‘What a terrible week, Eva,’ he said, without turning away from the window. ‘First Billy, now Ted.’
Ted had died just two days after the funeral of his close friend Billy Murdoch at Kensal Green. The Old Man had been unable to attend given he was waiting for news of E.M. and would have to leave for Thornbury at any moment. He’d felt agonised, for Murdoch had been probably his best friend in the game. They’d locked horns as adversaries on the field when he captained Australia but had also been regular team-mates, first for the Gentlemen and then for London County, when their deep friendship had been properly cemented. What a fine player he was, possibly the finest he’d ever seen aside from Ted. His cutting could make the Champion purr and his driving was immaculate. His 211 for Australia in 1884 at The Oval would always remain one of the finest innings Grace had ever witnessed by a player on an opposing team.
When Murdoch settled in England in 1890 to play for Sussex he and Grace became great friends. They liked to go shooting, they liked to play billiards late into the night and, when Grace had taken up golf in his later years, Murdoch was an enthusiastic protégé. W.G. saw something of himself in Billy – they shared the same determination to wring as much out of life as they possibly could and shared the same sense of fun and mischief. Billy had more stamina than most of Grace’s friends and acquaintances and he also shared that innate competitiveness that drove him to keep playing and keep winning. Grace remembered with a smile an early game of golf in which Billy had found himself deep in a bunker. After a short while the ball appeared, bouncing on to the green after emerging over the lip of the bunker with a puff of sand. There were murmurs of appreciation from all those watching and it was only later, in the clubhouse, that Billy confessed quietly to him that he had picked up the ball with a handful of sand and lobbed it out of the bunker. Grace had roared with laughter.
He’d missed Billy Murdoch a great deal. A postcard from him the previous year confirmed that he and his wife would be coming back to England once they had sorted out the legal affairs of her late father, for which they had travelled back to Australia early in 1910. He remembered how Billy had laughed as he’d told Grace that his father-in-law couldn’t stand him. He’d met Minnie on the long voyage back to Australia after the 1884 tour. Murdoch was still buoyant after his double-century at The Oval and when he’d seen Minnie on the deck, travelling back to Australia after completing her education in Europe, he was instantly smitten. Her father, who had made a considerable fortune from gold mining, certainly didn’t want a cricketer for a son-in-law and made it clear to Minnie the relationship could not continue. Despite this they were married in Melbourne before the year was out and the Old Man knew they would have been smitten to the end.
He turned away from the window and went downstairs to his study. Pulling open a drawer in his desk and lifting some papers, he took out the postcard, the last direct communication he’d had with Billy Murdoch, and read it over and over again.
‘See you next year for golf and guns, Gilbert!’ were the closing words. If only. Poor Minnie had been at his side when he’d died back in February. It was so sudden and cruel. Billy had been watching the Test match between Australia and South Africa at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. From what the Old Man had heard, he’d taken lunch in the pavilion with the Melbourne Cricket Club committee and was talking to Major Morkham when he suddenly winced and put his hand to his head. The major asked what was wrong, he’d shaken his head and said, ‘Neuralgia’, then collapsed on to the floor.
Several doctors were close at hand, one of whom made an incision in Billy’s wrist in an attempt to ease the pressure of blood on his brain before he was taken to a local private hospital. He never regained consciousness and died at five o’clock that afternoon with Minnie distraught at his bedside.
Grace had learned later the couple had been due to sail for England the following week.
Billy left instructions that he wanted to be buried near his mother at Kensal Green Cemetery in north London: his body, that proud, sturdy, vigorous physique, had been embalmed and transported back to England. It was an appropriate journey in many ways as that sea passage between the two nations had come to define his life and achievements.
Grace dropped the postcard on to the desk and sat looking at his hands, fingers linked, in his lap. It was so much to take in. Not only had he lost a brother and a friend, two enormous personalities had been snuffed out and cricket, nay, the world were poorer places for the absence of both.
He stroked his beard, stood up, walked to the back door of the house, put on the boots that he always kept there and strode into the garden to check on his asparagus beds. With Billy’s funeral occurring so long after his death it was almost as if he were being mourned twice. And Ted, explosive, opinionated Ted, what a force has been snuffed out there. Two heavy emotional blows, two thumping reminders of his own mortality, and in the space of barely two days. He moved from the beds to the putting green he’d carefully tended since they’d moved to the house in Mottingham Lane. He toed away a couple of leaves and trod down the grass around the hole, wishing hard that he could look up and see Billy striding towards him, putter over his shoulder, one hand in his trouser pocket, moustache twitching and calling out, ‘Ho, Gilbert, where do you keep your golf balls?’
He was dreading E.M.’s funeral. At each of these occasions the number of Graces of his era was declining significantly, but Ted’s would be particularly hard. Now only young Alfred and himself remained of the five Grace boys. Fred’s death had been the hardest, being so sudden and so desperately unfair given his youth. Henry had been 63 when he died after suffering a stroke while out shooting in Devon in 1895. W.G. wondered whether anyone had got word of Ted’s death to their cousin Walter Gilbert, in family-imposed Canadian exile after the scandal of being caught red-handed stealing money from the clothes of his East Gloucestershire team-mates in the dressing-room back in ’86. So close had they been as youths Walter had been effectively an extra Grace brother.
And, of course, there were Bertie and Bessie, his own children, whom he and Agnes had had to bury. It seemed as if death was all around him these days.
Friday 20 February 1914
He left the warmth of the Oddfellows Hall and felt the chill air on his face, sucking the cold air deep into his lungs. Outside the cricket season these were his favourite kinds of morning: a low, golden sun casting warming light over the bare branches of the trees and dispelling a faint dusting of frost, a good breakfast inside him and the mass high-pitched yelping of the beagles.
‘It’s a fine day for it, Doctor,’ said his friend Charles Blundell, with whom he’d stayed the previous night at his farmhouse a few miles away.
‘The best, Blundell, the very best. And no finer outfit than the Halstead Place Beaglers to spend it with.’
The leader of the hunt emerged from the hall in green jacket and cap, white breeches, and boots.
‘A fine pack today, Mr Russell,’ said Grace. ‘How many couples?’
‘Seventeen and a half, Doctor. Always have a good pack at Edenbridge.’
‘I’m looking forward to this morning very much, Mr Russell. I’ve not been out with the hounds nearly as much as I’d like this winter.’
‘I wish you an excellent day, Dr Grace.’
He surveyed the scene, the animation of the dogs’ raised tails, the bright green of the hunt officials’ jackets, the knots of people talking excitedly, the clouds of breath, the thumped greetings of gloved hands on shoulders, and felt very much alive. He would be 66 this summer and still intended to play as often as he could for Eltham. Though he was hardly an asset in the field any more, even in the reduced circumstances of local club cricket, his eye was keen enough and he could still destroy a good-standard club bowling attack with ruthless efficiency. Walking after the hounds today was a perfect aid to rebuilding his stamina for the coming season. He anticipated a good six hours of hunting today and the thought of it stirred up the flutter of anticipation. It was al
ways around this time of year, when the dark curtains of the day’s extremities began to draw back and the weather began to improve, that the old stomach butterflies about the coming season really began to find their rhythm. He was thankful that the enthusiasm never dimmed, that the end of winter and the first signs of impending spring brought such a keen sense of anticipation now, in 1914, just as it had as far back as 1860.
His appetite for following the hounds hadn’t dimmed either in as many years, from the moment he’d first heard the yelp of the Clifton Beagles bounding through the trees behind Downend as a boy. Since moving to south London he’d joined the Worcester Park Beagles but couldn’t get out with them as much as he liked any more. Fortunately his old friend Blundell always had a bed for him whenever he wanted to come down and see the Halstead Place team and he took up the offer whenever his schedule allowed.
Blundell appeared at his shoulder, pulled out a hip flask and offered Grace a nip.
‘No thanks, old friend, I’m warm enough with the anticipation, that’s plenty for me.’
‘One never grows tired of it, does one? The hounds, I mean.’
‘It would be no kind of life any more if one did. No kind of life at all. Imagine a life without the “tallyho” coming across the fields.’
Three short notes sounded on a huntsman’s bugle. The hounds were prepared and ready.
‘We shall hear it shortly, I feel,’ said Blundell, and with that the hounds were released and a tan, black and white melee bundled past them and out into the field.
‘Follow me, Charles, and good hunting.’
The Old Man took long, heavy strides into the tall grass, his stick whirling in his right hand, his long shadow stretching behind him as he walked towards the rising sun.
Tuesday 23 June 1914
The Grand Hall of the Hotel Cecil certainly lived up to its name: a high, vaulted ceiling and gilt-dripped ornamentation rose like a cathedral over the long tables. At first he thought it was odd not to have the Lord’s centenary dinner anywhere near Lord’s, but he had to admit, for an event on this scale and of this importance, the decision to hold it here had been a good one. Plus it was almost next door to Charing Cross station, meaning he could be home in no time once the speeches and toasts were completed.
It was also – he’d been through his records to check – almost exactly 50 years since his own first appearance at Lord’s, four days after his 16th birthday for South Wales against MCC. It was just after he’d made 170 for the same side against the Gentlemen of Sussex at Hove. He had fond memories of that match, for it was the first time he’d played with an entire absence of nerves. He no longer felt like a boy among men: when he began playing his shots he realised that he had the measure of the bowlers and there was no reason at all to be apprehensive. Since that day, a month shy of half a century ago, he couldn’t remember ever being nervous on a cricket field. He’d become curiously dry-mouthed as he worked his way through the nineties during his 100th century but he just put that down to the significance of the occasion; it certainly hadn’t been what he’d call nerves.
Yes, that innings at Hove changed things for ever, he recalled. It meant that the game against MCC at Lord’s a week later had held no fear at all for him. He’d heard bad things about the wicket, though, and when he walked out to bat at the fall of the second wicket on the first day he saw that the horror stories had been right. The creases were actually dug out of the turf, inch-wide trenches burrowing across the square, which was also scattered with pieces of gravel. It wasn’t until poor George Summers was killed in 1870 that any serious thought was given to the state of the Lord’s wicket.
It was a challenge for a lad of tender years but he just thought about each ball as it came, playing it off the pitch as much as he could, and helped to get the South Walians out of a scrape at 17 for three by scoring exactly 50 before being bowled by a shooter from Arthur Teape. His was the second highest score of the innings.
It was astounding to think that had been 50 years ago. To think he was here, celebrating its centenary, when he’d first played at Lord’s half the ground’s lifetime ago.
The occasion was slightly more subdued than expected after the news earlier in the week that A.G. Steel had died suddenly at the age of 55. He’d made the first Test match hundred at Lord’s, an immaculate 148 against Australia in 1884, and was as good a slow bowler as he was a batsman.
Lord Hawke presided as President of MCC with the late Queen’s grandson Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein, a bowler of surprisingly good leg-breaks, seated to his right. As part of his toast Hawke looked back over the previous century at Lord’s and predicted that the ground, MCC and the game of cricket itself would still be flourishing a century hence.
‘The fact that there are sixteen first-class counties where once there were only eight, besides twenty minor counties, shows that cricket is progressing and still has its fair share of public support,’ he said. ‘In recent times there has been much criticism and talk of slow cricket, which is all very well but the science of placing the field and accurate bowling surely has something to do with it.
‘We are fortunate this evening to be honoured by the presence of the great Dr W.G. Grace,’ he continued, but before he could complete his sentence applause washed forward from the back of the room and everyone was on their feet except the Champion himself. He raised himself briefly from his seat in acknowledgment and sat down again.
‘There have been such cricket geniuses in the past,’ continued Hawke, ‘and so there will continue to be in the future. We might not have such idols as W.G. Grace, Ranji, Stoddart, Jackson, Jessop and Hirst in their prime, but I believe they will come tomorrow as they have come before.’
It needled the Old Man slightly that he was being referred to as part of the past – after all, was he not still making runs for Eltham? – but he was aware that no slight was meant by it and he didn’t take it as one. At length it was his turn to respond to the toast. He rose slowly from his seat and looked out at the sea of faces. The now customary ovation eventually died away.
‘I thank you, gentlemen, for the great reception you have afforded me here this evening. There has been much talk of the past and the future from my friend and colleague Lord Hawke, but may I remind the company that cricket was just as good in the old days it is now.
‘I am an old man now, and if I may make one observation about the modern game it is that young players today do not make sufficient use of their legs.’
There was much laughter at this and the Champion was briefly flustered.
‘I should hasten to explain,’ he continued, ‘that I mean the use of the legs in batting, by such players as Sir T.C. O’Brien, running out to slow bowlers and hitting them for four and the like.’
Cheers and applause greeted this analysis.
‘I shall not crave your indulgence any longer, and instead defer in favour of those more qualified to speak on such an auspicious occasion as this than I am.’
There was another long ovation and it was several minutes before the MP Walter Long could propose a toast to ‘imperial cricket’, adding, ‘the game has strengthened the bonds of Empire, and, in the expressions “that is cricket” and “it is not cricket” the game has provided phrases defining the highest standard of honour’.
Half an hour later Grace walked out of the hotel and turned left towards the station. He had a few minutes before his train so he walked down the hill and crossed the street to the bank of the Thames. A few steam barges sailed back and forth, black silhouettes against the light reflecting from the surface of the water.
He’d felt old tonight. He was old, there was no escaping that, but he didn’t often feel it the way he had this evening. Many of the young men in the room, their eyes flashing with youthful happiness and wine in the soft light of the candelabras, would never have seen him play in his most prolific years. Some wouldn’t even have been born.
Yet for all the talk of the future and the boisterous joy that in
fused the atmosphere in the room, he couldn’t quite share the naked optimism with which the air positively thrummed. When he looked around the candlelit faces at some of the young players he recognised, he felt almost like an old schoolmaster, chalking off another generation to add to all those that had gone before. Yet there was something about the occasion that nagged at him. Maybe it was because it came so hard on the heels of Allan Steel’s death: he should have been there, should have shared the occasion, adding his own anecdotes to the post-prandial reminiscence with brandy in hand. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but something seemed to be tugging at the fringes of his soul, something elusive but something that came with a sense of foreboding.
It was probably just the fact that the world was changing, and changing so fast. Lord’s itself was practically unrecognisable from the semi-rural cabbage patch on to which he’d walked for the first time that hot July day in 1864. There had been no grandstand and no nursery, while the tavern was a ramshackle affair far removed from the current incarnation. The Pavilion was now nearly 25 years old and he was the only one still calling it the ‘new’ pavilion.
For most of the summer he’d had to bat with a runner as he’d become so slow between the wickets. He rarely bowled, and if he did it was only a couple of overs at a time. His old team-mates and colleagues were all dying off: the visitors arriving at Fairmount to play billiards and whist and talk about the old days were becoming fewer and fewer. Maybe that was why this sense of portent was tugging at him, just out of view.
Yes, that must be it, he thought. I’m just an old man. I’m young in my mind and young in my heart, and as my batting averages prove I’m young in my eye. Everything else is old and decaying. That, he thought, must be the only thing to account for the sense of ennui he’d felt at the dinner this evening and lay behind a vague sense, just a shimmer at the edges of his being, of impending doom.
Gilbert: The Last Years of WG Grace Page 9