The Golf Omnibus (79 page)

The sweet was mingled with the bitter in his meditations. He could see that the future held much that must inevitably be distasteful to a man who liked a quiet life. As long as he remained in the neighbourhood, he would be compelled to exercise ceaseless vigilance and would have to hold himself in readiness, should the occasion arise, to pick up his feet and run like a rabbit.

This was not so good. On the other hand, it seemed reasonable to infer from Agnes Flack's manner during the recent episode that their engagement was at an end. A substantial bit of velvet.

Against this, however, must be set the fact that he had lost Celia Todd. There was no getting away from that, and it was this thought that caused him to moan softly as he gazed at the dark water beneath him. And he was still moaning, when there came to his ears the sound of a footstep. A woman's form loomed up in the dusk. She was crossing the bridge towards him. And then suddenly a cry rent the air.

Smallwood Bessemer was to discover shortly that he had placed an erroneous interpretation upon this cry, which had really been one of agitation and alarm. To his sensitive ear it had sounded like the animal yowl of an angry woman sighting her prey, and he had concluded that this must be Agnes Flack, returned to the chase. Acting upon this assumption, he stood not on the order of going but immediately soared over the rail and plunged into the water below. Rising quickly to the surface and clutching out for support, he found himself grasping something wet and furry.

For an instant, he was at a loss to decide what this could be. It had some of the properties of a sponge and some of a damp hearthrug. Then it bit him in the fleshy part of the thumb and he identified it as Celia Todd's Pekinese, Pirbright. In happier days he had been bitten from once to three times a week by this animal, and he recognized its technique.

The discovery removed a great weight from his mind. If Pirbright came, he reasoned, could Celia Todd be far behind. He saw that it must be she, and not Agnes Flack, who stood on the bridge. Greatly relieved, he sloshed to the shore, endeavouring as best he might to elude the creature's snapping jaws.

In this he was not wholly successful. Twice more he had to endure nips, and juicy
ones. But the physical anguish soon passed away as he came to land and found himself gazing into Celia's eyes. They were large and round, and shone with an adoring light.

“Oh, Smallwood!” she cried. “Thank heaven you were there! If you had not acted so promptly, the poor little mite would have been drowned.”

“It was nothing,” protested Bessemer modestly.

“Nothing? To have the reckless courage to plunge in like that? It was the sort of thing people get expensive medals for.”

“Just presence of mind,” said Bessemer. “Some fellows have it, some haven't. How did it happen?”

She caught her breath.

“It was Sidney McMurdo's doing.”

“Sidney McMurdo's?”

“Yes. Pirbright was not well to-day, and I told him to fetch the vet. And he talked me into trying some sort of tonic port, which he said was highly recommended. We gave Pirbright a saucer full, and he seemed to enjoy it. And then he suddenly uttered a piercing bark and ran up the side of the wall. Finally he dashed out of the house. When he returned, his manner was lethargic, and I thought a walk would do him good. And as he came on to the bridge, he staggered and fell. He must have had some form of vertigo.”

Smallwood Bessemer scrutinized the animal. The visibility was not good, but he was able to discern in its bearing all the symptoms of an advanced hangover.

“Well, I broke off the engagement right away,” proceeded Celia Todd. “I can respect a practical joker. I can admire a man who is cruel to animals. But I cannot pass as fit for human consumption a blend of the two. The mixture is too rich.”

Bessemer started.

“You are not going to marry Sidney McMurdo?”

“I am not.”

“What an extraordinary coincidence. I am not going to marry Agnes Flack.”

“You aren't?”

“No. So it almost looks⎯”

“Yes, doesn't it?”

“I mean, both of us being at a loose end, as it were . . .”

“Exactly.”

“Celia!”

“Smallwood!”

Hand in hand they made their way across the bridge. Celia uttered a sudden cry causing the dog Pirbright to wince as if somebody had driven a red hot spike into his head.

“I haven't told you the worst,” she said. “He had the effrontery to assert that you had advised the tonic port.”

“The low blister!”

“I knew it could not be true. Your advice is always so good. You remember telling
me I ought to have let Pirbright fight Agnes Flack's wolfhound? Well, you were quite right. He met it when he dashed out of the house after drinking that tonic port, and cleaned it up in under a minute. They are now the best of friends. After this, I shall always take your advice and ask for more.”

Smallwood Bessemer mused. Once again he was weighing the pro's and con's. It was his habit of giving advice that had freed him from Agnes Flack. On the other hand, if it had not been for his habit of giving advice, Agnes Flack would never, so to speak, have arisen.

“Do you know,” he said, “I doubt if I shall be doing much advising from now on. I think I shall ask the paper to release me from my columnist contract. I have a feeling that I shall be happier doing something like the Society News or the Children's Corner.”

A DEVOUT EXPRESSION
had come into the face of the young man in plus fours who sat with the Oldest Member on the terrace overlooking the ninth green. With something of the abruptness of a conjurer taking a rabbit out of a hat he drew a photograph from his left breast pocket and handed it to his companion. The Sage inspected it thoughtfully.

“This is the girl you were speaking of?”

“Yes.”

“You love her?”

“Madly.”

“And how do you find it affects your game?”

“I've started shanking a bit.”

The Oldest Member nodded.

“I am sorry,” he said, “but not surprised. Either that or missing short putts is what generally happens on these occasions. I doubt if golfers ought to fall in love. I have known it to cost men ten shots in a medal round. They think of the girl and forget to keep their eyes on the ball. On the other hand, there was the case of Harold Pickering.”

“I don't think I've met him.”

“He was before your time. He took a cottage here a few years ago. His handicap was fourteen. Yet within a month of his arrival love had brought him down to scratch.”

“Quick service.”

“Very. He went back eventually to a shaky ten, but the fact remains. But for his great love he would not have become even temporarily a scratch man.”

I had seen Harold Pickering in and about the club-house (said the Oldest Member) for some time before I made his acquaintance, and there was something in his manner which suggested that sooner or later he would be seeking me out and telling me the story of his life. For some reason, possibly because I have white whiskers, I seem to act on men with stories of their lives to tell like catnip on cats. And sure enough, I was sitting on this terrace one evening, enjoying a quiet gin and ginger, when he sidled up, coughed once or twice like a sheep with bronchitis and gave me the works.

His was a curious and romantic tale. He was by profession a partner in a publishing
house, and shortly before his arrival here he had gone to negotiate with John Rockett for the purchase of his Reminiscences.

The name John Rockett will, of course, be familiar to you. If you are a student of history, you will recall that he was twice British Amateur Champion and three times runner-up in the Open. He had long retired from competition golf and settled down to a life of leisured ease, and when Harold Pickering presented himself he found the great veteran celebrating his silver wedding. All the family were there—his grandmother, now ageing a little but in her day a demon with the gutty ball; his wife, at one time British Ladies Champion; his three sons, Sandwich, Hoylake and St. Andrew; and his two daughters, Troon and Prestwick. He called his children after the courses on which he had won renown, and they did not disgrace the honoured names. They were all scratch.

In a gathering so august, you might have supposed that a sense of what was fitting would have kept a fourteen-handicap man from getting above himself. But passion knows no class distinctions. Ten minutes after his arrival, Harold Pickering had fallen in love with Troon Rockett, with a fervour which could not have been more whole-hearted if he had been playing to plus two. And a week later he put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all.

“Of course, I was mad . . . mad,” he said, moodily chewing the ham sandwich he had ordered, for he had only a light lunch. “How could I suppose that a girl who was scratch—the sister of scratch men—the daughter of an amateur champion—would stoop to a fellow like me? Even as I started to speak, I saw the horror and amazement on her face. Well, when I say speak, I didn't exactly speak, I sort of gargled. But it was enough. She rose quickly and left the room. And I came here⎯”

“To forget her?”

“Talk sense,” said Harold Pickering shortly. “I came to try to make myself worthy of her. I intended to get myself down to scratch, if it choked me. I heard that your pro here was the best instructor in the country, so I signed the lease for a cottage, seized my clubs and raced round to his shop . . . only to discover what?”

“That he has broken his leg?”

“Exactly. What a sensible, level-headed pro wants to break his leg for is more than I can imagine. But there it was. No chance of any lessons from him.”

“It must have been a shock for you.”

“I was stunned. It seemed to me that this was the end. But now things have brightened considerably. Do you know a Miss Flack?”

I did indeed. Agnes Flack was one of the recognized sights of the place. One pointed her out to visitors together with the Lover's Leap, the waterfall and the curious rock formation near the twelfth tee. Built rather on the lines of the village blacksmith, she had for many seasons been the undisputed female champion of the club. She had the shoulders of an all-in wrestler, the breezy self-confidence of a sergeant-major and a voice like a toastmaster's. I had often seen the Wrecking Crew, that quartette of spavined septuagenarians whose pride it was that they never let
anyone through, scatter like leaves in an autumn gale at the sound of her stentorian “Fore!” A dynamic and interesting personality.

“She is going to coach me,” said Harold Pickering. “I saw her practising chip shots my first morning here, and I was amazed at her virtuosity. She seemed just to give a flick of the wrists and the ball fell a foot from the pin and flopped there like a poached egg. It struck me immediately that here was someone whose methods I could study to my great advantage. The chip is my weak spot. For the last ten days or so, accordingly, I have been following her about the course, watching her every movement, and yesterday we happened to fall into conversation and I confided my ambition to her. With a hearty laugh, she told me that if I wanted to become scratch I had come to the right shop. She said that she could make a scratch player out of a cheese mite, provided it had not lost the use of its limbs, and gave as evidence of her tuitionary skill the fact that she had turned a man named Sidney McMurdo from a mere blot on the local scene into something which in a dim light might be mistaken for a golfer. I haven't met McMurdo.”

“He is away at the moment. He has gone to attend the sickbed of an uncle. He will be back to play for the club championship.”

“As hot as that, is he?”

“Yes, I suppose he would be about the best man we have.”

“Scratch?”

“Plus one, I believe, actually.”

“And what was he before Miss Flack took him in hand?”

“His handicap, if I remember rightly, was fifteen.”

“You don't say?” said Harold Pickering, his face lighting up. “Was it, by Jove? Then this begins to look like something. If she could turn him into such a tiger, there's a chance for me. We start the lessons tomorrow.”

I did not see Harold Pickering for some little time after this, an attack of lumbago confining me to my bed, but stories of his prowess filtered through to my sick-room, and from these it was abundantly evident that his confidence in Agnes Flack's skill as an instructress had not been misplaced. He won a minor competition with such ease that his handicap was instantly reduced to eight. Then he turned in a series of cards which brought him down to four. And the first thing I saw on entering the clubhouse on my restoration to health was his name on the list of entrants for the club championship. Against it was the word “scratch”.

I can remember few things that have pleased me more. We are all sentimentalists at heart, and the boy's story had touched me deeply. I hastened to seek him out and congratulate him. I found him practising approach putts on the ninth green, but when I gripped his hand it was like squeezing a wet fish. His whole manner was that of one who has not quite shaken off the effects of being struck on the back of the head by a thunderbolt. It surprised me for a moment, but then I remembered that the achievement of a great ambition often causes a man to feel for a while somewhat filleted. The historian Gibbon, if you recall, had that experience on finishing his
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, and I saw the same thing once in a friend of mine who had just won a Littlewood's pool.

“Well,” I said cheerily, “I suppose you will now be leaving us? You will want to hurry off to Miss Rockett with the great news.”

He winced and topped a putt.

“No,” he said, “I'm staying on here. My
fiancé
seems to wish it.”

“Your
fiancé
?”