SCIENTIFIC GOLF
XX
As I stood with Ukridge in the fowl run on the morning following mymaritime conversation with the professor, regarding a hen that hadposed before us, obviously with a view to inspection, there appeared aman carrying an envelope.
Ukridge, who by this time saw, as Calverley almost said, "under everyhat a dun," and imagined that no envelope could contain anything but asmall account, softly and silently vanished away, leaving me tointerview the enemy.
"Mr. Garnet, sir?" said the foe.
I recognized him. He was Professor Derrick's gardener. What did thisportend? Had the merits of my pleadings come home to the professorwhen he thought them over, and was there a father's blessing inclosedin the envelope which was being held out to me?
I opened the envelope. No, father's blessings were absent. The letterwas in the third person. Professor Derrick begged to inform Mr. Garnetthat, by defeating Mr. Saul Potter, he had qualified for the finalround of the Lyme Regis Golf Tournament, in which, he understood, Mr.Garnet was to be his opponent. If it would be convenient for Mr.Garnet to play off the match on the present afternoon, ProfessorDerrick would be obliged if he would be at the clubhouse at half-pasttwo. If this hour and day were unsuitable, would he kindly arrangeothers. The bearer would wait.
The bearer did wait, and then trudged off with a note, beautifullywritten in the third person, in which Mr. Garnet, after numerouscompliments and thanks, begged to inform Professor Derrick that hewould be at the clubhouse at the hour mentioned.
"And," I added--to myself, not in the note--"I will give him such alicking that he'll brain himself with a cleek."
For I was not pleased with the professor. I was conscious of amalicious joy at the prospect of snatching the prize from him. I knewhe had set his heart on winning the tournament this year. To berunner-up two years in succession stimulates the desire for the firstplace. It would be doubly bitter to him to be beaten by a newcomer,after the absence of his rival, the colonel, had awakened hope in him.And I knew I could do it. Even allowing for bad luck--and I am never avery unlucky golfer--I could rely almost with certainty on crushingthe man.
"And I'll do it," I said to Bob, who had trotted up.
I often make Bob the recipient of my confidences. He listensappreciatively and never interrupts. And he never has grievances ofhis own. If there is one person I dislike, it is the man who tries toair his grievances when I wish to air mine.
"Bob," I said, running his tail through my fingers, "listen to me. IfI am in form this afternoon, and I feel in my bones that I shall be, Ishall nurse the professor. I shall play with him. Do you understandthe principles of match play at golf, Robert? You score by holes, notstrokes. There are eighteen holes. I shall toy with the professor,Bob. I shall let him get ahead, and then catch him up. I shall goahead myself, and let him catch me up. I shall race him neck and necktill the very end. Then, when his hair has turned white with thestrain, and he's lost a couple of stone in weight, and his eyes arestarting out of his head, I shall go ahead and beat him by a hole._I'll_ teach him, Robert. He shall taste of my despair, and learn byproof in some wild hour how much the wretched dare. And when it's allover, and he's torn all his hair out and smashed all his clubs, Ishall go and commit suicide off the Cob. Because, you see, if I can'tmarry Phyllis, I shan't have any use for life."
Bob wagged his tail cheerfully.
"I mean it," I said, rolling him on his back and punching him on thechest till his breathing became stertorous. "You don't see the senseof it, I know. But then you've got none of the finer feelings. You'rea jolly good dog, Robert, but you're a rank materialist. Bones andcheese and potatoes with gravy over them make you happy. You don'tknow what it is to be in love. You'd better get right side up now, oryou'll have apoplexy."
It has been my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuatenothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who playedeuchre with the heathen Chinee, I state but the facts. I do not,therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace ofmind. I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, butI have my off moments.
I felt ruthless toward the professor. I cannot plead ignorance of thegolfer's point of view as an excuse for my plottings. I knew that toone whose soul is in the game, as the professor's was, the agony ofbeing just beaten in an important match exceeds in bitterness allother agonies. I knew that if I scraped through by the smallestpossible margin, his appetite would be destroyed, his sleep o' nightsbroken. He would wake from fitful slumber moaning that if he had onlyused his iron at the tenth hole all would have been well; that if hehad aimed more carefully on the seventh green, life would not be drearand blank; that a more judicious manipulation of his brassythroughout might have given him something to live for. All thesethings I knew.
And they did not touch me. I was adamant.
* * * * *
The professor was waiting for me at the clubhouse, and greeted me witha cold and stately inclination of the head.
"Beautiful day for golf," I observed in my gay, chatty manner.
He bowed in silence.
"Very well," I thought. "Wait--just wait."
"Miss Derrick is well, I hope?" I added aloud.
That drew him. He started. His aspect became doubly forbidding.
"Miss Derrick is perfectly well, sir, I thank you."
"And you? No bad effect, I hope, from your dip yesterday?"
"Mr. Garnet, I came here for golf, not conversation," he said.
We made it so. I drove off from the first tee. It was a splendiddrive. I should not say so if there were anyone else to say so for me.Modesty would forbid. But, as there is no one, I must repeat thestatement. It was one of the best drives of my experience. The ballflashed through the air, took the bunker with a dozen feet to spare,and rolled onto the green. I had felt all along that I should be inform. Unless my opponent was equally above himself, he was a lost man.
The excellence of my drive had not been without its effect on theprofessor. I could see that he was not confident. He addressed hisball more strangely and at greater length than anyone I had ever seen.He waggled his club over it as if he were going to perform a conjuringtrick. Then he struck and topped it.
The ball rolled two yards.
He looked at it in silence. Then he looked at me--also in silence.
I was gazing seaward.
When I looked round, he was getting to work with a brassy.
This time he hit the bunker and rolled back. He repeated this maneuvertwice.
"Hard luck!" I murmured sympathetically on the third occasion, therebygoing as near to being slain with an iron as it has ever been my lotto go. Your true golfer is easily roused in times of misfortune, andthere was a red gleam in the eye the professor turned to me.
"I shall pick my ball up," he growled.
We walked on in silence to the second tee.
He did the second hole in four, which was good. I won it in three,which--unfortunately for him--was better.
I won the third hole.
I won the fourth hole.
I won the fifth hole.
I glanced at my opponent out of the corner of my eyes. The man wassuffering. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.
His play had become wilder and wilder at each hole in arithmeticalprogression. If he had been a plow, he could hardly have turned upmore soil. The imagination recoiled from the thought of what he wouldbe doing in another half hour if he deteriorated at his present speed.
A feeling of calm and content stole over me. I was not sorry for him.All the viciousness of my nature was uppermost in me. Once, when hemissed the ball clean at the fifth tee, his eye met mine, and we stoodstaring at each other for a full half minute without moving. I believeif I had smiled then, he would have attacked me without hesitation.There is a type of golfer who really almost ceases to be human understress of the wild agony of a series of foozles.
The sixth hole involves t
he player in a somewhat tricky piece ofcross-country work. There is a nasty ditch to be negotiated. Many anoptimist has been reduced to blank pessimism by that ditch. "All hopeabandon, ye who enter here," might be written on a notice board overit.
The professor "entered there." The unhappy man sent his ball into itsvery jaws. And then madness seized him. The merciful laws of golf,framed by kindly men who do not wish to see the asylums of GreatBritain overcrowded, enact that in such a case the player may take hisball and throw it over his shoulder. The same to count as one stroke.But vaulting ambition is apt to try and drive out from the ditch,thinking thereby to win through without losing a stroke. This waymadness lies.
It was a grisly sight to see the professor, head and shoulders abovethe ditch, hewing at his obstinate Haskell.
"_Sixteen_!" said the professor at last between his teeth. Then,having made one or two further comments, he stooped and picked up hisball.
"I give you this hole," he said.
We walked on.
I won the seventh hole.
I won the eighth hole.
The ninth we halved, for in the black depth of my soul I had formed aplan of fiendish subtlety. I intended to allow him to win--withextreme labor--eight holes in succession.
Then, when hope was once more strong in him, I would win the last, andhe would go mad.
* * * * *
I watched him carefully as we trudged on. Emotions chased one anotheracross his face. When he won the tenth hole he merely refrained fromoaths. When he won the eleventh a sort of sullen pleasure showed inhis face. It was at the thirteenth that I detected the first dawningof hope. From then onward it grew. When, with a sequence of shockingshots, he took the seventeenth hole in eight, he was in a parlouscondition. His run of success had engendered within him a desire forconversation. He wanted, as it were, to flap his wings and crow. Icould see dignity wrestling with talkativeness.
I gave him a lead.
"You have got back your form now," I said.
Talkativeness had it. Dignity retired hurt. Speech came from him witha rush. When he brought off an excellent drive from the eighteenthtee, he seemed to forget everything.
"Me dear boy--" he began, and stopped abruptly in some confusion.Silence once more brooded over us as we played ourselves up thefairway and on to the green.
He was on the green in four. I reached it in three. His sixth stroketook him out.
I putted carefully to the very mouth of the hole.
I walked up to my ball and paused. I looked at the professor. Helooked at me.
"Go on," he said hoarsely.
Suddenly a wave of compassion flooded over me. What right had I totorture the man like this? He had not behaved well to me, but in themain it was my fault. In his place I should have acted in preciselythe same way. In a flash I made up my mind.
"Professor," I said.
"Go on," he repeated.
"That looks a simple shot," I said, eyeing him steadily, "but I mighteasily miss it."
He started.
"And then you would win the championship."
He dabbed at his forehead with a wet ball of a handkerchief.
"It would be very pleasant for you after getting so near it the lasttwo years."
"Go on," he said for the third time. But there was a note ofhesitation in his voice.
"Sudden joy," I said, "would almost certainly make me miss it."
We looked at each other. He had the golf fever in his eyes.
"If," I said slowly, lifting my putter, "you were to give your consentto my marriage with Phyllis--"
He looked from me to the ball, from the ball to me, and back again tothe ball. It was very, very near the hole.
"I love her," I said, "and I have discovered she loves me.... I shallbe a rich man from the day I marry--"
His eyes were still fixed on the ball.
"Why not?" I said.
He looked up, and burst into a roar of laughter.
"You young divil," said he, smiting his thigh, "you young divil,you've beaten me."
I swung my putter, and drove the ball far beyond the green.
"On the contrary," I said, "you have beaten me."
* * * * *
I left the professor at the clubhouse and raced back to the farm. Iwanted to pour my joys into a sympathetic ear. Ukridge, I knew, wouldoffer that same sympathetic ear. A good fellow, Ukridge. Alwaysinterested in what you had to tell him--never bored.
"Ukridge," I shouted.
No answer.
I flung open the dining-room door. Nobody.
I went into the drawing-room. It was empty.
I searched through the garden, and looked into his bedroom. He was notin either.
"He must have gone for a stroll," I said.
I rang the bell.
The hired retainer appeared, calm and imperturbable as ever.
"Sir?"
"Oh, where is Mr. Ukridge, Beale?"
"Mr. Ukridge, sir," said the hired retainer nonchalantly, "has gone."
"Gone!"
"Yes, sir. Mr. Ukridge and Mrs. Ukridge went away together by thethree o'clock train."
Love Among the Chickens Page 20
