Mr. Darby stood solitary among the crowd on the platform at King’s Cross, his eyes fixed on the receding train that shrank rapidly away leaving a great emptiness behind it. He stood with his bowler held aloft in his right hand, waving it in dignified farewell. ‘Mrs. James Darby,’ he thought to himself, ‘wife of the well-known north-country millionaire, has left London for Newchester-on-Dole. We understand that Mr. Darby intends to spend some weeks longer in the Metropolis.’ But though his imagination paid its customary tribute to the occasion, his heart was sad, for Sarah’s departure had taken much of the zest out of his new life. Gradually his hand, holding the bowler, forgot to wave, and he stood motionlessly staring into the distance. The train faded slowly out, and he came to himself, face to face with his utter loneliness. He came to himself, discovering the bowler still held aloft in his right hand. His arm was tired with holding it up, and he replaced it carefully on his head. He found himself now disinclined to leave the shelter of the station and sally forth, for at the moment London seemed to him an alien and hostile place. He felt tired too, and rather helpless, and then realized that he was hungry. It was already past their usual lunch-time. Sarah was lunching in the train: the attendant had told them that luncheon would start as soon as the train left King’s Cross: he himself had determined to lunch at the Great Northern Hotel, opposite the station entrance. But now the thought of entering the hotel and coping with hall-porters and waiters and the general formality that lunch in the hotel would involve, was no longer attractive. The crowd on the platform flowed past him: he was a small desert island in the stream of it. Soon the platform was almost deserted. He too must go; but he shrank from the ordeal of the hotel. Then a happy thought came to him—the station Refreshment Room. Yes, he would stand at the bar and eat sandwiches and drink Bass. The thought cheered him greatly. A light kindled in his spectacles: he cast a brisk glance along the platform and discovered the Refreshment Room some twenty yards from where he stood. In less than a minute he had taken up his position at the bar and delivered his order, a bottle of Bass and one ham and one beef sandwich.
Neither the sandwiches nor the barmaid were quite so delightful as those at The Schooner, but Mr. Darby had not expected that. They were good enough and the Bass was as good as ever. He felt himself gaining heart with every mouthful. Still, Sarah’s departure was a blow: it was extraordinary how he missed her. Without her, London would be more of a duty, less of a pleasure. It had been awful when, as the train started, he had seen her face crumple and realized that she was on the point of tears. At the sight a sudden overpowering emotion had attacked him, but they had both of them managed to control themselves. Yes, it had been a bad minute: even at the thought of it now his spectacles twinkled moistly, and for a few moments the little man who was assiduously mimicking Mr. Darby in the mirror behind the barmaids appeared very forlorn. Had Mr. Darby seen him he would not have approved of him, for it was too apparent that he was not keeping up the dignity of his new station in life; but Mr. Darby’s gaze was turned inwards upon his thoughts, and the mimic mimicked on, undetected. He had told Sarah that he was writing to his bank instructing them to allow Sarah to draw on his account up to the sum of ten thousand pounds. At first she had refused it point blank. ‘I don’t want it, Jim. I couldn’t use it, not in ten years.’ But he had insisted. ‘Do what you like about it,’ he said, ‘but at least give them your signature and get your cheque-book. You’ll want that, however little you use’; and Sarah had unwillingly acquiesced.
Mr. Darby roused himself from reflection and took another gulp from his glass. What an age it seemed since those pleasant visits to The Schooner, yet how vivid was the memory of the place; so vivid that, as he entertained it, he positively felt, outside the door behind his back, not the platform and bookstall and porters and barrows of King’s Cross, but rattling cranes and shipping, a chill draught, swirling gulls, and the steel-grey river Dole. A small mouse of homesickness gnawed for a moment at his heart. This would never do. With sudden determination Mr. Darby drained his Bass and ordered another. Another Bass, he knew, would drown the mouse; and, sure enough, before he had swallowed half of it he felt better, remarkably better. If only he could have ordered also a little friendly talk with Miss Sunningdale, how comforting that would have been. He heaved a sentimental sigh, and, noting it, smiled indulgently at himself. After all, he reflected, men will be men. A few minutes later he stepped out of the station once more completely master of himself, a man of the world ready and eager to plunge again into vast alien London. ‘As right as rain!’ he thought to himself, throwing out his chest and glancing alertly about him. His immediate objective now was the National Gallery. Armed with the artistic knowledge he had acquired at the Tate he was now in a condition to make a more successful assault on the National Gallery than he had done at his first baffling encounter with it. He would attack, of course, through the English School.
• • • • • • • •
A middle-aged lady who occupied a table near the Darbys’ table in the dining-room of the Balmoral and had beguiled her meal-time by observing them, caught Mr. Darby’s eye as he sat alone at dinner that evening. Thereupon she bowed, smiled, and said: ‘Your wife is not ill, I hope?’
‘No! Thank you, no!’ Mr. Darby replied. ‘No! She has gone … ah … north.’ For a moment he seriously considered the vase of carnations in front of him and then added:
‘We have a house in the north.’ One gathered from his tone that they had houses in various parts of England. Waiters and the difficulty of sustaining a conversation from separate tables made them ignore each other during the rest of the meal and the lady left the dining-room before Mr. Darby; but when he repaired to the lounge he discovered her in an armchair. A vacant chair was beside her. Their eyes met again: the lady raised her eyebrows with a slightly wistful smile, Mr. Darby paused with a dapper little bow and, in response to a mutual unspoken suggestion, glanced at the vacant chair. ‘May I … ah …?’
‘Pray do!’ said the lady.
Her eyes and eyebrows habitually expressed a sad surprise, the eyes and eyebrows of a person of exquisite and romantic feelings which were seldom appreciated. Her quiet, aloof, and somewhat regretful manner seemed to Mr. Darby very distinguished. He felt he was being received into the confidence of a cloistered soul.
‘Do you object to smoking?’ he asked when he had seated himself.
For reply she smiled and languidly raised her left hand which held a lighted cigarette. Mr. Darby at once proceeded to light a cigar.
‘I always say,’ she remarked, ‘that this is the ideal time of year for London.’
‘Charming!’ replied Mr. Darby. ‘Quite charming!’
‘Some people are all for the country when spring comes, but, for me, spring in London has a … what shall I call it? … a poetry, a je ne sais quoi…’
‘Undoubtedly!’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Undoubtedly! The parks and so on …!’
‘You know London well?’ The eyebrows went sadly up.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘yes, I think I may say I know it pretty well.’ After all, he had been working at it hard for the last fortnight.
‘I always say there’s no place quite like London,’ the lady went on in her gentle monotonous voice. ‘It’s unique. Paris is all very well, and Rome, but, for me, London …’
Her voice died away: her eyes gazed into a distance far behind Mr. Darby and the Balmoral.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Darby, taking on, in turn, a tinge of wist-fulness, ‘I quite agree. The … ah … spirit of the place, and all its great associations, of course! It is London, after all, which has made us what we are,—as a nation, I mean. Unless, of course, it is we, we English, who have … er … made …’
Mr. Darby suddenly lost foothold in the profundities of this speculation and glanced helplessly at his companion.
She shook her head sadly. ‘Who knows? Who knows?’ she said.
‘London,’ went on Mr. Darby lyrically, ‘with its … ah … peerless historical monuments, its museums with their stores of … ah … queerios, its art treasures … well, it overwhelms one.’
The lady threw up her eyes. ‘Embarras de richesse! Yet how few people appreciate it!’
From this promising prelude it was obvious that each had found a kindred soul. To Mr. Darby Miss Clatworthy was indeed a godsend. To her he could pour out his newly acquired knowledge and the ferment of ideas which this knowledge had set furiously working in his mind. She did much to dispel the loneliness caused by Sarah’s departure. They were constantly meeting in the lounge and more than once even had tea together.
Soon after their first meeting Mr. Darby broached the subject of pictures. Miss Clatworthy, too, it appeared, doted on pictures and in the course of conversation confessed that she herself was an artist. Mr. Darby received this information with awe. ‘An artist!’ he said with bated breath, fixing upon her wide eyes of innocent amazement. ‘An artist! I might have guessed it.’
‘Only a miniaturist!’ said Miss Clatworthy with a modest shake of her head.
A miniaturist! Had she any of her work here? Actually here in the hotel? She had. Might he …? Would it be … ah … asking too much to … ah … request the privilege to … ah …?’
‘Not at all, if you’re really interested,’ said Miss Clatworthy. ‘I’ll get them at once.’ And off she went. She returned presently with a little leather case.
Mr. Darby inspected half a dozen miniatures with incredulous wonder. ‘Exquisite!’ he whispered. ‘Exquisite! One can hardly believe they’re done by hand.’ He examined one of them more closely. ‘Upon my word,’ he said, ‘one would say it was printed.’
• • • • • • • •
‘Artists,’ said Mr. Darby to Miss Clatworthy on another occasion, ‘are sometimes, I must say, very funny about the titles they choose for their pictures. Now only to-day, I was looking at that picture called “Hope,” by … ah … by …?’
‘By Watts, isn’t it?’ said Miss Clatworthy.
‘By Watts!’ Mr. Darby accepted the help with a bow. ‘Now Watts, I grant you, is a very fine artist when he likes, but “Hope,” to my mind, is one of his failures. I may be dense …’ Miss Clatworthy with a smile and a gesture dismissed the assumption as ludicrous, but Mr. Darby persisted. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said urbanely, ‘I may be dense, but the … ah … female figure looks to me very much more like Despair. However, I have never been very fond of those paregorical pictures. Still, as I was saying, artists are strange about their titles. Even the great Turner is not without his idiosynchronies. For instance, he calls one of his finest pictures, a great favourite of mine, a picture of old fashioned ships, such colour! such superb colour! but he calls it Ulysses deriding … ah … Polyanthus.’ Being uncertain of the final word Mr. Darby dropped his voice and hurried over it. He looked challengingly at Miss Clatworthy. ‘Now, I ask you, as an artist; why call it that? The Fighting Demerara, one understands. The tug is towing the Demerara to her last anchorage,—the thing’s simple enough. But I must say Ulysses deriding … ah … Polyanthus beats me.’
• • • • • • • •
‘I must say,’ said Mr. Darby to Miss Clatworthy on yet another occasion, developing an idea which had been agitating him for some days, ‘that I don’t altogether approve of the National Gallery. The fact is, Miss Clatworthy, far too many of the rooms are given up to foreign artists. Now foreign artists may be all very well in their way; I don’t say they’re not; I will even admit that they are; but what I say is, the place for foreign artists is foreign galleries. A national gallery should contain national pictures and national pictures only. It stands to reason. When I walk across Trafalgar Square—a thing I very often do—with Nelson on his column above me and the statues of … ah … well, of various national heroes to my left and right; southward (or is it westward?) the towers of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey; Trafalgar Square which is, as one might say, the very centre and … ah … hub of our Empire;—I must say that I don’t like to think that there, in our National Gallery, hang hundreds and hundreds of foreign pictures. No, it goes against the grain, Miss Clatworthy. For me there’s something almost … ah … incestuous, I mean blasphemous, about it. Now the Tate, to my mind, is much more what a national gallery should be. The majority of the pictures there are English. The great Turner; Sir Joshua Reynolds; Romney; Watts (of whom we were speaking only the other day); John Burns, I mean Burne Jones; Land-seer; all the familiar, time-honoured names are there. It may be, of course—I don’t profess to know—that there are not enough English pictures to fill the National. In that case, why not fill up with those in the Tate and use the Tate for the foreign ones? Then at least we should be keeping Trafalgar Square … ah … unviolated.’ Mr. Darby paused, abashed at his own words, and then added in a quieter tone: ‘Forgive me if I employ a somewhat … ah … bold expression.’
• • • • • • • •
It is clear from these fragments of Mr. Darby’s conversation at this time that he has already become something of a connoisseur in art. But obviously he is more, much more, than that. His attitude to art is no mere idle dilettantism: he has views, and strong views, on the position and function of art in the State. Now when a man of action has views, his immediate impulse is to put them into action. Something, Mr. Darby felt very strongly, ought to be done.