The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (46 page)

‘Yes, if only I could,' she said. ‘That's all I want,—to get home as soon as possible; but I don't understand about ships and strange places.'

‘Don't you worry,' said Mr. Darby. ‘I'll make enquiries for you. We reach Aden to-morrow. Perhaps you could get off there and wait for the next boat home. I'll see what I can do.'

‘You're very, very kind,' sniffed poor Mrs. Gudgeon again.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

The early rising had given Mr. Darby an appetite and he breakfasted at the earliest opportunity, too early for his table-companion, Mr. Amberley, whom he did not meet till he found him seated on deck at about ten o'clock. The chair beside him was empty: the one beyond that was occupied by a lady who was leaning back reading a book which hid her face. Mr. Darby went to the vacant chair, and as he was on
the point of sitting down, the lady moved her book and revealed, to his alarm, the face of Lady Gissingham. The shock arrested him, held him suspended in the unnatural attitude of a figure in the window of a ready-made tailor. But only for a second: next moment he resumed his interrupted movement and calmly sat down, actually sat down next Lady Gissingham. Probably an onlooker would have noticed nothing; yet in Mr. Darby's mind a complicated process had taken place with the rapidity of lightning. His first impulse, that of a cautious discretion, had been to turn rapidly away and resume his walk down the deck; but instantly he realized that this could not be done naturally. It would very much have surprised Mr. Amberley and it would have shown Lady Gissingham unmistakably that he was avoiding her. Then Punnett's advice flashed through his mind: ‘It's better not to keep out of their way too much. That only leads them on.' At that, Mr. Darby rose superbly to the occasion and, as we have seen, sat down with every appearance of dignity and calm. And all this, these impulses and counter-impulses, these lightning adjustments and readjustments, this meticulous ratiocination and careful weighing of pros and cons, occupied little longer than the blink of an eyelid. The miraculous agility of the human mind has seldom been more impressively displayed.

But there is all the difference between a sudden resourceful bravery and mere recklessness. Once seated, Mr. Darby turned his face to Mr. Amberley and his back on Lady Gissingham. Hotter than the Red Sea temperature, he felt her eyes burning the back of his neck, but he did not flinch.

‘Still … ah … oppressive!' he said casually to his friend.

Mr. Amberley nodded. ‘Insufferably! But why were you so late for breakfast, my dear Darby?'

‘Late?' said Mr. Darby.' I was early. I got up early, to … ah … attend what I should call the last sad rites.'

The funeral? A funeral before breakfast. I must say, Darby, you're indefatigable in your pursuit of novel experiences.'

Mr. Darby maintained a serious expression: he was
resolved to set his face against Mr. Amberley's untimely flippancies, and he fancied that this was intended to be one of them. ‘I thought it my duty,' he said solemnly, ‘to pay my … ah … tribute …!'

‘Your tribute? But why, Darby? If Satan made a diabolical speech at a dinner party, would you consider it your duty to propose a vote of thanks?'

‘I don't understand you, Amberley,' Mr. Darby replied, ‘and you promised yesterday to make no more callous remarks.'

My dear Darby, I did not suppose, this time, that I even
seemed
callous. My question, Socratic in form, had a strongly moral intention. The fact is, your humanity forces you sometimes to assume startlingly immoral attitudes. But why should I worry you with my pruderies? Once more, I promise you I'll do my best to keep my morals to myself. If I fail, call me a prig and take no notice of me.'

‘Now what in the world,' Mr. Darby inwardly enquired, ‘is he talking about?' and aloud he asked: ‘At least you don't object, I hope, to my trying to help Mrs. Gudgeon?'

‘Most assuredly I don't,' Mr. Amberley replied. ‘Does she need help?'

‘She wants to get home as quickly as possible, poor thing, and doesn't know how to … ah … set about it. She's not accustomed to travelling alone, you see. I'm going to find out if she can get a ship back from Aden.'

‘Undoubtedly she can,' said Mr. Amberley. ‘I'm going to the lounge to write some letters—I want to have them ready to post in Aden to-morrow—and I'll see if I can find out.' He rose from his chair. ‘Shall I find you in the smokingroom at half-past eleven for our morning Collins?'

For a moment Mr. Darby was on the point of accompanying him, for Mr. Amberley's departure, he had at once realized with alarm, would leave him cheek by jowl with Lady Gissingham; but in a flash courage had returned and he boldly stood, or rather sat, his ground. It would have been easier if he had had a book or paper to read, but he had not, and in default of that moral support he resourcefully
fell back on a cigar. He made the most of the cigar, listening to it critically as he rolled it between finger and thumb, cutting it with infinite care, making an elaborate pantomime of difficulty with the lighting of it; and when these rites could no longer be credibly protracted, he leaned back with half-closed eyes as if the cigar had induced meditation. But after he had maintained this pose for some time he was injudicious enough to turn his eyes, without, it is true, moving his head, to see how Lady Gissingham was getting on. Instantaneously he looked away and became absorbed in some object far down the deck, for in that brief, incautious glance his eyes had looked straight into hers. She was sitting now with her book laid idly on her lap, looking at him. For a length of time that made them ache, Mr. Darby held his eyes fixed on the distant object: then, first closing them, he turned them to his front and appeared to fall asleep. But how could a man sleep or even pretend to sleep with the eye of a notorious and dangerous woman drilling a hole in his consciousness? Mr. Darby's eyelids, do what he would to hold them tight shut, fluttered, opened, and beheld the realization of his fears. For again they met the eyes of Lady Gissingham. She was smiling at him now, evidently she was on the point of speaking, the campaign of open warfare was about to begin.

‘I'm afraid I'm disturbing your nap,' she said, ‘but I very much want to ask you a question. I hope you won't think me indiscreet … '

‘Madam,' Mr. Darby broke in, and he was about to add ‘there is the door!' when he realized that there was no door in sight.

‘I overheard your conversation just now,' she went on, ‘I couldn't very well avoid it and I want to …'

‘Madam … ah …!' Mr. Darby made another attempt to clutch at some telling and concluding phrase, but his wits failed him.

‘… to ask you about that poor woman.'

The unexpected development of the attack bewildered Mr. Darby still more. ‘Poor woman?' he stammered. ‘You
mean … ah … Mrs. Gudgingham, I should say Mrs. … ah …!'

‘Mrs. Gudgeon. I think you said that she wanted to get home as quickly as possible and that she was rather lost as to ways and means. In any case, poor thing, she's hardly in a state to look after herself, and I thought perhaps I might help her. I was going as far as Colombo, but I don't much mind,'—Mr. Darby felt a world of weary disillusionment in her voice—‘I don't much mind where I go. If it will be of any comfort to her I shall be very glad to land at Aden with her and see her safely on to the next boat home.'

Mr. Darby blinked at her incredulously. ‘You mean that you … you would … ah …?'

‘Would, as I have just said, take her under my wing. My own voyage'—her voice was weary, hard, and formal—‘has been somewhat of a fiasco, and if I can turn it to some sort of account, so much the better. Do you think she would like me to look after her?'

Mr. Darby had by now so far recovered as to be his old courtly self once more. He made a little bow and said: ‘But I'm sure of it. It would be the greatest kindness. I may say I've been much … ah … exercised, very much exercised, because I myself am going to Sydney on business, and in any case a man, almost a total stranger, couldn't probably … ah …!'

Lady Gissingham smiled as if a comical picture had flashed across her mind. ‘Of course not. Well, if you would be so kind as to suggest my company to her she will be free then to accept or refuse without embarrassment. I suppose she's terribly upset, poor thing.'

‘Terribly!' said Mr. Darby.

‘And yet,' murmured Lady Gissingham meditatively, ‘her husband, poor creature, was singularly unattractive. I don't know that I've ever seen … However, one must let the poor man be, now that he's dead.'

‘You're more charitable than my friend Mr. Amberley who was sitting here just now,' said Mr. Darby. ‘He can't let the poor fellow alone, even now. He says the most awful
things about him. A menace to civilization and common decency, he said.'

‘Oh, probably at least half of us on this boat are
that'
said Lady Gissingham indifferently.' If we enquired more closely into the character of this Mr. Amberley (I think you said?) we should probably find that he didn't come out so very creditably. But it was the poor man's revolting appearance that appalled
me.
But do, if you can, see Mrs. Gudgeon now. We shall reach Aden to-morrow morning and I shall have my time cut out to be ready. Goodness knows if they'll be able to get at my trunks in the hold.' She rose as Mr. Darby rose. ‘I'll come too and wait for you in the lounge.'

They strolled down the deck together, as he had seen her and Tim Renton stroll so often before; and Mr. Amberley, looking up from his writing in the lounge ten minutes later was thunderstruck to discover Mr. Darby and Lady Gissingham in earnest conversation.

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Mr. Darby and Mr. Amberley stood together on deck gazing at the jagged screen of mountains that rise abruptly behind the straggling town of Aden and break down at the south-eastward extremity of the gulf into a slim, graceful index jutting into the sea. Mr. Darby had just waved a last goodbye to the two passengers going ashore. ‘Well,' he said conclusively, ‘she'll be all right now. She'll be safe with Lady Gissingham.'

Mr. Amberley's lips curled humorously. ‘Of how few of us, Darby, could that be said.'

‘Why … ah …!' Mr. Darby raised mystified spectacles.

‘Your heart is large, my dear Darby, and your memory short. You have totally forgotten, I observe, during the last twenty-four hours that our bold bad Baroness is a very dangerous woman.'

‘Bless my soul,' said Mr. Darby, ‘so I had. A very dangerous woman, Amberley, but what I should call a heart of gold. A curious … ah … mixture.'

‘Not at all. There is an angel in every devil, Darby; and
a devil, usually in much greater proportion, in every angel. But the fact remains that the
Utopia
is much safer for mankind with Lady Gissingham safe ashore.'

•    •    •    •    •    •    •    •

Yes, the ship—Mr. Darby himself felt it—was a safer but also a less interesting place. Life became monotonous. Day followed day; the
Utopia
forged ahead, sometimes for whole days together as steady as a house, sometimes turning and tossing uneasily like a giant in a feverish sleep. The heat continued. Mr. Darby wearied of polishing the steam off his spectacles (life had come to consist of little else) and resigned himself to existence behind a permanent fog. Of Singapore he received only the most blurred impression. He began to long for the end of the voyage, and he began to wish, too, that the end of the voyage was London instead of Sydney. The thought of Sydney left him cold: he was becoming homesick. One thing only stirred his mind in its stupor, the prospect of a fleeting glimpse, through the huge telescope which lay ready in his cabin, of the Mandratic Peninsula. Already in fancy he pictured that circular, telescopic view—a disc like a huge full moon packed with large green sappy leaves and showers of scarlet orchids among which green parrots crawled and the faces of black panthers and bronze savages intermittently peeped.

An unwelcome distraction relieved the monotony of life in the China Sea. It seemed as if, having nailed his flag to Adventure, Mr. Darby had thereby destined himself to risks and hazards, and that his escape from Lady Gissingham had placed Providence under the obligation of providing him with a new danger. In short, Mr. Darby was for three days chased by a typhoon. On three nights he went to bed in terror of waking to find himself sprawling on an inverted ceiling, on three mornings he woke to the incredible blessedness of a reprieve. The Captain himself shook his head gravely and declared that it would be a miracle if they missed it. Preparations of the most disquieting kind took place on the
Utopia,
sea and sky assumed such an ingenious variety of
sinister and terrifying expressions, and monotony was replaced by a lull of impending crisis so tense, so formidable that Mr. Darby gave up all hope of avoiding his pursuer.

Yet avoid it he did. On the fourth day sea and sky grew benign, the awful suspense was relaxed, and the Captain announced that they had beaten her. Mr. Darby dried his spectacles and breathed again.

And now Formosa was behind them and the
Utopia
turned her course eastward, parallel with the still invisible coasts of the great island of Eutyca.

At about six o'clock in the morning of the following Thursday the
Utopia
would pass, Mr. Darby had learned from careful enquiry, within four miles of the southernmost point of the Mandratic Peninsula. For long periods of the previous day Mr. Darby sat in his cabin poring entranced over a map of Eutyca. There was nothing he could discover from it that he had not discovered fifty times already, but to sit before it, realizing as he did so that the real thing lay over there to the north-east, not so much as the length of England away, filled him with rapture. Mr. Amberley noticed his exaltation. ‘My dear Darby, what is the matter? Have you fallen in love, or to what am I to attribute this suppressed glee?'