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.
The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife Page 29
