The Elephant Man and other reminiscences/A Question of Hats
XII
A QUESTION OF HATS
I HAD had a very busy afternoon and had still two appointments to keep. The first of these was in the suburbs, a consultation with a doctor who was a stranger to me. It was a familiar type of house where we met—classic Doric pillars to the portico, a congested hall with hat-pegs made of cow horns, a pea-green vase with a fern in it perched on a bamboo tripod, and a red and perspiring maid-servant. Further, I became acquainted with a dining-room containing bomb-proof, mahogany furniture, and great prints in pairs on the walls, "War" and "Peace" on one side, "Summer" and "Winter" on the other. Then there was the best bedroom, rich in lace and wool mats, containing a bedstead as glaring in brass as a fire-engine, a mirror draped with muslin and pink bows, and enough silver articles on the dressing-table to start a shop. After a discussion of the case with the doctor in a drawing-room which smelt like an empty church, I rushed off, leaving the doctor to detail the treatment we had advised, for I found—to my dismay—that I was twenty minutes late.
The second case was that of an exacting duke whom I had to visit at regular periods and, according to the ducal pleasure, I should be at the door at least one minute before the appointed hour struck. I was now hopelessly late and consequently flurried. On reaching the ducal abode I flew upstairs prepared to meet the storm. His Grace ignored my apologies and suggested, with uncouth irony, that I had been at a cricket match. He added that it was evident that I took no interest in him, that his sufferings were nothing to me, and concluded by asserting that if he had been dying I should not have hurried. I always regard remarks of this type as a symptom of disease rather than as a considered criticism of conduct, and therefore had little difficulty in bringing the duke to a less contentious frame of mind by reverting to that topic of the day—his engrossing disorder.
The duke never allowed his comfort to be in any way disturbed. He considered his disease as a personal affront to himself, and I therefore discussed it from the point of view of an unprovoked and indecent outrage. This he found very pleasing, although I failed to answer his repeated inquiry as to why His Grace the Duke of X should be afflicted in this rude and offensive manner. It was evident that his position should have exempted him from what was quite a vulgar disorder, and it was incomprehensible that he, of all people, should have been selected for this insult.
The interiew over, I made my report to the duchess, who was in a little room adjacent to the hall. She followed me out to ask a final question just as I was on the point of taking my hat. The hat handed to me by the butler was, however, a new hat I had never seen before. It was of a shape I disliked. The butler, with due submission, said it was the hat I came in. I replied it was impossible, and, putting it on my head, showed that it was so small as to be absurd. The duchess, who was a lady of prompt convictions, exclaimed, "Ridiculous; that was never your hat!" The butler could say no more: he was convicted of error. The duchess then seized upon the only other hat on the table and held it at arm's length. "Whose is this?" she cried. "Heavens, it is the shabbiest hat I ever saw! It cannot be yours." (It was not.) Looking inside, she added, "What a filthy hat! It is enough to poison the house." Handing it to the butler as if it had been an infected rag, she exclaimed, "Take it away and burn it!"
The butler did not at once convey this garbage to the flames, but remarked—as if talking in his sleep—"There is a pianoforte tuner in the drawing-room." The duchess stared with amazement at this inconsequent remark. Whereupon the butler added that the new hat I had rejected might possibly be his. He was at once sent up to confront the artist, whose aimless tinkling could be heard in the hall, with the further message that if the dirty hat should happen to be his he was never to enter the house again. The butler returned to say that the musician did not "use" a hat. He wore a cap, which same he had produced from his pocket.
While the butler was away a great light had illumined the mind of the duchess. It appeared that Lord Andrew, her son-in-law, had called that afternoon with his wife. He had just left, his wife remaining behind. It was soon evident that the duchess had a grievance against her son-in-law. When the light fell upon her she exclaimed to me, "I see it all now. This horrible hat is Andrew's. He has taken yours by mistake and has left this disgusting thing behind. It is just like him. He is the worst-dressed man in London, and this hat is just the kind he would wear."
At this moment the daughter appeared. She had overheard her mother's decided views, and was proportionately indignant. She disdained to even look at the hat, preferring to deal with the indictment of Andrew on general grounds. She defended her husband from the charge of being unclean with no little show of temper. Without referring to the specific hat, she said she was positive, on a priori grounds, that Andrew would never wear a dirty hat. Her mother had no right to say such things. It was unjust and unkind.
The duchess was now fully roused. She was still more positive. This, she affirmed, was just the sort of thing Andrew would do—leave an old hat behind and take a good one. She would send him at once a note by a footman demanding the immediate return of my hat and the removal of his own offensive headgear.
The daughter, deeply hurt, had withdrawn from the discussion. I suggested that as Lady Andrew was about to go home she might inquire if a mistake had been made. Her Grace, however, was far too moved to listen to such moderation. She wanted to tell Andrew what she thought of him, and it was evident she had long been seeking the opportunity. So she at once stamped off to write the note. In the meanwhile I waited, gazing in great melancholy of mind at the two hats. The silent butler also kept his eyes fixed upon them with a gloom even deeper than mine. I had hinted that the new hat might belong to Lord Andrew, but the duchess had already disposed of that suggestion by remarking with assurance that Andrew never wore a new hat. The note was produced and at once dispatched by a footman.
I have no idea of the wording of the note, but I was satisfied that the duchess had not been ambiguous, and that she had told her son-in-law precisely what were her present views of him in a wider sense than could be expressed in terms of hats. The writing of the letter had relieved her. She was almost calm.
She now told the silent butler to fetch one of the duke's hats, so that I might have at least some decent covering to my bare head thus unscrupulously stripped by the unclean Andrew. The butler returned with a very smart hat of the duke's. It had apparently never been worn. It fitted me to perfection. In this vicarious coronet I regained my carriage. I felt almost kindly towards the duke now that I was wearing his best hat.
Next day I placed the ducal hat in a befitting hat-box and, having put on another hat of my own, was starting for the scene of the downfall of Lord Andrew. At my door a note was handed me. It was from the suburban doctor. He very courteously pointed out that I had taken his hat by mistake, and said he would be glad if I would return it at my convenience, as he had no other, and my hat came down over his eyes. It was a dreadful picture, that of a respected practitioner going his rounds with a hat resting on the bridge of his nose; but at least it cleared up the mystery of the new hat. The butler was right. In my anxiety at being late on the previous afternoon I was evidently not conscious that I was wearing a hat which must have looked like a thimble on the top of an egg.
On reaching the ducal residence I was received by the butler. He said nothing; but it seemed to me that he smiled immoderately for a butler. The two hats, the new and the dirty, were still on the table, but the duchess made no appearance. I returned the duke's hat with appropriate thanks and expressed regret for the stupid mistake I had made on the occasion of my last visit. I then placed the doctor's new hat I had repudiated in the hat-box ready for removal.
The full mystery was still unsolved, while the butler stood in the hall like a hypnotized sphinx. I said, in a light and casual way, "And what about Lord Andrew? Did his lordship answer the note?" The butler replied, with extreme emphasis, "He did indeed!" Poor duchess, I thought, what a pity she had been so violent and so hasty.
Still the dirty hat remained shrouded in mystery, so, pointing to it, I said to the butler, "By the way, whose hat is that?" "That hat, sir," he replied, adopting the manner of a showman in a museum, "that hat is the duke's. It is the hat His Grace always wears when he goes out in the morning." "But then," I asked, "why did you not tell the duchess so yesterday?" He replied, "What, sir! After Her Grace had said that the hat was enough to poison the house! Not me!"
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