The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (21 page)

‘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.

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.'