Cupid puts his Pads on
I WENT home, and passed an unquiet night. I like to think myself a
person of a sturdy unemotional habit whom neither men nor affairs can
discompose; but I’m certain that every time I fell into a doze, I was
dreaming of brown holland. And when I lay awake I was thinking of brown
holland. It is very chastening when the proud are smitten in their
self-esteem. Hitherto I had held my invincibility to be quite glorious.
The most fanciful dressing of the hair, the most fearful wonderful
“creation,” the most ingratiating small talk, I delighted to defy.
It pleased me to think, that I had a mind as much above cut, colour,
carriage and address, and whole magazines of blandishment, as any this
side professed misogyny. And I was reasonably gratified with this
high behaviour. Be sure it is no little thing for a young and pretty
eligible bachelor to look, to admit, and yet to remain impervious.
There was some consensus of opinion I believe amongst the manias of
the county that young Mr. Dimsdale really ought to settle down. You
should know that young Mr. Dimsdale having completed his education by a
rather liberal course of globe-trotting, had come home at last to play
the squire at his late father’s little place in the country. Therefore
his late father’s little place was desiring a mistress; his late
father’s little income was clamouring to be spent. His late father had
been in trade it is true--he had boiled soap, to be precise; Dimsdale’s
Dirt Defier, don’t you know? But young Mr. Dimsdale himself was so
much the thing, that these charitable ladies would never be able to
forgive themselves if through any fault of theirs he married something
“impossible”--an actress say, or one of those dreadful pushing
pig-sticking Americans!
I struck a match, and looked at the time. Twenty minutes past two. I
sat up in bed, and said confidentially to the bedroom furniture:
“Damn brown holland!”
It must have been somewhat embarrassing for the bedroom furniture I
know, but then the thing was getting serious. I was beginning to fear
that something had gone wrong with the works.
Now the case would not have been quite so singular had it been a
question of a brand-new gown from Paris. But a humble countryfied
brown holland! Ah! but was it quite so humble and so countryfied?
Wasn’t there a sweeping decision in its build that had “Redfern”
on it as legibly as the box in which it came. In fact, the more I
meditated on this unpretentious brown holland, the more imposing did
it grow. By Jove! it was not half so insignificant as it seemed. In
no time I had discovered so many potential charms in its deceitful
simplicity, that presently its individuality was merged in that of its
wearer. Redfern--good people--beauty no end--weekly refusals--earls,
etc.--great cricketing family--brother going out with Stoddart--father
awful big pot--no earthly--who was I--silly ass--soap-boiler’s
son--not even invited to play for the county--out for seven--couldn’t
bat for nuts--why didn’t I go to sleep--brown holland--damn brown
holland--sleep so much more desirable--what price her eyes--what was
the name of that complexion--wonder if my batting was likely to come
on--Archie a pretty fair rustic bat--wonder why all girls didn’t wear
brown holland--Zingari colours didn’t look so dusty with that hair--was
I ever going to sleep--who said brown holland--should be sure to see
her again--Hickory Rectory was just a nice walk--why wasn’t I a county
cricketer--rather a pretty name Grace--suited her too! I fell into
another doze and dreamt of going in first with Halliday to bat against
Middlesex at Lords. I was so nervous and excited that I could hardly
walk. When I asked the umpire in a hoarse voice for my guard, and he
turned his face towards me, I saw with horrified surprise that he wore
brown holland underneath his white coat, and that he had the voice and
face of a lady. When she said, “Your bat’s horribly wobbly; Charlie’ll
get through that like fun,” the shock was too great to be borne, and I
woke up in a sweat.
I was such a dismal dog and my appetite was so delicate, that I
breakfasted on tea and toast, and actually elected to peruse a stern
indictment of the Government’s Foreign Policy in the _Times_ rather
than the _Sportsman’s_ account of yesterday’s county matches. I was
sick of cricket. It was such an unsatisfactory game. Besides, it was of
no service to the liver. I was certain that that important organ had
gone wrong again. Must have advice about it, and do more riding. Sell
my bats or burn them, and devote myself to polo. Capital idea!
I was sipping my tea reflectively, and tracing the strange resemblance
of its colour to the complexion of the young person in brown holland,
when the General Nuisance obtruded his hateful presence through the
open window, as his wont was, without any ceremony whatever. He was
reeking of self-satisfaction and tobacco smoke.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said he, casting his lighted cigarette on the
carpet in a way that promised to ignite it. Pouring himself out a cup
of coffee, without waiting to be invited, he said:
“Look pretty chippy this morning, my son. Still fretting about that
l.b.w.?”
“Drink your coffee and cut,” said I, as impolitely as I could.
“Want to be alone, eh?” said he. “Why that’s a symptom. Let’s see your
tongue. And I’d better feel your pulse.”
“You’ll probably feel my boot,” said I.
“Very prettily expressed,” said the General Nuisance. Thereon he seated
himself on a corner of the breakfast-table, and seemed certain to
capsize the bacon-dish every time he swung his legs. “Most incisive and
direct.”
“Will be,” said I, not so irrelevantly as it may appear.
“I’ll prescribe for your disease,” said he.
“You can go to hell,” said I.
“Well,” said he suavely, “my prescription is in that direction too. I
want you to go and drown yourself. You’re in love.”
“Who told you?” I shouted.
How singular it was that I had not had the faintest suspicion till
that moment that love was the name of my disease! But when the General
Nuisance clapped a name upon my malady, not for an instant did I doubt
him.
“Hard that a man of your fine presence should suffer from
hallucinations,” said that glibly hateful person. “Must feel pretty
squiffy. You go and drown yourself, my pilgrim. Quite the nicest death
in summer. Water beautifully warm. Besides, you’ve got a pretext in
your l.b.w. Jury’ll bring in a ‘temporarily insane’ without any coarse
remarks. Now then, go away and die. And what an awfully swagger corpse
you’d make. They’re not always so well nourished and full of blood, you
ostentatious idiot.”
“Who told you I was in love?” said I.
“Your looks,” said he.
“Are they very descriptive?” said I apprehensively.
“Narrative powers of Dickens and Thackeray,” said he, lighting a fresh
cigarette. “Decent girl though.”
“Decent!” said I, clenching my fist in my enthusiasm; “she’s the
magnificentest girl you ever saw!”
“Strange,” said he, “how all the objects of our affection suffer from
superlatives.”
“She’s not an object,” said I fiercely, “she’s a perfect angel. If you
knew her, you’d say she was too good to live. And such eyes too!”
“Oh, Granny, what big ears you’ve got!” said he; then dropping his
tone, “you excite my fears, old chap. ’Devilish cut up to find your
nervous system in such a disorganized condition.”
“Don’t spill your phrases all over the place,” said I. “You’re not in
Parliament yet.”
“_You’re_ putting up for Elysium, I see,” he said. “Don’t think you’ll
get in though. Rival candidates too strong.”
“Who?” I said faintly.
“Right Honourable Earl Boughey for one,” he said.
“He can’t bat though,” I said.
“His acres compensate.”
“She’s not that kind of girl,” I said quickly.
“They never are--until you get left! Then there’s the cherished,
respectable Optimist.”
“Poor old soul, he’s got no earthly!”
“How sad! But sit on your pity and keep it snug. It’ll be needed for
another, or woman has changed since my time. Don’t you know that every
sanguine temperament in the shire is similarly bent? She’s at home the
first Monday and the third Friday for the purpose of dispatching ’em.
Does ’em in detachments. As Archie pathetically says, ‘To a peaceable
and quiet mind the slaughter is distressing.’ And she’s going to be a
sister to ’em all. Archie says he can’t sleep o’ nights for thinking of
his poor relations.”
“Don’t care,” said I doggedly; “she’s A 1.”
“Rather liberal-minded too.”
“The best women always are.”
“Out of the mouths of babes! But this’ll gladden you. Middlesex man,
stylish, dashing bat, fair change bowler, irreproachable field, is the
dark horse. Were you only he, the deity might deign. But as you are
merely a club-man with ambitions, be advised, and go and pack your
brain in ice. For these cases the cold water cure has the highest
testimonials. I’m speaking plain, because it pains me to see Joyous
Imbecility riding for a fall. So long as it tumbles on its head there’s
no harm done. Besides, the vanity that lives there sometimes gets a
jog. But if it drops on top of its emotions, it’s been known to write a
book, and that, my pilgrim, in the interests of humanity I feel it my
duty to discountenance.”
The General Nuisance having disposed of his piece of news, and having
trampled on my feelings as far as considerations for his personal
safety would permit, dismounted from the table in a way that involved
the overturning of the hot-water dish on to my fox terrier, lying
inoffensively on the hearthrug. Thereon he took his leave, professing
deep solicitude for my deplorable condition, and departed to advertise
it to the world.
Poets always lead one to understand that the tender passion is an
ecstatic, quick-breathing sort of thing. But in this present case of
mine it simply made me morose and brooding, with a distinct tendency
to put me off my ordinary game. Loss of appetite, a general lassitude,
moodiness, abstraction, and an instability of purpose that would not
let me do any one thing for more than five minutes at a time, were a
few of my symptoms on this memorable morning. I loafed about the fields
throughout the forenoon with no other companion than the Rubaiyat of
Mr. Rudyard Kipling--I am sure I beg your pardon, I mean of course,
the Rudyard Kipling of Mr. Omar Kháyyám--for once despising sporting
literature, as I had discovered that sport itself was such a hollow,
unsatisfying thing. On coming back to lunch I found that my sister Mary
had returned from town. To my shame be it said I did not know whether
to be glad or sorry. Mary is a most sympathetic person, but at the same
time I was craving just now for a life of solitude.
“Had a good time?” said I, immediately on the top of the fraternal
ceremony.
“Yes, and no,” said Mary, in a way that the best girls have. Yes, to
imply that she really had had a good time; no, to suggest that she was
not insensible to her severance from a loving brother. A mere man would
have been incapable of summing up the exigencies of the moment in this
wholly admirable fashion.
“But, Ricky,” said she, placing her hands on my shoulders and looking
into my face with tremendously embarrassing intentness, “what’s the
matter with you? You look quite old and weary. You didn’t get a duck
yesterday.”
“I only got seven,” said I, seeking to creep out on a subterfuge.
“Yes, I bought a _Sportsman_,” said Mary. “Leg before’s very annoying,
I know, but you mustn’t let it wreck your health.”
“But mine was the only single figure,” said I, to still further disarm
suspicion.
But all this time Mary’s penetrating glance had never left my
dissembling countenance; and when she said, in a rather downright
manner, “Look here, Ricky, I don’t think it’s that at all,” I was not a
bit surprised by her profundity, although it did not prevent me looking
guilty.
“They’ve not invited you to play against Somerset next week?” she
asked, with bated breath; “because if they have I can understand it.”
“No,” I said, “they’ve not.”
“Then I think they’re very mean,” said Mary; “but what _is_ the matter,
Ricky?”
Now Mary had a way with her that I never could resist. Besides here is
a difference between the sexes. We have only one way of getting to know
anything we want to know, and that is blunt demand; but a woman has
five thousand ways or more, mostly indirect, to make the Sphinx unfold
its bosom. Therefore it was a rule of mine to accept the inevitable
straight away in the case of Mary. Sooner or later she was bound to
catch me napping, besides, an early concession spared us both a vast
amount of trouble.
“Do you know Laura Trentham?” said I desperately.
“Oh, yes,” said Mary.
“Wouldn’t you call her no end of a nice girl?”
“She’s a very dear girl,” said Mary warmly. “Quite one of the nicest
girls I know--if she wouldn’t talk slang.”
“Slang!” said I. “Why, _does_ she talk slang?”
“Dreadfully,” said Mary, in that tone of high reproof that the best
sisters are so fond of. “Dreadfully, Ricky. Isn’t it a pity?”
“Awful,” said I. “S’pose slangy women are awfully beastly.”
“They’re _outrées_,” said Mary. “Besides, men like it.”
“Don’t think they know what slang is,” said I. “S’pose it’s the same as
the split infinitive--sort o’ thing that everybody likes to jolly well
jaw about and don’t know what it is.”
“My _dear_ Ricky,” said Mary sternly. Her eye fairly flashed with the
Higher Culture, therefore I hastened to dismiss a subject on which she
had such strong opinions.
“I met Laura Trentham yesterday, at the Hickory match, you know,” said
I guiltily.
“Hadn’t we better begin lunch?” said Mary. “Travelling’s made me so
hungry.”
It was well for Mary that her patience had no limits, for during that
meal I consumed incredible quantities of this invaluable article.
However, I felt perhaps a thought more cheerful for the energy and
colour of my language. But Mary’s last word was:
“Ricky, I’m so sorry that Laura Trentham does talk slang.”
I lost no time in seeking the open air. Indoors I breathed with
difficulty, and was, moreover, ridiculously restless. I wandered
aimlessly about the fields of sunshine, without noting in the least the
direction that I took. I meandered across blistering meadows to the
neighbouring village of Nowhere-in-Particular. A singularly disordered
mind was my one companion. And such was its condition that I neither
heeded my direction nor the landmarks by the way. Therefore, when in
the course of two hours’ rambling it suddenly occurred to me that it
would be as well to observe where I was, and set my face for home, I
should not have been very surprised to find that I had strolled off
the map of England. Where was I? There was a low hedge directly ahead.
Beyond that I could indistinctly see, trees being intermingled with
them, glass-houses, out-houses, and an ivy-grown, ancient manor-house.
Whose place was this? Next instant I shook with hollow laughter at
myself. It was Hickory Rectory, Miss Grace’s home. This was really
too preposterous. The ivy-grown arrangement just in front was Hickory
Rectory for all that. And the family were still at home, and apparently
engaged in their principal vocation. For even as I stood girding at
my own absurdity, a voice came from the other side the hedge to this
effect: “Grace, if you will keep covering the sticks every time with
your confounded skirt, you’ll be out petticoat before.”
“Oh, shall I!” said the audacious person thus addressed. “If you can’t
bowl me, you’d better bowl for catches and get me caught. Put Toddles
on. He might get me collared in the long-field like anything.”
Although I was still applying cynical laughter to my infernal folly,
I was quite prepared to seize the opportunity of seeing great men in
private life, and that other surpassing member of their family showing
them how things should be done. Therefore I found myself gazing with
both eyes over the hedge on to the Rectory lawn. It was a single wicket
match. Grace herself was batting. A. H. was bowling slow breaks;
Captain George was keeping wicket; Elphinstone was in the country; T.
S. M., H. C., and Carteret were all disposed on the leg-side; whilst an
old, foxey-looking individual was acting in the responsible capacity of
umpire. I had not been there a minute ere Miss Grace, in attempting a
tremendous blind swipe right off her middle over the cucumber frame at
deep square-leg, was saved by her skirt from being clean bowled.
“How’s that?” cried A. H., lustily.
“Not hout!” cried the umpire, in a tone that plainly told A. H. what
he, the umpire, thought of him as a man and a gentleman.
“Very good decision, Biffin,” said Miss Grace, calmly patting down the
turf to show that the ball had turned a bit. However, Nemesis waited
on Miss Grace next ball. With another mighty swipe she fetched a real
good one round like lightning, and the youthful T. S. M., fielding
short-leg, jumping up, effected a wonderful one-handed catch.
“Well, what a fluke!” cried Miss Grace; “that would have been the
winning hit.”
“But isn’t,” said Elphinstone, alias Toddles, cheerfully; “and Surrey
have beaten Middlesex by two runs. First defeat of the champion county.
Oh, Stoddy, why weren’t you steadier?”
“Yes, why weren’t you steadier, Stoddy?” said Carteret.
“’Cause I didn’t think there was anybody in this parish who could catch
anything after yesterday’s exhibition,” said the famous Middlesex
batsman dejectedly.
“What’s the next fixture in the Middlesex list?” asked Captain George.
“Middlesex _v._ Gloucestershire at Cheltenham,” said Miss Grace. “Same
sides. Let’s toss for innings.”
“You’ve got a man more than we, though,” said T. S. M.
“As you play for Harrow, Tommy, you count two you know,” said Miss
Grace.
“Hullo, there’s Dimsdale here,” cried H. C., as his eye lit on me.
“He’s just the man we want for Gloucester. Go round, Dimsdale, to the
gate.”
A minute later I was on the Rectory lawn, and preparing to engage in my
first county match.
“As it’s Gloucestershire,” said George the kindly, “somebody’ll have
to represent the Old Man. Now Grace herself is the only one with any
pretensions to do that. Suppose Middlesex swaps her for me?”
“Ripping good idea!” said that celebrated person eagerly. “That’s
stunning! Biffin, just go and fetch me that red and yellow cap, while I
go out and toss with Mr. Stoddart.”