‘Elastic? Ammo?’
Conky stared. From the recesses of her costume she had produced a piece of stout elastic and a wad of tin foil. She placed the tin foil on the elastic and then between her teeth. Then, turning, she took careful aim at Lord Plumpton.
For a sighting shot it was an admirable effort. Conky, following the projectile with a rapt gaze, saw his uncle start and put a hand to his ear. There seemed little reason to doubt that he had caught it amidships.
‘Good Lord!’ he cried. ‘Here, after you with that elastic. I used to do that at school, and many was the fine head I secured. I wonder if the old skill still lingers.’
It was some minutes later that Lord Plumpton turned to the friend beside him.
‘Wasps very plentiful this year,’ he said.
The friend blinked drowsily.
‘Watts?’
‘Wasps.’
‘There was A.R.K. Watts who used to play for Sussex. Ark we used to call him.’
‘Not Watts. Wasps.’
‘Wasps?’
‘Wasps.’
‘What about them?’
‘They seem very plentiful. One stung me in the ear just now. And now one of them has knocked off my hat. Most extraordinary.’
A man in a walrus moustache who had played for Surrey in 1911 came along, and Lord Plumpton greeted him cordially.
‘Hullo, Freddie.’
‘Hullo.’
‘Good game.’
‘Very. Exciting.’
‘Wasps are a nuisance, though.’
‘Wasps?’
‘Wasps.’
‘What wasps?’
‘I don’t know their names. The wasps around here.’
‘No wasps around here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Not in the pavilion at Lord’s. You can’t get in unless you’re a member.’
‘Well, one has just knocked off my hat. And look, there goes Jimmy’s hat.’
The walrus shook his head. He stooped and picked up a piece of tin toil.
‘Someone’s shooting this stuff at you. Used to do it myself a long time ago. Ah yes,’ he said, peering about him, ‘I see where the stuff’s coming from. That girl over there in the three shilling seats with your nephew. If you look closely, you’ll see she’s drawing a bead on you now.
Lord Plumpton looked, startled and stiffened.
‘That girl again! Is one to be beset by her through all eternity? Send for the attendants! Rouse the attendants and give them their divisional orders. Instruct the attendants to arrest her immediately and bring her to the committee room.’
And so it came about that just as Conky was adjusting the elastic to his lips a short while later and preparing to loose off, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and there was a stern-faced man in the uniform of a Marylebone Cricket Club attendant. And simultaneously another heavy hand fell on the girl’s shoulder, and there was another stern-faced man in the uniform of another Marylebone Cricket Club attendant.
It was a fair cop.
The committee room of the Marylebone Cricket Club is a sombre and impressive apartment. Photographs of bygone cricketers, many of them with long beards, gaze down from the walls – accusingly, or so it seems to the man whose conscience is not as clear as it might be. Only a man with an exceptionally clear conscience can enter this holy of holies without feeling that he is about to be stripped of his MCC tie and formally ticketed as a social leper.
This is particularly so when, as in the present instance the President himself is seated at his desk. It was at Lord Plumpton’s request that he was there now. It had seemed to Lord Plumpton that a case of this magnitude could be dealt with adequately only at the very highest levels.
He mentioned this in his opening speech for the prosecution.
‘I demand,’ said Lord Plumpton, ‘the most exemplary punishment for an outrage unparalleled in the annals of the Marylebone Cricket Club, the dear old club we all love so well, if you know what I mean.’ Here he paused as if intending to bare his head, but realising that he had not got his hat on, continued, ‘I mean to say, taking pot-shots at members with a series of slabs of tin foil, dash it! If that isn’t a nice bit of box fruit, what is? Bad enough, if you see what I’m driving at, to take pot-shots at even the cannaille, as they call them in France, who squash in in the free seats, but when it comes to pot-shotting members in the pavilion, I mean where are we? Personally I would advocate skinning the girl, but if you consider that too extreme I am prepared to settle for twenty years in solitary confinement. A menace to the community, that’s what this girl is. Busting about in her car and knocking people endways with one hand and flicking their hats off with the other, if you follow my drift. She reminds me of … who was that woman in the Bible whose work was always so raw? … Delilah?
… No … It’s on the tip of my tongue … Ah yes, Jezebel. She’s a modern streamlined Jezebel, dash her insides.’
‘Uncle Everard,’ said Conky, ‘you are speaking of the woman I love.’
The girl gave a little gasp.
‘No, really?’ she said.
‘Absolutely,’ said Conky. ‘I had intended to mention it earlier. I don’t know your name …’
‘Clarissa. Clarissa Binstead.’
‘How many s’s?’
‘Three, if you count the Binstead.’
‘Clarissa, I love you. Will you be my wife?’
‘Sure,’ said the girl. ‘I was hoping you’d suggest it. And what all the fuss is about is more than I can understand. Why when we go to a ball game in America, we throw pop bottles.’
There was a silence.
‘Are you an American, madam?’ said the President.
‘One hundred per cent. Oh, say, can you see … No, I never can remember how it goes after that. I could whistle it for you.’
The President had drawn Lord Plumpton aside. His face was grave and anxious.
‘My dear Everard,’ he said in an urgent undertone, ‘we must proceed carefully here, very carefully. I had no notion this girl was American. Somebody should have informed me. The last thing we want is an international incident, particularly at a moment when we are hoping, if all goes well, to get into America’s ribs for a bit of the stuff. I can fully appreciate your wounded feelings …’
‘And how about my wounded topper?’
‘The club will buy you a new hat, and then, my dear fellow, I would strongly urge that we consider the matter closed.’
‘You mean not skin her?’
‘No.’
‘Not slap her into the cooler for twenty years?’
‘No. There might be very unfortunate repercussions.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Lord Plumpton sullenly. ‘Oh, very well. But,’ he proceeded on a brighter note, ‘there is one thing I can do, and that is disinherit this frightful object here. Hoy!’ he said to Conky.
‘Hullo?’ said Conky.
‘You are no longer a nephew of mine.’
‘Well, that’s a bit of goose,’ said Conky.
As he came out of the committee room, he was informed by an attendant that a gentleman wished to speak to him on the telephone. Excusing himself to Clarissa and bidding her wait for him downstairs Conky went to the instrument, listened for a few moments, then reeled away, his eyes bulging and his jaw a-droop. He found Clarissa at the spot agreed upon.
‘Hullo, there,’ said Conky. ‘I say, you remember me asking you to be my wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘You said you would.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the words that spring to the lips are “Will you?” Because I’m afraid the whole thing’s off. That was MacSporran on the ’phone. He said he’d made a miscalculation, and my tenner won’t be enough to start that sea water scheme going. He said he would need another thirty thousand pounds and could I raise it? I said No, and he said “Too bad, too bad.” And I said: “Do I get my tenner back?”, and he said “No, you don’t get your tenner back.” So there you are. I c
an’t marry you.’
Clarissa wrinkled her forehead.
‘I don’t see it. Father’s got it in gobs. He will provide.’
‘Not for me, he won’t. I always swore I’d never marry a girl for her money.’
‘You aren’t marrying me for my money. You’re marrying me because we’re soul-mates.’
‘That’s true. Still, you appear to have a most ghastly lot of the stuff, and I haven’t a bean.’
‘Suppose you had a job?’
‘Oh, if I had a job.’
‘That’s all right, then. Father runs a gigantic business and he can always find room for another Vice-President.’
‘Vice-President?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I don’t know enough to be a Vice-President.’
‘It’s practically impossible not to know enough to be a Vice-President. All you would have to do would be to attend conferences and say “Yes” when Father made a suggestion.’
‘What in front of a whole lot of people?’
‘Well, at least you could nod.’
‘Oh yes, I could nod.’
‘Then that’s settled. Kiss me.’
Their lips met long and lingeringly. Conky came out of the clinch with sparkling eyes and a heightened colour. He raised a hand to heaven.
‘How’s that, umpire?’ he cried.
‘Jolly good show, sir,’ said Clarissa.
Reginald’s Record Knock
REGINALD HUMBY WAS one of those men who go in just above the byes, and are to tired bowlers what the dew is to parched earth at the close of an August afternoon. When a boy at school he once made nine not out in a house match, but after that he went all to pieces. His adult cricket career was on the one-match one-ball principle. Whether it was that Reginald hit too soon at them or did not hit soon enough, whether it was that his bat deviated from the dotted line which joined the two points A and B in the illustrated plate of the man making the forward stroke in the Hints on Cricket book, or whether it was that each ball swerved both ways at once and broke a yard and a quarter, I do not know. Reginald rather favoured the last theory.
The important point is that Reginald, after an almost unbroken series of eggs in the first two months of the season, turned out for Chigley Heath versus The Hearty Lunchers in the early part of July, went in first, and knocked up a hundred and thirteen.
Reginald, mark you, whose normal batting style was a sort of cross between hop-scotch, diabolo, and a man with gout in one leg trying to dance the Salomé Dance.
When great events happen the public generally shows an anxiety to discover their cause. In the case of Reginald’s century, on the face of it the most remarkable event since the Flood, the miracle may be attributed directly to his personal popularity.
Carpers may cavil at this statement. It is possible, too, that cavillers may carp. I seem to see them at it. All around me, I repeat, I seem to hear the angry murmur of carpers cavilling and cavillers carping. I seem to hear them asking how it is possible for a man to make a century by being popular.
‘Can a batsman,’ they ask, ‘by sheer amiability stop a yorker on the leg stump?’
Nevertheless it is true. The facts are these:
Everybody who plays club cricket knows the Hearty Lunchers. Inveterate free-drinkers to a man, they wander about the country playing villages. They belong to the school of thought which holds that the beauty of cricket is that, above all other games, it offers such magnificent opportunities for a long drink and a smoke in the shade. The Hearty Lunchers do not take their cricket in that spirit of deadly and business-like earnest which so many people consider is spoiling the game. A Hearty Luncher who has been given out caught at the wicket does not explain on arriving at the pavilion that he was nowhere near the ball, and that the umpire has had a personal grudge against him since boyhood. No, he sinks into a deck chair, removes his pads, and remarks that if anyone was thinking of buying him a stone ginger with the merest dash of gin in it, now is his time.
It will therefore readily be understood that Reginald’s inability to lift his average out of the minuses did not handicap him with the Hearty Lunchers, as it might have handicapped him with some clubs. The genial sportsmen took him to their bosoms to a man and looked on him as a brother. Reginald’s was one of those noble natures which are always good for five shillings at any hour of the day, and the Hearty Lunchers were not slow to appreciate it. They all loved Reginald.
Reginald was seated in his room one lovely evening at the beginning of July oiling a bat – he was a confirmed bat-oiler – when the telephone bell rang. He went to the instrument and was hailed by the comfortable voice of Westaway, the Hearty Lunchers’ secretary.
‘Is that Humby?’ asked Westaway. ‘I say, Reggie, I’m booking you for the Chigley Heath match next Saturday. Train, Waterloo, ten fifteen.’
‘Oh, I say,’ replied Reginald, a note of penitence in his voice, ‘I’m afraid I can’t – fact is, I’m playing for Chigley.’
‘You’re what?’
‘They asked me last week – they seemed very keen that I should play.’
‘Why, haven’t they seen you play?’
‘I’m awfully sorry.’
‘Oh, all right. How do you come to be mixed up with Chigley Heath?’
‘My fiancée lives down there.’
‘I see. Well, so long.’
‘So long.’
‘You’re all right for the Saturday after against Porkley-in-the-Wold, I suppose?’
‘Yes, rather!’
‘Good! So long.’
‘So long.’
And Reginald, replacing the instrument, resumed the oiling of the bat.
Now Westaway happened to be of a romantic and sentimental nature. He was inclined to be stout, and all rather stout men are sentimental. Westaway was the sort of man who keeps old ball-programmes and bundles of letters tied round with lilac ribbon. At country houses, when they lingered on the terrace after dinner to watch the moonlight flooding the quiet garden, it was Westaway and his colleagues who lingered longest. Westaway knew Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ by heart, and could take Browning without gas.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Reginald’s remark about his fiancée living at Chigley Heath should give him food for thought. It appealed to him.
He reflected on it a good deal during the evening, and running across Blagdon, the Hearty Lunchers’ captain, after dinner that night at the Club, he spoke of the matter to him. It so happened that both had dined excellently and were looking on the world with a sort of cosy benevolence. They were in the mood when men give small boys sixpences.
‘I rang up Reggie Humby today,’ said Westaway.
‘One of the best, Reggie,’ said Blagdon. ‘Waiter, coffee and – what’s yours? Coffee for two, a Maraschino, a liqueur brandy, and two of those old-shape Larranagas. Yes, dear old chap, Reggie.’
‘Did you know he was engaged?’
‘I did hear something about it – girl of the name of Belleville or something like that – Melville, that’s it! Charming girl. Fond of poetry and all that, I believe.’
‘She lives at Chigley Heath.’
‘Then Reggie’ll get a chance of seeing her next Saturday.’
‘He tells me he’s promised to play for Chigley Heath against us.’
‘Confound him, the renegade! Still, we needn’t scratch because of that, need we?’
Westaway sucked at his cigar in silence for a while, watching with dreamy eyes the blue smoke as it curled ceilingwards. When he spoke his voice was singularly soft.
‘Do you know, Blagdon,’ he said, sipping his Maraschino with a sort of gentle melancholy, ‘do you know, there is something wonderfully pathetic to me in this business, I see the whole thing so clearly. There was a kind of quiver in poor Reggie’s voice when he said: “I am playing for Chigley Heath, my fiancée lives down there,” which told me more than any words could have done. It is a tragedy in its way, Blagdon. We may smile at it, think it t
rivial; but it is none the less a tragedy. That warm-hearted, enthusiastic girl, all eagerness to see the man she loves do well. Reggie, poor old Reggie, all on fire to prove to her that her trust in him is not misplaced, and the end – Disillusionment – Disappointment – Unhappiness.’
‘He might be duck not out,’ said the more practical Blagdon.
‘He won’t go in last for Chigley Heath; probably they think a lot of him. He may be their hope. Quite possibly he may go in first.’
‘If Reggie’s mug enough to let himself be shoved in first,’ said Blagdon decidedly, ‘he deserves all he gets. Waiter, two whiskies and soda, large.’
Westaway was in no mood to subscribe to this stony-hearted view.
‘I tell you,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry for Reggie! I’m sorry for the poor old chap, and I’m more than sorry for the girl.’
‘Well, I don’t see what we can do,’ said Blagdon. ‘Not all the soda, thanks. We can hardly be expected to bowl badly just to let Reggie show off before his girl.’
Westaway paused in the act of lighting his cigar, as one smitten with a great thought.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Why not, Blagdon? Blagdon, you’ve hit it!’
‘My dear chap!’
‘You have! I tell you, Blagdon, you’ve solved the whole thing. Reggie’s a dashed good sort, one of the very absolute! Why not give him a benefit? Why not let him knock up a few for a change? It’ll be the only chance he’ll ever get of making a decent score. You aren’t going to tell me at your time of life that you care whether we beat Chigley Heath or not!’
‘I was thinking more of the dashing about in a hot sun while Reggie made his runs – I’m all against too much exercise.’
Blagdon was one of the non-stooping brigade. He liked best to field point with a good cover behind him.
‘Oh, nonsense!’ said Westaway; ‘there won’t be too much of that, we can be getting the rest of them out all the while; and, besides, fifty will satisfy poor old Reggie. We needn’t let him make a hundred.’
Blagdon’s benevolence was expanding under the influence of the whisky and soda (large) and the old-shaped Larranaga. Little acts of kindness on Reggie’s part, here a cigar, there a lunch, at another time a box at a theatre, began to rise to the surface of his memory like rainbow-coloured bubbles. Having grown accustomed to the basic bizarreness of the hon. secretary’s idea, he began now, as it were, to out-Westaway Westaway.
Wodehouse at the Wicket: A Cricketing Anthology Page 10