Willow the king

I  WAS still seated, striving to break to myself the news that I really must be out, and that my brave dreams were as dust, when the man I least desired to see—the General Nuisance—appeared with his condolence. He placed a shilling in my hand with an air of indescribable tenderness.

“What’s this for?” I said.

“For your cricket outfit,” said he. “I knew that you’d wish to dispose of it at once by private treaty, as you’ll never touch a bat again if you live to be a hundred. A shilling for the lot, and a pretty liberal offer.”

When I slowly raised my face and looked at the General Nuisance, there was that within it which caused him to somewhat hurriedly remember that he had “got to see a man about a dog,” and he, therefore, could not possibly stay just then to discuss the details. The utterly abandoned appear to enjoy a charmed existence. It was the same at the wicket. I’ve seen the General Nuisance dropped more times in one afternoon than men who have had their moral natures properly developed are in the course of a season.

Having convinced myself at last that I was actually out, I got up and donned my blazer with an assumption of sad-eyed resignation. A case of l.b.w. offers no scope for original and forcible combinations of phrase; it has exhausted them quite a long time ago. Thus I filled a pipe, and began pathetically to smoke. If it were not that the gods gave tobacco to us to assuage our miseries, it is certain that common humanity would insist on a lethal chamber being attached to the pavilion of every cricket-ground, whereby poor mortals placed as I was now might not continue in their sufferings.

I eventually went out and sat down with as much dignity as I could assume on the pavilion front. There, staring me in the face, was the grim legend, 10-1-7. Presently I found the courage to look at the game. But it reminded me too acutely of the horrid void left gaping in my young ambition. How I could see the ball, and how absurdly simple did the bowling look! It always does when you’ve been in and got out for a few. If you’ve been in and made a score, it is usual to advise your successors to play a watchful game, as the bowling is by no means so easy as it seems. Why didn’t the Ancient cut that ball for four, instead of pecking at it? Why didn’t the Captain jump into those ridiculous donkey-drops and hit ’em to the moon, instead of playing back and contenting himself with singles? It was this pottering, afternoon-tea kind of cricket that was ruining the game.

The team agreed that they had never seen me shape so well. But what solace is it to be told this when one is out for seven? Here was I fitness incarnate, timing and seeing the ball to a hair, condemned to sit hours on the hard seat of that pavilion, eating my heart out with inactivity, while others got ’em. Verily cricket is a cheerful pastime! The perfect wicket, the glorious day, the appreciative crowd, the chance of fame, and then l.b.w. 7.

“Of course, the ball did a lot,” said the Pessimist. “’Wouldn’t have hit the wicket by a mile. Your leg couldn’t possibly have been in front, and, of course in your humble opinion the blithering umpire is either drunk or delirious.”

“Grimston,” said the Humourist, “you appear to suffer from a deficient sympathy. It is very unkind of you to make remarks of this sort, when you can see that the poor fellow is in pain. It is not humour and it is not humanity.”

There was no alternative but to continue smoking with that placid indifference that alone can cope with the vulgar, common wit that is levelled at ourselves.

“Look at Brightside, lucky brute!” said the Secretary, “jawing on the coach there with Miss Grace. Keeps her all to himself, the selfish beggar! instead of coming down and introducing us.”

The Optimist appeared to be having a particularly happy time. He was seated beside Miss Grace on the box-seat, talking in the most animated manner, whilst she put down the runs in the Hickory score-book, which she held on her knee. It is impossible to assess the exact amount of envy he provoked in the susceptible bosoms of his side seated on the pavilion front.

We were still discussing the good fortune of the Optimist, and watching him pursue it, when he climbed down from his conspicuous position and came along towards eight of his flannel-clad colleagues, who had a terrible quantity of inflammable material in their manly interiors.

“’Do believe he’s coming for us,” said the quick-eyed Secretary. “S’pose he takes the bally team?”

“Isn’t it a good thing we’re so good-looking?” said the Humourist.

“I really can’t help my personal appearance,” said the General Nuisance, with a simper.

“Soap might,” I said coarsely. But my temperature was very low.

The answer of the General Nuisance was very properly taking the form of a naked fist; and I, on my part, was just proposing to test the staying powers of his singularly beautiful aquiline nose, when the Optimist arrived and lifted up his voice.

“Dimsdale,” said he importantly, “Grace Trentham wants to see you. She thinks your batting’s prime. ’Says the way you stood up to Charlie the perfection of style and confidence. No end of a critic, I can tell you. ’Says your crack to cover’s test thing she’s seen in that line since Lionel Palairet’s off-drive. In fact, my son, I rather think if you’ll come and be presented to her you won’t be so very sorry. She wants to see you awfully.”

The Optimist really was a very delightful person. He spoke loud enough for all the team to hear. Nor was he content to make a bald announcement of my honours, but managed to embroider them with an art that soured the uninvited for an hour. It was remarkable how promptly the whole team became occupied with other things. The Ancient fluked H. C. wretchedly through the slips for three.

“Run it out!” they yelled, as though the match depended on it. “Go on, Ancient! Get back, Jack! Oh, well run! Well run!”

“Come on, Dimsdale,” said the Optimist, the moment this riot subsided. “Let us get away from these nasty, noisy cricketers, and go into more refined society.”

“Have you noticed,” said the Pessimist to the Treasurer, “how some men are never content unless they are sitting beside something that’s got a frock on? Never saw the fun myself in uttering bland lies to insipid schoolgirls, to estimate the amount of music in their ‘ohs’ and ‘reallys!’”

“Mind you men bat your very best,” said the Optimist, as we departed, “then perhaps Grace Trentham’ll send for some of you. Never know your luck, you know, do you?”

“How gaudy!” growled the Secretary. “Great encouragement to get runs.”

I felt this to be a moment of my middling unilluminated life. But to show the Goddess that Nature had designed me to support her favours with due dignity, and, therefore, that her confidence in me was not in the least degree misplaced, I strove to walk modestly in my public decorations. As we went to the coach the pent-up enthusiasm of the Optimist broke forth.

“Tell you what, old chap,” he said, “she’s quite the jolliest girl I know. One of the sort you read about, you know. No end of a fine girl, I can tell you. Not a bit o’ side and small talk, and Society manner, and that sort o’ rot. Awfully good people too, the Trenthams. By Jove! old chap, if I could only bat like you! If I’d only got your confidence, and your nerve, and your wrist!”

“It’s awfully good of you, old man,” I said, with a touch of complacency, I fear, “to bring me along and give me a show, when you might have kept her all to yourself.”

“Not at all,” said he. “Sent me to fetch you, you know. Besides, you sat there looking so deuced chippy that it struck us that you ought to be made to buck up a bit.”

“H’m! Ah! yes!” I murmured.

The Optimist was one of the hopelessly good sorts of the world, but he never did know when to leave off. He should have remembered that a woman’s admiration is one thing, but that her pity is quite another. But, then again, how like the good old Optimist to neglect his own opportunities! He was not altogether blind to that side of the question, though, since he said feelingly,—

“She says that Elphinstone and Carteret are staying at the Rectory with her father.”

“Well,” said I, with the brutal directness of the average man, “Carteret happens to be married, and I saw in the World last week that Elphinstone’s just got engaged.”

“That a fact!” he cried, with a fervour that gave him away.

I regret to say that I laughed to myself in a cynical manner.

“Grace, this is Mr. Dimsdale, whom you saw batting just now,” said the Optimist, as we halted under the drag. “Dimsdale, Miss Trentham, whose brother got you leg before.”

“Awful fluke it was, too,” said the coach’s fair occupant frankly, in the act of bowing; and then added, “How do you? Won’t you come up? Heaps of room, and you’ll see ever so much better.”

As she looked down at us, and we looked up at her, I discovered with alarming suddenness that Miss Grace Trentham had a pair of eyes of remarkable beauty, large and clear, and very blue, indeed, with long dark lashes drooping on her cheeks. She had also the colouring that one only sees in the English girl grown in the open air. In itself it was a pastoral, as sweet as a mown hayfield in a sunny June. It was of the purest light brown, not quite dark enough for chestnut, but, as I happen to be a promising batsman, and not a budding novelist, I am utterly at a loss to describe exactly the kind of tint I mean. Therefore, you must excuse my limitations, particularly as you may find me playing for the County one day, if I confess that the utmost my literary art can do for Miss Grace Trentham’s skin is to say that it most resembled in the richness of its hue a cup of strong tea with plenty of thick cream in it. She had heavy coils of hair of a similar baffling shade, and a mischievous curl or two that made her eyebrows laugh. She was an early-morning girl, English to the bone, and clean and limber as a thorough-bred. I should not have suspected her of afterthoughts, and do not doubt that had I asked her what her opinion was of “Treasure Island,” she would have said without the slightest hesitation, “Oh, isn’t it just ripping!”

When on her invitation we climbed to the seats beside her, we found that she was scoring with a diligence as wonderful as it was artistic. She had two fountain pens—one of black ink, to put down the runs; the other of red, to take the bowling analysis.

“Awfully jolly pleased, Mr. Dimsdale, to see you out so soon,” she said.

“Oh!” said I; my jaw fell.

“You were shaping a great deal too well, you know,” she added.

My jaw resumed its normal position.

“You played Charlie like a book,” she said. “Met him before?”

“Oh, no,” I said briskly.

“Then you batted real well,” she said. “For Charlie’s the best bowler in England now that Tom Richardson’s stale. He’s top of the averages this week. One hundred and fifty-five wickets for 13·83, and he’s certain to get another fifty before the season’s done. At Lord’s he fairly had Oxford on toast; they were in a frightful funk.”

“Yes, yes,” I groaned; feebly adding to cover my distress, “what one would call the bluest of the blue, Miss Trentham.”

Miss Trentham transfixed me with a look of whimsical enquiry. Then she said quickly: “Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t notice your cap. Why weren’t you there to stop the rot? And why didn’t you get your blue when you were up? They only gave you a show in the Freshers’.”

“Nothing near good enough,” I said humbly. But how the deuce did she know that I’d only had a show in the Freshers’? I had yet to learn that her full family title was Grace, the Walking Wisden, because she was so well grounded in that indispensable work that she could repeat even its advertisements by heart.

“’Would be now, Grace, don’t you think?” said the friendly Optimist.

“Ra-ther. His style’s O. K. He watches the ball, too.”

“But it’s such a beautiful wicket,” said I. “You can play forward at anything.”

“It is a good wicket,” she said, “but I could see you watching Charlie all the way. And that’s where ’Varsity bats generally fail, don’t you know. Seen dozens of ’em, blues too, and wonderful school reputations, and all that, regular ‘lions on lawns.’ Put on ’em a Burroughes and Watts’, and they’ll play like the Badminton. But just let the wicket begin to ‘talk’ a bit, then it’s another story. Let me see, were you not in the Winchester eleven?”

“Yes,” I said; “just got in.”

“You must have been well coached. I do like to see a man look at the ball. Oh, was that a hit? No; byes. Dear! dear! Edgcome is a dreadful muff behind the sticks. Can’t take Charlie at all. Why don’t he stand back farther? Or why don’t they have a long-stop? All right, umpire!”

The umpire having waved his finger to signal the byes, the scorer waved hers to show that she had got them.

“Forty up!” she called down to the small boy who was attending to “the telegraph.” “It’s about time we had another wicket, don’t you think?”

“We are all serene at present,” said the Optimist cheerily. “I think Halliday’s about played himself in, and there’s no man better worth watching when he takes root. Oh! very pretty, Jack. Run ’em out!”

He had just got one of H. C.’s fastest away for three. A frown clouded the open countenance of Miss Grace.

“Toddles,” she cried to the Rev. E. J. H. Elphinstone, who was nearest to us in the out-field, “just tell Charlie to tell George to take one of those men out of the slips and put him for the draw. Oh, and Toddles, tell him not too deep to save the single. We’re going to give nothing away if I can help it.”

“Why do they call him Toddles?” said I.

“’Cause his legs are so short,” she said curtly. “Oh, and just look where he’s got his mid-on. Toddles, tell him his mid-on wants to be straighter. George may be a good old sort, and all that, but he’s no more fit to be captain than he is to play for England. But I should have thought Archie would have known better.”

As I was at pains to subsequently explain to those members of our side who were not privileged to be sitting beside Miss Grace Trentham, it was a most fascinating thing to observe her conducting a highly technical and animated conversation, ordering a team of county cricketers about with some caustic comments on the same, scoring every run, taking the analysis, and keeping her eye on the small boy, “the telegraph,” and all the fine points of the game.

“Mr. Dimsdale,” she said, after Captain George had carried out the sedulously conveyed commands of his sister, “Mr. Dimsdale, what were you about, to get out to a long hop of my young brother Tom’s? He can’t bowl a little bit. No length no spin, no break, no devil, no anything. Plain as print! Over-confidence, perhaps?”

“I’m afraid it was,” I confessed.

“Great pity,” she said reflectively. “I should rather have liked you to stay a bit; you’d have been worth looking at. And I’ve just got my doubts about that decision. L B W to left arm round is always a bit fishy, isn’t it? Not, you know, that I’m at all sorry that you’re out. I’m Hickory, of course, and all that, although I do like to see a man play the game. You see, I’m sorry and I’m not sorry. Oh, hang it! I can’t explain it!”

Both the Optimist and I had the ill manners to smile with some breadth. But the solecism was worth committing, if only for the sake of observing the gleam of envy that ran along the row of cricketers on the pavilion front. Weren’t we enjoying ourselves! And they could have been so much farther from the mark. I might never have been leg before in my life.

“’Mustn’t get over-confident, you know, if you’re going to make a first-rater,” Miss Grace said authoritatively; “great mistake. But I believe you were not so very confident when you first went in. In fact, I thought you were just—just a wee bit nervous. I wouldn’t have minded betting a shilling that Charlie did you first over. Weren’t you a bit nervous?”

“Oh dear, no,” I said, resenting the imputation with great robustness. “I’m never nervous.”

She was evidently a young person of the most horrible penetration. What could have put these ideas into her mind?

“Don’t you think,” she said suddenly, “that my young brother Tom would get on better if he took to playing marbles? His bowling is dreadfully awful, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s not so good as your brother Charlie’s,” I said diplomatically.

“Thank you,” she said sardonically; “I’ll write that down. But say, yes; I do want you to say, yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, you see, I maintain in the face of all my people that it is absolute rubbish. They all think he’s rather good for a boy. They say at Harrow that he’s going to make another Dowson. But if that’s so, it don’t take much to make a Dowson, does it? Do, Mr. Dimsdale, please say that you think it’s awful rot. It is, you know, really. And the amount of side that boy’s got on is something extraordinary. He might be the Old Man himself. Thinks himself no end of a swell ’cause he’s diddled a few schoolboys with his donkey-drops. Never saw such a length in my life. Why don’t George shunt him and give Billington a try?”

Even as she spoke the captain, who was now thoroughly set, was seen to gather himself for a great effort. At last he ventured to have a go at this severely criticised slow bowler. Up and up went the ball a remarkable height, and, to the horror of the Optimist and myself, we saw that it must drop into the hands of the little parson just below us on the boundary. We both held our breaths in a spasm of suspense, but Miss Grace seemed as happy as possible.

“It’s all right,” she said cheerfully; “Toddles’ll have him. He never drops anything he can get to; and he’s judging this to a ‘T.’ What a height it is, though, and deceptive, too! He’ll have to go back a bit now.”

Next instant a derisive howl broke from the crowd. The little parson, famed the whole of England over for his brilliancy and certainty at third man and in the country, having slightly misjudged the flight and height of the catch, had had to go back in a hurry at the last moment, with the result that his hands and body were in a very overbalanced kind of position in which to receive the ball. He had failed to hold it.

“Oh, Toddles! Toddles!” cried Miss Grace, in agonized accents; “what are you doing?”

The relief of the Optimist and myself was such that we must have hugged one another had we not been in a place so public. Poor Miss Grace, though, was perfectly crimson with mortification, and we could fairly hear the tears in her voice as she said with a sublime pathos, “He’ll get a hundred now!”