The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife

by Martin Armstrong

  “Whilst none of your Uncle’s property could really be described as speculative yet the greater portion of it being in real estate, the value much fluctuates; therefore you may wish to decide for yourself on the spot what should be sold and what retained, and this applies also to his mining properties. If you decide to come out, and intimate the fact in your letter, we are perfectly prepared at once to cable you up to £1,000 for your necessary expenses.

  “Yours faithfully.”’

  Mr. Darby paused. Then, like a priest intoning the sacred words at the end of his sermon, he added in a more subdued tone: ‘To W. J. Darby, Esqre, 7 Moseley Terrace, Savershill, Newchester-on-Dole, England.’ He raised his head, simultaneously dropping his arm so that the letter, still in his hand, hung by his knee, and gazed earnestly at Sarah.

  ‘Well,’ said she, rousing herself, ‘here’s a state of things.’

  ‘A state of things indeed!’ said Mr. Darby, and gradually his face changed, expanded: the smooth, stretched pouches of his cheeks and every crease, every wrinkle, round mouth and eyes redisposed themselves, assumed new relationships, till Mr. Darby’s countenance had melted from its former solemnity into a smile like a midsummer sunrise. ‘A state of things indeed!’ he repeated with profound gusto.

  ‘And what in the name of wonder,’ said Sarah, ‘shall we do with it all?’

  ‘Do with it all? Poof, that’ll be simple enough,’ said Mr. Darby with airy conviction.

  ‘Simple enough, indeed!’ said Sarah. “You don’t seem to realize what it means. It means about a hundred times as much a year as we have at present.’

  ‘It means about a hundred pounds a day,’ said Mr. Darby, precise and businesslike.

  ‘And what do we want with a hundred pounds a day?’ said Sarah in disgust.

  ‘Speak for yourself, my dear,’ said Mr. Darby, and there was already something of the magnate in his voice. ‘I can do with it very well.’

  ‘Well, anyhow, we can buy this house and have it properly done up,’ said Sarah.

  Mr. Darby stared at her. ‘Buy this house, Sarah!’ he said. ‘I should as soon think of buying a … ah … a Ford. So far from buying this house I shall leave it at the first opportunity.’

  ‘And where, if you please, are you going?’

  ‘Going?’ Mr. Darby made a neat but comprehensive gesture. ‘Everywhere!’ he said. ‘I have long wished, for instance, to … ah … penetrate into the Jungle.’

  Sarah contemplated her husband as she might contemplate the goings-on of a pup. ‘Hadn’t you better go back to bed?’ she said.

  ‘Bed? Certainly not!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘This is no time for bed. I have a great deal of urgent business to … ah … to negotiate. I must… ah … ascertain the whereabouts of the … ah … Notary Public, and … ah … take steps … ah …’

  ‘Then you’d better go and shave,’ said Sarah laconically.

  The little man’s eloquence collapsed in mid-flight. He gazed helplessly at his wife, bewildered by the shock of his sudden descent to earth. Then he caught at the word shave that still echoed in his mind. ‘Shave? Oh … ah …! Well, yes, perhaps … ah …’ he said, and, still carrying the letter, strutted out of the room.

  Sarah did not move from her chair. She sat motionless, staring reflectively at an ornament on the mantelpiece. Everything would have pointed to the simple fact that the little man was delirious, had it not been for the text of the letter. That, she knew, was beyond his powers of invention. No, the thing was true enough. They had come into an enormous fortune. What a state of things! She regarded it as little else than a nuisance. They were perfectly happy as they were. Her own life was fully and satisfactorily occupied in managing the house and Mr. Darby; and, until recently, Mr. Darby’s life had been equally well occupied between his home and the office. Work, to Sarah’s mind, was not primarily a means of livelihood but of self-expression. The idea of ceasing to work because one came into a fortune never occurred to her. She and her husband were respectable people, settled permanently in a comfortable and satisfactory mode of life. If any hitch occurred in the happy tenor of their days, as it had recently in Mr. Darby’s, it could only be attributed to stomach. It was especially unfortunate that this event should have occurred at present, because it found Mr. Darby in an unsettled state and would put it in his power to indulge his wildest ideas. He had always been subject to ideas, but there was little harm in this so long as there was no chance of his trying to realize them. Now, Heaven knew what he would do. It was as if her child had suddenly grown up and she had lost control over him. With a deep sigh she got up and continued her dusting of the sitting-room which his coming downstairs had interrupted.

  She had finished this, spent a few minutes in the kitchen, and returned on another errand to the sitting-room when she again heard steps on the stairs. This time, she could hear, he had his boots on. There was a pause when he had reached the bottom, and a minute or two later Mr. Darby appeared in the doorway of the sitting-room fully dressed in black coat and bowler hat. In his right hand he held the silver-mounted walking stick which he generally used only when going to church.

  ‘I am going,’ he announced, ‘to the Bank, about the … ah … Affidavit; and also,’ he added, ‘to ascertain the whereabouts of the … ah … Notary Public’ His face was already composed into an expression befitting these occasions.

  ‘Don’t be late for dinner,’ Sarah called out as he disappeared, ‘because there’s a nice little bit of pork; that is,’ she added more loudly, ‘if you can eat it.’

  There was a sound of returning footsteps and for a moment Mr. Darby’s face, transformed by a sudden unofficial radiance, appeared round the door.

  ‘I could eat anything!’ he said and disappeared once more.

  Chapter VI

  False Dawn

  Mr. Darby occupied the remaining days of his leave of absence from the office in a variety of solemn and important acts. The first thing to do was to have the affidavit drawn up. He had no solicitor, so what was he to do? Obviously, to appoint one. Mr. Marston’s solicitors were Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield and that fact was for Mr. Darby a sufficient recommendation. His visit to his bank, the invitation into the Manager’s sanctum and the deference with which he was received there; the visit to Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield—who, to Mr. Darby’s surprise, turned out very conveniently to be also the Notary Public—were both conducted with a becoming gravity. Mr. Darby was in his element. It was not only the solemn official acts that delighted him: the moment when they were completed and the officials concerned descended from their officialdom and offered Mr. Darby their very hearty congratulations, was equally satisfying. The visit to Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield and the putting of his affairs into their hands relieved him greatly, for his ignorance of all matters pertaining to the law had already begun to weigh on him. The idea, for instance, of having to write to Somerset House for his birth certificate had troubled him deeply. Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield proved to him that it was the simplest thing in the world. He arrived home, after his first morning at large, a few minutes late for midday dinner, pleading in excuse the excessive importance of his errands, and finding his excuse, with Sarah, in the royal justice he did to the nice little bit of pork. His radiant happiness had its effect on her. She could not find it in her heart to chill the glowing little man by betraying her own lack of enthusiasm. She was in the position of a fond parent whose child has been given the kind of toy that entrances the child but wrecks the serenity of the home. And, after all, what could she do? What could she have done even if the fortune had been left to her? Nothing, but grin and bear it.

  When he had dined, Mr. Darby produced from his breast pocket a large brand new crocodile-skin cigar case, opened it with a careless deliberation and slightly raised eyebrows, and selected a cigar. Having done so, he examined the cigar critically and then glanced a little doubtfully at Sarah. Sarah was watching him with an amused smile. Mr. Darby at once averted his eyes with a slight frown and turned
his attention to lighting and trying the cigar. He blew out a long deliberative jet of smoke, frowned again, as if not altogether pleased with the aroma, tried another puff and appeared to decide that the cigar was good.

  ‘Tell me, Jim,’ said Sarah, ‘what are you going to do?’

  ‘To do? Now?’ Mr. Darby looked at her alertly.

  ‘No, not now,’ said Sarah. ‘When you’ve got your money, I mean. The office, for instance!’

  ‘Oh, I shall leave the office, of course,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘When I go back on Wednesday I shall explain the state of affairs to Mr. Marston. There’s no great hurry, of course. My … ah … papers will take six weeks to reach Australia, and the … ah … documents relative to our fortune will take another six weeks to arrive, though the solicitors will no doubt wire us a thousand or two to keep us going.’

  ‘Very kind of them, I’m sure,’ said Sarah grimly.

  Mr. Darby ignored the remark. ‘I shall not leave Mr. Marston,’ he said, ‘until he can find a suitable substitute. Meanwhile I shall of course give him my services free. It would be ridiculous for me to accept a salary from a man in such … ah … modest circumstances.’

  Sarah rose from her chair and began to clear the table, while Mr. Darby pursued his appreciation of the cigar. When it was half finished, he too rose. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I must be off. There still remains … ah … a considerable … ah …’ He went into the hall leaving behind him the cloudy suggestion of vast negotiations and a fog of expensive cigar smoke. Sarah with a grimace went over to the window and threw it wide open. ‘Well, at least,’ she thought to herself, ‘it’s cured him. That’s one thing to be thankful for.’

  Mr. Darby, meanwhile, had issued gravely from his home with the feeling that, as he had said to Sarah, there still remained … ah … a considerable … ah. He had to pay a second visit to his bank, and so, feeling full of energy, he walked there. It was not until he had accomplished this—the visit was only a matter of five minutes—that he realized that he had nothing whatever else to do. He stood outside the bank looking up and down the street and feeling rather let down. It was hardly believable that, with this immense, earth-shaking thing only a few hours old, there should be, at the moment, nothing to do about it, no more important acts to perform, no more visits to official persons, no more congratulations to receive. Then his expression changed suddenly, his eye brightened, the momentary cloud had passed. For he had remembered that the whole town lay before him, the Central Station, the Quayside, the streets with all their wealth of alluring shops. He glanced at his watch, for he had felt a sudden impulse to hurry along Palmer Street, skip gaily down Cliff Street and dive into The Schooner. On the way he might perhaps purchase at a jeweller’s some trifle, some small token …! But no. The Schooner would be closed, and in any case Sarah’s informers might detect him in the act of presenting the gift.

  Well, he had a little shopping to do; for on his way home he was going to look in on George Stedman and Samuel Cribb, impart to them, in rather an off-hand way, the astonishing news and ask them to drop in after supper,—the Stedmans to-day, the Cribbs to-morrow—and, the occasion being what it was, this dropping in, Mr. Darby planned, was to be regaled by a bottle of champagne and a cigar. He had said nothing of this to Sarah, but Mr. Darby was a born diplomatist: he knew that to her a visit from the Stedmans never came amiss, and with that as the thin end of the wedge he would open a way for the champagne, the cigars, and the Cribbs. Where he stood in deliberation outside his bank in Brackett Street, Mr. Darby was only a few doors from Edgington’s, the wine merchants. He therefore put himself in motion at once and in a moment was facing over the counter the same man who had served him some weeks ago.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I… ah … liked the … ah … Clicquot you gave me some weeks ago.’ He was still a little uncertain of the pronunciation of the wine and slurred it over unostentatiously.

  The shopman smiled. ‘Very pleased to hear it, sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘a nice, sound wine I thought it. I took two bottles, if you recollect, to … ah … to try. Please send me half a dozen to-day.’

  ‘With pleasure, sir. Which wine did you say it was?’

  ‘Champagne,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘The … ah … it was a hundred and thirty-six shillings, I think.’

  ‘Ah. That would be the Clicquot, sir. To what address may I send it?’

  Mr. Darby gave his name and address, paid for the wine, and went out of Edgington’s and down Brackett Street murmuring Kleeko, Kleeko … ah … Kleeko to himself until he felt he had memorized it. He walked with dignified leisure down Ranger Street, since there was no hurry, indeed there was the imperative need to kill as much time as possible, for he would have nothing to do if he went home. George Stedman would be busy in his shop, and Samuel Cribb inaccessible in a Railway Office. But time did not weigh heavily on Mr. Darby. Shop-window after shop-window delayed his course down Ranger Street and it was some time before he passed Number Thirty Seven on the opposite side of the road. He glanced up at the windows. Nothing was to be seen behind the blind stare of the panes. It was difficult to believe that Mr. Marston, McNab and Pellow were all hard at work up there, unconscious of his presence in the street below. Well, he was done with all that now. True, he was returning to the office to-morrow, but none the less he was done with it, he was free of it. He was returning merely to give notice and, if necessary, to accommodate Mr. Marston for a short while beyond the term of his notice. He would be sorry to leave Mr. Marston: they had always been very good friends: and McNab and Pellow too,—nice lads, both of them. But other spheres called him: his path stretched dimly out into the world, the unknown. It was festooned with scarlet orchids: green parrots screamed at him as he passed: he stretched out his hands to part the heavy green foliage and collided with a gentleman in a clerical collar. This enabled Mr. Darby to realize that he was now skirting the railings of St. John’s Churchyard and to recollect that his path, for the present, stretched no further than the shop of Harrington & Co where he proposed to buy a box of cigars. He paused to look into the window before entering and smiled as he again inspected the cigar cabinet. Only recently he had been beguiling the drabness of his life by imagining himself ordering the cabinet. It had been the maddest fantasy then: now he could, if he chose, easily turn it into a plain fact. Not that he was going to do so. Mr. Darby had a sense of congruity. A large, elaborate cigar cabinet required as a setting a large and elaborate house: in Number Seven Moseley Terrace it would be incongruous. No, a box—a box of fifty—was the most that Number Seven would stand, and probably more than Sarah would stand without cynical protest.

  When he came out of the shop with the box under his arm he thought that he could amuse himself for a while in that portal of the great world, the Central Station. Before now Mr. Darby had strolled into the station, bought a platform ticket and seen off an important train—the Flying Scotsman, perhaps, newly arrived from King’s Cross and bound for the far north of Scotland—just for the pure pleasure of the thing. Well, if there was an important train due when he reached the station now, he would do it again; but what was his chief intention at the moment was to run his eye over the posters. He had often done this, too, but only as a means of indulging his fancy. This time it would be no matter of fancy: he would submit himself actually to the temptation offered by each. If he felt like falling,—well, he was perfectly at liberty to fall, or at least he would be, in a few weeks’ time. And so he passed under the wide Tuscan portico where cabs came and went and the long line of parked cars stood waiting, and so through the pillared entrance into the great station. And soon he found himself urged to buy a cheap return ticket to London, to flee to the Sunny South of France, to visit German Castles, or to take part in Winter Sports under the formidable peaks of the Alps.

  But about the remote attractions of the Equator and the Jungle these posters were mute. And that, thought Mr. Darby, was as it should be, for the lands of his dreams were sacred
places undefiled by tourists and the publicity which entices and exploits the tourist. However, these other places were alluring enough, and in the intervals of more solemn travel he would certainly submit, when the spirit moved him, to these humbler enticements. And besides all this, of course, he would spend much of his time in England, in London, in Society. For Mr. Darby had always felt that he was destined by character, inclination, and—well, yes, why not?—by certain abilities, to play a more important role in society than he had yet done. His birthday party and the speech he had then made flashed into his memory for a moment: yes, that was more the kind of thing, if combined, of course, with more serious and practical significance than a mere supper party, which would offer some scope to his … well … his inclinations. A swift flight of visions shot through his mind, a brief glimpse of Mr. William James Darby presiding at Committee meetings, arriving five minutes late and pleading that he had been detained by important business with the Lord Mayor: Mr. William James Darby as Lord Mayor himself, bowing from a coach in his mayoral robes and chain of office: Sir James Darby, the well known explorer and public figure, on a more marked occasion, presiding with easy joviality at a public banquet. Mr. Darby was too accustomed to spectres of this kind to be at all surprised at their sudden invasion of him in the Central Station. Not that it ever occurred to him to dismiss them as fantastic or ridiculous. Certainly not. For, though they were not facts, they were perfectly respectable creatures of the mind.

  Yes, thought Mr. Darby, as these visions swept past him and he again found himself confronted by the Central Station and its posters,—yes, London for headquarters, the … ah … Metropolis. ‘Mr. William James Darby has left Seven Moseley Terrace, Newchester-on-Dole, for London. He expects to spend some weeks in the Metropolis.’

  Suddenly he tired of posters. The truth was, he wanted to sit down. He glanced at the clock. It was still only twenty past four. Then a bright idea struck him. He would buy an evening paper and go and have a cup of tea in the lounge of the Station Hotel. An excellent notion, and very … ah … appropriate too, for it was in that very hotel that they had all had dinner with Uncle Tom Darby when he had stayed there over thirty years ago. Mr. Darby had not been into it since. In a few moments, paper in hand, he had pushed through the revolving doors of the station entrance to the hotel and was seated in an armchair in a corner of the lounge. A waiter brought a tray of tea and toast to the small table beside his chair and with pleasant sensations of idleness and dignity Mr. Darby settled down to a luxurious hour.