The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (41 page)

And so he might have stood, far into the night, had not a bugle-note from below called the soaring spirit down to its earthly prison and sent the little man hurrying to his cabin to dress for dinner.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

After Gibraltar Mr. Darby felt himself to be indeed in the south. Throughout the day the sea was a deep summery blue, and at night, where it was whipped and churned about the
Utopia's
thrusting hull, it glowed and glimmered with a ghostly phosphorescence. And the nights were deliciously warm: coats, wraps and rugs disappeared, and as the ship swam, a great glittering pavilion, through the warm darkness, the ship's orchestra made a small glittering oasis of revelry in the huge desert of silence, and the passengers, in evening dress, like twirling, gliding exotic flowers, danced on the decks. Mr. Darby sat solitary in a deck-chair watching them. Their rhythmical movements soothed him, the moving show of faces and bright dresses enthralled him. The lady whom Mr. Amberley had called the bold, bad Baroness wore a dress of shimmering blue, the blue of a wild hyacinth: her eyes were half closed, her face was like a mask, ‘a dead woman dancing,' thought Mr. Darby with a little shudder. Her partner was a tall, thin, clean-shaven man with a face carved out of wood,—a lawyer, Mr. Darby suspected.

The two young Rentons, the handsome young man and the vivacious girl, were dancing together. Their mother sat in a deck-chair separated from Mr. Darby's by two that were unoccupied. A charming couple, so natural, so alive. Mr. Amberley, who seemed to know everything about everybody, had told him that their name was Renton, and he himself had overheard their mother calling the boy Tim and the girl Violet. Mr. Darby watched them. The girl in her pale
yellow dress had the delicious freshness of a spring flower: what a contrast with the Baroness. Mr. Darby could discover no signs of Mr. Amberley, but in a couple of chairs, intermittently eclipsed and revealed by the dancers, the great Gudgeon and his woman sat watching immovably like a pair of obscene pagan idols. Suddenly Mr. Darby found himself violently shaken: a couple had cannoned into his chair. Scarlet from the shock he raised angry spectacles and found the two young Rentons looking down at him. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,' said the boy with a charming smile, ‘I hope …!'

‘Pray don't mention it,' replied Mr. Darby. His anger had vanished, his spectacles had suddenly grown bland.

They took the two empty chairs between him and their mother, and the girl, who had taken the chair next Mr. Darby, turned to him with spontaneous friendliness. ‘I'm afraid we must have shaken you up horribly.'

‘Not at all! Not at all!' he said. ‘It's good for old people to be shaken up occasionally.'

‘Is it?' she said, laughing. ‘Then you ought to be dancing.'

Mr. Darby shook his head gravely. ‘I fear my dancing days are over.'

Violet looked at him. ‘They oughtn't to be,' she said, and it was clear from her tone that she was expressing a frank opinion, not paying a compliment.

Mr. Darby's heart glowed with gratitude. He glanced at her face, he was going to speak, but he saw that her attention was suddenly absorbed in the dancers. After a moment she turned to him again. ‘Who is that woman in blue?' she asked.

Mr. Darby had a sudden pang of misgiving. He hated to think that this fresh, innocent girl was attracted by that cold, hard, forbidding woman.

‘Well,' he said, ‘I was told her name the other day. Let me see! Lady something or other! Gissingham! Yes, that's it: Lady Gissingham! She used to be a baroness. Do you … ah … admire her?'

‘No,' answered the girl with conviction. ‘I
don't.'

Mr. Darby was delighted and relieved. ‘Neither do I,' he said with a conviction equal to hers.

‘She keeps staring at Tim and me,' said Violet angrily, ‘as if she'd like to eat us.'

Mr. Darby snorted. ‘What I should call bad manners, very!' he said.

After a few minutes the young people got up to dance again. ‘We'll be more careful this time,' the boy said to Mr. Darby.

But Mr. Darby too rose from his chair. ‘I'll save you the trouble,' he said with a friendly nod. ‘I'm going for a little walk.'

He wandered away to the other side of the deck, stepped suddenly out of the noise and movement and glitter of crowded humanity into the immense and solemn presence of stars and ocean. He strolled down the deserted deck and tucking himself into the angle between the deck-rail and the rail that divided the first-class from the second-class, gazed down into the seething, glimmering water. His mind, after his talk with the young girl, was as warm and fluid as the sea; her innocence, her friendliness, her frankness had filled and refreshed it. ‘Charming girl!' he said to himself. ‘Charming little thing!' If only he and Sarah had had a child, a daughter, she might have been the age of this girl by now.

Mr. Darby stood leaning there for a long time, gazing down into the dark water. The glittering noise of the band came to him here dulled and muted by the outer silence, and in that silence he felt in his simple inarticulate soul a basic security beneath all the fluctuations of life. Whatever came to him and whatever went from him in the course of life did not really matter: the only thing that mattered was this utter security that underlay all the changes and chances. If the
Utopia
went down in a typhoon in the China Seas, if he actually reached the Mandratic Peninsula, underwent terrible experiences there, even died violently there, none of these things would really matter. In the strength of his security he was ready for whatever might befall.

Gradually his mind rose out of these refreshing depths to
the surface of things. He became aware that his legs and his arms were growing stiff from his long immobility. He straightened his back, looked about him, and began to stroll round to the other side of the deck. Again the noise and stir rushed back upon him. It seemed to him that he had been away for hours; yet they were still dancing, still revolving feverishly to the feverish music. He stood, silence and stillness behind him, agitation and noise in front, and watched them. Suddenly his attention was arrested. The Baroness swam past, dancing still, but her eyes were no longer half-closed and she no longer looked dead. She was smiling, her lips moved, her eyes were wide open and gazing intensely, languishingly into her partner's face. Yes, she was alive now, and she was dancing with young Renton.

Mr. Darby's whole nature rebelled against it. It was wrong, all wrong. He recalled the girl's instinctive aversion, her convinced ‘No, I don't!' and he longed to rush up to the couple and tear them apart. Their dancing together seemed to him a threat and an insult to the girl.

But where was she, the girl? He glanced over to where he had been sitting with them, and saw her and her mother sitting silent together. It was dreadful, dreadful, and he could do nothing. He turned away and went back to his solitary nook on the other side of the deck.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby had not gone ashore at Gibraltar, but when they touched at Toulon, he landed, under Mr. Amberley's wing, and visited for the first time in his life a foreign town. The experience delighted him: everything was charmingly fantastic. The people, so different from ordinary people, with their comical chatter and gestures, the absurdly baggy trousers of the men, the lively shops and cafés, separated from the water's edge only by the broad pavement; the launches of the French Navy with their tall, bright, polished funnels, that bustled from point to point in the wide harbour, full of sailors; the long narrow market, shaded by autumnal
plane trees, full of slow business, all these delighted Mr. Darby. ‘Charming!' he said, as he and Mr. Amberley sat, drinking a Bock, under the awning of a café: ‘Quite charming! Like one of these … ah … exhibitions, to be shaw! ‘He listened with respectful awe when Mr. Amberley conversed fluently with the waiter, and he was amazed to observe that the very dogs and cats understood French. ‘Hearing nothing else they get accustomed to it, I suppose,' he said.

Mr. Amberley agreed. ‘No doubt the necessity of coping with a foreign language sharpens their wits.'

Yes, Mr. Darby was delighted with Toulon: he wirelessed to Sarah and told her so.

Before dinner that evening Mr. Amberley pointed to a mountainous island ahead of them. ‘Corsica!' he said. ‘An island famous for its association with a great historical character.'

Mr. Darby gave a little bow. ‘Ah, indeed! And who, if I may enquire?'

‘Boswell, the immortal Bozzy. If people mention other names, Napoleon Bonaparte for instance, you may be sure they're talking nonsense. Avoid worthless imitations, Mr. Darby: insist on Boswell.'

‘I certainly shall,' said Mr. Darby. Once again Mr. Amberley was talking Double Dutch: once again Mr. Darby felt that he was something of a character. But he had already discovered that by adroitly changing the subject it was always possible to bring Mr. Amberley back to sanity and commonsense. Accordingly he cleared his throat and said: ‘I trust we shall find Vesuvius active.'

‘Not too active, I hope,' said Mr. Amberley. ‘Vesuvius when very active is an appalling spectacle. I saw it so once, at the beginning of the last great eruption in fact, and the sight was appalling. It is painful to be reminded so ruthlessly of man's utter insignificance in the presence of nature. No, I prefer to keep away from active volcanoes and regard myself as the lord of creation.'

‘Still,' said Mr. Darby, ‘I have always wished to witness
some great … ah … what I might call convolution of nature.'

Mr. Amberley made a definite gesture of dissent. ‘No convolutions for me, thank you, Mr. Darby,' he said. ‘However, let me reassure you. If Vesuvius lets us escape, there is always the chance that the Island of Ischia may blow us and itself to smithereens as we leave Naples. And failing Ischia there remains Stromboli and Etna. I sometimes wonder whether science will some day discover some method of cosmic vaccination to cure these distressing cosmic pimples.'

It might almost have been believed that the vaccination predicted by Mr. Amberley had already been discovered and applied, for except for a white plume like an ostrich-feather twirling from a point on its summit, Vesuvius looked as peaceable as Parliament Hill. Ischia was as bad, Stromboli worse; it was an indistinct but quite commonplace hill floating on the sea. Etna was worse still; it wasn't there at all. It withdrew with unpardonable incivility into a misty night and though Mr. Darby stood on deck for over an hour in pyjamas and dressing-gown wielding his formidable telescope, it remained totally invisible. No wonder he wired to Sarah: ‘Etna disappointing.'

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby referred to this regrettable inactivity of the volcanoes while conversing next morning with Violet Renton. She had found him installed in a deck-chair and had sat down beside him.

‘I had been hoping that at least one of them would be what I should call eruptious,' he said.

‘So did I,' she replied. ‘I woke up specially for Etna.'

‘I not only woke up,' said Mr. Darby; ‘I took the trouble to go up on deck and stand there for an hour, and, further, I took with me my telescope, a great heavy … ah … contraption, difficult to manage.' Mr. Darby spoke with warmth for he felt that he had a personal grievance against the volcanoes. He had behaved with due recognition of their importance and one and all they had failed to return the
compliment. ‘I'm inclined to think,' he said, ‘that volcanoes have been exaggerated.'

He spoke seriously and was at first surprised and then pleased at Violet's laughter. Evidently he had, as he sometimes did, accidentally made a joke.

‘We must hope for better luck on the return voyage,' said the girl. As she spoke, Tim Renton and Lady Gissingham came on deck and strolled past them. Violet's talk and laughter froze: Mr. Darby too became silent and constrained. He longed to speak, to say something to reassure her, but he was shy of intruding. Tim and Lady Gissingham, talking and laughing, strolled to and fro in front of them; Violet and Mr. Darby sat speechless and unhappy: then with a quick, troubled glance at him the girl rose. ‘I think I'll go in,' she said in a voice that pierced him to the heart; then turned and left him. It was dreadful, too dreadful! What could he do to restore her happiness? He sat there alone and helpless, burdened with his unexpressed and inexpressible sympathy.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘I observe,' said Mr. Amberley to Mr. Darby as they sat together on deck midway across the Ionian Sea, ‘that our Baroness has got young Renton well hypnotized. She's managed to secure a very callow one this time.'

Mr. Darby flushed. ‘It's a disgrace,' he replied hotly. ‘Everybody's watching them and talking about them. She's no better than a … ah … well, a woman of the streets.'

‘No better? You underrate our Baroness, Mr. Darby. She's fifty times worse. A woman of the streets is no more dangerous than a bus. She merely announces her presence and you can take her or leave her, for all the world like Gudgeon's Nerve Food. But the Baroness is a racing car deliberately driven to the danger of the public. She makes a dead set at you and entangles you hopelessly if you happen to be young and inexperienced or a fool. I shouldn't say that boy was a fool; I like the look of him; but he's very callow, poor young devil.'

Mr. Darby was silent. Then he asked: ‘Did you say her last husband shot himself?'

‘He did,' said Mr. Amberley, ‘and now she's evidently trying the same method with the present one. He's been looking very pale about the gills for the last few days.'

‘You mean, he shot himself because she ran after someone else?'