The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (16 page)

‘Well now, Major,' said Mr. Marston, when they had settled to their lunch, ‘my friend Darby wants to know all about jungles.'

The Major glanced at Mr. Darby. ‘Jungles? What sort of jungles? Want to do some shooting, I take it!' he said with a pleasant smile, ‘Big game!'

‘No … ah … no,' said Mr. Darby, beginning at once to feel uncomfortably that they had got on the wrong tack at the outset: ‘no, I don't want to shoot.'

‘Good!' said the Major. ‘Good! I never cared about it myself. Barbarous business! My own particular job was exploring. I've done a little of that.'

‘Well, that,' said Mr. Darby, ‘is what I want to do.'

‘Not done any before?' asked the Major.

‘No. No,' said Mr. Darby. ‘I've always wanted to. It has been my great ambition. But hitherto … ah …'

‘You're a little late in starting,' said the Major, looking Mr. Darby over with keen, critical eyes. ‘What's your age?'

‘Fifty,' said Mr. Darby, ‘just fifty.'

‘Good constitution?'

‘Beg pardon, sir?'

The snap and speed of the Major's questions flurried Mr. Darby.

‘Are you strong? Healthy?'

‘Yes,' said Mr. Darby, ‘yes, thank you. I keep pretty well.'

‘Can you rough it? Can you stand great heat?'

‘Is the heat very great?'

‘It's prodigious;' said the Major, ‘like being in a gasoven.' Mr. Darby's face fell.

‘Mind you,' the Major went on, ‘I'm talking now of the Amazon. The tropical forests of the Amazon are where I did most of my prowling.'

‘It's tropical forests I wanted to know about,' said Mr. Darby.

‘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.'

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.