The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
expected to foozle on purpose, just to let Archie show off before his
girl.'
McCay paused in the act of lighting his cigar, as one smitten with a
great thought.
'Why not?' he said. 'Why not, Sigsbee? Sigsbee, you've hit it.'
'Eh?'
'You have! I tell you, Sigsbee, you've solved the whole thing. Archie's
such a bully good fellow, why not give him a benefit? Why not let him
win this championship? You aren't going to tell me that you care
whether you win a tin medal or not?'
Sigsbee's benevolence was expanding under the influence of the Scotch
highball and his cigar. Little acts of kindness on Archie's part, here
a cigar, there a lunch, at another time seats for the theatre, began to
rise to the surface of his memory like rainbow-coloured bubbles. He
wavered.
'Yes, but what about the rest of the men?' he said. 'There will be a
dozen or more in for the medal.'
'We can square them,' said McCay confidently. 'We will broach the
matter to them at a series of dinners at which we will be joint hosts.
They are white men who will be charmed to do a little thing like that
for a sport like Archie.'
'How about Gossett?' said Sigsbee.
McCay's face clouded. Gossett was an unpopular subject with members of
the Cape Pleasant Golf Club. He was the serpent in their Eden. Nobody
seemed quite to know how he had got in, but there, unfortunately, he
was. Gossett had introduced into Cape Pleasant golf a cheerless
atmosphere of the rigour of the game. It was to enable them to avoid
just such golfers as Gossett that the Cape Pleasanters had founded
their club. Genial courtesy rather than strict attention to the rules
had been the leading characteristics of their play till his arrival. Up
to that time it had been looked on as rather bad form to exact a
penalty. A cheery give-and-take system had prevailed. Then Gossett had
come, full of strange rules, and created about the same stir in the
community which a hawk would create in a gathering of middle-aged
doves.
'You can't square Gossett,' said Sigsbee.
McCay looked unhappy.
'I forgot him,' he said. 'Of course, nothing will stop him trying to
win. I wish we could think of something. I would almost as soon see him
lose as Archie win. But, after all, he does have off days sometimes.'
'You need to have a very off day to be as bad as Archie.'
They sat and smoked in silence.
'I've got it,' said Sigsbee suddenly. 'Gossett is a fine golfer, but
nervous. If we upset his nerves enough, he will go right off his
stroke. Couldn't we think of some way?'
McCay reached out for his glass.
'Yours is a noble nature, Sigsbee,' he said.
'Oh, no,' said the paragon modestly. 'Have another cigar?'
* * * * *
In order that the reader may get the mental half-Nelson on the plot of
this narrative which is so essential if a short story is to charm,
elevate, and instruct, it is necessary now, for the nonce (but only for
the nonce), to inspect Archibald's past life.
Archibald, as he had stated to McCay, was engaged to a Miss
Milsom--Miss Margaret Milsom. How few men, dear reader, are engaged to
girls with _svelte_ figures, brown hair, and large blue eyes, now
sparkling and vivacious, now dreamy and soulful, but always large and
blue! How few, I say. You are, dear reader, and so am I, but who else?
Archibald was one of the few who happened to be.
He was happy. It is true that Margaret's mother was not, as it were,
wrapped up in him. She exhibited none of that effervescent joy at his
appearance which we like to see in our mothers-in-law elect. On the
contrary, she generally cried bitterly whenever she saw him, and at the
end of ten minutes was apt to retire sobbing to her room, where she
remained in a state of semi-coma till an advanced hour. She was by way
of being a confirmed invalid, and something about Archibald seemed to
get right in among her nerve centres, reducing them for the time being
to a complicated hash. She did not like Archibald. She said she liked
big, manly men. Behind his back she not infrequently referred to him as
a 'gaby'; sometimes even as that 'guffin'.
She did not do this to Margaret, for Margaret, besides being blue-eyed,
was also a shade quick-tempered. Whenever she discussed Archibald, it
was with her son Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant Milsom, who thought Archibald a
bit of an ass, was always ready to sit and listen to his mother on the
subject, it being, however, an understood thing that at the conclusion
of the seance she yielded one or two saffron-coloured bills towards his
racing debts. For Stuyvesant, having developed a habit of backing
horses which either did not start at all or else sat down and thought
in the middle of the race, could always do with ten dollars or so. His
prices for these interviews worked out, as a rule, at about three cents
a word.
In these circumstances it was perhaps natural that Archibald and
Margaret should prefer to meet, when they did meet, at some other spot
than the Milsom home. It suited them both better that they should
arrange a secret tryst on these occasions. Archibald preferred it
because being in the same room as Mrs Milsom always made him feel like
a murderer with particularly large feet; and Margaret preferred it
because, as she told Archibald, these secret meetings lent a touch of
poetry to what might otherwise have been a commonplace engagement.
Archibald thought this charming; but at the same time he could not
conceal from himself the fact that Margaret's passion for the poetic
cut, so to speak, both ways. He admired and loved the loftiness of her
soul, but, on the other hand, it was a tough job having to live up to
it. For Archibald was a very ordinary young man. They had tried to
inoculate him with a love of poetry at school, but it had not taken.
Until he was thirty he had been satisfied to class all poetry (except
that of Mr George Cohan) under the general heading of punk. Then he met
Margaret, and the trouble began. On the day he first met her, at a
picnic, she had looked so soulful, so aloof from this world, that he
had felt instinctively that here was a girl who expected more from a
man than a mere statement that the weather was great. It so chanced
that he knew just one quotation from the classics, to wit, Tennyson's
critique of the Island-Valley of Avilion. He knew this because he had
had the passage to write out one hundred and fifty times at school, on
the occasion of his being caught smoking by one of the faculty who
happened to be a passionate admirer of the 'Idylls of the King'.
A remark of Margaret's that it was a splendid day for a picnic and that
the country looked nice gave him his opportunity.
'It reminds me,' he said, 'it reminds me strongly of the Island-Valley
of Avilion, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, nor ever wind
blows loudly; but it lies deep-meadow'd, happy, fair, with orchard
lawns....'
He broke off here to squash a hornet; but Margaret had heard enough.
'Are you fond of the poets, Mr Mealing?' she said, with a far-off look.
'Me?' said Archibald fervently. 'Me? Why, I eat 'em alive!'
* * * * *
And that was how all the trouble had started. It had meant unremitting
toil for Archibald. He felt that he had set himself a standard from
which he must not fall. He bought every new volume of poetry which was
praised in the press, and learned the reviews by heart. Every evening
he read painfully a portion of the classics. He plodded through the
poetry sections of Bartlett's _Familiar Quotations_. Margaret's
devotion to the various bards was so enthusiastic, and her reading so
wide, that there were times when Archibald wondered if he could endure
the strain. But he persevered heroically, and so far had not been found
wanting. But the strain was fearful.
* * * * *
The early stages of the Cape Pleasant golf tournament need no detailed
description. The rules of match play governed the contests, and
Archibald disposed of his first three opponents before the twelfth
hole. He had been diffident when he teed off with McCay in the first
round, but, finding that he defeated the secretary with ease, he met
one Butler in the second round with more confidence. Butler, too, he
routed; with the result that, by the time he faced Sigsbee in round
three, he was practically the conquering hero. Fortune seemed to be
beaming upon him with almost insipid sweetness. When he was trapped in
the bunker at the seventh hole, Sigsbee became trapped as well. When he
sliced at the sixth tee, Sigsbee pulled. And Archibald, striking a
brilliant vein, did the next three holes in eleven, nine, and twelve;
and, romping home, qualified for the final.
Gossett, that serpent, meanwhile, had beaten each of his three
opponents without much difficulty.
The final was fixed for the following Thursday morning. Gossett, who
was a broker, had made some frivolous objection about the difficulty of
absenting himself from Wall Street, but had been overruled. When
Sigsbee pointed out that he could easily defeat Archibald and get to
the city by lunch-time if he wished, and that in any case his partner
would be looking after things, he allowed himself to be persuaded,
though reluctantly. It was a well-known fact that Gossett was in the
midst of some rather sizeable deals at that time.
Thursday morning suited Archibald admirably. It had occurred to him
that he could bring off a double event. Margaret had arrived at Cape
Pleasant on the previous evening, and he had arranged by telephone to
meet her at the end of the board-walk, which was about a mile from the
links, at one o'clock, supply her with lunch, and spend the afternoon
with her on the water. If he started his match with Gossett at
eleven-thirty, he would have plenty of time to have his game and be at
the end of the board-walk at the appointed hour. He had no delusions
about the respective merits of Gossett and himself as golfers. He knew
that Gossett would win the necessary ten holes off the reel. It was
saddening, but it was a scientific fact. There was no avoiding it. One
simply had to face it.
Having laid these plans, he caught the train on the Thursday morning
with the consoling feeling that, however sadly the morning might begin,
it was bound to end well.
The day was fine, the sun warm, but tempered with a light breeze. One
or two of the club had come to watch the match, among them Sigsbee.
Sigsbee drew Gossett aside.
'You must let me caddie for you, old man,' he said. 'I know your
temperament so exactly. I know how little it takes to put you off your
stroke. In an ordinary game you might take one of these boys, I know,
but on an important occasion like this you must not risk it. A grubby
boy, probably with a squint, would almost certainly get on your
nerves. He might even make comments on the game, or whistle. But I
understand you. You must let me carry your clubs.'
'It's very good of you,' said Gossett.
'Not at all,' said Sigsbee.
* * * * *
Archibald was now preparing to drive off from the first tee. He did
this with great care. Everyone who has seen Archibald Mealing play golf
knows that his teeing off is one of the most impressive sights ever
witnessed on the links. He tilted his cap over his eyes, waggled his
club a little, shifted his feet, waggled his club some more, gazed
keenly towards the horizon for a moment, waggled his club again, and
finally, with the air of a Strong Man lifting a bar of iron, raised it
slowly above his head. Then, bringing it down with a sweep, he drove
the ball with a lofty slice some fifty yards. It was rarely that he
failed either to slice or pull his ball. His progress from hole to hole
was generally a majestic zigzag.