‘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.’
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. D
arby 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.
The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife Page 28
