I didn't see him again until the evening of Severn's party. I shall
never forget that evening. It was, according to the newspapers (which
hadn't anything else to make a headline of), the hottest weather for
forty-seven years, or something like that. It was a damp and steamy
heat, and even at Hampstead hardly a breath of air was stirring when I
arrived there about seven o'clock. In those days I couldn't afford
taxis, and by the time I had climbed to the top of the hill the boiled
shirt was clinging to me like a particularly nauseating poultice.
The party was the sort that Severn loved most of all--a gathering of a
dozen or so "big names" from various spheres of activity, with himself
as the lowest common denominator--or would it be the highest common
factor? ... A sort of social cocktail, to vary the metaphor; and in this
particular concoction the preponderating flavour was naturally that of
science, pure and applied. It was a distinguished crowd--terrifyingly
distinguished. Besides Helen, there were only two women--Doctor Isidora
Hadden (who lectured on anatomy and wrote about six-legged dogs in the
scientific journals), and Lady Muriel Spencer, whom Severn had asked,
presumably, because of her recent explorations amongst the buried cities
of Honduras. Of the men, about three-quarters were sixty; two-thirds
wore evening-dress of Victorian design; a half were bearded; and at
least a quarter were varyingly deaf. No doubt their combined titles,
qualifications, degrees, diplomas, and so on, would have filled a
quarter-column of the _Times_. Severn, behind his perfect exterior of
charm, was in a sardonic mood, for as he passed me in the drawing-room
before dinner, he whispered into my ear: "Beware! Here are lions!"
Terry, perhaps, was impressed. He was also very nervous. He was given a
place of honour between Karelsky and Lady Muriel (Severn _would_ do
things like that), and most of the others were probably wondering who he
was and why the devil he wasn't somewhere else. Particularly as he
didn't seem able or willing to make the slightest use of his
opportunities. Karelsky hardly spoke to him at all, and Lady Muriel
tried him once about Aztecs and then gave him up.
As for Karelsky, he was an enigma, and not perhaps wholly a pleasant
one. He couldn't help perspiring, I admit; but he needn't have mopped
his forehead continually with his table-napkin. He talked most of all to
Severn, who was always ready to translate a difficult phrase into German
for his comprehension; but occasionally, and with completely bad
manners, he shouted across the table in response to some remark, not
addressed to him, that he chanced to have overheard. "Dat iss one goot
price," he bellowed at a couple of aged professors who were discussing
confidentially the amount of money they had made out of certain
text-books. But it wasn't hard to believe that he was clever, and he
certainly showed signs of being well-informed about other matters
besides science. "I haf heard of Hampstead before," he said once. "It
iss where--iss it not?--you haf your 'Arry and your 'Arriet on the
holiday of the banks." That, I thought, was not bad for a Russian-born
Austrian.
My own position at table was between Helen and the greatest living
authority on palaeobotany, who, being dyspeptic as well as deaf, must
have had a rather miserable time. But Helen talked most of the while to
her other neighbour, a middle-aged professor of physics. Once she turned
to me and said, very softly: "I don't think I like Karelsky very
much.... Is Terry going to go to Vienna with him?"
"I think so," I answered, and then she said, lightly: "I wonder how
he'll like it--being abroad...."
X
All that time the temperature was rising. I mean the actual, physical
temperature; somebody who, as befitted a scientist, carried a pocket
thermometer about with him, informed us that the mercury stood at
eighty-three. Because of the heat, coffee and liqueurs were served on
the lawn beyond the French windows, and there, without the artificial
breeze of electric fans, the air seemed even hotter. Collars were limp;
beads of sweat ran down scientific noses and beards; even scientific
tempers were not too equable. Only Severn, talking more than anybody,
managed to give an impression of coolness; it reminded him, he said, of
an evening he had once spent in Colombo. He told an exciting story
(possibly a true one) about a Cingalese who, maddened by the heat, ran
amok and killed half-a-dozen passers-by. Then Karelsky discussed with
him in German-English the effect of intense heat upon the human
brain.... Of the whole crowd of us there in the garden, only those two
seemed thoroughly alive--Karelsky with his huge face streaming with
perspiration, and Severn like a lithe sharp-eyed panther. The rest were
puppets, sagging in their armchairs and moving only to sip their brandy
and iced coffee. The smell of vegetation rose up like steam out of the
warm earth, but even the palaeobotanist was not enthusiastic about it.
And Karelsky, with an immense bellow of "It iss verr hot" suddenly tore
off his collar and tie and stuffed them in his pocket. I admired him for
that; it was the sort of thing that needs courage of the kind that few
of us possess. Severn, of course, laughed. It sounded to me like the
mocking, diabolical laughter of a madman lost amidst tropical jungle;
but that, no doubt, was only the combined effect of brandy, heat, and
Severn's story of the maniac Cingalese.
Then at last the first streak of lightning flooded the garden and showed
us the heavy trees, reaching over us like gigantic grasping arms. And it
was in that sharp and blinding glow that I caught sight of Terry and
Helen; they had completely separated themselves from the rest and were
walking slowly across the further end of the lawns towards the
kitchen-gardens....
The moments crawled on, and each was a little hotter, or seemed it, than
the one before. Whenever there came a lightning-flash I tried to take in
at a glance the whole vista of lawns and gardens, but I did not see the
two of them again. By that time, I suppose, I was partially drunk; and I
hardly recollect what happened except that after a seemingly immense gap
of drowsiness Severn himself was next to me, dragging his cane chair
nearer to mine. "I'm so pleased Terry's decided to accept Karelsky's
offer," he said.
"He _has_ told you, then?"
"Yes ... Karelsky goes to Vienna to-morrow night, and Terry will
accompany him, if he can make arrangements in time."
"That's rather quick work, isn't it?"
"It is, I admit. But it's vacation-time and it ought to be possible....
By the way, what do you think of Karelsky, eh? Rather a rough
diamond----"
"I'll tell you this much," he went on, without waiting for my opinion,
"Karelsky's a man of business as well as a man of science. He'll get his
value out of Terry, you can bet your life. But then, what Terry must do
is to get his value out of Karelsky. See?"
"And on the whole you think it'll be a good thing for Terry?"
"If he uses his chances it will be a splendid thing. And, of course, if
he _doesn't_ use his chances, nothing will do him very much good. I like
him a great deal, you know. So does Helen. I'm sure she'll miss him when
he's gone.... By the way, where is she? Have you seen her?"
I told him I hadn't seen her for some while, and soon afterwards he had
to leave me to bid the first of the good-byes.