round and round for perhaps a quarter of a minute, rested safe at journey’s end. The struggle for the President’s Cup was over.
“Nice work,” said Sir George Copstone. “Your match, what?”
Horace was gazing at Vera Witherby.
“You spoke?” he said.
She blushed in pretty confusion.
“It was nothing. I only wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“For what you did to Aunt Lavender.”
“Me, too,” said Sir George Copstone, who had joined them. “Precisely what the woman needed. Should be a turning point in her life. That’ll take her mind off pixies for a bit. And beetles.”
Horace stared at the girl. He had thought to see her shrink from him in loathing. Instead of which, she was looking at him with something in her eyes which, if he was not very much mistaken, was the love light.
“Vera . . . Do you mean . . .?”