"Pip" Part 24

The village won the toss, and the Vicar, accompanied by the blacksmith, opened the innings. The attack was entrusted to Pip and the local phenomenon. The latter proved to be a bowler of appalling pace but uncertain length; and the blacksmith, whose generous figure offered a fair target to any ball directed within a yard of the wicket, growing restive under the bombardment, forgot more than once in his comments on the situation that a clergyman was standing less than twenty-two yards away.

The Vicar, an old Blue, played a skilful and patient innings, but the blacksmith did not stay long. As was natural, his chief stroke was a rather laboured upheaval of the bat over his head, followed by a downward sledge-hammer drive across the path of the elusive ball. He timed it correctly just once, and the ball, rebounding from the ground like a flash, sang over the head of the Squire at point and proceeded to the boundary for four. That was all. Next time, in endeavouring to bring off a particularly pyrotechnic late cut, the batsman was bowled. He made doubly sure of his dismissal by simultaneously bringing down his bat upon the top of the off-stump with a force which called for the united efforts of the umpire and c.o.c.kles, who was keeping wicket, to get it out again.

The next comer was the Vicar's son, a public-school bat of the highest promise; and for a merry half-hour _pere et fils_ set Pip and partner at defiance, and piled up runs to the credit of the village green. It was not until the Squire's prodigy had been taken off and Gresley put on that the schoolboy, tempted by one of the latter's insidious "googlies,"

mistimed a stroke and put up an easy one to Raven Innes at cover-point.

The next batsman was the booking-clerk from the station. Humourists on the boundary cried out that they expected something "first-cla.s.s" this journey. They were doomed to disappointment, for the batsman was bowled first ball, a mishap which a facetious friend in the shade of the refreshment tent attributed to natural anxiety not to waste the return half of his ticket.

Eighty-two for three wickets is a good score for a village club; but when the three wickets grew to four, and so on to six, without any appreciable increase in the score, things cannot be regarded as so satisfactory. A rot set in after the Vicar was dismissed, and it was not until the last man came in that the hundred was reached. A really creditable stand now ensued, the village policeman laying on for Tusculum at one end, while the curate (whom the parish darkly suspected of ritualistic tendencies) laid on for Rome at the other. These twain brought up the score to a hundred and twenty, at which point the policeman, in attempting a sort of truncheon-stroke to point, was deftly caught at second slip by Cullyngham.

The Rustleford Manor Eleven, as was usual in this fixture, took the field tail first, a proceeding which brought Pip to an unwontedly exalted position in the batting-list. He went in first wicket, two minutes after the commencement of the innings, Gresley having knocked off his bails in a misguided attempt to pull the first ball he received.

The other end of the pitch was occupied by the Squire, who had gone in first in this match for twenty years. He liked plenty of time to make his runs, he explained, increasing girth precluding any great feats of agility between the wickets.

The bowling was shared by the Vicar and the policeman, the former with lobs, the latter with a delivery so frankly illegal that Pip, gazing open-mouthed at the bowler, made no attempt to play the first ball he received, and was nearly bowled.

"Rather a doubtful delivery that, isn't it?" he remarked to the umpire at the end of the over.

"No possible doubt about it whatever, sir," said the grizzled ground-man decisively.

"You mean to say he doesn't throw?"

"I mean to say he does throw, sir."

"Then why don't you take him off?"

"Take him off, sir?" The veteran smiled indulgently in the direction of the bowler. "Lor' bless you! Now, why, sir? 'E ain't doin' no 'arm."

Pip could not but agree with the undeniable correctness of this p.r.o.nouncement, which was shortly afterwards endorsed by the captain of the side, the limb of the law being relegated to a distant beat in the outfield and his place taken by another. The newcomer, an erratic bowler of great swiftness, shot his first ball into the Squire's knee-pad, and immediately appealed for leg-before-wicket. The village umpire, after an obvious struggle between a desire to get rid of a dangerous batsman and an inherent sense of loyalty to the feudal system, finally decided in favor of the gyrating Squire, and the game proceeded. Pip was bowled next over by one of the Vicar's lobs, and retired amid applause with a score of two fours and a six to his credit.

Outside the tent he espied Elsie. He sat down beside her, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. However, the House Eleven, after losing five wickets for thirty runs, at last began to put real batsmen into the field. When the match ended at six o'clock the score was a hundred and eighty-five for seven wickets, the Oxford and Cambridge captains, Mallaby and Oake, being not out with fifty-five and forty-eight respectively. By this time Pip had asked for and been promised a lesson in golf next morning, when there was to be no cricket.

There was a nine-hole course round the house park, and here the lesson was given. After breakfast the two repaired to the tee, where Pip, whose whole weapon of offence consisted of an ancient left-handed cleek (discovered in the gunroom), made laborious and praiseworthy efforts to imitate Elsie's St. Andrew's swing, and to hit the little b.a.l.l.s which she placed on the tee for him. He had asked for the lesson from purely ulterior motives, but in half an hour he was badly bitten with the desire to excel at the game itself. He no longer regarded golf as a means to an end, but found himself liking it for its own sake. He listened carefully to Elsie's helpful instructions, ground his teeth when she heaved a resigned sigh, and glowed rosily at her rare expressions of approbation. Twelve o'clock found him still hewing his way enthusiastically round the course, Elsie, appreciative of his keenness but a trifle bored, nonchalantly playing a ball to keep him company.

The afternoon was devoted to a river picnic, at which Pip, to his huge disgust, found himself in the wrong boat both going and returning.

Beyond a few minutes of what he called "good work" under a tree after tea, the afternoon was a blank for him; and it was with mingled feelings of ordinary jealousy and real concern for the girl that he found himself a helpless spectator of Cullyngham's undoubted progress in Elsie's good graces.

The evening was given to bridge, and Pip--one of the few men in Great Britain who combined the misfortune of being a hopelessly bad player with the merit of realising the fact--played billiards with Raven Innes till bedtime. Next morning broke dull and cloudy, and by the time that the Grandwich Old Boys had won the toss and decided to bat, the clouds broke and the rain came down in torrents.

There is no duller or more depressing spectacle in this world than that of two elevens waiting in the pavilion for the rain to stop. Nervous men who have to go in next move restlessly about, much hara.s.sed by the exuberance of joyous youths who play small-cricket against the dressing-room door. Weather prophets gaze pessimistically at the weeping heavens and shake their heads, while optimists point out to each other fragments of blue sky, invisible to the unbia.s.sed eye, in distant corners of the firmament. The pavilion bore descends upon you, and having backed you into a corner of the veranda, where the rain can comfortably drip through a leak in the roof down your neck, regales you with stories which Shem probably told to Ham and j.a.pheth under precisely similar circ.u.mstances.

On this occasion the cricketers divided their energies pretty equally between bridge and bear-fighting. Pip, who was in a contemplative mood, sat smoking patiently on the veranda railing. Presently Cullyngham, who had just cut out at bridge, came to the doorway and looked round. His eye fell on Pip, and he smiled in a friendly manner.

"Game of picquet, old man?" he inquired.

"No, thanks. Get another mug!"

This was rude of Pip, but Cullyngham took it angelically.

"Dear old Pip!" he cooed. "I wish I could say caustic things with that air. It's so effective."

At this moment Gresley came up the steps.

"Ah, here's my man!" exclaimed Cullyngham. "You are a sportsman, anyhow, Gresley. Come and have a hand at picquet till lunch."

Gresley, much flattered at this notice from a celebrity, agreed readily, and the pair disappeared into the dressing-room, where, since the rain continued for the greater part of the day, they were destined to spend a considerable time.

IV

That evening there was an impromptu dance. It was much the same as other dances. There was plenty of music and champagne and laughter; and as usual several people tried, and as usual failed, to solve the problem of how it is that an ethereal-looking and fragile slip of a girl, wholly incapable of carrying a scuttle of coals upstairs or of walking five miles without collapsing, can go through an arduous night's exercise, waltzing strong men into a state of coma, without turning a hair.

Pip did his duty manfully, though his glimpses of Elsie were few and far between. That young lady, whether by accident or design, had filled her card rather fully before Pip reached her side. Consequently it was something like midnight when the piano and violin struck up the waltz that she had promised him, and Pip, hastily returning the eldest Miss Calthrop to her base of operations, braced himself for _the_ moment of the evening.

He waited for some time at the door of the dancing-room scanning the returning couples, but Elsie did not come; and Pip, who was preeminently a man of action, set out to look for her.

He came upon the truant rather suddenly, round a screen at the end of a pa.s.sage. She was sitting on a settee with Cullyngham, who, with his head close to hers, was talking softly and rather too earnestly Pip thought.

On seeing Pip, Cullyngham began to smile at once, but Elsie looked a little confused.

"My dance, I think," said Pip gruffly.

Cullyngham rose to his feet.

"A thousand apologies, old boy," he said easily. "I had no idea the music had started again. So sorry! I surrender Miss Innes forthwith. _Au revoir_, partner, and thank you."

He swung gracefully down the pa.s.sage and was gone.

Elsie felt a little uncomfortable. The woman never yet lived who did not enjoy playing two fish simultaneously, and under ordinary circ.u.mstances Elsie would have handled her line with all the pleasure and finesse of an expert. But somehow Pip was different. He was not the sort of person who shared a hook gracefully. He was perfectly capable of disregarding the rules of the game and making a fuss and breaking the line, unless treated with special and separate consideration.

She rose lightly.

"So sorry, Pip," she said, taking his arm almost caressingly. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting. Shall we go and dance?"

"No," said Pip. "Sit down a minute, please."

Elsie obeyed.

"It's only this," said Pip bluntly. "I can't help it if I offend you.

Have as little to do with that chap as you can."

A brief silence, and these two young people surveyed each other. There was no flinching on either side. Then Elsie's eyes blazed.

"How paltry! How mean!" she said hotly. "Fancy trying to do it that way!"

"What do you mean by 'it'?" said Pip.

Elsie bit her lip. She had given herself away.

"You mean," went on Pip, "that I say this because I am jealous."