The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (33 page)

‘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.'

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.'