Perhaps you think that I tried the same thing again, and got Saunders to ask him to bowl easy to my cousin Bill in the Gentlemen v. Players match. But I didn’t. I don’t suppose he would have bowled badly in a big match like that for anyone, even Saunders. Besides, he and Saunders weren’t on speaking terms at the time.
And that’s really how the whole thing happened.
I really came into the story one night just before I was going to bed. Saunders was doing my hair. I was rather sleepy, and I was half dozing, when suddenly I heard a sort of curious sound behind me — a kind of mixture of a sniff and a gulp. I looked in the glass, and there was the reflection of Saunders with a sort of stuffed look about the face. Just then she looked up, and our eyes met in the glass. Hers were all reddy.
I said: ‘Saunders!’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Matter, miss? Nothing, miss.’
‘Why are you crying?’
She stiffened up and tried to look dignified. I wish she hadn’t because she was holding a good deal of my hair at the time, and she pulled it hard.
‘Crying, miss! I wouldn’t demean myself — no, I wouldn’t.’
So I didn’t say anything more for a bit, and she went on brushing my hair.
After about half a minute there was another gulp, I turned round.
‘Look here, Saunders,’ I said, ‘you might as well tell me. You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t. What is up?’
(Because Saunders had always looked after me, long before I had my hair up — when I had it right down, not even tied half-way with a black ribbon. So we were rather friends.)
‘You might say. I won’t tell a soul.’
Then there was rather a ghark. A ghark is anything that makes you feel horrid and uncomfortable. It was a word invented by some girls I know, the Moncktons, and it supplied a long-felt want. It is a ghark if you ask somebody how somebody else is, and it turns out that they hate them or that they’re dead. If you hurt anybody’s feelings by accident, it is a ghark. This was one, because Saunders suddenly gave up all attempt at keeping it in, and absolutely howled. I sat there, not knowing what to do, and feeling wretched.
After a bit she got better, and then she told me what was the matter. She had had a quarrel with Mr Batkins, and all was over, and he had gone off, and she had not seen him since.
‘I didn’t know, miss, he’d take on so about me talking to Mr Harry Biggs when we met in the village. But he says: “Ellen,” he says, “I must ask you to choose between that” — then he called him names, miss — “and me.” “William,” I says to him, “I won’t ‘ave such language from no man, I won’t,” I says, “not even if he is my fiance,” I says. So he says: “Promise me you won’t speak to him again.” So I says: “I won’t, and don’t you expect it.” “Won’t what?” he says, “won’t speak?” “No,” I says, “won’t promise.” “Ho!” he says, “so this is the end, is it? All’s over, is it?” So I says: “Yes, William Batkins,” I says, “all is over; and here’s your ring what you gave me, and the photograph of yourself in a locket. And very ugly it is,” I says; “and don’t you come ‘anging round me again,” I says. And so he rushed out and never came back.’
She broke down once more at the thought of it.
This was the worst ghark I had ever had; because I couldn’t think how I could make the thing better.
‘Why don’t you write to him?’ I asked.
‘I wouldn’t demean myself, miss, And I don’t know his address.’
‘He plays for a county, so I suppose a letter addressed care of the county ground would reach him. I remember being told which county, but I’ve forgotten it. Do you know?’
‘No, miss. He told me it was a first-class one, but I don’t remember which it was.’