The Romantic Adventures of

MR. DARBY

and of Sarah His Wife

BY

MARTIN ARMSTRONG

Contents

BOOK I

Mr. Darby at Home

I. Emergence of Mr. William James Darby

II. The Birthday Party

III. The Morning After the Night Before

IV. Mr. Darby’s Conversion

V. The Darkest Hour

VI. False Dawn

VII. Suspended Animation

VIII. Animation Still Suspended

IX. Snakes and Spiders

X. Mr. Darby’s Farewell

BOOK II

Mr. Darby Cuts the Cable

XI. Mr. Darby Moves on London

XII. At the Balmoral

XIII. Sarah in Revolt

XIV. Mr. Darby as Man About Town

XV. Mr. Darby as Art Patron

XVI. Mr. Darby Enters Public Life

XVII. The Launching of Sarah

XVIII. A Public Meeting

XIX. A Private Discussion

XX. Revolution in Bedford Square

XXI. The Revolution Fails

XXII. Enter Punnett

XXIII. London’s Punishment

XXIV. Social Interlude

XXV. Good-bye, Piccadilly

BOOK III

Mr. Darby Assumes the Purple

XXVI. The Widow Darby

XXVII. Mr. Darby on Board

XXVIII. Mr. Darby Abroad

XXIX. Mr. Darby Repels an Invasion

XXX. Mr. Darby Faces Death

XXXI. Mr. Darby Again Faces Death

XXXII. A Halcyon Day

XXXIII. Mr. Darby Aground

XXXIV. Unwaddi Taan

XXXV. Darby King of the Mandrats

XXXVI. Punnett Hands Over

XXXVII. A Royal Conversation

XXXVIII. A Royal Pardon

XXXIX. The King was in the Parlour

XL. Turn Again Darby

Book I

Mr. Darby at Home

Chapter I

Emergence Of Mr. William James Darby

Mr. Darby, managing clerk to Messrs. Lamb & Marston, small, plump, pink, clean-shaven, and spectacled, pulled-to behind him the glass-panelled door on which the name of the firm was painted in block capitals and, under it, in flowing italics, the words ‘Architects & Surveyors’. Then, as he always did, he turned the handle and tried to open the door, so as to make sure that the latch had gone home and the door was really locked. It was. Immediately his mind dismissed the office and plunged into the world outside the office door. It was half past five: the day’s work was over. The November evening had already set in. As he paused under the electric light, on the bare dismal top landing with his plump, compact shadow blotting the floor and a segment of wall near the floor, he heard, far below, the confused knocking of two pairs of boots descending the stairs, making the great drab-walled well of the staircase sound empty and stark and hollow. The boots belonged to McNab and Pellow, the junior clerks, to whom Mr. Darby had just said goodnight. As his foot touched the first step of the stairs, he heard, in the well below, a familiar clank. It was the brass tread on the bottom step but three. That meant that McNab and Pellow had nearly reached the bottom, for the stairs from the bottom to the first landing were reinforced with brass treads, and the bottom one but three was loose,—always had been, as long as Mr. Darby could remember. That particular flat, unresonant clank punctuated the beginning of Mr. Darby’s ascent to the office every week-day morning and his completion of the descent in the afternoon; it also recorded his going out to and coming back from lunch, and it produced in him a set of entirely different sensations according to whether he heard it on his ascent or his descent. It was a symbol, but a symbol of two contradictory states, for it was a symbol, of the daily return to servitude and, no less, of the daily escape : it produced in him a small, deep-seated twinge of depression and fear, and, alternatively, a little electric thrill of escape and adventure. At the familiar stimulus, he responded at once to the appropriate feeling : which feeling it was depended simply on whether his face was towards the upstairs or the downstairs world. Now it came to him as an alluring invitation to hurry downstairs, himself to sound the symbolic clank, and then to issue into the hurry and glitter of Ranger Street.

But Mr. Darby did not hurry. He descended the stairs with a precise, measured, and responsible tread, and from time to time he lightly touched the banisters (a thing he never did on ordinary occasions) with his right hand. The whole thing was very dignified.

It was not so much that Mr. Darby was deliberately putting it on, as that it was imposed on him. He noted it, he felt it control his actions, but he was not the kind of man to laugh or even smile at it. He accepted it : he believed in it. Besides, there was a reason for it, for to-day was his fiftieth birthday. At odd moments during the day he had been thinking out the speech he would make when they proposed his health at supper to-night. He saw and heard himself already standing at the head of the supper-table looking down, as if from a great height (though actually it was somewhat under five foot three), on the table and seated company, and delivering a leisurely, eloquent, well-considered speech,―a touch of humour here, a touch of pathos there―a speech which seemed to be effortlessly skimmed from a boundless store of rich words and phrases available for every sort of important occasion. It would, of course, be old George Stedman who, at the correct moment, would push back his chair, get on to his feet and propose his host’s health. Undoubtedly it would be old George, for George always rose to the occasion when it was a question of speech-making. Speech-making, you might say, was his hobby and it was not likely on such an occasion as this that he would allow any other guest to forestall him. Mr. Darby knew from long experience precisely what George Stedman would say on the present occasion, and this enabled him to prepare beforehand a perfectly appropriate reply. His speech, he flattered himself, would make at least as much of a hit as old George’s : and he was secretly convinced that, as a speech, it would be very much the finer of the two.

The loose tread clanked under his sole, and obediently he thrilled with the old sense of adventure. He had descended the whole flight—four landings, forty-five steps—in a dream. In the open doorway he paused, as he always paused, on the threshold of the world. The whole world, and, in the immediate foreground, the whole great roaring town of Newchester-on-Dole, lay before him. Once more the choice was his. Into what part of it should he plunge? It would be useless to plunge straight ahead, for that would mean merely that he would cross the street and enter the premises of Williamson’s Educational Book Store,—not a very interesting nor a very extensive plunge. But if he turned to his right and walked down Ranger Street he would arrive, in five minutes, at the severe Tuscan portico of the Central Station where a ticket might be taken to almost anywhere. Or, still better, if he were to cross Ranger Street and take the first turning to the left along the railings of the churchyard of St. John’s Church whose gaunt tower now stood black against a fading sky of grey and pink, down the passage to the right past the Chronicle office, and then to the left he could, after a somewhat longer walk past the Cathedral, turn south down the precipitious Cliff Street and reach the Quayside where between the black, high-piled buildings that climbed upon each other’s shoulders on either bank, ships made their slow way through smoke and wheeling seagulls, past clanging shipyards and rows of vast cranes like the iron skeletons of huge birds with all their beaks pointing one way, to the open sea and foreign lands. Mr. Darby had always hungered for foreign lands,—not just France or Germany or Belgium, but terrible places beset with parching deserts, snow-capped mountain-ranges, and green dripping jungles full of scarlet orchids and screeching parrots, lands of fierce, tropical suns and spectacular typhoons, where life was not a safe and unvarying routine but a series of thrilling and unpredictable adventures,—the sort of life that tests a man’s mettle, calls into play all his hidden and unused capacities. How simple it was really, thought Mr. Darby, as he had thought hundreds of times before, standing, an absurd pink-faced, blue-eyed, tubby little cock-robin of a man in black coat, black bowler and gold-rimmed spectacles, in the doorway of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street—how simple, if one could only get oneself to the point of doing it, to turn to the right, cross the road, pass the Cathedral, plunge down Cliff Street and, by buying a ticket or signing-on or … but no, the stowaway method would be tiresome and unnecessary. … Sign on, step aboard and steam for the Equator. Why not take the plunge? Where was the difficulty? Uncle Tom Darby had done it. But he had started younger. He had, in fact, started thirty-three years younger. Already at seventeen he had tired of living at home and so, one fine day, had simply failed to return from work. Just gone, vanished! So simple. And a couple of years later he had written from Australia apologizing and saying that he was doing very well. Mr. Darby remembered his Uncle Tom turning up in Newchester over thirty years ago,—a fine, breezy person with a strange twanging accent, who put up for a month at the Station Hotel, gave them all great dinners there, talked big talk about sheep and mines and building speculations, and behaved like a lord on a holiday. When his brother, Mr. Darby’s father, had pressed him to return to England, he had shaken his head. ‘Not me! Not likely! No elbow-room.’ And after a couple of months in England he had gone home to Australia. He had taken a fancy to his young nephew Jim and every Christmas, afterwards, had sent him a present of ten pounds. Years later the present suddenly grew to fifty pounds, and for the last ten years it had been a hundred. Every year Mr. Darby wrote him a long letter of thanks, but he never got any reply. The cheque was always folded in a sheet of notepaper on which was written ‘Jim Darby from his Uncle Tom. A Merry Christmas.’

Mr. Darby, standing in the doorway of Thirty Seven, again focussed the world with his gold-rimmed spectacles. Why not plunge? Uncle Tom Darby had found it simple and refreshing. Then he stepped out from the doorway, turned, not to the right but to the left, and began to walk up Ranger Street, for that, after all, was his way home and the party began at seven.

A few words here must be said of Mr. Darby’s origins. Except for Mr. Darby himself, nothing noteworthy is known of the Darby family, indeed the Herald’s Office had to confess itself beaten when, in later years, Mr. Darby, by that time Sir James Darby, urged it to pursue the Darbys into the past. A conspiracy of secrecy has, it seems, successfully covered all traces of them prior to the accession of Queen Victoria.

The first discoverable record of them, bearing the date 1839, shows them settled in Newchester-on-Dole (‘Erasmus James Darby of this city’), so that our Mr. Darby could, and frequently did, boast that they were Novocastrians of nearly a hundred years standing. He himself had settled, on his marriage twenty years ago, in the suburb of Savershill, at Number Seven Moseley Terrace, and, unless the weather was very bad, he always walked to and from the office. It took him half an hour. It was understood that he walked for the sake of exercise, but in truth Mr. Darby got on perfectly well without exercise. He would never have dreamed of walking for the sake of walking. He walked to prolong his contact with the town and postpone the hour of his return to Number Seven Moseley Terrace. He loved the streets and the shops, the crowds of people and the crowd of traffic. The walk up Ranger Street, to the right along the brief section of Brackett Street, and then to the left up Newfoundland Street was a long succession of pleasures. Frequently his progress was interrupted by shop-windows, before which he paused to enjoy a leisurely temptation, while in imagination he made extravagant purchases with the easy indifference of the millionaire. ‘How much are your best peaches?’ ‘One and six each, sir.’ ‘Then send me a dozen—no, two dozen—please.’ ‘Furlined coats? Yes, sir. The one with the astrachan collar is twenty-five guineas, sir.’ ‘You haven’t anything better?’ ‘I’m afraid we haven’t, sir.’ ‘Then you will have to make me one to order.’ Such was the plane on which Mr. Darby’s imagination moved. But to-night imagination was not needed, for he was going, in cold fact, to buy a couple of bottles of champagne. There would be port as well, but there was always port in the house. Sarah saw to that. They both of them liked an occasional glass of port and Sarah got it in—two bottles at a time—with the other groceries. But a fiftieth birthday called for something more than port. In Brackett Street, accordingly, Mr. Darby turned into Edgington’s, approached the counter with the deliberation that the occasion demanded, and there and then opened the dialogue which, in the past, he had so often rehearsed in silence.

‘I want a bottle or two of champagne.’

‘Certainly, sir. What brand?’

‘Well, ah,’—Mr. Darby had foreseen and forestalled this snag—‘ What… ah … do you recommend?’

‘Well, we have a very good 1917 Bollinger, sir. A very fine wine. The price is two hundred and seventy-four shillings.’

Mr. Darby was not ready for that. He flinched and the shopman must have seen him flinch, for with a slight smile he added: ‘Per dozen, sir.’

Mr. Darby made a rapid mental calculation. Twelves into twenty-seven, two and three over: twelves into thirty-four, nearly three. About twenty-three shillings a bottle! One pound, three! He felt suddenly chilly: his forehead prickled.

To his relief the shopman provided a loophole: ‘Of course,’ he explained, ‘it’s a dry wine.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Darby at once, ‘I don’t much care for a dry wine, and’ he added with some hesitation,’ I want something, ah, a good deal less, ah. …’

‘We have a very nice Clicquot,’ said the shopman, ‘at a hundred and thirty-six.’ (Twelve elevens a hundred and thirty-two, said Mr. Darby rapidly to himself). ‘You’ll find that a nice rich wine, sir.’

Just over eleven bob a bottle. In his gratitude at the enormous drop in price, Mr. Darby felt this to be really quite cheap. It would be safer to close with it. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘that will suit me very well. I’ll take a couple of bottles.’

‘Take them with you, sir?’

‘If you please.’

The shopman disappeared leaving Mr. Darby to regain his calm. By the time the man had returned with the two straw-jacketed bottles, made them into a parcel and handed them to him, Mr. Darby was almost himself again. ‘You’ll find that a very nice sound wine, sir,’ said the shopman and Mr. Darby accepted the assurance with dignity and paused, on his way to the door, to examine critically a pyramid of port-bottles, in order to correct any suggestion of flight which his exit might betray.

Out in the garish town once more, he crossed the street, and steered a straight course, undeflected by alluring shop-windows, up Newfoundland Street. At the top of it the shops came to an end and the less enthralling part of his journey began. He climbed the slope of Tarras Bridge and turned to the right into the long, residential, tram-haunted Savershill Road. There was nothing to charm him now till he reached the railway bridge above Savershill Station and turned up Osbert Road which followed the line of the railway that ran from Newchester to the mouth of the Dole twelve miles away. Here his journey became exciting once more. He always chose the pavement on the western edge of Osbert Road, because by doing so he could look down through iron railings into the railway cutting, and there was always a chance that a train, generally an electric but sometimes a steam train, would pass before he reached the Baptist Church and the houses which followed it and hid the line from the road. Mr. Darby—we may as well confess it—loved the trains, especially the steam trains. Electric trains were unenterprising, short-distance concerns with something of the domestic slur of the tram about them; but steam trains were symbols of travel, adventure, escape. The days on which a steam train passed him on the Osbert Road were days of good omen for Mr. Darby. He could no longer, as in his boyhood, sprint for the Savershill Station bridge when he heard one coming, so as to see it pass under him. In those far-off days he used sometimes to try to drop a stone down the funnel of the engine: once he had succeeded and the stone had been alarmingly fired back as if from the crater of a volcano. But nowadays absurd laws held him in check, reminding him of what was expected and not expected of the Managing Clerk of Messrs. Lamb & Marston. He could no longer sprint for the trains: he could do no more than hope that the train would come for him. And to-day he was fifty—half a hundred—and no train thrilled his progress up Osbert Road, and soon he had turned out of Osbert Road, a little saddened despite the two champagne-bottles under his left arm, and a few minutes later was proceeding past the red-brick fronts of Moseley Terrace. Each house had a small square of ineffectual garden before it with clumsy iron railings and gate fencing it from the pavement. Under the third lamp-post Mr. Darby paused, and the gate of Number Seven wheezed harshly as he opened and closed it. He burrowed for his latchkey and clicked it unerringly into the keyhole. As he opened the door a delicious scent of roasting beef saluted his nose. Before a kind of wooden reredos Mr. Darby gravely executed a series of priest-like movements, a ceremony which always inaugurated his entry into the home. He was removing his bowler and coat and bestowing them upon the coat rack.

Chapter II

The Birthday Party

‘That you, Jim?’ Sarah’s voice came from the back room, the room they used for dining-room and sitting-room combined.

‘Coming!’ replied Mr. Darby, rising on his toes to hang up his coat. The front room (the parlour) was never used unless there was company. Its chairs and sofa were upholstered in green plush: there were a great many knitted antimacassars, a great many knitted mats on which stood elaborate coloured glass vases, a great many framed photographs. The photographs included even the harmonium: on the rare occasions on which the harmonium was to be opened, half a dozen or so of them had to be removed and piled on a chair. There was a fan of red paper in the grate which looked as if it had never contained a fire. The flat lifeless air smelt of new carpet. It was cold, even at midsummer, in the parlour, and the cold air, the cold steely reflection of ceiling and walls in the mirror over the mantelpiece, sent a chill to the heart. The door was generally kept shut, but to-night it was open. Mr. Darby, when taking off his coat beside the coat rack, had stood with his back to it and when he turned he saw the warm flicker of firelight on the walls. The door of the back room also was open and Mr. Darby, stretching out his arms to shoot his shirtcuffs below the cuffs of his jacket, approached it and stood in the doorway. A glare of white tablecloth, cutlery and glass greeted him. A tall vase of brown chrysanthemums stood in the middle of the table. Beyond it, Sarah, greyhaired and massive, was bending over the table: there was a clink of spoons and forks. It was not until she had finished what she was doing that she straightened herself and looked at Mr. Darby. She was a large woman, much taller than her husband. Her grey hair was arranged with a severe neatness that could not hide its plentifulness over a square, severe face. It was a firm, capable, uncompromising, domineering face, but a fine face too. It was not the face of a bad-tempered woman, but of a woman who would stand no nonsense. She did not often smile, but when she did, the smile was at the same time grim and indulgent, and the person she smiled at was unexpectedly and inexplicably enchanted. It was only then that any but the boldest discovered with astonishment her magnificent grey eyes. Those eyes it was and her smile that had captured Mr. Darby twenty years ago. Sarah Bouch had spent fifteen years of her life in the service of the Duke of Newchester at Blanchford Castle. Her father was the Duke’s head keeper at Blanchford, and she herself had begun in the kitchen, worked her way up to housemaid (one of ten) and at the age of twenty-nine became head housemaid. She was not only a good worker but also a clever, observant woman and an excellent manager. In the course of her career she had managed to pick up a very comprehensive knowledge of the organization and administration of a vast household. When Mrs. Race, the housekeeper, was ill or absent, Sarah had frequently taken her place, and the only perceptible difference in the Castle at such times was that things ran even better than when Mrs. Race was there. Sarah would certainly have succeeded, sooner or later, to this responsible post, had she not been snapped up, at the age of thirty-two, by the enterprising and adventurous Mr. Darby. What in Mr. Darby had made her allow him to do so was not apparent: perhaps it was that she was fond of children and in marrying Mr. Darby she was providing herself with a child that would remain permanently a child. Thus it was that, though the Darbys had had no children, Mrs. Darby could hardly be called a childless woman.

She glanced now at the absurd little man in the doorway, secretly amused but none the less ready to be strict. She knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to poke and pry round the table, like a cock-robin round a handful of crumbs, to see that everything was all right. On ordinary occasions she didn’t allow this kind of thing. This was her business, not his: ‘and if you haven’t had enough work for the day,’ she would exclaim tartly, ‘you’d better go back to the office.’ But to-day she was willing to be indulgent. Of course, as she knew well enough, the table was all right: he would find nothing wrong, and even if anything had been wrong, he wouldn’t have noticed it. Still, let him amuse himself. There! He was going to begin.

‘Very nice, very elegant I’m sure! ’ he said washing his hands in the doorway like a fly. Then with his hands clasped he advanced on tiptoe into the room and began poking and prying round the table, nodding his head with knowing approval. Then his eye glanced a little timidly at the chrysanthemums. A horrible doubt had crossed his mind. Were they too tall? Would the people at the top of the table, namely Sarah and the guests on her right and left, be able to see him when he stood up? ‘I was wondering. … Do you think?’ he began.

‘Do I think?’ prompted Sarah.

‘That the flowers … the … ah … chrysanthemums … will be too tall? ’ Mr. Darby had early in life acquired from old Mr. Lamb, the senior partner of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, a careful and weighty method of speech, a happy blend of the doctor and the clergyman. Its effect was to invest with apparent importance even the most trivial phrase. Sarah was one of the few people who had never succumbed to its influence.

‘Too tall?’ she said sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I suppose there’ll be some … ah … speeches … just a few words, you know … and will they be too tall for … for people to see the … ah … the speakers? ’

‘Too tall?’ said Sarah, scornfully. ‘What are you thinking of? Isn’t George Stedman six foot two?’

Mr. Darby did not like to be more particular. He let the question drop. But it would be awkward, very awkward, if he really was hidden completely, speechifying away in a grove of chrysanthemums to people he couldn’t see and couldn’t be seen by. It would spoil everything.

‘Have you got the wine?’ asked Sarah.

‘The … ah … champagne? Yes, the parcel’s out in the hall.’

‘Parcel? If it’s still a parcel, you’d better get to work and undo it. They’ll be here in just over half an hour; and look at you, not changed yet.’

Mr. Darby went into the hall, to the table near the hat-rack, and began to undo the parcel. Sarah followed him and turned into the parlour where he heard her putting coal on. He stood the two bottles on the table and, like a conjuror performing a trick, neatly lifted off their straw jackets. Then with a bottle held by the neck in either hand he stepped into the sitting-room. Sarah reappeared.

‘There!’ he said to her. ‘A couple of Clicquots,’

‘And what’s that?’ said Sarah. ‘I thought you were getting champagne.’

‘It is champagne,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘One of the well known brands, you know. A very nice … ah … sound wine!’ he added tolerantly.

He lifted an eye from one of the bottles to Sarah and noticed for the first time that she was dressed in a brand-new coffee-coloured silk dress. ‘My!’ he said, ‘you’ve got a new dress.’ He moved, still holding his champagne-bottles, to another point of view. ‘Well, I call that handsome, very handsome, I must say.’

Sarah smiled. ‘O well, I’ve got to have a new dress sometimes? she said.

Mr. Darby moved to yet another position. ‘Yes, very handsome!’ he said again. ‘Turn round and let’s see the back.

‘Oh get along with you,’ said Sarah, indulgent but strict. ‘What do you know about dresses? Here, give me those bottles and off you go and get changed. The whole four of them’ll be here before you’re ready, and that’ud be a nice thing.’ She took the bottles from him and packed him off. ‘You’ll find all your things laid out on the bed,’ she shouted after him as he went out obediently. ‘And mind put on your black tie and not that fancy grey and blue thing.’

‘She’s a strange one,’ said Mr. Darby to himself as he climbed the stairs. ‘Now if I’d asked her to get a new dress, would she have got one? Not she.’ And in his mind’s ear he heard her voice: ‘New dress? What do I want with a new dress? I’m good enough as I am, thank you.’ And yet, you could always rely on Sarah to rise to the occasion. She had got that dress, without a doubt, on purpose for the party, though she would have died rather than admit it. And very handsome it was; all, absolutely all, he could have wished. Yes, she laughed at him and his ideas, but leave her to herself and she always rose to the occasion.

He closed the bedroom door and began to take off his coat and waistcoat.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The Stedmans were, of course, the first to arrive. Mr. Darby answered their knock. George Stedman with his great height and width filled the passage as he entered, preceded by his thin, gaunt wife who might almost have got in through the slit of the letterbox.

‘Well, Jim,’ shouted George Stedman, ‘I wish you a very happy return. Not many happy returns, mind you, but one happy return. That’ll bring you to a hundred, and that’ll be about as much as is good for you.’

‘And I wish you many happy returns, Mr. Darby,’ said Mrs. Stedman in her precise, mild, shadowy voice, offering him a thin hand, ‘for I don’t see why you shouldn’t live to as many fifties as you like.’

Both removed their coats and Stedman his hat and Mr. Darby ushered them into the parlour, where Sarah awaited them.

‘Well Mrs. D.,’ said Stedman, reaching out a huge paw, ‘I hope you’re standing the responsibility pretty well.’

Sarah raised her eyebrows and gave him her enchanting grim smile. She had a weakness for George Stedman, perhaps because in figure and character he was a match for her and treated her with a breezy, familiar cordiality. ‘And which responsibility is that, Mr. Stedman? ‘ she said, grasping the huge paw.

‘Why, Jim, your fifty-year-older.’

‘Oh, him! ‘said Sarah. ‘ Being fifty doesn’t make him any more of a responsibility,—or any less, for that matter.’ They smiled at each other, two mature and responsible people smiling over an incorrigible child.

For George Stedman, even Sarah admitted, was a man. It was not merely that he was six foot two and broad in proportion, that he had a heavy grey moustache and a fine head of curly grey hair, that his manner and speech were downright and confident. It was because his head was screwed on the right way and he ran a flourishing ironmongery business. Stedman’s was the chief ironmonger’s shop in Savershill. If ever Sarah wanted advice on a matter of serious business, it never occurred to her to consult her husband: she went round to Stedman’s and had a word over the counter with the boss. He was one of the people she believed in, a responsible person: you had only to look at him standing there now in his smart black suit—the suit he reserved for funerals and other important occasions—and his spotless turn-down collar and cuffs. Sarah had only just had time to shake hands with Mrs. Stedman when there was another knock at the door and Mr. Darby went out to let in the Cribbs.

As soon as Mr. Darby opened the door a gust of talk blew in and filled the hall. ‘No mistake who’s coming,’ said George Stedman to Sarah with a wink. Mrs. Cribb had a reputation for wit and humour. That, no doubt, was why Mr. Cribb was a comparatively sad and silent man. Mrs. Cribb’s acquaintances defined her, with mixed implication, as ‘a caution.’ Sarah’s view was that Emma Cribb was all very well once in a way and that it was an advantage not to be her husband. But Mrs. Cribb was at her best at a party, for, on the one hand, she kept things lively, while, on the other, she did not get all the talk to herself. Samuel Cribb, though superficially sad, enjoyed company in his own quiet way, and was found, by those who succeeded in getting at him through his wife’s ceaseless chatter, to be a sensible and friendly little man. By profession he was a clerk in a railway office, but his hobby was books. He was a great one for spotting winners in the literary world and picking up first editions.

Mr. Darby found himself caught up in a whirlpool of congratulations from Mrs. Cribb, so fluent and voluble that his thanks were swallowed up, unheard. He opened the parlour door and it seemed to him that the flood of words at once burst in, relieving the pressure in the hall and carrying Mrs. Cribb herself on the tide. As he passed Mr. Darby, Samuel Cribb, perceptible for the first time, held out a cold, gentle hand, wishing him ‘Good luck, old man!’ in his quiet, friendly voice. The parlour was now full of talk, a swirling confusion of voices in which George Stedman’s jovial booming provided a solid ground-bass for the high watery babble of the women. The sound went to Mr. Darby’s head. He felt that the house was twenty times its usual size, that a vast and fashionable company filled the reception-rooms, that in a moment they would pour into the dining-room where, after a prolonged banquet, the host would rise from his chair and the event of the evening—the event for which all these brilliant people were assembled—would take place. At the mere thought of it, Mr. Darby, following Samuel Cribb into the parlour, cleared his throat.

Then he heard Sarah’s voice: ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me just a minute …!’ and next moment she bore down upon him and gently but firmly pushed him out of her way in her progress towards the door. She was going to see that Mrs. Bricketts, who came daily to scrub and wash-up and had been retained for the evening, was putting the supper on the table without any of those little lapses from good taste which at once catch the eye of a respectable housewife. A few minutes later she threw open the parlour door. ‘Will you all come this way, please,’ she said, and the two women went out, Mrs. Cribb finishing a sentence over her shoulder which she had been delivering at Mr. Darby. Samuel Cribb stood modestly aside, but George Stedman pushed him to the door with a large friendly paw and then, following himself, gathered up Sarah, who stood outside, and drove her forward too. Mr. Darby, bland and important, shepherded the flock from behind. ‘There was a reception last night,’ he thought to himself, ‘at the house of Sir James Darby on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. Among those present were …’ He closed the door behind him and went to his place at the foot of the table.

For, strictly speaking, technically speaking, it was, unde niably, the foot. The head of the table is where the carver sits, and Sarah was the carver. Already she was dealing in a masterly fashion with the beef, and the plates travelled down to Mr. Darby who was in charge of the vegetables. The arrival of each plate took him completely by surprise, for whenever he had been called to attention by Sarah’s ‘Now, Jim!’ and had loaded a plate, his mind dismissed vegetables and fell into a seraphic contemplation of the social event in which he was involved.

At last even the Darbys themselves were fed and the company abandoned talk and fell to. Even Mrs. Cribb was silent. The only sounds in the room came from the vigorous action of knives and forks on plates. Everybody was hungry, for it was well known that Sarah Darby provided good and plentiful food and they had all arrived in a proper state to do justice to it. Mr. Darby himself had been careful to have a light lunch. He raised his eyes now from his plate and observed them all at work. Jane Stedman on his right was belying her shadowy thinness by the excellence of her appetite. He noticed how well she managed her knife and fork, how quietly and how well she was dressed. A very superior woman: much more so, really, than Mrs. Cribb with her chatter, her affected way of holding her knife as if it were a pencil, and her red knitted dress and saucy hat. ‘Very showy,’ thought Mr. Darby fixing blue, innocent eyes on her finery, ‘but not really half as good as Jane Stedman’s. Ready made and probably cost, half the price.’

He was recalled to himself by Sarah’s voice. ‘Now Jim, aren’t we going to have anything to drink?’

‘My!’ he exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. ‘I was forgetting all about it.’ He turned to the sideboard behind him and began to unwire one of the champagne bottles. At that everyone began to chatter again.

‘Anyone here for Prohibition?’ asked Mr. Darby jocularly. ‘Because if there is,’—he turned to the table with the bottle in his hand—’ we have a tap in the scullery.’

Before anyone could take up this sally there was a for-midable report, a shriek from Mrs. Cribb, and a cork struck the ceiling with a smart crack, rebounded, and buried itself in the chrysanthemums, while the bottle in Mr. Darby’s hand burst prodigiously into a cauliflower of foam. Mr. Darby looked at it in terror. It seemed for a moment as if he would drop it, but George Stedman’s voice brought him to his senses: ‘Keep ‘er nose down, Jim. Keep ‘er nose down. Not so much of the fireman!’

Mr. Darby, always obedient, obeyed, and Mrs. Stedman dexterously snatched a tumbler and held it to the mouth of the bottle.

‘Steady now, Jim! Steady! Don’t let her run away with you.’ Thus admonished by George Stedman, Mr. Darby regained control of himself and the bottle and began to go round filling the glasses.

When he had completed the circuit, filled his own glass, and resumed his seat amid a sudden and complete silence, Mrs. Stedman raised her glass.

‘Mr. Darby,’ she said, ‘I look towards you. Many happy returns of the day.’ There was a choral murmur of ‘Many happy returns,’ ‘And many of them,’ and everybody raised their glasses and drank.

Mr. Darby bowed. ‘My best thanks, ladies and gentlermen,’ he said.

The first solemn moment was over and the talk broke out again. Through it Sarah’s voice was heard inviting the guests to second helpings. ‘A little more, Jane. Emma, I’m sure your plate’s empty.’ Then plates went up and down the table and were replenished. But now the pace grew steadier: they had all taken the first fine edge off their hunger: they were inclined now not merely to eat but also to talk, and the champagne tuned them up. Everybody started at once and soon the room was as full of fine social hubbub as the parlour had been. ‘Laugh? ‘Mrs. Cribb was saying to Mr. Darby. ‘Well, I thought my poor auntie would have died. And whenever I see her now—and I see her every August. She lives down at Saltburn, you know. Very healthy place, Saltburn. Oh wonderful. The doctors swear by it. Air full of owes-one, or whatever they call it.—And whenever I see my poor old auntie now, she says to me: “Well, Emma,” she says … She was always a great one for laughing, was the aunt … “Well, Emma, and what about those smellingsalts.”’

‘Oh no,’ Mr. Cribb was explaining to Sarah Darby, ‘oh dear me no, you don’t have to read them. I don’t suppose I read one in twenty of the books that pass through my hands. You just watch the second-hand catalogues for names and prices. It isn’t the best sellers, you know, that go up in price. Not a bit of it. These valuable chaps are dark horses. Now there’s Joseph Conrad and D. H. Lawrence: I dare say I’ve made as much as thirty pounds out of each of them. And I had a bit of luck a couple of months back. I picked up a book I’d been looking out for a long time, a little flimsy-looking book by a chap of the name of Coppard, called Adam and Eve and Pinch Me. Silly name, isn’t it? Well, believe me or believe me not, Mrs. Darby, I cleared ten pounds on that little job. And a book, mind you, badly bound, that you wouldn’t give tuppence for if you didn’t happen to be in the know.’

‘No, Mr. Darby,’ Mrs. Stedman was saying, ‘what I always say is, give me my own fireside. I don’t mind a fortnight at the seaside in the summer-time, but foreign places and foreigners and foreign food, oh dear me no!’

‘Well, I suppose it’s in my blood,’ replied Mr. Darby. ‘I’ve always been one for adventure and foreign parts. Of course, the wife’s like you. She’s what you might call a home-bird, whereas I’m a bird of passage.’

‘But however do you manage to get along,’ said Mrs. Stedman, ‘when no one understands you, nor you them? ’

‘Well … er …’ said Mr. Darby, ‘well, people do, you know. Signs, and that, I suppose.’

‘And you really enjoy it?’

‘Enjoy it? Why travel’s my hobby. The world’s so full of wonderful things. The pyramids and the Sphinx, for example; and then, of course, there’s the Jungle and all that, and the Red Sea.’

‘But then you’re a good sailor.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘I think I can say I’m a good sailor. I was in quite a rough sea at Scarborough last year, in no more than a little fishing-boat too.’

‘Indeed! ’ said Mrs. Stedman. ‘ But it’s these long voyages that I couldn’t stand. What was your longest on the sea, Mr. Darby? ’

‘Oh a matter of two hours, I suppose,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘That time at Scarborough was the longest, I think; and I know that was two hours, because it was one and six an hour and I remember I paid three shillings.’

Mrs. Stedman glanced at Mr. Darby. She had supposed he was joking. But his candid blue eyes, magnified by the gold-rimmed spectacles into giant forget-me-nots, had the transparency of a child’s: there was not a trace of humour or guile in his innocent pink face.

‘Then you’re not really what you might call a travelled man, Mr. Darby,’ she said.

‘No, not exactly,’ he replied. ‘No.’ He considered the point. ‘No, Mrs. Stedman, only … ah … portentously, as it were. No, I should be more inclined to call myself a would-be traveller.’

‘you open the second bottle,’ whispered Sarah with a nod to George Stedman. ‘You’ll make a better job of it.’

Stedman rose and went to the sideboard. ‘I’ll manage this one, Jim,’ he murmured confidentially. ‘You’ve got the ladies on your hands.’ And there was so little of the romantic and spectacular in George Stedman’s treatment of the champagne-bottle that they none of them knew that anything was happening till they found him at their elbows filling their glasses.

Mr. Darby stared in blue-eyed wonder when Mrs. Bricketts appeared, to remove the plates, in a neat black dress and snowy apron. He was accustomed to see her in the slatternly guise of a char with an old tweed cap skewered on to her head with a black hatpin. ‘Now isn’t that Sarah all over!’ he thought to himself.

The next course was a plum-pudding.

‘Plum-pudding before Christmas, Mrs. D?’ said Stedman.

‘Plum-pudding after Christmas, Mr. Stedman,’ replied Sarah. ‘This one is two years old. It’s the proper sort. I learnt to make them from my grandmother, and, for all I know, she learnt it from hers.’

Mrs. Bricketts put a decanter in front of Mr. Darby. He eyed it: it was the port. Suddenly his heart began to beat very fast: the great moment, the event of the evening, was almost upon him. The champagne had gone to his head and he felt vigorous, elated, but a little insecure. He was not in perfect control, but perhaps that was all to the good. ‘Don’t let my mind dwell on it,’ he admonished himself. ‘It’s all there. Don’t worry. When I start talking, it’ll all come back.’ He took up his spoon and fork and fell upon his plum-pudding.

Sarah’s helpings were large ones, and everyone, though pressed, refused a second. The port had been round. Everybody’s glass was full: Mr. Darby sat with his eyes fixed on his, as though it were a mousetrap likely to go off at any minute. Then George Stedman pushed back his chair and at the sound of it Mr. Darby’s heart leapt with delicious terror. ‘The Baronet’s health,’ his poetic imagination whispered to him, ‘was proposed by his old friend Mr. George Stedman. In the course of a moving speech …’ But George Stedman was on his feet, surveying the company with bland composure. The silence was absolute.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he began with slow and solemn deliberation. ‘We are met together this evening on an Unusual, a unique, occasion. We are met together to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of an old and very valued friend.’ He paused and once more surveyed the company. The faces of all had dropped to an expression of strained and gloomy solemnity. Mr. Darby gazed at his port glass with eyes of melancholy reproach. Then, ending this weighty pause, Stedman’s tone suddenly grew livelier, more confidential. He broke from his funeral pace into an easier movement and simultaneously the faces of his listeners relaxed. ‘I have known Jim Darby now,’ he said, rolling his head back on his deep shoulders, ‘for a matter of twenty years. Now twenty years is a long time, Ladies and Gentlemen; a very long time; a fifth of a century.’ Mrs. Cribb gave a little scandalized shriek and, with an arch glance at Mr. Darby, muzzled herself with the palm of her hand. But Mr. Darby, it appeared, had not heard her. His eyes were still fixed with an infinite sadness on his port-glass. His mood was not to be interrupted by humorous trivialities. ‘I have changed a good deal myself in the last twenty years,’ said Mr. Stedman, running both hands down his ample waistcoat, ‘and so—I would deny it, Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could—has Jim Darby. In those far off days, Jim was a gay young spark.’ Stedman paused for the expected ripple of laughter. Mr. Darby, still deep in meditation, slightly raised his eyebrows and smiled wistfully. ‘Only a few months before we met,’ continued the speaker, ‘he had led his blushing bride,’ he paused to drop a humorous eye on Sarah and all other eyes but Mr. Darby’s followed suit.

‘Not me, Mr. Stedman!’ said Sarah. ‘I was never one for blushing.’

George Stedman withdrew his eye. ‘Led his blushing bride,’ he insisted, ‘to settle in these parts. They were strangers, Ladies and Gentlemen,—foreigners you might say, for they came from the other side of Newchester,—from Jockswood, which, I may tell you, is a matter of five miles from here.’ Stedman paused once more, till the mirth had subsided. Then he dropped back into the more solemn tone of his prelude, swaying the mood of his audience with all the ease of the practised orator. Only Mr. Darby failed to follow, lingering behind in contemplation of that reference to Jocks-wood and his emigration to Savershill. Yes, he had done it then, twenty years ago: he had taken the plunge. But the plunge had carried him only five miles. The mistake had been—yes, he confessed sadly to his port-glass that it was a mistake—to weight himself with Sarah. Uncle Tom Darby had been more practical: he had plunged alone, unhampered, and his plunge had carried him clean across the world. If it had been wet on that Saturday afternoon when he took Sarah Bouch out to Hobblesfield, everything might have been different. That was the worst of being so impressionable. Strong feelings, that was his trouble. He had always been a man of strong feelings. He could feel them boiling and surging in him now like a stormy sea. Yes, the meek, quiet little man, sitting motionless before his port-glass, felt himself tossed, even now, upon high seas of emotion, rising on crests of strange, ecstatic joy, plunging into troughs of indefinable misery, as he sailed before the wind of George Stedman’s interminable eloquence, which came to him in his dream as a slow rise and fall of wordless, windlike sound. He was recalled to himself by the cessation of it, a prolonged silence, followed at last by George Stedman’s concluding phrase. ‘Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must stand no longer between you and our host. I conclude by asking you to join me ‘—he raised his glass—’ in wishing Jim Darby and Mrs. Darby long life and every happiness.’

The toast was drunk. Mr. Darby inadvertently drank it himself, draining his glass at a single gulp. Then, with great caution, he rose to his feet. He felt disquietingly insecure, with an insecurity localized especially in the tongue, the mind, and the legs. This was not at all the state in which he had imagined himself rising to address the assembly. For three or four seconds the room dissolved and swam before his eyes. The moment was critical: only a supreme effort could save him.

Mr. Darby made that effort. With an almost superhuman determination he stemmed the rising mutiny, imposed his will on vacillating mind and body. ‘Be calm!’ he adjured himself. ‘Be calm! Pull yourself together! Don’t begin yet. Plenty of time.’ He reminded himself that a long pause, however strange and desperate it might appear to himself in his present state, was bound to produce an impression of extreme self-control on his audience. It was this reassuring thought that saved him. He took his time. He stood steady. He could feel, triumphantly, that he was standing steady, that he was quite definitely not swaying. And now he made another comforting discovery. The chrysanthemums were not too tall: nowhere near it. He towered above them. Far beneath him he saw the white expanse of tablecloth, and around it and above it the faces of his guests blossoming like huge flowers against the outer dimness. At the end of the table, straight opposite him, Sarah’s was regarding him sternly. But he did not care. With every moment new strength was being added to him. He smiled defiantly at Sarah’s scowl and then, clasping his hands upon his waistcoat, began as slowly as George Stedman:

‘Ladies and Gentlemen. On behalf of myself and my wife I thank you all. I am sensible, deeply sensible?—he paused, assailed by a sudden horrible doubt about the word sensible. When he had heard himself repeat it for the second time it had seemed to him, in this connection, to be perfect nonsense. But a rapid glance round the table reassured him. If he was talking nonsense, no one had noticed it. ‘… sensible,’ he continued, ‘of the sincerity, and the … ah … cordiality of the congratulations which our friend Mr. Stedman here … ‘Mr. Darby unclasped his hands, neatly indicated George Stedman with an open palm, and reclasped them … ‘has … ah …voiced for you with his customary eloquence. It is a solemn moment, Ladies and Gentlemen—our friend Mr. Stedman has experienced it and will corrod … corrog … corrobulate me … when a man joins the ranks of the kinka … quinco … twinka … ‘Mr. Darby hesitated and, dropping his eyes, accidentally smiled a little weakly at Mrs. Cribb.

Mrs. Cribb thought the smile intentional, and giggled in response. ‘The kinkajous, Mr. Darby?’ she suggested brightly.

This unpardonable frivolity gave Mr. Darby the necessary stimulus. He pulled himself sternly together and raised his chin: ‘… of the quinquagenians,’ he said with great seriousness.

He had equipped himself with several other imposing words to adorn the occasion, but now wisely determined to discard them in favour of more managable vocables. For Mr. Darby had now realized his present limitations: he had discovered what orders he could expect his rallied mutineers to obey, what would be bungled or ignored, and like a wise general he tempered his commands to the condition of his troops. Thenceforward things went without a hitch. He swung his listeners to heights undreamt of by George Stedman, held them there on pinnacles of an almost unearthly eloquence; then plunged them suddenly into dramatic silences, from which, when all hope seemed lost, he calmly rescued them and set them down on the comfortable levels of the commonplace. He was now perfectly at his ease, fully master of himself. He felt that he could easily go on speaking for half the night. But when he had been at it for a quarter of an hour he happened to notice that Sarah’s eye was upon him. He tried to avoid it, but it held him and for a moment his eloquence flagged. He floundered, but instantly recovered himself. But perhaps she was right: the best of things must end. He threw out his chest and raised his chin. ‘In a word, my friends,’ he concluded, enveloping the company in a gaze which was moist and glittering with emotion, while with a fine forensic skill he began gradually to diminish his speed and the volume of his tone, ‘In a word, I thank you, we thank you, both for your good wishes, and for the great privilege you have given us in allowing us … to entertain you here … to-night.’

With the ponderous slowness of one who sways empires, Mr. Darby resumed his seat.

Chapter III

The Morning After The Night Before

Mr. Darby woke during the small hours feeling strangely ill at ease. Where was he? What was happening? Evidently he was at sea and it was blowing up for rough weather, for now he fell through fathoms of vacuity, now his bed thrust him up, up, upwards till it seemed that he would certainly bump the top of created things. Could it be that he had taken the plunge and was actually now following in the wake of Uncle Tom Darby? He opened his eyes and the ship suddenly and distressingly stood still. Oof! Opposite him shone the faint livid glare, so unmistakably familiar, of the street lamp outside the back door shining through the dark blue bedroom blind. He must be at home. Cautiously he reached out a foot. Yes, there was Sarah. Yes, he was at home; at home, and far from well. His head felt like an india-rubber ball that alternately expanded and shrank. His eyes felt like two screws recently screwed into it. Oo … oof! The room suddenly lurched horribly away from him. Had he better get up at once, for fear. …? But perhaps if he lay quite still, perfectly still! Once more it was a case for self-control. He must take himself in hand. ‘Be calm! ’ he commanded himself. ‘Lie still! You’re in bed, at home. Everything’s perfectly still. It’s nothing but fancy.’ Ooof! Another sickening lurch. No doubt it was fancy, but what a horribly powerful fancy. It was the whisky on the top of everything else that had done it, of course. But, after all, he had to offer them something before they left the house on a special occasion like this. When he had suggested it to George Stedman, George had smiled, winked, and then accepted. ‘Well, just a drop, to settle things down comfortably.’ Settle things down indeed! Well, perhaps it had settled things down for George; but not for himself. Far from it. Whisky, after all …! But he mustn’t think of whisky. A horrible rising of the gorge had warned him that the thought was dangerous. He must lie still and think of nothing, or perhaps count slowly. Perhaps counting would keep the room still. But it would be as well, he felt, not to close his eyes. So he lay and counted, staring myopically at the livid blur of the street lamp on the blind.

But very soon the numbers trailed away and vanished from his consciousness: counting had become too great an exertion. He sank into a doze, then into sleep.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

He awoke many hours later and saw with horror that it was light. He could hear Mrs. Bricketts downstairs fighting with the kitchen grate. That meant it was just after seven o’clock. In about ten minutes Sarah would get up: in twenty-five he would have to get up himself. Appalling thought! For though he felt certainly better than when he had woken in the night, he still felt very far from well. If only he could lie and doze till eleven or twelve and let nature take her course, all, he felt, would be well. But that, of course, was out of the question. There was the office. And even if there had not been the office, there was Sarah. She would have little sympathy with a convalescence of this description. Yet, as he realized with alarm, it would be beyond his powers to hide his condition from her, for he already knew positively that he would not be capable of facing breakfast. The thought of breakfast now was like the thought of whisky in the night, a dangerous thought, a thought to be avoided. A cup of tea, perhaps. Yes, he might manage a cup of tea: that might be comforting. It might make it possible for him to face the office and get through a not too discreditable morning. For some minutes he lay quite still, his whole attention concentrated on getting as well as possible before Sarah got up. Then he tested himself by envisaging a cup of tea again. Yes, he could certainly manage a cup of tea, and perhaps a small piece of very crisp toast. But no butter. No, most undoubtedly no butter. He almost shrieked it aloud in the intensity of his feelings about butter. Sarah stirred, heaved, and a current of cold air rushed along his back. She was getting up.

Mr. Darby lay on his back, apparently asleep, for ten minutes longer: then with desperate determination he spoke. He had realized that it would be better to settle the matter now, instead of having to reveal the truth at the breakfast table. ‘Sarah,’ he said weakly, without stirring or opening his eyes, and it was as if a corpse lying in state, were speaking.

‘Well? ‘ Her voice came from over beside the dressingtable.

‘I shan’t want … very much breakfast.’

‘Humph!’ Sarah glanced sharply at the recumbent figure. ‘I don’t suppose you will,’ she said, as a result of her inspection. ‘You don’t look anything to boast of. And small wonder.’

‘A cup of tea, and a little bit of dry toast,’ Mr. Darby murmured, his eyes still closed.

Sarah again eyed him severely. ‘It’s a good thing for you,’ she remarked, ‘that you’re not fifty every day.’

‘It was the whisky,’ said Mr. Darby weakly.

Sarah opened the bedroom door. ‘I wonder you haven’t more respect for your stomach,’ she said as she went out.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

An hour later a small, compact, middle-aged gentleman with gold-rimmed spectacles, evidently out for the first time after a long and severe illness, tottered along the western edge of Osbert Road, travelling southwards. His interest in the outer world, generally so acute, was in abeyance. His thoughts were turned inwards. A distant rumble arose in the outer world, increased rapidly, grew to a roar, and a train—actually a steam train—rushed past him in the railway cutting on his right, leaving a vast convoluted serpent of white smoke that writhed its way upwards out of the cutting into the sunny air above. A smell of railway stations and travel filled the air. But Mr. Darby did not so much as turn his head. For the first time in the twenty years of his frequentation of Osbert Road the steam train brought him no intimations of good fortune. He disregarded it, as he disregarded all else of the outer world except his nose—a rather red, dyspeptic nose in striking contrast to the blotchy pallor of his cheeks—which he was assiduously following to Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street. Yes, he was telling himself, if all those midnight delusions had been real, if his bed and bedroom had been heaving and lurching in good truth and for the sufficient reason that they were a bunk and a cabin, if his appalling sensations had been due to a rough night in the Pacific, he could have borne them patiently, even gladly. As it was, what was he getting out of them? Nothing. They had come, they were already going, and they left him empty. They had not even left him as he was before, because by some abominable magic they had lifted the painted curtain and left him face to face with the real drabness, ineffectuality, vacuity of his life. The memory of the great events of the evening before and of the crowning triumph of his great speech might have restored the lost glamour, but unhappily that memory was remarkably small. When he tried now to remember what he had said, he could not recall a single phrase. He could only remember that he had had a desperate struggle with a large unwieldy word, a word that had seemed to him then of great importance, and had been beaten by it. What was the word? Quinquagesima Sunday! That had been the key to it. Quinquagenarian! It popped up at once now: the key had opened the lock. How simple, by the cold light of day. But last night he had lost the key. Probably the whole speech had been one long tissue of uncouth and discreditable noises. He remembered how he had found Sarah’s eye fixed coldly and warningly upon him. No wonder. And what had the rest of them thought? No doubt it would be the standing joke among them for years. Turning the corner into Savershill Road Mr. Darby, wrapped in these painful thoughts, collided with an old lady, blinked, apologized, disentangled himself and went on his way much shaken. He tried to reassemble his scattered reflections, to retire again into himself. What had he been thinking of? Some wound, some deep-seated grievance. Ah. Sarah! The memory of her cold scrutiny last night had stirred a whole brood of antagonistic feelings. And there was her behaviour this morning too,—her complete lack of sympathetic indulgence towards his … well, yes, call it folly; her cold silent hostility throughout breakfast. And yet, after all, Sarah was a good wife. She fed him very well: there were all sorts of delightful surprises for dinner and supper. She kept everything in the house very nice, very comfortable: her standard was high, there was a style about everything she did. Yes, it must be admitted she was a good wife. But no sooner had Mr. Darby admitted this than some querulous worm turned in him, raised a head, and annihilated the admission. ‘No,’ said the worm, ‘she is not a good wife. When you say she’s a good wife, you mean she’s a good housekeeper. A good wife gives you something more than a comfortable home and good food: she gives affection and sympathy and companionship. Does Sarah give you that?’

‘No!’ said Mr. Darby to the worm. ‘No, I’m bothered if she does. She shows me clear enough that she thinks me no better than a fool.’

‘And are you a fool?’ asked the worm.

‘Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Darby hotly. ‘I may have my feelings and I may have my ideas, but I am not a fool. Most certainly not.’

‘Do you hurry home every evening after work and does your heart leap when you open the front door?’ asked the worm.

‘No!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘No, it doesn’t. It sinks.’

‘Well, then!’ said the worm conclusively, and Mr. Darby went puffing indignantly down the Savershill Road, and as he swept down the slope of Tarras Bridge he glared aggressively at an inoffensive little man, no bigger than himself, who passed him near the post office.

As he skirted the railings of St. Thomas’s Church his anger abated. The ocular assault he had made on the inoffensive little man had done him good. And yet, he reflected, how nice she could be when she liked, when something tickled her sense of humour and her lips twisted into that half-sweet, half-acid smile and she burst out laughing; or when she recalled old memories—Do you remember this, do you remember that, Jim?—and they fell to rebuilding the past together. But these heart-warming moments came … how often? Perhaps once a month. Well—Mr. Darby’s mood stiffened again—once a month was not enough. And rebellious discontent broke out again and raged in him for the full length of Newfoundland Street. Again he reviewed his recent ordeal at the breakfast table. Could anyone have been less sympathetic? True, it was his own fault, but in the special circumstances she might have overlooked that. She knew he hadn’t done it deliberately. Now a wife—a real wife—would have made allowances and in any case she would have taken into account the fact that he was really very unwell. She would have made him stay in bed, pampered him a little, and sent word to the office that her husband was ill; and afterwards she would have chaffed him gently about it. But not Sarah! Not her ! As he reflected on her treatment of him he felt lonely, unloved, unprotected. Yes, when all was said and done he led a dog’s life. And every mortal day, except Sundays, he tramped down to Thirty Seven Ranger Street and shut himself up there for close on eight hours, purely and simply to keep that life going. He had denied, just now, that he was a fool, but he was a fool, a damned fool. Yes, Mr. Darby insisted on the word in the face of his conscience, a damned fool. The shop windows of Brackett Street and Ranger Street displayed their allurements in vain. James & Jennings presented wash-leather gloves, the latest hats, their most opulent fur-coats for his imagination to fill them, and he stared right through them. Edgington’s set ingenious snares of port-bottles, champagne-bottles, curiously shaped bottles of rare liqueurs; Milsom’s cast Comice pears, Cantelupe Melons, peaches at one and six each before his feet. Mr. Darby trampled them underfoot with as little compunction as the Juggernaut.

It was only when he had turned into the entrance of Number Thirty Seven, nearly knocking down an errand-boy as he did so, and had sounded his daily knell of servitude on the loose tread of the third step, that Mr. Darby suddenly came to himself and climbed the long flight to the office door, the obedient, efficient, and punctual little servant of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, and, as regards the world below, a totally negligible dust-mote in the swarming population of Newchester-on-Dole. The clock of St. John’s struck nine as he fished out his key-ring and opened the door. As he did so, he heard footsteps far below him. It was McNab and Pellow, the two clerks, following close upon his heels as usual.

Mr. Darby had taken the letters from the letter-box behind the door and removed his hat and coat when the footsteps reached the top landing. He hung his coat up hurriedly, for he always made a point of doing this before the clerks entered. To do so he was obliged to stand on tiptoe, and this, he felt, was a little out of keeping with his dignity as managing clerk. Not that Mr. Darby stood unduly on his dignity. He was on friendly terms with both the young men: he liked them and they liked him; in fact the general office of Messrs. Lamb & Marston was a quiet and happy family.

He opened the door of the general office and went in. Their voices in the lobby brought life to the empty office, and next moment they joined him. ‘Good morning, Mr. Darby!’ ‘Good morning, Mr. Darby!’ ‘Good morning both! ’ replied Mr. Darby. He took the letters to his desk, opened them, glanced through them, and laid them on one or another of three separate piles. The clerks collected their T squares, set squares and other paraphernalia, lifted on to their high desks heavy drawing boards on which half-finished plans were pinned, and perching themselves on their high stools set to work.

In a few minutes Mr. Darby turned on his stool. ‘Here you are, my boy!’ Pellow, a pleasant, red-faced, ginger-haired youth of nineteen, left his stool and took from Mr. Darby one of the piles of letters. It was his duty to take them to Mr. Marston’s room and lay them, ready for his arrival, on his desk, and at the same time to give an eye to the fire. Mr. Darby, when the boy’s back was turned, stretched himself and passed a hand slowly across his forehead.

‘Not feeling quite the thing, Mr. Darby?’ McNab enquired.

‘No, not exactly,’ said Mr. Darby. Then his voice dropped to a confidential tone. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he admitted, ‘I had rather a … ah … stiff night last night. A little … well … a commemoration dinner.’

‘It’s a rotten feeling,’ said McNab sympathetically, and his pale, bony, clean-shaven face crowned by the shock of dishevelled black hair, suggested that he had undergone similar sufferings far more frequently than Mr. Darby. ‘Now, if you’ll take my tip, you’ll have a small bottle of Bass at dinner-time. That’ll do the trick.’

‘Bass?’ said Mr. Darby, flinching a little.

‘Yes, a Bass,’ McNab persisted. ‘Hair of the dog, as the saying is. You may not like the idea now, but take my word for it, Mr. Darby, you’ll be as right as rain after it.’

‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Really now! Well, perhaps I’ll try it, McNab. Anything to … ah …!’ Mr. Darby made gestures indicating the removal of cobwebs from his face and hair. The door opened. Young Pellow returned and put an end to the subject.

‘A Bass!’ thought Mr. Darby to himself. ‘Hair of the dog …!’ he chuckled inwardly, feeling for the first time that he really was a bit of a lad. That aspect of his misadventure had not struck him before. It put a new and romantic light on it. Yes, last night, and, for that matter, this morning, he had touched hands for a few hours with all those wild, devil-may-care, swashbuckling fellows whose careers he had read of and secretly envied. He remembered being thrilled by Martin Harvey in The Only Way. That was a life, if you like. He recalled the fine drunken tone Martin Harvey had put into the phrase: ‘Bear with a sore head,’ as he dipped a towel in a basin and tied it round his aching brow. Well he himself had been a bear with a sore head this morning. He had already forgotten that, towards Sarah at least, his tone had been rather more like that of a lamb. Yes, he would take McNab’s advice and try a Bass. In fact, he would do more, he would not go home for dinner at all. He knew that if he rang up Wilkinson’s, the Baker’s, at the end of Moseley Terrace, they would send a message along to Sarah. It was only a few yards. He glanced at the clock. Twenty-three minutes past nine. Mr. Marston would not arrive for seven minutes. He went over to the telephone, looked up Wilkinson’s number and rang them up. ‘This is Mr. Darby, W. J. Darby of Number Seven Moseley Terrace. I want you to do me a favour. Could you send along and tell my wife I shan’t be home for dinner? Yes, that’s right. Some special business to see to. Yes. Thank you. Very much obliged to you.’

So much for that. What would Sarah think? Mr. Darby’s blue eyes hardened behind his glasses. She could think what she liked. The prospect of spending the dinner hour in town, free and at large (it was an elastic hour: an hour and a quarter frequently), began to seem more and more attractive to him. He was already very much better and by that time he might perhaps be feeling like a bite of something to eat. He heard the outer door open and shut and Mr. Marston’s familiar step go down the passage to his room. Half an hour later his bell rang. That was for Mr. Darby. Mr. Marston was Lamb & Marston complete. Lamb had faded from the office and become a sleeping partner ten years ago, and six years later had faded from the world and fallen into a still deeper sleep in Hobblesfield Churchyard twelve miles west of Newchester. Mr. Darby liked and respected his employer and regarded him, besides, as the very pattern of a gentleman. It was not only his lean, aristocratic face with the close black moustache and well brushed hair grizzled at the temples, his pleasant voice and speech which conveyed this impression not only to Mr. Darby but to all who met him: it was also the quiet fastidiousness of his clothes,—the excellent cut of his suits, his immaculate collars and cuffs, his silk handkerchiefs, his inimitable ties which, though usually dark grey or black, produced in some undiscoverable way an effect of subdued richness. He looked up from the letter he was reading as Mr. Darby, important but respectful, closed the door and approached his desk, some papers in his hand.

‘Good morning, Mr. Darby. A little colder this morning.’

‘Good morning, sir. Yes, a slight frost, I think.’

‘Now what about these specifications for Colethorpe?’

Mr. Marston indicated the letter before him.

‘They’re ready, sir. I have them here, if you’d care to look over them. I’ll get Pellow to type the letter at once.’

‘Thank you!’ Mr. Marston raised his eyes to the little man who offered him the papers. ‘You’re not looking at all well, Darby. Anything wrong? ’

Mr. Darby coloured. ‘No, no, thank you, sir; nothing to speak of. A touch of indigestion.’

‘I didn’t know you suffered from indigestion.’

‘I don’t, sir. This was an unusual occasion’; and, seeing that Mr. Marston looked mystified, he added, ‘a little … ah … festivity among friends, sir, at which I was perhaps … ah … a little … ah … injudicial.’ Mr. Darby emphasized the felicitous word with a little bow at the third syllable.

Mr. Marston’s face relaxed into a smile. The quiet, correct little managing clerk whom he had known and taken for granted for over fifteen years appeared to him suddenly in a new aspect. The Mr. Darby he knew was so round, so complete both in appearance and character that he had forgotten long since that there must exist a Darby apart from the office; that, when office hours were over, his managing clerk did not, like the office desks and chairs and stools and shelves, yield to the darkness, the silence, and the dust, till roused and freshened by the caretaker in the morning; that, after hours, Mr. Darby stepped out into his own particular sphere in the world outside, indulged in a home life and all sorts of activities of which he, Marston, knew nothing, threw off the precise, correct deferential manner which he had ignorantly supposed to be the total Darby, and plunged, it seemed, into wholly unsuspected convivialities. For a brief second, a fleeting wraith of a transformed Darby, a wild-eyed, empurpled, high-stepping Darby, trolling a comic song and brandishing a tumbler flitted through Mr. Marston’s imagination. It was this that had caused him to smile.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I understand. Well, we can’t always stand on our dignity, can we, Darby? We have to let ourselves go sometimes. No doubt it will pass off in the course of the day.’

Mr. Darby, still a little red, smiled back at him. ‘I am glad to say it seems to be passing off already, sir.’

Standing by Mr. Marston’s chair he bent over the desk, like a cock-robin eyeing a worm, and began to run through the specification with him.

So the morning progressed, and so did Mr. Darby’s convalescence. He did not, even at noon, feel that he could face a normal dinner, the kind of dinner that would have confronted him if he had gone home; but he did feel, definitely, that he had now regained the upper hand and that his disorder was well in control. At dinner-time he would take McNab’s advice and try the Bass. It would be a blessing to feel, as McNab assured him he would feel, as right as rain again.

At half-past twelve, with a delightful sense of novelty and adventure, he left the office and descended the stairs. But, halfway down, a horrible doubt took hold of him. Would Sarah have believed his plea of ‘ special business,’ or would she at once have realized that he was playing truant and … well, taken steps accordingly? In other words, was she at this moment lying in wait for him outside the door of Number Thirty Seven? This, it cannot be denied, seemed to Mr. Darby extremely likely. It was, besides, extremely disquieting. However there was nothing for it: if she was there he would have to face her. He was alarmed, for he was in no state to-day to deal with awkward situations, but he was also indignant. He was indignant, righteously indignant, at her doubting his word. It was, in his eyes, no excuse for her that his word in this case was gravely open to doubt, that, in short it was a plain uncompromising lie; for even the most liberal interpretation could not bring the drinking of a Bass under the category of ‘business.’ Mr. Darby was now nearing the hall. The bottom step but three clanked beneath his heel. Even if she were waiting for him, caution might elude her, for she could hardly stand stock still against the doorpost, she would surely have to walk up and down. If he could watch her, unseen, till she was nearing the end of her beat with her back turned, he might make a successful bolt for it. And so, as he reached the doorway, Mr. Darby halted and then, cautiously protruding no more than his nose and spectacles into the street, he glanced rapidly right and left. Not a sign of her. He was gathering himself for a spring when a tall female figure standing on the opposite side of the street caught his eye. A violent shock travelled from his knees to his feet, but with the lightning resourcefulness of a soldier in peril, his glance had left her as soon as it had lighted on her. Could it be her? He critically examined the instantaneous photograph printed on his mind. It was her coat, or very like it, a long brown coat with fur round the bottom. Without moving his head he turned his eyes and glanced at her furtively. The woman was watching him, astonished no doubt by his strange behaviour; but, thank God, she was not Sarah. A warm, luxurious wave of relief broke over him. But he did not lose his head. The fact that this woman was not Sarah did not prove that Sarah was not lurking close at hand. And so, without wasting more time Mr. Darby projected himself suddenly from the doorway of Thirty Seven, clean across Ranger Street, along the railings of St. John’s Church, to the Chronicle office; then sharp right along the narrow passage, then left, and so towards the Cathedral. He had made, instinctively, for the direction of Cliff Street and the Quayside, as if to escape not merely from Ranger Street and Sarah, but from England itself, and if only his wind had held and his spectacles remained unfogged he might (who knows?) have done the whole journey from Thirty Seven to the Quayside and straight on board the nearest ship in a single spurt. In less then ten minutes he might have been on his way for the Equator. But all of us, after forty or so, have our weaknesses. Mr. Darby’s heart was going like a gas engine, he was breathless, he had positively no breath left, his spectacles were dim with steam. He slackened speed, pulled up short, and removing his spectacles began to polish them with his pocket-handkerchief. Poised upon its four flying buttresses, the lantern of the Cathedral tower surveyed him over the tops of the houses calmly and a little superciliously. Mr. Darby disregarded it: he was busy. But, unspectacled as he was, he would have disregarded it in any case, for the world, in such conditions, was a vague and foggy place.

He replaced his spectacles now, the world cleared itself and he looked about him. Where was he? And where was he going? Ah, a Bass. He was going in search of a Bass. That meant that he must visit a public-house. He looked about him more particularly. There was no public-house in sight, and anyhow he could not run the risk of being seen entering or leaving a public-house in this part of the town, where he was likely to be known. A brief but vivid scene took place in his imagination. He was leaving a public-house. He pushed open the door, it swung to with a bump behind him, he hurried out into the street and ran straight into … Mr. Marston. Mr. Marston glared at him in amazement and disgust and passed on his way without a word. And rightly so, thought Mr. Darby, shuddering at the fancy; for people in positions like his own did not frequent pubs. Certainly not. And Mr. Marston who was ready enough to condone and even sympathize with a … ah … festive occasion, would certainly not countenance that. But this time the visit must be paid, for he was in search not of pleasure but of a remedy, a remedy strongly recommended for the little trouble from which he was suffering.

Then a bright idea struck him. The Quayside! The very thing! He would go down—he had already, it seemed, been unconsciously going down—to the Quayside and visit a public-house there, for there he could do so with comparative safety. And that would kill two birds with one stone, because he loved the Quayside: among the ships and warehouses and cranes, with the river gliding by and the trains thundering across the High Level Bridge overhead, Mr. Darby tasted the romance and adventure of the unknown. The North Sea, London, the Channel, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, the Pacific. the Equator,—they were all in the air that blew along the narrow and smoky valley of the Dole. To breathe that air now would do for his heart and mind what McNab had guaranteed that the Bass would do for his body. Accordingly Mr. Darby put himself in motion once more, but his pace was now steadier and more becoming than it had been before. He was aware of himself now, aware of the town through which he moved, aware of the shop-windows which resumed their customary duty of ministering to his sense and his imagination. As he turned down the precipitous Cliff Street a cold wind blew up from below, redolent of the river, and Mr. Darby’s heart thrilled.

A few minutes later the Cathedral struck the third quarter past noon as he stepped on to the Quayside. As usual his first glance was for the shipping, the thicket of masts and rigging, deck cabins and funnels and bridges, that lined the edge of the Quay. Beyond them, in the fairway, a grimy tug, tall funnel raked as if by the force of its movement, thrust its way powerfully through the steel-bright water, drawing, as it seemed, the whole river after it. The smoke-blackened walls and roofs of Portshead, piled upon the opposite bank, the austere smoke-blackened church standing high above them, frowned across at their neighbour Newchester. High above the squat little Swing Bridge towered the black High Level on which trains and road traffic (the first above the second) rumbled across between town and town.

With a deep, satisfied sigh Mr. Darby turned his gaze from these enthralling scenes and glanced along the line of haphazard, old-fashioned shops and stores that faced the river. Not twenty yards from where he stood he caught sight of what he sought,—a public-house The Schooner. Without more ado, he made for it and, having reached it, threw a rapid glance up, then down, the street and darted in.

Mr. Darby was unaccustomed to public-houses: he had been taught, from childhood, to regard them as the homes of drunkenness and disorder. More than once, it is true, he had visited the bar in the Central Station Refreshment Room and taken a glass of port with a friend, but that was altogether a different matter. He had entered The Schooner, therefore, with a certain amount of trepidation, but he was somewhat reassured as soon as he got inside, for the low-ceilinged room in which he found himself was clean, comfortable, and inviting. The bar was rather crowded, and it took Mr. Darby some time to work his way to the front where he found himself face to face with a rather shockingly magnificent barmaid. She ignored Mr. Darby, for she was occupied in conversation with a man who stood beside him and it was not for half a minute or so that she deigned to drop a supercilious eye on him.

‘A Bass, if you please!’ said Mr. Darby with a touch of loftiness; but his loftiness was as nothing beside hers. She handled bottle, glass, and change with the aloofness of a duchess. Her cold unresponsiveness recalled Sarah’s manner at breakfast that morning and Mr. Darby felt a dumb indignation stir in him. But not for long, for the Bass stood before him, and the Bass and not the barmaid was his concern at the moment. He raised it to his lips, tasted it and, as a result of the experiment, half emptied the glass at a single draught.

How right, how absolutely right, McNab had been. This was precisely what he wanted: this clean, tonic bitter was what his jaded tongue and stomach had been crying out for all the morning. He smacked his lips and then pressed them tightly together. For a minute or so he surveyed the rows of bottles on the shelves behind the bar. They recalled his visit of the previous evening to Edgington’s, but he did not pursue that memory. Then among the bottles he noticed hats, faces, collars, sleeves: the shelves were backed with mirrors, and next moment his eye fell upon something he had never seen before,—to wit, Mr. William James Darby standing at a public-house bar toying complacently with a half-empty glass. He looked (he noted with displeasure) a little foolish and with a slight blush he averted his eyes from the spectacle. Then he raised his glass once more and lowered the second half of the Bass, glancing again at the Mr. Darby opposite him as he replaced his empty glass on the counter. No, he had been wrong: he looked all right, nothing ridiculous about him at all! And, after all, why should there be?

So much for his looks. As regards his feelings, he felt magnificent. He was cured, completely cured, as right as rain. What was more, he was extremely hungry. He glanced along the counter and his eye fell upon a glass dish covered by a glass bell, under which was a pile of sandwiches. At that moment the barmaid removed his empty glass. ‘I’ll take a sandwich, please,’ he said promptly, ‘and,’ he added by an inspired afterthought, ‘another Bass.’

‘Ham or beef?’ said the barmaid.

‘One of each,’ said Mr. Darby.

What an admirable place! How providential that he had happened upon it so casually! What excellent-looking sandwiches! His mouth was watering: he could hardly wait till the barmaid put the plate in front of him. And another Bass: that had been an inspiration, nothing less.

The barmaid seemed to regard him more favourably. ‘Mustard?’ she asked musically, pushing a mustard-pot towards him.

‘Thank you! Thank you!’ said Mr. Darby and he helped himself and, lifting the lids of his sandwiches, spread the beef and ham liberally with mustard. He was pleased to see how well the meat was cut: no gristle and not too much fat. ‘Nothing so good as a good sandwich,’ he ventured affably, ‘and nothing so bad as a bad one. Coldish, isn’t it!’

The barmaid smiled amiably. ‘Yes, but what can you expect?’

‘Exactly!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Exactly! What can we expect? After all we shall have Christmas on us in a month.’

He said he would take another ham sandwich, ‘just to make up the half half-dozen,’ he added jocularly.

When he had finished it he felt he could have done with another, but he refrained, for, he told himself, he was one of those men who knew when to stop. With a sigh of satisfaction he finished his second Bass. ‘Really quite a pleasant young person,’ he thought to himself, as he issued from the porch of The Schooner, careless of detection now, on to the Quayside.

He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes past one. There were still twenty-five minutes before he need be back at the office, so he turned and walked in the other direction up the Quayside, then crossed the roadway and stood at the edge of the quay to watch a cargo-boat loading. A steam-crane on a trolly, with a frantic hissing and rattling, lifted a great trayful of bales from the quay. The rattling stopped and the jib of the crane and the little cabin from which it protruded twirled round on its trolly, swung the load with it, and poised it over the open hatchway on the ship’s deck. Another pause: then with a sudden outbreak of rattling, it dropped the load neatly into the hold.

‘Where is she bound for?’ Mr. Darby asked a man in a navy blue jersey.

‘Rotterdam,’ said the sailor.

‘A strange, outlandish name,’ Mr. Darby thought to himself as he moved on. Rotterdam! Marseilles! Port Said! The Isthmus of Panama! The South Sea Islands! What a lot of strange foreign places there were in the world. Once more the old hunger for travel and adventure came over him, a hunger so intense that his heart ached at the thought that he would never be able to satisfy it. ‘To think,’ he said, ‘that I shall die, that I shall certainly die, without ever having seen the Jungle.’ There lay the Jungle—somewhere or other in Africa, was it?—it really existed, it was not a mere fairytale fancy, but an absolute, undeniable reality; and here was he, William James Darby, on the Quayside at Newchester-on-Dole, and never, by any possibility, would he see the Jungle, nor any of the other wonders of the world, for that matter. There was Vesuvius, for instance, probably belching out clouds of smoke at this very moment, and he not there to see it. The thought was intolerable. When he was younger he had always taken it for granted that some day he would see everything, experience every adventure that life can offer, and tacitly, almost unconsciously, without making the smallest effort to bring it about, he had gone on believing it. It was this, really, which had kept him going: all his hopes, all his energies, had been blindly directed by this faith. It was only quite recently that he had begun sometimes to suspect that his faith was built upon sand, and it was only to-day, only now, that he had definitely faced the fact that the world, the real world, was beyond his reach, that he was middleaged and tied by the leg to Sarah and the office. It was all very well to think of taking the plunge, as he had done while standing yesterday evening in the doorway of Thirty Seven Ranger Street and surveying the world, but actually it would be impossible to do so. For if he did so his salary would stop: there would be nothing except Uncle Tom Darby’s hundred pounds which might cease at any time, for he must be a great age now; and he couldn’t clear out and leave Sarah penniless or almost penniless. Nor—he might as well admit it—could he himself get on without money. It was all very well to dream about signing-on or going as a stowaway. …

The thought of ships recalled him to his surroundings. A ship, another cargo-boat, towered above the quay a few yards from him. His eye travelled up and down the masts, among the rigging, along the encumbered deck. Now honestly, could he see himself swarming up those masts, clinging like a spider among that tangle of rigging, running along those slippery decks? Or—he approached the ship more closely and gazed into an open hatch—or (even supposing he could get on board unnoticed, and drop himself neatly, as he had seen the crane drop that cargo just now down that dark hatchway) could he really face the stowaway method of travel? No. Mr. Darby, standing on the Quayside, solemnly assured himself of all these things, and his mind, the reasoning part of him, accepted them, admitted their truth. And yet—strange, inexplicable fact—these melancholy convictions made no difference whatever to his feelings. The depression, the despair that they ought to have produced, did not supervene. Mr. Darby still felt, as he had felt on leaving The Schooner, remarkably jolly. Was it that the heart cannot in a moment shake off a habit of forty years or so? Or was it simply that the Bass,—or, to be accurate, the Basses—and those excellent sandwiches had fortified Mr. Darby against the assaults of cold logic? It is probably truer, as it is certainly more in keeping with his character, to assume that it was a childlike faith—that purest form of faith which burns the more brightly when assailed by irrefutable logic—that kept Mr. Darby’s spirits up in this remarkable fashion. And, after all, if faith can move mountains, it might very well be that if Mr. Darby never got to Vesuvius, Vesuvius would come to him.

Whatever the reason, Mr. Darby preserved his old enthusiasms. He gave a last look to the shipping, to the troubled steel-bright water seen between the hulls, to the white gulls wheeling stormily in the narrow trough of the valley between water and clouds; he took a long breath of sharp, watery, tarry, smoky air, and then turned inland, for it was half past one. Correct, bland, with features alert yet composed, he climbed the precipitous slope of Cliff Street, and no one could have suspected that the inner Mr. Darby was trolling with head thrown back and a fine, operatic abandon, a song that had been familiar in his youth:

For I’m going far away

At the breaking of the day.

The statement was obviously untrue, but the inner Mr. Darby sang it with a whole-hearted conviction, and the outer Mr. Darby listened, approved, and indeed threw himself into the performance so zealously that his throat contracted and expanded in muscular sympathy, his lips twitched, and, to his surprise and concern, a rudimentary and quickly stifled sound escaped his lips during the closing verse.

Chapter IV

Mr. Darby’s Conversion

But the Basses had not really cured him. Disillusion returned. Days passed, and a week, and another week, but Mr. Darby did not regain his old innocent composure. Those three experiences, his birthday party, the disillusionment of the following morning, and the visit to the Quayside and The Schooner, experiences which to a less sensitive man might have seemed the merest commonplace, had changed him radically. He returned to them again and again in thought, vibrating again to the keen and complex emotions connected with each. It was as if three doors had been mysteriously flung open and he had been permitted to move for a few brief moments in realms of life hitherto unvisited.

When he had regained his normal bodily state he had found that he could remember much more of the party than in those sick and clouded hours of the morning after. He was now able to enjoy in retrospect the rich solemnity of the occasion and to thrill once more to that sense of power and untrammelled self-expression which had filled him as he stood before the seated multitude and swayed them at his word. It was a stirring memory; for Mr. Darby had the soul of a poet, and memory, to a poet, takes its forms and colours not from the mundane and petty details of the actual event but from the emotions that made it what it was. And so in memory Mr. Darby swayed a multitude and not merely the four familiar friends and the somewhat sceptical wife who had, in fact, been the only persons present. Then, hard upon the release, the expansion, the fulfilment of that initial experience, had come its negative counterpart, the labours and tribulations of the night and early morning, and the cold, clear-eyed disillusionment of the forenoon. In the walk from Number Seven Moseley Terrace to Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street Mr. Darby had done a very dangerous thing; he had turned upon his life a mercilessly analytic scrutiny which had revealed its hollowness. The voyage which during that brain-sick night he had deduced from the oceanic heavings of his bed had been as real as—nay, much more real than—any voyage taken on a tangible liner, for it had been a voyage that bore him away for ever from the old innocent Darby, Darby the child, and landed him in a remote new world, the world of Darby the man, the grim realist for whom the colourful trappings of dream and fancy (those trappings which had made life bearable to him hitherto) were only too lamentably threadbare. But then—as if to save the man from bankruptcy and despair—kind Providence had interposed and, employing (as Providence so often does) a humble agent, had suggested, through the mouth of the clerk McNab, a Bass; and in his search for the Bass Mr. Darby had been drawn to the Quayside and to The Schooner.

And how deeply moving and how restorative that visit had been. For though it had not dimmed the keenness of his new analytic vision, it had, none the less, given back to life the old warmth and the old wonder, and it had taught Mr. Darby the miraculous truth that hope and happiness may subsist without visible means of support, that a man may face facts and yet not turn his back on romance. But it had suggested to him, too, a doubt that mere unexpressed longing for the life of adventure was enough to conjure it up into reality. If a man really wants to travel and see the wonders of the world he must, perhaps, do something about it.

Mr. Darby had, of course, often thought of doing something about it. We saw him, only yesterday evening, standing in the doorway of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street and actually contemplating the plunge. But the truth was, and had always been, that even while contemplating it and urging himself to take it, Mr. Darby was not in earnest. He knew, even in the very act of urging himself, that he had not really the smallest intention of plunging. He was playing with himself and he was playing with fate.

But the new Darby, Darby the man, had reached a degree of maturity at which this make-believe had ceased to soothe. In fact, it depressed him, for he felt it now to be a sign and symptom of his ineffectuality. Yes, if he desired adventure, he realised now, he must run to meet it and not simply sit waiting for it to come to him. But what could he do? For in his new and practical mood he saw that there was no meaning in his old dream of taking the plunge. In older and simpler days it was different: then you could, no doubt, step straight off your own back door step, without premeditation or preparation, into the great world. But in these complicated times a man—or anyhow a middle-aged man uninured to hardship and violent muscular effort—needs, as he had come to realize during his meditation on the Quayside, some sort of material backing. The most modest plunge, at least of the kind that he, at his age, was capable of taking, would involve—it was useless to blink the absurd, ugly fact—the purchase of a ticket, and a ticket to any of the places of his dreams—the Sphinx, the Jungle, Vesuvius and so on—would be expensive. Besides, there was Sarah.

These practical reflections depressed Mr. Darby very much. For days he went to and fro through Newchester-on-Dole with the taste of ashes in his mouth. Still, for brief and unexpected moments—at the sight of an opulent shop-window, at the roar of a train in the Osbert Road cutting, or at the hidden impulse of that faith which, in despite of all reason, still lurked in his soul—happiness leapt irrepressibly in him; but he received these bright gifts now not as his natural right, but humbly and gratefully as balm to his sorrows. But his newly acquired wisdom did not allow him to succumb. It urged him to reflect, to plan, to scheme, to divide the impossibles from the possibles and to discard the former and to permute and combine the latter; and at last, after a careful sifting of pros and cons, Mr. Darby came to the practical decision that the only course open to him was to start a B Account, an Adventure Fund. It would be an awkward business, for Sarah knew all about his modest income. She had a very good head for business and it would be difficult to transfer to the Adventure Fund amounts however small without her knowledge. If only he had kept Uncle Tom Darby’s annual present dark from the beginning. What a nest-egg! If he had saved it merely during the last ten years the Adventure Fund would stand at a thousand pounds. Could he, perhaps, pocket the letter when it arrived this Christmas, before Sarah noticed it, and pretend it had not come? They had always agreed that it was not to be relied on, not to be regarded in any sense as income, since it might stop at any time. Well, why not adopt the simple fiction that it had stopped? Mr. Darby blushed slightly to himself, but he disregarded the blush and the feeling that provoked it, for the desperate man must not stick at trifles. Yes, that is what he would do, or try to do. And anyhow, if he failed this year, he would, when writing to thank Uncle Tom Darby, intimate a change of address,—a change to ‘care of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, 37 Ranger Street.’

Having at last taken a practical step towards the realization of his dreams, Mr. Darby felt better. He could afford now to leave things to develop. But meanwhile he was not going to ignore the comforts and consolations of his present life. Pre-eminent among these stood that midday visit to The Schooner. He would repeat it. It would, in fact, be a good move to accustom Sarah to the idea that, say, once a week—every Friday, say—the office-work at Messrs. Lamb & Marston’s was apt to accumulate so formidably that he couldn’t be spared, simply had to snatch a quick lunch when and how he could. The opportunity to introduce this idea occurred almost immediately.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Sarah Darby was a much closer and more solicitous observer of her husband than he supposed. She regarded him as a rather wilful child, a child that must be watched, and she did not fail to notice the change that had come over him since the evening of his birthday party. But she was far from guessing at the spiritual revolution which had produced this change. She put it down, in her unimaginative and uncompromising way, to stomach. But this did not mean that she thought it unimportant: quite the contrary. For she held that the first necessities to a perfectly ordered life are a good digestion and good food. Now obviously Mr. Darby was not at present in possession of the first of these. He was off his feed and he was melancholy. She had caught him more than once, during recent evenings, gazing reproachfully into the fire as though he had some grievance against it. His excesses at the party had evidently deranged his digestion: it was, in fact, this, all the time, which had provoked her disapproval. The fact that he had been somewhat tipsy she would have overlooked with an indulgent and slightly sardonic smile. Men,—strange, irresponsible creatures that they were—were always liable to meaningless pranks of this kind. But for a man to go and upset his stomach, to put himself at cross purposes with life for days was, in her eyes, a disgusting and immoral act. If you had tried to get her to take a more imaginative view, if you had put in a word for Mr. Darby’s soul and hinted at a spiritual revolution, she would have told you that the first duty a man owes to his soul is to look after his stomach and that the proper name for ‘spiritual revolution’ is ‘bilious attack.’ She had found, long since, that to question Mr. Darby or make remarks on his health was worse than useless: when she did so, he behaved as if she were regarding him with unwarrantable suspicions and took refuge in declaring that he was perfectly well. And so she did not question him now. Besides, this time no questions were necessary. She knew well enough what was the matter. Unknown to him, she dieted him for some days; but when this produced no effect and he remained as moody as ever, she began to feel anxious. Perhaps, for once, he would vouchsafe some information. ‘You’re not looking yourself, you know, Jim,’ she said during supper, regarding him searchingly with those keen grey eyes of hers. ‘And who can wonder?’ she found herself adding sternly.

Mr. Darby understood the implication of the added phrase. It would be a long time, he knew, before Sarah forgave his recent indisposition.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked, not unkindly.

‘M … yes!’ replied Mr. Darby in a qualified affirmative. ‘M … yes! Not too bad. A little overworked, that’s all.’

‘Overworked?’

‘Yes, we have rather an … ah … an accumulation of work at the office at present. In fact, I hardly thought I should get home for dinner this morning, though Fridays are generally the worst.’

This was very diplomatic, for it not only prepared Sarah for possible delinquencies in the future, but it corroborated,—and, it might appear, quite unintentionally—the bonafides of his first failure to come home to dinner a few days ago. Neither of them had ever referred to this, and from the very fact that she had not referred to it Mr. Darby had gathered his wife’s resentment and scepticism. But a little touch such as the one he had just so skilfully brought off would, it was to be hoped, correct this attitude of Sarah’s. He glanced at her to judge of its effect. It had not been so complete as he had hoped: Sarah still appeared doubtful and reflective. ‘There’s never been any trouble of this sort before,’ she said. ‘Why should they start overworking you now?’

‘O, expanding business!’ said Mr. Darby airily. Then, turning his spectacles on her with the look of one uttering a philosophical observation, he added: ‘We must expect that, Sarah, you know! The business that stands still, goes back.’

Sarah was not in the least impressed. ‘H …m! A funny sort of business that must be,’ she said with a sardonic chuckle.

Mr. Darby left it at that. He had at least planted the idea: Sarah had not actually repudiated it: it seemed not unreasonable to hope that it would take root. He followed this up two days later (the day being Friday) by sending another telephone message from the office. He was again detained by an … ah … accumulation of business.

This accomplished, his spirits rose: a delightful holiday mood took possession of him: he could hardly prevent himself singing at his work. Punctually at twelve thirty he issued forth. His step was brisk, his eye alert. It was no blind, instinctive flight this time: this gay, self-possessed, and prosperous little man obviously knew very well where he was going. And he was going, of course, as straight as he could go, to The Schooner. Already in anticipation he savoured the bracing smack of the Bass on his tongue and the rich flavour of those sandwiches through which came the pleasant sting of the mustard. His mouth watered. It was only his sense of his position as managing clerk of Messrs. Lamb & Marston and respectable citizen of New chester-on-Dole that prevented him from skipping down the declivity of Cliff Street. Arrived on the Quayside he did not pause to survey the enchanting scene. This was no moment to indulge the poetry of romance: it was the poetry of realism that possessed him now, urging him smartly towards the porch of The Schooner. Not that he closed his senses to the other; for, as he hurried along, his eyes took in the crowded scene on his right, darted in and out along decks, swarmed up masts, skipped to the piled, smoke-grimed roofs of Portshead and dived thence to the bright river below, while his nose drew in the smoky, watery, tarry air, detecting in it the salt of the Pacific, the fumes of Vesuvius, and the hot mephitic vapours of the Jungle. All these things he took in and enjoyed on his course, as a miser might collect antique coins with a purely artistic zeal quite apart from his sordid passion for the currency.

Without precaution and with no trace of trepidation Mr. Darby pushed boldly through the door of The Schooner. It was like returning home after a long absence. He did not even remember his old fear and distrust of public-houses. But why should he? For these feelings belonged to the old Darby, the Darby who had died a week ago. They were no part of the new Darby.

Once more the place was somewhat crowded, but Mr. Darby worked his way politely but firmly to the bar, and there, once more, he found himself face to face with the lady of the bar who was pouring out a glass of stout. She was still magnificent but she was no longer shocking, and catching sight of Mr. Darby she smiled in the friendliest fashion and signed that she would attend to him in a moment. And in a moment she stood awaiting his order. Mr. Darby made a little bow.

‘Good-morning, Miss … ah …?’ he said gallantly under cover of the buzz of talk that surrounded them.

‘Sunningdale,’ said the barmaid.

‘Good-morning, Miss Sunningdale. And how are we this morning?’

‘Oh not so bad, thanks, for the time of the year,’ said Miss Sunningdale. She raised her golden eyebrows. ‘Same as last time?’ she asked, confidentially amiable.

‘The same as last time, if you please!’ said Mr. Darby.

But how extraordinary that she should remember what he had had last time. Most extraordinary. Really a very pleasant and friendly young person. She drew his Bass and poured it out, not disdainfully this time but with the air of an accomplished conjuror performing a trick; then raising the glass bell of the sandwich dish she took two off the piles, placed them on the plate and set them before him. ‘Mustard?’ she said, musically as before, and then left him to attend to other orders.

Mr. Darby ate and drank with gusto: the sandwiches were as excellent as before, the Bass had the same stimulating tang. Miss Sunningdale flitted to and fro, distributing beers, stouts, ports, whiskies, affable smiles and lofty disdain in accordance with the needs and deserts of the customers. Then she turned to the shelves behind her. ‘A smart figure!’ mused Mr. Darby as she stood with arms raised reaching for a couple of bottles. As she turned with the bottles in her hands his eyes met hers and he opened his mouth to speak. But the words stuck in his throat, for a very disagreeable thing occurred. Framed in the space left by the two bottles he had detected a round, pink, spectacled face crowned by a bowler hat. The face itself was familiar enough: it was its expression, an expression at once timid, ingratiating and distressingly fatuous, that had frozen his speech. For a moment he felt himself embarrassed, horribly ashamed. But next minute he had pulled himself together, averted his eyes from the lamentable image, cleared his throat, and remarked: ‘We keep you busy here, Miss Sunningdale.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s pretty crowded most days from half past eleven to about two. Still, it doesn’t worry me. It’s a matter of knack, you know: keeping your head and not getting fussed. I’m an old hand, you see. Been at it ten years now.’

‘Ten years! Is it possible?’ said Mr. Darby gallantly, looking up from his plate over the tops of his spectacles.

She smiled an arch, lustrous smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘sad but true. Do you come from these parts yourself?’

‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Darby, ‘I live in Savershill.’

‘Dear me now. My first job was at The Punchbowl in Savershill Road. You know it, I suppose?’

‘I know the … ah … the exterior,’ said Mr. Darby. He was saved from confessing that he had never been inside—and he would have been ashamed to have to confess it to Miss Sunningdale—by her being called to the other end of the bar. Except to ask for another Bass and another sandwich he had no further opportunity for conversation.

Already the crowd at the bar was thinning. Mr. Darby, having despatched his second helping, dusted the crumbs from his coat, raised his hat and smiled at Miss Sunningdale who smiled graciously from the far end of the bar, and went out.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

No sooner had Mr. Darby left The Schooner than the door swung open and admitted a tall, rather massive woman, who stood for a moment to take in the scene, and then advanced towards the bar. Miss Sunningdale regarded her with surprise: for Miss Sunningdale had considerable experience of the women who frequent pubs and she saw at once that this was not one of them. It was obvious that she was a very superior person, a person of considerable dignity and perfect self-possession. Her clothes, Miss Sunningdale noted, were quiet but good. She chose a part of the bar which was away from the small group of drinkers that still remained and Miss Sunningdale went to her at once, for this was a person, she felt, who deserved politeness. She liked the square, stern, handsome face.

‘Excuse me troubling you,’ said the lady in an undertone, ‘but did you particularly notice the gentleman who went out just now?’

‘Small, clean-shaven, spectacles, blue eyes?’ asked Miss Sunningdale.

‘That’s him,’ said the lady. ‘He’s my husband, and I’d be much obliged if you could tell me what he had.’

Miss Sunningdale hesitated. She did not quite feel that she ought to tell tales about the absurd little man. He was pleasant and chatty and perfectly harmless. She liked him. At the same time she liked this large, dignified, straightforward woman: she liked her manner of speaking and the direct, unsecretive way she had asked her question. She decided to tell.

‘He began with a Bass and a ham and a beef sandwich, and then he had another Bass and another ham sandwich,’ she said.

‘Hm!’ said the lady grimly. ‘That explains it.’ She glanced at Miss Sunningdale. She was inclined to be critical of women of flamboyant appearance, but in the case of Miss Sunningdale she saw through the flamboyancy to a kindred spirit. Yes, she was the right sort, a sensible woman at bottom, a woman who would understand. ‘The fact is,’ she said confidentially, ‘he wants watching. Not in the matter of drink, I don’t mean,’ she hastened to explain: ‘he’s always been thoroughly steady. But he’s got to have proper meals. Now he’s been thoroughly out of sorts lately, and I’ve been wondering why: but now I know. He generally comes home, you see, and has a good hot dinner, and for a man accustomed to a hot dinner three sandwiches isn’t enough. But if I were to ask him what sort of a dinner he had had in town, do you think he’d tell me? “Sarah made a face indicating the hopelessness of the undertaking. ‘No, you’ve got to manage him artfully,’ she said. ‘He’s just like a child!’

‘Most of them are,’ said Miss Sunningdale. ‘Won’t you take something, madam?’

Sarah shook her head.

‘I’ve got some quite decent sherry,’ said Miss Sunningdale raising her golden eyebrows in friendly persuasion.

Sarah smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you’ll have one too.’

Miss Sunningdale went and filled two glasses. She was unable to prevent Sarah from paying for them. ‘Yes,’ she said, resuming the theme they had started, ‘most of them are little better than kids. Of course in places like this you see all sorts and kinds, but they’re all much the same in the end. If you was to come in here, or into any public for that matter, and watch them for an hour or two, well, I assure you, you’d be surprised. Of course there’s some, like your husband, who just come in for a lunch and go when they’ve had it: but most of them comes in twos and threes and plants themselves here talking and drinking, drinking and talking—small Scotch and Splash Miss! Another Bass, Miss!—and so on, one after another till you’d think they’d be sick. And it’s not as if they were thirsty: thirst’s got nothing to do with it. It’s just a … well, a kind of formality, as you might say. And the talk! You never heard! And all of them as serious and important as they can be; and the more they drink the more important they get. You’d think every one of them was the Prime Minister himself. And yet if you listen for a minute, it’s all just nonsense.’

Sarah laughed with grim amusement. ‘O, don’t I know it,’ she said. ‘They love to hear themselves talking. For instance, there’s nothing my husband likes better then getting hold of a big word. If only he can get hold of a nice big word he thinks he’s said something worth saying. And the things he says sometimes! Now only the other evening—we were speaking of his job—he said to me, as serious as can be, if you please: “The business that stands still,” he said, “goes back.” He hadn’t an idea, you know, that he was talking nonsense.’

Sarah finished her sherry. ‘Well, I’m very much obliged to you,’ she said. ‘Now I shall know what to do. He’ll have to have a hot supper when he doesn’t come home to dinner, that’s all.’ She held out her hand to Miss Sunningdale and they smiled at one another.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Sarah.

‘Good afternoon, madam,’ said Miss Sunningdale, and she watched the large, stately figure till the door swung-to behind it.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Meanwhile Mr. Darby, bland, important, and sublimely unconscious that his existence was being ordered by anyone but Providence and himself, had made his customary inspection of the shipping, given a few passing thoughts to Vesuvius, the Equator, and the Jungle, and pursued his way up Cliff Street towards the office. He was contented and happy, but, even while enjoying this state, he knew that it was merely a temporary condition due to his visit to The Schooner and that his new disillusionment was lurking in the background, waiting a convenient moment to lay hold of him again. That was not a pleasant thought, but neither was it an unbearable thought, for he was no longer without hope, not the old baseless hope in which he had formerly reposed so blindly, but a practical and reasonable hope based on a B Account which, if luck favoured him at Christmastime, would soon be a tangible reality. With this in mind and with his Friday contentment upon him, Mr. Darby passed the Cathedral with all his old portly alertness, pausing before the window of Brown & Philipson to consider a display of electric light fittings, and, further down the street, before that of Harrington & Co., to inspect, and then in imagination to order, a cedar-wood cigar cabinet filled with an attractive selection of cigars. ‘Enter it to my account, please,’ he said as he turned along the railings of St. John’s Churchyard. A minute later the third step of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street registered his return to the office.

Chapter V

The Darkest Hour

The days crept on towards Christmas and Sarah noticed something of an improvement in Mr. Darby’s condition. The reason was, of course, that he was no longer being starved, for every Friday evening he returned home to find an ample hot supper awaiting him. And it was obvious that he needed it, for he partook of it very heartily. On the first occasion he did not remark upon it, though she noticed that his spectacles shone with pleasure, but when a hot supper greeted him again on the following Friday, he rubbed his hands together and remarked: ‘What, a hot supper again? Well, I must say, Sarah, this is a treat.’ They both ate with relish (for Sarah too lunched lightly at midday on Fridays: there was no good making a hot dinner for herself alone) and in the state of well-being that the satisfying of a good appetite produces they chatted with great good humour. Sarah’s face had emerged from its habitual sternness and from time to time it broke into that grim, yet indulgent smile of hers that was so irresistibly attractive. Mr. Darby, charmed by it as always, reproached himself for his bitter thoughts of her, and for his machinations in the matter of the B Account (Adventure Fund). But no sooner had he done so than an unfortunate incident occurred. They had finished supper and he rose from his chair.

‘Well, I must say, Sarah,’ he remarked, ‘that was a treat.’

Sarah looked at him with a smile, and then a spirit of roguishness stirred the corners of her mouth. ‘Well, Jim,’ she replied, ‘what I say is that three sandwiches and a couple of Basses is no dinner for a man.’

She had miscalculated the effect of this statement on Mr. Darby. A look of consternation transformed his face; it was as if he had seen a ghost; and next moment his cheeks and forehead were aflame.

Sarah laughed. ‘It’s all right, Jim,’ she said, ‘I’m not blaming you.’

But this did little to reassure Mr. Darby. He had received a very disagreeable shock. Had she actually, in some inexplicable way, seen him lunching at The Schooner? Had she seen him in conversation with Miss Sunningdale? With distressing vividness he had suddenly recalled the timid, ingratiating and fatuous little man whose face he had seen in the bar-room mirror. It was this that had brought the scarlet to his cheeks. He felt deeply ashamed and also horribly guilty. And it was not only the thought that Sarah had seen him that had so thoroughly upset him. It was also the uncomfortable feeling that, whether she saw him or not, she knew of his movements, that when he issued with that sense of eager joviality from the office at midday on Fridays, he was not really as free as he felt. His feeling of escape, of surreptitious holiday was a delusion. All the time, he was under observation.

And all he could do in reply to Sarah’s good-humoured reassurance was to mutter incoherently about ‘quick … ah … lunch,’ and—’ ah … accumulation of work.’ Whether Sarah minded his visits to The Schooner or not, she had effectually ruined his enjoyment of them. Yes, he must certainly persevere in the scheme of the B Account.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Man proposes but God disposes. Did Providence interpose in order to save Mr. Darby from practising a deceit on his wife, or to punish him by transforming his intended falsehood into the terrible truth, or simply to test his mettle, as it once tested Job’s, by an even sterner ordeal? We cannot tell. But the fact remains that, for the first time in thirty-five years, Christmas brought no cheque from Uncle Tom Darby.

For a whole fortnight before Christmas Day Mr. Darby had, by difficult and carefully prepared tactics, contrived to be the first to look over the letters that arrived by the early post (those that came by the later posts, he knew, were usually local letters only): but all in vain. He might as well have saved himself that daily expenditure of nerve-racking ingenuity. A horrible misgiving now took possession of him, a feeling that was positively physical and situated in the pit of his stomach; but he bore up bravely, reminding himself of the congestion and delays of the Christmas mails, and for another ten days he persevered in his secret inquisition. Then when the New Year was already three days old he gave up. He was convinced of sin, for he felt vaguely that this was a punishment visited on him for his unholy schemes. But the conviction of sin was as nothing beside the black disappointment and the black foreboding. For the fact that the cheque had not come this year must surely mean that it would never come again, that the fountain had at last dried up, as he had told himself so often that it eventually must, that Uncle Tom Darby was dead. Goodbye, then, to the B Account, the Adventure Fund, and to that pale and distant star which, since the moment of his conversion from romance to realism, had been the one illumination of his days.

It was a very crestfallen little man now who travelled to and fro between Number Seven Moseley Terrace and Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street. The old alertness was gone from his step, he tottered rather than walked: the old bright birdlike pleasure in the world about him had withered; he studied only the ground a few feet in front of him, even the glasses of his spectacles looked dim and light-less. Steam trains might have coursed the Osbert Road cutting twenty times a minute: he would not have so much as turned his head. Shop-windows, so far from beguiling his despondency, appeared to him now as a personal affront. His round, cherubic face had shrivelled to a little dry red apple in which the bright blue spectacled eyes were no more than two discoloured blemishes. Everyone in the office noticed the dismal change. Mr. Marston questioned him solicitously.

‘You’re not looking at all well, Darby. What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, nothing to speak of, thank you, sir,’ replied the little man sadly.

‘No more indigestion, I hope? ‘There was a friendly twinkle in Mr. Marston’s eye.

Mr. Darby gave him the pale ghost of a smile. ‘No, no, thank you, sir. It’s merely an … ah … unavoidable private worry.’

‘If it’s financial worry, Darby; you know, I’m sure, that I should be happy to …’

Mr. Darby made a little gesture of denial. ‘I’m very much obliged, sir, but it’s nothing of that sort. No doubt,’ he added hopelessly, ‘it will soon … ah …!’ He made another little gesture signifying dispersal.

‘I hope it will,’ said Mr. Marston, and Mr. Darby went forlornly from the room. ‘Financial worry!’ he thought to himself bitterly. ‘That’s exactly what it is,’ but not of the kind that Mr. Marston had meant. How little Mr. Marston, or anyone else for that matter, suspected the wild ambitions and abysmal despairs of the correct and respectable Managing Clerk.

Sarah was equally bewildered: indeed she was becoming very anxious about him. His previous depression had yielded to hot suppers, but this one was obdurate. He did not even seem to notice whether suppers were hot or cold. She resolved to consult a doctor. Mr. Darby did all he could to dissuade her, but in vain. ‘You can’t go on like this, Jim,’ she said, and she kept him in bed at the week-end and called the doctor in. Mr. Darby offered little opposition. It was easier to yield than to tell her that his illness was not bodily but spiritual.

The doctor declared that there was nothing seriously the matter. ‘A little run down. In need of a change,’ he said.

In need of a change! The statement was so true, the intended meaning so hopelessly false,—like the unconscious sarcasm of Mr. Marston’s phrase ‘financial worry.’ The poor little man could almost have wept at the heartless irony of it. It seemed as if Providence were jeering at him. He set his face firmly against Sarah’s attempts to get him to apply to Mr. Marston for a fortnight’s holiday, and on Monday resumed the dreary routine of his life. He was perceptibly better on Fridays, for on Fridays he still visited The Schooner and those visits could still shed a momentary gleam across his darkness, though their former free and festive rapture was gone. He hardly dared, now, to make the most ordinary remark about the weather to Miss Sunningdale, for fear Sarah’s informers were studying his face and listening for his lightest phrase. Sometimes, when he found himself standing next another frequenter of The Schooner whom he had stood next on a previous occasion, he would take up his glass and plate and move to another part of the bar. Could it be the tall, grey-bearded man in the black coat, he would ask himself, studying the fellow’s face between the bottles in the mirror opposite; or that small, clean-shaven, rat-faced man at the other end of the bar whom he had caught looking at him more than once? No, his lunch at The Schooner was no longer what it had been; but, after all, a Bass is a Bass, and a good sandwich is a good sandwich, and Mr. Darby was still aware of a pleasant exhilaration as he shook the crumbs off his coat, raised his hat to Miss Sunningdale, and stepped out on to the Quayside. And still the shipping held him with its old fascination. Once, as he climbed Cliff Street—it was a delicious day with bright sunshine—he actually caught himself again noiselessly trolling his old song:

For I’m going far away

At the breaking of the day:

but the moment he realized it, the hideous irony of it choked him. He broke off short, and the rush of tears to his eyes shattered his view of Cliff Street to a world of glittering splinters.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

A fortnight later Sarah took matters into her own hands. It was clear to her now what was the matter. The theory of malnutrition had been tested and found inadequate. Yet the doctor had said that he was run down. Then it must be overwork. He had complained in the former instance of overwork and this weekly absence from midday dinner confirmed it. He must have a complete rest. She therefore wrote to Mr. Marston, not at the office, where Mr. Darby would probably intercept her letter, but at his home address, saying that her husband was thoroughly run down and asking if he might have a week’s holiday. A week in bed would probably put him right. Mr. Marston replied, granting the leave of absence and expressing his entire agreement with Mrs. Darby.

And so, almost before he had realized that anything at all was afoot, Mr. Darby found himself clapped to bed for a week and surrounded by every comfort and attention.

Once there, he was glad to be there. Such despair as his cannot long leave the body unaffected, and he was feeling really ill and tired. And despite his hopelessness it was comforting to lie idly and indefinitely in bed. He lay for long periods in a waking doze, his blue eyes vague and blurred (for his spectacles were on the dressing-table), and the hours flowed past him like a quiet unhurrying river, and the day, usually divided into sharply defined sections, each with the unmistakable flavour of its particular hour, became a single continuous, motionless period, varied only by the food which Sarah brought him at the usual intervals and the early failing of the daylight towards tea time. With breakfast Sarah brought him any letters that the post might provide, and these were his only links with the outer world, for she withheld the daily paper—the Newchester Daily Chronicle—deeming it to be a strain to the eyes and a disturbance to the mind. Sometimes Mr. Darby closed his eyes, dropped his arms to his sides, and imagined himself dying. The fancy did not trouble him: on the contrary he found it soothing. He pursued the fancy further. ‘We regret to announce,’ he thought to himself, ‘the death of Mr. William James Darby, of 7 Moseley Terrace, Savershill. The deceased gentleman held a … ah … high position in the well-known firm of Messrs. Lamb and Marston and was a … ah … ‘No, it would hardly be venerable. One had to be seventy or eighty to be venerable. A familiar figure, yes, ‘a familiar figure in Newchester. A large number of friends and relations followed the … ah … the remains …’ But there Mr. Darby stopped short. The word remains had checked the flow of his fancy. It was definitely unpleasant to contemplate himself as remains. He heaved a deep sigh and turned mournfully over on to his right side.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

It was the sixth morning of Mr. Darby’s confinement and he was sitting up in bed, listlessly finishing the breakfast that lay before him on a tray balanced uneasily on his legs. As he replaced his empty teacup in its saucer he noticed for the first time a letter which the saucer half covered. Without enthusiasm he put on the spectacles which Sarah had laid on the bed beside the tray, and took up the letter. Suddenly his gaze became more intent. The address was typed, but the stamp was an Australian stamp. His hands trembled so violently that he could hardly tear the envelope open, and when at last he had done so it was only to be faced by bitter disappointment. There was no cheque. It was simply a typewritten letter. But the sudden blaze of hope followed by the sudden re-immersion in despair was too much for Mr. Darby. The breakfast things rattled dangerously on the tray; he closed his eyes and fell back on his pillow. It was too cruel. Would Providence never stop jeering at him? He lay motionless, while the tears trickled from under his spectacles across his temples, and on to the pillow-case.

When he had indulged his grievance sufficiently, Mr. Darby opened his eyes, removed his spectacles, dried both and replaced them in their usual relationship. Then taking up the letter with a sigh, he began to read it. It was a letter of some length. At first he regarded it doubtfully with wrinkled brows, then his interest quickened, soon he was devouring it like a starving man suddenly faced with a plate of roast beef. When he had finished it, Mr. Darby took off his spectacles, wiped the steam from them, and began all over again. Then he laid the letter carefully on the tray, pushed the tray towards the foot of the bed, turned back the bedclothes and got up. Methodically, as ever, he began to dress. In a moment he had assumed the intimate aspect of a pink-faced, pink-legged Darby clad only in a shirt; now a pair of long grey close-fitting pants had added a mediaeval air; now with socks, slippers, and grey trousers he began to approach the Darby familiar to Newchester-on-Dole, and at that point he stopped dressing, and taking the letter from the tray walked resolutely downstairs in his shirt-sleeves.

Hearing those unaccountable footsteps Sarah came out of the sitting-room as he reached the bottom.

‘Well, I never!’ she said, staring at the apparition. ‘And who told you to get up?’

Mr. Darby made no reply, but with his free hand he pushed her before him into the sitting-room. There she turned upon him to repeat her question, but Mr. Darby silenced her with a hand raised as if pronouncing a blessing.

‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing to a chair. ‘Sit down and listen to this!’

For the first time in their married life Sarah obeyed him. Stationing himself with his back to the fire and legs wide apart, Mr. Darby glanced at his wife over the top of his spectacles with great solemnity. Then, transporting his gaze to the letter in his hand, he cleared his throat. ‘The … ah … communication which I hold in my hand,’ he said, ‘is headed Alison, Kingsley & Smith, Solicitors and Notaries. Address: Aspern House, Castlereagh Street, Sydney. Date: nineteenth of December last; in short, six weeks ago. It runs…’ Mr. Darby again shot a glance at Sarah over the top of his spectacles… ‘as follows:

‘“DEAR SIR,

‘“We write to inform you of the death of your Uncle, Thomas Darby, which occurred on the 18th instant in a Nursing Home in this City after a short illness.

‘“Our Firm has acted for your Uncle for a great many years and is fully acquainted with all his business dealings.

‘“We made several Wills for him. By his last Will which was dated the 24th June 1891 he appointed our Mr. John Henry Alison his sole Executor, and apart from a few small legacies to Charities and old servants, bequeathed the whole of his residuary estate to yourself. For your further information we enclose a copy of the Will which, as you will see, is very short.

‘“Your late Uncle, whose death we greatly regret, had very large interests in this country, for although he originally made his money by sheep farming, he was interested in mines and in building land in this City and most of his investments had turned out to be very profitable; so much so, that at the time of his death his income was probably at least £40,000 per annum.

‘“The actual winding up of his estate will not take a very great amount of time as he kept very large sums of money in the Bank or in readily negotiable securities, and the payment off of the legacies and of the duties upon the estate can easily be managed from these sources without the sale of any of his more important properties; in fact, by the time you get our letter we shall probably be nearly in a position to hand over to you his residuary estate.

‘“There are, of course, certain formalities we shall require you to observe.

‘“He describes you in his Will as ‘my nephew William James Darby son of my late Brother Horace Anthony Darby of Newchester-on-Dole,’ and in proof of your title we shall require from you an Affidavit by some responsible person in your Town, your Bank Manager for preference, setting forth the fact that you are the Son of the said Horace Anthony Darby, together with a certificate of birth which, no doubt, you can obtain from Somerset House, London in proof of this; also a specimen copy of your signature verified by the person making the Affidavit. We suggest you should go to your Solicitor in Newchester, who will prepare the Affidavit for you in the appropriate form. The Affidavit, with exhibits, should be sworn by you before a Notary Public and despatched to us as quickly as possible. No doubt there will be a Notary in your City.

‘“We are, of course, entirely unaware of your circumstances, but we would suggest that, if by any means you can so manage, you should come out to Australia in the near future, for whilst it is perfectly true that we can vest your Uncle’s property in you, you will, no doubt, like to decide for yourself what shall be done with it.’

“Whilst none of your Uncle’s property could really be described as speculative yet the greater portion of it being in real estate, the value much fluctuates; therefore you may wish to decide for yourself on the spot what should be sold and what retained, and this applies also to his mining properties. If you decide to come out, and intimate the fact in your letter, we are perfectly prepared at once to cable you up to £1,000 for your necessary expenses.

“Yours faithfully.”’

Mr. Darby paused. Then, like a priest intoning the sacred words at the end of his sermon, he added in a more subdued tone: ‘To W. J. Darby, Esqre, 7 Moseley Terrace, Savershill, Newchester-on-Dole, England.’ He raised his head, simultaneously dropping his arm so that the letter, still in his hand, hung by his knee, and gazed earnestly at Sarah.

‘Well,’ said she, rousing herself, ‘here’s a state of things.’

‘A state of things indeed!’ said Mr. Darby, and gradually his face changed, expanded: the smooth, stretched pouches of his cheeks and every crease, every wrinkle, round mouth and eyes redisposed themselves, assumed new relationships, till Mr. Darby’s countenance had melted from its former solemnity into a smile like a midsummer sunrise. ‘A state of things indeed!’ he repeated with profound gusto.

‘And what in the name of wonder,’ said Sarah, ‘shall we do with it all?’

‘Do with it all? Poof, that’ll be simple enough,’ said Mr. Darby with airy conviction.

‘Simple enough, indeed!’ said Sarah. “You don’t seem to realize what it means. It means about a hundred times as much a year as we have at present.’

‘It means about a hundred pounds a day,’ said Mr. Darby, precise and businesslike.

‘And what do we want with a hundred pounds a day?’ said Sarah in disgust.

‘Speak for yourself, my dear,’ said Mr. Darby, and there was already something of the magnate in his voice. ‘I can do with it very well.’

‘Well, anyhow, we can buy this house and have it properly done up,’ said Sarah.

Mr. Darby stared at her. ‘Buy this house, Sarah!’ he said. ‘I should as soon think of buying a … ah … a Ford. So far from buying this house I shall leave it at the first opportunity.’

‘And where, if you please, are you going?’

‘Going?’ Mr. Darby made a neat but comprehensive gesture. ‘Everywhere!’ he said. ‘I have long wished, for instance, to … ah … penetrate into the Jungle.’

Sarah contemplated her husband as she might contemplate the goings-on of a pup. ‘Hadn’t you better go back to bed?’ she said.

‘Bed? Certainly not!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘This is no time for bed. I have a great deal of urgent business to … ah … to negotiate. I must… ah … ascertain the whereabouts of the … ah … Notary Public, and … ah … take steps … ah …’

‘Then you’d better go and shave,’ said Sarah laconically.

The little man’s eloquence collapsed in mid-flight. He gazed helplessly at his wife, bewildered by the shock of his sudden descent to earth. Then he caught at the word shave that still echoed in his mind. ‘Shave? Oh … ah …! Well, yes, perhaps … ah …’ he said, and, still carrying the letter, strutted out of the room.

Sarah did not move from her chair. She sat motionless, staring reflectively at an ornament on the mantelpiece. Everything would have pointed to the simple fact that the little man was delirious, had it not been for the text of the letter. That, she knew, was beyond his powers of invention. No, the thing was true enough. They had come into an enormous fortune. What a state of things! She regarded it as little else than a nuisance. They were perfectly happy as they were. Her own life was fully and satisfactorily occupied in managing the house and Mr. Darby; and, until recently, Mr. Darby’s life had been equally well occupied between his home and the office. Work, to Sarah’s mind, was not primarily a means of livelihood but of self-expression. The idea of ceasing to work because one came into a fortune never occurred to her. She and her husband were respectable people, settled permanently in a comfortable and satisfactory mode of life. If any hitch occurred in the happy tenor of their days, as it had recently in Mr. Darby’s, it could only be attributed to stomach. It was especially unfortunate that this event should have occurred at present, because it found Mr. Darby in an unsettled state and would put it in his power to indulge his wildest ideas. He had always been subject to ideas, but there was little harm in this so long as there was no chance of his trying to realize them. Now, Heaven knew what he would do. It was as if her child had suddenly grown up and she had lost control over him. With a deep sigh she got up and continued her dusting of the sitting-room which his coming downstairs had interrupted.

She had finished this, spent a few minutes in the kitchen, and returned on another errand to the sitting-room when she again heard steps on the stairs. This time, she could hear, he had his boots on. There was a pause when he had reached the bottom, and a minute or two later Mr. Darby appeared in the doorway of the sitting-room fully dressed in black coat and bowler hat. In his right hand he held the silver-mounted walking stick which he generally used only when going to church.

‘I am going,’ he announced, ‘to the Bank, about the … ah … Affidavit; and also,’ he added, ‘to ascertain the whereabouts of the … ah … Notary Public’ His face was already composed into an expression befitting these occasions.

‘Don’t be late for dinner,’ Sarah called out as he disappeared, ‘because there’s a nice little bit of pork; that is,’ she added more loudly, ‘if you can eat it.’

There was a sound of returning footsteps and for a moment Mr. Darby’s face, transformed by a sudden unofficial radiance, appeared round the door.

‘I could eat anything!’ he said and disappeared once more.

Chapter VI

False Dawn

Mr. Darby occupied the remaining days of his leave of absence from the office in a variety of solemn and important acts. The first thing to do was to have the affidavit drawn up. He had no solicitor, so what was he to do? Obviously, to appoint one. Mr. Marston’s solicitors were Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield and that fact was for Mr. Darby a sufficient recommendation. His visit to his bank, the invitation into the Manager’s sanctum and the deference with which he was received there; the visit to Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield—who, to Mr. Darby’s surprise, turned out very conveniently to be also the Notary Public—were both conducted with a becoming gravity. Mr. Darby was in his element. It was not only the solemn official acts that delighted him: the moment when they were completed and the officials concerned descended from their officialdom and offered Mr. Darby their very hearty congratulations, was equally satisfying. The visit to Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield and the putting of his affairs into their hands relieved him greatly, for his ignorance of all matters pertaining to the law had already begun to weigh on him. The idea, for instance, of having to write to Somerset House for his birth certificate had troubled him deeply. Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield proved to him that it was the simplest thing in the world. He arrived home, after his first morning at large, a few minutes late for midday dinner, pleading in excuse the excessive importance of his errands, and finding his excuse, with Sarah, in the royal justice he did to the nice little bit of pork. His radiant happiness had its effect on her. She could not find it in her heart to chill the glowing little man by betraying her own lack of enthusiasm. She was in the position of a fond parent whose child has been given the kind of toy that entrances the child but wrecks the serenity of the home. And, after all, what could she do? What could she have done even if the fortune had been left to her? Nothing, but grin and bear it.

When he had dined, Mr. Darby produced from his breast pocket a large brand new crocodile-skin cigar case, opened it with a careless deliberation and slightly raised eyebrows, and selected a cigar. Having done so, he examined the cigar critically and then glanced a little doubtfully at Sarah. Sarah was watching him with an amused smile. Mr. Darby at once averted his eyes with a slight frown and turned his attention to lighting and trying the cigar. He blew out a long deliberative jet of smoke, frowned again, as if not altogether pleased with the aroma, tried another puff and appeared to decide that the cigar was good.

‘Tell me, Jim,’ said Sarah, ‘what are you going to do?’

‘To do? Now?’ Mr. Darby looked at her alertly.

‘No, not now,’ said Sarah. ‘When you’ve got your money, I mean. The office, for instance!’

‘Oh, I shall leave the office, of course,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘When I go back on Wednesday I shall explain the state of affairs to Mr. Marston. There’s no great hurry, of course. My … ah … papers will take six weeks to reach Australia, and the … ah … documents relative to our fortune will take another six weeks to arrive, though the solicitors will no doubt wire us a thousand or two to keep us going.’

‘Very kind of them, I’m sure,’ said Sarah grimly.

Mr. Darby ignored the remark. ‘I shall not leave Mr. Marston,’ he said, ‘until he can find a suitable substitute. Meanwhile I shall of course give him my services free. It would be ridiculous for me to accept a salary from a man in such … ah … modest circumstances.’

Sarah rose from her chair and began to clear the table, while Mr. Darby pursued his appreciation of the cigar. When it was half finished, he too rose. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I must be off. There still remains … ah … a considerable … ah …’ He went into the hall leaving behind him the cloudy suggestion of vast negotiations and a fog of expensive cigar smoke. Sarah with a grimace went over to the window and threw it wide open. ‘Well, at least,’ she thought to herself, ‘it’s cured him. That’s one thing to be thankful for.’

Mr. Darby, meanwhile, had issued gravely from his home with the feeling that, as he had said to Sarah, there still remained … ah … a considerable … ah. He had to pay a second visit to his bank, and so, feeling full of energy, he walked there. It was not until he had accomplished this—the visit was only a matter of five minutes—that he realized that he had nothing whatever else to do. He stood outside the bank looking up and down the street and feeling rather let down. It was hardly believable that, with this immense, earth-shaking thing only a few hours old, there should be, at the moment, nothing to do about it, no more important acts to perform, no more visits to official persons, no more congratulations to receive. Then his expression changed suddenly, his eye brightened, the momentary cloud had passed. For he had remembered that the whole town lay before him, the Central Station, the Quayside, the streets with all their wealth of alluring shops. He glanced at his watch, for he had felt a sudden impulse to hurry along Palmer Street, skip gaily down Cliff Street and dive into The Schooner. On the way he might perhaps purchase at a jeweller’s some trifle, some small token …! But no. The Schooner would be closed, and in any case Sarah’s informers might detect him in the act of presenting the gift.

Well, he had a little shopping to do; for on his way home he was going to look in on George Stedman and Samuel Cribb, impart to them, in rather an off-hand way, the astonishing news and ask them to drop in after supper,—the Stedmans to-day, the Cribbs to-morrow—and, the occasion being what it was, this dropping in, Mr. Darby planned, was to be regaled by a bottle of champagne and a cigar. He had said nothing of this to Sarah, but Mr. Darby was a born diplomatist: he knew that to her a visit from the Stedmans never came amiss, and with that as the thin end of the wedge he would open a way for the champagne, the cigars, and the Cribbs. Where he stood in deliberation outside his bank in Brackett Street, Mr. Darby was only a few doors from Edgington’s, the wine merchants. He therefore put himself in motion at once and in a moment was facing over the counter the same man who had served him some weeks ago.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I… ah … liked the … ah … Clicquot you gave me some weeks ago.’ He was still a little uncertain of the pronunciation of the wine and slurred it over unostentatiously.

The shopman smiled. ‘Very pleased to hear it, sir.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘a nice, sound wine I thought it. I took two bottles, if you recollect, to … ah … to try. Please send me half a dozen to-day.’

‘With pleasure, sir. Which wine did you say it was?’

‘Champagne,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘The … ah … it was a hundred and thirty-six shillings, I think.’

‘Ah. That would be the Clicquot, sir. To what address may I send it?’

Mr. Darby gave his name and address, paid for the wine, and went out of Edgington’s and down Brackett Street murmuring Kleeko, Kleeko … ah … Kleeko to himself until he felt he had memorized it. He walked with dignified leisure down Ranger Street, since there was no hurry, indeed there was the imperative need to kill as much time as possible, for he would have nothing to do if he went home. George Stedman would be busy in his shop, and Samuel Cribb inaccessible in a Railway Office. But time did not weigh heavily on Mr. Darby. Shop-window after shop-window delayed his course down Ranger Street and it was some time before he passed Number Thirty Seven on the opposite side of the road. He glanced up at the windows. Nothing was to be seen behind the blind stare of the panes. It was difficult to believe that Mr. Marston, McNab and Pellow were all hard at work up there, unconscious of his presence in the street below. Well, he was done with all that now. True, he was returning to the office to-morrow, but none the less he was done with it, he was free of it. He was returning merely to give notice and, if necessary, to accommodate Mr. Marston for a short while beyond the term of his notice. He would be sorry to leave Mr. Marston: they had always been very good friends: and McNab and Pellow too,—nice lads, both of them. But other spheres called him: his path stretched dimly out into the world, the unknown. It was festooned with scarlet orchids: green parrots screamed at him as he passed: he stretched out his hands to part the heavy green foliage and collided with a gentleman in a clerical collar. This enabled Mr. Darby to realize that he was now skirting the railings of St. John’s Churchyard and to recollect that his path, for the present, stretched no further than the shop of Harrington & Co where he proposed to buy a box of cigars. He paused to look into the window before entering and smiled as he again inspected the cigar cabinet. Only recently he had been beguiling the drabness of his life by imagining himself ordering the cabinet. It had been the maddest fantasy then: now he could, if he chose, easily turn it into a plain fact. Not that he was going to do so. Mr. Darby had a sense of congruity. A large, elaborate cigar cabinet required as a setting a large and elaborate house: in Number Seven Moseley Terrace it would be incongruous. No, a box—a box of fifty—was the most that Number Seven would stand, and probably more than Sarah would stand without cynical protest.

When he came out of the shop with the box under his arm he thought that he could amuse himself for a while in that portal of the great world, the Central Station. Before now Mr. Darby had strolled into the station, bought a platform ticket and seen off an important train—the Flying Scotsman, perhaps, newly arrived from King’s Cross and bound for the far north of Scotland—just for the pure pleasure of the thing. Well, if there was an important train due when he reached the station now, he would do it again; but what was his chief intention at the moment was to run his eye over the posters. He had often done this, too, but only as a means of indulging his fancy. This time it would be no matter of fancy: he would submit himself actually to the temptation offered by each. If he felt like falling,—well, he was perfectly at liberty to fall, or at least he would be, in a few weeks’ time. And so he passed under the wide Tuscan portico where cabs came and went and the long line of parked cars stood waiting, and so through the pillared entrance into the great station. And soon he found himself urged to buy a cheap return ticket to London, to flee to the Sunny South of France, to visit German Castles, or to take part in Winter Sports under the formidable peaks of the Alps.

But about the remote attractions of the Equator and the Jungle these posters were mute. And that, thought Mr. Darby, was as it should be, for the lands of his dreams were sacred places undefiled by tourists and the publicity which entices and exploits the tourist. However, these other places were alluring enough, and in the intervals of more solemn travel he would certainly submit, when the spirit moved him, to these humbler enticements. And besides all this, of course, he would spend much of his time in England, in London, in Society. For Mr. Darby had always felt that he was destined by character, inclination, and—well, yes, why not?—by certain abilities, to play a more important role in society than he had yet done. His birthday party and the speech he had then made flashed into his memory for a moment: yes, that was more the kind of thing, if combined, of course, with more serious and practical significance than a mere supper party, which would offer some scope to his … well … his inclinations. A swift flight of visions shot through his mind, a brief glimpse of Mr. William James Darby presiding at Committee meetings, arriving five minutes late and pleading that he had been detained by important business with the Lord Mayor: Mr. William James Darby as Lord Mayor himself, bowing from a coach in his mayoral robes and chain of office: Sir James Darby, the well known explorer and public figure, on a more marked occasion, presiding with easy joviality at a public banquet. Mr. Darby was too accustomed to spectres of this kind to be at all surprised at their sudden invasion of him in the Central Station. Not that it ever occurred to him to dismiss them as fantastic or ridiculous. Certainly not. For, though they were not facts, they were perfectly respectable creatures of the mind.

Yes, thought Mr. Darby, as these visions swept past him and he again found himself confronted by the Central Station and its posters,—yes, London for headquarters, the … ah … Metropolis. ‘Mr. William James Darby has left Seven Moseley Terrace, Newchester-on-Dole, for London. He expects to spend some weeks in the Metropolis.’

Suddenly he tired of posters. The truth was, he wanted to sit down. He glanced at the clock. It was still only twenty past four. Then a bright idea struck him. He would buy an evening paper and go and have a cup of tea in the lounge of the Station Hotel. An excellent notion, and very … ah … appropriate too, for it was in that very hotel that they had all had dinner with Uncle Tom Darby when he had stayed there over thirty years ago. Mr. Darby had not been into it since. In a few moments, paper in hand, he had pushed through the revolving doors of the station entrance to the hotel and was seated in an armchair in a corner of the lounge. A waiter brought a tray of tea and toast to the small table beside his chair and with pleasant sensations of idleness and dignity Mr. Darby settled down to a luxurious hour.

When he had finished his tea, he laid aside his newspaper and, drawing from his pocket his crocodile-skin cigar case, carefully selected a cigar, produced from another pocket a silver cigar cutter and a silver cigar lighter (trifles which had taken his fancy when buying the box of cigars at Harrington’s an hour ago), cut and lit his cigar, and leaning back in his chair gave himself up to the enjoyment of smoking and a lazy observation of the other people in the lounge.

But when he had been amusing himself in this way for ten minutes or so, Mr. Darby made a sudden movement, a movement caused by his throwing off the benign expansiveness of his posture and quickly assuming one more modest and controlled. His lazily wandering eye had unexpectedly found itself gazing into the eye of Mr. Marston who, with another gentleman, had just entered the lounge and was looking for a table. Mr. Darby’s mood had changed as suddenly as his posture and his lazy dignity had given place to embarrassment: he felt almost as foolish as if he had been discovered by Mr. Marston dancing in the middle of Ranger Street. But Mr. Marston was coming towards him. ‘Darby!’ he said as he reached Mr. Darby’s table. ‘The very man I wanted.’

Mr. Darby was struggling out of his deep chair, but Mr. Marston put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t get up. I don’t want to disturb you. I hope you’re better.’

‘Quite better, thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I shall be at the office to-morrow morning.’

‘Good! You’re certainly looking better than I’ve seen you for weeks. All I wanted to ask you was this. I have Mr. Berrington with me, as you see. He wants us to put a new billiard room on to his house at Canter Mill. Now, I can’t lay my hands on the old plans.’

‘Mr. Berrington’s plans, sir? They’re in the … ah … second drawer, sir—second from the top—in the cabinet on the left of your fireplace.’

‘Thank you, Darby. That’s all I want to know. I won’t keep you any longer from the enjoyment of your excellent cigar.’ Mr. Marston turned away to join his companion. ‘See you to-morrow, then!’ he said, glancing back with a friendly gesture at Mr. Darby. Then he and Mr. Berrington moved to another part of the lounge outside Mr. Darby’s field of vision.

Mr. Darby rapidly regained his composure: indeed he reflected now on his brief meeting with Mr. Marston with much gratification. For he was considering the whole thing now as it must have appeared to a casual observer. What, in fact, would a casual observer have seen? He would have seen, first a middle-aged gentleman of leisure partaking of tea, a newspaper and an excellent cigar. Two other gentlemen enter, one a very distinguished-looking man, and this distinguished-looking man instantly recognizes the middle-aged gentleman, hastens over to him with obvious pleasure, converses with him in the most familiar way, and then, with a friendly ‘See you to-morrow’ which the observer would no doubt overhear, waves him good-bye. What the casual observer had thus seen was also appreciated, in retrospect, by Mr. Darby himself. This was something much more arresting than those fleeting visions of himself which, an hour ago, had for a moment obscured his view of the posters. For this was real, or so very nearly real as to be divided from reality by a mere hair’s-breadth. It was, as it were, a theatrical representation of one of those easy social amenities which would be a familiar incident in the life he was about to enter. He cleared his throat, took up his newspaper again, and continued to peruse it until his cigar was finished.

It was already a quarter to six,—later, by three quarters of an hour, than his usual hour for starting for home. He rose from his chair and, two minutes later, a small but important figure appeared upon the top step of the main hotel-entrance, inspected Newchesterfrom right to left a little superciliously; then, with a slow rhythmical action, descended the steps and invaded Ranger Street.

Ten minutes later, just after Mr. Darby had turned into Newfoundland Street, whom should he run into but his old friend Sam Cribb, coming out of a hardware shop. Like Mr. Darby, Sam Cribb was on his way home.

‘Well, this is a. bit of luck,’ said Mr. Darby, beaming through his spectacles—‘the second, in fact, that has come in my … ah … direction in the course of to-day. It never rains, as they say, but it pours.’

Sam Cribb, friendly and meek, smiled back, and they walked on together.

‘And what was the other bit of luck, Jim?’ he asked.

‘A nice little … ah … legacy,’ said Mr. Darby; ‘a very nice little legacy indeed. Only received the … ah … intelligence this morning.’

‘A legacy? Well, I’m delighted to hear it, I’m sure, Jim,’ said Sam Cribb. ‘Might I enquire the figure, or is that being too … er …?’

‘To tell the truth, Sam, I’m not sure of the figure,’ said Mr. Darby airily, ‘but, it seems, it brings in a matter of forty thousand a year.’

Sam Cribb laughed. ‘A tidy sum, Jim,’ he said. ‘Keep you in postage stamps comfortably.’

It was obvious from Sam’s jocularity that he supposed that Mr. Darby’s statement had been jocular too.

‘Yes, postage stamps, and a good many other things,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘It’s a large figure, Sam, when you come to think of it, and no doubt it will carry with it considerable … ah … responsibilities.’

Mr. Darby’s tone was one of very real gravity and it produced the effect he had intended. Sam Cribb was silent for a moment. Mr. Darby felt him glance at him, but he himself stared solemnly in front of him.

‘But … but you’re not serious, Jim?’ he said at last in a voice of gratifying incredulity.

‘My dear Sam, I’m as serious as a … ah … a judge.’

‘Forty thousand a year,’ said Sam, thunderstruck. ‘But that’s about a million of money, man.’

‘A million?’ said Mr. Darby.

‘Well,’ said Sam, who was accustomed to financial calculations, ‘forty thousand from four per cent. would mean a capital of a million.’

Mr. Darby stopped in the street and gazed at Sam Cribb. ‘Why, bless my soul,’ he said, ‘it never occurred to me. Would you call me a … ah … a millionaire, then?’

‘I fancy so,’ said Sam Cribb as they resumed their walk.

‘A millionaire!’ said Mr. Darby to himself in amazement. Sam Cribb had astonished him quite as much as he had astonished Sam Cribb. ‘A millionaire!’ He tried, by repeating the word to himself, to convey to himself the amazing significance of it. He remained for some moments lost in thought: he did not so much as realize that Sam Cribb was talking at his side. They were in Tarras Bridge now, but Mr. Darby was unaware of his surroundings. His imagination was echoing to the solemn word millionaire. But it was too much for him: he could not cope with it and in a moment he gave up the attempt and looked ahead. His eye fell on the building they were passing at the moment, the Tarras Hotel. He glanced at his friend. ‘What about a little … ah … liquid refreshment?’ he said, indicating with his open palm the hotel entrance.

‘Well, why not?’ said Sam Cribb, ‘in honour of the great occasion!’

They crossed the road. Mr. Darby led the way up the steps, enquired of the hall porter, as to the manner born, for the … ah … lounge, and sailed in, followed by his friend.

The lounge had a closed bar at one end of it and they approached the window. ‘Well now, Sam,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘what do you feel like?’

Sam made evasive noises. ‘Well … er … I … er …’

Mr. Darby eyed the bottles on the shelves. He wanted something unusual, something rich and rare, a new and exciting drink. His eye ran over bottles labelled Whisky, Brandy, Rum, Gin, Port, Sherry, Creme de Menthe, Cherry Brandy. How unenterprising these places were. Nothing original, nothing new and exciting. Then he detected a bottle labelled Schnapps. That looked more promising. ‘What about some of this … ah … Snaps?’ he said to Sam.

‘Snaps? I’ve never tried it,’ Sam replied doubtfully. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Well … ah … I don’t exactly remember,’ confessed Mr. Darby. ‘What is this … ah … Snaps?’ he asked the barmaid.

‘Schnapps? It’s Holland’s Gin, sir,’ she said.

‘Is it … ah … palatable?’ Mr. Darby asked.

‘Well,’ said the barmaid, ‘that’s according to tastes. I think it’s horrid, meself. Tastes rather like tallow.’

Sam shuddered. ‘What about a glass of port, Jim?’ he said. ‘You’re always pretty safe with port, aren’t you?’

‘Ye …s, that’s true,’ said Mr. Darby, and, feeling a little crestfallen, he ordered two glasses of port. ‘Just like Sam,’ he thought to himself, as the barmaid put the glasses before them. ‘Wants to be on the safe side. Afraid of trying anything new. Funny, some people are.’

Sam raised his glass. ‘Well Jim,’ he said, ‘here’s long life and happiness to enjoy it all, to you and Mrs. D.’

Mr. Darby raised his. ‘Thank you, Sam. Thank you, I’m sure.’

They drank.

‘I don’t remember,’ said Sam jocularly, ‘to have been stood a drink by a millionaire before.’

‘No,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘No. They generally make you pay for your drinks, when you come to … ah … consider it. That’s how they come to be millionaires, eh?’

They talked on, Mr. Darby issued his invitation for the following evening (‘No doubt,’ he said, ‘we shall have a drop of something to offer you ‘), and then, having climbed the slope of Tarras Bridge and turned into Savershill Road, they parted company and Mr. Darby toddled on alone. A pleasant glow irradiated his stomach: it was the port. A pleasant glow irradiated his mind: it was the legacy.

Half way up Osbert Road he turned into George Stedman, Ironmonger’s. The shop was empty, but at the sound of Mr. Darby’s footsteps George Stedman hove in sight from behind a tall pyramid of pots and pans.

‘Good-evening, Mr. Darby!’ he said jovially, his great voice filling the shop. ‘Pleased to see you, I’m sure. Now what can I show you to-day? I can do you a lovely polished steel fender, fire irons and coal hod to match, eight pound five the lot. Or we have a very nice line in parrots’ cages.’

‘With … ah … parrot to match?’ asked Mr. Darby.

George gave a loud ha ha. ‘We’re out of parrots at the moment,’ he said. ‘Sold the last one this morning, as a matter of fact, to a middle-aged lady in a green hat.’ He placed both fists on the counter and leaned forward. ‘But we could get you one.’ Then his manner grew serious. ‘Just come and look at this,’ he said. ‘It’s a very neat thing, just out.’ He came round the counter, led Mr. Darby to the far end of the shop, and showed him a thing like a small green enamel cabinet.

‘What is it?’ asked Mr. Darby.

‘It’s a stove,’ said Stedman: ‘a stove for heating a room. The Equator, they call it. Burns paraffin. You put the paraffin in here, and here, of course, is the burner. Astonishing heat it gives out for such a little thing. The traveller brought one along and showed it me alight a week ago. The neatest thing of the kind I’ve ever seen.’

‘And the price?’ said Mr. Darby.

George Stedman put his hands on his hips. ‘Matter of twelve pounds,’ he said. ‘A mere trifle to the likes of you, Mr. Darby.’

‘I’ll take it,’ said Mr. Darby.

George Stedman ha ha’d. ‘Thought you would,’ he said.

It was Mr. Darby’s turn to laugh. But he did not laugh,—not externally. ‘On the … ah … contrary, George, you thought I wouldn’t, but I will.’

George Stedman looked down at the little man, puzzled. ‘You mean it?’ he said.

‘I mean it,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I like the look of it and no doubt it will come in useful.’ He drew the crocodile-skin cigar case from his breast-pocket. ‘Have a cigar?’ he said.

George Stedman gaped at the costly case and the noble row of cigars: then, having taken a cigar and laid it carefully on the counter, he looked with amusement at Mr. Darby. ‘What’s come over you, Jim?’ he said. ‘Have you come into a fortune?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, casually as if admitting to a slight cold in the head, ‘as a matter of fact I have, George. They tell me it’s about a million.’

‘Is that all?’ said Stedman. ‘Disappointing, I call it.’

‘If you and your missus will come round for a bit after supper to-night,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘you can ask Sarah about it. Perhaps she’ll make you believe it.’

Mr. Darby made for the door, mischievously resolved to leave George Stedman bamboozled. At the door he turned. ‘Meanwhile,’ he said, ‘don’t forget, will you, to send round this … ah … stove thing.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The invitation did more than Mr. Darby’s cigar case or his strange talk to convince Stedman that, at least, something was up. Whatever the truth of it was, he would learn it, as Mr. Darby had said, from Sarah. Though she had a sense of humour it did not take the form of vague obfuscations.

He came to the point the moment he and his wife entered Number Seven Moseley Terrace that evening. ‘Well, Mrs. D,’ he said, ‘and what’s all this talk of Jim’s about millions? ‘

‘Oh, it’s true enough,’ said Sarah wearily. ‘A regular upset!’

‘An upset you call it?’

‘I should think I do,’ she replied with evident annoyance. ‘Worse than a burst pipe.’

Chapter VII

Suspended Animation

Mr. Darby, with the detached, self-conscious feeling of one taking part in amateur theatricals, set off as usual for the office next morning. The act seemed to him not quite real, and indeed it was not quite real, for it was only out of consideration for Mr. Marston that he consented to go through the makebelieve that he was Managing Clerk to Messrs. Lamb & Marston, and that he was pursuing his invariable way down Osbert Road because his bread and butter depended on his visiting Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street and doing a day’s work there. So pronounced indeed was his sense of unreality that he found it impossible to grasp the fact that Osbert Road was as real as ever. For him, this morning, there was something of the quality of a dream about it. Each time he fixed it with his full attention—challenged it, as it were, to prove its reality—it flinched, evaded him: it seemed to Mr. Darby that at any moment the houses, the Baptist Chapel, the Wesleyan Chapel, the very trees and pavements might grow transparent and then dissolve into vapour. But, in point of fact, they did not do so: Osbert Road held desperately on to what little reality it had and Mr. Darby pursued his way along it gravely. When he was half way down it a steam train, with a long crescendo and then a long decrescendo of roar and rattle, swept past him along the cutting. Mr. Darby did not turn his head. He smiled, and he could afford to smile, for he was no longer dependent on such toys, his imagination had other fish to fry. There was something very entertaining to him in walking, thus incognito, through the well-known scenes, and it amused him to reflect, as people passed him regardlessly, that not one of them suspected that they had just walked past a millionaire. So must Haroun al Raschid have felt when he put off the Sultan and set out on his nocturnal adventures in Bagdad.

As he turned into the entrance of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street, it struck Mr. Darby for the first time how squalid the place was. The walls wanted repainting: the staircase was in a lamentable state. ‘Disgusting. If I were staying on,’ he thought, ‘I should have to have the whole place made … ah … representable.’ McNab had had the office key during his absence, and he found him and Pellow already arrived when he reached the top of the stairs and entered the office. There they stood, in their ignorance, smiling and wishing him good-morning, just as if all were the same as ever, just as if Uncle Tom Darby were still alive and the world rolling quietly along in its old grooves.

Mr. Darby did not disillusion them at once: he would tell them later in the day, when he had told Mr. Marston. Meanwhile, after a short talk with McNab in which he made himself acquainted with the current business of the office, he went to his desk and began to open the letters which McNab had already taken from the letterbox and laid there. In every respect all was happening precisely as it had happened thousands of times before,—precisely, but for the ocean-wide difference in Mr. Darby’s sensations as he executed the time-honoured ritual. His sense of the change was different here from what it had been in Osbert Road, for it seemed to him now that it was he, and not the office, that was not quite real. It was no more than a ghostly Darby now that haunted the office, opened the letters, mimicked the poor, salaried, Managing Clerk who had vanished from the world, leaving not even a corpse behind him. And soon, in a few weeks’ time, in less perhaps, even this ghostly Darby would vanish from Number Thirty Seven and the place would know him no more. Despite the brilliant destiny awaiting him, Mr. Darby felt sad at the thought; for he loved the office. For years it had been a kind of home to him, a comfortable, friendly place which, every evening, he had abandoned for his other home without great enthusiasm for the change. The uprooting would be painful, even though he was to be transplanted into a rich soil. He handed the letters to young Pellow, who took them, as usual, to Mr. Marston’s room and in due course Mr. Marston was heard to enter the office and proceed thither. Half an hour later, Mr. Marston’s bell rang and the ghostly Mr. Darby, with sundry papers in its hand, left its desk and entered Mr. Marston’s room. And there it stood, facing Mr. Marston’s desk, precise, correct, deferential, giving an excellent imitation of an architect’s Managing Clerk. So excellent, indeed, that Mr. Marston was completely taken in: never for a moment did it cross his mind that confronting him there, with papers in his hand, stood a millionaire.

‘Good-morning, Mr. Darby,’ he said. ‘Glad to see you back again.’ He held a sheet of paper in his hand. ‘As regards this letter from Mr. Berrington,’ he said, ‘I expect McNab has shown you my rough sketch for the new billiard-room. You might have a small scale drawing done of the plan and elevation for me to send to Mr. Berrington. Make it look nice. It might be well to show the additions in colour. And I want it to go by this evening’s post.’

For some time they talked of other matters of business, and then Mr. Marston said: ‘You’re feeling quite well again, I hope?’

Mr. Darby made a little bow. ‘Perfectly, thank you, sir.’

‘It only shows what a week in bed will do. You look, I must say, completely cured. Quite your old self again.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. Now was the time to enlighten Mr. Marston, but he felt somewhat diffident of the task. How, exactly, was he to put it?

‘I am inclined to … ah … attribute the cure, sir,’ he began at last, ‘not to … to bed, but … ah … rather to a totally unforeseen event which … ah … overtook me yesterday morning. A very surprising windfall, sir.’

‘A windfall, Darby?’

‘A windfall, sir … to the … ah … tune, I am assured, of about a million.’

Mr. Marston smilingly considered his Managing Clerk. What on earth was the little man talking about? He was accustomed to Mr. Darby’s partiality for words and phrases, but this talk of windfalls and tunes and millions was so fantastic as to be almost alarming. Could it be that Mr. Darby’s recent disorder had been mental and that his mind was definitely deranged? He stood there now, as correct and compact as ever, but with a curious and unusual smile on his face, a smile that was at once bashful and self-satisfied. Then, as Mr. Marston did not question him, he continued laboriously: ‘I only got wind of … ah …’

‘Of the windfall, Mr. Darby?’

Mr. Darby was thrown into greater confusion by Mr. Marston’s humorous assistance.

‘Ah … well … ah … Yes, sir, as you might say. Yesterday morning, sir. I have the … ah … communication in question here, sir. It will … no doubt … ah … lucipricate … ah … I should say … ah … elubricate the matter better than any words of mine.’

As this seemed probable Mr. Marston turned his attention to the letter which Mr. Darby, while in the throes of his last sentence, had taken from his breast-pocket, unfolded, and now handed to him. He glanced at the heading and then proceeded to read the letter with growing seriousness and attention. ‘But, my dear Darby …’ he exclaimed in amazement. ‘My dear fellow, this is …’ Again he fixed his attention on the letter, and read it to the end. Then he raised his head and stared, open-mouthed, at Mr. Darby. ‘But, my dear Darby! Were you at all prepared for this … this astounding event? Did you know of this uncle?’

‘I knew of him, sir; in point of fact, sir, he very kindly sent me a present of one hundred pounds every Christmas. But, beyond that, I knew next to nothing of his … ah … circumstances. The … ah … event came as a complete surprise.’

Mr. Marston rose from his chair. ‘I can well believe, Darby, that this did more for you than a week in bed.’ He held out his hand and shook Mr. Darby’s warmly. ‘I congratulate you most heartily. It’s … well, it’s more like a fairy story than sober fact. I can’t believe it. I see, of course,’ he handed the letter back to Mr. Darby, ‘that it’s true, but I simply can’t believe it. Do you believe it, Darby?’

‘I … ah … spend a good deal of time in trying to, sir. I seem to be, as one might say,’ Mr. Darby made a vague circular gesture with the left hand, ‘in a dream, sir.’

‘I don’t wonder. So do I. And this means, of course, that we shall lose you, Darby. I shall be very sorry for that, after all these years.’

‘Not more sorry than I shall be, sir,’ said Mr. Darby with a little bow and a sudden moist gleam in the blue eyes behind his spectacles. ‘But there’s no hurry, sir,’ he added. ‘It will be at least three months, of course, before the various … ah … formalities are complete. I shall be most happy, sir, I need hardly say, to stay on here until you are suited: and, of course, under the … ah … circumstances there could be no question of salary.’

‘My dear Darby, that is exceedingly kind of you. It will be a very great convenience to me. I feel lost without you in the office, though I must say McNab has done pretty well during the last week. We might split your salary, during the time you are with us, between McNab and Pellow, in honour of the great event. In that way you will be doing us all a very great kindness.’ Then, suddenly, he smiled. ‘This accounts for that excellent cigar you were smoking in the Station Hotel yesterday.’

Mr. Darby smiled back. ‘Yes, sir. I felt that something had to be done to … ah …’

‘Just so. And what does Mrs. Darby think of it all? Delighted, I suppose.’

Mr. Darby’s face fell a little. He looked like a schoolboy who has been unjustly rebuked. ‘Well, not exactly, I’m afraid, sir. In fact, she doesn’t take to it very kindly.’

‘Too great a responsibility, perhaps.’

‘Oh, no, sir; she has no objection to responsibility. No, it’s not that. The fact is that she is not what you might call of a fanciful turn. She likes things to keep as they are.’

‘Whereas you have other views?’

‘I have always been one for adventure and novelty,’ said Mr. Darby with childlike innocence.

The statement amazed Mr. Marston. He had always looked upon his Managing Clerk as a simple, contented little man who had no thoughts beyond his daily work. ‘Bless me, Mr. Darby,’ he said, ‘and I have always regarded you as … well … rather a home bird.’

‘Oh dear me, no, sir,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Don’t think it. Far from it. Anything but. I have always wanted to travel. I have often found the ships down on the Quayside a … a ah … a very great temptation. If I had had my way, sir, I think I should have been an explorer.’

‘What, the North Pole?’

‘No, sir. I should have preferred the Jungle. But the North Pole rather than nothing.’

‘And now you will indulge your … hobby?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby with hands clasped precisely before him and a far-away look in his eye, ‘I hope to travel a good deal.’

Mr. Marston had a sudden and disconcerting vision of Mr. Darby in black coat, grey trousers, and bowler hat pushing his way a little timidly through a dense tropical undergrowth, closely observed by parrots and monkeys from above, by lions and tigers below.

‘But won’t you perhaps find it a little difficult to persuade Mrs. Darby to … er …’

‘To allow it, sir?’

‘To accompany you, I was going to say.’

Mr. Darby looked embarrassed: his neck and cheeks became a brighter pink: his lips worked as if trying to form phrases. ‘To tell the truth, sir, I haven’t … ah … embarked on the task of … ah … persuasion as yet.’

Mr. Marston knew Mrs. Darby not only by sight but also personally. He visualized Mr. Darby engaged in the task of … ah … persuasion. He saw an incredibly small Darby, a creature no larger than a dapper little bird—a bird like a bullfinch or a robin, buttoned compactly into its plumage —wooing in vain the colossal stone image of some formidable goddess. The bird bowed and scraped and hopped: the image stared immovably at eternity. It seemed a hopeless business.

And, in fact, Mr. Marston’s question had brought to the surface a problem which for the last twenty-four hours had gnawed persistently at Mr. Darby’s mind. He had not admitted it to himself, he had pretended to the best of his ability that it did not exist, but this had done little to check its pertinacity. Sarah had never figured in any of his dreams of travel, indeed those dreams had been to a large extent an antidote to Sarah. The prisoner dreaming of escape does not usually dream that he takes his jailer with him. Yet he had never seriously contemplated leaving Sarah. His dreams did not burden themselves with practical problems. They were the creations of unfettered fancy, and in them he always beheld himself setting forth alone. Not that he was alone all the time: more than once he had seen himself reclining at ease on or near the Equator, surrounded by an admiring and obedient seraglio of beautiful females, for Mr. Darby was far from being a misogynist. But now that the dream was destined to be no longer pure fancy, now that reality would impose practical problems, what was to be done about Sarah? Mr. Darby resolved now, as he sat at his desk after his talk with Mr. Marston, that when the subject was broached—and sooner or later it would have to be broached—he would take a very firm stand from the first. Yes, he must make no mistake about that. He must make Sarah realize at once that, whatever happened, he was going to travel. When he had hinted at it a few minutes after the fateful letter arrived, Sarah had treated his hint as a childish whim not to be taken seriously. The question whether he was actually to forbid her to accompany him would probably never be reached, for what Sarah would do at the outset would be simply to forbid him to travel. Well, she could forbid as much as she liked, but obviously she could not stop him. There was no problem now of supporting her during his absence. He could go away a rich man, leaving her a rich woman. No, she couldn’t, obviously, prevent his going. And yet …? Mr. Darby recalled Sarah’s irresistible way of compelling obedience. There was something about a command of Sarah’s that made it very difficult to disobey, especially when one had for so long had the habit of obeying. Still, that was all nonsense, of course. One had only to stand up to her. She could not force him to obey her against his will. The fact was, of course, that he had never on former occasions felt it necessary to oppose her.

Mr. Darby reassured himself with arguments and assertions such as these, but the uncomfortable fact remained that, though they convinced the reasoning part of him, they did very little towards soothing his feelings. The prospect of the inevitable encounter with Sarah kept intruding upon his thoughts at the most inappropriate moments, at the same time producing a curious sensation of weakness in the back of his knees.

On his return to the general office after his conversation with Mr. Marston, Mr. Darby had, in the off-hand manner for which he was rapidly acquiring a finished technique, broken the news to McNab and Pellow, and this news, sown by Mr. Darby in five different plots—the Office, the Bank, Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield his Solicitors, the Stedmans, and the Cribbs—germinated, flowered, fruited, and reproduced itself prodigiously, so that he received congratulations from the most unexpected quarters and at the most unexpected moments. On the stairs of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street, in the Brackett Street Post Office, in shops, on the tops of trams, on crowded pavements, on those precarious mid-street islands between two streams of traffic, in the porch of St. George’s Church, Savershill, even half way down the nave of that sacred building, Mr. Darby was bombarded with congratulations, often by people whom he only knew by sight, sometimes even by people whom he did not know at all. And just as he had perfected a technique for breaking the news, so he had soon perfected another—a dignified courtesy combined with a hint of surprise that so ordinary a matter should seem so extraordinary to others— for the reception and acknowledgment of these continual tributes.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby was in the habit of sitting down to his daily paper on his return home every evening, as soon as he had taken his boots off. It helped to fill in the gap between his return and supper. On the second evening after his return to the office, he was seated, so engaged, before the diningroom fire when his eye fell on the following heading: NOVOCASTRIAN’S WINDFALL. Under it, in smaller capitals, he read: FROM CLERK TO MILLIONAIRE. It was this sub-title which arrested his attention. Was it …? Could it be …? He stared for some seconds, with sensations of growing excitement, at the astonishing phrase. A veil of steam spread over the lenses of his spectacles, cutting him off suddenly from further investigation. With an exclamation of impatience Mr. Darby dashed the paper down on his knees, snatched out his handkerchief, snatched off his spectacles and polished them with trembling hands. Then, replacing them and the handkerchief, he grabbed the paper and plunged into the paragraph. ‘It is reserved for few,’ he read, ‘to have an experience such as has recently befallen our fellow citizen Mr. William James Darby of Moseley Terrace, Savershill, who has long held a responsible position in the firm of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, Architects, of this city. On opening his daily budget of letters a few mornings ago, Mr. Darby received from one of them the kind of intelligence which is usually to be found only in the pages of the more sensational novels. The letter in question apprised the fortunate gentleman that his paternal uncle, Thomas Darby, himself a Novocastrian but one who had long made his home in Australia, had recently died leaving him his entire fortune, which, we are informed, amounts to something approaching a million of money. We learn, on enquiry, that Mr. and Mrs. Darby intend to travel, but we may be allowed to hope that when they return to England they will decide to establish themselves once more in their native city.’

Having reached the end of this piece of news Mr. Darby laid down the paper, drew a deep breath and remained for some time staring into the fire. A smile played about the corners of his mouth. How often, in fancy, had he coined announcements of this description; and now here was this one—another dream come true—confronting him in cold print. With a satisfied sigh he took up the Newchester Daily Chronicle again and, more slowly this time and savouring the rich, formal, journalistic tone of every phrase, he indulged in the luxury of re-reading the whole paragraph from beginning to end. ‘Very nicely put!’ he said to himself. ‘Very nicely put indeed. “The letter in question apprised the fortunate gentleman …!” “Has long held a responsible position …!” “Mr. and Mrs. Darby intend to travel…!” ‘

Suddenly the full significance of that last phrase came home to him, destroying his equanimity. Once more the unsolved problem began to nibble at his mind. Certainly Mr. Darby intended to travel, but did Mrs. Darby? And did she intend that Mr. Darby should? Still holding the Newchester Daily Chronicle before his eyes, Mr. Darby fell into an uncomfortable reverie. He was interrupted by the opening of the door, the sound of cutlery and glasses on a tray. Sarah was about to lay supper. Mr. Darby did not move. He heard her put the tray down on the table, he felt her glance over his shoulder, he felt her throw up her head with that quick, indignant jerk which was so typical and so familiar. He waited, speechless: Sarah was sure to begin. He wished that the paper which he held open before his eyes had been open at another page. Such was his state of tension that he jumped and the paper rattled in his hands at the low, contemptuous snort with which she began.

‘Humph! I was pretty certain you’d be lapping it up.’

Lapping … ah …? ‘Mr. Darby, in a feeble pretence of ignorance, turned questioning eyebrows and a rabbit’s mouth over his shoulder.

‘Lapping was the word,’ said Sarah. ‘Have you got the stuff by heart yet? ‘

Mr. Darby laid down the paper and turned in his chair. ‘I can’t see, Sarah,’ he said, determined to be firm, ‘that there’s any harm in the little … ah … the little announcement.’

‘The harm in it,’ she said acidly, ‘is that it’s there at all. Disgusting, I call it. You ought to have sent them about their business.’

‘Sent them. … Sent who?’ said Mr. Darby, really puzzled this time.

‘Why the reporters, of course. Instead of which, you just chattered to them, I suppose.’

‘Reporters?’ said Mr. Darby. ‘But I saw no reporters. The first I knew of this was when I came on it just now.’

Sarah saw that he was speaking the truth, and seeing that she believed him he grew more courageous. ‘One can’t avoid publicity nowadays, Sarah. You’ll soon discover that. It is the duty of the … ah … the Press to keep the public in touch with events of … ah … any import.’

‘And where’s the import, I should like to know, in Mr. and Mrs. Darby intending to travel? ‘Sarah’s tone was extremely withering.

‘Well … ah …!’

‘Besides,’ said Sarah, ‘it’s not true.’

‘Not … ah … correct?’

‘No. Mr. and Mrs. Darby do not intend to travel.’

‘Oh … ah … I see!’ said Mr. Darby lamely. Then perking up a little, he added: ‘Well, I never said they did.’

‘You didn’t?’said Sarah inquisitorially.

‘Ah … no … ah!’ Mr. Darby replied.

‘Then I shall go to the Chronicle office and complain,’ said Sarah with determination.

This threw Mr. Darby into a great flurry. He was seriously alarmed. ‘Ah … well … ah … I don’t think … ah … I would do that, Sarah,’ he said. ‘In point of fact,’ he went on, ‘I have … ah … informed one or two friends that I … ah … intend to travel. I mentioned it to you, if you remember, on the first morning, just after I had read the solicitors’ letter.’

‘I see.’ Sarah’s tone was scornful. ‘So you’re still thinking of your precious Jungle?’

‘The Jungle, certainly,’said Mr. Darby, ‘among other places.’

‘With a few sandwiches, I suppose,’ sneered Sarah, ‘and,’ she added with a sudden cynical inspiration, ‘a couple of bottles of Bass, no doubt.’

Mr. Darby ignored her persiflage. ‘I shall … ah … equip myself,’ he said with dignity, ‘as others have equipped themselves.’

Sarah eyed the little man with a bitter smile. She saw that he was stubbornly earnest in his mad idea. He was really no better than a child, but a child enabled, by this sudden access of wealth, to put its most fantastic ideas into practice. Hitherto she had controlled him without difficulty, but forty thousand pounds a year had given him courage and robbed her of more than half her moral ascendancy over him. They had both been perfectly satisfied before this miserable letter had arrived, but now everything was to be turned topsyturvy. She tried another shot. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I hope you don’t expect me to go with you. I have something better to do than go dawdling about in jungles full of lions and tigers.’

‘No, Sarah,’ replied Mr. Darby, ‘I have never … ah … anticipated your accompanying me. I had no right to expect it.’

‘You had no wish to expect it, you mean,’ she retorted bitterly. For Sarah was realizing something that had not before occurred to her to enquire into, that Jim no longer felt for her what she felt for him. In her grim, undemonstrative way she loved him: he was hers, a part of her life, the object of all her daily plans and labours. For all these years she had failed to realize that the fact that she devoted her life to him, planned and cooked good meals for him, looked after his clothes, kept his home spotlessly clean and replete with comfort might fail to compensate, in his mind, for that lack of gentleness and friendliness in her treatment of him which had imperceptibly and unaccountably become a habit with her. Her sheer efficiency as a housewife had taught him to take all she did for him for granted. It did not occur to him that he was in her thoughts, the object of her solicitude, during most of the time he was away from her, whereas she was hardly in his thoughts at all during that time; that it was perhaps pardonable that, after keeping him scrupulously in mind all day, she should give him a sharp word or two in the evenings. He only knew that Sarah had a bitter tongue and an uncompromising disposition, that she too seldom showed him the affection and friendliness which he appreciated, that she tyrannized over him and belittled him. It had cost him a supreme effort of courage to make his pompous little assertion of his independence just now. He was glad, profoundly relieved, that he had brought himself to the point of making it. He would have been surprised to know that it had cut Sarah to the heart. ‘But Jim,’ said a buried Sarah in pained rebuke, ‘you couldn’t go off and leave me, after all these years.’ But the words were unheard by Mr. Darby and unspoken by Sarah. She had too long lost the habit of tenderness. She saw well enough that this nonsense about the jungle was mere childish dreaming, that it would never be realized, but the fact that he was serious about it and was willing to set off and leave her behind him told her only too plainly how he felt towards her. Her eyes filled with tears as she began to set the knives and forks and glasses on the table, and she said no more.

Mr. Darby had not replied to her rebuke. He had made his stand and he thought it better to keep quiet now in case he spoilt the effect of his efforts. He sat, with his back to Sarah, upright, alert, and important in his chair, the paper on his knees, the corners of his mouth firmly set, and his eye fixed challengingly on the fire.

Chapter VIII

Animation Still Suspended

Mr. Darby’s existence during the next three months was a strange and shadowy one. His state was more like that of a soul in limbo than of a plain Novocastrian. For consider: he had dropped out of one life and not yet dropped into another. He was, as it were, stuck for three and a half mortal months in the doorway between the two,—a very uncomfortable position for anyone, but especially for a man so deeply concerned with life and living as Mr. Darby. For he was not absolutely anything. He acted, it is true, as if he were the Managing Clerk of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, and so skilfully did he do this that not a soul, except those in the know, could have suspected that, really, he was nothing of the kind; that he was merely pretending to be, out of consideration for Mr. Marston. At least it was with this motive that he had embarked on this career of play-acting. In a subsequent conference between Mr. Marston and Mr. Darby it had been decided that McNab, after a few weeks’ schooling from Mr. Darby, would be fully competent to take over the job of Managing Clerk. But as these few weeks drew to a close Mr. Darby felt a growing reluctance to leave the office. For though he had ceased to be a Managing Clerk, he had not yet begun to be a millionaire, would not begin for several weeks. So it was that he felt a desperate need to cling to what little existence he had, to continue, at all costs, to be the ghost of a Managing Clerk; for, if he ceased to be so, he would, he feared, cease to exist at all. He was like a man clinging desperately to a tuft of grass while his body swung in empty air over the edge of a precipice. In a few weeks a passenger lift would have been constructed which would convey him comfortably and immediately to the bottom. In the meanwhile, he clung to the tuft. For if he left go, what would become of him, what could he do in the limbo into which he would drop? What could he even pretend to be, to keep him going till his fortune became his? Even he could not walk the streets, inspect shop-windows, buy things that took his fancy all day long. The human frame would not stand it. Yet the only alternative was to stay at home; and that was not to be thought of, for home, at present, was even less inviting than usual. And so, with the object of keeping a finger, even though only a ghostly finger, in the pie of existence, Mr. Darby had arranged with his employer that he should stay on at the office till the Law and the Post Office between them consented to provide him with his new personality.

It was a dull business, this waiting, this imprisonment in a state of suspended animation. For Mr. Darby’s face was set to the great world that lay before him, his feet ached for the sands of the desert, for the steaming floors of the Jungle, for the calcined slopes of volcanoes. On certain mornings he found it next to impossible to persuade them to conform, yet again, to the tame, monotonous trail of Osbert Road, Savershill Road, Tarras Bridge, Newfoundland Street, Brackett Street, Ranger Street and the laborious staircase of Number Thirty Seven with the taunting clank of its loose tread. Often, on his journey to the office, he would stop to gaze into the window of Thomas Cook’s office at the bottom of Newfoundland Street, and refresh himself with a brief study of the posters and photographs displayed there. For minutes together he would stare at the Sphinx, which the poster artist had bathed in the aniline glory of an Egyptian sunset, while the Sphinx, enigmatical as ever, stared back at him, promising everything and nothing. Then he would transfer his attention to the Matterhorn, earnestly considering whether with the help of ropes and alpenstocks there was a reasonable chance of his getting to the top of it. He cast an eye over steamship notices. The Greyhound Line lured him to the West Indies, the Scarlet Funnel Line suggested Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago. The heading ‘Trips to the Tropics’ offended him by its vulgar familiarity, for Mr. Darby clung to the view that the Tropics were still largely unexplored and would remain so until he got at them.

Having allowed the impulsive inner Darby this brief indulgence, he would rein it sternly aside, and, though it champed the bit and pawed the pavement, drive it relentlessly towards Ranger Street.

Meanwhile Mr. Darby had resolved to go into this business of Tropics and Jungles somewhat more definitely. For, after all, you can’t, when it comes to hard facts, simply plunge headlong into the unknown. You have to study ways and means. Careful thought and careful preparation would be necessary: he would have to accumulate a considerable mass of knowledge of foreign parts and foreign travel, even, perhaps, a smattering of foreign languages. He would buy books, guide-books, books written by travellers and explorers and mountaineers, a considerable library of travel; he would get in touch with the travellers and explorers themselves, do the thing, in short, in a proper, practical way.

Mr. Darby had in fact discovered that when dreams change into possibilities one’s whole attitude of mind towards them changes: one has to descend from fantasy to the practical. And the truth is that Mr. Darby had spent many odd half hours of late in envisaging the Jungle as a concrete proposition. Sarah, in her harsh, unimaginative way, had made a passing reference to lions and tigers, and Mr. Darby, in subsequent reflections, had found himself reluctantly compelled to take these creatures into consideration. He did not for a moment admit, even now, that to penetrate far into the Jungle, to behold its wonders and unveil its secrets, to feel yourself far from the dull, safe, crowded life of Savershill and Newchester, to know that adventure (abstract adventure) awaited you at every turn, at every step, behind every monstrous tropical growth,—Mr. Darby did not for a moment admit that this was not to taste life in its truest and most thrilling sense. But he had come to feel, recently, that when this thrill, this adventure, took the form—as it undeniably might, in the Jungle—of lions and tigers, with their notorious taste for human flesh, it was one which ought not to be incurred without a certain measure of precaution. Many years ago he had heard a lion roar at Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie which had visited Newchester-on-Dole, and he could still feel vividly the sensation that this roar had induced, the sort of sensation a dog must have when he suddenly puts his tail down. The sound of that roar, if one were alone in the Jungle at night, would be … well, yes, one must admit it … terrifying, unless one had taken … well, whatever precautions one did take on those occasions to insure one’s safety. Yes, he must begin to make comprehensive enquiries, and he must begin at once. There was no use putting it off. This irrepressible feeling that, if he just waited, something would happen of its own accord must be fought against.

With considerable hesitation he entered Cook’s office one evening on his way home. A tall, business-like young man faced him over the counter, ready, it seemed, to supply every kind of information. Mr. Darby felt encouraged. ‘I want,’ he began, ‘to make some enquiries about the … ah … Jungle.’

The young man’s attitude changed suddenly at this simple question. Surprised, puzzled, and crestfallen, he looked down at Mr. Darby who looked up at him across the counter.

‘The Jungle, sir?’

‘Ah … Yes … ah!’ said Mr. Darby, looking up with serious blue eyes over the tops of his spectacles.

‘One moment, please!’ The young man hurried away to a responsible-looking, middle-aged man, who presently returned with him to Mr. Darby.

‘What country is it you require, sir?’ he asked.

‘Well … ah …’ Mr. Darby’s neck and cheeks became very pink. ‘Well … ah … I … ah … don’t exactly know.’ For a moment he remained timidly staring at the middle-aged man and the young man who stared speechlessly back at him. They seemed to have reached a dead-end. Mr. Darby with an effort broke the spell. ‘It was that,’ he said, ‘about which I desired … ah … information.’

‘Well, I fancy there are jungles,’ said the middle-aged man, ‘in various parts of the world. If you could let us know which jungle you wanted, sir …’ Both the men were smiling now.

‘Certainly! Certainly!’ said Mr. Darby, determining suddenly to leave the office. ‘I’ll … ah … think it over.’

He hurried out into the street. But, after all, there was not much to be gained by thinking it over when you didn’t even know what to think. That was the worst of a matter of this kind. It wasn’t merely a question of making enquiries. It was a question, first and foremost, of finding out how and where to make enquiries. It occurred to him that Mr. Marston might be of some assistance, and—hesitatingly again, for it was that type of enquiry, he felt, which could easily make one look ridiculous—he consulted Mr. Marston after they had finished one of their morning confabulations.

‘I wonder, sir, if you could put me in the way of any … ah … information about the Jungle.’

‘The Jungle, Darby? But, of course; you did mention that you wanted to explore the jungle. But which jungle?’

‘That’s just what I don’t know, sir. I understand there are several. Which, do you think, would … ah … be the best?’

‘I’m afraid I know very little more about it than you do, Darby. But I believe the word jungle is used rather loosely for various sorts of country. I rather think it may mean either a dense scrub or a tropical forest. Which kind was it were you thinking of … er … visiting, Darby?’

‘It was more the tropical forest kind, sir.’

‘And you seriously think of undertaking it?’

‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Mr. Darby with childlike seriousness.

‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help,’ said Mr. Marston. ‘I was ordered out to East Africa in the early part of the War, but it was washed out at the last minute. I’ve got a price list of some Tropical Outfitters, I believe, if that would be any use to you.’

‘It would indeed, sir,’ said Mr. Darby, delighted at the chance of acquiring something tangible.

‘And, now that I think of it, there’s my old friend Major Blenkinsop. I see him from time to time at my club. Now Major Blenkinsop would be able to tell you a great deal about jungles and things. He’s done a good deal of exploring in the tropics, I believe. Oh, certainly he would be just the man for you. I’ll see if I can put you in touch with him, if you like.’

Mr. Darby, though a little nervous at the thought of facing a person who sounded so formidable, was profuse in his thanks. ‘It would be a great kindness, sir, it would indeed, if it’s not troubling you and the Major too much.’

Mr. Marston brought the Tropical Outfitters’ price list to the office next morning. ‘You can keep it, Darby,’ he said. ‘I shall never want it. I haven’t your enthusiasm for dangerous and uncomfortable places.’

Mr. Darby, a little shaken by the adjectives employed by Mr. Marston, stayed on at the office alone for half an hour that evening in order to study the price-list unmolested. It seemed that one required a tremendous lot of things when one went to the Tropics: he felt overpowered by the lists of Headgear, Clothing, Footwear, Camp Equipment, Bedding, Canteen Requirements. The price list, in fact, was rather dull and disappointing. There was nothing at all thrilling or suggestive about it except for a few details whose suggestions were definitely disagreeable. For instance what was the meaning of Mosquito Boots (tan sheepskin) or Thigh Length Mosquito Boots (brown canvas) or Rubber Knee Boots (anti-leech), or the long list of Tropical Medicines, or the Mosquito and Sand-Fly Nets, the Mosquito or Fly Veil, or the section devoted to Guns, Rifles, and Ammunition? All these things had a sinister significance. They suggested that a holiday spent in exploring the Tropics might have its drawbacks, that the adventures involved might be a little grim. Feeling somewhat crestfallen, Mr. Darby pocketed the price list and set off for home.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The days passed and the shadowy, timeless life oscillated listlessly between Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street and Number Seven Moseley Terrace, at this time a very uncomfortable place. For the home atmosphere was charged with electricity. It was not merely the simple antagonism between Sarah and Mr. Darby, between stay-at-home and adventurer, but a great complication of forces which were much more difficult to cope with. Mr. Darby felt profoundly disturbed. He had braced himself, and he still kept himself braced (an exhausting process) to resist any head-on aggression from Sarah, but Sarah offered none. That was the worst of it. She attacked him in less direct and much more subtle ways, ways which on her part were quite unintentional. For instead of becoming more harsh and tyrannical, she became less so, ceased altogether to be so, and grew gentler than she had been for years. But with this change had come another; she was obviously very unhappy, and her unhappiness got at Mr. Darby in a way that aggressiveness could not have done. It was very painful, and very unfair, for Mr. Darby was resolved to have his way, to strike a blow for freedom at whatever cost, and this attitude of Sarah’s made it very much more difficult for him to hold to his resolve. It got him on his tender side, and Mr. Darby had a very tender side. In short, Sarah was more formidable now than she had been before and Mr. Darby was even more afraid of her, for if she went on like this she might make it impossible for him to take advantage of his miraculous piece of good luck, might force him to resign his dearest ambitions not in the least in deference to any overpowering tyranny of hers, but, what would be much more horrible, of his own free will. Mr. Darby was determined to stand out against this, and when he felt himself succumbing to the spectacle of her unhappiness or some deeply disturbing intonation in her so altered voice, he did his best to reinforce himself by recalling her previous tyranny, and especially those black weeks of disillusionment that followed his birthday party.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

For Sarah, too, life had become a kind of limbo. She no longer went about her daily duties with the old happiness, the happiness that accompanies those who perfectly express themselves in action. For change was imminent; her work was no longer a continuous and established thing, an act which daily recreated the world of herself and her husband. The whole meaning of that world was undermined, in a week or two its crumbling foundations would collapse, and what would happen then she could not imagine. Threatened with this destruction, her home became infinitely dearer to her than ever, and each humble act, formerly a mere healthy explosion of energy, became for her a thing painfully precious because so painfully transient. Every morning, formerly, when she had made their bed, the whole bedroom had shaken with the swift and powerful precision of that process. The quiet air was whipped into a gale by the strong flicker and undulation of sheets and blankets. Mrs. Bricketts, sweeping the hall below, could hear the sudden purr of sheets smoothed with vigorous hand, the creak of springs under a suddenly heaved mattress, the loud hollow smacks of soundly beaten bolster and pillows, and Sarah’s firm footsteps as she took up each new stance in this victorious wrestling-match. But now the old gusto was gone. She lingered and fumbled over her bed-making, telling herself meanwhile, with sinking heart, that when she had done it a few times more, that would be the end of it. And throughout the day her mind revolved almost mechanically, obsessed with the same dull self-reproaches. If only she had realized, before, that she was falling into that curious habit of harsh intolerance with him. She had not realized it because it had not had, for her, the significance which she now saw it must have had for him. For her it had been more than half affectionate. As often as not, when she had dealt out her buffets to the meek little man, she had been smiling inwardly, affectionately amused at his absurdities. And all the time Jim had been taking them in grim earnest, as mere bad-temper. Well, yes, there had very often been a tinge of bad-temper in them, she thought to herself, standing idle for a moment in the dining-room with her mouth firmly and bitterly set and her eyes tragically fixed on the sideboard which she did not see. Yes, the fact is, things grow on you somehow, without your noticing them, and all at once something wakes you up to them, when it’s too late, and there you are, fixed in your habit, as much a victim to it as the other victim—as Jim. Still, the fault wasn’t all on her side. Jim was a bit of a trial sometimes. She never could have any patience with downright silliness, and Jim could be very silly when he liked. He had a way of suddenly becoming pompous and important and then, with great solemnity, saying something particularly silly. ‘The business that stands still, goes back,’ for instance. There was no good pretending that wasn’t just plain nonsense. What could you do but laugh at him when he looked at you as solemn as a judge and said a thing like that? And then there was this rubbish about ‘penetrating into the Jungle.’ Whenever he said something silly, he had an annoying way of using long words, as if long words would make it less silly. He couldn’t just say ‘go into the Jungle,’ or ‘see the Jungle’; it had to be ‘ah … penetrate into the Jungle.’ And the idea of it, no matter what words you put it into,—the idea of Jim groping about in a jungle! It made you laugh to think of it. It was like some comic adventure-story for children. But the wonder of it, the absurdity of it, was that Jim was quite serious about it. It didn’t occur to him for a moment that the thing was impossible, just simply mad. Of course, it didn’t matter before this fortune came along: he could think about it as much as he liked then: it kept him amused and no harm came of it, because there was nothing he could do about it. But now, he might start doing something about it; in fact, it seemed as if he was going to; and though of course he would never get as far as the jungle—wherever it was—he would break up their home and go off and leave her for Heaven knew how long, wreck their life in fact, and no doubt do all sorts of mad and dangerous things into the bargain.

On more than one occasion she poured out her woes to the Stedmans. George Stedman’s advice was quite definite but not very comforting. ‘Give him his head, Mrs.D,’ he said.

‘There’s no good trying to check him. You’ve got to face facts, and the facts are that with all that money behind him he can do what he likes. You can’t stop him, and if you try, you’ll only make him worse. I know Jim.’

‘But if he isn’t stopped, he’ll go,’ said Sarah.

Stedman nodded. ‘No doubt he’ll go,’ he said, ‘but he won’t go far, if he’s left to himself. You mark my words, Jim’s no hero. He likes his comforts, the sort of comforts you provide him with. He won’t find much of them once he gets away from civilized parts. You just give him his head; don’t discourage him, don’t go against him, and you’ll have him back and eating out of your hand before many months are past.’

Sarah, large, grim and unhappy, sat upright in her chair in the Stedmans’ sitting-room, her mouth set, her fine eyes tragically thoughtful.

‘No doubt you’re right, Mr. Stedman,’ she said at last with a sigh; ‘but it’s cold comfort. Money’s the root of all evil; there never was a truer saying.’

Mrs. Stedman was more consoling. ‘What I say is, Sarah,’ she remarked, ‘don’t look for troubles before they come. My belief is that he’ll never get as far as starting. But I agree with George: don’t try to stop him, that’ll just put him on his mettle.’ With an oblique upward glance of the eyes and lift of the brows, signifying to her suffering sister her sympathy and understanding, she added in a murmur audible only to Sarah: ‘You know what men are!’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Time, in spite of Mr. Darby’s sensations about time at this period, was not really standing still. It was progressing, in fact, as usual, and the trees and shrubs in Savershill gardens bore witness to its progress by breaking diffidently into leaf. Almost any time now Mr. Darby’s papers would arrive. The Solicitors in Sydney had long since wired him a thousand pounds to be going on with, but Mr. Darby had decided to wait until he was in possession of his fortune before leaving home: it would simply cause complications if he moved from his permanent address at such a time. He therefore contented himself with minor extravagances. He bought clothes—underclothes, boots, shoes, hats, and went to the best tailor in Newchester and had two new suits made, modelled as closely as possible on those of that paragon of a well-dressed man, Mr. Marston. He handed over two hundred pounds to Sarah and suggested that she too should enlarge her wardrobe.

‘Dresses? What do I want with dresses?’ she replied with something of her old asperity, but the smile and the glance with which she said it showed clearly enough that she was touched and pleased.

‘If you don’t care about dress,’ replied Mr. Darby, smiling over his spectacles, ‘how is it, I should like to know, that you take so much trouble to choose nice ones? Now just let yourself go a bit, Sarah. No need to economize. Let’s see what you can do.’

Sarah smiled her charming, grim smile: then, with a sudden change of mood, she shrugged her shoulders and answered bitterly: ‘What does it matter to you what I do? ‘and, turning from him, she went out of the room.

The Darbys’ only other extravagances were to give a few evening parties for the Stedmans, the Cribbs and a few other friends,—a supper, followed perhaps by a theatre or a cinema and on fine Saturdays, when the weather got warmer, to hire a car and drive out into the country. Sarah was sociable by nature and at these times she forgot her sorrows and kept the party going in her best style, while Mr. Darby smiled blandly on his guests and inwardly savoured the importance and formality of the occasion, detaching himself now and then to observe it with the eye of the trained gossip-writer.

‘By the way, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston to him one morning, ‘Major Blenkinsop is in town at present. I saw him yesterday and spoke to him about you. He will be delighted to give you any information he can. If you can come round and lunch with me at the club to-day I’ll get him to join us.’

Mr. Darby accepted gratefully, but with much misgiving, for this would be his first entry into polite society and it had come upon him suddenly. He was comforted, however, by the thought that he was wearing one of his new suits. The rest of the morning he spent in a state of reasonably controlled trepidation: his usual precise habits were disorganized and he found himself doing the absurdest things, though unnoticed, happily, by anyone but himself.

At one o’ clock he heard Mr. Marston’s door open and shut, and then the door of the general office opened and Mr. Marston’s voice said: ‘Are you ready, Darby?’

Mr. Darby was ready. He already had his hat and coat on. With a slight sinking of the heart, a hint of weakness in the legs, he accompanied his employer downstairs.

But outside he regained much of his equanimity, for Mr. Marston, as usual, was so pleasant, chatted so easily, that it was impossible to feel shy.

‘You ought to join the club, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston. ‘You’ll probably find a club convenient in your new … er … sphere in life—that is, if you intend to remain in Newchester.’

‘I don’t really know yet, sir, where we shall settle.’

‘Well, if you do settle here and think of joining, I shall be very glad to put you up.’

‘I’m very much obliged, sir, I’m sure,’ said Mr. Darby.

They turned the corner of St. John’s Churchyard. ‘By the way, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston, ‘let us drop the sir outside the office. After all, we are old friends and, anyhow, as circumstances are now or soon will be, it will be out of the question. We’ll keep it going in the office perhaps, on account of the clerks. Don’t you agree?’

‘Certainly, sir, most certainly, if you think so! ‘said Mr. Darby, and then, noticing too late that he had disregarded Mr. Marston’s suggestion, he felt his neck and ears grow hot. He was trying to think of some way of passing it off, some phrase of not too heavy apology, when Mr. Marston turned into the entrance of the club.

Chapter IX

Snakes And Spiders

Once inside the club, Mr. Darby found himself involved in a whole series of solemn acts; and though he had always been a one for formalities, he had many moments of trepidation, for fear, in his ignorance, he should make some fatal mistake, some action that would monstrously profane the august place. But he soon found that these fears were groundless, for Mr. Marston on each occasion prompted him in the most casual and natural way in the world. He seemed to forget nothing which would reassure Mr. Darby. On entering, they went to a lobby lined with coat-stands where, with a few careless gestures which to Mr. Darby’s respectful gaze seemed to imply, quite unostentatiously, that he was perfectly at home, Mr. Marston hung his hat and umbrella on one of the hooks. Mr. Darby had a moment’s agony. In the first place, was he to do the same? or did a guest behave otherwise? And, in the second place, he had noted instantly that the higher rows of hooks were almost beyond his reach and the lower were already crowded. But before these problems had faced him for more than a few seconds, Mr. Marston with a charming tact had spotted a low hook and had said: ‘How about this one, Darby? Number one hundred. Easy to remember.’

It was the same when they got to the lavatory. All the basins were occupied, but Mr. Marston held him in conversation till two basins, next each other, were free. ‘You’ll find towels in front of you,’ he said casually, pointing to a heap on a ledge in front of Mr. Darby, and Mr. Darby noted that each washer took a towel from the pile, used it, and flung it into a great basket under the basins. This reckless disregard of the washing-bill amazed and enchanted him. With a careful sideward glance he timed his ablutions to coincide with Mr. Marston’s, and when he had done with his towel he flung it lightly, with eyebrows slightly raised and pursed lips, into the basket, noticing and enjoying the gesture as he did so. Then he followed Mr. Marston to the smokingroom.

‘We shall probably find Major Blenkinsop here,’ said Mr. Marston, as the door swung-to behind them. They stood for a moment at the door, surveying the room, Mr. Marston tall, slim and self-possessed, Mr. Darby small, plump and a little embarrassed. ‘A pleasant room this, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston. ‘One can order tea here in the afternoon. The nicest room in the club, I always think.’ Mr. Darby was aware of a lofty panelled ceiling, tall windows, a medley of small tables, and deep armchairs and sofas upholstered in green leather in which a number of gentlemen were sitting. Some of them glanced up at the standing pair. Mr. Darby felt horribly conspicuous standing there by the door. He wished Mr. Marston would hurry up and find Major Blenkinsop and relieve the situation. He put his left hand into his trouser pocket and tried to look unconcerned and calmly interested.

‘Ah! here we are!’ said Mr. Marston, after a leisurely scrutiny of the room. He signalled with his hand, and someone rose from a chair halfway across the room and began to thread his way through the maze of chairs.

The Major was taller than Mr. Darby but not so tall as Mr. Marston. Mr. Darby regarded him with some apprehension. And not without reason, for he appeared a person of some ferocity. His grey hair, his large formidable grey moustache, his formidable bushy eyebrows, his purple, weather-beaten face, and the grim set of his mouth indicated a man of uncompromising determination. He looked as if he would stand no nonsense, as if he would have not the smallest patience with human weakness or human ignorance. In the few seconds that passed between his rising from his chair and his reaching them Mr. Darby had time to realize all this and to wish heartily that he had never mentioned the Jungle to Mr. Marston. He wished that he had never come to the Club, that he could unobtrusively step aside, disappear, and leave Mr. Marston to cope with the Major alone.

But when the Major was no more than five paces from them, an extraordinary change occurred in him. Hitherto his attention had been occupied in steering his way among the chairs and tables; but now he raised his eyes and smiled and his whole appearance was transformed from grimness to a very attractive friendliness. For a moment Mr. Darby thought of Sarah and Sarah’s grim, endearing smile.

‘How are you, my boy?’ The Major took Mr. Marston by the arm with a vigorous, friendly grip of his left hand, and turned to Mr. Darby with the other extended. ‘And this,’ he said, ‘is your friend.…’

‘Mr. James Darby,’ said Mr. Marston.

Mr. Darby a little timidly took the proffered hand and found his own held in an almost painful grip.

‘How do you do, sir!’ said the Major with a sudden precision which brought back to Mr. Darby his earlier impression of ferocity. The Major turned abruptly to Mr. Marston. ‘Are we lunching straight away?’

‘If you’re ready, Major.’

‘Of course I’m ready. I don’t breakfast, you see, Mr. Darby. A cup of white coffee, that’s all; so I’m always pretty peckish by lunch time. Do you breakfast?’

‘Ah … yes, sir, I’m afraid I do,’ said Mr. Darby.

The Major turned fiercely critical eyebrows on the little man. ‘You shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘You’d be much better without it.’

‘Don’t you believe it, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston. ‘The Major persuaded me to try it once, and about eleven thirty in the morning I nearly died at my desk.’

During this talk they had crossed the hall and entered the dining-room. The sound that filled the room was the first thing—for the room itself was hidden from him by Mr. Marston—that struck Mr. Darby. There was, in it, something subdued, leisurely, and luxurious: it was a sound made up of the comfortable low-toned, private conversation of every occupied table and the clear, quiet ring of the silver. It was a sound produced by people who were not in a hurry: it suggested polite leisure, polite enjoyment. And even more noticeable than the pleasant noises was the surprising absence of the sound of footfalls. It was this absence that conveyed to Mr. Darby the sense of luxury. And the smell, the indefinable smell of good things that hung on the pleasantly warm air, was equally luxurious. It was a smell compounded of refined foods: Mr. Darby detected a faint spice of wine in it. At that moment the obstruction of Mr. Marston’s body was removed and Mr. Darby surveyed a wide plantation of snowy tables adorned with glass and silver. Some of them were surrounded and half obscured by dark-suited figures: the whiteness of the unoccupied ones, perfect squares, perfect circles, seemed to have broken into full bloom in the curling white petals of their fantastically-folded table-napkins. Mr. Marston led his two guests to a table near a window, and, leaving the Major to choose his own dish, rescued Mr. Darby from the painful uncertainties of choice by a few helpful suggestions.

‘And now, what about drinks? Whisky and soda, beer?’ Mr. Marston looked at the Major.

‘Beer? Beer is the devil. Whisky and soda for me,’ said the Major.

Mr. Darby was much surprised to learn that beer was the devil; indeed, he would have disputed it, if he had dared, given his own experience of the life-giving virtues of a timely Bass. Some day, perhaps, when he was a member of the club himself and thoroughly at his ease there, he would put the Major right on that little matter—‘ Oh nonsense, my dear Major, nonsense. Believe me,—and what I am saying now is from … ah … personal experience—’ But not now. No, not to-day. When Mr. Marston turned to him he unhesitatingly plumped for a whisky and soda.

‘Wise man!’ said the Major. ‘Wise man!’ And he said it with such conviction, such authority, that Mr. Darby’s faith was shaken and he came near to believing that in those innocent and delightful orgies at The Schooner he had all the while been incurring some sinister and mysterious danger.

Major Blenkinsop spoke with a speed and precision that disconcerted Mr. Darby. When he asked you a question it was as if he had fired a revolver at you; and before firing, he took aim, turning piercing eyes on to you which seemed to read your thoughts, spy out your weaknesses and timidities. Then suddenly his expression would change to one of extraordinary kindness and friendliness. He was bracing, alarming and attractive company. Mr. Darby felt himself weak, futile, a worm, in the presence of this vigorous person, but he did not for a moment feel that this was the Major’s view. The Major treated him with breezy affability, as man to man.

‘Well now, Major,’ said Mr. Marston, when they had settled to their lunch, ‘my friend Darby wants to know all about jungles.’

The Major glanced at Mr. Darby. ‘Jungles? What sort of jungles? Want to do some shooting, I take it!’ he said with a pleasant smile, ‘Big game!’

‘No … ah … no,’ said Mr. Darby, beginning at once to feel uncomfortably that they had got on the wrong tack at the outset: ‘no, I don’t want to shoot.’

‘Good!’ said the Major. ‘Good! I never cared about it myself. Barbarous business! My own particular job was exploring. I’ve done a little of that.’

‘Well, that,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘is what I want to do.’

‘Not done any before?’ asked the Major.

‘No. No,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I’ve always wanted to. It has been my great ambition. But hitherto … ah …’

‘You’re a little late in starting,’ said the Major, looking Mr. Darby over with keen, critical eyes. ‘What’s your age?’

‘Fifty,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘just fifty.’

‘Good constitution?’

‘Beg pardon, sir?’

The snap and speed of the Major’s questions flurried Mr. Darby.

‘Are you strong? Healthy?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘yes, thank you. I keep pretty well.’

‘Can you rough it? Can you stand great heat?’

‘Is the heat very great?’

‘It’s prodigious;’ said the Major, ‘like being in a gasoven.’ Mr. Darby’s face fell.

‘Mind you,’ the Major went on, ‘I’m talking now of the Amazon. The tropical forests of the Amazon are where I did most of my prowling.’

‘It’s tropical forests I wanted to know about,’ said Mr. Darby.

‘Shocking places!’ said the Major. ‘Put the fear of God into you, you know!’

‘But are they not … ah … very wonderful?’ faltered Mr. Darby.

‘Wonderful? I should think they are, sir. But they’re no picnic, you know. They’re sinister, malevolent. You feel that they’re after your blood. And they’ll get you if they can. Oh, it’s a wonderful life. A man’s a man, there. You’re thrown on your own resources. But you’ve got to be full of beans, you know. You’ve got to have an iron constitution. And even if you have, the fever gets you down sometimes.’

‘There’s fever? ’ said Mr. Darby.

‘Oh plenty of fever,’ said the Major gaily. ‘There’s Malaria and Yellow Fever, and that horrible thing, Black-water Fever. You’ve simply got to stuff yourself with quinine. It’s these damned bugs, you see. The mosquitoes and so on. The bugs, in fact, often turn the place into a hell. What with the mosquitoes, the sand flies, the motucas and the piums, and those little devils the fire ants.’ The Major looked sharply at Mr. Darby. ‘Do you like spiders?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Ah … no … ah, I can’t say … ah …’ said Mr. Darby.

‘I saw spiders half a foot across,’ said the Major. ‘I don’t say they’d do you any harm unless you touched them, but they don’t look nice if you’ve any feeling against spiders. I tell you these things, Mr. Darby,’ said the Major pleasantly, ‘so that you shall know what to expect. There’s no good my pretending the place is Heaven, is there?’

‘No, no, no, certainly not!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Still, I suppose the forests have their … ah … beauties,—the flowers and so on?’

The Major shook his head. ‘Extraordinary how few flowers there are,’ he said. ‘You hardly ever see one. But the vegetation, the huge trees and all the rich growth are, of course, amazing. Yes, that is beautiful,—beautiful and formidable.’

‘Do you find snakes at all? ‘Mr. Darby enquired nonchalantly.

‘Yes,’ said the Major, ‘oh, yes; if you’re interested in snakes, you won’t be disappointed. Boa-Constrictors are fairly plentiful, and if you’re lucky you may find the Anaconda—the Sucuruju, as the Indians call him. He’s a water snake, of course. I saw a small one once near Antonio Malagueita, eighteen feet long he was. I’m told they go up to over forty. But I don’t care for snakes: I keep out of their way. What interested me most were the birds and butterflies: they’re quite superb in those parts.’

‘I take your word for it, Major,’ said Mr. Marston, ‘but I, personally, after what you have told us, prefer Cannes or Biarritz for a holiday.’

‘Oh, if you want a holiday!’ said the Major. ‘The tropics are no holiday, once you get off the beaten track; and my own opinion is that our friend here is a bit too old to begin.’ He turned to Mr. Darby. ‘Not quite the right physique, sir, if you’ll forgive my saying so. However, you can but try. Possibly the Zambesi might suit you better, or the Himalayas. But wherever you get forest and jungle in the tropics, it’s all much of a muchness, I fancy. Insect pests, fever, and, of course, the laborious business of getting along at all. You’ve got to be pretty wiry. Now, I shouldn’t say, Mr. Darby, that you are wiry. And your spectacles, of course, would be a handicap. However,’—he made a gesture of entire sympathy with Mr. Darby’s possible obduracy in face of all these discouragements—’ if you decide in the end to try your luck, I shall be delighted to give you all the advice I can. No doubt it will be a bit out of date—it’s twenty-five years since I did my little bit of travelling—but at least it would put you in the way of getting up-to-date information.’

Mr. Darby spoke his gratitude, but did not, for the moment, press for further details, and the conversation turned to other themes. But as he walked home the same evening he was thoughtful, and when he passed the window of Messrs. Thomas Cook he avoided the Sphinx’s gaze. Half way up Newfoundland Street his passing eye explored a window exhibiting a rich variety of silks and satins,—glistening falls of green, lilac, and rose; here a sudden foam of lemon yellow, there a fountain of cool grey. Suddenly he turned away with a shudder, for slung across this brilliant background, a sleek brownish material, looped in rope-like festoons, writhed like a snake from top to bottom of the window. Yes, the snakes would be the worst part of it, especially the … ah … the Angora … the Anaconundra … or whatever the creature’s name was. Perhaps the Major had laid it on a bit thick: it must be difficult to be quite truthful when you described your adventures. Still, if you divided everything the Major had said by two, things would be bad enough. And as he ascended the slope of Tarras Bridge Mr. Darby did his best to cope with a spider half a foot across. What could you do if you found a thing like that in your bedroom? Mr. Darby took a boot to it, hit it a smart blow with the flat of the sole. He might as well have taken a boot to a coconut. The creature leapt two feet and Mr. Darby leapt six. In his desperation he conjured up a portmanteau. With one eye on the spider, which seemed to be collecting itself for another jump, he stooped down and lifted the portmanteau. Then, straightening his back, he projected the portmanteau across the room. Above the heavy bump of its fall he heard a horrible dry crunch, a sound like the crushing of a couple of pounds of walnuts. Mr. Darby took out his handkerchief, removed his hat, and dried his brow. It only showed … when you let your imagination run away with you! ‘No!’ he said to himself decisively as he turned into the Savershill Road. ‘No! London first. The … ah … Metropolis.’

Chapter X

Mr. Darby’s Farewell

Although Major Blenkinsop’s disquieting realism had been enough to revolutionize Mr. Darby’s schemes and to shift his immediate objective from the Tropics to the more temperate region of London, his heart was still in the Jungle. He was not abandoning the Jungle; he was simply postponing it. In thought he still spent much of his time there and after a few days he was inclined to pooh-pooh much that the Major had told him. For, after all, it stands to reason that the vivid first-hand experiences furnished by the fancy are more credible than second-hand information received from a comparative stranger; and Mr. Darby’s fancy still persisted in revealing to him a very much pleasanter place than the Major had described.

‘A nice enough man,’ Mr. Darby thought to himself, ‘but excitable.’ The Boa-Constrictors, the Anacondas, and the six-inch spiders crossed his mind once more, but already much of their horror was gone: they were shadowy creatures now, hardly more than unpleasant thoughts,—the Major’s thoughts. Mr. Darby shook his head sceptically over them. ‘Too sensational! Altogether too sensational!’ he said. Still, there was, after all, the Tropical Outfitters’ list given him by Mr. Marston. It had mentioned medicines for tropical diseases, fly-nets, boots that protected one against mosquitoes and leeches, and a price list is undeniably a sober fact. However, Mr. Darby was to some degree proof even against price lists. No doubt, he told himself, there were jungles and jungles. The jungles of the Amazon might conceivably be all that the Major said of them, and the hints of the price list regarding East Africa might be true enough, but elsewhere there must surely be jungles a little more … well, not exactly civilized; that wasn’t quite the word: but a little more comfortable, a little more fit for exploration. He would make enquiries, proper enquiries, in London. Yes, he would spend some time in London, then perhaps take a holiday in Switzerland and explore the Alps (for the Alps would surely be free from fevers and snakes), and so by degrees work up towards the Jungle. And then of course there was Australia. Sooner or later he would have to go and see his estates there. The Sydney solicitors had mentioned that it was advisable. Possibly there were jungles within reach of Australia. In that case he might combine the two journeys, looking in on a jungle either on the way out or on the way back. Meanwhile, London! He must tell Sarah of his change of plan. How glad she would be. It would make all the difference to the present condition of home life: yes, that was certainly a great point in favour of the change. For the problem of Sarah had been growing daily more painful to him. The spectacle of her profound unhappiness had worked strongly upon his feelings. During all these weeks he had done his best to set his teeth and hold like a bulldog to his purpose, but for a soft-hearted man it was not easy. Day by day his resentment and antagonism faded in the presence of her suffering: he wanted to comfort and reassure her. But he could not do so without abandoning the Jungle: for the Jungle raised an impassable barrier between them, a barrier on one side of which Sarah clung jealously to their common life and home, while he cherished revolt and liberty on the other. Now the Jungle had withdrawn itself, floated up, as it were, into the flies like those gleaming screens of florid vegetation which suddenly soar upwards and vanish in the Transformation Scene of a Pantomime, and he and Sarah were once more face to face. Yes, he would tell her of the change at once. He did so the same evening.

‘For the present, Sarah,’ he said, looking up from the Newchester Daily Chronicle and clearing his throat as he sat by the sitting-room fire, ‘I’m giving up the … ah … the Jungle. I’ve decided that perhaps … ah … London … ah! Would you consider going to London?’ He glanced at her over the top of his spectacles, his mouth pursed as when he spoke of important matters.

Sarah turned away and began to move things on the sideboard. The unexpected relief, the unexpected evidence that he was not bent on escaping from her and actually wanted to have her with him had so deeply moved her that she dared not try to speak. She heard the paper rustle in his hands: he was turning round, surprised no doubt that she did not answer him. She controlled herself. ‘Yes, Jim,’ she said, ‘I’ll come to London. I’d like to. I’d like to see it again.’ Years ago she had spent two months there for three years in succession when the Duke and Duchess went to their town house for the London season.

She turned and glanced towards his chair. As she had guessed, he was looking at her: there was a broad, contented smile on his face. ‘That’s right!’ he said. ‘That’s right! We’ll have a good time, depend on it!’ Nothing more was said. The length of their visit and all the other details pertaining to it remained undiscussed. But the tension that had held them apart for weeks was suddenly relaxed and not only were they no longer held apart but they were brought closer together than they had been for years. Not that all Sarah’s sorrows were banished. Her life, the old life of herself and Jim and Number Seven Moseley Terrace, was still under sentence of death; they were still, as before, to be raised, by this wretched fortune, to a state of life in which she could foresee little but inertia and boredom, or, worse still, travelling—a lazy wandering from place to place with nothing to do. Travelling, Sarah felt, would be impossible to her. Unless holidays were filled with vigorous and useful action, unless she had a home, a home belonging not to a troop of servants but to herself, on which she could expend all her abounding energies, she would die or go mad. No, even at the risk of being separated from Jim for long periods, she couldn’t be idle for more than a week or two. But at least her worst sorrow had vanished: she and Jim were no longer painfully estranged. How horrible those weeks had been. Now, though the blow might fall any day, she no longer felt hopeless, and as for the visit to London, she was quite looking forward to that. It would be nice to be in London and free to do whatever they liked without considering the expense, so long as it didn’t go on too long. When, next day, Mr. Darby hinted that, in view of their visit, a further extravagance in the matter of clothes was desirable, she smiled her grim and charming smile and acquiesced. ‘Well, if you will have it! ‘she said, her pleasure evident through her pretended intolerance.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

It was a week later that the budget of papers from Sydney arrived and Mr. Darby became in actual fact a millionaire. For the last time he set out from Number Seven Moseley Terrace for Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street.

As a proper accompaniment to Mr. Darby’s mood Providence had provided a delicious April morning. Sunshine flooded Savershill. The railway cutting, Osbert Road, the long Savershill Road, the trees, the houses, terraces, shops, the Baptist Chapel, the Wesleyan Chapel, the parish Church of St. Luke were bathed in it, drowned in it, as if some rare crystalline liquid had fallen from Heaven and submerged the whole place far above the shining tips of its pinnacles and spires in one vast and glittering inundation. In the trees that leaned over garden walls the sparrows broke out, as Mr. Darby passed under them, into a clamour of jubilant chirping. High in the blue above the spire of the Wesleyan Chapel rooks wheeled in the liquid sunlight. ‘Darby! Darby!’ They shouted to one another. ‘Darby! Darby! Darby! ‘Two steam trains, symbols of the travels upon which he was soon to set out, escorted his progress down the Osbert Road, hurling long snowy billows of smoke into the sparkling air; and, though it was only a quarter to nine, the clock of St. Luke’s Church, as he went punctually by, mysteriously struck twelve. Nor was Mr. Darby to-day unappreciative of these demonstrations. He noted and enjoyed them all. The smallest chirp of the smallest bird found its echo in his heart. In Newfoundland Street, Brackett Street, and Ranger Street the shop-windows had been newly dressed and displayed their multifarious and many-coloured wares with the sole object of delighting him. Their windows gleamed at him in the sunlight and Mr. Darby’s spectacles gleamed back at them. It was a triumphal progress.

But as he turned into the entrance of Number Thirty Seven Mr. Darby grew suddenly sad, for he realized that, as an integral part of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, he was about to climb the familiar staircase for the last time. Except for Sundays and brief holidays, he had climbed it, summer and winter, wet and fine, happy and unhappy, for twenty-five years. That staircase and the office it led to had become a part of himself as much as he had become a part of them. They were bone of his bone. And now, by his own choice, they were to be cut away from him. As he slowly climbed the stairs he understood fully for the first time how painful the separation would be. It was not only that he was leaving Mr. Marston and McNab and Pellow (young Pellow was comparatively a new-comer, but he had already grown to be a vital part of the office): it was the parting from the office itself, the office of which the individuality of every room, every chair, table, desk, cupboard, every shelf and drawer, the very smell of them and touch of them, were bitten, as acid bites into the copper plate, into his memory and affections. Here he was now, almost at the top of the stairs; in a few seconds he would arrive, take his place in the general office, and everything would happen exactly as it always happened. But at lunch-time he would close his desk, walk out, shut the glass-panelled door behind him, and, as a member of that office, never, never return. As he contemplated it, Mr. Darby forgot his fortune. His million pounds had shrunk to a thing of less significance than the million dust-motes that Mrs. Blake, the office char, disturbed a little every morning before Messrs. Lamb & Marston came on the scene.

But now he was entering the office, the footsteps of McNab and Pellow were following him upstairs. He hung up his coat and hat, and the details of the daily routine distracted his mind from the contemplation of the painful experience which was approaching him. He did not at once tell McNab and Pellow that he was leaving them at lunch-time, but when Mr. Marston’s bell rang for him and he was already on his way to the door, he turned and said: ‘My papers arrived from Australia this morning. At lunch-time I’m afraid I shall be going.’ Then, giving them no chance to reply, he turned and took refuge in Mr. Marston’s room. When, after ten minutes, he came back, he had broken the news to Mr. Marston and asked if he might leave him at lunch-time, and there and then—’ in case I don’t see you alone again, this morning,’ as Mr. Marston said—they had wished each other goodbye. From the unusual glitter in his spectacles, McNab and Pellow realized that this had happened and tactfully refrained from speaking. ‘If only I could have given him a present, some little reminder …’ Mr. Darby was thinking to himself. But it wouldn’t have done. It would have been awkward for them both and, Mr. Darby felt, not quite suitable. He looked at his watch. It was still only ten past ten. Mr. Darby clung to the morning. He dreaded the lunch-hour. But the morning eluded him, slipped imperceptibly from his grasp, and left him, before he could prepare himself, face to face with the dreadful moment. He went to the hooks and put on his coat and hat. McNab and Pellow sat tight at their desks. Like Mr. Darby, they were embarrassed by the sad occasion.

At last when he had buttoned the last button of his coat Mr. Darby pulled himself together. ‘Well,’he said, his spectacles glinting in the light from the windows, ‘well, I must say good-bye.’ He held out his hand to McNab who rose from his stool. They shook hands. ‘The best of luck, Mr. Darby!’

‘Thank you! Thank you, William.’ He fumbled in his coat pocket, brought out two envelopes, chose one and handed it to McNab. ‘A small parting present, with my best wishes,’ he said. He turned to Pellow. ‘And one for you, my boy!’ Then, patting him on the shoulder, he turned and hurried out of the room. The first envelope contained a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds and the second, one for a hundred.

Book II

Mr. Darby Cuts The Cable

Chapter XI

Mr. Darby Moves On London

Great things have happened on the twenty-third of April. It is a day of note for Englishmen. On April the twenty-third in the year A.D. 303 St. George of Cappadocia, Patron Saint of England, was martyred by order of the Emperor Diocletian. On some previous date he had gallantly slain the Dragon at a place where, by a curious coincidence, Perseus, several centuries before, had slain a similar monster and rescued Andromeda. But that is not all. On April the twenty-third 1564 William Shakespeare was born, and on April the twenty-third 1616 he died. And when he descends to contemporary history the historian notes that it was on April the twenty-third that Mr. William James Darby of Savershill, Newchester-on-Dole, having come into his fortune, left home accompanied by Sarah his wife. There is for thoughtful persons, a remarkable similarity between the case of Mr. Darby of Savershill and that of St. George of Cappadocia. St. George was the champion of Religion: Mr. Darby championed Romance. And while St. George assailed and with the help of Providence slew the Dragon of Antichrist, Mr Darby, no less, fought fiercely against the Dragon of Custom, the sworn foe of poetry and imagination, and with the posthumous assistance of Uncle Tom Darby, overthrew him.

Thursday was early closing day in Savershill, and perhaps it was not by an altogether random choice that Mr. Darby had fixed on the afternoon train on Thursday April the twenty-third, for the journey to London. But whether it was, or not, it enabled Mr. and Mrs. George Stedman and one or two other friends who were in trade, to come to the Central Station to see them off. McNab and Pellow came too. Mr. Marston had allowed them half an hour off to enable them to do so. Sam Cribb, unfortunately, was not there (the railway does not recognize early closing days); but Mrs. Cribb was, and, to Mr. Darby’s thinking, she did not treat the occasion with all the gravity it demanded. She addressed the Darbys as Mr. and Mrs. Whittington which, as Mr. Darby pointed out with a touch of haughtiness, was singularly inappropriate, for Dick Whittington went to London to seek his fortune, ‘whereas we, I am glad to say,’ remarked Mr. Darby, ‘are very … ah … differently situated.’

Mr. and Mrs. Darby had been comfortably settled by their porter in a first-class carriage, and now they stood at the open door chatting to the small group on the platform. Sarah stood behind her husband (had she not done so, he would have been invisible) and, a somewhat shadowy figure, conversed with her friends for the most part by signs. But Mr. Darby was clearly visible. He stood framed in the doorway, black hatted and coated. A single pearl adorned his figured grey tie: he wore shammy leather gloves. There was a certain aloofness about him, a touch of the grand seigneur consistent with his new circumstances; yet he gazed down on his friends benignly, and a hint of moisture gleamed in his blue, spectacled eyes, for the parting was painful to him.

‘Now mind you don’t get into mischief, Jim,’ said George Stedman. ‘But I can trust Mrs. D. to keep an eye on you.’ He signed to Sarah who bent her head and looked over her husband’s shoulder. ‘Keep an eye on him,’ said Stedman. ‘You know what he is!’

‘Trust me!’ said Sarah.

Mr. Darby smiled complacently. Such jokes were really jokes now. No one, not even Sarah, could keep him out of mischief now: he was a free man.

‘Come back soon,’ said Mrs. Stedman, her thin kindly face smiling up at him. Mr. Darby smiled back and made a gesture of acquiescence with his gloved hand. ‘Sooner or later,’ he said, and he addressed this reassurance not only to Mrs. Stedman, but to all, ‘Sooner or later I shall … ah … return.’

‘That’s right, Jim,’ said Stedman; ‘and let it be sooner rather than later. We shall miss you badly. Savershill won’t be the same place.’

A porter passed, shutting the doors. Mr. Darby stepped back with dignity and appeared, next moment, a head and shoulders portrait, at the open window. The hissing of the engine made further conversation impossible. He saw that Mrs. Cribb was shouting at him, but her words were lost in the roar. Mr. Darby made a gesture indicating deafness. She came nearer. ‘They’re getting up a lot of steam,’ she shouted affably. But the words were annihilated in the all-pervading roar. Mr. Darby put a hand to his ear. ‘Getting up quite a lot of steam,’ he heard.

‘Ah, quite! Quite! One of these new … ah … locomotives, no doubt.’

It was Mrs. Cribb’s turn to be deaf.

‘One of these new … ah … locomotives!’ shouted Mr. Darby, and she nodded vigorously, and shouted the statement to her companions.

‘One of the new locomotives!’ They all leaned back and looked towards the engine. Then a shrill whistle sounded above the roaring whistle of steam, the roar suddenly stopped and with the power and leisure of a great wave the train heaved slowly into motion. Mr. Darby, framed in the window space, raised his hat with his right hand while with the other he waved a majestic farewell. It was a moment he had long foreseen. Sarah was waving over his shoulder. The little group of friends waved back, and as they began slowly to recede from him, Mr. Darby noticed, a few feet beyond them, the figure of a man holding before his chest with both hands a black box. Next moment he had lowered it: it was a camera. Mr. Darby was swept, as a mountain is swept by flying sunshine, by a blaze of satisfaction. But in a moment his eyes and his thoughts flew back to his friends. There they stood, a pathetic and isolated little group. They were waving handkerchiefs. How small they looked already: even George Stedman looked small. A long signal cabin suddenly blotted them out and Mr. Darby turned his attention into the carriage. Sarah had already settled herself in a window seat: he sank into the seat opposite her. ‘Well!’ he said conclusively, as one might imagine the Almighty saying it at the close of one century and the opening of another; and, after a moment’s silence, he could not help adding: ‘I fancy I … ah … observed a photographer.’ Sarah knit her brows.

‘From the … ah … the Press, the Chronicle no doubt. Rather nice of them, I thought.’

‘Do you mean they were taking us?‘said Sarah.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘In fact I saw it occur.’

‘Fiddlesticks!’ said Sarah. ‘Taking us? Whatever for? ’

‘For the Chronicle no doubt,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘The back page, you know.’

Sarah snorted. ‘I wonder what you’ll be fancying next Jim,’ she said. ‘Lord Mayor of London meeting us at King’s Cross perhaps.’

Mr. Darby did not reply. Sarah could say what she liked; she couldn’t alter the … ah … gratifying fact, and he spent the next fifteen minutes reflecting on it. He must make sure not to miss the photograph when it came out. But how? He couldn’t very well write to George Stedman and ask him to look out for it: that would betray too much excitement about it. But whether he wrote or not, George would see it, he was a man who always read his paper thoroughly, and when he saw it he would certainly cut it out and send it with some comic remark attached. Having settled that in his mind satisfactorily Mr. Darby began to play variations on the theme, after his usual fashion. ‘Mr. and Mrs. James Darby,’ he thought, ‘left Newchester by the afternoon train for London yesterday. We learn, on enquiry, that they intend to spend some months in the Metropolis.’

But did they? Abandoning poetic fancy and turning his thoughts for a while to prosaic actuality, Mr. Darby admitted that any such statement was highly controversial. It was his own intention to spend some months in London, but it seemed unlikely that Sarah would stand it for long. All her references to their forthcoming holiday had implied that it was to be a short one. She clung tenaciously to Number Seven Moseley Terrace. However, Mr. Darby had never been one to allow distant possibilities to mar present enjoyment, and he was certainly not going to do so on the occasion of the launching of his career. Everything had gone, was still going, exactly as he could have wished. The little group on the platform and the recording and preservation by photography (public photography) of the brief but impressive moment of farewell, were things that, though Mr. Darby would certainly himself have supplied them in imagination, he had not dared to hope for in actual fact. And now, here he was in this perfectly delightful first-class carriage, in a seat as comfortable as the most comfortable armchair and opposite him a wife in every way worthy of the occasion both in dress and appearance, bowling along swiftly but with hardly perceptible movement towards the Metropolis. He leaned back luxuriously with a sigh. The train was gaining speed. It wheeled to the left and he rolled over with it, aware of the comfortable pressure of the cushions against his side and back. In a moment they would cross the Redvale bridge, the viaduct spanning the deep glen of the Dole, which for Mr. Darby was still the new bridge, though King Edward had ceremoniously opened it in 1906. The train straightening itself swayed majestically forward, the buildings on the left and right fell away, Mr. Darby turned in his seat and looked through the window on his left. There it lay below him, the crowded valley of the Dole, a huddle of piled, smoke-grimed masonry tumbling to the river on either slope and barred by the gaunt iron screen of the High Level Bridge and, where the buildings ceased, the huddle of masts and funnels. With a little pang Mr. Darby realized that the Quayside itself was invisible. If only he could have seen it now and spotted The Schooner in the long line of buildings fronting the river! Suddenly he was overcome by the sense of all that the scene meant to him. How often he had carried his hopes and despairs down to the Quayside; and there, at the sight of the ships, the loading and unloading, the stir of departure, at the smell of the chill, watery, smoky air full of the muted noises of the town and the sharp cries of gulls broken sometimes by the deep, resonant bay of a steamer’s siren, his hopes had been mysteriously fed and his despairs mysteriously soothed away, and he had climbed back into the town, returning to the changeless routine of his life, heartened and refreshed. Could it have been that he had really known, in some dark corner of his heart, that the miracle for which he had foolishly hoped was really going to happen? Why, otherwise, had he gone on hoping without the smallest warrant for hope? And now here he was, setting out, as he had so long hoped to set out, and that other life, lit only by a stubborn hope which was little better than a fantastic madness, had already begun to seem unreal, a long troubled dream from which he had wakened to the secure reality of daylight.

But though it seemed to him already a dream, it was a dream from which he could not escape and did not wish to escape, for his heart was deeply involved in it. He loved Newchester, he loved the office, and, he only now realized how much, he loved his home; and those old haunts of his and the life he had lived among them began already to take on a rich, emotional significance of which, at the time, he had only rarely been conscious. The train had already flung the bridge and the Dole Valley and Newchester behind it, and in Mr. Darby’s mind too Newchester fell back into distance, shrank to a small compact city crowded into which the Stedmans, the Cribbs, Mr. Marston, McNab, Pellow and his other friends pursued their busy uneventful lives like bees in a hive. The rich melancholy belonging to things of the past enveloped them. Mr. Darby paid them the tribute of a sigh and immediately roused himself. This, the very moment of the launching of his career, was no time for melancholy reflection, for gazing backward. The good ship Darby had just had her wedges knocked from under her, had slowly creaked into motion from her cradle in Number Seven Moseley Terrace, and now, having flung off the prisoning enclosure of walls and sheds and land-lumber, was sliding swiftly, effortlessly down her well-greased slipway, into the open breezy waters of the world. Mr. Darby glanced at one window then at the other. On either side of him the land was sliding away smoothly behind him. This was pioneering, if you like. He was forging ahead, driving an irresistible wedge into the unknown; discovering, every moment, and recklessly flinging his discoveries behind him, impatient for more. And not only was there this condition of constant change to be enjoyed; there was also this delightful first-class carriage, with its luxurious cushions, its mirrors and photographs of notable places, its fascinating knobs and levers for controlling the ventilation and the heating, stopping the whole train if he so desired (though at the risk of forfeiting £5. But what was £5 to a millionaire?) and the little bell labelled ‘Attendant.’ A bolder spirit no doubt would have pulled the Alarm and stopped the train, had his five-pounds-worth out of it just for the pleasure of tasting his power, but Mr. Darby did not feel himself able to dominate a situation of that sort yet. Besides if one pulled it when the train was going at this speed, goodness knows if the sudden stop would not produce a ghastly accident? No, he would let the Alarm alone. And the temperature of the carriage was just right, so he wouldn’t meddle with the heating apparatus. But soon, without a word to Sarah and as if the action was a mere matter of routine, he would press the little button labelled Attendant and, when the attendant came, casually order tea. He smiled and suddenly caught Sarah’s eye. He had forgotten her. She was watching him and was smiling too.

‘Well,’ she said; ‘enjoying yourself?’

Mr. Darby felt a little guilty at the question, for Sarah spoke almost as if she were speaking to a small boy. Had he been too obviously gloating? After all, one ought outwardly to take things for granted: it would be … well, not quite dignified to make too much of a fuss about them, whatever one might feel privately.

He shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture implying equanimity tinged with indifference. ‘Are you?’ he asked.

Sarah nodded. ‘Very much,’ she said. ‘There’s no denying that first-class makes all the difference.’

‘Yes,’ Mr. Darby admitted, ‘these carriages are very well … ah … appointed. Some of the new rolling stock, I fancy.’

‘The best thing about it, to my mind,’ said Sarah, ‘is those clean white antimacassars. I never could bear the idea of leaning my head against a third-class cushion. You never know what you might get from them.’

Mr. Darby indicated the slightly open window with a gloved hand, ‘You don’t feel the draught?’

‘Not at all,’said Sarah. ‘We must have a little air.’

Mr. Darby took up an illustrated paper from the seat beside him.

‘Quite! Quite!’ he said. ‘Care to see The Tatler? ‘ Sarah accepted it with a faintly amused smile, and Mr. Darby gravely selected The Sketch for himself.

At York a liveried footman invaded them, bestowed bags and umbrellas on the rack and made way for a lady and gentleman who took the seats at the other side of the carriage. The gentleman’s face was vaguely familiar to Mr. Darby but where or when he had seen it he couldn’t for the life of him remember. Was he, perhaps, a client of Mr. Marston’s, and had he seen him in the office? He hoped not, for in his present mood he did not relish the idea of being recalled in his old role with a pencil behind his ear. It might impair the effect of this new role in the performance of which he was at present absorbed. And so Mr. Darby enclosed himself within the pages of The Sketch and there preserved a discreet incognito. It was not until an attendant appeared in the doorway demanding orders for tea that, hearing his fellow traveller order tea for two, he ventured to emerge and somewhat timidly hold up two gloved fingers and signal tea for another two to the attendant. After a while the attendant returned, neatly contrived a table down the centre of the carriage and then brought a tea tray for each pair. The lady and Sarah and Mr. Darby began to take off their gloves. The gentleman was gloveless already. Then Sarah began to pour out tea and so did the lady. She was a large woman, as tall, though not quite as broad as Sarah, and she poured out tea with the quick, decisive movements of a person of vigour and determination. She was not good-looking, but her face was striking and more distinguished than those of most good-looking women. The high cheekbones, the fine beaklike nose, the blue eyes that looked straight and challengingly at whatever they looked at, would not easily be forgotten; and her talk, in the few phrases she had addressed to her husband, was straight, precise, and to the point. Mr. Darby thought her a formidable person, and though now, as she sat on the same side of the carriage as he did, he could not easily see her, her voice and manner of speech made him feel ill at ease. The gentleman looked much more reassuring, and Mr. Darby wished heartily that he had left the lady at home. He started visibly when, having handed a cup to the gentleman, she suddenly turned and said to Sarah:

‘Tea is a great help on these occasions, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a help at any time,’ said Sarah.

It helps to kill time,’ said the gentleman, ‘and that’s a blessing on a dull journey like this one.’

‘I don’t find it dull,’ said Mr. Darby; ‘but then I’m always … ah … entertained when travelling. The view and so on! ‘he waved a hand to the window.

‘But such a dull view,’ replied the gentleman. ‘However, perhaps you haven’t to do the journey as often as we have. I generally prefer to do it by night and sleep through it. It saves time. Some day, no doubt, we shall all fly it, as a matter of course, in a couple of hours or so.’

‘No flying for me,’ said Sarah with decision.

‘Nor for me,’ said the lady. ‘I prefer terra firma.’

Mr. Darby declared his willingness and intention to fly. Travelling, he explained, was his hobby.

‘You’ve done much?’ asked the gentleman.

‘No … ah … no, not much. In fact, remarkably little. But I hope to. And, having recently retired from … ah … business, I shall have more opportunity.’

The conversation turned to foreign parts. It appeared that their new acquaintances knew India and parts of Africa, and Mr. Darby made certain enquiries about jungles, in consequence of which many of the less pleasant details of Major Blenkinsop’s information were confirmed.

‘It’s all very well when you’re young,’ said the gentleman, ‘but for people of your and my age, it doesn’t do.’

Mr. Darby enquired if he knew Australia. ‘Not at all,’ said the gentleman. ‘Do you know it yourself?’

‘No,’said Mr. Darby; ‘though doubtless I shall have to go there sooner or later. I have a good deal of property there,’ he added, throwing out the information in a casual and somewhat blase tone.

When both parties had finished their tea the gentleman declared his intention of having a smoke. ‘I think there’s room in the smoking carriage next door,’ he said, and asked Mr. Darby if he would join him. Mr. Darby rose with alacrity and followed the gentleman out of the carriage fingering his breast pocket for his cigar case.

As soon as the two women were alone, the lady turned to Sarah and said: ‘I know your face quite well. We’ve met before, more than once.’

‘I recognized your ladyship directly you came into the carriage,’ said Sarah. ‘Your ladyship saw me often at Blanchford in old days. I was head housemaid there for some years.’

‘Of course you were. And your name was … Crouch … no, not quite Crouch. Bouch.”

Sarah smiled. ‘Your ladyship has a wonderful memory. It is over twenty years since last we met.’

‘I never forget a face or a name,’ said the lady.

‘Your lady’s maid Susan Stokes,’ said Sarah, ‘used to be a great friend of mine. I suppose she isn’t still with your ladyship?’

‘Indeed she is,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘Stokes would never leave me, except to get married, and it’s rather late for that now. She’s fifty-two. She’ll be glad to hear I’ve met you.’

‘I’m sure she will. Please give her my best love, my lady,—Sarah Bouch’s best love.’

‘I will. But tell me what your name is now?’

‘Darby, my lady. I married James Darby, twenty years ago and we have lived happily and quietly in Savershill ever since until a month or two ago when my husband came in for a very large fortune. That’s how we come to be travelling first-class now.’

‘I congratulate you, Mrs. Darby.’

‘Don’t congratulate me, my lady,’ said Sarah sardonically. ‘I’d much rather be free of it. I’ve been accustomed to work all my life and I can’t do without it. I couldn’t bear to be idle. If the money was mine I would give most of it away, and glad to be rid of it. Unfortunately my husband is delighted with his forty thousand a year. He wants to travel and, though we haven’t yet discussed it, I’m sure he’ll want a large house and lots of servants. It was all I could do to stop him storing our furniture and getting rid of our little house in Savershill.’

‘You don’t care for travelling, then?’

‘I’ve never done it, my lady, and I don’t want to begin. I enjoy a short holiday well enough, but I hate the idea of wandering about from place to place idle and with no home to look after, and a great house full of servants, and me in the middle of it with nothing to do. Why, I’d be so envious of my footmen and housemaids and under-housemaids that I’d hardly be able to stop myself snatching the brushes and dusters out of their hands. It’s all very well for your ladyship and others of your position, but for people, like me, accustomed to work and wrapt up in their work, work means … well … everything.’

‘I thoroughly understand that,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘In fact, though, as you say, it may be different for some of the people who, like me, have never worked with their hands, I myself have always felt the want of it. I should have been all the better, I should still be all the better, for two or three hours a day of good hard work. You see I’m a strong woman, Mrs. Darby, and a methodical one. I should make an excellent housemaid. But if I were to insist on making the beds and washing the dishes and scrubbing the floors, people would say I was a crank. And the worst of it is, I should be a crank. You, for instance, would think me one, wouldn’t you? ‘

‘I’m bound to say I should, my lady,’ said Sarah at once. They both laughed.

‘There you are! As things are at present, I should be doing it, not because it had to be done but because it was my hobby, and that would make all the difference.’

‘Yes,’said Sarah, ‘it would take all the … well, all the decency out of it.’

‘It would. Even if I dismissed one of my housemaids and did her work myself, I should be doing someone out of the employment she needed and for which I could afford to pay her. But though I have to get any exercise I want out of walking and hunting and fishing, I don’t lead an idle life, Mrs. Darby. Don’t run away with that idea. On the contrary I work like a Trojan. I’m at my desk most days from half past nine to half past one, and often for a couple of hours after luncheon too. And when I’m not doing that I’m at Committee Meetings or inspecting hospitals. My husband you see is Chairman of the Hospital Co-ordination Society, and I’m secretary of the northern division. And besides all this I run my own houses. As Stokes may have told you, I don’t approve of leaving the management of one’s own house to others. I prefer to be in control. Besides, if the truth must be told, I manage it better than others would. I need hardly tell you, Mrs. Darby, after your experience at Blanchford, that the management of a large house takes a good deal of skill and experience.’

‘I know that, my lady. I often acted as housekeeper at Blanchford when Mrs. Race was away or ill.’

‘I remember that you did, and that the Duchess used to say you were better at the job than Mrs. Race.’

‘I was more interested in it than she was,’ said Sarah. ‘She found it tiring and worrying. I found it …’

‘Exhilarating. I’m sure you did. And my opinion is that you have been wasted, all these last twenty years. What you want …’

But what Sarah wanted remained unspoken, for at that moment the Ticket Collector looked in and asked for tickets and, immediately after, Lord Savershill and Mr. Darby returned, Mr. Darby glowing beatifically as if he had just emerged from a Turkish bath. But during the remainder of the journey this glow suffered momentary chills, for more than once he found himself to be the subject of Lady Savershill’s inspection. It was not an unfriendly inspection, but he found those bright, direct, amused, analytic eyes disturbing to his composure and felt himself compelled more than once to call up his reserves of dignity.

When the two couples had separated at King’s Cross and Mr. Darby was settled by Sarah’s side in a taxi, he said: ‘You know, of course, who they were? ’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Sarah.

‘I was sure I knew his face. One has seen it so often in the papers, of course. They had been staying with the Earl of Malton near York.’

‘Lady Savershill recognized me at once. A wonderful memory!’ said Sarah.

‘Recognized you, Sarah?’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah. ‘She remembered me quite well as head housemaid at Blanchford.’

She watched him with an amused smile and, as she had expected, saw his face fall. ‘How … ah … how very unfortunate,’ he said.

‘Unfortunate for your feelings, Jim,’ said Sarah, ‘but not for mine. I’m not one for play-acting, like some folks I know. I’ve no fault to find with who I am and what I am, and I like plain dealing. It was a relief to me when Lady Savershill spotted me. So any time you feel like pretending you’re a Duke or a Prime Minister, Jim, you’d better leave me behind, remember, for I shall let you down if I can. There’s going to be no humbug when I’m about.’

Mr. Darby did not reply. He surveyed London with an aggrieved expression of countenance. Sarah’s die-hard policy seemed to him most uncalled-for. That was the worst of Sarah: she had no imagination. Why couldn’t she let herself go, enjoy the miraculous gift that Providence had sent them, instead of taking all the spice out of the thing like this, with her dreary, matter-of-fact notions?

Chapter XII

At The Balmoral

It was getting on towards lunch time and in the large comfortable lounge of the Balmoral Hotel (a few yards, as everyone knows, from Trafalgar Square) there was a fair sprinkling of people and an occasional quiet arrival or departure through the noiseless swing doors. One of such arrivals was a curiously contrasted couple,—a large, handsome, important lady with a natural dignity of which she was obviously quite unconscious, and a small, plump, spectacled, clean-shaven, dapper little man with something of the busy self-consciousness of the pouter-pigeon about him. It was the Darbys of course. They selected a sofa in a corner and sank into it with the deliberate collapse of people exhausted. They had spent the morning at the British Museum.

Sarah gave a hearty sigh. ‘I must say, Jim, these museums do wear you out. I feel more tired now, after … what? … two and a half hours of it than after a week of spring cleaning. And nothing to show for it.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘yes, it’s certainly tiring, Sarah. No doubt about that. But it’s all in a good cause.’

‘Hm!’ said Sarah. ‘Where does the good cause come in?’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Darby judicially, ‘it’s an education, a liberal education. It improves the mind. We are making ourselves acquainted, Sarah,’—he looked at her solemnly over his spectacles—’ with our … ah … national treasures.’

‘Well, it may be improving your mind, Jim, but it’s not improving my feet. I felt ready to drop at the end of it. And as for national treasures, half the stuff in that place would be better burnt, to my thinking. The mummies, for instance! They’re nothing more than a disgrace.’

Mr. Darby was obviously shocked. ‘The mummies, Sarah, are of the greatest … ah … historical interest. They’re thousands, literally thousands of years old.’

‘And look it,’ said Sarah. ‘But I don’t see that that makes it any better. An old corpse, it seems to me, is even worse than a new one. I wonder they have the face to dig the wretched things up and put them under glass-cases. How would you like to see your grandmother in a glass-case for everyone to go and stare at?’

‘Ah … no! No! ‘Mr. Darby admitted ‘That would be … ah …!’

‘Well then,’ said Sarah, ‘where are you going to draw the line? ‘

Mr. Darby was unable, at the moment, to suggest a suitable point for the drawing of the line. Besides he was too tired and too hungry to argue. ‘I feel like a … ah … a little pick-me-up,’ he said. ‘What about you?’

“How long is it till dinner?” asked Sarah.

‘Lunch,’ replied Mr. Darby, slightly underlining the word, ‘will be in a quarter of an hour.’

‘Then I’ll have a glass of Sherry,’ said Sarah decisively. Mr. Darby caught a waiter’s eye and ordered two glasses of Sherry. Sarah’s choice surprised him. He had not known that she had a liking for Sherry.

‘And another thing,’ she pursued; ‘all those clubs and axes and painted masks and ridiculous wooden figures and so on, all very well in a toy shop, but the idea of keeping them there, lumbering up the place! Now you’ll tell me, I suppose, that they’re thousands of years old, as if that was any excuse.’

‘No!’ said Mr. Darby, ‘No! But for those who study such things, I gather they’re of great… ah … great anthropical interest.’

‘Well, not for me, that’s all! ‘said Sarah sharply. ‘Still,’ she added, ‘I will say they’ve some lovely china. Far too much of it, of course, but some lovely bits here and there. I’d like to have had that little bit of Worcester.’

The waiter brought their Sherry and with the eagerness of dire necessity they raised their glasses simultaneously to their lips.

‘A capital idea of yours, Sarah, this Sherry,’ said Mr. Darby, discreetly smacking his lips.

‘Yes,’ said Sarah, ‘it’s very comforting.’ She sipped again, and then glanced with a mischievous smile at her husband. ‘You’d never guess, Jim, the last place I had a glass of Sherry in.’

‘At the Stedmans’, perhaps?’ said Mr. Darby innocently.

‘No,’ said Sarah, ‘no, not the Stedmans’, though not so very far from the Stedmans’ either. It was in a public-house, called The Schooner I think.’

The name electrified Mr. Darby. A wave of crimson swept upwards from his collar, enveloping his neck, his ears, his cheeks. He blinked rapidly behind his spectacles as though smoke had got into his eyes: his lips worked nervously. ‘Oh … ah … indeed!’ he said, with disguised evasiveness. ‘Indeed! At The Schooner. Fancy that, now! Dear old Newchester! ’ He raised his glass and drank off his Sherry, as if taking a much needed medicine; then looked hastily at his watch. ‘Well … ah … what about lunch?’ he said.

He rose from his chair and led the way to the door, and he was still so upset that he quite forgot his manners, quite forgot to pull the door open and stand aside with his customary little bow while Sarah sailed through. He simply drove through the door as through an obstacle to his escape, and if Sarah had not had a hand ready the door would have swung back and separated them. These veiled references to The Schooner made Mr. Darby feel extremely guilty. What did she mean by them? What did she think? What did she know? He wished Sarah would not do it. It never occurred to him that if every word he had ever spoken to Miss Sunningdale had been overheard by the whole world, Sarah included, the revelation would not have stirred the ghost of a suspicion in even the most suspicious; that his sense of guilt came from the memory of his secret feelings, and also, a little, from the spectacled glances which had accompanied his guileless talk; from the small, romantic corner in his heart which still glowed discreetly at the thought of Miss Sunningdale; and from that brief and totally private debate with himself, after the news of his fortune, as to whether or not he should buy her some small token.

But the long walk down the corridor towards the dining-room, together with the delightful prospect of lunch, served to calm Mr. Darby and to place a gulf between him and the disquieting theme wide enough to make it unlikely that Sarah would seek to bridge it when they had sat down to lunch. Before they had reached their table he had resumed his normal colour and his usual spirits. A waiter hovered about their arrival, they sat down, and Mr. Darby joyously took up the menu.

Quickly and with one accord they chose kidney soup, and then nibbled voraciously at their rolls, silent from hunger, until the waiter brought their order. And even now they did not speak: they were silent now from absorption in the blessed occupation of feeding. O, the pure blessedness of thick kidney soup! The profound satisfaction in the mere act of eagerly stoking a run-down machine! Under the influence of each added spoonful of that soup they felt themselves change, felt their hearts lifted up, warmed, their tempers smoothed, every internal organ cheered, caressed.

‘The best thing about these museums, Jim,’ said Sarah, laying down her spoon at last, ‘is the appetite they give you. Without that, they’d be little better than a burden and a waste of time. You know, it’s a nightmare to me to think of all those cartloads of useless stuff stored away there. If women were in charge of things you’d find precious few museums about, believe me. But men are like children. There’s nothing they like better than collecting a whole lot of useless rubbish that happens to take their fancy. Only, with children, some grown-up comes along sooner or later and tidies the whole lot away, throws it into the dustbin. I’d like to have the tidying of the British Museum.’

‘Still, you must admit it’s not all useless, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby, willing to humour her. ‘Mummies may be useless, but what about that china you admired?’

Sarah snorted. ‘What’s the good of china, I’d like to know, locked away in a glass case, so that you can’t so much as touch it, much less make yourself a cup of tea with it? No, Jim, I’d clear out the lot; china and all. And as for those naked statues downstairs,—well, if you like to look at that kind of thing I don’t. And the idea of showing them to children too. To see those two school-mistresses with a whole herd of girls, staring as solemn as judges at a great naked man, well, it’ud have been enough to make any decent person blush if it wasn’t more than enough to make them laugh. There were three or four of them in the long gallery at Blanchford. It always surprised me that the Duchess let them stay there. And young girls, young housemaids, having the dusting of them too.’

Mr. Darby raised his eyes from his grilled steak, eyes bubbling with laughter. His mouth twitched at the corners, and he began to shake all over. At the sight of him Sarah’s righteous indignation suddenly collapsed and Mr. Darby’s symptoms were reflected in her. For some time silent laughter made eating impossible; even after they had recovered themselves, they suffered more than one severe relapse on catching each other’s eye, and it was only by a vigorous self-control that they preserved their gravity when the waiter came to remove their plates. When he had gone, Mr. Darby removed his spectacles and dried them and his eyes with his pocket handkerchief.

‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘you’ll be the death of me.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

They had been in London ten days. Having visited the National Gallery, Sarah positively refused to be persuaded to try the Tate, the Wallace Collection, or the Academy. ‘Nobody likes a nice picture or two better than I do,’ she said, ‘but enough’s as good as a feast, Jim, and too much is worse than nothing. How you can go on from room to room staring at picture after picture beats me. And I don’t believe you enjoy it: you don’t look as if you did, anyhow. I suppose you do it because you think you ought to. Well, I don’t think I ought to, and what’s more, whether I ought to or not, I’m not going to. When I’ve seen a dozen pictures, I’ve seen all I want to see. As for looking at hundreds and thousands, till you can’t tell one from the other,—well, it’s more than flesh and blood will stand. Believe me, if all the pictures in those last few rooms had been hung upside down I should never have known it. I was far past noticing a trifle of that kind. If you want more pictures, Jim, you must just go by yourself: though how you can want more after all you saw yesterday is more than I can understand. Improving your mind, I suppose: making yourself acquainted with our national treasures. Well, all I’ve got to say is, my mind doesn’t want improving: I’m quite satisfied with it as it is. And as for our national treasures, I’ve seen more than enough of them already to last me a lifetime. So off you go to your Tate or your Wallace and leave me here with my book. I’ll improve my mind with David Copperfield till tea-time.’

Mr. Darby therefore, after a good lunch, set out alone, bent on the conquest of the Tate. He was relieved at Sarah’s defection. He did not conceal from himself that those visits to the galleries were a laborious business, but without Sarah they would be less so. Her unwilling company added an inertia which doubled his fatigue. He had felt once or twice during that morning in the National Gallery as if he were trying to drag a steam-roller after him. He set out therefore with freedom in his heart and a spring in his step. Sarah had hit the nail on the head. It was not the pictures themselves that aroused his enthusiasm so much as the assurance that by looking at them he was improving his mind, acquiring the polite knowledge which was indispensable to his new state. His map showed him that the Tate was not very far from the Balmoral. It was a bright afternoon, he would walk there. It would be pleasant on the Embankment. He joined it near Hungerford Bridge and as he walked west, enjoying the breeze from the river and the scene before him, the Houses of Parliament, perceiving his approval, towered every moment higher and higher. ‘A noble pile of buildings!’ he thought to himself. ‘Some day, who knows …!’ But a siren from the river diverted his thoughts. A tug with a finely raked funnel was thrusting up the river at a smart speed, and at the sight of it Mr. Darby’s thoughts flew to the Quayside, the Dole, the Sea, foreign travel, the Alps, and the Jungle, the persistently maligned Jungle. It blotted out the Houses of Parliament as in other lands it has blotted out Maya palaces. Tropical trunks replaced the modest plane-trees and lamp-posts of the Embankment: a foot above Mr. Darby’s bowler hat the orchids hung so thick that the sky was invisible, and the hoarse voices crying the evening papers were the voices of green parrots. Suddenly he was seized by the shoulders and brought abruptly to a standstill. At the first shock he had the wild thought that he was being attacked by a gorilla. But the sound of a human voice reassured him. ‘Nah, gov’ner, watcher fink you’re a-doin’ of? Drivin tuvver dynger uvver public an no mistyke!’

Mr. Darby, his bowler tipped on to the back of his head, blinked owlishly up at a large grinning navvy. ‘Very sorry, very sorry I’m sure! ‘he babbled.

‘Don’ mention it,’ said the navvy, releasing Mr. Darby. ‘Only yer wanner keep them ‘eadlights goin’.’

Mr. Darby took this practical advice: he kept his headlights going, and it was the more necessary now for him to do so as he had reached the crossing at Westminster Bridge, and day-dreams, as he had already had occasion to discover more than once, are not to be recommended when one is crossing a London thoroughfare.

Having negotiated the crossing, and described a quarter circle round Big Ben, he soon found himself between Westminster Hall and the Abbey. He had the pavement almost to himself and he paused for a moment to survey the scene and give scope to his feelings. What a place London was! The vast mass of buildings on his left with its leaping towers and spires— ‘the very hub,’ as Mr. Darby strikingly put it, ‘of our Empire’—was enough, more than enough, to thrill a man to his foundations. But to have the Abbey too— that other great national centre—towering just across the way, well, it was almost too much. Pigeons, busy and self-important, bowed and bustled about his feet, and in the lofty regard of Big Ben and the Abbey, Mr. Darby was merely a slightly larger specimen of the same species. But in this they were mistaken. For to the pigeons they themselves were no more than convenient perches and roosting-places, while to Mr. Darby they were an inspiration and an ecstasy. He had already made the Abbey more particularly his own. Not only had he twice visited every nook and corner of it, but in all his available spare time, while Sarah was deep in her David Copperfield, he had read and re-read a comprehensive guide to the Abbey until he had acquired a very creditable knowledge of the building, its history, and its contents. In a company where the Abbey became the theme of conversation (and it would not be Mr. Darby’s fault if it did not do so at the next opportunity), he would have astonished his listeners. ‘It is the duty of every Englishman,’ he had said to Sarah when she had remarked sardonically on his insatiable taste for guide books, ‘to … ah … familiarate himself with our national heritage.’ After which pronouncement he had immersed himself again in his reading, unconscious of Sarah’s amused contemplation.

But picture galleries were a much more difficult job. The names of the artists, for instance, were a heartbreaking business. It was not only that there were so many of them: it was the names themselves that almost drove you mad. What could a man do about Pollaiuolo, Ghirlandaio, Hondecoeter, Wowerman? There was no good trying to remember what you didn’t know how to pronounce. It was true, fortunately, that they were divided into schools, and Mr. Darby had done something towards making a corner in the Dutch School. But he had not been very long in the Tate before he found to his relief that the vast majority of the names here were English, and, better still, that two immense rooms were taken up by a single painter. This simplified matters enormously. In his gratitude to Turner, Mr. Darby rapidly became enthusiastic about his work, and spent an inspiring and profitable afternoon in studying it. A conversation with a custodian, too, was very helpful. ‘A great master, Sarah,’he said when he had joined her in the lounge of the Balmoral for tea. ‘A very great master! Our greatest English painter, I’m inclined to think.’

Sarah tucked David Copperfield away on the sofa beside her. ‘Well, Jim,’ she said, ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

They had now, as we have said, been in London ten days and Mr. Darby clearly saw that a change was coming. For Sarah was obviously becoming bored. She had enjoyed St. Paul’s Cathedral, she had enjoyed one visit to the Abbey (but one, she had said, was enough) and she had enjoyed especially the theatres and the shops. More than once she had sent Mr. Darby about his business saying that she would walk out by herself and look at the shops, and generally, after these expeditions, a parcel would arrive for her subsequently at the Balmoral. But to-day she had stated that she had had enough of the shops and she refused Mr. Darby’s suggestion of another theatre. Things were obviously banking up for a crisis.

And next morning the crisis suddenly matured.

Chapter XIII

Sarah In Revolt

They had breakfasted, and Mr. Darby, with an after-breakfast cigarette and a morning paper, was awaiting Sarah in the lounge. She had gone to get ready to go out. She had not been very willing to go out at first, but when Mr. Darby had pressed the point, suggesting a stroll in St. James’s Park, she had consented.

‘After all,’ she had said, ‘one must do something,’

It was not until he had got to the end of his paper that Mr. Darby realized that Sarah was being rather a long time. She was not one to dawdle. To reach their bedroom, put on hat and coat and return to the lounge was usually, for her, a matter of ten minutes, but this time it must have been at least twenty minutes since she had gone up. Mr. Darby fidgeted in his chair, cleared his throat, and then looked challengingly round the room. It was not worth while getting another paper from the table in the middle of the room, so he lit another cigarette and sat watching the door, while, at irregular intervals, people who began by being Sarah and ended by proving to be anything from a schoolgirl to a bishop, pushed the door open and came in. But really, where had Sarah got to? She had been half an hour now: more. After waiting forty minutes Mr. Darby rose from his chair, pink with annoyance, puffed slowly and importantly across the room, and went to investigate. He climbed a flight of stairs, steamed down a long corridor, turned left into another. As he approached their bedroom he saw that the door was half open. Voices came from within. As he reached the door he heard Sarah’s voice: ‘Well, my girl, thank you for the loan of the apron.’ He entered and saw Sarah take off an apron and hand it to a maid who stood near the bed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s done me no end of good.’ The maid giggled and looked at Mr. Darby who glared back at her. Then, throwing the apron over her arm, she made for the door, smiling at Sarah as she went and saying: ‘Thank you very much, madam.’

Mr. Darby waited till the maid had gone and closed the door behind her. Then, turning with great dignity to Sarah, he asked: ‘And what, pray, is the meaning of this? ’

‘The meaning of it, if you want to know, Jim,’ she replied with an expansive smile, ‘is that I’ve just finished the first honest bit of work I’ve done since I got to London.’

‘I … ah … I fail to understand,’ said Mr. Darby in lofty bewilderment.

‘Then don’t bother to try, Jim,’ said Sarah. ‘Now off you go and get your hat and stick. I’ll be with you in the entrance hall in two minutes.’ With a hand on his shoulder she pushed him unceremoniously to the door, and, by force of long habit, Mr. Darby opened it and went obediently out.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Sarah, on reaching her bedroom forty minutes earlier, had found it occupied by two maids who were just beginning to make the bed. She had paused with her eye on them, and they, intimidated by that formidable lady, had made as if to stop their work and leave the room free for her.

But Sarah stopped them. ‘No, don’t go,’ she said. Then, overcome by a sudden irrepressible impulse, she held out her hand to the nearest maid. ‘Here, lend me your apron,’ she said.

The girl stared at her in bewilderment.

‘I mean it,’ said Sarah. ‘For ten blessed days I’ve been simply dying for a job like this.’ Both the girls looked pleased and amused. The one spoken to took off her apron and handed it to the large smiling lady who put it on. ‘Now,’ said Sarah to her, ‘if you like to be getting on with something else I’ll give our friend here a hand with the bed.’

So saying, she fell to, attacking the bed with her usual vehemence. Pillows and bolsters were punched and shaken, sheets and blankets flapped and whirled like sails in a hurricane across which the servant helping at the other side of the bed was often totally invisible. The two girls were thrilled and invigorated by the descent among them of this master-spirit. The other one got to work with a broom, infected by Sarah’s tempestuous energy. In a few minutes the room was finished. A sudden calm fell upon it in which it was discovered to be miraculously restored to cleanliness and freshness, like a garden after a night of rain.

‘Now how many more beds are there to do?’ said Sarah, flushed and exhilarated with the exercise.

‘We’ve four more rooms to do in this corridor,’ said her assistant.

‘Come along then!’ said Sarah. ‘Nobody’ll know. And if anyone comes in when we’re in the other rooms, they’ll see my apron and think I’m one of the staff. Now one of you come and help me with the first two, and the other one with the other two.’ She sailed masterfully out of the room. ‘Which way? ‘she said.

‘Next room on the left, madam!’ said the girl behind her. In a moment the bed next door was in the throes of just such another turmoil. ‘Now up with the sheet. Now that blanket. No, not so high. You want it a good twelve inches from the top. That’s it.’ Sarah’s commands and exhortations rose sharp and clear above the storm. In a moment the second bed was finished and the girl, flushed and breathless, laughed at Sarah across it. ‘We’ll be through in no time at this rate,’ she said.

‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘there’s a saying Slow but sure, but what I say is Swift but sure. The proper way to work is to go for your work and beat it, not dawdle about it and let it beat you. If you dawdle it just tires you out, but if you put your back into it, it does you good, and, what’s more, you get it done in half the time. I’ve always been accustomed to work and it suits me. What doesn’t suit me is sitting about in the lounge downstairs reading the paper.’

‘You’d not find many ladies agree with you, madam,’ said the girl who was dusting.

‘No, and the more’s the pity,’ said Sarah. ‘It’ud be better for you and better for them if they did. Now come on! Next door!’

When the next bed was finished the other girl took over as Sarah’s assistant and the first went to put the wash-basins to rights in the other rooms. In another quarter of an hour the last two beds were made, and Sarah stood upright, stretching her back. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I must be off. My husband’s been waiting this half hour. Good bye, my girl.’

‘Good bye, madam, and thank you ever so much.’ With shining eyes the girl watched Sarah go.

Sarah hurried straight to her own room where she found the other maid drying out the wash-basin. ‘So much for that,’ she said.

At that moment Mr. Darby in righteous indignation was steaming down the corridor. Sarah went to the wardrobe to get out her hat and coat, and then remembered that she was still wearing the maid’s apron. She put her hands behind her back to untie it. ‘Well thank you, my girl, for the loan of the apron,’ she said, and hearing a footstep looked up and saw Mr. Darby.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Though Mr. Darby had gone obediently down to the entrance hall at Sarah’s command, his spirit was not quelled. It takes more than a slight repulse to quell a millionaire. When Sarah joined him they neither of them spoke, but in the excessive politeness with which he stepped aside to usher her through the revolving door his determined disapproval was manifest. Northumberland Avenue, the difficult crossings at Trafalgar Square, and the Admiralty Arch were traversed in silence. It was not until they were already three-quarters of the way down the long path in St. James’s Park which slopes gently towards the ornamental lake that Mr. Darby spoke. ‘Well, all I have to say, Sarah,’ he said conclusively, ‘is that that isn’t the way to behave in a first-class hotel.’

‘Hm!’said Sarah. ‘Then all I have to say, Jim, is that a first-class hotel is no place for me’

Mr. Darby by a valiant effort kept cool. ‘Our … ah … circumstances have changed,’ he said, ‘and we’ve got to … ah ‘—he waved an acquiescent hand—’ to accept the change. When you’re at Rome, Sarah, you’ve got to do as Rome does.’

‘Time enough to talk about that when we get to Rome, Jim,’ said Sarah.

Mr. Darby felt his face flush. How exasperatingly stupid Sarah could be. His head seemed to boil inside his bowler. His lips twitched with anger, but he wisely remained silent. Sarah glanced down at him and noted the noiseless tumult.

‘Look at the ducks, Jim,’ she remarked irrelevantly.

But Mr. Darby did not cease to stare straight in front of him. ‘I’m in no mood to look at ducks, Sarah,’ he said sternly, and his articulation of the word ducks was charged with scorn.

‘Well, I’d rather look at ducks any day than at a whole lot of pictures and museum stuff,’ said Sarah, ‘and that’s the difference between you and me, Jim.’ She pointed with her umbrella to a park seat. ‘Let’s sit down,’ she said.

She suited the action to the word and Mr. Darby rather aloofly sat down beside her. Then, no longer evasive and flippant, she turned to him.

‘The fact is, Jim, I’ve had enough of this, as much as ever I can stand of it. I’ve had my holiday and I’ve enjoyed it— some of it, that is—and now I want to go home.’

‘Home?’ said Mr. Darby in outraged interrogation.

‘Yes, home!’ said Sarah. ‘Number Seven Moseley Terrace, Savershill!’

He had expected it all along, but now that he was confronted with the absolute fact it staggered him. That any rational person, in the very moment of liberty, on the very threshold of the great world, after years of drab, impotent, humdrum obscurity, after a spectacular farewell (with a press-photographer in attendance) to the old scenes, the old life, the old man, should wish to turn round and ignomini-ously go back to it all, as a dog to his vomit, passed his comprehension.

‘Well,’ he said with a sigh of astonishment, ‘there’s no accounting for tastes.’

‘There’s no accounting for my tastes and there’s no accounting for yours, Jim; but there they are, and they’re different. But tell me, what are your plans? What are you thinking of doing? You can’t want to go on like this for ever, living in an hotel with no home of your own and just mooning about and looking at London all day long?’

For the first time Mr. Darby felt a little chill at his heart. Such a life, as sketched now by Sarah, appeared dreary to the last degree. Certainly if Sarah went away and left him he would be thrown very much on his own resources. He would be lonely, very lonely. But if she would go, what possible alternative was there? He couldn’t give in and go back with her to Savershill: anything rather than that. It would be flinging the munificent gift of Providence back in Providence’s face. It would be a craven denial of all his hopes, all his dreams, yes, of his innermost nature.

When he did not reply, Sarah spoke again. ‘You’d better make up your mind to come back with me, Jim,’ she said. ‘London’s no place for people like us, except just for a bit of a holiday. Why, surely you’ve got some feelings for Newchester and your own home? Come, make up your mind to come back with me. You can enjoy yourself every bit as much there; and if you feel like it you can always come up here for a week.’

‘No, Sarah, no!’ said Mr. Darby with tears in his eyes. ‘I couldn’t go back now. Why, we’ve only just got started. I’ve never said much to you about it, I know, because you always laughed at me when I mentioned it, but all my life I’ve longed to see something of the world: it’s been a regular hunger with me. London’s just a beginning. I want to travel, to see foreign lands, to visit the … ah … tropics,’ (he had been on the point of mentioning the Jungle, but remembered Sarah’s scorn and checked himself); ‘and now, just when I’ve got the chance, how can I turn my back on it all? I hoped you’d feel the same. I hoped you’d like to travel, not as far as the … ah … tropics, perhaps, but to other places,’ he waved a hand airily, ‘The Alps, Vesuvius, the Sphinx, and so on.’

Sarah shook her head. ‘No, Jim,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t do it, not even though I’ve got to go and live at home alone if I don’t. There’s something in me that just says No. It seems we’re made differently, you and me. Why, even these few days in London are almost more than I can stand. You see yourself what they’ve driven me to—taking a hand with the housemaids in bed-making, and disgracing you, it seems. If I stayed here idling any longer, well, you’d find me so bad-tempered, so thoroughly nasty that you’d be praying Heaven to be rid of me. It’s not my fault: I’m just made like that. I’ve got to have work whether we’re millionaires or not. So I’ll just take myself off the day after to-morrow and leave you to rummage about here alone. Don’t imagine I want to leave you, Jim. It won’t be much fun for me going home to an empty house after I’ve had you there for twenty years. But I’ve come to this conclusion: there’s no good people trying to act against their nature, because it can’t be done. I’m willing to admit it’s the same with you. If you feel as much as all that about seeing the world, well, you’d better see it and be done with it. I shall be waiting for you at home, remember, and glad I shall be, I can tell you, to see you back.’ She stopped, and then added with an impatient sigh, ‘If only your Uncle Tom had given his money to a charity or something better deserving than us, we should be peaceful and happy at home at this minute and nobody any the better or any the worse.’

They left the park sad but reconciled. Their recognition of the gulf between them had drawn them together. It was arranged that Sarah should return to Newchester two days hence. Both dreaded the parting.

Chapter XIV

Mr. Darby As Man About Town

Mr. Darby stood solitary among the crowd on the platform at King’s Cross, his eyes fixed on the receding train that shrank rapidly away leaving a great emptiness behind it. He stood with his bowler held aloft in his right hand, waving it in dignified farewell. ‘Mrs. James Darby,’ he thought to himself, ‘wife of the well-known north-country millionaire, has left London for Newchester-on-Dole. We understand that Mr. Darby intends to spend some weeks longer in the Metropolis.’ But though his imagination paid its customary tribute to the occasion, his heart was sad, for Sarah’s departure had taken much of the zest out of his new life. Gradually his hand, holding the bowler, forgot to wave, and he stood motionlessly staring into the distance. The train faded slowly out, and he came to himself, face to face with his utter loneliness. He came to himself, discovering the bowler still held aloft in his right hand. His arm was tired with holding it up, and he replaced it carefully on his head. He found himself now disinclined to leave the shelter of the station and sally forth, for at the moment London seemed to him an alien and hostile place. He felt tired too, and rather helpless, and then realized that he was hungry. It was already past their usual lunch-time. Sarah was lunching in the train: the attendant had told them that luncheon would start as soon as the train left King’s Cross: he himself had determined to lunch at the Great Northern Hotel, opposite the station entrance. But now the thought of entering the hotel and coping with hall-porters and waiters and the general formality that lunch in the hotel would involve, was no longer attractive. The crowd on the platform flowed past him: he was a small desert island in the stream of it. Soon the platform was almost deserted. He too must go; but he shrank from the ordeal of the hotel. Then a happy thought came to him—the station Refreshment Room. Yes, he would stand at the bar and eat sandwiches and drink Bass. The thought cheered him greatly. A light kindled in his spectacles: he cast a brisk glance along the platform and discovered the Refreshment Room some twenty yards from where he stood. In less than a minute he had taken up his position at the bar and delivered his order, a bottle of Bass and one ham and one beef sandwich.

Neither the sandwiches nor the barmaid were quite so delightful as those at The Schooner, but Mr. Darby had not expected that. They were good enough and the Bass was as good as ever. He felt himself gaining heart with every mouthful. Still, Sarah’s departure was a blow: it was extraordinary how he missed her. Without her, London would be more of a duty, less of a pleasure. It had been awful when, as the train started, he had seen her face crumple and realized that she was on the point of tears. At the sight a sudden overpowering emotion had attacked him, but they had both of them managed to control themselves. Yes, it had been a bad minute: even at the thought of it now his spectacles twinkled moistly, and for a few moments the little man who was assiduously mimicking Mr. Darby in the mirror behind the barmaids appeared very forlorn. Had Mr. Darby seen him he would not have approved of him, for it was too apparent that he was not keeping up the dignity of his new station in life; but Mr. Darby’s gaze was turned inwards upon his thoughts, and the mimic mimicked on, undetected. He had told Sarah that he was writing to his bank instructing them to allow Sarah to draw on his account up to the sum of ten thousand pounds. At first she had refused it point blank. ‘I don’t want it, Jim. I couldn’t use it, not in ten years.’ But he had insisted. ‘Do what you like about it,’ he said, ‘but at least give them your signature and get your cheque-book. You’ll want that, however little you use’; and Sarah had unwillingly acquiesced.

Mr. Darby roused himself from reflection and took another gulp from his glass. What an age it seemed since those pleasant visits to The Schooner, yet how vivid was the memory of the place; so vivid that, as he entertained it, he positively felt, outside the door behind his back, not the platform and bookstall and porters and barrows of King’s Cross, but rattling cranes and shipping, a chill draught, swirling gulls, and the steel-grey river Dole. A small mouse of homesickness gnawed for a moment at his heart. This would never do. With sudden determination Mr. Darby drained his Bass and ordered another. Another Bass, he knew, would drown the mouse; and, sure enough, before he had swallowed half of it he felt better, remarkably better. If only he could have ordered also a little friendly talk with Miss Sunningdale, how comforting that would have been. He heaved a sentimental sigh, and, noting it, smiled indulgently at himself. After all, he reflected, men will be men. A few minutes later he stepped out of the station once more completely master of himself, a man of the world ready and eager to plunge again into vast alien London. ‘As right as rain!’ he thought to himself, throwing out his chest and glancing alertly about him. His immediate objective now was the National Gallery. Armed with the artistic knowledge he had acquired at the Tate he was now in a condition to make a more successful assault on the National Gallery than he had done at his first baffling encounter with it. He would attack, of course, through the English School.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

A middle-aged lady who occupied a table near the Darbys’ table in the dining-room of the Balmoral and had beguiled her meal-time by observing them, caught Mr. Darby’s eye as he sat alone at dinner that evening. Thereupon she bowed, smiled, and said: ‘Your wife is not ill, I hope?’

‘No! Thank you, no!’ Mr. Darby replied. ‘No! She has gone … ah … north.’ For a moment he seriously considered the vase of carnations in front of him and then added:

‘We have a house in the north.’ One gathered from his tone that they had houses in various parts of England. Waiters and the difficulty of sustaining a conversation from separate tables made them ignore each other during the rest of the meal and the lady left the dining-room before Mr. Darby; but when he repaired to the lounge he discovered her in an armchair. A vacant chair was beside her. Their eyes met again: the lady raised her eyebrows with a slightly wistful smile, Mr. Darby paused with a dapper little bow and, in response to a mutual unspoken suggestion, glanced at the vacant chair. ‘May I … ah …?’

‘Pray do!’ said the lady.

Her eyes and eyebrows habitually expressed a sad surprise, the eyes and eyebrows of a person of exquisite and romantic feelings which were seldom appreciated. Her quiet, aloof, and somewhat regretful manner seemed to Mr. Darby very distinguished. He felt he was being received into the confidence of a cloistered soul.

‘Do you object to smoking?’ he asked when he had seated himself.

For reply she smiled and languidly raised her left hand which held a lighted cigarette. Mr. Darby at once proceeded to light a cigar.

‘I always say,’ she remarked, ‘that this is the ideal time of year for London.’

‘Charming!’ replied Mr. Darby. ‘Quite charming!’

‘Some people are all for the country when spring comes, but, for me, spring in London has a … what shall I call it? … a poetry, a je ne sais quoi…’

‘Undoubtedly!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Undoubtedly! The parks and so on …!’

‘You know London well?’ The eyebrows went sadly up.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘yes, I think I may say I know it pretty well.’ After all, he had been working at it hard for the last fortnight.

‘I always say there’s no place quite like London,’ the lady went on in her gentle monotonous voice. ‘It’s unique. Paris is all very well, and Rome, but, for me, London …’

Her voice died away: her eyes gazed into a distance far behind Mr. Darby and the Balmoral.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, taking on, in turn, a tinge of wist-fulness, ‘I quite agree. The … ah … spirit of the place, and all its great associations, of course! It is London, after all, which has made us what we are,—as a nation, I mean. Unless, of course, it is we, we English, who have … er … made …’

Mr. Darby suddenly lost foothold in the profundities of this speculation and glanced helplessly at his companion.

She shook her head sadly. ‘Who knows? Who knows?’ she said.

‘London,’ went on Mr. Darby lyrically, ‘with its … ah … peerless historical monuments, its museums with their stores of … ah … queerios, its art treasures … well, it overwhelms one.’

The lady threw up her eyes. ‘Embarras de richesse! Yet how few people appreciate it!’

From this promising prelude it was obvious that each had found a kindred soul. To Mr. Darby Miss Clatworthy was indeed a godsend. To her he could pour out his newly acquired knowledge and the ferment of ideas which this knowledge had set furiously working in his mind. She did much to dispel the loneliness caused by Sarah’s departure. They were constantly meeting in the lounge and more than once even had tea together.

Soon after their first meeting Mr. Darby broached the subject of pictures. Miss Clatworthy, too, it appeared, doted on pictures and in the course of conversation confessed that she herself was an artist. Mr. Darby received this information with awe. ‘An artist!’ he said with bated breath, fixing upon her wide eyes of innocent amazement. ‘An artist! I might have guessed it.’

‘Only a miniaturist!’ said Miss Clatworthy with a modest shake of her head.

A miniaturist! Had she any of her work here? Actually here in the hotel? She had. Might he …? Would it be … ah … asking too much to … ah … request the privilege to … ah …?’

‘Not at all, if you’re really interested,’ said Miss Clatworthy. ‘I’ll get them at once.’ And off she went. She returned presently with a little leather case.

Mr. Darby inspected half a dozen miniatures with incredulous wonder. ‘Exquisite!’ he whispered. ‘Exquisite! One can hardly believe they’re done by hand.’ He examined one of them more closely. ‘Upon my word,’ he said, ‘one would say it was printed.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘Artists,’ said Mr. Darby to Miss Clatworthy on another occasion, ‘are sometimes, I must say, very funny about the titles they choose for their pictures. Now only to-day, I was looking at that picture called “Hope,” by … ah … by …?’

‘By Watts, isn’t it?’ said Miss Clatworthy.

‘By Watts!’ Mr. Darby accepted the help with a bow. ‘Now Watts, I grant you, is a very fine artist when he likes, but “Hope,” to my mind, is one of his failures. I may be dense …’ Miss Clatworthy with a smile and a gesture dismissed the assumption as ludicrous, but Mr. Darby persisted. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said urbanely, ‘I may be dense, but the … ah … female figure looks to me very much more like Despair. However, I have never been very fond of those paregorical pictures. Still, as I was saying, artists are strange about their titles. Even the great Turner is not without his idiosynchronies. For instance, he calls one of his finest pictures, a great favourite of mine, a picture of old fashioned ships, such colour! such superb colour! but he calls it Ulysses deriding … ah … Polyanthus.’ Being uncertain of the final word Mr. Darby dropped his voice and hurried over it. He looked challengingly at Miss Clatworthy. ‘Now, I ask you, as an artist; why call it that? The Fighting Demerara, one understands. The tug is towing the Demerara to her last anchorage,—the thing’s simple enough. But I must say Ulysses deriding … ah … Polyanthus beats me.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘I must say,’ said Mr. Darby to Miss Clatworthy on yet another occasion, developing an idea which had been agitating him for some days, ‘that I don’t altogether approve of the National Gallery. The fact is, Miss Clatworthy, far too many of the rooms are given up to foreign artists. Now foreign artists may be all very well in their way; I don’t say they’re not; I will even admit that they are; but what I say is, the place for foreign artists is foreign galleries. A national gallery should contain national pictures and national pictures only. It stands to reason. When I walk across Trafalgar Square—a thing I very often do—with Nelson on his column above me and the statues of … ah … well, of various national heroes to my left and right; southward (or is it westward?) the towers of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey; Trafalgar Square which is, as one might say, the very centre and … ah … hub of our Empire;—I must say that I don’t like to think that there, in our National Gallery, hang hundreds and hundreds of foreign pictures. No, it goes against the grain, Miss Clatworthy. For me there’s something almost … ah … incestuous, I mean blasphemous, about it. Now the Tate, to my mind, is much more what a national gallery should be. The majority of the pictures there are English. The great Turner; Sir Joshua Reynolds; Romney; Watts (of whom we were speaking only the other day); John Burns, I mean Burne Jones; Land-seer; all the familiar, time-honoured names are there. It may be, of course—I don’t profess to know—that there are not enough English pictures to fill the National. In that case, why not fill up with those in the Tate and use the Tate for the foreign ones? Then at least we should be keeping Trafalgar Square … ah … unviolated.’ Mr. Darby paused, abashed at his own words, and then added in a quieter tone: ‘Forgive me if I employ a somewhat … ah … bold expression.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

It is clear from these fragments of Mr. Darby’s conversation at this time that he has already become something of a connoisseur in art. But obviously he is more, much more, than that. His attitude to art is no mere idle dilettantism: he has views, and strong views, on the position and function of art in the State. Now when a man of action has views, his immediate impulse is to put them into action. Something, Mr. Darby felt very strongly, ought to be done.

Chapter XV

Mr. Darby As Art Patron

A millionaire is a force. No one was more conscious of this than Mr. Darby. And not only that: he was conscious too of what the state implies. It implies responsibility. Mr. Darby felt responsible for the unfortunate condition of the National Gallery. Not that he had caused it: the trouble, no doubt, had begun years ago. A prolonged policy of thoughtless and indiscriminate buying had reduced the place to what it was. His responsibility began now. It was his duty to bring the authorities (whoever they might be) to a sense of their shortcomings, to induce them to regard their duty with a more patriotic eye. But before taking steps, he must acquaint himself with the facts. In the first place, was there actually a scarcity of British pictures? If not, it would be absurd to suggest the transfer of British pictures from the Tate to the National. Some other method would have to be evolved. Mr. Darby felt himself at a loss. It was like the problem of the Jungle over again: the difficulty was not merely to obtain the information but to discover how to set about obtaining it. A bolder spirit would no doubt have marched straight to the National Gallery and knocked loudly and authoritatively at the private door. ‘I have come,’ he would have said, when his summons was answered, ‘to reform the gallery.’ But such brutal methods were not Mr. Darby’s. He preferred more constitutional ways.

For some time therefore he did nothing, and when at last he began to take action it was in consequence of what was nothing more than a happy accident.

He happened one day to be in Greenwich. He was there not in pursuit of artists but of Sir Christopher Wren, an architect whom he had recently taken up rather strongly. ‘You may talk,’ Mr. Darby was in the habit of saying at this time, ‘ of your Palladios and your Michelangelos ’ (his guide book had, in point of fact, talked of them), ‘but I venture to say that our Sir Christopher Wren is … ah … immeasurably superior to either. One has only to look at St. Paul’s, Chelsea Hospital, St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, and the work at Greenwich.’ Being a patriot, he did not add that to make the survey more complete one has also to look at St. Peter’s, Rome, and San Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore, the Palladian churches of Venice.

Mr. Darby, then, was hunting Sir Christopher in Greenwich, when his roving eye was caught by an antique shop. It was not a very good antique shop, but, as every connoisseur knows, it is at the worst antique shops that the vigilant collector picks up the best bargains. Accordingly Mr. Darby halted and scrutinized the window. In a moment his practised eye had turned the shop inside out and fixed upon the essential thing there. It was a picture, a portrait of a young lady in white muslin. Her head was slightly inclined to the left, she had golden ringlets and a pink sash round her waist. Mr. Darby brought to his inspection of it all the store of artistic knowledge and experience which was his. ‘Ve … ry nice! ’ he said to himself, and there was a tinge of patronage in his tone. ‘Ve … ry pretty indeed! ‘He pursed his lips, nodded his head knowingly, and studied the picture more closely. It was then that he caught sight of a ticket tucked into the bottom right corner of the frame. On the ticket was written in a rather slovenly handwriting: ‘Nice picture by Romney. Cheap £5.’

There! That settled it. There were works of British artists still to be had. Mr. Darby’s indignation boiled up. To think that the walls of the National were covered with foreigners, and here, disregarded in Greenwich, was a British masterpiece at the mercy of the first Tom, Dick or Harry who took a fancy to it. But to stand fuming outside the shop window was a mere wasting of precious moments. Something must be done. Thereupon Mr. Darby became so excessively excited that before he realized what he was doing his legs had carried him several yards down the street. But next moment he had a tight hold on the reins, had mastered the excited animal, pulled it smartly round and forced it back to the shop-window. Something must be done, and quickly, for no doubt there were other connoisseurs about, avid American collectors perhaps who, scouring Greenwich at that very moment, would dart into the shop at first sight of the thing, capture it, and carry it off outside the bounds of the British Empire while England, in the person of Mr. Darby, vacillated on the doorstep. He shot a rapid glance up and down the street. There were few people about, and no one in the least like a collector. He had still a few moments, then, in which to make up his mind and decide what to do. He quickly inspected the picture again. It had gained enormously in appearance since he had last looked at it, a minute ago. ‘ A superb thing! ’ he said to himself. ‘A masterpiece! ’ and then, unconsciously recalling a phrase from one of his guide-books, he added: ‘Observe the natural elegance of the pose.’ He was trembling all over with excitement; but he pulled himself together. To stand there trying to make plans was madness: the thing to do was to secure the picture first and make the plans afterwards. With a rapidly beating heart he entered the shop. A very thin, seedy old man emerged from the other bric-a-brac. Mr. Darby at once became calm and casual. ‘You have a rather pretty picture in the window,’ he said unconcernedly, ‘a portrait of a young woman.’

‘Yes, sir. A lovely thing, sir. I bought it the other day locally from a private collection. Been in the family for years.’

Mr. Darby was too astute to mention Romney. To stress the name, suggest that it was well-known, might put the old man on his guard. Suddenly the shop-bell tinkled, the shop door opened, sending a thrill like a bullet through Mr. Darby. The collectors were already on the track. Mr. Darby was wonderful. In that moment of appalling national peril he did not for a moment abandon his sang-froid. ‘I might as well have it,’ he said, externally bored, internally in an agony of trepidation, and in a moment had a five pound note out of his pocket and slapped into the old man’s hand.

The old man began pottering among his specimens. ‘I’ll have it packed up at once, sir,’ he said.

Packed up, indeed, when every second was valuable. Mr. Darby swept the suggestion aside. ‘Don’t trouble,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it as it is.’ Yes, if it weighed a ton he would, somehow or other, take it as it was. But, thank God, the old man lifted it easily from its place, and Mr. Darby, laying hold of it, found that the only drawback about it was its size. In a moment he was steering it carefully towards the door. Unceremoniously and with an indignant glare of his spectacles he pushed past the waiting customer, a tall, gaunt, cleanshaven, suspiciously American-looking person. Another moment and the old man had closed the door behind Mr. Darby and Romney and they found themselves in the street.

Tenderly Mr. Darby rested the edge of the picture on the ground and gazed wildly about him. The world was a mere blur through his steaming spectacles. A vague shape, making a noise like a motor-car, glided towards him down the street. He hailed it in desperation: by the mercy of Providence it was an empty taxi, and a few seconds later he was safely installed in it, holding the picture in front of him like a shield. ‘To the Balmoral Hotel, Northumberland Avenue, Trafalgar Square! ’ he shouted. The door slammed, the taxi started, and Mr. Darby fell back against the cushions, took off his hat and his spectacles, took out his handkerchief, and with a sigh of profound relief mopped his streaming brow and face. A priceless art-treasure had been saved for the nation. Then he slowly and carefully began to polish his spectacles. He had forgotten all about our great national architect Sir Christopher Wren.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

This important purchase was the first of many. Mr. Darby, fired by his first success, became a mighty picture hunter. But he did not allow himself to be intoxicated by that first triumph: he equipped himself properly for his task. Not only did he add to his knowledge of the British School by reading many works on the subject; he went further still. Again and again he returned to the National, the Tate, the Wallace Collection, studying and observing in the light of what he had read, till soon he was able without a moment’s hesitation to distinguish easily between a Reynolds and a Gainsborough, a Turner and a Constable, a Romney and a Raeburn, to say nothing of the smaller fry among our old masters. Armed with all this highly technical knowledge he began to haunt the windows of antique-shops. He was far too acute a man to waste his time in the rooms of the great London picture dealers: he even avoided the better-class antique-shops. It was the humble, dusty, promiscuous shops that he frequented, shops hidden in the meaner streets or tucked away in the suburbs, shops in which one was as likely to find a row of grimy books, a second-hand sewing-machine or a stray commode, as the prizes that he sought. Richmond, Putney, Camberwell, Streatham, Highbury Barn, he searched them all and many places more, and he was not unrewarded. The further his investigations went, the greater grew his amazed indignation at the culpable neglect of the National Gallery authorities. So far from there being a shortage of British old masters, the whole place teemed with them. He spent his days in a fever of industrious enthusiasm. Within a fortnight he had become the owner of two Reynoldses, a Gainsborough, an immense Turner (‘As regards colour,’ Mr. Darby said of it, ‘the finest of his pictures I know.’), four large Landseers, and (descending to more recent times) five small works by the late Alma Tadema. The whole lot had cost him the trifling sum of fifty one pounds five shillings. ‘It only shows,’ Mr. Darby remarked to Miss Clatworthy, ‘what a man can do with a pair of eyes, a knowledge of art, and a little spare time.’ The question how to house them soon grew imperative. It was all very well to stack half a dozen in his bedroom, but already there were too many for that. Besides, he didn’t want to stack them: he wanted to hang them upon walls, to see them and enjoy them. When he had amassed a considerable collection he proposed, of course, to present them to the nation, to the National Gallery, with the proviso that they should be hung in place of the foreign pictures at present there. But meanwhile, why not have the enjoyment of them? He resolved to take a furnished house.

His requirements being so particular, it was some time before Mr. Darby found a place to suit him. For himself he could have put up with a modest flat, but a room big enough to play the part of a picture gallery was imperative. At last he found a furnished house in Bedford Square with just the room he required. It was a large, long ball-room on the ground floor, the very room to house the Darby Collection. It had another advantage: the domestic staff, including a man and wife, he the butler, she the cook, was available. The owners were going to South Africa for a year. As they stepped out, Mr. Darby stepped in, and soon, under his personal supervision, the Darby Collection was handsomely framed and suitably hung. It amounted now to over twenty pictures. Mr. Darby, recollecting the seating accommodation in the National Gallery, hired four settees and set them in pairs back to back down the centre of the room, a happy touch which turned the room into an unmistakable gallery. Each picture was properly labelled, under the name of each painter was his date, and on the lintel of the double doors which opened into the room was painted in bold gilt capitals: THE PICTURE GALLERY. And often, when he had been dining alone, Mr. Darby would proceed after dinner to the gallery, switch on, with an opulent hand, a flood of light and warmth, and pace up and down; pausing from time to time, with hands in pockets and cigar in mouth, to contemplate with profound aesthetic satisfaction one or other national masterpiece. The masterpieces, unperturbed and vague, gazed back at Mr. Darby, much less impressed by him, it seemed, than he by them. For to him they were at this time more, much more, than mere pictures. These flat, shadowy personages, animals, scenes, provided his life with an aim, a gusto, a focus which it would otherwise have lacked. They were helping him triumphantly over a difficult period. For the bare fact of being a millionaire and the task of amassing knowledge and culture were not always, for one of Mr. Darby’s temperament, enough to compensate for human relationships. He was almost friendless in London: if it had not been for Princep, his Bedford Square butler, whose austerity he gradually beguiled into conversation, he would have been completely so. Since leaving the Balmoral he had lost sight of Miss Clatworthy; but, as companionship, Miss Clatworthy’s vague, wistful virginity had soon proved to be very meagre fare. After a week or two she had, as it were, simply evaporated, deteriorating as she faded, like an inexpensive and too sweet perfume. It was not only her art that was miniature.

So it was that from time to time Mr. Darby found himself nowadays in the presence of a grim spectre which, try as he would, he could not exorcize, the spectre of loneliness and aimlessness. He had discovered how terribly lonely a man may be among millions of other men. Was his new power and freedom leading him only to a cruel deception? Generally he averted his eyes when he caught sight of the spectre at his elbow, but sometimes he dared for a moment or two to face it, and then he admitted to himself that he longed for the old, easy, comfortable companionships from which he had rashly fled. He longed for Sarah, for the Stedmans and the Cribbs, for Mr. Marston and McNab and Pellow and Miss Suninngdale and his other friends, for the old routine whose ordered ebb and flow relieved him of the difficult problem of organizing his life into some sort of meaning and coherence. When these moods of depression were upon him, the huge empty mornings and afternoons, once filled by the pleasant activities of office-work, appeared to him as terrifying deserts in which he was hopelessly lost. But when the spectre, grown overbold, urged him to give it all up and return to Savershill, as Sarah had done, Mr. Darby’s courage always reasserted itself. He lifted his head, pursed his lips, and threw out his chest. No, he would never stoop to that. And in this mood of self-assertion he was able to recall what in his fits of dejection he kept forgetting, that these happy memories were only one face of the old life. He conjured up the reverse, the black depression, that sense of spiritual bankruptcy which had so overpoweringly settled down upon him between the dates of his birthday party and of the news of Uncle Tom Darby’s bequest. These horrible memories effectually laid the ghost which haunted him now. He knew it for what it was, a deceiving demon mischievously bent on luring him back into the old captivity. And so, when Mr. Darby detected it lurking beside his chair in the evening— for, like other ghosts, it was generally in the evening that it put in an appearance—he gradually accustomed himself to face it and stare it out of countenance. Then, rising with dignity from his chair, he proceeded to the Picture Gallery, and with a snap of the switches conjured out of nonentity the Darby Collection, that living symbol of his new duties and enthusiasms. In its presence the spectre faded, the old zest returned, and he awoke next morning, happy and vigorous once more, sang in his bath, and set off, aglow with the fires of patriotism, to ransack yet another suburb for lost masterpieces.

Chapter XVI

Mr. Darby Enters Public Life

Mr. Darby, after an active morning in Muswell Hill where he had bagged an Old Crome (somewhat faded and battered, ‘but that,’ as he pertinently remarked, ‘goes to prove its age,’) and another work labelled ‘Highland Cattle, after Peter Graham, nice frame, 10/6,’had lunched with relish at home; and having enjoyed an after-lunch cigar and a short after-lunch nap, had driven westward to regard the Marble Arch in the light of the newly acquired knowledge that the notorious Tyburn Tree had formerly stood there. Having dismissed his taxi and surveyed the scene at leisure with the emotions evoked by its historic associations, he decided, as the day was fine and warm, to take a walk. Accordingly he entered the Park and struck south-west at an easy saunter, idly swinging his umbrella and humming a favourite tune. ‘For I’m going far away,’ he trolled, ‘At the breaking of the day,’ and the sparrows that pecked on the gravel, warned by this announcement, flew off to the grass on either side of the walk and left him an unencumbered passage. But hardly had Mr. Darby entered upon his second verse when he checked the vocal flow and restricted his deportment to something less flamboyant. He had seen a figure approaching him down the long path. He paid no further attention to the person advancing upon him and his thoughts reverted to the pictures he had bought that morning. He had his doubts, now, about the Peter Graham: it was hardly, perhaps, up to the standard of the Darby Collection.

He was startled out of his reflections by a voice beside him, so startled that he actually skipped to one side before halting and turning to the speaker. ‘Why, how do you do, Mr. Darby?’ the voice had said, and Mr. Darby, when he had recovered his composure, found himself looking up into the long, bony, grey-moustached face of Lord Savershill.

‘You may not remember,’ said Lord Savershill, ‘that we met in the train some weeks ago.’

‘I remember it very well indeed, my lord,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Most kind of you to … ah …’

‘I’ve been trying to get on your tracks ever since,’ said Lord Savershill. ‘To be quite candid, you gave me to understand that you are a rich man, and I’m after your money. The days of the highwayman are not yet past, you see.’

Mr. Darby beamed through his spectacles. ‘I don’t see your … ah … blunderbuss, my lord.’

Lord Savershill smiled. ‘I use persuasion when possible,’ he said. ‘The fact is, I very much want to entangle you in the Hospital Co-ordination Society. It does a useful and much-needed work in improving the efficiency of our hospitals, and if you will give me a chance of explaining its activities I feel sure you will be interested. We want rich and active supporters. Now when can I get at you? Perhaps you will dine with me at my club to-morrow or Friday?’

Mr. Darby declared himself delighted and accepted for the morrow.

‘That’s very kind of you. Let us say eight o’clock tomorrow, then, at the Brunswick. Now I must hurry on. I have a meeting in Welbeck Street in ten minutes.’ He waved his hand and left Mr. Darby pleased, flattered, and, though a little apprehensive of his engagement to-morrow, much heartened by this human intrusion into his solitary existence. He continued his stroll, his spirits higher than ever, paused to inspect the flower-beds, paused again to watch the ducks in the Serpentine, and then, wheeling eastwards, emerged from the Park at Hyde Park Corner. It was too fine a day to shut himself up in a taxi, and feeling in a free, unconventional mood, he resolved to lay aside his dignity and, millionaire though he was, travel home on the top of a bus. A 19 bus would deposit him at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road, close to the house in Bedford Square.

On the top of the bus doubts began to assail him, absurd little fears, trivial yet insistent. Where was the Brunswick Club? But surely any taxi-driver would know it. But how did he find Lord Savershill when he got there? Did one just walk in and search about? That would be rather an embarrassing business. Or did one enquire somewhere? And what ought he to wear? Perhaps Princep would be able to help him.

At dinner that evening, as he sat, a small solitary figure at the head of the large dining-table with Princep hovering noiselessly about him, he consulted Princep. ‘Ah … Princep, you must advise me. In the first place, where’s the Brunswick Club?’

‘The Brunswick, sir? In Pall Mall, sir.’

‘I’m dining there to-morrow night. Do you think I ought to put on dress-clothes?’

Princep hesitated. ‘Well, probably, sir. It rather depends, if you’ll excuse my saying so, on the sort of gentleman … er …!’

Mr. Darby glanced up. ‘A lord!’ he said, ‘Lord … ah … Savershill.’

‘Then you should dress, sir. Are you dining with him alone, sir?’

‘I … ah … fancy so,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘in fact, I feel sure of it.’

‘Then a black tie will be sufficient, sir.’

‘And a tail coat?’ Mr. Darby suggested.

‘No, sir. A tail coat is never worn with a black tie.’

‘Never, Princep?’

‘Never, sir. That is, not by gentlemen.’

‘And tell me, Princep,’—Mr. Darby gazing earnestly up, at Princep, looked like a talkative schoolboy questioning a grave uncle—‘how do I find Lord Savershill when I get to the Brunswick?’

‘Simply give your name to the hall porter, sir, and ask for his Lordship.’

An invaluable fellow, Princep. Mr. Darby resolved that when he left Bedford Square he must have a man of his own as like Princep as possible; and he repeated the resolve as he sat, after dinner at the Brunswick on the following evening, sipping a liqueur brandy and listening to Lord Savershill expounding the aims, objects and achievements of the Hospital Co-ordination Society; for everything that Princep had advised had turned out to be exactly right.

In the vaguely blissful state induced by a good dinner and a comfortable armchair Mr. Darby found it impossible to follow all that Lord Savershill was telling him of the Hospital Co-ordination Society,—the H.C.S. as he called it. But he was well aware that this was not Lord Savershill’s fault, for though unable to follow the drift of all this detailed exposition, Mr. Darby was none the less able to appreciate the fact that it was admirably lucid. ‘This is most important,’ he thought to himself. ‘If only I could listen to it, I should undoubtedly understand every word of it,’ As it was, his mind did no more than pick up passing phrases. ‘Co-operation between managers of voluntary and rate-supported hospitals,’ ‘uniform system of accounts,’ ‘prevention of overlapping,’ ‘improved administration,’ ‘universal standard of efficiency,’—phrases such as these rose like bubbles from the flood of sound that swept in at Mr. Darby’s right ear and out again at his left, swelled and gleamed brightly for a moment in his intelligence, and burst at the impact of the next. But it would be a mistake to suppose that Mr. Darby, though he did not, strictly speaking, understand, was not impressed. He was immensely impressed. Lord Savershill’s obvious enthusiasm infected him. He felt very strongly that the H.C.S., whatever its aims and objects might be, was a society that called for whole-hearted support. ‘We idle rich, my dear Mr. Darby, have very serious responsibilities nowadays.’ The words floated up into Mr. Darby’s understanding with challenging distinctness. His attention, which had been flitting and perching, like a tame canary, about the lofty, green-pillared room in which they sat, was arrested. ‘The work,’ Lord Savershill went on, ‘enables my wife and me to feel ourselves useful members of society. She acts as Secretary for the northern division, and I am chairman of the Society.’

‘I hope Lady Savershill is well,’ said Mr. Darby.

‘Very well, but very busy. She went north again two days after we met you and your wife in the train and I have been here in London ever since. We have no time for more than an occasional postcard. But she will be here again the day after to-morrow. We have a general meeting of the H.C.S. that afternoon, and I want you to come to it. We shall hear, among other things, one or two very interesting reports from divisional centres.’

Mr. Darby expressed his willingness to attend. ‘You have fully convinced me, my lord,’ he said, as he rose to go, ‘of the … ah … heartfelt … I should say … ah … vital importance of the Society.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said his host, shaking hands. ‘I shall go on badgering you. Your money or your life, Mr. Darby, and both, if possible.’

Mr. Darby swam home in a taxi, blissfully conscious of the weight of national affairs on his shoulders.

The feeling persisted when he awoke next morning, and added to it was the comforting assurance that he was no longer alone in London. He was involved in a great crowd of extremely active people. Sitting up in bed idly sipping the cup of tea which Princep had just brought him, his un-spectacled eyes blue and blurred and innocent in the light from the window like the eyes of a very young baby, he felt intensely active, intensely busy. It seemed to him that the days were too short for all the multifarious business which filled his life. Not only was there the arduous and important scheme for reforming the National Gallery which he had undertaken single-handed, but now there was this other job of reforming and reorganizing the hospitals. This was what it was to be a millionaire. He entered the dining-room an hour later, pink, beaming, and rubbing his hands together, alert, energetic, a man of action if ever there was one. After breakfast he read his paper with greater care than usual, for he realized how important it was, in his new position, to keep in close touch with public affairs. Then, feeling a violent desire to express himself, to uncork the turmoil of excitement and bottled energy within him, he determined to write to Sarah. He had sent her only a picture-postcard or two since she had left, and she had replied only in brief notes. ‘I have been very busy since I got home,’ she had said in her last, ‘and, as you know, I’m not much of a letter writer at the best of times.’

Mr. Darby had smiled as he read this. Well, he had thought, there was no accounting for tastes. Here was Sarah, a free woman with ten thousand pounds to play with, voluntarily absorbing herself in the petty tasks of a small suburban house, instead of making use of her wealth to leave herself free for … well, more important activities. ‘Poor Sarah,’ he said to himself, ‘she has no … ah … vision’

Well he would write to her. But writing to Sarah was not a complete release, for there was much that he would have liked to say, on which he must keep silence. If he told her of his picture-collecting she would merely laugh at him. So this side of his activities received only a passing reference in his letter. ‘I, too,’ he wrote, ‘have been kept busy. I have had a good deal of important work on my hands recently in connection with the National Gallery, and now Lord Savershill has persuaded me to interest myself in the H.C.S., an influential body for reforming the hospitals. We have a big general meeting here in London to-morrow; so you can imagine my time is pretty full.’ He ended the letter hurriedly, scribbled an address, and rose briskly to his feet. Then he paused. After all, now that he came to think of it, why was he hurrying? The meeting was not till to-morrow afternoon, and in the meantime he had nothing whatever to do except pursue his quest for British masterpieces. But he felt disinclined for this, at the moment. It was as if his energies had suddenly flagged. Could it be that he was overdoing it, involving himself in too many duties and interests? After all, he had been at it until half past ten last night, listening hard to Lord Savershill’s account of the organization and activities of the H.C.S. Perhaps he had better take a morning off. He got his hat, stick and gloves and went out.

It was a warm, sunny morning and soon he found himself at the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Seeing a 19 bus, he boarded it, and climbed on to the top. It was just the morning for a bus ride and then, perhaps, for a stroll across the Park. When the bus stopped beside St. George’s Hospital, Mr. Darby studied the building critically, conscious of his new responsibilities. Almost at once his quick eye had detected something wrong. The building wanted washing, or perhaps repainting. He shook his head solemnly. ‘A bad business!’ he said to himself. ‘We shall have to see to that.’ And he determined to mention it at the general meeting.

Mr. Darby woke full of energy and importance on the eventful day. In the morning he made a thorough search of Penge, but, for once, returned home without a single masterpiece. He had been on the point of buying a Watts, but had refrained on discovering, in the nick of time, that it was an oleograph. Having lunched, he ordered a taxi and reached the address given him by Lord Savershill twenty minutes before the hour fixed for the General Meeting of the H.G.S. He was surprised and disconcerted to find that the place of assembly was not, as he had expected, a room in which he could sit and confer with Lord and Lady Savershill and a few other people, but a large hall with platform and auditorium. At first he thought he had made a mistake, but on enquiry he learned that this was indeed the place. The rows of chairs on the platform were still empty, but the auditorium was already nearly half full. Obviously, it seemed to him, his place was on the platform and he left the body of the hall and found his way to the stage door. But there he was obliged to confess to an official-looking person with a bunch of papers in his hand that he was not a member of the committee: in consequence he was politely told that his place was in the auditorium. Mr. Darby with dignified surprise mentioned that he was a friend of Lord Savershill’s and was there by his special invitation. But even this did not produce the effect Mr. Darby had confidently expected on the official personage. Mr. Darby was politely, amiably, but firmly driven back to the auditorium.

Arrived there, he surveyed the hall. Doubtless, then, the front row had been reserved for Lord Savershill’s friends. But no, the front row was packed, in fact the whole hall was rapidly filling up and Mr. Darby, hurriedly choosing a seat for himself while there was still one to be had, found himself wedged into the general throng ten or twelve rows from the back of the hall. The whole thing was very annoying. From where he sat, Mr. Darby, being below the average height, could at first see nothing. Then, by a little shifting and manceuvring, he was able to get fleeting glimpses of the platform; and at last, by sitting very much on the left of his chair he succeeded, after many contortions, in identifying Lord Savershill through a long alley of heads and ears and ladies’ hats. As Chairman Lord Savershill sat at a table in the centre of the platform.

Having achieved this, Mr. Darby felt reassured. Unfortunately, just as he had established this contact with the Chair, a stout lady two rows in front of him lurched sideways and cut Mr. Darby off again. At first he hoped that this displacement was temporary, that the lady would right herself in a moment, and reopen his communications. But no, her change of position was to be, it seemed, a permanent one, and when Lord Savershill stood up to speak, Mr. Darby could see only the top of his head.

Lord Savershill spoke well. His eloquence and ardour, which had fired Mr. Darby at the Brunswick two nights ago, gripped the attention of everyone in the hall,—everyone, that is, except Mr. Darby, who preserved a somewhat sceptical attitude. He was beginning to have his doubts of the merits of the H.C.S. But Lord Savershill seemed unaware of this coldly critical element in his audience and with undiminished enthusiasm he went on to speak of the extension of the Society’s influence, of the gratifying way in which hospitals all over the kingdom had permitted and actually welcomed its intrusions, put necessary information at its disposal, allowed its inspectors and visitors free scope. When he had spoken for half an hour, he announced that they would now hear two reports, one from an inspector on Southern Division, on Overlapping and its Prevention, and another from the Northern Division on the subject of The Housing and Feeding of Hospital Staffs.

Mr. Darby, who had lunched well before the meeting, began now to find that the occasion was not without its soporific qualities. The gentleman who spoke on Overlapping obviously knew his job; but, lulled perhaps by this speaker’s rather monotonous voice, perhaps by the close air of the hall, perhaps by his new doubts about the H.C.S., perhaps by the excellence of his lunch, Mr. Darby found, after ten minutes or so, that his attention had imperceptibly wandered far afield, indeed it had wandered so far that it had not only reached, but even done a considerable journey into, the Jungle where it had had a rather curious adventure with a large green parrot. He came to himself with a shock, blinked, yawned, and concentrated his attention once more on the speaker.

The next thing that he knew was that his neighbour was tapping him on the arm. Mr. Darby turned his head and found a lady’s smiling face regarding him. ‘Excuse me,’ she whispered; ‘you were snoring.’

Mr. Darby did not reply, but he was furious. Snoring, indeed! Whoever heard of such a thing. How could he be snoring when he wasn’t asleep. Then a curious thing happened. He noticed for the first time that the monotonous-voiced speaker was no longer speaking. The voice speaking now was a woman’s, and not only a woman’s but a voice that was amazingly, unmistakably familiar. Goodness gracious! Gracious goodness! Could he be …? Yes, he must be dreaming. He made a violent effort, which disturbed and alarmed his neighbours on either side, to get a view of the speaker. In vain. The forest of heads and shoulders and ears walled him in. He seemed to be struggling at the bottom of a well. With a thumping heart he settled down resignedly to listen. ‘You may ask, ladies and gentlemen,’ the voice was saying, and the voice was unmistakably Sarah’s, ‘what qualifications I have for the work I have done.’ Good lord! Mr. Darby went hot all over. Surely she wasn’t going to blurt it out, standing there in front of everybody? ‘I will tell you. In my younger days’—Mr. Darby writhed in his chair. If only he could silence her. No more! Not another word, Sarah. I order you to stop talking at once. It was so entirely unnecessary. So … so damnably idiotic. Just like her. She had no tact, no restraint, no sense of decency. These helpless and despairing expostulations shot through his mind, while his ears, scarlet to their tips, took in the appalling words—‘I was for some years head housemaid in a very large household, and during that time I frequently replaced the housekeeper.’ Mr. Darby lowered his head, crimson with mortification, while Sarah’s voice went imperturbably on. ‘That house was very well run. The staff was well fed, well housed, well organized, and happy. The report which I am now giving you is the result of several visits to two hospitals in the Northern Division, hospitals which, for reasons which you will understand, I shall not name. In each the staff—not the trained medical staff, but the household staff—were unsatisfactory and discontented. I will now give you as clear an account as I can—and I hope you will excuse me if I sometimes get muddled, for I’m not used to public speaking—as clear an account as I can of what I saw, remarking as I go along on what, in my opinion, I ought to have seen.’

Mr. Darby sat open-mouthed. He was not only amazed, he was annoyed, seriously annoyed. Sarah, he felt, was poaching on his preserves, and what was especially galling was that the poacher was evidently a much better shot and had scored a much bigger bag than the owner. He was annoyed too that she had kept so quiet about it. Not a word to him about all these activities of hers, not a word, even, about this visit to London. He was so resentful that he would not even admit to himself that Sarah was giving an astonishingly lucid and able account of her subject, and that the hall was following her with all the concentrated interest with which it had followed Lord Savershill. He sat, pink and mortified, no longer attempting to get a view of the platform, and when, soon after Sarah’s report, the proceedings came to an end, he rose to his feet determined to leave the hall at once. But here he was defeated. A small and unimportant fraction of the crowded audience, he was forced to submit to the will of the crowd and to drift with exasperating slowness in the direction in which it pushed him. Once through an opening in the crowd he got an uninterrupted glimpse of the platform. It too was emptying its crowd through the doors at the back, but a little group still lingered in front and Mr. Darby recognized Lord and Lady Savershill and Sarah. Lord Savershill and Sarah were in earnest conversation. Lady Savershill was gazing down, trying, it seemed, to find someone in the crowd below her: probably she was trying to catch him before he left the hall, to invite him to go with them. Well, Sarah and Lord Savershill could go on talking and Lady Savershill could go on searching: he was going home. With an angry struggle he forced his way to the exit and went out. As he drove home, he suddenly remembered with horror the letter he had written to Sarah on the previous morning. ‘We have a big general meeting here in London to-morrow,’ he had written.

We! There had been precious little we about it, he reflected bitterly. And now the letter was posted, gone past recall. Sarah would hardly have got it yet, but she would get it eventually, and, turning crimson to the very roots of his hair, he pictured her sarcastic smile and heard her grim chuckle as she read the unfortunate phrase.

Chapter XVII

The Launching Of Sarah

(A Retrospect)

Though it had been of her own free will that she returned home, Sarah had travelled north with a heavy heart. It was a far from happy life that she was returning to, and it was only because she was flying from a still less bearable one that she had been able to persist in her determination. But this persistence was not the result of thought and conscious choice. The question of staying in London or returning home alone had not presented itself to her as a problem: her action in face of it was impulsive. She fled from idleness instinctively, because idleness for her was the worst of all ills. Work producing practical results was for her an indispensable condition of life. With Mr. Darby’s sedulous accumulation of culture for the mere sake of culture she had not the smallest sympathy; it was nothing better than self-indulgent idleness. She did not expect to be happy at home. To be alone, to have no one to work for but herself, would deprive her life of most of its meaning; but, at least, if there was honest hard work to do, life would have more meaning than it had had during the last fortnight at the Balmoral. The truth was, though she did not know it, that she was an even more fanatical devotee of work for work’s sake than Mr. Darby was of culture for culture’s sake. She travelled home ravenous for work. She had refrained from letting Mrs. Bricketts know of her return, because she wanted for herself all the work she could find to do. She would scrub floors, wash, dust, polish, slave from morning till night till she had shaken off this disease of idleness.

She dined in the train and on arriving at Newchester took a taxi home, stopping it once or twice on the way to lay in supplies for the morrow.

She was surprised, on arriving at Number Seven Moseley Terrace, to find some difficulty in opening the front door. The latchkey had worked as usual: it was when she had already unlatched the door that the difficulty occurred. Something inside was in the way. But the door yielded to an extra push, and Sarah, on entering, found the floor heaped with letters. What, in the name of fortune, was the meaning of it? Jim usually received about half a dozen letters a week, and she seldom received one: yet here, after a fortnight, was a perfect haystack of them. She swept the pile aside with her foot, so as to open the door wide and let in the taxi-man with her luggage. When he was gone, she went into the sitting-room, drew up the blinds and opened the windows, for it was warm and still daylight; went to the kitchen and put a kettle on the gas-stove to make herself a cup of tea; then carried her luggage up to her bedroom, took off her things, unpacked the smaller of her two pieces of luggage, and put on an apron. It was not until she had had her tea, returned to the bedroom and made the bed, and to some degree turned the chilly, lifeless house into a living and human thing once more that she went and took another look at the letters. What could be the meaning of that huge heap of rubbish? She stooped down and began turning them over. They were for Jim, of course; no doubt some nonsensical idea of his had brought them along; but here and there, as she continued her examination of them, she found one addressed to herself, and by the time she had run through the whole heap she had picked out no less than twenty-seven. These she took to the sitting-room and, settling into the armchair, opened one.

‘Dear Madam, First let me congratulate you heartily on your great good fortune which I am sure is richly deserved. Though I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, I do not hesitate to write to you, for I know that you have been appointed by God to answer my prayer. I ask you, as sister to sister, for the loan of £200 of which I have urgent need. The Lord will repay.’

Sarah stared at the letter for some moments; re-read the final phrase and snorted. ‘Hm! She flatters herself,’ she remarked grimly; and slapped the letter down on the table beside her. Then, taking up another she glanced at it critically and tore it open.

‘Dear Madam, May I solicit your interest in our Home for Strayed Cats …’ Without reading further, she slapped it down on the other one. Then, rising to her feet, she took up the whole twenty-seven, pushed them into the empty grate, reached to the mantelpiece for a matchbox and put a match to them. When they were well alight, she returned to the hall and stood for a moment considering the much larger heap for Jim. There must be over two hundred of them. What should she do with them? After a moment’s hesitation she took up one and opened it.

‘Dear Mr. Darby. A highly favourable opportunity presents itself of investing in a new invention which, after many years experiment, I have at length brought to perfection. The old fashioned penny-in-the-slot machine for chocolates, matches, cigarettes, etc. has long been out of date, and a vast public is crying out …’

Sarah returned to the sitting-room and dropped the letter into the blazing grate. Her mouth wore its scornful smile. Jim, she knew, would take every one of those letters with absolute seriousness. Should she make them into a brown-paper parcel and bundle them off to him? At least they would give him something to do. And if they could help him to get rid of his money, that too would be a blessing. But no, she wasn’t going to give him the chance of making a fool of himself. She had always looked after him well, and, though it might do him good in the end, she wasn’t going to put the wretched little man at the mercy of all these cranks and sharpers. He would let himself in for enough, sooner or later, without this lot. Without further hesitation she went out into the hall again, opened a cupboard under the stairs, went to the kitchen for a broom, and then swept the whole heap along the oilcloth into the empty cupboard. There! They could stay there, out of harm’s way. It would have been better to burn them, but there might, after all, be an important letter among them. She slammed the cupboard door and sailed to the kitchen to put away the broom, feeling as refreshed and invigorated as if she had executed a complete spring-cleaning.

Next morning she fell upon her housework with zest, and the house echoed with the beating of pillows and bolsters, the roar of running taps, the rasping hiss of the scrubbing-brush. When this was over and she had had lunch, she changed her dress, put on her hat and went out. The domestic machine had to be re-started, the rhythmic arrival of the milk, the bread, and the butcher’s boy; things had to be ordered at the grocer’s; and she had to go to the bank to see about drawing money and getting a cheque book in accordance with the new arrangement. She looked in, in passing, at Stedman’s, the ironmonger’s, to let them know of her return.

George Stedman came in answer to her footsteps. ‘Why bless me, Mrs. D. I didn’t know you were back. Very glad to see you, I’m sure.’ He held out his huge hand.

‘And glad I am to be back,’ said Sarah.

‘And how’s our young spark?’

‘Jim? Oh, he’s still in London.’

‘Doing the grand gentleman, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah with a sigh, ‘as happy as a king. He’s playing with London like a child playing with a box of bricks.’

A customer came in and Sarah turned to go. ‘I just looked in to let you know I was back,’ she said.

‘Come round this evening,’ said Stedman. ‘Come round and have a bit of supper.’

Sarah accepted and went out.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Two days later she was interrupted in her housework by a ring at the frontdoor. She opened it and found a business-like young man on the doorstep. He must, she thought, have come about the rates.

‘Good morning, Mrs. Darby,’ he said with an affability which at once put Sarah on her guard. ‘I come from the Daily Chronicle. Hearing you were back, I just looked round to see if you had any news for us.’

‘Any news? News about what?’ said Sarah. Facing him foursquare in her apron, her head austerely swathed in a duster, she had a formidable appearance.

‘About yourself and Mr. Darby,’ said the business-like young man. ‘Just a few words about your plans and movements.’ He took a notebook and pencil out of his pocket.

Sarah surveyed him without indulgence. ‘You can put that notebook back in your pocket,’ she said grimly. ‘Our plans and movements concern nobody but us.’

The young man smilingly persisted. ‘No offence, Mrs. Darby. Quite the contrary. We’re interested and the public is interested, that’s all. If you could oblige with some little announcement that could be worked up into a par in the Social Column …’

Sarah took a step forward. ‘Now listen to me, young man,’ she said. ‘As it happens, I have got a little announcement to make, and it’s this, that if I see any remarks at all about me or my husband in the Daily Chronicle, I’ll stop my subscription at once. Now you run back to the Chronicle office and tell them that from me.’ With that she shut the door in the young man’s face; then opened it again. ‘I mean it, mind!’ she shouted to his retreating back. Then she shut the door again and went on with her dusting.

After her solitary midday meal, Sarah, her work finished, settled herself in the armchair in the sitting-room with The Tale of Two Cities. It was raining, a steady effortless rain that fell so straight that not a drop touched the window-panes. She could not go out, and in any case, she did not feel inclined to go out. A feeling of listlessness and depression had come over her, perhaps because the house was now restored to its old spotlessness, after its fortnight of neglect, and she found herself for the first time since her return with nothing to do. After reading for a while, she laid the book on her lap with a sigh and fell into a reverie. The thought that she had kept at bay with hard work ever since her return home, finding her now defenceless, attacked her again. What was the use of it all,—all this work, work, work from morning to night? It was true that if somebody didn’t work the house would go to wrack and ruin and she herself would starve. That was undeniable but it was also unsatisfying as a justification. Work for its own sake had satisfied her at first, as an antidote to that fortnight of idleness in London, but now she knew that to work for herself alone was little better than a drudgery. Home and work without her husband were cold comfort. She realized that in coming home she must unconsciously have been acting on the assumption that in the end Jim would come back. But now she asked herself, would he, in fact, come back? And, even if at last he did, how long would she have to wait for him? The truth was that she and Jim were engaged in a tug-of-war, she trying, by planting herself firmly at home, to pull him back; he standing resolutely in his newly-won liberty, hoping that she would give-in and follow him. The struggle might last a year, many years perhaps. For Uncle Tom Darby’s detestable legacy had brought into action in both of them hopelessly irreconcilable instincts hitherto deep-hidden; Jim’s instinct for what seemed to her little better than a love of idleness and vagrancy, and her own instinct for hard work and the fixity of a home. That vagrant idleness in which Jim delighted was, to her, so utterly unbearable that, rather than face it, she had abandoned him; and he, it seemed, was so fixed on his liberty that, as he had told her in St. James’s Park with tears in his eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to turn his back on it. Yet, in spite of the strong feeling he had shown when he spoke of it, Sarah could not make herself believe that his attitude was much more than a childish whim. When she contemplated it she always, in the end, came back to what seemed the only possible belief. Give him time to work it out of his system and he would come home and settle down again. But how long would that take? And was it so certain that he would come back? Her mind swayed from doubt to certainty, and from certainty back again to doubt. And in the meantime how long would she be able to endure living alone and working only for herself? Besides, there was no longer any necessity for her to work. She was rich, and, as Lady Savershill had said with such terrible truth in the train, wealth, by making work no longer a vital necessity, took all the zest out of it. For the first time it struck her that, by her determination to provide herself with work, she was depriving Mrs. Bricketts of work and wages of which she was very much in need. Well, she could avoid that by giving Mrs. Bricketts money and doing the work herself: Mrs. Bricketts had all the work she wanted in looking after her own home. But even that would not give her back her old zest; for her work was no longer a necessity, it was simply a hobby, and even as a hobby no longer satisfying to her. What then was she to do with her life? The question sent a chill to her heart. There was nothing, it seemed, that she could do with it. By the disaster of Uncle Tom Darby’s legacy she had been turned suddenly, through no fault of her own, into a lonely and useless creature whose life was utterly meaningless. She sat there, with The Tale of Two Cities on her lap, face to face with the ruin of her old happiness, too absorbed in her distress to notice that tears were running slowly down her cheeks.

Before long however she roused herself, snorted indignantly on discovering the tears, wiped them peremptorily away with her handkerchief, and taking up her book, read it with determination and understanding for over an hour. Then she was disturbed by another ring at the front door. Could that young man from the Chronicle have dared to return? She rose aggressively from her chair, her face sternly set, her tongue ready for short and sharp retaliation. With an abruptness that promised the worst, she opened the door and found herself face to face with the beak-like nose, piercing blue eyes, and authoritative presence of Lady Savershill.

‘Ah, I’ve got you at last, Mrs. Darby,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘May I come in?’

‘Please do, my lady,’ said Sarah standing aside.

‘I want to talk to you.’ Lady Savershill entered as she spoke and by the very act seemed to take possession of the house. ‘You’re not busy?’

‘Second door on the right,’ said Sarah and followed her visitor into the sitting-room. ‘No, I’m not busy, my lady. I only wish I was.’

‘You wish you were? Well, I can keep you busy enough, if you want to be busy. I’ve called to see you twice already, and written once. Didn’t you get my letter?’

‘No, my lady. I got no letter.’

‘That’s very extraordinary. I wrote a week ago.’

‘Ah,’ said Sarah, ‘I know what must have happened to it,’ and she told Lady Savershill of how she had dealt with her correspondence on the night of her return home.

Lady Savershill listened, her blue eyes, bright with amusement, fixed on Sarah’s face. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s this to be said for it, it’s a cheaper way than keeping a secretary.’

Facing one another, they laughed, enjoying each other’s amusement. These two large, impressive, downright women, both so distinguished in their different ways, liked and understood each other. Each was the kind of woman that the other respected.

‘Won’t your ladyship sit down?’ said Sarah pointing to the chair in which she had been sitting.

‘I will, and gladly,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘I’ve been on my legs almost all day. And if you’re going to have some tea I’ll have some with you.’

‘I’ll get it at once, if your ladyship will excuse me for ten minutes.’

Lady Savershill took up Sarah’s book which lay open and face downwards on the table. ‘What’s this? Dickens. I’ll amuse myself with it while you’re away.’

Sarah went out.

‘Just a little bread and butter for me, Mrs. Darby,’ shouted Lady Savershill after her. ‘I never eat cakes.’

In ten minutes Sarah returned with everything ready on a tray. Lady Savershill shut the book and rose from the armchair. ‘I’ll come to the table,’ she said.

Sarah poured out the tea and handed the bread and butter. Lady Savershill took a piece and folded it. ‘I’ve got a job for you, Mrs. Darby,’ she said point blank. ‘That’s what I’ve come about. It’s a job that badly wants doing and one that you’re particularly qualified to do. I’ve been hunting high and low for a year, but not a soul could I find who combines necessary experience with the necessary personality. Now you’re just the woman for it, because you’ve got both. I realized that, after our talk in the train. I ear-marked you at once. Now listen to me.’ Between sips of tea and bites of bread and butter Lady Savershill gave a short, vigorous account of the H.C.S. ‘Now your job, Mrs. Darby,’ she said, ‘is the Domestic Staff. You know all about the organizing and feeding of the servants of a large house, don’t you?’

‘I know something about it, my lady,’ said Sarah.

Lady Savershill shook a finger at her. ‘Fiddle-de-dee! There’s no good your trying modesty on me, Mrs. Darby.’

Sarah smiled. ‘It’s not modesty, my lady. But it stands to reason that I must have forgotten a good deal in twenty years.’

‘Yes, no doubt you’re a little rusty,’ said Lady Savershill, ‘but we can soon put that right. Our Infirmary here is admirably run: we’ll use it to refresh your memory. They’re very good to me there: they let me poke and pry to my heart’s content. Now you and I will go and have a thorough look round. We’ll inspect the quarters of the domestic staff, the kitchens, the feeding, the general running of the whole household department. That and a book or two which I can give you, added to your own knowledge, will turn you into a first-rate inspector. Your job would be to visit all the hospitals in this division and report on the running of the domestic side. You would be of immense use to us, I’m sure, and I’m sure, too, that you would find the work extremely interesting. Now, tell me, do you like the idea of it?’

‘I like the idea very much, my lady,’ said Sarah, ‘but … well, you must let me be modest enough to have my doubts. You see, I’ve never done anything of the kind before, and though I might be able to put my finger on anything that was wrong, I feel a bit uncertain about those reports you mentioned.’

Lady Savershill made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Don’t bother your head about that. Take my word for it, it’s as simple as A B C. You said, when I arrived just now, that you wished you were busy. Well, we’ll keep you as busy as you like. We’ll run you off your legs. You’ll find it much more fun than sitting reading Dickens.’

‘Oh,’ put in Sarah, ‘I don’t do much of that, I assure you.’

‘Then what do you do?’

‘I have all my housework.’

‘Housework! Washing-up, scrubbing, dusting, cooking?’

‘Yes, my lady. I still do it.’

‘Then give it up. You’re wasting yourself. Get a servant.’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah, ‘I might as well. There’s no need for me to do it now. I only wish there was.’

‘I’m very glad there isn’t,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘You’re simply wasting your powers. Now, listen to me. I’ll call for you to-morrow at eleven and we’ll go straight to the Infirmary. When we finish there, I’ll take you back to luncheon with me and we’ll talk the whole thing over. Will you come?’

‘I will, my lady, with pleasure.’

Lady Savershill stood up. ‘That’s right,’ she said.

Sarah followed her into the hall and opened the front door. Lady Savershill held out her hand. ‘And mind you have a good breakfast,’ she said. ‘We shall have a tiring morning and we shan’t lunch till half past one.’

They shook hands. ‘You can be sure I’ll do my best, my lady,’ said Sarah.

‘And your best will be good enough for me, Mrs. Darby. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, my lady.’

‘You musn’t my lady me, Mrs. Darby. How would you like it if I called you Darby? I call you Mrs. Darby and you call me Lady Savershill.’

Sarah smiled. ‘It doesn’t come natural,’ she said.

‘It will, if you give it time,’ said Lady Savershill over her shoulder as she went out.

Sarah returned to the sitting-room and dropped into the armchair, taking in a deep breath. Her mind was in a ferment of excitement. What a thrilling change had come into her life. Only an hour ago her life had seemed to have dried up, to be on the point of crumbling into wreckage. Now it was stirring and seething with new exciting possibilities. If only she could do this job that Lady Savershill wanted her to do, it would give her back all, or nearly all, she had lost. But could she do it? She was full of doubt and diffidence. But Lady Savershill’s certainty encouraged her. She sat, as she had sat before, gazing in front of her unseeingly, and gradually determination grew up in her. Yes, she would do the job. After all, if you were determined enough and excited enough there wasn’t anything you couldn’t master. At last she rose briskly from her chair. She was trembling with excitement, ‘like some silly girl,’ she thought to herself. She went upstairs and put on her hat and mackintosh. She would go and see Mrs. Bricketts at once. If Mrs. Bricketts herself could not look after the house completely, perhaps she would know of some girl who would share the job with her.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Four days later Sarah sat at the sitting-room table with ink and paper before her and a pen in her hand. Supper had long since been cleared away. She felt tired and profoundly discouraged. She was trying for the third time to make out a report of her first two inspections, which had occupied her during the last two days. The two days previous to that had been days of initiation: she had spent many hours of them in the Newchester Infirmary with Lady Savershill, learning how to do an inspection. When, after that, she had started out on her own, armed with her orange-backed inspector’s notebook which was divided into sections under various headings for quick note-taking, she had got along surprisingly well. At the first hospital she had visited—the hospital of Monkswell, a town about twenty miles from Newchester—she had been politely welcomed and given every opportunity to see all she wanted to see; and when she had finished, the matron had invited her to her private room, asked to hear what her impression had been, and welcomed the criticisms that Sarah had to make. ‘We are always glad to receive suggestions, Mrs. Darby,’ she had said, ‘and what you have told me is very helpful. I believe that your suggestions about the arrangement of meals will get us over our difficulty.’ She hoped that Mrs. Darby would come again.

Sarah had travelled home in high feather. She had found the note-taking easy and had also found it easy to lay her finger on little faults of detail in the domestic arrangements.

Her experience on the following day had been very different. After having been kept waiting for twenty minutes she had been interviewed by an austere and forbidding woman who was obviously hostile. She did not apologize for keeping Sarah waiting, nor did she offer any greeting. ‘What was it you wanted?’ she said, looking at Sarah with cold, hard eyes. ‘I’m afraid I’m very busy at present.’

Sarah introduced herself and asked to be allowed to inspect the domestic side. ‘Our Secretary has already communicated with you,’ she said.

‘You want information as to the running of hospital domestic departments?’

‘No,’ said Sarah, infected by the woman’s ill-humour, ‘the Society knows all about that. I am simply asking as one of the Society’s inspectors to be allowed to see the running of yours. The Society’s business is to collect information from hospitals all over the country and to provide expert advice if asked to.’

‘This hospital is quite able to look after itself, Mrs.… er …’

‘Darby,’ said Sarah.

‘Mrs. Darby, and is not in need of any advice.’

‘If that is so,’ said Sarah, ‘you will not ask for any, of course. But information about your methods might be very useful to other less fortunate hospitals.’ When she received no reply, Sarah turned to go. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am sorry to have wasted your time.’ At the door she paused, turned, and added: ‘I will report to our Secretary, Lady Savershill, that this hospital does not welcome inspection. All others in this area have treated our inspectors with the greatest politeness. No doubt this one will be mentioned as a special case at the General Meeting of the Society.’ Whether this would be so or not Sarah had no idea, but she was too angry to mince matters. Realizing her position as an official of the H.C.S. she had put such restraint on herself that now she was almost bursting. How she longed to speak her mind, to go for this insolent, repellent woman tooth and nail. But her concluding remark, it appeared, had taken effect. Her adversary flinched. ‘You may see the domestic arrangements if you wish,’ she said. ‘I merely wanted to point out that we do not need advice.’

‘As I explained to you before,’ said Sarah, ‘we never give advice unless asked to do so.’

Fortunately for Sarah’s temper, the sister who was detailed to accompany her on her inspection was pleasanter than her superior. When Sarah had finished and was on her way to the main entrance where her car awaited her, she was waylaid by her adversary. ‘I hope we have given you some useful hints,’ she said with an icy smile.

Sarah’s smile was icier than hers. ‘Very useful, thank you,’ she replied. ‘Bad reports are quite as useful as good ones.’ And with that she had walked out.

And now, for the third time, she was trying to work up her copious notes into a report. She was full of information and ideas, but when she tried to put them on paper everything went wrong. She had torn up sheet after sheet and now she was in despair. It was only too clear to her now that she was no use at the job: it had beaten her. Until she had tried to write the report she had been in a high state of satisfaction. She had found herself quick to notice details and to grasp the general conditions of the departments that she was concerned with, she had found it easy to take notes, and she had been keenly interested in the work. This discovery of new powers in herself, the conviction that she was efficient and useful, the sense of being, as she loved to be, extremely busy, had filled her with happiness. She felt as everyone feels who is hard at work at the job for which he is perfectly fitted. And now had come this crash which, all along, she had feared. She glanced at the clock. It was already past her usual bedtime and she had had a tiring day. She was at the end of her tether. She pushed the writing materials away from her and laying her arms on the table and her head on her arms burst into a paroxysm of tears. It was a relief to give way and she let herself go until the weight at her heart was eased. At last she raised her head, drew the writing materials towards her and wrote. She wrote three pages and then read them through. There was no room for doubt, they were quite worthless.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Next day she went with a heavy heart to lunch with Lady Savershill, taking her report with her. As soon as she arrived she poured out her woes. ‘I’m no good, Lady Savershill. I’ve tried over and over again, but it’s hopeless.’

Lady Savershill stopped her. ‘Not a word till after luncheon, Mrs. Darby. One can’t talk business on an empty stomach.’ And they sat down to table and talked of other things.

But throughout the meal Sarah was absent-minded and out of spirits, and though Lady Savershill did her best to cheer her, telling her she was exaggerating her failure, she remained disconsolate.

After luncheon they moved to what Lady Savershill called her workroom. It was a pleasant room with windows looking east and south over a stretch of lawn shaded by clumps of limes and beeches and a section of the broad terraced walk that ran along the front of the house. A large table in the centre of the room was covered with books, pamphlets, papers and box-files, all in faultless order. In a corner between the windows was a large writing-desk also covered with papers.

‘Now, Mrs. Darby,’ said Lady Savershill settling herself in a sofa near the windows and signing to Sarah to sit beside her, ‘let us see this terrible report.’

Sarah unfolded it and handed it to her companion. ‘It’s no good at all, and that’s the truth,’ she said gloomily.

Lady Savershill took it and began to read. The beak-like nose, the lean, finely modelled face, the straight, challenging eyes faced Sarah’s unfortunate report, as a judge, accurate, just, but uncompromising, might face a criminal. Sarah watched the face, noted the knitted brows, the pursed lips, the obvious look of growing disappointment.

‘Don’t read any more, Lady Savershill,’ she said. ‘It only wastes your time.’

Lady Savershill laid the report down on her knee. ‘Would you let me see your Inspector’s Notebook?’ she asked.

Sarah took it from her handbag and for some minutes Lady Savershill examined the contents. Then she looked up. ‘But your notes are excellent, Mrs. Darby,’ she said. ‘They’re just the very thing that’s wanted.’

‘Oh, the notes are all right,’ said Sarah, ‘and the inspections were all right. It’s the reports that I can’t manage.’

‘Then could you give me your reports by word of mouth?’

‘Oh, certainly I could,’ said Sarah. ‘I could talk till you begged and implored me to stop.’

‘Then off you go! But no!’ Lady Savershill rose from the sofa. ‘One moment. I have an idea. I’ll send for Miss Harter. She shall take down what you say in shorthand.’

When the shorthand-typist was ready Sarah began. She talked uninterruptedly for half an hour while Lady Savershill leaned with one hand over her eyes in a corner of the sofa. She did not move till Sarah had finished. Then she raised her head. ‘Thank you, Miss Harter,’ she said. ‘Now will you please go and type that for us as soon as you can.’

The typist rose and went out.

‘So, you see, Lady Savershill,’ said Sarah, still full of her theme, ‘the two cases are quite different; in fact, what’s wrong at Monkswell is what’s right at Doleford, and vice versa. It only goes to show that when one thing’s wrong everything goes wrong. Monkswell and the feeding at Monkswell was as good as it could be, good stuff well cooked, and plenty of variety, and yet, with those other things all badly organized, you see how little that counted for.’

Lady Savershill turned to her, smiling, her keen blue eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘My dear woman,’ she said, ‘I congratulate you. I can candidly say that this report of yours is one of the best I’ve ever heard or read. It is just what a report ought to be. No I thinks and perhapses and it may be that’s, but a clearly arranged set of definite statements leading up to a definite conclusion. How strange that you couldn’t write it as you speak it. The way you compared the two hospitals was illuminating. The truth is, Mrs. Darby, you’re a born speaker.’

Sarah smiled. ‘And yet,’ she said, ‘when I tried to write it down …’ She pointed with grim humour at the report that lay on the sofa between them. ‘I can talk till doomsday, but when it comes to putting it on paper … well, you see what happens.’

‘Well, you don’t have to bother about that now, after my bright idea of calling in Miss Harter,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘I’ll run through her typescript, touch it up here and there, and the thing will be done.’

‘All the same, Lady Savershill, it will throw a lot of extra work on you, turning my chatter into …’

‘Into literature! Indeed it won’t; and even if it did, don’t bother your head about that, my dear woman. I tell you frankly, you’re well worth the trouble. Yes, I knew you were the one for the job, but I never suspected that you were going to turn out such a marvel.’

Sarah laughed. ‘Neither did I,’ she said.

‘No, you certainly didn’t. A few days ago you were humming and ha-ing and telling me you doubted this and were afraid of the other.’

‘Five days ago to-day,’ said Sarah, taking up her Inspector’s Notebook and rising from the sofa. ‘It seems more like a month.’

Lady Savershill laughed. ‘As bad as that?’

‘As good as that,’ replied Sarah. ‘It has been the salvation of me. Nothing less! ‘She went to one of the windows and looked out. ‘Yes, my car’s here,’ she said and shook hands. ‘Please don’t ring, my lady, I’ll let myself out.’ She sailed to the door, crossed the hall, and next moment was gliding down the drive in the comfortable Daimler which, reminding herself of her ten thousand pounds, she had recently hired to take her about in the wide area covered by her new work. She chuckled to herself. How surprised Jim would be if he knew she hired a great big luxurious car, chauffeur and all, by the month. Surprised, and pleased of course. But she hadn’t told him a word about her job yet. She was never one for letter-writing, and she had been so busy during the last fortnight that nowadays she was still less in a mood for it. It would take such a lot of describing and explaining that she would never have the patience to do it. Besides, what was the good? It wasn’t the sort of thing that would interest him, with all his new fancy ideas about pictures and architecture and foreign travel. There was no use them bothering each other about each other’s occupations. So long as she knew he was well and happy in his own childish way, that was enough.

The thought of Jim always gave her pain, a pain almost physical, like the dull smart of an internal wound. How long was she going to have to wait? What would be the end of it? Whenever she was at home, at breakfast, at supper, at night, she felt lonely. Now indeed, for the first time since her wedding-day, she felt herself childless—no child with clothes to look after, hunger to be appeased, innocent gluttonies to be catered for, no child to snub affectionately, to laugh at secretly. But she was not much at home. The greater part of her days was spent in inspecting the hospitals in her area, in the journeys there and back—some of the hospitals were fifty miles away—and in periodic visits to Lady Savershill to report. Her work brought her in contact with large numbers of people, matrons and other hospital officials; and her directness, her energy, her uncompromising honesty, endeared her to everyone she met. The Society was already well-known; its status and efficiency were recognized, and it seldom had difficulty in obtaining admission for its Inspectors. Sarah on her first arrival at a hospital made a habit of informing the official who showed her round, of her qualifications and her recent experiences and of pointing out that, if so desired, she would be very glad to offer hints and suggestions after she had made her inspection, in fact to give to the official the report that she would subsequently give to Lady Savershill. ‘You mustn’t mind what I say,’ she would remark, when offering to do this. ‘I have no right to interfere, but if you would like to know what I think, I shall be very glad to tell you. You might find it helpful and you might not. If you don’t, well, you can just take no notice of it.’

And it always happened, when she had finished her inspection, that she was invited to a private room and asked to give her impressions. She gave them vigorously and humorously, without mincing matters, and yet without offending. Her irresistible blend of austerity, formidableness, and surprising charm captivated them all and gained her, in addition to her official inspectorship, an unofficial post of adviser and helper. Her personality and the popularity it won for her were, in fact, as valuable to the H.C.S. as her efficiency as an inspector. For the Society had no official authority over the hospitals it inspected: it could influence only by persuasion, by offering expert assistance to those who cared to use it.

So Sarah’s time was employed and nearly all her energy,—nearly all, but not quite all. She still felt the need of more violent physical exercise and reserved to herself the right of making her own bed and sweeping and dusting her bedroom and sitting-room. Her feelings towards Uncle Tom Darby had by now changed considerably. It was true that he had contrived, temporarily at any rate, to drive Jim from home and wreck the old orderly routine of their life; but, no less, he had, with the help of Lady Savershill, pitchforked her, in spite of herself, into a new and very thrilling life in which she daily discovered new powers in herself, new and absorbing interests. It was as if a new youth had come to her: she felt herself growing, unfolding, meeting and overcoming new problems. Life had become an exhilarating adventure.

Adventure. Sarah an adventurer. How mysterious, how paradoxical, how richly humorous are the ways of Providence. She who had never asked for, never desired adventure, was already in the thick of it and revelling in it; while Mr. Darby, that poetical and romantic soul, who had sighed after adventure all his life, who in dreams had plumbed the Jungle, stalked strange and terrible forms of life, heard the screeches of green parrots, fought through impenetrable thickets of scarlet orchids, had got no further in pursuit of his dreams than a temporary bivouac in Bedford Square, W.C.I and the unpromising exploration of fifth-rate curiosity shops in the suburbs.

Chapter XVIII

A Public Meeting

It was the sudden illness of the Inspector of Out Patients’ Departments, who had been going to speak at the General Meeting of the H.C.S. two days later in London, that put it into Lady Savershill’s head at the last minute to make Sarah take his place. Sarah’s verbal reports were so practical, so clear, and at the same time so exciting, that if she could be worked up into addressing the General Meeting she would almost certainly make a success of it. At the first suggestion, which Lady Savershill made during luncheon at Savershill Hall, Sarah shied and it was only by slow degrees that Lady Savershill brought her to the point of agreeing that the idea was possible.

‘But I can’t see myself getting up on a platform and haranguing a crowd,’ said Sarah.

‘Well, you manage to harangue me twice a week,’ said Lady Savershill.

‘That’s different,’ said Sarah. ‘You make allowances.’

‘Indeed I don’t,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘If I thought you were muddling things or talking nonsense, I should tell you so at once. The only difference between talking to me and talking to the General Meeting is that you must talk a little louder.’

Sarah laughed. ‘That sounds simple,’ she said. ‘But there’s more to it than that. When I talk to you I know it’s a matter of plain business in which we are both concerned. When I see you are interested, I feel pleased and somehow excited, and off I go.’

‘My dear woman, if you get excited because you see I’m interested, you’ll get much more excited talking to a crowd. To feel that a crowd of people is listening to you, that you are catching its attention, interesting it, taking it along with you, is amazingly stimulating. I’m sure you could do it: indeed, I wouldn’t ask you to do it, if I weren’t. And, another thing to bear in mind is that you are speaking with authority. Only one or two people in the hall, if any, will know as much about your subject as you do. You will be telling them something new, something highly interesting, something very necessary for them to know. And, if you talk to them as you talk to me, you will be exciting them, thrilling them. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. When you give me your report now after luncheon, you shall give it in the ball-room. You shall stand at one end and I’ll sit at the other. It’s sixty feet long and resounds horribly, so if you want me to follow you at all, you’ll have to speak loudly and slowly, and I shall be so far away from you that you won’t know whether I’m being interested or not. It will be much more difficult than speaking in a crowded hall.’

Accordingly, when they rose from the table Lady Savershill sent word for Miss Harter to go to the ball-room, and Sarah found herself obediently following her hostess across the hall, and down a long, wide corridor at the end of which were tall double doors painted white and gold. The long white and golden room, hung with crystal chandeliers like clusters of hanging icicles and flanked by a row of six tall windows, sent a chill of apprehension through Sarah. Their footsteps on the shining slippery floor echoed through the bare room. ‘I used to practise public-speaking here years ago,’ said Lady Savershill. ‘I stood at this end and my husband stood at that and I harangued him till one or other of us could stand it no longer. Now you stand there, Mrs. Darby, and I’ll go to the other end. You hear how the place echoes: it’s the worst place I know for speaking in; that’s why it’s such a good test.’ Lady Savershill walked away to the far end of the room as she spoke. ‘Now listen to me first,’ she said, when she had reached her place. ‘You hear how slowly and clearly I have to talk, otherwise everything’s lost in echoes. It has just occurred to me, Mrs. Darby, that the best speech you could possibly make at the General Meeting would be on the Monks well and Doleford hospitals. When you spoke to me of them you talked for half an hour: that is about ten minutes more than will be needed at the General Meeting, so you will have more than enough material. Just draw the contrast between the two: it was extraordinarily instructive and extraordinarily interesting.’ The door opened and the shorthand-typist came in. ‘Take a chair and go and sit near Mrs. Darby, Miss Harter,’ said Lady Savershill, and fetching a chair for herself she sat down. ‘Now, Mrs. Darby, let us hear to-day’s report.’

Sarah cleared her throat: her face became very pink.

‘I feel horribly nervous,’ she said.

‘Can’t hear,’ Lady Savershill shouted back.

‘I feel very shy,’ said Sarah loudly.

‘Never mind. Take no notice of it,’ Lady Savershill loudly replied.

Miss Harter sat smiling with her pad ready on her knee. Sarah pulled herself together. ‘The hospitals I have visited since last I reported,’ she began, ‘are the Royal Free at Bankhurst and the Mexham Infirmary …’

When she had spoken for a minute or two, Lady Savershill interrupted her. ‘One minute. Don’t take me down, Miss Harter,’ she said; ‘only Mrs. Darby. There are only two things wrong, Mrs. Darby: you drop your voice too much on the last word of each sentence, and you don’t pause long enough between sentences. When you get to a full stop, pause till the pause seems interminable. It not only gives you, you’ll find, great self-possession, but it convinces your listeners of your self-possession. Don’t forget, mind, to pronounce those last words clearly and sharply.’

So the lesson went on. Sarah lost her shyness and began to find the experiment amusing and interesting. Yes, making speeches was, apparently, very good fun, and she drove away that afternoon, not only having consented to speak at the General Meeting but actually eager to do so. She took with her the typescript of her report on Monkswell and Doleford, so that she could run through it from time to time and get all the details fixed in her memory. But, in fact, they were there already. She would take the report with her to the meeting so that if her courage suddenly failed her, she could simply read it. ‘But it won’t,’ Lady Savershill had said. ‘In fact, you’ll find, once you get started, that you forget all about the typescript and just talk. The only difficulty will be to stop you.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

In the hurry of preparation and departure Sarah had no time to let Jim know of her unexpected return to London. No doubt she might have found time to send him a wire, but she reflected that she could make no appointment with him, for she did not know when she would be free. She was staying with the Savershills and it would be easy to ring him up from there. Next day they travelled up to London by the night train, and, as soon as she could get an opportunity after a late breakfast next morning, Sarah rang Mr. Darby up. But he was already out. He had gone, of course, to Penge. She tried again at one o’clock, but he had not yet returned. There was a large luncheon party at the Savershills, and Sarah, meeting Lord Savershill for the first time just before it, heard from him that he had seen her husband and asked him to come to the meeting. Well, she would have to try to catch him at the meeting, or, if she failed, ring him up again afterwards. It was all very harassing. She was harassed by her thwarted longing to get in touch with Jim, and by the prospect of the speech she was going to make. It loomed ahead of her now as a portentous and almost impossible task. Whatever had persuaded her to be mad enough to agree to do it? If only it was over and done with. But there it was, imminent, threatening, like some vast nightmare.

When they had started for the hall she felt better, but still far, terribly far, from self-possessed. She had to keep her teeth firmly clenched to prevent their chattering. As she emerged with the rest on to the platform she was aghast at the size of the audience. Lady Savershill, who was ahead of her, looked back as she reached her place and beckoned to her. ‘Come and sit beside me, Mrs. Darby.’ Sarah took the chair that Lady Savershill indicated. ‘It’s an excellent hall for sound. You’ll have no trouble in making yourself heard. The thing to do, remember, is always to talk to the back row. How are you feeling?’

‘Awful!’ said Sarah.

Lady Savershill looked at her sharply, but Sarah smiled and added: ‘But I shall manage.’

And, in fact, having said awful, she had instantly become aware that though it was awful it was also quite all right: nothing would go wrong. The awfulness was merely an inevitable symptom which she recognized and observed, but which she would undoubtedly be able to keep in control. It was this waiting that was so trying, this horrible inactivity which left her at the mercy of her dancing nerves. Well, all she had to do was to sit still and let them dance: it was like enduring a pain which you knew would cease at a certain specific moment. Lady Savershill tactfully kept up a running conversation. ‘A full hall, I’m glad to see. Nothing puts one off so much as talking to a small audience in a big room. A big audience, you’ll find, keeps you going, excites you.’

When Lord Savershill rose and proceedings started, Sarah had a little thrill of terror; but, once he had begun to speak, she became absorbed, not simply in what he was saying but in his way of speaking. She was making notes all the time, noting his effective pauses, his way of accentuating important words and varying his speed; noting, too, the response of the audience. How surprisingly one could gauge its state of mind, the small variations in its interest and attention. Once, for a minute or two, she felt its tensity slacken considerably: little sounds broke out, the great chequered area of pink faces and sombre clothes stirred and altered. Obviously Lord Savershill felt it, for he suddenly gave a humorous turn to a phrase. A low, hoarse whinny of laughter swept, like a ruffling breeze, over the crowd, and once more it was motionless and intent. How wonderful to be able to control the feelings of all these people like that, as if playing a pianola. Sarah felt in herself a ferment of delight and fear at the prospect of her own approaching turn. Yes, she was afraid, but she was also sure she was going to bring it off, and bring it off rather well. She was conscious of all sorts of powers in herself.

When Lord Savershill had finished and the next speaker had begun, Sarah’s confidence increased, for the audience obviously thought him dull, and so did Sarah. ‘Come! I can do better than that!’ she said to herself. She began to search the audience for Jim, but in vain. How strange it was to think that he was there, hidden somewhere in that crowd. Did he know she was there and going to speak? Probably not. How astounded he would be. The thought amused her, but next moment she wished she had let him know about it. He might think it unkind of her not to have done so. But she had never thought, of course, that he would be at the meeting till Lord Savershill told her, just before lunch, that he had invited him. Whatever happened, she must catch him when the meeting was over.

A ripple of hand-clapping roused her. The speaker had sat down. Sarah gripped her typescript nervously.

‘My husband will introduce you,’ said Lady Savershill in her ear. ‘I’ll tell you when to stand up.’

Lord Savershill rose and announced her, not by name, but as an Inspector of Domestic Staff for the Northern Division. When he had sat down, there was a pause, and then Lady Savershill whispered, ‘Now!’

Sarah rose to her feet. She felt the paper in her hand trembling; for a moment the audience went out of focus and vanished in a mist and a panic swept her mind. But none the less, deep down in herself she was in control. ‘Don’t begin. Wait till this is over,’ she thought; and after a few seconds the panic had gone—it had been no more than the boiling-over of a kettle—and the audience returned, focused itself, and settled down to listen. Sarah was aware of it as a sympathetic and receptive thing waiting to be fed. When she began to speak, the strangeness of her voice startled her. It was not her own voice: it was somebody-else’s and seemed to have a will of its own which she could not control. But at least it was talking slowly and it was talking sense, and this gave her confidence, and after another minute she was in control of it, of herself, of her words, and of her audience. She passionately wanted to tell them of her work, to awake in them the interest and enthusiasm which burned in herself. And now she could feel them respond: she was intensely aware of their attention and interest. It was thrilling, enthralling. She had forgotten her paper in her hand, which unconsciously she had laid down on the Chairman’s table beside her. When she had spoken for some time she glanced down at Lord Savershill. ‘Time up?’ she asked.

‘You can have another five minutes if you want it,’ he murmured back.

Yes she did want it. It would give her a chance of amplifying her comparison of the two hospitals, of rounding her speech off properly.

When she sat down the prompt and vigorous clapping from every part of the hall and from the platform too, showed how much she had been appreciated. She was breathless and flushed with happiness. ‘Magnificent!’ said Lord Savershill in her ear. ‘Couldn’t have been better! ‘He rose to conclude the meeting, but Sarah could not listen to him. She had had her fill of listening and talking and now she was anxious about Jim and sat scanning the hall, trying in vain to spot him. As soon as Lord Savershill had finished, she would hurry to the doors of the auditorium and catch him as he went out.

But when the meeting ended and they all rose to their feet Lord Savershill instantly began talking to her, congratulating her on her speech, telling her how interested he himself had been in her report and asking her a number of questions. She could not do otherwise than respond, waiting patiently for him to release her, hoping and praying that he would be quick. But when at last she got a chance of excusing herself and hurried off to the doors, Jim was not there. She waited till the hall had emptied itself and then rejoined her party.

Lady Savershill saw that she was worried. ‘Anything the matter, Mrs. Darby?’ she asked.

‘I was trying to catch my husband,’ Sarah explained.

‘Good heavens,’ said Lady Savershill, ‘I had forgotten your husband. Why he ought to have been staying with us. Why on earth didn’t you remind me? Do you mean to say he hurried away without waiting for us?’

‘He didn’t know I was here,’ said Sarah. ‘I had no time to let him know, in the rush, and he was out each time I rang him up. Heaven knows what he thought when he suddenly saw me haranguing the hall. I’m afraid he may be feeling a bit bewildered; and cross with me no doubt.’

‘But of course the poor man is. What a way to treat a husband. You must ring him up at once and make him come to tea and stay until we go north to-morrow.’

Sarah had already expressed her intention of returning to Newchester at once to carry on her work. She said now that she would like to drive straight to Bedford Square. ‘I shall be there almost as soon as he is,’ she said.

‘Do,’ said Lady Savershill, ‘and pack him up and bring him along in time for half past eight dinner.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

When Sarah was shown into the smoking-room in Bedford Square, Mr. Darby rose with great dignity to receive her. He had not recovered from his outraged feelings and was prepared to be very ceremonious. But Sarah with her obvious delight at seeing him was irresistible. ‘Well, I’ve got you at last, Jim,’ she said, sailing down upon him and giving him a loud, hearty kiss. ‘I rang you up twice this morning’—this was news to Mr. Darby— ‘and I tried to catch you at the meeting, but you kept out of my way properly. I didn’t know I was coming south till the day before I started. Lady Savershill forced me into it; there’s no resisting her when she gets hold of you. How are you, my dear? You look splendid. Well, isn’t this like a mad dream? You living in this great house like a Duke and me haranguing public meetings like the Prime Minister. What did I sound like? Was I all right? You’ve no idea the fright I was in till I got started.’

She paused breathless and stood smiling at him. The sight of Sarah, her volubility, her expansive affection, the fact that she had been trying in vain to get at him, dissolved Mr. Darby’s pique instantaneously. ‘All right? I should think you were! ‘he said. ‘You were … ah … phenonymous. Better than Lord Savershill himself. Sit down, my dear, you must be exhausted.’

Sarah sank into a chair. ‘I am!’

Mr. Darby touched the bell. ‘We’ll have tea. Tea as soon as possible, Princep,’ he said when the butler appeared.

‘I’m just bringing it, sir.’

Sarah described her recent life and her H.C.S. activities. ‘And I have a Daimler, Jim. I hire it by the month.’

That, as she had expected, delighted Mr. Darby. ‘Indeed, now!’ he said, his face beaming. ‘And very … ah … right and proper. You’ll need it, I’m sure.’ When told of Lady Savershill’s invitation he bowed. ‘Of course, I shall be only too pleased,’ he said graciously.

‘And you’ll have to dress yourself up to the nines for dinner,’ said Sarah. ‘It’ll be a large party and everything’s terribly grand.’

‘Naturally! Naturally!’ said Mr. Darby shortly, as if such remarks were superfluous.

Princep came in, placed a table in front of Mrs. Darby, and then brought the tea-tray and plates of buttered toast, bread and butter, and various cakes. ‘Among the distinguished company who dined with Lord and Lady Savershill in Eaton Square last night,’ whispered Mr. Darby’s secret reporter, ‘were Mr. and Mrs. James Darby of Savershill, Newchester-on-Dole and Bedford Square, London. It may not be generally known that Mr. Darby has a very fine collection of English Old Masters and that Mrs. Darby is an exceptionally able public speaker.’

He was roused from this brief reverie by Sarah. She was pouring out tea, and he noted with satisfaction the magnificent and quite unconscious air with which she did so.

‘This H.C.S. you know, Jim,’ she said, ‘is a splendid thing. You must support it.’

‘I propose to do so,’ said Mr. Darby with dignity. ‘I told you, I think, that Lord Savershill has already … ah … talked me round. But no, you wouldn’t get my letter before you left home.’ Then, remembering the unfortunately lofty tone of that letter Mr. Darby blushed. But in a moment he had recovered himself. ‘What ought I to … ah … subscribe, do you think, Sarah? What would they expect?’

‘You should give at least five hundred a year, Jim,’ said Sarah promptly.

‘Five hundred! Mr. and Mrs. James Darby, five hundred! Very well, I’ll … ah … instruct the bank.’

Chapter XIX

A Private Discussion

Lying in bed by Sarah’s side in Eaton Square that night, Mr. Darby found himself unable to sleep. Was it the excitement of the party which had ended an hour or two ago, that kept him wakeful, or did he instinctively feel that to spend in sleep his first night under the roof of a peer would be mere wilful waste? No! Either of these reasons would certainly have been sufficient for insomnia, if his mind had not been otherwise occupied. But it was not so. His mind was seething with disappointment, dissatisfaction, even with resentment; for the truth was—though Mr. Darby was unaware of it—that he was jealous of Sarah. Throughout the evening Sarah had, without the smallest intention or desire to do so, eclipsed him. Not that he had been left out in the cold; but he had been nothing more than one man among many, he had been throughout the evening left outside the limelight, whereas Sarah had been a continual centre of interest. Whenever he caught sight of her she was in earnest conversation with one or more of the guests. More than once, in the drawing-room after dinner, he overheard the phrase: ‘I must have a talk with Mrs. Darby,’ and he would see the speaker gravitate towards Sarah’s circle and there would be more earnest conversation, broken sometimes by a little ripple of laughter, and looking over to where they stood he would catch sight of Sarah’s grim and enchanting smile. Most of the guests were, of course, actively interested in the H.C.S. and had been present at the meeting, and no doubt it was this that first drew them to Sarah. But Mr. Darby observed that this was neither the only nor the chief attraction. It was Sarah herself that interested and charmed them. This difference in attitude towards Sarah and towards himself was especially evident in Lady Savershill. This impressive and formidable lady treated Sarah as a familiar friend, whereas she treated him with the rather peremptory and high-handed indulgence with which she would treat an amusing child. Mr. Darby had felt, and quite correctly, that she regarded him as utterly unimportant, and this was the more humiliating to him in that he had been afraid of her since the first moment he encountered her sharp, searching gaze. Throughout the whole day, in fact, his position and importance as a millionaire had not received their due recognition. He had been slighted at the H.C.S. meeting and he had been slighted at the dinner-party. He, who had always felt himself peculiarly fitted to cut a figure in society had been completely outstripped by Sarah who had no ambitions in that direction. This, it must be admitted, was a little hard.

Nor was this the end of it. Mr. Darby’s sense of insignificance had been acutely intensified when Sarah, after they had retired for the night, had at once squashed his suggestion that she should spend a few days with him in Bedford Square.

‘I can’t, Jim,’ she had said. ‘I’m much too busy.’ This unhesitating No had seemed to Mr. Darby to treat his request in much too cavalier a fashion.

‘You managed to spare the time to come and stay here,’ he had replied somewhat sternly.

But even this Sarah had failed to treat with becoming seriousness. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jim,’ she had said. ‘You know very well I came here on business. I can’t begin taking holidays when I’ve only just got started with the job. Lady Savershill herself is going back to work to-morrow, and if I tell her I’m going to stay idling here with you … well, she’d be quite justified in feeling let down.’

The word idling was unfortunate, but Sarah was recalling her fortnight at the Balmoral. Mr. Darby had pursed his lips. ‘You don’t seem to consider,’ he had said, ‘that I may feel let down, as you … ah … style it.’

But Sarah had flippantly brushed aside this dignified expostulation. ‘Get along with you, Jim! ‘had been her very inappropriate reply. The only proper response to that kind of thing was silence, and Mr. Darby in silent and resentful dignity had stepped into bed.

Now he lay sleepless and piqued. Sarah was having her head turned—that’s what it amounted to—by being taken up by Lady Savershill like this. She seemed to have exaggerated ideas of her importance. After all, what was she? A mere inspector of a quite ordinary society, a society like thousands of others. Indeed Mr. Darby was beginning to have his doubts about the H.C.S. business. He wasn’t at all sure that it wasn’t a lot of pother about nothing. He rather regretted that he had let himself in for that heavy subscription. However, it was too late to repent of that. He had already announced to Lord Savershill his intention of subscribing five hundred a year. Nothing, now, could be done about it; but, thinking the whole thing quietly over now, he was glad, yes, very glad, that he had not allowed himself to be dragged into the society in any active capacity. After all, he had something better to do. It would have been absurd to land himself once more, after thirty-five years of it, in a daily routine of hard work. It did not occur to him, when congratulating himself on this, that, in point of fact no one had asked him to do so. Yes, he assured himself once more, he had been wise, very wise. Besides, after all, he had all this National Gallery business on his hands, a much more important matter and one which required all his energy. ‘No, Lord Savershill. I have so much public work already on my hands that I positively must not undertake any more. Not that I don’t sympathize: I am willing, very willing, to afford the Society my … ah … peculiary support; but that, I fear, must suffice.’

Having thus, abruptly yet politely, made clear his attitude, Mr. Darby, much soothed, fell into an innocent sleep.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Yet he awoke next morning out of humour. It was all very well, but Sarah’s behaviour, throughout this H.C.S. business, had left much to be desired. She had made a mystery of it to begin with, had never so much as mentioned that she was coming to London, and now, without consulting him, was hurrying back to Newchester. The truth was that Mr. Darby had grown accustomed, during the twenty years of his married life, to being an only child and had acquired the outlook of that pampered creature; and now that Sarah had presented him, in the H.C.S., with a little sister, he felt very keenly that his nose was put out. He hated his little sister and bitterly resented Sarah’s absorption in her. He began to hate the Savershills too; for were they not the precise equivalent of those tyrannical, busy, maternity nurses who intrude upon such occasions? They had taken possession of Sarah and put a barrier between him and her. His philosophy was, unhappily, not comprehensive enough to afford him much comfort, for it failed to point out to him that Sarah was doing to him only what, with the arrival of his fortune, he had done to her. It is truly said that it takes two to make a quarrel. If one of the pair refuses to fight there can be no duel. But in the matter of an assertion of independence the reverse is true. Mr. Darby had boldly asserted his independence and Sarah had aided and abetted him by revealing an unexpected dependence upon him. It was natural therefore that he should resent her change of attitude. By this assertion of her independence she was poaching on his preserves and robbing him of a large share of his game. Without really knowing why, Mr. Darby felt deeply aggrieved. Pink-faced, vague-eyed (for his spectacles were on the dressing-table), he lay on his back and gazed at the window with the furrowed brow of a baby that is slowly working up towards a cry. Yes, it was all very well, but, H.C.S. or no H.C.S. he was her husband, the man whom, twenty years ago, she had solemnly sworn to love, honour and obey. By means of these reflections Mr. Darby worked himself up into a state of righteous indignation, and now a series of heated dialogues passed through his mind in which he gave rein to his feelings with such telling effect that Sarah was rapidly convinced of sin and reduced to humble repentance. The rudimentary sounds of indignation with which he accompanied his part in these wordless arguments must have roused Sarah, for she turned over and asked in a sleepy voice: ‘What’s the matter, Jim? Have you got one of your throats?’

‘Throat? Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Darby sharply, embarrassed at the discovery that the intensity of his feelings had made them audible. ‘No!’ he added more mildly. ‘No throat, thank you!’ After a few minutes of silence he changed his mind and added loftily: ‘I was only wondering whether, after all, you and I are husband and wife.’

Sarah sat up and studied him grimly. ‘If there’s any doubt about it, you’d better get out of bed at once,’ she said sternly, and added aloud to herself, ‘Hm! What next?’

‘One wouldn’t have thought it was much to ask,’ went on Mr. Darby. ‘A simple and very … ah … natural request, one would have supposed.’

As a nurse might look at a child, wondering whether or not it had a slight temperature, Sarah studied him again, with knitted brows. ‘You’d better wake up and tell me what’s the matter, Jim, instead of lying there thinking and supposing.’

‘A day or two couldn’t make any difference,’ Mr. Darby went on, ignoring Sarah’s remarks; ‘and a husband has a right to expect …’

‘To expect what?’

‘A little consideration, some slight … ah … prefidence … I mean, preservence.’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Goodness knows what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘If you were to get up and have a wash and put on your spectacles, perhaps we should get some sense out of you.’

‘After all, you promised, every wife promises, at the … ah … the altar …’

Sarah threw aside the bedclothes. ‘I’m getting up,’ she said: ‘it’s time. When you’ve got something definite to say, I’ll attend to you.’

Mr. Darby, seeing that his somewhat impressionistic methods were producing no effect, came to the point. ‘I asked you to give me a day or two before you went back,’ he said, ‘and, without so much as stopping to think, you. you … ah …’

‘I told you why I couldn’t. That was all settled last night. Now up you get, or you’ll be late for breakfast.’

‘I put it,’ Mr. Darby stubbornly pursued, ‘as a request, a polite request. I might have made it an order, a command.’

‘Yes, I suppose you might,’ said Sarah with weary tolerance, ‘but it wouldn’t have made any difference.’

‘So the solemn promise, the solemn vow to love, honour and obey goes for nothing, I take it?’

‘You can’t love, honour and obey someone who isn’t there,’ said Sarah. ‘If you choose to leave me and your home and go idling about by yourself, well, you must take the consequences.’

‘I didn’t leave you, Sarah. How can you talk such … ah … falsehoods,’ replied Mr. Darby with some heat. ‘You left me. You refused to remain with me here in London.’

Sarah, in a bodice and petticoat with hands on hips, faced the recumbent Mr. Darby. ‘The only reason you didn’t leave me, Jim, was that I came with you: but you were going in any case, and you know it.’ She turned her back on him and went over to the dressing-table.

Mr. Darby, pink, fretful, blue-eyed, sat up in bed. ‘I shall not argue with you,’ he said. He felt a tide of indignation and eloquence rushing to his head. ‘If you prefer,’ he announced conclusively, ‘to be disingeenious and … ah … prevaricacious, there is no more to be said. I can only leave you to the … ah … contemplation of your broken promises.’

‘Thank you! ‘said Sarah. ‘You couldn’t do better. I’m quite able to look after my own promises.’ She took up a hairbrush and turned her head aggressively. ‘And in the meantime you’d better get hold of the Prayer Book and see what it was you promised and vowed. You’ve forgotten that part of it, it seems. Just you look it up. You’ll be surprised.’

‘I shall do nothing of the sort,’ Mr. Darby retorted angrily.

‘Don’t then!’ said Sarah. ‘But don’t try to teach me my business either. And unless you get up at once I shall come and pull the clothes off you: that’ll cool you.’

When, half an hour later, Mr. and Mrs. Darby appeared serenely at breakfast, no one could have suspected that a tempestuous gulf yawned between them. But it did, and Mr. Darby never ceased to be aware of it, even while relishing with a perfect placidity the sweets of a baronial breakfast-table. Lady Savershill and Sarah were leaving for the north by the morning train and Mr. Darby, still cherishing a fierce resentment against Sarah, resolved to exhibit it by leaving before they did. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, he waylaid the butler, asked for his bag to be packed immediately and a cab to be ordered, and, taking leave of his host and hostess with that old-world punctiliousness which so well became him, left the house without another word to Sarah.

Chapter XX

Revolution In Bedford Square

The smoking room in Bedford Square had in it a large writing-desk and Mr. Darby therefore used the room not only for the purposes of digestive leisure but also as his study. Arrived back from Eaton Square, he instantly hastened to this retreat, anxious to get back to real work. ‘Society,’ he thought to himself, ‘is all very well, but for serious-minded and public-spirited persons there are more important things in the world than dinner-parties, house-parties, public meetings, H.C.S’s, and suchlike trifles.’ He entered the room with the same businesslike precision as that with which he had been accustomed to enter Messrs. Lamb & Marston’s, rubbing the palms of his hands together to show his eagerness to get to grips with work; cast an authoritative glance round the room; then seated himself briskly at his desk. He got out pen, ink, and paper, fumbled in a pigeonhole, found a scarlet notebook, opened it and laid it before him. He was about to construct a descriptive catalogue of the Darby Collection. On the sheets of paper in front of him he wrote the number, title and artist’s name of the pictures, leaving a large space under each. When this was finished he rose with the same industrious precision, took up the sheets and a stiff-backed blotter, brought from his pocket a gold pencil case, and went to the door. Passing Princep in the corridor on his way to the Picture Gallery he said: ‘I shall be busy until lunch-time, Princep. Please see that I am not disturbed.’

If Princep, instead of his formal ‘Very good, sir,’ had asked him in what way he expected to be disturbed, Mr. Darby, for the life of him, could not have told him, for nobody ever called, even at the appropriate hours for calling, and the telephone was seldom used except by Princep and Mrs. Princep for the purposes of housekeeping. Mr. Darby’s order could therefore have been nothing more than one of those meaningless formalities which add dignity to a dignified occasion.

Having entered the Gallery he switched on the full force of light and heat with a commanding gesture, and it was only the pale unreality of the electric light that reminded him that it was broad daylight and summer weather. But Mr. Darby did not, even to himself, confess to a mistake. He had changed his mind, that was all, in the autocratic, almost petulant way that millionaires do,—decided that daylight and summer would suffice, and with another commanding gesture he abolished the artificial aids.

Then, crossing the polished floor and stationing himself in front of No. I. Portrait of a Young Lady by Romney, he began to take notes. ‘The young lady,’ he wrote: then he paused, crossed out young lady, and substituted figure. That was better. ‘The figure is dressed …’ Dressed sounded to Mr. Darby’s practised ear a little commonplace. He cancelled it and pursued for a moment with knitted brows an elusive rabbit of a word. Suddenly his brow cleared, his spectacles shone, and with the pursed lips of the epicure he wrote, in place of the word dressed, the word garbed. With head on one side Mr. Darby considered this happy find. Yes, garbed was certainly much better. ‘The figure is garbed in white muslin, the head slightly inclined to the left.’ Then, recalling the phrase he had coined when he first caught sight of the picture in the little shop in Greenwich, he added: ‘Observe the natural elegance of the pose.’ Now for the pink sash. What was that word, rather an effective word, that writers on art often used when speaking of colour? Chord? Harmony? No. Note! That was the word. ‘The pink sash introduces a pleasant note and contrasts well…’ No, not well, a better word than well. Effish …? Effic …? Efficaciously? Not quite! Effectively! That was it,—effectively! ‘… contrasts effectively with the head … the mass … the shock! … with the shock of golden curls.’

So, for nearly two hours, Mr. Darby continued, lost to the world, completely absorbed in his fascinating task, often hurrying, in the throes of literary composition, to one of the settees in the middle of the room, so as to enable himself, with the pad on his knees, to scribble more rapidly and legibly and so diminish the risk of losing some particularly admirable phrase before he could put it on paper. By lunch-time the work was well in hand and Mr. Darby in great good-humour. He had begun it in a spirit of protest, almost of vengeance, against Sarah. His object had been far less to produce a catalogue for its own sake, than to prove to himself that his work was of infinitely more importance than hers, with her hospitals and societies and Savershills. This object had now been perfectly achieved. He was thoroughly pleased with himself and with the world in general and he was also extremely hungry.

As he opened the door of the Gallery with his pad and papers under his arm, the roar of the luncheon gong greeted him. ‘Really,’ he reflected, as he hurried down the corridor, ‘one never gets a moment to oneself.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

After an excellent lunch, an excellent cigar, and a well earned nap, Mr. Darby found that mind and body were clamouring for physical action. The feverish labour of literary composition demanded a contrast, even an antidote. He summoned Princep, ordered him to telephone for a car to be round in ten minutes. He was resolved on an afternoon of picture-hunting. His pocket-book told him that Streatham was the next objective on the list; and a quarter of an hour later, upright, important, bowler-hatted, a pair of butter-coloured gloves lying on his lap, a single pearl glimmering in his subdued but lustrous tie, he was spinning down Charing Cross Road, while, away to the south, Streatham, utterly unconscious of its impending invasion, flaunted its art-treasures undefended. By tea-time, without a struggle, without even a murmur, it had yielded up a fine Lawrence, a passable Gainsborough, a large work ticketed ‘Salisbury Cathedral by Constable (?) 35 guineas,’ and several less important pieces.

The sack of Streatham was followed in the ensuing weeks by a series of brilliant operations. With an invariable and dazzling success Mr. Darby combed London (and by London is meant Greater London), swept the suburbs, and by a number of bold, sudden, and well-planned sallies rifled towns as remote as Sutton, Cheam, Croydon, Barnet, St. Albans, Bromley and innumerable others. Indeed those days were (or would have been, if all these towns and districts had realized what was happening to them) an artistic Reign of Terror. In a few short weeks a vast area was plundered and laid waste with a swiftness, a precision and a completeness unequalled even by the campaigns of Buonaparte. Few people who saw, through the windows of the smart bloodred limousine as it swept down Piccadilly, Whitehall or the Tottenham Court Road, the plump, upright, correct, and apparently conventional little man, gazing always straight ahead of him as if at an invisible destination, can have realized that a revolution was afoot or guessed at the ruthless determination and the fever of patriotism that burned behind that bland and child-like countenance. Least of all did the Trustees and Director of the National Gallery, wrapped snug and unsuspecting in their hide-bound traditions, or those Madonnas and Saints—Italians, Spaniards, Flemings and the various other undesirable aliens—who smiled in happy ignorance from their frames at the crowds of renegade Britons who stopped to admire them.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

When the Darby Collection numbered seventy-five pieces and the walls of the Gallery in Bedford Square were packed as tight as they could hold. Mr. Darby felt that the time was ripe for action. He was now in a position to back his plan for the reform of the National Gallery with a definite offer to carry it instantly into effect. It would be impossible now for the Trustees to plead that the idea, though admirable in theory, was impracticable. He desisted, therefore, from the labour of collecting and cataloguing, arranged for the Descriptive Catalogue to be printed and tastefully bound, and went to Hastings for a few days of rest and change of air.

At Hastings, as he walked on the sea-front or sat listening to the band, he allowed his invention to toy with the letter he would presently write to the Director of the National Gallery, for he had ascertained from an elderly gentleman at the Savershills’ that it was to the Director that he must address himself. ‘My Dear Sir’—Mr. Darby was sitting now in a hired deck-chair in the enclosure round the bandstand. He was dressed in a smartly cut double-breasted grey flannel suit and a soft felt hat, also grey. His spectacles reflected the summer sky. ‘My Dear Sir, It has long been a matter of … serious …’ He scowled at the word serious, turned it over, scowled at it again and forthwith discarded it. ‘It has long been a matter of grave,’ that was the word, ‘of grave concern to me that our National Gallery should so grossly …’ Grossly was perhaps a little strong. He must be careful not to alienate the Director at the outset. ‘… so sadly? ‘Sadly was on the other hand a little weak. Better remodel the phrase.’ … should set so little store by our glorious national artistic heritage.’ He woke with a start from his meditations. Something had struck him sharply on the knee. It was the lady in the chair next to him who had dropped her sunshade. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said.

‘Not at all! Not at all! ‘replied Mr. Darby with a polite little bow, and bending to the left he fumbled between the chairs, recovered the parasol and restored it to the lady. She smiled her thanks through the crash of the band. Mr. Darby, crimson from the exertion, gleamed affably back at her and then resumed his reverie.

‘Dear Sir, I trust you will forgive the intrusion of one who … ah … who considers himself… or rather, who holds himself… second to none in his … his admiration … enthusiasm … in his zeal ‘—that’s the word—’ his zeal for our glorious national artistic heritage. It has long been a matter of grave concern …’ Charming thing that, and the band was playing it very well, really very well indeed. So much feeling! Very passionate things, those Indian Love Lyrics! Mr. Darby sighed a reflective sigh. He felt that his past life had been full of heartrending farewells and hopeless passions. ‘Pale hands I loved beneath the something-or-other, Where are you now? ’ he carolled inaudibly to the band’s accompaniment. ‘Where are you now? Ah, where indeed? ‘he asked himself with a wistful shake of the head, forgetting that, as a matter of cold fact, he had had neither the opportunity nor any particular desire to love pale hands. ‘Dear Sir, A genuine concern for the art of England prompts me to … Bless my soul, what a ridiculous pup, a cross, surely, between a Pom and a Pekinese: a Pekeranian, one might call it.’ Mr. Darby chuckled to himself at the brilliant invention. The pup paddled up to him and stood staring at him with its head on one side as if it suspected him of being a relation. Mr. Darby shook his head at it. ‘You’re a Pekeranian,’ he whispered. The pup dropped its tail, gave a single half-aggressive, half-cowardly yap and trotted away from him with its ears back. ‘What was it? Yes, a genuine concern … urges me … prompts me to … to … ah … a genuine concern …’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The upshot of these meditations and of the bracing air of Hastings was that Mr. Darby, on his return to Bedford Square, spent a laborious morning in composing the following letter to the Director of the National Gallery:

‘My Dear Sir, I am desirous, on conditions which I should like to discuss with you, of presenting to the Nation my collection of masterpieces of the English School. The collection is housed at the above address.

‘I am

‘Yours faithfully

‘W. JAMES DARBY.’

It may appear to those who have never attempted literary composition that this document is a ludicrously small result of four days of claustration and concentrated thought. Nothing could be more fallacious. Simplicity and directness can be achieved only by the most intense and complicated labour, and to the epicure of style it will be obvious that this letter of Mr. Darby’s is the precious distillation of a whole flower-garden of eloquence. How many fine phrases and dazzling adjectives had perished that this quintessential gem should come into being! Mr. Darby’s study at the end of that laborious morning was strewn knee-deep with a viewless litter of verbs, adverbs, participles (past and present), protases and apodoses, among which the discerning might even have detected here the fragment of a paraprosdokion, there a ruthlessly discarded aposiopesis.

The Director, doubtless a man of taste, must have appreciated the quality of Mr. Darby’s letter, for he went to the trouble of polishing his reply to at least an equal degree. ‘Dear Sir,’ he wrote,

‘I have to acknowledge with thanks your letter of today’s date. A representative of the National Gallery will have pleasure in calling at your house at any hour suitable to you to inspect the pictures to which you refer. Perhaps you will kindly let me know if eleven o’clock on Friday next will be convenient.

‘I am, dear sir,

‘Yours very truly,

‘WILFRED MONTGOMERY,

‘Director.’

Mr. Darby considered this communication carefully as he sat over his breakfast. For a moment he was surprised that the Director should treat the matter so lightly and especially that he should propose to send a representative to view the pictures instead of coming himself. For a moment, but no longer. For one of Mr. Darby’s perspicacity the reason was not far to seek. Obviously Sir Wilfred Montgomery had realized all that lay behind Mr. Darby’s intention. The threat to the old misguided status quo had not escaped him; doubtless he felt that his very position as Director hung in the balance. Small wonder then that he showed no disposition to receive Mr. Darby’s proposal with open arms.

‘Well, my friend,’ said Mr. Darby, nodding gravely at Sir Wilfred Montgomery’s letter which he had propped against the teapot, ‘we shall see! We shall see!’

Meanwhile he despatched a note to Sir Wilfred, to say that eleven o’clock on Friday would suit him perfectly.

Chapter XXI

The Revolution Fails

‘Naturally, I don’t deny,’ said Mr. Darby, in the course of a short preliminary conversation with Mr. Roden, the representative of the National Gallery, who had just been shown into the smoking-room, ‘I don’t deny that the Italians and the Dutch are all very well in their way, but I think you will agree that, when we compare them with the best of our British artists, they lose something of their … ah … supremacy.’

Mr. Darby’s spectacles gleamed challengingly at Mr. Roden. He had already announced to him the conditions upon which he offered his gift.

Mr. Roden, in the circumstances, thought it best to parry. ‘I can see, Mr. Darby,’ he said politely, ‘that you are an enthusiast.’

‘And you too, I hope, are an enthusiast, Mr. Roden.’

‘Oh, certainly I am.’

‘For the British School?’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Roden, looking down from his attenuated, slightly stooping six feet at the compact little gentleman who hardly reached to his shoulder, ‘Well, my own particular preference is for the Florentines.’

‘The Florentines? You prefer a foreign school to our own?’

Mr. Roden could hear from Mr. Darby’s tone that he was pained and shocked. ‘I have a great admiration for the British School,’ he said, ‘and I should certainly class Constable and Turner among the world’s great artists, but I think we must regretfully admit that we cannot compete with the great Florentines.’

‘I don’t admit it,’ said Mr. Darby with some feeling, ‘not for a moment. As Englishmen I feel we have no right to admit it.’

‘Are you speaking now as a patriot, Mr. Darby, or as a critic?’

‘I trust,’ replied Mr. Darby solemnly, and Mr. Roden felt that if the little man had been wearing a hat he would, as he spoke the words, have raised it, ‘I trust I always speak as a patriot.’

Mr. Roden bowed. ‘Your feelings do you great credit, sir. And now, might I … er …?’

‘By all means,’ said Mr. Darby, much mollified. ‘Let us go at once to the Gallery.’

Important and talkative he ushered Mr. Roden across the hall and down the corridor to the doors of the Gallery. ‘Here we are! ‘he said, flinging them open and immediately following Mr. Roden into the room.

They stood for a moment while Mr. Roden underwent the revelation. Mr. Darby did not interrupt him: he was waiting for an exclamation of amazement. But no exclamation came. Tall, pale, and apathetic, Mr. Roden surveyed the gallery: he appeared to be as little moved as if he were surveying a railway station. Really, these officials!

‘There is a catalogue, if you would care to … ah … consult it,’ Mr. Darby remarked at last, indicating a table near the doors.

‘Thank you. Perhaps later!’

‘In any case,’ explained Mr. Darby, ‘all the pictures are labelled, so you’ll have no difficulty.’

Together they approached No. ι. Portrait of a Young Lady by Romney. ‘I picked it up,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘in Greenwich. It was my first … ah … acquisition. Observe, Mr. Roden, the natural elegance of the pose. Now can you show me a Romney to beat that in the National?’

For a moment Mr. Roden did not reply. Then with some hesitation he said: ‘I’m sorry to say, Mr. Darby, that it’s not a Romney.’

‘Not a Romney? ‘Mr. Darby stared up at Mr. Roden open-mouthed, aghast, incredulous.

‘Were you led to suppose that it was?’ asked Mr. Roden.

Mr. Darby did not reply: he could not at the moment have trusted himself to do so.

‘I can assure you, Mr. Darby,’ Mr. Roden went on, ‘that no reputable critic would pass it for a moment.’

‘It was certainly sold to me as a Romney,’ said Mr. Darby hotly; ‘that is to say, it was labelled Romney and my own … ah … knowledge …’

‘I hope you didn’t give a large figure for it.’

‘No!’ said Mr. Darby reflectively, ‘No! not a particularly large figure.’

‘One has to be extremely careful,’ Mr. Roden explained. ‘There are so many copies and fakes about. It is always safer to take an expert opinion before buying.’

‘Might I ask,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘why you doubt its … ah …’

‘Its authenticity? I have no doubt, Mr. Darby. I can assure you with absolute certainty that the picture was not painted by Romney.’

Of course Mr. Darby could not accept a totally unsupported dogmatic statement of that kind. For a moment he felt inclined to ask Mr. Roden if, by any chance, he had ever taken the opportunity of looking at the Romneys in the National Gallery. (Anyone who had even a cursory memory of a portrait there whose name Mr. Darby did not at the moment recollect, could hardly fail to be struck by the close resemblance.) But his natural politeness checked him, and he merely replied, with a certain detachment in his tone: ‘I should like to know how you are so sure.’

‘Have you ever made a careful study of Romney’s technique?’ asked Mr. Roden.

Mr. Darby shied at the curious word. ‘I am familiar with the Romney portraits in the National Collection,’ he said.

‘And does it not strike you, as it struck me directly I glanced at it,’ said Mr. Roden, ‘that this painting has nothing of Romney’s particular method?’ Mr. Darby did not reply and Mr. Roden added politely: ‘But if you don’t agree with me, Mr. Darby, why not take another opinion? After all, I am not here to trouble you with my views, but, by your kind permission, to inspect your pictures on behalf of the National Gallery.’

He moved on to the next picture, but Mr. Darby did not follow him. He remained blinking sadly at No. 1. Portrait of a Young Lady by Romney. He stood there for perhaps a minute, and—so stimulating is the effect of art on a sensitive mind—gradually his spirits and his confidence were restored. Obviously, quite obviously the judgment of this dry official was not worth much. It would be tiresome and unprofitable to follow him round and Mr. Darby determined to abandon him. ‘Forgive me if I leave you,’ he said, turning to Mr. Roden who was already five pictures away, ‘I must be getting on with some work.’

‘By all means, sir,’ Mr. Roden replied. ‘Shall I find you in the room … er … where …?’

‘In the smoking-room, yes! ‘said Mr. Darby, and turning on his heel he made for the door, taking up on the way and carrying off with him in righteous resentment the pile of blue-bound catalogues which lay on the table.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

It was perfectly obvious, as Mr. Darby told himself afterwards, that, once his back was turned, this Mr. Roden had given only the most casual glance at the remainder of the Darby Collection, for he joined Mr. Darby in the smoking-room less than ten minutes later.

Mr. Darby turned in his chair: there was surprise in his spectacles. ‘You’ve finished?’

‘I’ve finished, thank you, Mr. Darby. But don’t let me interrupt your work except to wish you good morning.’

Mr. Darby rose and took the extended hand. He had come to the definite conclusion that this man’s opinion was of no value and had resolved not to ask it, but now he unaccountably changed his mind. Was it just for the sake of something to say, a neat verbal formality with which to round off the occasion, or was it that, although he was not interested in Mr. Roden’s carpings, he was prepared to welcome an official expression of enthusiasm? Even Mr. Darby himself could not have answered this question. Whatever the truth of it, he found himself casually saying, as he shook Mr. Roden’s hand: ‘Well, what do you think of them?’

The question obviously made Mr. Roden extremely uncomfortable. ‘I would rather you called in another opinion, Mr. Darby,’ he said.

‘As you wish,’ said Mr. Darby with dignity. ‘I should have been interested to hear …’

Mr. Roden hesitated. ‘I am perfectly willing, believe me, Mr. Darby, to give my opinion for what it is worth, if you really care to hear it. I hesitate only because I should be sorry, very sorry, to disappoint you.’

‘You don’t think much of the collection, then?’ asked Mr. Darby with an involuntary quaver in his voice.

‘I fear,’ said Mr. Roden, ‘—and you will realize, Mr. Darby, that I am compelled to speak the truth, however disappointing—I fear that none of the pictures is genuine. Indeed two—the Reynolds No. 17 and the Gainsborough No. 39—are Medici prints, as you may discover easily for yourself if you take them from their frames. Please forgive me,’ he added, seeing the sudden distressing collapse of Mr. Darby’s features.’ Good-morning, Mr. Darby, and thank you.’

‘Then … then …’ He had meant to say: ‘Then the National Gallery refuses my gift,’ but the words stuck in his throat. He turned his head and his spectacles suddenly glittered in the light from the windows. He mastered his voice sufficiently to gulp a ‘Good-morning,’ then, under pretext of ringing for Princep, he averted his face, and Mr. Roden went out, closing the smoking-room door behind him.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

For an hour Mr. Darby did not stir from the armchair into which he had dropped as Mr. Roden closed the door behind him. It was as if a desolating explosion had suddenly wrecked all the wonderful many-domed edifices of the mind which it had been his delight during the last months to construct and adorn. His imagination found itself suddenly homeless. Into whatever quarter of his mind he retired for comfort and shelter he found only wreckage. An impulse urged him to hurry to the Gallery and, safe now from hostile intrusion, comfort himself and his beloved pictures for the cruel aspersions that had been flung at them. But before he could rise from his chair the impulse had died. He was too miserable, too tired, to move. The thought that all those enthralling expeditions to strange places, all those miraculous and thrilling discoveries, the framing, labelling, hanging and cataloguing of each new prize, all his great scheme for the glorification of British Art were hope and labour and enthusiasm thrown away had reduced him to a state of mental and bodily feebleness that could not face the effort of rising from his chair. But after a while he raised his head. Strength was returning to him: the stimulating tonic of indignation was coming to his rescue. Yes, he was beginning to see the truth of what had happened. He might have known, all along, that the thing was inevitable. He had received a premonition of it when Sir Wilfred Montgomery had written that he would send ‘a representative’ instead of coming himself to view the Collection. Yes, it was all obvious enough now. The ‘representative,’ of course, had received his instructions before starting for Bedford Square: his decision was made before ever he cast a first glance at the first picture. Mr. Darby blamed himself now for the childish simplicity of his behaviour. It was clear enough now that instead of entering the fray single-handed he ought to have enlisted the support of powerful allies. He had failed to take into account the powers of sloth, corruption and evil tradition which he had set out to break. He had thought, in his innocence, that he would at least receive fair play from his opponents, that, though no doubt they would fight tooth and nail against his revolutionary project of ousting the foreigner from the National Gallery, they would at least be honest about the Darby Collection, would acclaim it for what it was, and would move Heaven and earth to get him to modify the conditions of his gift. But no. The threat to themselves and their hide-bound tradition had been too much even for their honesty, and they had stooped to a base subterfuge: to preserve the status quo they had been willing to deprive the nation of the Darby Collection. Mr. Roden had urged him to take another opinion, but whose opinion was he to take? If he called in some other expert, how was he to know that he too was not in the pay of the National Gallery authorities, or if not that, anyhow a member of some unscrupulous ring who would declare that the pictures were not genuine so as to discredit them and persuade him perhaps to part with them at ridiculous prices? Why, after all, should he permit strangers to intrude into his home merely for the purpose of shaking his faith in his pictures and himself? No, he would have nothing more to do with experts.

This uprush of righteous indignation, reinforced by the arrival of lunch, did much to rouse Mr. Darby from his prostration, and by the time he had finished his lunch he had completely reinstated the Darby Collection and their collector in his esteem. He could bear now to face the pictures again, and when he left the dining-room, before going to the smoking-room for his coffee and after-luncheon cigar, he proceeded down the corridor to the gallery.

The first glance was enough to reassure him. It was mere criminal absurdity to say that the pictures were not genuine: you only had to look at them. To any true lover of art whose mind was not obscured by prejudice and pedantry, their genuineness was self-evident. If he had not imposed those revolutionary conditions upon his offer, no doubt Mr. Roden would have sung a very different tune. Well, if it had not been for the wrecking of his cherished scheme, he would not have cared two straws about Mr. Roden’s views. As for allowing them to influence his own feelings, Mr. Darby snorted and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. After he had paced the gallery three or four times he felt the old glow warming his heart once more. The blighting influence of Mr. Roden was exorcized: the pictures blossomed again with all their old enchantment.

One trifling occurrence, however, may or may not have been the result of Mr. Roden’s visit. In his leisurely course round the gallery Mr. Darby paused before No. 17 by Reynolds and No. 39 by Gainsborough and submitted them to a somewhat severe scrutiny, and when, a few minutes later, Princep brought his cup of coffee to the smoking-room, Mr. Darby ordered him to remove these two pictures from the gallery and place them in the box-room. From which it is evident that, for one reason or another, they had ceased to appeal to him.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

It must not for a moment be presumed, because Mr. Darby’s strong-minded stoicism had enabled him to ignore the attempts of a corrupt and prejudiced official to belittle his art treasures, that his spirits remained unaffected by the material result of Mr. Roden’s visit. Next morning’s post brought him official intimation that the National Gallery refused his gift, and with this documentary evidence of the wreck of his high-minded scheme before him on the breakfast-table, he tasted the full bitterness of injustice and ingratitude. He had never supposed that such things could happen in England. In foreign countries malice, corruption and repression were only to be expected, but he had believed in his innocence that England was the home of honesty and freedom. His disillusionment was terrible: he felt that all the zest had gone out of his life. He no longer took any pleasure in London and its sights. Trafalgar Square, which he had been accustomed to regard as the very hub of the Empire, seemed to him now nothing better than a plague spot. He could no longer bring himself to cross it, and was frequently obliged to make troublesome detours in order to avoid doing so. The one thing, besides his beloved pictures, that kept him from despair was indignation. Indignation supplied a fuel that zest could no longer afford, and soon the old resourceful Darby had warmed to action again. Sir Wilfred Montgomery and Mr. Roden, he now reminded himself, were not omnipotent: the last word was not, after all, theirs. They were no more than the servants of the Trustees, and no doubt they had been careful to conceal his offer from them. Very well! He would write to the Board of Trustees direct. He wrote forthwith a letter telling them in dignified terms what had occurred.

Alas! He might as well have spared himself the trouble. A polite note, thanking him for his generous intentions, made it clear that the Trustees placed every confidence in the Director and his staff. Mr. Darby refused to believe that they too were corrupt. No! The truth must be that they were hoodwinked by the creatures whom they had put in power. Well, so much for the authorities. There remained the public, the great British Nation itself. It was for the Nation, not for Sir Wilfred Montgomery and Mr. Roden, that his gift had been intended, and if the Nation could be informed of what had happened, things would undoubtedly take a very different turn. Well, he would inform the Nation, through the … ah … medium of the Press.

Accordingly Mr. Darby got to work at his desk once more, and soon he had composed a dignified letter to the Trustees of the National Gallery, and another, more strongly worded, to the British Nation. Not that Mr. Darby addressed this second letter to the Nation direct: he was fully aware that such communications were addressed to the Editor of the paper in which they appeared. He made a point of studying the letters in the daily papers, and, having thus acquired the proper tone, he began as follows:

‘Sir, May I beg the hospitality of your columns for the purpose of ventilating a crying need for reform in one of our public institutions. We have long been accustomed, and justly, to boast that England, and not only England but our whole Empire, had kept her hands clean from the prejudice and corruption which are so unfortunate an element in the lives of foreign nations.’ Mr. Darby then went on to expound the whole story of the Darby Collection, and ‘with apologies for trespassing on your valuable space,’ he begged to remain ‘Yours, etc.: William James Darby.’

Having read over this production with pardonable satisfaction Mr. Darby had a dozen typed copies made and forthwith addressed them to twelve of our principal daily papers. He had hit on rather a good heading for the letter: ‘Art and Corruption.’

When all this had been accomplished he went out and posted the letters in person. Restored by this formal act to something of his old self, he went on his way, alert, important, and with a smouldering fire in his spectacles, down Charing Cross Road, past the Leicester Square Tube Station, Wyndham’s and the Garrick Theatres, and then, crossing the road, broke full into Trafalgar Square, descending the steps and crossing it between the fountains from the northeast to the south-west corner, turning his head repeatedly as he did so, to throw a challenging glance at the portico of the National Gallery. ‘We shall see, my friends!’ he muttered to himself grimly. ‘We shall see!’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

But what was eventually seen revealed to Mr. Darby another festering sore in the public life of our Empire. To those who still cling to a faith in British journalism it will seem unbelievable that not one of the papers to which Mr. Darby had sent his letter, printed it. Day by day he ran through the correspondence columns of all twelve of them: day by day he expectantly searched the letters he himself received, for surely the editors, even if they withheld his communication from the Nation, would write and give some explanation of their behaviour. But no, not a word, public or private! Editors, then, were as apathetic or as corrupt—probably both—as those persons whom Mr. Darby had already approached. They were resolved, as a body, to stand between Mr. Darby and the Nation.

That was the last straw. No man, with all the will and all the energy in the world, can stand up single-handed against an organized obstruction of this persistence and magnitude. Yet even now Mr. Darby did not immediately give in. For an hour he considered a last desperate effort; he considered the possibility of approaching the Nation direct, of taking his stand in Hyde Park, under the Marble Arch and boldly denouncing the scandal to the populace of London. But, after all, what was the good? For in his bitter disillusionment he told himself that the attempt would be bound to fail. One of two things would be the only possible outcome. If the populace responded, the police would at once intervene, organized opposition would again wreck his schemes. But very likely the populace itself would save the police the trouble; very likely he would find in the populace too—in the Nation itself—that deadly apathy which he had found elsewhere. In either case, then, failure was certain. No! He would spare himself this final defeat. To court certain disaster was not bravery, but folly. After an hour’s thought he decided definitely against the Marble Arch. ‘Too close to Tyburn Gallows,’ he reminded himself grimly.

For days the poor little man sat at home utterly crestfallen. All his alertness was gone: the light had faded out of his spectacles and out of his soul. London was hateful to him now. What was the good of being a millionaire if you were debarred from taking your part in the life of the Nation? What was the good of being alone and friendless in this large house of which he occupied only a room or two? In his loneliness and melancholy his mind turned to Newchester. After all, the old life there had been very pleasant; the comforts of home, the busy hours in the office with Mr. Marston and McNab and Pellow that left no time for moody reflection, the jolly evenings with the Stedmans, the Cribbs and his other friends, and those delightful visits to the Quayside and The Schooner. Should he, after all, pack up, abandon all those fantastic dreams of his, and go home? But home would be different now with Sarah running about all over the place inspecting hospitals. How unlike Sarah it had been to break out like that. He was very far from approving of that sort of thing for women. Woman’s place, to Mr. Darby’s thinking, was in the home, not rushing about making speeches like a man. Besides, whether Sarah was there or not, what could he do all day long at home? He could not go round visiting his friends: they all had work to do which kept them busy till the evening: they would not and could not be bothered with him. No! Turn where he would, he saw that he was unwanted.

It was not till Mr. Darby had plumbed this depth of despair that the small bright star of his old desire rose upon his darkness. The Jungle! In the cares and distractions of London, the Empire, and picture-collecting he had totally forgotten the Jungle; and now it blossomed suddenly in his imagination with all, and more than all, its old mysterious richness. More than all, for now it was not only a wonderland of strange and beautiful forms, of scarlet orchids and green parrots; it presented itself to him also as a refuge and a revenge. Yes, a revenge. England had refused his labour of love: very well, he would shake the dust of England off his feet. And dreaming of the Jungle and foreign lands, his mind turned to Australia. His Australian solicitors had told him, in the letter in which they announced his fortune, that it would be advisable for him to visit Australia before long and consider the possibility of selling some of his estates there.

In the dark emptiness of his mind the Jungle and Australia began to stir and germinate like two seeds. Gradually they sprouted, put forth leaves and tendrils which branched, embraced, wove themselves together into a secret and enchanting bower. He raised his head and shook off his despair: a glimmer of light came back into his spectacles. What had he been thinking of all this time to make him forget his old dream of travel and adventure just when it had become possible for him to realize it? What curious madness had come over him to set him trifling away his time among Lords and Ladies and picture galleries and antique shops? Weeks and weeks had slipped by and his exodus from Moseley Terrace, Savershill, had progressed no further than Bedford Square, London, a matter of less than three hundred miles.

Another day of thoughtful incubation, and Mr. Darby was, to all appearances, his old self again. Once more he was to be seen emerging from his front-door faultlessly dressed, gloved and hatted, pausing for a moment before descending the steps to cast an alert and challenging glance at the world (or as much of it as was visible in Bedford Square), and then setting off with a brisk step and every appearance of important purpose into the great maze of the Metropolis. Yes, outwardly it was the old Darby, but inwardly all was changed. In that black disillusionment through which he had recently passed the old Darby had perished utterly: the being who now walked the world behind the familiar mask was a very different person. The old bland innocence was gone, never to return. The old vigour was there again undiminished, the old alertness of mind and eye, but behind them was a man of the world, of a metal braced in the waters of disillusionment to a temper which, though harder, more durable, more sceptical, more cynical than the old, had not sacrificed anything of its elasticity and humanity. Indeed the new Darby was actually richer in these qualities, for his new insight into human frailty enabled him to tolerate, condone, forgive. Not that he had yet forgiven England: certainly not. When he passed Trafalgar Square, Scotland Yard, the Home Office or the Houses of Parliament, those homes of repression and crass prejudice, his blood still boiled. To forgive so soon would have been mere weakness, bad both for England and for Mr. Darby himself. But he looked upon England now not as a criminal, but as a child. England would grow up. Some day, fifty years hence perhaps, she would insist upon those very reforms which Mr. Darby, a man born before his time, had vainly wrestled for so long ago. Some day perhaps she would beg upon her knees for that gift which in the ignorance and prejudice of her immaturity she had so lightly refused. Well, she would be lucky if she got it: she would be lucky if she was not too late. By that time the Darby Collection might be the chief glory of Sydney, Australia.

Chapter XXII

Enter Punnett

It must not be supposed that these expeditions of Mr. Darby’s—the new Mr. Darby’s—from Bedford Square into the Metropolis were important only in manner and appearance. He was really very busy. When he returned to Bedford Square he almost always brought with him a parcel containing one or more books, and in his pocket the booklet of some steamship company. His desk and the large table in the smoking-room were soon littered with these and with maps of every scale and colour. Mr. Darby was making a thorough investigation not only of ways and means of getting to Australia, but also of the tropical lands and islands contiguous with the various itineraries. It was while studying the course sailed by the Scarlet Funnel Line that he made the acquaintance of the Mandratic Peninsula. It is common knowledge that the Scarlet Funnel Line, for reasons of its own, takes a very peculiar course to Australia. On leaving Singapore it steers north-north-east up the China Sea, turns east between Formosa and the Philippine Islands, follows the southern coast line of the great island of Eutyca for fifteen hundred miles and then swinging south descends upon Australia through the Bismarck Archipelago. The very name of the Mandratic Peninsula fascinated Mr. Darby at once, and all, or almost all, that he subsequently discovered from the few books that dealt with the place only increased the fascination. The Mandratic Peninsula, in fact, seemed to be the very counterpart of Mr. Darby’s lifelong and persistent dreams. This is not the place in which to describe the exact geographical position of that country. The curious may be referred to the school-room atlas. A part of the island of Eutyca, it has roughly the shape of a gum-boot or galosh and it is divided into two almost equal halves. Mandras, the ankle and foot, from which the peninsula takes its name, is the country of the Mandrats, a bronze-coloured tribe of singularly fine physique: in Tongal, the calf, live the Tongali, a people blacker in colour and of thicker and shorter build. A belt of arid red sand, five miles wide, as though a red ribbon had been tied round the boot above the ankle, forms a natural division between the two countries. On clear days—and the days are generally clear—the seas on either side of the peninsula can be easily seen from Umfo (a name said to be derived from the Mandratic word umfod meaning ankle-bone), a mountain of seven thousand feet and the highest point in the peninsula.

So Mr. Darby learned from J. N. Mackintosh’s well-known work Through Mandratia on a Bicycle. That intrepid explorer, it will be remembered, was the first white man to enter the peninsula. His mode of travel, the old-fashioned high bicycle, though otherwise a great hindrance to him (for the bicycle is ill-adapted to the jungle), was the instrument of saving his life, for the natives who in those days (1886–7) practised cannibalism, took him to be Oushtoub, the Mandratic Wheel-god, and treated him with great discretion. He finally reached the extreme point of the peninsula with nothing left of his mount but the handle-bars and was picked up by a trading vessel to which he had waved a red pocket-handkerchief.

The reference to cannibalism in Mackintosh’s book was the first check to Mr. Darby’s enthusiasm. But in a later publication, Obermann’s great work Eutyca, its Inhabitants, Flora and Fauna he read with relief, in the pages devoted to Mandratia, that ‘cannibalism, once rampant in the peninsula, has in recent times fallen into almost complete desuetude.’ Another passage was equally reassuring: ‘For a tropical country it is singularly free from the more formidable kinds of fauna. The lion, the tiger, the elephant are alike unknown. A species of black panther peculiar to the country is the only animal dangerous to man. The snakes, except for the immense and lethal Ompà which is found only in the sandy desert that divides Mandras from Tongal, are one and all innocuous. The giant Iggarù, so unpleasant to the touch and sight, is quite harmless; while mosquitoes, the troublesome pium fly and the fire-ant are the only insect pests.’

Mr. Darby marked all the most important and instructive passages in these two works so as to return to them and ponder them at greater leisure. On a re-reading of Ober-mann’s reference to cannibalism, the word almost—‘almost complete desuetude’—struck him unpleasantly. The other sinister aspects of the country—the black panthers, the ompàs, the Iggarùs, the mosquitoes, pium flies and fire-ants were no more than a seasoning of adventure; but the incomplete desuetude of cannibalism was, Mr. Darby felt, a grave blot on a beautiful and romantic country. This would require consideration. Bravery was one thing, rashness another. It would be mere unpardonable rashness, after being warned by Mackintosh and Obermann, to rush into the jaws, so to speak, of a savage tribe.

But all this could be thought out at leisure, for Mr. Darby’s plans had now matured into this, that he would collect all possible information about the peninsula and how to get there, but would come to no final decision before he reached Australia; for he was determined to settle his affairs in Australia first and to look in on the Jungle on the way back. Ships of the Scarlet Funnel Line actually passed within sight of the Mandratic Peninsula. No doubt it would be possible with the help of a telescope to get a glimpse of it on the way out, and then, when the business in Australia was settled, to get together his equipment, enrol a few assistants, and set off for Mandratia. The difficulty would be to get there, for he had learned, after exhaustive enquiry, that except for a trading vessel from Australia that called once a year at the extreme southerly point of the peninsula to barter the products of civilization for the rubies and opals mined by the natives, no ship ever touched there. Mr. Darby might have to charter a vessel of his own and sail from Australia, or perhaps use British New Guinea or Formosa as his point of departure. All that could be investigated and settled in Australia.

The question now was when to start. ‘At once!’ shouted the new Darby. ‘The sooner the better! ‘But there were two things to be done before he could start. He must get a manservant, a man as like Princep as possible, to accompany him. He could not dispense with a manservant nowadays. And he must go north for a week and say goodbye. As regards the manservant he would consult Princep. Princep, so helpful in everything, would probably help him in this too. He spoke to Princep during lunch.

‘Princep,’ he said as he helped himself to the potatoes which Princep was handing to him, ‘I am tired of London.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes, thoroughly. One finds no … ah … scope in London, nor in England for that matter.’ Mr. Darby shook his head sadly at his plate. ‘I am going to cut loose, Princep,’ he went on. ‘I am going to Australia, and after that I shall do some exploring in the Tropics.’

‘The Tropics, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby with ruthless determination, ‘the Tropics, Princep. The Jungle, you know! And what I want to ask you is, if you can tell me of a man, a butler, a valet, who would go with me. A man accustomed to travel—a man, in other respects, as like yourself as possible.’

‘Thank you, sir, for the kind tribute. Well, sir! ‘Princep reflected for a moment. ‘I can’t say as I know for certain of a likely man free at the moment; but I could write to one or two acquaintances, sir, and see how they’re situated at present.’

‘Do, Princep.’

‘I know a man of the name of Childers, sir, a very good man, though I don’t know that he’s travelled. And there’s one of the name of Punnett. Now he would be the very one to suit you, sir. He’s been in all sorts of queer places. Speaks one or two unusual languages, I believe, sir. I’ll write to them both, and see if they’re at liberty.’

‘Thank you, Princep. I shall be most grateful.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby decided not to go north till he had fixed on a good man, but he wrote to Sarah to tell her of his impending visit. Of course he said nothing of the tragedy—yes, tragedy is the word for it—that was driving him to the other end of the world, for Sarah would certainly not take it seriously. She had laughed at his enthusiasm for pictures; and as for his feelings about the Nation, well, she simply wouldn’t understand them. She had not the vision or the breadth of mind ever to feel herself personally involved with the Nation. He had told her simply that he was going to Australia on business, as the solicitors had originally advised.

Mr. Darby had not been wrong when he trusted to Princep’s assistance. The very day after he had applied to Princep, Princep had important news for him. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning and Mr. Darby, a glass of port and a biscuit, as yet untouched, at his elbow (for when a man is working hard he must do what he can to keep up his strength), was poring over a map of Eutyca, when Princep entered and approached the desk.

‘Excuse me, sir: but about the manservant. I have just been rung up by Punnett, one of the men I mentioned, the one who had done a lot of travelling. As it happens, he’s at liberty at present. He could call here to be interviewed any time you like, sir. If you’ll tell me what time to say, I’ll ring him up.’

‘My dear Princep,’ said Mr. Darby in great excitement, ‘I felt sure you would be able to help me. But tell him to come at once. Tell him to take a taxi. How long will he take?’

‘A matter of three-quarters of an hour, sir, I should say. I’ll ring him up now.’

Princep went out and Mr. Darby returned to the rivers and mountain-ranges of Eutyca, and so completely did he lose himself in that fascinating continent that it seemed that no more than a brief five minutes had passed when Princep returned thirty-five minutes later to announce Albert Punnett.

Albert Punnett was a tall, thin, pale, clean-shaven, sad-faced man, with an expression of slightly humorous apology. Mr. Darby greeted him and invited him with condescension to sit down.

‘You can give me references, of course? ‘he asked, looking gravely at Punnett over his spectacles.

‘Yes, sir. I have brought some with me.’

Mr. Darby made a sign that he would look at them later. ‘May I ask,’ he said, ‘why you left your last place?’

‘My master died, sir. I had been in his service for fifteen years.’

‘Indeed? Princep tells me you are accustomed to travelling. Was that with your late master?’

‘It was, sir.’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘it is to … ah … accompany me on certain travels that I require a personal servant. I am starting almost at once for Australia. There would of course be no particular difficulties about that,—from your point of view, I mean.’

Punnett smiled sadly. ‘None at all, sir.’

‘Just so: none at all! It is after I have settled my business in Australia that I … ah … contemplate travels of what I may call a less usual … ah … nature. I propose, in fact, by hook or by crook——’ Mr. Darby spoke in measured tones and fixed upon Punnett a gaze of extreme seriousness—‘it may involve the … ah … chartering of a special vessel—to explore a region known as the … ah … Mandratic Peninsula.’

On pronouncing those last two words Mr. Darby threw back his head and covered Punnett with a challenging regard.

But Punnett, to Mr. Darby’s disappointment, did not blench. ‘Yes, sir, he said with an apologetic, sadly humorous smile, ‘I know it well, sir.’

‘Know it well? Know what well?’ Mr. Darby snapped.

‘The peninsula you mentioned, sir.’

‘You know the M … m … the Man …?’ Mr. Darby bounced from his chair with excitement.

‘Yes, sir, the Mandratic Peninsula, sir. Almost too well, I may say, sir. I spent five years there from nineteen eight to nineteen thirteen.’

With unobtrusive politeness Punnett had risen to his feet also. For a moment it looked as if they were starting for the Peninsula at once.

‘B … b … but,’ Mr. Darby babbled, ‘b … but, my … my dear … P … p … p …!’

‘I was with Professor Harrington at the time, sir, my late master, the well-known anthropologist,’ Punnett sadly explained.

Mr. Darby dropped into his chair again, breathless. ‘But this is absolutely … ah … providentious,’ he said when he had to some extent recovered. He sat up. ‘But you say that you know the peninsula too well. You didn’t like it, Punnett?’

Punnett smiled sadly. ‘Well, it’s rough, sir. Not what you might call really comfortable.’

‘Not comfortable? You found the natives troublesome perhaps?’

‘Oh, the natives! Yes, they were troublesome at first, sir. You never quite knew what they were up to. But the natives weren’t so bad, not later when we had managed to pick up some of their language.’

‘Then you speak the language, Punnett?’

‘I get along, sir,’ said Punnett, smiling modestly.

‘But what a godsend!’ murmured Mr. Darby to himself. ‘What a godsend! But why did you stay so long, Punnett? Five years, I think you said.’

‘Professor Harrington was studying their customs, sir. Very peculiar customs they have. We took a camera. I did the photographing for Professor Harrington. It was the camera at first that kept them in order, sir. They were frightened of it. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the camera, sir …!’

‘What, Punnett? If it hadn’t been for the camera, what?’

‘I hardly know what, sir. But it certainly made them keep their distance, sir.’

‘It might be as well for us to take a camera, Punnett.’

‘It certainly would, sir.’

‘And as to … ah … cannibalism, Punnett, do they still … ah … indulge?’

‘Now and then, sir. On special occasions.’

Mr. Darby shuddered. ‘I must confess,’ he said, ‘that I don’t like that.’

Punnett smiled sadly. ‘It isn’t pleasant, sir.’

‘But the … ah … fauna, Punnett,—the creatures are, I understand, not very formidable.’

‘The insects are a great trouble, sir, but the other creatures are mostly harmless. Not that I could ever get used to the Iggarùs, personally.’

‘Ah! The serpents. They’re … objectionable?’

‘They’re very large, sir, and they have a cold rough skin. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a cow’s tongue, sir? Well, it’s like that, only rougher. And they have a way I didn’t like of getting into bed with you. I don’t mind saying, sir, the Iggarùs fairly gave me the horrors.’

‘But the country is beautiful, I hear,’ said Mr. Darby, leaving the Iggarù on one side for the moment.

‘Oh, very beautiful, sir, for those that like scenery. The vegetation and flowers are something wonderful, sir. I’ve seen nothing to touch them outside Kew. And the birds and butterflies,—a regular sight, sir.’

As for ways and means, Punnett could not offer much help. He and Professor Harrington had entered Mandratia from the interior and left it by the same route, a four months’ journey either way. This was all very well for a scientist who was doing it in the ordinary course of his profession, but it would be unnecessary and, indeed, somewhat excessive, Mr. Darby felt, for an explorer who was exploring for the mere pleasure of it. His object was to get there as quickly and as easily as possible; that is, if he finally decided on the trip.

Princep interrupted their conversation, saying that luncheon was ready unless Mr. Darby wished it postponed.

‘Lunch? Why, bless my soul, how time flies,’ said Mr. Darby, springing to his feet. ‘I had no idea …! See that Punnett has lunch, won’t you Princep.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Of course Mr. Darby engaged Punnett at once. With his miraculous qualifications such things as references became insignificant. The one cause of delay was now obviated. Mr. Darby spent a busy afternoon. He went at once to the house-agents and arranged about giving up the house in Bedford Square; thence to Hampton’s to settle about the careful storing of the Darby Collection; thence to the offices of the Scarlet Funnel Steamship Company where he booked passages to Sydney for himself and Punnett on the sixteen-thousand ton mail steamer Utopia (a name, he realized at once, of the luckiest omen) which sailed from Tilbury ten days later. Leaving the Shipping Office he proceeded to Messrs. Negretti and Zambra’s, the famous opticians, and asked to be shown some telescopes. A telescope, he had realized, would be of material assistance in making a passing survey of the Mandratic Peninsula on the voyage out. His object now was to select the very largest telescope that he could hold without the help of a tripod. To set up a tripod on deck would, he felt, draw too much attention to his investigations. A formidable instrument took his fancy, but his attempt to handle it at full extension was only prevented from being a disaster by the agility of the salesman. He ordered the next size smaller to be sent to Bedford Square, and drove to the nearest post office. There he wired to Sarah. ‘Arriving to-morrow evening six fifty-three for a week.’

Chapter XXIII

London’s Punishment

Mr. Darby, standing at the window of his railway carriage as he glided out of King’s Cross Station, made a reserved gesture of farewell. No one was seeing him off, nor was the gesture directed to anyone on the platform. It was directed to London itself, to the entire Metropolis. London had behaved badly, it was in disgrace, and Mr. Darby was punishing it by leaving it. But this departure was but a foretaste, in little, of that other departure which would take place a week hence, when the Nation would suffer the punishment already meted out to the Metropolis; for on that date Mr. Darby would indignantly leave the shores of England.

Having waved farewell to a shamefaced London Mr. Darby at once proceeded to the luncheon car, and it was not until he had had a large lunch, including two Basses and a glass of port, that he returned to his first-class smoking carriage to enjoy a cigar. While engaged in this comfortable occupation he fell, as men do in such circumstances, into deep and earnest reflection. The theme of his meditations was crime and punishment. How far was the Metropolis to blame because the Trustees and Director of the National Gallery and the Editors of twelve daily papers had sinned? Put it in an extreme form. How far was the amiable and obsequious young cockney waiter, who had handed him his vegetables just now in the luncheon car, responsible for the fact that the Darby Collection had been thrown back on Mr. Darby’s hands? Obviously not at all. If Mr. Darby had accused him of it, he would certainly have replied that he had never heard either of Mr. Darby or his Collection. But things are not really quite as simple as that. Take the case of the owner of a dog which, unknown to its owner, kills chickens on a neighbouring farm. A series of intricate mental evolutions landed Mr. Darby at last at the surprising conclusion that the amiable and obsequious young waiter was responsible. Yes, logic had unveiled him: that innocent young man was undeniably responsible. Why then did not Mr. Darby instantly arraign him? Simply because all the other citizens of London were equally responsible. And, since the National Gallery was a national and not merely a civic possession, all the inhabitants of England were responsible into the bargain: ignorant, innocent, yet none the less responsible. It was all very curious, very complicated, but it showed that Mr. Darby had been right in punishing London and in his intention of punishing England. And it showed that he was not really illogical in feeling angry with London while feeling perfectly friendly towards the waiter. It explained also how it was possible for Mr. Darby to feel, as he was feeling at this dreamy after-luncheon moment, a deep affection for Newchester-on-Dole, even though Newchester-on-Dole was undeniably a part of England. Yes, it was all very interesting, and very complic … complec … complac …

Mr. Darby’s chin dropped suddenly on to his pearl tie-pin and the cigar dropped from between his fingers and rolled under the opposite seat.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The rest of the journey was passed in half-hour naps alternating with half-hour readings of the papers and magazines he had bought to beguile the time. As he neared his journey’s end, Mr. Darby rolled these up, put them in his bag, and turned his attention to the bare, expressionless, coal-blackened country that wheeled dismally outside the windows. How small and mean it looked. It seemed to Mr. Darby that he viewed it now through the wrong end of a telescope. It was as if travel had altered his scale of vision. The train swung to the left shuddering over the points and, flinging walls and buildings and the solid earth behind it, swam out into precipitous space on the Redvale Bridge. Far beneath in the narrow valley of the Dole, Newchester and Portshead, suddenly displayed, climbed opposing banks, regarding each other out of a thousand smoke-grimed windows across the ribbon of moving water. Joining them, as if ruled-in, horizontally and vertically, in the thick straight strokes of a charcoal pencil, the old High Level Bridge barred the scene. Mr. Darby gazed down on it all with rapt intentness. Even this familiar scene had shrunk, become as it were a small-scale model of its former self; and yet how fascinating, how heart-stirring it was. There were the swirling gulls, the swirling smoke, the shipping, the cold quicksilver glint of the river. It seemed to Mr. Darby that he was returning, after long years of absence, to something that was a very part of himself, bone of his bone, blood of his blood. He felt like a numbed limb into which the blood is streaming back. Yes, as he sat looking down into that squalid cleft of the earth, Mr. Darby, with all his high ideas and soaring ambitions, ached with love for the place. The train swung to the right, shuddered with loud mechanical terror, and then, reassured, swam blandly into the straight and was swallowed by the huge open mouth of the Central Station.

As he stepped from the train, Newchester-on-Dole rushed upon him with a most flattering welcome. There was no sign of the Lord Mayor, the Chief Constable, or the Station Master, nor was there so much as a press photographer to be seen. Newchester was represented solely by Sarah, but Sarah carried out her duty magnificently. Her large, handsome presence and the warmth of her greeting were as good as a deputation. The Central Station centred in her, and as she conveyed Mr. Darby through it on their way to the portico, she surveyed the place with bland authority. It seemed certain that if an official were to fail in his duties he would instantly be removed by a wave of her umbrella, that if a train arrived or departed late by so much as a minute it would at a sign from her be struck forthwith from the timetable. Under the severe Tuscan portico Sarah’s Daimler awaited them. Mr. Darby following Sarah into it sank with satisfaction into the deep cushions. ‘Ve … ery nice! Very nice and suitable indeed! ‘he said to himself, referring not only to the smart, luxurious car but to the unostentatious smartness of Sarah herself. Yes, Sarah was a marvel. Despite her lack of ambition and imagination, her hatred of change, her intolerance of what he would style ‘the dignity due to their position’ and what she, very improperly, had called ‘humbug’ and ‘play-acting,’ she always rose to the occasion none the less. Now, for instance, nothing could have been … well, in better style than Mr. Darby’s arrival and welcome. In a moment they were gliding noiselessly up Ranger Street.

‘Now don’t tell me you’re not pleased to be back in the old place, Jim,’ said Sarah.

For a moment Mr. Darby did not reply. The smoke-blackened face of St. John’s Church had just slipped by on the right, and by turning his head quickly to the left he had been just in time to dip into the dark doorway of Number Thirty Seven, that doorway in which, a hundred years ago, he had so often paused, after descending the long, hollow-sounding stairs, to survey the world and toy with the idea of a plunge. At that brief glance, powerful but indefinable feelings seized him by the throat, feelings of joy and melancholy, regret and thankfulness, inextricably blended. He swallowed them with an audible gulp. ‘Yes, Sarah, yes! Very pleased indeed!’ he said.

The familiar shops, which in old days had made his walk between Number Seven Moseley Terrace and Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street such an unfailingly charming experience, flitted past now almost before he could salute them. The car swung to the right into Brackett Street; Edgington’s, the wine merchant’s, flashed past, and next moment they swung to the left into Newfoundland Street. ‘Shall have to look in at Edgington’s,’ thought Mr. Darby, and by the time he had thought it Edgington’s and Cook’s office, where he had so often faced the challenging gaze of the Sphinx, were far behind them. The quiet powerful car reduced Mr. Darby’s long daily walk to mere insignificance. It swallowed the ascent of Tarras Bridge in a single gulp, the interminable length of Savershill Road was telescoped into a matter of a few yards. As they crossed the railway bridge above Savershill Station and left-wheeled into Osbert Road a steam train, which had somehow got wind of Mr. Darby’s return, burst joyously under the arch and sent up a huge unfolding bloom of golden smoke into the evening sunlight. Mr. Darby smiled—he could afford to smile now—at the hopes and disappointments which, in the old days, had hung upon the precarious whims of steam trains. But what had become of Osbert Road, the Wesleyan Chapel, the Baptist Chapel, George Stedman’s shop? The car had dismissed them before he could so much as turn his head, and soon, incredibly soon, it pulled up and the chauffeur opened the door. They had arrived at Number Seven Moseley Terrace. Mr. Darby could not believe it. The mere swiftness and silentness of the journey had dazed him. As if through a dream he heard the chauffeur’s voice: ‘Any orders for to-morrow, Madam?’ and Sarah’s reply: ‘I’ll ring you up in the morning, Bexley. Good-night.’

Nor did the dream cease outside the front-door. It was strange to be let into one’s own home by someone else, even though the someone else was Sarah. It was her latchkey that opened the door, and she pushed the door open and shepherded him in first, as though he had been a child. He noted at once that the old familiar oilcloth had vanished: a dark-red hair-carpet covered the hall and the stairs, giving a warmth and richness to what had formerly been coldly Spartan. The floor boards had been stained and varnished.

‘You’ll notice a few changes, Jim,’ said Sarah: ‘for instance, I’ve had to turn the parlour into my work-room.’

She threw open the parlour door and Mr. Darby, hat in hand like a visitor, entered. The old spindle-shanked furniture, the antimacassars, the coloured glass vases, all the old gimcrackery had gone. At first he thought that the harmonium had gone too. But no: thank goodness, there it was, though so changed as to be at first unrecognizable, for not a photograph, not a mat, remained on it. Its nakedness was almost indecent. In the corner, where the chiffonier had been, stood a large roll-top desk: two easy chairs upholstered in dark green leather stood on either side of the fireplace. There were curtains of a lighter green and a green Axminster rug on the floor; and, even more wonderful than all these things, a telephone stood on top of the desk.

Mr. Darby surveyed the room in silence. A pang shot through him. To find the parlour, the old social centre of his home, thus abolished and, in its place, the visible sign of Sarah’s vigorous independence, brought home to him suddenly the reality of the change he had feared. For a moment he stood paralysed. Then, in a voice which in spite of himself betrayed his emotion, he remarked: ‘Well, I must say, you’ve made a clean sweep, Sarah.’

‘Do you mind, Jim?’ Sarah asked. ‘It had to be done. I found it hopeless, after a time, to do my work on the dining-room table.’

Already he had recovered himself: for, once the first shock was over, it became apparent to him that the new room was much more in keeping with their present status than the crowded, old-fashioned parlour.

‘Mind?’ he said. ‘Not at all. Quite the contrary! Quite the contrary!’

‘We can still use it as a sitting-room, you see,’ Sarah explained, ‘when we have friends in.’

‘Of course! Of course! ‘said Mr. Darby, and then inconsequently he added: ‘I suppose you’re very busy nowadays, Sarah,—out most of the day, eh?’

‘Yes, I’m busy, Jim,’ she replied, ‘but I shall be able to manage a day or two off while you’re here. But to-morrow I have to be out all day: your telegram came too late for me to alter that. Still, you’ll be busy to-morrow, won’t you?’

‘Yes, yes!’ said Mr. Darby, becoming important. ‘I have to see my Solicitors and have a talk with the … ah … Bank Manager, and so on.’

Having reinstated the little man’s self-esteem Sarah brought back his attention to the room. She was proud of the room and her work and wanted him to share her pride. ‘That desk, Jim’—she went to it and swung the top open—‘is a godsend. I have such a terrible lot of letters and forms and papers to attend to nowadays. Look at them all.’

The desk was covered with neat piles of papers and pamphlets: the pigeon-holes were full of letters, notebooks. An open map lay on the left of the writing pad.

‘I’m on the committee of the Northern Division now,’ she said; ‘so what with that and the inspecting, I’m kept pretty busy.’ She laughed contentedly. ‘You see what you’ve driven me to, Jim.’

Mr. Darby did not reply. The accusation was obviously absurd. What had he to do with this craze of Sarah’s? Still, so long as it kept her happy! And, anyhow, it couldn’t be helped. As for his own work and its lamentable failure, Sarah would never know anything about that. There was no good telling her: she wouldn’t understand. But if things had turned out differently, if matters had gone as he had hoped, if he had not been defeated by prejudice and corruption in high places …! His anger against England flared up again for a moment. He turned, went out into the hall, and hung up his hat and coat.

Supper restored his good humour; and no wonder, for Sarah had again risen supremely to the occasion. She had even got in a bottle of Champagne. Mr. Darby regarded it with shining spectacles. ‘Is it the Clicquot?’ he asked, turning the bottle round to look at the label.

‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s Ayala. You’ll find it better than the Clicquot. Not quite so dry!’

He turned an astonished face to her, but she was occupied in serving him with a beautifully fried sole. A neat maid in cap and apron handed him the Tartare Sauce.

‘Well, I must say, Sarah,’ he remarked as supper drew to a close, ‘that was admirable, quite admirable; better than the Balmoral.’

‘The Balmoral! I should think so indeed,’ replied Sarah; ‘home cooking is always better than the stuff you get in hotels. And, talking of cooking, I asked the Stedmans and the Cribbs to come to supper to-morrow night.’

‘Excellent! ‘said Mr. Darby. ‘Excellent, my dear! And what are you going to give us?’

‘You wait and see,’ said Sarah. ‘That’s my business. But the wine’s your business, remember.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Darby, looking very serious. ‘If I can find time I’ll slip down to Edgington’s in the … ah … course of the morning. Champagne and a really good port, I think! Yes, a few bottles of … ah … Ayala. You’re quite right about the Ayala, Sarah: it’s better than the Clicquot.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Just as a benevolent uncle brings his niece a present from London, so Mr. Darby, seeing next morning in the Daily Chronicle that the Lord Mayor of Newchester had opened a fund for the Newchester hospitals, marked his return to that city by sending a cheque for a thousand pounds; ‘a small donation to a cause I have very much at heart,’ as he styled it in his letter to the Lord Mayor. That accomplished, he set off on foot for town. Yet, despite the mass of important business on his hands, he found time to look in at Stedman’s shop. He found George Stedman serving a customer: another customer was being served by the young assistant. George raised his head at the sound of the shop bell and, seeing that it was Mr. Darby, exclaimed ‘Good morning, Sir James!’ with great seriousness.

Mr. Darby blinked, paused, and then replied loftily: ‘Good morning … ah … Stedman!’

The customers turned their heads, glanced at Mr. Darby, and then pretended that all was as usual. But nothing was really as usual: augustness had filled the place. Mr. Darby himself felt it, so great is the power of even a fictitious title.

When the customers had gone, glancing back at Mr. Darby as they departed, Stedman opened the hatch in the counter. ‘Now, sir!’ he said and beckoned Mr. Darby in. ‘William,’ he called to his assistant, ‘take the shop, please; and give me a call if there’s more than three.’

Mr. Darby went behind the counter and followed George Stedman into the Stedmans’ sitting-room. Stedman crossed the room and opened another door. ‘Jane,’ he bawled, ‘Jim Darby!’ He turned to Mr. Darby and with his hands on his shoulders pressed him into an armchair. ‘Well, Jim,’ he shouted, ‘how’s London?’

Mr. Darby shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, so-so, thank you, George!’

George raised his eyebrows till they vanished into his mop of grey hair. ‘Only so-so? Has some of the gilt come off the gingerbread?’

‘All of it, George. I’ve done with London.’ There was serious displeasure in Mr. Darby’s tone.

‘Done with it? Good!’ Stedman smacked Mr. Darby on the knee. ‘Then you’re coming back to Newchester!’

‘No, George,’ Mr. Darby replied with a melancholy shake of the head. ‘No. I’ve done with London and I’ve done with England. I’m … ah … cutting loose, going to Australia.’

‘What? For good and all? ‘roared Stedman in amazement.

Mr. Darby’s reply was forestalled by the entry of Mrs. Stedman with a tray of wineglasses and a bottle. Mr. Darby rose from his chair, she set down the tray, and they shook hands. ‘Well, Mr. Darby,’ she said, ‘I hope we’ve got you back for good.’

‘Back for good?’ shouted George. ‘Not likely! Not him! He’s going to get as far away from us as he can possibly get; going to Australia, if you please. He’s sick of us and he’s sick of England.’

‘Well I never!’ said Mrs. Stedman. ‘And what’s the matter with England, Mr. Darby?’

Mr. Darby assumed an appearance of dignified pain. ‘England has disappointed me, Mrs. Stedman.’

The Stedmans glanced at each other open-eyed. ‘What next?’ the glance said.

‘It’s a long story,’ said Mr. Darby with a weary sigh, ‘but the long and the short of it is, George and Mrs. Stedman, that I offered the Nation a valuable collection of pictures (paintings by British Old Masters), and my offer has been rejected.’

‘Why? ‘asked George.

‘Why indeed?’ asked Mr. Darby holding out indignant open hands. ‘Ask the Director and Trustees of the National Gallery why. Ask the editors of the principal London papers why. Ask … well, ask the Nation itself why.’

George Stedman, standing with his back to the fire, gazed gravely down on Mr. Darby as a Newfoundland might gaze down at a Yorkshire Terrier. The laborious method, suggested by Mr. Darby, for obtaining an answer to his question seemed to baffle him. ‘But … but I can’t see what that’s got to do with … well, Newchester, for instance,’ he said at last. ‘You didn’t offer the pictures to Newchester.’

‘But I did, George,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I offered them to the National Gallery.’

‘Do you think Newchester knows, Jim?’

‘Probably not,’ said Mr. Darby; ‘but that doesn’t absolve Newchester of… ah … well … of obolquy.’

‘H … m! I see.’ George had become thoughtful. ‘Still, Jim,’ he said, raising his head,’ that’s just a manner of speaking. It doesn’t really mean anything when it comes down to brass tacks. You might as well say the Missus and me are to blame.’

Mr. Darby slowly and discriminatingly nodded his head. ‘You are, George,’ he said, and seeing that George was about to burst out he raised his hand. ‘If not,’ he said, ‘what, I ask you, is democracy?’

George Stedman was not prepared to say what democracy was; not, at least, at eleven o’clock in the morning. He countered the question, therefore, with another. ‘What about a drop of port wine?’

Mr. Darby’s face instantly collapsed from its high seriousness. ‘Well, George,’ he said, beaming all over, ‘just for once in a way, you know.’

The port, as Stedman knew it would, brought everything back to commonsense: like fog before sunshine, ethics, politics, and art vanished from the atmosphere, and after a second glass Mr. Darby issued forth from the Stedmans, and set off down Osbert Road in a state of seraphic contentment. He had made an appointment with Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield, his solicitors, for twelve o’clock, and one with Mr. Lingard, his Bank Manager, for after lunch. As Sarah would be out till half-past five, he had said he would lunch in town. He wouldn’t be surprised, he told himself as he turned into Savershill Road, if he ran down and had a few sandwiches at The Schooner. ‘Funny little old-fashioned houses!’ he thought, as with eyes matured by travel he for the first time in his life considered with detachment the terraces of pale pink-and-white brick houses, slate-roofed, and with squares of iron-railed garden that intermittently edged the long stretch of Savershill Road. In the old days horse-trams had rolled past them with an imperturbable leisure, on their journey between the top of Osbert Road or the Punch Bowl at Savershill, and the Newchester Central Station. The Osbert Road trams were drawn by a pair of horses, but the Punch Bowl tram was a one-horse concern, and Mr. Darby remembered how it seemed very often that horse and tram were independent, for the traces between the two hung slack, the horse danced slowly on by itself, and the tram, as if by some motive power of its own, trundled faithfully after it. It was just at the point he had now reached, where the road wheeled into the slope of Tarras Bridge, that he had, about forty years before, seen for the first time one of the new pneumatic-tyred bicycles. He descended Tarras Bridge. Now he was in Newchester and the houses gave place to shops. ‘All very provincial, of course!’ he said to himself as he entered Newfoundland Street. ‘But a pleasant town none the less,’ he allowed, as he found that the shops still held their old fascination.’ Yes, a … ah … singularly pleasant little town! ‘This sentiment, when it is realized that the population of Newchester-on-Dole is not far short of two hundred and fifty thousand, will give some indication of the largeness of Mr. Darby’s outlook at this time.

He quickened his pace now, sternly ignoring the enticements of the shops, for in matters of business he was always singularly punctual and it was already ten minutes to twelve.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

At half-past twelve he was able to shake off for a while the shackles of business; in other words, his brief interview with Mr. Bradfield, of Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield, was satisfactorily concluded. He paused on their doorstep, sniffed the air like a colt turned out to grass, and then plunged into the town. Rather a nice idea had come to him while listening to the legal advice of Mr. Bradfield a few minutes ago. He would do what he had thought of doing, and somehow refrained from doing, some months ago: he would, before running down to The Schooner for lunch, purchase some small token for Miss Sunningdale. Ormerod & Sparsdale, the most important jeweller’s shop in Newchester, was almost on the way to the Quayside. He would look in there and choose something.

A few minutes later he was hurrying past the back of the town hall. At the other side of the small square the Cathedral tower soaring majestically to the clouds nodded to the returned prodigal. Even in the eyes of the new Darby it was impressive and the new Darby admitted it. ‘A noble monument!’ he said. ‘Incontrovertially a noble monument!’ But the church itself, he now saw, was no match for it. Huddled beneath that towering mass of stone crowned with the stone lantern lifted high on flying buttresses, it showed itself now for what it really was, a parish church; for it was only in recent times that it had been promoted to a cathedral. Mr. Darby compared it with Westminster Abbey, with Peterborough, York and Durham which he had seen from the train as he journeyed between Newchester and London, and wondered at his old acceptance of it. ‘Very provincial!’ he said to himself now. ‘Very provincial indeed!’

Arrived at Ormerod & Sparsdale’s he hovered for a while outside the windows. One was devoted to Georgian silver. ‘Very handsome! Very massive! ‘he said, as he inspected it with approval. He passed over a silver-gilt dinner-set in the next window, ignored a display of gold watches, gold cigarette cases, gold matchboxes, studs, sleeve-links, pencil-cases, and paused at a window full of jewelry. Rather a nice pearl and diamond ring, that! But what a. price! Really, a hundred and fifty guineas for a ring, however rich you were, was pretty steep. Ormerod & Sparsdale’s seemed rather a dangerous shop. Ah! That was better: twenty pounds for quite a nice diamond and ruby ring. And there was another, better still,—three quite decent diamonds, set close together; fifteen guineas! Mr. Darby left the window, glanced up and down the street, and entered the shop. He had never been inside it before and was amazed to find it so large and imposing. It was quite a walk to the nearest counter. ‘I want to see some small diamond brooches,’ he said to the lordly, middle-aged gentleman who attended him. ‘Just a … ah … comparatively inexpensive trifle.’

‘Quite so, sir!’ The middle-aged gentleman turned, drew a totally noiseless drawer out of a cabinet, and placed on the glass counter a velvet-lined tray thickly sprinkled with diamonds, diamonds clustered into the shapes of stars, crescents, wings and flowers. As he pushed it softly towards Mr. Darby the diamonds caught the light and flashed from blue to rose. Mr. Darby pored over them, breathless with wonder. For a moment his attention was arrested by a glittering pair of wings. ‘That one is fifty pounds, sir. But there are others less expensive. This, for instance, is only five guineas. That, that, and that one are each ten guineas.’

After long and ecstatic scrutiny Mr. Darby chose a ten-guinea diamond heart.

It was not until he was briskly descending Cliff Street and felt the watery air, blown up from the Quayside, upon his face that it occurred to him that it might have been better to choose another shape. A heart, after all, ran the risk of being taken too seriously, or, on the other hand, too frivolously, or it might prove to be merely embarrassing. However it was too late now. He would be able, perhaps, to suggest the proper point of view by some timely remark: ‘A small present, Miss Sunningdale, to keep the heart in the right place.’ Mr. Darby smiled blandly and unconsciously at a passer-by. Rather good, that, on the spur of the moment, he thought. But the whole business would require careful handling. He was so occupied with the problem that he had lost consciousness of his surroundings. He turned a corner and was roused by a sudden buffet of wind. The familiar scene burst upon him with the suddenness of a revelation, the towering black skeleton of the High Level Bridge, the smoke-grimed houses of Portshead stepping sharply to the bright restless lead-coloured river, the whirling smoke, the whirling gulls, the masts and rigging and funnels, the cranes crooked above their little wheeled sheds. A broad-beamed tug, black as the houses, was thrusting its powerful way down stream, drawing a great bright javelin of furrowed water after it. All the old wonder, all the old inexhaustible romance was here: yes, this was the one thing that not London itself had been able to give him, the true home of his imagination. It was here that he had lived and felt most intensely: this mean little smoke-fouled valley, more than any place in the world, had fed his enthusiasms and soothed his sorrows. Mr. Darby stood still and took the place to his heart: his spectacles glittered in the bleak northern light. Then, the heart satisfied, the belly asserted its claim. What the belly claimed was lunch, and Mr. Darby’s eye sought The Schooner. As he entered the porch he remembered the diamond heart in his pocket and a sudden overwhelming shyness assailed him.

But his shyness was quickly and disconcertingly extinguished, for he found himself faced, across the bar, by a large dark woman of unattractive appearance. She was amiable and ready to be talkative, but Mr. Darby was not interested. He ordered his Bass and sandwiches and fell upon them, not, it is true, without relish, but mournfully. It was not until he had finished his Bass and ordered another that he spoke to the new barmaid. ‘Is Miss Sunningdale away?’

‘Miss Sunningdale? Gone!’ said the barmaid. ‘Left last week. Gone to Canada, I believe.’

‘Indeed? Dear me!’ said Mr. Darby glancing dreamily at the bottles behind the woman’s head.

‘Friend of yours? ‘she asked.

Mr. Darby did not like her tone. ‘We were … ah … old acquaintances,’ he replied loftily.

He did not stay long in The Schooner. Its charm was gone, though its sandwiches were as good as ever. He finished his second Bass and, half an hour before he had expected to, he went out on to the Quayside and there indulged a romantic and not altogether unpleasant melancholy.

Then he again remembered the diamond heart in his pocket. What could he do with it now? To drop it, together with a few tears, into the Dole would be poetical but wasteful. But he could not take it home, for Sarah would be almost certain to light upon it sooner or later: he had no private desk or drawer, and so it would be a continual source of anxiety to him. Then an idea occurred to him. Why not forestall Sarah’s discovery of it by giving it to her? But no, that wouldn’t do. That, Mr. Darby felt, even though Sarah would never know the secret of it, would be both unkind and dishonest. For a few minutes he toyed with the idea of exchanging it at Ormerod & Sparsdale’s for another brooch for Sarah. But even that, he found, offended his nicer feelings. It was a difficult matter. He ended by taking the heart back to Ormerod & Sparsdale’s, explaining that it was unsuitable, and that he would return in the course of the week and take his ten pounds out in something else. Perhaps after the lapse of a few days it might turn out to be possible to get something for Sarah, something that he might have got for her in any case.

He glanced at his watch. Important affairs again demanded his attention, and he set off gravely for his interview with Mr. Lingard, his Bank Manager.

CHAPTER XXIV

SOCIAL INTERLUDE

‘What I say,’ said Mrs. Cribb who sat on Mr. Darby’s left, ‘is that England’s good enough for me, and even if it wasn’t, I’d put up with it rather than trust myself on one of these liners. I went by sea once from Dolemouth to Saltburn and back—at least, we didn’t, as it happens, come back—with my poor old auntie … a woman of eighty-five now, Mr. Darby, and a wonder for her years … one of these cheap day excursions it was, and … well, they say Britannia rules the waves, but she didn’t, not on that occasion. Ugh!’ Mrs. Cribb pressed a hand on her chest. ‘Never again, thank you, Mr. Darby! “Do what you like, Emma,” said my poor old auntie when we got off the boat at Saltburn, “do what you like, my girl, but I go back by train.” I’m with you, auntie, I said. I’m with you every time. The train for me, I said, and bother the expense; because, as I said just now, Mr. Darby, it was an excursion and we’d return tickets on the boat. Yes, the train for me, auntie, I said, and cheap at the price, and believe me, Mr. Darby, if you’d offered me five pounds down to get on that boat again, I wouldn’t have taken it. No, not for a moment! Money is money, and sea-sickness, if you’ll excuse my mentioning it at meals, is sea-sickness; and what I say is, there’s no comparison.’

There was a certain loftiness in Mr. Darby’s smile. ‘Well,’ he said,’ it’s a question, isn’t it, Mrs. Cribb, of what I should call … ah … adaptabiliousness? Anyone can do what they really want to do.’

‘And I only do it, as you know, Mrs. Darby,’ Samuel Cribb was saying in his quiet confidential voice,’ in a purely amatewerish sort of way. Just in my spare time. It’s money for nothing.’

‘Well, you may think so, Mr. Cribb,’ said Sarah, ‘because it’s your hobby: but I don’t. Keeping an eye on the market, as you call it, and hunting about among second-hand books that have never seen a duster in their lives, would drive me crazy. It’s like everything else; you’ve got to have a taste for it and you’ve got to have the proper knowledge, and if you haven’t the taste for it you haven’t the knowledge either. It’s a highly skilled job, that’s what it is, and it only seems child’s play to you because it happens to be your hobby.’

Mr. Darby, after his brief response to Mrs. Cribb, a response which had checked for a moment the current of her eloquence, took a sip of champagne and fell into detachment. ‘How extraordinary some people are!’ he thought to himself. ‘More like clockwork toys than human beings. Astonishing changes, incredible events … ah … occur, things as … ah … as shattering as earthquakes, and they go on just as if nothing had happened.’ Mr. Darby, whatever it may have been that provoked this reflection, had confined himself to generalization; but we may be allowed to particularize. Take the present case, for instance, of Mr. Darby’s guests. The unbelievable event of Uncle Tom Darby’s fortune had recently exploded like a thunderclap among them with all its astonishing consequences, nothing was any longer as it had been before, the whole aspect of life had been, as you might say, completely changed, and yet Emma Cribb goes on chattering about her old auntie, and Sam Cribb still gets excited over a few second-hand books. Is there any wonder that Mr. Darby should sit silent, meditative, in the presence of this astounding obtuseness, with his eyebrows slightly raised. ‘It would take dynamite,’ he thought to himself, ‘nothing less than dynamite, to change them.’

‘And so our young spark’s really off this time,’ said Stedman to Sarah under cover of the hum of talk. ‘Booked his ticket, he tells me.’

‘Yes, and he’s started this jungle nonsense again,’ replied Sarah. ‘He’s going to call at some outlandish place on the way home.’

‘Indeed?’ said Stedman. ‘He didn’t mention coming home to me. He just said he was going to cut loose,—that was the expression he used. Oh, so he’s coming home again? That’s good.’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah impatiently, ‘if he’s not gobbled up by a tiger.’

Stedman laughed. ‘Tigers don’t gobble up millionaires, Mrs. D.’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Sarah, more than half in earnest.

‘Oh, but it’s sure enough. They don’t get the chance: the millionaires see to that. Don’t you worry, Mrs. D. Let him see the jungle: once he’s seen it, he’ll be only too glad to come home and settle down. I read a book once about life in the jungle. I’ve forgotten the name of it, but I remember the book well enough and, you can take my word for it, it’s not the kind of life our Jim’ll take kindly to.’

‘That’s a comfort,’ said Sarah. ‘And there’s another lucky thing: he’s managed to get hold of a man, a valet, to go with him who’s been there before. He was valet, it seems, to some scientific man.’

‘Hm, so Jim keeps a valet nowadays, does he?’

‘Oh dear me, yes,’ said Sarah; ‘and needs one, what’s more, now that he hasn’t got me.’

‘But won’t it be very dangerous, Mr. Darby, going into those wild, outlandish places?’ asked the quiet, precise voice of Jane Stedman.

‘Oh, dangerous, of course,’ Mr. Darby replied. ‘That goes without saying. But a … ah … a sprinkling of danger gives a … what shall I call it? … a spice to travel, like … ah …’ he pointed at the pepper-pot that stood between them, ‘like peppah!’

‘Not for me, Mr. Darby,’ Emma Cribb’s harsh voice broke in. ‘Give me a sprinkling of safety.’ She pointed at the sugar basin in front of her; ‘Sugar, as you might say.’

‘We’re no travellers, Emma and I,’ said Mrs. Stedman, smiling, ‘and that’s the truth. We’re the stay-at-home sort, and it’s just as well we are, for there’s little chance we get of travelling, whether we want to or not.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ replied Mr. Darby. ‘If you were keen on travelling, I’d take the whole lot of you round the world.’ He made a comprehensive circular gesture with the right arm.

The two women looked at him with amused smiles. ‘I’m not joking,’ he went on. ‘After all, it’s simple enough,—simply a matter of buying tickets.’

‘And of us going round the world, Mr. Darby,’ added Emma Cribb. ‘It’s that part of it I shouldn’t like, thanking you very much all the same.’ Once more she pressed her hand to her chest and threw up her eyes. ‘Ugh! When I think of that voyage from Dolemouth to Saltburn with my poor old auntie. And, would you believe it, they called it … that is to say, the advertisements did … a pleasure trip.’

George Stedman’s loud, emphatic voice suddenly drew everyone’s attention to the other end of the table. ‘Well, I’m prepared to bet any one here … and they can name the odds, mind you …’

Mr. Darby heard no more. His eyes had fixed themselves on the burning ruby which glowed in the centre of his full port glass. But he was not thinking of that. His thoughts were busy with that lavish suggestion he had, quite on the spur of the moment, launched a minute ago. How wonderful it was to be able to speak casually yet in perfect seriousness of taking a party of people round the world. Yet what he had said was true, it would be a perfectly simple matter. He knew that it was not practicable, because none of them had the smallest wish to go round the world, but he toyed with the idea, just for the fun of the thing, and followed it into some of its ramifications. What would happen to the Stedmans’ shop in the meantime? George might very well return to find his business gone to pieces. As for Sam Cribb, the Railway Company would, of course, give him the sack. And then the extraordinary thought occurred to Mr. Darby that neither of these events would matter in the least. He made a few rapid mental calculations. Yes, it was true enough: he could, without the smallest inconvenience to himself, settle upon the Stedmans and the Cribbs sums that would produce incomes even larger than those they had lost. The horizons of his wealth suddenly enlarged themselves enormously before his wondering gaze. Never yet had his fortune and the power it brought with it seemed to him so vast as at this moment. Then came another discovery, rather a shocking one this time: for the first time he realized that he had never even thought of settling money on his friends. He had been so accustomed to regard them as his equals, that the idea had never entered his head. He felt his face burning. This was not due merely to the singularly delicious port of which he now pensively drained his first glass: he was thoroughly ashamed of himself. How greedy, how monstrously stingy they must think him. He must put the thing right at once. They should both have five hundred a year—more if they could do with it.

The ladies, bright-eyed and flushed already, cautiously declined a second glass of port and Sarah rose from the table. Mr. Darby expressed the view that the gentlemen would be none the worse for another drop, and the three were left to themselves.

Mr. Darby pushed the decanter to George Stedman on his left. ‘Fill up your glass, George’ he said.

Stedman did so and handed the decanter back.

Mr. Darby instantly held up a warning hand. ‘No, no! George. To Sam! The way of the sun.’

It was one of those solemn social rules which he had recently learned from the invaluable Princep.

‘The way of the sun, Jim?’ said Stedman. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’

‘Certainly, with port, George,’ said Mr. Darby authoritatively. ‘It doesn’t matter with other wines; but with port, always, absolutely always.’

‘Absolutely always?’ said Sam Cribb’s soft, sad, reflective voice, ‘I wish it did.’

‘But it does, Sam,’ asserted Mr. Darby.

‘Not absolutely always, Jim. Only sometimes, for a treat.’ George Stedman gave a roar. ‘Got you that time, Jim. Got you that time properly.’ Mr. Darby’s spectacles glittered with mirth. ‘Yes, I’m with you there, Sam,’ he said. Then his face grew judicious and he smacked his lips. ‘Yes’ he said meditatively, ‘it would be difficult to get tired of port, at least of good port.’

‘And this,’ said George, raising his glass, ‘is wonderful good port; far and away the best I ever tasted.’

‘That port,’ said Mr. Darby, glancing casually at the decanter and pursing his lips, ‘is called Taylor Nineteen Twelve: it costs a matter of … ah … fifteen shillings a bottle. It ought to be a nice enough wine, and …’ he pursed his lips again, knitted his brows, and put his head on one side—‘and I think it is. But now that we’re alone’—Mr. Darby cleared his throat—‘there’s something I want to … ah … to discuss. Before leaving what I may call the shores of England I want to give you both a small present, a token, so to speak, of our long friendship. Now what about … ah …’ He flung himself back in his chair and fired the question at them almost as if it were a threat, ‘… what about five hundred a year each?’

Stedman and Cribb simultaneously opened astonished mouths, but Mr. Darby arrested them with a raised hand. ‘Not a word! ‘he said. ‘Not a word till you have … ah … considered what it means. It may sound a … well, a largish sum of money, but it’s only a fraction, a very small fraction of my income. It’ll make not the smallest difference to me. So you see, it’s really only quite a small present.’ Mr. Darby had addressed the phrases of this little speech alternately to one and the other of his two friends. His eye was on Sam Cribb as he ended. ‘Now you, for instance, Sam. You could do with five hundred a year, couldn’t you? You’ve never been over keen on your job. Well, throw it up! Chuck it! Why not?’

Amazement and embarrassment had completely transformed Sam Cribb’s face. He looked much more like a man detected in the commission of a crime than one who has just been offered what was for him liberty and wealth. ‘But, Jim,’ he stammered, ‘I hardly like … it’s really too, er … how can I ever …?’

Mr. Darby’s hand arrested him once again. ‘Say no more, Sam,’ he ordered. ‘The thing’s settled. Now what will you do with it?’

‘I shall start my bookshop, Jim—rare books, first editions, my old hobby, you know.’

‘Do, Sam,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘and hand your notice in to the Railway to-morrow.’ He turned his spectacles on Stedman. ‘And you, George?’

Stedman’s face was scarlet and his eyes moist: he looked as though he had swallowed something.

‘Jim,’ he said, putting out a large hand which Mr. Darby shook, ‘you’re a trump, an absolute trump and no mistake. The fact is, an offer like this takes a man in the wind: it knocks the words out of him. All I can say is, thank you, Jim; thank you a thousand times. I appreciate your kindness and friendliness as much as any man could, but … ‘he dropped his voice to an intimate, persuasive tone … ‘give the money to someone else, Jim, someone that needs it. It’s all very well for Sam there: he’ll have a use for it. It’ll get him out of a job that doesn’t suit him and into another that does. But I’m all right as I am. My shop’s my hobby and it brings us in all the money we want. More than all: I put a bit by, every year. My Missus and I are perfectly content as we are. Ask her, and she’ll tell you the same. If I had an extra five hundred a year, Jim, believe me I shouldn’t know what to do with it. I’d leave it in the bank and forget about it. Now if you really want to give us a present that would come in handy now and then, give us a dozen of that patent medicine there.’ He pointed to the port decanter. ‘That’ll warm the cockles of our hearts much more than five hundred a year would, thanking you very much indeed all the same, Jim, old man, and no offence, I hope.’

‘Please yourself, George,’ said Mr. Darby: ‘it’s exactly as you wish. But are you quite sure about Mrs. S.?’

‘Ask her yourself, Jim,’ said Stedman. ‘Ask her to-night.’

When Mr. Darby asked her subsequently in the parlour, Jane Stedman seemed actually alarmed by his offer. ‘Oh, no thank you, Mr. Darby, we really couldn’t do with it: thanking you kindly all the same. We’ve got all the money

we want. It’s different for you, of course, you’re a traveller and that; but a quiet life suits us best.’

‘Well, George agrees with you,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘so that’s all right.’

‘You mustn’t think we’re not grateful, Sarah,’ said Jane Stedman turning to her hostess who was sitting beside her. ‘It’s very handsome, very handsome indeed of Mr. Darby, but, knowing George and me as you do, I hope you’ll both understand.’

Sarah smiled grimly. ‘Understand? I understand so well, Jane, that I’d have done the same in your shoes. In fact, if I’d been given the chance, I’d have buried all Uncle Tom Darby’s money with him and put a good big tombstone on top of it.’

Before the party broke up Mr. Darby took the two men back to the dining-room. ‘Just a nightcap, before you go,’ he said. As he left the parlour he had seen Sarah’s eye fixed warningly upon him. It was a timely reminder, and he understood it. He had provided both brandy and whisky, and he himself, recalling the morning after his birthday party, chose brandy. ‘Whisky on top of wine always knocks me up, I find,’ he said to the others.

George Stedman raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s good luck to the voyage out and good luck to the Jungle,’ he said.

Sam Cribb joined in the good wishes, and Mr. Darby in turn raised his glass. He thanked both his friends for their good wishes. He was convinced, he said, that they would bring him luck on what he called his … ah … somewhat hazardous undertaking. He would recall them, he said, in moments of peril; they would come to his aid, he was sure, in many a tight corner. He went on to speak of ‘forlorn hopes,’ of ‘desperate odds,’ of ‘setting one’s teeth,’ of ‘winning through’; and then with melancholy dignity he touched on a certain disappointment, of his desire—a desire which was destined to be … ah … frustrated—to do his bit for the Nation, and of England’s ingratitude. ‘Well, my friends,’ he said with great feeling, setting down his empty glass, ‘it comes to this. I shall go my way, and England will go hers. I only pray,’ he said, ‘I only pray, my friends …’

What it was that Mr. Darby only prayed his friends never discovered, for at that moment the door opened and Sarah’s voice cut him off in mid-flight. ‘That’ll do, Jim. If you’ve got any praying to do, you can do it in the bedroom. The ladies are tired of waiting for you to stop, and so, I’m sure, are the gentlemen.’

It was no more than the truth. George Stedman and Sam Cribb stood there with glazed eyes and faces set in the mould of patient boredom.

Mr. Darby, deflated, brought to earth, and much bewildered by his sudden fall, gazed at the ladies in the open doorway with a gaping codfish-mouth and blurred spectacles. Then, like a child just roused from sleep, he took the four hands that were one by one offered to him, and responded quietly and unobtrusively to the four good-nights.

Chapter XXV

Good-Bye, Piccadilly

That week in Newchester, it seemed to Mr. Darby, passed like a flash. His time was taken up for the most part by social matters. On the second morning after his arrival he set off, at the same time as of old, for the office. When he had contemplated visiting his old friends at the office, he had found himself unexpectedly embarrassed, for it seemed to him that at whatever time he called he would be in the way, interrupting business. For a moment he felt sadly that the old friendly place was forbidden him. Then he had a bright idea. He would call at the moment when the office opened and would stay only a minute, just time enough to ask McNab to lunch one day and Pellow another day and to leave a message for Mr. Marston asking if he might call and see him at a convenient time of which Pellow could inform him by telephone.

That was how it came about on this particular morning that the Baptist Chapel in Osbert Road, the rooks that circled round the spire of the Wesleyan Chapel, the electric and the steam trains that rattled down the Osbert Road cutting, the terraces in Savershill Road, and the shops that looked upon Newfoundland Street, Brackett Street and Ranger Street, were all labouring under the pardonable misapprehension that Mr. Darby had cast off the burdens of the millionaire and returned to his old punctual life among them. Mr. Darby himself actually encouraged the misunderstanding by pretending that this was so, and he fell back so easily into the habit of years that the pretence seemed to him no less real than the actuality, and conversely the actuality (the fact that he was a millionaire on a brief visit to Newchester and on the point of setting out to explore the Jungle) was for him no less unreal than this feigned return to the past. This strange state, this blending of past and present, shed about his walk from Number Seven Moseley Terrace to Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street an atmosphere of dream, a dream not altogether happy, not altogether melancholy. It was only when he turned into the dark entrance of Number Thirty Seven, began to climb the stairs, realized the unbelievable fact that the metal tread on the third step still, though the whole world had been changed, clanked under the foot, recognized with strange emotion the very pattern made by the damp-stains on the painted wall, found himself automatically performing the same gestures, laying his hand on the handrail at the precise point at which he had always done so—it was only then that the sense of dream fell from him and a sense of reality so intense, so physical, that it was almost painful, took hold of him.

When he reached the top landing with the familiar feeling of weakness in the legs, he took out his watch. Two and a half minutes to nine! He raised his eyebrows and shook his head sternly. Were they letting the office go to pieces? But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the sound of footsteps came up to him from the dark well below. Yes, it was the pair of them. The third step clanked, the feet laboriously and rhythmically grew louder; he could hear the change in the sound when they reached the landings. He glanced down the last flight and saw young Pellow’s red bullet-head appear round the corner. His hat was in his hand and McNab was hard upon his heels. Mr. Darby stood motionless waiting for their surprise. They did not raise their heads till they were almost on a level with him. Then a simultaneous exclamation burst from them. ‘Mr. Darby!’

Mr. Darby nodded affirmation. ‘Exactly!’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘Just looked in to make sure you were behaving yourselves, keeping the office hours.’

It was neither McNab nor Pellow, but St. John’s clock that answered Mr. Darby, clanging the first stroke of nine. McNab smiled, took out his keys and opened the door. ‘On the nail, Mr. Darby!’ he said, standing aside to let Mr. Darby in first.

Mr. Darby went, propelled by sheer force of habit, to the coat hooks, those hooks which he had always contrived to use in private because of the annoying fact that he always had to stand on tip-toe to reach them. He hesitated, embarrassed by the presence of the two others; then suddenly realized that there was no need to hang up his hat. He was no longer one of the staff, he was a visitor and in a moment would be going out again. Once more he felt with a pang that the old place was his no more. But the pleasure of McNab and Pellow at seeing him again, consoled him. McNab pushed him into the general office and there the two stood smiling at him and asking him questions.

Mr. Darby gazed about him. The place was changed and the change hurt him: it was as if the office regarded him with alien eyes. But he disguised his pain. ‘Why how smart you are,’ he said. ‘You’ve been repainted.’

‘Yes,’ said McNab. ‘The whole place was done when Mr. Marston was away on his holiday last July.’ He held the morning’s letters in his hand, and now he went and laid them on Mr. Darby’s desk.

Mr. Darby blinked and another pang shot through him. ‘It doesn’t seem right,’ he murmured. ‘It doesn’t seem right.’

‘What, Mr. Darby?’

‘That I’m turned out of my desk.’

Then he pulled himself together. ‘But I mustn’t stand here wasting your time,’ he said briskly, and then and there he issued his invitations to McNab and Pellow and asked them to give his message to Mr. Marston. ‘Just a glance into Mr. Mars ton’s room,’ he said, going to that door, and a minute later he was rather forlornly descending the stairs. He paused, as he had so often paused, in the doorway and looked out into the world, and his new world-freedom seemed to him a little friendless, a little empty.

His message to Mr. Marston brought a prompt and unexpected response. He and Sarah were invited to dine with the Marstons the following evening.

The dinner with the Marstons, lunch with McNab, lunch with Pellow, a farewell supper with the Stedmans and another with the Cribbs, turned Mr. Darby’s week into a whirl of sociability. As he sat opposite Sarah in the London train (for Sarah was accompanying him south to see him off) it seemed to him that only a few hours had passed since he had sat in the train coming north.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

When they reached Bedford Square they found Punnett already arrived. He was standing, tall and melancholy, in the entrance-hall when Princep opened the front door to them.

‘Ah, good evening, Punnett. You’ve not forgotten your camera, I hope?’ said Mr. Darby as soon as he caught sight of him.

‘No, sir. The camera’s upstairs.’ He bowed to Sarah and wished her good evening.

‘We shall have a busy morning to-morrow, packing, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby over his shoulder, as he sailed down the corridor. Then he paused. ‘Princep!’

‘Sir?’

‘Has a telescope arrived? A large … ah … package from Negretti & Zambra?’

‘Yes, sir. I took it up to your dressing-room.’

‘Good! And the pictures have been called for, I presume?’

‘Yes, sir; they went away on Thursday.’

So the gallery would be empty, the walls stark. Mr. Darby glanced at the doors at the end of the corridor. The title The Picture Gallery was still over the door, an ironical epitaph on his noble ambitions. He turned away and entered the smoking-room. He would not visit the gallery again: it would be too painful.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Next morning, the morning which Mr. Darby had told Punnett would be a busy one, was not, as it turned out, a very busy one for him, for Sarah took the matter out of his hands.

‘You’d much better go out, Jim,’ she said, ‘and leave the packing to me and Punnett. You never were much of a packer, you know.’

‘Go out? Where to?’ asked Mr. Darby.

‘Well, surely you have one or two little things to do before you leave London? ‘Sarah replied.

‘Ah … well … ah … yes!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘In point of … ah … fact, I fancy I have, Sarah.’

Sarah nodded. ‘What did I tell you? ‘she said. ‘So you’d better go and get them done and leave me and Punnett to get on with the work.’

A few minutes later Mr. Darby left the house on foot with every suggestion, in his gait and mien, of important business.

Meanwhile Sarah and Punnett repaired to Mr. Darby’s dressing-room where a large new cabin-trunk stood open on the floor.

‘I’m glad to have a chance of talking to you alone, Punnett,’ said Sarah, as soon as Punnett had closed the door, ‘because I want to give you a few hints about Mr. Darby. You’ll find he requires a great deal of looking after; a regular handful, I assure you.’

Punnett smiled apologetically. ‘Quite so, madam. I had already gathered that, if you’ll excuse my saying so. My late master was the same; a mere child in all practical matters. You may rely on me, madam.’

‘I do, Punnett. Now, in the first place, he’ll never change his underwear unless you put them out for him: and as for thick things and thin things, there’s not the least use asking him; just use your own judgment. If the weather’s hot, take away his thick things and put out the thin, and vice versa. You’ll find him pretty healthy, but now and then he gets pains in the stomach. It’s generally the result of a chill. I find the best thing to do is to wrap him round the middle in three or four thicknesses of flannel, put him to bed with a hot water bottle, and give him a couple of Aspirins. I’ve got four large bottles of Aspirins for him, and I’ve brought a roll of flannel too. We’ll pack them under his shirts where you’ll find them easily. Another thing, but this you may not be able to manage. Never, if you can stop him, let him drink whisky after he’s had wine. It always upsets him. If you were to tell him that the best people never do it, ten to one that would make him remember.’

‘I’ll do so, madam,’ said Punnett with perfect seriousness.

‘Of course,’ Sarah went on, ‘I know nothing of this jungle place he’s determined to visit. I understand you’ve been there. Is it very unhealthy?’

‘No, madam; it might well be worse. But a little quinine is useful at times.’

‘Quinine? Then will you be sure to get him some?’

‘I will, madam. I always take it to such places myself, so I shall not forget.’

So did Sarah and Punnett, under the eye of a watchful Providence, arrange the affairs of the absent Mr. Darby; so did the long arm of Number Seven Moseley Terrace, Savershill, prepare to extend itself to the remote and fabulous Mandratia.

A quarter of an hour before lunch-time the packing was finished and as Sarah reached the bottom of the stairs the front-door opened and Mr. Darby came in.

‘Well! Had a busy morning?’ asked Sarah.

‘Ah … yes!’ said Mr. Darby, his words accompanied by an agreeable aroma of sherry; ‘Yes, I’ve been pretty well on what I should call the go, all morning.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby and Sarah found themselves deprived of their usual heartiness at lunch. The boat train for Tilbury left St. Pancras at three-thirty, and now that all was ready and there remained nothing to do but wait, the full reality of the coming separation confronted each of them for the first time. Mr. Darby now looked forward to his approaching plunge—no mere spritely dive from end to end of England this time, but a cold, formidable, deep-sea plunge to the other side of the world—without the faintest flicker of enthusiasm. To be flat, he wished he wasn’t going; and yet, if it had been possible for him now, without loss of dignity, to abolish his expedition, he would not have done so. For somewhere out of sight, in the hidden centre of his being, the new Darby grasped the lever with a remorseless hand. Tight-lipped and fierce-spectacled he was holding the poor quavering old Darby to the execution of his long-cherished ambitions. But the dismal afternoon before him, the long-postponed goodbye as he and Sarah journeyed sadly down to Tilbury, the final farewell and the waving to the solitary figure left behind,—these surely the inexorable New Darby might, without detriment to discipline, spare them. Yes, the New Darby consented to excuse them that; and Mr. Darby, as he neatly jointed the wing of a chicken, noiselessly framed a selection of phrases in which he might suggest to Sarah that they should say goodbye here in Bedford Square. But not a sentence could he find which avoided the risk of the misapprehension that her company to Tilbury would be unwelcome. No, he thought, as he sat there silently chewing and looking at his plate, no, it couldn’t be done, it was too risky. It would be terrible to hurt her feelings at the last moment.

Meanwhile Sarah was similarly occupied. The idea of the parting was so painful to her that she longed to be done with it at once. If she had known that he was feeling the same she would have agreed at once that they should part here, in the house. As it was, she told herself that she must see it through. After all, she would feel happier in the end if she had seen him on to the liner, tucked him safely into it, as it were, and viewed with her own eyes the boat that was to be his home for the next six weeks. She would be able, then, to picture him there day by day. Besides Jim would expect her to see him off at the docks. He was such a one for occasions.

And so the two, each afraid of failing the other, held themselves to their slow torture.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

At ten minutes past three precisely Mr. Darby’s great journey began. We may word it, as Mr. Darby himself did some days later before falling asleep in his comfortable cabin on the Utopia, in the language of the tablet which will some day be placed upon the house in Bedford Square: ‘From this house, at 3.10 p.m. on September 7th, 1925, Sir William James Darby, Bart., the famous explorer, set out on his adventurous voyage to the Mandratic Peninsula.’

For Mr. Darby, as for every born traveller, the very fact of being on the move was exhilarating, and as he and Sarah steamed out of St. Pancras in the first-class smoker which he had reserved for them, he was able to converse with some, at least, of his customary eloquence. But as the brief journey neared its end, a dejection, aggravated by the dreary district through which they were passing, settled upon him, and they approached Tilbury in a melancholy silence. A sudden startlingly close glimpse of huge funnels and vast, fungus-like ventilators sent a thrill of fear through both of them, and next minute, as the train began to slow down, Punnett entered the carriage and collected Mr. Darby’s hand-luggage. Soon they were all three on the platform and drifting with the human stream that flowed slowly out of the station. As they emerged into the open, again and more terribly close those enormous funnels and ventilators towered above them. There were three liners anchored there. The closest and most formidable rose above the edge of the Quay in a vast wall. It had the monstrous inhumanity, with its tiers of small sinister portholes, of the wall of a prison, and yet the slow animal curve of it suggested some vast living creature. High above the great wall, gallery above gallery, rose the white decks and the bridge, and, raked back as if to breast portentous storms, the two scarlet funnels, incredibly huge, barred the smoky sky. From the lip of one of them a small plume of steam curled like an ostrich feather.

Sarah and Mr. Darby gazed up at the enormous structure in awe. They had not known that ships could be so huge. Each felt a sinking at the heart. For Sarah the great ship had something of the threatening grimness of death. Once that tremendous, inhuman mechanism had swallowed Jim, she would never, she felt, see him again. The procession of which they formed a part, the procession of human mites that was winding itself slowly into the great thing’s bowels, seemed to her foreboding heart a funeral procession.

To Mr. Darby too the Utopia seemed a thing of menace. Its colossal size, those two immense funnels, instead of reassuring him, disturbed him to the depths of his soul. Its size only portended the size of the storms with which it was designed to wrestle. Though he had no wish to die, yet it seemed to him that to go to the bottom in a small boat would be at least a gallant human adventure: one would go down as a man who had fought the elements and been beaten. But the sinking of a monster like this would be merely appalling, a horror of lurching corridors, of walls become floors, floors heeled up vertically into walls, a stark, inhuman tragedy in which men would die like a swarm of rats, their heroisms of no account, their very identity taken from them. As he climbed the gangway, stepped on board and felt the deck solid under his feet, what he realized was not his security but the terrific power of seas that could swing such decks to the steepness of a high-pitched roof.

But when the great ship had, as it were, digested them and they stood in Mr. Darby’s large, comfortable, rose-coloured cabin, they were suddenly reassured and fascinated. ‘Why, he’ll be perfectly all right, after all,’ thought Sarah, and Mr. Darby felt that even when it did swing about a little, one could never be very ill at ease in such a charming, luxurious and obviously permanent bedroom.

Finding themselves alone, they took the opportunity of a farewell embrace.

‘It’s only for a few weeks, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby, feeling at that moment that he could not bear a longer separation. ‘I shall be back, no doubt, a few weeks after Christmas.’

‘You will, Jim? ‘Sarah replied, smiling at the unexpected reassurance.

‘Oh indubiously, my dear,’ he said. ‘Six weeks there, six weeks back, three weeks perhaps in Australia and then just a look-in on the … ah … Peninsula on the way home.’

Suddenly a tremendous, deep buzzing startled them, a buzzing that made the cabin shudder, grew, expanded, flowered into a raucous golden hum, and roofed the whole of Tilbury with a burning cupola of sound, a hum like the very call of Doom. It was as if all the metal in the great ship, the plates of her vast shell, the girders and stanchions, the great unseen engines, the funnels, the ventilators, every rail and bar and handle, had suddenly become alive and vocal. The siren was warning relations and friends to leave the ship. Humble and afraid before that tyrannous voice, Sarah and Mr. Darby hurried along the corridor and up the companion-way, following the others who made for the gangway. In the little crowd that slowly filtered away down the gangway they waited speechless for Sarah’s turn. When it came, she snatched blindly with her left hand at her husband’s and, without looking at him, stepped on to the gangway.

Mr. Darby moved to a place apart from the crowd and stood, with his hands on the broad wooden rail, anxiously watching her, ready to wave if she should turn. And when she reached the Quay she did turn, paused and turned and looked up for a moment at the high deck, her eyes vague, bewildered, searching the faces that looked down. He waved but she did not see him and suddenly she turned away, hurried towards the station-entrance and vanished into it. Mr. Darby, immovable, watched the entrance in case she should reappear, but the minutes passed and suddenly again the huge shuddering hum of the Utopia’s siren burst out and possessed river and earth and sky, and Mr. Darby felt the deck begin to pulse under the heavy ominous throb of the ship’s engines. That solemn waking of the ship sent through him a thrill of fearful joy. Men on the Quay were hauling at a huge cable, looping it about a bollard. From time to time a whistle was blown. Looking down, Mr. Darby saw that a slowly widening gap like a bloodless wound was opening between the ship’s side and the Quay. He heard the muffled thunder of water threshed into seething commotion: then, very gradually, the Quay and the buildings that bounded it began to move, to slip away towards the stern. The ship was under way: he was leaving England.

But Mr. Darby had forgotten England. He quite forgot to offer to her that coldly dignified farewell with which in King’s Cross Station a week ago he had sealed the just punishment of London. All his thoughts were fixed on Sarah, and his eyes, following his thoughts, were fixed on the station-entrance. And now, as if in answer to his gaze, a figure—Sarah’s figure—appeared there and waved a handkerchief. She did not see him: how could she see so infinitesimal a detail of that huge moving shape with its litter of agitated human dust? She was waving because she hoped that he would see her, and he would write and tell her, as soon as he could, that he had seen her, that he had pulled out his handkerchief and waved back. But now his spectacles failed him, their transparency was shattered into spars and splinters of dazzling light. He pushed them up on to his forehead and dried his eyes with the handkerchief he had been waving.

Book III

Mr. Darby Assumes the Purple

Chapter XXVI

The Widow Darby

It is possible that, because at the moment of departure Mr. Darby had forgotten to rub it in, England did not realize what, through her own foolishness, she had lost. But Sarah realized it bitterly and to the full. For her, England had suddenly grown empty. It is almost unbelievable that so small a man should leave so large a gap as Mr. Darby left in Sarah’s life. When he had first left home and settled in London, though she had felt his absence keenly, she had also felt that he was not totally gone, was yet within reach. But now he was gone indeed. With her own eyes she had seen him swallowed, annihilated as it were, by that monstrous vessel with the sinister dark grey body and the crude scarlet funnels. The cavernous hum of the great siren still rang ominously in her ears, a voice of tragic doom. As she travelled miserably back to St. Pancras, terrible visions haunted her imagination. She saw that comfortable, luxurious cabin with its rose-coloured curtains and carpet, lurch hideously sideways; she saw the dark green water pour in through the door and the porthole, and Jim in bed, glaring unspectacled in terror as the lights went out and the water closed over him. She flung the vision from her, only to be tortured by another of Jim walking alone in a dark and lowering forest. She saw him with extraordinary vividness,—his white collar, his pearl tie-pin, his well-cut lounge suit. He was walking along with his usual jaunty importance, his spectacles alert for the wonders of the Jungle, totally oblivious of the naked black figures with shields and assegais that slid from tree to tree, dogging his steps. Suddenly there was a hideous shriek. … But Punnett; where was Punnett? She had forgotten that Punnett would be with him. Punnett had been to these places before: he would keep him out of mischief. She had every faith in Punnett. The flat, dreary, sordid scene that streamed past the windows was the counterpart of the desolation in her mind. On, on it streamed. Would it never stop? The brief journey back to London seemed interminable.

She had hoped, though there was really little chance of it, that she would reach London in time to catch the late afternoon train north and so gain the shelter of home that night, and when she saw that this was impossible it seemed to her that another burden was added to her misery. Yet, in spite of her longing to be at home, she felt herself unable, when she reached St. Pancras, to face the dreariness and weariness of a night journey, and determined to spend the night at the Great Northern Hotel and travel home next morning. Next morning, perhaps, she would be feeling a little better. How wise she had been to pack Oliver Twist. Till dinner-time and, after dinner, till bedtime she would lose herself in Oliver Twist. Already she was very tired, and if she wearied herself out by reading till she could read no more, perhaps she would be able to sleep.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Next morning, after a night of haunted sleep, she awoke more resigned and travelled home in that state of numbed emotion which is like a sunless calm after a storm. Jim seemed to have receded from her into a remote distance: her eyes were focused upon her home and her job. They roused in her now no enthusiasm and no warmth, but they were real things, solid things on which she could expend herself. They meant work, work that for her was the one means of health and sanity. By work she would keep at bay the ghosts of anxiety and dejection and fear which dogged her, on watch for the moment when she would be idle.

And so, as soon as she was at home again, Sarah threw herself into her work with even more than her old energy. Lady Savershill noticed it and noticed, too, her drawn face and altered spirits, and urged her to take her work more easily. But Sarah relentlessly persisted. ‘Work is what I want,’ she said.

‘But not overwork, my dear woman,’ Lady Savershill replied. ‘Nobody was ever the better for overwork. It’s good neither for the worker nor the work.’

She did her best to talk Sarah out of her mood. ‘Come, Mrs. Darby, there’s nothing to make a tragedy over. Your husband has gone for a short visit to Australia and that’s all there is about it. The voyage will do him all the good in the world. When my husband went to Japan last year I didn’t work myself to a skeleton.’

Sarah couldn’t explain to her, nor even to herself, that the case of her and Jim was utterly different, but though she couldn’t define it she felt it, felt that it was full of disruption and tragic implications.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Four days after Mr. Darby’s departure came a telegram. She tore it open in terror. ‘Just touched Gibraltar,’ she read. ‘Somewhat lively in the Bay of Biscay. All well.’ She heaved a deep sigh of relief. How nice of him to telegraph. She read it over and over again, hearing his very voice and articulation in the three bare phrases. She folded the telegram carefully, put it back into its envelope and bestowed it carefully in a drawer. For two days it kept her reassured and heartened. Then her depression returned. She found herself becoming that creature she had always despised, the woman of moods, the nervy woman. The note of a ship’s siren on the Dole, the hum of a factory-buzzer calling the workers in Newchester or Portshead to work, were enough to rouse all those grim apprehensions that the Utopia’s siren had sown in her, and, once roused, they persisted for half a day. When the distant moaning of fog-bound ships told of fog on the North Sea and in the estuary of the Dole, or when a rising gale buffeted her bedroom window and struggled noisily in the chimney, she lay awake all night, a prey to terrible fears and forebodings, not knowing that windless starlight brooded over the Gulf of Lyons and that the winking lights of Capri were visible across miles of Mediterranean. Every few days a wireless message from Jim came to restore her, each redolent of his own unique style, and it is apparent from these messages that while Mr. Darby’s interest in the world about him remained as wide and as alert as ever, he was far from allowing an indiscriminate enthusiasm for travel to paralyse his judgment or lower his standards. Toulon had been fortunate enough to win his approval: ‘Spent morning in Toulon. Much pleased with town and harbour.’ A famous volcano, on the other hand, failed to please: ‘Negotiated Straits of Messina last night. Etna disappointing.’ That Port Said was a part of the great continent of Africa was, for a man of his critical taste, not enough: ‘Lunched in Port Said. Not a town to recommend.’ But in the same communication he had a good word for the Suez Canal: ‘Now entering Suez Canal. Remarkable engineering feat.’

Sarah kept an open atlas on the harmonium and, guided by Jim’s telegrams, followed his progress. The whole width of Europe lay between them now. He dwindled down the Suez Canal as down a drain, and Sarah poring over that insignificant crack between Asia and Africa, found it difficult to believe that there was room in it for the monstrous hull of the Utopia.

The Stedmanshad postponed their annual holiday till late this year and now pressed her to go with them; Lady Savers-hill too had been urging her to take a rest and change of air, and Sarah, attracted by the thought of a fortnight with her old friends, accepted. As Mr. Darby entered the Red Sea, Sarah and the Stedmans drove north in Sarah’s car to comfortable lodgings in the little coastal village of Gard.

The holiday season was over and they had the place almost to themselves. The inhospitable northern coast, often grey and bleak in the height of summer, broke into a splendour of blue and yellow under the cloudless sky of that September. The air was warm, but through the warmth came the fresh sting of a breeze from a sea of transparent greens and blues. Above the long empty sweep of clear yellow sand the castle of Joyous Gard with its great square keep rose bare and sunny against the bare sky. Only with the nights came the chill foreboding of winter.

Sarah gave herself up to the holiday. She was unhappy and in need of consolation, and she laid herself open to all the consolation the holiday offered her. The bright, lonely place, with its deserted beach, its advancing and receding sea, and its air of living in a remote past, soothed and calmed her; the happy, easy-going joviality of George Stedman and the placid friendliness of Jane warmed and comforted her heart. For once in her life she was glad to be passive. She did not even think, but allowed her emotions to ebb and flow like the tide. The three of them recalled Jim affectionately as one that belonged to the past: ‘before he went away,’ ‘when he was still with us,’ they said, as people say of the dead. And in Sarah’s mind, too, there gathered about him the regretful, half-sweet half-bitter atmosphere of death. His departure from Tilbury, his gradual recession across Europe had been a kind of dying. The terrible siren of the Utopia rang in her memory as a grim trumpet-blast portending death. Her emotions, her states of mind were those of a widow. It was only when Jim’s telegrams arrived, like incongruous, comical memories of the departed, that the blood flowed back into the ghost that walked their minds and he became for a brief while real again. A message despatched as he steamed out of Aden (‘ steaming with a vengeance,’ he added with telegraphic jocularity) spoke of ‘phenonymous heat in Red Sea.’ He wirelessed again from Singapore, complaining that he had seen nothing of it because the climate had fogged his spectacles. ‘Ceaseless perspiration. Losing weight. And now for China Sea.’

Jim’s telegrams delighted George Stedman. ‘He’s a one, is Jim,’ he roared. ‘“Steaming with a vengeance!” I like that “Steaming with a vengeance!” Cost him a pretty penny that extra bit, I bet, but it’s worth it.’

The mellow September weather persisted throughout their visit. They strolled far up the shore, taking a picnic basket and a kettle which they boiled among the sand-dunes, or they drove in Sarah’s car to more distant points, sandy bays, inland moors, ruined castles, villages, or country towns, returning, pleasantly tired, to supper. Sea and wind were kind to Sarah. There were no gales, no fogs, no nightly roaring of waves, nothing to rouse fears and forebodings. If she woke in the night, the watery hiss of a faint wind or the windlike whisper of the sea hushed her to sleep again. When, after a fortnight, they drove home, Sarah felt herself wonderfully restored.

‘You look a different woman, Sarah,’ said Jane Stedman.

‘I am a different woman, Jane,’ she replied with conviction.

For it was not only her health that was restored. Her mind had been healed. Gard, so quiet, so beautiful, so permanent, had given her something of its serenity. As the car crawled along the narrow winding roads, making for the great main road from Scotland to Newchester, her mind flew back to the little village as to a haven of rest. If ever she was unhappy again she would return to Gard and be cured. Even to think of it brought refreshment, as she discovered in moments of depression when she was back again at work in Savershill.

Ten days later Jim wired that he had touched at the island of Formosa. ‘Narrowly escaped typhoon. Anticipate glimpse of Cape Abor, south-westerly corner of Eutyca, this afternoon.’ She went to the map on the harmonium and saw that he was already beyond China and Japan. The word typhoon alarmed her and she got out the dictionary and looked it up. ‘Violent hurricane in the China seas occurring especially from July to October,’ she read with a chill at her heart.

She was wakened that night by the rattling of her bedroom window. She got up and wedged the sash and noticed that the gale came from the east, and for an hour she lay wondering in terror whether the typhoon had by now caught Jim. Next day, a Sunday, was calm and dull, and, feeling a sudden longing for Gard, she invited the Stedmans to drive there for the day. They found the place settled into its winter mood. The blue, the yellow, the sunshine were gone. Sea and sky were grey, even the sands were pale and dull, and the village and the great castle had shrunk to a huddle of grey rocks. But the calm, the beauty, the permanence were still there, and Sarah felt that she had returned to a place that was something more than home to her. Rain set in as they drove home, but Sarah felt, as she had felt before, comforted and reassured.

It was at noon on the following day that the blow fell.

With hands that trembled so violently that she could hardly see the words, Sarah read the telegram through again. ‘Regret to report William James Darby and Albert Punnett disappeared from R.M.S. Utopia between 11 p.m. last night and 7.30 a.m. this morning. No traces found despite careful search. Distance from Eutyca coast 6 to 9 miles. Further details follow by post.’

When Lady Savershill rang her up on business an hour later, Sarah tried in vain to give her a coherent reply. ‘Is that Mrs. Darby?’ Lady Savershill asked, not recognising Sarah’s changed voice and believing that someone else was speaking.

‘Yes, yes, it’s me, Lady Savershill,’ said the strange, halting voice. ‘Excuse me. I’ve just had … just had some terrible news. Jim … Jim, my husband’s … drowned. Yes, drowned this morning. A telegram came.’

Chapter XXVII

Mr. Darby On Board

To the normal healthy gregarious boy—and Mr. Darby was all that—the pain of farewell to home and family at the end of the holidays is a brief one, soon eclipsed by reunion with friends and the improved status which each new term brings. So it was with Mr. Darby. When he had waved farewell to Sarah and dried his eyes and spectacles, it at once occurred to him that afternoon-tea followed by a cigar would provide a much-needed consolation. He therefore sought the lounge, and while Sarah took her desolate way back to London, Mr. Darby reclined in a deep chair very placidly drinking tea and surveying with a critical benevolence the furniture of the lounge and the people who were to be his fellow travellers. But for the smooth flowing past the windows of warehouses, chimneys and sometimes a church-tower or steeple; but for the strong, subdued rumble of the engines and the pulse of them in the floor beneath his feet, he might have been in an hotel. That pulse, with its faint suggestion of liveness, of instability, disturbed Mr. Darby deliciously, gave to him and kept active in him a small, stimulating sense of adventure. The whole great ship fascinated him: it was delightful to be living simultaneously the life of luxurious civilization and the life of adventure. For the rest of the day he spent a great deal of time in moving busily about the ship. After taking a few turns on the promenade deck, he would clap a hand to his pocket as though suddenly missing some indispensable trifle and hurry down to his cabin, losing his way several times in the process; and then, arrived at last in the privacy of his cabin he would abandon pretence and stand for a few moments surveying its rose-coloured luxury with bland satisfaction and then bustle back on deck. Or if he found Punnett in his cabin he would fumble again in his pocket and ask: ‘Punnett, have you by any chance seen my … ah … cigar-cutter? ‘and then, trying another pocket, would add: ‘Ah! here it is, to be sure!’

That phrase ‘to be sure’ had begun to occur more and more often in Mr. Darby’s talk since he had heard it several times on the lips of a very grand old gentleman at the Savers-hills’ dinner-party. He pronounced it, ‘to be shaw,’ as the old gentleman had done. At times it became almost a nuisance to him, intruding itself at the most unexpected and inappropriate moments.

The first-class passengers were not very numerous and Mr. Darby found at dinner that he had been allotted a small table to himself. He was hungry, the dinner was excellent, and to console himself for the pain of parting from Sarah and England he wisely allowed himself a half-bottle of champagne. Between the courses he examined once again his fellow-travellers. A few tables away sat another solitary, a man of medium height and medium age, somewhat thickset, brown-haired, brown-moustached, squared faced, and about his mouth and eyes an expression of subdued humour as if he were enjoying a secret joke. His manner was one of quiet self-possession, as if accustomed to this kind of life. Next to him sat a middle-aged couple, the lady very stout, very fashionably dressed, her husband, bald, red faced, and clean-shaven but for a close-cropped grey moustache. Mr. Darby did not like them. The trouble with the lady, he thought, was that, though stout, she dressed as if thin, so that she appeared as a collection of shocking redundancies. Even her face contrived to look indecent. Of the gentleman Mr. Darby felt himself vaguely afraid. His narrow mouth, his hot red face, his hot blue eyes, even his scanty, close-cropped hair and moustache looked brutal and overbearing. At another table within range of Mr. Darby’s inspection sat a very pretty, vivacious girl, a good-looking young man and a grey-haired, determined woman obviously their mother. The young people chattered and laughed and the mother smiled with amused tolerance and occasionally let fall a phrase. The lady and gentleman that came next under Mr. Darby’s scrutiny roused his curiosity more than any of the others. He had noted the lady as she came into the dining-saloon. She was very tall and slim and was dressed in rose-coloured silk. Diamonds flashed from her breast and there was a flash when she moved her fingers. Mr. Darby could see that she was very much made up. Her features were perfect: the perfectly arched eyebrows, the almond-shaped eyes, the straight, delicate nose, the large, beautiful, derisive mouth looked as if they had been carefully drawn in pencil and faultlessly coloured. Her close fitting hair was like shining black lacquer. Mr. Darby feared her, as he had feared Lady Savers-hill, for she had the same high-handed masterful manner as Lady Savershill. But she was much less human: indeed she seemed to Mr. Darby not human at all. Not human, and, despite her superficial youth, old; a woman who had had the life and youth frozen out of her. As Mr. Darby watched her, he caught her eye, and for a moment she inspected him with a gaze void of interest, hard as glass, as if he had been a bottle or a flower-pot, and then, finding him beneath notice, ignored him. But that brief gaze had been enough to make Mr. Darby feel extremely uncomfortable. His dignity and his self-esteem were annihilated. He blushed, cleared his throat and fell into a contemplation of his champagne glass. It was several minutes before he became his old self again. When he ventured to glance in the formidable lady’s direction again she was talking to her companion. Could he be her son? He was tall, athletic and young, with a moustache almost as wide as his face, tufted at the ends. He wore an eyeglass. Mr. Darby judged him to be very much a gentleman, an aristocrat perhaps, but rather a fop. ‘Rather like the Stedmans’ cat,’ thought Mr. Darby. ‘Yes, a … ah … tom-cat!’ And the lady too must be an aristocrat: that was why she had made him think of Lady Savershill. Mr. Darby, for the first time since he had come on board, felt a pang of loneliness. It seemed impossible that he would make friends with any of these people, except, conceivably, the quiet-looking solitary man with whom he had begun his inspection. Perhaps some of the others whom he had not yet seen at close quarters would be pleasanter.

After dinner Mr. Darby betook himself to the smoking-room. Several men were already seated there. The red-faced brutal man was sunk in a deep chair in the very centre of the room, an immense cigar was stuck, like a peg, into the middle of his face. Mr. Darby, shying away from him, found himself facing the quiet, humorous man who had sat alone in the dining-saloon. The chair next to his was vacant, and Mr. Darby, indicating it with an open palm, asked with a polite cock-robin bow: ‘May I … ah …?’

‘Pray do!’ said the quiet man with a pleasant, dry smile.

Mr. Darby seated himself and took out his cigar-case. He opened it, gravely contemplated the contents and then handed it to his neighbour. ‘Do you … ah …?’

The quiet man glanced at the cigars, hesitated, and said: ‘You’re very kind, sir. Are they fairly mild?’

‘Oh, quite! Quite!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I can’t smoke strong ones.’

The quiet man took one and Mr. Darby selected one for himself, inspected it doubtfully, rolled it between finger and thumb, listening to it like a robin listening for a worm in a lawn, and decided that it was good. When both cigars were alight the quiet man asked Mr. Darby if he was going far.

‘All the way, sir!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘In point of fact, to Sydney.’

‘I too am going to Sydney,’ said the other.

Mr. Darby bowed. ‘I’m glad, very glad, that I shall have the … ah … pleasure …! My name, sir, is Darby,—William James Darby!’

‘And mine,’ said the quiet man, ‘ is Wilfrid Amberley.’

‘Yes,’ pursued Mr. Darby, ‘business calls me to Sydney.’

Mr. Amberley smiled. ‘I fear I have no excuse.’

Mr. Darby nodded. ‘To be shaw! Merely pleasure, I presume.’

‘Curiosity, rather; pursuit of experience. Whatever it is, it applies to the voyage and not to the destination. As soon as I get to Sydney I shall leave it.’

‘You don’t like Sydney, then?’

‘No. I’ve never been there, but it’s a modern town and so I know already that I don’t like it.’

‘Isn’t that rather what I should call … ah … sweeping?’ asked Mr. Darby, pursing his lips and putting his head on one side.

‘Oh completely!’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘It was meant to be. A modern town is a manifestation of modern life and modern life is disgusting. There, in that chair there, you have another manifestation.’ He pointed at the red-faced brutal man, who sprawled with closed eyes. ‘Do you, Mr. Darby, know who that is?’

‘No! Ah, no! I must confess …’ said Mr. Darby.

‘That’s Gudgeon, Gudgeon’s Nerve Food.’

Mr. Darby was thunderstruck. He turned in his chair and inspected the sleeping form with profound interest. ‘Why, bless my soul!’ he said. ‘To be shaw! Fancy that, now! A world-famous name, one might say! A household word!’

‘Precisely! Have you tried the Nerve Food?’

‘Never!’ replied Mr. Darby. ‘My wife doesn’t approve of patent medicines. But I understand, from what I hear, that it’s wonderful.’

‘Wonderful for trade, but quite useless for nerves,’ said Mr. Amberley; ‘except in so far as anything is good for nerves if the nervous one has faith. And that, now that I come to think of it, is our friend’s justification; in fact, it throws a very beautiful light upon him. He doesn’t look, does he, like a great religious teacher? And yet he evokes in countless guileless souls a pure, unadulterated faith. I say unadulterated advisedly, because they cure themselves without the smallest material assistance from the Nerve Food, which, a chemist friend of mine assures me, consists solely of pulverized sawdust, soap, and a little sugar.’

Mr. Darby was growing accustomed to his friend’s dry humour, and took this statement as an example of it. It had never occurred to him to doubt that all patent medicines were what they professed themselves to be.

As he was on his way to bed that evening the long corridor idly and slowly stirred itself and the left wall rubbed itself against him like a cat. Mr. Darby was extremely disconcerted. When he had regained his balance, he hurried to his cabin. His cabin heeled gently as though under his weight and the long swish of moving water was heard through the open porthole. These vague denials of stability repeated themselves and Mr. Darby got hastily to bed. There he found them less disagreeable, managed, in fact, by imagining he was being rocked in a cradle, to get a little tentative enjoyment out of them.

When he awoke next morning, the sea, to his surprise and relief, was calm. He had anticipated a storm.

After breakfast he stepped out on to the promenade deck. People were walking up and down in twos and threes. He found his friend Mr. Amberley seated alone in a deck-chair. Seeing Mr. Darby he made a gesture offering him the chair next his. Mr. Darby bowed, sat down, and accepted a cigarette.

‘A poor return, I’m afraid, for your admirable cigar,’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘I have been watching the animals at play. Our Nerve Feeder and his woman are not pretty movers, are they?’

Mr. Darby turned his head in time to see the great Gudgeon forge past in a huge open great-coat and grey felt hat, with an enormous cigar stuck in his mouth. He walked as if concentrated on the task of pushing his knees and his stomach in front of him. Mrs. Gudgeon was invisible behind him.

‘I wonder,’ said Mr. Amberley reflectively, ‘if that cigar is a sham one: a thin shell of tobacco-leaf stuffed with sawdust.’

But Mr. Darby’s attention had wandered to the next couple, the hard, handsome lady who had been dressed, last night, in rose-coloured silk and the aristocratic young man with the eyeglass who was rather like the Stedmans’ cat. He was dressed now in a smart double-breasted blue suit and she, too, wore dark blue with white, green and silver at the wrists and throat, and a green straw hat. In the light of day her age was still more evident. It was evident in a hollowness at the temples and the grim droop of the mouth.

‘I see,’ said Mr. Amberley’s quiet voice, ‘that the bold bad Baroness has added another to her victims.’

‘The Baroness?’

‘Yes, the lady you were inspecting with so much admiration just now.’

‘She’s a Baroness?’

‘She was, till she recently acquired another alias by marrying that young nincompoop Sir Alistair Gissingham. She must be at least double his age. In her previous incarnation she was the notorious Baroness Bluthner. You remember the famous case.’

‘Oh … ah … indeed!’ said Mr. Darby, who had never heard of the Baroness or the case. ‘To be shaw now! Very intrigguous! One felt at once she had what I should call a history.’

‘I wonder how long she’ll take to train young Gissingham to shoot himself. She got poor Bluthner to score a bull in two years.’

‘Very shocking, very shocking indeed!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Personally I don’t find her … ah … attractive: rather too much of an obelisk for my taste. I chanced to catch her eye last night at dinner and, upon my word, I felt what I should call a shiver go through me.’

‘My dear Mr. Darby,’ said Mr. Amberley quietly, ‘you have defined her exactly: not quite the odalisque, not completely the basilisk, but just precisely an obelisk,—an obelisk, like Cleopatra’s Needle, that has lost a good deal of its surface decoration.’

It was evident to Mr. Darby that Mr. Amberley was something of a character, by which he meant that Mr. Amberley had curious ideas of his own, ideas which caused him, in the middle of a perfectly sensible conversation, to break suddenly into Double Dutch. In this jumble of references to odalisques and basilisks and Cleopatra’s Needle Mr. Darby felt that Mr. Amberley had wandered off into a world of his own. He had not the slightest idea what he was talking about. He was anxious therefore to change the subject; and the fact that, for some undiscoverable reason, Cleopatra’s Needle had instantly suggested to him the Mandratic Peninsula, provided him at once with a smooth transition.

‘Speaking of Cleopatra’s Needle,’ he said to the astonished Mr. Amberley, ‘are you at all … ah … what I should call familiar with … ah … Mandratia?’

‘Mandratia?’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘Well, I know something of it, of course, from Harrington’s extraordinary study, and I feel sure I must have bumped up against it in The Golden Bough and Malinowski and so on.’

‘I was referring,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘to the place itself.’

‘The place itself! Not likely! Why it’s full of savages.’

‘Quite!’ said Mr. Darby.

‘Are you assuming, Mr. Darby, that because I dislike modern life, I like primitive life? Nothing of the sort. What I like is civilization. It is only because modern life is so horribly uncivilized that I detest it. But I should detest the Man-dratians still more. When I pay a visit, I prefer not to provide the meals.’

Mr. Darby raised his eyebrows. ‘You refer to some custom … ah … prélevant in Mandratia?’

Mr. Amberley nodded. ‘Precisely. To that, in fact, of cannibalism.’

‘I understand,’ said Mr. Darby, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, ‘that it is dying out.’

‘Well,’ Mr. Amberley replied, ‘I think I’ll wait till it has died out. It would be unpleasant to be kept wondering, during one’s visit, whether cannibalism or oneself was going to die out first.’

Mr. Darby did not like Mr. Amberley’s tone regarding Mandratia, indeed he liked it so little that he decided to drop that subject also, and the easiest way that presented itself at the moment was to remove one of the conversationalists. He rose from his chair. ‘Well … ah … I have one or two … ah …! ‘He smiled at his friend and, leaning back on the breeze, set off down the deck with a little run induced by an unexpected lurch of the ship.

The movements with which the ship was responding to a smart breeze were not important but they were disconcerting. They defeated one’s intentions, introduced into one’s deportment a certain frivolity. When Mr. Darby began to go downstairs, one of the steps freakishly rose to meet his extended foot. The next one dodged him, so that he spasmodically gripped the banister. In negotiating the corridor he found himself impelled to bump against the left wall, and when he exerted himself to correct this behaviour he instantly tip-toed across the corridor into a cabin that was not his own. The door-handle of his own cabin provided a welcome support, but as he turned it the door swung open, gave him an unexpected tug and sent him trotting up against Punnett. Without the alteration of a feature Punnett put out a hand and steadied him. Already Mr. Darby had discovered that Punnett’s mere presence was extremely reassuring. In manner and appearance he represented permanence, security, imperturbability: his surroundings and the behaviour of his surroundings produced on him, it seemed, no effect whatever. One cut loose, tore oneself from one’s native shores, one exchanged the solidity of dry land for the disturbing, exciting instability of these great, wilful, shrugging, heaving decks and corridors; one’s whole frame of mind was transformed, shot through with subtle thrills and titillations so that to be serene and self-possessed demanded a conscious effort; life, in fact, was changed from top to bottom; yet there remained Punnett, tolerant, deprecating, unruffled, completely the same as he had been in Bedford Square. It was as if Mr. Darby had brought Bedford Square, a solid piece of England, with him, to which, if life grew too unbearably unstable, he could anchor himself.

He was grateful for the anchorage Punnett provided at this moment. ‘A little … ah … what I should call choppy, this morning, Punnett,’ he said.

‘Indeed, sir!’ said Punnett. ‘I haven’t been on deck yet, meself.’

Mr. Darby sat down on his bed and stared at Punnett in astonishment. What had the deck to do with it? Could it be that Punnett didn’t notice this freakish behaviour of floors, doors, stairs, corridors? Next moment Mr. Darby saw that this was actually so. The cabin was still behaving, not violently, but in the self-willed manner which Mr. Darby found so disconcerting; yet Punnett, crossing the cabin to strop Mr. Darby’s razor, remained totally unaffected. It was as surprising, as supernatural as if he had cast no shadow.

‘The fact is, of course, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘that you’re an … ah … an invetinary sailor. You have what I should call sea legs.’

Punnett smiled sadly. ‘The sea never bothers me much, sir.’

‘Not even a great storm, Punnett? Not even a hurricane?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. Nobody likes a storm. It gets in the way of your work, sir; and not only that, it gives you a lot of extra work to do. Last time I came home with Professor Harrington, sir, we were caught in a typhoon in the China Sea. It lasted a matter of three days, sir. It was a great inconvenience.’

‘You were ill, you mean?’

Punnett smiled apologetically. ‘Oh no, not ill, sir. But things get broken and nothing’ll stay where it’s put. It’s as if the ship were turning somersaults, sir, and of course that soon becomes very irritating to the temper.’

Mr. Darby was thoughtful for a moment or two.’ Do these … these … ah … typhoons occur often then, Punnett?’

‘Fairly often about this time of the year, I fancy, sir. July to October’s the season. It’s an experience of course; it shows you what nature can do, sir; but there’s no denying it’s a great inconvenience,—a very great inconvenience, a typhoon.’

Mr. Darby rose from the bed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll … ah …! ‘Choosing a fairly stable moment he left the cabin with dignity. What was the matter with people to-day? You mention Mandratia to a man and he instantly begins to talk of cannibals; to another you drop a casual remark about the weather and he responds with horrible disclosures about typhoons. It seemed better to keep one’s mouth shut. He made for the deck, humouring the corridor and the stairs much more successfully than before. It was really rather fun, this freakish mobility of things, and it was gratifying to find that one did not feel sick. Just as he was about to step out on to the promenade deck Mr. Darby took out his watch and changed his mind. A glass of port and a biscuit would not come amiss. He turned in the direction of the smoking-room.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Port and a biscuit in the middle of the morning proved to be so exactly the thing needed that Mr. Darby at once installed them as a habit. In obedience to it he entered the smoking-room three days later and, to his surprise, found Mr. Amberley and the great Gudgeon in conversation. Mr. Amberley was seated: there was a glass of wine on a table near his chair and a somewhat acid expression on his face. The great Gudgeon stood before him with a large whisky and soda, very rich in colour, in his hand.

‘Take my word for it,’ the great Gudgeon’s voice filled the smoking-room, ‘take my word for it, it’s a case of survival of the fittest nowadays. You can’t get past Darwin.’

Mr. Amberley, catching sight of Mr. Darby, beckoned him to the chair beside him. ‘Mr. Gudgeon has just been telling me, Mr. Darby,’ he said, ‘that he can’t get past Darwin.’

Mr. Darby took the offered chair. ‘To be shaw!’ he said. ‘Indeed now!’

The great Gudgeon turned, grasped another chair, and drew it to the table. ‘I was just explaining to our friend here,’ he said to Mr. Darby, ‘that there’s far too much humanitarianism about nowadays, if you want to succeed, if you want to build up a big business—and I know what I’m talking about, mind you. I ought to, oughtn’t I?’ He put the question loudly and pointedly to Mr. Darby.

‘Oh … ah … to be shaw! Absolutely! Absolutely!’ Mr. Darby replied.

‘H … m! Just so. Well, if you want to build up a big business like Gudgeon’s Nerve Food, you’ve not got to let your feelings run away with you. If any of your employees don’t come up to the mark, if they’re weak, always on the sick list or what not, well, they must make room for others. Give ’em the sack. It’s hard I know, but life’s hard and you’ve got to accept it. That’s what I tell them. My jobs are not jobs for weaklings. If I’d been a weakling where would my business have been?’

‘But you must remember, Mr. Gudgeon,’ said Mr. Amberley’s quiet voice, ‘that you began with an unfair advantage.’

‘Unfair advantage? What d’you mean?’ asked Gudgeon truculently.

‘You had Gudgeon’s Nerve Food at your disposal.’

‘Never touched it in my life,’ said Gudgeon. ‘Never needed it.’

‘But it was there in case of need. That in itself must have been a tonic, for of course you have great faith in it?’

Gudgeon gave a short hard laugh. ‘Would I offer it to the public if I hadn’t?’ he asked.

Mr. Amberley shook his head gravely. ‘You ask me a difficult question, Mr. Gudgeon. Candidly, I don’t know.’

Mr. Gudgeon, with the eye of an ill-conditioned bull, eyed Mr. Amberley suspiciously, but Mr. Amberley’s face wore an expression of flawless innocence.

‘If you were to call at my office, Mr. … er …, I could show you thousands, literally thousands, of testimonials. Isn’t that the only proof worth having of the efficacy of the medicine?’

‘I’m quite sure it is, Mr. Gudgeon.’ Mr. Amberley’s tone was one of conviction.

‘And listen to this,’ went on Gudgeon, bringing his hand down on the table. ‘I never ask for a testimonial. They’re all unsolicited. I don’t ask for testimonials and I don’t force my medicine on any one. The medicine’s there; I tell the public it’s there; you’ve seen me telling them it’s there, Mr. Darby, all over the country …!’

Mr. Darby nodded vigorously. ‘Your … ah … advertisements are what I may call household words.’

Gudgeon turned to Mr. Amberley with outstretched hand. ‘There! You hear, Mr. … er …! Household words! The public know it’s there: they can take it or leave it.’

‘Yes, happily we can all do that. But you’re leaving out one item, aren’t you, Mr. Gudgeon? You’re running the risk of appearing a humanitarian after all. I mean, in the first case, in the case of their taking it, they also pay for it, don’t they?’

‘Ha! Ha! That’s a good one. Mr. Darby, our friend here’s a bit of a wag. Yes, they pay for it, Mr. … er …, as they pay for everything else. You don’t get something for nothing nowadays.’

‘Don’t you, Mr. Gudgeon?’ Mr. Amberley looked genuinely surprised.

Gudgeon leaned forward; there was a horrible concentration about his boiled blue eyes and his brutal mouth. He was about, it seemed, to make an impressive statement, but his eye was caught by something near the door. He snatched his half-full glass and drained it at a gulp. ‘I must be off,’ he said, and got out of his chair. ‘But you gents think over what I’ve told you. I’m a business man, and those are my considered opinions. I give them you for what they’re worth.’

‘More than he does with his Nerve Food,’ said Mr. Amberley. They glanced at their retreating companion and saw, framed in the open doorway like an allegorical figure of Gluttony, the abundant Mrs. Gudgeon.

When they had finished their drinks Mr. Darby and Mr. Amberley went on deck. The sea had ceased to afford Mr. Darby that entertainment which he had found so bracing a day or two ago: it was miraculously calm. With the sheen of a deep blue silk it gently heaved and relapsed in great flat domes, as though giant mermen were slowly and idly nodding their heads below. In the distance the coast of Spain, a continuous mottled ribbon of land, swam parallel with the ship, as if running a losing race with it. Mr. Amberley pointed out a headland. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is Cape Trafalgar.’

Mr. Darby gazed at it in silence. It aroused in him displeasing thoughts: it reminded him of that home of stagnation and corruption the National Gallery. It was a little hard, after cutting loose and traversing several hundred miles of ocean to find such a memory waylaying him here. He turned his eyes elsewhere.

‘Not,’ he said to his companion, ‘a very impressive … ah … feature; and called, I presume, after the well-known Square.’

Mr. Amberley glanced sharply at the little man. Himself an adept in guileful innocence, he saw at once that Mr. Darby’s innocence was genuine. ‘A born humorist, a man in a thousand,’ he thought to himself.

That afternoon they touched at Gibraltar.

Chapter XXVIII

Mr. Darby Abroad

It was after the Utopia had steamed out of Gibraltar that the world began to live up to Mr. Darby’s expectations. It was a calm warm evening and Mr. Darby, abandoning the human herd that strolled or sat on the promenade deck, climbed to the high boat deck and stood, his hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the great luminous furrow that the Utopia drew after her in the pale, crystal-green Mediterranean. The furrow was visible for miles, a bright snail-track on the clear watery floor, and as it visibly lengthened, Mr. Darby saw himself drawn further and further from Sarah and England, further and further into the mysterious unknown. It was harrowing, yet it was thrilling. He felt himself to be alone, yet confident in his loneliness: he had for the moment forgotten, and was content to forget, the reliable Punnett. He turned his eyes to the left and there, far away to the south-west, pale and transparent as though carved from an aquamarine, rose the distant mountains of Africa. On his right, much closer, rose Europe, the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada, an unearthly vision of rose and violet, floating high above a bank of dove-grey vapour that hid the coastline. Mr. Darby heaved a deep-drawn sigh. To stand there alone between two continents, two continents bathed in the visionary loveliness of a dream, was surely one of the most marvellous experiences that could befall a man. His heart expanded until it seemed that it would burst his waistcoat: his whole being felt uplifted. From the height, the moral and emotional height, at which he now stood, his quarrel with England sank into insignificance. He could think even of the National Gallery and its Trustees and Director without bitterness. Yes, Mr. Darby, totally divested now of the narrow garment of self, forgave them; and Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean bore witness to his forgiveness. The roses and violets of the Sierra Nevada faded to the stark whiteness of unilluminated snow, but Mr. Darby’s august and elevated mood still held him alone and motionless under the monstrous scarlet funnels.

And so he might have stood, far into the night, had not a bugle-note from below called the soaring spirit down to its earthly prison and sent the little man hurrying to his cabin to dress for dinner.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

After Gibraltar Mr. Darby felt himself to be indeed in the south. Throughout the day the sea was a deep summery blue, and at night, where it was whipped and churned about the Utopia’s thrusting hull, it glowed and glimmered with a ghostly phosphorescence. And the nights were deliciously warm: coats, wraps and rugs disappeared, and as the ship swam, a great glittering pavilion, through the warm darkness, the ship’s orchestra made a small glittering oasis of revelry in the huge desert of silence, and the passengers, in evening dress, like twirling, gliding exotic flowers, danced on the decks. Mr. Darby sat solitary in a deck-chair watching them. Their rhythmical movements soothed him, the moving show of faces and bright dresses enthralled him. The lady whom Mr. Amberley had called the bold, bad Baroness wore a dress of shimmering blue, the blue of a wild hyacinth: her eyes were half closed, her face was like a mask, ‘a dead woman dancing,’ thought Mr. Darby with a little shudder. Her partner was a tall, thin, clean-shaven man with a face carved out of wood,—a lawyer, Mr. Darby suspected.

The two young Rentons, the handsome young man and the vivacious girl, were dancing together. Their mother sat in a deck-chair separated from Mr. Darby’s by two that were unoccupied. A charming couple, so natural, so alive. Mr. Amberley, who seemed to know everything about everybody, had told him that their name was Renton, and he himself had overheard their mother calling the boy Tim and the girl Violet. Mr. Darby watched them. The girl in her pale yellow dress had the delicious freshness of a spring flower: what a contrast with the Baroness. Mr. Darby could discover no signs of Mr. Amberley, but in a couple of chairs, intermittently eclipsed and revealed by the dancers, the great Gudgeon and his woman sat watching immovably like a pair of obscene pagan idols. Suddenly Mr. Darby found himself violently shaken: a couple had cannoned into his chair. Scarlet from the shock he raised angry spectacles and found the two young Rentons looking down at him. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said the boy with a charming smile, ‘I hope …!’

‘Pray don’t mention it,’ replied Mr. Darby. His anger had vanished, his spectacles had suddenly grown bland.

They took the two empty chairs between him and their mother, and the girl, who had taken the chair next Mr. Darby, turned to him with spontaneous friendliness. ‘I’m afraid we must have shaken you up horribly.’

‘Not at all! Not at all!’ he said. ‘It’s good for old people to be shaken up occasionally.’

‘Is it?’ she said, laughing. ‘Then you ought to be dancing.’

Mr. Darby shook his head gravely. ‘I fear my dancing days are over.’

Violet looked at him. ‘They oughtn’t to be,’ she said, and it was clear from her tone that she was expressing a frank opinion, not paying a compliment.

Mr. Darby’s heart glowed with gratitude. He glanced at her face, he was going to speak, but he saw that her attention was suddenly absorbed in the dancers. After a moment she turned to him again. ‘Who is that woman in blue?’ she asked.

Mr. Darby had a sudden pang of misgiving. He hated to think that this fresh, innocent girl was attracted by that cold, hard, forbidding woman.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was told her name the other day. Let me see! Lady something or other! Gissingham! Yes, that’s it: Lady Gissingham! She used to be a baroness. Do you … ah … admire her?’

‘No,’ answered the girl with conviction. ‘I don’t.’

Mr. Darby was delighted and relieved. ‘Neither do I,’ he said with a conviction equal to hers.

‘She keeps staring at Tim and me,’ said Violet angrily, ‘as if she’d like to eat us.’

Mr. Darby snorted. ‘What I should call bad manners, very!’ he said.

After a few minutes the young people got up to dance again. ‘We’ll be more careful this time,’ the boy said to Mr. Darby.

But Mr. Darby too rose from his chair. ‘I’ll save you the trouble,’ he said with a friendly nod. ‘I’m going for a little walk.’

He wandered away to the other side of the deck, stepped suddenly out of the noise and movement and glitter of crowded humanity into the immense and solemn presence of stars and ocean. He strolled down the deserted deck and tucking himself into the angle between the deck-rail and the rail that divided the first-class from the second-class, gazed down into the seething, glimmering water. His mind, after his talk with the young girl, was as warm and fluid as the sea; her innocence, her friendliness, her frankness had filled and refreshed it. ‘Charming girl!’ he said to himself. ‘Charming little thing!’ If only he and Sarah had had a child, a daughter, she might have been the age of this girl by now.

Mr. Darby stood leaning there for a long time, gazing down into the dark water. The glittering noise of the band came to him here dulled and muted by the outer silence, and in that silence he felt in his simple inarticulate soul a basic security beneath all the fluctuations of life. Whatever came to him and whatever went from him in the course of life did not really matter: the only thing that mattered was this utter security that underlay all the changes and chances. If the Utopia went down in a typhoon in the China Seas, if he actually reached the Mandratic Peninsula, underwent terrible experiences there, even died violently there, none of these things would really matter. In the strength of his security he was ready for whatever might befall.

Gradually his mind rose out of these refreshing depths to the surface of things. He became aware that his legs and his arms were growing stiff from his long immobility. He straightened his back, looked about him, and began to stroll round to the other side of the deck. Again the noise and stir rushed back upon him. It seemed to him that he had been away for hours; yet they were still dancing, still revolving feverishly to the feverish music. He stood, silence and stillness behind him, agitation and noise in front, and watched them. Suddenly his attention was arrested. The Baroness swam past, dancing still, but her eyes were no longer half-closed and she no longer looked dead. She was smiling, her lips moved, her eyes were wide open and gazing intensely, languishingly into her partner’s face. Yes, she was alive now, and she was dancing with young Renton.

Mr. Darby’s whole nature rebelled against it. It was wrong, all wrong. He recalled the girl’s instinctive aversion, her convinced ‘No, I don’t!’ and he longed to rush up to the couple and tear them apart. Their dancing together seemed to him a threat and an insult to the girl.

But where was she, the girl? He glanced over to where he had been sitting with them, and saw her and her mother sitting silent together. It was dreadful, dreadful, and he could do nothing. He turned away and went back to his solitary nook on the other side of the deck.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby had not gone ashore at Gibraltar, but when they touched at Toulon, he landed, under Mr. Amberley’s wing, and visited for the first time in his life a foreign town. The experience delighted him: everything was charmingly fantastic. The people, so different from ordinary people, with their comical chatter and gestures, the absurdly baggy trousers of the men, the lively shops and cafés, separated from the water’s edge only by the broad pavement; the launches of the French Navy with their tall, bright, polished funnels, that bustled from point to point in the wide harbour, full of sailors; the long narrow market, shaded by autumnal plane trees, full of slow business, all these delighted Mr. Darby. ‘Charming!’ he said, as he and Mr. Amberley sat, drinking a Bock, under the awning of a café: ‘Quite charming! Like one of these … ah … exhibitions, to be shaw! ‘He listened with respectful awe when Mr. Amberley conversed fluently with the waiter, and he was amazed to observe that the very dogs and cats understood French. ‘Hearing nothing else they get accustomed to it, I suppose,’ he said.

Mr. Amberley agreed. ‘No doubt the necessity of coping with a foreign language sharpens their wits.’

Yes, Mr. Darby was delighted with Toulon: he wirelessed to Sarah and told her so.

Before dinner that evening Mr. Amberley pointed to a mountainous island ahead of them. ‘Corsica!’ he said. ‘An island famous for its association with a great historical character.’

Mr. Darby gave a little bow. ‘Ah, indeed! And who, if I may enquire?’

‘Boswell, the immortal Bozzy. If people mention other names, Napoleon Bonaparte for instance, you may be sure they’re talking nonsense. Avoid worthless imitations, Mr. Darby: insist on Boswell.’

‘I certainly shall,’ said Mr. Darby. Once again Mr. Amberley was talking Double Dutch: once again Mr. Darby felt that he was something of a character. But he had already discovered that by adroitly changing the subject it was always possible to bring Mr. Amberley back to sanity and commonsense. Accordingly he cleared his throat and said: ‘I trust we shall find Vesuvius active.’

‘Not too active, I hope,’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘Vesuvius when very active is an appalling spectacle. I saw it so once, at the beginning of the last great eruption in fact, and the sight was appalling. It is painful to be reminded so ruthlessly of man’s utter insignificance in the presence of nature. No, I prefer to keep away from active volcanoes and regard myself as the lord of creation.’

‘Still,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘I have always wished to witness some great … ah … what I might call convolution of nature.’

Mr. Amberley made a definite gesture of dissent. ‘No convolutions for me, thank you, Mr. Darby,’ he said. ‘However, let me reassure you. If Vesuvius lets us escape, there is always the chance that the Island of Ischia may blow us and itself to smithereens as we leave Naples. And failing Ischia there remains Stromboli and Etna. I sometimes wonder whether science will some day discover some method of cosmic vaccination to cure these distressing cosmic pimples.’

It might almost have been believed that the vaccination predicted by Mr. Amberley had already been discovered and applied, for except for a white plume like an ostrich-feather twirling from a point on its summit, Vesuvius looked as peaceable as Parliament Hill. Ischia was as bad, Stromboli worse; it was an indistinct but quite commonplace hill floating on the sea. Etna was worse still; it wasn’t there at all. It withdrew with unpardonable incivility into a misty night and though Mr. Darby stood on deck for over an hour in pyjamas and dressing-gown wielding his formidable telescope, it remained totally invisible. No wonder he wired to Sarah: ‘Etna disappointing.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby referred to this regrettable inactivity of the volcanoes while conversing next morning with Violet Renton. She had found him installed in a deck-chair and had sat down beside him.

‘I had been hoping that at least one of them would be what I should call eruptious,’ he said.

‘So did I,’ she replied. ‘I woke up specially for Etna.’

‘I not only woke up,’ said Mr. Darby; ‘I took the trouble to go up on deck and stand there for an hour, and, further, I took with me my telescope, a great heavy … ah … contraption, difficult to manage.’ Mr. Darby spoke with warmth for he felt that he had a personal grievance against the volcanoes. He had behaved with due recognition of their importance and one and all they had failed to return the compliment. ‘I’m inclined to think,’ he said, ‘that volcanoes have been exaggerated.’

He spoke seriously and was at first surprised and then pleased at Violet’s laughter. Evidently he had, as he sometimes did, accidentally made a joke.

‘We must hope for better luck on the return voyage,’ said the girl. As she spoke, Tim Renton and Lady Gissingham came on deck and strolled past them. Violet’s talk and laughter froze: Mr. Darby too became silent and constrained. He longed to speak, to say something to reassure her, but he was shy of intruding. Tim and Lady Gissingham, talking and laughing, strolled to and fro in front of them; Violet and Mr. Darby sat speechless and unhappy: then with a quick, troubled glance at him the girl rose. ‘I think I’ll go in,’ she said in a voice that pierced him to the heart; then turned and left him. It was dreadful, too dreadful! What could he do to restore her happiness? He sat there alone and helpless, burdened with his unexpressed and inexpressible sympathy.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘I observe,’ said Mr. Amberley to Mr. Darby as they sat together on deck midway across the Ionian Sea, ‘that our Baroness has got young Renton well hypnotized. She’s managed to secure a very callow one this time.’

Mr. Darby flushed. ‘It’s a disgrace,’ he replied hotly. ‘Everybody’s watching them and talking about them. She’s no better than a … ah … well, a woman of the streets.’

‘No better? You underrate our Baroness, Mr. Darby. She’s fifty times worse. A woman of the streets is no more dangerous than a bus. She merely announces her presence and you can take her or leave her, for all the world like Gudgeon’s Nerve Food. But the Baroness is a racing car deliberately driven to the danger of the public. She makes a dead set at you and entangles you hopelessly if you happen to be young and inexperienced or a fool. I shouldn’t say that boy was a fool; I like the look of him; but he’s very callow, poor young devil.’

Mr. Darby was silent. Then he asked: ‘Did you say her last husband shot himself?’

‘He did,’ said Mr. Amberley, ‘and now she’s evidently trying the same method with the present one. He’s been looking very pale about the gills for the last few days.’

‘You mean, he shot himself because she ran after someone else?’

‘Precisely. I forget the name of the someone else. He belonged to a good family and the whole business made a good deal of noise at the time. I’m surprised you don’t remember it.’

‘Are you sure of it?’ Mr. Darby enquired with great seriousness.

‘But absolutely. As sure as that I’m sitting here smoking in my unpardonable way this excellent cigar of yours.’

‘I shall warn him,’ said Mr. Darby with determination.

‘My dear Mr. Darby, warn whom? Gissingham?’

‘No, young Renton.’

‘Take my advice, my friend, and do nothing of the sort. It’s always wiser to keep out of complications of this kind. It’s a pity, I admit, but it’s not your business.’

‘But it is my business,’ said Mr. Darby warmly.

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. His sister’s a … ah … a friend of mine, and it’s upsetting her dreadfully. She’s wretched. All her happiness is gone.’

‘And you feel …?’

‘I feel it very deeply,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I can’t allow it to … ah …!’

Mr. Amberley sighed. ‘Well, my dear fellow, all I can say is, I wish I had your goodness of heart. At the same time,’ he added with a return to his usual dry tone, ‘I’m rather glad I haven’t.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘The first question to be settled, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby while dressing for dinner that evening, ‘will be how to … ah … approach the Peninsula. The trading vessel calls only once a year. If we hadn’t to wait too long, if it was starting say a month or so after we reached Sydney, we might … ah … avail ourselves, so to speak.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Punnett sadly. ‘But were you thinking of spending a year there, sir?’

‘A year, Punnett?’

‘Till the ship called again, sir?’

Mr. Darby was silent. His thoughts had been exclusively concerned with getting to Mandratia. The fact, the rather disagreeable fact, that if they took the trading vessel he and Punnett would be willy-nilly marooned on the Peninsula until its next visit occurred to him now for the first time. He fell into a reverie. Suppose, he thought, some event or series of events were to occur that made it highly desirable for them to leave the Peninsula quickly, it would be extraordinarily unpleasant to know that this was impossible. A year, a month, even a day is a serious interruption if you happen to be running for your life. Reflecting, there in his cabin, Mr. Darby suddenly realized with intense vividness—such is the power of the imagination—the sensation of being completely cut off from salvation when pursued by howling savages. It was an unpleasant, an extraordinarily unpleasant sensation.

‘We shall have to charter a boat of our own, Punnett,’ he said decisively. ‘We might find, might we not, that we tired of the place, or possibly of the people? In that event it would be convenient to have some means of … ah … conveyance in what I should call the offing.’

‘It would, sir,’ replied Punnett. ‘I remember one occasion, the occasion of the great feast—they have a great feast once a year, sir, when they … well, they roast a human being, sir. On that occasion, Professor Harrington and I would have been very glad of a conveyance. It was a very near thing with us that time, sir. The king, the king of the Mandrats, was against us from the first, and he egged on the natives to get hold of Professor Harrington, with the object of roasting him, sir. It was the camera that saved us. I turned the camera on them, as it might have been a machine-gun, and they fell back. They daren’t face it. But it was a very near thing: for a moment I thought the camera wasn’t going to work. You see, they were very much wrought up, sir. Quite hysterical they were.’

Mr. Darby gave a little shudder. ‘But why was the king against you, Punnett?’

‘Well, sir, the king was a foreigner. They always choose a foreigner for their king, or, failing a foreigner, some freak of their own, a hunchback or what not. And this particular king was a sort of half-caste, quite a different colour from the natives he was, a kind of dirty yellow-grey, sir; and he had an idea, I think, that the natives might do away with him and make Professor Harrington king instead, or perhaps me. They were very much impressed with Professor Harrington, you see, sir, him speaking the language and all that, and I’m not sure but what the king’s suspicions weren’t pretty near the mark. Not that Professor Harrington would have accepted the throne, sir, nor me either. It would have been a great inconvenience, a great interruption to work.’

‘Still, Punnett, an experience, a very unique experience!’ said Mr. Darby, shocked by Punnett’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘I’m not sure, Punnett, if I had been in your place …’

But the dinner bugle sounded and the nature of Mr. Darby’s uncertainty remained uncertain.

After dinner he repaired to his obscure nook on the deck for further reflection. It was a cooler evening this time and Mr. Darby wore a coat. Propped there motionless against the rail, his face averted from the deck and bent downwards upon the hissing, glimmering water, he resembled, in the dimness, a tarpaulin sack rather than a man. That, no doubt, was why the two figures that came slowly down the deck and stood leaning over the rail not five yards away from him, did not lower their voices.

‘If you think I’m going to sit still and be made a fool of, you’re mistaken.’ Mr. Darby could hear the man’s voice distinctly.

The woman’s, when it came, hard and clear, he recognized instantly; it was Lady Gissingham’s. ‘My dear Ally, no one’s making a fool of you but yourself. You seem to expect me to hang round your neck all day long.’

‘God forbid! But I object to your hanging all day long round the Renton boy’s.’

‘In fact, I’m forbidden to make friends.’

‘There’s no good your trying sham innocence on me, Rhoda. You know perfectly well what I mean. I forbid you to make a fool of yourself and me with that boy.’

Mr. Darby heard a hard, mirthless, woman’s laugh. ‘Forbid away, Ally. I shall do as I feel inclined.’

‘Will you? ‘The man’s voice trembled with suppressed fury. ‘Then you’ll take the consequences.’

‘Threats don’t frighten me, Ally. Do as you like. But if you’re so sick of our honeymoon already, heaven knows what you’ll be by the time we’ve been to Colombo and back. Hadn’t you better get off the boat at the next stop and go home?’

‘That’s the first sane thing you’ve said yet,’ said Gissingham.

For a moment Lady Gissingham did not reply. His sudden acceptance of her cynical suggestion had evidently taken her aback. When she spoke, her tone was cold, bored, weary. ‘In that case I shall have to console myself for your absence.’

Gissingham’s sudden and brutal rejoinder horrified Mr. Darby. He had never thought that titled people used such words. But though the words horrified him, they apparently produced no effect on Lady Gissingham. Her cold laugh was heard once more. ‘My dear Ally,’ she said, ‘you excel yourself.’

There followed a sound of footsteps and Mr. Darby, turning his head without moving his body, saw Lady Gissingham move away slowly and indifferently down the deck. In another minute Sir Alistair went off in the opposite direction.

What he had heard increased Mr. Darby’s determination to speak to young Renton at once. There was danger in the air, he was sure. If Gissingham left the Utopia at Port Said (the next stop), his wife, as she had just coldly announced, would console herself, and she would console herself of course with young Renton. But if Gissingham stayed on the ship, then there would be those ‘consequences’ of which he had darkly spoken. He must try to have a word with young Renton at once.

Mr. Darby accordingly made a complete circuit of the promenade deck and then glanced both into the lounge and the smoking-room. In vain: young Renton was nowhere. Perhaps, thought Mr. Darby, he was in his cabin. The boy’s cabin, as Mr. Darby had already noticed, was next door to his own. If he went to his own he would very likely be able to hear whether young Renton was in his. Mr. Darby went to his cabin, switched on the light and sat down. Yes, he was there. After a minute or two he heard on the partition one of those bumps so familiar on ships,—an elbow or a shoulder striking the wall. He hesitated for a moment, then rose from his chair, left his cabin and tapped on the door of young Renton’s.

The boy was sitting on his bed with a book in his hand: he was still fully dressed. Mr. Darby, standing with his hand on the door-handle made a little bow. ‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘but could you … ah … spare me a few minutes?’

The boy raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Certainly,’ he said in a tone that had more of question than acquiescence in it. ‘Will you … er …?’ He pointed to a chair.

‘Wouldn’t it be pleasanter on deck?’ said Mr. Darby. ‘That is, if you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all!’

They proceeded in silence to the more deserted side of the promenade deck. Mr. Darby had suggested the deck for privacy; one is so easily overheard in a cabin; but now he wished he hadn’t, for the silence and suspense of their progress down corridors and up stairs had raised the occasion to one of great formality, so that when Tim Renton turned to him and asked: ‘Now, sir, what was it you wanted? ‘he felt extremely embarrassed.

‘Well … ah …’ he began, ‘I … ah … in point of fact I find it rather … ah … rather what I should call difficult to … ah … to say.’

Young Renton, looking down on to Mr. Darby’s spectacles, raised his eyebrows in surprise and amusement.

Mr. Darby pulled himself together. ‘I wanted to talk to you of something which is … ah … well … none of my business, in fact of Lady Gissingham.’

The young man’s face hardened at once.

‘I don’t see … ‘he began, all the cordiality gone from his voice.

Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘Please let me say my say, and try not to think me too … ah … too what I should call nosey. I felt, you see, noticing you about so much with Lady Gissingham, that it was only right to … ah … to warn you …’

‘That everyone on the ship is gossiping about it? Yes, I know, thanks. My mother and sister have told me nothing else for the last week. You’re all so desperately old-fashioned. Lady Gissingham’s a very good sort and very intelligent too, which is more than most of the people on this boat are. I don’t see why I should stop talking to her just because a lot of silly people start chattering. Let them chatter: I don’t care. I’m getting a little tired …’

Again Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘That isn’t what I was going to say,’ he replied. ‘I was going to say … to warn you that Lady Gissingham is rather a … what I should call a dangerous woman.’

Young Renton laughed contemptuously. ‘This all sounds very melodramatic, Mr. Darby.’

‘Perhaps it does,’ answered Mr. Darby, ‘perhaps you think me unduly … ah … perniquitous, but do you happen to have heard about her last husband?’

Young Renton looked at him sternly. ‘Is it decent or honourable, do you think, to tell tales about a woman behind her back?’

But Mr. Darby was not to be put off. ‘Her last husband shot himself,’ he said, ‘and do you know why?’

Tim Renton did not answer. Mr. Darby’s statement had evidently given him a shock: his face was scarlet, his brows knitted. He wanted no doubt to say that Lady Gissingham’s past did not concern him, but he also wanted to hear what Mr. Darby had to say. At last his eyes, which had been angrily fixed on distance, turned rather sheepishly to Mr. Darby’s. ‘No,’ he said shortly, ‘I don’t.’

‘Because,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘she had … well … taken up with another man just as she’s doing with you.’

Again Tim Renton made no reply: once more his brows were knitted and he was angrily gazing into the distance. ‘It seems to me,’ he said at last, ‘that you and my mother are trying to make mountains out of molehills.’

Mr. Darby pursed his lips as when considering an expression of opinion.

‘It wouldn’t be a molehill,’ he said judicially, ‘if Sir Alistair Gissingham shot himself or you.’

Young Renton turned and faced Mr. Darby. ‘Doesn’t it occur to you, sir, that I am quite competent to look after myself?’

Mr. Darby suddenly felt angry. ‘No,’ he said hotly, ‘no, since you ask me, it does not; not by the way you’re behaving.’

‘In that case,’ said young Renton coldly, ‘there’s nothing more to be said, is there? We might as well wish each other good night.’ He turned on his heel and left Mr. Darby to himself.

Mr. Darby’s anger was immediately turned upon himself. How lamentably he had mismanaged the whole thing. And now, worst of all, he had lost his temper and alienated the boy completely. It would have been better, far better, if he had kept his mouth shut: so far from putting a stop to the thing he had most probably made it worse, put the boy on his mettle to show that he despised his warnings. And he had totally forgotten, fool that he was, to mention that he had actually heard Gissingham threaten his wife—’ Then you’ll take the consequences.’ That would have been a very telling point: it would have corroborated everything he had said. For a moment Mr. Darby had an almost irresistible impulse to run after young Renton with that piece of information. It was, after all, of such vital importance. What, in Heaven’s name, could have made him forget it? But next moment he realized that, as things were now, it would be useless. He would only irritate him still more.

He heaved a long, deep sigh. The business, brief as it had been, had taken it out of him. And it had made him thirsty. A drink! Yes, a drink was emphatically what he needed. He turned his back on the sea and toddled towards the smoking-room.

Chapter XXIX

Mr. Darby Repels An Invasion

Mr. Darby, travelling hot-foot in the direction of the much-needed drink, found Mrs. Gudgeon hovering outside the smoking-room door. She looked at Mr. Darby, anxiety and embarrassment in her eyes, hesitated, and then said: ‘Excuse me, but would you kindly tell my husband I want him.’

‘Ah … certainly, to be shaw!’ Mr. Darby replied with a little bow, reaching out his hand to push the door open.

Mrs. Gudgeon hesitated again and then said: ‘I hear him arguing in there. He oughtn’t to get excited; the doctor said so; and he oughtn’t to take much whisky. Please try not to lead him on. And if you could tell him now …’

‘Certainly! Certainly,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘If I can.’

He felt suddenly sorry for the repellent Mrs. Gudgeon. There was something pathetic about her waiting humbly and anxiously outside the door, and her repellence somehow made her the more pathetic. ‘Be sure,’ he said as he left her, ‘I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Gudgeon.’

He found Gudgeon, purple in the face, with his customary double whisky beside him, in hot argument with Mr. Amberley. He was leaning forward in his chair with one huge flat hand on the table. Mr. Amberley cool, quiet, imperturbable, leaned back, the tips of the fingers of one hand pressed gently against the fingers of the other. Two or three other men were standing round them with their hands in their pockets, smiling.

‘But that’s all tommy-rot,’ Gudgeon was shouting as Mr. Darby joined the group; ‘all damned nonsense.’

Mr. Amberley smiled his faintly cynical smile and made no reply.

‘You see,’ roared Gudgeon, ‘you haven’t a leg to stand on; not a word to say for yourself, have you, eh?’

Mr. Amberley’s smile slightly increased. ‘There’s no point, Mr. Gudgeon,’ he said quietly, ‘in replying to a thunderstorm. One simply waits, doesn’t one, till it has thundered itself out? You don’t prove your case by shouting; you merely provide light entertainment for your audience. I can’t think why you are so anxious to make me believe in the excellence and high-mindedness of your business. Even if you were to succeed, I should not buy your Nerve Food. My nerves are not in need of food, and even if they were, I should not give them yours. It’s simply publicity thrown away; and wastefulness—I’m sure we agree in this at least—wastefulness is always bad business.’

Gudgeon seized his glass in a trembling hand and drank. ‘Yes,’ he said, a trickle of whisky running from the corner of his mouth to his chin. ‘Yes, you’re right there. It’s pure waste of time talking to … a … to a man like you, Mr. Amberley.’

Mr. Amberley became persuasive. ‘Then why do so, Mr. Gudgeon? Why not ignore me? I only upset your nerves, it seems. If you will keep on at me we shall have you taking your own Food before long. But things needn’t go as far as that. Leave me alone. You may have noticed that I always leave you alone. When I can,’ he added quietly.

Mr. Darby laid his hand on Gudgeon’s shoulder. ‘Mrs. Gudgeon asked me to tell you,’ he said, ‘that she’s waiting for you.’

‘Eh? What? Wants me, you say? Mus’ be off.’ Gudgeon struggled from his chair and lurched unsteadily to the door.

Mr. Darby took his vacant seat and ordered a drink.

‘Mr. Darby,’ said Mr. Amberley, ‘I’m ashamed of myself. Bull-baiting is a degrading sport. But the fellow won’t let me alone. He has an unquenchable longing, it appears, to force me to approve of him. Ugh!’ Mr. Amberley shuddered. ‘What a swine! It’s strange, isn’t it, that the law should come down so heavily on murderers and thieves and embezzlers, and yet allow a fellow like that to make a fortune out of swindling the public?’

Mr. Darby laughed in reply. He was feeling pleased at the instant success of his attempt to assist Mrs. Gudgeon: the poor woman had looked so fearfully worried. It was evident to him once more that Mr. Amberley was a character, a character who had disproportionately strong feelings about patent medicines. Undeniably Gudgeon was rather a dislikable man, but it seemed to Mr. Darby unnecessary to make such a fuss about it; and Mr. Amberley, for all that his manner was calm, did make a fuss about his feelings towards Gudgeon. And so Mr. Darby laughed and made no reply. The steward brought his drink. It was a John Collins, a drink to which, since he had made its acquaintance on the Utopia, Mr. Darby had become extremely partial. He raised it to his lips at once and half emptied it in a single pull.

Mr. Amberley watched him and nodded sympathetically. ‘A good drink!’ he said.

‘An extremely good drink!’ said Mr. Darby with a satisfied sigh.

‘Finish it and have another,’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘I want to get the taste of Gudgeon out of my mouth, and a talk with you, Mr. Darby, will do it for me quicker than anything else.’

Mr. Darby accepted and they sat and talked till the smoking-room was empty.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

After Mr. Darby had retired to his cabin, undressed, got into bed, and switched out the light, a very unpleasant event took place. He was already in that vague half-dreaming, half-waking state in which idiotic and disconnected ideas float across even the sagest mind, when he was brought abruptly to himself by a small, distinct sound. He was almost sure that his door had been opened. With fluttering heart he lay motionless, all ears. The throbbing of the ship’s engines was like a giant heart that shared his apprehension. After a few seconds the sound repeated itself. This time there was no doubt. It was his door. Still he lay motionless, listening for all he was worth. Not the smallest sound was perceptible through the pulse of the ship, but Mr. Darby felt, felt unmistakably, that someone was in the room. Very cautiously he glided a hand to the electric-light switch and clicked it on.

For the moment he was so dazzled that he saw nothing: then, when his sight had grown as clear as it ever was without his spectacles, he saw a figure in a rich Chinese robe standing near the door. It was Lady Gissingham. Mr. Darby was definitely alarmed. He sat up in bed, staring at her with a palm extended as if to ward her off. Speechless, her feet rooted to the spot, Lady Gissingham stared back at him.

Then Mr. Darby closed his extended palm, all except one finger, the index finger. ‘There,’ he said in a slightly tremulous whisper, ‘is the door!’

To his intense relief Lady Gissingham turned from him. She had accepted her dismissal. Then she turned again. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she whispered, ‘I seem to have lost my way.’

Mr. Darby, sitting up in bed, pink and unspectacled, bowed, and she went out as cautiously as she had entered.

As soon as the door had closed on her, Mr. Darby skipped out of bed, went to the door, and bolted it. Then, already much calmer, he got back into bed and switched out the light. Of course her whispered excuse had not deceived him in the least. She had made it merely to save her face. That was the way to deal with a woman like that. Already in his mind his timid whisper had become a loud command: ‘There, madam, is the door!’ He rehearsed an account of the event: ‘Of course I ordered her out of my room at once. “There, madam,” I said, “is the door”; and she turned and slank … I should say slunk … out.’ A dangerous woman! An exceptionally dangerous woman! And so cunning too. Never, by so much as the stirring of an eyelid, had she shown in public the smallest awareness of him. As for her carrying-on with young Renton, Mr. Darby saw the meaning of it now, he plumbed to the depths the woman’s shrewd guile. It was a blind, simply a blind to divert attention from her true object, himself. Mr. Darby, lying there in the dark, coughed slightly. He could not help feeling a little flattered. But he was also genuinely alarmed. He would have to be extremely careful. That kind of woman would hardly give in after a single rebuff. There was an old proverb: ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’ Nowadays, no doubt, that proverb applied equally to the other sex. Yes, he would have to be extremely careful.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

When Mr. Darby awoke next morning he at first found it difficult to believe that the exciting and disturbing event of the previous night had been anything more than a dream. Except perhaps in dreams, such a thing had never occurred to him before. Well, after all, it was an experience, and, he could not prevent himself from feeling, rather a flattering experience. While brushing his hair in the mirror he instinctively examined his appearance with a new interest. He checked the impulse to get out and put on his smartest tie, for that would simply have been to court disaster.

As he stepped out on deck after breakfast he met Lady Gissingham. What a depth of guile there was in the woman: she passed him without the faintest flicker of recognition. At the other end of the deck he passed young Renton who cut him dead.

As the day advanced it became clear, as Mr. Darby had anticipated, that his attempt to snatch young Tim Renton from the clutches of Lady Gissingham had had precisely the opposite effect. He had thrown him into her arms. On the following day they were hardly seen apart except at meals when Tim formed with his mother and sister a dismal and embarrassed trio and Lady Gissingham sat opposite a scowling and taciturn husband. Mr. Darby was much upset. The fact, known only to himself, that Tim Renton was not the real object of Lady Gissingham’s machinations did not lessen the unhappiness of Violet and Mrs. Renton, nor did it mean that Tim was not still running a serious risk, for it was hardly likely that Sir Alistair realized that his wife’s preoccupation with the young mm Was only a blind. Yet how could Mr. Darby enlighten either Tim or Violet? To tell them that he himself was the object of Lady Gissingham’s unlawful desires would sound like a fantastic and boastful delusion. Modest little man that he was, he couldn’t bring himself to commit such a breach of modesty. Tim, of course, would simply laugh and refuse to believe him: it would seem to him, in his youthful arrogance, too ridiculously impossible. But to Mr. Darby himself it did not seem improbable. After all, he was much closer in age to Lady Gissingham than this boy who was barely out of his teens. But what could he do about it? There was nothing, it seemed, that he could do: accordingly he did nothing. But the whole thing was very upsetting and he spent a somewhat restless and unhappy day.

That night, after he had retired to rest, Mr. Darby was again disturbed, but not, this time, by a visit from his pursuer. That would have been impossible, because his door was locked. He was disturbed on this occasion by subdued talk in the next cabin, Tim Renton’s. Mr. Darby had not been asleep, though it was already midnight, when he heard young Renton’s door open and then shut, just as his own had done the night before. There was a pause and then he heard young Renton’s voice, sharp and apprehensive, as if he had suddenly woken. ‘Who’s that?’

‘S … h! All right! It’s only me.’ The reply was little more than a whisper, but Mr. Darby, with a thrill of apprehension, recognized the voice.

There was a sudden snap on the partition wall, and the grid that ran along the top of the partition threw an oblong fretted pattern of light on Mr. Darby’s ceiling. Young Renton had turned on the light.

‘You?’ said young Renton’s surprised voice. ‘What do you want?’

By straining his ears Mr. Darby could just hear their subdued voices. There was a faint laugh. ‘What do I want? Not a very gallant question, Tim. I want you, of course, my dear. I mean, I want to talk to you.’

‘But, I say,’ said the boy, ‘you oughtn’t to … to be here, you know.’

‘Oughtn’t I? On the contrary, I feel I oughtn’t to be anywhere else when you’re looking as charming as you are at present. You’re wise to wear blue pyjamas.’

There was silence for a moment. Then Tim Renton’s voice came again. ‘Look here, Lady Gissingham, you must go. Besides, I want to go to sleep.’

Lady Gissingham laughed again: it was no more than a hiss. ‘What a good boy it is!’ she whispered.

Tim’s voice grew more urgent. ‘No, it’s no good, Lady Gissingham: you must go. I don’t want you.’

‘Oh, you don’t want me, don’t you? ‘Even though she spoke so softly Mr. Darby could hear the sharp change in her voice. ‘Then what have you been …’

The words broke off short and Mr. Darby in his bed started violently, for the door of young Renton’s cabin opened again with a smart click. There was a long pause during which it seemed to Mr. Darby that the people next door must hear the beating of his heart above the throb of the engines.

At last a man’s voice spoke. ‘I thought I should find you here.’

‘Indeed, Ally? Then it’s lucky I didn’t disappoint you.’ Young Renton’s voice broke in.

‘Why did you expect to find her here? I don’t see why you should.’

Sir Alistair laughed contemptuously. ‘You must either be a liar or a very simple young man.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. But I didn’t expect her. I never asked her to come.’

‘You must have realized by this time, I should have thought,’ said Gissingham, ‘that she doesn’t wait for an invitation.’

‘Well, I wish you’d take her away.’ Young Renton’s voice and the things he said sounded frank and boyish beside the acid tones of the others.

‘You seem to have so much to say to each other that I think I’ll leave you,’ said Lady Gissingham. ‘You’re a pretty pair, one a bore, the other a prig.’

There was a faint sound as if she were moving, then a pause as if she had turned, ‘One a common sneak, the other a cur.’

The door opened and shut, loudly this time. ‘I advise you to steer clear of my wife,’ said Gissingham’s voice.

‘The advice is not needed, thanks!’ said young Renton, and again the door opened and shut. Nothing more disturbed the monotonous pulse of the engines, nothing more except, after a few moments, a smart click on the partition, which suddenly abolished the fretted pattern of light on Mr. Darby’s ceiling.

Well, really! The way people went-on on ships. Mr. Darby felt himself surrounded by adventure: the air was thick with mysteries and dangers. Mandratia and jungles seemed almost superfluous, when an ordinary English liner, even when the sea was calm, provided you with adventures enough to supply a Sunday paper. However, it was a blessing to know that Tim Renton had shaken off that sinister woman. Mr. Darby chuckled. The boy had stood up for himself capitally against those two nasty people, and, what with him and Sir Alistair, Lady Gissingham had had a very thin time of it. ‘My wife doesn’t wait for an invitation!’ That was a good one. Mr. Darby’s mind, like a cinema, began to unroll a fantastic drama of Lady Gissingham paying uninvited and unsuccessful visits to cabin after cabin. It faded out, leaving him more, instead of less, wakeful. He began to reflect, to reason. If she had been using Tim Renton as a blind, why had she gone to the length of paying him a visit? For a moment it seemed to Mr. Darby that his cinematographic fancy was correct, that Lady Gissingham actually went round indiscriminately. But that, of course, was absurd. The fact was, of course, that he himself had repelled her successfully; his loud, authoritative ‘There, madam, is the door!’ had actually convinced her, hardened libertine as she was, that her quest was hopeless, and she had fallen back on young Renton in desperation. At that point Mr. Darby’s reasoning presented him with a formidable question. What would she do now? Would she boldly throw off her mask and pursue him openly, as she had pursued young Renton? It would be awkward, extremely awkward. It would be far more difficult and embarrassing to keep her at bay publicly, in the presence of an interested, amused, and gossiping audience, then it had been in the privacy of his cabin. The whole situation was exceedingly disquieting. He would have, now, to be even more on his guard than before.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Next morning Mr. Darby ordered Punnett to get out his oldest suit, chose a glaringly inappropriate tie which he tied carelessly, and, in short, deliberately made the worst of himself. He was resolved on the strictest discretion, even at the expense of personal dignity.

Chapter XXX

Mr. Darby Faces Death

Mr. Darby, arms akimbo, was leaning idly against the rail: for the last half-hour he had been watching the gradual approach of Port Said, ‘a town,’ Mr. Amberley had told him, ‘which unites the typical beastlinesses of east and west.’ From what he saw of it now he was inclined to think that Mr. Amberley, when allowances had been made for his habitual exaggeration, was not far wrong. He was disgusted to observe on the sordid houses and warehouses of the front the huge familiar English advertisements which, he had supposed, he had left hundreds and hundreds of miles behind him. The Utopia had now come to a standstill, and a tender like a clumsy sprawling broad-bellied beetle had crawled out to meet her and now lay nestling under her huge side, belching out coils of dirty brown smoke. Mr. Darby peered down into her to see who was leaving the ship. A slow stream of passengers, some of whom he knew by sight, others—the majority—totally unknown, was dribbling sluggishly on to the tender. Suddenly, with a start of surprise, he recognized a slim blue figure, the figure of a girl. It was Violet Renton. She was following her mother on to the tender and behind her came Tim. They carried suitcases, there were coats over their arms. They were going, then; leaving the Utopia? He hadn’t known they were travelling no further than Port Said. Mr. Darby felt suddenly melancholy, and not only melancholy but hurt. They hadn’t, apparently, thought it worth while to say goodbye to him. Tim perhaps was still angry with him, despite the fact that he had proved to be right about Lady Gissingham; but Violet at least, after their friendly talks, might, he thought, have bidden him goodbye. He saw them put their bags down on the crowded deck and, standing there in a little group, turn to look up at the Utopia. They were remarking, Mr. Darby felt sure, upon how huge she looked from below. Then Tim recognized him. Mr. Darby waved a hand, Tim smiled, waved back and turned to his sister. Then Violet and her mother looked up and Violet waved to him. They lowered their heads and turned away, and Mr. Darby saw the two young people talking and laughing. With a pang he felt that they were laughing at him. Well, after all, they were young, and no doubt they thought him a tiresome old man. He sighed and turned his eyes from them to other arrivals on the tender. Suddenly his attention was caught by a tall, grey-suited young man. Surely it couldn’t be …? But it was; yes, it was Sir Alistair Gissingham. He carried a coat, a rug, and a stick, and he was alone.

Mr. Darby was gazing down, enthralled by this astonishing development in the Gissingham drama, when a hand tapped him on the shoulder. It was Mr. Amberley. ‘Come on shore, my dear Darby. We have a couple of hours, and you ought not to miss the opportunity of visiting one of the squalidest outposts of our European civilization. But we must hurry: the tender will be off in a minute.’

‘Right!’ said Mr. Darby, all agog. ‘I think I’ll do as I am. I’ll come at once.’

They hurried along decks and down companion-ladders and caught the tender by the skin of their teeth. It was packed, and Mr. Darby, lost in a tall grove of human bodies, could see nothing of the Rentons or Sir Alistair, but when he turned and gazed up at the monstrous Utopia towering sheer above them his eye at once detected Lady Gissingham, faultless, self-possessed, coldly and aloofly amused, looking down upon them. As he looked, she made a casual, faintly-mocking gesture of farewell with her left hand. Not to him. No, thank God, not to him. But to whom? Was it to her husband or to Tim Renton? Again Mr. Darby searched the crowd on the tender, but in vain. He saw nothing but the backs, shoulders, heads fencing him in, obscuring his view.

‘Have you noticed,’ he said, sotto voce, to Mr. Amberley, ‘that Sir Alistair Gissingham has left the ship?’

‘Left the ship?’ said Mr. Amberley, amazed. ‘But they were going to Colombo. And where’s our Baroness?’

‘On board,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘You’ll see her if you look. They had something of what I should call an alternation a night or two ago which I accidentally overheard. She said, sarcastically of course, that if he was tired of the … ah … honeymoon he’d better get off at the next stop.’

‘And he’s done so, taken her at her word. Well done, Sir Alistair. I didn’t think he had it in him. A very pretty piece of repartee; not so telling perhaps, as poor Bluthner’s, but much less trying to himself. But do look at the sea front of our Europe in Africa, Darby. Did you ever see anything so fascinatingly disgusting? Pure Clacton, isn’t it, with all the dear familiar advertisements.’

They visited the shops; tried Turkish cigarettes and bought some, inspected ostrich-feathers of which Mr. Darby bought a monstrous blue one for Sarah, drove round the town through squalid streets, past patches of waste ground strewn with garbage and then back to the hotel in the main street, where they sat in the lounge and had drinks. A dirty little Arab boy ran up to them, knelt before their chairs, conjured two newly-hatched chickens out of empty air, and was promptly turned out by a waiter.

‘But how did he do it?’ said Mr. Darby, astounded.

Mr. Amberley shook his head. ‘I have no idea, my dear Darby. But, you may be sure, by no honest means.’

They walked back to the tender. ‘A curiously beastly hole, isn’t it, Darby?’

Mr. Darby nodded. ‘To be shaw,’ he said. ‘A place I should call more curious than beautiful.’

Across the intervening water, reclining superbly upon the blue of sea and sky, the Utopia, with her scarlet funnels, lay serenely awaiting them. And on her, also awaiting them, as Mr. Darby remembered with a sudden sting of apprehension, was Lady Gissingham.

‘You have seen the sink, Darby,’ said Mr. Amberley as they got on board the tender. ‘We shall now, mere offscourings of Europe that we are, go down the drain.’

‘The … ah … drain?’ Mr. Darby raised enquiring spectacles to his friend’s face.

‘The Suez Canal. The name is ominously suggestive.’

• • • • • • • •,

When Mr. Darby woke next morning Punnett informed him that he was in the Red Sea. It was immediately apparent to him that the Red Sea was a very disagreeable place. The weather was hot and windy, the Utopia lurched unpleasantly, and the word perspiration began to take on for Mr. Darby a new and terrible meaning. ‘Literally one never stops,’ he said to Mr. Amberley, mopping a streaming face with a large silk handkerchief. The stifling heat and the unsteadiness of the ship made him disinclined to do anything but sit in the lounge or under the awning on the shady side of the deck. The passengers became moody and silent. The great Gudgeon, an unappetizing spectacle, purpler and more irritable than ever, consoled himself with enormous whiskies. Mr. Darby, sipping a John Collins and blessing its inspired namesake, felt that the conditions, despite their extreme unpleasantness, had their advantages, for the prevailing exhaustion could hardly fail to render the redoubtable Lady Gissingham less enterprising. In fact he saw nothing of her except at meals when she occupied a table to herself, a table that displayed to her impassive regard a vacant chair in memory of the vanished Sir Alistair. Mr. Darby as he glanced at her cautiously from time to time from the table which, ever since the day they had visited Toulon, he had shared with Mr. Amberley, found himself wondering what she could be feeling and thinking: but her face told him nothing and his imagination told him no more than her face.

But though Lady Gissingham’s enterprise was probably dormant, it would have been the greatest rashness, Mr. Darby knew, to relax his precautions, and when Punnett, in view of the stifling heat, advised him to keep his cabin door ajar at night, on the hook provided for the purpose, Mr. Darby wisely refrained.

‘No, Punnett!’ he said. ‘No! Heat or no heat, I prefer to shut and bolt it.’ He hesitated for a moment and then added: ‘Not but what I wouldn’t prefer to keep it ajar; but, as I need hardly remind you who are accustomed to travel by sea, one has to be extremely careful. Strange things happen on ships. I may tell you, in strictest confidence, Punnett, that a lady thought fit to enter my cabin some nights ago. Of course I sent her about her business pretty quick; but I have reason, good reason, to think that she may try again, and I prefer to … ah … well … meet her half way.’

A faint surprise appeared in Punnett’s face, and seeing that he might have given a wrong impression, Mr. Darby hastened to add: ‘By locking the door, I mean, Punnett.’

‘Quite so, sir!’ said Punnett. ‘I remember that Professor Harrington had a good deal of trouble with a lady as we were returning from Mandratia, sir. A very bare-faced person, she was.’

‘Indeed, now!’ said Mr. Darby.

‘Yes, sir. Professor Harrington, as I’ve told you, sir, was a very striking-looking gentleman, and we had a lot of trouble at one time or another.’

‘I hope, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘that if any lady on this ship should … ah … apply to you …’

Punnett slightly inclined his head. ‘Leave her to me, sir. I thoroughly understand these cases.’

‘Whether it can be the … ah … the sea air,’ said Mr. Darby ruminatively, ‘or possibly … ah …!’

‘It’s having so little occupation,’ Punnett replied with authority. ‘Ladies soon get tired of deck-quoits. But, if I might advise, sir, it’s better not to keep out of their way too much. That only leads them on. By making yourself pleasant, sir, and at the same time showing them the kind of gentleman you are, you make it more difficult for them to take liberties.’

‘Indeed, now, Punnett!’ said Mr. Darby, much struck. ‘That’s very interesting, very interesting indeed, very what I should call … ah … pipsicological. I must see if I can’t … ah …! At the same time … ah …! However, I’ll think over your advice. I trust,’ he said as he trotted to the door on a downward lurch of the ship, ‘that you yourself have not been … ah … molested?’

Punnett shook his head sadly. ‘The second-class, sir, is no better than the first.’

With a gait into which the Red Sea unjustly insinuated an air of inebriety Mr. Darby made for the smoking-room where he dropped, perspiring profusely, into a chair. How far away now seemed Europe, England, and home; the gentle, temperate days and nights, the varied and soothing colours, the pleasant habitableness of the Mediterranean. On the wall opposite him a design both decorative and useful on a soft blue ground displayed the Utopia’s course, and gazing at it now, as he lay back in his chair, he felt how true had been Mr. Amberley’s remark. From the pleasant, airy basin of the Mediterranean they had been sucked into the narrow drain of the Suez Canal and were now being rolled along the seething and stifling sewer of this abominable Red Sea. What other system of sewers awaited them? When and where, if ever, would they emerge, the long drain over, into the fresh air? Not, it was to be feared, in the China Seas, for those ominous parts were, he had learned from Punnett, infested by typhoons. Would the seas that washed the shores of Eutyca and the Mandratic Peninsula be as hot and dusty and restless as this? Mr. Darby was too ignorant and too tired to guess. Slowly his spectacles grew dim, unoccupied. He fell asleep.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

He was roused by a noise which his scattered wits could not at first diagnose, a strange growling, barking noise which filled him with alarm. Was it a dog-fight? But he had seen no dogs on the Utopia. He opened his eyes and discovered Mr. Amberley in the chair next him. But Mr. Amberley was not making the noise: he sat silent, a mildly cynical, mildly disgusted smile on his face, watching something. Mr. Darby roused himself and turned his eyes in the direction of Mr. Amberley’s gaze.At a table three yards away from them sat two men, one of them the man with a face like a lawyer’s whom Mr. Darby had seen dancing with Lady Gissingham; and at the next table, but leaning away from it towards these two, sat the great Gudgeon with his invariable double whisky. It was from Gudgeon that the noise was proceeding. Mr. Darby began to hear words instead of barks. ‘Damned nonsensical rot!’ Gudgeon was shouting. ‘It’s fools like you, fools that push their noses into what doesn’t concern them, that lead them on. If they ask for more pay, give’em less, that’s what I say; and if that doesn’t bring them to their senses, turn machine-guns on’em. It makes me sick, absolutely sick….’ He beat the table with his hand till his double whisky danced … to hear all the bloody …!’ He gasped: again words were lost in incoherent noises: Gudgeon was struggling with a violent fit of coughing. The cough shook him and belaboured him like a storm wrestling with a tree. His face grew a darker purple, his eyes bulged, his lips shuddered as he gasped for breath. Conversation died in the smoking-room: everyone, shocked and coldly curious, was watching the noisy struggle of the distorted crimson face and convulsively heaving shoulders. By slow degrees the struggle died down, the cough coughed itself out, leaving Gudgeon, a hideous spectacle, glowering stupidly at the two men. Mr. Darby heard a creak behind him. He turned his head and saw poor, repellent Mrs. Gudgeon holding ajar one half of the swing-doors and gazing imploringly at Gudgeon. But Gudgeon did not see her. ‘I must tell him,’ thought Mr. Darby, ‘I must tell him his wife wants him.’ But just as he was about to get up and do so there fell into the silence the cold, calm, dry voice of the man with the lawyer’s face.

Listen to me, sir. You’re a public nuisance, and you have the manners of a boor. You were not asked to join the conversation; I am not interested in your views, nor will I tolerate your insolence. Any London Club would have kicked you out long since. This is not a club, but it is a place where a measure of decency must be observed. Now if I hear you making a disturbance again, or molesting not only me but anyone on this ship, I shall lodge a complaint with the Captain and have you put under restraint.’

‘And I shall do the same,’ said his companion.

The man with the lawyer’s face looked round the room. ‘I dare say other gentlemen will join us.’

‘With the greatest pleasure,’ said Mr. Amberley, and other voices joined in.

But Mr. Darby said nothing. He was thinking that he might now slip over to Gudgeon and tell him his wife wanted him. Gudgeon still sat, as he had sat when the man with the lawyer’s face had begun to speak, glowering at them like a thwarted bull, one huge hand on the table at his side. His nostrils dilated and shrank as he took in deep breaths. It seemed that he was slowly gathering his strength, and at last a sound came from him, a deep, contemptuous grunt that had something of a sigh in it. Then he spoke. ‘Blast you all for a pack of mean-spirited mongrels. Blast you all!’ he shouted more loudly, as if the sound of his own voice stimulated him to fury. ‘Do what you damned well like, and be …’ He was rising laboriously to his feet, his great hand pressing convulsively on the little table beside him. There was something sinister and almost magnificent in this ponderous uprearing of the great figure. But before he was quite upright or could finish what he was saying, something caught him in the throat. He choked, swayed, and suddenly the little table on which he was leaning his weight crashed, his whisky went with it, and the tumbler spun across the floor in a great curve. At the same moment Gudgeon came down. His chair was thrust noisily away as his body struck it; there was a heavy bump as his head caught the edge of the overturned table and he collapsed like a huge sack between table and chair.

The man with the lawyer’s face and his friend sprang up with anxious faces to help him and as Mr. Darby ran forward the door swung open and Mrs. Gudgeon rushed in. The two others were kneeling beside Gudgeon loosening his collar. She flung herself on her knees beside them and bent over him. ‘Sid,’ she cried, ‘Sid, what is it? What’s the matter?’

Gudgeon, a loathsome and terrible spectacle, seemed as though, with his blue, shuddering lips, he were trying to reply. But no sound came through the noise of his stertorous breathing. Mr. Darby, standing helpless and agitated over the group, saw a little stream of blood run out of the left corner of the unclosed mouth and trickle down the cheek to the smoking-room floor. Gudgeon was lying quite still now except for the movements of chest and nostrils at each breath, and soon these diminished, as the noise of his breathing grew fainter, so that Mrs. Gudgeon’s sobs became for the first time audible. Suddenly a spasm shook the body, as though Gudgeon were trying to rise. But the spasm was brief: the body relaxed, sank back. The breathing had stopped.

At that moment the doctor hurried in. He knelt down, gave a quick look at the eyes and thrust his hand into the open shirt. After a pause he withdrew his hand. ‘They’re bringing a stretcher,’ he said quietly.

During the few seconds that followed not a sound was heard in the smoking-room but the monotonous pulse of the engines and the monotonous sobbing of Mrs. Gudgeon. Then the doors opened wide and two sailors entered carrying the stretcher. They lowered it to the floor and knelt down, the huddled group of kneeling bodies swayed and shifted, and then the two sailors rose slowly and simultaneously, the group broke up, and Gudgeon left the smoking-room in solemn pomp. Mrs. Gudgeon followed, supported by the doctor.

The man with the lawyer’s face, his companion, and most of the other men present went out after them. Mr. Darby found himself standing alone. He glanced helplessly round the room and his eye fell on Mr. Amberley. He sat, a mild and slightly cynical image, in the chair in which Mr. Darby had left him: apparently he had never stirred from it. Mr. Darby, pale and shaken, sat down beside him. As he did so a steward entered, carrying a damp cloth. He wiped the floor where the body had lain, pushed Gudgeon’s chair back to its proper place and took up the broken table. Mr. Darby and Mr. Amberley watched him in silence; but before he reached the door, Mr. Darby called to him. ‘Steward, have you heard how the gentleman is?’

The steward paused. ‘The gentleman, sir? He’s dead.’ He went out with the broken table.

‘Dead!’ said Mr. Darby in an awed whisper. Then he turned to Mr. Amberley. ‘What a … ah … what an appalling … ah … occurrence!’ he said, taking out his handkerchief to dry his face.

‘Appalling indeed,’ Mr. Amberley replied in his usual imperturbable tones, ‘but not, when broadly viewed, regrettable.’

Mr. Darby stared at him with spectacles of horrified amazement.’ But … but … you heard the steward say he’s dead.’

‘Quite so!’ Mr. Amberley calmly replied. ‘Dead! I thought him, when alive, the most repulsive and degraded creature I have ever met, a menace to civilization and common decency. It would therefore be the grossest hypocrisy, my dear Darby, if I were to pretend to be sorry that he has ceased to be so. Death, I agree, is terrible, but if anything could make me feel that, after all, it has its good points, it would be an occurrence of this kind. In circumstances such as this death takes on a beneficent and sanitary aspect which is not usually apparent.’

Mr. Darby looked at his companion sternly. ‘Amberley’ he said, ‘you … well you horrify me. You seem to me what I should call … ah … brutal. And there’s his poor wife …!’

‘Ah, that’s another matter,’ Mr. Amberley replied. ‘I’m sorry for her, poor woman. But as for the man himself …!’

‘But the poor fellow’s dead,’ persisted Mr. Darby.

‘Yes, Darby, I know. De mortuis and so on, a disingenuous and sentimental adage for any but those rare creatures, the pure of heart. You’re one of them, my dear Darby, and, believe me, I respect you for it. You’re an ingenuous idealist and I wish I were like you. But I’m not. I’m a sophisticated realist. Have a John Collins. You want a pick-me-up after this appalling scene, and so do I, despite my apparent callousness.’

Mr. Darby accepted. ‘But hadn’t we better leave out the gin, Amberley?’

‘But why, Darby? Out of respect for the deceased?’

Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘Please don’t!’ he said.

Mr. Amberley smiled. ‘I’m sorry. That shall be my last callous remark. But why no gin, Darby?’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘because it appears, from the … ah … tragedy we have just witnessed, that the drinking of spirits is not very safe in these … ah … what I should call latitudes.’

Mr. Amberley tapped the little man on the knee. ‘Come, come, my good Darby, you’re carrying innocence too far now. The thimblefuls of gin you indulge in wouldn’t hurt a rabbit on the equator, whereas a bottle of whisky a day will hurt anybody in any latitude, as you very properly call it.’

When they had finished their drinks Mr. Amberley suggested a stroll on deck. ‘Well, Darby, what do you say to … I was going to say, to a little fresh air, but that is unhappily no longer obtainable. What do you say to a change of air and scene?’

They left the smoking-room and stepped on deck. There, leaning over the rail, they found the doctor.

‘I suppose,’ said Mr. Amberley to him, ‘you’ll land him for burial at Aden.’

The doctor shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t keep till Aden,’ he said. ‘He’ll have to go overboard, and the sooner the better. I’m seeing the Captain in ten minutes.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby, partly no doubt owing to the tragic event of the day, spent a disturbed night. The ship was pitching rather uncomfortably, but, in spite of this, he had managed to get to sleep and had slept for what seemed to him some hours, when he was roused by a loud bump. It came from the direction of the door. The shock had set his heart beating like a gas-engine, but he did not lose his presence of mind. He was ready and acted promptly. He shot out a hand to the electric light switch and at the same time he uttered aloud those words to which long rehearsal had given a fierce precision: ‘There, madam, is the door.’ And there, sure enough, as soon as he had recovered from the sudden dazzle of light, was the door. But there was no Lady Gissingham. And of course, now that he came to think of it, how could she have been there with the door locked? But was it locked? He always locked it the moment Punnett left the cabin, but he could not remember having done so to-night; and it was quite likely that he had forgotten, with an occurrence such as Gudgeon’s tragic death to distract his mind. He got up and went to the door. There now! He had forgotten, and she had actually got in. But once in, her courage had failed her and she had fled. Perhaps she had actually been there when he spoke those commanding words and had fled precipitately in the brief interval during which his eyes were accustoming themselves to the light. She must have tried the door night after night in the hope of at last finding it unlocked; and then, when at last it was unlocked, it had taken her by surprise, or perhaps the Utopia had given one of those disconcerting lurches, and she had reeled against the partition. Hence the bump. But what persistence! And what a woman! He would have to be more cautious than ever in future.

It took Mr. Darby some time to get to sleep, and when at last he succeeded, he had a most peculiar dream. He dreamed that he was in his cabin, the cabin in which his sleeping body actually lay. Sarah was with him, it was daylight, and they were both dressed for out-of-doors. They had been having an argument. He had insisted on sailing in the Utopia; Sarah had sternly demanded that he should return home with her. He took off his hat and laid it and his stick on the bed. ‘Here I am, Sarah,’ he said with determination, ‘and here I stay.’ But Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. ‘But you can’t, Jim. It’s all nonsense, all damned nonsensical rot. It’s fools like you …’ Sarah’s voice had changed, it had become horribly like Gudgeon’s. He turned to look at her. She was sitting down now, and he saw with terror that her face, too, had become the face of Gudgeon. ‘Sarah!’ he said to her, ‘Sarah! Don’t! Please don’t!’ But Sarah did not change back. She was still Gudgeon. She sat staring at him like a thwarted bull; and now, to his horror, she rose slowly, laboriously, and menacingly. A panic of terror seized him. Was she going to crash to the floor, fall dead before his eyes? He turned away, his hands to his face, and a quiet voice, the voice of Punnett, said to him: ‘Leave her to me, sir. I thoroughly understand these cases.’ He took his hands from his face. But of course, it was Punnett. What on earth had given him the ridiculous idea that it was Gudgeon. But he did not require Punnett’s help, for it was only poor Mrs. Gudgeon that stood at his cabin door, and he wanted to ask her if he could be of any assistance to her. ‘Come in, Mrs. Gudgingham,’ he said to her. ‘I want to ask you if there’s anything I can do for you, anything you want.’ Mrs. Gudgingham … but wasn’t there something wrong about her name? ‘Forgive me, Mrs. Gidging, I mean … ah … Mrs. Gissing. My memory is not quite … ah …! Lady Gissingham! What do you want?’

Lady Gissingham came towards him smiling, ‘It’s you, Jim, that I want.’ He shot out a commanding finger. ‘There, madam, is the door.’ But Lady Gissingham did not retreat: on the contrary, she put her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes, and he felt himself sinking, swooning away. He grasped at the air like a falling man and then the calm voice of Punnett—or was it Sarah’s voice?—came reassuringly to his ears. ‘Leave her to me, Jim. I understand these cases.’ Punnett seized Lady Gissingham with both hands and held her in an iron grip while she struggled and screeched and flapped her great wings. Her screeches terrified Mr. Darby: there was something both dangerous and heart-rending in them. But at last Punnett had the great bird at his mercy. He carried it to the port-hole and pushed it out into the sea. ‘I understand these cases, sir. I learned that trick from the king of the Mandrats. Dangerous things these green parrots, sir, but you mustn’t show them you’re frightened of them.’

There was a screech from outside the port-hole and green wings fluttered against the frame, trying to get in. ‘Look out! Look out, Punnett!’

Mr. Darby opened his eyes. It was daylight and Punnett stood obediently looking out of the port-hole.

‘A little calmer to-day, sir,’ he reported, ‘and a trifle less hot.’

‘Time to get up, Punnett?’ asked Mr. Darby, a little ashamed of himself.

‘Yes, sir. It’s six o’clock.’

Mr. Darby threw back the bedclothes. He was getting up early to attend Gudgeon’s funeral.

Chapter XXXI

Mr. Darby Again Faces Death

At seven o’clock Gudgeon went overboard. Not many of his fellow-passengers got up to see him off, but Mr. Darby was there in his soberest suit and a black tie. When the ceremony was over, he approached Mrs. Gudgeon. The pathos of ugliness in affliction had touched him deeply. He wanted to show his sympathy, and the only way he could do that was to offer help.

‘Mrs. Gudgeon,’ he murmured, ‘I want to … ah … offer my services. Can I be of any help to you?’

‘You’re very kind,’ sniffed poor Mrs. Gudgeon. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m not accustomed to foreign parts: you see, he did everything about that.’

‘But what do you want to do?’ asked Mr. Darby. ‘Do you want to go home?’

‘Yes, if only I could,’ she said. ‘That’s all I want,—to get home as soon as possible; but I don’t understand about ships and strange places.’

‘Don’t you worry,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I’ll make enquiries for you. We reach Aden to-morrow. Perhaps you could get off there and wait for the next boat home. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘You’re very, very kind,’ sniffed poor Mrs. Gudgeon again.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The early rising had given Mr. Darby an appetite and he breakfasted at the earliest opportunity, too early for his table-companion, Mr. Amberley, whom he did not meet till he found him seated on deck at about ten o’clock. The chair beside him was empty: the one beyond that was occupied by a lady who was leaning back reading a book which hid her face. Mr. Darby went to the vacant chair, and as he was on the point of sitting down, the lady moved her book and revealed, to his alarm, the face of Lady Gissingham. The shock arrested him, held him suspended in the unnatural attitude of a figure in the window of a ready-made tailor. But only for a second: next moment he resumed his interrupted movement and calmly sat down, actually sat down next Lady Gissingham. Probably an onlooker would have noticed nothing; yet in Mr. Darby’s mind a complicated process had taken place with the rapidity of lightning. His first impulse, that of a cautious discretion, had been to turn rapidly away and resume his walk down the deck; but instantly he realized that this could not be done naturally. It would very much have surprised Mr. Amberley and it would have shown Lady Gissingham unmistakably that he was avoiding her. Then Punnett’s advice flashed through his mind: ‘It’s better not to keep out of their way too much. That only leads them on.’ At that, Mr. Darby rose superbly to the occasion and, as we have seen, sat down with every appearance of dignity and calm. And all this, these impulses and counter-impulses, these lightning adjustments and readjustments, this meticulous ratiocination and careful weighing of pros and cons, occupied little longer than the blink of an eyelid. The miraculous agility of the human mind has seldom been more impressively displayed.

But there is all the difference between a sudden resourceful bravery and mere recklessness. Once seated, Mr. Darby turned his face to Mr. Amberley and his back on Lady Gissingham. Hotter than the Red Sea temperature, he felt her eyes burning the back of his neck, but he did not flinch.

‘Still … ah … oppressive!’ he said casually to his friend.

Mr. Amberley nodded. ‘Insufferably! But why were you so late for breakfast, my dear Darby?’

‘Late?’ said Mr. Darby.’ I was early. I got up early, to … ah … attend what I should call the last sad rites.’

The funeral? A funeral before breakfast. I must say, Darby, you’re indefatigable in your pursuit of novel experiences.’

Mr. Darby maintained a serious expression: he was resolved to set his face against Mr. Amberley’s untimely flippancies, and he fancied that this was intended to be one of them. ‘I thought it my duty,’ he said solemnly, ‘to pay my … ah … tribute …!’

‘Your tribute? But why, Darby? If Satan made a diabolical speech at a dinner party, would you consider it your duty to propose a vote of thanks?’

‘I don’t understand you, Amberley,’ Mr. Darby replied, ‘and you promised yesterday to make no more callous remarks.’

My dear Darby, I did not suppose, this time, that I even seemed callous. My question, Socratic in form, had a strongly moral intention. The fact is, your humanity forces you sometimes to assume startlingly immoral attitudes. But why should I worry you with my pruderies? Once more, I promise you I’ll do my best to keep my morals to myself. If I fail, call me a prig and take no notice of me.’

‘Now what in the world,’ Mr. Darby inwardly enquired, ‘is he talking about?’ and aloud he asked: ‘At least you don’t object, I hope, to my trying to help Mrs. Gudgeon?’

‘Most assuredly I don’t,’ Mr. Amberley replied. ‘Does she need help?’

‘She wants to get home as quickly as possible, poor thing, and doesn’t know how to … ah … set about it. She’s not accustomed to travelling alone, you see. I’m going to find out if she can get a ship back from Aden.’

‘Undoubtedly she can,’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘I’m going to the lounge to write some letters—I want to have them ready to post in Aden to-morrow—and I’ll see if I can find out.’ He rose from his chair. ‘Shall I find you in the smokingroom at half-past eleven for our morning Collins?’

For a moment Mr. Darby was on the point of accompanying him, for Mr. Amberley’s departure, he had at once realized with alarm, would leave him cheek by jowl with Lady Gissingham; but in a flash courage had returned and he boldly stood, or rather sat, his ground. It would have been easier if he had had a book or paper to read, but he had not, and in default of that moral support he resourcefully fell back on a cigar. He made the most of the cigar, listening to it critically as he rolled it between finger and thumb, cutting it with infinite care, making an elaborate pantomime of difficulty with the lighting of it; and when these rites could no longer be credibly protracted, he leaned back with half-closed eyes as if the cigar had induced meditation. But after he had maintained this pose for some time he was injudicious enough to turn his eyes, without, it is true, moving his head, to see how Lady Gissingham was getting on. Instantaneously he looked away and became absorbed in some object far down the deck, for in that brief, incautious glance his eyes had looked straight into hers. She was sitting now with her book laid idly on her lap, looking at him. For a length of time that made them ache, Mr. Darby held his eyes fixed on the distant object: then, first closing them, he turned them to his front and appeared to fall asleep. But how could a man sleep or even pretend to sleep with the eye of a notorious and dangerous woman drilling a hole in his consciousness? Mr. Darby’s eyelids, do what he would to hold them tight shut, fluttered, opened, and beheld the realization of his fears. For again they met the eyes of Lady Gissingham. She was smiling at him now, evidently she was on the point of speaking, the campaign of open warfare was about to begin.

‘I’m afraid I’m disturbing your nap,’ she said, ‘but I very much want to ask you a question. I hope you won’t think me indiscreet … ’

‘Madam,’ Mr. Darby broke in, and he was about to add ‘there is the door!’ when he realized that there was no door in sight.

‘I overheard your conversation just now,’ she went on, ‘I couldn’t very well avoid it and I want to …’

‘Madam … ah …!’ Mr. Darby made another attempt to clutch at some telling and concluding phrase, but his wits failed him.

‘… to ask you about that poor woman.’

The unexpected development of the attack bewildered Mr. Darby still more. ‘Poor woman?’ he stammered. ‘You mean … ah … Mrs. Gudgingham, I should say Mrs. … ah …!’

‘Mrs. Gudgeon. I think you said that she wanted to get home as quickly as possible and that she was rather lost as to ways and means. In any case, poor thing, she’s hardly in a state to look after herself, and I thought perhaps I might help her. I was going as far as Colombo, but I don’t much mind,’—Mr. Darby felt a world of weary disillusionment in her voice—‘I don’t much mind where I go. If it will be of any comfort to her I shall be very glad to land at Aden with her and see her safely on to the next boat home.’

Mr. Darby blinked at her incredulously. ‘You mean that you … you would … ah …?’

‘Would, as I have just said, take her under my wing. My own voyage’—her voice was weary, hard, and formal—‘has been somewhat of a fiasco, and if I can turn it to some sort of account, so much the better. Do you think she would like me to look after her?’

Mr. Darby had by now so far recovered as to be his old courtly self once more. He made a little bow and said: ‘But I’m sure of it. It would be the greatest kindness. I may say I’ve been much … ah … exercised, very much exercised, because I myself am going to Sydney on business, and in any case a man, almost a total stranger, couldn’t probably … ah …!’

Lady Gissingham smiled as if a comical picture had flashed across her mind. ‘Of course not. Well, if you would be so kind as to suggest my company to her she will be free then to accept or refuse without embarrassment. I suppose she’s terribly upset, poor thing.’

‘Terribly!’ said Mr. Darby.

‘And yet,’ murmured Lady Gissingham meditatively, ‘her husband, poor creature, was singularly unattractive. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen … However, one must let the poor man be, now that he’s dead.’

‘You’re more charitable than my friend Mr. Amberley who was sitting here just now,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘He can’t let the poor fellow alone, even now. He says the most awful things about him. A menace to civilization and common decency, he said.’

‘Oh, probably at least half of us on this boat are that’ said Lady Gissingham indifferently.’ If we enquired more closely into the character of this Mr. Amberley (I think you said?) we should probably find that he didn’t come out so very creditably. But it was the poor man’s revolting appearance that appalled me. But do, if you can, see Mrs. Gudgeon now. We shall reach Aden to-morrow morning and I shall have my time cut out to be ready. Goodness knows if they’ll be able to get at my trunks in the hold.’ She rose as Mr. Darby rose. ‘I’ll come too and wait for you in the lounge.’

They strolled down the deck together, as he had seen her and Tim Renton stroll so often before; and Mr. Amberley, looking up from his writing in the lounge ten minutes later was thunderstruck to discover Mr. Darby and Lady Gissingham in earnest conversation.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby and Mr. Amberley stood together on deck gazing at the jagged screen of mountains that rise abruptly behind the straggling town of Aden and break down at the south-eastward extremity of the gulf into a slim, graceful index jutting into the sea. Mr. Darby had just waved a last goodbye to the two passengers going ashore. ‘Well,’ he said conclusively, ‘she’ll be all right now. She’ll be safe with Lady Gissingham.’

Mr. Amberley’s lips curled humorously. ‘Of how few of us, Darby, could that be said.’

‘Why … ah …!’ Mr. Darby raised mystified spectacles.

‘Your heart is large, my dear Darby, and your memory short. You have totally forgotten, I observe, during the last twenty-four hours that our bold bad Baroness is a very dangerous woman.’

‘Bless my soul,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘so I had. A very dangerous woman, Amberley, but what I should call a heart of gold. A curious … ah … mixture.’

‘Not at all. There is an angel in every devil, Darby; and a devil, usually in much greater proportion, in every angel. But the fact remains that the Utopia is much safer for mankind with Lady Gissingham safe ashore.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Yes, the ship—Mr. Darby himself felt it—was a safer but also a less interesting place. Life became monotonous. Day followed day; the Utopia forged ahead, sometimes for whole days together as steady as a house, sometimes turning and tossing uneasily like a giant in a feverish sleep. The heat continued. Mr. Darby wearied of polishing the steam off his spectacles (life had come to consist of little else) and resigned himself to existence behind a permanent fog. Of Singapore he received only the most blurred impression. He began to long for the end of the voyage, and he began to wish, too, that the end of the voyage was London instead of Sydney. The thought of Sydney left him cold: he was becoming homesick. One thing only stirred his mind in its stupor, the prospect of a fleeting glimpse, through the huge telescope which lay ready in his cabin, of the Mandratic Peninsula. Already in fancy he pictured that circular, telescopic view—a disc like a huge full moon packed with large green sappy leaves and showers of scarlet orchids among which green parrots crawled and the faces of black panthers and bronze savages intermittently peeped.

An unwelcome distraction relieved the monotony of life in the China Sea. It seemed as if, having nailed his flag to Adventure, Mr. Darby had thereby destined himself to risks and hazards, and that his escape from Lady Gissingham had placed Providence under the obligation of providing him with a new danger. In short, Mr. Darby was for three days chased by a typhoon. On three nights he went to bed in terror of waking to find himself sprawling on an inverted ceiling, on three mornings he woke to the incredible blessedness of a reprieve. The Captain himself shook his head gravely and declared that it would be a miracle if they missed it. Preparations of the most disquieting kind took place on the Utopia, sea and sky assumed such an ingenious variety of sinister and terrifying expressions, and monotony was replaced by a lull of impending crisis so tense, so formidable that Mr. Darby gave up all hope of avoiding his pursuer.

Yet avoid it he did. On the fourth day sea and sky grew benign, the awful suspense was relaxed, and the Captain announced that they had beaten her. Mr. Darby dried his spectacles and breathed again.

And now Formosa was behind them and the Utopia turned her course eastward, parallel with the still invisible coasts of the great island of Eutyca.

At about six o’clock in the morning of the following Thursday the Utopia would pass, Mr. Darby had learned from careful enquiry, within four miles of the southernmost point of the Mandratic Peninsula. For long periods of the previous day Mr. Darby sat in his cabin poring entranced over a map of Eutyca. There was nothing he could discover from it that he had not discovered fifty times already, but to sit before it, realizing as he did so that the real thing lay over there to the north-east, not so much as the length of England away, filled him with rapture. Mr. Amberley noticed his exaltation. ‘My dear Darby, what is the matter? Have you fallen in love, or to what am I to attribute this suppressed glee?’

Mr. Darby enveloped him in a radiant smile, but his reply was evasive. Mr. Amberley’s attitude towards Mandratia, as he had already discovered, was not propitious, and he would suffer no profane person to intrude upon his ecstacy. ‘No doubt,’ he said, ‘it’s due to the … ah … ameliority of the weather.’

Mr. Amberley shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘But isn’t it time for our Collins? Perhaps a Collins will enable you to be more frank. In vino, Darby, and therefore ex fortiori in gin, Veritas.’

But even gin could not wring the truth from Mr. Darby. He gloated and held his tongue. To Punnett, of course, he spoke freely.

‘I have been considering the advisability of sitting up all night, Punnett.’

‘But you said six a.m. was the hour, sir.’

‘Quite so, Punnett, but the ship might gain time. It might be five-thirty, possibly even five-fifteen, and I should never forgive myself if I were too late.’

‘Then you had better let me call you at five, sir. You can rely on me. I will call you at five without fail. Then, if I might suggest that you went to bed a little early, you would get a whole night’s sleep.’

Mr. Darby allowed himself to be persuaded and went to bed at half-past nine. Before doing so, however, he made a careful examination of the weather. It was not very promising. A low mist hung over the sea, through which the stars were perceptible only as faint phosphorescent blurs overhead. What if the mist should obscure his peep at Mandratia? But that was too awful to contemplate. He retired to his cabin, undressed, laid the great telescope ready on a chair and got into bed. But not to sleep. It was all very well for the imperturbable Punnett to talk of a whole night’s sleep: he, no doubt, would sleep precisely as if he were bound for a destination no more moving than Clapham. With Mr. Darby, the poet, the romantic, the man of imagination, sleep was for long impossible. His mind, humming like a vast factory, was furiously constructing a Mandratia wonderful, exotic, fantastic beyond the dreams of opium-eaters. But at last, wearied out by these dizzy imaginative flights, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

From this he was roused by Punnett, fully dressed, at what seemed to him a far too early hour.

‘But why now, Punnett?’ he asked, querulous and sleepy.

‘It’s just five, sir,’ said Punnett, ‘and if you wish to try for a sight of Mandratia, sir …!’

‘Bother Mandratia!’ thought Mr. Darby, in his desperate desire to remain in bed; but in five minutes his deadly lethargy had passed away and he flung back the bedclothes, eager for the miraculous moment, and with his legs dangling over the edge, assumed his spectacles.

‘Bring the telescope, Punnett,’ he said, throwing on a crimson silk dressing-gown and making for the door.

It was very warm on deck: a pallid twilight silvered the eastward face of every object, and Mr. Darby discovered, to his concern, that the Utopia, like a pip in a vast melon, was ensphered in a fine, silvery mist. The sea was very calm, but its surface was clearly visible only for a short distance about the ship, a disc of shimmering grey and silver whose rim dissolved imperceptibly into vagueness. Mr. Darby, grasping the rail with both hands stared into the haze.

‘What time is it, Punnett?’ he asked, turning to the tall, formal, melancholy figure that stood beside him with the heavy telescope under its arm.

‘Ten past five, sir. There’s fifty minutes yet, sir, for it to clear, unless we’re ahead of time.’

‘Most tiresome!’ said Mr. Darby disapprovingly. ‘Excessively tiresome, Punnett! Who would have supposed we should have a fog.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Punnett, ‘these early mists are pretty common in these parts. More often than not, sir, the early mornings in Mandratia were so thick you couldn’t see a thing two yards from your face; a thick mist like milk, sir. But by the time I was putting Professor Harrington’s breakfast on the table the sun began to come through and the mist broke up before he’d begun his second cup of coffee. A very remarkable sight it was, sir.’

Mr. Darby paid little attention to these remarks of Punnett’s: his spectacles were staring north-east with a fury of concentration enough, it might have been supposed, to dissolve a London fog. And so he continued for a long time, while Punnett stood gaunt and silent at his side.

‘It’s thinning a bit, if you’ll excuse me, sir,’ Punnett remarked after what seemed hours of silent tension.

Mr. Darby turned his head. ‘You’re right, Punnett,’ he said, ‘it’s … ah … what I should call disseminating. What time is it now?’

‘Twenty-five to six, sir.’

‘And when did you say the sun rose?’

‘About six-thirty, sir.’

Mr. Darby pursed his lips anxiously. ‘It’s a matter of … ah … touch and go, Punnett.’

The minutes passed. Mr. Darby became fidgety. He leaned his arms on the wooden handrail and stared still more passionately into the mist. At last a vague shape loomed through the mist in response to his stare.

‘Punnett,’ he said in a loud, excited whisper, ‘I see … ah … what I should call a something.’ He turned feverish spectacles upon Punnett and pointed dramatically into the void. ‘There!’

Punnett glanced sadly at the mist and shook his head. ‘No, sir! Nothing there, sir!’

Mr. Darby accepted Punnett’s ruling and resumed his watch. At a quarter to six he lifted his right foot to the bottom bar of the rail and stared again, and again his powerful imagination called, as it had so often called before, a visionary Mandratia out of the void.

‘Upon my soul, Punnett,’—Mr. Darby’s whisper had the fervour of escaping steam—’ there is a something, a vague … ah …!’ With a turn of the left wrist he sketched a domeshaped mountain.

Again Punnett applied a sad scrutiny to the mist and again he shook his head. ‘No, sir. Nothing yet, sir. You can rely on me, sir.’

At five minutes to six Mr. Darby lowered his right foot to the deck and replaced it on the rail by the left. The excitement seething inside him was almost more than he could bear. ‘The mist’s thinning, Punnett,’ he hissed. ‘It’s … ah … it’s …!’ The intensity of his gaze deprived him of the power of speech.

At six o’clock, in an agony of anxiety, he set both feet on the bottom bar and hoisted himself up so that his chest leaned on the rail. The sweat was pouring from his face.

And at six o’clock Punnett’s voice, transformed by a perceptible tinge of eagerness, spoke at his elbow. ‘There, sir! Straight ahead, sir!’

‘Where, Punnett? Where?’ Mr. Darby’s voice was almost a scream.

‘There, sir!’

Mr. Darby skipped from his perch on the rail and followed with his eyes the direction of Punnett’s long, bony finger. Hanging in the mist with no apparent roots in sea or earth Mr. Darby saw an object like a huge ghostly, pale-pink cowrie shell.

‘That’s the top of Umfo, sir!’ said Punnett.

Like a man about to attack another, Mr. Darby ripped off his crimson silk dressing-gown, bundled it into a ball and flung it into the sea. ‘Give me the telescope, Punnett,’ he shouted.

Punnett handed him the telescope, ready open. Mr. Darby leaned over the rail, stretched his right arm to its full extent, supporting the telescope over the Utopia’s side, and set his eye to it. It was so heavy and swayed so uncontrollably in his grasp that at first he saw nothing. Then a cloud of luminous pink swept across his view. With a supreme effort Mr. Darby steadied the thing. Again the pink cloud came into his field of vision. If only he could lean his right elbow on the top of the rail! Without removing his eye from the telescope he cautiously raised first one foot, then the other, to the bottom bar of the rail. Then, with equal care, he hoisted himself up till his right elbow was securely based.

Even through the powerful telescope the view was vague, but now, under the great pink cowrie he could see grey ghosts of treetops stepping one above the other towards the luminous summit. In a desperate attempt to thrust the telescope and himself a little nearer to the elusive Mandratia Mr. Darby pushed himself even further over the rail. His stomach, not his chest, was leaning on it now.

And then something happened to his extended right arm, a brief failure of tension, and the telescope gave an appalling lurch. Mr. Darby gripped it spasmodically at the narrow end with his other hand and at the same time put all his available strength into his failing right. The telescope lurched again, there was a loud metallic clang as Mr. Darby’s slippers came off the rail. Punnett shot out a hand, but too late. The telescope plunged headlong over the side and Mr. Darby immediately followed it.

Chapter XXXII

A Halcyon Day

The interval between Mr. Darby’s leaving the promenade deck of the Utopia and his landing, if we may be allowed the paradox, in the sea was so packed with experiences that he had no time for thought. Immediately after the awful discovery that he had hopelessly lost his balance, he saw the grey side of the ship shoot past him at a prodigious speed and flick out of sight clean under his feet. The fact was that Mr. Darby had been fortunate enough to turn a complete somersault in the air. Fortunate, for next moment he struck the sea in a sitting position, backside foremost, and so took the full shattering crash of it in that least vulnerable part of his person. There followed a dim twilight, a smarting of the eyes and nose, and a soft, singing, titillating invasion of the ears. He was sinking, sinking: the water was rushing upwards all round him. He gasped for breath and took in a huge, stifling draft of sea-water. An excruciating tightness constricted his chest: he felt that he was going to burst and flung out his arms in a desperate struggle. The water thinned, grew lighter, air and pale daylight burst upon him: he took a sobbing gulp of air. But at that moment something fell out of the sky and hit him a stunning blow on the shoulder, and he went under again. Again he flung out his arms and the top of his head bumped against something floating above him. The thought shot through his mind that the Utopia was passing over him; but at the same moment his head rose into light and air again. Something was floating beside him. He made a frantic grab, missed it, made another and caught hold of it. It was a life-buoy. With both hands Mr. Darby held on to it for dear life, while he coughed and gasped and retched till he felt that his eyes would burst from his head. When he had enough breath to think of something other than breathing he looked about him. The water seemed to be flowing past him as if it were a river. With his hands he pulled himself up an inch or two and saw far ahead of him and already growing blurred with mist a vast grey floating bucket with a white rim round the top of it and a short stout scarlet post sticking out of it. From the top of the post a long streamer of grey gauze drooped lazily to the water level. It was Mr. Darby’s last view of the Utopia, and also the first stern-on view of her he had had. He was so exhausted by his desperate struggle and so relieved by the respite provided by the life-buoy that he had not yet had time to realize the hopelessness of his plight. But now, at the spectacle of the fast-receding Utopia, the appalling truth began slowly to dawn on him. The full horror of the accident which had befallen him, so far from being over, was, he now realized, yet to come. The discovery struck a chill to his heart so overpowering that for a moment he almost lost consciousness. He gripped the life-buoy in an agony of fear, still gazing with a growing despair at the diminishing silhouette of his recent home. An absurd impulse prompted him to call Punnett. ‘Punnett … ah … Punnett!’ he shouted; but the shout was no more than the thin, reedy croak of a frog.

A voice close behind him made him start so violently that he very nearly lost his hold on the life-buoy. ‘All right, sir. Hold on, sir. I’ll be there in a moment.’

Mr. Darby looked behind him and discovered Punnett gravely seated in a life-buoy similar to the one he himself was grasping. ‘But … but … but … my … my dear Punn …!’ A violent attack of coughing interrupted Mr. Darby, and during the time it took him to recover, Punnett, using his hands as paddles, approached him and laid a hand on his life-buoy.

‘Look out, Punnett, look out!’ Mr. Darby bubbled anxiously. ‘Don’t … ah … don’t tip it up.’

‘All right, sir,’ replied Punnett reassuringly. ‘You can rely on me, sir. You’ll find it much more comfortable, if I might suggest it, sitting in the buoy as I am. Just pull yourself up and slip into it. I’ll hold on to it: there’s no occasion for alarm, sir.’

Instructed by the invaluable Punnett, Mr. Darby with some difficulty hauled himself up, got his knees on to the buoy and, by a startling manoeuvre which was largely accident, found himself suddenly seated as if on an unusually comfortable commode.

‘That’s better, isn’t it, sir?’ Punnett enquired.

Mr. Darby heaved a profound sigh. ‘Much better!’ he said in the voice of a very old man. ‘It’s wonderful. But it’s cold, Punnett, fearfully cold.’

The little man’s face was pinched and blue: his teeth chattered feebly.

‘Don’t worry about that, sir,’ Punnett replied. ‘You’ll be complaining of the heat in an hour.’

By degrees Mr. Darby sank into a stupor and for half an hour or so he and Punnett sat silent in their life-buoys like a pair of halcyons, brooding, as those fabulous birds are said to do, on their floating nests. So sunk was Mr. Darby in his stupor that the gradual brightening and thinning of the mist to a gauze of diaphanous gold totally escaped him, and even when the sun rose from the sea and stared him full in the face he failed to remark upon it. But at length the sun’s invigorating warmth did what its light had failed to do: Mr. Darby awoke and began once more to look about him. He felt weak and hungry, but his teeth were no longer chattering. He was slowly recovering.

‘Feeling better, sir?’ asked Punnett.

‘Very much better, Punnett,’ Mr. Darby replied in a voice that was almost his own, and for the first time he turned a speculative regard upon Punnett. Except for a certain disorder here and there, unavoidable in the trying circumstances, Punnett’s appearance had all its old formal correctness. His hair, it is true, was plastered sleekly over his eyes, its customary parting shattered; his collar had collapsed disastrously about his neck, and his suit, sodden with seawater, was unbelievably crumpled; but despite these trifles, he was still unmistakably the gentleman’s gentleman. Mr. Darby in his pyjamas, on the other hand, appeared to Punnett at his most informal. Yet, except for his face, which bore heavy traces of his predicament, his appearance was perfectly usual. He looked simply as he looked every morning when he sat and blinked for a moment on the edge of his bed before putting his feet to the ground and beginning the day’s adventures.

‘Yes, very much better!’ Mr. Darby repeated.’ But do explain, Punnett!’

‘Explain, sir?’

‘How you come to be … ah … here.’

‘Well, you see, sir,’ said Punnett, ‘when you fell overboard, sir, it seemed to me, seeing there was a mist, that if I wasted time giving the alarm, you’d be gone before they could stop her and get a boat launched. So I heaved a lifebuoy after you, sir, heaved in another for myself, and dived after it. That’s all, sir. Everything considered, it seemed the best thing to do, sir. Still, I thought for a moment I had done you in, if I may say so, sir, with that life-buoy.’

Mr. Darby nodded. ‘So did I, Punnett.’

‘Yes, sir. When I saw you go under I said to myself: “There’s such a thing as being too accurate, Punnett,” I said.’

‘To be shaw!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘But you saved my life, Punnett, as sure as I’m … ah … sitting here. You saved my life at the risk, the eminent risk, of your own. I shall never be able to thank you.’

Mr. Darby held out his hand and Punnett took it apologetically. ‘Not at all, sir. It was a mere nothing, sir. I’m accustomed to that sort of thing.’

‘To … ah …?’

‘To diving and swimming, sir. In my younger days, sir, I did a good deal of high diving. In point of fact, I was on the halls for some years, high-diving from the flies into a tank under the soubriquet of Astro the Falling Star, sir.’

‘Under the what did you say, Punnett?’

‘The … well, the nom de guerre, sir. Not a very safefprofession. I gave it up before it was too late and accepted the post of instructor at the Wandsworth Baths. So you see, it came fairly natural to follow you overboard, sir. In fact, it quite took me back to the halls. Besides, I promised Mrs. Darby you should come to no harm.’

At the mention of Sarah and the rush of associations that the thought of her called up, Mr. Darby awoke again to their precarious position. He glanced at the water. It was clear and pale as an aquamarine, and it was still streaming slowly past him like a river. The mist had vanished. A small grey plume on the horizon showed a last trace of the lost Utopia. He glanced at the sky. Already it was a deep cloudless blue.

‘Then you think, Punnett,’ he asked tentatively and a little shamefacedly, ‘that we shall not … ah … come to harm?’

‘With luck we shan’t, sir, and we’ve been lucky so far. You couldn’t have gone over at a better time, sir. The tide’s going in, and judging by the strength of the current it’ll be going in for another two hours at least.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘So there’s a current, Punnett?’

‘Yes, sir. Didn’t you notice it? It’s been taking us along at a good three miles an hour, sir.’

Mr. Darby shuddered. So far from reassuring him, the discovery that they were not stationary but travelling at three miles an hour alarmed him considerably.

‘But what’s the good if it, Punnett, unless, of course, we … ah … encounter a ship?’

‘If I was to turn you about, sir,’ said Punnett, ‘you’d get a better idea of the uses of the current. Allow me, sir!’

Up to this point they had been facing south-east and Mr. Darby had failed to observe that they were all the while slowly and steadily travelling backwards, but now, by a few adroit kicks Punnett swung his own and Mr. Darby’s lifebuoys round to face north-west.

Having recovered from his apprehensions at this manœuvre, Mr. Darby looked ahead of him and instantly gasped with amazement; for there, separated from him by a belt of water which seemed at the first glance little wider than stone’s throw, a gorgeous and astounding scene presented itself.

Mr Darby gaped at it like a dying fish. ‘But … ah … but God bless my soul, Punnett, what’s this?’

Punnett made a gesture of the right hand as of one effecting an introduction of mutual friends. ‘The Mandratic Peninsula, sir! The part we see is Mandras, of course. And isn’t it fortunate, if you’ll forgive my passing the remark, sir, that you haven’t lost your spectacles?’

Mr. Darby stared at Punnett and then raised his hands to his eyes. Punnett was right: through thick and thin his spectacles had stuck to him. ‘If you’d been an experienced diver, sir,’ said Punnett with exquisite tact, ‘you’d have lost them for certain.’

But the remark escaped Mr. Darby, for, strong in the assurance of unimpaired eyesight, he was gazing entranced at the land of his dreams. The water in which he sat was a clear crystalline blue, but it faded, as it receded from him, to a limpid green, and Mandras came to meet this green in a long stretch of silver sands that shimmered in the heat. And these sands jutted into little spits and promontories, swung back into curving bays, or shrank away to mere threads in deeply indented creeks. Out of the sand rose pink rocks, small as boulders near the sea, but large and more closely massed the further they lay up the shore until at last they huddled themselves into low and rugged cliffs, among which and above which screens of a vivid green vegetation hid the interior. Here and there among the green stood what seemed to be a tree which was not green, but pink or violet or scarlet; and towering in a vast dome above all these climbing rocks and trees, rose Umfo, the great ankle-bone of the Peninsula, its white marble crown weathered to the colour of old ivory.

Mr. Darby continued to gaze spell-bound at this enchanting scene which, as though it were the rim of a vast wheel, moved or seemed to move slowly past him, for the current was carrying Mr. Darby and Punnett parallel with the coast.

‘If only we could get closer in,’ Mr. Darby murmured reflectively.

‘Leave that to the current, sir,’ said Punnett. ‘If the tide holds for another half-hour it’ll float us into the Sampoto. The Sampoto is tidal, sir, for ten miles. Once we’re in it, we can easily paddle ourselves ashore, sir.’

‘You were right about the heat, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby, searching vainly in his pyjama pocket for a handkerchief to mop his brow. ‘My pyjama coat is bone-dry already. I wish I could say the same for my trousers.’

But the water’s warm enough here, sir.’

‘Oh, it’s warm enough, Punnett, but it’s damp, and to sit in the damp, as we have been doing for the last … well, goodness knows how long, is said to induce a certain … ah … very distressing malady. I refer, of course, to aneroids.’

In the course of this brief conversation they had opened a wide bay shaped like a wine-strainer, for from the lowest point of its concavity a narrow channel curled away inland, and almost at once the current began to change its course and to carry them no longer parallel to the coast, but straight for the river’s mouth. Mr. Darby expected Punnett to remark upon this reassuring event, but Punnett said nothing, and Mr. Darby saw that he was staring somewhat grimly at the Peninsula. Following the direction of his stare, Mr. Darby saw that behind the leafy screens that guarded the interior seven vast white pillars rose into the air, whose summits wavered slightly and dissolved. A more attentive scrutiny proved them to be pillars of smoke.

‘What’s the meaning of it, Punnett?’ Mr. Darby asked a little timorously.

Punnett shook his head. I don’t know, sir. There must be something unusual on. If it was three bonfires, I should have said they were holding a funeral, the funeral of a chief. But seven’s a novelty, sir. I don’t understand it.’

‘And you … ah … you don’t like the look of it, Punnett?’ asked Mr. Darby, still more apprehensively.

‘You never like the looks of things you can’t explain, sir. But I dare say it’s nothing to worry about; in fact, if it’s something very unusual, it may keep them so occupied that they won’t bother about us, and that’ll be all to the good, sir. You see, sir, it’ll be a much more ticklish job this time, a matter of diplomacy, sir, not just of what you might call artillery as it was last time when I had the camera with me.’

The camera, Punnett! You forgot the camera?’

‘Well, sir. It was the camera or you, sir, and I fixed on you.’

Mr. Darby gasped as he realized for the first time the gravity of their position. He recalled in a flash, hair-raising adventures, retailed by Punnett, in which the camera, that admirable weapon of offence, had proved the one salvation. ‘We’d have been hard put to it, sir, if it hadn’t been for the camera.’ ‘If we hadn’t had the camera it’ud have been all up with us, sir.’ How often had Punnett uttered those testimonials to his invaluable weapon. And now, here they were, between the devils of Mandratia and the deep sea, without the protection of so much as a vest-pocket kodak. Mr. Darby’s mind, directed by the unhappy absence of the camera and those seven ominous columns of smoke soaring mysteriously and inexplicably into the still air, began now to regard the enchanting Mandras from a closely realistic angle. The thought that if they were extremely lucky they would soon be high and dry on the Peninsula with a tribe of savages as their neighbours, seemed to him, now that it was on the point of realization, extremely disquieting. And what if this not very enviable good luck deserted them? In that case, the tide would turn before they reached land and they would drift out to sea again and to almost certain death by starvation, sunstroke, or drowning. Mr. Darby disliked both alternatives extremely: he contemplated them in silence for twenty minutes and the more he contemplated them, the more he loathed them.

Emerging at last from this abstraction he raised his eyes and quite suddenly his courage gave way. For Mandras had now drawn very near and become immensely real. The tide in fact was already carrying them up the Sampoto. On either side of them her walls of dense and sinister foliage towered into the sky, concealing behind their many-patterned surface Heaven knew what sinister and horrible surprises. Mr. Darby no longer liked the look of Mandratia. He felt none of that delight which he had so often anticipated in thought and dream at the prospect of stepping ashore: he was, in fact, quite frankly terrified.

‘I don’t like it, Punnett!’ he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke.

‘You don’t like what, sir?’

‘Anything!’ said Mr. Darby comprehensively.

At that moment Punnett, who had been glancing from time to time into the water, put his hands on either side of his lifebuoy and, giving himself a smart push, stood up. The water reached no further than half-way up his thighs. He stood there like a large black heron, looking down on Mr. Darby, and Mr. Darby, staring up at him, realized with a feeling that nearly approached panic, that they had arrived.

Chapter XXXIII

Mr. Darby Aground

The loose silver sand of the little bay was deliciously hot to his feet as, with his pyjama trousers sagging wet about his hams, Mr. Darby left the shallows. After he had taken a few steps he stood still, swaying a little as he stood and glad of the support that Punnett immediately offered. Movement and instability had during the last three hours become so much of a habit that to stand still on a solid, motionless foundation made him giddy. And not only this: the terrible experience through which he had just passed had its share in his debilitation. He clung to Punnett’s arm in silence for a few moments and then said:

‘Punnett, I want to sit down.’

‘Very good, sir!’ replied Punnett. ‘But if you can manage to stand here for a minute I’ll get some green stuff for you to sit on. It’s not advisable to sit on the sand, sir: it causes a rash.’

Mr. Darby found himself able to stand unsupported and Punnett ran over the narrow belt of bare sand to where the rocks began to crop out and masses of trailing green creeper sprawled over them. Tearing up a great armful of it, he disposed it in a deep cushion at the foot of one of the rocks, and up the sloping face of it he made another cushion. It was a perfect spot in which to rest, for over the rock leaned a tree with great shady fan-shaped leaves, and from this green canopy festoons of scarlet orchids hung down like the side curtains of a four-poster bed. Having performed these duties with the same punctual efficiency as if he were in a London flat, Punnett returned to the small, plump pyjamaed figure which stood obediently where he had left it. He offered an arm.

‘Now, sir,’ he said, ‘if you’ll just step this way.’

Thereupon he conducted his master to the couch prepared for him, and Mr. Darby with a deep sigh of satisfaction sank down upon it.

‘All right, sir?’ he enquired.

‘Marvellous, Punnett!’ Mr. Darby replied dreamily. ‘What I should call the … ah … lap of luxury.’

‘And now I’ll be seeing about breakfast, sir,’ said Punnett; ‘but first, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just strip off your trousers and hang them out to dry. You’ll take no harm, sir. The mosquitoes and piums don’t come out till sunset.’

‘Warrever you thing bes, Punt,’ murmured Mr. Darby, drowsily incoherent, and a moment later Punnett left him already asleep in his shrine, a pink, round-bellied heathen god with sightless glass eyes.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby awoke from what seemed to have been several hours of deep, refreshing sleep. He did not at once open his eyes, but lay enjoying those mingled sensations of feebleness and energy, lethargy and clear-headedness, which attend the first moments of awakening from healthy sleep. He had soon remembered where he was; but now his taste for adventure had reasserted itself and his sense of the insecurity of his position was no more than a sharp sauce to season the thrilling thought that he was actually on the very threshold of the Jungle. But was he? If he were to open his eyes, wouldn’t he, in sober fact, find himself surrounded by the familiar objects of his cabin on the Utopia? Wasn’t all this confused memory of floating on the sea, swimming upon a convenient current into the improbable Sampoto, wading ashore to that suspiciously theatrical Mandratia, the relics of a dream from which he was just waking? A sudden hoarse shriek sent a thrill of alarm through him. That must be Lady Gudgingham whom Punnett was pushing through the port-hole. He opened terrified eyes and saw a green parrot staring at him, head downwards, from the leafy canopy above his head. Seeing him move, the bird shrieked again and climbed, hand over fist, into hiding among the great leaves. This was the Jungle right enough, and, if other proof were wanting, there, within reach of his hand hung a burning cluster of scarlet orchids. Mr. Darby sneezed.

‘Awake, sir?’ asked Punnett’s voice.

‘Yes, Punnett, yes!’ Mr. Darby replied, and next moment, looking like an uprooted cauliflower that has gone hopelessly to seed, Punnett, stark naked except for a pair of capacious green drawers, appeared round the curtain of orchids. Mr. Darby noted that the drawers consisted of a single enormous leaf in which Punnett had contrived leg-holes. They were secured round his waist by a girdle of some vine-like plant. In both hands he carried another large leaf, a substitute for a tray, on which were heaped certain unrecognizable fruits. He smiled apologetically at Mr. Darby.

‘I hope you’ll excuse my dress, sir. You’ll find it’s quite usual in Mandratia. My suit and underwear are out to dry.’

Mr. Darby suppressed an incipient grin and sat up. ‘And is this … ah … breakfast, Punnett?’

‘Yes, sir. You’ll find most of the fruit in these parts remarkably good, sir, and I’ve grilled something a little more substantial to begin with. My cigarette-lighter withstood the immersion, sir, so I was able to make a fire. I shall send the firm a testimonial when we get home. I’ve got your razor with me, too, sir. I’d taken it to my cabin to strop it and I slipped it into my pocket when I came to call you this morning.’

Mr. Darby was not at the moment interested in the possibility of shaving. He was hungry, very hungry, and he fixed the grilled object with eager spectacles. ‘What is it, Punnett? A filet of veal?’

‘No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … ah No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … well, more the thing in my trousers, Punnett. I presume they’re dry by now.’

Punnett brought them, Mr. Darby put them on, and both sat down to breakfast.

Mr. Darby ate with gusto and even Punnett showed traces of restrained pleasure in the meal.

It was not till it was over that Punnett ceased to parry Mr. Darby’s persistent questions about the nature of the grill. The truth shook the little man: an expression of profound doubt gathered on his face. But the crisis lasted no more than a moment: his brow cleared and a smile broke through his spectacles. ‘To think,’ he said, ‘that I should live to breakfast off grilled tortoise. I must write and tell Mrs. Darby.’ Suddenly his face lengthened. ‘But No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … but I suppose I can’t write, Punnett? I suppose there’s no post?’

‘No, sir, no post here, sir; at least not until the trader makes her yearly visit. If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll be getting on with my work.’

With his customary formal deference Punnett left the room, so to speak, and Mr. Darby found himself once more alone with his thoughts. No post! It had never occurred to him that there would be no post, no way of letting Sarah know that he was alive and well, no way of summoning a ship to be ready in case No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … well, in case he found that the Peninsula did not suit him. He had had so much to think about, or rather to experience, during the eternity since he had fallen overboard, that he had had no time to realize details such as these. But now that he had started, he went on. Sarah would get anxious when his periodical telegrams failed to arrive: she would be sure to guess that something dreadful had happened. When would she learn No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more …? But of course! His wits made another leap. Of course, she would know now. They would have wired to his home address from the Utopia: they would have wired and told Sarah that he was drowned. The thought appalled him. Was there nothing he could do to let her know that he was alive? He was seized with an impulse to set off at once, to walk, walk, until he found a post office. Poor Sarah, she would be in despair. A vivid picture of her seated at the empty dining-table in Moseley Terrace, her arms flung on the table and her head lying on her arms, flashed upon his mind. She was wearing widow’s weeds. A long crape streamer hung from her head and drooped over the edge of the table. The vision and the sense of his home that accompanied it were so intense that for a minute or two he actually lived and moved in Newchester; and when the screech of a green parrot, leaning grotesquely out of the tree overhead, recalled him again to Mandras, he was like a diver who has risen too suddenly to the surface.

But when he had regained his full consciousness and once more realized Mandras, he realized too his utter helplessness. They could do nothing but wait for the trader that called once a year. And now an awful question presented itself. When was the trader due? Perhaps, blessed thought, it would arrive to-morrow. Perhaps—and so terrible was the idea that Mr. Darby felt his bowels melt within him—perhaps she had arrived and departed yesterday. A sense of terrible isolation overcame him. He felt as if he had died and gone to some solitary limbo: every human contact had fallen from him. Sarah (his heart ached every time he thought of her), the Stedmans, the Cribbs, Mr. Marston, McNab, young Pellow, Lord and Lady Savershill, Princep, had become for him the ghostly memories of another life. His mind turned its vision elsewhere and other ghosts flitted by—Mr. Amberley, Gudgeon (the only real ghost among them), poor Mrs. Gudgeon, Lady Gissingham, that charming woman. Leaning on his couch of leaves, naked but for his pyjama trousers and his spectacles, Mr. Darby reviewed this spectral parade and his heart turned to stone. Thank God, Punnett at least was spared to him. If it had not been for Punnett he would have been dead by now, or as good as dead. On Punnett he pinned all his hopes.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

A lunch, as excellent and as unnamable as the breakfast, did much to cheer Mr. Darby, and the extraordinary peacefulness of the little Eden between jungle and river in which they had established themselves, gradually induced in his mind a forgetfulness, almost a disbelief, in savages. It was Punnett who, as soon as lunch was over, brought the savages back into reality.

‘If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ he began, ‘I think I’d better give you a few hints in case of surprise. There are two things to bear in mind, sir, when we come up against the natives as we’re sure to do sooner or later. In the first place, you must be most particular, sir, not to show fear. Seeing you’re not frightened of them makes them frightened of you. If you behave yourself solemn and strange-like, they may think you’re a god. Your spectacles will help, no doubt, if you’ll excuse the remark: there’ll be something uncanny about spectacles to folk not accustomed to them. So do your best to carry on as if you were a god, sir, if I may suggest it, especially if I don’t happen to be here, sir. If I am here I may be able to put the wind up them, if I may use the expression, by saying things to them, but I think I’d better go and scout round a bit now, to try and find out what they’re up to. I took the opportunity, when you were asleep this morning, sir, to run along to a village a matter of about a mile from here, and I found it empty,—the village there all right, much the same as when I was here with Professor Harrington, sir, and still occupied, but not a soul, man, woman, or child, in the place. There’s something very unusual up, at the moment, sir, not a doubt of it, and I think it would be as well if I could find out what it is.’

With Punnett’s words all Mr. Darby’s apprehensions returned, but he found enough self-control to disguise them from Punnett, just as Punnett had recommended him to disguise them from the savages.

‘Very well, Punnett,’ he replied with a very creditable show of unconcern. ‘Do what you think best. You’ll find me here,’ he paused and there was a suspicion of a quaver in his voice as he added, ‘at least I hope you will, when you get back. Only, don’t get lost, Punnett.’

‘I know the place too well for that, sir,’ Punnett replied. ‘You can rely on me, sir.’

Mr. Darby rose from his couch and went out to see Punnett off. Hung on a shrub outside the arbour Punnett’s coat and, under it, his trousers confronted them limply, every line of them eloquent of Punnett. Mr. Darby gazed at them, then at the new Punnett, then at the clothes again. A smile spread over his face. ‘Why, they’re more like you than you are, Punnett.’

Punnett smiled sadly back. ‘I’ll leave them there to look after you in my absence, sir,’ he said as he made his way among the rocks and soon vanished into the dense screen of vegetation.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Nothing happened during Punnett’s absence and Mr. Darby, growing by degrees so accustomed to the presence of danger that he even sensed in it a sort of awful pleasure, began to stroll more adventurously about the little bay. The sun was very hot and—necessity being the mother of invention—he broke off a trailer of scarlet orchid and twisted it into a very tolerable hat. The presence of several fat green lizards, basking in the hot sand, was at first rather unwelcome, but when they scuttled away at his approach, his apprehensions were relieved and he stepped down to the river’s edge. The water was as transparent as pale green glass, and pulling his pyjamas up his thighs till they became little more than bathing-drawers Mr. Darby proceeded to paddle knee-deep along the margin, enjoying the delicious coolness. Further explorations showed him that the indefatigable Punnett had contrived among the rocks a little chamber roofed with boughs and creepers, outside whose doorway he had made an immense heap of dry stuff, as if for a bonfire; and Mr. Darby amused himself by gathering litter to add to the pile.

When he had tired of this, he became even more bold and, threading his way among the rocks, came to where the tangle of foliage was a dense and towering wall. Even there his adventurous spirit was not content to stop: with an effort he parted the tough stems of the leafage and thrust himself within. The screen closed behind him and Mr. Darby stood, no longer only in dream, alone in the virgin jungle. A sombre twilight filled the place, a silence like death, and a strange odour, half perfume, half stink, of exotic flowers and decaying vegetation. Once the loud derisive shriek of a parrot pierced the stillness and once a huge gleaming blue butterfly sailed towards him on motionless wings and would have settled on his bare chest if he had not driven it off. Mr. Darby stood there in awestruck wonder, looking, listening, smelling. He turned his eyes to the tree-tops. A ceiling of mottled luminous green, remotely high, roofed the huge empty place. Then, far away in the pillared dimness, a loud, mad chattering broke out, died, and broke out again. Was it bird, beast or savage? Mr. Darby turned round noiselessly, pushed his way through the green wall and, with the feelings of one who has partaken of a solemn religious mystery, returned to his sunny bay. It seemed to him that he had returned from a visit to another world, a beautiful, sinister world far older than the comfortable world of men. The shades lengthened by degrees, the hour of sunset could not be far off. Somewhere inside him two little worms of fear and loneliness began to gnaw insidious channels. He returned to his couch on tip-toe and sat down; and when at last his listening ears detected sounds of snapping twigs, a flame of terror blazed up in him. It was an exquisite relief when the gaunt phantom of Punnett emerged into the open.

Punnett had nothing very definite to report. A vast concentration of the Mandrats was occurring in the great clearing called in Mandratic Umwaddi Taan, The King’s Clearing, which lay about seven miles inland. In this clearing lived the King of the Mandrats and the concentration there must have been caused by an event of extreme gravity. It was there that the seven great bonfires were burning. Punnett had seen them and had had a glimpse of wild dances and heard a chorus of wailing chants for which he had been unable to account. More than that he could not say. He had passed two villages on his way and both were totally deserted: he suspected that the whole tribe was gathered in the King’s Clearing.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Next day, when, an hour before sunset, Mr. Darby, reclining on his couch, was consulting Punnett about the topography of the island, Punnett’s face gathered into a sudden fixed intensity. ‘They’re coming, sir,’ he said in a rapid whisper. ‘Remember to look unconcerned. I shall tell them you’re a god.’

Mr. Darby, with a mouth falling open from terror, raised his eyes and saw, staring at him from every rock and every shrub within sight, a keen bronze face flecked with sharp white eyes. Happily the acuteness of the crisis brought him courage, and with a supreme effort he was able in a moment to master himself. ‘You can rely on me, Punnett!’ he said with quiet dignity.

Punnett, with admirable coolness turning his back on the staring faces, stood bolt upright before Mr. Darby and then prostrated himself on the ground before him. After a brief pause he rose to his feet and then repeated the action a second and third time. Mr. Darby played his part with equal presence of mind, holding up his right arm to its full height with the palm extended each time Punnett prostrated himself. On each occasion too he shot a quick glance beyond the prostrate Punnett to see what the savages were doing. At Punnett’s second obeisance he saw that they had emerged from cover and stood, tall, grim, magnificent figures of bronze, in a wide crescent about him and Punnett. Doubtless, he realized with an uncomfortable sensation in the back, there were others behind him, completing the circle. At Punnett’s third obeisance, Mr. Darby, without having been aware of the smallest movement among the natives, saw that the circle had closed in to within five yards of him. Each man carried a spear in his right hand. They were naked except for a narrow loin-cloth: a fringed necklace of white and scarlet beads hung round their necks and similar bracelets round their wrists and knees. Mr. Darby could see each blink of their white eyes, every small change in their grave bronze faces. ‘They’re getting very close, Punnett,’ he murmured warningly.

With a sudden, quick movement Punnett turned about and faced the savages, and at his movement Mr. Darby saw the spear in each right hand give a quick, slight flicker. For a moment Punnett faced them, silent and motionless: then in a distinct voice he pronounced two incomprehensible syllables, stretching out both arms as he did so. There was a pause, and then every savage fell on his face in the sand. The silence was so great that Mr. Darby could hear the dry ticking of a cricket in the orchids above his seat. Then Punnett spoke three more syllables and thereupon turned about again and faced Mr. Darby.

‘I have told them, sir,’ he said in the loud and solemn tones of an officiating priest, ‘to approach and worship. Don’t mind what they do. Just keep calm. It might be effective, sir, to hold up both hands.’

He stationed himself on the right of the seated Mr. Darby who raised both hands as the savages crept towards him on their faces. He certainly presented a strange and impressive appearance with his orchid hat, his solemnly uplifted arms, his round pink paunch, and his round pink face in which the spectacles gleamed inhumanly. Happily the savages saw only that impressive exterior: they could not see inside to where the poor little man’s heart shrank like a terrified mouse before the appalling ordeal through which he was passing.

When the prostrate bodies had crept so close that they lay in a great brown human fringe about Mr. Darby’s couch, two of them who wore head-dresses of green parrot-feathers rose to their feet and approached him. His fear was so great that he almost cried aloud, but he did not move otherwise than solemnly to lower to his knees his upraised arms which had begun to ache unbearably. As he did so he noted, to his relief, that the two figures were empty handed. When they were as close to him as Punnett was they dropped on one knee and began to pat and pinch his paunch and thighs. Mr. Darby’s blood ran cold, but still he sat firm with his hands on his knees. At each pat, at each appraising pinch, the two savages uttered a word which sounded like Oggum.

‘What does Oggum mean, Punnett?’ Mr. Darby asked, trying to make his tremulous question sound like a divine utterance.

‘It means good, sir,’ replied Punnett in the tone of an officiating priest.

‘Good for what? Good to No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more … ah No, sir. I think you’ll find it very tasty, though. Don’t burn your fingers, sir.’

Mr. Darby hesitated. ‘I think I should feel more …?’ The poor little man could not utter the fatal word eat.

‘Just good, sir. It means they’re pleased with you, sir,’ Punnett chanted in reply.

Mr. Darby’s spectacles inspected the faces of the savages. He could see no signs of pleasure there: on the contrary they appeared to him sombre and cruel. The awful and menacing closeness of these naked bodies, the wild, unaccustomed smell of them, the inquisitive touch of the brown, ape-like hands, filled him with a horror that fear of death alone enabled him to disguise.

The sun was now setting and the long shadows slashed across the ruddy glow of the sand added to the awfulness of the situation. Then a terrifying thing occurred. The two creatures who had been inspecting him turned and uttered a hoarse command to the prostrate bodies which, instantly galvanized into energy, sprang to their feet and rushed upon him. A spasm of terror tightened every muscle in Mr. Darby’s body. He gave himself up for lost: this, he thought to himself, was the end. Behind the dark crowd that surrounded him he heard Punnett’s voice:

‘All right, sir. Keep going, sir. Don’t give in.’

Then the two green-plumed savages laid hold of him and slowly hoisted him up, and the rest, raising their spears above their heads, locked them into a kind of litter. On to this litter the two lifted Mr. Darby and then the whole crowd, with Punnett in the middle of them, set off at a smart stride among the rocks and plunged into the blackness of the jungle.

Chapter XXXIV

Unwaddi Taan

Acute terror, as Mr. Darby discovered during his grim journey through the jungle, is so exhausting that the nervous system soon ceases to react to it. In fact, long before he had reached the end of his journey, he had ceased to be afraid. His indifference surprised him. He told himself that he was defenceless in the power of the savages on whose shoulders he was riding, that no doubt new ordeals awaited him at some unknown destination in the heart of the jungle, but his nerves stubbornly refused to respond. A mood of callous fatalism had settled down on him: he was aware of nothing but that he was sleepy and this rhythmic swing of his conveyance was extraordinarily soothing. The twilight was already so deep that he seemed to be moving along the bottom of a lake. Huge weeds rose up on either side of him and sometimes a dangling festoon of strongly perfumed flowers beat softly against his head and trailed across his recumbent body. Far overhead a faint and pallid luminosity, that seemed to be rather felt than seen, hinted here and there of open air and open sky. Carried aloft on his litter he seemed to be utterly alone, for he could see nothing of his bearers except their heads—six black heads on either side of him—and nothing at all of the rest of the savages, nor of Punnett who stalked, a solitary albino, among that crowd of swarthy animals.

How long the silent progress lasted Mr. Darby could not guess: he had lost all sense of time. Now and then he glanced at the row of heads on his right or left. A strange and repellent smell came from them that turned his stomach and made him shudder, but it was physical horror, not fear, that shook him. His only desire was that the journey would go on for ever, that there would be no destination, no break in this eventless limbo, that he would be ceaselessly dandled in this soothing darkness until death—death by natural causes—received him into a peace still more absolute.

But this was not to be. Gradually his ear became aware of a remote noise, a confused and distant clamour, as if the jungle itself were breathing out a thick, continuous lamentation. Minute by minute it increased. It seemed to be drifting towards him, a turbid fog of sound that swelled and thickened along the deep channel of the jungle through which he was gliding. The little man’s fears, dormant for so long, leapt up and tortured him again, grew with the terribly growing clamour into an agony of terror. The whole jungle was echoing and brawling now like a huge, hollow, empty hall; and to make the growing horror more horrible, the great trunks and dangling growths began to emerge from their obscurity around and above him, in a subdued, fiery glow that grew stronger with the growing roar. Now his journey became a mad progression through a flickering hell of fire and darkness. The jungle had roused itself to a ghastly animation; an angry and sinister splendour had replaced the night.

Suddenly the moving litter stopped and Mr. Darby, sitting up, saw before him an immense open arena full of fiery light and madly dancing black demons. The light came from seven enormous bonfires whose hissings and cracklings were audible through the pandemonium of howling chants. Gesticulating black silhouettes were hurling great bundles of fuel into the flames and running off into the darkness to return with more, while others danced madly between the fires, pouring out a babel of raucous chants. In the centre of each of two circles within the huge circle of the arena stood a straw-thatched hut raised high on wooden posts, and in the centre of the arena itself a ring of motionless figures crouched on their hams with their heads bowed to the ground before a great central bonfire. The crowds of black figures, motionless or wildly active, each group intent on its appointed ritual, each figure splashed with the flickering ruddy glare of fire that roofed all with a leaping and sinking dome of light, gave to the scene the appearance of a gigantic anthill. Mr. Darby, appalled at the hugeness of their numbers and the sinister madness of their activities, felt his individuality shrivel to the last insignificance and gave himself up for lost.

Then a brief movement stirred his human conveyance and next moment he saw his two green-feathered examiners step forward into the flaming arena and make their way through the leaping, hurrying crowd to the crouching ring in the centre. With a bound they leapt inside the circle and stood there moving their outstretched arms in solemn gestures. In a moment the crouching shapes had leapt to their feet. A loud, shrill chant that rose clear above the roar of the crowd burst from them and at the sound of it immobility and silence, broken only by the leaping, flickering flames and the voracious crackling of the bonfires, fell upon the clearing. Then Mr. Darby felt his litter lurch and he was borne into the area. The crowd had swept aside, leaving a broad avenue to the centre; and along this avenue, fenced with upright brazen bodies whose white eyes stared up at him, Mr. Darby was borne to the central point where the ring of standing figures broke to admit him. There his bearers lowered him on his litter of spears to the ground and vanished into the encircling crowd.

Then the silence was shattered by wild exultant shouts in which he distinguished the constantly recurring syllable Taan. Mr. Darby rose to his feet. Once more a desperate calm had descended upon him. The central bonfire blazed upon his left: all his left side glowed and burned with the fierce heat of it. Beyond the bonfire and within his line of vision stood another litter, but the figure on it was lying down. He stood there alone on his litter, his hands clasped behind his back. His face and naked chest and paunch were ruddy in the glare of the bonfire. His spectacles blazed like burning coals. Then, to his intense relief, the figure of Punnett, his nakedness gleaming as red as his master’s, stepped into the circle and approached him. When he was within a yard of the litter he prostrated himself before Mr. Darby three times, and then, still on his knees, he addressed to him what to outwards appearances was a prayer. ‘We’re safe, sir, as safe as can be. We struck a lucky moment, sir. The King died two days before we landed and they’ve been scouring the country for another. I told them you were a god, sir, and they took up the idea at once. They say you’re a cousin of Oushtoub, the wheel-god, and they’re going to make you the new King. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sir, the body of the late King on the litter there. There’ll be some rather unpleasant ceremonies, no doubt; but nothing to hurt, sir. I’m your chief magician, so I shall be able to give you the hints you need. It’s really the best thing that could have happened, because none of them can touch us. You see, you’re sacred, sir, and so am I, I’m glad to say. All most convenient, sir. So don’t worry about what happens.’

Punnett rose from his knees and immediately the ring of attendants began to recede from them, expanding as it receded and driving further and further back the crowd behind it until the space left empty included the two strawthatched huts. Into this arena thirteen giants advanced in single file dressed in barbaric splendour of feathers and shells. They were the twelve chiefs of the tribe, lead by the Head Chief. The leader carried a burnished spear. He approached Mr. Darby and offered him the spear.

‘Take it, sir!’ said Punnett.

Mr. Darby, like a child receiving a strange toy, took the spear. The Head Chief made an incoherent sound.

‘Sit down, sir!’ translated Punnett.

Mr. Darby sat down and thereupon the twelve chiefs stooped, lifted him shoulder high on his litter of spears, and bore him in slow pomp past the bonfire. When he was lowered to earth again he saw with horror that they had set him down beside the corpse of the late King. It lay stark naked on its litter, the eyes shrunk to two small shrivelled pits, the lips drawn so tight over the mouth that the teeth under them formed two protruding ridges, and the body so terribly wasted that every bone was visible under the dry and shrunken skin. Something that looked like a half-filled sack lay beside it, and as Mr. Darby stood gazing in fascinated horror at the corpse, the Head Chief stooped to the sack. It was not a sack but a cloth and when he twitched it aside he uncovered a great heap of green parrot-feathers. He lifted them, shook them, and they fell open into a great cloak. Then two of the chiefs seized the corpse by the shoulders, heaved it up, and held it in a standing position. The dead King faced the living. Stiff, gaunt, hideously withered, he grinned sightlessly at Mr. Darby, and Mr. Darby, ripe, well-nourished, full-blooded, stared back at him with fallen jaw. The Head Chief, holding the feathered cloak open, moved behind the corpse and clasped the cloak about its neck. At the same time another chief lowered the point of the spear which Mr. Darby still held and set it against the left breast of the corpse, just over the heart. Then the master of the ceremony fixing his eyes on Mr. Darby loudly uttered two raucous syllables.

‘Strike, King!’ translated Punnett. ‘It’s got to be done, sir. Shove the spear into its heart, sir. Make a good show of it.’

Mr. Darby, with a sudden desperate effort of will, did what was demanded of him, and then in a paroxysm of loathing let go the spear. The point remained fixed between the corpse’s ribs and the haft dropped to the ground. The Head Chief still held the cloak about the corpse, but the two attendant chiefs, who had supported it, stepped aside. For a moment the body stood alone, propped by the spear: then it swayed, fell out of the upheld cloak, and pitched forward headlong on its face. Then the Head Chief, still holding the cloak open, advanced on Mr. Darby, walked round him, and flung the cloak about him. Mr. Darby’s flesh recoiled in horror, but he stood firm, while one of the attendant chiefs set a great head-dress of jewels and feathers on his head. A riot of shouting broke from the silent crowd that edged the arena. ‘Daabee!’ they shouted. ‘Daabee Taan! Aboo Daabee Taan!’

It was a tremendous moment. The universal exultation infected Mr. Darby himself: his spirit rose to the greatness that had been thrust upon him, and flinging aside the folds of the green cloak he freed his arms and stretched them to their full extent as if blessing his subjects. At that instant he savoured to the lees the glory and power of sovereignty.

The shouting died away: there was silence once more. The Head Chief made a sign to Mr. Darby. ‘Follow him, sir!’ translated Punnett, and Mr. Darby followed him, himself followed by Punnett, to one of the two strawthatched huts. At the foot of the ladder the Head Chief stepped aside and motioned to Mr. Darby to ascend. He did so and Punnett followed him. Having reached the platform Mr. Darby stood and surveyed the scene. In the empty space below, another less impressive ceremony was taking place. Two attendant chiefs were bearing the poor dishonoured corpse to the other thatched hut, the hut which had been its home in life. They hoisted it, like a stiff beam, up the ladder, and dragged it inside. Next moment they emerged and a slow mist of smoke followed them. With bated breath the whole arena stood watching. The smoke suddenly increased, thickened, and the whole roof flowered suddenly into a great bloom of fire. It burned with fury: blazing sparks showered upwards from the flaming thatch like swarms of angry golden bees from a hive of fire. Minute by minute the thatch crumbled from flame to ash, from ash to nothing. Then the whole hut fell in, crashed down upon its smouldering piles and lay in a heap of glowing wreckage.

And quite suddenly Mr. Darby realized that he was dead tired. His physical endurance had sufficed for the great claims which had been made upon it, but now it was at an end.

‘Punnett,’ he said, ‘I must lie down. I’m at the end of my … ah … tether.’

Punnett stepped forward to the edge of the platform and spoke to the thirteen giants who stood in a circle round King Darby’s hut. ‘The King would sleep,’ he said in Mandratic.

A hoarse sound came from below and the circle of black figures scattered across the flame-shot arena and melted into the thinning crowd.

Mr. Darby and Punnett retired into the royal hut. Mr. Darby flung off his royal cloak and headdress and dropped on to the first couch that caught his eye.

‘Good-night, Punnett!’ he said.

Punnett, mindful as ever of his duties, took up the cloak and carefully began to fold it. ‘Good-night, Your Majesty!’ he replied.

Chapter XXXV

Darby King Of The Mandrats

Uneasy, it has been said, lies the head that wears a crown. Mr. Darby was no exception to the rule. Though on the first night of his reign he slept soundly, his other nights were restless. But it was not the cares of sovereignty that troubled his sleep. His nights were haunted by dreams of Sarah, of England, Newchester, and all the friends from whom he was so utterly cut off, and by weary intervals of wakeful longing and scheming. Nor did his troubles end with daylight. Much of his life as King soon began to be very irksome; for a king, he soon discovered, or at least a king ruling over a people as primitive as the Mandrats, enjoys very little real liberty. It was not the strange, meaningless ceremonies which he was called upon to perform that bothered Mr. Darby. On the contrary, he performed these with gusto and a fine sense of their dramatic possibilities, for he had always had a weakness for formal and dignified occasions. To assume his jewelled head-dress and green-feathered cloak and proceed in pomp to the Place of Justice, a fenced enclosure on the site of the late King’s hut, was less of a duty than a pleasure to him. Punnett was of great assistance on these occasions for he sometimes recognized a prisoner as one who had been a notorious rascal at the time of his previous visit to Mandratia, and so was able to advise King Darby to convict with a fair probability of justice. Another duty which devolved upon Mr. Darby a fortnight after his accession, a duty which he performed with gratifying success, was to cure an eclipse of the sun and restore that indispensable body to perfect working order. This act enormously enhanced his prestige.

In the performance of all such royal tasks Mr. Darby was in his element. It was the restrictions which, by the very reason of his divinity, hedged him about that irked him and very soon made life a burden to him. The fact that, at the risk of losing his sanctity, his feet must never touch the ground, he found an almost unbearable imposition. To be forbidden ever to stroll about Umwaddi Taan and, worse still, to be debarred from investigating the jungle that so alluringly surrounded it, to know that never again would he be able to paddle in the river, as he had done on the first day of his arrival on the Peninsula,—these vetoes were hateful not only in themselves but in their consequence, which was that he became distressingly plump.

Another tiresome law was the one which ordained that he should be fed by the King’s Butler, a priestlike person who tore rags of meat with his fingers or rolled balls of a soft unguessable food between his hands and introduced them into Mr. Darby’s mouth. At first Mr. Darby found the process so revolting that he could hardly bring himself to swallow the food; and, even after he had habituated himself to it, it remained a grievous burden, for table talk and the leisurely freedom of meals were among his chief pleasures, and a chatty picnic with Punnett three or four times a day would have gone far to alleviate the rigours and confinements of his life as King.

In fact Mr. Darby soon discovered that a little sovereignty goes a very long way. He yearned for his home and Sarah: the thought that all this time she would be grieving for his loss was very painful to him. He even went so far, at his moments of deepest dejection, as to curse Uncle Tom Darby’s fortune which had snatched him from his home and friends and the comfortable routine of the office. Gradually even the royal ceremonies began to bore him. Sometimes when he sat in the Place of Justice, listening in a semi-doze to the incoherent chatterings of the litigants and their witnesses, the old office in Ranger Street would appear to him in such extraordinarily visible form that it seemed to him that he had actually skipped across those thousands of miles of land and sea and paid the familiar spot a brief, an all too brief, visit. He saw it all, the desks, the floor-boards, the elaborate Victorian cornice, the very dust on the windowledges; and to the very dust he loved it and longed for it. Then, with a flicker like the momentary blur in an oldfashioned film, the office was replaced by the mad, improbable actuality, the wide circle of bronze-skinned savages, the glare of the stark sunshine, the fierce, sombre luxuriance of the jungle that walled Umwaddi Taan, and the incomprehensible chatter of the litigants of which Punnett would presently give some sort of interpretation.

And so at the very beginning of his reign the poor little man began to dream of escape. His hopes fixed themselves desperately on the bare chance that the trading vessel would soon call, for this provided the one obvious and simple rescue. On the very morning following his coronation he charged Punnett to discover when it was expected, and waited all day in a fever of hope, for at first Punnett could elicit no information. So desperate was his reliance on this one hope that it began to seem to him impossible that it could fail him. He felt in his bones that the boat was coming soon. But in the evening when Punnett for the third time that day returned to the royal hut, Mr. Darby saw by a single glance at his face that he had learned the truth and that the truth was terrible. The trader had called and left two days before their arrival.

For some minutes Mr. Darby sat silent while the tears trickled down behind his spectacles. The awful possibility that he was destined to spend the rest of his life among savages stared him in the face. But at least there was Punnett. Punnett, surely, would be able to devise ways and means.

‘Punnett,’ he said at last, raising mournful spectacles to his chief magician, ‘we must escape by the … ah … interior.'

Punnett, the resourceful Punnett, shook his head doubtfully. ‘It would be very risky, sir,’ he said, ‘very risky indeed.’

‘But you came that way with Professor Harrington, Punnett.’

‘Yes, sir; but we had a very complete outfit, sir,—guns, tents, tinned food and suchlike, and a dozen native porters. Besides Professor Harrington was a very experienced explorer, sir. He spoke goodness knows how many of these native languages, and he had a wonderful way with natives. It would be better, if I may say so, sir, to wait for the trader.’

‘Wait a year, Punnett?’ cried poor Mr. Darby with a sinking heart.

Punnett nodded. ‘A year soon goes, sir. And meanwhile we’re safe here and well looked-after.’

Safe, hundreds of miles from the nearest white man, in the middle of a lot of howling heathen more like fierce animals than men! And well looked-after when a black savage smelling like a wild beast rolls balls of a sickening paste in his corpse-like hands and pushes them into your mouth! The poor little man’s heart sank and his stomach turned: he felt as if Punnett, even Punnett, were letting him down. He had no one to rely on, no one but himself, and he dropped into a melancholy silence, his spectacles lightless and fixed on the floor. A year might seem a short time to Punnett who appeared to have no home-ties and had spent no less than five years here with Professor Harrington; but to himself a year’s imprisonment in Umwaddi Taan, cut off from Sarah and home and friends, was an appalling prospect, and, Punnett or no Punnett, he clung to the hope that some means of escape might yet be devised. If only he had had his maps with him, his maps which were now on their way to Sydney on board the Utopia, he felt sure he could have found a way.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Weeks passed, weeks that seemed to be months. The days grew hotter and hotter until Mr. Darby feared that he would melt away. The nights, though they brought a blessed respite from sunshine, brought also the ceaseless torment of mosquitoes and pium flies, and the bonfires, which Punnett caused to be lighted to drive them away, filled the royal hut with a stifling smoke which was only less unendurable than the flies. Mr. Darby grew to loathe his hut: the hours of unbroken idleness which he passed there almost drove him mad. Conversation with Punnett afforded some relief, but it was impossible to converse all day; in fact even moderate conversation soon became exhausting in that fierce and enervating heat, and he and Punnett soon fell into a dazed silence in which interminable hours passed over them with a slothfulness unbelievable. Even royalty palled, for the kingship Mr. Darby was called upon to exercise could equally well have been carried out by a machine. He had not the smallest personal contact with his subjects. Among a people bound by iron laws and customs of which he was totally ignorant, a people of whose language and ways of thought he knew nothing, Mr. Darby’s great qualifications as a beneficent autocrat were wasted. He who had long cherished an ambition to govern, to sway multitudes as he had swayed the assembled guests at his birthday party at Number Seven Moseley Terrace, found himself, now that he was actually a king, with no more real power than a successful scarecrow. The only advantage to be derived from this form of kingship was the gratifying but at present rather empty fact itself, the fact that he was a king. If ever he contrived to escape and return to England, the fact would then assume its proper significance. He already imagined himself ordering new calling-cards: ‘H.M. King James of Mandras,’ or ought it to be ‘H.M. James, King of Mandras’? Or perhaps simply ‘Mr. W.J. Darby,’ and under it, in brackets, ‘(Ex-King of Mandras)’. Meanwhile Mr. Darby was getting precious little pleasure out of his exalted position.

Despite the heat, he found his enforced immobility the hardest thing of all to bear. If only he could have taken a little walk occasionally, if only he could have revisited the bay where he and Punnett had landed, and paddled and bathed in the river, life would have been less unendurable. Best of all, a thing that would have made all the privations and boredoms of sovereignty richly worth while, if only he could have explored the jungle whose dense green wall so invitingly and tantalizingly ringed Umwaddi Taan. His brief glimpses of it—the first, when he had boldly forced his way through its wall and stood alone in its mysterious twilight for a few moments: the second, when on the evening of his coronation he had glided through it, borne on the shoulders of his captors—had filled him with a greater longing than ever to explore its depths. But that, he knew, was impossible. If once he set foot to earth his sanctity, and therefore his safety, would vanish.

But one day, as he sat despondently dreaming on the floor of his hut, an idea came to him. He raised his head: for the first time for many weeks a light gleamed in his spectacles.

‘Punnett,’ he said, ‘though I mayn’t walk, is there any reason why I shouldn’t be carried? Can’t you tell them I want to visit the river? I couldn’t bathe, of course, but surely I might get them to pour water over me?’

Punnett thought for a moment. ‘It might be done, sir,’ he said at last. ‘Of course, there’d be no good putting it plain and simple. We’d have to give it what you call a fancy turn. I might say, sir, that the place where they found you is a holy place and you want to have a bit of a ceremony there. And we might perhaps work in something about the river. For instance, I might tell them the river’s your wife, if you’ll excuse my suggesting it, sir.’

‘By all means, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Say whatever you think best, and fix it up, if you can, for the early morning, before it gets too hot.’

From such simple origins sprang the great ceremony of the King’s Union with the Sampoto Goddess, one of the most interesting and instructive of all primitive rites, destined to revolutionize the study of folklore because of the extraordinary insight it has afforded into the psychology of the savage mind. Punnett, resourceful as ever, managed to connect the ceremony in the minds of the Mandrats with the phases of the moon, so that Mr. Darby thenceforward had the delicious alleviation of a shower bath once a week.

The success of this idea suggested to Mr. Darby another.

‘Now in this matter of the jungle, Punnett,’ he said one morning during the fourth month of his reign;’ though, of course, I’m … ah … precluded from exploring it like … well, what I should call a commoner; as King it seems to me highly expedious that I should see something of my … ah …. dominions. Now couldn’t something be done in the way of a tour in a hammock?’

Punnett smiled sadly.’ I’ll see what I can fix up, sir,’ he replied.

What he fixed up was, in its ultimate results, something that neither he nor Mr. Darby had bargained for.

And yet no one who was not a Mandrat or at least an anthropologist even more learned in Mandratic folklore than the late Professor Harrington himself, could have guessed to what the King’s journey through the jungle was the inevitable and time-honoured prelude. For Mr. Darby’s innocent desire and Punnett’s simple and successful measures for its satisfaction set in motion a mechanism which shook the Mandratic Peninsula from end to end.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘He seemed a bit surprised when I mentioned it to him, sir,’ said Punnett when discussing, weeks later, the whole business and its disquieting outcome;’ surprised but gratified, very highly gratified.’ Punnett was speaking of Umbahla, the Head Chief, to whom he had communicated Mr. Darby’s desire to travel about his kingdom.’ “The King,” I said to him, “wants to go round the land.” It seemed a simple thing to mention, sir, but Umbahla got terribly wrought up about it. “The King wishes to show himself to his people? Is it true?” he said, as though I had told him you wanted to give him a cheque for a thousand, sir. “Yes,” I said to him, “it’s true enough.” Then he began to call on his grandfathers and great-grandfathers and I don’t know who all. “Good,” he says to me. “Good. I will tell the chiefs.” Then he called you a great warrior, sir, and mentioned that the late King was a coward who never wished to show himself to his people. It was all very strange, sir, and looking back on it I see now that I ought to have smelt a rat, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

But the point was that Punnett did not smell a rat. He accounted for Umbahla’s unaccountable behaviour by reminding himself that the behaviour of savages was always unaccountable,—a curious slip in one who had been valet to an eminent anthropologist, a man who had spent most of his life in accounting brilliantly for the behaviour of savages. But the fact remains, Punnett was, for once, caught napping and Mr. Darby’s exploration of the jungle opened under the happiest auspices.

What a blessed relief it was to escape from the hateful Umwaddi Taan into the dim and solemn retreats of the jungle. Borne upon the shoulders of twelve specially elected Mandrats, Mr. Darby at last fulfilled his ambition and under ideal conditions, for a bodyguard of his subjects swept from his path all those creatures which for less fortunate travellers detract from the enchantment of the jungle. Though it is laid down that a cat may look at a king, the black panthers of Mandratia were not allowed the most cursory glance at Mr. Darby; snakes and the more aggressive parrots were sent summarily about their business; the fire-ants and tarantula spiders which beset the paths of adventurous commoners, found him utterly inaccessible. Only mosquitoes and the pium flies took their toll as they had done in Umwaddi Taan.

But on one horrible occasion the vigilance of the King’s bodyguard was defied. A fine speciman of the giant Iggarù, that loathsome snake whose touch Punnett had once compared with that of a cow’s tongue, contrived an audience with the Sovereign by the monstrous device of secreting itself in the royal couch. But the creature’s diabolical ingenuity was of little service to it. The screech with which Mr. Darby greeted his unexpected bedfellow summoned his bodyguard in a flash and the creature, which proved to be fifteen feet long and five feet in circumference, paid for its sacrilege with its life. This was the only time that nature was permitted to infringe the sanctity of the King.

c If only we could get into communication with Gamage’s, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby as they halted one evening in a village clearing;’ if only we could send an order to Gamage’s for some mosquito curtains, it would be what I should call perfect, absolutely perfect.’

‘If it was possible to write to Gamage’s, sir, we might already be on our way home,’ Punnett replied sadly.

Stage by stage, Mr. Darby progressed through his dominions. Long days through the strange twilight of the jungle, a twilight sometimes variegated by pools, ponds, and lakes o glaring sunshine where a fallen tree had left a rare hole in the green roofage or the natives had carved a clearing,—a twilight electrified sometimes by a hanging shower of mauve or scarlet orchids, a noisy flock of green parrots, or the brief apparition of a huge metallic blue butterfly. Nights in some remote clearing, where bonfires slashed the sultry darkness with the flickering scarlet of flame. Other nights in jungle villages, among scenes of barbaric enthusiasm, where black demons danced and yelled and called down destruction on the King’s enemies. Nights, the best of all, in villages on the sea coast, where the jungle receded and the clusters of thatched huts nestled among rocks; where sometimes a delicious sea breeze, smelling of brine, freshened the stagnant air and called up, in the King’s mind, memories of seaside holidays with Sarah at Scarborough or Saltburn.

The last village to be visited lay neither in the jungle nor on the sea coast, but on the high summit of Umfo, the ankle-bone of the Peninsula. It was the village of the Head Chief Umbahla, the largest and most important in Mandras. All day the sweating bearers hoisted the royal litter up rocky paths of an extreme steepness, hoisted it out of the hot, tree-shrouded, stagnant jungle-atmosphere into the clean upper airs of the mountain. With a leap of the heart Mr. Darby found himself suddenly lifted, as through a trap-door on a tower, out of the green-roofed dimness of the forest into stark daylight; saw below him the vast green matted roofage oi the jungle, like the congregated roofs of an immense cathedral on whose tower he sat, and breathed an air that was like wine to his torpid senses. Here and there the rolling greenness flashed miraculously into scarlet or lilac or yellow where the tangle of orchids and lianas broke through the tree-tops in a riot of bloom.

There they halted so that the King might enjoy the spectacle of his kingdom and the bearers take breath and ease their aching muscles. They seemed to be standing on the summit of the world: yet the mountain, gaunt and treeless now, still rose sheer behind them, for they had not yet reached the top of the tower. They had merely emerged from the interior on to an open gallery upon which stood the bare, domed crown of the mountain. Now, as if by an external stair, began the ascent of the dome. For many hours yet the toiling bearers strained and sweated, while beneath Mr. Darby’s wondering gaze the jungle-roof dropped lower and lower and miles of undulating treetops, reaches of curving, silvery-gleaming shore, and boundless tracts of an ocean blue as heaven and translucent as a crystal opened out into an ever growing immensity. Away to the north the green of the jungle died abruptly into a tract of red sand. It was the band of desert that divided the territory of the Mandrats from that of the Tongali, the northern boundary of Mr. Darby’s dominions.

Upwards and upwards still their slow journey progressed through the long, hot afternoon, till it seemed to Mr. Darby, seated upon his lurching litter, that he was being thrust slowly aloft out of earth into Heaven.

At last the steepness decreased, the ground flattened out; they were rounding the crest of the dome; and an hour before sunset they paused on the summit where another wonder revealed itself. For the summit of Umfo is the lip of a huge crater, an inverted dome set in the top of the greater dome of the mountain; and, looking down into the great bowl Mr. Darby saw, wonderfully displayed beneath him, hundreds of beehives faultlessly disposed in a formal pattern. It was the village of Umbahla. For a long while he gazed down upon it, fascinated by its exquisite order after the riotous disorder of nature through which he had travelled. But as he gazed, the peaceful scene changed, became alive. Swarms of bees poured from the hives, circulated like a flow of brown blood through the veins and arteries of the village, flooded into the central heart where they coagulated into a great brown clot. Then the clot stirred, boiled, broke into patterned fragments, and in a series of formal evolutions wove and unwove itself towards that part of the bowl from whose high rim the King and his followers looked down upon it. Umbahla and his people were coming to welcome the King to their village.

The ceremonies and dances of that final evening exceeded in wildness and splendour all that had preceded them. It seemed to Mr. Darby that he had landed not in Heaven, not in Hell, but in an insane amalgamation of both. By the time the festival was ended Mr. Darby’s brain was in a whirl and his bodily strength exhausted.

Next morning, soon, too soon, after dawn, the village awoke, and Mr. Darby and his suite accompanied by the whole population poured down the slopes of Umfo and set out in triumph for Umwaddi Taan. They reached it on the evening of the second day.

And there, as on the evening of his coronation ten months ago, Mr. Darby to his amazement found the whole tribe congregated. Every village that he had visited in his long progress through his dominions had emptied its population, as if for another great festival, into the King’s Clearing. And there, in the celebrations that immediately followed, Umbahla and the twelve chiefs, assisted by choruses of their villagers, extolled the nobility and bravery of their King, the mighty Daabee Taan whom the gods had sent to restore the Mandrat people to their former greatness.

What was it all about? What did it mean? Mr. Darby ordered Punnett instantly to find out; and when the night was far advanced, when silence had fallen on Umwaddi Taan and the bonfires were burning low, Punnett returned to the royal hut with the unpalatable truth.

‘I’m sorry to say, sir, we’ve gone and declared war.’

Mr. Darby’s mouth fell open: terror blazed from his spectacles.’ War, Punnett? But who declared war? Not us, not me, certainly.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Punnett sadly. ‘I’m afraid we did, sir. A little mistake, sir! A misunderstanding, so to speak. It turns out that when a king travels round his kingdom, anyway in these parts, it always means he’s going to declare war. It’s a sine qua non, if I may say so. I wish we’d known it before, sir; I wish Professor Harrington had made a note of it.’

Mr. Darby’s cheeks had fallen in. ‘But it’s … it’s ridiculous, Punnett!’ he stammered. ‘It’s against common sense. It’s … it’s outrageous! Outrageous! You mean to say that just because I take a … ah … a little tour round the country, I … ah … what I should call automatically declare war?’

‘That’s it, sir!’ replied Punnett with a melancholy smile.’ That’s the trouble with savages, sir; you never know where you have them. The most harmless thing you do or say, sir, especially when you happen to be King, may turn the tap on, so to speak.’

‘Then,’ said Mr. Darby in great consternation,’ you must go and … ah … countermand the war at once, Punnett. Tell them from me that they’ve mistaken my meaning, that I don’t want a war. Not in the least! Far from it! Anything but! Quite, quite the … ah … contrary!’

With a melancholy and deprecating smile Punnett shook his head.’ I daren’t do it, sir, if you’ll excuse my saying so. They’re so wrought up, as you saw this evening, sir, that nothing would stop them now. It’ud be as much as our lives are worth to try, and I promised Mrs. Darby I’d look after you, sir.’

Mr. Darby’s face had shrunk with terror into the face of a rabbit. ‘Then what, in Heaven’s name, Punnett, are we to do?’

‘Try and get a good night’s sleep, if I may suggest it, sir. We’ll need it.’

‘And let the war go on?’

‘And let the war go on, sir. It’s much safer to let it go on than to try and stop it.’

There was silence in the hut. Punnett stretched himself on his mattress: it might have been supposed that both were asleep. But Mr. Darby was far from sleep. He was thinking, feverishly and furiously.’ By the way, Punnett/ he asked after some minutes,’who is the … ah … the enemy?’

’ The Tongali, sir. There’s no others available.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

In spite of Punnett’s wise advice, not a wink of sleep did Mr. Darby sleep all that night. About four a.m. he fell into a dull stupor from which, all too soon, he was roused by a low rumble like far-distant thunder. With terrifying speed it grew to the formidable drumming of rain on an iron roof, grew from that to the all-confounding roar of a hundred swooping aeroplanes, and then died away gradually to soft remote thunder again. Then again it increased, boiled up once more to the same terrifying pandemonium, and sank back in the same sustained gradations to a long threatening mutter, heavy with menace.

‘What is it, Punnett?” whispered Mr. Darby, aghast.

‘The war drums, sir,’ said Punnett.‘ I’d better be getting you up, sir’

Chapter XXXVI

Punnett Hands Over

Upon the long nightmare of the days that followed it would be painful to dwell. The first terrifying advance into Tongal, during which Mr. Darby, preceded by the roar of drums and surrounded by a great horde of braves in full war-paint, was rushed on his lurching litter through miles of jungle, across the parching, red, snake-haunted belt of desert, and into the north-east corner of Tongal, from which, among horrible scenes of butchery, he was promptly driven; the subsequent retreat, a headlong joggling midnight course, harassed by pursuing Tongali, flights of poisoned arrows, and encounters with huge Ompàs, the highly poisonous snakes that haunted the desert, upon whom in their headlong course through the darkness they were continually blundering; the mad nights of war-dance and howling war-chant by which his excitable subjects heartened themselves for a new effort; all these appalling events, although throughout them Mr. Darby never once used his legs, served to reduce his growing corpulence as no amount of exercise could ever have done. Had not Punnett, only a little less imperturbable than usual, been his constant attendant he would have died of terror at the outset; and when, after all the sufferings of the advance and, worse still, of the retreat, he realized that they were to advance again, it needed all Punnett’s efforts to persuade him that death itself was not better than another such ordeal.

‘Just grin and bear it, sir, if I may use the expression. It’s bound to end sooner or later. I find, sir, that if I take no notice of their goings-on, I get through pretty comfortably.’

‘Take no notice, Punnett,’ wailed Mr. Darby, ‘when the air’s alive with poisoned arrows?’

‘Well, taking notice won’t help you, sir, if I may say so. It only upsets the nerves. If an arrow’s going to get you, it’ll get you whether you take notice or not. I should have thought, if I may say so, sir, that you might have got a bit of a thrill out of it, and you such a one for adventures.’

‘I’ve had enough and more than enough adventures, Punnett,’ said poor Mr. Darby, ‘and more than enough jungle, too, and more than enough of foreign parts. I’d give a hundred thousand pounds, Punnett, and welcome, to wake up and find myself at home.’

‘Well, I’ve never been a one for adventures meself, sir,’ Punnett replied, ‘and the more I see of them the less I like them. So when there’s adventures about, sir, I do my best to take no notice of them, as I was saying. When things get very bad I find it helpful to fancy it’s all a show, the sort of thing you might see at Wembley, if you understand my meaning, sir.’

Mr. Darby dismissed the suggestion with a weary sigh. ‘No amount of fancying’ll turn this into Wembley for me, Punnett.’

‘Then bear in mind, sir, that, fancy or no fancy, you’re King of the Mandrats.’

Mr. Darby’s features collected themselves; he raised his head, a light came into his spectacles. ‘Thank you, Punnett,’ he said in a firmer voice than he had commanded for many days. ‘Thank you for recalling me to … ah … myself. Get me my shaving-water. I must be ready when the moment comes.’

This conversation had taken place at five o’clock in the morning. Long before the drums sounded the advance Mr. Darby was ready. Newly shaved, pale but calm, he sat in the doorway of the royal hut awaiting the moment when Umbahla would come with the other chiefs to summon him to battle.

But the summons never came. Instead of the grim rolling of the drums, a wild, unaccountable clamour broke out suddenly from every quarter of Umwaddi Taan and in the growing light Mr. Darby saw a confusion of figures hurrying madly to and fro. His kingly calm rocked on its none too secure foundations. ‘Punnett!’ he shouted into the hut, ‘Punnett! Something seems to have … ah … gone wrong. Please see what’s the matter.’

Punnett ignoring the ladder, leapt from the platform to the ground and ran across the clearing. The clamour increased. Something struck smartly against the wooden platform not a yard from where Mr. Darby sat. It was an arrow. Fixed slantwise in the floorboard it vibrated for a moment with the force of its impact. Mr. Darby promptly rolled sideways into the shelter of the hut and waited, crouching against its wall in a fever of agitation. The twang of footsteps on the latter announced Punnett’s return.

‘We’ve been surprised, sir,’ he said, his words punctuated by the smart crack of arrows transfixing the walls of the hut. ‘The Tongali have surrounded us. It’s touch and go, I’m afraid, sir, but we may pull through.’

The innermost nature of a man is revealed only in moments of desperate emergency. At Punnett’s terrible announcement Mr. Darby was suddenly transformed. ‘May pull through?’ he shouted, ‘But we must.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Give me my robe, Punnett,’ he commanded, unconsciously echoing another royal person at a famous literary crisis; ‘put on my … ah … crown.’

Crowned and robed he stepped out on to the platform and, oblivious of the hiss of arrows, stood there, not perhaps metrically speaking but in the true, spiritual sense of the term, every inch a king.

‘Call my bearers,’ he shouted. But there were no bearers to call. The great arena of the King’s Clearing was bare, bare but for the circumference along which a violent agitation of bronze bodies swayed and gesticulated in a pandemonium of hoarse cries and rattling war-drums. Sometimes a figure dropped to the ground, writhed convulsively and lay still; sometimes the circumference bulged inwards, let in a driblet of blacker and stockier figures who were instantly set upon, beaten down or driven to frantic attempts to escape outside the fatal circle. Thwarted for a moment, Mr. Darby glanced angrily about him. Then, careless of his sanctity and of his royal dignity, he stooped down, set the palm of his right hand on the floor of the platform and leapt to the ground. Like a lean and hungry wolf Punnett leapt after him and followed him across Umwaddi Taan to where the circumference showed signs of breaking. A javelin, missing the King by a hair’s breadth, struck the ground between them, and Punnett snatched it up in mid course. But before Mr. Darby was half way across the great arena, a long wailing cry rose suddenly above the clamour and, as though an overstretched cord had snapped, the circumference shattered into fragments and a rabble of Tongali swept into Umwaddi Taan. Mr. Darby and Punnett paused, stood still, and from all sides the swarming enemy closed in on them. They closed in till they were within touch, but they did not touch the King. They stood, staring at Mr. Darby with their keen white eyes, and Mr. Darby, his spectacles blazing defiance, his hands clasped behind his back, stared back at them.

Punnett raised the javelin above his head. ‘The King is sacred,’ he shouted in Mandratic.

Though Mr. Darby stood on Mother Earth, technically unsanctified, the enemy did not dispute Punnett’s claim.

‘The King is sacred,’ a hoarse voice replied, and a Tongali, whose head-dress showed him to be a chief, stepped into the ring that surrounded them. ‘The King is sacred. He shall be carried to the Queen.’

Thereupon, as on the occasion when Mr. Darby and Punnett were captured by the Mandrats, the savages plaited their javelins into a litter, and Mr. Darby, who now that resistance was vain resisted no longer, was lifted on to it and raised shoulder high. Punnett, and five captured Mandrat chiefs, their arms bound behind them, followed. There were no other prisoners, for the Tongali spared only chiefs among the hundreds that fell into their hands. Closely guarded against surprise and rescue, the victors and their prisoners crossed the corpse-strewn Clearing and plunged northwards into the jungle.

Now that all immediate need for courage was past, Mr. Darby sank into a black dejection. The hideous scenes of blood and slaughter had roused in him a horrified loathing of the Peninsula and its barbarous inhabitants, and, added to this, the thought, the agonizing thought, that in six weeks time the trading vessel, the unique hope of escape to which he had passionately clung through all the vicissitudes of the past year, was due in the estuary of the Sampoto, and that he and Punnett would be far out of reach of it, prisoners in Tongal, filled him with despair. The bare idea of another long year of life in the Peninsula, and a year that would undoubtedly hold miseries undreamt of in the former one, was a horror worse than death. In imagination he saw the ship, a sailing ship with a golden figurehead, anchored near the little bay where he and Punnett had landed. In horror he saw her weigh anchor and begin to move, and felt remorse in his vitals and the numbing weight of nightmare in his legs, as with an effort that actually made his muscles twitch as he sat on his rocking litter, he struggled in vain to reach her.

But perhaps—and terrible as the possibility was, it brought a sense of relief—perhaps he would not be called upon to face that second year. Perhaps the Queen of the Tongali would condemn him to death, murder him herself, perhaps, in some hideous ceremony like the one in which he himself had driven the spear into the heart of his dead predecessor. He shuddered, recalling the horrible sensation which the spear-shaft had transmitted to his grasping hand, of a resistance, a toughness, and then the sickening surrender, the flaccid yielding of the dead flesh.

But perhaps Punnett would be able to bribe the Tongali Queen to let them go free, might offer her a dazzling sum to escort them safely on board the trader. A King’s ransom! How much was a King’s ransom? In imagination he saw himself and Punnett borne on litters out of the dark jungle into the little white-sanded bay, and there, only a few yards from the water’s edge rode the trader,—blessed, three times blessed sight. He heard the splash of the water churned by the feet of the natives as they carried them towards their salvation. And then he felt himself, actually felt himself, sitting on board, Punnett at his side, and the fancy sent a flood of blissful happiness tingling through his veins.

A trailer of scarlet orchid grabbed at his shoulder and pulled him back into his despair.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

For two days and nights, during which Mr. Darby alternately hoped and dreaded that his people would rally and attempt a rescue, they followed the jungle tracks of Mandras with only the briefest halts. But until the end of the second night the Mandrats gave no sign. Then, when they had almost reached the northern skirt of the jungle and the first glimmer of dawn showed them the red desert belt across which their course now lay, a wild yell broke the morning silence and, as if the dark shadow of every tree-trunk had suddenly been galvanized into life and leapt from its anchorage, a dense horde of Mandrats burst upon them. The encounter was fierce and brief. For five minutes, ten minutes, all was madness and fury. Mr. Darby, idle, powerless and in terror, closely fenced by his guard who had lowered the litter to the ground, saw nothing of what was happening, and it was only when the noise died down and he was hoisted again on the shoulders of his bearers and the march resumed that he knew that all was over and he himself still a prisoner.

When the sun rose they were already four miles on their way across the desert. A screen of savages ran before them, carrying on their spears tufts of blazing tow to scare from their path the hideous and deadly Ompà, the snake which haunted the Mandratic desert. Mr. Darby saw one huge creature rear itself on end like a capital S and shoot itself with the tense precision of a released spring at a bunch of natives who leapt aside with the agility of spiders. Instantly half a dozen blazing bouquets of tow were whirling round it, but again it drew itself up to strike, and again its aggressors scattered nimbly and then again closed on it. Mr. Darby, though ringed by his ample guard, shuddered with horror each time he caught sight of one of the creatures. Yet there was fascination in the horror: he could not turn away his eyes; he had to look, had to glance about in the horrible hope of seeing others. Before the afternoon had turned to evening they had crossed the desert and were entering the southern confines of Tongal.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

For five long days Mr. Darby, a melancholy figure in spectacles and pyjamas with his crown and parrot-robe neatly disposed at his side, sat his litter with six woolly heads in profile on either side of him. His bones and muscles ached from the incessant motion, for relays of bearers carried him and the halts were of the briefest.

During these halts he was able to exchange a few words with Punnett, who, as usual, was sadly and deprecatingly optimistic. ‘It’s bound to be all right, sir. With your leave I shall put it to the Queen that you have great riches across the sea; that if she kills you she’ll be doing herself no good, but if she gives you a strong escort to take us back to Mandras in time to catch the trader, you’ll send her …’

‘I’ll send her anything she likes to ask, Punnett,—diamond necklaces, golden dinner services, whatever you think will persuade her.’

‘Those’ud be no good, sir, if you’ll excuse my saying so. There’s not enough novelty about them for the likes of these folk. A hundred tins of sardines, a hundred pots of raspberry jam, a few dozen of Johnny Walker, half-a-mile of cheap cretonne and a penny-in-the-slot machine would be nearer the mark, sir. That’s the sort of thing the trader brings to exchange for the rubies and opals. I’ve seen a ruby worth heaven knows what, sir, go for a matter of one tin of sardines. The only fear is that we may miss the trader. She may be turning up any time now.’

‘Don’t speak of it, Punnett,’ whispered Mr. Darby, as if he feared that a malignant fate might overhear them. ‘Don’t even think of it. I should die. I can’t bear very much more of this: it’s wearing me out.’ Tears glittered behind his spectacles, and Punnett, looking at his master more critically than he had recently done, saw that it was true. The poor little man looked terribly tired and ill: his endurance was nearing its limit: he might, Punnett believed, break down at any moment.

‘Bear up, sir. Keep going a little longer. I have a feeling, a very strong feeling, sir, that our troubles will soon be over.’

Mr. Darby sighed deeply and shook his head, and the bearers once more lifted him to their shoulders.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Their course through the open, rock-strewn country of Tongal was attended by a growing swarm of native women and children who poured from the adjacent villages to welcome their victorious warriors and jeer at the prisoners. At noon of the fifth day they reached a great stockade guarding a close fence of bamboo, taller than the height of a man. Even Mr. Darby, aloft on his litter, could not see over it. It was Aba Taana, the Queen’s Village. They entered a guarded gateway and the watching crowd broke out into a raucous song of triumph that filled the air with hot and hideous noise.

And now Mr. Darby found himself within a high-fenced arena, even huger than Umwaddi Taan. A lofty straw-thatched hall, surrounded by smaller huts, stood in the middle of it. The hall and the huts were built, not on piles as was the style in Mandras, but on the ground-level. The procession moved with slow pomp towards the royal hall. Outside it they stopped, the litter was set down, and Mr. Darby was made to stand up. His crown was placed upon his head, his parrot cloak thrown round him. Outwardly calm, inwardly sick with fear, he waited for the next event. What were they waiting for? He turned his head and saw, to his intense relief, that Punnett, his arms no longer bound, stood close behind him with the five Mandrat chiefs whose pinioned arms a great black-bodied Tongali was unbinding. When the fifth chief had been loosed Mr. Darby in his kingly crown and robe, but unroyally and ignominiously on foot, was led forward and the procession entered the hall.

At the far end of the hall on a raised throne backed by a huge fan of peacocks’ feathers sat a large figure crowned with a great head-dress of blue and crimson ostrich feathers and wrapped in a multi-coloured robe. Attendants were clustered upon its right and left. The triumph-song had ended outside the hall and now they advanced slowly and in absolute silence towards the throne. Mr. Darby walked with downcast eyes. He was tired, so tired that he felt himself incapable of any new effort. What was going to happen next he wondered, but his wondering was little more than a vague, apathetic curiosity. A low muttering rose in the hall and through it he heard Punnett’s voice behind him. ‘Safe at last, sir. Look at the Queen.’

But instead of looking at the Queen Mr. Darby glanced back at Punnett. At the same moment the Mandrat chief nearest to him sprang at him. In the fraction of time in which he instinctively started aside, there flashed on Mr. Darby’s perception with an indelible vividness the mad, white eyes of the face that was hurled towards him and the white gleam of a blade in the clenched black fist. Mr. Darby felt the dagger pierce his body, felt himself collapse, plunge down some enormous depth, and die. But he had not moved: the hurtling black shape had never reached him. Something else had happened.

For Punnett, as usual, had risen to the occasion. How, Mr. Darby never knew; but Punnett had intercepted that hurtling body, and next moment he fell, striking Mr. Darby with his head and nearly knocking him down as he fell at his feet. There he lay on his back, and Mr. Darby, staring down at him, saw through spectacles black with horror the ivory handle of a dagger planted in his breast. Punnett raised his chest convulsively and then lay still, as Mr. Darby, forgetful of all else, sank on his knees. ‘Punnett!’ he cried. ‘Punnett! Is it …? Is it bad?’

Someone else was kneeling by Punnett now, two other people; and then Mr. Darby heard a voice, a voice that robbed him of his last hold on reality and plunged him into a confused world of dream.

‘Keep out of the way, Jim. Let the doctor get at him.’

Mr. Darby raised his head, stared into the face of Sarah, and lost consciousness.

At that’moment Punnett opened his eyes and smiled sadly at Sarah. He was trying to speak. Sarah leaned over him. ‘I’ve brought him back to you, Madam,’ he whispered. ‘I thought …!’ His voice failed for a moment and Sarah leaned her head closer. ‘I thought once or twice I wasn’t … going … to manage.’ He closed his eyes; a shudder ran over his body and his eyes opened again. ‘Excuse me, Madam!’

It was Punnett’s last apology, his apology for dying.

Chapter XXXVII

A Royal Conversation

The Gulf of Tongal, as any good atlas will show, is formed by the semi-circular sweep of coast where the north-western shore of the Mandratic Peninsula swings westward into the main coastline of Eutyca.

The yacht which Sarah had chartered at Sydney had just left her moorings in the Gulf and was steaming southwards, and the ex-King of Mandras and the ex-Queen of Tongal, peacefully seated under the deck awning, at last found time for conversation. They wore European dress. Their crowns and robes, mementoes of an experience which had more than satisfied even Mr. Darby’s hunger for romance, had been carefully bestowed in a trunk. Mr. Darby’s flannel suit, which had fitted him perfectly in the old days at home, appeared grievously fallen-in in front, for a fever, caught during his long journeys through the jungle and aggravated by his recent appalling experiences had kept him raving during the last week. They had carried him, unconscious still, from the strange scene of reunion in the Queen’s hall in Aba Taana to the yacht which had been waiting at anchor during the eight months in which Sarah’s search-party had scoured the south-western coast of Eutyca and the whole of the Tongali territory for traces of Mr. Darby and Punnett. Fortunately his recovery, under the care of Sarah and her doctor, had been rapid, and already, though still somewhat shaky, he was, in mind if not in body, his old self again.

‘Well, I must say, Jim,’ said Sarah, smiling maternally at the little man, ‘you’ve led me a dance. I might just as well have come with you at the start, seeing that I’ve been let in for all this exploring in any case. All I can say is, I hope you liked the place better than I did.’

‘Like it?’ said Mr. Darby.’ I hate it. It’s … ah … what I should call Hell, Sarah. No! No more adventures for me, no more jungles, no more green parrots, no more scarlet orchids, thank you. Thank God they’re all safely behind me.’ He heaved a deep, satisfied sigh.

‘Yes, thank God! And you can thank me, too, Jim. There aren’t many women that would have put up with it, I can tell you, husband or no husband.’

Mr. Darby smiled guiltily. ‘But tell me, Sarah, what put it into your head that I wasn’t drowned?’

‘Well, what do you think, Jim? Poor Punnett, of course. When I heard that Punnett had gone overboard too, and not only Punnett but a couple of life-buoys as well, I knew there was a chance for you. If you’d gone over alone, I’d have ordered my mourning and said no more. But you’d only got to have a word or two with Punnett to see that he was a man in a thousand. He told me, in his quiet way, that I could rely on him, but I knew it already without his telling me. He gave his life for yours, Jim; don’t you forget it.’ She fumbled for a handkerchief. ‘And to think,’ she said in a voice husky with tears,’ that I couldn’t so much as thank him. But he would know, Punnett would know all right what I felt.’

Mr. Darby stared in front of him with spectacles glittering like diamonds, and for a while they sat silent.

‘The Utopia put back for you, you know Jim; they put back fifty miles, but there wasn’t a trace of you. The captain said he hadn’t much hope because of the sharks.’

‘Sharks?’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I didn’t know there were sharks. Punnett didn’t mention sharks.’

‘He wouldn’t,’ Sarah replied. ‘He’d have enough of a job keeping you quiet without mentioning sharks, I’ll be bound. But how long were you in the water, Jim?’

‘Oh, a matter of a few hours, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby nonchalantly.

‘A few hours? We made all sorts of enquiries about the currents, and they told us you’d be sure to be carried right up into the Gulf of Tongal.’

‘I don’t suppose they know very much about the currents in England,’ Mr. Darby replied with a touch of scorn. Already he was beginning to remember England’s obtuseness in some matters. ‘So that’s why you made for Tongal, Sarah. But why did they make you Queen?’

Ever since he had regained consciousness Mr. Darby had been troubled by a small, secret annoyance—an annoyance which, even if he had been aware of it, he would not have confessed even to himself—at Sarah’s achievement of royal rank. It seemed fated that whenever, after infinite labours, he attained to some new eminence, reached, as it were, a yet higher plateau on the mountain of human greatness, he must always find Sarah, through no effort of her own, no desire to compete with him, coolly waiting for him on a slightly higher altitude.

‘Oh,’ said Sarah impatiently, ‘it was a silly business but it served its purpose. It was all owing to a fever, a sort of’flu they were having. It was something new to them and when we arrived three months ago they were having a terrible attack of it in Aba Taana. So we dosed them with quinine and aspirin. Fortunately we had lots of both on board. As you know, Jim, I’ve always had a great faith in aspirin. That soon put them right,—all, that is, except the King. He died of it: but then he was so terribly fat that he hadn’t a chance from the first. You see, he took no exercise. They had a ridiculous idea that he mustn’t walk.’

‘I know,’ said Mr. Darby feelingly. ‘My people had the same idea about me.’

‘Well, they tried it on me when they made me Queen, but I soon put a stop to that nonsense.’

‘You … ah … you defied them, Sarah.’

‘Certainly,’ Sarah replied. ‘You’ve got to treat those sort of people like children: it’s the only way to manage them. That’s why I let them make me Queen. They wanted to: they said I was the great white enchantress, or some such childishness, because the quinine and aspirin had cured their’ flu: so as it seemed likely to be more convenient on the whole, not only for us but for them, I consented. But the trouble I had with them, Jim! I’d rather run an infant-school any day. If you knew the job I had to get them to kill mosquitoes for instance. The doctor said that very likely mosquitoes were the cause of this’flu. But they said mosquitoes were sacred and that I was the Mosquito Queen. “Very well,” I said, “I’m the Mosquito Queen and I command you to kill mosquitoes!” That worried them dreadfully. They got terribly excited and for a whole night we thought they were going crazy. But they came round in the end; and now the mosquito isn’t sacred any longer in Tongal, or rather, only the particular mosquito who happens to be King or Queen.’ Sarah grunted sardonically. ‘That was one reform anyhow; but it would be a life’s work to put anything like common sense into them, and, upon my word, they hardly seemed worth while, even if I hadn’t had you on my hands.’

‘To be shaw!’ said Mr. Darby. It was soothing, exquisitely soothing to him now to be treated by Sarah as a child. And the blessed comfort and security of this yacht, with the pleasant Australian captain and crew, the pleasant, friendly members of Sarah’s search party, the doctor, the young Cambridge man who had acted as interpreter, and the others who had not yet become quite real to him. What a marvellous change from the horrible life of the last year, a life like a mad dream of snakes and blue devils and nightmare forests.

And yet how lovely the Peninsula looked now as they steamed along its silver coast; the rosy pink of the rocks, the vivid emerald of the jungle, rising, screen behind screen, from the mottled rose and silver of the shore, and the great orange-stained ivory dome of Umfo, the ankle-bone of Mandratia, protruding starkly and grandly above the matted forests. Umfo, in its beautiful fallacious serenity, was typical of the whole Peninsula, thought Mr. Darby, recalling the swarming village of savages that raged, like an angry, seething brain, within the summit of that bland exterior.

‘And yet,’ he said, indicating the coast with a sweeping gesture, ‘there’s no denying, Sarah, that it’s extraordinarily beautiful.’

‘Oh, it’s beautiful enough, I grant you,’ Sarah replied, ‘especially from here. Distance lends enchantment, Jim. And the flowers, I must say I never saw anything like them. I used to make my women in Aba Taana go out and get me different kinds of orchids, and you never saw such a show as they sometimes brought in. I wish I could have taken a few plants home; they’d have looked well in pots in the dining-room. The Savershills’ conservatories can’t touch them; not even the conservatories at Blanchford.’ She gave one of her grim chuckles. ‘From housemaid at Blanchford to Queen of Tongal,—a bit of a jump, isn’t it, Jim, when you come to think of it?’

‘Oh, no doubt! No doubt!’ Mr. Darby replied, hastily dismissing the idea.

And now the Peninsula, slowly, imperceptibly shifting and changing along its length under the influence of the yacht’s progress, began to disclose the belt of desert that bisected it.

‘Look, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘there’s our frontier,—my northern and your southern frontier. I wish I had my telescope: with it one might even catch sight of an Ompà or two. A horrible place, that desert! I crossed it three times, Sarah. Did you visit it at all?’

‘No, your folk didn’t give us the chance,’ Sarah replied, ‘and I’m glad, now, they didn’t. We were just trying to arrange about moving south and searching Mandras when your folk raided us. Now what possessed you, Jim, to let them do that?’

Mr. Darby coloured slightly. ‘It was what I should call a slip, Sarah, a trifling … ah … misinterpretation.’

‘H’m!’ said Sarah laconically. ‘Trifling, was it? I suppose you didn’t happen to see, as I did, the forty-nine corpses that were the result of it? Ten of our people and thirty-nine Mandrats!’

Mr. Darby opened his eyes. ‘Did you see them, Sarah?’

Sarah shuddered. ‘Yes, I did, Jim. Forty-nine splendid men, poor silly quarrelsome creatures. We rushed down there as soon as we heard what was up. We couldn’t afford to let things slide: we might have woken up to find ourselves murdered. And it was just as well we did what we did. When we arrived, the Tongali were on the point of marching into Mandras in one great crowd, and in broad daylight if you please. And the job I had to stop them! You’d have thought we were trying to cancel a school-treat instead of trying to save the lives of a good half of them.’

‘But you didn’t succeed, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby and there was a trace of gratification in his voice at Sarah’s powerlessness. ‘They attacked us all the same.’

‘Oh we weren’t trying to stop them attacking you,’ said Sarah. ‘That would have been mere madness. The Mandrats would only have attacked us again at some point where we weren’t ready for them and murdered every man, woman, and child of us, and got most of themselves killed into the bargain. What we were after was to get our people to set about things in a businesslike manner. The doctor and I worked it out between us with our maps. The thing was, of course, to attack the Mandrats on all sides at once, to round them up, in fact. You didn’t need to be a Field Marshal to see that. These folk are as brave as tigers and as senseless as babies, so we did what we could to put some sense into them. We sent small parties along both coasts, telling them to travel by night and hide by day. It was a nasty business, Jim; but as it was bound to be a matter of wholesale murder in any case, it seemed the safest thing to do. Of course I gave them the strictest orders that if they found any white men they were to be brought to me, safe and sound.’ Sarah sighed deeply. ‘Well, it worked, you see. But I must say I had my doubts. Short of going with them yourself you couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t lose their heads. However that’s all over now, thank Heaven. It was a ghastly time and no mistake. Not a wink of sleep did I get till they brought you into my house looking like a poor sick poll-parrot and we got you safely to bed on this yacht. I’d never have recognised you, nor Punnett either, Jim, if it hadn’t been for your spectacles. You were like a couple of chimpanzees: you can’t have shaved for days.’

‘Ah … no!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘In point of fact, we … ah … hadn’t.’

He fell into a reverie. It was no good. Sarah was Sarah and there was no good struggling against fate. For once, in that brief reverie, he saw himself through the cold, steel-grey spectacles of reality, a poor feather-bedizened puppet in the clutches of his terrifying, bronze-skinned subjects, a puppet torn from his throne and captured without protest by the Machiavellian strategy of the warlike and masterful Queen of Tongal. But the horribly veracious vision faded and Mr. Darby did not attempt to detain it. He alone had seen it and he alone promptly dismissed it, forgot it so utterly that the facts it so undeniably revealed faded for ever from existence, leaving the ex-King to cherish his kingly memories. Already those memories were assuming their proper tinge of romance. Even Mandras itself, the outward and visible Mandras which swam slowly past his brooding gaze, began to arouse in him those affectionate and proprietary regrets with which exiled sovereigns regard their lost dominions. With time and perhaps a little more firmness he might have made the Mandrats into an industrious and civilized nation: he and Sarah might even have united the two Kingdoms in a single beneficent and Arcadian tyranny and invited their friends to court. But these things were not to be, and perhaps on the whole it was as well. England, though less spectacular, was undeniably more comfortable. He stirred in his chair, sensible of an inward pang: a delicious smell of cooking had drifted from some open hatchway. ‘Isn’t it about … ah … lunch-time, Sarah?’ he asked.

Sarah glanced at her watch. ‘Only ten minutes now, Jim,’ she said. ‘I can see you’re getting your appetite back.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Towards four o’clock that afternoon they began to round the extreme point of the Peninsula and the Sampoto estuary slowly opened to view. Mr. Darby borrowed the captain’s telescope. It was a more manageable one than his own and he used it more discreetly, an immediate return to the Peninsula being foreign to his plans. Blue, silver, rose, and a great stream of green swam past his vision. Then, after some trouble, he got what he sought.

There, before his single, absorbed, incredulous eye, lay the little bay exactly as it had first appeared to him. It seemed to him, as he stared at it now, that he had lived in it for years, so intensely familiar was every shrub, every rock and stone. There, as if they had just left it, was the hut of leaves and branches Punnett had built for them to sleep in. There was still a great heap of dry fuel outside it, ready for the nightly bonfire whose smoke kept off the piums and mosquitoes.

‘Extraordinary! Extraordinary!’ he muttered to Sarah who stood at his side. ‘You must look at it, Sarah. There’s the very bonfire. Extraordinary!’ He continued his exclamations, exhorting Sarah to look, but too absorbed to realize that he himself retained the telescope. ‘And there’s where I paddled. And there’s the arbour Punnett made for me. And … and … good Heavens! My …! But …!’ Mr. Darby nearly dropped the telescope overboard again.

‘What is it, Jim?’ asked Sarah, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder.

‘It’s Punnett!’ said Mr. Darby in a shaken whisper. ‘Poor Punnett’s suit, just where he hung it out to dry. I thought at first …!’ He continued to stare absorbedly down the telescope at the poor shape that faced his eye, the very shape, the very lines, the sad, deprecating attitude of Punnett himself; the arms drooping limply from the sides as if with a last modest appeal to his master who was leaving the place for ever and leaving him to rot in his solitary grave in Tongal a thousand miles from the nearest white man. ‘Take it, Sarah! Take it!’ sobbed Mr. Darby, dropping the telescope into her hands.

By sunset the Mandratic Peninsula was no more than a thin blue finger with a swollen knuckle-bone, jutting into a lake of pale and limpid gold. A week later they steamed into Sydney harbour.

Chapter XXXVIII

A Royal Pardon

A week later they steamed into Sydney harbour and a fortnight after that they steamed out of it again, for both Mr. Darby and Sarah were in a hurry to get home. They travelled by P. &. O., which sails direct and avoids the curious detour northwards taken by the Scarlet Funnel Line. Besides, Mr. Darby had formed the opinion that the Scarlet Funnel ships were unsafe, not only because of the strange habits of the passengers who travelled on them but also because in them, as he himself had proved, it was possible to fall overboard in perfectly calm weather. The passengers on this P. & O. liner were as well-behaved as it is possible for passengers to be, and in any case, with Sarah at hand, Mr. Darby was safe enough from the female half.

Providence, hearing that Mr. Darby had extended a free pardon to England, paved the way of return with fair winds and calm seas. The typhoon that, on the voyage out, had dogged him in the China Sea was ordered to its kennel; the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea were carefully cooled for the occasion. At Aden the ghosts of that ill-matched pair, Lady Gissingham and Mrs. Gudgeon, wished him a prosperous voyage; in the Red Sea the sea-logged corpse of Gudgeon stirred in its fishy grave but sent no disturbing sign to the surface; at Port Said the phantom of Sir Alistair Gissingham cut him dead from a ghostly tender and ghosts of the two young Rentons waved to him and smiled a little superciliously; and throughout the voyage the pleasant, lazy, cynical shadow of Mr. Amberley amused him with inaudible conversation which was more easily understood than much of the audible kind had been.

Where were all those people now? Mr. Darby longed to know. It was sad that they should have vanished so utterly from his life. The first-class passengers on this P. & O. boat were pale and indistinguishable phantoms compared with the vivid reality of those others that still haunted his thoughts. No doubt they had all returned soberly to their unknown homes in England, all except Lady Gissingham. Her it was impossible to imagine peacefully at home. She, strange, frustrated creature, would be wandering the world, seeking in vain for something never to be found. Perhaps she was on board that outward-bound Orient liner they had seen yesterday in Port Said.

After Port Said Mr. Darby felt himself virtually at home already. The Mediterranean to his far-travelled mind was little more than a safe and attractive pleasure-water upon whose tranquil breast one could sit and enjoy, care-free, a cigar and a John Collins. He had already regained all his old plumpness, all his old bland importance. Not that he had forgotten his Kingdom: it was often in his thoughts and, much more often than he could have wished, in his dreams. More than once, in the middle of some hideous nocturnal function in which everything seemed to be going irrecoverably wrong, he would be recalled to safety and reality by a vigorous shake and Sarah’s reassuring rebuke: ‘For goodness sake wake up, Jim, or you’ll rouse the whole ship.’

‘I … I dreamt I was back in Mandras,’ he would babble sleepily.

‘You and your Mandras,’ Sarah would grumble. ‘It seems to me you took the place too seriously. Suppose I was to start screaming about Tongal. We should get locked up as a couple of lunatics, and serve us right. Now off you go to sleep again; but mind, keep clear of Mandras.’

Sarah, too, was enjoying the voyage, she was enjoying even the idleness of it. After all she had been through, it was bliss to sit in a deck-chair and talk to Jim, or to watch him, with a cigar in his mouth, his spectacles reflecting the blue serenity of the sea, puffing importantly up and down the deck like a small, compact steam-engine. She confessed to herself now that there had been periods when she had abandoned hope, given Jim up for lost, though at the time she had resolutely refused to admit it. At such moments her determined search in that strange, almost impenetrable country full of barbarous lunatics seemed nothing more than a wilful self-torturing madness destined to end in heart-breaking disappointment. For surely, even if Jim and Punnett had got to shore, a thing that had seemed almost impossible to the captain of the Utopia and completely impossible to herself when, after weeks of travel, she coasted the peninsula on a stormy evening, surely the two lonely, unarmed creatures would infallibly have been murdered by those excitable hot-headed savages that seemed to her at first sight much more like wild animals than human beings. And yet, after all those days and nights of hideous misgiving, of absolute but unconfessed despair, here they were together again on this comfortable, homely liner, a floating fragment of England. Yes, she was content—far more than content; she was blissfully happy—to sit utterly idle and feast herself on Jim’s mere presence. It seemed to her, in this blessed reaction, that she was cured of all her old desires and antipathies. She had no idea what Jim’s wishes were, what schemes he had for their new life in England. Only one thing was certain: he was permanently cured of the Jungle: there would be no more talk of adventure and exploration. Concerning the various probabilities she was indifferent. If Jim wanted to live in London, they would live in London. If he had some mad scheme for building a great house somewhere in the country, well, he could build it and she would run it for him. Without a murmur she would engage and govern a regiment of servants; she would refrain from making beds and sweeping floors; she would even abandon her job on the H.C.S. Meanwhile there was over a week more of this restful interlude, for by mutual consent they were not leaving the ship at Marseilles, as most of the first-class passengers were doing, but continuing the voyage, more slowly but more restfully, to Tilbury.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

It was not till after Marseilles that Mr. Darby broached the subject of a home.

‘I’m rather sorry now, Sarah, I didn’t keep on the house in Bedford Square. It would have been what I should call a peeder-tare, if you know what I mean.’

‘But I don’t, Jim!’ said Sarah. ‘Never heard of the thing! You mean you wish you had it to go back to?’

‘Well … ah … temporariously,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘while we looked out for some suitable … ah … mansion.’

Sarah nodded. ‘Then you’re thinking of a house in London?’

Mr. Darby pursed his lips judicially. ‘I may have to spend a part of the year, for business reasons, in and about the Metropolis.’

‘Quite so!’ said Sarah. ‘And what is the business to be, Jim?’

Mr. Darby affected a certain nonchalance. ‘Oh … ah … well … ah … lecturing and so on. And no doubt they’ll expect me to become a member of the Travellers’ Club.’ He remained for some moments lost in thought. ‘It was a thousand pities,’ he then said, ‘that poor Punnett left the camera on the Utopia. Some photos of Mandras …!’

‘It seems to me, Jim,’ Sarah interrupted, ‘that you remember quite enough of Mandras without having any photos to lead you on.’

‘I was thinking at the moment,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘of … ah … slides.’

‘Slides, Jim?’

‘Ah … yes! Lantern slides for the purposes of … ah … lecturing!’

‘So you’re going to lecture about your adventures?’

‘Well, no doubt I shall be expected to, and if they really insist I don’t see that one can very well refuse, do you?’

‘Well, I could, Jim; but I don’t see why you should refuse if you don’t want to. I fancy you’d enjoy it.’

‘Oh, enjoyment!’ Mr. Darby made a gesture of intolerance. ‘I should regard it as a duty, Sarah.’

‘A duty, Jim? A duty to whom?’

‘Oh … well … ah … to the public, to be shaw! To sosarty in general!’ His tone changed: it became gentle, appealing. ‘You wouldn’t mind now, would you, Sarah, spending part of our time in London?’

Mr. Darby’s now contained volumes. It alluded discreetly to their original separation; it hinted at the immense changes wrought in each of them by their wonderful and appalling adventures; it stressed, with a tinge of something not far from humility, the impossibility of anything like disagreement between them in their present happy state of reunion. It was, indeed, a word, as Mr. Darby had used it, of such potency, such complex allusiveness, that it provided the happiest auguries for his success as a lecturer.

Sarah felt its force and at once reacted to it. ‘I’ll live wherever you like, Jim,’ she replied heartily, ‘short of going back to the Mandratic Peninsula.’

Mr. Darby’s spectacles flooded her with sunshine. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we might put up at the Balmoral and look about us;—Belgravia, Mayfair, and so on.’

But when they had passed Gibraltar (‘One of our national bulwarks, Sarah!’) and the Bay was already safely behind them; when they had steamed up the Channel and entered the mouth of the Thames, the Thames that was so unmistakably England—England in the small smoke-grimed huddled houses on its shores, England in its dreary mud-flats, England in the very quality and touch of its draughty air; Mr. Darby’s immediate schemes for Mayfair and Belgravia suddenly and surprisingly collapsed.

‘Sarah,’ he said to his wife who leaned beside him on the rail, ‘first of all we must go home.’

Sarah’s heart leapt. ‘What, to Number Seven, Jim?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘to Number Seven.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

They did not disembark till close on noon and it was two o’clock when the boat-train steamed into St. Pancras. The moment was a solemn one. Throughout the journey from Tilbury Mr. Darby had not spoken a word: it was no time for talk even of the most serious description. Not that there were any doubts in his mind about the completeness of London’s pardon. He was not one to hold back or make reservations on such an occasion: his was an open and unclouded nature. His silence was due solely to the depth of his feelings and his proper sense of the gravity and of the historical quality of the occasion; and the privileged onlookers who, when the train drew up in the station, noted the exuberance with which he sprang from the train to the platform, can have had little doubt of the cordiality and thoroughness of his forgiveness, as, with no false bashfulness, he took London to his heart. And with a proper gratitude, a proper humility, London responded. The busy crowds that climbed Ludgate Hill noticed a becoming pinkness suffuse the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral; the Cabinet Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Permanent Under-secretaries, M.P.’s and Civil Servants who happened at the moment to be crossing Parliament Square or hurrying south-westward along Parliament Street detected an unusually passionate quality in the tone of Big Ben; the buses as they plied their whirling dance round Trafalgar Square found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly (for the afternoon was overcast) inundated in sunshine; and members of the Stock Exchange stood open-mouthed at an exultant leap in prices unprecedented in the history of finance.

The occasion was as brief as it was pregnant, for the fact was that time was pressing. Only by sacrificing some of his customary dignity did Mr. Darby, accompanied by Sarah and a host of bags and trunks, catch the afternoon train north at King’s Cross.

When they reached Newchester it was already dark, so that the ex-King of Mandras’s return to his native town was incognito. It was better thus, for Mr. Darby was able, as the train swung on to the Redvale Bridge, to enjoy something of those exquisite sensations with which a mother looks down on her sleeping child. For there below him, utterly unconscious of his benign presence, lay the Quayside and the Valley of the Dole, starred by a thousand twinkling lights. In the darkness that divided those yellow sparks, a rarer sprinkling of rubies and emeralds told of the unseen river and the ships; and even now, at the thought of the ships, Mr. Darby’s heart thrilled. Despite long nights of hideous instability, days of headlong flight from typhoons, despite the appalling plunge overboard and the damp and precarious trip on a bare life-buoy, the old excitement, the old spirit of adventure was still there, ready to flame up, unquenched, at the old unforgettable summons.

They had dined in the train. Tired-out by the emotions of the day they went to bed almost as soon as they reached Number Seven Moseley Terrace.

Chapter XXXIX

The King Was In The Parlour

It has been remarked earlier in Mr. Darby’s history that a millionaire is a force. He is also a victim. The very morning after Mr. Darby’s return, when any ordinary man would have been able to sleep late and then rise to the quiet and uninterrupted enjoyment of his long-lost home, urgent business called him to town. He obeyed the obligation cheerfully, for Mr. Darby was not one to fly in the face of duty. He even announced his intention of being out for lunch, for it seemed to him impossible that he would be able to despatch all the urgent business upon which he was bent before the afternoon was well advanced. Nor did Sarah stand in his way. She was anxious, in fact, to get the house to herself and with the help of Mrs. Bricketts to give it such a scrubbing and a dusting as it had not had for many a month. It was not only because the house needed it, it was also, and perhaps chiefly, because she needed it. At the first glimpse of her home, body and soul had cried out for a taste of good hard physical labour, and the happy chance that Jim thought it necessary to bustle off to town enabled her to satisfy her craving. Mr. Darby was barely out of the front-door when she clapped down a pail of water, a scrubbing brush, and a large cube of soap on the oil-cloth of the back passage and, with a deep sigh of thankfulness and sleeves rolled to the elbows, fell on her knees.

Meanwhile the ex-King of Mandras moved blandly and without haste down Moseley Terrace and proceeded by a series of by-streets to Stedman’s, the ironmonger’s. Before publicly revealing himself he was going to look in on George.

With the precision of one accustomed to command he pushed open the shop-door. The shop-bell announced him with a barbaric clang, and in response to the clang there occurred behind the banks of pots and pans, stoves and parrotcages, a comprehensive, vague movement. Next moment George Stedman, large, square and grey-headed, stood behind the counter. He stared, swelled, it seemed, to twice his usual size, and held out a huge paw. ‘God bless us all,’ he boomed, and the pots and pans, the stoves and parrot-cages hummed in unison, God bless us all, if it isn’t old Jim, back from the bottom of the sea.’

With great dignity Mr. Darby took the proffered hand, and was shaken so cordially, so powerfully that it was only with the greatest difficulty that he kept his footing.

‘And how are you, Jim?’ asked George.

‘As well as ever, thank you, George,’ Mr. Darby replied; ‘and so, I … ah … observe, are you.’

‘And Mrs. D.?’

‘The same,’ said Mr. Darby.

‘We’d given you up, you know, Jim,’ said Stedman, oh absolutely. We’d have ordered a wreath if we’d known where to send it to; and when we heard Mrs. D. was going after you, we gave her up into the bargain. “If anyone can bring him back, Sarah will,” my missus said. “True,” I said to her; “but she won’t, Jane. You mark my words, she won’t! There’s some things not even Mrs. D.can do.” Well, seemingly I was wrong, Jim. But I don’t mind saying, when we got your cablegram from Sydney, you could have knocked me down with a half-inch nail. The Chronicle put you down for dead, you know. It treated you very handsome, Jim; a matter of nearly half a column.’

‘Ah, indeed! To be shaw!’ said Mr. Darby with outward indifference, longing, but not liking, to ask George if he had cut out and kept the notice.

‘Well,’ pursued Stedman,’and how have you been amusing yourself all this time?’

‘Oh, ruling, mostly,’ Mr. Darby replied nonchalantly.

Stedman knit his brow. ‘Ruling, Jim?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ruling the … ah … Kingdom of Mandras. An interesting job, George; but what I should call difficult, very difficult at times.’

Stedman spread his hands on the counter and leaned forward. ‘Now what’s the joke, Jim? What are you getting at?’

Mr. Darby’s spectacles were as serious as it is possible for spectacles to be.’ There’s no joke, George. You see before you the King, or I should say the ex-King of Mandras.’

‘If we’ve got royalty in the shop,’ replied George, ‘I’d better call the missus.’

But just as he opened his mouth to do so, two customers entered. ‘Bring her round to supper to-night, George,’ said Mr. Darby in an undertone, ‘and we’ll tell you all about it.’

Stedman nodded, and Mr. Darby made a curt gesture of farewell. ‘Meanwhile …!’ he said; and with the same leisurely dignity with which he had entered, he stepped into the Osbert Road and revealed himself to an astonished Savershill.

Instantly the Osbert Road trams, aware of the presence of royalty, began to hurtle up and down the road with the speed and the hum of aeroplanes, while in the railway-cutting electric trains and steam trains raced them in wild and jubilant disorder. The rooks that wove their customary circles round the spire of the Wesleyan Chapel, detecting far below them the small, familiar and absurdly foreshortened little figure of their fellow-townsman, broke into delighted cries. ‘Darby!’ they crowed. ‘Darby! Darby! Darby!’ But the effect on Mr. Darby of these ovations was curious. At the first sound of them he stood still, bewildered and, it appeared, appalled. He listened, blinked, and listened again as though he could not believe his ears. For the rooks had taken him off his guard and with his thoughts on his far-away Kingdom, and for a few terrible seconds those hoarse cries of ‘Darby’ had sounded so exactly like certain other shouts that his mind had reeled and his heart stood still, while his appalled sense perceived again the hoarse and ominous cries that had greeted his coronation. ‘Daabee! Daabee Taan! Aboo Daabee Taan!’ It was a matter of a few seconds only. In a moment he had come to himself and, waving a friendly acknowledgment to the rooks, was continuing his bland progress down Osbert Road.

But though Savershill itself and the dumb, instinctive creatures, the rooks and sparrows, the dogs and cats, that haunted it, recognized and paid their homage to the ex-King; the inhabitants of Savershill and Newchester, the blind, obtuse human beings, streamed past him totally unconscious of the true majesty of the plump figure that moved in their midst; and Mr. Darby, generously unresentful, amused himself by trying to imagine that he was once more a humble managing clerk on his way to the office. But the effort failed: he could not even revert to the sensations of a mere millionaire. The habit of sovereignty, the load of rich and multifarious experience that he carried about him tethered even an imagination so agile and strong-winged as his. Though no longer a king in fact, the august ceremony of coronation had left him a king in spirit, and it was from the summit of Umfo that he surveyed Savershill, the Osbert Road, and the long Savershill Road, Tarras Bridge, and the old familiar streets of Newchester. And here was Thomas Cook’s, in spite of whose obstructiveness he had plunged into the very heart of the Jungle; and here, just round the corner in Brackett Street, was Edgington’s, the wine-merchant’s, into whose doorway Mr. Darby immediately vanished, for he and Sarah had already arranged that the Stedmans and the Cribbs were to be asked to supper.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Business is always deceptive. Mr. Darby, after paying long and important calls on Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield, his solicitors, and on his Bank Manager, heard to his amazement the cathedral-clock strike twelve. Surely the explanation must be that the cathedral clock, observing Newchester’s illustrious son emerging from his bank, could not refrain from striking the maximum permitted by its mechanism, regardless of Greenwich and the sun? But no; for the clock on the station-porch, which presently moved into distant view, corroborated the Cathedral. How delightful! For here he was, at large, with four hours at his disposal. In that case he might well attend to-day to two little matters which had occupied his mind ever since he had landed in England. But there would be time enough for them in the afternoon. Now —and a gentle excitement, a delightful glow awoke somewhere inside him at the mere thought—now he would run down and have a look at the Quayside and perhaps take a glass of something at The Schooner. Accordingly he retraced his steps, passed the Cathedral, and soon he was descending the steep declivity of Cliff Street. It was delightful to be back among the old scenes again. Then he sighed. If only Miss Sunningdale were still at The Schooner he would have lunched there and had a little quiet talk. Yes, an … ah … attractive and very superior woman, with a pleasant, self-possessed manner of her own. You could talk of your Lady Savershills and your Lady Gissinghams: she was as distinguished, in her way, as any of them. As he dropped down the slope a draughty air blew up from the unseen river, redolent for Mr. Darby of a hundred rich emotions,— the old romantic longing for foreign lands and strange adventures, the lurking fear that time was passing and these things slipping further and further out of his reach, the sense of frustration and failure, the burden of life’s deadly routine, and now, superimposed on all these and robbing them of their power any longer to torture him, the new, satisfied sense of ambition fulfilled, of memories more vivid, more wonderful, more deliciously terrible than anything he had imagined in the old days. He turned the corner at the bottom of the slope and the old scene broke upon him.

Still, for all the world as though nothing had happened during the last year, the gulls circled and cried in the draughty, smoky air, still the cranes wheezed and rattled and the tugs breasted the black river. And there were the ships, and still he felt, undiminished, their old, thrilling invitation, for all that he had sailed in ships huger and further-travelling than any to be seen here. His travels and adventures had not detracted one jot from the romance of the Quayside: on the contrary, they had strengthened it and enriched it. ‘King of Mandras!’ he said to himself. King James of Mandras!’ and the words thrilled him till his spectacles glared and glittered and it seemed to him that the heart would burst from his waistcoat. With a deep-drawn satisfied sigh he turned into the entrance of The Schooner.

But inside the door a twinge of regret troubled him again. What should it be? A port? A sherry? Or a Bass, for old sake’s sake? He paused for a moment at the entrance of the saloon, thinking how, if he had been in Mandras, a lane would instantly have been cleared for him through the dense groups of standing figures. But this was not Mandras: this was Newchester. Umwaddi Taan lay under its scorching sun thousands of miles away; and, bowing with a very good grace to democracy, Mr. Darby worked his way politely towards the bar.

But what was this? In the space between two bowler-hatted heads in earnest conversation, a pile of yellow hair flashed past. Was it possible that …? He pushed himself unobtrusively to the bar and caught the eye of Miss Sunningdale. She raised her eyebrows in astonished pleasure and held out her hand.

‘Well, this is a happy surprise,’ she said. ‘I’d given you up for lost, Mr. Darby.’

‘And I,’ said Mr. Darby squeezing her hand and giving her a little cock-sparrow bow,’had given you up for lost, Miss Sunningdale. Last time I came here I was told you had gone away, left England.’

‘And so I had,’ she said.’ A brother of mine asked me to join him in Canada, all expenses paid. The boss here is a friend of mine, and he promised me that if ever I came back he’d take me on again.’

‘And you didn’t … ah … cotton to Canada, as the saying is?’ said Mr. Darby.

Miss Sunningdale shook her yellow head. ‘I had a very good time, but I didn’t want to stay there. Newchester’s the place for me: I missed my old friends. So back I came. But the Chronicle—I couldn’t do without my Chronicle and I had it sent out to Canada—and the Chronicle said you were drowned.’

‘Quite! Quite!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘A little slip! What you might call a typological inexactitude.’

Miss Sunningdale’s eyes twinkled. ‘Well, thank Heaven for that. And how is Mrs. Darby?’

Mr. Darby blushed. ‘Wonderfully well, thank you,’ he said. ‘We’ve had rather what I should call an imprecarious time in the Jungle and so on, but we’re both wonderfully well and glad to be back. The same as usual, please,’ he added, seeing that he was detaining her unduly.

‘Well,’he thought to himself, as with profound satisfaction he raised a beef sandwich to his mouth and bit a large crescent out of it, ‘well, if this isn’t providentious!’ For the return of Miss Sunningdale had brought back the one thing lacking to the Quayside, the final drop that filled his cup to the brim.

It was with the nobler repletion which is that of the soul that Mr. Darby finally climbed back into the Newchester of shops and squares. After sandwiches and more sandwiches, a Bass and another Bass, talk and more talk, he had also taken his fill of the Quayside in a leisurely stroll from end to end of it. Now he was bound for Ranger Street where, almost opposite the offices of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, stood the shop of Messrs. Porson & Gosling, picture dealers.

‘I wonder,’ said Mr. Darby to the assistant who came forward to serve him,’ if you can tell me the name of a good, indeed of a first-rate, portrait painter in this neighbourhood.’

The assistant thought for a moment, ‘I don’t think, sir,’ he said, ‘you could do better than John Gilderston.’

‘John Gilderston?’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Is he … a … ah … a reliable painter?’

‘He’s an R.A., sir, a Royal Academician, and that speaks for itself, doesn’t it?’

Mr. Darby had a moment of misgiving. Then, by a rapid process of thought, he disentangled the Royal Academy from the National Gallery.

‘To be shaw!’ he said. ‘It speaks for itself. Could you give me his address?’

The assistant did not know John Gilderston’s address but was able to find it in the telephone directory. He lived, it appeared, out in the country fifteen miles away. Mr. Darby made a note of the address and, in order to lose no time and to avoid the necessity of writing at home where he was open to interruption, he walked to the Station Hotel, entered the lounge, and ordered a cup of black coffee and writing materials. Between sips of coffee he composed mentally the following letter. ‘To John Gilderston Esqr., R.A. Dear Sir, I am desirous … no, not desirous … I … ah … find myself under the necessity of having my portrait painted and shall be glad … pleased? … glad if you will undertake the … not job … something a little more … ah … the task! Undertake the task. I could visit your studio at any time convenient to you. In the … ah … the event of your being free … or rather, at liberty, will you kindly ring me up at Savershill number 3297 and let me know your terms. We will then … ah … come to terms? … No, not terms again. We will then … ah … make our arrangements! We can then make our arrangements … ah … accordingly’

Satisfied especially by the final word, Mr. Darby took up his pen, wrote the letter, and posted it on his way out of the hotel.

Now for the offices of the Daily Chronicle. Mr. Darby had decided, almost as soon as he reached home, that the only thing to do would be to visit the Daily Chronicle in person. If they sent a reporter to Moseley Terrace, Sarah would undoubtedly drive him away. And if the reporter was forced to pick up the necessary information at secondhand, he would probably get it all wrong, and most likely a very undesirable account of his travels in the Mandratic Peninsula would appear in the paper. To obviate this, Mr. Darby was going to call at the Chronicle offices and report in person.

When he had made himself known there and explained his business, he was received with great politeness by the editor and listened to with a highly gratifying interest; many questions were asked of him, copious notes were taken, and he left the office doubly convinced of the rightness of his action. Nor had he been forgetful of Sarah and her peculiarities. Out of deference to her feelings he had spared her the publicity she so much disliked. Of the Queen of Tongal, of her victory over the Mandrats and capture of their King not a word had been betrayed. It was stated merely that Mrs. Darby had in due time arrived in a yacht with a search-party and that the King had proceeded on board. And there was this to be said for Mr. Darby’s deference to his wife’s prejudices, that it added to the compactness of his narrative and robbed it of an undesirable anti-climax. He made his way now on foot towards Savershill with the comfortable sense of a duty punctiliously performed.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘Well I never did,’ said Emma Cribb at the supper-table to Mr. Darby when he had completed a bold and graphic sketch of the more arresting portions of his life in the Mandratic Peninsula. ‘And so, Mr. Darby, I suppose by rights we ought to call you Your Majesty?’

‘Ah … pantechnically speaking, Mrs. Cribb, you ought; but I don’t expect it among friends, in fact I don’t desire it. That kind of thing is necessary, of course, on ceremonious occasions, but at ordinary times it’s pleasanter for everyone, don’t you think, to … ah … what I should call drop it.’

Mrs. Cribb tittered. ‘We might make it Your Madge for short, Mr. Darby.’

But the wine that had made Mrs. Cribb frivolous had made Mr. Darby serious. Very properly, he was not amused, and his spectacles showed this to Mrs. Cribb so unmistakably that she instantly abandoned her levity. ‘No offence, I’m sure, Mr. Darby; and if there was, don’t blame me. Blame your champagne and the port on top of it; for the truth is, my poor head’s in such a buzz that I couldn’t guarantee not to forget myself, not if King George himself was to step in at the door and join the party. But you ought to write a book about it, Mr. Darby, for I’m sure the story you can tell—and every word of it true, mind you—’ud be more exciting than half the books you get at Smith’s and Boots’ and suchlike places.’

‘That’s what I say, Jim,’ said Sam Cribb’s mild voice from the other end of the table. ‘I know something about books, specially since you started me with my bookshop, and I’m as sure as I’m sure of anything that it’ud sell like hot cakes. And you’d have a limited edition, of course, numbered and signed by the author.’

‘There you are, Jim,’ roared George Stedman, ‘straight from the horse’s mouth. You’d better get started with it quick.’

Mr. Darby cleared his throat. ‘I have … ah … comp-cons-contemplated a book,’ he said, ‘and no doubt, in course of time I may decide to … ah … publish one.’

‘In Darkest Mandras,’ Jim, said Sam Cribb. ‘Not a bad title that. Or Lost Among the Savages!’

Mr. Darby nodded tolerantly over Sam’s suggestions. ‘I had thought, myself,’ he said, ‘of … ah … My Eastern Kingdom or, more simply … ah … Dungle Ways I mean … ah … Wungle Jays. That is … ah … what’s the word? Jungle! That’s the word I want: Jungle!’ He paused and then announced with great clearness: ‘Jungle Days and … ah … Jungle Ways’

The company applauded loudly and Mr. Darby passed his table-napkin across his brow.

‘Ha, ha!’ Stedman roared. ‘Just the name for it, Jim. But mind you get the spelling right.’

‘It seems to me,’ said Sarah, with a dry smile, ‘that it’s about time we went into the other room. And it seems to me,’ she added, looking at Stedman, ‘that you gentlemen oughtn’t to be too long after us.’

Stedman nodded to her. ‘Right you are, Mrs. D.,’ he said in an undertone, as the women filed out of the room.

And, thanks to Stedman’s obedient diplomacy, the gentlemen did not delay much longer over their port. But as they reached the parlour door, Mr. Darby, with a muttered’ Excuse me a moment,’ left them and went upstairs.

‘Oh, it’s true enough, as far as it goes,’ Sarah was saying as Stedman and Cribb entered the room. ‘For the matter of that, I was Queen into the bargain, not of Jim’s place but of the place next door.’

‘You were a Queen, Mrs. D.?’ shouted Stedman. ‘Well all I’ve got to say is, you’ve kept pretty quiet about it.’

‘Yes, and small wonder,’ said Sarah. ‘It was nothing more than a kind of dumb crambo: not the sort of thing you could take seriously.’

The talk ran on. The guests, enthralled by Sarah’s answers, plied her with questions.

‘What I was, really,’ she explained, ‘was a schoolmistress in charge of a badly behaved school-treat. There was precious little King or Queen about it, I can tell you. But you know what Jim is. He can’t get Mandras out of his mind. When he isn’t talking about it, he’s thinking about it, and when he isn’t thinking about it, he’s dreaming about it.’

As if to corroborate her statement, the door was suddenly flung open and, framed in the doorway, cloaked in green parrot-feathers, his jewelled head-dress on his head and his spectacles radiating majesty, stood the King of Mandras. Mrs. Cribb tittered, half amused, half frightened; Jane Stedman smiled her cold, gentle, indulgent smile, and the men stared open-mouthed.

‘Bless my heart and soul, Jim!’ roared Stedman at last.

‘There now, what was I saying?’ exclaimed Sarah.’ The only place for you, Jim, is the parrot-house at the Zoo.’

Mr. Darby, disregarding this opinion, advanced solemnly into the room, while his friends, fascinated by the strange, exotic clothes, clustered round him.’ Umfo, ompà, iggarù, Umwaddi Taan,’ said Mr. Darby hieratically, making use, for the purposes of the moment, of the few miscellaneous Mandratic words that sprang to his memory.

‘And what does that mean, Mr. Darby?’ Mrs. Cribb asked brightly.

‘Umbahla!’ replied Mr. Darby with a slight hiccough.

Chapter XL

Turn Again Darby

‘It’s wonderful, Jim,’ said Sarah next morning, fixing a keen, inquisitorial eye on him as she laid down the Daily Chronicle, ‘it’s wonderful how quickly news travels, don’t you think so?’

Mr. Darby saw that subterfuge was useless and so did not attempt it. ‘There’s no good … ah … blinking the fact, Sarah,’ he replied sententiously, ‘that publicity is what I should call inavertable; and that being so, I consider it better, far better, to meet it half way. Goodness knows what nonsense would have got into the papers if I hadn’t… ah … forestalled it. We must move with the times, you know, Sarah.’

‘Well, you can move with the times as much as you like, Jim,’ Sarah replied, ‘so long as you allow me to move in my own way. I’m glad to see you’ve left me out of it: one royalty’s enough in this house, and even if it wasn’t, you’d be enough for two.’

‘The fact is, Sarah,’ Mr. Darby gravely replied, ‘you and I think differently in that matter. I take the view that when one finds oneself in a position of … ah … grave responsibility, one ought to take it with a proper seriousness. Suppose Queen Mary were to … ah … announce that the British Nation was nothing better than a school-treat, what, may I ask, would you say to that?’

‘I should say,’ replied Sarah, ‘that she wasn’t far wrong.’ Mr. Darby made a gesture of pained despair and at that moment the telephone-bell rang. ‘That will be for me,’ he said. ‘I was expecting a … ah … communication.’

He left the room, closing the door after him, and Sarah heard him close the door of her work-room also.

After a few minutes he returned. ‘I have a business engagement, Sarah,’ he said, ‘and shall probably not be back for lunch. I have just ordered a car.’

A few minutes later Mr. Darby left the house carrying a suitcase.

‘You’re not returning to Mandras, by any chance, Jim?’ Sarah enquired as he went out.

Mr. Darby’s spectacles broke into a smile. ‘No, not exactly, Sarah; not exactly, but you’re not so far out as you might think.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

During the following ten days Mr. Darby led a very active life. The formidable pile of letters which now reached him every morning often kept him busy till lunch time. And he had calls to pay and various engagements for lunch. He called at the office and was taken by Mr. Marston to lunch at the Club where, happening to run across Major Blenkin-sop, he was able to give that gentleman a great deal of valuable information about conditions of travel in Mandratia. McNab and Pellow were each booked for lunch with him on succeeding days, and the evenings were taken up by dinners with the Marstons and the Savershills and suppers with the Stedmans and the Cribbs. More than once he lunched alone at The Schooner, and, besides all this, the business which had called him from home with the suitcase occupied an hour or two of each day. Mr. Darby was enjoying himself thoroughly.

So too was Sarah. She had resumed her activities on the H.C.S. and was quite as busy as Mr. Darby. ‘Now what more can he want than this?’ she thought to herself, for obviously they were both as happy as could be. When they were alone together, they found themselves glad to be together and alone. For their terrible experiences had made them malleable, had brought to the surface all their old love, had made each indulgent and even affectionate towards those idiosyncrasies in the other which had grown to be points of antagonism. Besides they had endless things to talk about. Sarah was far from averse to recalling her months in Eutyca and Tongal, and though she ridiculed her title to royalty, for her too the experience had been an enthralling one. She had loved life before, but her adventures had brought to life a value greater than ever. And what could be better than the life they were now living? What more could Jim want than this?

But no doubt Jim had his plans and schemes. Things were obviously afoot. She had noticed with amused curiosity that the suitcase he had carried off with him some mornings ago had not returned. Well, whatever his schemes were, she would be able now to fall in with them, though none of them could be so perfect as the life they were leading at the moment.

When this mode of life had continued for ten days Mr. Darby returned one evening in a car, bringing the suitcase.

‘Back from Mandras, Jim?’ said Sarah with her charming, grim smile.

‘To be shaw!’ said Mr. Darby, and opening the bag then and there he displayed the parrot-robe and jewelled head-dress.

Sarah regarded them sternly. ‘Now I wonder what you’ve been up to,’ she said.

Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘Wait and see,’ he said.

At supper he raised the question of the London house. ‘Something must be done about it,’ he said.

He had been saying so to himself constantly during the last ten days, and the more he said it the less he felt inclined to do anything. For the fact was that he had settled back so comfortably into Savershill and among his friends, that, just as when a man has established himself in a very deep, very comfortable chair, he found that it would demand an enormous effort to mobilize himself again.

‘It’s a duty,’ he added rather vaguely to Sarah.

‘A duty? To who, Jim?’ Sarah asked.

‘To … ah … well … to our position, Sarah. I don’t suppose you realize it, but our balance at the bank is quite appalling. During that year in Mandras I spent nothing, literarily nothing. One doesn’t, of course, as a King; and you don’t seem to have got through much.’

“I got through a few thousands running after you,’ said Sarah.

‘Quite!’ Mr. Darby replied. ‘Quite! A few thousands, but nothing appreecious. The fact is, Sarah, we’ve got to alter what I should call our scale.’

‘But if we’re to get through forty thousand a year, Jim, we’ll have to take Buckingham Palace and some other palace into the bargain.’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘we’ll have a house in London and a house here. That’ll help. And as a start, suppose we run up to London on Thursday for a bit and have a look round?’

Sarah considered this for a moment. ‘How would it be, Jim,’ she said, ‘if you go and hunt in London and I stay and hunt here? Then, when you’ve settled on one or two likely houses, you can send for me to come up and help you to choose. Meanwhile perhaps I’d have found something here for you to look at.’

Mr. Darby pursed his lips, and knit his brows. ‘Not a bad idea!’ he said. ‘Not at all a bad idea!’

Accordingly on the following Thursday Mr. Darby proceeded to London, took rooms at the Balmoral, and flung himself with his usual energy into the absorbing task of house-hunting. ‘I require,’ he informed those house-agents into whose hands he unsuspectingly yielded himself, ‘a somewhat … ah … commodious mansion in a fashionable quarter.’

As a result of this statement Mr. Darby found himself deluged with printed information which summoned him to Carlton House Terrace, Eaton Square, Grosvenor Square, Park Lane, Chester Square, and a vast number of other squares and streets where he inspected large, cold houses whose empty rooms chilled him to the soul. He climbed bare, resounding staircases till it seemed to him that his shoes were ballasted with lead. Sometimes in utter exhaustion he sat down uncomfortably and precariously on steps, window-ledges, and the rims of baths: more than once an even less dignified seat offered itself and was not refused. And every afternoon, when he returned to the Balmoral, broken in body and disillusioned in spirit, and sinking into a chair in the lounge called feebly for tea, it was borne in on him more and more forcibly that there were no houses in London of the kind he desired. He recalled how lonely he had often been when he had lived in the house in Bedford Square. Yet that had been a pleasant, comfortable house. How was it that there were no houses to be had nowadays like it? He and Sarah would freeze, body and soul, in one of these huge, inhospitable refrigerators with their joyless white and gold or pale green drawing-rooms, their high ceilings, their icy halls and staircases, so full of cold light, so barren, so bereft, it seemed, of sunshine and colour. ‘But have you no other houses?’ he asked the house-agents plaintively; ‘Something more comfortable, more … ah … what I should call snug?’ Yes certainly, they had more houses; they would send him more addresses, more orders to view; they assured him of their best attention at all times; they were his obediently; their unique desire was to serve him; and they despatched the poor bewildered, exhausted little man to other even more barren, even more uninhabitable, even more heart-chilling mansions whose naked rooms and deserted passages abolished hope and instantly quenched all warmth of heart, all the joy and gusto of life. At the end of an exhausting week Mr. Darby wired to Sarah: ‘Shall reach Newchester three-forty this afternoon.’

And what a relief it was to get back to his home and to Sarah’s voluble company.

‘London’s simply hopeless,’ he told her. ‘There’s not a house to be had that would suit us. And it’s not for want of searching. I’ve been on what I should call the go, Sarah, ever since I left home.’

‘I can see you have,’ said Sarah. ‘You look worn out. Well, I’ve found two places here that might suit you. One’s Savershill Manor House. As you know it’s been vacant for the last seven years. I’d never been into the place before. It’s a great big house, Jim, a bit gloomy and out of repair, but something might be made of it. The other is Outwell Hall.

It’s been for sale almost ever since you started for Australia. We’ll have a look at them both to-morrow.’

‘Well, I must say, Sarah,’ Mr. Darby remarked with a contented sigh when, after an excellent tea, he carried his suitcase upstairs to their bedroom, ‘it’s nice to be at home again.’

Sarah followed him upstairs and when he had deposited his bag she led him across the passage to the spare room, a room which was never used. ‘Just come in here,’ she said. ‘I have a little surprise for you.’

She threw the door open and Mr. Darby entered.

The room had been totally transformed. It was brightly painted, papered and carpeted; there was a deep, luxurious armchair on either side of the fireplace; beside one of them a small table for matches, ash-tray, cigar-box. His maps, which had been sent back with the rest of his luggage from the Utopia, had been framed and hung on the walls; his travel-books, collected before his departure for Australia, were arranged in a glass-fronted book-case; across a corner of the room with a window on its left stood a roll-top writing-desk, and in another corner, on a specially devised stand he caught sight of his parrot robe and jewelled head-dress. In the fireplace was a gas-stove of polished steel. ‘Stedman’s latest!’ said Sarah pointing to it.

Mr. Darby gazed round the room enraptured.

‘Well,’ she asked when he had taken it all in, ‘and how does it suit you?’

‘How does it suit me?’ he said. ‘But it’s … ah … it’s ideal, my dear Sarah; and everything so very what I should call shick.’

He trotted to one of the framed maps, touched the frame, scanned it with sagacious spectacles; trotted from it to his kingly robe which he tried between finger and thumb as if doubtful if it were genuine; then once more he surveyed the whole room. What a contrast to all the huge, comfortless, joyless rooms across which, during the last week, he had wandered with a chill at his heart.

Sarah took a box of matches from the smoking-table, knelt down, and lit the gas-fire. ‘There!’ she said. ‘Cosy, isn’t it?’

‘I say,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘let’s sit here after supper this evening.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Man is a comfort-loving creature and for this reason the weather has from the earliest times been a decisive factor in his destiny. Seditious gatherings, which neither wiser counsels nor an excellent police-force has been able to influence, have been quelled by a shower; rain has won and lost battles, crowned and uncrowned kings, and altered the course of history.

Perhaps it was the heavy rain of the following morning that produced a revolution in Mr. Darby’s mind. Whatever the reason, he found himself very ill-pleased with the two houses Sarah had chosen for his inspection. They drove first to the Manor House. Undeniably the Manor House was not at its best when it was raining. Not only did the rooms appear dismal: the roof leaked, and here and there water could actually be seen running down the walls. Sarah reminded him that he was seeing the house under the worst conditions. ‘It’s really not a bad place on a fine day, Jim,’ she assured him. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if we could make something of it.’

But nothing she could say would convince Mr. Darby. ‘It’s dreary, Sarah. It’s uncomfortable.’ He shuddered. ‘It reminds me of the houses I saw in London.’

‘Well, come and look at the upstairs rooms,’ said Sarah encouragingly.

But Mr. Darby shook his head. He had, almost at once, taken a great dislike to the place. It gave him precisely those gloomy feelings which had overcome him when inspecting the houses in London. ‘Don’t let us bother, Sarah,’ he said.

‘What, not even look over the house, now we’re here?’ asked Sarah in surprise.

‘No!’ Mr. Darby replied. ‘I don’t like the place, Sarah. I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t like it, in fact I hate it. It’s gloomy and uncomfortable and what I should call … ah … uncanny. Let’s leave it and try Outwell.’

The rain dripped from the porch as they climbed back into their motor. Mr. Darby shuddered again. ‘A haunted house, Sarah, if ever there was one!’ he said.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with all the houses on the market at the present time, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby as they strolled rather aimlessly from room to room of Outwell Hall. ‘You may say this house is modern, replete with what I should call every comfort, and so no doubt it is. But all I can say is, I don’t like it; I don’t what I should call cotton to it. There’s a something about it, a junnersay quor, if you know what I mean, which I find extremely obnocuous. It’s not what I should call snug.’

‘No, Jim,’ said Sarah, ‘you’re right there, it isn’t snug; but then big houses very seldom are.’

Mr. Darby gazed at her sadly and helplessly. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No! I suppose they’re not. It’s a drawback, a very serious drawback.’

They drove home through the pouring rain to an excellent lunch. It seemed to Mr. Darby, delighted to be in his own place again, that all the things he most liked were on the table at once. Rubbing his hands together and drawing in his breath, he sat down to table with great gusto.

‘And now,’ he said with a sigh of heart-felt satisfaction when they had finished their lunch, ‘seeing that it’s still raining, I think I’ll go,’—he made a dignified ascending movement with the left hand—‘to my … ah … my study.’

Having climbed the stairs and shut himself into the room which he had so happily christened his study, Mr. Darby lit the gas-stove, sat down at his desk, and taking a pen and paper wrote, after a good deal of thought and correction, as follows:

‘To the Curator of the Newchester Art Gallery.

‘DEAR SIR,—You may have seen some account in the Newchester Daily Chronicle of my recent adventures in the Mandratic Peninsula, where for the last year I have occupied the position of King of Mandras. Since returning home, John Gilderston, the well-known Royal Academician, has executed my portrait in the royal robes which I then wore. The portrait is life-sized. It occurs to me that the Newchester Art Gallery may care to possess a portrait of a Novocastrian who attained to this interesting position. Being, as I am, much interested in our national art, I should like also to offer a gift of one thousand pounds to the funds of the Gallery. The picture is at present at Messrs. Porson & Gosling’s, where it is being suitably framed. Perhaps you would care to call there and inspect it and communicate your decision to me by telephone.’

Having sealed and addressed the letter Mr. Darby began to reflect on a suitable label for the picture, but no sooner had he begun to do so than he pushed back his chair convulsively. ‘God bless my soul!’ he exclaimed aloud. For what had happened was that he had suddenly remembered the Darby Collection. Since the moment of his return to England he had never once thought of it. The unpleasant events connected with it had done much to alienate it from his affections and also from his memory, and now he realized that even his recent visit to London had failed to remind him of it. There it was, still stored, no doubt, at Hampton’s. What on earth was he to do about it? Should he offer it to the Newchester Art Gallery?

For a moment the idea crossed his mind, but only to be instantly rejected. He was not prepared to admit that the Director and Trustees of the National Gallery were right in their verdict, but neither did he care any longer to maintain his own contention. The Darby Collection was an unfortunate incident, it had unpleasant associations, and it was a thing of the past. Mr. Darby decided that it should remain so. Again he took pen and paper and wrote as follows:

‘To Messrs Hampton & Sons Ltd.

‘DEAR SIRS,—With regard to the Collection of Pictures which you are storing for me, I shall be glad if you will arrange for them to be sold for what they will fetch. I may point out that some of the frames are expensive ones.’

Having sealed and addressed this letter also, Mr. Darby dismissed business affairs from his thoughts. With his hands in his pockets he strolled about his study, glancing now out of the windows at the streaming rain, now at this and that in the warm, pleasantly coloured room. Then he paused before his book-case, opened the glass-panelled doors, and stood for some time blandly considering his books. At last his spectacles settled themselves upon Through Mandratia on a Bicycle by J. N. Mackintosh. The very thing! In the light of his intimate knowledge of the Mandratic Peninsula he would re-read Mackintosh’s book and no doubt he would detect in it all sorts of inaccuracies. These travellers were notoriously given to drawing the long bow. He felt in his waistcoat pocket. Yes, his gold pencil-case was there. He had before now seen books in whose margins some reader out of his superior knowledge had made caustic pencil-notes, exclamation-marks, and that curious syllable sic which, it seemed, was the very symbol and embodiment of scorn. In the past Mr. Darby had felt an awed admiration for people who could thus fly in the face of cold print, but now he himself had joined the ranks of the sceptics. He flattered himself that he would find much to question, much to refute and ridicule in J. N. Mackintosh. He took the book from the shelf and, crossing the room, laid it on his smoking-table. Then he opened the cigar-box and carefully selected a cigar to which he applied the proper tests of eye and ear. The cigar passed the tests and he cut it, put it between his lips, took a puff, removed it, frowned at it, and then replaced it in his mouth. Then, sinking into his armchair, Mr. Darby again took up Mackintosh’s book and with a slightly contemptuous smile opened it.

For three hours he read and annotated, and so absorbed was he in this fascinating occupation that when Sarah knocked for him to open the door and entered bringing tea on a tray he was unable to believe it was so late.

‘I’ve just been looking into this book on Mandratia, Sarah,’ he said, laying it down and regarding her over the top of his spectacles. ‘You should read it.’

‘Is it good?’ Sarah asked.

‘Oh, it’s all very well in its way,’ he replied, ‘but in parts it’s hopelessly … ah … parabolical. Good enough reading, no doubt, for the ignorant, but for anyone with what I should call inside knowledge … well!’ Mr. Darby shrugged his shoulders and smiled sarcastically.

Left alone again after tea he did not resume his examination of Mackintosh, but allowed himself instead to fall into a reverie. The raindrops clattered like a typewriter on the window-panes: outside it was wet, lifeless, and unutterably dreary; the study, by contrast, was deliciously warm and colourful. He thought of those large, cold, empty houses in London, all white and gold and pale green, and then he thought of the two melancholy houses they had inspected that morning. He shuddered as he thought how the rain would be leaking into the Manor House now. Then his thoughts turned to Mandras and Umwaddi Taan, and the stilted straw-thatched hut, sitting on whose floor he had spent so many monotonous and anxious hours; the terrible days and nights of feverish advance and headlong retreat; the horror of the bloody encounters with the Tongali, and then the long, lurching journey into captivity, the arrival at Aba Taana, poor Punnett’s dreadful death and the bewildering reunion with Sarah. Poor Punnett: it was impossible to realize that he was dead, dead and buried in that grim, cruel land, far, far from England.

Mr. Darby sighed deeply and returned to his secure and comfortable study. What a blessing, what an unbelievable blessing, to remember that Sarah was downstairs within call and that they were in England, where the horrible, the unaccountable, the unpredictable never occurs. All he wanted now was peace and quietness and the company of old friends.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘I’ve been thinking things over, Sarah,’ said Mr. Darby at supper, glancing up from an admirably grilled cutlet; ‘about this business of a house, I mean.’

Sarah raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, Jim?’

‘If I had my own way, of course,’ Mr. Darby went on, ‘I don’t think I should bother about a house at all.’

Sarah caught her breath. ‘You mean, Jim …?’

‘I mean I should just simply stay here. In many ways this is a very convenient house, very comfortable, within easy reach of … ah … places of interest; hot and cold water, electric light …’ Unconsciously, as a result of his experiences during the past week, Mr. Darby assumed the descriptive style of the house-agent.

Sarah interrupted him. ‘What do you mean, if you had your own way, Jim? Aren’t you free to do as you like?’

Mr. Darby stared at her questioningly for a moment. ‘No, Sarah! he said at last. ‘No! Unhappily not. Our fortune carries with it certain duties, certain responsibilities. It is our duty, Sarah, to take up a position, to live on what I should call a scale, in accordance with …’

‘Now look here, Jim,’ Sarah broke in;’ I’ve had about enough of this talk of duty and responsibility. The plain fact is, that kind of talk means nothing, absolutely nothing. You have duties to your neighbours, I grant you, but don’t talk to me about your duty to your bank-balance. When you tell me that your money forces you to live in a way you don’t want to live, it’s no more sensible than if I were to tell you that this knife and fork forces me to eat fifty cutlets at a sitting. My advice is, live exactly as you feel inclined and get rid of all the money you don’t need. There’s plenty of others need it: Lord Savershill’ll take the lot from you and welcome for the H.C.S. And what’s the good of it all to us? If we lived as we wanted to live we couldn’t possibly spend more than … what? … three thousand a year, however hard we tried. Three thousand a year! And you have forty thousand a year coming rolling in and heaping itself up. It’s enough to smother you: it’s a perfect nightmare.’

Mr. Darby stared at Sarah, amazed and also very much struck by the force of her remarks. ‘Upon my word, Sarah,’ he said, ‘I sometimes think it is. I’ll … ah … look into the matter.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The immediate result of his looking into the matter was that two days later Mr. Darby called, by appointment, on the Lord Mayor of Newchester. Sir George Brackett was already in his second year of office, so that it was he who, as Lord Mayor, had received Mr. Darby’s gift of a thousand pounds to his hospital fund over a year ago. Mr. Darby’s request for an interview had therefore been warmly received. In the Lord Mayor’s Parlour Mr. Darby found the Lord Mayor seated at his desk; seated, in fact, in the very chair and at the very desk which he himself, as Sir James Darby, Bart., was to occupy five years later during his own term of office. The Lord Mayor rose on Mr. Darby’s entrance and shook him warmly by the hand. ‘Welcome back to Newchester, Mr. Darby,’ he said with great affability.

Mr. Darby bowed, thanked him, and took the chair to which his host motioned him. ‘And now, my Lord Mayor,’ he said when he had settled himself, ‘to business! I am, as you are no doubt aware, a man of very considerable means.’ The Lord Mayor nodded and Mr. Darby cleared his throat. ‘I have always considered,’ he went on, ‘that great wealth … ah … carries with it grave responsibilities, and now that I enjoy that wealth, I am what I should call conscious, what I should call deeply conscious of that … ah … responsibility. In short, how, I ask myself, can I best benefit my native city?’

Mr. Darby regarded the Lord Mayor with great solemnity. Then, suddenly changing his tone from the ceremonial to the sharply practical, he flung himself back in his chair and asked: ‘Now what about a cathedral?’

The Lord Mayor was gratifyingly astounded. ‘A cathedral, Mr. Darby? But we have a cathedral, haven’t we?’

‘A converted parish church,’ Mr. Darby replied with a touch of contempt. ‘The tower is fine, I grant you, but the church, my Lord Mayor, you must admit, is … well … is what I should call a church, and not, not a cathedral. No!’ he added, in a tone that would brook no contradiction, ‘not by any means! Now why not pull down the church and build a cathedral to suit the tower? Unless you have anything else to propose.’

‘Well, Mr. Darby,’ said the Lord Mayor, ‘I have, as a matter of fact, something else to propose, a thing of which Newchester is much more urgently in need than a cathedral,—only don’t tell the Bishop I said so. I propose, since your intentions towards Newchester are so magnificently generous, that you build us a new Infirmary. The present one, though most efficiently run, is, as you are doubtless aware, lamentably out of date as a building. Does the idea appeal to you?’

‘To be shaw!’ said Mr. Darby.’ Very much so. Why not?’

‘Of course,’ continued the Lord Mayor, ‘it would cost a great deal of money, but so would a cathedral, and you yourself mentioned a cathedral. Might I ask how much you propose to give?’

‘Well, roughly,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘—and, mind you, I’m speaking now in very round figures—roughly nine hundred thousand.’

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

When Mr. Darby returned home in time for lunch he met his wife in the hall. ‘Well, Sarah,’ he said, ‘I’ve cut us down to five thousand.’

Sarah stood watching him hang up his coat.’ What is it you’ve done?’ she asked.

‘I’ve just been … ah … what I should call closeted with the Lord Mayor—a pleasant enough fellow, Sarah, very friendly and agreeable and so on—and I offered him nine hundred thousand to build a new infirmary.’

‘You did?’ said Sarah, amazed and delighted.

‘I did,’ Mr. Darby replied nonchalantly.

‘But Jim, how splendid,’ said Sarah, suddenly embracing the little man and knocking his bowler over his eyes. ‘You’re a wonder. It’s the very thing of all others you ought to have done. But mind you insist that it’s under the control of the H.C.S.’

‘Oh … ah … certainly, if you wish, my dear,’ said Mr. Darby, removing his hat and straightening his spectacles.

‘Nine hundred thousand,’ he said. ‘That leaves us with about a hundred thousand, a matter of five thousand a year or so.’

Sarah sighed. ‘However shall we spend it, Jim?’ she said. ‘We must do our best, that’s all,’ said Mr. Darby.

THE END

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

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