It was then that he noted for the first time that the bowler was Blagdon.
The sight sent a thrill through Reginald. He had seen Blagdon bowl at the nets, but he had never dared to hope that he might bat against him in a match. Exigencies of space forbid a detailed description of Blagdon's bowling. Suffice it to say that it was a shade inferior as bowling to Reginald's batting as batting.
It was Reginald's invariable custom to play forward, on principle, to each ball of his first over wherever it pitched. He called this playing himself in. In accordance with this rule he lunged grandly for six balls (three of which were long-hops to leg), and Blagdon registered a maiden. Four small boys near the pavilion clapped tentatively, but an octogenarian scowled, and, having said that cricket was a brighter game in his young days, went on to compare Reginald unfavourably with Alfred Mynn.
Scarcely had Reginald recovered from the pleasurable shock of finding Blagdon bowling at one end when he was amazed to find that Westaway was bowling at the other. Critics had often wrangled warmly as to the comparative merits of Blagdon and Westaway as bowlers; some thought that Blagdon had it, others that Westaway was the more putrid of the two; a third party called it a dead heat.
The Chigley Heath captain hit Westaway's first ball for three, and Reginald, coming to the batting end, suddenly resolved that this was an occasion on which conventional rules might be flung to the winds; instead, therefore, of playing forward at a full-pitch to leg, he waited for it, and lashing out sent it flying over short slip's head for a single.
That stroke marked an epoch. Reginald was now set.
The ordinary batsman, whose average always pans out at the end of the season between the twenties and the thirties, does not understand the whirl of mixed sensations which the really incompetent cricketer experiences on the rare occasions when he does notch a few. As ball follows ball, and he does not get out, a wild exhilaration surges through him, followed by a sort of awe as if he were doing something wrong, even irreligious. Then all these yeasty emotions subside, and are blended into one glorious sensation of grandeur and majesty, as of a giant among pygmies. This last state of mind does not come till the batsman's score has passed thirty.
By the time that Reginald, ballooning one of Blagdon's half-volleys over cover-point's head, had made his score thirty-two, he was in the full grip of this feeling. As he stood parting the pitch and waiting for the ball to be returned from the boundary, he felt that this was Life, that till now he had been a mere mollusc. His eye rolled proudly round the field.
As it did so it was caught by the clock of the adjacent church, and the sight of that clock was like a douche of cold water. The hands stood at a quarter past four.
Let us pause and ponder on this point for a while. Do not let us dismiss it as if it were some mere trivial everyday difficulty, because it is not. It is about the heftiest soul problem ever handed out to suffering man. You, dear reader, play a long and stylish innings every time you go to the wickets, and so do I; but Reginald was not like us. This was the first occasion on which the ball had seemed larger to him than a rather undersized marble. It was the first occasion on which he had ever hit at a ball with the chances in his favour of getting it anywhere near the centre of the bat.
On the other hand, he was passionately devoted to Margaret Melville, whom he was due to meet at Brown's boathouse at four-thirty sharp. It was now four-fifteen, and Brown's boathouse was still a mile away.
Reginald Humby was at the cross-roads.
The mental struggle was brief but keen. A sharp pang, and his mind was made up. Cost what it might he must stay at the wickets. Not even for Margaret could he wilfully put an end to an innings like this. If she broke off the engagement — well, it might be that Time would heal the wound, and that after many years he would find some other girl for whom he might come to care in a wrecked, broken sort of way. But a chance like this, a chance of batting thoroughly set, against the bowling of Blagdon, Westaway, Blake, and Harris, could never come again. Such things did not happen twice in a lifetime. Only to the very favoured did they happen once. What is Love compared to a chance of knocking up a really big score?... Reginald prepared to face the bowling again.
Soon a burst of applause from the pavilion signalled the fact that Reginald had made the first fifty of his life.
The time was now twenty-five to five, and Brown's boathouse was exactly where it had been at a quarter past four, a mile away.
But there was no room now in Reginald's mind for even a passing thought about Brown's boathouse, for his gleaming eyes had seen that Grigson was being put on to bowl. Antony would have forgotten Cleopatra if he had had the chance of batting against Grigson.
If Grigson, as a bowler, had one fault more than another (which his friends denied), it was that he was too tantalising. In pace his deliveries were — from a batsman's point of view — ideal. It was in direction that they erred. His first ball soared languidly into the hands of second slip, without touching terra firma. His second was fielded and returned by point. Reginald watched these truants with growing impatience.
At the third ball he could restrain himself no longer. The sight of the square-leg umpire shaping for a catch maddened him. He bounded from his crease, pushed the official to one side, and was just in time at the end of this manoeuvre to smite the ball as it bounced and send it hurtling to the pavilion. There were cheers; the octogenarian who had compared him to his disadvantage with Alfred Mynn handsomely retracted his words; and two small boys in their enthusiasm fell out of a tree.
Of the remaining hour and ten minutes of his innings Reginald's recollections are like some blurred but beautiful dream. He remembers occasional outstanding hits — as when he scored a boundary off a ball of Grigson's which stopped dead two-thirds of the way down the pitch, and when he beat short-slip in a race for a delivery of Harris's. But the greater part of the innings has fled from him.
One moment, however, still stands out sharp and clear in his memory — the moment when a second burst of cheering, beside which the first was as nothing, informed him that his score had reached three figures. After that one or two more lofty hits, and finally the crash of the stumps and the triumphant return to the pavilion on the shoulders of a mixed bevy of Chigley Heathens and Hearty Lunchers.
For some fifteen minutes he sat on a bench in a moist, happy trance.
And then, suddenly, like a cold douche, came the thought of Margaret.
Reginald sprang for the dressing-room and changed his clothes, his brain working feverishly.
And as he laced his boots there came, like some knell, the sound of the clock outside striking six.
Margaret and her mother were seated in the drawing-room when Reginald arrived. Mrs Melville, who had elicited the information that Reginald had not kept his appointment, had been saying 'I told you so' for some time, and this had not improved Margaret's temper. When, therefore, Reginald, damp and dishevelled, was shown in, he felt like a man who has suddenly discovered the North Pole. Mrs Melville did her celebrated imitation of the Gorgon, while Margaret, lightly humming an air, picked up a weekly paper and became absorbed in it.
'Margaret, let me explain,' panted Reginald.
Mrs Melville was understood to remark that she dared say.
Margaret's attention was riveted by a fashion plate.
'Driving in a taximeter to Charing Cross this afternoon,' resumed Reginald, 'I had an accident.'
(Which was the net result of his feverish brain-work in the pavilion dressing-room.)
The weekly periodical flapped to the floor.
'Oh, Reggie, are you hurt?'
'A few scratches, nothing more; but it made me miss my train.'
'Oh, Reggie! but why didn't you wire? I have been worrying so.'
'I was too agitated, dearest.'
'What train did you catch?'
'The five-one.'
'Why, Brewster was coming home by the five-one. Did you see him,'
Reginald's jaw dropped s
lightly.
'Er — no,' he said.
'How curious,' said Margaret.
'Very curious,' said Reginald.
'Most curious,' said Mrs Melville.
They were still reflecting on the singularity of this fact when the door opened again, and the son of the house entered in person.
'Thought I should find you here, Humby,' he said. 'They gave me this at the station to give to you; you dropped it this morning when you got out of the train.'
He handed Reginald the missing pouch.
'Thanks,' said the latter, huskily. 'When you say this morning, of course you mean this evening but thanks, all the same — thanks — thanks.'
'No, Reginald Humby, he does not mean this evening,' said Mrs Melville. 'Brewster, speak! From what train did that guf — did Mr Humby alight when he dropped the tobacco pouch?'
'The ten-fifteen, the porter chap told me — said he would have given it back to him then only he nipped off in the deuce of a hurry in a cab.'
Six eyes focused themselves upon Reginald.
'Margaret,' he said, 'I will not try to deceive you —'
'You may try,' observed Mrs Melville, 'but you will not succeed.'
'Well, Reginald?'
Reginald fingered his collar.
'There was no taximeter accident.'
'Ah!' said Mrs Melville.
'The fact is, I've been playing cricket for Chigley Heath against the Hearty Lunchers.'
Margaret uttered an exclamation of surprise.
'Playing cricket!'
Reginald bowed his head with manly resignation.
'Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you arrange for us to meet on the ground? I wanted to watch the match, only I couldn't get there in the morning, and it didn't seem worth it for such a little while in the afternoon.'
Reginald was amazed.
'You take an interest in cricket, Margaret? You! I thought you scorned it, considered it an unintellectual game.'
'Why, I play regularly in the ladies' match.'
'Margaret! Why didn't you tell me?'
'I thought you might not like it. You were so spiritual, so poetic. I feared you would despise me.'
Reginald took a step forward. His voice was tense and trembling.
'Margaret,' he said, and his accents thrilled with a dawning hope, 'this is no time for misunderstandings. We must be open with one another. Our happiness is at stake. Tell me honestly, do you like poetry really?'
Margaret hesitated, then answered bravely:
'No, Reginald,' she said. 'It is as you suspect. I am not worthy of you. I do not like poetry. Ah, you shudder! You turn away!'
'I don't,' yelled Reginald. 'I don't. You've made me another man, Margaret!'
She stared, wild-eyed, astonished.
'What! Do you mean that you, too —'
'I should jolly well think I do. I tell you I hate the beastly stuff. I only pretended to like it because I thought you did. The hours I've spent mugging it up! I wonder I've not got brain fever.'
'Reggie! Used you to read it up too? Oh, if I'd only known!'
'And you forgive me — this afternoon, I mean?'
'Of course. You couldn't leave a cricket match. By the way, did you make any runs?'
Reginald coughed.
'A few,' he said, modestly. 'One or two. In fact, rather a lot. As a matter of fact, I made a hundred and thirteen.'
'A hundred and thirteen!' whispered Margaret. 'My hero!'
'You won't be wanting me for a bit, will you?' asked Brewster, nonchalantly. 'Think I'll smoke a cigarette in the garden.'
And sobs from the staircase told that Mrs Melville was already on her way to her room.
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P. G. Wodehouse
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Reginald's Record Knock. Page 2