RODNEY FAILS TO QUALIFY
There was a sound of revelry by night, for the first Saturday in June
had arrived and the Golf Club was holding its monthly dance. Fairy
lanterns festooned the branches of the chestnut trees on the terrace
above the ninth green, and from the big dining-room, cleared now of its
tables and chairs, came a muffled slithering of feet and the plaintive
sound of saxophones moaning softly like a man who has just missed a
short putt. In a basket-chair in the shadows, the Oldest Member puffed
a cigar and listened, well content. His was the peace of the man who
has reached the age when he is no longer expected to dance.
A door opened, and a young man came out of the club-house. He stood
on the steps with folded arms, gazing to left and right. The Oldest
Member, watching him from the darkness, noted that he wore an air of
gloom. His brow was furrowed and he had the indefinable look of one who
has been smitten in the spiritual solar plexus.
Yes, where all around him was joy, jollity, and song, this young man
brooded.
The sound of a high tenor voice, talking rapidly and entertainingly on
the subject of modern Russian thought, now intruded itself on the peace
of the night. From the farther end of the terrace a girl came into the
light of the lantern, her arm in that of a second young man. She was
small and pretty, he tall and intellectual. The light shone on his
forehead and glittered on his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. The girl
was gazing up at him with reverence and adoration, and at the sight of
these twain the youth on the steps appeared to undergo some sort of
spasm. His face became contorted and he wobbled. Then, with a gesture
of sublime despair, he tripped over the mat and stumbled back into
the club-house. The couple passed on and disappeared, and the Oldest
Member had the night to himself, until the door opened once more and
the club’s courteous and efficient secretary trotted down the steps.
The scent of the cigar drew him to where the Oldest Member sat, and he
dropped into the chair beside him.
“Seen young Ramage to-night?” asked the secretary.
“He was standing on those steps only a moment ago,” replied the Oldest
Member. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought perhaps you might have had a talk with him and found out
what’s the matter. Can’t think what’s come to him to-night. Nice, civil
boy as a rule, but just now, when I was trying to tell him about my
short approach on the fifth this afternoon, he was positively abrupt.
Gave a sort of hollow gasp and dashed away in the middle of a sentence.”
The Oldest Member sighed.
“You must overlook his brusqueness,” he said. “The poor lad is passing
through a trying time. A short while back I was the spectator of a
little drama that explains everything. Mabel Patmore is flirting
disgracefully with that young fellow Purvis.”
“Purvis? Oh, you mean the man who won the club Bowls Championship last
week?”
“I can quite believe that he may have disgraced himself in the manner
you describe,” said the Sage, coldly. “I know he plays that noxious
game. And it is for that reason that I hate to see a nice girl like
Mabel Patmore, who only needs a little more steadiness off the tee
to become a very fair golfer, wasting her time on him. I suppose his
attraction lies in the fact that he has a great flow of conversation,
while poor Ramage is, one must admit, more or less of a dumb Isaac.
Girls are too often snared by a glib tongue. Still, it is a pity,
a great pity. The whole affair recalls irresistibly to my mind the
story--”
The secretary rose with a whirr like a rocketing pheasant.
“--the story,” continued the Sage, “of Jane Packard, William Bates,
and Rodney Spelvin--which, as you have never heard it, I will now
proceed to relate.”
“Can’t stop now, much as I should like--”
“It is a theory of mine,” proceeded the Oldest Member, attaching
himself to the other’s coat-tails, and pulling him gently back into his
seat, “that nothing but misery can come of the union between a golfer
and an outcast whose soul has not been purified by the noblest of
games. This is well exemplified by the story of Jane Packard, William
Bates, and Rodney Spelvin.”
“All sorts of things to look after--”
“That is why I am hoping so sincerely that there is nothing more
serious than a temporary flirtation in this business of Mabel Patmore
and bowls-playing Purvis. A girl in whose life golf has become a
factor, would be mad to trust her happiness to a blister whose idea of
enjoyment is trundling wooden balls across a lawn. Sooner or later he
is certain to fail her in some crisis. Lucky for her if this failure
occurs before the marriage knot has been inextricably tied and so
opens her eyes to his inadequacy--as was the case in the matter of
Jane Packard, William Bates, and Rodney Spelvin. I will now,” said the
Oldest Member, “tell you all about Jane Packard, William Bates, and
Rodney Spelvin.”
The secretary uttered a choking groan.
“I shall miss the next dance,” he pleaded.
“A bit of luck for some nice girl,” said the Sage, equably.
He tightened his grip on the other’s arm.
* * * * *
Jane Packard and William Bates (said the Oldest Member) were not, you
must understand, officially engaged. They had grown up together from
childhood, and there existed between them a sort of understanding--the
understanding being that, if ever William could speed himself up enough
to propose, Jane would accept him, and they would settle down and
live stodgily and happily ever after. For William was not one of your
rapid wooers. In his affair of the heart he moved somewhat slowly and
ponderously, like a motor-lorry, an object which both in physique and
temperament he greatly resembled. He was an extraordinarily large,
powerful, ox-like young man, who required plenty of time to make up his
mind about any given problem. I have seen him in the club dining-room
musing with a thoughtful frown for fifteen minutes on end while
endeavouring to weigh the rival merits of a chump chop and a sirloin
steak as a luncheon dish. A placid, leisurely man, I might almost call
him lymphatic. I _will_ call him lymphatic. He was lymphatic.
The first glimmering of an idea that Jane might possibly be a suitable
wife for him had come to William some three years before this story
opens. Having brooded on the matter tensely for six months, he then
sent her a bunch of roses. In the October of the following year,
nothing having occurred to alter his growing conviction that she was
an attractive girl, he presented her with a two-pound box of assorted
chocolates. And from then on his progress, though not rapid, was
continuous, and there seemed little reason to doubt that, should
nothing come about to weaken Jane’s regard for him, another five years
or so would see the matter settled.
And it did not appear likely that anything would weaken Jane’s regard.
They had much in common, for she was a calm, slow-moving person, too.
They had a mutual devotion to golf, and played together every day; and
the fact that their handicaps were practically level formed a strong
bond. Most divorces, as you know, spring from the fact that the husband
is too markedly superior to his wife at golf; this leading him, when
she starts criticising his relations, to say bitter and unforgivable
things about her mashie-shots. Nothing of this kind could happen with
William and Jane. They would build their life on a solid foundation
of sympathy and understanding. The years would find them consoling
and encouraging each other, happy married lovers. If, that is to say,
William ever got round to proposing.
It was not until the fourth year of this romance that I detected the
first sign of any alteration in the schedule. I had happened to call
on the Packards one afternoon and found them all out except Jane. She
gave me tea and conversed for a while, but she seemed distrait. I had
known her since she wore rompers, so felt entitled to ask if there was
anything wrong.
“Not exactly wrong,” said Jane, and she heaved a sigh.
“Tell me,” I said.
She heaved another sigh.
“Have you ever read _The Love that Scorches_, by Luella Periton
Phipps?” she asked.
I said I had not.
“I got it out of the library yesterday,” said Jane, dreamily, “and
finished it at three this morning in bed. It is a very, very beautiful
book. It is all about the desert and people riding on camels and a
wonderful Arab chief with stern, yet tender, eyes, and a girl called
Angela, and oases and dates and mirages, and all like that. There is
a chapter where the Arab chief seizes the girl and clasps her in his
arms and she feels his hot breath searing her face and he flings her on
his horse and they ride off and all around was sand and night, and the
mysterious stars. And somehow--oh, I don’t know--”
She gazed yearningly at the chandelier.
“I wish mother would take me to Algiers next winter,” she murmured,
absently. “It would do her rheumatism so much good.”
I went away frankly uneasy. These novelists, I felt, ought to be more
careful. They put ideas into girls’ heads and made them dissatisfied. I
determined to look William up and give him a kindly word of advice. It
was no business of mine, you may say, but they were so ideally suited
to one another that it seemed a tragedy that anything should come
between them. And Jane was in a strange mood. At any moment, I felt,
she might take a good, square look at William and wonder what she could
ever have seen in him. I hurried to the boy’s cottage.
“William,” I said, “as one who dandled you on his knee when you were a
baby, I wish to ask you a personal question. Answer me this, and make
it snappy. Do you love Jane Packard?”
A look of surprise came into his face, followed by one of intense
thought. He was silent for a space.
“Who, me?” he said at length.
“Yes, you.”
“Jane Packard?”
“Yes, Jane Packard.”
“Do I love Jane Packard?” said William, assembling the material and
arranging it neatly in his mind.
He pondered for perhaps five minutes.
“Why, of course I do,” he said.
“Splendid!”
“Devotedly, dash it!”
“Capital.”
“You might say madly.”
I tapped him on his barrel-like chest.
“Then my advice to you, William Bates, is to tell her so.”
“Now that’s rather a brainy scheme,” said William, looking at me
admiringly. “I see exactly what you’re driving at. You mean it would
kind of settle things, and all that?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, I’ve got to go away for a couple of days to-morrow--it’s the
Invitation Tournament at Squashy Hollow--but I’ll be back on Wednesday.
Suppose I take her out on the links on Wednesday and propose?”
“A very good idea.”
“At the sixth hole, say?”
“At the sixth hole would do excellently.”
“Or the seventh?”
“The sixth would be better. The ground slopes from the tee, and you
would be hidden from view by the dog-leg turn.”
“Something in that.”
“My own suggestion would be that you somehow contrive to lead her into
that large bunker to the left of the sixth fairway.”
“Why?”
“I have reason to believe that Jane would respond more readily to
your wooing were it conducted in some vast sandy waste. And there is
another thing,” I proceeded, earnestly, “which I must impress upon you.
See that there is nothing tame or tepid about your behaviour when you
propose. You must show zip and romance. In fact, I strongly recommend
you, before you even say a word to her, to seize her and clasp her in
your arms and let your hot breath sear her face.”
“Who, me?” said William.
“Believe me, it is what will appeal to her most.”
“But, I say! Hot breath, I mean! Dash it all, you know, what?”
“I assure you it is indispensable.”
“Seize her?” said William blankly.
“Precisely.”
“Clasp her in my arms?”
“Just so.”
William plunged into silent thought once more.
“Well, you _know_, I suppose,” he said at length. “You’ve had
experience, I take it. Still--Oh, all right, I’ll have a stab at it.”
“There spoke the true William Bates!” I said. “Go to it, lad, and
Heaven speed your wooing!”
* * * * *
In all human schemes--and it is this that so often brings failure to
the subtlest strategists--there is always the chance of the Unknown
Factor popping up, that unforeseen X for which we have made no
allowance and which throws our whole plan of campaign out of gear.
I had not anticipated anything of the kind coming along to mar the
arrangements on the present occasion; but when I reached the first tee
on the Wednesday afternoon to give William Bates that last word of
encouragement, which means so much, I saw that I had been too sanguine.
William had not yet arrived, but Jane was there, and with her a tall,
slim, dark-haired, sickeningly romantic-looking youth in faultlessly
fitting serge. A stranger to me. He was talking to her in a musical
undertone, and she seemed to be hanging on his words. Her beautiful
eyes were fixed on his face, and her lips slightly parted. So absorbed
was she that it was not until I spoke that she became aware of my
presence.
“William not arrived yet?”
She turned with a start.
“William? Hasn’t he? Oh! No, not yet. I don’t suppose he will be long.
I want to introduce you to Mr. Spelvin. He has come to stay with the
Wyndhams for a few weeks. He is going to walk round with us.”
Naturally this information came as a shock to me, but I masked my
feelings and greeted the young man with a well-assumed cordiality.
“Mr. George Spelvin, the actor?” I asked, shaking hands.
“My cousin,” he said. “My name is Rodney Spelvin. I do not share
George’s histrionic ambitions. If I have any claim to--may I say
renown?--it is as a maker of harmonies.”
“A composer, eh?”
“Verbal harmonies,” explained Mr. Spelvin. “I am, in my humble fashion,
a poet.”
“He writes the most beautiful poetry,” said Jane, warmly. “He has just
been reciting some of it to me.”
“Oh, that little thing?” said Mr. Spelvin, deprecatingly. “A mere
_morceau_. One of my juvenilia.”
“It was too beautiful for words,” persisted Jane.
“Ah, you,” said Mr. Spelvin, “have the soul to appreciate it. I could
wish that there were more like you, Miss Packard. We singers have much
to put up with in a crass and materialistic world. Only last week
a man, a coarse editor, asked me what my sonnet, ‘Wine of Desire,’
_meant_.” He laughed indulgently. “I gave him answer, ’twas a sonnet,
not a mining prospectus.”
“It would have served him right,” said Jane, heatedly, “if you had
pasted him one on the nose!”
At this point a low whistle behind me attracted my attention, and I
turned to perceive William Bates towering against the sky-line.
“Hoy!” said William.
I walked to where he stood, leaving Jane and Mr. Spelvin in earnest
conversation with their heads close together.
“I say,” said William, in a rumbling undertone, “who’s the bird with
Jane?”
“A man named Spelvin. He is visiting the Wyndhams. I suppose Mrs.
Wyndham made them acquainted.”
“Looks a bit of a Gawd-help-us,” said William critically.
“He is going to walk round with you.”
It was impossible for a man of William Bates’s temperament to start,
but his face took on a look of faint concern.
“Walk round with us?”
“So Jane said.”
“But look here,” said William. “I can’t possibly seize her and clasp
her in my arms and do all that hot-breath stuff with this pie-faced
exhibit hanging round on the out-skirts.”
“No, I fear not.”
“Postpone it, then, what?” said William, with unmistakable relief.
“Well, as a matter of fact, it’s probably a good thing. There was a
most extraordinarily fine steak-and-kidney pudding at lunch, and,
between ourselves, I’m not feeling what you might call keyed up to
anything in the nature of a romantic scene. Some other time, eh?”
I looked at Jane and the Spelvin youth, and a nameless apprehension
swept over me. There was something in their attitude which I found
alarming. I was just about to whisper a warning to William not to
treat this new arrival too lightly, when Jane caught sight of him and
called him over and a moment later they set out on their round.
I walked away pensively. This Spelvin’s advent, coming immediately on
top of that book of desert love, was undeniably sinister. My heart sank
for William, and I waited at the club-house to have a word with him,
after his match. He came in two hours later, flushed and jubilant.
“Played the game of my life!” he said. “We didn’t hole out all the
putts, but, making allowance for everything, you can chalk me up an
eighty-three. Not so bad, eh? You know the eighth hole? Well, I was a
bit short with my drive, and found my ball lying badly for the brassie,
so I took my driving-iron and with a nice easy swing let the pill have
it so squarely on the seat of the pants that it flew--”
“Where is Jane?” I interrupted.
“Jane? Oh, the bloke Spelvin has taken her home.”
“Beware of him, William!” I whispered, tensely. “Have a care, young
Bates! If you don’t look out, you’ll have him stealing Jane from you.
Don’t laugh. Remember that I saw them together before you arrived. She
was gazing into his eyes as a desert maiden might gaze into the eyes
of a sheik. You don’t seem to realise, wretched William Bates, that
Jane is an extremely romantic girl. A fascinating stranger like this,
coming suddenly into her life, may well snatch her away from you before
you know where you are.”
“That’s all right,” said William, lightly. “I don’t mind admitting that
the same idea occurred to me. But I made judicious inquiries on the
way round, and found out that the fellow’s a poet. You don’t seriously
expect me to believe that there’s any chance of Jane falling in love
with a poet?”
He spoke incredulously, for there were three things in the world that
he held in the smallest esteem--slugs, poets, and caddies with hiccups.
“I think it extremely possible, if not probable,” I replied.
“Nonsense!” said William. “And, besides, the man doesn’t play golf.
Never had a club in his hand, and says he never wants to. That’s the
sort of fellow he is.”
At this, I confess, I did experience a distinct feeling of relief. I
could imagine Jane Packard, stimulated by exotic literature, committing
many follies, but I was compelled to own that I could not conceive of
her giving her heart to one who not only did not play golf but had no
desire to play it. Such a man, to a girl of her fine nature and correct
upbringing, would be beyond the pale. I walked home with William in a
calm and happy frame of mind.
I was to learn but one short week later that Woman is the
unfathomable, incalculable mystery, the problem we men can never hope
to solve.
* * * * *
The week that followed was one of much festivity in our village. There
were dances, picnics, bathing-parties, and all the other adjuncts of
high summer. In these William Bates played but a minor part. Dancing
was not one of his gifts. He swung, if called upon, an amiable shoe,
but the disposition in the neighbourhood was to refrain from calling
upon him; for he had an incurable habit of coming down with his full
weight upon his partner’s toes, and many a fair girl had had to lie up
for a couple of days after collaborating with him in a fox-trot.
Picnics, again, bored him, and he always preferred a round on the
links to the merriest bathing-party. The consequence was that he kept
practically aloof from the revels, and all through the week Jane
Packard was squired by Rodney Spelvin. With Spelvin she swayed over the
waxed floor; with Spelvin she dived and swam; and it was Spelvin who,
with zealous hand, brushed ants off her mayonnaise and squashed wasps
with a chivalrous teaspoon. The end was inevitable. Apart from anything
else, the moon was at its full and many of these picnics were held at
night. And you know what that means. It was about ten days later that
William Bates came to me in my little garden with an expression on his
face like a man who didn’t know it was loaded.
“I say,” said William, “you busy?”
I emptied the remainder of the water-can on the lobelias, and was at
his disposal.
“I say,” said William, “rather a rotten thing has happened. You know
Jane?”
I said I knew Jane.
“You know Spelvin?”
I said I knew Spelvin.
“Well, Jane’s gone and got engaged to him,” said William, aggrieved.
“What?”
“It’s a fact.”
“Already?”
“Absolutely. She told me this morning. And what I want to know,” said
the stricken boy, sitting down thoroughly unnerved on a basket of
strawberries, “is, where do I get off?”
My heart bled for him, but I could not help reminding him that I had
anticipated this.
“You should not have left them so much alone together,” I said. “You
must have known that there is nothing more conducive to love than the
moon in June. Why, songs have been written about it. In fact, I cannot
at the moment recall a song that has not been written about it.”
“Yes, but how was I to guess that anything like this would happen?”
cried William, rising and scraping strawberries off his person. “Who
would ever have supposed Jane Packard would leap off the dock with a
fellow who doesn’t play golf?”
“Certainly, as you say, it seems almost incredible. You are sure you
heard her correctly? When she told you about the engagement, I mean.
There was no chance that you could have misunderstood?”
“Not a bit of it. As a matter of fact, what led up to the thing, if you
know what I mean, was me proposing to her myself. I’d been thinking a
lot during the last ten days over what you said to me about that, and
the more I thought of it the more of a sound egg the notion seemed. So
I got her alone up at the club-house and said, ‘I say, old girl, what
about it?’ and she said, ‘What about what?’ and I said, ‘What about
marrying me? Don’t if you don’t want to, of course,’ I said, ‘but I’m
bound to say it looks pretty good to me.’ And then she said she loved
another--this bloke Spelvin, to wit. A nasty jar, I can tell you, it
was. I was just starting off on a round, and it made me hook my putts
on every green.”
“But did she say specifically that she was engaged to Spelvin?”
“She said she loved him.”
“There may be hope. If she is not irrevocably engaged the fancy may
pass. I think I will go and see Jane and make tactful inquiries.”
“I wish you would,” said William. “And, I say, you haven’t any stuff
that’ll take strawberry-juice off a fellow’s trousers, have you?”
* * * * *
My interview with Jane that evening served only to confirm the bad
news. Yes, she was definitely engaged to the man Spelvin. In a burst of
girlish confidence she told me some of the details of the affair.
“The moon was shining and a soft breeze played in the trees,” she said.
“And suddenly he took me in his arms, gazed deep into my eyes, and
cried, ‘I love you! I worship you! I adore you! You are the tree on
which the fruit of my life hangs; my mate; my woman; predestined to me
since the first star shone up in yonder sky!’”
“Nothing,” I agreed, “could be fairer than that. And then?” I said,
thinking how different it all must have been from William Bates’s
miserable, limping proposal.
“Then we fixed it up that we would get married in September.”
“You are sure you are doing wisely?” I ventured.
Her eyes opened.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, you know, whatever his other merits--and no doubt they are
numerous--Rodney Spelvin does _not_ play golf.”
“No, but he’s very broad-minded about it.”
I shuddered. Women say these things so lightly.
“Broad-minded?”
“Yes. He has no objection to my going on playing. He says he likes my
pretty enthusiasms.”
There seemed nothing more to say on that subject.
“Well,” I said, “I am sure I wish you every happiness. I had hoped, of
course--but never mind that.”
“What?”
“I had hoped, as you insist on my saying it, that you and William
Bates--”
A shadow passed over her face. Her eyes grew sad.
“Poor William! I’m awfully sorry about that. He’s a dear.”
“A splendid fellow,” I agreed.
“He has been so wonderful about the whole thing. So many men would have
gone off and shot grizzly bears or something. But William just said
‘Right-o!’ in a quiet voice, and he’s going to caddy for me at Mossy
Heath next week.”
“There is good stuff in the boy.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “If it wasn’t for Rodney--Oh, well!”
I thought it would be tactful to change the subject.
“So you have decided to go to Mossy Heath again?”
“Yes. And I’m really going to qualify this year.”
* * * * *
The annual Invitation Tournament at Mossy Heath was one of the most
important fixtures of our local female golfing year. As is usual
with these affairs, it began with a medal-play qualifying round, the
thirty-two players with the lowest net scores then proceeding to fight
it out during the remainder of the week by match-play. It gratified
me to hear Jane speak so confidently of her chances, for this was the
fourth year she had entered, and each time, though she had started
out with the brightest prospects, she had failed to survive the
qualifying round. Like so many golfers, she was fifty per cent. better
at match-play than at medal-play. Mossy Heath, being a championship
course, is full of nasty pitfalls, and on each of the three occasions
on which she had tackled it one very bad hole had undone all her steady
work on the other seventeen and ruined her card. I was delighted to
find her so undismayed by failure.
“I am sure you will,” I said. “Just play your usual careful game.”
“It doesn’t matter what sort of a game I play this time,” said Jane,
jubilantly. “I’ve just heard that there are only thirty-two entries
this year, so that everybody who finishes is bound to qualify. I have
simply got to get round somehow, and there I am.”
“It would seem somewhat superfluous in these circumstances to play a
qualifying round at all.”
“Oh, but they must. You see, there are prizes for the best three
scores, so they have to play it. But isn’t it a relief to know that,
even if I come to grief on that beastly seventh, as I did last year, I
shall still be all right?”
“It is, indeed. I have a feeling that once it becomes a matter of
match-play you will be irresistible.”
“I do hope so. It would be lovely to win with Rodney looking on.”
“Will he be looking on?”
“Yes. He’s going to walk round with me. Isn’t it sweet of him?”
Her _fiancé’s_ name having slid into the conversation again, she seemed
inclined to become eloquent about him. I left her, however, before
she could begin. To one so strongly pro-William as myself, eulogistic
prattle about Rodney Spelvin was repugnant. I disapproved entirely
of this infatuation of hers. I am not a narrow-minded man; I quite
appreciate the fact that non-golfers are entitled to marry; but I
could not countenance their marrying potential winners of the Ladies’
Invitation Tournament at Mossy Heath.
The Greens Committee, as greens committees are so apt to do in order
to justify their existence, have altered the Mossy Heath course
considerably since the time of which I am speaking, but they have
left the three most poisonous holes untouched. I refer to the fourth,
the seventh, and the fifteenth. Even a soulless Greens Committee seems
to have realised that golfers, long-suffering though they are, can be
pushed too far, and that the addition of even a single extra bunker to
any of these dreadful places would probably lead to armed riots in the
club-house.
Jane Packard had done well on the first three holes, but as she stood
on the fourth tee she was conscious, despite the fact that this seemed
to be one of her good days, of a certain nervousness; and oddly enough,
great as was her love for Rodney Spelvin, it was not his presence that
gave her courage, but the sight of William Bates’s large, friendly face
and the sound of his pleasant voice urging her to keep her bean down
and refrain from pressing.
As a matter of fact, to be perfectly truthful, there was beginning
already to germinate within her by this time a faint but definite
regret that Rodney Spelvin had decided to accompany her on this
qualifying round. It was sweet of him to bother to come, no doubt, but
still there was something about Rodney that did not seem to blend with
the holy atmosphere of a championship course. He was the one romance
of her life and their souls were bound together for all eternity, but
the fact remained that he did not appear to be able to keep still
while she was making her shots, and his light humming, musical though
it was, militated against accuracy on the green. He was humming now
as she addressed her ball, and for an instant a spasm of irritation
shot through her. She fought it down bravely and concentrated on her
drive, and when the ball soared over the cross-bunker she forgot her
annoyance. There is nothing so mellowing, so conducive to sweet and
genial thoughts, as a real juicy one straight down the middle, and this
was a pipterino.
“Nice work,” said William Bates, approvingly.
Jane gave him a grateful smile and turned to Rodney. It was his
appreciation that she wanted. He was not a golfer, but even he must be
able to see that her drive had been something out of the common.
Rodney Spelvin was standing with his back turned, gazing out over the
rolling prospect, one hand shading his eyes.
“That vista there,” said Rodney. “That calm, wooded hollow, bathed in
the golden sunshine. It reminds me of the island valley of Avilion--”
“Did you see my drive, Rodney?”
“--where falls not rain nor hail nor any snow, nor ever wind blows
loudly. Eh? Your drive? No, I didn’t.”
Again Jane Packard was aware of that faint, wistful regret. But
this was swept away a few moments later in the ecstasy of a perfect
iron-shot which plunked her ball nicely on to the green. The last
time she had played this hole she had taken seven, for all round the
plateau green are sinister sand-bunkers, each beckoning the ball
into its hideous depths; and now she was on in two and life was very
sweet. Putting was her strong point, so that there was no reason why
she should not get a snappy four on one of the nastiest holes on the
course. She glowed with a strange emotion as she took her putter, and
as she bent over her ball the air seemed filled with soft music.
It was only when she started to concentrate on the line of her putt
that this soft music began to bother her. Then, listening, she
became aware that it proceeded from Rodney Spelvin. He was standing
immediately behind her, humming an old French love-song. It was the
sort of old French love-song to which she could have listened for hours
in some scented garden under the young May moon, but on the green of
the fourth at Mossy Heath it got right in amongst her nerve-centres.
“Rodney, _please_!”
“Eh?”
Jane found herself wishing that Rodney Spelvin would not say “Eh?”
whenever she spoke to him.
“Do you mind not humming?” said Jane. “I want to putt.”
“Putt on, child, putt on,” said Rodney Spelvin, indulgently. “I don’t
know what you mean, but, if it makes you happy to putt, putt to your
heart’s content.”
Jane bent over her ball again. She had got the line now. She brought
back her putter with infinite care.
“My God!” exclaimed Rodney Spelvin, going off like a bomb.
Jane’s ball, sharply jabbed, shot past the hole and rolled on about
three yards. She spun round in anguish. Rodney Spelvin was pointing at
the horizon.
“_What_ a bit of colour!” he cried. “Did you ever see such a bit of
colour?”
“Oh, Rodney!” moaned Jane.
“Eh?”
Jane gulped and walked to her ball. Her fourth putt trickled into the
hole.
“Did you win?” said Rodney Spelvin, amiably.
Jane walked to the fifth tee in silence.
* * * * *
The fifth and sixth holes at Mossy Heath are long, but they offer
little trouble to those who are able to keep straight. It is as if the
architect of the course had relaxed over these two in order to ensure
that his malignant mind should be at its freshest and keenest when
he came to design the pestilential seventh. This seventh, as you may
remember, is the hole at which Sandy McHoots, then Open Champion, took
an eleven on an important occasion. It is a short hole, and a full
mashie will take you nicely on to the green, provided you can carry the
river that frolics just beyond the tee and seems to plead with you to
throw it a ball to play with. Once on the green, however, the problem
is to stay there. The green itself is about the size of a drawing-room
carpet, and in the summer, when the ground is hard, a ball that has not
the maximum of back-spin is apt to touch lightly and bound off into the
river beyond; for this is an island green, where the stream bends like
a serpent. I refresh your memory with these facts in order that you may
appreciate to the full what Jane Packard was up against.
The woman with whom Jane was partnered had the honour, and drove a
nice high ball which fell into one of the bunkers to the left. She
was a silent, patient-looking woman, and she seemed to regard this as
perfectly satisfactory. She withdrew from the tee and made way for Jane.
“Nice work!” said William Bates, a moment later. For Jane’s ball,
soaring in a perfect arc, was dropping, it seemed on the very pin.
“Oh, Rodney, look!” cried Jane.
“Eh?” said Rodney Spelvin.
His remark was drowned in a passionate squeal of agony from his
betrothed. The most poignant of all tragedies had occurred. The ball,
touching the green, leaped like a young lamb, scuttled past the pin,
and took a running dive over the cliff.
There was a silence. Jane’s partner, who was seated on the bench by the
sand-box reading a pocket edition in limp leather of Vardon’s _What
every Young Golfer Should Know_, with which she had been refreshing
herself at odd moments all through the round, had not observed the
incident. William Bates, with the tact of a true golfer, refrained from
comment. Jane was herself swallowing painfully. It was left to Rodney
Spelvin to break the silence.
“Good!” he said.
Jane Packard turned like a stepped-on worm.
“What do you mean, good?”
“You hit your ball farther than she did.”
“I sent it into the river,” said Jane, in a low, toneless voice.
“Capital!” said Rodney Spelvin, delicately masking a yawn with two
fingers of his shapely right hand. “Capital! Capital!”
Her face contorted with pain, Jane put down another ball.
“Playing three,” she said.
The student of Vardon marked the place in her book with her thumb,
looked up, nodded, and resumed her reading.
“Nice w--” began William Bates, as the ball soared off the tee, and
checked himself abruptly. Already he could see that the unfortunate
girl had put too little beef into it. The ball was falling, falling.
It fell. A crystal fountain flashed up towards the sun. The ball lay
floating on the bosom of the stream, only some few feet short of the
island. But, as has been well pointed out, that little less and how far
away!
“Playing five!” said Jane, between her teeth.
“What,” inquired Rodney Spelvin, chattily, lighting a cigarette, “is
the record break?”
“Playing _five_,” said Jane, with a dreadful calm, and gripped her
mashie.
“Half a second,” said William Bates, suddenly. “I say, I believe you
could play that last one from where it floats. A good crisp slosh with
a niblick would put you on, and you’d be there in four, with a chance
for a five. Worth trying, what? I mean, no sense in dropping strokes
unless you have to.”
Jane’s eyes were gleaming. She threw William a look of infinite
gratitude.
“Why, I believe I could!”
“Worth having a dash.”
“There’s a boat down there!”
“I could row,” said William.
“I could stand in the middle and slosh,” cried Jane.
“And what’s-his-name--_that_,” said William, jerking his head in the
direction of Rodney Spelvin, who was strolling up and down behind the
tee, humming a gay Venetian barcarolle, “could steer.”
“William,” said Jane, fervently, “you’re a darling.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said William, modestly.
“There’s no one like you in the world. Rodney!”
“Eh?” said Rodney Spelvin.
“We’re going out in that boat. I want you to steer.”
Rodney Spelvin’s face showed appreciation of the change of programme.
Golf bored him, but what could be nicer than a gentle row in a boat.
“Capital!” he said. “Capital! Capital!”
There was a dreamy look in Rodney Spelvin’s eyes as he leaned back with
the tiller-ropes in his hands. This was just his idea of the proper way
of passing a summer afternoon. Drifting lazily over the silver surface
of the stream. His eyes closed. He began to murmur softly:
“All to-day the slow sleek ripples hardly bear up shoreward, Charged
with sighs more light than laughter, faint and fair, Like a woodland
lake’s weak wavelets lightly lingering forward, Soft and listless as
the--Here! Hi!”
For at this moment the silver surface of the stream was violently
split by a vigorously-wielded niblick, the boat lurched drunkenly, and
over his Panama-hatted head and down his grey-flannelled torso there
descended a cascade of water.
“Here! Hi!” cried Rodney Spelvin.
He cleared his eyes and gazed reproachfully. Jane and William Bates
were peering into the depths.
“I missed it,” said Jane.
“There she spouts!” said William, pointing. “Ready?”
Jane raised her niblick.
“Here! Hi!” bleated Rodney Spelvin, as a second cascade poured damply
over him.
He shook the drops off his face, and perceived that Jane was regarding
him with hostility.
“I do wish you wouldn’t talk just as I am swinging,” she said,
pettishly. “Now you’ve made me miss it again! If you can’t keep quiet,
I wish you wouldn’t insist on coming round with one. Can you see it,
William?”
“There she blows,” said William Bates.
“Here! You aren’t going to do it _again_, are you?” cried Rodney
Spelvin.
Jane bared her teeth.
“I’m going to get that ball on to the green if I have to stay here all
night,” she said.
Rodney Spelvin looked at her and shuddered. Was this the quiet, dreamy
girl he had loved? This Mænad? Her hair was lying in damp wisps about
her face, her eyes were shining with an unearthly light.
“No, but really--” he faltered.
Jane stamped her foot.
“What _are_ you making all this fuss about, Rodney?” she snapped.
“Where is it, William?”
“There she dips,” said William. “Playing six.”
“Playing six.”
“Let her go,” said William.
“Let her go it is!” said Jane.
A perfect understanding seemed to prevail between these two.
_Splash!_
The woman on the bank looked up from her Vardon as Rodney Spelvin’s
agonised scream rent the air. She saw a boat upon the water, a man
rowing the boat, another man, hatless, gesticulating in the stern,
a girl beating the water with a niblick. She nodded placidly and
understandingly. A niblick was the club she would have used herself in
such circumstances. Everything appeared to her entirely regular and
orthodox. She resumed her book.
_Splash!_
“Playing fifteen,” said Jane.
“Fifteen is right,” said William Bates.
_Splash! Splash! Splash!_
“Playing forty-four.”
“Forty-four is correct.”
_Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash!_
“Eighty-three?” said Jane, brushing the hair out of her eyes.
“No. Only eighty-two,” said William Bates.
“Where is it?”
“There she drifts.”
A dripping figure rose violently in the stern of the boat, spouting
water like a public fountain. For what seemed to him like an eternity
Rodney Spelvin had ducked and spluttered and writhed, and now it came
to him abruptly that he was through. He bounded from his seat, and at
the same time Jane swung with all the force of her supple body. There
was a splash beside which all the other splashes had been as nothing.
The boat overturned and went drifting away. Three bodies plunged into
the stream. Three heads emerged from the water.
The woman on the bank looked absently in their direction. Then she
resumed her book.
“It’s all right,” said William Bates, contentedly. “We’re in our depth.”
“My bag!” cried Jane. “My bag of clubs!”
“Must have sunk,” said William.
“Rodney,” said Jane, “my bag of clubs is at the bottom somewhere. Dive
under and swim about and try to find it.”
“It’s bound to be around somewhere,” said William Bates encouragingly.
Rodney Spelvin drew himself up to his full height. It was not an easy
thing to do, for it was muddy where he stood, but he did it.
“Damn your bag of clubs!” he bellowed, lost to all shame. “I’m going
home!”
With painful steps, tripping from time to time and vanishing beneath
the surface, he sloshed to the shore. For a moment he paused on the
bank, silhouetted against the summer sky, then he was gone.
* * * * *
Jane Packard and William Bates watched him go with amazed eyes.
“I never would have dreamed,” said Jane, dazedly, “that he was that
sort of man.”
“A bad lot,” said William Bates.
“The sort of man to be upset by the merest trifle!”
“Must have a naturally bad disposition,” said William Bates.
“Why, if a little thing like this could make him so rude and brutal and
horrid, it wouldn’t be _safe_ to marry him!”
“Taking a big chance,” agreed William Bates. “Sort of fellow who would
water the cat’s milk and kick the baby in the face.” He took a deep
breath and disappeared. “Here are your clubs, old girl,” he said,
coming to the surface again. “Only wanted a bit of looking for.”
“Oh, William,” said Jane, “you are the most wonderful man on earth!”
“Would you go as far as that?” said William.
“I was mad, mad, ever to get engaged to that brute!”
“Now there,” said William Bates, removing an eel from his left
breast-pocket, “I’m absolutely with you. Thought so all along, but
didn’t like to say so. What I mean is, a girl like you--keen on golf
and all that sort of thing--ought to marry a chap like me--keen on golf
and everything of that description.”
“William,” cried Jane, passionately, detaching a newt from her right
ear, “I will!”
“Silly nonsense, when you come right down to it, your marrying a fellow
who doesn’t play golf. Nothing in it.”
“I’ll break off the engagement the moment I get home.”
“You couldn’t make a sounder move, old girl.”
“William!”
“Jane!”
The woman on the bank, glancing up as she turned a page, saw a man
and a girl embracing, up to their waists in water. It seemed to have
nothing to do with her. She resumed her book.
Jane looked lovingly into William’s eyes.
“William,” she said, “I think I have loved you all my life.”
“Jane,” said William, “I’m dashed sure I’ve loved _you_ all _my_ life.
Meant to tell you so a dozen times, but something always seemed to come
up.”
“William,” said Jane, “you’re an angel and a darling. Where’s the ball?”
“There she pops.”
“Playing eighty-four?”
“Eighty-four it is,” said William. “Slow back, keep your eye on the
ball, and don’t press.”
The woman on the bank began Chapter Twenty-five.