Mr. Darby, after an active morning in Muswell Hill where he had bagged an Old Crome (somewhat faded and battered, ‘but that,’ as he pertinently remarked, ‘goes to prove its age,’) and another work labelled ‘Highland Cattle, after Peter Graham, nice frame, 10/6,’had lunched with relish at home; and having enjoyed an after-lunch cigar and a short after-lunch nap, had driven westward to regard the Marble Arch in the light of the newly acquired knowledge that the notorious Tyburn Tree had formerly stood there. Having dismissed his taxi and surveyed the scene at leisure with the emotions evoked by its historic associations, he decided, as the day was fine and warm, to take a walk. Accordingly he entered the Park and struck south-west at an easy saunter, idly swinging his umbrella and humming a favourite tune. ‘For I’m going far away,’ he trolled, ‘At the breaking of the day,’ and the sparrows that pecked on the gravel, warned by this announcement, flew off to the grass on either side of the walk and left him an unencumbered passage. But hardly had Mr. Darby entered upon his second verse when he checked the vocal flow and restricted his deportment to something less flamboyant. He had seen a figure approaching him down the long path. He paid no further attention to the person advancing upon him and his thoughts reverted to the pictures he had bought that morning. He had his doubts, now, about the Peter Graham: it was hardly, perhaps, up to the standard of the Darby Collection.
He was startled out of his reflections by a voice beside him, so startled that he actually skipped to one side before halting and turning to the speaker. ‘Why, how do you do, Mr. Darby?’ the voice had said, and Mr. Darby, when he had recovered his composure, found himself looking up into the long, bony, grey-moustached face of Lord Savershill.
‘You may not remember,’ said Lord Savershill, ‘that we met in the train some weeks ago.’
‘I remember it very well indeed, my lord,’ said Mr. Darby. ‘Most kind of you to … ah …’
‘I’ve been trying to get on your tracks ever since,’ said Lord Savershill. ‘To be quite candid, you gave me to understand that you are a rich man, and I’m after your money. The days of the highwayman are not yet past, you see.’
Mr. Darby beamed through his spectacles. ‘I don’t see your … ah … blunderbuss, my lord.’
Lord Savershill smiled. ‘I use persuasion when possible,’ he said. ‘The fact is, I very much want to entangle you in the Hospital Co-ordination Society. It does a useful and much-needed work in improving the efficiency of our hospitals, and if you will give me a chance of explaining its activities I feel sure you will be interested. We want rich and active supporters. Now when can I get at you? Perhaps you will dine with me at my club to-morrow or Friday?’
Mr. Darby declared himself delighted and accepted for the morrow.
‘That’s very kind of you. Let us say eight o’clock tomorrow, then, at the Brunswick. Now I must hurry on. I have a meeting in Welbeck Street in ten minutes.’ He waved his hand and left Mr. Darby pleased, flattered, and, though a little apprehensive of his engagement to-morrow, much heartened by this human intrusion into his solitary existence. He continued his stroll, his spirits higher than ever, paused to inspect the flower-beds, paused again to watch the ducks in the Serpentine, and then, wheeling eastwards, emerged from the Park at Hyde Park Corner. It was too fine a day to shut himself up in a taxi, and feeling in a free, unconventional mood, he resolved to lay aside his dignity and, millionaire though he was, travel home on the top of a bus. A 19 bus would deposit him at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road, close to the house in Bedford Square.
On the top of the bus doubts began to assail him, absurd little fears, trivial yet insistent. Where was the Brunswick Club? But surely any taxi-driver would know it. But how did he find Lord Savershill when he got there? Did one just walk in and search about? That would be rather an embarrassing business. Or did one enquire somewhere? And what ought he to wear? Perhaps Princep would be able to help him.
At dinner that evening, as he sat, a small solitary figure at the head of the large dining-table with Princep hovering noiselessly about him, he consulted Princep. ‘Ah … Princep, you must advise me. In the first place, where’s the Brunswick Club?’
‘The Brunswick, sir? In Pall Mall, sir.’
‘I’m dining there to-morrow night. Do you think I ought to put on dress-clothes?’
Princep hesitated. ‘Well, probably, sir. It rather depends, if you’ll excuse my saying so, on the sort of gentleman … er …!’
Mr. Darby glanced up. ‘A lord!’ he said, ‘Lord … ah … Savershill.’
‘Then you should dress, sir. Are you dining with him alone, sir?’
‘I … ah … fancy so,’ said Mr. Darby, ‘in fact, I feel sure of it.’
‘Then a black tie will be sufficient, sir.’
‘And a tail coat?’ Mr. Darby suggested.
‘No, sir. A tail coat is never worn with a black tie.’
‘Never, Princep?’
‘Never, sir. That is, not by gentlemen.’
‘And tell me, Princep,’—Mr. Darby gazing earnestly up, at Princep, looked like a talkative schoolboy questioning a grave uncle—‘how do I find Lord Savershill when I get to the Brunswick?’
‘Simply give your name to the hall porter, sir, and ask for his Lordship.’
An invaluable fellow, Princep. Mr. Darby resolved that when he left Bedford Square he must have a man of his own as like Princep as possible; and he repeated the resolve as he sat, after dinner at the Brunswick on the following evening, sipping a liqueur brandy and listening to Lord Savershill expounding the aims, objects and achievements of the Hospital Co-ordination Society; for everything that Princep had advised had turned out to be exactly right.
In the vaguely blissful state induced by a good dinner and a comfortable armchair Mr. Darby found it impossible to follow all that Lord Savershill was telling him of the Hospital Co-ordination Society,—the H.C.S. as he called it. But he was well aware that this was not Lord Savershill’s fault, for though unable to follow the drift of all this detailed exposition, Mr. Darby was none the less able to appreciate the fact that it was admirably lucid. ‘This is most important,’ he thought to himself. ‘If only I could listen to it, I should undoubtedly understand every word of it,’ As it was, his mind did no more than pick up passing phrases. ‘Co-operation between managers of voluntary and rate-supported hospitals,’ ‘uniform system of accounts,’ ‘prevention of overlapping,’ ‘improved administration,’ ‘universal standard of efficiency,’—phrases such as these rose like bubbles from the flood of sound that swept in at Mr. Darby’s right ear and out again at his left, swelled and gleamed brightly for a moment in his intelligence, and burst at the impact of the next. But it would be a mistake to suppose that Mr. Darby, though he did not, strictly speaking, understand, was not impressed. He was immensely impressed. Lord Savershill’s obvious enthusiasm infected him. He felt very strongly that the H.C.S., whatever its aims and objects might be, was a society that called for whole-hearted support. ‘We idle rich, my dear Mr. Darby, have very serious responsibilities nowadays.’ The words floated up into Mr. Darby’s understanding with challenging distinctness. His attention, which had been flitting and perching, like a tame canary, about the lofty, green-pillared room in which they sat, was arrested. ‘The work,’ Lord Savershill went on, ‘enables my wife and me to feel ourselves useful members of society. She acts as Secretary for the northern division, and I am chairman of the Society.’
‘I hope Lady Savershill is well,’ said Mr. Darby.
‘Very well, but very busy. She went north again two days after we met you and your wife in the train and I have been here in London ever since. We have no time for more than an occasional postcard. But she will be here again the day after to-morrow. We have a general meeting of the H.C.S. that afternoon, and I want you to come to it. We shall hear, among other things, one or two very interesting reports from divisional centres.’
Mr. Darby expressed his willingness to attend. ‘You have fully convinced me, my lord,’ he said, as he rose to go, ‘of the … ah … heartfelt … I should say … ah … vital importance of the Society.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said his host, shaking hands. ‘I shall go on badgering you. Your money or your life, Mr. Darby, and both, if possible.’
Mr. Darby swam home in a taxi, blissfully conscious of the weight of national affairs on his shoulders.
The feeling persisted when he awoke next morning, and added to it was the comforting assurance that he was no longer alone in London. He was involved in a great crowd of extremely active people. Sitting up in bed idly sipping the cup of tea which Princep had just brought him, his un-spectacled eyes blue and blurred and innocent in the light from the window like the eyes of a very young baby, he felt intensely active, intensely busy. It seemed to him that the days were too short for all the multifarious business which filled his life. Not only was there the arduous and important scheme for reforming the National Gallery which he had undertaken single-handed, but now there was this other job of reforming and reorganizing the hospitals. This was what it was to be a millionaire. He entered the dining-room an hour later, pink, beaming, and rubbing his hands together, alert, energetic, a man of action if ever there was one. After breakfast he read his paper with greater care than usual, for he realized how important it was, in his new position, to keep in close touch with public affairs. Then, feeling a violent desire to express himself, to uncork the turmoil of excitement and bottled energy within him, he determined to write to Sarah. He had sent her only a picture-postcard or two since she had left, and she had replied only in brief notes. ‘I have been very busy since I got home,’ she had said in her last, ‘and, as you know, I’m not much of a letter writer at the best of times.’
Mr. Darby had smiled as he read this. Well, he had thought, there was no accounting for tastes. Here was Sarah, a free woman with ten thousand pounds to play with, voluntarily absorbing herself in the petty tasks of a small suburban house, instead of making use of her wealth to leave herself free for … well, more important activities. ‘Poor Sarah,’ he said to himself, ‘she has no … ah … vision’
Well he would write to her. But writing to Sarah was not a complete release, for there was much that he would have liked to say, on which he must keep silence. If he told her of his picture-collecting she would merely laugh at him. So this side of his activities received only a passing reference in his letter. ‘I, too,’ he wrote, ‘have been kept busy. I have had a good deal of important work on my hands recently in connection with the National Gallery, and now Lord Savershill has persuaded me to interest myself in the H.C.S., an influential body for reforming the hospitals. We have a big general meeting here in London to-morrow; so you can imagine my time is pretty full.’ He ended the letter hurriedly, scribbled an address, and rose briskly to his feet. Then he paused. After all, now that he came to think of it, why was he hurrying? The meeting was not till to-morrow afternoon, and in the meantime he had nothing whatever to do except pursue his quest for British masterpieces. But he felt disinclined for this, at the moment. It was as if his energies had suddenly flagged. Could it be that he was overdoing it, involving himself in too many duties and interests? After all, he had been at it until half past ten last night, listening hard to Lord Savershill’s account of the organization and activities of the H.C.S. Perhaps he had better take a morning off. He got his hat, stick and gloves and went out.
It was a warm, sunny morning and soon he found himself at the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Seeing a 19 bus, he boarded it, and climbed on to the top. It was just the morning for a bus ride and then, perhaps, for a stroll across the Park. When the bus stopped beside St. George’s Hospital, Mr. Darby studied the building critically, conscious of his new responsibilities. Almost at once his quick eye had detected something wrong. The building wanted washing, or perhaps repainting. He shook his head solemnly. ‘A bad business!’ he said to himself. ‘We shall have to see to that.’ And he determined to mention it at the general meeting.
Mr. Darby woke full of energy and importance on the eventful day. In the morning he made a thorough search of Penge, but, for once, returned home without a single masterpiece. He had been on the point of buying a Watts, but had refrained on discovering, in the nick of time, that it was an oleograph. Having lunched, he ordered a taxi and reached the address given him by Lord Savershill twenty minutes before the hour fixed for the General Meeting of the H.G.S. He was surprised and disconcerted to find that the place of assembly was not, as he had expected, a room in which he could sit and confer with Lord and Lady Savershill and a few other people, but a large hall with platform and auditorium. At first he thought he had made a mistake, but on enquiry he learned that this was indeed the place. The rows of chairs on the platform were still empty, but the auditorium was already nearly half full. Obviously, it seemed to him, his place was on the platform and he left the body of the hall and found his way to the stage door. But there he was obliged to confess to an official-looking person with a bunch of papers in his hand that he was not a member of the committee: in consequence he was politely told that his place was in the auditorium. Mr. Darby with dignified surprise mentioned that he was a friend of Lord Savershill’s and was there by his special invitation. But even this did not produce the effect Mr. Darby had confidently expected on the official personage. Mr. Darby was politely, amiably, but firmly driven back to the auditorium.
Arrived there, he surveyed the hall. Doubtless, then, the front row had been reserved for Lord Savershill’s friends. But no, the front row was packed, in fact the whole hall was rapidly filling up and Mr. Darby, hurriedly choosing a seat for himself while there was still one to be had, found himself wedged into the general throng ten or twelve rows from the back of the hall. The whole thing was very annoying. From where he sat, Mr. Darby, being below the average height, could at first see nothing. Then, by a little shifting and manceuvring, he was able to get fleeting glimpses of the platform; and at last, by sitting very much on the left of his chair he succeeded, after many contortions, in identifying Lord Savershill through a long alley of heads and ears and ladies’ hats. As Chairman Lord Savershill sat at a table in the centre of the platform.
Having achieved this, Mr. Darby felt reassured. Unfortunately, just as he had established this contact with the Chair, a stout lady two rows in front of him lurched sideways and cut Mr. Darby off again. At first he hoped that this displacement was temporary, that the lady would right herself in a moment, and reopen his communications. But no, her change of position was to be, it seemed, a permanent one, and when Lord Savershill stood up to speak, Mr. Darby could see only the top of his head.
Lord Savershill spoke well. His eloquence and ardour, which had fired Mr. Darby at the Brunswick two nights ago, gripped the attention of everyone in the hall,—everyone, that is, except Mr. Darby, who preserved a somewhat sceptical attitude. He was beginning to have his doubts of the merits of the H.C.S. But Lord Savershill seemed unaware of this coldly critical element in his audience and with undiminished enthusiasm he went on to speak of the extension of the Society’s influence, of the gratifying way in which hospitals all over the kingdom had permitted and actually welcomed its intrusions, put necessary information at its disposal, allowed its inspectors and visitors free scope. When he had spoken for half an hour, he announced that they would now hear two reports, one from an inspector on Southern Division, on Overlapping and its Prevention, and another from the Northern Division on the subject of The Housing and Feeding of Hospital Staffs.
Mr. Darby, who had lunched well before the meeting, began now to find that the occasion was not without its soporific qualities. The gentleman who spoke on Overlapping obviously knew his job; but, lulled perhaps by this speaker’s rather monotonous voice, perhaps by the close air of the hall, perhaps by his new doubts about the H.C.S., perhaps by the excellence of his lunch, Mr. Darby found, after ten minutes or so, that his attention had imperceptibly wandered far afield, indeed it had wandered so far that it had not only reached, but even done a considerable journey into, the Jungle where it had had a rather curious adventure with a large green parrot. He came to himself with a shock, blinked, yawned, and concentrated his attention once more on the speaker.
The next thing that he knew was that his neighbour was tapping him on the arm. Mr. Darby turned his head and found a lady’s smiling face regarding him. ‘Excuse me,’ she whispered; ‘you were snoring.’
Mr. Darby did not reply, but he was furious. Snoring, indeed! Whoever heard of such a thing. How could he be snoring when he wasn’t asleep. Then a curious thing happened. He noticed for the first time that the monotonous-voiced speaker was no longer speaking. The voice speaking now was a woman’s, and not only a woman’s but a voice that was amazingly, unmistakably familiar. Goodness gracious! Gracious goodness! Could he be …? Yes, he must be dreaming. He made a violent effort, which disturbed and alarmed his neighbours on either side, to get a view of the speaker. In vain. The forest of heads and shoulders and ears walled him in. He seemed to be struggling at the bottom of a well. With a thumping heart he settled down resignedly to listen. ‘You may ask, ladies and gentlemen,’ the voice was saying, and the voice was unmistakably Sarah’s, ‘what qualifications I have for the work I have done.’ Good lord! Mr. Darby went hot all over. Surely she wasn’t going to blurt it out, standing there in front of everybody? ‘I will tell you. In my younger days’—Mr. Darby writhed in his chair. If only he could silence her. No more! Not another word, Sarah. I order you to stop talking at once. It was so entirely unnecessary. So … so damnably idiotic. Just like her. She had no tact, no restraint, no sense of decency. These helpless and despairing expostulations shot through his mind, while his ears, scarlet to their tips, took in the appalling words—‘I was for some years head housemaid in a very large household, and during that time I frequently replaced the housekeeper.’ Mr. Darby lowered his head, crimson with mortification, while Sarah’s voice went imperturbably on. ‘That house was very well run. The staff was well fed, well housed, well organized, and happy. The report which I am now giving you is the result of several visits to two hospitals in the Northern Division, hospitals which, for reasons which you will understand, I shall not name. In each the staff—not the trained medical staff, but the household staff—were unsatisfactory and discontented. I will now give you as clear an account as I can—and I hope you will excuse me if I sometimes get muddled, for I’m not used to public speaking—as clear an account as I can of what I saw, remarking as I go along on what, in my opinion, I ought to have seen.’
Mr. Darby sat open-mouthed. He was not only amazed, he was annoyed, seriously annoyed. Sarah, he felt, was poaching on his preserves, and what was especially galling was that the poacher was evidently a much better shot and had scored a much bigger bag than the owner. He was annoyed too that she had kept so quiet about it. Not a word to him about all these activities of hers, not a word, even, about this visit to London. He was so resentful that he would not even admit to himself that Sarah was giving an astonishingly lucid and able account of her subject, and that the hall was following her with all the concentrated interest with which it had followed Lord Savershill. He sat, pink and mortified, no longer attempting to get a view of the platform, and when, soon after Sarah’s report, the proceedings came to an end, he rose to his feet determined to leave the hall at once. But here he was defeated. A small and unimportant fraction of the crowded audience, he was forced to submit to the will of the crowd and to drift with exasperating slowness in the direction in which it pushed him. Once through an opening in the crowd he got an uninterrupted glimpse of the platform. It too was emptying its crowd through the doors at the back, but a little group still lingered in front and Mr. Darby recognized Lord and Lady Savershill and Sarah. Lord Savershill and Sarah were in earnest conversation. Lady Savershill was gazing down, trying, it seemed, to find someone in the crowd below her: probably she was trying to catch him before he left the hall, to invite him to go with them. Well, Sarah and Lord Savershill could go on talking and Lady Savershill could go on searching: he was going home. With an angry struggle he forced his way to the exit and went out. As he drove home, he suddenly remembered with horror the letter he had written to Sarah on the previous morning. ‘We have a big general meeting here in London to-morrow,’ he had written.
We! There had been precious little we about it, he reflected bitterly. And now the letter was posted, gone past recall. Sarah would hardly have got it yet, but she would get it eventually, and, turning crimson to the very roots of his hair, he pictured her sarcastic smile and heard her grim chuckle as she read the unfortunate phrase.