The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (45 page)

Listen to me, sir. You're a public nuisance, and you have the manners of a boor. You were not asked to join the conversation; I am not interested in your views, nor will I tolerate your insolence. Any London Club would have kicked you out long since. This is not a club, but it is a place where a measure of decency must be observed. Now if I
hear you making a disturbance again, or molesting not only me but anyone on this ship, I shall lodge a complaint with the Captain and have you put under restraint.'

‘And I shall do the same,' said his companion.

The man with the lawyer's face looked round the room. ‘I dare say other gentlemen will join us.'

‘With the greatest pleasure,' said Mr. Amberley, and other voices joined in.

But Mr. Darby said nothing. He was thinking that he might now slip over to Gudgeon and tell him his wife wanted him. Gudgeon still sat, as he had sat when the man with the lawyer's face had begun to speak, glowering at them like a thwarted bull, one huge hand on the table at his side. His nostrils dilated and shrank as he took in deep breaths. It seemed that he was slowly gathering his strength, and at last a sound came from him, a deep, contemptuous grunt that had something of a sigh in it. Then he spoke. ‘Blast you all for a pack of mean-spirited mongrels. Blast you all!' he shouted more loudly, as if the sound of his own voice stimulated him to fury. ‘Do what you damned well like, and be …' He was rising laboriously to his feet, his great hand pressing convulsively on the little table beside him. There was something sinister and almost magnificent in this ponderous uprearing of the great figure. But before he was quite upright or could finish what he was saying, something caught him in the throat. He choked, swayed, and suddenly the little table on which he was leaning his weight crashed, his whisky went with it, and the tumbler spun across the floor in a great curve. At the same moment Gudgeon came down. His chair was thrust noisily away as his body struck it; there was a heavy bump as his head caught the edge of the overturned table and he collapsed like a huge sack between table and chair.

The man with the lawyer's face and his friend sprang up with anxious faces to help him and as Mr. Darby ran forward the door swung open and Mrs. Gudgeon rushed in. The two others were kneeling beside Gudgeon loosening his collar. She flung herself on her knees beside them and bent over him.
‘Sid,' she cried, ‘Sid, what is it? What's the matter?'

Gudgeon, a loathsome and terrible spectacle, seemed as though, with his blue, shuddering lips, he were trying to reply. But no sound came through the noise of his stertorous breathing. Mr. Darby, standing helpless and agitated over the group, saw a little stream of blood run out of the left corner of the unclosed mouth and trickle down the cheek to the smoking-room floor. Gudgeon was lying quite still now except for the movements of chest and nostrils at each breath, and soon these diminished, as the noise of his breathing grew fainter, so that Mrs. Gudgeon's sobs became for the first time audible. Suddenly a spasm shook the body, as though Gudgeon were trying to rise. But the spasm was brief: the body relaxed, sank back. The breathing had stopped.

At that moment the doctor hurried in. He knelt down, gave a quick look at the eyes and thrust his hand into the open shirt. After a pause he withdrew his hand. ‘They're bringing a stretcher,' he said quietly.

During the few seconds that followed not a sound was heard in the smoking-room but the monotonous pulse of the engines and the monotonous sobbing of Mrs. Gudgeon. Then the doors opened wide and two sailors entered carrying the stretcher. They lowered it to the floor and knelt down, the huddled group of kneeling bodies swayed and shifted, and then the two sailors rose slowly and simultaneously, the group broke up, and Gudgeon left the smoking-room in solemn pomp. Mrs. Gudgeon followed, supported by the doctor.

The man with the lawyer's face, his companion, and most of the other men present went out after them. Mr. Darby found himself standing alone. He glanced helplessly round the room and his eye fell on Mr. Amberley. He sat, a mild and slightly cynical image, in the chair in which Mr. Darby had left him: apparently he had never stirred from it. Mr. Darby, pale and shaken, sat down beside him. As he did so a steward entered, carrying a damp cloth. He wiped the floor where the body had lain, pushed Gudgeon's chair back to its proper place and took up the broken table. Mr. Darby
and Mr. Amberley watched him in silence; but before he reached the door, Mr. Darby called to him. ‘Steward, have you heard how the gentleman is?'

The steward paused. ‘The gentleman, sir? He's dead.' He went out with the broken table.

‘Dead!' said Mr. Darby in an awed whisper. Then he turned to Mr. Amberley. ‘What a … ah … what an appalling … ah … occurrence!' he said, taking out his handkerchief to dry his face.

‘Appalling indeed,' Mr. Amberley replied in his usual imperturbable tones, ‘but not, when broadly viewed, regrettable.'

Mr. Darby stared at him with spectacles of horrified amazement.' But … but … you heard the steward say he's
dead.
'

‘Quite so!' Mr. Amberley calmly replied. ‘Dead! I thought him, when alive, the most repulsive and degraded creature I have ever met, a menace to civilization and common decency. It would therefore be the grossest hypocrisy, my dear Darby, if I were to pretend to be sorry that he has ceased to be so. Death, I agree, is terrible, but if anything could make me feel that, after all, it has its good points, it would be an occurrence of this kind. In circumstances such as this death takes on a beneficent and sanitary aspect which is not usually apparent.'

Mr. Darby looked at his companion sternly. ‘Amberley' he said, ‘you … well you horrify me. You seem to me what I should call … ah … brutal. And there's his poor wife …!'

‘Ah, that's another matter,' Mr. Amberley replied. ‘I'm sorry for
her,
poor woman. But as for the man himself …!'

‘But the poor fellow's
dead,'
persisted Mr. Darby.

‘Yes, Darby, I know.
De mortuis
and so on, a disingenuous and sentimental adage for any but those rare creatures, the pure of heart. You're one of them, my dear Darby, and, believe me, I respect you for it. You're an ingenuous idealist and I wish I were like you. But I'm not. I'm a sophisticated realist. Have a John Collins. You want a pick-me-up after this appalling scene, and so do I, despite my apparent callousness.'

Mr. Darby accepted. ‘But hadn't we better leave out the gin, Amberley?'

‘But why, Darby? Out of respect for the deceased?'

Mr. Darby held up a hand. ‘Please don't!' he said.

Mr. Amberley smiled. ‘I'm sorry. That shall be my last callous remark. But why no gin, Darby?'

‘Well,' said Mr. Darby, ‘because it appears, from the … ah … tragedy we have just witnessed, that the drinking of spirits is not very safe in these … ah … what I should call latitudes.'

Mr. Amberley tapped the little man on the knee. ‘Come, come, my good Darby, you're carrying innocence too far now. The thimblefuls of gin you indulge in wouldn't hurt a rabbit on the equator, whereas a bottle of whisky a day will hurt anybody in any latitude, as you very properly call it.'

When they had finished their drinks Mr. Amberley suggested a stroll on deck. ‘Well, Darby, what do you say to … I was going to say, to a little fresh air, but that is unhappily no longer obtainable. What do you say to a
change
of air and scene?'

They left the smoking-room and stepped on deck. There, leaning over the rail, they found the doctor.

‘I suppose,' said Mr. Amberley to him, ‘you'll land him for burial at Aden.'

The doctor shook his head. ‘Wouldn't keep till Aden,' he said. ‘He'll have to go overboard, and the sooner the better. I'm seeing the Captain in ten minutes.'

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby, partly no doubt owing to the tragic event of the day, spent a disturbed night. The ship was pitching rather uncomfortably, but, in spite of this, he had managed to get to sleep and had slept for what seemed to him some hours, when he was roused by a loud bump. It came from the direction of the door. The shock had set his heart beating like a gas-engine, but he did not lose his presence of mind. He was ready and acted promptly. He shot out a hand to the electric light switch and at the same time he uttered aloud
those words to which long rehearsal had given a fierce precision: ‘There, madam, is the door.' And there, sure enough, as soon as he had recovered from the sudden dazzle of light, was the door. But there was no Lady Gissingham. And of course, now that he came to think of it, how could she have been there with the door locked? But
was
it locked? He always locked it the moment Punnett left the cabin, but he could not remember having done so to-night; and it was quite likely that he had forgotten, with an occurrence such as Gudgeon's tragic death to distract his mind. He got up and went to the door. There now! He
had
forgotten, and she had actually got in. But once in, her courage had failed her and she had fled. Perhaps she had actually been there when he spoke those commanding words and had fled precipitately in the brief interval during which his eyes were accustoming themselves to the light. She must have tried the door night after night in the hope of at last finding it unlocked; and then, when at last it
was
unlocked, it had taken her by surprise, or perhaps the
Utopia
had given one of those disconcerting lurches, and she had reeled against the partition. Hence the bump. But what persistence! And what a woman! He would have to be more cautious than ever in future.

It took Mr. Darby some time to get to sleep, and when at last he succeeded, he had a most peculiar dream. He dreamed that he was in his cabin, the cabin in which his sleeping body actually lay. Sarah was with him, it was daylight, and they were both dressed for out-of-doors. They had been having an argument. He had insisted on sailing in the
Utopia
; Sarah had sternly demanded that he should return home with her. He took off his hat and laid it and his stick on the bed. ‘Here I am, Sarah,' he said with determination, ‘and here I stay.' But Sarah wouldn't hear of it. ‘But you can't, Jim. It's all nonsense, all damned nonsensical rot. It's fools like you …' Sarah's voice had changed, it had become horribly like Gudgeon's. He turned to look at her. She was sitting down now, and he saw with terror that her face, too, had become the face of Gudgeon. ‘Sarah!' he said to her, ‘Sarah!
Don't! Please don't!' But Sarah did not change back. She was still Gudgeon. She sat staring at him like a thwarted bull; and now, to his horror, she rose slowly, laboriously, and menacingly. A panic of terror seized him. Was she going to crash to the floor, fall dead before his eyes? He turned away, his hands to his face, and a quiet voice, the voice of Punnett, said to him: ‘Leave her to me, sir. I thoroughly understand these cases.' He took his hands from his face. But of course, it was Punnett. What on earth had given him the ridiculous idea that it was Gudgeon. But he did not require Punnett's help, for it was only poor Mrs. Gudgeon that stood at his cabin door, and he wanted to ask her if he could be of any assistance to her. ‘Come in, Mrs. Gudgingham,' he said to her. ‘I want to ask you if there's anything I can do for you, anything you want.' Mrs. Gudgingham … but wasn't there something wrong about her name? ‘Forgive me, Mrs. Gidging, I mean … ah … Mrs. Gissing. My memory is not quite … ah …! Lady Gissingham! What do you want?'

Lady Gissingham came towards him smiling, ‘It's you, Jim, that I want.' He shot out a commanding finger. ‘There, madam, is the door.' But Lady Gissingham did not retreat: on the contrary, she put her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes, and he felt himself sinking, swooning away. He grasped at the air like a falling man and then the calm voice of Punnett—or was it Sarah's voice?—came reassuringly to his ears. ‘Leave her to me, Jim. I understand these cases.' Punnett seized Lady Gissingham with both hands and held her in an iron grip while she struggled and screeched and flapped her great wings. Her screeches terrified Mr. Darby: there was something both dangerous and heart-rending in them. But at last Punnett had the great bird at his mercy. He carried it to the port-hole and pushed it out into the sea. ‘I understand these cases, sir. I learned that trick from the king of the Mandrats. Dangerous things these green parrots, sir, but you mustn't show them you're frightened of them.'

There was a screech from outside the port-hole and green
wings fluttered against the frame, trying to get in. ‘Look out! Look out, Punnett!'

Mr. Darby opened his eyes. It was daylight and Punnett stood obediently looking out of the port-hole.

‘A little calmer to-day, sir,' he reported, ‘and a trifle less hot.'

‘Time to get up, Punnett?' asked Mr. Darby, a little ashamed of himself.

‘Yes, sir. It's six o'clock.'

Mr. Darby threw back the bedclothes. He was getting up early to attend Gudgeon's funeral.

At seven o'clock Gudgeon went overboard. Not many of his fellow-passengers got up to see him off, but Mr. Darby was there in his soberest suit and a black tie. When the ceremony was over, he approached Mrs. Gudgeon. The pathos of ugliness in affliction had touched him deeply. He wanted to show his sympathy, and the only way he could do that was to offer help.

‘Mrs. Gudgeon,' he murmured, ‘I want to … ah … offer my services. Can I be of any help to you?'

‘You're very kind,' sniffed poor Mrs. Gudgeon. ‘I don't know what to do. I'm not accustomed to foreign parts: you see, he did everything about that.'

‘But what do you want to do?' asked Mr. Darby. ‘Do you want to go home?'