The Golf Omnibus (42 page)

And yet⎯

The first inkling I received that anything was wrong came through a chance meeting with Raymond Gandle who happened to pass my gate on his way back from the links just as I drove up in my taxi; for I had been away from home for many weeks on a protracted business tour. I welcomed Gandle's advent and invited him in to smoke a pipe and put me abreast of local gossip. He came readily enough—and seemed, indeed to have something on his mind and to be glad of the opportunity of revealing it to a sympathetic auditor.

“And how,” I asked him, when we were comfortably settled, “did your game this afternoon come out?”

“Oh, he beat me,” said Gandle, and it seemed to me that there was a note of bitterness in his voice.

“Then He, whoever he was, must have been an extremely competent performer,” I replied, courteously, for Gandle was one of the finest players in the club. “Unless, of course, you were giving him some impossible handicap.”

“No; we played level.”

“Indeed! Who was your opponent?”

“Chesney.”

“Wallace Chesney! And he beat you playing level! This is the most amazing thing I have ever heard.”

“He's improved out of all knowledge.”

“He must have done. Do you think he would ever beat you again?”

“No. Because he won't have the chance.”

“You surely do not mean that you will not play him because you are afraid of being beaten?”

“It isn't being beaten I mind⎯”

And if I omit to report the remainder of his speech it is not merely because it contained expresssions with which I am reluctant to sully my lips, but because, omitting these expletives, what he said was almost word for word what you were saying to me just now about Nathaniel Frisby. It was, it seemed, Wallace Chesney's manner, his arrogance, his attitude of belonging to some superior order of being that had so wounded Raymond Gandle. Wallace Chesney had, it appeared, criticized Gandle's mashie-play in no friendly spirit; had hung up the game on the fourteenth tee in order to show him how to place his feet; and on the way back to the club-house had said that the beauty of golf was that the best player could enjoy a round even with a dud, because, though there might be no interest in the match, he could always amuse himself by playing for his medal score.

I was profoundly shaken.

“Wallace Chesney!” I exclaimed. “Was it really Wallace Chesney who behaved in the manner you describe?”

“Unless he's got a twin brother of the same name, it was.”

“Wallace Chesney a victim to swelled head! I can hardly credit it.”

“Well, you needn't take my word for it unless you want to. Ask anybody. It isn't often he can get anyone to play with him now.”

“You horrify me!”

Raymond Gandle smoked a while in brooding silence.

“You've heard about his engagement?” he said at length.

“I have heard nothing, nothing. What about his engagement?”

“Charlotte Dix has broken it off.”

“No!”

“Yes. Couldn't stand him any longer.”

I got rid of Gandle as soon as I could. I made my way as quickly as possible to the house where Charlotte lived with her aunt. I was determined to sift this matter to the bottom and to do all that lay in my power to heal the breach between two young people for whom I had a great affection.

“I have just heard the news,” I said, when the aunt had retired to some secret lair, as aunts do, and Charlotte and I were alone.

“What news?” said Charlotte, dully. I thought she looked pale and ill, and she had certainly grown thinner.

“This dreadful news about your engagement to Wallace Chesney. Tell me, why did you do this thing? Is there no hope of a reconciliation?”

“Not unless Wally becomes his old self again.”

“But I had always regarded you two as ideally suited to one another.”

“Wally has completely changed in the last few weeks. Haven't you heard?”

“Only sketchily, from Raymond Gandle.”

“I refuse,” said Charlotte, proudly, all the woman in her leaping to her eyes, “to marry a man who treats me as if I were a kronen at the present rate of exchange, merely because I slice an occasional tee-shot. The afternoon I broke off the engagement”—her voice shook, and I could see that her indifference was but a mask—“the afternoon I broke off the en-gug-gug-gagement, he t-told me I ought to use an iron off the tee instead of a dud-dud-driver.”

And the stricken girl burst into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing. And realizing that, if matters had gone as far as that, there was little I could do, I pressed her hand silently and left her.

But though it seemed hopeless I decided to persevere. I turned my steps towards Wallace Chesney's bungalow, resolved to make one appeal to the man's better feelings. He was in his sitting-room when I arrived, polishing a putter; and it seemed significant to me, even in that tense moment, that the putter was quite an ordinary one, such as any capable player might use. In the brave old happy days of his dudhood, the only putters you ever found in the society of Wallace Chesney were patent self-adjusting things that looked like croquet mallets that had taken the wrong turning in childhood.

“Well, Wallace, my boy,” I said.

“Hallo!” said Wallace Chesney. “So you're back?”

We fell into conversation, and I had not been in the room two minutes before I realized that what I had been told about the change in him was nothing more than the truth. The man's bearing and his every remark were insufferably bumptious. He spoke of his prospects in the July medal competition as if the issue were already settled. He scoffed at his rivals.

I had some little difficulty in bringing the talk round to the matter which I had come to discuss.

“My boy,” I said at length, “I have just heard the sad news.”

“What sad news?”

“I have been talking to Charlotte⎯”

“Oh, that!” said Wallace Chesney.

“She was telling me⎯”

“Perhaps it's all for the best.”

“All for the best? What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Wallace, “one doesn't wish, of course, to say anything ungallant, but, after all, poor Charlotte's handicap
is
fourteen and wouldn't appear to have much chance of getting any lower. I mean, there's such a thing as a fellow throwing himself away.”

Was I revolted at these callous words? For a moment, yes. Then it struck me that, though he had uttered them with a light laugh, that laugh had had in it more than a touch of bravado. I looked at him keenly. There was a bored, discontented expression in his eyes, a line of pain about his mouth.

“My boy,” I said, gravely, “you are not happy.”

For an instant I think he would have denied the imputation. But my visit had coincided with one of those twilight moods in which a man requires, above all else, sympathy. He uttered a weary sigh.

“I'm fed up,” he admitted. “It's a funny thing. When I was a dud, I used to think how perfect it must be to be scratch. I used to watch the cracks buzzing round the course and envy them. It's all a fraud. The only time when you enjoy golf is when an occasional decent shot is enough to make you happy for the day. I'm plus two, and I'm bored to death. I'm too good. And what's the result? Everybody's jealous of me. Everybody's got it in for me. Nobody loves me.”

His voice rose in a note of anguish, and at the sound his terrier, which had been sleeping on the rug, crept forward and licked his hand.

“The dog loves you,” I said, gently, for I was touched.

“Yes, but I don't love the dog,” said Wallace Chesney.

“Now come, Wallace,” I said. “Be reasonable, my boy. It is only your unfortunate manner on the links which has made you perhaps a little unpopular at the moment. Why not pull yourself up? Why ruin your whole life with this arrogance? All that you need is a little tact, a little forbearance. Charlotte, I am sure, is just as fond of you as ever, but you have wounded her pride. Why must you be unkind about her
tee-shots?”

Wallace Chesney shook his head despondently.

“I can't help it,” he said. “It exasperates me to see anyone foozling, and I have to say so.”

“Then there is nothing to be done,” I said, sadly.

All the medal competitions at our club are, as you know, important events; but, as you are also aware, none of them is looked forward to so keenly or contested so hotly as the one in July. At the beginning of the year of which I am speaking, Raymond Gandle had been considered the probable winner of the fixture; but as the season progressed and Wallace Chesney's skill developed to such a remarkable extent most of us were reluctantly inclined to put our money on the latter. Reluctantly, because Wallace's unpopularity was now so general that the thought of his winning was distasteful to all. It grieved me to see how cold his fellow-members were towards him. He drove off from the first tee without a solitary hand-clap; and, though the drive was of admirable quality and nearly carried the green, there was not a single cheer. I noticed Charlotte Dix among the spectators. The poor girl was looking sad and wan.

In the draw for partners Wallace had had Peter Willard allotted to him; and he muttered to me in a quite audible voice that it was as bad as handicapping him half a dozen strokes to make him play with such a hopeless performer. I do not think Peter heard, but it would not have made much difference to him if he had, for I doubt if anything could have had much effect for the worse on his game. Peter Willard always entered for the medal competition, because he said that competition-play was good for the nerves.

On this occasion he topped his ball badly, and Wallace lit his pipe with the exaggeratedly patient air of an irritated man. When Peter topped his second also, Wallace was moved to speech.

“For goodness' sake,” he snapped, “what's the good of playing at all if you insist on lifting your head? Keep it down, man, keep it down. You don't need to watch to see where the ball is going. It isn't likely to go as far as all that. Make up your mind to count three before you look up.”

“Thanks,” said Peter, meekly. There was no pride in Peter to be wounded. He knew the sort of player he was.

The couples were now moving off with smooth rapidity, and the course was dotted with the figures of players and their accompanying spectators. A fair proportion of these latter had decided to follow the fortunes of Raymond Gandle, but by far the larger number were sticking to Wallace, who right from the start showed that Gandle or anyone else would have to return a very fine card to beat him. He was out in thirty-seven, two above bogey, and with the assistance of a superb second, which landed the ball within a foot of the pin, got a three on the tenth, where a four is considered good. I mention this to show that by the time he arrived at the short
lake-hole Wallace Chesney was at the top of his form. Not even the fact that he had been obliged to let the next couple through owing to Peter Willard losing his ball had been enough to upset him.

The course has been rearranged since, but at that time the lake-hole, which is now the second, was the eleventh, and was generally looked on as the crucial hole in a medal round. Wallace no doubt realized this, but the knowledge did not seem to affect him. He lit his pipe with the utmost coolness: and, having replaced the matchbox in his hip-pocket, stood smoking nonchalantly as he waited for the couple in front to get off the green.

They holed out eventually, and Wallace walked to the tee. As he did so, he was startled to receive a resounding smack.

“Sorry,” said Peter Willard, apologetically. “Hope I didn't hurt you. A wasp.”

And he pointed to the corpse, which was lying in a used-up attitude on the ground.

“Afraid it would sting you,” said Peter.

“Oh, thanks,” said Wallace.

He spoke a little stiffly, for Peter Willard had a large, hard, flat hand, the impact of which had shaken him up considerably. Also, there had been laughter in the crowd. He was fuming as he bent to address the ball, and his annoyance became acute when, just as he reached the top of his swing, Peter Willard suddenly spoke.

“Just a second, old man,” said Peter. Wallace spun round, outraged.

“What
is
it? I do wish you would wait till I've made my shot.”

“Just as you like,” said Peter, humbly.

“There is no greater crime that a man can commit on the links than to speak to a fellow when he's making his stroke.”

“Of course, of course,” acquiesced Peter, crushed.

Wallace turned to his ball once more. He was vaguely conscious of a discomfort to which he could not at the moment give a name. At first he thought that he was having a spasm of lumbago, and this surprised him, for he had never in his life been subject to even a suspicion of that malady. A moment later he realized that this diagnosis had been wrong.

“Good heavens!” he cried, leaping nimbly some two feet into the air. “I'm on fire!”

“Yes,” said Peter, delighted at his ready grasp of the situation. “That's what I wanted to mention just now.”

Wallace slapped vigorously at the seat of his Plus Fours.

“It must have been when I killed that wasp,” said Peter, beginning to see clearly into the matter. “You had a match-box in your pocket.”

Wallace was in no mood to stop and discuss first causes. He was springing up and down on his pyre, beating at the flames.

“Do you know what I should do if I were you?” said Peter Willard. “I should jump into the lake.”

One of the cardinal rules of golf is that a player shall accept no advice from anyone but his own caddie; but the warmth about his lower limbs had now become so generous that Wallace was prepared to stretch a point. He took three rapid strides and entered the water with a splash.

The lake, though muddy, is not deep, and presently Wallace was to be observed standing up to his waist some few feet from the shore.