A Case of Heredity
WHEN peace had been restored, Captain George remarked, “_Apropos_ of
the Guv’nor’s curl in the air, it’s very singular and a bit annoying
too that Grace is the only one of us who has developed it. There’s no
doubt that she’s got it. Don’t you think so, sir?”
“Undoubtedly,” said the old gentleman. “And I think it is because she
delivers the ball with a stiff arm, just as I used to do. It’s the
clearest case of heredity that I ever saw.”
“If Grace was not a girl,” said Archie, “she’d be the best bowler in
England to-day. That curl from leg of hers, when it occasionally takes
it into its head to come back from the off after it’s pitched requires
more watching than anything I know.”
“Grace, will you qualify for Kent?” said Carteret.
Miss Grace, although somewhat embarrassed by the praises of these great
men, which caused her to blush most adorably, was supremely happy. It
was honey to her to be considered on her merits as a cricketer.
“I wish this jolly leg curl was Charlie’s instead of mine,” said its
flattered owner in the most unselfish manner. “What use is it to me? If
Charlie’d got it now, Stoddy’d be obliged to take him with him in the
autumn. Or even if that young cub of a Tommy had got it, it might get
him in the county.”
“If the young cub in question can’t get in the county without the help
of a girl,” said the Harrow captain, sore but dignified, “he’d prefer
to stop outside, thank you.”
“Boy,” said the little parson, “you must learn to respect your
elders--sisters especially.”
“But she’s my twin,” said T. S. M.
“She’s older than you, though, ever so much older,” said the oracular
Archie. “Girls don’t begin to grow young until they become women. Only
wait a bit; there’ll come a time when you’ll find yourself years older
than Grace is.”
“But she’s so beas’ly patronisin’,” said poor T. S. M. “She might be a
howlin’ authority on the game, a reg’ler A. G. Steel, or a chap like
that, instead of a beas’ly girl with the cheek of a female journalist.
I’ll admit she’s got a bit o’ book knowledge,--Badminton, and all
that--and can talk like a phonograph, but she’s not going to play the
apostle with me, not if I know it. Her airs are alarmin’. Don’t know
why you men let her rag you, and fag you, and cheek you, and order you
about the show accordin’ to her imperial pleasure. I’m goin’ to kick.
To me that sort o’ thing ain’t at all amusin’. Why at Harrow----”
“Yes, at Harrow,” said the little parson eagerly.
“Yes, at Harrow,” said Archie, with a burning eye.
“Yes, at Harrow,” said every individual person at the table in the
proper order in which he was seated, with strained intensity.
“I can see you’re all under her thumb,” said the unhappy T. S.
M., reddening to the roots of his hair. “She just ruffles it over
everybody, from the Guv’nor to the gardener’s boy. And her ways are
simply howlin’. I brought Billy Jowett, who’s in the same game as me at
Har--, yes, in the same game as me, down here for a week end. And this
nice brought-up sister o’ mine says to him after he’d been here about a
day, ‘I say, Mister Jowett, isn’t it exhaustin’ to have such brilliant
gifts? Your mama is so proud of you, I’m sure, and how brave of her
to let you come so far from home without your governess!’ Well, that
riled Billy so cruel that he just cut back by the next train, and he
says that if I ever ask him to come down again he shall take it as an
insult.”
“That’s luck,” said the unabashed Miss Grace. “The coxey little boy;
and he _was_ such an awfully gifted being! Talked of George Eliot
as though he knew him well. Then he got discussing ‘The Historical
Continuity of the Church of England’ with the Guv’nor, and then ‘The
Inwardness of the Harmsworth Magazine,’ and housetop talk o’ that sort.
Then he got arguing with the Guv’nor--yes, _arguing_, Archie, and once
I’m certain that he contradicted the Guv’nor flat. It just made my
blood _boil_; and when he said, Archie, ‘that he had been told that you
batted rather well,’ I thought it somewhere about time that he had a
hint.”
“He’s the smartest classic in the school, anyhow,” said T. S. M. hotly.
“Greek and Latin prizeman, and all that, and he’s going up to Trinity
next term, and he’s certain to get a fellowship, besides a double blue.”
“He’s big enough bore to get a deanery,” was Miss Grace’s swift answer.
I grieve to say that the whole table, her reverend papa included,
seemed really charmed with this audacious speech.
“Well,” said Harrow’s captain, feeling that the day was going against
him, and therefore losing his head a little, and mixing his metaphors
horribly, “you can curl back into your shell. Your airs won’t wash with
me. And don’t put side on with a pitchfork either, for when all’s
said, you are barely an hour older than I am.”
[Illustration: “‘Hooray! Isn’t A. J. just a darling?’”
_Willow, the King._] [_Page 203._]
“Yes, dear Tommy,” said his sister; “but then, you see, I’ve not been
to Harrow.”
The Fates, however, were now kind enough to play into the hands of T.
S. M. It is almost certain else that his mutilated corpse had been
carried from this fatal field. A maid-servant issued from the house
with a pink slip in her hand. She delivered it into the care of the
Harrow captain.
“The boy’s waiting, sir,” said she.
Tom tore off the wrapper. Thereon he was seen to grow noticeably pale,
while he allowed the telegram to flutter from his fingers.
“I say!” he gasped.
Miss Grace pounced on the pink paper like a hawk, and read out its
contents in a voice thrilling with excitement: “You are selected for
Kent match, Monday, Tonbridge. Reply paid, Webbe. Hooray! Hooray! Isn’t
A. J. just a darling!”
The exuberant young person waved the telegram about in such a frantic
manner that she overturned the teapot into the lap of Carteret.
“Terribly sorry, James,” she said breathlessly; “terribly sorry. But
lend me a pencil, somebody, and, Jane, just see that that boy don’t go.”
A pencil being promptly forthcoming, Miss Grace wrote in a hasty but
firm hand on the slip attached: “Shall be very glad to play, Tonbridge,
Monday. T. Trentham.”
“There you are, Jane,” said she; “give that to the boy,” and fishing
half-a-crown from her purse, added, “and this is for him, too.”
“Laura, what unwarrantable extravagance,” said the Rector, looking so
happy that he could scarcely sit still.
“It ’ud be five shillings,” said Miss Grace, “only I want some new
gloves for Tonbridge on Monday. But isn’t it glorious! Isn’t it
tremendous of A. J.! Tommy, I’m _so_ delighted! And didn’t I say from
the first that they wouldn’t pass you over? And you will take me to
Tonbridge, won’t you, Father?”
“I think you are more likely to take me,” said that indulgent man.
The whole-hearted joy of them all was infectious. I might have a dim
idea that my own county had yet to behave in a similar way towards one
whom I held to be peculiarly worthy, but, none the less, I bore my
part in the back thumpings as gallantly as any. The recipient of these
congratulations, talkative to the point of calamity the moment before,
was now in such a state of miserable happiness that he could not find
a word to say. With his eyes fixed modestly on his plate he was white
one minute, and red the next. His sister, however determined a foe she
might be, was most unmistakably delighted. After inserting a strawberry
into Elphinstone’s shirt-collar, not necessarily as a cause of offence,
but rather as a guarantee of her excessive happiness, she ended by
falling on her father bodily, and publicly hugging him.
“Pater,” she said, “you don’t mind, do you? It is so horribly jolly
nice to feel that Tommy’s playing on Monday, isn’t it?”
About five minutes later the Harrow captain became the victim of an
idea.
“’Ought to reply now, I suppose,” he said nervously. “’Wonder if the
boy’s gone. Would you say you’d play? What do you say, sir? What do you
say, Grace? How would you word it? Don’t quite know what to do. Somehow
feel I’m not altogether fit.”
“It’s all right, Tommy; I _have_ replied,” said his sister. “You’re
playing on Monday.”
“It’s beas’ly good of you, old girl,” said her youngest brother.
“What price Harrow’s principles now?” cried Carteret. “Here is the man
who was not going to let his sister play the apostle with him. Wasn’t
he going to let her see!”
“Shut up, James,” said Miss Grace, “else you’ll get some more tea on
your togs. Soon as a fellow plays for the county he gets sense knocked
into him, and grows into a man quite suddenly. Now, Tommy, mind no more
smoking this week; early to bed, you know, not a minute after ten; nice
long morning walks, and, perhaps, a Turkish bath on Saturday. We must
have you like--like a jumping cracker for Monday.”
“Mayn’t I smoke cigarettes?” said the meek Tommy.
“No, not one,” said his tyrannical sister. “And I shall put you on
oysters and beef-tea. Oh, and cod-liver oil.”
“Cod-liver oil?” said the prospective county man. He made a grimace.
“Certainly,” said Miss Grace. “Archie and Charlie take a tablespoonful
a day, don’t you? I simply insist on it, don’t I?”
“Lord, yes!” groaned those great men.
“S’pose _I’ve_ got to have it, then,” said the Harrow captain humbly.
From this it should be seen that county cricket is not quite all beer
and skittles. It has its drawbacks.
The enthusiasm had scarcely had time to die when a solitary figure, in
a grey flannel suit, came through the laurel bushes and over the lawn
to the tumultuous tea-table. It was the Optimist.
“Delighted to see you, my boy,” said the Rector. “Sit down, and get at
those strawberries.”
“One lump or two, Cheery?” said the brisk Grace. “And Tommy’s playing
against Kent on Monday. Isn’t it scrumptious! Toddles, send the cream
along, will you when you’ve taken your blazer out of it? But isn’t it
prime about Tommy?”
“Your fist, old man!” demanded the Optimist. He wrung T. S. M.’s hand
in such a way that it was lucky it was not his bowling arm.
The Optimist, best of good fellows as he was, might have sought for
years to find the highway into Miss Grace’s heart, and yet not have so
nearly found it as he did just then. For his behaviour clearly said,
that if he was not in his own person a great cricketer, none the less
he had a true feeling for the game.
As the champion county had made a moderate score, and Gloucestershire
felt that they therefore could afford to be generous, Brightside was
allowed to bat for Middlesex. Unfortunately, his efforts in the batting
line were of very little service to his side. When the poor chap took
his guard, and then looked up and saw Miss Grace preparing to deliver,
he couldn’t have been in a greater funk had she been Spofforth himself.
One ball transacted his business. It had the paternal curl, and also
“did a bit” as well.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said the tender-hearted bowler, as the poor
Optimist’s wicket shed a silent bail; “but it was a good ’un, wasn’t
it? The Old Man’s analysis is three wickets for fourteen. Not so dusty,
is it, for a veteran?”
“Are you counting that broken window a wicket?” asked the victim of Law
Seven, Rectory Rules.
“What do _you_ think?” said W. G. “If I chuck you a ’tice, and it leads
you to take liberties, what do you think, Archie?”
“Why, I think your cheek’s increasing,” said the emphatic Archie.
Grace went in first for Gloucestershire, of course.
“One leg, Biffin, if you please,” said she, bending her brown face
over her bat handle. “Toddles, will you have the goodness to come
from behind the bowler’s arm? Oh, and Biffin, you must not forget
that according to Rule Nine anything above medium is a no-ball. Fast
bowling’s dangerous here, you know, tempts one to hit so hard. Do you
hear that, Charlie?--nothing above medium.”
The best bowler in England was cruel enough to drop in one of his
celebrated “yorkers” to his sister first ball. Even with the most
accomplished defensive batswomen a yorker is always liable to have a
fatal termination. It had in this instance. Crash went Miss Grace’s
middle.
“No-ball!” yelled the umpire, just in the nick of time.
“Got that no-ball down to Gloucester, Father?” cried the imperturbable
Grace to her parent who sat scoring under a willow tree, a safe
distance away. “Oh, and Biffin, I think I’d better have two leg, I was
bit inside that one, wasn’t I?” The way in which she lifted a bail and
scraped the crease was W.G. to the manner born. “And, Toddles, _can’t_
you keep from dancing behind the bowler’s arm?”
If the best bowler in England thought he was going to catch his
sister napping a second time he was the victim of a grievous error.
His yorkers had no terrors for her now. She got her bat down to every
individual one, and had the temerity to block one so hard that she
scored a single off it. She played a watchful and not altogether
unscientific game, and despite the fact that three men were on the
onside watching the case on behalf of the cucumber frame, she caused
the bowling to be changed four times, and stayed in fifty minutes for
sixteen. And the manner of her dismissal was decidedly unlucky. The
gallant Artilleryman going on with his lobs as a last resource, his
sister was no longer able to restrain her ardent soul: she got in a
really fine straight in the manner of her brother Archie, whereon
running in hard from the library windows, the little parson effected
one of the finest catches ever witnessed on the Rectory lawn.
Contrary to expectation the finish was desperately close. Through
my ignorance of the ground I had the misfortune to be run out for
a duck. Toddles, who succeeded, shaped beautifully, his wrist work
and knife-like cutting being a theme for general admiration. After
contributing three singles and a two, however, he lost his wicket in
a somewhat humiliating way. Grace, fielding mid-off, had by no means
forgiven him for his wonderful catch, and was evidently, to judge
by her concentrated look, biding her time. Presently, the little
parson smashed one right at her all along the carpet at a great pace.
Mid-off’s disturbed expression, and the quick way in which she turned
round apparently to pursue, clearly indicated that she had been guilty
of misfielding, and had allowed the ball to pass her. The unsuspecting
Toddles started for a run, whereon the fieldsman like a flash of light
produced the missing ball from the infinite recesses of her skirts,
returned it hard and true, and the wicket-keeper had the little parson
out by about two yards.
“I’ll teach you to refuse Halliday, and then take me, when you wouldn’t
a’ got to mine at all if you hadn’t been such a quick-footed little
brute,” cried Mid-off in triumph.
Although it was one of the most flagrant cases of deception that either
Middlesex or Gloucestershire had ever seen practised, the unfortunate
Toddles had undoubtedly received his _quietus_.
“Just the sort o’ thing a girl would do,” said T. S. M. “Beas’ly bad
form, I call it.”
“Let this be a warning to you, Tommy,” said Miss Grace, who actually
seemed to be exulting in her act. “As you’re so young, Kent’s certain
to try it on Monday. Toddles will, for one.”
“It’s worse than the Cambridge no-ball dodge,” said Carteret, coming in
last man to bat.
The finish proved exciting to a degree. Carteret was a first-class
bat in every way, who had a fine eye, and came down very hard on the
ball. Despite the correctness of the fielding, and the fine length that
Charlie kept, Gloucestershire won by one wicket.
As W. G. led the victorious eleven back to the remains of the
strawberries and cream, our representative understood the Champion to
remark:--
“I’ve said all along that this very toney, classy Middlesex team had
only got to be tackled fair for the stitches to come undone, and the
sawdust to begin to trickle. Two lickings in succession’s pretty thick,
ain’t it, Stoddy? You two’ll stay to dinner of course?”
“Charmed,” said I promptly. And then in a judicious aside to George,
“But what price togs? Riding breeches and a flannel shirt, don’t you
know!”
“Don’t fag with dressing when we’re on our own, do we boys,” said the
consummate Grace, who had an alertness that was as perfect as her
frankness. “The Guv’nor’s good as gold, especially in summer. It’s only
when the Bishop brings his Mary, or there’s a bit of a slap-up dinner
party on, which I sometimes let the Guv’nor have if his behaviour’s
been very beautiful, well then, of course, we have to buck up a bit,
and try to look pretty.”
“Ever so easy in your case,” said I.
Alas! it fell on perfectly deaf ears.