The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife (17 page)

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 eluded 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.

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.

Thursday was early closing day in Savershill, and perhaps it was not by an altogether random choice that Mr. Darby had fixed on the afternoon train on Thursday April the twenty-third, for the journey to London. But whether it was, or not, it enabled Mr. and Mrs. George Stedman and one or two other friends who were in trade, to come to the Central Station to see them off. McNab and Pellow came too. Mr. Marston had allowed them half an hour off to enable them to do so. Sam Cribb, unfortunately, was not there (the railway does not recognize early closing days); but Mrs. Cribb
was
, and, to Mr. Darby's thinking, she did not treat the occasion with all the gravity it demanded. She addressed the Darbys as Mr. and Mrs. Whittington which, as Mr. Darby pointed out with a touch of haughtiness, was singularly inappropriate, for Dick Whittington went to London to seek his fortune, ‘whereas we, I am glad to say,' remarked Mr. Darby, ‘are very … ah … differently situated.'

Mr. and Mrs. Darby had been comfortably settled by their porter in a first-class carriage, and now they stood at the open door chatting to the small group on the platform. Sarah stood behind her husband (had she not done so, he would have been invisible) and, a somewhat shadowy figure, conversed with her friends for the most part by signs. But Mr. Darby was clearly visible. He stood framed in the doorway, black hatted and coated. A single pearl adorned his figured grey tie: he wore shammy leather gloves. There was a certain aloofness about him, a touch of the
grand seigneur
consistent with his new circumstances; yet he gazed down on his friends benignly, and a hint of moisture gleamed in his blue, spectacled eyes, for the parting was painful to him.

‘Now mind you don't get into mischief, Jim,' said George Stedman. ‘But I can trust Mrs. D. to keep an eye on you.' He signed to Sarah who bent her head and looked over her husband's shoulder. ‘Keep an eye on him,' said Stedman. ‘You know what he is!'

‘Trust me!' said Sarah.

Mr. Darby smiled complacently. Such jokes were really jokes now. No one, not even Sarah, could keep him out of mischief now: he was a free man.

‘Come back soon,' said Mrs. Stedman, her thin kindly face smiling up at him. Mr. Darby smiled back and made a gesture of acquiescence with his gloved hand. ‘Sooner or later,' he said, and he addressed this reassurance not only to Mrs. Stedman, but to all, ‘Sooner or later I shall … ah … return.'

‘That's right, Jim,' said Stedman; ‘and let it be sooner rather than later. We shall miss you badly. Savershill won't be the same place.'

A porter passed, shutting the doors. Mr. Darby stepped back with dignity and appeared, next moment, a head and shoulders portrait, at the open window. The hissing of the engine made further conversation impossible. He saw that Mrs. Cribb was shouting at him, but her words were lost in the roar. Mr. Darby made a gesture indicating deafness. She came nearer. ‘They're getting up a lot of steam,' she shouted affably. But the words were annihilated in the all-pervading roar. Mr. Darby put a hand to his ear. ‘Getting up quite a lot of steam,' he heard.

‘Ah, quite! Quite! One of these new … ah … locomotives, no doubt.'

It was Mrs. Cribb's turn to be deaf.

‘One of these new … ah … locomotives!' shouted Mr. Darby, and she nodded vigorously, and shouted the statement to her companions.

‘One of the new locomotives!' They all leaned back and looked towards the engine. Then a shrill whistle sounded above the roaring whistle of steam, the roar suddenly stopped and with the power and leisure of a great wave the train heaved slowly into motion. Mr. Darby, framed in the window space, raised his hat with his right hand while with the other he waved a majestic farewell. It was a moment he had long foreseen. Sarah was waving over his shoulder. The little group of friends waved back, and as they began slowly to recede from him, Mr. Darby noticed, a few feet beyond them, the figure of a man holding before his chest with both hands a black box. Next moment he had lowered it: it was a camera. Mr. Darby was swept, as a mountain is swept by flying sunshine, by a blaze of satisfaction. But in a moment his eyes and his thoughts flew back to his friends. There they stood, a pathetic and isolated little group. They were waving handkerchiefs. How small they looked already: even George Stedman looked small. A long signal cabin suddenly blotted them out and Mr. Darby turned his attention into the carriage. Sarah had already settled herself in a window seat: he sank into the seat opposite her. ‘Well!' he said conclusively, as one might imagine the Almighty saying it at the
close of one century and the opening of another; and, after a moment's silence, he could not help adding: ‘I fancy I … ah … observed a photographer.' Sarah knit her brows.

‘From the … ah … the Press, the
Chronicle
no doubt. Rather nice of them, I thought.'

‘Do you mean they were taking
us?
‘said Sarah.

‘Yes,' said Mr. Darby. ‘In fact I saw it occur.'

‘Fiddlesticks!' said Sarah. ‘Taking us? Whatever for? '

‘For the
Chronicle
no doubt,' said Mr. Darby. ‘The back page, you know.'

Sarah snorted. ‘I wonder what you'll be fancying next Jim,' she said. ‘Lord Mayor of London meeting us at King's Cross perhaps.'

Mr. Darby did not reply. Sarah could say what she liked; she couldn't alter the … ah … gratifying fact, and he spent the next fifteen minutes reflecting on it. He must make sure not to miss the photograph when it came out. But how? He couldn't very well write to George Stedman and ask him to look out for it: that would betray too much excitement about it. But whether he wrote or not, George would see it, he was a man who always read his paper thoroughly, and when he saw it he would certainly cut it out and send it with some comic remark attached. Having settled that in his mind satisfactorily Mr. Darby began to play variations on the theme, after his usual fashion. ‘Mr. and Mrs. James Darby,' he thought, ‘left Newchester by the afternoon train for London yesterday. We learn, on enquiry, that they intend to spend some months in the Metropolis.'

But
did
they? Abandoning poetic fancy and turning his thoughts for a while to prosaic actuality, Mr. Darby admitted that any such statement was highly controversial. It was his own intention to spend some months in London, but it seemed unlikely that Sarah would stand it for long. All her references to their forthcoming holiday had implied that it was to be a short one. She clung tenaciously to Number Seven Moseley Terrace. However, Mr. Darby had never been one to allow distant possibilities to mar present enjoyment,
and he was certainly not going to do so on the occasion of the launching of his career. Everything had gone, was still going, exactly as he could have wished. The little group on the platform and the recording and preservation by photography (
public
photography) of the brief but impressive moment of farewell, were things that, though Mr. Darby would certainly himself have supplied them in imagination, he had not dared to hope for in actual fact. And now, here he was in this perfectly delightful first-class carriage, in a seat as comfortable as the most comfortable armchair and opposite him a wife in every way worthy of the occasion both in dress and appearance, bowling along swiftly but with hardly perceptible movement towards the Metropolis. He leaned back luxuriously with a sigh. The train was gaining speed. It wheeled to the left and he rolled over with it, aware of the comfortable pressure of the cushions against his side and back. In a moment they would cross the Redvale bridge, the viaduct spanning the deep glen of the Dole, which for Mr. Darby was still the
new
bridge, though King Edward had ceremoniously opened it in 1906. The train straightening itself swayed majestically forward, the buildings on the left and right fell away, Mr. Darby turned in his seat and looked through the window on his left. There it lay below him, the crowded valley of the Dole, a huddle of piled, smoke-grimed masonry tumbling to the river on either slope and barred by the gaunt iron screen of the High Level Bridge and, where the buildings ceased, the huddle of masts and funnels. With a little pang Mr. Darby realized that the Quayside itself was invisible. If only he could have seen it now and spotted The Schooner in the long line of buildings fronting the river! Suddenly he was overcome by the sense of all that the scene meant to him. How often he had carried his hopes and despairs down to the Quayside; and there, at the sight of the ships, the loading and unloading, the stir of departure, at the smell of the chill, watery, smoky air full of the muted noises of the town and the sharp cries of gulls broken sometimes by the deep, resonant bay of a steamer's siren, his hopes had been mysteriously fed and his despairs
mysteriously soothed away, and he had climbed back into the town, returning to the changeless routine of his life, heartened and refreshed. Could it have been that he had really known, in some dark corner of his heart, that the miracle for which he had foolishly hoped was really going to happen? Why, otherwise, had he gone on hoping without the smallest warrant for hope? And now here he was, setting out, as he had so long hoped to set out, and that other life, lit only by a stubborn hope which was little better than a fantastic madness, had already begun to seem unreal, a long troubled dream from which he had wakened to the secure reality of daylight.