When Crane came out of his front gate that morning he found his neighbour Vernon-Smith standing outside, between a tree and a lamp-post, talking to a young lady, a distant cousin of his family. This girl was an art student – a little too independent for the standards of this neighbourhood. Her brown hair was cut very short, and the Colonel did not admire short haircuts. On the other hand, she had a rather attractive face, with honest brown eyes a little too wide apart, which diminished the impression of beauty but increased the impression of honesty. She also had a very fresh and natural voice, and the Colonel had often heard it calling out scores at tennis on the other side of the garden wall. In some way it made him feel old; at least, he was not sure whether he felt older than he was, or younger than he was supposed to be. It was not until they met under the lamp-post that he knew her name was Audrey Smith; and he was thankful for the simple short name. Mr. Vernon-Smith presented her, and very nearly said:“May I introduce my cabbage?” instead of “my cousin.”
The Colonel, without a change in his intonation, said it was a fine day. And his neighbour, happy to escape from a very difficult situation, continued the conversation cheerfully. His manner, like when he came to local meetings and committees, was at once hesitating and confident.
“This young lady is going into Art,” he said; “a poor prospect, isn’t it? I expect we will see her drawing in chalk on the pavement and expecting us to throw a penny into the – into a tray, or something.” Here he escaped from another danger. “But of course, she thinks she’s going to be a Royal Academician[5].”
“I hope not,” said the young woman hotly. “Pavement artists are much more honest than most of the Royal Academicians.”
“I wish those friends of yours didn’t give you such revolutionary ideas,” said Mr. Vernon-Smith. “My cousin knows the most dreadful eccentrics, vegetarians and – mad Socialists.” He decided to say it, feeling that vegetarians were not quite the same as vegetables; and he felt sure the Colonel would share his horror of Socialists.
“People who want to be equal, and all that. What I say is – we’re not equal and we never can be. As I always say to Audrey – if all the property were divided tomorrow, it would go back into the same hands the next day. It’s a law of nature, and if a man thinks he can get round a law of nature, why, he’s talking through his – I mean, he’s as mad as a – “
Trying to escape from the image in his head, he was searching madly in his mind for the alternative of a March hare[6]. But before he could find it, the girl had cut in and completed his sentence. She smiled calmly, and said in her clear and ringing tones:
“As mad as Colonel Crane’s hatter.”
It is not unjust to Mr. Vernon-Smith to say that he ran as from a dynamite explosion. It would be unjust to say that he left a lady in distress, because she did not look in the least like a distressed lady, and he himself was a very distressed gentleman. He tried to ask her to go indoors, and then vanished there himself with a random apology. But the other two took no notice of him; they continued to confront each other, and both were smiling.
“I think you must be the bravest man in England,” she said. “I don’t mean anything about the war, or your medal and all that; I mean about this. Oh, yes, I know a little about this, but there’s one thing I don’t know. Why do you do it?”
“I think it is you who are the bravest woman in England,” he answered, “or, at any rate, the bravest person in these parts. I’ve walked about this town for a week, feeling like the last fool on Earth, and expecting somebody to say something. And not a soul has said a word. They all seem to be afraid of saying the wrong thing.”
“I think they’re deadly,” said Miss Smith. “And if they don’t have cabbages for hats, it’s only because they have turnips for heads.”
“No,” said the Colonel gently, “I have many generous and friendly neighbours here, including your cousin. Believe me, there is a reason why people have conventions, and the world is wiser than you know. You are too young not to be intolerant. But I can see you’ve got the fighting spirit; that is the best part of youth and intolerance.”
“You see, I can’t keep calm when they say all these polished vulgarities about everything – look at what he said about Socialism.” answered the girl.
“It was a little superficial,” said Crane with a smile.
“And that,” she concluded, “is why I admire your hat, though I don’t know why you wear it.”
This trivial conversation had a curious effect on the Colonel. There went with it a sort of warmth and a sense of crisis that he had not known since the war. A sudden purpose formed itself in his mind, and he spoke like one stepping across a border.
“Miss Smith,” he said, “I wonder if I might ask you to pay me a bigger compliment. It may be unconventional, but I believe you do not insist on these conventions. An old friend of mine will be visiting me shortly, to finish the rather unusual business or ceremonial of which by chance you have seen a part. If you would do me the honour to have lunch with me tomorrow at half-past one, the true story of the cabbage awaits you. I promise that you will hear the real reason. I might even say I promise you will SEE the real reason.”
“Oh, of course I will,” said the unconventional one cheerfully. “Thanks awfully.”
The Colonel took an intense interest in the preparations for lunch next day. With surprise he found himself not only interested, but excited. Like many of his type, he took a pleasure in doing such things well, and knew his way about in wine and cookery. But that would not alone explain his pleasure. Because he knew that young women generally know very little about wine, and emancipated young women probably least of all. And though he wanted the cookery to be good, he knew that one part of it would appear rather fantastic. Again, he was a good-natured gentleman who wanted young people to enjoy a lunch party, as he would have wanted a child to enjoy a Christmas tree. But there seemed no reason why he should have a sort of happy insomnia, like a child on Christmas Eve[7]. There was really no excuse for his walking up and down the garden with his cigar, smoking furiously almost till the morning. Because while he looked at the purple irises and the grey pool in the moonshine, something in his feelings moved as if from the one end to the other; he had a new and unexpected reaction. For the first time he really hated the masquerade he had put himself through. He wished he could smash the cabbage as he had smashed the top-hat. He was little more than forty years old, but he suddenly felt the monstrous and solemn vanity of a young man growing inside him. Sometimes he looked up at house next door, dark against the moonrise, and thought he heard quiet voices in it, and something like a laugh.
The visitor who came to the Colonel next morning may have been an old friend, but he certainly had a very different personality. He was a very absent-minded, rather untidy man in a shabby suit; he had a long head with straight hair of the dark red colour, one or two bits of which stood on end however he brushed it. His face was long and clean-shaven and a little fuller around the jaw and chin, which he usually put down and settled firmly into his cravat.
His name was Hood, and he was a lawyer, though he had not come to the Colonel on strictly legal business. Anyhow, he exchanged greetings with Crane with a quiet warmth and satisfaction, smiled at the old servant as if he were an old joke, and showed every sign of an appetite for his lunch.
The appointed day was unusually warm and bright, and everything in the garden seemed to glitter; the goblin god of the Oceania seemed really to grin; and the scarecrow really to have a new hat. The irises round the pool were swinging and flapping in a light wind; and he remembered they were called “flags” and thought of purple banners going into battle.
She had come suddenly round the corner of the house. Her dress was of a dark but fresh blue colour, of a very simple form, but not too artistic. And in the morning light she looked less like a schoolgirl and more like a serious woman of twenty-five or thirty; a little older and a great deal more interesting. And something in this morning seriousness increased the reaction of the night before. One single wave of relief went through Crane to think that at least his terrible green hat was gone and finished with for ever. He had worn it for a week without caring one bit for anybody’s opinion; but during that ten minutes’ trivial conversation under the lamp-post, he felt as if he had suddenly grown donkey’s ears in the street.
Because of the sunny weather he prepared a little table for three in a sort of veranda open to the garden. When the three sat down to it, he looked across at the lady and said:
“I fear I’m going to look like an eccentric; one of those eccentrics your cousin disapproves of, Miss Smith. I hope it won’t spoil this little lunch for anybody, but I am going to have a vegetarian meal.”
“Are you?” she said. “I would never have said you looked like a vegetarian.”
“Just lately I have only looked like a fool,” he said calmly; “but I think I’d sooner look a fool than a vegetarian in the ordinary way. This is rather a special occasion. Perhaps my friend Hood had better begin; it’s really his story more than mine.”
“My name is Robert Owen Hood,” said that gentleman, rather sarcastically.
“That’s how improbable memories often begin; but the only point now is that my old friend here insulted me horribly by calling me Robin Hood.”
“I would have called it a compliment,” answered Audrey Smith. “Buy why did he call you Robin Hood?”
“Because I used the long bow[8],” said the lawyer.
“But to do you justice,” said the Colonel, “it seems that you hit the bull’s eye.[9]”
While he spoke
Archer came in with a dish which he placed before his master. He had already served the others with the earlier meals, but he carried this one with the pomp of one bringing the boar’s head at Christmas[10]. It consisted of a plain boiled cabbage.
“I was challenged to do something,” continued Hood, “which my friend here declared to be impossible. In fact, any sane man would have declared it to be impossible. But I did it all the same. Only my friend, in the heat of rejecting and mocking the idea, used an expression he didn’t think about. I might almost say he made a rash vow[11].”
“My exact words were,” said Colonel Crane solemnly, “‘If you can do that, I’ll eat my hat.’”
He leaned forward thoughtfully and began to eat it. Then he continued in the same meditative way:
“You see, all rash vows are literal or nothing. There might be a debate about the logical and literary way in which my friend Hood fulfilled HIS rash vow. But I accepted it as a challenge in the same pedantic sort of way. It wasn’t possible to eat any hat that I wore. But it could be possible to wear a hat that I could eat. Parts of dress could hardly be used for diet; but parts of diet could really be used for dress. It seemed to me that it could become my hat, if I wore it systematically as a hat and had no other, putting up with all the disadvantages. Making a fool of myself was the fair price to be paid for the vow or bet; because you should always lose something on a bet.”
And he rose from the table with a gesture of apology.
The girl stood up. “I think it’s perfectly splendid,” she said. “It’s as wild as one of those stories about looking for the Holy Grail.[12]”
The lawyer also had risen, rather quickly, and stood touching his long chin with his thumb and looking at his old friend under bent brows in a rather meditative manner.
“Well, you’ve made me a witness all right,” he said, “and now, with the permission of the court, I’ll leave the witness-box. I’m afraid I must be going. I’ve got important business at home. Good-bye, Miss Smith.”
The girl answered a little mechanically; and Crane seemed to recover from a similar trance, when he stepped after the retreating figure of his friend.
“I say, Owen,” he said quickly, “I’m sorry you’re leaving so early. Do you really have to go?”
“Yes,” replied Owen Hood gravely. “My private affairs are quite real and practical, I assure you.” His grave mouth showed some signs of a smile at the corners when he added:“The truth is, I don’t think I mentioned it, but I’m thinking of getting married.”
“Married!” repeated the Colonel, as if struck by a lightning.
“Thanks for your compliments and congratulations, old fellow,” said the satiric Mr. Hood. “Yes, it’s all been thought through. I’ve even decided who I am going to marry. She knows about it herself. She has been warned.”
“I am really sorry,” said the Colonel in great distress, “of course I congratulate you from my heart; and her even more so. Of course I’m very happy to hear it. The truth is, I was surprised… not so much in that way…”
“Not so much in what way?” asked Hood. “I suppose you mean some would say I was on the way to be an old bachelor. But I’ve discovered it isn’t half so much a question of years as of habits. Men like me get elderly more by choice than chance; and there’s much more choice and less chance in life than your modern fatalists believe. For such people fatalism changes even chronology. They’re not unmarried because they’re old. They’re old because they’re unmarried.”
“Indeed you are mistaken,” said Crane earnestly. “As I say, I was surprised, but my surprise was not as rude as you think. It wasn’t that I thought there was anything wrong about… somehow it was rather the other way… as if things could fit better than one thought… as if – but anyhow, as little as I know about it, I really do congratulate you.”
“I’ll tell you all about it before long,” replied his friend. “It’s enough to say just now that it was all connected with my succeeding after all in doing – what I did. She was the inspiration, you know. I have done what is called an impossible thing; but believe me, she is really the impossible part of it.”
“Well, I must not keep you from such an impossible engagement,” said Crane smiling. “Really, I’m awfully glad to hear about all this. Well, good-bye for now.”
Colonel Crane stood watching the square shoulders and dark red hair of his old friend, when they disappeared down the road, in a rather indescribable state of mind. When he turned quickly back towards his garden and his other guest, he noticed something had changed. Things seemed different in some light-headed and illogical manner. He could not himself understand what had happened; indeed, he did not know whether it happened inside or outside. He was very far from being a fool; but his brains were of the sort that are directed outwards to things, the brains of the soldier or the scientific man, and he had no practice in analysing his own mind. He did not quite understand why the news about Owen Hood should give him that strange sense of a difference in things in general. Without a doubt, he was very fond of Owen Hood; but he had been fond of other people who had got married without especially disturbing the atmosphere of his own back-garden. He even thought that his feelings on their own might have worked the other way; that they might have made him worry about Hood, and wonder whether Hood was making a fool of himself, or even feel suspicious or jealous of Mrs. Hood – something else made him feel quite the other way. He could not quite understand it; there seemed to be an increasing number of things that he could not understand. This world in which he himself wore pieces of green cabbage and in which his old friend the lawyer got married suddenly like a man going mad – this world was a new world, at once fresh and frightening, in which he could hardly understand the figures that were walking about, even his own. The flowers in the flower-beds looked differently, at once bright and nameless; and even the line of vegetables beyond could not altogether depress him with the memories of his last escapade. Indeed he felt very much like someone in the morning of the world; but beyond that he could understand nothing.
