When Wanting a Wife, Play Golf.

New Zealand Mail, 3 December 1896, Page 16

When Wanting a Wife, Play Golf.

CLASS 111.

Stories of City Social Life.

BY ALPHA. especially written for the New Zealand Mail J PRIZE STORY. eHARLES BEAUFORT wished to be married ! It may seem strange in these days when the superfluous female and what to do with her occupies so much of the mind of man, that any difficulty coaid exist in the way of a youth’s providing himself with the legal appendage, yclept * a wife,’ with the utmost ease and celerity once he gave his mind to it. Young men nowadays are educated in that belief, and indeed there is some truth in it, though perhaps not quite so much as the ordinary male creature thinks, when he casts lordly glances among the girls of his acquaintance, and meditates in which direction he shall throw the handkerchief.

Charles Beaufort, however, was not of this class; he was one of those astonishing young men who, with every advantage of birth, education, good circumstances and good looks, had yet an extremely poor opinion of himself. His was not the exasperating shyness born of self conceit, he was naturally and unaffectedly humble-minded, rating his own merits very low and holding a correspondingly high ideal of Woman (with a capital). He actually did not know he was good looking, ‘ figure it to yourself,’ as the French say. And now the poor young man wanted a wife, and in his dreams of a future helpmate he pictured to himself a sort of grotesque angel, possessing all earthly charms and heavenly qualifications ; a dazzling and unnatural combination one does not meet with every day of one’s life. Or perhaps it is that we do not recognise it when we do.

It may hardly be necessary to remark here that my hero’s acquaintance with women was more theoretical than real, in fact he knew very little about them. It would occupy too much of my space to sketch the life of Charles Beaufort up to the year of grace 189fi, when my story opens. It must suffice my reader to know that he was just twenty-five ; had entered on a fine property in the beautiful Wellington Province after a long minority ; and had come down to the town of Wellington to spend some of the winter months there, in the hope of. meeting with his ideal, and taking back to his rather lonely home the sunshine it needed. Among other divine attributes, absolute truthfulness and perfect sweetness of temper were to distinguish the future Mrs Beaufort, and it is sad to confess that after six weeks of gay life in Wellington, during which time Charlie Beaufort has naturally become well known in the best society of that exclusive town, he is a good deal disillusioned. Being himself truthful and honest to a degree, the small deceits of social life appear to him in a worse light than is quite fair, for everyone knows how necessary the tiny white lie (or, perhaps, even on occasions the big black one) is to keep the wheels of society from creaking. Some great man (was it Burns ?) once uttered a fervent wish in broad Scotch that a fairy might endow mankind with the ‘ giftie ’ of ‘ seeing ourselves as others see us/ The Lord forbid ! What an awful world it would be to live in if that foolish, foolish man had had his way! But this is a digression. Among other ‘nice’ houses in which Charlie Beaufort had gained a footing was one in which the feminine element predominated largely. There were, in fact, six sisters, with a brother or two dropped here and there among them, as though nature had made a few taint attempts to equalise matters. They were certainly a very handsome family, tall and elegant in figure, with beautiful blue eyes, and fair hair always becomingly coiled, delicate and regular features, and a sort of gentle, self-con-tained coldness of manner, which perhaps, though not calculated to attract in these ‘ gushing ’ days, yet bore a stamp of good breeding. Their admirers likened them to strawberry ices, sweet, but chilly. But from some different planet had dropped into the Lovegrove family a creature called Molly, as unlike the elegant sisterhood as a young cuckoo is to a nest of fledgling thrushes. Molly was rather short, rather dark, brown-eyed and freckled, but with a healthy clearness of complexion, notwithstanding the freckles, a loud and merry laugh, a bounding step that her sisters called 4 galumphing,’ an irrepressible good temper which overflowed the daily sisterly snubs, and a direct and uncompromising truthfulness, which sometimes proved exceedingly awkward to her family. Mrs Lovegrove was fashioned after most mothers of the period. There wa3 a good deal of her, but it was mostly out of sight.

A new visitor had come to Wellington a year or so before/ a visitor who had evidently though he had

trotted over the whole of the Englishspeaking globe, and been made much of everywhere.

His name was ‘ Golf/ and Wellington society fell down and worshipped him, talked learnedly of Brassey’s cleeks and Bulger’s practised putting into inverted tumblers on their drawing-room carpets, and lofting out of their backstair windows. The fever, in short, ran high. A club

was formed, a monthly medal match in-aug-urated, and out on the windy and storm-beaten hills of Miramar a link was formed, where twice a week, and sometimes oftener, the ardent votaries of the new pursuit went out to practise. On all the fair Lovegrove sisterhood Charles cast an admiring eye, but more especially did it light on the second girl, Mabel. She was the tallest, the fairest, the most serene in manner, and Charles' admiration was just hovering on the borderland of love. Already he had endued her with all admirable qualities; those blue eyes he thought must be the mirror of truth, those gentle lips could never utter a cross word.

Of Molly he never thought at all, looking on her in the light her sisters cast on her —as an irresponsible child on the tomboy side*, though truth to tell Molly had passed her nineteenth year, and the fair, cool Mabel was nearly ten years her senior. Age is, however, a subject that is-not mentioned in good society.

‘Do you really mean to say, Mr Beaufort, that you have never seen golf played ?’ ‘ Never, Miss Mabel. I have the vaguest idea of the game, having only read the Yankee’s definition of it : “ chasing a quinine pill round a ten-aci’e lot.” ’ ‘ Then it is high time you learned. Will you not come out to Miramar tomorrow ? We are going to play for our club champipnship, and there will be some interesting games/ ‘ I shall be delighted, if you will tell me the way/ * There is a drag going out/ began Mabel.

‘ There won’t be room in that, Mabel/ put in Molly; ‘ don’t you remember, you said I could not go out to-morrow because the drag was full?’ ‘ I am not arranging the drag, Molly,’ returned her sister, coldly, * and four from one family are too many/ ‘ Then Teddy and I will go out as far as the tram ends, and then walk/ returned Molly. ‘ I must go, because you know I shall be in the second round to-morrow.’

‘ I have a bettor plan than that, Miss Molly/ said Charles, good-naturedly. ‘ Let me bring my dog-cart round in the morning and pick you and Teddy up, and then you can show me the way/ ‘ Oh, thank you/ said Molly, clapping her hands delightedly, ‘ that will be fifty thousand times nicer than the drag. I hate the drag, for I always have to sit behind, and going with you we can start half an hour later, and be there in good time; those old drags crawl so. It was good of you to think of it. Teddy will be glad too, 1 know, for he generally has to hang on the step when the drag is full.’ Mabel said nothing, but her pretty lips were rather tightly closed. ‘ Are you sure you know the way, Molly/ said her father —a mild old gentleman of the ‘ British merchant ’ stamp —much overwhelmed by his elegant daughters, of whom he stood in some dread, with the exception of Molly. ‘Oh, yes, father. You go out by the landslip—l mean the Patent Slip, and you leave the Jubilee Home on your right.. I heard such a lovely story about the Jubilee Home to-day/ she broke off. ‘lt was two old Scotch women, and one said to the other, “ What is the meaning of the Jubilee year?” and the other said, “ When you’re married twenty-five years, that’s your siller weddin’; when you’re married fifty years, that’s your goldin weddin’; and when you’ve buried your man, that’s your Jubilee.” ’ Molly laughed loudly at her own story. Her father and Charlie joined, but the elder sisters could not, they remarked, see any humour in it at all. ‘ I dislike those sort of vulgar stories/ said Mabel. ‘You ought to know better than to repeat them, Molly.’ ‘ tt’s Lady Glasgow’s story, anyhow/ said Molly. ‘ You would not tell her it was vulgar, would you ? I know several more just as good if you would like to hear them/

‘ Yes, tell us some more, Molly/ said her father.

‘ Well, there was an old Scotch woman once who lived up a stair in a close in Glasgow, and who fell out of her window and was killed, and two other old women were talking about it, and one said, “Do ye think she was prepared for her end?” and the other said, “ Ou ay, for 1 heard her fall past my window, and aa she fell I heard her say, ‘ Noo for a bump !’ so you see she knew what she might expec.” ’ Amid the laughter of the two gentlemen, Mrs Lovegrove, in obedience to a look from Mabel, gave the sign for leaving the table. Charlie sprang to open the door, receiving a chilly smile from Mabel and a laughing glance from a pair of dark eyes, which until that evening he had hardly noticed. ‘ Really, mother/ said Mabel sharply, on reaching the drawing-room, ‘ you ought to speak to Molly about the way she behaves. Putting herself forward like that with those silly stories, and then laughing at them herself, it was most unladylike. I don’t know what Mr Beaufort will think of her/-

‘ I did not see much harm in the stories, my dear/ said her mother in the deprecating motherly manner of the present day. * Gentlemen like to be amused/

* Oh, well, if you will not speak to her I shall,’ returned Mabel, but Molly was not there to be lectured just then, she had escaped into the moonlit garden, and was busy telling Teddy of the treat in store for them in the morning, for Molly was a real comrade to her younger brothers.

* Prime/ said Teddy, ‘ won’t we run rings round the old drag with that trotting chestnut of Mr Beaufort’s. I say, Molly, I wish he would ride behind and give me the ribbons, but I suppose that would be too much too expect of any man/ Teddy was fourteen, but fully endowed with colonial self-confidence.

Through the open windows came the sound of music. Mabel was singing, and presently Charlie came in and was duly entranced, as she meant him to be, for Miss Mabel’s sweet blue eyes were very clearly fixed on the main chance, and she was quite alive to the fact that Charles Beaufort was a most eligible parti.

‘ Don’t forget our engagement, Miss Molly/ said our hero, an hour later, as he bade good-night. ‘ There is no fear of that/ said Molly; ‘ I shall be standing on our steps at precisely half-past ten/ But Molly reckoned without her host, or rather w-ithout her sisters, for only Teddy was sitting rather disconsolately on the porch steps when Mr Beaufort’s dog-cart dashed up the well-gravelled sweep. ‘ Molly’s gone on in the drag/ he explained. ‘ Mabel wasn’t ready when it came, so Molly had to take her place/ Mabel took jolly good care to be late. At this moment the fair Mabel herself appeared, the very pinkness of neat propriety of get-up, from the yellow blouse and hatband (the colours of her club) to the trimly-booted foot and gaiters. ‘ I am so sorry/ she explained sweetly, ‘but I was detained this morning, and could not be ready in time. So I must ask you to take me out instead of Molly, who has gone on/ ‘ I shall be delighted/ said Charlie, jumping down with alacrity and helping Mabel to her seat, while Ted climbed in behind and made a most excruciating face at his sister’s unconscious back, after the manner of his kind when their feelings need relieving. Charles’ pleasure was quite unfeigned ; it was a royal opportunity, which he had hardly dared to hope for, for close and pleasant conversation with the girl he was beginning to admire very much indeed. They had a delightful drive, during which Mabel conversed pleasantly on many subjects, tingeing her manner with that suspicion of deference which is so flattering to manly vanity, and by the time they reached Miramar Charlie’s chains were certainly a degree more tightly riveted. Quite a crowd was assembled at the club hut; several couples ambitious of the championship had already started on their three-mile round, and Mabel’s partner was waiting for her to start in their turn. ‘Make haste/ she said, as Mabel disappeared into the ladies’ room, emerging thence a moment later with a smart little yellow Tam o’ Shanter pinned securely on her coils of fair hair, and her clubs in her hand.

‘ Will you caddie for me, Teddy ?’ she said.

‘ Not if I know it!’ was the fraternal response ; to which Mabel made no reply beyond what might be conveyed in a glance, and turning selected a caddie from a waiting group of small boys, and the two players, followed by their umpire, caddies, and a small group of friends, went forward to the first tee.

They tossed for first stroke. ‘ Miss Dobson plays first/ said the umpire.

Miss Dobson advanced to the small earth pudding her caddie had built up for her.

She was a girl whom Charlie had frequently met in society and rather admired. In her golf dress, with golf manners and the stern and business-Hke demeanour that belongs to its votaries, Charlie hardly knew her.

With masculine stride she marched up, and standing with her feet about a yard apart, and her whole body bent to an angle disclosing more corners than the feminine frame is generally credited with possessing, she swung her driver round and bringing it down with a most terrific bang, the ball flew off into distance, followed by an admiring hum. ‘ Splendid drive/ said someone, and a complacent smile passed over the lady's face. It was now Mabel’s turn. She poised herself more gracefully, but alas ! the result was inferior, and her effort was followed by a dead silence. She turned sharply to her caddie and said something in a low tone about the * tee/ then almost snatching an iron club from the bag ho carried, she followed her ball, which had gone off at right angles and lay but a short distance from its startingplace. Her next stroke was more successful, and the two balls now lay within measurable distance of the green, on which they both landed at their next shots.

‘ What comes next?’ said Charlie.- ‘lsn’t there a hole somewhere ?’

‘By the red flag—liusli!’ said someone reproachfully, while everyone glanced severely at him. A dead silence reigned while Miss Dobson took long and deliberate aim, and missed.

She turned round sharply. ‘I cannot putt if people talk/ she said, and her voice sounded like a bark.

‘ I am sure I beg your pardon/ began Charlie, but a perfect chorus of hushes rose around, and he saw he was repeating his transgression. Mabel putted with better success, the small white ball rolled into its tiny hole, and the umpire proclaimed a tie.

‘lt ought to have been my hole/ grumbled Miss Dobson half audibly. ‘ Why do people come out here if they don’t understand the art of keeping quiet ? ’ Charlie fell back, feeling disgraced and miserable.

‘Well’/ said a voice at his elbow, and turning he saw Molly beside him. Molly •with dark eyes dancing with mischief, and dark hair a little loosened by the wind, while a fresh, bright colour born of health and pure air bloomed in her cheeks.

* Why did you break your engagement with me this morning f ’ he said reproach* fully.

*lt 'wasn’t her fault, Mr Beaufort/ put in Teddy ;‘ it was Mabel’s. She said ’ ‘Teddy/ said Molly, threateningly, ‘I shall drop you into the deepest ditch on the links presently if you speak when you are not spoken to/

‘Never mind now, Mr Beaufort; lam ture you were better pleased as it was. But sell me what you think of golf, now you have seen it played ?’

‘ls that all ?’ answered Charlie. ‘Yes; all, except that each hole is different.’

‘ But come; they have both driven off again. Let us follow them round. Only remember you must not speak when they are playing; it is a first-class offence against golf etiquette.’ ‘ It’s rather like a funeral, don’t you think?’ said Charlie presently. ‘ls it absolutely necessary to hold your breath whenever a club is lifted ?’

‘You mustn’t speak when they’re driving ; you mustn’t speak when they’re lifting ; you mustn’t breathe when they’re putting ; and if you sneeze they’ll put you off the links altogether/ said Teddy. * Mabel wanted me to be her caddie, but I knew a trick worth two of that. She always thinks it’s her caddie’s fault if she gets into a ditch.’ They had fallen behind while speaking, but now quickened their pace, and came up to the players on the third green. ‘Mabel’s lost that hole,” whispered Ted behind his hand. ‘ I can see it in her face/

Sure enough the barking girl was going through the same gymnastic performance with an equally good result; her ball flew straight and far over many obstacles, and lay on a piece of smooth grass. ‘ What a lie/ said a voice, and Charles looked round with a start.

‘Don’t be alarmed, it’s only a golf term/ whispered Molly. * I’m quite off my ball to-day/ exclaimed Mabel snappishly, as in attempting to follow her opponent her ball had rebounded from a fence in the foreground and lay in a ditch beneath it.

She gave a little stamp as she spoke, and Charlie, looking at her face without its society smile, wondered for the first time how old she was. She took a short iron club with a curved head and struck wildly at the ball, which only burrowed itself deeper into the mud. A liberal shower of dirty water flew around. * Take up the ball/ she said; * I give up the hole/ ‘ Miss Dobson three up/ said the umpire in a monotonous and impartial manner, and again the little procession moved on. ‘ Does it go on like this all the time ?’ asked Charlie. ‘ You’ll excuse me, Miss Molly, but I can’t say your pet game recommends itself much to me on first acquaintance/ ‘Wait till you’ve tried to hit a ball yourself. The fascination does not come in till then/ They had now come to a part of 'the links which was studded thickly with large flaxbushes and intersected with deep, narrow drains, and here the element of luck came in conspicuously, for two equally good drives resulted in Miss Dobson’s ball lying clear, while Mabel’s dropped into one of the aforesaid drains, and after five minutes’ fruitless probing in the soft mud was declared forfeited. Miss Dobson’s step had now become that of a triumphal progress, and her face wore a look of assured success, while poor Mabel presented the exact reverse of the medal and her continued losses were evidently beginning to tell on her temper. Again they teed their balls, and this time success brought over-confidence, and the -wonderful straddling swing only sent Miss 'Dobson’s ball into a sand-bunker, quit© off the line of play. Now came Mabel’s chance. With extra care she poised herself to play—stiff knees, loose elbows, eye on the ball, all the thirty-five things that a golfer must do at the same minute. Her ball rose beautifully, and flew swiftly far over ditches and bunkers, and plumped straight into the back of an unattached caddie, who was roaming the links in search of stray balls. She threw her driver violently down. ‘Little brute/ she ejaculated, ‘I hope it hurt him/ The boy in the foreground was rubbing himself very much as if it had. ‘ Hub of the green/ announced the level tones of the umpire. ‘ Miss Dobson’s hole/ ‘Bub of the what? ’ enquired Charlie. ‘ The green/ volunteered Teddy. *He was green to be in the way ; don’t you see ?’ ‘Don’t be a goose, Ted/ said Molly. * Another golf term, Mr Beaufort; you’ll know them all some day.’ But Charlie thought not. His disillusionment was now complete, and the fair sweet Mabel stood revealed to him as a girl whose temper could not stand the test of a game. And yet he did not feel grateful to his means of enlightenment ; it was a horrid game, he thought. ‘ Let us sit out the next dance, I mean hole, Miss Molly/ he said, ‘it will be much pleasanter than following round, and if I have learnt the direction of the game right, they will have to pass back this way again. Let us sit on these rocks and look out at the sea, and perhaps you. will tell me some more Scotch stories/

But something, perhaps the remembrance of a sisterly lecture received the night before, had dried up Molly’s storytelling vein, though she acceded to his first proposal, and the three sat down together on some rocks that cropped out of the hillside and offered a dry, though not too luxurious, resting place. Mabel glanced at them, and the expression of her countenance took on an extra tinge of illtemper ; but she made no remark, and the game wandered lugubriously away. The trio on the rocks chatted freely and merrily, and it did not seem five minutes, though in reality it was over half an hour

when the others returned, the game evidently over. ‘ Well/ called out Molly as soon as they came within hearing.

‘ Miss Dobson’s match; eight up and seven to play/ was the answer.

‘My word, Mabel, you did go to pieces/ said Teddy, with a most unbrotherly chuckle. And looking at her as they all walked back together to the club-hut, Charles thought the description apt. Her neat Tam o’ Shanter was dragged down over her face, the coils of fair hair were loosened and rough, her boots were covered with mud, and her whole figure had also received liberal baptism, and a large rent in the back of her dress did not tend to improve matters. But the keynote of the general dilapidation, was to be found in her face. Her temper had evidently‘gone to pieces ’ worse than all. Miss Dobson’s outward appearance was no whit better than that of her defeated adversary, but the glory of victory stamped her every look and gesture, and she beamed on all around as she proudly led the way. ‘ I’ve got to play her this afternoon/ said Molly, in an undertone. ‘l’m afraid she’ll give me an awful hammering.’ ‘Do you lose your temper as well as the game ?’ asked Charlie, anxiously. ‘ Oh, dreadfully. No description applies to me except that of the respectable Scotch tradesman who went into a bunker a “ decent Christian man and came out a blaspheming heathen.’” ‘ Don’t you believe her, Mr Beaufort !’ said Teddy ; ‘ Molly’s never cross.’

A month later and Charlie and Molly, now arrived at a perfect understanding, are walking together in the moonlit garden which surrounds the home she is soon to have. Charles has gained some wisdom meanwhile, and knows that the perfection he expected is not attainable in this world. He knows Molly for what she is—a faulty little mortal, but very sweet withal, truthful and sincere, and a loving little he3rt that is all his own.

Indeed, the tv o young people are most entirely and satisfactorily in love, and their conversation at present would not interest the reader. Except perhaps one sentence, ‘ Molly darling, we won’t want any links up at Wamera, will we r’ and Molly laughs happily. Mabel is still unmarried, and still plays golf.