A Telegram from Stoddart
THE third telegram ran to this tenour,--
“If Hawke wants you for India, sing slow. You are going with me.
Stoddart.”
Miss Grace had a mounting colour as she read this, and I believe
swimming eyes and a reeling brain. I think she would have liked to weep
for joy.
“Oh, Dimmy,” she said, “isn’t it divine! Isn’t it _noble_ of old
Stoddy! But I knew it, I knew it all along. It would have been
impossible not to take old Charlie. Wonder what the boys’ll say?”
At last it seemed that something of sufficient importance had occurred
to tear her mind from her all-absorbing occupation. She got up, her
cheeks still flushed, and moved to the door with a sort of look on her
face that implied that for the present she was performing the extremely
difficult feat of walking on air.
But I was too quick for her. With a bound I got to the door, and had my
back snugly against it by the time she arrived.
“Now then, Dimmy, get out of the way,” she imperiously said. “Can’t
wait a moment, you know. Must tell the boys. They’ll just go mad.”
“Oh, you can’t,” said I immovably. “Really. How nice! And you _must_
tell the boys?”
“No more ragging, Dimmy,” said she. “Honour bright, I can’t hold myself
till I’ve told ’em. What are you standing there like that for? I want
to pass.”
“Oh, you do,” said I. “How interesting! Awf’ly glad you’ve told me.
Jolly glad to know, you know.”
“Dimmy, if you don’t drop your jolly jaw, and let me pass, I’ll be
downright angry. Do you hear, Dimmy. Don’t play the Angora.”
“Well, it’s like this,” said I. “For the last hour you have been
spending your time in deliberately disregarding every word I’ve said.
But now, my dear Grace, pointedly speaking, you’ve bally well got to
listen, and the sooner you make your mind up to it, the sooner you’ll
get it over.”
At this Miss Grace began to flare up like anything.
“The music’ll play in a minute,” she said. “Tell you straight, Dimmy,
I’m a terror when I get my turkey up. If I do get my wool off, the
feathers’ll fly.”
“Nineteen from forty-one, quick!” said I. “But, my dear Grace, you sit
down and listen. That’s my tip. It’s the only way you’ll get out just
yet, anyhow.”
“Don’t say I haven’t given you fair warning, Dimmy, will you?” she
cried, with her face in a blaze.
“All right,” said I cheerily; “just give me time, Grace, and I’ll
laugh, I’m positive I’ll laugh.”
Grace stamped her foot. She looked things.
“Very nice, indeed,” said I. “I’m certain I’ll laugh.”
“Oh, it _is_ too bad!” she wailed. “Dimmy, you _are_ a brute! I _must_
go and tell ’em. I must really. Dimmy, _do_ come away from that door,
there’s a good soul!”
“No,” said I callously; “not until you have considered and replied to
my proposal.”
“Proposal!” cried Grace, midway between amazement and rage. “What
proposal?”
“That comes of not listening,” said I. “Think what you’ve missed. Am I
to understand that you didn’t hear a word I said?”
“That’s about it,” said Grace.
“Then, my dear Grace,” said I; “you take a chair and listen. If I keep
you here till two, I’m going over it again, and I’m going to make you
listen.”
“Oh, are you?” Had Grace been any one but Grace, I should have said she
positively snorted. “Oh, are you, Dimmy? Don’t you be too jolly sure
about it.”
I grieve to state that my ultimatum in Grace’s opinion constituted a
_casus belli_. The flying squadron immediately received orders to sail,
the blood darted all over her face in the most pictorial manner, and
she picked one of the books of the Rector’s off the table. She began to
skirmish a bit, making several feints, and awaiting her opportunity.
“I don’t want to, Dimmy, you know,” said she.
“But by Jingo if you do, Grace,” said I.
“You’d better come out of it, Dimmy, you know,” said this armed
belligerent, trying to show that our relations were not yet so strained
but that a conciliatory tone might preserve the peace, even at this
late hour. “It’s not a bit funny, you know. It wasn’t exactly what one
’ud call a good joke at the start, and now it’s getting as stale as
anything.”
“If it _is_ a joke,” I quoted, “it’s not at all obvious. When I _want_
to be bored I read _Punch_.”
Crash came _Pearson on the Creed_ full at my head. I dodged, of course,
but the momentum of that weighty theological work as it hurtled
against the resisting oak panel of the library door was really ominous.
The noise appeared to shake the foundations of the house.
“I’m glad,” said I, “that my nerves are fitted with rubber tyres and
ball bearings.”
It was some relief to see that the countenance of the enemy had now
changed to one of rue. _Pearson on the Creed_, lay _sans_ covers and
practically disembowelled at my feet. Poor Grace flopped on her knees
and began to gather the mutilated members of this old but highly
respectable tome.
“Dimmy, you’re a brute! a beast! that’s what you are!” she cried. “Do
you see what _you_’ve done? Oh, father will be angry! Oh, he will talk!
He will be eloquent! He’ll be ever such a lot worse than he is on
Sundays.”
His daughter, still on her knees, looked the picture of despair.
“Will he be cursive?” I amiably inquired.
“No,” said the miserable Grace, vainly trying to readjust the
fragments. “He don’t take on like that. Wish he did; then it wouldn’t
be so rough. When he has you on the carpet, he chucks a lot of high
dictionary language at you, like he does in his sermons--awful big
words, you know; what you can’t understand, you know. And they _must_
mean a dreadful lot more than those you can, mustn’t they? Oh, he’s
just horribly, awfully polite. Last time he told me ‘to restrain my
primeval instincts.’ That’s a nice thing to say, isn’t it? Does he mean
don’t play the goat, or what? Shouldn’t mind if I only knew what he
meant.”
“He means don’t play the Angora,” said the luminous I, with an air of
knowledge.
“Oh, that’s it, is it,” said Grace; “then why don’t he jolly well say
so, then, instead of rolling up ‘primeval instincts’ to you and that
kind o’ lingo?”
Grace having by this tenderly gathered _Pearson on the Creed_, and
having cunningly contrived to restore him to some semblance of his
former unimpeachable respectability, rose from her knees, and returned
to the attack.
“Dimmy, do come from that door, there’s a nice old chap,” she said.
“I’ll be _so_ good. I’m sure I’ll listen to you when I’ve told the
boys. I’m simply dying to tell ’em. Dimmy, you brute! come from that
door at once!”
“Sit down,” said I, stretching my finger out in my laconic sternness.
“If you don’t,” said she, “I’ll get _Hengstenberg’s Dissertations on
the Genuineness and Authenticity of the Pentateuch_ to you. That’ll
make you howl if it hits you, I’ll give you _my_ word. And it don’t
matter if we do knock the stuffing out o’ that, ’cause it isn’t
orthodox, you know.”
“Why, a girl couldn’t even lift a name like that?” said I, to encourage
her.
“Oh, you don’t draw me,” said the experienced Grace. She had served an
apprenticeship with four brothers. However, I was glad to find that
the unhappy and distraught Grace had by this arrived at the conclusion
that there was only one course open to her, if she was to be enabled
to convey the burning news to the dining-room in a reasonable time.
That one course was complete submission. Accordingly, after a terrible
struggle, in which the native Eve, or perhaps the primeval instincts,
within her were persuaded to lie down, she retired a few paces, leant
against the table, sighed heart-rendingly, and then laid her mutinously
twitching hands down by her sides as placidly as possible.
“Fire away,” she said dismally; “I’ll listen.”
“Thanks awf’ly,” said I; “so good of you to listen.”
“Oh, but, Dimmy, you great beast!” she implored, “please do look nippy;
I’m simply dying.”
“Well, what I’ve got to say’s just this,” said I, and the courage I
found wherewith to utter it came partly, I suppose, from the excitement
of my late employments, and partly from the get-there-sometime
Anglo-Saxon spirit that makes us all feel such wonderful fine fellows.
“Grace, I want you to be my wife,” said I.
“Oh, if that’s all your nodding, and winking, and reddening, and
stuttering’s been about,” said Grace, with evident relief, “I’ll be
your anything, so long as you’ll let me go immediately.”
“You misunderstand me rather,” said I, nearing desperation. “’Pon my
honour as a gentleman, I want you to be my wife.”
“But the boys wouldn’t let me,” she said.
“The boys!” I cried. “What the devil--no, I mean what the dickens have
the boys got to do with it? Who are the boys, pray? Never heard of such
a thing in my life.”
“Well, you see, Dimmy, it’s like this, you see,” said Grace
confidentially, but with her eye for ever wandering to the door.
“Nothing under a county man’s their motto.”
“You mean it’s yours,” said I indignantly.
“Oh, I daresay,” said she. “If I’ve got to have somebody, I’ll have a
county man or nobody.”
“You’d have the Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour, M.P.,” said I,
to illustrate how monstrously untenable was the position she had taken
up. “There’s never a girl that wouldn’t, if I know anything.”
“Balfour, Balfour,” said Grace. “Balfour. Oh, yes, you mean the golf
Johnny. Golf! What next? Look here, Dimmy, do you take me for a muff?
Why, I wouldn’t marry Willie Park.”
“No,” said I; “because you’re going to marry me.”
“Nothing under a county cricketer,” said she, with an air of finality.
“Besides, the boys ’ud be just awful. Now then, Dimmy, out o’ the way.
I’ve heard you out all fair and square, haven’t I?”
“Not by a lot,” said I. “My dear Grace, if you don’t be reasonable, I
shall have to declaim. Don’t want to, I can assure you, but as a last
resort I shall certainly be obliged to lift up my voice.”
“Angels and ministers of grace!” cried the unhappy young person of that
name; “I’ve let you down ever so gently, and this is what I get for it.
You’re ungrateful, Dimmy, that’s what you are! Now then, let me pass.”
“I’m not a county cricketer,” I began.
“It’s no secret,” said Grace.
“But I mean to be,” said I. “May get a trial for the county this year.
And didn’t you say yourself that my crack to cover was all serene?”
These particular reminiscences of my batting promised to modify Grace’s
point of view.
“I’d clean forgotten your crack to cover,” said she, with a fallen
look. “Hope I’ve not said anything very rude, Dimmy. If I have, I’m
awf’ly humble.”
“You’ve been pretty thick,” said I, following up what looked like an
advantage. “And you said my forward stroke was not so dusty, didn’t
you?”
“Very decent, indeed,” said the keen critic. “Honour bright, Dimmy, I
wasn’t really _very_ rude, was I?”
“Depends what you call rude,” said I. “You see, there’s no standard
measure of rudeness in this country. You threw books and things at me,
but that’s a detail.”
“So I did,” she said sadly. “But I’d clean forgot your crack to
cover. Makes me feel rather sick, Dimmy, when I think what I may have
said. You ought to have reminded me. One can’t think of everything;
’specially as you’re quite an ordinary looking sort o’ chap.”
“There you go again,” said I.
“That’s not what I meant _exactly_,” said this frank young person.
“What I mean is, you’re not six four, and chest according. But, Dimmy,
_are_ you going to let me pass?”
“Not till I’ve had something definite,” said I.
“You’ve got it,” said she.
“Oh, dear no,” said I. “You say nothing under a county cricketer.
Well, as I’m certain to be a county cricketer, your reply’s inadequate.”
“I like the certain,” said Grace. “I should go ‘Abundance’ on the
certain.”
“The certain’s assumed for the sake of argument,” said I.
“Dimmy, _will_ you let me pass--_please_!”
“Will you give me some hope?” said I.
“Let me pass first,” said Grace, “then we’ll talk about it.”
“You don’t come over me like that,” said I. “Must have something
definite. If I made myself into a county man, would you give me a show?”
“Oh, anything, anything,” said Grace, “so long as you’ll let me pass!”
“Of course, I’ve not much to offer you, you know,” said I, reduced to
the coarse expedient. “Only that crack to cover, you know, and a pretty
decent forward stroke. And, Grace, I’m developing ever such a prime
late cut, and I’ve great hopes of my leg glance. When I get my eye in
and the pace o’ the ground, I can turn length balls off my leg and
middle.”
It gladdened me to think that she was softening visibly.
“I should like to see all these fine things for myself,” said she.
“Must confess I haven’t seen ’em yet. I’ll come and watch you play
these strokes against a bit of class bowling.”
All at once an idea hit me in the middle of the waistcoat.
“Grace,” said I breathlessly, palpitatingly, “s’pose you play me
to-morrow under Rectory rules on the lawn at single wicket. Then you
can test my cricket yourself, don’t you know. What awful good fun!
Isn’t that a big idea?”
“Dimmy, if you _don’t_ let me go, I’m certain that I shall be obliged
to be rude,” said Grace, still reining herself in nobly.
“You’d see me at work against a bit o’ class bowling, you know,” said I.
“S’pose I should,” she said, pondering.
“And we might arrange it like this,” said I, “just to lend a little
interest to the thing. If you beat me at single wicket on the Rectory
lawn to-morrow, I’m plucked, wiped out, clean done. On the other
hand, if I beat you, you undertake to give my claims very serious
consideration.”
“Oh, anything, anything,” said Grace, “if you’ll just let me go. Dimmy,
I’m certain that if I didn’t know otherwise, I should think you were
a Harrow boy, your behaviour’s that abominably crude. Oh, I _am_ in a
wax!”
“Look here, Grace,” said I, “I merely require your promise that you’ll
play me to-morrow on these conditions, and then you are at liberty to
go.”
“You’ve got my promise,” said she, with an off-hand haste that was by
no means reassuring.
Thereupon I opened the door for the hot, angry, and impatient Grace,
and she slipped past me in a flash, fearing no doubt that I should
repent, and close the door once more upon her.
“Dimmy,” said she, as we repaired together to the boys, “I shall
give you a most awful licking to-morrow, you know. By Jove, Dimmy, I
wouldn’t be in your shoes! I _will_ give you beans; I _will_ take it
out of you for this.”
“_Per_-haps,” said I saucily. “But, Grace, I shall go all the time, I
can promise you. I mayn’t be a county man, but I’m not in the habit of
letting girls walk over me with impunity.”
“Oh, I daresay,” said Grace cuttingly. “I should judge that girls are
just about your weight. If you played your best, you might play very
well indeed against girls. But there’s one thing, Dimmy, that I happen
to know of your cricket. _You can’t bowl for nuts._ And I _can_ let
daylight into downright rubbish. Why, Toddles is actually better than
you at bowling, and I hit him most horribly. Toddles funks me now.
Oh, I shall enjoy myself to-morrow. I’ll pay you out for to-night’s
disgusting behaviour. If I can’t knock the cover off your stuff, Dimmy,
I’ll never touch a bat again, so there!”
Alas! that my miserable bowling should deserve every word she said
about it. My heart sank.