Vera perceived only two things. She perceived the hat—although her back was turned towards it—and she perceived the half-sovereign—although it was hidden in Stephen’s pocket.
‘But, my dear,’ Stephen protested, ‘you know—’
‘Will you lend me half-a-sovereign?’ Vera repeated, in a glacial tone. The madness of a desired hat had seized her. She was a changed Vera. She was not a loving woman, not a duteous young wife, nor a reasoning creature. She was an embodied instinct for hats.
‘It was most distinctly agreed,’ Stephen murmured, restraining his anger.
Just then Felix came out of the shop, followed by a procession of three men bearing cans of petrol. If Stephen was Napoleon and Vera Wellington, Felix was the Blucher of this deplorable altercation. Impossible to have a row—yes, a row—with your wife in the presence of your chauffeur, with his French ideas of chivalry.
‘Will you lend me half-a-sovereign?’ Vera reiterated, in the same glacial tone, not caring twopence for the presence of Felix.
And Stephen, by means of an interminable silver chain, drew his sovereign-case from the profundity of his hip-pocket; it was like drawing a bucket out of a well. And he gave Vera half-a-sovereign; and THAT was like knotting the rope for his own execution.
And while Felix and his three men poured gallons and gallons of petrol into a hole under the cushions of the tonneau, Stephen swallowed his wrath on the pavement, and Vera remained hidden in the shop. And the men were paid and went off, and Felix took his seat ready to start. And then Vera came out of the hat place, and the new green hat was on her head, and the old one in a bag in her pretty hands.
‘What do you think of my new hat, Felix?’ she smiled to the favoured chauffeur; ‘I hope it pleases you.’
Felix said that it did.
In these days, chauffeurs are a great race and a privileged. They have usurped the position formerly held by military officers. Women fawn on them, take fancies to them, and spoil them. They can do no wrong in the eyes of the sex. Vera had taken a fancy to Felix. Perhaps it was because he had been in a cavalry regiment; perhaps it was merely the curve of his moustache. Who knows? And Felix treated her as only a Frenchman can treat a pretty woman, with a sort of daring humility, with worship—in short, with true Gallic appreciation. Vera much enjoyed Gallic appreciation. It ravished her to think that she was the light of poor Felix’s existence, an unattainable star for him. Of course, Stephen didn’t mind. That is to say, he didn’t really mind.
The car rushed off in the direction of Exeter, homewards.
That day, by means of Felix’s expert illegal driving, they got as far as Bath; and there were no breakdowns. The domestic atmosphere in the tonneau was slightly disturbed at the beginning of the run, but it soon improved. Indeed, after lunch Stephen grew positively bright and gay. At tea, which they took just outside Bristol, he actually went so far as to praise the hat. He said that it was a very becoming hat, and also that it was well worth the money. In a word, he signified to Vera that their first battle had been fought and that Vera had won, and that he meant to make the best of it and accept the situation.
Vera was naturally charmed, and when she was charmed she was charming. She said to herself that she had always known that she could manage a man. The recipe for managing a man was firmness coupled with charm. But there must be no half measures, no hesitations. She had conquered. She saw her future life stretching out before her like a beautiful vista. And Stephen was to be her slave, and she would have nothing to do but to give rein to her caprices, and charm Stephen when he happened to deserve it.
But the next morning the hat had vanished out of the bedroom of the exclusive hotel at Bath. Vera could not believe that it had vanished; but it had. It was not in the hat-box, nor on the couch, nor under the couch, nor perched on a knob of the bedstead, nor in any of the spots where it ought to have been. When she realized that as a fact it had vanished she was cross, and on inquiring from Stephen what trick he had played with her hat, she succeeded in conveying to Stephen that she was cross. Stephen was still in bed, comatose. The tone of his reply startled her.
‘Look here, child,’ he said, or rather snapped—he had never been snappish before—’since you took the confounded thing off last evening I haven’t seen it and I haven’t touched it, and I don’t know where it is.’
‘But you must—’
‘I gave in to you about the hat,’ Stephen continued to snap, ‘though I knew I was a fool to do so, and I consider I behaved pretty pleasantly over it too. But I don’t want any more scenes. If you’ve lost it, that’s not my fault.’
Such speeches took Vera very much aback. And she, too, in her turn, now saw the dangers of a quarrel, and in this second altercation it was Stephen who won. He said he would not even mention the disappearance of the hat to the hotel manager. He was sure it must be in one of Vera’s trunks. And in the end Vera performed that day’s trip in another hat.
They reached the Five Towns much earlier than they had anticipated—before lunch on the ninth day, whereas the new servants in their new house at Bursley were only expecting them for dinner. So Stephen had the agreeable idea of stopping the car in front of the new Hotel Metropole at Hanbridge and lunching there. Precisely opposite this new and luxurious caravanserai (as they love to call it in the Five Towns) is the imposing garage and agency where Stephen had hired the Napier car. Felix said he would lunch hurriedly in order to transact certain business at the garage before taking them on to Bursley. After lunch, however, Vera caught him transacting business with a chambermaid in a corridor. Shocking though the revelation is, it needs to be said that Felix was kissing the chambermaid. The blow to Mrs Cheswardine was severe. She had imagined that Felix spent all his time in gazing up to her as an unattainable star.
She spoke to Stephen about it, in the accents of disillusion. ‘What?’ cried Stephen. ‘Don’t you know? They’re engaged to be married. Her name is Mary Callear. She used to be parlourmaid at Uncle John’s at Oldcastle. But hotels pay higher wages.’
Felix engaged to a parlourmaid! Felix, who had always seemed to Vera a gentleman in disguise! Yes, it was indeed a blow!
But balm awaited Vera at her new home in Bursley. A parcel, obviously containing a cardboard box, had arrived for Stephen. He opened it, and the lost hat was inside it. Stephen read a note, and explained that the hotel people at Bath had found it and forwarded it. He began to praise the hat anew. He made Vera put it on instantly, and seemed delighted. So much so that Vera went out to the porch to say goodbye to Felix in a most forgiving frame of mind. She forgave Felix for being engaged to the chambermaid.
And there was the chambermaid walking up the drive, quite calmly! Felix, also quite calmly, asked Vera to excuse him, and told the chambermaid to get into the car and sit beside him. He then informed Vera that he had to go with the car immediately to Oldcastle, and was taking Miss Callear with him for the run, this being Miss Callear’s weekly afternoon off. Miss Callear had come to Bursley in the electric tram.
Vera shook with swift anger; not at Felix’s information, but the patent fact that Mary Callear was wearing a hat which was the exact replica of the hat on Vera’s own head. And Mary Callear was seated like a duchess in the car, while Vera stood on the gravel. And two of Vera’s new servants were there to see that Vera was wearing a hat precisely equivalent to the hat of a chambermaid!