Nothing Serious (15 page)

He
walked away, and I think I have never seen the back of any head look more
sinister. Horace, however, merely waved his putter defiantly, as if it had been
a banner with a strange device and the other an old man recommending him not to
try a pass.

“Nuts
to you, R. P. Crumbles!” he cried, with a strange dignity. “Fire me, if you
will. This is the only chance I shall ever have of winning a cup, and I’m going
to do it.”

I stood
for a moment motionless. This revelation of the nobility of this young man’s
soul had stunned me. Then I hurried to where he stood, and gripped his hand. I
was still shaking it, when an arch contralto voice spoke behind us.

“Good
afternoon, Mr Bewstridge.”

Mrs
Botts was in our midst. She was accompanied by her husband, Ponsford, her son
Irwin, and her dog, Alphonse.

“How is
the match going?” asked Mrs Botts.

Horace
explained the position of affairs.

“We
shall all be on the eighteenth green, to see the finish”, said Mrs Botts. “But
you really must not beat Sir George. That would be very naughty. Where is Sir
George?”

As she
spoke, Sir George Copstone appeared, looking quite his old self again.

“Bashed
him!” he said. “Whopping big chap. Put up the dickens of a struggle. But I
settled him in the end. He’ll think twice before he tackles a Sussex Copstone
again.”

Mrs
Botts uttered a girlish scream.

“Somebody
attacked you, Sir George?”

“I
should say so. Whacking great brute of a beetle. But I fixed him.”

“You
killed a beetle?”

“Well,
stunned him, at any rate. Technical knockout.”

“But,
Sir George, don’t you remember what Coleridge said— He prayeth best who loveth
best all things both great and small?”

“Not
beetles?”

“Of
course. Some of my closest chums are beetles.”

The
other seemed amazed.

“This
friend of yours, this Coleridge, really says—he positively asserts that we
ought to love beetles?”

“Of
course.”

“Even
when they get under the vest and start doing buck and wing dances along the
spine?”

“Of
course.”

“Sounds
a bit of a silly ass to me. Not the sort of chap one would care to know. Well,
come on, Bewstridge, let’s be moving, what? I say,” went on Sir George, as they
passed out of earshot, “do you know that old geezer? Potty, what? Over in
England, we’d have her in a padded cell before she could say ‘Pip, pip’.
Beetles, egad! Coleridge, forsooth! And do you know what she said to me this
morning? Told me to be careful where I stepped on the front lawn, because it
was full of pixies. Can’t stand that husband of hers, either. Always talking
rot about Irishmen. And what price the son and heir? There’s a young blister
for you. And as for that flea storage depot she calls a dog… Well, I’ll tell
you. If I’d known what I was letting myself in for, staying at her house, I’d
have gone to a hotel. Carry on, Bewstridge. It’s your honour.”

It was
perhaps the exhilaration due to hearing these frank criticisms of a quartette
whom he had never liked, though he had striven to love them for Vera Witherby’s
sake, that lent zip to Horace’s drive from the tenth tee. Normally, he was a
man who alternated between a weak slice and a robust hook, but on this occasion
his ball looked neither to right nor left. He pasted it straight down the
middle, and with such vehemence that he had no difficulty in winning the hole
and putting himself two up.

But now
the tide of fortune began to change again. His recent victory over the beetle
had put Sir George Copstone right back into the old mid-season form. Once more
he had become the formidable Frozen Horror whose deliberate methods of play had
caused three stout men to succumb before his onslaught in the preliminary
rounds. With infinite caution, like one suspecting a trap of some kind, he
selected clubs from his bulging bag; with unremitting concentration he
addressed and struck his ball. And for a while there took place as stern a
struggle as I have ever witnessed on the links.

But
gradually Sir George secured the upper hand. Little by little he recovered the
ground he had lost. He kept turning in steady sevens, and came a time when
Horace began to take nines. The strain had uncovered his weak spot. His putting
touch had left him.

I could
see what was wrong, of course. He was being much too scientific. He was
remembering the illustrated plates in the golf books and trying to make the
club head move from Spot A. through Line B. to ball C. and that is always a
fatal thing for a high handicap man to do. I have talked to a great many of our
most successful high handicap men, and they all assured me that the only way in
which it was possible to obtain results was to shut the eyes, breathe a short
prayer and loose off into the unknown.

Still,
there it was, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Horace went on
studying the line and taking the Bobby Jones stance and all the rest of it, and
gradually, as I say, Sir George recovered the ground he had lost. One down on
the thirteenth, he squared the match at the fifteenth, and it was only by
holing out a fortunate brassie shot to win on the seventeenth that Horace was
enabled to avoid defeat by two and one. As it was, they came to the eighteenth
on level terms, and everything, therefore, depended on what Fate held in store
for them there.

I had a
melancholy feeling that the odds were all in favour of the older man. At the
time of which I am speaking, the eighteenth was not the long hole which we are
looking at as we sit here, but that short, tricky one which is now the
ninth—the one where you stand at the foot of the hill and pop the ball up
vertically with a mashie, trusting that you will not overdrive and run across
the green into the deep chasm on the other side. At such a hole, a cautious,
calculating player like Sir George Copstone inevitably has the advantage over a
younger and more ardent antagonist, who is apt to put too much beef behind his
tee shot.

My
fear, however, that Horace would fall into this error was not fulfilled. His
ball soared in a perfect arc, and one could see at a glance that it must have
dropped very near the pin. Sir George’s effort, though sound and scholarly, was
not in the same class, and there could be no doubt that on reaching the summit
we should find that he was away. And so it proved. The first thing I saw as I
arrived, was a group consisting of Ponsford Botts, little Irwin Botts and the
poodle, Alphonse; the second, Horace’s ball lying some two feet from the flag;
the third, that of his opponent at least six feet beyond it.

Sir
George, a fighter to the last, putting to within a few inches of the hole, and
I heard Horace draw a deep breath.

“This
for it,” he said. And, as he spoke, there was a rapid pattering of feet, and
what looked like a bundle of black cotton-wool swooped past him, seized the
ball in its slavering jaws and bore it away. At this crucial moment, with
Horace Bewstridge’s fortunes swaying in the balance, the poodle Alphonse had
got the party spirit.

The
shocked “Hoy!” that sprang from my lips must have sounded to the animal like
the Voice of Conscience, for he started visibly and dropped the ball. I had at
least prevented him from going to the last awful extreme of carrying it down
into the abyss.

But the
spot where he had dropped it, was on the very edge of the green, and Horace
Bewstridge stood motionless, with ashen face. Once before, in the course of
this match, he had sunk a putt of this length, but he was doubting if that sort
of thing happened twice in a lifetime. He would have to concentrate,
concentrate. With knitted brow, he knelt down to study the lie. And, as he did
so, Alphonse began to bark.

Horace
rose. Almost as clearly as if he had given them verbal utterance, I could read
the thoughts that were passing through his mind.

This
dog, he was saying to himself, was the apple of Irwin Botts’ eye. It was also
the apple of Ponsford Botts’ eye. To seek it out and kick it in the slats,
therefore, would be to shoot that system of his to pieces beyond repair. Irwin
Botts would look at him askance. Ponsford Botts would look at him askance. And
if they looked at him askance, Vera Witherby would look at him askance, too,
for they were presumably the apples of her eye, just as Alphonse was the apple
of theirs.

On the
other hand, he could not putt with a noise like that going on.

He made
his decision. If he should lose Vera Witherby, it would be most unfortunate,
but not so unfortunate as losing the President’s Cup. Horace Bewstridge, as I
have said, was a golfer.

The
next moment, the barking had broken off in a sharp yelp, and Alphonse was
descending into the chasm like a falling star. Horace was descending into the
chasm like a falling star. Horace returned to his ball, and resumed his study
of the lie.

The
Bottses, Irwin and Ponsford, had been stunned witnesses of the assault. They
now gave tongue simultaneously.

“Hey!”
cried Irwin Botts.

“Hi!”
cried Ponsford Botts.

Horace
frowned meditatively at the hole. Even apart from the length of it, it was a
difficult shot. He would have to allow for the undulations of the green. There
was a nasty little slope there to the right. That must be taken into
consideration. There was also, further on, a nasty little slope to the left.
The thing called for profound thought, and for some reason he found himself
unable to give his whole mind to the problem.

Then he
saw what the trouble was. Irwin Botts was standing beside him, shouting “Hey!”
in his left ear, and Ponsford Botts was standing on the other side, shouting “Hi!”
in his right ear. It was this that was affecting his concentration.

He
gazed at them, momentarily at a loss. How, he asked himself, would Bobby Jones
have handled a situation like this? The answer came in a flash. He would have
taken Irwin Botts by the scruff of his neck, led him to the brink of the chasm
and kicked him into it. He would then have come back for Ponsford Botts.

Horace
did this, and resumed the scrutiny of the lie. And at this moment, accompanied
by a pretty, soulful-looking girl in whom I recognized Vera Witherby, R. P.
Crumbles came on to the green. As his eye fell on Horace, his face darkened. He
asked Sir George Copstone how the match stood.

“I
should have thought,” he said, chewing his cigar ominously, “that it would have
been over long before this. I had supposed that you would have won on about the
fifteenth or sixteenth.”

“It is
a point verging very decidedly on the moot,” replied Sir George, “if I’m going
to win on the eighteenth. He’s got this for it, and I expect him to sink it,
now that there’s nothing to distract his mind. He was being a bit bothered a
moment ago,” he explained, “by Botts senior, Botts junior and the Botts dog.
But he has just kicked them all into the chasm, and can now give his whole
attention to the game. Capable young feller, that. Just holed out a two hundred
yard brassie shot. Judged it to a nicety.”

I heard
Vera Witherby draw in her breath sharply. R. P. Crumbles, switching his cigar
from one side of his mouth to the other, strode across to where Horace was
bending over his ball, and spoke rapidly and forcefully.

It was
a dangerous thing to do, and one against which his best friends would have
advised him. There was no “Yes, Mr Crumbles”, “No, Mr Crumbles” about Horace
Bewstridge now. I saw him straighten him with a testy frown. The next moment,
he had attached himself to the scruff of the other’s neck and was adding him to
the contents of the chasm.

This
done, he returned, took another look at the hole with his head on one side, and
seemed satisfied. He rose, and addressed his ball. He was drawing the club head
back, when a sudden scream rent the air. Glancing over his shoulder,
exasperated, he saw that their little group had been joined by Mrs Botts. She
was bending over the edge of the chasm, endeavouring to establish communication
with its inmates. Muffled voices rose from the depths.

“Ponsford!”

“Wah,
wah, wah.”

“Mr
Crumbles!”

“Wah,
wah, wah.”

“Irwin!”

“Wah,
wah, wah.”

“Alphonse!”

“Woof,
woof, woof.”

Mrs
Botts bent still further forward, one hand resting on the turf, the other
cupped to her ear.

“What?
What did you say? I can’t hear. What are you doing down there? What? I can’t
hear. What is Mr Crumbles doing down there? Why has he got his foot in Irwin’s
eye? Irwin, take your eye away from Mr Crumbles’ foot immediately. What? I can’t
hear. Tell whom he is fired, Mr Crumbles? I can’t hear. Why is Alphonse biting Mr
Crumbles in the leg? What? I can’t hear. I wish you would speak plainly. Your mouth’s
full of what? Ham? Oh, sand? Why is your mouth full of sand? Why is Alphonse
now biting Irwin? Skin whom, Mr Crumbles? What? I can’t hear. You’ve swallowed
your cigar? Why? What? I can’t hear.”

It
seemed to Horace Bewstridge, that this sort of thing, unless firmly checked at
the source, might go on indefinitely. And to attempt to concentrate while it
did, was hopeless. Clicking his tongue in annoyance at these incessant
interruptions, he stepped across to where Mrs Botts crouched. There was a sound
like a pistol shot. Mrs Botts joined the others. Horace came back, rubbing his
hand, studied the line again and took his stance.