The Osbornes

by E. F. Benson

Claude strolled away and Jim walked aimlessly about, taking shots across the lawn with various balls. He knew perfectly well that he had cheated, but it was the worst luck in the world that Dora had looked up that moment. There had been a ball quite close to his, but as far off as if it had been in a better world by reason of the fact that it was lying neatly and inaccessibly behind the stump. He had just moved it with his foot as he went by, without, so he told himself, more than half meaning to. That was quite characteristic of him; he but rarely fully meant that sort of thing; something external to himself seemed to suggest a paltry little manœuvre of this kind, and he yielded to it in an absent-minded sort of way, without any particular intention. Had the game, in fact, gone on without attention being called to it, he would probably have nearly forgotten about it by now.

But Claude’s remark, though innocent and even cordial (considering what he himself privately knew), irritated him a good deal. He had said that of course he was satisfied since Jim had told him so. That looked as if he would not have been satisfied if he had not been told, an utterly unjustifiable attitude, since he had never given Claude, so far as he knew, the very smallest grounds for supposing that he himself was capable of cheating at croquet or anything else. Perhaps in Sheffield it was the right thing to cheat, and at the end of the game everyone who had not cheated told his opponent so, who then kindly accepted his word. Claude would find, however, that among the sort of people he now moved, it wasn’t correct to cheat; in fact, it was distinctly advisable not to. Indeed, in a very few minutes, Jim felt rather as if Claude had cheated, and he was himself kind but a little troubled about it.

Then—he felt almost ashamed of himself for dwelling so long on so small an incident—he looked at the matter afresh. He had cheated, and pocketed a sovereign probably in consequence. That was a very small sum of money to cheat for, but he distinctly wished that it had not occurred. And then he threw down again the mallet he had taken up.

“Fact is, I’m a rotten chap,” he said to himself, and there was no dissentient voice in his brain.

Claude meantime had gone down to the lake after Dora. If he had been obliged to give his thoughts the definiteness of words, he would certainly have said that he thought the whole thing rather odd, but then, being of an extremely loyal, unsuspicious nature, he would have endorsed his remark to Jim, that his word was quite sufficient, and have turned his thoughts resolutely elsewhere. He did not want to think about such very nasty little things as cheating at croquet, whether there was a penny or a sovereign or nothing at all on the game, and he did not wish to examine a certain doubt that lurked in the bottom of his mind as to whether Dora had seen correctly or not. It was in the shade anyhow, and he let it lie there. But if anyone had told him (or Jim either) that the incident was a trifling and microscopic one, both would have been quite right to deny that. It was true that a game only and a sovereign were concerned, but the “directing” power no less important a personage than Honour. It really makes a great difference in the daily journey through life if that charioteer is at his post or not.

“Sorry for keeping you, darling,” he said to Dora, “but we had to finish the game. It didn’t take long, did it? I got my head knocked off.”

Dora had already established herself, and he pushed out through the shallow water, where the weeds trailed whispering fingers against the bottom of the boat, to deeper water.

“How clever of you to screw it on again so quick,” said she. “Yes, it’s quite straight. Oh, Claude, I’ve been thinking such a lot since I left you. How funny it is how little tiny things, like Jim’s cheating just now, suggest such a lot of other ones not at all tiny.”

Claude gave a little short uncomfortable laugh.

“I say, darling, do you know,” he said, “if I were you I shouldn’t say that sort of thing even to me. He didn’t cheat: he told me so. So you must have been mistaken, and it’s an awful pity to let things like that ever be talked about. But let’s go on to the big things which it (though it didn’t happen) suggested.”