Gilbert

by Charlie Connelly

  This was a new voice in the conversation. Clement Edwards, the trade unionist, journalist and cricket enthusiast, was also spending the weekend at Cromford. Grace wasn’t a great admirer of the politically minded of any persuasion but Edwards had seemed an agreeable enough fellow so far.

  ‘I would be most interested in seeing her bowl myself, Mr Edwards,’ he replied, ‘but I fear the opportunity will never arise.’

  ‘We could make the opportunity arise,’ said Lawton. ‘In the morning we could pitch stumps on Cromford Meadows and Jessie could pit her wits against you, Doctor.’

  ‘I’m sure Miss Lawton has far better things to do than give up her Sunday morning to bowl at an old man.’

  ‘On the contrary, Dr Grace,’ said Jessie, her voice brimming with enthusiasm, ‘it would be a great honour to bowl to you.’

  ‘Would a wager convince you, Doctor?’ asked Edwards. ‘I have seen Miss Lawton bowl and she is as good as Bertie says. I’d be happy to wager a sovereign that in twelve deliveries the lady would strike your wicket once.’

  Grace bridled inwardly at this. Clean bowled by a woman? Why, some of the finest bowlers in the game had never penetrated his defences, why would a woman be deemed a good enough bowler to dismiss him? The very insult behind the suggestion prompted him to accept the wager.

  ‘A sovereign you say, Mr Edwards? Very well, I shall be honoured to face the bowling of Miss Lawton tomorrow but I fear you have lost your sovereign.’

  Lawton clapped his hands together, rubbed them and rose from his chair.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ he said. ‘Let us convene at noon at Cromford Meadows and we shall see whether Jessie has the guile and craft to bowl out the great W.G. Grace inside twelve deliveries. Now, gentlemen, shall we adjourn for some billiards? My father has a rather good brandy in the games room that I am anxious for you to try.’

  The next day was hot and sunny as Grace took guard at the wicket. He looked down the pitch to where Bertie Lawton acted as umpire and Jessie stood slightly to one side ready to bowl. Clement Edwards and a gaggle of other guests had gathered behind the Champion and a trickle of curious locals spread around the boundary. Grace was already regretting accepting the challenge but he held no fear of being bowled by a young lady, even one who put him in mind of Bessie.

  Lawton held out his arm.

  ‘Are you ready, Dr Grace?’ he enquired.

  ‘Quite ready, thank you, Bertie.’

  ‘In that case … play.’

  Grace settled into his familiar stance, right foot parallel to the crease, left foot pointing towards extra cover. Jessie, he noticed, looked nervous. It was understandable. He’d go easy on her – the challenge was for her to bowl him out; there was nothing to be gained from hitting her all around the ground. There were no fielders for a start, but either way he certainly did not wish to humiliate the girl.

  She took three steps towards the wicket. Grace’s left toes raised from the ground and his bat lifted. The ball looped high and came at him faster than he’d anticipated. It was well-pitched up and he killed it just in front of him before knocking it back along the ground to the bowler.

  ‘Very nice, Miss Lawton,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  The second ball was slightly faster and flatter and pitched on leg stump. He patted it gently towards mid-on.

  Jessie’s third ball was looped higher again. He went forward with his front foot but the ball dipped, swerved very slightly, pitched on a good length, broke noticeably to off – and clipped the top of Grace’s off stump.

  A whoop went up from the gathering behind him, followed by applause. He looked at the pitch, then back at the stumps, his feet still planted as they had been when he’d played the shot. His cheeks reddened, a mix of anger and humiliation. Be gracious, Gilbert, he thought to himself. It’s what his mother would have said, ‘be gracious, Gilbert’. He would be gracious to Jessie, anyway, if not to Clement Edwards whose delight he could almost feel bouncing off the back of his neck.

  ‘Well bowled, Miss Lawton, very well bowled indeed,’ Edwards hooted. ‘That one certainly had this old man well beaten.’

  He didn’t want to look behind him.

  ‘And congratulations to you, Mr Edwards, you have your sovereign.’

  ‘I assure you, Doctor,’ came Edwards’ laconic Welsh tones, ‘I take no great pleasure from taking your money. And to prove it I suggest that we carry on. Double or quits says that Miss Lawton will bowl you out again in the remaining nine deliveries of our arrangement.’

  Grace finally looked round.

  ‘You are clearly an adventurous sportsman, Mr Edwards,’ he said. ‘We have made a great effort this morning to come here from the house so it would be a waste for the sake of just three balls. In the circumstances I am happy to accept those terms.’

  He looked back up the wicket to where Jessie was standing a little awkwardly, holding the ball.

  ‘Assuming Miss Lawton is happy to carry on?’ he said.

  ‘I would be delighted to continue bowling to you for as long as you wish to indulge me,’ she said.

  ‘In that case, we may continue when you are ready, Miss.’

  He settled into his stance again. The fourth delivery was wide of the off stump and he hit the ball gently back to Jessie. The fifth was almost identical, with the same result. The next delivery was short of a length and broke towards leg: he was quickly on to the back foot and instinctively pulled the ball hard to square leg. Two small boys set off in pursuit. There was a smattering of applause.

  ‘Apologies, Miss Lawton, my instincts rather got the better of me.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Doctor, it was there to be hit and deserved no less.’

  After a bout of pushing and a brief wrestle, the boys ran back from the outfield and handed the ball to Jessie.

  Grace settled into his stance again. While he had hit the ball through instinct as much as anything else, there was, he had to admit to himself, a certain level of retribution in his mighty forearms as he sent the ball fizzing away to the long grass at the edge of the field.

  Jessie took her three steps and sent down a high, arcing delivery. He watched it carefully; in the split second the ball was in the air he debated whether to block the ball or drive it back past Jessie. A defensive block would be best, he thought, and he stepped out to where the ball pitched. As he slid the bat along the ground to guard against a potential shooter, the ball bounced, higher than he’d anticipated, looped over the shoulder of his bat and knocked into the off stump. He clamped his eyes closed as he heard the bails hit the turf, followed almost immediately by a yell from Edwards and more warm applause. He opened his eyes and saw Jessie, her hands linked together in front of her, her eyes cast down at the ground. He could tell she was smiling and he couldn’t blame her. But his main feeling was one of intense humiliation.

  This time he made no attempt at platitude. He just made to walk back towards the house.

  ‘Come now, Doctor.’ It was Edwards’ voice from behind him. To be fair to the man there was no sense of triumph or crowing in his voice.

  ‘Come now, Doctor, don’t leave us. May I propose that we continue with the final five balls? And again, shall we say double or quits? Four sovereigns, now, says Jessie will break your wicket once more.’

  ‘As you wish, Mr Edwards,’ replied Grace. ‘But I assure you the bails could not be disturbed a third time, with all due respect to Miss Lawton.’

  His first instinct had been to get away from the field as quickly as possible but it wasn’t the lure of four sovereigns that persuaded him back. It was the realisation that this young woman really could bowl very well. Her technique was in fact very similar to his own. A short shuffle to the wicket, the arm barely rising above the level of the shoulder, the ball being given plenty of air, and not seeming to mind being hit to the boundary if it meant a wicket followed soon afterwards.

  ‘Are you happy to continue, Miss Lawton?’ called Edwards.
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  ‘I am quite happy as long as Dr Grace is happy,’ said Jessie.

  He replaced the bails, took a fresh guard from Bertie, and prepared to face Jessie again. Three balls came down the pitch, each of which he watched as carefully as if it were Alfred Shaw or Fred Spofforth sending them down. The first two were on a length on off stump and easily defended back to Jessie. The third was on middle and leg and he allowed it to hit him on the pad with the bat alongside to protect his stumps.

  He wished he’d thought of this earlier. For one thing, after the events at Derby yesterday and the previous evening’s conversation Bertie was never going to give him out leg before, and, for another, Jessie was clearly far too polite to appeal for lbw. Perhaps most importantly, the wager rested on her bowling him out: no other method of dismissal mattered. He knocked the ball back up the field, feeling satisfied that, for all the attendant humiliation he’d suffered, he would yet be relieving Mr Edwards of his four sovereigns after all.

  ‘Two more to come, Bertie?’

  ‘Two to come, Doctor.’

  The next ball was again pitched towards middle and leg but this time was faster and with a slightly flatter trajectory. It pitched in front of him and he went to block it with his pad again. The ball skidded through low, hit the inside edge of his bat, then the heel of his boot and rolled back to hit the base of the middle stump. The bails fell almost apologetically.

  He breathed in, a giant deep breath, and exhaled expansively. He dropped the bat on to the ground and stamped off back in the direction of the house, peeling off first one glove and throwing it to the turf and then the other. Nobody said a word. Everybody watched him go.

  ‘I rather suspect lunch will be interesting,’ said Bertie, pulling up the single stump in front of him at the bowler’s end.

  Thursday 2 March 1905

  His vision swam and it felt as if the world had shuddered ever so slightly on its axis. The cable gave only the barest detail: that his eldest son Bertie, who shared his famous initials and worked as a schoolmaster on the Isle of Wight, had died on the operating table while having his appendix removed.

  Agnes appeared at his side and all he could do was wordlessly hand her the piece of paper. She read it, dropped it to the floor, let out a wail, ran into the parlour and collapsed on to the chaise longue.

  It couldn’t be true. If Bertie had died he would have been there, as he was with Bessie. It couldn’t happen like this, with a knock at the door and a piece of paper folded inside an envelope that had the power to shatter his and Agnes’s world. It couldn’t possibly happen like this. He sat down heavily on the stairs, reached out for the cable and read it again and again.

  Poor Bertie had had a lot to live up to during his short life. He was as tall and lean as his father had been, but of a quieter, more circumspect nature. He’d been a keen cricketer – like his father he had a bat in his hand from an early age – but to W.G.’s frustration Bertie never looked remotely like emulating his own exploits on the cricket field. He’d spent endless hours with him in the nets, bowling ball after ball at him, but his eldest son could never shake off the awkward, stiff aspect that characterised his technique. He was still a more than decent player, captaining his school, appearing for the county and showing definite promise on going up to Cambridge University, but it was clear that despite all his father’s encouragement he was never going to be more than an average player at best.

  There were flashes – he thought fondly of the large stand they’d shared for MCC against the University in 1894 when Bertie made 50, and the time in 1901 when Bertie and Billy Murdoch put on 355 for the first wicket for London County – but even when selected for the Varsity game he failed to shine: he was unspectacular in 1895 and bagged a pair in 1896.

  The Old Man couldn’t fathom why his son didn’t follow his own success on the cricket field. He was from the same stock, after all, and had had the same amount of coaching and opportunities from the youngest of ages, yet he remained such an unexpressive, almost mechanical player. In cricket terms, he lacked personality; he batted as if by numbers. His father was perplexed by it. Bertie still made him proud, of course – W.G. had purchased his first frock coat and silk hat to wear for the occasion of Bertie’s first Varsity game, which was also the first match at Lord’s he’d ever attended as a spectator, but he couldn’t fathom why the boy never followed in his footsteps. And now they would never play together again.

  The news came as a dreadful shock. He knew an appendix removal was a serious operation but it was rarely fatal. They’d had no time to prepare for this: in his head Bertie was still that tall, serious, bespectacled boy who could come down the stairs at any moment, pushing his glasses up his nose as he seemed to do every two minutes. While Bessie’s demise had been hellish and a vicious hand for the fates to play, at least the nature of her illness had allowed them to prepare to some extent for the end. But this – a telegram, out of the blue to follow up the one they’d received two days earlier announcing his sudden illness – this was no way to learn of the death of an eldest son.

  While Annie consoled Agnes in the parlour he shut himself away in his study and sat at his desk, and only then allowed the tears to come. First Bessie, now Bertie. Half the Grace brood gone before they’d had a chance truly to flourish.

  Encouraging and proud of his son as he was, and of course he loved the boy, sitting there in his study staring at the desk he reflected upon how they’d never been particularly close. From early childhood Bertie had been studious, quiet and reserved, almost exactly the opposite of his father, and other than cricket little had bound them together beyond biology. He was the antithesis of Bessie, who was so outgoing, opinionated and vivacious, but he supposed that, for all the assistance he’d given him, the strings he’d pulled, the encouragement he’d expressed, ultimately the boy had to find his own way and Bertie had chosen teaching, first at Oundle and then at the Royal Naval College on the Isle of Wight. With Bertie having lived away for so long and cricket keeping his father away from home for days at a time when he’d been a boy, the Old Man felt as though death had cheated him again.

  The tears kept rolling and there was a pain in his soul. He tried to remember details, any details, of the stand they’d shared at Lord’s, but all he could recall was the pair of them walking off the ground together, the Doctor having to take Bertie by the arm because he was, as always, lagging behind him.

  Tuesday 5 September 1905

  ‘It’s been a poor show, all right, Harry.’

  The greatest cricketer of them all sat in the bar of the Bournemouth Grand Hotel with its owner, Harry Preston, and lamented the state of the game. The second day had ended with the Gentlemen of the South bowled out for 217 in reply to the Players of the South’s first innings total of 496. An incredible onslaught by Hampshire’s South African all-rounder Charles Llewellyn had taken the Players’ total from 299 for seven to just shy of 500. For a batsman to go in at number eight and score 186 had impressed even the Old Man as from point he watched the ball being sent to all corners of the ground. The Gentlemen’s reply had never found its rhythm and he’d top-scored with just 43. The Gentleman would begin the day tomorrow by commencing the follow on.

  ‘Certainly a little different from the Australia game, Doctor,’ replied Preston.

  A few days earlier Grace had led an England XI against the visiting Australian touring side also in Bournemouth and, despite fielding a makeshift team (Llewellyn played for the English side despite being South African), lost a thrilling game by only one wicket against a team that included Clem Hill, Warwick Armstrong and Victor Trumper.

  ‘Very different, Harry,’ said Grace, thoughtfully. ‘Very different indeed. I am also leading a very different side here.’

  ‘Do you think you can bat all day tomorrow?’ asked Preston.

  ‘I doubt it very much. I just don’t think we have the depth in the batting. It won’t be much of a spectacle for you, I’m afraid, even if we make it as far as the final sess
ion.’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t be there for most of it,’ said Preston, ‘I’m motoring over to my hotel in Brighton tomorrow. My wife’s been holding the fort there while I’ve been attending to you here.’

  ‘Motoring, you say?’

  W.G. stroked his beard. He had never travelled in a motor car.

  ‘Oh yes, didn’t I tell you? I have a four-cylinder De Dion-Bouton in which I travel between here and Brighton. It’s a wonderful thing.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, Harry, I don’t doubt it. Brighton, you say?’

  ‘Yes, I have the Royal York Hotel there, right by the Palace Pier.’

  The Old Man continued stroking his beard.

  ‘How long does it take you to drive as far as Brighton?’

  ‘On a good day around four hours; a little less if I’m lucky with the level crossings and the floating bridge at Southampton.’

  The beard stroking picked up speed.

  ‘I have a game in Hastings beginning the day after tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I come with you in your motor car as far as Brighton?’

  Preston thought for a moment.

  ‘You’d be most welcome, Doctor,’ he said, ‘and of course I’d be able to put you up at the hotel tomorrow evening as my guest before your onward journey to Hastings, but I don’t see how it can be possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you have a day’s cricket to play tomorrow and I need to be in Brighton around four o’clock so will be leaving no later than noon.’

  ‘No later than noon, you say. Very well, be at the ground at 11am sharp tomorrow.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘You have my word, Harry, that I will be seated in your Gideon Mutton or whatever it’s called ready to depart for Brighton no later than noon tomorrow.’

  The Old Man heaved himself out of his chair and offered Preston his hand.

  ‘Goodnight, Harry. I am off to sleep soundly in one of your comfortable beds ahead of my first ever ride in a motor car tomorrow. I am looking forward to it very much.’