The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (42 page)

‘Precisely. I forget the name of the someone else. He belonged to a good family and the whole business made a good deal of noise at the time. I'm surprised you don't remember it.'

‘Are you sure of it?' Mr. Darby enquired with great seriousness.

‘But absolutely. As sure as that I'm sitting here smoking in my unpardonable way this excellent cigar of yours.'

‘I shall warn him,' said Mr. Darby with determination.

‘My dear Mr. Darby, warn whom? Gissingham?'

‘No, young Renton.'

‘Take my advice, my friend, and do nothing of the sort. It's always wiser to keep out of complications of this kind. It's a pity, I admit, but it's not your business.'

‘But it
is
my business,' said Mr. Darby warmly.

‘Indeed?'

‘Yes. His sister's a … ah … a friend of mine, and it's upsetting her dreadfully. She's wretched. All her happiness is gone.'

‘And you feel …?'

‘I feel it very deeply,' said Mr. Darby. ‘I can't allow it to … ah …!'

Mr. Amberley sighed. ‘Well, my dear fellow, all I can say is, I wish I had your goodness of heart. At the same time,' he added with a return to his usual dry tone, ‘I'm rather glad I haven't.'

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

‘The first question to be settled, Punnett,' said Mr. Darby while dressing for dinner that evening, ‘will be how to … ah … approach the Peninsula. The trading vessel calls only
once a year. If we hadn't to wait too long, if it was starting say a month or so after we reached Sydney, we might … ah … avail ourselves, so to speak.'

‘Yes, sir,' said Punnett sadly. ‘But were you thinking of spending a year there, sir?'

‘A
year
, Punnett?'

‘Till the ship called again, sir?'

Mr. Darby was silent. His thoughts had been exclusively concerned with getting to Mandratia. The fact, the rather disagreeable fact, that if they took the trading vessel he and Punnett would be willy-nilly marooned on the Peninsula until its next visit occurred to him now for the first time. He fell into a reverie. Suppose, he thought, some event or series of events were to occur that made it highly desirable for them to leave the Peninsula quickly, it would be extraordinarily unpleasant to know that this was impossible. A year, a month, even a day is a serious interruption if you happen to be running for your life. Reflecting, there in his cabin, Mr. Darby suddenly realized with intense vividness—such is the power of the imagination—the sensation of being completely cut off from salvation when pursued by howling savages. It was an unpleasant, an extraordinarily unpleasant sensation.

‘We shall have to charter a boat of our own, Punnett,' he said decisively. ‘We might find, might we not, that we tired of the place, or possibly of the people? In that event it would be convenient to have some means of … ah … conveyance in what I should call the offing.'

‘It would, sir,' replied Punnett. ‘I remember one occasion, the occasion of the great feast—they have a great feast once a year, sir, when they … well, they roast a human being, sir. On that occasion, Professor Harrington and I would have been very glad of a conveyance. It was a very near thing with us that time, sir. The king, the king of the Mandrats, was against us from the first, and he egged on the natives to get hold of Professor Harrington, with the object of roasting him, sir. It was the camera that saved us. I turned the camera on them, as it might have been a machine-gun,
and they fell back. They daren't face it. But it was a very near thing: for a moment I thought the camera wasn't going to work. You see, they were very much wrought up, sir. Quite hysterical they were.'

Mr. Darby gave a little shudder. ‘But why was the king against you, Punnett?'

‘Well, sir, the king was a foreigner. They always choose a foreigner for their king, or, failing a foreigner, some freak of their own, a hunchback or what not. And this particular king was a sort of half-caste, quite a different colour from the natives he was, a kind of dirty yellow-grey, sir; and he had an idea, I think, that the natives might do away with him and make Professor Harrington king instead, or perhaps me. They were very much impressed with Professor Harrington, you see, sir, him speaking the language and all that, and I'm not sure but what the king's suspicions weren't pretty near the mark. Not that Professor Harrington would have accepted the throne, sir, nor me either. It would have been a great inconvenience, a great interruption to work.'

‘Still, Punnett, an experience, a very unique experience!' said Mr. Darby, shocked by Punnett's lack of enthusiasm. ‘I'm not sure, Punnett, if I had been in your place …'

But the dinner bugle sounded and the nature of Mr. Darby's uncertainty remained uncertain.

After dinner he repaired to his obscure nook on the deck for further reflection. It was a cooler evening this time and Mr. Darby wore a coat. Propped there motionless against the rail, his face averted from the deck and bent downwards upon the hissing, glimmering water, he resembled, in the dimness, a tarpaulin sack rather than a man. That, no doubt, was why the two figures that came slowly down the deck and stood leaning over the rail not five yards away from him, did not lower their voices.

‘If you think I'm going to sit still and be made a fool of, you're mistaken.' Mr. Darby could hear the man's voice distinctly.

The woman's, when it came, hard and clear, he recognized instantly; it was Lady Gissingham's. ‘My dear Ally, no
one's making a fool of you but yourself. You seem to expect me to hang round your neck all day long.'

‘God forbid! But I object to your hanging all day long round the Renton boy's.'

‘In fact, I'm forbidden to make friends.'

‘There's no good your trying sham innocence on me, Rhoda. You know perfectly well what I mean. I forbid you to make a fool of yourself and me with that boy.'

Mr. Darby heard a hard, mirthless, woman's laugh. ‘Forbid away, Ally. I shall do as I feel inclined.'

‘Will you? ‘The man's voice trembled with suppressed fury. ‘Then you'll take the consequences.'

‘Threats don't frighten me, Ally. Do as you like. But if you're so sick of our honeymoon already, heaven knows what you'll be by the time we've been to Colombo and back. Hadn't you better get off the boat at the next stop and go home?'

‘That's the first sane thing you've said yet,' said Gissingham.

For a moment Lady Gissingham did not reply. His sudden acceptance of her cynical suggestion had evidently taken her aback. When she spoke, her tone was cold, bored, weary. ‘In that case I shall have to console myself for your absence.'

Gissingham's sudden and brutal rejoinder horrified Mr. Darby. He had never thought that titled people used such words. But though the words horrified him, they apparently produced no effect on Lady Gissingham. Her cold laugh was heard once more. ‘My dear Ally,' she said, ‘you excel yourself.'

There followed a sound of footsteps and Mr. Darby, turning his head without moving his body, saw Lady Gissingham move away slowly and indifferently down the deck. In another minute Sir Alistair went off in the opposite direction.

What he had heard increased Mr. Darby's determination to speak to young Renton at once. There was danger in the air, he was sure. If Gissingham left the
Utopia
at Port Said
(the next stop), his wife, as she had just coldly announced, would console herself, and she would console herself of course with young Renton. But if Gissingham stayed on the ship, then there would be those ‘consequences' of which he had darkly spoken. He must try to have a word with young Renton at once.

Mr. Darby accordingly made a complete circuit of the promenade deck and then glanced both into the lounge and the smoking-room. In vain: young Renton was nowhere. Perhaps, thought Mr. Darby, he was in his cabin. The boy's cabin, as Mr. Darby had already noticed, was next door to his own. If he went to his own he would very likely be able to hear whether young Renton was in his. Mr. Darby went to his cabin, switched on the light and sat down. Yes, he was there. After a minute or two he heard on the partition one of those bumps so familiar on ships,—an elbow or a shoulder striking the wall. He hesitated for a moment, then rose from his chair, left his cabin and tapped on the door of young Renton's.

The boy was sitting on his bed with a book in his hand: he was still fully dressed. Mr. Darby, standing with his hand on the door-handle made a little bow. ‘Pardon me,' he said, ‘but could you … ah … spare me a few minutes?'

The boy raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Certainly,' he said in a tone that had more of question than acquiescence in it. ‘Will you … er …?' He pointed to a chair.

‘Wouldn't it be pleasanter on deck?' said Mr. Darby. ‘That is, if you don't mind.'

‘Not at all!'

They proceeded in silence to the more deserted side of the promenade deck. Mr. Darby had suggested the deck for privacy; one is so easily overheard in a cabin; but now he wished he hadn't, for the silence and suspense of their progress down corridors and up stairs had raised the occasion to one of great formality, so that when Tim Renton turned to him and asked: ‘Now, sir, what was it you wanted? ‘he felt extremely embarrassed.

‘Well … ah …' he began, ‘I … ah … in
point of fact I find it rather … ah … rather what I should call difficult to … ah … to say.'

Young Renton, looking down on to Mr. Darby's spectacles, raised his eyebrows in surprise and amusement.

Mr. Darby pulled himself together. ‘I wanted to talk to you of something which is … ah … well … none of my business, in fact of Lady Gissingham.'

The young man's face hardened at once.

‘I don't see … ‘he began, all the cordiality gone from his voice.

Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘Please let me say my say, and try not to think me too … ah … too what I should call nosey. I felt, you see, noticing you about so much with Lady Gissingham, that it was only right to … ah … to warn you …'

‘That everyone on the ship is gossiping about it? Yes, I know, thanks. My mother and sister have told me nothing else for the last week. You're all so desperately old-fashioned. Lady Gissingham's a very good sort and very intelligent too, which is more than most of the people on this boat are. I don't see why I should stop talking to her just because a lot of silly people start chattering. Let them chatter: I don't care. I'm getting a little tired …'

Again Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘That isn't what I was going to say,' he replied. ‘I was going to say … to warn you that Lady Gissingham is rather a … what I should call a dangerous woman.'

Young Renton laughed contemptuously. ‘This all sounds very melodramatic, Mr. Darby.'

‘Perhaps it does,' answered Mr. Darby, ‘perhaps you think me unduly … ah … perniquitous, but do you happen to have heard about her last husband?'

Young Renton looked at him sternly. ‘Is it decent or honourable, do you think, to tell tales about a woman behind her back?'

But Mr. Darby was not to be put off. ‘Her last husband shot himself,' he said, ‘and do you know why?'

Tim Renton did not answer. Mr. Darby's statement had
evidently given him a shock: his face was scarlet, his brows knitted. He wanted no doubt to say that Lady Gissingham's past did not concern him, but he also wanted to hear what Mr. Darby had to say. At last his eyes, which had been angrily fixed on distance, turned rather sheepishly to Mr. Darby's. ‘No,' he said shortly, ‘I don't.'

‘Because,' said Mr. Darby, ‘she had … well … taken up with another man just as she's doing with you.'

Again Tim Renton made no reply: once more his brows were knitted and he was angrily gazing into the distance. ‘It seems to me,' he said at last, ‘that you and my mother are trying to make mountains out of molehills.'

Mr. Darby pursed his lips as when considering an expression of opinion.

‘It wouldn't be a molehill,' he said judicially, ‘if Sir Alistair Gissingham shot himself or you.'

Young Renton turned and faced Mr. Darby. ‘Doesn't it occur to you, sir, that I am quite competent to look after myself?'

Mr. Darby suddenly felt angry. ‘No,' he said hotly, ‘no, since you ask me, it does not; not by the way you're behaving.'

‘In that case,' said young Renton coldly, ‘there's nothing more to be said, is there? We might as well wish each other good night.' He turned on his heel and left Mr. Darby to himself.

Mr. Darby's anger was immediately turned upon himself. How lamentably he had mismanaged the whole thing. And now, worst of all, he had lost his temper and alienated the boy completely. It would have been better, far better, if he had kept his mouth shut: so far from putting a stop to the thing he had most probably made it worse, put the boy on his mettle to show that he despised his warnings. And he had totally forgotten, fool that he was, to mention that he had actually heard Gissingham threaten his wife—' Then you'll take the consequences.' That would have been a very telling point: it would have corroborated everything he had said. For a moment Mr. Darby had an almost irresistible
impulse to run after young Renton with that piece of information. It was, after all, of such vital importance. What, in Heaven's name, could have made him forget it? But next moment he realized that, as things were now, it would be useless. He would only irritate him still more.

He heaved a long, deep sigh. The business, brief as it had been, had taken it out of him. And it had made him thirsty. A drink! Yes, a drink was emphatically what he needed. He turned his back on the sea and toddled towards the smoking-room.

Mr. Darby, travelling hot-foot in the direction of the much-needed drink, found Mrs. Gudgeon hovering outside the smoking-room door. She looked at Mr. Darby, anxiety and embarrassment in her eyes, hesitated, and then said: ‘Excuse me, but would you kindly tell my husband I want him.'