IX
Talking of Hats
I
That was on the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I remember well.
Now those who are sensitive to any extreme condition of our climate will not have forgotten that towards the end of July of the year 1923 there was a week or ten days when the heat in London was so oppressive that frequent complaints were made at the confectioners and Soda Fountains on the ground that their ices were warm; nor were the nights less uncomfortable—“uncomfortable,” that is, to quote from a gentleman who wrote to The Times about it, “in a country so unprepared for any extreme of temperature that, if I do not seem too fanciful, on a cold winter’s day there is nothing warm but the drinking-water and on a hot summer’s day nothing cool but the sun.” Of course he did seem too fanciful, but, however that may be, the nights were certainly stifling, and one in particular I remember very well.
It was towards eleven o’clock, and Hilary, Guy and I, having sat long over dinner upstairs at the Café Royal, were returning towards our homes down Piccadilly, walking as slowly as we might for the prodigious heat. We had, however, barely touched the corner of Saint James’s Street when Guy ceased even to pretend that he was walking, and said: “Just a moment, will you, while I go into White’s to see if Napier’s there, to remind him about dinner tomorrow night.” But Guy never in his life looked less like running, and Hilary said: “The idea of eating in this weather! Hm. And what is this party, Guy?”
“Children’s party,” said Guy, whose frozen blue eyes might conceivably have made one feel cool had one only been tall enough to be able to look into them … and just at that moment, as Guy turned away, and the three of us facing down towards the Palace, Napier came swiftly down the steps of White’s, about ten yards down. At the curb a taxi was waiting, its door swung open.
“Naps! Napier!” Guy called, thinking to catch him with as little exertion as possible in that stifling heat. But Napier, swift as a shadow, that greyhound of a Napier, was already in the taxi, the door was slammed-to, and round it swept by the Devonshire Club to turn northwards up the slope of Piccadilly.
“Drat the boy!” said Guy, as we made to cross the road. “Catch him on the rebound as we cross. …” But when, as the three of us stood by the island under the arch-lamp, the taxi rushed past us with screaming gears, he made no effort to hail Napier.
“Well?” Hilary grinned, as the taxi tore up Albemarle Street.
“Oh, ring him up,” said Guy shortly, and in silence we walked towards Hyde Park Corner.
I only knew from Guy’s look that he had seen her in the light that fell through the open window of the passing cab. She had seemed to be in a black dress and her head wrapped in a tight silver turban, and I had almost gasped not only with the surprise of seeing her at all, but the small face in that second of light had seemed so dazzling. “Naturally,” I thought. “She’s happy. …”
Hilary hadn’t, of course, seen her, for he was always at his most thoughtful when crossing the street. Nor had those two in the cab seen us, I was certain: they were talking too eagerly. Guy, Hilary and I walked on in silence, as slowly as we might for the heat. Maybe, I thought, Guy did not know I had seen her. As for himself, he never gave away gratuitous information about other people. And Guy loved Napier like his younger brother.
We were passing by the great gates of Devonshire House that now more becomingly adorn the Green Park when Hilary muttered “Bedtime” and left us, crossing towards Half-Moon Street. I found myself walking on with Guy, despite the economy in walking I might have made by going with Hilary, for my flat also lay in that direction. But I might cut up Down Street. Guy said, as though for some minutes past he had been giving his whole mind to the matter: “Not bad weather, really, if one was dressed for it. …”
“If!” I said.
“Of course,” said Guy, “these infernal stiff shirts. …”
“Quite,” I said.
“Although,” said Guy, “I think they’re cooler than those sickening soft things. …”
“I’m wearing one,” I said.
“I said what I said,” said Guy.
Once upon a time, as he had stood at the foot of her bed in a dim room, Iris had called him by a name that was not his name. “But Guy would defend a secret not only against the angels of God but also against himself.” Yes, Iris, yes … but was it necessary, Iris, to remind him of it? For Napier was Guy de Travest’s friend, and as dear to him as a younger brother.
“To swim,” Guy murmured from deep reflection, “would be very pleasant just now. Very pleasant indeed.”
“Yes. But where? I’m not for the Loyalty, in water debauched by face-powder. …”
“I thought,” Guy murmured, “that I would swim at the Bath Club this afternoon. I get ideas, quick as you like. But everyone else had also been thinking on the same lines, so you can imagine the crowd. A man there told me that the best way to get in was to pick on the fattest man in the water and as he came out slip into the hole he’d made. But I couldn’t even see the
