'Poor old Bill!' I said. 'Perhaps you'll do better today.'
'I feel as if I should never make a run again,' he said.
But he did.
I thought it all over that night. Of course, the difficult part was how to let Mr Batkins know that Saunders wanted everything to be forgiven and forgotten. Because he would be out in the field all the time.
I said to Bill: 'You'll be seeing Mr Batkins, the bowler, tomorrow, won't you?'
He said: 'Yes, worse luck, I shall.'
'Then look here, Bill,' I said, 'will you do me a favour? I want to speak to him particularly. Can I, do you think? Can you make him come and talk to me?'
'You can take a man from the pavilion,' said Bill, 'but you can't make him talk. What do you want him for?'
'It's private.'
'You're not after his autograph, are you?'
'Of course I'm not. Why should I want his autograph?'
'Some kids would give their eyes for it. They shoot in picture-postcards to all the leading pros, and make them sign 'em.'
I said nothing, but I did not like Bill hinting that I was a kid; because I'm not. I've had my hair up more than a year now.
I said: 'Well, I don't, anyhow. I simply want to speak to him.'
'Shy bird, Batkins. Probably if he hears that there's a lady waiting to see him, he'll lock himself in the changing- room and refuse to come out. Still, I'll have a try. During the lunch interval would be best — just before they go onto the field.'
Then I arranged it with Saunders.
I said: 'I shall be seeing Mr Batkins tomorrow, Saunders. If you like, I'll give him a note from you, and wait for an answer.'
'Oh, miss!' said Saunders.
'Then you can say what you like about wanting to make it up, without the ghark of doing it to his face. And if it's all right, which it's certain to be, I'll tell him to come round to Sloane Street after the match, and have some supper, and it'll all be ripping. I'm sure Aunt Edith won't mind.'
Then there was another ghark. Saunders broke down again and got quite hysterical, and said I was too good to her, and she wouldn't demean herself, and she didn't know what to write, and she was sure she would never speak to him again, were it ever so, and she'd go and get the note ready now, and heaps of other things. And when she was better, she went downstairs to write to Mr Batkins.
I believe she found it very difficult to make up the letter, because I didn't see her again that night, and she only gave it to me when we came home for lunch next day. We had decided to take Bill home in the motor to lunch, unless he had gone in in the morning and was not out, when he wouldn't have time. We sat in the seats to the right of the pavilion. The girl Bill was engaged to was there, with her mother, and I was introduced to her. She was very anxious that Bill should make lots of runs. She was a very nice girl. I only wished I could use my influence with Mr Batkins, as I had done before, to make him bowl badly. But he did just the opposite. They put him on after about half an hour, and everybody said he was bowling splendidly. It got rather dull, because the batsmen didn't seem able to make any runs, and they wouldn't hit out. I thought our matches at home were much more interesting. Everybody tries to hit there.
Bill was in the pavilion all the morning; but when the umpires took the bails off, he came out to us, and we all went back in the motor. Bill was more gloomy than I had ever seen him.
'It's a little hard,' he said. 'Just when Hirst happens to have an off-day — he was bowling tosh this morning — and the wicket doesn't suit Rhodes, and one thinks one really has got a chance of taking a few, this man Batkins starts and bowls about fifty per cent above his proper form. Did you see that ball that got MacLaren? It was the sort of beastly thing you get in nightmares. Fast as an express and coming in half a foot. If Batkins doesn't get off his length after lunch, we're cooked. And he's a teetotaller, too!'
I tried to cheer him up by talking about the girl he was engaged to, but it only made him worse.
'And it's in front of a girl like that,' he said, 'who believes in a chap, too, mind you, that I'm probably going to make a beastly exhibition of myself. That ball of Billy Batkins'll get me five times out of six. And the sixth time, too.'
Saunders gave me the letter as I was going out. I reminded Bill that he had promised to get hold of Mr Batkins for me.
'I'd forgotten,' he said. 'All right. When we get to the ground, come along with me.'
So we left Aunt Edith in the covered seats and walked round to behind the pavilion.
'Wait here a second,' said Bill. 'I'll send him out. You'll have to hurry up with whatever you're going to say to him, because the Players will be taking the field in about three minutes.'
I waited there, prodding the asphalt with my parasol, and presently Mr Batkins appeared, blushing violently and looking very embarrassed.
'Did you want to see me, miss?' he said. I said 'Yes,' feeling rather gharked and not knowing how to begin.
'You're Mr Batkins, aren't you?' I said at last. It was rather silly, because he couldn't very well be anybody else.
'You played against us last summer,' I said, 'for Sir Edward Cave, at Much Middlefold.'
He started. I suppose the name made him think of Saunders.
