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

by Martin Armstrong

‘Shocking places!’ said the Major. ‘Put the fear of God into you, you know!’

  ‘But are they not … ah … very wonderful?’ faltered Mr. Darby.

  ‘Wonderful? I should think they are, sir. But they’re no picnic, you know. They’re sinister, malevolent. You feel that they’re after your blood. And they’ll get you if they can. Oh, it’s a wonderful life. A man’s a man, there. You’re thrown on your own resources. But you’ve got to be full of beans, you know. You’ve got to have an iron constitution. And even if you have, the fever gets you down sometimes.’

  ‘There’s fever? ’ said Mr. Darby.

  ‘Oh plenty of fever,’ said the Major gaily. ‘There’s Malaria and Yellow Fever, and that horrible thing, Black-water Fever. You’ve simply got to stuff yourself with quinine. It’s these damned bugs, you see. The mosquitoes and so on. The bugs, in fact, often turn the place into a hell. What with the mosquitoes, the sand flies, the motucas and the piums, and those little devils the fire ants.’ The Major looked sharply at Mr. Darby. ‘Do you like spiders?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Ah … no … ah, I can’t say … ah …’ said Mr. Darby.

  ‘I saw spiders half a foot across,’ said the Major. ‘I don’t say they’d do you any harm unless you touched them, but they don’t look nice if you’ve any feeling against spiders. I tell you these things, Mr. Darby,’ said the Major pleasantly, ‘so that you shall know what to expect. There’s no good my pretending the place is Heaven, is there?’

  ‘No, no, no, certainly not!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Still, I suppose the forests have their … ah … beauties,—the flowers and so on?’

  The Major shook his head. ‘Extraordinary how few flowers there are,’ he said. ‘You hardly ever see one. But the vegetation, the huge trees and all the rich growth are, of course, amazing. Yes, that is beautiful,—beautiful and formidable.’

  ‘Do you find snakes at all? ‘Mr. Darby enquired nonchalantly.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Major, ‘oh, yes; if you’re interested in snakes, you won’t be disappointed. Boa-Constrictors are fairly plentiful, and if you’re lucky you may find the Anaconda—the Sucuruju, as the Indians call him. He’s a water snake, of course. I saw a small one once near Antonio Malagueita, eighteen feet long he was. I’m told they go up to over forty. But I don’t care for snakes: I keep out of their way. What interested me most were the birds and butterflies: they’re quite superb in those parts.’

  ‘I take your word for it, Major,’ said Mr. Marston, ‘but I, personally, after what you have told us, prefer Cannes or Biarritz for a holiday.’

  ‘Oh, if you want a holiday!’ said the Major. ‘The tropics are no holiday, once you get off the beaten track; and my own opinion is that our friend here is a bit too old to begin.’ He turned to Mr. Darby. ‘Not quite the right physique, sir, if you’ll forgive my saying so. However, you can but try. Possibly the Zambesi might suit you better, or the Himalayas. But wherever you get forest and jungle in the tropics, it’s all much of a muchness, I fancy. Insect pests, fever, and, of course, the laborious business of getting along at all. You’ve got to be pretty wiry. Now, I shouldn’t say, Mr. Darby, that you are wiry. And your spectacles, of course, would be a handicap. However,’—he made a gesture of entire sympathy with Mr. Darby’s possible obduracy in face of all these discouragements—’ if you decide in the end to try your luck, I shall be delighted to give you all the advice I can. No doubt it will be a bit out of date—it’s twenty-five years since I did my little bit of travelling—but at least it would put you in the way of getting up-to-date information.’

  Mr. Darby spoke his gratitude, but did not, for the moment, press for further details, and the conversation turned to other themes. But as he walked home the same evening he was thoughtful, and when he passed the window of Messrs. Thomas Cook he avoided the Sphinx’s gaze. Half way up Newfoundland Street his passing eye explored a window exhibiting a rich variety of silks and satins,—glistening falls of green, lilac, and rose; here a sudden foam of lemon yellow, there a fountain of cool grey. Suddenly he turned away with a shudder, for slung across this brilliant background, a sleek brownish material, looped in rope-like festoons, writhed like a snake from top to bottom of the window. Yes, the snakes would be the worst part of it, especially the … ah … the Angora … the Anaconundra … or whatever the creature’s name was. Perhaps the Major had laid it on a bit thick: it must be difficult to be quite truthful when you described your adventures. Still, if you divided everything the Major had said by two, things would be bad enough. And as he ascended the slope of Tarras Bridge Mr. Darby did his best to cope with a spider half a foot across. What could you do if you found a thing like that in your bedroom? Mr. Darby took a boot to it, hit it a smart blow with the flat of the sole. He might as well have taken a boot to a coconut. The creature leapt two feet and Mr. Darby leapt six. In his desperation he conjured up a portmanteau. With one eye on the spider, which seemed to be collecting itself for another jump, he stooped down and lifted the portmanteau. Then, straightening his back, he projected the portmanteau across the room. Above the heavy bump of its fall he heard a horrible dry crunch, a sound like the crushing of a couple of pounds of walnuts. Mr. Darby took out his handkerchief, removed his hat, and dried his brow. It only showed … when you let your imagination run away with you! ‘No!’ he said to himself decisively as he turned into the Savershill Road. ‘No! London first. The … ah … Metropolis.’

  Chapter X

  Mr. Darby’s Farewell

  Although Major Blenkinsop’s disquieting realism had been enough to revolutionize Mr. Darby’s schemes and to shift his immediate objective from the Tropics to the more temperate region of London, his heart was still in the Jungle. He was not abandoning the Jungle; he was simply postponing it. In thought he still spent much of his time there and after a few days he was inclined to pooh-pooh much that the Major had told him. For, after all, it stands to reason that the vivid first-hand experiences furnished by the fancy are more credible than second-hand information received from a comparative stranger; and Mr. Darby’s fancy still persisted in revealing to him a very much pleasanter place than the Major had described.

  ‘A nice enough man,’ Mr. Darby thought to himself, ‘but excitable.’ The Boa-Constrictors, the Anacondas, and the six-inch spiders crossed his mind once more, but already much of their horror was gone: they were shadowy creatures now, hardly more than unpleasant thoughts,—the Major’s thoughts. Mr. Darby shook his head sceptically over them. ‘Too sensational! Altogether too sensational!’ he said. Still, there was, after all, the Tropical Outfitters’ list given him by Mr. Marston. It had mentioned medicines for tropical diseases, fly-nets, boots that protected one against mosquitoes and leeches, and a price list is undeniably a sober fact. However, Mr. Darby was to some degree proof even against price lists. No doubt, he told himself, there were jungles and jungles. The jungles of the Amazon might conceivably be all that the Major said of them, and the hints of the price list regarding East Africa might be true enough, but elsewhere there must surely be jungles a little more … well, not exactly civilized; that wasn’t quite the word: but a little more comfortable, a little more fit for exploration. He would make enquiries, proper enquiries, in London. Yes, he would spend some time in London, then perhaps take a holiday in Switzerland and explore the Alps (for the Alps would surely be free from fevers and snakes), and so by degrees work up towards the Jungle. And then of course there was Australia. Sooner or later he would have to go and see his estates there. The Sydney solicitors had mentioned that it was advisable. Possibly there were jungles within reach of Australia. In that case he might combine the two journeys, looking in on a jungle either on the way out or on the way back. Meanwhile, London! He must tell Sarah of his change of plan. How glad she would be. It would make all the difference to the present condition of home life: yes, that was certainly a great point in favour of the change. For the problem of Sarah had been growing daily more painful to him. The spectacle of her profound unhappiness had
worked strongly upon his feelings. During all these weeks he had done his best to set his teeth and hold like a bulldog to his purpose, but for a soft-hearted man it was not easy. Day by day his resentment and antagonism faded in the presence of her suffering: he wanted to comfort and reassure her. But he could not do so without abandoning the Jungle: for the Jungle raised an impassable barrier between them, a barrier on one side of which Sarah clung jealously to their common life and home, while he cherished revolt and liberty on the other. Now the Jungle had withdrawn itself, floated up, as it were, into the flies like those gleaming screens of florid vegetation which suddenly soar upwards and vanish in the Transformation Scene of a Pantomime, and he and Sarah were once more face to face. Yes, he would tell her of the change at once. He did so the same evening.

  ‘For the present, Sarah,’ he said, looking up from the Newchester Daily Chronicle and clearing his throat as he sat by the sitting-room fire, ‘I’m giving up the … ah … the Jungle. I’ve decided that perhaps … ah … London … ah! Would you consider going to London?’ He glanced at her over the top of his spectacles, his mouth pursed as when he spoke of important matters.

  Sarah turned away and began to move things on the sideboard. The unexpected relief, the unexpected evidence that he was not bent on escaping from her and actually wanted to have her with him had so deeply moved her that she dared not try to speak. She heard the paper rustle in his hands: he was turning round, surprised no doubt that she did not answer him. She controlled herself. ‘Yes, Jim,’ she said, ‘I’ll come to London. I’d like to. I’d like to see it again.’ Years ago she had spent two months there for three years in succession when the Duke and Duchess went to their town house for the London season.

  She turned and glanced towards his chair. As she had guessed, he was looking at her: there was a broad, contented smile on his face. ‘That’s right!’ he said. ‘That’s right! We’ll have a good time, depend on it!’ Nothing more was said. The length of their visit and all the other details pertaining to it remained undiscussed. But the tension that had held them apart for weeks was suddenly relaxed and not only were they no longer held apart but they were brought closer together than they had been for years. Not that all Sarah’s sorrows were banished. Her life, the old life of herself and Jim and Number Seven Moseley Terrace, was still under sentence of death; they were still, as before, to be raised, by this wretched fortune, to a state of life in which she could foresee little but inertia and boredom, or, worse still, travelling—a lazy wandering from place to place with nothing to do. Travelling, Sarah felt, would be impossible to her. Unless holidays were filled with vigorous and useful action, unless she had a home, a home belonging not to a troop of servants but to herself, on which she could expend all her abounding energies, she would die or go mad. No, even at the risk of being separated from Jim for long periods, she couldn’t be idle for more than a week or two. But at least her worst sorrow had vanished: she and Jim were no longer painfully estranged. How horrible those weeks had been. Now, though the blow might fall any day, she no longer felt hopeless, and as for the visit to London, she was quite looking forward to that. It would be nice to be in London and free to do whatever they liked without considering the expense, so long as it didn’t go on too long. When, next day, Mr. Darby hinted that, in view of their visit, a further extravagance in the matter of clothes was desirable, she smiled her grim and charming smile and acquiesced. ‘Well, if you will have it! ‘she said, her pleasure evident through her pretended intolerance.

  • • • • • • • •

  It was a week later that the budget of papers from Sydney arrived and Mr. Darby became in actual fact a millionaire. For the last time he set out from Number Seven Moseley Terrace for Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street.

  As a proper accompaniment to Mr. Darby’s mood Providence had provided a delicious April morning. Sunshine flooded Savershill. The railway cutting, Osbert Road, the long Savershill Road, the trees, the houses, terraces, shops, the Baptist Chapel, the Wesleyan Chapel, the parish Church of St. Luke were bathed in it, drowned in it, as if some rare crystalline liquid had fallen from Heaven and submerged the whole place far above the shining tips of its pinnacles and spires in one vast and glittering inundation. In the trees that leaned over garden walls the sparrows broke out, as Mr. Darby passed under them, into a clamour of jubilant chirping. High in the blue above the spire of the Wesleyan Chapel rooks wheeled in the liquid sunlight. ‘Darby! Darby!’ They shouted to one another. ‘Darby! Darby! Darby! ‘Two steam trains, symbols of the travels upon which he was soon to set out, escorted his progress down the Osbert Road, hurling long snowy billows of smoke into the sparkling air; and, though it was only a quarter to nine, the clock of St. Luke’s Church, as he went punctually by, mysteriously struck twelve. Nor was Mr. Darby to-day unappreciative of these demonstrations. He noted and enjoyed them all. The smallest chirp of the smallest bird found its echo in his heart. In Newfoundland Street, Brackett Street, and Ranger Street the shop-windows had been newly dressed and displayed their multifarious and many-coloured wares with the sole object of delighting him. Their windows gleamed at him in the sunlight and Mr. Darby’s spectacles gleamed back at them. It was a triumphal progress.

  But as he turned into the entrance of Number Thirty Seven Mr. Darby grew suddenly sad, for he realized that, as an integral part of Messrs. Lamb & Marston, he was about to climb the familiar staircase for the last time. Except for Sundays and brief holidays, he had climbed it, summer and winter, wet and fine, happy and unhappy, for twenty-five years. That staircase and the office it led to had become a part of himself as much as he had become a part of them. They were bone of his bone. And now, by his own choice, they were to be cut away from him. As he slowly climbed the stairs he understood fully for the first time how painful the separation would be. It was not only that he was leaving Mr. Marston and McNab and Pellow (young Pellow was comparatively a new-comer, but he had already grown to be a vital part of the office): it was the parting from the office itself, the office of which the individuality of every room, every chair, table, desk, cupboard, every shelf and drawer, the very smell of them and touch of them, were bitten, as acid bites into the copper plate, into his memory and affections. Here he was now, almost at the top of the stairs; in a few seconds he would arrive, take his place in the general office, and everything would happen exactly as it always happened. But at lunch-time he would close his desk, walk out, shut the glass-panelled door behind him, and, as a member of that office, never, never return. As he contemplated it, Mr. Darby forgot his fortune. His million pounds had shrunk to a thing of less significance than the million dust-motes that Mrs. Blake, the office char, disturbed a little every morning before Messrs. Lamb & Marston came on the scene.

  But now he was entering the office, the footsteps of McNab and Pellow were following him upstairs. He hung up his coat and hat, and the details of the daily routine distracted his mind from the contemplation of the painful experience which was approaching him. He did not at once tell McNab and Pellow that he was leaving them at lunch-time, but when Mr. Marston’s bell rang for him and he was already on his way to the door, he turned and said: ‘My papers arrived from Australia this morning. At lunch-time I’m afraid I shall be going.’ Then, giving them no chance to reply, he turned and took refuge in Mr. Marston’s room. When, after ten minutes, he came back, he had broken the news to Mr. Marston and asked if he might leave him at lunch-time, and there and then—’ in case I don’t see you alone again, this morning,’ as Mr. Marston said—they had wished each other goodbye. From the unusual glitter in his spectacles, McNab and Pellow realized that this had happened and tactfully refrained from speaking. ‘If only I could have given him a present, some little reminder …’ Mr. Darby was thinking to himself. But it wouldn’t have done. It would have been awkward for them both and, Mr. Darby felt, not quite suitable. He looked at his watch. It was still only ten past ten. Mr. Darby clung to the morning. He dreaded the lunch-hour. But the morning elude
d him, slipped imperceptibly from his grasp, and left him, before he could prepare himself, face to face with the dreadful moment. He went to the hooks and put on his coat and hat. McNab and Pellow sat tight at their desks. Like Mr. Darby, they were embarrassed by the sad occasion.

  At last when he had buttoned the last button of his coat Mr. Darby pulled himself together. ‘Well,’he said, his spectacles glinting in the light from the windows, ‘well, I must say good-bye.’ He held out his hand to McNab who rose from his stool. They shook hands. ‘The best of luck, Mr. Darby!’

  ‘Thank you! Thank you, William.’ He fumbled in his coat pocket, brought out two envelopes, chose one and handed it to McNab. ‘A small parting present, with my best wishes,’ he said. He turned to Pellow. ‘And one for you, my boy!’ Then, patting him on the shoulder, he turned and hurried out of the room. The first envelope contained a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds and the second, one for a hundred.

  Book II

  Mr. Darby Cuts The Cable

  Chapter XI

  Mr. Darby Moves On London

  Great things have happened on the twenty-third of April. It is a day of note for Englishmen. On April the twenty-third in the year A.D. 303 St. George of Cappadocia, Patron Saint of England, was martyred by order of the Emperor Diocletian. On some previous date he had gallantly slain the Dragon at a place where, by a curious coincidence, Perseus, several centuries before, had slain a similar monster and rescued Andromeda. But that is not all. On April the twenty-third 1564 William Shakespeare was born, and on April the twenty-third 1616 he died. And when he descends to contemporary history the historian notes that it was on April the twenty-third that Mr. William James Darby of Savershill, Newchester-on-Dole, having come into his fortune, left home accompanied by Sarah his wife. There is for thoughtful persons, a remarkable similarity between the case of Mr. Darby of Savershill and that of St. George of Cappadocia. St. George was the champion of Religion: Mr. Darby championed Romance. And while St. George assailed and with the help of Providence slew the Dragon of Antichrist, Mr Darby, no less, fought fiercely against the Dragon of Custom, the sworn foe of poetry and imagination, and with the posthumous assistance of Uncle Tom Darby, overthrew him.