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

by Martin Armstrong

  She threw open the parlour door and Mr. Darby, hat in hand like a visitor, entered. The old spindle-shanked furniture, the antimacassars, the coloured glass vases, all the old gimcrackery had gone. At first he thought that the harmonium had gone too. But no: thank goodness, there it was, though so changed as to be at first unrecognizable, for not a photograph, not a mat, remained on it. Its nakedness was almost indecent. In the corner, where the chiffonier had been, stood a large roll-top desk: two easy chairs upholstered in dark green leather stood on either side of the fireplace. There were curtains of a lighter green and a green Axminster rug on the floor; and, even more wonderful than all these things, a telephone stood on top of the desk.

  Mr. Darby surveyed the room in silence. A pang shot through him. To find the parlour, the old social centre of his home, thus abolished and, in its place, the visible sign of Sarah’s vigorous independence, brought home to him suddenly the reality of the change he had feared. For a moment he stood paralysed. Then, in a voice which in spite of himself betrayed his emotion, he remarked: ‘Well, I must say, you’ve made a clean sweep, Sarah.’

  ‘Do you mind, Jim?’ Sarah asked. ‘It had to be done. I found it hopeless, after a time, to do my work on the dining-room table.’

  Already he had recovered himself: for, once the first shock was over, it became apparent to him that the new room was much more in keeping with their present status than the crowded, old-fashioned parlour.

  ‘Mind?’ he said. ‘Not at all. Quite the contrary! Quite the contrary!’

  ‘We can still use it as a sitting-room, you see,’ Sarah explained, ‘when we have friends in.’

  ‘Of course! Of course! ‘said Mr. Darby, and then inconsequently he added: ‘I suppose you’re very busy nowadays, Sarah,—out most of the day, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I’m busy, Jim,’ she replied, ‘but I shall be able to manage a day or two off while you’re here. But to-morrow I have to be out all day: your telegram came too late for me to alter that. Still, you’ll be busy to-morrow, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ said Mr. Darby, becoming important. ‘I have to see my Solicitors and have a talk with the … ah … Bank Manager, and so on.’

  Having reinstated the little man’s self-esteem Sarah brought back his attention to the room. She was proud of the room and her work and wanted him to share her pride. ‘That desk, Jim’—she went to it and swung the top open—‘is a godsend. I have such a terrible lot of letters and forms and papers to attend to nowadays. Look at them all.’

  The desk was covered with neat piles of papers and pamphlets: the pigeon-holes were full of letters, notebooks. An open map lay on the left of the writing pad.

  ‘I’m on the committee of the Northern Division now,’ she said; ‘so what with that and the inspecting, I’m kept pretty busy.’ She laughed contentedly. ‘You see what you’ve driven me to, Jim.’

  Mr. Darby did not reply. The accusation was obviously absurd. What had he to do with this craze of Sarah’s? Still, so long as it kept her happy! And, anyhow, it couldn’t be helped. As for his own work and its lamentable failure, Sarah would never know anything about that. There was no good telling her: she wouldn’t understand. But if things had turned out differently, if matters had gone as he had hoped, if he had not been defeated by prejudice and corruption in high places …! His anger against England flared up again for a moment. He turned, went out into the hall, and hung up his hat and coat.

  Supper restored his good humour; and no wonder, for Sarah had again risen supremely to the occasion. She had even got in a bottle of Champagne. Mr. Darby regarded it with shining spectacles. ‘Is it the Clicquot?’ he asked, turning the bottle round to look at the label.

  ‘No,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s Ayala. You’ll find it better than the Clicquot. Not quite so dry!’

  He turned an astonished face to her, but she was occupied in serving him with a beautifully fried sole. A neat maid in cap and apron handed him the Tartare Sauce.

  ‘Well, I must say, Sarah,’ he remarked as supper drew to a close, ‘that was admirable, quite admirable; better than the Balmoral.’

  ‘The Balmoral! I should think so indeed,’ replied Sarah; ‘home cooking is always better than the stuff you get in hotels. And, talking of cooking, I asked the Stedmans and the Cribbs to come to supper to-morrow night.’

  ‘Excellent! ‘said Mr. Darby. ‘Excellent, my dear! And what are you going to give us?’

  ‘You wait and see,’ said Sarah. ‘That’s my business. But the wine’s your business, remember.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr. Darby, looking very serious. ‘If I can find time I’ll slip down to Edgington’s in the … ah … course of the morning. Champagne and a really good port, I think! Yes, a few bottles of … ah … Ayala. You’re quite right about the Ayala, Sarah: it’s better than the Clicquot.’

  • • • • • • • •

  Just as a benevolent uncle brings his niece a present from London, so Mr. Darby, seeing next morning in the Daily Chronicle that the Lord Mayor of Newchester had opened a fund for the Newchester hospitals, marked his return to that city by sending a cheque for a thousand pounds; ‘a small donation to a cause I have very much at heart,’ as he styled it in his letter to the Lord Mayor. That accomplished, he set off on foot for town. Yet, despite the mass of important business on his hands, he found time to look in at Stedman’s shop. He found George Stedman serving a customer: another customer was being served by the young assistant. George raised his head at the sound of the shop bell and, seeing that it was Mr. Darby, exclaimed ‘Good morning, Sir James!’ with great seriousness.

  Mr. Darby blinked, paused, and then replied loftily: ‘Good morning … ah … Stedman!’

  The customers turned their heads, glanced at Mr. Darby, and then pretended that all was as usual. But nothing was really as usual: augustness had filled the place. Mr. Darby himself felt it, so great is the power of even a fictitious title.

  When the customers had gone, glancing back at Mr. Darby as they departed, Stedman opened the hatch in the counter. ‘Now, sir!’ he said and beckoned Mr. Darby in. ‘William,’ he called to his assistant, ‘take the shop, please; and give me a call if there’s more than three.’

  Mr. Darby went behind the counter and followed George Stedman into the Stedmans’ sitting-room. Stedman crossed the room and opened another door. ‘Jane,’ he bawled, ‘Jim Darby!’ He turned to Mr. Darby and with his hands on his shoulders pressed him into an armchair. ‘Well, Jim,’ he shouted, ‘how’s London?’

  Mr. Darby shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, so-so, thank you, George!’

  George raised his eyebrows till they vanished into his mop of grey hair. ‘Only so-so? Has some of the gilt come off the gingerbread?’

  ‘All of it, George. I’ve done with London.’ There was serious displeasure in Mr. Darby’s tone.

  ‘Done with it? Good!’ Stedman smacked Mr. Darby on the knee. ‘Then you’re coming back to Newchester!’

  ‘No, George,’ Mr. Darby replied with a melancholy shake of the head. ‘No. I’ve done with London and I’ve done with England. I’m … ah … cutting loose, going to Australia.’

  ‘What? For good and all? ‘roared Stedman in amazement.

  Mr. Darby’s reply was forestalled by the entry of Mrs. Stedman with a tray of wineglasses and a bottle. Mr. Darby rose from his chair, she set down the tray, and they shook hands. ‘Well, Mr. Darby,’ she said, ‘I hope we’ve got you back for good.’

  ‘Back for good?’ shouted George. ‘Not likely! Not him! He’s going to get as far away from us as he can possibly get; going to Australia, if you please. He’s sick of us and he’s sick of England.’

  ‘Well I never!’ said Mrs. Stedman. ‘And what’s the matter with England, Mr. Darby?’

  Mr. Darby assumed an appearance of dignified pain. ‘England has disappointed me, Mrs. Stedman.’

  The Stedmans glanced at each other open-eyed. ‘What next?’ the glance said.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Mr. Da
rby with a weary sigh, ‘but the long and the short of it is, George and Mrs. Stedman, that I offered the Nation a valuable collection of pictures (paintings by British Old Masters), and my offer has been rejected.’

  ‘Why? ‘asked George.

  ‘Why indeed?’ asked Mr. Darby holding out indignant open hands. ‘Ask the Director and Trustees of the National Gallery why. Ask the editors of the principal London papers why. Ask … well, ask the Nation itself why.’

  George Stedman, standing with his back to the fire, gazed gravely down on Mr. Darby as a Newfoundland might gaze down at a Yorkshire Terrier. The laborious method, suggested by Mr. Darby, for obtaining an answer to his question seemed to baffle him. ‘But … but I can’t see what that’s got to do with … well, Newchester, for instance,’ he said at last. ‘You didn’t offer the pictures to Newchester.’

  ‘But I did, George,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘I offered them to the National Gallery.’

  ‘Do you think Newchester knows, Jim?’

  ‘Probably not,’ said Mr. Darby; ‘but that doesn’t absolve Newchester of… ah … well … of obolquy.’

  ‘H … m! I see.’ George had become thoughtful. ‘Still, Jim,’ he said, raising his head,’ that’s just a manner of speaking. It doesn’t really mean anything when it comes down to brass tacks. You might as well say the Missus and me are to blame.’

  Mr. Darby slowly and discriminatingly nodded his head. ‘You are, George,’ he said, and seeing that George was about to burst out he raised his hand. ‘If not,’ he said, ‘what, I ask you, is democracy?’

  George Stedman was not prepared to say what democracy was; not, at least, at eleven o’clock in the morning. He countered the question, therefore, with another. ‘What about a drop of port wine?’

  Mr. Darby’s face instantly collapsed from its high seriousness. ‘Well, George,’ he said, beaming all over, ‘just for once in a way, you know.’

  The port, as Stedman knew it would, brought everything back to commonsense: like fog before sunshine, ethics, politics, and art vanished from the atmosphere, and after a second glass Mr. Darby issued forth from the Stedmans, and set off down Osbert Road in a state of seraphic contentment. He had made an appointment with Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield, his solicitors, for twelve o’clock, and one with Mr. Lingard, his Bank Manager, for after lunch. As Sarah would be out till half-past five, he had said he would lunch in town. He wouldn’t be surprised, he told himself as he turned into Savershill Road, if he ran down and had a few sandwiches at The Schooner. ‘Funny little old-fashioned houses!’ he thought, as with eyes matured by travel he for the first time in his life considered with detachment the terraces of pale pink-and-white brick houses, slate-roofed, and with squares of iron-railed garden that intermittently edged the long stretch of Savershill Road. In the old days horse-trams had rolled past them with an imperturbable leisure, on their journey between the top of Osbert Road or the Punch Bowl at Savershill, and the Newchester Central Station. The Osbert Road trams were drawn by a pair of horses, but the Punch Bowl tram was a one-horse concern, and Mr. Darby remembered how it seemed very often that horse and tram were independent, for the traces between the two hung slack, the horse danced slowly on by itself, and the tram, as if by some motive power of its own, trundled faithfully after it. It was just at the point he had now reached, where the road wheeled into the slope of Tarras Bridge, that he had, about forty years before, seen for the first time one of the new pneumatic-tyred bicycles. He descended Tarras Bridge. Now he was in Newchester and the houses gave place to shops. ‘All very provincial, of course!’ he said to himself as he entered Newfoundland Street. ‘But a pleasant town none the less,’ he allowed, as he found that the shops still held their old fascination.’ Yes, a … ah … singularly pleasant little town! ‘This sentiment, when it is realized that the population of Newchester-on-Dole is not far short of two hundred and fifty thousand, will give some indication of the largeness of Mr. Darby’s outlook at this time.

  He quickened his pace now, sternly ignoring the enticements of the shops, for in matters of business he was always singularly punctual and it was already ten minutes to twelve.

  • • • • • • • •

  At half-past twelve he was able to shake off for a while the shackles of business; in other words, his brief interview with Mr. Bradfield, of Messrs. Chepstow & Bradfield, was satisfactorily concluded. He paused on their doorstep, sniffed the air like a colt turned out to grass, and then plunged into the town. Rather a nice idea had come to him while listening to the legal advice of Mr. Bradfield a few minutes ago. He would do what he had thought of doing, and somehow refrained from doing, some months ago: he would, before running down to The Schooner for lunch, purchase some small token for Miss Sunningdale. Ormerod & Sparsdale, the most important jeweller’s shop in Newchester, was almost on the way to the Quayside. He would look in there and choose something.

  A few minutes later he was hurrying past the back of the town hall. At the other side of the small square the Cathedral tower soaring majestically to the clouds nodded to the returned prodigal. Even in the eyes of the new Darby it was impressive and the new Darby admitted it. ‘A noble monument!’ he said. ‘Incontrovertially a noble monument!’ But the church itself, he now saw, was no match for it. Huddled beneath that towering mass of stone crowned with the stone lantern lifted high on flying buttresses, it showed itself now for what it really was, a parish church; for it was only in recent times that it had been promoted to a cathedral. Mr. Darby compared it with Westminster Abbey, with Peterborough, York and Durham which he had seen from the train as he journeyed between Newchester and London, and wondered at his old acceptance of it. ‘Very provincial!’ he said to himself now. ‘Very provincial indeed!’

  Arrived at Ormerod & Sparsdale’s he hovered for a while outside the windows. One was devoted to Georgian silver. ‘Very handsome! Very massive! ‘he said, as he inspected it with approval. He passed over a silver-gilt dinner-set in the next window, ignored a display of gold watches, gold cigarette cases, gold matchboxes, studs, sleeve-links, pencil-cases, and paused at a window full of jewelry. Rather a nice pearl and diamond ring, that! But what a. price! Really, a hundred and fifty guineas for a ring, however rich you were, was pretty steep. Ormerod & Sparsdale’s seemed rather a dangerous shop. Ah! That was better: twenty pounds for quite a nice diamond and ruby ring. And there was another, better still,—three quite decent diamonds, set close together; fifteen guineas! Mr. Darby left the window, glanced up and down the street, and entered the shop. He had never been inside it before and was amazed to find it so large and imposing. It was quite a walk to the nearest counter. ‘I want to see some small diamond brooches,’ he said to the lordly, middle-aged gentleman who attended him. ‘Just a … ah … comparatively inexpensive trifle.’

  ‘Quite so, sir!’ The middle-aged gentleman turned, drew a totally noiseless drawer out of a cabinet, and placed on the glass counter a velvet-lined tray thickly sprinkled with diamonds, diamonds clustered into the shapes of stars, crescents, wings and flowers. As he pushed it softly towards Mr. Darby the diamonds caught the light and flashed from blue to rose. Mr. Darby pored over them, breathless with wonder. For a moment his attention was arrested by a glittering pair of wings. ‘That one is fifty pounds, sir. But there are others less expensive. This, for instance, is only five guineas. That, that, and that one are each ten guineas.’

  After long and ecstatic scrutiny Mr. Darby chose a ten-guinea diamond heart.

  It was not until he was briskly descending Cliff Street and felt the watery air, blown up from the Quayside, upon his face that it occurred to him that it might have been better to choose another shape. A heart, after all, ran the risk of being taken too seriously, or, on the other hand, too frivolously, or it might prove to be merely embarrassing. However it was too late now. He would be able, perhaps, to suggest the proper point of view by some timely remark: ‘A small present, Miss Sunningdale, to keep the heart in the right place.’ Mr. Darby smiled blandly
and unconsciously at a passer-by. Rather good, that, on the spur of the moment, he thought. But the whole business would require careful handling. He was so occupied with the problem that he had lost consciousness of his surroundings. He turned a corner and was roused by a sudden buffet of wind. The familiar scene burst upon him with the suddenness of a revelation, the towering black skeleton of the High Level Bridge, the smoke-grimed houses of Portshead stepping sharply to the bright restless lead-coloured river, the whirling smoke, the whirling gulls, the masts and rigging and funnels, the cranes crooked above their little wheeled sheds. A broad-beamed tug, black as the houses, was thrusting its powerful way down stream, drawing a great bright javelin of furrowed water after it. All the old wonder, all the old inexhaustible romance was here: yes, this was the one thing that not London itself had been able to give him, the true home of his imagination. It was here that he had lived and felt most intensely: this mean little smoke-fouled valley, more than any place in the world, had fed his enthusiasms and soothed his sorrows. Mr. Darby stood still and took the place to his heart: his spectacles glittered in the bleak northern light. Then, the heart satisfied, the belly asserted its claim. What the belly claimed was lunch, and Mr. Darby’s eye sought The Schooner. As he entered the porch he remembered the diamond heart in his pocket and a sudden overwhelming shyness assailed him.

  But his shyness was quickly and disconcertingly extinguished, for he found himself faced, across the bar, by a large dark woman of unattractive appearance. She was amiable and ready to be talkative, but Mr. Darby was not interested. He ordered his Bass and sandwiches and fell upon them, not, it is true, without relish, but mournfully. It was not until he had finished his Bass and ordered another that he spoke to the new barmaid. ‘Is Miss Sunningdale away?’

  ‘Miss Sunningdale? Gone!’ said the barmaid. ‘Left last week. Gone to Canada, I believe.’

  ‘Indeed? Dear me!’ said Mr. Darby glancing dreamily at the bottles behind the woman’s head.