“Dear,” she said, “you know I love you, now, don’t you? You weren’t sure before—I know you weren’t. I wasn’t, very. But I know now. Dear, I belong to you—there’s nothing of mine that isn’t yours, now. This morning I wouldn’t tell you what a B.B. was—I’d tell you now. It—it’s only a b—bust bodice, dear. Oh, my dear, my dear—.”
And I loosed the painter, and the current took us silently downstream. Silently downstream, with the stars above us and the black mysterious water all about us. Silent, save for the slight wash of my paddle as I steered through the darkness; silent, save for the tiny bump of the dinghy against the landing stage. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.
Chapter VII
For goodness’ sake!” said Constance. “Aren’t you ever going to stop thinking about that?”
“Don’t see why I should,” I said.
“Well, of course,” said Constance, if you like being a mooney old mutton head, I suppose I shall just have to put up with it. But give me another cigarette and tell me what the weather’s like.”
“I suppose it’s good enough for tennis,” I told her, offering her a match, “though why it should be fine for your bally old tennis and rain when I want to play golf is more than I can make out.”
“Why, that’s just as it ought to be. If they don’t suppress golf by law, nature has to step in some time. Hop along and get your tennis bag packed while I dress.”
There was no use arguing about it. Constance is a reasonable enough person in many ways, but she is adamant on the subject of golf. At the beginning of the morning I had had hopes that I might perhaps be dismissed to have another try to see if I could do the long fourth in one under bogey again—but the hope was, of course, vain. As soon as Constance had uttered her ukase I realized the hopelessness of that hope. To Constance’s mind golf and drinking are about on a level—men simply will do them, but no wife in her sane senses will encourage her husband to indulge in either.
And yet there was something about that day’s tennis which made me enjoy it thoroughly. Something which took me back to the days when I was a very young man. For, consciously or unconsciously, I was striving once more for Constance’s favor, just as I had done in the old days, when a good winner from the base line meant, to my heated imagination, one stride farther toward the ultimate goal.
Constance and I are favored above the majority of married folk in that we are able to play together without mutual exasperation. When Constance and I are partners we both play at least fifteen better than we do in any other mixed double. I honestly think that it is not because I know Constance’s play, but because I know Constance. When she is doing brilliant things at the net I can tell instinctively just when a lapse is due, and can get back to cover her mistake and retrieve the passing shot or lob which she ought to reach but misses unaccountably. And that Sunday I was on my mettle. I went all out for everything in a fashion which I can only display when I am keyed up to the highest possible pitch. At the net my arms seemed elastic and indefinitely extensible; at the back of the court I effected miracles of retrieving which astonished not only Constance and my opponents but even myself. Twice I went back after a lob, caught it, returned it into exactly the right spot, dashed up to the net again, and smote the feeble return full at the prancing feet of our demoralized opponents, and each time as I turned panting to Constance afterward I caught in her eyes a hint of pleased surprise which was more than sufficient reward for my exertions.
It was like contending in the lists as did the old knights for a smile from the lips of the Queen of Beauty. The likeness struck me at the time. I could hardly help wondering if at Arthur’s court Sir Gawain would say to Sir Lancelot, “Sorry, old man,” when he unhorsed the other by the lucky equivalent to a netcord shot, and if, after a heated duel, when they returned to the pavilion (it was called a pavilion even in those days, I remember) the victor would be just a little bit talkative, and the loser a little bit taciturn.
Would Sir Bors say to Sir Kay:
“Well, I didn’t think I would ever be able to bring that off, Kay, old man. You were a bit weak on your back hand this morning.”
And Sir Kay would reply moodily:
“Yes, I don’t know what was the matter with me. My fighting’s been absolutely rotten for the last week or two. Got half a mind to chuck sword fighting altogether. Take up hawking or something, instead.”
Then, of course, Bors would say:
“Oh, don’t say that, old man. I expect it was a sheer fluke on my part this morning. The lists weren’t in very good condition, you know. Bit on the slow side, and, of course, that never suits your style.”
That would buck poor old Sir Kay up a bit, and he would reply:
“Yes, there’s something in that, of course. Fact is, I haven’t been satisfied with my sword just lately. Seems to have lost its spring, somehow.”
Then Bors would pick it up and swing it a little, and look it up and down, and practise one or two favorite cuts with it.
“M’m,” he would say, “one of the Weald’s goblins make, isn’t it? Can’t say I ever did like ’em. You should try one of the kind I always use. Sheffield steel, guaranteed blessed by a holy hermit, and I get Merlin to say a spell or two over it once a week just to keep it in good condition. Best thing going for swords, I think. You try it.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” Sir Kay would say. “Must do something about it. I’m due to fight that Green Knight bloke next week in the semi-final of the Camelot tournament.”
That would be some of his own back, because Sir Bors was beaten in the first round of the Camelot tournament. And actually, of course, Sir Kay would have the very lowest opinion of Merlin’s spells for use on swords. But Sir Bors would still be able to score pretty heavily, because Sir Kay is a mean old carmudgeon, and has forgotten a very necessary and customary tribute to the late victor.
“Warm, isn’t it?” Sir Bors would say, and he would throw just enough accent into that expression to show that he saw through Sir Kay’s little game and didn’t think very much of it. Sir Kay would give a little start of pretended surprised recollection and say:
“Oh, yes, of course, of course. Hey, varlet, ho! Give it a name, old boy.”
And Bors would hesitate a second or two, just to rub it in, and then would deliberately ask for Malvoisie, because Malvoisie would be the most expensive drink supplied in the pavilion.
At any rate, that is how the Club Liar and I talked in the pavilion while we were washing before lunch—Constance and I had just beaten him and Mrs. Liar in three straight sets, and they are normally streets better than us, being on the outer fringe of the Wimbledon competitors.
Just as we were finishing lunch there came a sharp shower.
“Curse!” said Constance. “Of course it would rain just when I’m feeling I could push buses over.”
“I didn’t know that rain interfered with that pastime,” said I.
“If you hadn’t played like an angel this morning, I’d kill you with a look for trying to be funny.”
The Club Liar interposed.
“Now, children,” said he, “don’t quarrel on the Sabbath. Sit thee down and I’ll tell you the story of my life.”
We sat down in the pavilion veranda and watched the puddles accumulate on the hard courts. Sometimes the Club Liar’s stories are rather amusing.
He started by telling us that, although we probably had a high opinion of his capacity for playing tennis, there had once been a time, when he had hardly hit a tennis ball in his life, when his tennis was of a much higher standard—in fact, when there was none on earth who could beat him, not Tilden, not Borotra, not Lacoste.
“Because you’d never play them,” said Constance cautiously, not to be taken in.
“How you distrust my veracity, my child,” said the Club Liar. “No, really, there was once a time when I was an unbeatable tennis player. But at the same time I could never beat any one else. It was in this way—”
It
appeared that once upon a time the Club Liar was not a tennis player at all, but a cricketer. He was a very young man, and he had only left school two or three years ago. Then it so happened that he was staying with some friends in the country and a very charming girl who could play tennis really well was staying in the same house.
“Be careful, dear,” said Mrs. Liar.
“Don’t worry, dear. It’s quite all right. As it happened, her name was May, the same as yours.”
The Liar was instinctively attracted to May, and May was instinctively attracted to the Liar. One day he happened to notice that the tennis court was unoccupied, and he availed himself of the opportunity to ask her to show him the rudiments of this childish game for which he would have had an invincible contempt had it not been the game to which May was so devoted and of which she was so brilliant an exponent.
“Right-o,” said May.
He collected a racket from somewhere and they went out to the court.
“I’d better show you how to serve, first,” said May. “Now stand just here, chuck the ball straight into the air over your right eye, swing your racket once round your head and conk the thing hard as it comes down.”
The Liar tried to act on these instructions. But it was the first time since early childhood that he had wielded a tennis racket, and the result was that he nearly missed the ball altogether. He half-hit it, however, and the ball sailed into the air, just flickered over the net, dropped into the court only a yard the other side, and, such was the undercut, spun straight back into the net. May did her best to suppress a giggle.
“Not that way, Silly,” she said. “Hit the thing.”
The Liar tried again, with exactly the same result. When he did it three times running May stopped giggling and suddenly turned thoughtful, as if an idea had suddenly come to her.
“Bother serving,” she said, “I’ll go round to the other side and we’ll have a knock-up.”
So they had a knock-up, in which the Liar acquitted himself with all, and more, of the ineptitude expected of beginners.
“Now let’s have a bit more serving,” said May.
The Liar tried serving once more, with exactly the same result as before—the ball fell gently just the other side of the net and spun back into it.
“Now look here,” said May, “come and sit down and I’ll talk to you seriously.” They sat down, and May began: “You know how they score at tennis, don’t you? Each side takes it in turn to serve, and the side which reaches six games first wins, if the other hasn’t scored five already.”
“I knew that already,” said the Liar, meekly.
“Well,” said May. “The game usually goes to the serving side. I mean, if you can be sure of winning your service game you will never be beaten, and you’ve only got to pick up one of the other man’s service games to win the set. Got that?”
“Yes,” said the Liar.
“Now, I’m going to tell you something you mustn’t be too proud about. If you could serve every time like that, you’d win all your service games. That service that squiggles straight back into the net as soon as it touches the ground couldn’t be taken by any one. Or if he wanted to, he would have to stand up so close to the net to receive it that an ordinary plain straight one would have to beat him. And even if he stood close up to the net I don’t expect he’d be able to do anything with it. So, as I said, if you can do that service every time you must win your service game.”
“Umph,” said the Liar.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before, honestly I haven’t. It’s a sure winner. But it won’t be any too jolly good to you if you can only win half the games you play. You’re only a beginner, and any one could be quite certain of winning all his service games against you. And in doubles you’d be bound to lose those sets easily, and that means it wouldn’t be any good your playing with—me, for instance.”
“I wouldn’t like that at all,” said the Liar.
“In singles you might have a chance, of course. The man you were playing might serve four double faults, or something. If he didn’t the set would just go on and on and on until when it got to thirty-nine all or something one or other of you would drop down dead. And it might be you and not the other fellow.”
“I wouldn’t like that, either,” said the Liar.
“So what we’ve got to do,” said May (and the use of the word “we” cheered up the Liar immensely) “is to teach you to play well enough to have a sporting chance of winning a service game off anybody with a bit of luck. A bit of luck is bound to come along sooner or later whoever you’re playing. You’ll have to learn how to receive service, and how to make plain forehand and backhand drives. Oh, and you’ll have to learn how to do an ordinary straight fast service in case he comes up to the net to receive your squiggly one.”
“Right-o,” said the Liar.
May’s imagination was working overtime.
“The sooner you learn that plain service the better,” she said. “You’ll have to use it when any one’s looking on. We’ll keep it as dark as pitch about the other one, and spring no end of a surprise at some tournament or other. We’ll enter you for the open singles, and there’ll be the dickens to pay when they find that no one can beat you. But you’ll have to go into training like anything, so that if it should work out to be a trial of endurance you’ll be the one who can endure. We’ll get you into the Wimbledon tournament before they have time to alter the rules or bar your service, and, of course, you’ll win.”
“Let’s hope so,” said the Liar. He was not quite so enthusiastic about it, but as the future seemed to hold out unlimited prospects of very private coaching from May he saw nothing to grumble at.
“Come on, then,” said May. “Come and learn the ordinary service.”
During the months that followed May was very patient with the Liar. She taught him how to receive service, and how to make the ordinary elementary strokes. She found one or two players who were just beyond the beginner’s stage who were willing to play with him, and from them the Liar obtained a fair amount of practise. Soon, although he never brought his phenomenal service into action, be began to beat the novices. He climbed up into the second grade of players at his club, and then, thanks to May’s constant coaching, he made sufficient progress to be asked occasionally to make up a four with even the highest grade of open tournament players there. The plain service May had taught him had steadily developed into a formidable weapon of offense—terrifically fast, and he could cut it a little either way. His ground strokes were good, and so was his anticipation, and his length of arm and cricketer’s eye stood him in good stead when it was a question of volleying.
May certainly had been very patient with him. Being a very good player herself, and constantly playing against good players, she was well qualified to coach him, and coach him she did, pointing out his faults and worrying at him until he eliminated them, and continually urging him to obtain more and more practise. At the end of a good long time she pronounced him good enough to stand a fair chance of winning a service game sooner or later against any one he might meet.
“The Club’s Open Tournament is the first on the list this year,” she said. “We’ll enter you for the men’s singles. Then we’ll put you in for one or two other Open Tournaments. If you win the lot they’ll simply have to let you in for Wimbledon. People won’t half kick up a shine about it. But I don’t see how they can stop you. Come up to the club this afternoon when there won’t be any one about and we’ll try out that squiggly service of yours again.”
But alas and alack! It was long since the Liar had practised that ridiculous soft method of hitting the ball. When he came to attempt it he found that months of practise at hitting the ball clean had made him entirely incapable of producing a service that only fell a yard below the net, and that soared fifty feet into the air before falling. And try as he would, he could not fluke an undercut on the thing to bring it back into the net again.
May nearly wept when she
saw the failure of his attempts.
“Oh, dear,” she wailed, “now you’ll never play at Wimbledon. And I was looking forward to it so much.”
“Don’t let’s worry about it,” said the Liar, with sudden energy. “There are other things in the world besides Wimbledon.”
And May quite agreed with him when she saw the look in his eye.
“And we did play at Wimbledon in the end,” said Mrs. Liar, unexpectedly.
“It is only that,” I said, “which makes up for the abominable falsity of the rest of the story.”
Chapter VIII
At our tennis club there are only one or two little gangs of unregenerates; men to whom domestic ties mean nothing; men who care not at all for the sacred word “wife”; men who forget that they are engaged to be married (if it so happen that they are); men to whom women are useless encumbrances; in other words, they are men who would rather play’s men’s doubles than mixed. I am a member of one of these gangs. My three confederates and myself sneak quietly off to a retired court, leaving our women folk to their own devices (after all, what is wrong with ladies doubles?) and there we work off some of the violent energy we have accumulated during the mixed doubles into which we have been conscripted previously, before we could evade the watchful eyes of the others.
When the rain stopped, one of these confederates put his head round the corner of the veranda, caught my eye, and made the gesture I knew so well. It was only the work of a moment to excuse myself to the others, furtively secure my racket, and evaporate quietly away to the lonely court. It was very enjoyable tennis that we had for the remainder of the afternoon. My conscience may have pricked me a little, but hardly enough to make me uncomfortable. After all, I had played three sets with Constance, and when I peered across the shrubbery to where she was playing, I saw that one of the innumerable young men she collects had turned up, and that she was taking part in what appeared to be a fairly energetic mixed.
Love Lies Dreaming Page 9