Nothing Serious (19 page)

The
fact of the matter was that the inventor of Sneezo knew his stuff. A
quick-working and harmless specific highly recommended by the medical
fraternity and containing no deleterious drugs, it brought instant relief. Joe
Stocker had been lowering it by the pailful since breakfast, and it was
standing him in good stead. I have fairly keen ears, but up to now I had not
heard him even sniffle. He played his shots dry-eyed and without convulsions,
and whatever holes Rodney had won he had had to win by sheer unassisted merit.

There
was no suggestion of the hay fever patient as he drove off now. He smote his
ball firmly and truly, and it would un-questionably have travelled several
hundred yards had it not chanced to strike the ladies’ tee box and ricocheted
into the rough. Encouraged by this, Rodney played a nice straight one down the
middle and was able to square the match again.

A
ding-dong struggle ensued, for both men were now on their mettle. First one
would win a hole, then the other: and then, to increase the dramatic suspense,
they would halve a couple. They arrived at the eighteenth all square.

The
eighteenth was at that time one of those longish up-hill holes which present
few difficulties if you can keep your drive straight, and it seemed after both
men had driven that the issue would be settled on the green. But golf, as I
said before, is an uncertain game. Rodney played a nice second to within fifty
yards of the green, but Stocker, pressing, topped badly and with his next
missed the globe altogether, tying himself in the process into a knot from
which for an instant I thought it would be impossible to unravel him.

But he
contrived to straighten himself out, and was collecting his faculties for
another effort, when little Timothy came trotting up. He had a posy of wild
flowers in his hand.

“Smell
my pretty flowers, Mr Stocker,” he chirped. And with an arch gesture he thrust
the blooms beneath Joseph Stocker’s nose.

A
hoarse cry sprang from the other’s lips, and he recoiled as if the bouquet had
contained a snake.

“Hey,
look out for my hay fever!” he cried, and already I saw that he was beginning
to heave and writhe. Under a direct frontal attack like this even Sneezo loses
its power to protect.

“Don’t
bother the gentleman now dear,” said Rodney mildly. A glance at his face told
me that he was saying to himself that this was something like family teamwork. “Run
along and wait for Daddy on the green.”

Little
Timothy skipped off, and once more Stocker addressed his ball. It was plain
that it was going to be a close thing. A sneeze of vast proportions was
evidently coming to a head within him like some great tidal wave, and if he
meant to forestall it he would have to cut his customary deliberate waggle to
something short and sharp like George Duncan’s. And I could see that he appreciated
this.

But
quickly though he waggled, he did not waggle quickly enough. The explosion came
just as the club head descended on the ball.

The
result was one of the most magnificent shots I have ever witnessed. It was as
if the whole soul and essence of Joseph Stocker poured into that colossal
sneeze, had gone to the making of it. Straight and true, as if fired out of a
gun, the ball flew up the hill and disappeared over the edge of the green.

It was
with a thoughtful air that Rodney Spelvin prepared to play his chip shot. He
had obviously been badly shaken by the miracle which he had just observed. But
Anastatia had trained him well, and he made no mistake. He, too, was on the
green and, as far as one could judge, very near the pin. Even supposing that
Stocker was lying dead, he would still be in the enviable position of playing
four as against the other’s five. And he was a very accurate putter.

Only
when we arrived on the green were we able to appreciate the full drama of the
situation. Stocker’s ball was nowhere to be seen, and it seemed for a moment as
if it must have been snatched up to heaven. Then a careful search discovered it
nestling in the hole.

“Ah,”
said Joe Stocker, well satisfied. “Thought for a moment I had missed it.”

There
was good stuff in Rodney Spelvin. The best he could hope for now was to take
his opponent on the nineteenth, but he did not quail. His ball was lying some
four feet from the hole, never at any time an easy shot but at the crisis of a
hard fought match calculated to unman the stoutest, and he addressed it with a
quiet fortitude which I like to see.

Slowly
he drew his club back, and brought it down. And as he did so, a clear childish
voice broke the silence.

“Daddee!”

And
Rodney, starting as if a red-hot iron had been placed against the bent seat of
his knickerbockers, sent the ball scudding yards past the hole. Joseph Stocker
was the winner of that year’s Rabbits Umbrella.

Rodney
Spelvin straightened himself. His face was pale and drawn.

“Daddee,
are daisies little bits of the stars that have been chipped off by the angels?”

A deep
sigh shook Rodney Spelvin. I saw his eyes. They were alight with a hideous
menace. Quickly and silently, like an African leopard stalking its prey, he
advanced on the child. An instant later the stillness was disturbed by a series
of reports like pistol shots.

I
looked at Anastatia. There was distress on her face, but mingled with the
distress a sort of ecstasy. She mourned as a mother, but rejoiced as a wife.

Rodney
Spelvin was himself again.

That
night little Braid Bates, addressing his father, said:

“How’s
that poem coming along?”

William
cast a hunted look at his helpmeet, and Jane took things in hand in her firm,
capable way.

“That,”
she said, “will be all of that. Daddy isn’t going to write any poem and, we
shall want you out on the practice tee at seven sharp to-morrow, my lad.”

“But
Uncle Rodney writes poems to Timothy.”

“No he
doesn’t. Not now.”

“But …”

Jane
regarded him with quiet intentness.

Does
Mother’s little chickabiddy want his nose pushed sideways?” she said. “Very
well, then.”

CHAPTER
VII

Tangled Hearts

A MARRIAGE was being
solemnized in the church that stands about a full spoon shot from the
club-house. The ceremony had nearly reached its conclusion. As the officiating
clergyman coming to the nub of the thing, addressed the young man in the
cutaway coat and spongebag trousers, there reigned throughout the sacred
edifice a tense silence, such as prevails upon a racecourse just before the
shout goes up, “They’re off!”

“Wilt
thou,” he said, “—hup—Smallwood, take this—hup— Celia to be thy wedded wife?”

A
sudden gleam came into the other’s horn-rimmed spectacled eyes.

“Say,
listen,” he began. “Lemme tell you what to—”

He
stopped, a blush mantling his face.

“I
will,” he said.

A few
moments later, the organ was pealing forth “The Voice that breathed o’er Eden”.
The happy couple entered the vestry. The Oldest Member, who had been among
those in the ringside pews, walked back to the club-house with the friend who
was spending the week-end with him.

The
friend seemed puzzled.

“Tell
me,” he said. “Am I wrong, or did the bridegroom at one point in the
proceedings start to
ad lib
with some stuff that was not on the routine?”

“He
did, indeed,” replied the Oldest Member. “He was about to advise the minister
what to do for his hiccoughs. I find the fact that he succeeded in checking
himself very gratifying. It seems to show that his cure may be considered
permanent.”

“His
cure?”

“Until
very recently Smallwood Bessemer was a confirmed adviser.”

“Bad,
that.”

“Yes. I
always advise people never to give advice. Mind you, one can find excuses for
the young fellow. For many years he had been a columnist on one of the morning
papers, and to columnists, accustomed day after day to set the world right on
every conceivable subject, the giving of advice becomes a habit. It is an
occupational risk. But if I had known young Bessemer better, I would have
warned him that he was in danger of alienating Celia Todd, his betrothed, who
was a girl of proud and independent spirit.

Unfortunately,
he was not a member of our little community. He lived in the city, merely
coming here for occasional week-ends. At the time when my story begins, I had
met him only twice, when he arrived to spend his summer vacation. And it was
not long before, as I had feared would be the case, I found that all was not
well between him and Celia Todd.

The
first intimation I had of this (the Sage proceeded) was when she called at my
cottage accompanied by her Pekinese, Pirbright, to whom she was greatly
attached, and unburdened her soul to me. Sinking listlessly into a chair, she
sat silent for some moments. Then, as if waking from a reverie, she spoke
abruptly.

“Do you
think,” she said, “that true love can exist between a woman and a man, if the
woman feels more and more every day that she wants to hit the man over the head
with a brick?”

I was
disturbed. I like to see the young folks happy. And my hope that she might
merely be stating a hypothetical case vanished as she continued.

“Take
me and Smallwood, for instance. I have to clench my fists sometimes till the
knuckles stand out white under the strain, in order to stop myself from beaning
him. This habit of his of scattering advice on every side like a sower going
forth sowing is getting me down. It has begun to sap my reason. Only this
morning, to show you what I mean, we were walking along the road and we met
that wolfhound of Agnes Flack’s, and it said something to Pirbright about the
situation in China that made him hot under the collar. The little angel was
just rolling up his sleeves and starting in to mix it, when I snatched him
away. And Smallwood said I shouldn’t have done it. I should have let them fight
it out, he said, so that they could get it out of their systems, after which a
beautiful friendship would have resulted. I told him he was the sort of human
fiend who ought to be eating peanuts in the front row at a bull fight, and we
parted on rather distant terms.”

“The
clouds will clear away.”

“I
wonder,” said Celia. “I have a feeling that one of these days he will go too
far, and something will crack.”

In the
light of this conversation, what happened at the dance becomes intelligible.
Every Saturday night we have a dance at the club-house, at which all the
younger set assembles. Celia was there, escorted by Smallwood Bessemer, their
differences having apparently been smoothed over, and for a while all seems to
have gone well. Bessemer was an awkward and clumsy dancer, but the girl’s love
enabled her to endure the way in which he jumped on and off her feet. When the
music stopped, she started straightening out her toes without the slightest
doubt in her mind that he was a king among men.

And
then suddenly he turned to her with a kindly smile.

“I’d
like to give you a bit of advice,” he said. “What’s wrong with your dancing is
that you give a sort of jump at the turn, like a trout leaping at a fly. Now,
the way to cure this is very simple. Try to imagine that the ceiling is very
low and made of very thin glass, and that your head just touches it and you
mustn’t break it. You’ve dropped your engagement ring,” he said, as something
small and hard struck him on the side of the face.

“No, I
haven’t,” said Celia. “I threw it at you.”

And she
strode haughtily out on to the terrace. And Smallwood Bessemer, having watched
her disappear, went to the bar to get a quick one.

There
was only one man in the bar, and yet it looked well filled. This was because
Sidney McMurdo, its occupant, is one of those vast, muscled individuals who
bulge in every direction. He was sitting slumped in a chair, scowling beneath
beetling brows, his whole aspect that of one whose soul has just got the sleeve
across the windpipe.

Sidney
was not in any sense an intimate of Smallwood Bessemer. They had met for the
first time on the previous afternoon, when Bessemer had advised Sidney always
to cool off slowly after playing golf, as otherwise he might contract pneumonia
and cease to be with us, and Sidney, who is a second vice-president of a large
insurance company, had taken advantage of this all-flesh-is-as-grass note which
had been introduced into the conversation to try to sell Bessemer his firm’s
all-accident policy.

No
business had resulted, but the episode had served to make them acquainted, and
they now split a bottle. The influence of his share on Sidney McMurdo was
mellowing enough to make him confidential.

“I’ve
just had a hell of a row with
my fiancée,”
he said.

“I’ve
just had a hell of a row with
my fiancée,”
said Smallwood Bessemer,
struck by the coincidence.