The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (40 page)

‘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.

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.