CHAPTER VII
A CRICKET WEEK
I
By the time that Pip had reached his twenty-fifth year his name was scarcely less familiar to the man in the street than that of the leading picture-postcard divinity, and considerably more so than that, say, of the President of the Royal Academy. The English are a strange race, and worship strange gods. Pip's admission to the national Pantheon had been secured by the fact of his having been mainly responsible for the sensational dismissal of the Australians, for an infinitesimal score, in the second innings of the third Test Match.
The morning papers referred to him as "that phenomenal trundler, the young Middlesex amateur"; the sporting press hailed him as "the left-handed devastation-merchant"; and the evening "specials" called him "Pip," pure and simple.
To do him justice, Pip cared for none of these things. He was much more concerned with the future than the present. He had scraped a pass degree at Cambridge, and was now nominally studying medicine. But he knew in his heart that he had not the brains to succeed in his task, and he persevered only to please his father, who, though he admitted that his son could never hope to put up a specialist's plate in Harley Street, considered him (just as a race-horse might consider that anything on four legs can haul a cab) quite capable of doing well in a country practice.
One morning in July Pip received an invitation to play in the Rustleford Cricket Week, an honour calculated to inflate the chest of any rising amateur with legitimate pride. John Chell, the Squire of Rustleford Manor, was of a type now too rare. An old Grandwich captain, an old Oxford captain, and an old All England Eleven player, descended from a long line of top-hatted cricketers, he devoted what he called his "declining years" to fostering the spirit of the game. Rustleford Manor was one of the strongholds of English cricket. John Chell's reputation as a judge of the game was a recognised asset of the English Selection Committee, and more than one great professional had received his first chance on the Rustleford ground.
Pip was not intimately acquainted with John Chell, though he had frequently met him at Lord's and elsewhere, and had known his son Jacky at Cambridge. But he was genuinely pleased with this recognition of his merit. It was a thing apart from journalistic celebrity and the adulation of a Surrey crowd. No man was invited to Rustleford who was not a cricketer, out and out; and a man who played in the Rustleford Manor Eleven was hall-marked for life.
The night before his departure he dined alone with his father. Pipette was out at the theatre.
The great physician looked aged and ill, and Pip, noticing this for the first time,—we are unobservant creatures where our daily companions are concerned,—and stricken with sudden pity, offered to abandon his cherished cricket week and accompany his father on a short holiday to a health resort.
The doctor shook his head.
"Can't get away, my boy," he said. "Wish I could. But it can't be done. I have consultations every day for five weeks, and hospital work as well. After that, perhaps—"
"After that your fixture-card will have been still further filled up," said Pip.
His father laughed.
"You are right," he said, "I believe it will: it's a way it has."
"Well, why not fix up a month's holiday, say in five weeks' time, and stick to it?"
"And who is going to do my work?"
"I wish I could," said Pip, impulsively for him. "Dad, I must be a devil of a disappointment to you. Fancy you—and me!"
By the latter rather condensed expression Pip meant to express his surprise that such a clever father should have produced such a stupid son.
"We don't all get ten talents, old man," said his father. "But soon, I dare say, when you are qualified, there will be lots—"
Pip put down his glass of port.
"Dad, I shall never be qualified," he said.
"Why?"
"Because I haven't got it in me. You are so clever that you can't conceive what a fool's brain can be like. I tell you honestly that this thing is beyond me, Governor. I have worked pretty hard—"
"I know that," said his father heartily.
"—And I think I am rather more at sea now than I was four years ago. I have learned a few things by heart—anything that can be picked up by those jingles and tips that coaches give one—and that is just about all. Fancy me going over a patient's ribs and mumbling rhymes to myself to remind me what part of his anatomy I had got to!"
Father and son laughed. Some of the memoria technica of the medical student are peculiar.
"I have been meaning to tell you a long time," continued Pip, "but I saw you were keen on my getting through, if possible, so I stuck to it. I think I know my limits. I'm not cut out for the learned professions. Fact is, I'm a blamed fool."
They smoked on silently after that. The doctor was not altogether surprised at Pip's outburst, for he had lately been realising, from the casual utterances of lecturers and examiners of his acquaintance, that Pip's prospects were hopeless. But he was sadly disappointed for all that. He had been a lonely man all his life, and now, especially that his health was uncertain, he realised the unhappy fact that his son—his big, strong, healthy son, to whose intellectual companionship he had looked forward so eagerly—was never to give him a shoulder to lean on save in a physical sense.
At this moment, much to the relief of both, the door opened and Pipette came in. She was just twenty-two, and to the tired man in the armchair by the fire she was her mother over again.
She threw off her opera-cloak and wrap and slipped into the chair beside her father. Then after one brief glance into his face she inquired—
"Well, old boy, what's the trouble?"
"Pip wants me to go for a holiday," said her father.
"Carried unanimously!" announced Pipette. "When shall we start?"
"Can't be done at present. Too busy."
"Get somebody from the hospital staff to do your work."
"Hear, hear!" said Pip.
Dr. Wilmot gazed into the fire. Presently he said,—
"It's not altogether professional work. Pip, you said just now that you were a blamed fool. Your father is another."
"Let us hear all about it," said Pipette maternally.
"Well, I am a prosperous man as professional men go. But a few years ago I realised a good many of my investments—"
"What does that mean?"
"I sacrificed my savings to get ready money, to finance that private cancer-research commission that Sir John Lindon and I got up,—you remember, Pip?"
"Yes; go on."
"Well, the Government ultimately paid the expenses of the commission,—we shamed them into it,—and I got my money back. When I came to reinvest it, instead of putting it into the old safe place, I devoted most of it to buying shares in a wild-cat Australian scheme—"
"Which has gone bust?" said Pip.
"Not quite. But the shares are down to the bottom mark, and there is no dividend. I believe the thing is sound, and that in a year or two we shall be all right again. Meanwhile—meanwhile, children, I am extremely hard up!"
To people who have never been hungrier than an unpunctual cook can make them, the prospect of actual poverty is always rather sobering. There was a long pause. Presently Pipette slipped a soft and protecting arm round her father's neck.
"Dad," she asked, "why did you buy those queer shares?"
"To get rich quick."
"Why quick?"
"Because"—the doctor hesitated, surveyed his son and daughter rather doubtfully, and finally proceeded—"because human life in general is an uncertain thing, old lady, and my life in particular happens to be—don't choke me, child!"
Pipette's encircling arm had grown suddenly rigid, and her father heard her heart flutter.
"Wh—what do you mean, Daddy?"
"I mean that I possess what insurance companies call 'a bad life.' Nothing serious—slight heart trouble, that's all. I shall have to be careful for a bit, and all will be well. It's the cracked pitcher that lasts longest." Dr. Wilmot had unconsciously dropped into the easy and optimistic tones which he reserved for nervous patients.
After a little further conversation Pip and Pipette, somewhat reassured, retired to bed.
Next morning Pip departed to Rustleford, but not before he had conferred briefly with Pipette.
"Do you think I ought to leave the Governor?" he said.
Pipette puckered her alabaster brow thoughtfully.
"Yes; why not?" she replied at length. "It isn't as if he were in bed or anything. He'll go to his work just the same whether you are here or not. I have made him faithfully promise to come away for a holiday for the whole of September, so we must just let him have his way just now. You go and enjoy yourself, little man. I'll look after him. Besides"—Pipette's angelic features relaxed into the suspicion of a smirk—"I heard yesterday that a particular friend of yours was to be there."
"Who? Linklater?"
"No—a lady."
"Not Madeline—"
"Dear no. I thought you had forgotten her. Can't you guess?"
Pip turned a delicate plum colour.
"Ah, now you are getting nearer," said Pipette. "It's your little flapper friend, Elsie Innes. How long is it since you saw her?"
"About a year, I think. She has been away from town a lot lately," replied Pip, rather incautiously.
"She has put her hair up," said Pipette.
II
That evening Pip arrived at Rustleford.
He was hospitably greeted by John Chell, introduced to Mrs. Chell, Miss Emily Chell, and Miss Dorothy Chell, renewed his acquaintance with Jacky Chell, and then turned to the inspection of the rest of the house-party, most of whom were known to him.
The cricketers were headed by Raven Innes, a little past his best now, but still to be reckoned among the six finest bats in England. Then came Mallaby and Oake, the Oxford and Cambridge captains for that year. There was also a comic man—the Squire knew well that it takes all sorts to make an Eleven—a member of a noble house, with a polysyllabic and historic title; but nobody ever called him anything but "Cockles." There were one or two county cricketers of established merit, with or against whom Pip had waged many a gallant battle; and it was reported that the Squire had up his sleeve a young local professional, who would one day be the finest fast bowler in England.
Finally, there were two guests who require more elaborate introduction. The first was a young man of about twenty-three. His name was Gresley. His father was sole proprietor of the Gresley Motor Works, and (it was said) a man of millions. He had sent his only son to Cambridge; and the son, a shy and retiring boy, after devoting his first two years to the study of mechanical science, oblivious of the glad fact that the world contained other things to do, had suddenly sprung into fame, almost malgré lui, as a bowler of absolutely natural "googlies," which fearsome term means an off-break with a leg-break action. This priceless talent had been accidentally discovered by Pip during a visit to Gresley's home in the vacation, in the course of a game of stump-cricket on the lawn after lunch. A year later Gresley had played for Cambridge at Lord's, with a success which had qualified him for an invitation to Rustleford. Indeed it was to him, together with Pip and the Squire's professional dark horse, that the Eleven looked for its wickets. Gresley was a small, slim fellow, looking much younger than he really was. He had been brought up by his widowed father almost by hand, and had never been to a public school. He was not quite at his ease in a crowd of people, and was devotedly attached to Pip, who had done him more than one good turn since they became acquainted.
The other man, Cullyngham, was of a very different type; and indeed Pip's first action on catching sight of him playing bridge in the hall was to seek out Raven Innes and inquire, with unusual heat, what "that swine" was doing in the house.
"Can't say, laddie," said Innes. "The Squire asked him, not I. I suppose he has only met him casually, and just knows him as a first-class cricketer."
"First-class cad!" grumbled Pip.
"Quite so, my son; but it's not our house, and he's not our guest. Still, it will do no harm to keep an eye on him."
A sudden idea struck Pip.
"Wouldn't it be a sound scheme," he suggested, "to warn your young sister about him?"
Raven cocked an inquiring eye at him.
"Why her in particular?"
"I meant all of them," corrected Pip, rather lamely.
"I've only got one."
"No, no; I meant all the girls here."
"Not much," said the sagacious Raven; "they'd be after him like bees!"
After that the conversation reverted to ordinary channels, and Pip was apprised of the week's programme. On the morrow, Wednesday, the House Eleven, under the Squire himself, would play the village, led by the Vicar—a time-honoured fixture. Thursday would be an off-day; on Friday they would meet the Grandwich Old Boys, who were on tour and would put up at "The George"; and on Saturday would come the tug-of-war, the match against the Gentlemen of the County, who were reputed to have whipped up a red-hot side.
Pip, who had arrived late for tea, met the ladies of the party in the drawing-room before dinner. They were of the usual diverse types. There was Kitty Davenport, slangy and mannish, who would not thank you for describing her as "a charming girl," but would be your firm friend if you called her "a good sort." There were the Misses Chell, fresh, unaffected, and healthily English. There were the two Calthrop girls, pretty, helpless, and clinging—a dangerous sort this, O young man!—together with an assortment of girls who were plain but lively, and girls who were dull but pretty, and a few less fortunate girls who were neither lively nor pretty. There was a solitary "flapper" of fifteen, who, untrammelled as yet by fear of Mrs. Grundy, was having the time of her life with the two callowest members of the Eleven.
And there was Elsie. Pip encountered her suddenly on the staircase. She was clad in the severely simple white frock that marks the débutante, and her lint-coloured hair was "up," as Pipette had said. It was two years since Pip had seen her, for she had been to a finishing-school in Paris. He shook her hand in a manner which left that member limp and bloodless for the rest of the evening, and accompanied her downstairs, to find on reaching the hall that some never-to-be-sufficiently-blessed fairy had arranged that he was to take her in to dinner.
The most confirmed believer in the decadence of the Anglo-Saxon race might have been converted by the sight of the company round Squire Chell's table that night. Young men and maidens, healthy, noisy, effervescent, ate and drank, babbled and laughed, flirted and squabbled with whole-hearted thoroughness from the soup to the savoury; and Pip, sitting silently ecstatic by Elsie, beheld the scene and suddenly realised that life was very good. What a splendid assemblage! The girls, of course, were girls, and as such beyond criticism. And the men? Maybe they were youthful and conventional,—each would probably have cut his own father dead in the street if he had met him wearing a made-up tie,—but Pip knew that they were for the most part clean-run, straight-going people like himself, good fellows, "white" men all. With one exception. And suddenly Pip realised that the exception was sitting on the other side of Elsie.
Cullyngham was smiling and talking. He always was smiling. He smiled when he made a century. He smiled when he made a blob. He smiled when a rising ball hit him on the knuckles. He was smiling now, and Elsie was smiling too; and Pip felt suddenly murderous.
They were talking of golf. Elsie, who had spent most of her life on the east coast of Scotland, was discussing matters that were Greek to poor cricketing Pip,—stymies, mashies, Kites, Falcons, and other fearful wild-fowl,—and Cullyngham was offering to play Elsie a match round the home course next day. A brief review in Pip's mind of the most expeditious forms of assassination was interrupted by a cheery hail across the table from Jacky Chell, a hearty but tactless youth of boisterous temperament.
"Quite like old times, seeing you and Cully together, Pip," he cried. "Played each other any billiard matches lately?"
Elsie scented a story.
"What billiard match?" she inquired, turning to Pip. "Did you two play much together at Cambridge?"
By this time Jacky Chell's stentorian laughter had reduced the table to silence, and all waited for Pip's answer, which when it finally came, was to the effect that Jacky Chell had better dry up. Cullyngham continued to smile, apparently without effort.
"What is the story, Jacky?" said the Squire down the table.
"Cockles will tell it," said Jacky. "He'll make much more of it than I can."
The patrician humourist, thus flatteringly introduced into the conversation, readily took up his parable.
"Well, it fell out on this wise, ladies and gents," he began. "Old Cully here regards himself as an absolutely top-hole pill-player, and one day he was laying off to some of us in the Pitt—"
"In the what?" exclaimed Mrs. Chell.
"Undergraduates' Club," interpolated her husband swiftly. "Go on, Cockles."
"Well, suddenly Pip cuts in and says, 'Look here, you've talked about your billiards for the last twenty minutes. I'll play you a hundred up now and beat you!'"
"And did he?" said several ladies.
"Wait a bit, if you please. None of us knew much about Pip's game, as he had just joined the club, but we all went into the billiard place next door, and I stood on a sofa and made a book—"
"What price?"
"Three to one on Cully."
"Who won?" cried the flapper.
"Wait a bit," said Cockles severely. "Don't crab my story. Cully went off at the start and rattled up a couple of fifteens almost before Pip got his cue chalked. He reached his fifty just as Pip got to five."
Sensation.
"The odds," continued the narrator, smacking his lips, "then receded to ten to one, and no takers. Then Cully got to seventy-five just after Pip had reached eighteen—wasn't it, Pip?"
No reply.
"Right-o! Never mind if you're shy. Anyhow, old Cully, being naturally a bit above himself, gave a sort of chuckle, and said, 'What odds now, Pip, old man?'"
"Ooh!" said Miss Dorothy Chell. "How rash! It was quite enough to change your luck, Mr. Cullyngham."
"Did you tap wood when you said it, Mr. Cullyngham?" screamed the flapper down the table.
Mr. Cullyngham, possibly owing to the effort involved in keeping up a protracted smile, did not reply.
"Well," continued Cockles, "Pip just turned to him and said, 'I won't take any odds, but I'm da—blessed if I don't beat you yet.' And my word, do you know what he did?"
"What?" came from all corners of the table.
"He got the balls together a few minutes later, settled down—and ran out!"
"What for?" inquired Miss Calthrop languidly.
"What for? He won. A break of eighty-three, unfinished. He wouldn't go on. Said he had come there to beat Cully, not to make a show of himself. The old ruffian! He had lain pretty low about his powers. Hadn't he, Cully?"
Cullyngham, to his eternal credit, still smiled.
"Rather!" he said. "You had me that time, Pip, old man."
Cullyngham's good nature and tact having smoothed over the rather jarring sensation produced by Cockles's thoroughly tactless reminiscences, conversation became general again. But Pip wriggled in his seat. He hated publicity of any kind, and he felt, moreover, that although he was the undoubted hero of Cockles's story, the smiling, unruffled man on the other side of Elsie was coming out of the affair better than he, if only by reason of the easy nonchalance with which he had faced a situation that had been rather unfairly forced upon him.
III
Next day came the match against the village. It was a serio-comic fixture, and as such does not call for detailed description. The Squire was early astir in cricket flannels and Harris tweed jacket, the latter garment being replaced at high noon by an M.C.C. blazer which ought to have been let out at the seams twenty years ago: and in good time all the company assembled on the Rustleford Manor cricket-ground.
The village won the toss, and the Vicar, accompanied by the blacksmith, opened the innings. The attack was entrusted to Pip and the local phenomenon. The latter proved to be a bowler of appalling pace but uncertain length; and the blacksmith, whose generous figure offered a fair target to any ball directed within a yard of the wicket, growing restive under the bombardment, forgot more than once in his comments on the situation that a clergyman was standing less than twenty-two yards away.
The Vicar, an old Blue, played a skilful and patient innings, but the blacksmith did not stay long. As was natural, his chief stroke was a rather laboured upheaval of the bat over his head, followed by a downward sledge-hammer drive across the path of the elusive ball. He timed it correctly just once, and the ball, rebounding from the ground like a flash, sang over the head of the Squire at point and proceeded to the boundary for four. That was all. Next time, in endeavouring to bring off a particularly pyrotechnic late cut, the batsman was bowled. He made doubly sure of his dismissal by simultaneously bringing down his bat upon the top of the off-stump with a force which called for the united efforts of the umpire and Cockles, who was keeping wicket, to get it out again.
The next comer was the Vicar's son, a public-school bat of the highest promise; and for a merry half-hour père et fils set Pip and partner at defiance, and piled up runs to the credit of the village green. It was not until the Squire's prodigy had been taken off and Gresley put on that the schoolboy, tempted by one of the latter's insidious "googlies," mistimed a stroke and put up an easy one to Raven Innes at cover-point.
The next batsman was the booking-clerk from the station. Humourists on the boundary cried out that they expected something "first-class" this journey. They were doomed to disappointment, for the batsman was bowled first ball, a mishap which a facetious friend in the shade of the refreshment tent attributed to natural anxiety not to waste the return half of his ticket.
Eighty-two for three wickets is a good score for a village club; but when the three wickets grew to four, and so on to six, without any appreciable increase in the score, things cannot be regarded as so satisfactory. A rot set in after the Vicar was dismissed, and it was not until the last man came in that the hundred was reached. A really creditable stand now ensued, the village policeman laying on for Tusculum at one end, while the curate (whom the parish darkly suspected of ritualistic tendencies) laid on for Rome at the other. These twain brought up the score to a hundred and twenty, at which point the policeman, in attempting a sort of truncheon-stroke to point, was deftly caught at second slip by Cullyngham.
The Rustleford Manor Eleven, as was usual in this fixture, took the field tail first, a proceeding which brought Pip to an unwontedly exalted position in the batting-list. He went in first wicket, two minutes after the commencement of the innings, Gresley having knocked off his bails in a misguided attempt to pull the first ball he received. The other end of the pitch was occupied by the Squire, who had gone in first in this match for twenty years. He liked plenty of time to make his runs, he explained, increasing girth precluding any great feats of agility between the wickets.
The bowling was shared by the Vicar and the policeman, the former with lobs, the latter with a delivery so frankly illegal that Pip, gazing open-mouthed at the bowler, made no attempt to play the first ball he received, and was nearly bowled.
"Rather a doubtful delivery that, isn't it?" he remarked to the umpire at the end of the over.
"No possible doubt about it whatever, sir," said the grizzled ground-man decisively.
"You mean to say he doesn't throw?"
"I mean to say he does throw, sir."
"Then why don't you take him off?"
"Take him off, sir?" The veteran smiled indulgently in the direction of the bowler. "Lor' bless you! Now, why, sir? 'E ain't doin' no 'arm."
Pip could not but agree with the undeniable correctness of this pronouncement, which was shortly afterwards endorsed by the captain of the side, the limb of the law being relegated to a distant beat in the outfield and his place taken by another. The newcomer, an erratic bowler of great swiftness, shot his first ball into the Squire's knee-pad, and immediately appealed for leg-before-wicket. The village umpire, after an obvious struggle between a desire to get rid of a dangerous batsman and an inherent sense of loyalty to the feudal system, finally decided in favor of the gyrating Squire, and the game proceeded. Pip was bowled next over by one of the Vicar's lobs, and retired amid applause with a score of two fours and a six to his credit.
Outside the tent he espied Elsie. He sat down beside her, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. However, the House Eleven, after losing five wickets for thirty runs, at last began to put real batsmen into the field. When the match ended at six o'clock the score was a hundred and eighty-five for seven wickets, the Oxford and Cambridge captains, Mallaby and Oake, being not out with fifty-five and forty-eight respectively. By this time Pip had asked for and been promised a lesson in golf next morning, when there was to be no cricket.
There was a nine-hole course round the house park, and here the lesson was given. After breakfast the two repaired to the tee, where Pip, whose whole weapon of offence consisted of an ancient left-handed cleek (discovered in the gunroom), made laborious and praiseworthy efforts to imitate Elsie's St. Andrew's swing, and to hit the little balls which she placed on the tee for him. He had asked for the lesson from purely ulterior motives, but in half an hour he was badly bitten with the desire to excel at the game itself. He no longer regarded golf as a means to an end, but found himself liking it for its own sake. He listened carefully to Elsie's helpful instructions, ground his teeth when she heaved a resigned sigh, and glowed rosily at her rare expressions of approbation. Twelve o'clock found him still hewing his way enthusiastically round the course, Elsie, appreciative of his keenness but a trifle bored, nonchalantly playing a ball to keep him company.
The afternoon was devoted to a river picnic, at which Pip, to his huge disgust, found himself in the wrong boat both going and returning. Beyond a few minutes of what he called "good work" under a tree after tea, the afternoon was a blank for him; and it was with mingled feelings of ordinary jealousy and real concern for the girl that he found himself a helpless spectator of Cullyngham's undoubted progress in Elsie's good graces.
The evening was given to bridge, and Pip—one of the few men in Great Britain who combined the misfortune of being a hopelessly bad player with the merit of realising the fact—played billiards with Raven Innes till bedtime. Next morning broke dull and cloudy, and by the time that the Grandwich Old Boys had won the toss and decided to bat, the clouds broke and the rain came down in torrents.
There is no duller or more depressing spectacle in this world than that of two elevens waiting in the pavilion for the rain to stop. Nervous men who have to go in next move restlessly about, much harassed by the exuberance of joyous youths who play small-cricket against the dressing-room door. Weather prophets gaze pessimistically at the weeping heavens and shake their heads, while optimists point out to each other fragments of blue sky, invisible to the unbiassed eye, in distant corners of the firmament. The pavilion bore descends upon you, and having backed you into a corner of the veranda, where the rain can comfortably drip through a leak in the roof down your neck, regales you with stories which Shem probably told to Ham and Japheth under precisely similar circumstances.
On this occasion the cricketers divided their energies pretty equally between bridge and bear-fighting. Pip, who was in a contemplative mood, sat smoking patiently on the veranda railing. Presently Cullyngham, who had just cut out at bridge, came to the doorway and looked round. His eye fell on Pip, and he smiled in a friendly manner.
"Game of picquet, old man?" he inquired.
"No, thanks. Get another mug!"
This was rude of Pip, but Cullyngham took it angelically.
"Dear old Pip!" he cooed. "I wish I could say caustic things with that air. It's so effective."
At this moment Gresley came up the steps.
"Ah, here's my man!" exclaimed Cullyngham. "You are a sportsman, anyhow, Gresley. Come and have a hand at picquet till lunch."
Gresley, much flattered at this notice from a celebrity, agreed readily, and the pair disappeared into the dressing-room, where, since the rain continued for the greater part of the day, they were destined to spend a considerable time.
IV
That evening there was an impromptu dance. It was much the same as other dances. There was plenty of music and champagne and laughter; and as usual several people tried, and as usual failed, to solve the problem of how it is that an ethereal-looking and fragile slip of a girl, wholly incapable of carrying a scuttle of coals upstairs or of walking five miles without collapsing, can go through an arduous night's exercise, waltzing strong men into a state of coma, without turning a hair.
Pip did his duty manfully, though his glimpses of Elsie were few and far between. That young lady, whether by accident or design, had filled her card rather fully before Pip reached her side. Consequently it was something like midnight when the piano and violin struck up the waltz that she had promised him, and Pip, hastily returning the eldest Miss Calthrop to her base of operations, braced himself for the moment of the evening.
He waited for some time at the door of the dancing-room scanning the returning couples, but Elsie did not come; and Pip, who was preeminently a man of action, set out to look for her.
He came upon the truant rather suddenly, round a screen at the end of a passage. She was sitting on a settee with Cullyngham, who, with his head close to hers, was talking softly and rather too earnestly Pip thought. On seeing Pip, Cullyngham began to smile at once, but Elsie looked a little confused.
"My dance, I think," said Pip gruffly.
Cullyngham rose to his feet.
"A thousand apologies, old boy," he said easily. "I had no idea the music had started again. So sorry! I surrender Miss Innes forthwith. Au revoir, partner, and thank you."
He swung gracefully down the passage and was gone.
Elsie felt a little uncomfortable. The woman never yet lived who did not enjoy playing two fish simultaneously, and under ordinary circumstances Elsie would have handled her line with all the pleasure and finesse of an expert. But somehow Pip was different. He was not the sort of person who shared a hook gracefully. He was perfectly capable of disregarding the rules of the game and making a fuss and breaking the line, unless treated with special and separate consideration.
She rose lightly.
"So sorry, Pip," she said, taking his arm almost caressingly. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting. Shall we go and dance?"
"No," said Pip. "Sit down a minute, please."
Elsie obeyed.
"It's only this," said Pip bluntly. "I can't help it if I offend you. Have as little to do with that chap as you can."
A brief silence, and these two young people surveyed each other. There was no flinching on either side. Then Elsie's eyes blazed.
"How paltry! How mean!" she said hotly. "Fancy trying to do it that way!"
"What do you mean by 'it'?" said Pip.
Elsie bit her lip. She had given herself away.
"You mean," went on Pip, "that I say this because I am jealous."
That was exactly what Elsie had meant, and she knew in her heart now that she had been wrong: Pip was not that sort. Still, she was young and independent. Pip was young and tactless. An older and more experienced girl would have seen that Pip's warning was well worth listening to. An older and more experienced man would have delivered it in a different way. Neither of them being possessed of these advantages, the net result of Pip's impromptu effort was to invest Cullyngham with a halo of romantic mystery in the eyes of Elsie, who, after all, was only nineteen, and a daughter of Eve at that. Here were the elements of a pretty quarrel.
Five minutes later, after a hot altercation, Elsie sailed into the ballroom alone, with her small and admirably formed nose slightly in the air, leaving Pip, tardily recalling Raven's advice, to curse his tactless tongue on the settee behind the screen.
To him entered young Gresley. He dropped listlessly on to the settee.
"Pip," he said, "I'm in a devil of a hole."
"What's the matter?"
"I'm dipped—badly."
"Oh—money?"
"Yes."
Pip's eyes suddenly gleamed.
"Cullyngham?"
Gresley nodded.
Pip rose and pulled the screen completely across the passage.
"They'll think we're a spooning couple," he said. "Go on."
Gresley told his story. Flattered by Cullyngham's invitation, he had agreed to play picquet—a game with which he enjoyed only what may be called a domestic acquaintance—in the pavilion before lunch.
"I suppose we will play the usual club points?" Cullyngham had said.
"And like a blamed fool," continued Gresley, "I didn't like to let on that I didn't know what the usual club points were, but just nodded. I lost all the time, and when he added up at one o'clock I owed him five hundred points. He said I must have my revenge in the afternoon if it went on raining. Well, as you know, it did go on raining, and by the end of the day I was fifteen hundred points down. Then he told me, what I hadn't had the pluck to ask him, what we were playing for. He said that the ordinary club points were a fiver a hundred, and that I owed him seventy-five pounds."
"The d——d swine!" said Pip through his teeth.
"Are they the ordinary club points, Pip?" said Gresley anxiously.
"Ordinary club grandmother! It's a swindle. He probably cheated in the actual play, too. What are you going to do?"
"I shall pay."
"Quite right," said Pip approvingly. "Pay first, and then we can go for him without prejudice. Have you got the money?"
The boy shook his head dismally. "About ten pounds," he said.
"I could raise a couple of fivers, perhaps," said Pip. "But in any case your best plan is to go straight and make a clean breast of it to your Governor."
"Pip, I couldn't! He's fearfully simple and straight in these things. It would break him up."
"I know him well enough," said Pip, "to be quite certain that you ought to tell him. He can't eat you, and he'll respect your pluck in being frank about it. If he finds out by accident, though—"
"You are right, Pip. I'll do it."
"Good! If you'll do that, I'll promise you something in return. I'll give Master Cullyngham such a quarter of an hour of his own previous history that he'll leave the place to-morrow morning and never darken its doors, or any other doors I care to specify, again. Now, you write straight off to your Governor; or, better still, make an excuse and run up to town and see him to-morrow, and leave me to tackle friend Cullyngham. I think I shall enjoy my interview more than you will."
Mr. Rupert Cullyngham had divested himself of his dress-coat, and was engaged in unfastening a neatly tied white tie, when his bedroom door opened and Pip came in.
"Cullyngham," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "you must leave this house to-morrow morning."
Cullyngham turned and surveyed his visitor for a moment with some amusement. Then he said,—
"Certainly! No idea you had bought the place. Can I have a trap, or must I walk?"
Pip did not rise to the level of this airy badinage. On the contrary, he was brusque and rude.
"You will get your cheque all right," he continued. "It will reach you on Sunday morning, so there's no need to hang on here for it."
"May I inquire—what cheque?"
"The money young Gresley owes you."
Cullyngham whistled softly.
"So it's to that young fool that I owe the honour of this visit," he said. "Look here, old chap—"
Pip broke in.
"Thanks, I can do without that. Let us have no rotten pretence on the subject. To be quite frank, I was rather surprised to find you in this house at all—so was Raven Innes. However, we decided not to make any remark—"
"That was decent of you!"
Pip continued, meditatively—
"Chell had probably asked you here on your cricket reputation. However, as I find you can't refrain from behaving like the cad you are, even when asked down to a house like this, I have decided to take things in hand myself. You will make an excuse to the Chells in the morning, and go straight away back—"
Cullyngham, who had been restraining himself with difficulty, turned suddenly round and advanced upon him.
"Get out!" he said, his eyes blazing.
Pip, who was lounging on the arm of a chair, never stirred.
"If you will sit down for five minutes," he observed steadily, "I'll give you a few reasons for my assurance in this matter. The fact is, Cullyngham, you aren't in a position to retaliate. To-day, for instance, you were wearing the colours of your old school club. You are not a member. They don't elect people who have been—sacked. Also, I came across a friend of yours not long ago. She wanted your address, or rather her daughter did. Her name was—"
Cullyngham, whose face had been gradually changing from a lowering red to a delicate green, suddenly noticed that the door was standing ajar. He hurried across the room, shut it, and turned the key.
Ten minutes later the door opened again, and Pip stepped out into the dark passage. An item in his host's valedictory remarks took him back into the room again, and he stood holding the door-handle as he spoke.
"Cullyngham, you certainly owe me one for this, so you can blackguard me to your heart's content. Also, you may interpret my motives as you like; but—we will leave ladies' names out of this question, please. Remember that!"
V
At breakfast next morning, amid much masculine concern and feminine lamentation, Cullyngham announced that unexpected and urgent family business called him away to town.
The Squire expostulated.
"My dear fellow, this is simply outrageous! What are we to do? The Gentlemen have whipped up the hottest side I have ever seen on this ground, and first of all young Gresley slips off before breakfast, and now you want to go. We shall get simply trampled on!"
Cullyngham, his smile once again in full working order, confessed himself utterly desolated; but the business was of a pressing, and, he hinted, rather painful, nature, and go he must.
Accordingly a trap was ordered round for the twelve o'clock train, and the depleted Eleven, together with the greater part of the house-party, strolled down to the ground to face the redoubtable Gentlemen of the County.
Pip had been promised an hour's golf with Elsie after breakfast. He was at the tee at the appointed hour of ten, but was not in the least surprised when his teacher failed to put in an appearance. After smoking patiently upon the sand-box for a quarter of an hour, the unconscious target of a good many curious eyes on the terrace above, he sadly knocked the ashes out of his pipe and returned to the house, to prepare himself for the labours of the day.
This was to be no picnic match. The County Club had no other fixture that day, so could put its full amateur strength into the field. With Gresley and Cullyngham playing the sides would have been about equally balanced, but now it was odds on the visitors.
However, the men of Rustleford, fortifying themselves with the comforting reflection that cricket, like most other departments of life, is a game of surprises, enrolled two substitutes for their absent warriors, and took the field with a stout heart, having lost the toss as a preliminary.
There had been more rain during the night, and the wicket, though sodden, was easy. The Gentlemen opened nicely, scoring forty-five runs by pretty cricket before a wicket fell. After that two more wickets fell rather easily, and then came another stand, during which the score rose from forty-five to eighty, at which point the more passive of the two resisters was given out leg-before-wicket. Then came a débâcle, absolute and complete, but not altogether inexplicable. The clouds were dispersing rapidly, and, once free of their nebulous embraces, the July sun began to beat down fiercely, "queering the patch" in the most literal sense of the word, and thus enabling Pip and the village prodigy to dismiss an undeniably strong batting side for a hundred and eight.
Loud were the congratulations of the spectators. The ladies especially were jubilant, the flapper going so far as to ask her two admirers for a quotation of odds—in the current coin of flapperdom, chocolates—against Rustleford's chances of an innings victory. But the Squire looked up at the blazing sun and down at the rapidly drying pitch, and glanced inquiringly at Pip.
Pip removed his pipe from his mouth, and grunted,—
"Lucky if we get half the runs."
As it turned out, this was an overestimate. The Rustleford Manor Eleven went in to bat at one o'clock precisely, and were all dismissed in the space of forty-five minutes for forty-nine runs. The pitch was almost unplayable; each bowler found a "spot"; and it was only some berserk slogging by Pip, who went in last and refused to allow any ball to alight on the treacherous turf at all, that this insignificant total was not halved.
The Elevens lunched together in the pavilion, but the rest of the party returned to the house. Here Elsie, who had spent a not altogether comfortable night and morning, was somewhat surprised to find herself seated next to Cullyngham.
"I thought you had gone," she said.
"Unfortunately," he replied, "I came down at twelve to drive to the station, to find that I had misunderstood Mrs. Chell and kept the trap too late to have any chance of catching the train."
"Never mind," said Elsie. "You'll be able to come and see the match now. It is going to be tremendously exciting."
Cullyngham lowered his head in her direction, and said,—
"Will you let me have that round of golf this afternoon—the one I should have had next Monday?"
Elsie surveyed him doubtfully. Under ordinary circumstances she would have preferred to see the cricket, but she was not insensible to Cullyngham's charms, and she liked the flattering way in which he had couched his request.
"But the cricket?" she said. "Surely you—"
"Some things are worth many cricket-matches," said Cullyngham sententiously.
Elsie gasped a little, and Cullyngham continued,—
"You will come? Leave the cricketers to themselves this time. They'll get too conceited with so much attention."
Now, whether Cullyngham meant this remark to have a particular significance, or to be merely of general application, one cannot say, but its effect was to suggest to Elsie a most appropriate punishment for Pip. Instead of sitting on the pavilion lawn applauding his performance, she would stay at home and play golf with his rival. Little boys must be taught not to be jealous.
"Very well," she said.
Cullyngham called for more whiskey-and-soda.
The Gentlemen of the County began their second innings after lunch. News of the exciting state of the game had spread abroad, and the Manor ground was rapidly being encircled by a ring of carriages and motors, tenanted by masses of white fluff, which at intervals disintegrated itself into its component elements for purposes of promenade, dress-reviewing, and refreshment.
It was quite plain that runs would be hard to get on that wicket. There was a crust of dried mud on the top and a quagmire below. The sun still beat down strongly, the birds were celebrating the termination of twenty-four hours' rain in every tree, and everybody was alert and excited at the prospect of an open game and a close finish.
Their expectations were fully realised. The Gentlemen of the County, either through anxiety to eclipse their rivals' sensational breakdown, or through excess of confidence, or simply because they could not help it, scored exactly thirty-five runs. Pip took eight wickets for sixteen. He was always a bowler of moods, and his work in the morning, though good enough, had not been particularly brilliant. A man can no more take a wicket than he can take a city unless he gives his mind to it, and it must be confessed that up to the luncheon interval Pip had been wool-gathering. His interview with Cullyngham, his rather brief night's rest, and his tiff with Elsie had kept his wits wandering. Now, braced by the knowledge that Cullyngham was speeding on his way south, that Elsie was sitting safely on the pavilion lawn, and that—most blessed of rest cures!—there was work, hard work, before him, Pip rolled up his sleeves, set his field, and bowled. He made no fuss about it; he merely rose to the top of his form and stayed there. The wickets fell like ninepins, the crowd shouted itself hoarse, and when it was all over, Pip, walking soberly in with the rest, found himself punched, slapped, and otherwise embraced by various frantic people in the pavilion.
Among the forest of hands, each containing a sizzling tumbler, that were extended towards him, Pip observed one containing a telegram. Mechanically he took the orange-coloured envelope with one hand and a tall tumbler with the other, and, thrusting the former safe out of harm's way in his pocket, devoted his attention to the latter.
This done, he put on his blazer, lit his pipe, and took up his favourite position on the railing of the pavilion veranda, what time the two chief batsmen of his side buckled on their pads. There were ninety-five runs to make, and they had to be made on a wicket in the last stages of decomposition. The two heroes, nervous but resolute, took the field for the last time, and, with nearly three hours before them, set to work, slowly and cautiously, to make the runs.
But Pip was not watching the cricket. His eye was travelling steadily round the pavilion lawn, dodging pink frocks and skipping over blue frocks in its search for the white piqué costume that Elsie had worn that morning. It was not there.
Mindful that the female sex, not content with having once successfully surmounted that most monumental nuisance of civilisation, the daily toilet, is addicted to inexplicable and apparently enjoyable repetitions of the same, Pip tried again, and scrutinised the pink frocks and the blue frocks. Elsie was not in any of them. Pip felt vaguely uneasy. Of course Cullyngham was almost back in town by this time. Still—The two batsmen were making a respectable show. Pip was to go in last. The greatest possible series of catastrophes could not bring his services into requisition for another twenty minutes at any rate. He would run up to the house and see. See what? He did not know, but he would go and see it.
He vaulted over a fence, slipped through a plantation, and tramped under the hot afternoon sun across the meadow which separated the Manor from the cricket-ground. Suddenly, in his pocket, his hand encountered the telegram that had been handed to him after the innings: it had gone right out of his memory.
"Wonder if it's an abusive message from Cully," he said to himself.
No, it was from Pipette, and Pip sat down on a hurdle and steadied himself after reading it. Presently, after a stunned interval, he continued mechanically on his way.
"Let me see," he found himself saying,—"I had better pack up my things, get a trap at the stables, and catch the five-thirty train. I'll leave a note for the Chells, and then I shan't have to face the whole crowd again. If there's no trap to be had I'll leave my bag and leg it. Only a mile or so,—I wish it was more,—got an hour and a half to fill in."
By this time he had reached the house. The place was deserted, for the butler and, indeed, most of the establishment were down at the cricket-ground. Pip went rather heavily upstairs and packed his portmanteau, which he presently brought down to the hall door. After that he went to the library and wrote a brief letter.
"Now to find some one to leave this with," he said to himself. "The maids can't all be out. After that I'll go to the stables. Hallo! That sounded like a voice. There it is again! A sort of shriek! It comes from the conservatory. My God! it's—"
He hurried into the drawing-room and darted across to the large French windows that opened into the conservatory. Then, stepping out and passing round a great orange tree in a green tub, he came suddenly on a sight that caused something inside him to gather into a sickening knot and sink down, down, down, dragging his very heart with it.
Elsie and Cullyngham, the latter with his back to Pip, were standing face to face in the middle of the conservatory. They were pressed close together, and both Elsie's arms were round Cullyngham's neck.
VI
Somehow the golf-match was not quite as amusing as Elsie had expected. Cullyngham was all deference and vivacity, and played like the stylist he was. Still, Elsie could not help wondering how the cricket-match was getting on; and when at half-past three the round of nine holes was completed, she announced her intention of going down to the ground to see the finish.
"What, and desert me?" inquired her opponent pathetically.
"You can come too, if you like."
"Hardly worth while, I'm afraid. I have to pack my bag and get some tea, and then I shall be due at the station."
"I thought your bag was packed already. You were to have gone by the twelve train, you know," said Elsie rather doubtfully.
"Yes," said Cullyngham easily, "but you forgot I had to unpack again to get out my golfing shoes. Now, I'll tell you what," he continued rapidly. "They are going to give me tea in the conservatory before I go: won't you stay and pour it out for me? Just five minutes—please!"
Elsie felt that she could hardly in decency refuse, and accompanied Cullyngham to the house and thence to the conservatory, where the maid who brought the tea informed them of the glorious downfall of the County Eleven and of Pip's share therein.
This decided Elsie. She had no desire to appear in any scene where Pip was the central figure, so she accepted Cullyngham's pressing invitation to share his tea, and, sinking into a large armchair, prepared to spend an idle half-hour until popular enthusiasm on the cricket-ground should have abated. Pip was unconsciously proving the profound wisdom of the maxim which warns us to beware when all men speak well of us. He was paying the penalty of success. If he had been bowled first ball, or had missed three easy catches, Elsie, being a woman, would probably have melted and been kind to him. But to unbend to him now would savour of opportunism, hero-worship, and other disagreeable things. Elsie set her small white teeth, frowned at an orange tree in a green tub, and prepared for a tête-à-tête. The house seemed deserted.
"Penny for your thoughts!" said Cullyngham.
Elsie smiled composedly.
"If they were only worth that I would make you a present of them," she said. "If they were worth more they would not be for sale."
"Are they worth more?"
"I don't know, really. Anyhow, they are not on the market." She drank some tea with a prim air, uncomfortably conscious that she was blushing.
There was a short pause, and Cullyngham spoke again.
"I hope I'm not boring you," he said, with a smile which took for granted the impossibility of the idea.
"Oh, dear, no. I'm seldom bored at meals." Elsie took a bite out of a bun.
"Very well. Till you have finished tea I will keep quiet; after that I will endeavour to amuse you."
The meal continued solemnly. Once or twice Elsie directed a furtive glance at the man beside her, and detected him eyeing her in a manner which made her feel hot and cold by turns. It was not that he was rude or objectionable, but Elsie suddenly felt conscious that Pip's open stare of honest admiration was infinitely less embarrassing than this.
Cullyngham, as a matter of fact, was in a dangerous mood. His was not a pride that took a fall easily, and the fact that he had been compelled to submit to Pip's unconditional ultimatum was goading him to madness. No man is altogether bad, but we are all possessed of our own particular devils, and Cullyngham accommodated more than his fair share of them. He had never denied himself the gratification of any passion, however unworthy, and at that moment his one consuming desire was to retaliate upon the man who had humiliated him. He looked around the empty conservatory, and then again at the girl in the basket-chair beside him. He could punish Pip now in a most exquisite manner.
Elsie caught the glance, and for a moment was suddenly conscious of an emotion hitherto unknown to her—acute physical fear. But Cullyngham said lightly—
"Enjoyed your tea?"
"Yes, thanks," she replied rather tremulously, putting down her cup.
"Then may I smoke?"
"Certainly. But I am going now."
"Right, if you must. I'll just light my cigarette and see you to the end of the drive."
Cullyngham produced a box of matches, and, with the paternal air of one endeavouring to amuse a child, performed various tricks with them. Then he lit a cigarette, and showed Elsie how, by doubling up your tongue, it is possible to grip the cigarette in the fold and draw it into your mouth, reproducing it, still lighted and glowing, a minute later.
"Quite a little exhibition!" said Elsie, at her ease again. "You ought to set up as a conjurer. Now I must be off."
"There is one other little trick with a match that might amuse you," said Cullyngham. "It was taught me by a girl I know. She made me go down on my hands and knees—"
"I refuse to go down on my knees for anybody," said Elsie, with spirit.
"Never mind. I will do that part. I go on my hands and knees on the floor, like this, with a match lying on my back between my shoulder-blades. Then the other person—you—has his hands tied together with a handkerchief, and tries to brush the match off the other person's back. It's extraordinary how difficult it is to do it with one's hands tied and the other person bobbing and dodging to get away from you."
"It sounds absolutely idiotic," said Elsie coldly.
"It isn't, though. Of course it would be idiotic for you and me to play it now by ourselves; but I'll just show you the trick of it, and you will be able to have some sport with them in the billiard-room to-night. Shall I show you?"
Elsie agreed, without enthusiasm. It seemed churlish to refuse such a trifling request to a man who was making laborious efforts to amuse her; but, for all that, this tête-à-tête had lasted long enough. However, she would be on the cricket-ground in a few minutes.
Her doubts were in a measure revived when Cullyngham tied her two wrists together with a silk handkerchief. He performed the operation very quickly, and then dropped on to his hands and knees on the floor and carefully balanced a match on the broad of his back.
"Now," he said, looking up at her, "just try to knock that match off my back. Of course I shall dodge all I can. I bet you won't be able to do it."
Elsie, feeling uncommonly foolish, made one or two perfunctory dabs at the match with her bound hands. Once she nearly succeeded, but Cullyngham backed away just in time. Piqued by his derisive little laugh, she took a quick step forward, and leaning over him, was on the point of brushing the match on to the floor, when suddenly Cullyngham slewed round in her direction, and, thrusting his head into the enclosure of her arms, scrambled to his feet. Next moment Elsie, dazed, numbed, terrified, found herself on tiptoe, hanging round a man's neck, while the man's arms were round her and his hateful smiling face was drawing nearer, nearer, nearer to her own.
Never was a girl in more deadly peril. Elsie uttered a choking scream.
"It's no good, little girl," said Cullyngham. "I've got you fast, and there's not a soul in the house. A kiss, please!" He spoke thickly: the man was dead within him.
Elsie, inert and drooping, shrank back as far as her manacled wrists would allow her, and struggled frantically to free herself. But Cullyngham's arms brought her towards him again. And then, paralysed with terror, with eyes wide open, she found herself staring right over Cullyngham's shoulder at—Pip!—Pip, sprung from the earth, and standing only five yards away.
"Pip!" she moaned; "Pip, save me!"
Almost simultaneously Cullyngham became conscious of something that gripped him by the nape of his neck, just below Elsie's fettered wrists—something that felt like a steel vice. Tighter and tighter grew the grip. The veins began to stand out on Cullyngham's forehead, and he gurgled for breath. Down he went, till his head was once more on a level with the floor and his aristocratic nose was rubbed into the matting. In a moment the girl had slipped her wrists over his head and stood free—pale, shaken, but free!
"Run into the house," said Pip. "I will come in a minute."
Elsie tottered through the French window and disappeared, with her hands still bound before her, and the two men were left alone.
Finding himself in a favourable geographical position, Pip kicked Cullyngham till his toes ached inside his boots. Then he thrust him away on to the floor. Cullyngham, free at last and white with passion, was up in a moment and rushed at Pip. He was met by a crashing blow in the face and went down again.
If Pip had been himself he would have desisted there and then, for he had his enemy heavily punished already. But he was in a raging passion. He knew now that Elsie was more to him than all the world together, and his sudden realisation of the fact came at an inopportune moment for Cullyngham. Pip drove him round the conservatory, storming, raging, blaring like an angry bull, getting in blow upon blow with blind, relentless fury. Cullyngham was no weakling and no coward. Again and again he stood up to Pip, only to go down again under a smash like the kick of a horse. Finally, in a culminating paroxysm of frenzy, Pip took his battered opponent in his arms and hurled him into the green tub containing the orange tree.
Then he went into the house, locking the French window behind him. The fit had passed.
Five minutes devoted to a wash, and a slight readjustment of his collar and tie, and Pip was himself again. Presently he went to seek Elsie. The girl had succeeded in freeing her hands from the handkerchief, and was sitting, badly shaken, a poor little "figure of interment," as the French say, on a sofa in the library. She looked up eagerly at his approach.
"Oh, Pip, did you hurt him?"
"I hope so," said Pip simply. "Will you tell how it happened? At least—don't, if you'd rather not."
But she told him all. "You were just in time, Pip," she concluded. "I was just going to faint, I think."
She looked up at him with shining eyes. Pip saw them, and permitted himself one brief gaze. This was no time for tender passages. He put his hand in his pocket and produced a rather crumpled envelope.
"Would you mind giving that to the Squire for me?" he said. "I have to go away."
"Go away? Oh, Pip! Now?"
"Yes, you see, I have just—"
"But are you going to leave me in the house with that man?" cried Elsie, with a sudden access of her old terror.
"If I am any judge of human nature," said Pip, "he is out of the house by this time. I don't think he will even wait for his luggage. He—he's not very presentable. I see the trap has come round for him. It can take me instead, and I'll cart his luggage up to town and leave it at his club. I owe him some consideration," he added, surveying his knuckles thoughtfully.
Elsie acquiesced.
"Yes, that will be best," she said. "The Chells will think he went off in the ordinary way, and nobody will ever know—Pip, it was awful."
She broke off, and shuddered again and again.
"I should go and lie down till dinner if I were you," said Pip gently. "All over now: forget it. Good-bye."
They shook hands and walked to the door together.
"Why are you going away like this?" said Elsie, as the groom piled the luggage into the trap.
Pip's face clouded.
"I'm ashamed to say that what has happened made me forget for a bit," he said. "I have just had a wire from Pipette—I say, here is the whole cricket-party coming across the lawn! I simply can't face them now. I could have told you about it, but not them. Good-bye, and—good-bye. I shall see you again soon, I hope."
He jumped into the cart, and was rattling down the drive by the time that the cricketers and their attendant throng, hot, noisy, and jubilant, burst like a wave into the hall. Elsie turned hastily from a window as they entered.
"Hallo, Elsie," cried Raven Innes, "what are you doing here?"
"Rather a headache, Raven. I have stayed in since tea," said Elsie.
"You certainly don't look very well, dear," said Mrs. Chell.
"You missed a great finish," said Cockles.
"Only two wickets," shrieked the flapper.
"Yes," added the Squire, "and if one of them had gone down we should have been dished. Pip deserted. Where was the ruffian? Have you seen anything of him, my dear?"
"Yes," said Elsie; "he was here just now."
One or two knowing smiles illuminated the honest faces of the cricketers.
"He came up," she continued composedly, "about four, and hurried away to catch the five-thirty train. He has just gone. He gave me this note for you, Mr. Chell."
The Squire took the note and read it, and his jolly face grew grave.
"Poor fellow!" he said soberly.
"What is it?" said everybody.
"Pip has had a wire from his sister to say that his father died suddenly this morning—heart failure. Pip has slipped away by the afternoon train: he did not want to spoil our fun. He asks me to say good-bye to all of you from him."