CHAPTER VI
Charlotte hurried down to the open fields below, vaguely frightened at the pounding of her heart, vaguely angry with herself because she felt that way. "As though I'd drop my plans for him!" she thought. "Would he drop his for me?"
She came to the open fields, but hesitated to cross them for fear that Neil might be watching and would follow. "I wonder if he's calling yet," she smiled half wistfully, half defiantly; and, still smiling, she bent her head and listened. Presently from the road she heard the noise of the Little Rattler, clattering down the hill. She pictured Neil at the wheel, lonely, disappointed, sadly going down the hill which he had mounted with such high hopes.
"I don't care!" she thought, tossing her head. "People have to be smart and think of themselves if they want to get on in the world. He was thinking of himself when he asked me, and I was thinking of myself when I ran away. … All the same, I'm glad I didn't have to practice on him. It was a horrid idea, and I'm glad I didn't have to. And I've found that a man can love me if he likes me—yes, homely as I am—and that's an awful lot to know."
It was knowledge, indeed, that gave her a deeper hold on life. Even as she swung down the fields to the farm, there seemed to be a greater sense of assurance in her poise, a prouder tilt to the angle of her chin; and in the next few weeks the Faithful Seven might have seen greater depths of tenderness in her eyes, especially when she turned to answer a question after looking through the window at the blue sky which hung over the old Marlin elms outside.
"I'm glad he hasn't come back," said Charlotte the day after school had closed for the summer. From which you can see that she must have been thinking of Neil, particularly as she was practising difficult shots in the gravel pit. "To-morrow I'll go and have my name entered for the Woman's Tournament, and after that, of course, I shan't be able to think of anything else."
Next morning she went down to the New London Golf Club where, as you know, she was already good friends with Mr. Ogilvie, the professional. Perhaps her adventure with Neil had given an added assurance to her playing as well, but whatever it was, after she had gone around the course twice with Mr. Ogilvie, he not only opened his eyes in the widest amazement, but he also said: "Will ye come to the clubhouse a few minutes, Miss Marlin? I want to introduce you to our president and have a few words wi' him."
He left her in a chair on the veranda and went inside to find Mr. Phair, the resident. Although Charlotte had never seen him, she had read of him often; and presently, when the sound of two voices came through an open window, one of them belonging to Mr. Ogilvie, it didn't require much effort to deduce that the other belonged to Mr. Phair.
"I tell ye, sir," said Mr. Ogilvie, "I've coached her till she's a wonder. The first time around I played easy, being unsuspicious, and she beat me. The second time I played as canny as I could, but she beat me just the same!"
"Good for the home talent!" laughed Mr. Phair. "Yes, I'd like to meet this prodigy of yours."
They found Charlotte on a corner of the veranda, looking out over the Sound. "You live near New London?" Mr. Phair asked her, when they had chatted for a time.
"No," said Charlotte, "I live at Marlin Mills."
"Where's that?"
"In the northeast corner of the state, 'the wild part of Connecticut!’" she smiled. And then in an honest desire to play fair with this twinkling-eyed, gray-haired gentleman, she quietly added: "I'm the school-teacher up there."
"No!" he cried in delight.
"Oh, but I am," said Charlotte, and watched to see how he would take it. "Perhaps he won't like me," she thought, "now he knows I'm not rich. Perhaps he'll change his tone," she thought, "now he knows I'm a school-teacher."
But Charlotte needn't have worried. For one reason, Mr. Phair was an American gentleman, which is as far as anyone can get from being snobbish. And, for another reason, he had made his own millions and had made them honestly; that is to say, he had the gift of imagination and knew how to carry a plan out well. The golf course, the huge hotel, whose roof could be seen above the trees, the concrete road which wound along the shore for ten miles between a double line of maples, the cottages, the model farm—all these were the fruits of Mr. Phair's genius.
"My dear young lady!" he delightedly cried again, "if you can only win! But where have you been practising? "
"Up at the farm. The fields are much like the links here—all hills and hollows."
A deep content had fallen over her. "He likes me," she thought, "even if I am a school-teacher. He likes me even if I am poor and homely." She straightway fell to liking Mr. Phair with all her might and main, and when they parted half an hour later it was like a parting of old friends.
"I shall send your name in to-night," he said. "And if you can bring the championship to New London—well, you wait and see what happens to you!"
That was in July, and the tournament began on the sixteenth of August. There were forty-seven entries that year for the Woman's International Title—including two from Canada, one from Hawaii, and three from Great Britain, among the latter being Lady Salisbury, the famous English player and holder of the title. "Imagine!" murmured Charlotte. "Coming all the way from Canada—and Honolulu—and England—and Scotland! And here I have the boldness to think that I can beat them all."
For a little while her heart turned heavy and her feet turned cold, but a few minutes later Charlotte tossed her head so vigorously that, if she had been a queen, her crown would certainly have tumbled off. "No, sir!" she cried. "Lady Salisbury can't frighten me. All the champions living are going to be beaten some day, and why shouldn't I beat one?"
But the next day, when she packed her suit case, she had to grow quite angry with herself to keep her courage up, and when Mr. Briggs' red-wheeled buggy came up from Penfield to take her to the station she wept openly and bade Aunt Hepzibah good-bye as though she never expected to see her in this world again.
The tournament began on Monday. The business of the first day was to reduce the number of contestants to thirty-two. Charlotte started early and turned in a score which easily qualified her as an entrant, and after that she had nothing to do except watch the others.
"I guess I'm the only poor one," she thought once. "All the others seem to have that dress and manner"
She was anxious to see Lady Salisbury, but the latter, also finishing early, had disappeared, and the most that Charlotte could learn was that her ladyship was staying with friends.
"It must be nice to be a ladyship staying with friends," thought Charlotte, who was staying at a boarding house which Mr. Ogilvie had recommended; "but I guess I'll see her soon enough. I only hope I shan't be matched against her to-morrow."
The next day the thirty-two qualifying players were paired off into sixteen sets of opponents. Charlotte was matched against a girl from California. After the first few minutes, the result was never in doubt. "Take it easy, miss," said the highly gratified Mr. Ogilvie, who was caddying for Charlotte. "You hold her in the hollow of your hand."
Thereafter Mr. Ogilvie's face denoted such stoniness of expression that you might have been puzzled to know the state of his feelings; but if you could have seen the tremendous winks which he secretly gave himself from time to time, you would have known that at least he wasn't unhappy.
"Didn't I tell you?" he demanded, when Charlotte won against the girl from California.
The next day there were sixteen surviving players, which made eight contesting couples. Charlotte was suffering a reaction from the excitement of the day before, and she caused Mr. Ogilvie acute suffering for the first four holes. "She's cr-r-racking! She's cr-r-racking under the strain!" he groaned to himself.
But, as you will remember, Charlotte had made it a point to practice whenever she felt under the weather, and by the time they had finished half the course Mr. Ogilvie was breathing easily again. "Eh, but she's the bonny player!" he told Mr. Phair that afternoon when Charlotte had qualified for the semifinals. "She was a wee bit shaky at the start, but I soon had her steadied down."
"Where is she now?" asked Mr. Phair.
"I misdoubt she's watching Lady Salisbury playing her last few holes."
They found her, very quiet and very thoughtful. "No wonder she's the champion," she was thinking, as Lady Salisbury made a smashing drive right straight for the last hole. "If I could only play like that!"
From this melancholy wish she was aroused by the pleasant voice of Mr. Phair who introduced Mrs. Phair to her.
"Where are you staying, my dear?" asked Mrs. Phair, when they had congratulated Charlotte on her showing of the last two days.
"I'm boarding," she answered as honest as ever; but even while she spoke she couldn't help comparing herself again to the brilliant Lady Salisbury, "who was staying with friends."
"I want you to come and stay with us," said Mrs. Phair.
"Oh, thank you, but I couldn't!" gasped Charlotte.
"But, my dear; why not?"
"I—I only brought a few things with me."
"I think you're very sensible; but really, that has nothing to do with it. It isn't your clothes, you know, that Mr. Phair and I would like to have with us. It's yourself. You've no idea how interested we are in you, and how we hope you'll win."
"But I should feel so mortified if I didn't win," protested poor Charlotte.
"Then let us put it this way," said Mrs. Phair: "if you win you'll come and spend a week or two with us."
"I should love to," said Charlotte. "But it's a terrible big 'If!’"
Next day the contestants had narrowed down to four. To Charlotte's relief she wasn't matched against Lady Salisbury, but against Mrs. Hall, a veteran player from Long Island. Mr. Phair must have whispered a few words to the reporters the day before, because that morning nearly every metropolitan paper had a story in it about the "golfing schoolma'am," and when the day's play began, the gallery which followed Charlotte was larger than Lady Salisbury's.
"Oh, I've got to win!" she thought, noting the sympathetic glances and the friendly smiles which greeted her whichever way she turned; and her heart warmed to these strangers who were evidently wishing her well.
Under this influence she grandly rose to expectations, helped also by the fact that she had the advantage of youth in her favor. The veteran Mrs. Hall was feeling the effect of the four days' grind, and her play seemed pale when compared to the fire of her opponent's. In short, Charlotte won so easily that it surprised herself; and when a friendly cheer greeted the result, she felt that quick, tearful pride which she had always felt at school upon seeing Mr. Chapman come into the room and begin writing on the board:
ROLL OF HONOR
1. Charlotte Marlin2. James
Lady Salisbury also won her match that day.
"I thought as much," said Mr. Ogilvie in a fine, stony ecstasy. "Ye'll have to fight it out wi' her ladyship to-morrow. But now I want you to come and let the newspaper lads take your photo. 'Tis a matter I promised them faithfully if they'd let you alone on the links."
He led her to the south side of the clubhouse, where the photographers were waiting, and a moment later Mr. Phair appeared with Lady Salisbury. The two contestants stood side by side while the camera shutters clicked. Lady Salisbury was a tall, striking type of rather masterful beauty, and there was somewhat more condescension than friendliness in her first manner to Charlotte—the manner of a grand lady who might be talking to a governess. Charlotte went into her shell directly, her heart fluttering more than a little.
But that was nothing to the way it fluttered the next morning when she stepped forward to lead off the deciding game. Around them was one of the largest crowds ever assembled on an American golf course, but all that Charlotte was conscious of at first was the critical eye of Lady Salisbury.
"I wish she wouldn't stare so!" thought Charlotte, becoming more and more self-conscious every moment.
She furtively glanced around and saw that everyone else was watching her too; whereat her self-consciousness reached its climax. Her cheeks tingled; her knees started trembling.
LADY SALISBURY'S CRITICAL EYE WAS FOLLOWING HER LIKE A SEARCHLIGHT
Lady Salisbury's critical eye was following her like a searchlight, and altogether it wasn't surprising that after a wild swing Charlotte nearly missed her ball, which rolled forward a few miserable feet instead of sailing grandly half way to the hole.
The gallery gasped. Mr. Ogilvie groaned. And, fortunately for Charlotte, Lady Salisbury smiled. Yes, fortunately for Charlotte! And why? Because it only needed Lady Salisbury's smile to drive the blush from her cheeks and to stiffen her knees till they felt as firm as two steel sockets. "I'll show them," she breathed; "yes—homely as I am!"
It was a thought which had won her many a struggle. She was no longer playing Lady Salisbury; she was playing her old imagined enemy—that wicked fairy who had tiptoed to her cradle and given her the Marlin nose and chin! She was no longer Charlotte Marlin; she was the apple-tree girl—a little Miss Moses on a pilgrimage, leading herself and her sisters into a promised land where pretty maids count about the same as pretty men, and the average girl can be a heroine just as well as though she were a modern Hebe!
Lady Salisbury drove off—with a beautiful drive—and then Charlotte advanced to her ball again. And, oh, what a silence fell upon the gallery! With deadly precision Charlotte gave the ball such a horrible smack that it swirled in the air as though shot from a gun. It sailed straight down the course and landed thirty yards in front of Lady Salisbury's!
"Ye'll be all right again now," said Mr. Ogilvie, with the exalted assurance of one who knows that his prayers have been answered; and when Charlotte's next shot took her ball to within a few feet of the hole, Mr. Ogilvie privately remarked in an aside to Lady Salisbury's caddie:
"Mon, you're beat before you start. You might as well pack up your box and go home!"
It would take an epic writer to do full justice to that game—to tell how Charlotte first went ahead, how Lady Salisbury overtook her, how they tied five holes in succession, how Lady Salisbury stared, how Charlotte stared back, how the gallery nudged one another, how Charlotte began to forge ahead, how desperately Lady Salisbury tried to overcome the lead, how she gradually pulled up, and how the gallery thrilled when Charlotte forged ahead again, simply because she could hit the ball harder than Lady Salisbury.
And why could Charlotte hit the ball so hard? First, because she was fighting for a principle; and, second, without a doubt, because of Micah's apple tree! As long as she could remember, she had carefully refrained from burying anything at the roots of her tree which might show upon the fruit when the day of harvest came. She had lived simply, sweetly—yes, and wisely, even to such little things as avoiding those late hours which are sometimes unavoidable if one is "staying with friends."
In short, when Lady Salisbury cracked under the strain at the fourteenth hole (and quite lost her temper for a minute), Charlotte won the next three holes without the least effort in the world, and had not only gained the International Championship and brought the title back to America, but had also solved her Second Great Sum.
With all the handicaps in the world against her, with no one to thank but her brave, old-fashioned, little self, she had quietly emerged from the obscurity of Marlin Mills—and had made herself famous!