Читать книгу The Cricket Match - Hugh De Sélincourt - Страница 4

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On Saturday morning, 4th August 1921, at a quarter past five, Horace Cairie woke up and heard the rustle of wind in the trees outside his bedroom window. Or was it a gentle, steady rain pattering on the leaves? Oh, no, it couldn’t be! That would be too rotten. Red sky at night shepherd’s delight. And the sky last night had been red as a great rose and redder, simply crimson. ‘Now mind, if you over-excite yourself and don’t get proper sleep, you won’t be able to enjoy the match or anything!’ his mother had said, and Horace knew that what she said was true. Still, what was a fellow to do? Turn over and go to sleep? If it rained, it rained, and there was an end of it: his getting up to see whether the pattery, rustly sound was the wind or rain would not alter the weather. For a chap of fifteen and a few months he feared that he was an awful kid.

He got out of bed deliberately as any man and walked to the window. He leaned out as far as he could lean and surveyed the morning sky with the solemnity of an expert.

Not a cloud was to be seen anywhere; only a breath of wind sufficient to rustle a few dried ivy leaves against the window-sill. A delicate haze spread over the country to the hills.

What a day it would be to watch a cricket match, and suppose Joe Furze couldn’t turn out and he were asked to play! And, suppose, when he went in to bat five runs were wanted and he got a full toss to leg and hit it plumb right for a four and then with a little luck ... or supposing Tillingfold had batted first and the others wanted six runs and he had a great high catch and held it or a real fast one and jumped out and it stuck in his fingers. Oh goodness, what a clinking game cricket was! Splendid even to watch. And old Francis always let him mark off the tens and put the figures up on the scoring board.

Meanwhile it was still three good hours to breakfast, and if he curled up in bed and went to sleep the time would pass more quickly, and if he were wanted to play he would be in better form than if he mooched about the garden on an empty stomach.

What a morning! What a morning! What luck!

‘Now then, darling, you’ll be late for breakfast.’

Horace leaped out of bed at his mother’s voice.

‘Is old Francis here yet?’

‘Been here an hour or more.’

‘Has he brought any message?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Oh, curse! Of course I shan’t be wanted to play.’

‘A very good thing, too, dear. I don’t like your playing with men.’

‘Oh, rot, mum! What complete piffle! I’m not a kid.’

He kissed her first on one cheek then on the other.

‘You will never understand about cricket, will you?’

He began to wash himself with more speed than care, and, after a hurried wipe with a towel, climbed into shirt and shorts, slapped his head with two hair brushes while he trod into laceless sand shoes, stooped to tug each over the refractory heel, and fell downstairs, struggling into an ancient blazer.

‘Half a sec!’ he shouted in at the open dining-room door and rushed out into the garden to find old Francis. He ran hard towards the potting shed, but seeing Francis sweeping the leaves up on the drive he stopped his swift run and, carefully adjusting his coat collar, strolled up towards him. Old Francis had watched him come tearing out of the house, watched him slow up, knew what he was mad to know: so he went on sweeping with the briefest possible edition of greeting, of which ‘orn’ was alone audible. After a little he said drily:

‘Looks like rain, don’t it?’

‘Oh, I dunno! No, do you think so?’

‘Ah! Uncommon like rain. Smell it everywhere.’

He leaned on his broom and sniffed the air up dubiously. Then he went on sweeping.

‘I say!’ said the boy. ‘Would it be all right if you let me mark off the ones again, do you think? And shove up the numbers.’

‘Shouldn’t wonder. But there won’t be no cricket; not this afternoon.’

‘Why not? The rotters haven’t scratched, have they?’

‘Scratched, not that I knows on. Much sensibler if we ’ad, seeing the team as we’ve had to rake up. Be getting they old chaps from the Union before we’re done. Ah! And some on ’em wouldn’t be half bad, I lay; not too slippy on their feet.’

He referred thereby to a never-to-be-forgotten occasion (by others, it seemed, at any rate) when Horace in his eagerness to dash in and save one had fallen at full length and the batsman had secured two runs: a blackish day for Horace and a blackish day for his flannels, for the ground was not dry and he had chosen a bare patch on which to lie extended. He let the reference pass with a blush and persisted:

‘Why, you don’t mean Dick Fanshawe isn’t playing?’

‘Oh, no, he’s all right.’

‘Or Teddie White or Sid Smith?’

Old Francis grudgingly asserted that they were certain to turn out.

‘Tom Hunter, can’t he play?’

‘He’s game, bless you! Tom not play!’

‘Well, who isn’t?’

‘It ain’t so much who isn’t as who is!’

He continued sweeping with easy, rhythmical strokes, his dark eyes watching Horace from under thick eyebrows. The rhythmical motion of the broom fascinated the boy, who shifted his feet, thrust his hands into his pockets, began to whistle, half-guessed, yet dared not ask the blunt question which he ached to put.

‘You might fetch that barrer down if you like.’

‘Well, I said I’d only be half a sec!’

‘Don’t then if you don’t like.’

Horace ran off for the wheelbarrow, which he set down with a bang, so that the boards for lifting the leaves fell off. ‘That’s it! Upset the blummin’ lot,’ said old Francis, flicking stray leaves up on to the near heap.

Slowly stooping with the boards he carefully raised a pile of mould and twigs and leaves, which he deposited and pressed down into the barrow; as he leaned on the boards he said slowly:

‘As I was saying, it’s who is!’

‘What do you mean—who is?’

‘Playing! They’ll be raisin’ a team from the infants next. And Raveley arn’t a blind school.’

‘Oh, chuck it, Francis, tell us.’

‘Tell us! Tell us what? And how about your half sec or whatever it was, and your porridge getting cold? Never knew such a chap. No, I’m dashed if I did. Still there it is. Mr McLeod said to me last night: “Do you think that young Cairie would play tomorrow?” “Play?” I said. “But surely to goodness you don’t want ...” ’

‘I say, you don’t mean it?’ asked Horace, tremulous with excitement.

‘Yes, I do,’ said Francis, changing his manner. ‘They were saying how Joe Furze couldn’t leave his wife with the moving, and who should they get, and I said why not you; you’re mad to play, and arn’t too bad in the field, and as likely to make a run or two as any of the rest, so there you are.’

‘Oh! I say, you are an old ripper!’

‘Bit of a show up, I expect, but never mind!’

‘I say, you weren’t serious about the rain?’

‘Rain!’ scoffed old Francis. ‘Rain! Why, it couldn’t rain, not if it tried ever so. Not today. It’ll be a fair scorcher and no mistake!’

Horace stretched himself in sheer glee, then made a sudden dive at the ribs of old Francis, on which he landed a friendly punch. Francis raised the broom on high, threatening. ‘Now then!’ he growled.

The boy collared him round the waist, was undone, raised and used as a weight to press the leaves down in the barrow, tickled meanwhile to helpless laughter.

‘I’ll learn yer,’ declared old Francis. ‘And just you slip off to breakfast now, or there’ll be trouble. That’s right. Scatter them leaves everywhere.’