Nothing Serious (13 page)

As he
stood there at a man’s cross-roads, there came out of the club—house, smoking a
cigarette in a sixteen—inch holder, an expensively upholstered girl with
platinum hair and vermilion finger-nails. She bent and picked the Peke up.

“My
little angel would appear to be interfering with your hockey-knocking,” she
said. “Why, hello, Captain Fosdyke. You here? Come along in and give me a
cocktail.”

She
kissed the Peke lovingly on the top of its head and carried it into the
club-house. The ball went with them.

“She’s
gone into the bar,” said the schoolmistress. “You’ll have to chip out from
there. Difficult shot. I’d use a niblick.”

Captain
Jack Fosdyke was gazing after the girl, a puzzled wrinkle on his forehead.

“I’ve
met her before somewhere, but I can’t place her. Who is she?”

“One of
the idle rich,” said the schoolmistress, sniffing. Her views were Socialistic.

Captain
Jack Fosdyke started.

“Idle
rich?”

“That’s
Lulabelle Sprockett, the Sprockett’s Superfine Sardine heiress. She’s worth a
hundred million in her own right.”

“In her
own right? You mean she’s actually got the stuff in the bank, where she can lay
hands on it whenever she feels disposed? Good God!” cried Captain Jack Fosdyke.
“Bless my soul! Well, well, well, well, well!” He turned to Agnes. “Did I hear
you mention something about breaking our engagement? Right ho, dear lady, right
ho. Just as you say. Nice to have known you. I shall watch your future career
with considerable interest. Excuse me,” said Captain Jack Fosdyke.

There
was a whirring sound, and he disappeared into the clubhouse.

“I
concede the match,” said Agnes dully.

“Might
just as well,” said the schoolmistress.

Agnes
Flack stood on the eighteenth green, contemplating the ruin of her life. It was
not the loss of Captain Jack Fosdyke that was making her mourn, for the scales
had fallen from her eyes. He had shown himself totally lacking in the golfing
spirit, and infatuation was dead. What did jar her was that she had lost Sidney
McMurdo. In this dark hour all the old love had come sweeping back into her soul
like a tidal wave.

Had she
been mad to sever their relations?

The
answer to that was “Certainly”.

Had
she, like a child breaking up a Noah’s Ark with a tack hammer, deliberately
sabotaged her hopes and happiness?

The
reply to that was “Quite”.

Would she
ever see him again?

In the
space allotted to this question she could pencil in the word “Undoubtedly,” for
he was even now coming out of the locker-room entrance.

“Sidney!”
she cried.

He
seemed depressed. His colossal shoulders were drooping, and his eyes were those
of a man who has drunk the wine of life to the lees.

“Oh,
hello,” he said. There was a silence.

“How
did Mrs Spottsworth come out?” asked Agnes. “Eh? Oh, she won.”

Agnes’s
depression hit a new low. There was another silence.

“She
has broken the engagement,” said Sidney.

The
rain was still sluicing down with undiminished intensity, but it seemed to
Agnes Flack, as she heard these words, that a blaze of golden sunshine had
suddenly lit up the East Bampton golf course.

“She
wanted to quit because of the rain,” went on Sidney, in a low, toneless voice. “I
took her by the ear and led her round, standing over her with upraised hand as
she made her shots, ready to let her have a juicy one if she faltered. On one
or two occasions I was obliged to do so. By these means I steered her through
to victory, but she didn’t like it. Having holed out on the eighteenth for a
nice three, which gave her the match, she told me that I had completely changed
since those days on the Nile and that she never wished to see or speak to me
again in this or any other incarnation.”

Agnes
was gulping like one of those peculiar fish you catch down in Florida.

“Then
you are free?”

“And
glad of it. What I ever saw in the woman beats me. But what good is that, when
I have lost you?”

“But
you haven’t.”

“Pardon
me. What about your Fosdyke?”

“I’ve
just broken my engagement, too. Oh, Sidney, let’s go right off and get married
under an arch of niblicks before we make any more of these unfortunate
mistakes. Let me tell you how that Fosdyke false alarm behaved.”

In
molten words she began to relate her story, but she had not proceeded far when
she was obliged to stop, for Sidney McMurdo’s strong arms were about her and
he was crushing her to his bosom. And when Sidney McMurdo crushed girls to his
bosom, they had to save their breath for breathing purposes, inhaling and
exhaling when and if they could.

CHAPTER
V

Excelsior

ALFRED JUKES and
Wilberforce Bream had just holed out at the end of their match for the club
championship, the latter sinking a long putt to win, and the young man sitting
with the Oldest Member on the terrace overlooking the eighteenth green said
that though this meant a loss to his privy purse often dollars, his confidence
in Jukes remained unimpaired. He still considered him a better golfer than
Bream.

The
Sage nodded without much enthusiasm.

“You
may be right,” he agreed. “But I would not call either of them a good golfer.”

“They’re
both scratch.”

“True.
But it is not mere technical skill that makes a man a good golfer, it is the
golfing soul. These two have not the proper attitude of seriousness towards the
game. Jukes once returned to the club-house in the middle of a round because
there was a thunderstorm and his caddie got struck by lightning, and I have
known Bream to concede a hole for the almost frivolous reason that he had
sliced his ball into a hornet’s nest and was reluctant to play it where it lay.
This was not the Bewstridge spirit.”

“The
what spirit?”

“The
spirit that animated Horace Bewstridge, the finest golfer I have ever known.”

“Was he
scratch?”

“Far
from it. His handicap was twenty-four. But though his ball was seldom in the
right place, his heart was. When I think what Horace Bewstridge went through
that day he battled for the President’s Cup, I am reminded of the poem,
Excelsior, by the late Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with which you are doubtless
familiar.”

“I used
to recite it as a child.”

“I am
sorry I missed the treat,” said the Oldest Member courteously. “Then you will
recall how its hero, in his struggle to reach the heights, was laid stymie
after stymie, and how in order to achieve his aim, he had to give up all idea
of resting his head upon the maiden’s breast, though cordially invited to do
so. A tear, if you remember, stood in his bright blue eye, but with a brief ‘Excelsior!’
he intimated that no business could result. Virtually the same thing that
happened to Horace Bewstridge.”

“You
know,” said the young man, “I’ve always thought that Excelsior bird a bit of a
fathead. I mean to say, what was there in it for him? As far as I can make out,
just the walk.”

“Suppose
he had been trying to win his first cup?”

“I don’t
recollect anything being said about any cup. Do they give cups for climbing
mountains ‘mid snow and ice?”

“We are
getting a little muddled,” said the Oldest Member. “You appear to be discussing
the youth with the banner and the clarion voice, while I am talking about
Horace Bewstridge. It may serve to clear the air and disperse the fog of
misunderstanding if I tell you the latter’s story. And in order that you shall
miss none of the finer shades, I must begin by dwelling upon his great love for
Vera Witherby.”

It was
only after the thing had been going on for some time (said the Oldest Member)
that I learned of this secret romance in Horace’s life. As a rule, the Romeos
who live about here are not backward in confiding in me when they fall in love.
Indeed, I sometimes feel that I shall have to begin keeping them off with a
stick. But Bewstridge was reticent. It was purely by chance that I became aware
of his passion.

One
rather breezy morning, I was sitting almost exactly where we are sitting now,
thinking of this and that, when I observed fluttering towards me across the
terrace a sheet of paper. It stopped against my foot, and I picked it up and
read its contents. They ran as follows:—

MEM

OLD B.     Ribs. But watch eyes.

MA B.       Bone up on pixies. Flowers. Insects.

I.                Symp. breeziness.

A.              Concil. If poss. p., but w.o. for s.d.a.

That
was all, and I studied it with close attention and, I must confess, a certain
amount of alarm. There had been a number of atom-bomb spy scares in the papers
recently, and it occurred to me that this might be a secret code, possibly
containing information about some local atoms.

It was
then that I saw Horace Bewstridge hurrying towards me. He appeared agitated.

“Have
you seen a piece of paper?” he asked.

“Would
this be it?”

He took
it, and seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“I
suppose you’re wondering what it’s all about?”

I
admitted to a certain curiosity, and he hesitated again. Then there crept into
his eyes the look which I have seen so often in the eyes of young men. I saw
that he was about to confide in me. And presently out it all came, like beer
from a bottle. He was in love with Vera Witherby, the niece of one Ponsford
Botts, a resident in the neighbourhood.

In
putting it like that, I am giving you the thing in condensed form, confining
myself to the gist. Horace Bewstridge was a little long-winded about it all,
going rather deeply into his emotions and speaking at some length about her
eyes, which he compared to twin stars. It was several minutes before I was able
to enquire how he was making out.

“Have
you told your love?” I asked.

“Not
yet,” said Horace Bewstridge. “I goggle a good deal, but for the present am
content to leave it at that. You see, I’m working this thing on a system. All
the nibs will tell you that everything is done by propaganda nowadays, and that
your first move, if you want to get anywhere, must be to rope in a
bloc
of
friendly neutrals. I start, accordingly, by making myself solid with the
family. I give them the old salve, get them rooting for me, and thus ensure an
impressive build-up. Only then do I take direct action and edge into what you
might call the
blitzkrieg.
This paper contains notes for my guidance.”

“With
reference to administering the salve?”

“Exactly.”

I took
the document from him, and glanced at it again.

“What,”
I asked, “does ‘Old B. Ribs. But watch eyes’ signify?”

“Quite
simple. Old Botts tells dialect stories about Irishmen named Pat and Mike, and
you laugh when he prods you in the ribs. But sometimes he doesn’t prod you in
the ribs, merely stands there looking pop-eyed. One has to be careful about
that.”

“Under
the heading ‘Ma B.’, I see you say: ‘Bone up on pixies.’ You add the words ‘flowers’
and insects.”

“Yes.
All that is vitally important. Mrs Botts, I am sorry to say, is a trifle on the
whimsy side. Perhaps you have read her books? They are three in number—My
Chums
the Pixies, How to Talk to the Flowers,
and
Many of My Best Friends are
Mosquitoes.
The programme calls for a good working knowledge of them all.”

“Who is
‘I’, against whose name you have written the phrase:

‘Symp.
breeziness’?”

“That
is little Irwin Botts, the son of the house. He is in love with Dorothy Lamour,
and not making much of a go of it. He talks to me about her, and I endeavour to
be breezily sympathetic.”

“And ‘A’?”

“Their
poodle, Alphonse. The note is to remind me to conciliate him. He is a dog of
wide influence, and cannot be ignored.”

“‘I
poss., p., but w.o. for s.d.a.’?” is “If possible, pat, but watch out for
sudden dash at ankles. He quick on his feet.”

I
handed back the paper.

“Well,”
I said, “it all seems a little elaborate, and I should have thought better
results would have been obtained by having a direct pop at the girl, but I wish
you luck.”

In the
days which followed, I kept a watchful eye on Horace, for his story had
interested me strangely. Now and then, I would see him pacing the terrace with
Ponsford Botts at his side and catch references to Pat and Mike, together with
an occasional “Begorrah,” and I noted how ringing was his guffaw as the other
suddenly congealed with bulging eyes.