CHAPTER XI
"_NATURAM FURCA EXPELLAS ..._"
ALAS!
When Pip slipped out of bed at six o'clock next morning the window-paneswere blurred and wet, and the Links of Eric were shrouded in drivingsheets of rain.
His pithy and apposite comments on the situation were, had he only knownit, being reproduced (in an expurgated form) by a damsel in a kimono ata bedroom window not far down the road. Elsie surveyed the rain-washedlinks reflectively, and sighed.
"What a pity!" she said to herself. "I would have given him such alesson! Now I suppose we shall both waste a day."
With which enigmatical conclusion she crept into bed again.
Pip arrived at Knocknaha after breakfast, but Elsie flatly refused tostir outside until the rain had ceased. This was no more than her swainhad expected, and he returned resignedly to the hotel, where he passedan exceedingly unprofitable morning smoking and playing billiards.
After luncheon an ancient mariner in a blue jersey and a high-crownedbowler hat approached him on the hotel veranda and intimated that theday was a good one for deep-sea fishing. It was certainly no day forcourting, and Pip, weary in spirit, was fain to accept the impliedinvitation.
They walked to the beach together, and began to haul down the old man'sboat. This done, the oars and tackle were put in, and the expedition wason the point of departure when Pip suddenly realised that it had stoppedraining.
"Hallo!" he said. "Rain over?"
"Aye," remarked the old man; "it will be a grand afternoon yet."
Pip turned upon him suddenly.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Aye."
"Certain?"
"'Deed aye," replied the old gentleman rather testily. "When the top ofyon ben is uncovered like so, and the wind--"
"In that case," remarked his employer suddenly, "I can't come fishing,I'm afraid. I must go and--do something else. Another day, perhaps."
And handing the scandalised mariner half-a-crown, he departed over thesand-hills at a rate which would certainly have brought about hisdisqualification in any decently conducted walking-race.
An hour later two players approached the first tee. They were Elsie andPip.
Now the nerves of both these young people, although neither of themwould have admitted it, were tightly strung up by reason of the presentsituation. Each side (as they say in the election reports) was confidentof success, but their reasons for confidence were widely dissimilar. Pipmeant to win, because in his opinion the only way to gain a woman'saffection is to show yourself her master at something. If he had movedin another class of society he would have subdued his beloved with apoker or a boot, and she on the whole would have respected him for it:being a sportsman, he preferred to use a golf-club.
Elsie meant to win for a different reason. To begin with, her spiritrebelled against the idea of becoming the captive of Pip's bow andspear. She might or she might not intend to marry him,--that was her ownsecret,--but she had not the slightest intention of marrying him becausehe beat her at golf. Obviously, the first thing to do was to beat _him_;then the situation would be in her hands and she could dictate her ownterms. What those terms were to be she had not quite settled. All sheknew was that Pip, if he were to have her at all, should have her as afavour and not as a right.
Consequently the lust of battle was upon them both; and it was withundisguised chagrin that they found three couples awaiting their turn atthe first tee. To be kept back through the green is irritating enoughunder any circumstances, but when you are engaged in a life-and-deathstruggle for the matrimonial stakes, absolute freedom of action isessential.
Instinctively Pip and Elsie turned and looked at each other in dismay.Then Pip said--
"Let's tramp out to the turn, and we'll play the last nine holes first.It will come to the same thing in the end."
Elsie agreed, and they set off together across the links in thedirection of the ninth hole. They had no caddies, for each felt that onthis occasion witnesses were impossible.
Pip, indeed, offered to carry Elsie's clubs as well as his own, but hewas met with a very curt refusal.
"Nonsense! You would always be hammering your own ball a hundred yardsaway in a bunker, while I was waiting for my mashie."
The rain had ceased, and a watery sun shone down upon them. There was nowind, and the conditions for golf were almost perfect. The greens hadbecome a trifle fiery during the recent drought, and the morning's rainhad stiffened them finely.
Presently they found themselves on the tenth tee.
"You drive first," said Pip.
Elsie began to tee her ball.
"It's the last time you'll have the chance," he continued.
Elsie picked up her ball.
"For that," she remarked, "you shall drive first. I am not going to takeany favours from a duffer."
Pip rose from the tee-box on which he was sitting and took her ball fromher hand. Then he stooped down and teed it carefully.
"Ladies first," he remarked briefly.
Elsie, feeling curiously weak, said no more, but obeyed him. She made apretty drive, the ball keeping low, but towering suddenly before itdropped. It lay, clean and white, in a good lie a hundred and fiftyyards away.
"Good beat!" said Pip appreciatively, and began to address his own ball.His rigid stance and curious lifting swing were the exact opposite ofElsie's supple movements, but for all that he outdrove her by nearly ahundred yards. It was a Cyclopean effort, and the Haskell ball, as itbounded over the hard ground, which had been little affected by therain, looked as if it would never stop.
"Lovely drive!" cried Elsie involuntarily.
"Yes, it was a hefty swipe," admitted Pip. "I get about two of thoseeach round. The rest average five yards."
The hole was a simple one. A good drive usually left the ball in a nicelie, whence the green, which was guarded by a bunker, could be reachedwith an iron. Pip's ball was lying well up, and only a chip with hismashie was required to lay him dead. Elsie found herself faced by thatdifficulty which confronts all females who essay masculine golf-courses.Her ball, though well and truly struck, was farther from the hole thanher iron could carry it. A brassie-shot would get her over the bunker,but would probably overrun the green, which lay immediately beyond;while anything in the shape of a run-up ball would be trapped. Shedecided to risk an iron shot. She did her best, but the distance was toogreat for her. The ball dropped into the bunker with a soft thud; sherequired two more to get out; and Pip, who had succeeded in clearing thebunker with his second and running down a long putt, won the hole in anunnecessarily perfect three.
"One down," said Elsie. "Too good a start, Pip. You'll lose now."
"Well begun is half done," retorted Pip sententiously, but he knew inhis heart that she spoke with some truth.
The next hole was over four hundred yards long, and as such should havebeen a moral certainty for Pip. However, his tee-shot travelled exactlytwo feet, and his second, played perforce with an iron, not muchfarther. Elsie reached the green in three strokes and a pitch, and wonthe hole in six.
At the next hole Pip sliced his drive, the ball flying an immensedistance and curling away out of sight to their left. (You must rememberthat he was a left-handed player.) Elsie, as usual, drove a picture of aball, but just failed to reach the green with her second. Meanwhile Pip,tramping at large amid the whin-bushes, found his ball in a fairly goodlie, and with a perfectly preposterous cleek-shot, which seemed to Elsieto travel about a quarter of a mile, lay on the edge of the green. Heholed out in two putts, and won the hole in four to her five.
They were warming to their work, and each was playing a characteristicgame. The next two holes were short ones, across a high ridge of sandand back again. In each case the green could be reached from the tee.Pip, who had the honour, buried his ball in the face of the sand-hill,and as Elsie cleared the summit and lay on the green, he gave up thehole. Driving back again, Elsie carried
the hill. Pip took his cleekthis time, and his ball followed hers straight over the guide-post. Whenthey reached the green they found the balls lying side by side tenyards or so from the pin. Pip putted first, and lay dead, six inchesfrom the hole.
"This is the first half we'll have had," he said, as he stood over thehole waiting for Elsie to putt.
"Wait a little," said Elsie.
She took the line of her putt with great care, and allowing nicely forthe undulations of the green, just found the hole, and again took thelead, having won the hole in two to Pip's three.
"Don't talk to me any more about flukes," remarked Pip severely as hereplaced the flag.
"I won't," retorted Elsie, "if you won't talk to me about halves."
Pip made no mistake at the next two holes, the sixth and seventh. Bothwere long and straight, and, though Elsie drove as sturdily as ever,Pip's determined slogging brought him to the green before her each time,and at the seventh hole he stood one up.
The next hole was uneventful. The course here ran straight along theedge of the shore, with the sea on their right. Pip, unmindful of thenecessity for straightness, hit out with his usual blind ferocity, andwas rewarded by seeing his comparatively new Haskell fly off in adetermined and ambitious effort to reach the coast of Norway.
"The sea," remarked Elsie calmly, "is out of bounds. You drop anotherand lose distance."
With the advantage derived from Pip's mishap, Elsie just won the hole.The next, the ninth (the eighteenth and last if they had started fromthe first tee), a dull and goose-greeny affair, as most home-holes are,was halved, and the match stood "all square at the turn."
They sat down for a moment on a club-house seat on their way to thefirst tee proper, to begin the second half of their round.
"By gum, this is a game!" said Pip, smacking his lips.
"Rather!" said Elsie as heartily.
And, at that, a little chill of silence fell upon them. In the sheer joyof battle they had almost forgotten the great issues that hung on theresult. They were absolutely alone on the links. The few players who hadventured out after the rain ceased were well on their wayround--somewhere near the ninth hole, probably; and the green-keeper hadtaken advantage of slackness in business to go home to his tea. The skywas overcast, and promised more rain.
Suddenly Elsie sprang up.
"Come on," she said briskly. "My honour, I think?"
"Yes," replied Pip.
For the tenth time that afternoon Elsie drove the ball far and sure,straight for the green. Pip's heart smote him. Who was he that his crassand brutal masculine muscle should be permitted to annul the effects ofElsie's delicate precision and indomitable pluck?
"Elsie," he said suddenly, "if you don't win this match--you deserveto!"
Elsie looked up at him. For a moment her heart softened. She feltinclined to tell him something--that she did not want to win after all,that the game was his for the asking, that she would surrenderunconditionally. But, even as she wavered, Pip unconsciously settled thematter by driving his ball just about twice the distance of hers.Without another word she picked up her clubs and set off to play hersecond. But her brassie-shot found a bunker, and as her skill lay inavoiding difficulties rather than in getting out of them, she soon foundit necessary to give up the hole.
The stars in their courses now began to fight for Pip. His ball from thenext tee, badly topped, ran merrily into a bunker, hopped out, and layon fair turf five yards beyond. Upset, perhaps, by this fluke, Elsie forthe first time bungled her tee-shot, sliced her second into a bad lie,and arrived at the green to find that Pip, who had been playing a kindof glorified croquet-match against an invisible opponent, with his ironfor a mallet and whin-bushes for hoops, was still a stroke to the good.She lost the hole.
Pip was now two up, with seven to play. But Elsie's cup was not yetfull. Her next drive was caught most unfairly in an aggressively freshrabbit-scrape, which lay right in the fairway to the hole. Pip offeredto allow her to lift it, but she declined. Pip's good luck alsocontinued, for though he pulled his drive over some sand-hills to theright, he found his ball lying teed up "on the only blade of grass formiles," as he explained on reappearing. He reached the green in two,Elsie taking three, and won the hole.
Three down, and six to play!
There was no question of giving in in Elsie's heart now. She hadhesitated, and was lost, or at any rate committed to a life-and-deathstruggle. There can be no graceful concessions when one is three down.Under such circumstances a virtue is apt to be misconstrued into anecessity.
The next hole was the longest in the course, and Elsie felt that it wasa gift for Pip. That erratic warrior, however, failed to carry the burn,distant about fifteen yards from the tee, and was ignominiouslycompelled to fish his ball out, drop, and lose a stroke. This gave Elsiesome much-needed encouragement. Her tee-shot took her well on her way,and the ball lay so clean for her second that she was enabled to takeher driver to it. One more slashing stroke, with her brassie this time,delivered with all the vigour and elasticity of which her lithe youngbody was capable, and she lay only ten yards from the green. Pip,despite some absolutely heroic work with his beloved cleek, was unableto overcome the handicap of the burn, and reached the green a strokebehind her. However, his luck stood by him once more, for heaccomplished a five-yard putt, and halved the hole.
"Good putt!" said Elsie bravely.
"All putts of over three feet," remarked Pip, sententiously quoting oneof his favourite golfing maxims, "are flukes."
Fluke or no fluke, Elsie was three down, with only five to play. Anotherhole lost, and Pip would be "dormy." Fortunately the next three holeswere of the short and tricky variety, presenting difficulties moreeasily to be overcome by a real golfer than a human battering-ram. Elsierose to the occasion. She set her small white teeth, squared her slimshoulders, and applied herself to the task of reducing Pip's lead. Andshe succeeded. The first hole she took in a perfect three, Pip, who hadencountered a whin-bush _en route_, requiring thirteen!
"One thing," he remarked philosophically as he mopped his brow, "I didthe job thoroughly. That whin-bush will never bother anybody again."
The next hole was a real triumph for Elsie. She was weak with herapproach, and arrived on the green in three to Pip's two. Pip played thelike, hit the back of the hole hard, hopped over, and lay a footbeyond--dead.
"This for a half," said Elsie.
"This" was an exceedingly tricky putt of about eight yards over anundulating green. She carefully examined the lie of the ground in bothdirections, thrust her tongue out of one corner of her mouth--anunladylike habit which intruded itself at moments of extremetension--and played. The ball left her putter sweetly, successfullynegotiated the various hills and dales of the green, and dropped intothe hole.
"Grand putt!" said Pip. "I mustn't miss this of mine."
He humped his shoulders, bent his knees, and addressed the ball with allthe intense elaboration usual in a player suddenly called upon to hole aball which, under ordinary circumstances, he would knock in with theback of his putter. Whether his impossible posture or his recent unequalencounter with the whin-bush was responsible will never be known, butthe fact remains that he missed the hole by inches, and so lost it byone stroke.
Elsie stifled the scream of delight that rose to her lips.
"One down, and three to play," she remarked, in a voice that _would_tremble a little.
She made no mistake with the next hole. For her it was a full drive overa high bunker on to the green. Pip took his cleek, failed to carry thebunker, and after one or two abortive attempts to get out of the shiftysand with his niblick, gave up the hole, Elsie's drive having laid her afew yards from the pin.
"All square," announced Elsie. "Two to play."
"My word, Elsie, this is a match!" repeated Pip.
Elsie replied by an ecstatic sigh.
Both had entirely forgotten the stake for which they were playing. Forthe moment they were golfers pure and simple. They were no
longer humanbeings, much less male and female, less still lover and lass. The wholesoul of each was set on defeating the other.
But there are deeper passions than golf.
"_Naturam furca expellas, tamen usque recurret!_"
--which, being interpreted, means roughly that if a man and a maid setout to dislodge Human Nature from their systems with, say, a niblick,Human Nature will inevitably come home to roost. All of which is coldtruth, as the event proved.
Both gave an exceedingly moderate exhibition at the seventeenth tee, Pipbecause he not infrequently did so, and Elsie because her nerve wasgoing. Their second shots were better, though Pip as usual got fartherwith his cleek than Elsie with her brassie. Elsie therefore had to playthe odd in approaching the green. This time she did herself justice. Itwas a perfect shot. The ball rose quickly, fell plump upon the green,checked itself with a little back-spin, and staggered uncertainlytowards the hole. Finally it stopped, eighteen inches beyond the pin.
Elsie heaved a sigh of the most profound relief. In all humanprobability she was sure of a "half" now, and unless Pip laid hisapproach dead she would win the hole outright, and so make the matchsafe, safe, safe! She involuntarily clasped her hands together over herbeating heart.
Pip, impassive as ever, said nothing, but took his mashie and succeededin reaching the green. Since his ball lay a good ten yards short, hischances of a half looked meagre, but he grasped his putter withdetermination and "went for" the hole. The ball rolled smoothly over thegreen, but suddenly turned off a little and just rolled past the lip ofthe hole.
"Bad luck!" said Elsie, with ready sympathy.
Bad luck indeed, but not for Pip. The ball, as she spoke, suddenlyslowed down and stopped dead, midway, to a hair's-breadth, between theball and the hole. Elsie required only a short putt to win the hole andmake herself "dormy," and Pip had laid her a dead stymie.
Involuntarily they looked at each other. Then Pip said quickly,--
"I'll pick up my ball while you putt. We aren't having any stymies inthis match, of course."
All the sportswoman in Elsie revolted at this. "No, Pip," she said;"certainly not. We arranged nothing about stymies before we started, sostymies must stand. I must just play it."
She took her mashie, and made a gallant but unsuccessful effort to jumpher ball over Pip's. Each holed the next putt, and the match remainedsquare--with one to play. Ye gods!
They were very silent as they prepared to drive off for the last time.Absolutely alone, far out on the course, they were now approaching whatwas properly "the turn," more than a mile from the clubhouse.
"I shall put down a new ball here," said Pip, "just for luck."
"So shall I," said Elsie.
"We mustn't mix them on the green, then. What is yours?"
"A 'Haskell.'"
"Right. Mine's a 'Springvale Kite.'"
Elsie had the honour, and drove as good a ball as any that afternoon.Pip, determined to take as few risks as possible, used his cleek, andlay just beside her.
The ninth hole on the Links of Eric is known as "The Crater." The greenlies in a curious hollow on the top of a conical hill. An average driveleaves your ball at the hill-foot in a good lie. After this only onestroke is of the slightest use. You take your farthest-laid-back mashie,commend your soul to Providence, and smite. The ball, if struck asdesired, will rise up, tower, and drop into the basin at the top of thehill. Should you play too strongly you will fly over the oasis of greenturf and fall into a howling wilderness of bents, sand, and whins on thefar side; should you play short, your ball will bury itself in theslopes of shifting sand that guard the approach, and your doom issealed. It is credibly reported that all four players in a four-ballmatch--scratch men, every one--once arrived upon the Crater green, ballin hand, each having given up the struggle under the despairingimpression that no opponent could possibly have played more strokes thanhimself.
On paper, this was just the sort of hole that Elsie should have won fromPip. But in practice the conditions were even. Pip's Herculean wristsmade it possible for him to force the ball up to the necessary heightwith a half-mashie-shot, but for Elsie the task involved a fullswing--and to keep your ball under absolute control in suchcircumstances is about the most difficult shot in golf. Pip'sapproaching was at its worst unspeakable, but on this occasion he was athis best. The ball sailed grandly into the air and dropped in areassuringly perpendicular fashion into the Crater. Elsie's effort wasalmost as good, though her ball curled slightly to the left beforedropping.
They tramped up the long flight of wooden steps which facilitated theascent to the summit with bated breath. A glance at the green woulddecide the match.
Elsie reached the top first. Pip heard her give a little gasp.
One ball, new, white, and glistening, lay on the green ten or twelveyards from the hole. The other was nowhere to be seen.
"Whose ball, I wonder?" said Pip calmly.
They stooped together and examined the ball as it lay on the green. Soclose were they that Pip was conscious of a flutter that passed throughElsie's body.
The ball was a "Springvale Kite."
Pip maintained an absolutely unmoved countenance. The ball was his, andso, unless a miracle intervened, was the hole. And the match.And--Elsie!
But that mysterious quality which, for want of a better name, we call"sportsmanship," under whose benign influence we learn to win withequanimity and lose with cheerfulness, prevented him from so much asturning an eye upon his beaten opponent. He merely remarked briskly--
"We must find your pill, Elsie. It can't be far off."
Elsie made no reply, but took her niblick and began to search ratherperfunctorily for the lost ball. She could not speak: the strain of thematch had told upon her. After all she was a woman, and a girl at that.Pip's iron immobility made her feel worse. She was beginning to realisethat he was stronger than she was--a state of affairs which had neverappeared possible to her before. She wanted to cry. She wanted toscream. She wanted to go home. She wanted to beat Pip, and now that featappeared to be impossible. Half an hour ago she could have abandoned thematch with good grace. She might have surrendered with all the honoursof war. Now she would be dragged home at the wheels of Pip's chariot.
Meanwhile her opponent, that tender-hearted and unconscious ogre, wasdiligently poking about among the bents and whins for the missingHaskell. He was genuinely distressed that the match should end thus.Elsie had had cruel luck. She should have won the last hole, and at anyrate halved this one. He took no pleasure in his prospective victory. Hehad wild thoughts of offering to play the hole again, but dismissed themat once. Elsie might be only a girl, but she had the right instincts,and would very properly regard such an offer as an insult. If only herball could be found, though, Pip flattered himself that he could go onmissing putts after Elsie had reached the green until she had pulled thematch out of the fire. Happy thought! he would so manipulate the game asto halve the hole and the match. Then Box _and_ Cox would be satisfied.Beat Elsie, plucky little Elsie? Perish the thought! Pip's sentimentalheart overflowed. What a game she had played!
But, sentiment or no sentiment, a lost ball is a lost hole, and unlessthe ball could be found Pip would be a victor _malgre lui_.
Coming round the face of the hill, Pip suddenly found himself a fewyards from Elsie. She stood with her back to him, unaware of hispresence. What was she doing? Certainly not looking for her ball. Wasshe--could she--really--was Elsie, the proud, the scornful, theunbending, actually cr--? Certainly that flimsy article in her handlooked like a handkerchief. Perhaps it was only a fly in her eye, orsomething.
No. Pip watched Elsie for a moment longer. It was _not_ a fly in hereye. His heart, already liquescent, melted entirely. He tiptoed awayback to the green.
Once there, he took three balls from his pocket and examined them. Onewas an old and battered "guttie," the others were "Kites," with Pip'strade-mark indelibly stamped upon their long-suffering skins. None ofthese were suitable for his fell
purpose. Nothing daunted, theconspirator stole across to Elsie's bag, which lay on the edge of thegreen, and selected from the pocket a new Haskell. Carefully fasteningup the pocket again, he walked to the middle of the green, and after afurtive glance all round him--dropped the ball into the hole.
Then he uplifted his voice in a full-throated yell, and hurried towardsthe spot where he had last seen Elsie. As he emerged from the hollowgreen he met her face to face, coming slowly up to the ridge. Her cheekswere rather flushed and her eyes shone, but her handkerchief wasresolutely tucked away in her blouse, and she greeted Pip with a readysmile.
"Elsie," said Pip excitedly, "I've found your ball."
"My ball? Nonsense! Why, I've--"
She checked herself suddenly and followed Pip. That well-meaning butmisguided philanthropist, heedless of the danger-signals in Elsie'seyes, walked to the hole, and there, rather with the air of an amateurconjurer who is not quite certain whether his audience know "how it'sdone" or not, picked out the ball.
"There's your ball," he said. "Good hole, in two! Congratters!"
He handed her the ball with a clumsy gesture of good-will.
Elsie regarded the unoffending Haskell in a dazed manner for a moment,turned white and then red, and finally looked Pip squarely in the facewithout speaking. Then she flung the ball down upon the green, turned onher heel with a passionate whirl of her skirt, and stalked off, leavingPip staring dejectedly after her.
CHAPTER XII
"_... TAMEN USQUE RECURRET_"
ELSIE walked on. Her face was set, and her blue-grey eyes had a steelylook. In her hand she carried a golf-ball--not the one which poor Piphad "discovered" in the hole, but another, her own, the genuine article.She had spied it, lying in an absolutely unplayable position under astone, almost immediately after Pip had left her to her handkerchief.She had picked it up, and was on her way back to the green to inform heropponent that the match was his, when she was startled by a mightyshout, and arrived in time to witness the whole of Pip's elaborateconjuring-trick. She grasped the situation at once, and all the woman inher blazed up at this monstrous piece of impertinence. Her anger causedher to overlook the fact that Pip, in his desire to save her frommortification, had deliberately sacrificed his chances and thrown awaythe spoils of victory. For the moment, all she realised was that he had"patronised" her, treated her like a spoiled child, and allowed her towin. Her blood boiled at the idea. She walked on quickly.
It was not until she had proceeded for a couple of hundred yards thatshe discovered that she was going in the wrong direction. The ninth holewas situated at the extreme end of the links, and as she had turned onher heel and swung off more with the idea of abandoning her presentlocality than of reaching another, she realised that, if she continuedon her present course, every step would take her farther from the hotel.The discovery added to her wrath. She was making herself ridiculous now.Pip had probably noticed her mistake, and was in all likelihood stillstanding on the green laughing at her. Return and walk past him shewould not. Only one thing remained to be done: she would turn in amongthe neighbouring sand-hills, make a detour, and walk home along theshore.
A friendly gap between two hillocks presented itself on her left, andshe swung round and made for it. As she passed through the entrance shecould not help looking back. Pip was sitting on the tee-box beside thenow distant green. His chin was buried in his hands, and he was gazingout to sea, with his pipe projecting from his mouth at a reflectiveangle.
Elsie knew that attitude.
"He's thinking the situation over," she said to herself. "Let him: itwill do him good. Oh, dear! where have I got to now?"
She walked into a tiny amphitheatre. All round her rose walls of fine,shifting, running sand. They sloped up gradually, to where they hadfallen away from the surrounding summit, leaving a crumbling precipicesix or seven feet high, crowned with a projecting rim of treacherousturf,--a natural bunker if ever there was one, and almost as difficultof exit for a girl as for a golf-ball.
But Elsie made the attempt. She was determined not to go back throughthe gap into Pip's range of vision if she could help it. She struggledup the slope of yielding sand, which sank beneath her feet and trickledinto her shoes: she reached the top, laid hold of the overhanging turf,and tried to pull herself up. But, just as she placed a triumphant kneeon the summit, the crumbling fabric subsided beneath her weight, and shewas projected in a highly indecorous fashion to the foot of the slope.
On this occasion Elsie had some cause to feel grateful that Pip (orindeed any other gentleman) was not present. But the idea did not occurto her. In fact, things had come to a crisis. She was tired out afterher hard game, disappointed at the result,--as a matter of fact, she wasnot very clear as to whether she had won or lost,--and thoroughlydemoralised and unstrung by the strain of recent events. She had plannedout the present comedy with some care, assigning to herself thesuperior and congenial role of magnanimous conqueror, and to Pip that ofhumbled and grateful victim. Somehow everything had gone wrong. She wasangry with herself and furious with Pip, and now she had fallen downseveral yards of slippery sand and twisted her foot. She was not sure ifthe comedy had turned out a tragedy or a farce; all she realised wasthat it had been a dismal failure. In short, Elsie had expelled Naturewith a pitchfork, and now Nature was coming home to roost.
But, in spite of the pitchfork, Nature bore no malice. On the contrary,quite aghast at the havoc that her brief absence had created, she atonce took her luckless daughter in hand. Consequently Elsie, poor,distracted, overwrought Elsie, threw herself down on the scanty grass,and found immediate relief in woman's priceless and ever-to-be-enviedpanacea for all ills--a good cry.
How long she lay sobbing she did not know. When she at length raised herhead from the turf and began to dab her eyes with a damp and entirelyinadequate pocket-handkerchief, she became aware, with a curious lack ofsurprise, that Pip was sitting a few yards from her. His pipe was nolonger in his mouth, and he was regarding her intently with seriouseyes.
"You left your clubs behind you," he said. "I brought them along."
"Thank you," said Elsie.
There was a pause. Finally Elsie completed operations with thehandkerchief, and looked Pip squarely in the face. Her tears seemed insome mysterious way to have washed all feelings of anger, restraint, andfalse sentiment out of her head. For all that, she was not absolutelycomfortable. Pip must, of course, be punished for having put that ballinto the hole; but the performance of this duty demanded firmness andjudicial dignity, and she felt guiltily conscious that her recent tearswould detract somewhat from its effectiveness.
Pip, however, was the first to break the silence.
"I was wondering," he remarked, "why you raced off like that just now.Of course, there was one explanation,--that you _wanted_ to lose thematch, and were sick at having won it,--but I wasn't such a bounder asto think that. I smoked a pipe or two up there,"--Elsie started; she hadnot realised that her cry had lasted so long,--"and I thought it allover to see if I could come to a satisfactory solution of the mystery,and--"
Elsie unclosed her left hand, and displayed a golf-ball, which shetossed towards him.
"There's the solution, Pip," she said.
Pip picked up the ball and examined it. Then he took another from hispocket and compared the two.
"Ah!" he remarked. "Then you spotted me. I thought you had, but Icouldn't see how. It never occurred to me that you had found your ball.I thought perhaps you had seen something wrong with the one I put--tookout of the hole, but I see they are both identical. There's not a markon either. It was a pity you found yours. If you hadn't, all would haveended happily, wouldn't it?"
"For me or for you?"
"For both of us."
"Then you wouldn't have minded losing?" This with a scornful littlelaugh.
"No, not in this case."
There was another silence. That Pip should not mind losing a match ofwhich she was th
e prize struck Elsie as uncomplimentary, not to sayrude.
But Pip was never rude to her. Obviously there was something more tocome. She waited patiently. Pip gave no sign.
Presently feminine curiosity overcame pride, and she asked,--
"What do you mean by 'in this case'?"
"I mean this," said Pip. "I don't like losing matches at anytime,--nobody does,--but in this case, _your_ case, I was glad."
"Oh! Why?"
"At first it was because I couldn't bear to see you beaten after theplucky fight you made. I've often felt the same thing at cricket, whensome chap is sticking in to keep the last wicket up, and I am put on toknock it down. Admiration for a gallant foe, and all that, you know. Butnow I am glad for quite another reason--jolly glad!" He gave the girl alook that was quite new to her.
"Why are you glad, Pip?" she asked, not unkindly.
"Well, I had a good long think just now, up on that green, and a lot ofthings were made plain to me that had never struck me before. First ofall, I realised that you had been quite right."
"Right? About what?"
"About this golf-match being contrary to Nature. Love affairs aren'tbuilt that way. I had no right to try and force such terms on you. I seethat now. I tried to drive you into a corner. It was a low-down trick,though I thought it a fair enough offer at the time. I was quitesincere."
"I know you were," said Elsie quickly.
Pip raised his eyes to hers for a moment.
"Thank you," he said; "it was decent of you to say that. Now, where Imade my error was in this. I didn't think it mattered much whether I gotyou willing or unwilling, so long as I _got_ you. It was _you_ I wanted,you--Elsie--alive or dead, so to speak,--nothing else mattered. And thensuddenly I saw what a fool I had been. I had forgotten that there weretwo sides to the question. When a man wins a race or a competition ofany kind, he sticks the prize up on his mantelpiece and takes no furthernotice of it beyond looking at it occasionally and feeling glad he's gotit. Once there, it ceases to have such an interest for him: he hasn'tgot to live with it or cart it about with him. I am afraid I was lookingat you rather in that light. I was so taken up with the idea of winningyou that I forgot about--about--"
"About having to 'cart me about with you'?" said Elsie.
"Yes, that's it. I forgot I couldn't put you on the mantelpiece andleave you there: I had to consider your point of view as well as my own.It was then I realised, all in a moment, that unless you came to meabsolutely of your own free will, without terms or conditions, youcouldn't come at all,--and what's more, I wouldn't want you to; andthat's saying a good deal, as you know."
He paused suddenly, and darted a rather ashamed look at Elsie.
"I suppose all this seems fearfully obvious to you," he said. "Most menwould have found it out for themselves from the beginning."
"Some men never find it out at all, Pip."
"Well, that's comforting. Anyhow, having reasoned it all out up there, Iput my pipe in my pocket and came along here to tell you."
"To tell me what?"
"How sorry I was."
"What for?"
"For having behaved like a--"
"You don't look very sorry."
Pip's eyes gleamed.
"No, and I'm not either," he shouted. "I'm not, I'm not! I have seensomething since then that has driven all my sorriness out of my head. Icame along here, fearfully glum, just to say I was sorry to have forcedsuch a caddish scheme on you, and to ask if I might carry your clubsback to the house, and suddenly I came round the corner, and there I sawyou--crying."
"And that's made you glad?" said Elsie coldly.
"Glad? I should think it did!" He stood up, and continued, "Don't yousee, dear, it showed me that you _cared_? A girl doesn't lie sobbing onthe sand if she's absolutely indifferent. Oh, I know now, right enough:half an hour ago I didn't. I came upon you then hunting for your balland dabbing your eyes with your handkerchief; but that of course wasdifferent; I knew it wasn't the real thing. You were just tired then,and sick at losing the game; but this time"--his face glowed--"this timeI knew it was the real thing, and that you cared, you really cared. Yes,you cared; you had cared all the time, and I had never known it!"
He stood over her, absolutely radiant: no one had ever seen Pip likethis before. Then he dropped down on to the grass beside the girl, andput his arm inside hers.
"You do care, don't you, Elsie?" he said.
Elsie turned and looked him full in the face, without a trace ofaffectation or fear.
"Yes, Pip, I do," she answered.
* * * * *
It was long after six when they emerged from their retreat. The cloudswere drifting up once more from the southwest, and everything promised awet night. There was little wind, but already rain-drops were beginningto fall, unsteadily and fitfully. Presently this period of indecisionceased, and the rain came down in earnest. The two paused, and Pipsurveyed Elsie's thin blouse disapprovingly.
"Isn't there some place where we can shelter?" said Elsie.
"There's a sort of tin place over there, but you would be soaked throughbefore you got halfway to it. Besides, this rain means business; it'llgo on all night now."
"Come along then," said Elsie; "we must hurry. I can change when we gethome."
"Wait a minute," said Pip.
He began to divest himself of his tweed jacket.
"Put this on," he said.
"Nonsense, Pip; you'll get soaked."
Pip sighed, gently and patiently.
"Put it on," he repeated, holding it open for her.
Elsie glanced at him, and obeyed.
"You're an obstinate old pig, sometimes, Pip," she remarked.
And so they tramped home. They said little: there seemed to be nothingleft in the world worth saying. Pip carried both sets of clubs under hisleft arm. Occasionally he sighed, long and gently, as one who has donehis day's work and is at peace with all the world. Elsie marched besidehim, with her arms buried to the elbows in the deep pockets of Pip's oldjacket. (They were spacious pockets: one of them was sheltering twohands.) At intervals Elsie would look up at Pip, upon whose head andshoulders the rain was descending pitilessly. Once she said,--
"Pip, you're getting awfully wet."
Pip looked down upon her for a moment. Then he looked up again, andshook his glistening head defiantly at the weeping heavens.
"Who cares?" he roared.
THE END
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
U. S. A.
By Ian Hay
PIP: A ROMANCE OF YOUTH. GETTING TOGETHER. THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND. SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN. With Frontispiece. A KNIGHT ON WHEELS. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock. A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece. A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece. THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Transcriber's Notes:
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
Text in small caps are replaced by either Title case or ALL CAPS.
Throughout this book are "misspelled" words in dialogues which are usedto denote the sounds of words spoken by characters. Those "misspellings"are retained as in the original.
On page 4, "her pore head" was replaced with "her poor head".
On page 125, "elite" was replaced with "elite".
On page 142, "was next the dormitory" was replaced with "was next to thedormitory".
On page 149, "coning up to" was replaced with "coming up to".
On page 201, "Squire's knee-pan" was replaced with "Squire's knee-pad".
On page 305, "tickling" was replaced with "trickling".
On the last page, "U. S. A" was replaced with "U. S. A."
The ads were mo
ved to the end of the book.
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