THE COMPLETE WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). Эдвард Бенсон

them far on their round, but turned back to the little shed of a clubhouse, where she gathered information about the club. It was quite new, having been started only last spring by the tradesmen and townspeople of Riseholme and the neighbouring little town of Blitton. She then entered into pleasant conversation with the landlord of the Ambermere Arms, who had just finished his round and said how pleased they all were that the gentry had taken to golf.

      "There's Mrs Quantock, ma'am," said he. "She comes down every afternoon and practises on the green every morning. Walking over the green now of a morning, is to take your life in your hand. Such keenness I never saw, and she'll never be able to hit the ball at all."

      "Oh, but you mustn't discourage us, Mr Stratton," said Lucia. "I'm going to devote myself to golf this autumn."

      "You'll make a better hand at it, I'll be bound," said Mr Stratton obsequiously. "They say Mrs Quantock putts very nicely when she gets near the hole, but it takes her so many strokes to get there. She's lost the hole, in a manner of speaking, before she has a chance of winning it."

      Lucia thought hard for a minute.

      "I must see about joining at once," she said. "Who — who are the committee?"

      "Well, we are going to reconstitute it next October," he said, "seeing that the ladies and gentlemen of Riseholme are joining. We should like to have one of you ladies as President, and one of the gentlemen on the committee."

      Lucia made no hesitation about this.

      "I should be delighted," she said, "if the present committee did me the honour to ask me. And how about Mr Pillson? I would sound him if you like. But we must say nothing about it, till your committee meets."

      That was beautifully settled then; Mr Stratton knew how gratified the committee would be, and Lucia, long before Georgie and Daisy returned, had bought four clubs, and was having a lesson from a small wiry caddie.

      Every morning while Daisy was swanking away on the green, teaching Georgie and Piggie and Goosie how to play, Lucia went surreptitiously down the hill and learned, while after tea she humbly took her place in Daisy's class and observed Daisy doing everything all wrong. She putted away at her clock-golf, she bought a beautiful book with pictures and studied them, and all the time she said nothing whatever about it. In her heart she utterly despised golf, but golf just now was the stunt, and she had to get hold of Riseholme again . . .

      Georgie popped in one morning after she had come back from her lesson, and found her in the act of holing out from the very longest of the stations.

      "My dear, what a beautiful putt!" he said. "I believe you're getting quite keen on it."

      "Indeed I am," said she. "It's great fun. I go down sometimes to the links and knock the ball about. Be very kind to me this afternoon and come round with me."

      Georgie readily promised to do so.

      "Of course I will," he said, "and I should be delighted to give you a hint or two, if I can. I won two holes from Daisy yesterday."

      "How clever of you, Georgie! Any news?"

      Georgie said the sound that is spelt "tut."

      "I quite forgot," he said. "I came round to tell you. Neither Mrs Boucher nor Daisy nor I know what to do."

      ("That's the Museum Committee," thought Lucia.)

      "What is it, Georgie?" she said. "See if poor Lucia can help."

      "Well," said Georgie, "You know Pug?"

      "That mangy little thing of Lady Ambermere's?" asked Lucia.

      "Yes. Pug died, I don't know what of —"

      "Cream, I should think," said Lucia. "And cake."

      "Well, it may have been. Anyhow, Lady Ambermere had him stuffed, and while I was out this morning, she left him in a glass case at my house, as a present for the Museum. There he is lying on a blue cushion, with one ear cocked, and a great watery eye, and the end of his horrid tongue between his lips."

      "No!" said Lucia.

      "I assure you. And we don't know what to do. We can't put him in the Museum, can we? And we're afraid she'll take the mittens away if we don't. But, how can we refuse? She wrote me a note about 'her precious Pug.' "

      Lucia remembered how they had refused an Elizabethan spit, though they had subsequently accepted it. But she was not going to remind Georgie of that. She wanted to get a better footing in the Museum than an Elizabethan spit had given her.

      "What a dreadful thing!" she said. "And so you came to see if your poor old Lucia could help you."

      "Well, we all wondered if you might be able to think of something," said he.

      Lucia enjoyed this: the Museum was wanting her . . . She fixed Georgie with her eye.

      "Perhaps I can get you out of your hole," she said. "What I imagine is, Georgie, that you want me to take that awful Pug back to her. I see what's happened. She had him stuffed, and then found he was too dreadful an object to keep, and so thought she'd be generous to the Museum. We — I should say 'you', for I've got nothing to do with it — you don't care about the Museum being made a dump for all the rubbish that people don't want in their houses. Do you?"

      "No, certainly not," said Georgie. (Did Lucia mean anything by that? Apparently she did.) She became brisk and voluble.

      "Of course, if you asked my opinion," said Lucia, "I should say that there has been a little too much dumping done already. But that is not the point, is it? And it's not my business either. Anyhow, you don't want any more rubbish to be dumped. As for withdrawing the mittens — only lent, are they? — she won't do anything of the kind. She likes taking people over and showing them. Yes, Georgie, I'll help you: tell Mrs Boucher and Daisy that I'll help you. I'll drive over this afternoon — no, I won't, for I'm going to have a lovely game of golf with you — I'll drive over tomorrow and take Pug back, with the committee's regrets that they are not taxidermists. Or, if you like, I'll do it on my own authority. How odd to be afraid of poor old Lady Ambermere! Never mind: I'm not. How all you people bully me into doing just what you want! I always was Riseholme's slave. Put Pug's case in a nice piece of brown paper, Georgie, for I don't want to see the horrid little abortion, and don't think anything more about it. Now let's have a good little putting match till lunchtime."

      Georgie was nowhere in the good little putting match, and he was even less anywhere when it came to their game in the afternoon. Lucia made magnificent swipes from the tee, the least of which, if she happened to hit it, must have gone well over a hundred yards, whereas Daisy considered eighty yards from the tee a most respectable shot, and was positively pleased if she went into a bunker at a greater distance than that, and said the bunker ought to be put further off for the sake of the longer hitters. And when Lucia came near the green, she gave a smart little dig with her mashie, and, when this remarkable stroke came off, though she certainly hit the ground, the ball went beautifully, whereas when Daisy hit the ground the ball didn't go at all. All the time she was light-hearted and talkative, and even up to the moment of striking, would be saying "Now oo naughty ickle ball: Lucia's going to give you such a spank!" whereas when Daisy was playing, her opponent and the caddies had all to be dumb and turned to stone, while she drew a long breath and waved her club with a pendulum-like movement over the ball.

      "But you're marvellous," said Georgie as, three down, he stood on the fourth tee, and watched Lucia's ball sail away over a sheep that looked quite small in the distance. "It's only three weeks or so since you began to play at all. You are clever! I believe you'd nearly beat Daisy."

      "Georgie, I'm afraid you're a flatterer," said Lucia. "Now give your ball a good bang, and then there's something I want to talk to you about."

      "Let's see; it's slow back, isn't it?" said Georgie. "Or is it quick back? I believe Daisy says sometimes one and sometimes the other."

      Daisy and Piggie, starting before them, were playing in a parallel and opposite direction. Daisy had no luck with her first shot, and very little with her second. Lucia just got out of the way of her third and Daisy hurried by them.