Once inside the club, Mr. Darby found himself involved in a whole series of solemn acts; and though he had always been a one for formalities, he had many moments of trepidation, for fear, in his ignorance, he should make some fatal mistake, some action that would monstrously profane the august place. But he soon found that these fears were groundless, for Mr. Marston on each occasion prompted him in the most casual and natural way in the world. He seemed to forget nothing which would reassure Mr. Darby. On entering, they went to a lobby lined with coat-stands where, with a few careless gestures which to Mr. Darby’s respectful gaze seemed to imply, quite unostentatiously, that he was perfectly at home, Mr. Marston hung his hat and umbrella on one of the hooks. Mr. Darby had a moment’s agony. In the first place, was he to do the same? or did a guest behave otherwise? And, in the second place, he had noted instantly that the higher rows of hooks were almost beyond his reach and the lower were already crowded. But before these problems had faced him for more than a few seconds, Mr. Marston with a charming tact had spotted a low hook and had said: ‘How about this one, Darby? Number one hundred. Easy to remember.’
It was the same when they got to the lavatory. All the basins were occupied, but Mr. Marston held him in conversation till two basins, next each other, were free. ‘You’ll find towels in front of you,’ he said casually, pointing to a heap on a ledge in front of Mr. Darby, and Mr. Darby noted that each washer took a towel from the pile, used it, and flung it into a great basket under the basins. This reckless disregard of the washing-bill amazed and enchanted him. With a careful sideward glance he timed his ablutions to coincide with Mr. Marston’s, and when he had done with his towel he flung it lightly, with eyebrows slightly raised and pursed lips, into the basket, noticing and enjoying the gesture as he did so. Then he followed Mr. Marston to the smokingroom.
‘We shall probably find Major Blenkinsop here,’ said Mr. Marston, as the door swung-to behind them. They stood for a moment at the door, surveying the room, Mr. Marston tall, slim and self-possessed, Mr. Darby small, plump and a little embarrassed. ‘A pleasant room this, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston. ‘One can order tea here in the afternoon. The nicest room in the club, I always think.’ Mr. Darby was aware of a lofty panelled ceiling, tall windows, a medley of small tables, and deep armchairs and sofas upholstered in green leather in which a number of gentlemen were sitting. Some of them glanced up at the standing pair. Mr. Darby felt horribly conspicuous standing there by the door. He wished Mr. Marston would hurry up and find Major Blenkinsop and relieve the situation. He put his left hand into his trouser pocket and tried to look unconcerned and calmly interested.
‘Ah! here we are!’ said Mr. Marston, after a leisurely scrutiny of the room. He signalled with his hand, and someone rose from a chair halfway across the room and began to thread his way through the maze of chairs.
The Major was taller than Mr. Darby but not so tall as Mr. Marston. Mr. Darby regarded him with some apprehension. And not without reason, for he appeared a person of some ferocity. His grey hair, his large formidable grey moustache, his formidable bushy eyebrows, his purple, weather-beaten face, and the grim set of his mouth indicated a man of uncompromising determination. He looked as if he would stand no nonsense, as if he would have not the smallest patience with human weakness or human ignorance. In the few seconds that passed between his rising from his chair and his reaching them Mr. Darby had time to realize all this and to wish heartily that he had never mentioned the Jungle to Mr. Marston. He wished that he had never come to the Club, that he could unobtrusively step aside, disappear, and leave Mr. Marston to cope with the Major alone.
But when the Major was no more than five paces from them, an extraordinary change occurred in him. Hitherto his attention had been occupied in steering his way among the chairs and tables; but now he raised his eyes and smiled and his whole appearance was transformed from grimness to a very attractive friendliness. For a moment Mr. Darby thought of Sarah and Sarah’s grim, endearing smile.
‘How are you, my boy?’ The Major took Mr. Marston by the arm with a vigorous, friendly grip of his left hand, and turned to Mr. Darby with the other extended. ‘And this,’ he said, ‘is your friend.…’
‘Mr. James Darby,’ said Mr. Marston.
Mr. Darby a little timidly took the proffered hand and found his own held in an almost painful grip.
‘How do you do, sir!’ said the Major with a sudden precision which brought back to Mr. Darby his earlier impression of ferocity. The Major turned abruptly to Mr. Marston. ‘Are we lunching straight away?’
‘If you’re ready, Major.’
‘Of course I’m ready. I don’t breakfast, you see, Mr. Darby. A cup of white coffee, that’s all; so I’m always pretty peckish by lunch time. Do you breakfast?’
‘Ah … yes, sir, I’m afraid I do,’ said Mr. Darby.
The Major turned fiercely critical eyebrows on the little man. ‘You shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘You’d be much better without it.’
‘Don’t you believe it, Darby,’ said Mr. Marston. ‘The Major persuaded me to try it once, and about eleven thirty in the morning I nearly died at my desk.’
During this talk they had crossed the hall and entered the dining-room. The sound that filled the room was the first thing—for the room itself was hidden from him by Mr. Marston—that struck Mr. Darby. There was, in it, something subdued, leisurely, and luxurious: it was a sound made up of the comfortable low-toned, private conversation of every occupied table and the clear, quiet ring of the silver. It was a sound produced by people who were not in a hurry: it suggested polite leisure, polite enjoyment. And even more noticeable than the pleasant noises was the surprising absence of the sound of footfalls. It was this absence that conveyed to Mr. Darby the sense of luxury. And the smell, the indefinable smell of good things that hung on the pleasantly warm air, was equally luxurious. It was a smell compounded of refined foods: Mr. Darby detected a faint spice of wine in it. At that moment the obstruction of Mr. Marston’s body was removed and Mr. Darby surveyed a wide plantation of snowy tables adorned with glass and silver. Some of them were surrounded and half obscured by dark-suited figures: the whiteness of the unoccupied ones, perfect squares, perfect circles, seemed to have broken into full bloom in the curling white petals of their fantastically-folded table-napkins. Mr. Marston led his two guests to a table near a window, and, leaving the Major to choose his own dish, rescued Mr. Darby from the painful uncertainties of choice by a few helpful suggestions.
‘And now, what about drinks? Whisky and soda, beer?’ Mr. Marston looked at the Major.
‘Beer? Beer is the devil. Whisky and soda for me,’ said the Major.
Mr. Darby was much surprised to learn that beer was the devil; indeed, he would have disputed it, if he had dared, given his own experience of the life-giving virtues of a timely Bass. Some day, perhaps, when he was a member of the club himself and thoroughly at his ease there, he would put the Major right on that little matter—‘ Oh nonsense, my dear Major, nonsense. Believe me,—and what I am saying now is from … ah … personal experience—’ But not now. No, not to-day. When Mr. Marston turned to him he unhesitatingly plumped for a whisky and soda.
‘Wise man!’ said the Major. ‘Wise man!’ And he said it with such conviction, such authority, that Mr. Darby’s faith was shaken and he came near to believing that in those innocent and delightful orgies at The Schooner he had all the while been incurring some sinister and mysterious danger.
Major Blenkinsop spoke with a speed and precision that disconcerted Mr. Darby. When he asked you a question it was as if he had fired a revolver at you; and before firing, he took aim, turning piercing eyes on to you which seemed to read your thoughts, spy out your weaknesses and timidities. Then suddenly his expression would change to one of extraordinary kindness and friendliness. He was bracing, alarming and attractive company. Mr. Darby felt himself weak, futile, a worm, in the presence of this vigorous person, but he did not for a moment feel that this was the Major’s view. The Major treated him with breezy affability, as man to man.
‘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?’
‘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.’