Fate Cannot Harm Me Page 10

  It was half past seven when Monty arrived at Fincham, and his host had already gone upstairs, so Monty went straight to his room in the bachelors’ wing. A quarter of an hour later there was a knock on the door, and Basil, already dressed, strolled in.

  “Well met, Monty. I heard you were rolling up about dinner-time. How goes it? All teed up for the test match, I hope?”

  “Hardly any practice this year—too busy—but full of fight. What sort of a side have we got?”

  “Much as usual, let me see.” Basil began to tick off the players on his fingers. “There’s George and Tom—Gerald can’t play, he’s broken a finger (Tom and Gerald were George Appleby’s two sons), and you and myself—that’s four, and of course Bobby Hawes and that damned Colonel. (Col. Murcher-Pringle was a regular but unpopular member of the side). And Johnny Rashwood—really he is the finest cover-point I’ve seen for ages. (Monty nodded assent—he had watched Johnny Rashwood fielding for Oxford in the ’Varsity match with a connoisseur’s appreciation.) Then there’s Rawstone—he’s a real good player as you know, and a boy called Clerk from Oxford, he’s a new importation.”

  “Is he any use?”

  “Not bad, but nothing startling—about ordinary sort of Authentic standard. And then there’s rather a disaster. George had got that Redman fellow, who took a whole packet of wickets for Middlesex in July—got him for the whole week—and then last Saturday came a wire to say that his father was very ill, and he couldn’t come. A big loss, and we’ve had a series of rather inefficient substitutes in his place all the week. To-morrow we’ve got an Admiral Findon-Duff, who’s just retired and come to live hereabouts—I expect he’ll let us down in the field, though they say he’s a first-class chap. How many’s that?

  “Ten, isn’t it? Who else is there?”

  “Oh, I know, Slingsby, of course, I’d forgotten him, but he won’t be much good in this weather.” Slingsby was George Appleby’s agent and a-left-handed bowler—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he was a left-handed bowler and George’s agent. When he had been first appointed, an intimate of his employer’s had ventured to draw attention to the rather rudimentary nature of Slingby’s knowledge of estate management, and his other shortcomings as a business man. George’s reply had been decisive. “Nonsense,” he had said, “look how he can spin the ball, he’ll be invaluable to me in a wet summer.” Time had certainly justified George’s optimism, Slingsby had learned by experience to manage the estate with tolerable efficiency, and his bowling had remained a permanent asset to Fincham cricket.

  Monty considered the side, and delivered his verdict. “It’s much as usual, but a bit weaker in bowling—we shall have a sticky time if we don’t win the toss. And what about the rest of the party—any ladies to add gaiety to the scene?”

  Basil smiled, for he, as well as Monty, had little use for a cricket week which lacked female society.

  “Why yes—you must know that nothing changes here. There are the girls”—(the girls were the Appleby daughters)—“and a couple of cousins of theirs, and Muriel Hawes and Cynthia Hetherington and Mrs. Rawstone—I think that’s the lot.”

  Monty nodded approval. He had hoped, but hardly expected, that Cynthia would be in the party.

  “And what about the week so far? Has it been up to standard?”

  “Not too good from my point of view. I didn’t get here in time to play on Monday, got a few runs both times against the Old Uptonians, but had a wretched match yesterday and to-day—bowled by a real fizzer in the first innings, and out trying to hook a long hop too early in the second. And then like an ass I missed a balloon this afternoon—just in front of the pavilion too.”

  Adjusting his tie Monty smiled to himself. How characteristic of Basil! To be asked about the week, and to reply with an account of his own performances! Evidently he had not shone very much before Cynthia; that missed catch rankled! Aloud he said:

  “Bad luck. It’s not like you to miss catches. But what about the matches? Did you win them?”

  “Drew, rather luckily, with the Old Uptonians, and got a proper thrashing from the Foresters. But there’s the gong—we’d better be moving.”

  A riot of friendly greetings, the scurry of the last few down, and then the party moved into the dining-room. Monty, as the latest arrival, found himself placed between Edith Appleby, who acted as hostess for her father, and Cynthia Hetherington. He glanced down the table.

  “What, no champagne?” he queried.

  At any other time or place the remark would hardly have been in the best of taste, but it did not surprise Edith Appleby at all, for the Fincham dinner rules were as well known to her as the rules of cricket. If the home side won there was always champagne, but it could be secured in other ways as well. If any one of the home side took five wickets in an innings or made fifty runs, Merton, the butler, got up champagne for dinner without further orders. Strangers, indeed, had sometimes commented on the fact that the applause which greeted a batsman’s fifty on the Fincham ground was often more vociferous than that which announced a century. One other feat was also celebrated in the same way. A straight six which carried the pavilion and landed in the rose garden was, by long tradition, considered sufficient excuse. But that was a long hit, as well as a straight one, and was in consequence of rare occurence though a great many batsmen lost their wickets in attempting it. It followed that there were very few evenings during the week when champagne was absent from the table, and Monty rightly surmised that on this occasion the home side had not covered itself with glory.

  “No—a wretched show,” said Edith. “No one looked like making fifty. Still, we ought to have been all right, for Mr. Slingsby had taken four wickets in their second innings. And then Colonel Murcher-Pringle missed an absolute sitter off him, and the Foresters declared before he had another chance. I told Father that it ought to count, but you know what a stickler he is for rules. So it’s a prohibition evening. You’ll have to make fifty to-morrow to make us safe.”

  “What a tragedy—of course we’ll make up for it to-morrow.” He turned to Cynthia. “I didn’t know you were a cricket fan, Cynthia?”

  She threw him one of her challenging glances. “I’m not really, but I like the people who play cricket—some of them, that is.”

  When the ladies left the dining-room George Appleby carried round his glass of port, and placed himself next to Monty. In spite of the soothing effects of dinner his good-humoured rubicund face was puckered by a frown.

  “I’m dashed glad to see you, Monty, even if it’s only for one match. We’ve wanted you badly. We really put up a most miserable performance to-day—never remember seeing a Fincham side play worse. I hope you’re full of runs.”

  “Well, George, I’ve had very little practice this year—I’ve been so infernally busy.”

  “Then you’d better get up early to-morrow and have a net after breakfast. We shall want all the runs we can get. And whatever you do don’t start flicking at that off ball—you’ve got out that way the last two years, you know.”

  Monty laughed. “Your memory’s too good, George. I’ll be a good boy to-morrow and try like hell. I’m sorry you didn’t do better to-day.”

  “I don’t mind if we can pull it off to-morrow. We’ve not won the Saturday match for the last three years, not since the year that Slingsby took seven for sixty-three—do you remember?” And George, as was his wont, plunged into a flood of reminiscences of former matches.

  Chapter VIII

  “In an early period of the winning game Dingley Dell gave in, and allowed the superior prowess of All-Muggleton.”

  The Pickwick Papers

  Saturday was fine, as fine and gorgeous as an English August day could be, and Monty, having breakfasted both late and well, felt superbly and gloriously happy. A perfect day for cricket in company which he enjoyed and surroundings which he loved—he could ask no more. Ignoring his host’s advice to get some practice before the game he played a game of golf croquet wi
th Cynthia, and then strolled down to the ground.

  There by an act of almost criminal carelessness he allowed himself to be button-holed by Colonel Murcher-Pringle, who had just arrived. Criminal carelessness, for among all those who played on the Fincham ground the Colonel was by common consent the one whom the judicious would always avoid. Many vocabularies had been exhausted in the attempt to do justice to his unpopularity, and many attempts had been made to induce George Appleby to drop him from his side, but without success. He had come to live in the neighbourhood eight years before, and had spent an entire winter talking cricket with George, who had asked him to play in the week in the summer following. Once invited he had regarded himself as a permanent member of the side, and good-nature, weakness or just innate conservatism had prevented George from discarding him. In appearance he looked exactly what he was; his face was red, his hair of a ginger shade, speckled with grey; he was small but self-assertive, with unquenchable pugnacity written on every feature. “Always looking for a row, and invariably finding it,” as Basil had once said. Monty, searching his more obscure eighteenth-century authors for an apt description, had called him a “nasty little stiff-rumped fellow,” and so in appearance he was. He was angular and self-opinionated, dogmatic and fussy at the same time, selfish and conceited. George, feebly trying to defend him, was fond of declaring that he had his good points; pressed for details he would say that the Colonel was really keen on the game and must have been a very good bat once. With characteristic effrontery he seemed to regard the Fincham week as run for his special benefit, and was loudly critical of everything and everybody. In the first match in which he had played he had declared that he always fielded at point, and was with difficulty persuaded that most modern bowlers had come to dispense with a point altogether. Always protesting, he had been induced to stand in the gully as being the nearest approach to his favourite position. In that place, which to satisfy his scruples he always referred to as backward point, he was accustomed to drop catches at critical moments—a habit which never prevented him from animadverting bitterly on the fielding of the rest of the side. But it was when his turn came to bat that the Colonel showed his worst side. On his first appearance he had explained that a loose cartilage made it necessary for him to be allowed a runner. That he was able-bodied and perfectly competent to run for himself was clear to every one, but no captain had yet had the courage to refuse him his demand. To escape the hated duty of running for the Colonel became the primary object of all the other players, for no one had ever succeeded in carrying it out satisfactorily. Objurgations to back up, criticism of the calling and running, and a stream of comment from the Colonel, who grew more and more peppery as he became heated with his efforts, invariably reduced the unfortunate runner to a state either of intense irritation or of complete bewilderment. Only the impossibility of refusing George Appleby could induce most of his side to undertake the task at all. Monty’s great triumph had occurred some years before. He had organized a ten shilling sweep among the eight junior members of the side, winner—or loser as he preferred to call it—to take the lot and to run for the Colonel. He had himself drawn the fatal ticket, and he still remembered with undiminished pleasure the indignation among the contributors when he had succeeded, owing to a pardonable misunderstanding, in running out the Colonel before he had scored. His cheerful “Sorry, Colonel, wanted to get you off the mark,” and the outburst which it brought forth had done something to satisy the others that they had had value for their money, but some of them still felt that he had been overpaid for two minutes’ work.

  If, then, Monty had not been criminally careless he would have avoided the Colonel; but his mind was elsewhere, and he was button-holed before he realized his danger.

  “Good-morning, Renshaw. So you’re here again. I’m bound to confess that I don’t believe in changing the side in the middle of the week, but I suppose you couldn’t get here before.”

  “No. I’ve been too busy.”

  “The cricket has been bad, definitely bad, this year. Appleby seems to have no idea whatever of getting his side together. Yesterday he had one of the bowlers fielding for an hour in the deep. Every one ought to have his fixed position in the field, and stick to it. And if I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a hundred times, not to keep Slingsby on so long; he’s bowling the other side in all the time on these wickets. No element of surprise about him. And Hawes—an absurd bowler to my mind. Fast, of course, and swings the new ball, but far too erratic for this class of cricket. No idea of the value of length. When I was young every side had four bowlers at least who could keep a length—an immaculate length—for the whole day if necessary. Yet nowadays we must open our bowling with a wild tearaway brainless slinger like Hawes. It’s all wrong. Of course Appleby ought to get a fast bowler who can keep a length all the time to start the bowling.”

  “Don’t you think a bowler like that tends to play the other side in?” suggested Monty a little maliciously.

  An angry gleam lighted up the Colonel’s eye. “Play them in! Nonsense. Get them out, Sir. I said a fast bowler; it’s slow length bowling, like Slingsby’s, that plays them in. But it’s no good preaching ordinary common sense to Appleby. He never does what I suggest—and what’s the result? Look at this week’s matches! We beat the Hunt, but then they’re no sort of a side; we can only just draw with the Old Uptonians, although half of them have only just left school, and we get thrashed, yes thrashed, by a most mediocre Forester side. And half of it’s captaincy. Of course Appleby is an excellent fellow—I’d never say a word against him—but it’s pitiable to see him let his side go to pieces. We collapsed yesterday, positively collapsed, and I don’t believe he gave any orders whatever to the batsmen. That conceited puppy Paraday-Royne, for example, got out trying to hook a long-hop before he’d had a look at the bowling. If I’d been captain he’d have had the most emphatic orders to take no risks of that kind at all until he was thoroughly set. And though I don’t like saying it, Appleby made the greatest possible mistake in putting me in so late. Number nine, and just when an experienced player was wanted to go in early and keep the side together. I was not out at the finish—a waste of a wicket.”

  Monty was a good-natured man, but his patience was being rapidly exhausted.

  “Look at those ducks coming over to the pond,” he said, and then as the Colonel turned his head away from the pavilion—“But surely that’s Oliver arriving; I must go and say how-do-you-do to him.”

  It was not Sir Anstruther, as Monty very well knew, but he was away from the seat before the Colonel could start another sentence.

  A few minutes later the cars bringing the Besterton side arrived at the pavilion. That was always an exciting moment, for Sir Anstruther, with the cunning born of long experience of these encounters, would never disclose the composition of his side until the day of the match. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to spring a surprise upon the enemy—some new batsman of impregnable defence or some new bowler of irresistible attack. Like the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula, Sir Anstruther liked to keep his reserves out of sight until the last moment; only when the battle was about to be joined and when it was too late to counter them would the full strength of his dispositions be revealed. So there was a lively and almost fearful interest in the moment of arrival. Old opponents were being hilariously greeted, and it seemed to Monty as he joined the group that this year there were no new faces. But the last car was now unloading and from it appeared two young men whom he did not at first recognize.