Nothing Serious (8 page)

And,
inquiries having informed him that the quickest way of accomplishing this
degradation was to put himself in the hands of a professional, he turned up his
coat collar, pulled down the brim of his hat, and snaked off to the lair where
the man plied his dark trade. And presently he found himself facing a net with
a racquet in his hand. Or, rather, hands, for naturally he had assumed the
orthodox interlocking grip.

This
led the professional to make his first criticism.

“You
hold the racquet in one hand only,” he said.

Ambrose
was astounded, but he was here to learn, so he followed out the instruction,
and having done so peered about him, puzzled.

“Where,”
he asked, “is the flag?”

“Flag?”
said the professional. “But it isn’t the fourth of July.”

“I can’t
shoot unless I see the flag.”

The professional
was now betraying open bewilderment. He came up to the net and peered at
Ambrose over it like someone inspecting a new arrival at the Zoo.

“I don’t
get this about flags. We don’t use flags in tennis. Have you never played
tennis? Never? Most extraordinary. Are there other games?”

“I play
golf.”

“Golf?
Golf? Ah, yes, of course. What they call cow-pasture pool.”

Ambrose
stiffened.

“What
who
call cow-pasture pool?”

“All
right-thinking men. Well, well, well! Well, listen,” said the professional. “It
looks to me as if our best plan would be to start right at the beginning. This
is a racquet. This is the net. That is what we call a ball…”

It was
toward the end of the lesson that a string-bean-like young man sauntered on to
the court, and the professional turned to him with the air of one seeking
sympathy.

“Gentleman’s
never played tennis before, Mr Messmore.

“Well,
he certainly isn’t playing it now,” replied Dwight Mess-more.
“Ha, ha,
ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” he added, with scarcely veiled derision.

Ambrose
felt the hot blood coursing in his cheeks, but all he could find to say was “Is
that so?” and the lesson proceeded to its end.

It was
followed by others, every morning without respite, and at long last the
professional declared him competent to appear in —if one may use the term—a
serious game, at the same time counselling him not to begin too ambitiously.
There was a cripple he knew, said the professional, a poor fellow who had lost
both legs in a motor accident, who would be about Ambrose’s form, always
provided that the latter waited his opportunity and caught him on one of his
off days.

But it
was with no cripple that Ambrose Gusset made his first appearance. With
incredible audacity he sought out Evangeline Tewkesbury and asked her for a
game.

The fixture
came off next day before an audience consisting of Dwight Messmore, who, though
Ambrose gave him every opportunity of remembering another engagement elsewhere,
remained on the side lines throughout, convulsed with merriment and uttering,
in Ambrose’s opinion, far more catcalls than were necessary. Having learned
that morning that he had been selected to play in the Davis Cup team, whatever
that may be, the man was thoroughly above himself. As early as the middle of
the first set he was drawing audible comparisons between Ambrose and a cat on
hot bricks, seeming to feel that the palm for gracefulness should be awarded to
the latter.

When
the game was over—6—0, 6—0—Ambrose inquired of Evangeline if she thought he
would ever be a good tennis player. The girl gave him a curious look and asked
if he had read any nice books lately. Ambrose mentioned a few, and she said
that she had enjoyed them, too, and wondered how authors managed to think up
these things. She was starting to touch on the new plays, when Ambrose, bluntly
bringing up once more a subject which he had a feeling that she was evading,
repeated his question.

Again
the girl seemed to hesitate, and it was Dwight Messmore who took upon himself
the onus of reply, sticking his oar in with insufferable heartiness.

“The
problem which you have propounded, my dear fellow,” he said, “is one which it
is not easy to answer. A ‘good’ tennis player, you say. Well, I feel sure that
you will always be a moral tennis player, a virtuous, upright tennis player,
but if you wish to know whether I think you will ever be able to make a game of
it with a child of six, I reply No. Abandon all hope of reaching such heights.
Console yourself with the reflection that you have great entertainment value.
You are what I should call an amusing tennis player, a tennis player who will
always be good for a laugh from the most discriminating audience. I can vouch
for this, for I have been filming you from time to time with my ciné-kodak, and
whenever I have run the result off at parties it has been the success of the
evening. My friends are hard critics, not easy to please, but you have won
them. ‘Show us Ambrose Gussett playing tennis,’ is their cry, and when I do so
they guffaw till their eyes bubble.”

And
scooping Evangeline up he led her off, leaving Ambrose, as you may well
imagine, a prey to the most violent and disturbing emotions. If a patient had
described to him the symptoms which he was experiencing, he would have ordered
him cold compresses and a milk diet.

You
will have no difficulty in guessing for yourself the trend his thoughts were
taking. He was a doctor, and a doctor is peculiarly situated. He must be a
dignified, venerable figure, to whom patients can show their tongues without
secret misgivings as to his ability to read their message. And Ambrose,
recalling some of his recent activities, could not but feel that a ciné-kodak
record of these must lower, if not absolutely destroy, his prestige.

One
moment in particular stood out in his memory, when in a fruitless effort to
reach and return one of Evangeline’s testing drives he had got his left foot
entangled with his right elbow and had rolled over and over like a shot rabbit,
eventually coming to rest with his head between his legs. Such a picture,
exhibited to anything like a wide audience, might well ruin his practice
irretrievably.

He woke
from a troubled sleep next morning filled with a stern resolve. He had decided
to confront Dwight Messmore and demand that film from him. So after a light
breakfast he got in his car and drove to the other’s residence. Alighting at
the door with tight lip and a set face, he beat a sharp tattoo on it with the
knocker. And simultaneously there came from within a loud cry, almost a scream,
if not a shriek. The next moment the door opened, and Dwight Messmore stood
before him.

“Holy
smoke!” said Dwight Messmore. “I thought it was an atom bomb.”

It was
plain to Ambrose’s experienced eye that the man was not in his customary
vigorous health. He was wearing about his forehead a towel which appeared to
have ice in it, and his complexion was a curious greenish yellow.

“Come
in,” said Dwight Messmore, speaking in a hollow, husky voice, like a spirit at
a
séance.
“I was just going to send for you. Walk on tip-toe, do you
mind, and speak very softly. I am on the point of expiring.”

As he
led the way into the living-room, shuffling along like a Volga boatman, a
genial voice with a rather nasal intonation cried “Hello!”, and Ambrose
perceived a handsome parrot in a cage on the table.

“I didn’t
know you had a parrot,” he said.

“I didn’t
know it myself till this morning,” said Dwight Mess-more. “It suddenly arrived
out of the unknown. A man in a sweater came in a van and left it. He insisted
that I had ordered it. Damn fool. Do I look like a man who orders parrots?”

“Ko-ko,”
observed the bird, which for some moments had taken no part in the
conversation.

“Cocoa!”
whispered Dwight Messmore with a powerful shudder. “At a moment like this!”

He
lowered himself into a chair, and Ambrose gently placed a thermometer in his
mouth.

“Can we
think of anything that can have caused this little indisposition?” he asked.

“Charcoal
poisoning,” said Dwight Messmore promptly. “I gave a little party last night to
a few fellows to celebrate my making the Davis Cup team—”

“Did we
drink anything?”

“Not a
thing. Well, just a bottle or two of champagne, and liqueurs… brandy,
chartreuse, benedictine, curaçao, crème de menthe, kummel and so forth… and
of course whisky. But nothing more. It was practically a teetotal evening. No,
what did the trick was that charcoal. As you are probably aware, the stuff they
sell you as caviare in this country isn’t caviare. It’s whitefish roe, and they
colour it with powdered charcoal. Well, you can’t sit up half the night eating
powdered charcoal without paying the penalty.”

“Quite,”
said Ambrose. “Well, I think our best plan will be to remain perfectly quiet
with our eyes closed, and presently I will send us a little sedative.”

“Have a
nut,” suggested the parrot.

“No
nuts, of course,” said Ambrose.

It was
only after Ambrose had returned to his car and was driving off to the
Tewkesbury home in the hope of seeing Evangeline that it occurred to him that
he had forgotten all about that film. Feeling, however, that there would be
plenty of time to collect that later, he fetched up at
chez
Tewkesbury
and was informed by Miss Martha that Evangeline was out.

“She’s
upset to-day,” said the adored object’s aunt. “Not ill, just in a temper. She’s
gone for a walk. She said it might make her feel better. She is very angry
because nobody has remembered her birthday.”

Ambrose
reeled. He had not remembered it himself. How he had come to allow so vital a
date to slip his mind, he was at a loss to understand. He could only suppose
that the strain of learning tennis had sapped his intellect.

“She is
particularly annoyed,” proceeded Miss Tewkesbury, “with Mr Messmore. She is
passionately fond of birds, and Mr Messmore faithfully promised her a parrot
for her birthday. Her birthday arrives, and what happens? No parrot.”

She was
going on to speak further, but Ambrose was no longer there. With a brief “Excuse
me” he had shot from her presence as if Walter Hagen in his prime had driven
him off the tee. His alert mind had seen the way.

Once
again his knock on Dwight Messmore’s door produced that loud cry that was
almost a scream, if not a shriek. And once again the invalid presented himself,
looking like a full page illustration from a medical treatise on bubonic
plague.

“Ye
gods!” he moaned. “Must you? Rap, rap, rap. Tap, tap, tap. Are you a doctor or
a woodpecker?”

“Listen,”
said Ambrose. He had no time for these unmanly complaints. “It just occurred to
me. We need perfect relaxation and repose, and we cannot enjoy perfect
relaxation and repose if we are consistently hampered by parrots. I will take
the bird off our hands.”

Although
one would have said that such a thing was impossible, the look that came into
Dwight Messmore’s pea-green face made it seem almost beautiful.

“You
will? You really will? Then heaven bless you, you Boy Scout of a physician!
Take this bird, Gusset, and my blessing with it. Maybe in the days to come when
acquaintance has ripened into friendship and it feels justified in becoming confidential,
it will reveal to you what it is that it expects people to have seen by the
dawn’s early light. So far it has maintained a complete reserve on the point.
It just says ‘Oh, say have you seen by the dawn’s early light?’ and then stops
and makes a noise like someone drawing a cork. After a brief interval for mental
refreshment it then starts all over again at the beginning. Gosh!” said Dwight
Messmore, having struggled with his emotion for a while. “It’s lucky you came
along, you United States marine! I was very near the breaking point, very near.
And, by the way,” he proceeded, “as a fitting expression of my gratitude I am
going to destroy those films I took of you playing—I use the word loosely —tennis.
I feel that it is the least I can do. ‘Oh, say have you seen by the dawn’s
early light?’ it says, and then the popping noise. Be prepared for this. Well,
I will now take a short and, I anticipate, refreshing nap. Good-bye, Gussett.
Don’t forget your parrot.”

It was
with a light heart that Ambrose returned to his car, dangling the cage on a
carefree finger. And it was with a still lighter heart that, as he rounded a
corner, he saw Evangeline coming along at a quick heal-and-toe. Her brow, he
noticed, was overcast and her lips tightly set, but these were symptoms which
he hoped very shortly to treat and correct.

Evangeline
Tewkesbury was, indeed, in no sunny frame of mind. A queen accustomed to the
homage of her little court, she could have betted her Sunday cami-knickers that
her birthday would have found her snowed under with parcels and flowers, the
gift of adoring males of her entourage, and she had imagined that on this
important morning her telephone would never have stopped ringing. Instead of
which, no parcels, no flowers, and out of the telephone not a yip. She might
have been celebrating her birthday on some lonely atoll in the South Seas.

Could
she have known that every male friend on her list was suffering, like Dwight
Messmore, from too lavish indulgence in whitefish roe powdered with charcoal,
she might have understood and forgiven. But she did not know, and so missed
understanding and forgiveness by several parasangs. Her only feeling towards
these faithless wooers was a well-marked urge to skin them all with a blunt
knife and dance on the remains.