Gudgeon seized his glass in a trembling hand and drank. ‘Yes,’ he said, a trickle of whisky running from the corner of his mouth to his chin. ‘Yes, you’re right there. It’s pure waste of time talking to … a … to a man like you, Mr. Amberley.’
Mr. Amberley became persuasive. ‘Then why do so, Mr. Gudgeon? Why not ignore me? I only upset your nerves, it seems. If you will keep on at me we shall have you taking your own Food before long. But things needn’t go as far as that. Leave me alone. You may have noticed that I always leave you alone. When I can,’ he added quietly.
Mr. Darby laid his hand on Gudgeon’s shoulder. ‘Mrs. Gudgeon asked me to tell you,’ he said, ‘that she’s waiting for you.’
‘Eh? What? Wants me, you say? Mus’ be off.’ Gudgeon struggled from his chair and lurched unsteadily to the door.
Mr. Darby took his vacant seat and ordered a drink.
‘Mr. Darby,’ said Mr. Amberley, ‘I’m ashamed of myself. Bull-baiting is a degrading sport. But the fellow won’t let me alone. He has an unquenchable longing, it appears, to force me to approve of him. Ugh!’ Mr. Amberley shuddered. ‘What a swine! It’s strange, isn’t it, that the law should come down so heavily on murderers and thieves and embezzlers, and yet allow a fellow like that to make a fortune out of swindling the public?’
Mr. Darby laughed in reply. He was feeling pleased at the instant success of his attempt to assist Mrs. Gudgeon: the poor woman had looked so fearfully worried. It was evident to him once more that Mr. Amberley was a character, a character who had disproportionately strong feelings about patent medicines. Undeniably Gudgeon was rather a dislikable man, but it seemed to Mr. Darby unnecessary to make such a fuss about it; and Mr. Amberley, for all that his manner was calm, did make a fuss about his feelings towards Gudgeon. And so Mr. Darby laughed and made no reply. The steward brought his drink. It was a John Collins, a drink to which, since he had made its acquaintance on the Utopia, Mr. Darby had become extremely partial. He raised it to his lips at once and half emptied it in a single pull.
Mr. Amberley watched him and nodded sympathetically. ‘A good drink!’ he said.
‘An extremely good drink!’ said Mr. Darby with a satisfied sigh.
‘Finish it and have another,’ said Mr. Amberley. ‘I want to get the taste of Gudgeon out of my mouth, and a talk with you, Mr. Darby, will do it for me quicker than anything else.’
Mr. Darby accepted and they sat and talked till the smoking-room was empty.
• • • • • • • •
After Mr. Darby had retired to his cabin, undressed, got into bed, and switched out the light, a very unpleasant event took place. He was already in that vague half-dreaming, half-waking state in which idiotic and disconnected ideas float across even the sagest mind, when he was brought abruptly to himself by a small, distinct sound. He was almost sure that his door had been opened. With fluttering heart he lay motionless, all ears. The throbbing of the ship’s engines was like a giant heart that shared his apprehension. After a few seconds the sound repeated itself. This time there was no doubt. It was his door. Still he lay motionless, listening for all he was worth. Not the smallest sound was perceptible through the pulse of the ship, but Mr. Darby felt, felt unmistakably, that someone was in the room. Very cautiously he glided a hand to the electric-light switch and clicked it on.
For the moment he was so dazzled that he saw nothing: then, when his sight had grown as clear as it ever was without his spectacles, he saw a figure in a rich Chinese robe standing near the door. It was Lady Gissingham. Mr. Darby was definitely alarmed. He sat up in bed, staring at her with a palm extended as if to ward her off. Speechless, her feet rooted to the spot, Lady Gissingham stared back at him.
Then Mr. Darby closed his extended palm, all except one finger, the index finger. ‘There,’ he said in a slightly tremulous whisper, ‘is the door!’
To his intense relief Lady Gissingham turned from him. She had accepted her dismissal. Then she turned again. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she whispered, ‘I seem to have lost my way.’
Mr. Darby, sitting up in bed, pink and unspectacled, bowed, and she went out as cautiously as she had entered.
As soon as the door had closed on her, Mr. Darby skipped out of bed, went to the door, and bolted it. Then, already much calmer, he got back into bed and switched out the light. Of course her whispered excuse had not deceived him in the least. She had made it merely to save her face. That was the way to deal with a woman like that. Already in his mind his timid whisper had become a loud command: ‘There, madam, is the door!’ He rehearsed an account of the event: ‘Of course I ordered her out of my room at once. “There, madam,” I said, “is the door”; and she turned and slank … I should say slunk … out.’ A dangerous woman! An exceptionally dangerous woman! And so cunning too. Never, by so much as the stirring of an eyelid, had she shown in public the smallest awareness of him. As for her carrying-on with young Renton, Mr. Darby saw the meaning of it now, he plumbed to the depths the woman’s shrewd guile. It was a blind, simply a blind to divert attention from her true object, himself. Mr. Darby, lying there in the dark, coughed slightly. He could not help feeling a little flattered. But he was also genuinely alarmed. He would have to be extremely careful. That kind of woman would hardly give in after a single rebuff. There was an old proverb: ‘Faint heart never won fair lady.’ Nowadays, no doubt, that proverb applied equally to the other sex. Yes, he would have to be extremely careful.
• • • • • • • •
When Mr. Darby awoke next morning he at first found it difficult to believe that the exciting and disturbing event of the previous night had been anything more than a dream. Except perhaps in dreams, such a thing had never occurred to him before. Well, after all, it was an experience, and, he could not prevent himself from feeling, rather a flattering experience. While brushing his hair in the mirror he instinctively examined his appearance with a new interest. He checked the impulse to get out and put on his smartest tie, for that would simply have been to court disaster.
As he stepped out on deck after breakfast he met Lady Gissingham. What a depth of guile there was in the woman: she passed him without the faintest flicker of recognition. At the other end of the deck he passed young Renton who cut him dead.
As the day advanced it became clear, as Mr. Darby had anticipated, that his attempt to snatch young Tim Renton from the clutches of Lady Gissingham had had precisely the opposite effect. He had thrown him into her arms. On the following day they were hardly seen apart except at meals when Tim formed with his mother and sister a dismal and embarrassed trio and Lady Gissingham sat opposite a scowling and taciturn husband. Mr. Darby was much upset. The fact, known only to himself, that Tim Renton was not the real object of Lady Gissingham’s machinations did not lessen the unhappiness of Violet and Mrs. Renton, nor did it mean that Tim was not still running a serious risk, for it was hardly likely that Sir Alistair realized that his wife’s preoccupation with the young mm Was only a blind. Yet how could Mr. Darby enlighten either Tim or Violet? To tell them that he himself was the object of Lady Gissingham’s unlawful desires would sound like a fantastic and boastful delusion. Modest little man that he was, he couldn’t bring himself to commit such a breach of modesty. Tim, of course, would simply laugh and refuse to believe him: it would seem to him, in his youthful arrogance, too ridiculously impossible. But to Mr. Darby himself it did not seem improbable. After all, he was much closer in age to Lady Gissingham than this boy who was barely out of his teens. But what could he do about it? There was nothing, it seemed, that he could do: accordingly he did nothing. But the whole thing was very upsetting and he spent a somewhat restless and unhappy day.
That night, after he had retired to rest, Mr. Darby was again disturbed, but not, this time, by a visit from his pursuer. That would have been impossible, because his door was locked. He was disturbed on this occasion by subdued talk in the next cabin, Tim Renton’s. Mr. Darby had not been asleep, though it was already midnight,
when he heard young Renton’s door open and then shut, just as his own had done the night before. There was a pause and then he heard young Renton’s voice, sharp and apprehensive, as if he had suddenly woken. ‘Who’s that?’
‘S … h! All right! It’s only me.’ The reply was little more than a whisper, but Mr. Darby, with a thrill of apprehension, recognized the voice.
There was a sudden snap on the partition wall, and the grid that ran along the top of the partition threw an oblong fretted pattern of light on Mr. Darby’s ceiling. Young Renton had turned on the light.
‘You?’ said young Renton’s surprised voice. ‘What do you want?’
By straining his ears Mr. Darby could just hear their subdued voices. There was a faint laugh. ‘What do I want? Not a very gallant question, Tim. I want you, of course, my dear. I mean, I want to talk to you.’
‘But, I say,’ said the boy, ‘you oughtn’t to … to be here, you know.’
‘Oughtn’t I? On the contrary, I feel I oughtn’t to be anywhere else when you’re looking as charming as you are at present. You’re wise to wear blue pyjamas.’
There was silence for a moment. Then Tim Renton’s voice came again. ‘Look here, Lady Gissingham, you must go. Besides, I want to go to sleep.’
Lady Gissingham laughed again: it was no more than a hiss. ‘What a good boy it is!’ she whispered.
Tim’s voice grew more urgent. ‘No, it’s no good, Lady Gissingham: you must go. I don’t want you.’
‘Oh, you don’t want me, don’t you? ‘Even though she spoke so softly Mr. Darby could hear the sharp change in her voice. ‘Then what have you been …’
The words broke off short and Mr. Darby in his bed started violently, for the door of young Renton’s cabin opened again with a smart click. There was a long pause during which it seemed to Mr. Darby that the people next door must hear the beating of his heart above the throb of the engines.
At last a man’s voice spoke. ‘I thought I should find you here.’
‘Indeed, Ally? Then it’s lucky I didn’t disappoint you.’ Young Renton’s voice broke in.
‘Why did you expect to find her here? I don’t see why you should.’
Sir Alistair laughed contemptuously. ‘You must either be a liar or a very simple young man.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. But I didn’t expect her. I never asked her to come.’
‘You must have realized by this time, I should have thought,’ said Gissingham, ‘that she doesn’t wait for an invitation.’
‘Well, I wish you’d take her away.’ Young Renton’s voice and the things he said sounded frank and boyish beside the acid tones of the others.
‘You seem to have so much to say to each other that I think I’ll leave you,’ said Lady Gissingham. ‘You’re a pretty pair, one a bore, the other a prig.’
There was a faint sound as if she were moving, then a pause as if she had turned, ‘One a common sneak, the other a cur.’
The door opened and shut, loudly this time. ‘I advise you to steer clear of my wife,’ said Gissingham’s voice.
‘The advice is not needed, thanks!’ said young Renton, and again the door opened and shut. Nothing more disturbed the monotonous pulse of the engines, nothing more except, after a few moments, a smart click on the partition, which suddenly abolished the fretted pattern of light on Mr. Darby’s ceiling.
Well, really! The way people went-on on ships. Mr. Darby felt himself surrounded by adventure: the air was thick with mysteries and dangers. Mandratia and jungles seemed almost superfluous, when an ordinary English liner, even when the sea was calm, provided you with adventures enough to supply a Sunday paper. However, it was a blessing to know that Tim Renton had shaken off that sinister woman. Mr. Darby chuckled. The boy had stood up for himself capitally against those two nasty people, and, what with him and Sir Alistair, Lady Gissingham had had a very thin time of it. ‘My wife doesn’t wait for an invitation!’ That was a good one. Mr. Darby’s mind, like a cinema, began to unroll a fantastic drama of Lady Gissingham paying uninvited and unsuccessful visits to cabin after cabin. It faded out, leaving him more, instead of less, wakeful. He began to reflect, to reason. If she had been using Tim Renton as a blind, why had she gone to the length of paying him a visit? For a moment it seemed to Mr. Darby that his cinematographic fancy was correct, that Lady Gissingham actually went round indiscriminately. But that, of course, was absurd. The fact was, of course, that he himself had repelled her successfully; his loud, authoritative ‘There, madam, is the door!’ had actually convinced her, hardened libertine as she was, that her quest was hopeless, and she had fallen back on young Renton in desperation. At that point Mr. Darby’s reasoning presented him with a formidable question. What would she do now? Would she boldly throw off her mask and pursue him openly, as she had pursued young Renton? It would be awkward, extremely awkward. It would be far more difficult and embarrassing to keep her at bay publicly, in the presence of an interested, amused, and gossiping audience, then it had been in the privacy of his cabin. The whole situation was exceedingly disquieting. He would have, now, to be even more on his guard than before.
• • • • • • • •
Next morning Mr. Darby ordered Punnett to get out his oldest suit, chose a glaringly inappropriate tie which he tied carelessly, and, in short, deliberately made the worst of himself. He was resolved on the strictest discretion, even at the expense of personal dignity.
Chapter XXX
Mr. Darby Faces Death
Mr. Darby, arms akimbo, was leaning idly against the rail: for the last half-hour he had been watching the gradual approach of Port Said, ‘a town,’ Mr. Amberley had told him, ‘which unites the typical beastlinesses of east and west.’ From what he saw of it now he was inclined to think that Mr. Amberley, when allowances had been made for his habitual exaggeration, was not far wrong. He was disgusted to observe on the sordid houses and warehouses of the front the huge familiar English advertisements which, he had supposed, he had left hundreds and hundreds of miles behind him. The Utopia had now come to a standstill, and a tender like a clumsy sprawling broad-bellied beetle had crawled out to meet her and now lay nestling under her huge side, belching out coils of dirty brown smoke. Mr. Darby peered down into her to see who was leaving the ship. A slow stream of passengers, some of whom he knew by sight, others—the majority—totally unknown, was dribbling sluggishly on to the tender. Suddenly, with a start of surprise, he recognized a slim blue figure, the figure of a girl. It was Violet Renton. She was following her mother on to the tender and behind her came Tim. They carried suitcases, there were coats over their arms. They were going, then; leaving the Utopia? He hadn’t known they were travelling no further than Port Said. Mr. Darby felt suddenly melancholy, and not only melancholy but hurt. They hadn’t, apparently, thought it worth while to say goodbye to him. Tim perhaps was still angry with him, despite the fact that he had proved to be right about Lady Gissingham; but Violet at least, after their friendly talks, might, he thought, have bidden him goodbye. He saw them put their bags down on the crowded deck and, standing there in a little group, turn to look up at the Utopia. They were remarking, Mr. Darby felt sure, upon how huge she looked from below. Then Tim recognized him. Mr. Darby waved a hand, Tim smiled, waved back and turned to his sister. Then Violet and her mother looked up and Violet waved to him. They lowered their heads and turned away, and Mr. Darby saw the two young people talking and laughing. With a pang he felt that they were laughing at him. Well, after all, they were young, and no doubt they thought him a tiresome old man. He sighed and turned his eyes from them to other arrivals on the tender. Suddenly his attention was caught by a tall, grey-suited young man. Surely it couldn’t be …? But it was; yes, it was Sir Alistair Gissingham. He carried a coat, a rug, and a stick, and he was alone.
Mr. Darby was gazing down, enthralled by this astonishing development in the Gissingham drama, when a hand tapped him on the shoulder. It was Mr. Amberley. ‘Come on shore, my dear Darby. We
have a couple of hours, and you ought not to miss the opportunity of visiting one of the squalidest outposts of our European civilization. But we must hurry: the tender will be off in a minute.’
‘Right!’ said Mr. Darby, all agog. ‘I think I’ll do as I am. I’ll come at once.’
They hurried along decks and down companion-ladders and caught the tender by the skin of their teeth. It was packed, and Mr. Darby, lost in a tall grove of human bodies, could see nothing of the Rentons or Sir Alistair, but when he turned and gazed up at the monstrous Utopia towering sheer above them his eye at once detected Lady Gissingham, faultless, self-possessed, coldly and aloofly amused, looking down upon them. As he looked, she made a casual, faintly-mocking gesture of farewell with her left hand. Not to him. No, thank God, not to him. But to whom? Was it to her husband or to Tim Renton? Again Mr. Darby searched the crowd on the tender, but in vain. He saw nothing but the backs, shoulders, heads fencing him in, obscuring his view.
‘Have you noticed,’ he said, sotto voce, to Mr. Amberley, ‘that Sir Alistair Gissingham has left the ship?’
‘Left the ship?’ said Mr. Amberley, amazed. ‘But they were going to Colombo. And where’s our Baroness?’
‘On board,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘You’ll see her if you look. They had something of what I should call an alternation a night or two ago which I accidentally overheard. She said, sarcastically of course, that if he was tired of the … ah … honeymoon he’d better get off at the next stop.’
‘And he’s done so, taken her at her word. Well done, Sir Alistair. I didn’t think he had it in him. A very pretty piece of repartee; not so telling perhaps, as poor Bluthner’s, but much less trying to himself. But do look at the sea front of our Europe in Africa, Darby. Did you ever see anything so fascinatingly disgusting? Pure Clacton, isn’t it, with all the dear familiar advertisements.’
The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife Page 34