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 hit 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, I 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.
* * * * *
Mr. Arnold Bennett, in a recent essay, advises young bachelors to
proceed with a certain caution in matters of the heart. They should,
he asserts, first decide whether or not they are ready for love; then,
whether it is better to marry earlier or later; thirdly, whether their
ambitions are such that a wife will prove a hindrance to their career.
These romantic preliminaries concluded, they may grab a girl and go to
it. Rollo Podmarsh would have made a tough audience for these precepts.
Since the days of Antony and Cleopatra probably no one had ever got
more swiftly off the mark. One may say that he was in love before he
had come within two yards of the girl. And each day that passed found
him more nearly up to his eyebrows in the tender emotion.
He thought of Mary when he was changing his wet shoes; he dreamed of
her while putting flannel next his skin; he yearned for her over the
evening arrowroot. Why, the man was such a slave to his devotion that
he actually went to the length of purloining small articles belonging
to her. Two days after Mary’s arrival Rollo Podmarsh was driving off
the first tee with one of her handkerchiefs, a powder-puff, and a dozen
hairpins secreted in his left breast-pocket. When dressing for dinner
he used to take them out and look at them, and at night he slept with
them under his pillow. Heavens, how he loved that girl!
One evening when they had gone out into the garden together to look at
the new moon--Rollo, by his mother’s advice, wearing a woollen scarf
to protect his throat--he endeavoured to bring the conversation round
to the important subject. Mary’s last remark had been about earwigs.
Considered as a cue, it lacked a subtle something; but Rollo was not
the man to be discouraged by that.
“Talking of earwigs, Miss Kent,” he said, in a low musical voice, “have
you ever been in love?”
Mary was silent for a moment before replying.
“Yes, once. When I was eleven. With a conjurer who came to perform at
my birthday-party. He took a rabbit and two eggs out of my hair, and
life seemed one grand sweet song.”
“Never since then?”
“Never.”
“Suppose--just for the sake of argument--suppose you ever did love any
one--er--what sort of a man would it be?”
“A hero,” said Mary, promptly.
“A hero?” said Rollo, somewhat taken aback. “What sort of hero?”
“Any sort. I could only love a really brave man--a man who had done
some wonderful heroic action.”
“Shall we go in?” said Rollo, hoarsely. “The air is a little chilly.”
We have now, therefore, arrived at a period in Rollo Podmarsh’s career
which might have inspired those lines of Henley’s about “the night that
covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole.” What with one thing and
another, he was in an almost Job-like condition of despondency. I say
“one thing and another,” for it was not only hopeless love that weighed
him down. In addition to being hopelessly in love, he was greatly
depressed about his golf.
* * * * *
On Rollo in his capacity of golfer I have so far not dwelt. You have
probably allowed yourself, in spite of the significant episode of the
pipe, to dismiss him as one of those placid, contented--shall I say
dilettante?--golfers who are so frequent in these degenerate days.
Such was not the case. Outwardly placid, Rollo was consumed inwardly
by an ever-burning fever of ambition. His aims were not extravagant.
He did not want to become amateur champion, nor even to win a monthly
medal; but he did, with his whole soul, desire one of these days to
go round the course in under a hundred. This feat accomplished, it
was his intention to set the seal on his golfing career by playing a
real money-match; and already he had selected his opponent, a certain
Colonel Bodger, a tottery performer of advanced years who for the last
decade had been a martyr to lumbago.
But it began to look as if even the modest goal he had marked out for
himself were beyond his powers. Day after day he would step on to the
first tee, glowing with zeal and hope, only to crawl home in the quiet
evenfall with another hundred and twenty on his card. Little wonder,
then, that he began to lose his appetite and would moan feebly at the
sight of a poached egg.
With Mrs. Podmarsh sedulously watching over her son’s health, you
might have supposed that this inability on his part to teach the
foodstuffs to take a joke would have caused consternation in the home.
But it so happened that Rollo’s mother had recently been reading a
medical treatise in which an eminent physician stated that we all
eat too much nowadays, and that the secret of a happy life is to lay
off the carbohydrates to some extent. She was, therefore, delighted
to observe the young man’s moderation in the matter of food, and
frequently held him up as an example to be noted and followed by little
Lettice Willoughby, her grand-daughter, who was a good and consistent
trencherwoman, particularly rough on the puddings. Little Lettice, I
should mention, was the daughter of Rollo’s sister Enid, who lived in
the neighbourhood. Mrs. Willoughby had been compelled to go away on
a visit a few days before and had left her child with Mrs. Podmarsh
during her absence.
You can fool some of the people all the time, but Lettice Willoughby
was not of the type that is easily deceived. A nice, old-fashioned
child would no doubt have accepted without questioning her
grand-mother’s dictum that roly-poly pudding could not fail to hand a
devastating wallop to the blood-pressure, and that to take two helpings
of it was practically equivalent to walking right into the family
vault. A child with less decided opinions of her own would have been
impressed by the spectacle of her uncle refusing sustenance, and would
have received without demur the statement that he did it because he
felt that abstinence was good for his health. Lettice was a modern
child and knew better. She had had experience of this loss of appetite
and its significance. The first symptom which had preceded the demise
of poor old Ponto, who had recently handed in his portfolio after
holding office for ten years as the Willoughby family dog, had been
this same disinclination to absorb nourishment. Besides, she was an
observant child, and had not failed to note the haggard misery in her
uncle’s eyes. She tackled him squarely on the subject one morning after
breakfast. Rollo had retired into the more distant parts of the garden,
and was leaning forward, when she found him, with his head buried in
his hands.
“Hallo, uncle,” said Lettice.
Rollo looked up wanly.
“Ah, child!” he said. He was fond of his niece.
“Aren’t you feeling well, uncle?”
“Far, far from well.”
“It’s old age, I expect,” said Lettice.
“I feel old,” admitted Rollo. “Old and battered. Ah, Lettice, laugh and
be gay while you can.”
“All right, uncle.”
“Make the most of your happy, careless, smiling, halcyon childhood.”
“Right-o, uncle.”
“When you get to my age, dear, you will realise that it is a sad,
hopeless world. A world where, if you keep your head down, you forget
to let the club-head lead: where even if you do happen by a miracle
to keep ’em straight with your brassie, you blow up on the green and
foozle a six-inch putt.”
Lettice could not quite understand what Uncle Rollo was talking about,
but she gathered broadly that she had been correct in supposing him to
be in a bad state, and her warm, childish heart was filled with pity
for him. She walked thoughtfully away, and Rollo resumed his reverie.
Into each life, as the poet says, some rain must fall. So much had
recently been falling into Rollo’s that, when Fortune at last sent
along a belated sunbeam, it exercised a cheering effect out of all
proportion to its size. By this I mean that when, some four days after
his conversation with Lettice, Mary Kent asked him to play golf with
her, he read into the invitation a significance which only a lover
could have seen in it. I will not go so far as to say that Rollo
Podmarsh looked on Mary Kent’s suggestion that they should have a round
together as actually tantamount to a revelation of undying love; but he
certainly regarded it as a most encouraging sign. It seemed to him that
things were beginning to move, that Rollo Preferred were on a rising
market. Gone was the gloom of the past days. He forgot those sad,
solitary wanderings of his in the bushes at the bottom of the garden;
he forgot that his mother had bought him a new set of winter woollies
which felt like horsehair; he forgot that for the last few evenings
his arrowroot had tasted rummy. His whole mind was occupied with the
astounding fact that she had voluntarily offered to play golf with him,
and he walked out on to the first tee filled with a yeasty exhilaration
which nearly caused him to burst into song.
“How shall we play?” asked Mary. “I am a twelve. What is your handicap?”
Rollo was under the disadvantage of not actually possessing a handicap.
He had a sort of private system of book-keeping of his own by which he
took strokes over if they did not seem to him to be up to sample, and
allowed himself five-foot putts at discretion. So he had never actually
handed in the three cards necessary for handicapping purposes.
“I don’t exactly know,” he said. “It’s my ambition to get round in
under a hundred, but I’ve never managed it yet.”
“Never?”
“Never! It’s strange, but something always seems to go wrong.”
“Perhaps you’ll manage it to-day,” said Mary, encouragingly, so
encouragingly that it was all that Rollo could do to refrain from
flinging himself at her feet and barking like a dog. “Well, I’ll start
you two holes up, and we’ll see how we get on. Shall I take the honour?”
She drove off one of those fair-to-medium balls which go with a twelve
handicap. Not a great length, but nice and straight.
“Splendid!” cried Rollo, devoutly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mary. “I wouldn’t call it anything special.”
Titanic emotions were surging in Rollo’s bosom as he addressed his
ball. He had never felt like this before, especially on the first
tee--where as a rule he found himself overcome with a nervous humility.
“Oh, Mary! Mary!” he breathed to himself as he swung.
You who squander your golden youth fooling about on a bowling-green
will not understand the magic of those three words. But if you were a
golfer, you would realise that in selecting just that invocation to
breathe to himself Rollo Podmarsh had hit, by sheer accident, on the
ideal method of achieving a fine drive. Let me explain. The first two
words, tensely breathed, are just sufficient to take a man with the
proper slowness to the top of his swing; the first syllable of the
second “Mary” exactly coincides with the striking of the ball; and that
final “ry!” takes care of the follow-through. The consequence was that
Rollo’s ball, instead of hopping down the hill like an embarrassed
duck, as was its usual practice, sang off the tee with a scream like
a shell, nodded in passing Mary’s ball, where it lay some hundred and
fifty yards down the course, and, carrying on from there, came to rest
within easy distance of the green. For the first time in his golfing
life Rollo Podmarsh had hit a nifty.
Mary followed the ball’s flight with astonished eyes.
“But this will never do!” she exclaimed. “I can’t possibly start you
two up if you’re going to do this sort of thing.”
Rollo blushed.
“I shouldn’t think it would happen again,” he said. “I’ve never done a
drive like that before.”
“But it must happen again,” said Mary, firmly. “This is evidently your
day. If you don’t get round in under a hundred to-day, I shall never
forgive you.”
Rollo shut his eyes, and his lips moved feverishly. He was registering
a vow that, come what might, he would not fail her. A minute later he
was holing out in three, one under bogey.
The second hole is the short lake-hole. Bogey is three, and Rollo
generally did it in four; for it was his custom not to count any balls
he might sink in the water, but to start afresh with one which happened
to get over, and then take three putts. But to-day something seemed to
tell him that he would not require the aid of this ingenious system. As
he took his mashie from the bag, he _knew_ that his first shot would
soar successfully on to the green.
“Ah, Mary!” he breathed as he swung.
These subtleties are wasted on a worm, if you will pardon the
expression, like yourself, who, possibly owing to a defective
education, is content to spend life’s springtime rolling wooden balls
across a lawn; but I will explain that in altering and shortening his
soliloquy at this juncture Rollo had done the very thing any good
pro. would have recommended. If he had murmured, “Oh, Mary! Mary!” as
before he would have over-swung. “Ah, Mary!” was exactly right for a
half-swing with the mashie. His ball shot up in a beautiful arc, and
trickled to within six inches of the hole.
Mary was delighted. There was something about this big, diffident
man which had appealed from the first to everything in her that was
motherly.
“Marvellous!” she said. “You’ll get a two. Five for the first two
holes! Why, you simply must get round in under a hundred now.” She
swung, but too lightly; and her ball fell in the water. “I’ll give
you this,” she said, without the slightest chagrin, for this girl had
a beautiful nature. “Let’s get on to the third. Four up! Why, you’re
wonderful!”
And not to weary you with too much detail, I will simply remark that,
stimulated by her gentle encouragement, Rollo Podmarsh actually came
off the ninth green with a medal score of forty-six for the half-round.
A ten on the seventh had spoiled his card to some extent, and a nine on
the eighth had not helped, but nevertheless here he was in forty-six,
with the easier half of the course before him. He tingled all
over--partly because he was wearing the new winter woollies to which I
have alluded previously, but principally owing to triumph, elation, and
love. He gazed at Mary as Dante might have gazed at Beatrice on one of
his particularly sentimental mornings.
Mary uttered an exclamation.
“Oh, I’ve just remembered,” she exclaimed. “I promised to write last
night to Jane Simpson and give her that new formula for knitting
jumpers. I think I’ll ’phone her now from the club-house and then it’ll
be off my mind. You go on to the tenth, and I’ll join you there.”
Rollo proceeded over the brow of the hill to the tenth tee, and was
filling in the time with practice-swings when he heard his name spoken.
“Good gracious, Rollo! I couldn’t believe it was you at first.”
He turned to see his sister, Mrs. Willoughby, the mother of the child
Lettice.
“Hallo!” he said. “When did you get back?”
“Late last night. Why, it’s extraordinary!”
“Hope you had a good time. What’s extraordinary? Listen, Enid. Do you
know what I’ve done? Forty-six for the first nine! Forty-six! And
holing out every putt.”
“Oh, then that accounts for it.”
“Accounts for what?”
“Why, your looking so pleased with life. I got an idea from Letty, when
she wrote to me, that you were at death’s door. Your gloom seems to
have made a deep impression on the child. Her letter was full of it.”
Rollo was moved.
“Dear little Letty! She is wonderfully sympathetic.”
“Well, I must be off now,” said Enid Willoughby. “I’m late. Oh, talking
of Letty. Don’t children say the funniest things! She wrote in her
letter that you were very old and wretched and that she was going to
put you out of your misery.”
“Ha ha ha!” laughed Rollo.
“We had to poison poor old Ponto the other day, you know, and poor
little Letty was inconsolable till we explained to her that it was
really the kindest thing to do, because he was so old and ill. But just
imagine her thinking of wanting to end _your_ sufferings!”
“Ha ha!” laughed Rollo. “Ha ha h--”
His voice trailed off into a broken gurgle. Quite suddenly a sinister
thought had come to him.
_The arrowroot had tasted rummy!_
“Why, what on earth is the matter?” asked Mrs. Willoughby, regarding
his ashen face.
Rollo could find no words. He yammered speechlessly. Yes, for several
nights the arrowroot had tasted very rummy. Rummy! There was no
other adjective. Even as he plied the spoon he had said to himself:
“This arrowroot tastes rummy!” And--he uttered a sharp yelp as he
remembered--it had been little Lettice who had brought it to him. He
recollected being touched at the time by the kindly act.
“What _is_ the matter, Rollo?” demanded Mrs. Willoughby, sharply.
“Don’t stand there looking like a dying duck.”
“I am a dying duck,” responded Rollo, hoarsely. “A dying man, I mean.
Enid, that infernal child has poisoned me!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! And kindly don’t speak of her like that!”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t blame her, I suppose. No doubt her motives were
good. But the fact remains.”
“Rollo, you’re too absurd.”
“But the arrowroot tasted rummy.”
“I never knew you could be such an idiot,” said his exasperated sister
with sisterly outspokenness. “I thought you would think it quaint. I
thought you would roar with laughter.”
“I did--till I remembered about the rumminess of the arrowroot.”
Mrs. Willoughby uttered an impatient exclamation and walked away.
Rollo Podmarsh stood on the tenth tee, a volcano of mixed emotions.
Mechanically he pulled out his pipe and lit it. But he found that he
could not smoke. In this supreme crisis of his life tobacco seemed
to have lost its magic. He put the pipe back in his pocket and gave
himself up to his thoughts. Now terror gripped him; anon a sort of
gentle melancholy. It was so hard that he should be compelled to leave
the world just as he had begun to hit ’em right.
And then in the welter of his thoughts there came one of practical
value. To wit, that by hurrying to the doctor’s without delay he might
yet be saved. There might be antidotes.
He turned to go and there was Mary Kent standing beside him with her
bright, encouraging smile.
“I’m sorry I kept you so long,” she said. “It’s your honour. Fire away,
and remember that you’ve got to do this nine in fifty-three at the
outside.”
Rollo’s thoughts flitted wistfully to the snug surgery where Dr. Brown
was probably sitting at this moment surrounded by the finest antidotes.
“Do you know, I think I ought to--”
“Of course you ought to,” said Mary. “If you did the first nine in
forty-six, you can’t possibly take fifty-three coming in.”
For one long moment Rollo continued to hesitate--a moment during which
the instinct of self-preservation seemed as if it must win the day. All
his life he had been brought up to be nervous about his health, and
panic gripped him. But there is a deeper, nobler instinct than that of
self-preservation--the instinctive desire of a golfer who is at the top
of his form to go on and beat his medal-score record. And little by
little this grand impulse began to dominate Rollo. If, he felt, he went
off now to take antidotes, the doctor might possibly save his life; but
reason told him that never again would he be likely to do the first
nine in forty-six. He would have to start all over afresh.
Rollo Podmarsh hesitated no longer. With a pale, set face he teed up
his ball and drove.
* * * * *
If I were telling this story to a golfer instead of to an
excrescence--I use the word in the kindliest spirit--who spends his
time messing about on a bowling-green, nothing would please me better
than to describe shot by shot Rollo’s progress over the remaining nine
holes. Epics have been written with less material. But these details
would, I am aware, be wasted on you. Let it suffice that by the time
his last approach trickled on to the eighteenth green he had taken
exactly fifty shots.
“Three for it!” said Mary Kent. “Steady now! Take it quite easy and be
sure to lay your second dead.”
It was prudent counsel, but Rollo was now thoroughly above himself.
He had got his feet wet in a puddle on the sixteenth, but he did not
care. His winter woollies seemed to be lined with ants, but he ignored
them. All he knew was that he was on the last green in ninety-six, and
he meant to finish in style. No tame three putts for him! His ball was
five yards away, but he aimed for the back of the hole and brought his
putter down with a whack. Straight and true the ball sped, hit the tin,
jumped high in the air, and fell into the hole with a rattle.
“Oo!” cried Mary.
Rollo Podmarsh wiped his forehead and leaned dizzily on his putter. For
a moment, so intense is the fervour induced by the game of games, all
he could think of was that he had gone round in ninety-seven. Then,
as one waking from a trance, he began to appreciate his position. The
fever passed, and a clammy dismay took possession of him. He had
achieved his life’s ambition; but what now? Already he was conscious of
a curious discomfort within him. He felt as he supposed Italians of the
Middle Ages must have felt after dropping in to take pot-luck with the
Borgias. It was hard. He had gone round in ninety-seven, but he could
never take the next step in the career which he had mapped out in his
dreams--the money-match with the lumbago-stricken Colonel Bodger.
Mary Kent was fluttering round him, bubbling congratulations, but Rollo
sighed.
“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks very much. But the trouble is, I’m afraid
I’m going to die almost immediately. I’ve been poisoned!”
“Poisoned!”
“Yes. Nobody is to blame. Everything was done with the best intentions.
But there it is.”
“But I don’t understand.”
Rollo explained. Mary listened pallidly.
“Are you sure?” she gasped.
“Quite sure,” said Rollo, gravely. “The arrowroot tasted rummy.”
“But arrowroot always does.”
Rollo shook his head.
“No,” he said. “It tastes like warm blotting-paper, but not rummy.”
Mary was sniffing.
“Don’t cry,” urged Rollo, tenderly. “Don’t cry.”
“But I must. And I’ve come out without a handkerchief.”
“Permit me,” said Rollo, producing one of her best from his left
breast-pocket.
“I wish I had a powder-puff,” said Mary.
“Allow me,” said Rollo. “And your hair has become a little disordered.
If I may--” And from the same reservoir he drew a handful of hairpins.
Mary gazed at these exhibits with astonishment.
“But these are mine,” she said.
“Yes. I sneaked them from time to time.”
“But why?”
“Because I loved you,” said Rollo. And in a few moving sentences which
I will not trouble you with he went on to elaborate this theme.
Mary listened with her heart full of surging emotions, which I cannot
possibly go into if you persist in looking at that damned watch of
yours. The scales had fallen from her eyes. She had thought slightingly
of this man because he had been a little over-careful of his health,
and all the time he had had within him the potentiality of heroism.
Something seemed to snap inside her.
“Rollo!” she cried, and flung herself into his arms.
“Mary!” muttered Rollo, gathering her up.
“I told you it was all nonsense,” said Mrs. Willoughby, coming up at
this tense moment and going on with the conversation where she had left
off. “I’ve just seen Letty, and she said she meant to put you out of
your misery but the chemist wouldn’t sell her any poison, so she let it
go.”
Rollo disentangled himself from Mary.
“What?” he cried.
Mrs. Willoughby repeated her remarks.
“You’re sure?” he said.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Then why did the arrowroot taste rummy?”
“I made inquiries about that. It seems that mother was worried
about your taking to smoking, and she found an advertisement in one
of the magazines about the Tobacco Habit Cured in Three Days by a
secret method without the victim’s knowledge. It was a gentle, safe,
agreeable method of eliminating the nicotine poison from the system,
strengthening the weakened membranes, and overcoming the craving; so
she put some in your arrowroot every night.”
There was a long silence. To Rollo Podmarsh it seemed as though the sun
had suddenly begun to shine, the birds to sing, and the grasshoppers
to toot. All Nature was one vast substantial smile. Down in the valley
by the second hole he caught sight of Wallace Chesney’s Plus Fours
gleaming as their owner stooped to play his shot, and it seemed to him
that he had never in his life seen anything so lovely.
“Mary,” he said, in a low, vibrant voice, “will you wait here for me?
I want to go into the club-house for a moment.”
“To change your wet shoes?”
“No!” thundered Rollo. “I’m never going to change my wet shoes again in
my life.” He felt in his pocket, and hurled a box of patent pills far
into the undergrowth. “But I _am_ going to change my winter woollies.
And when I’ve put those dashed barbed-wire entanglements into the
club-house furnace, I’m going to ’phone to old Colonel Bodger. I hear
his lumbago’s worse than ever. I’m going to fix up a match with him for
a shilling a hole. And if I don’t lick the boots off him you can break
the engagement!”
“My hero!” murmured Mary.
Rollo kissed her, and with long, resolute steps strode to the
club-house.