Lying in bed by Sarah’s side in Eaton Square that night, Mr. Darby found himself unable to sleep. Was it the excitement of the party which had ended an hour or two ago, that kept him wakeful, or did he instinctively feel that to spend in sleep his first night under the roof of a peer would be mere wilful waste? No! Either of these reasons would certainly have been sufficient for insomnia, if his mind had not been otherwise occupied. But it was not so. His mind was seething with disappointment, dissatisfaction, even with resentment; for the truth was—though Mr. Darby was unaware of it—that he was jealous of Sarah. Throughout the evening Sarah had, without the smallest intention or desire to do so, eclipsed him. Not that he had been left out in the cold; but he had been nothing more than one man among many, he had been throughout the evening left outside the limelight, whereas Sarah had been a continual centre of interest. Whenever he caught sight of her she was in earnest conversation with one or more of the guests. More than once, in the drawing-room after dinner, he overheard the phrase: ‘I must have a talk with Mrs. Darby,’ and he would see the speaker gravitate towards Sarah’s circle and there would be more earnest conversation, broken sometimes by a little ripple of laughter, and looking over to where they stood he would catch sight of Sarah’s grim and enchanting smile. Most of the guests were, of course, actively interested in the H.C.S. and had been present at the meeting, and no doubt it was this that first drew them to Sarah. But Mr. Darby observed that this was neither the only nor the chief attraction. It was Sarah herself that interested and charmed them. This difference in attitude towards Sarah and towards himself was especially evident in Lady Savershill. This impressive and formidable lady treated Sarah as a familiar friend, whereas she treated him with the rather peremptory and high-handed indulgence with which she would treat an amusing child. Mr. Darby had felt, and quite correctly, that she regarded him as utterly unimportant, and this was the more humiliating to him in that he had been afraid of her since the first moment he encountered her sharp, searching gaze. Throughout the whole day, in fact, his position and importance as a millionaire had not received their due recognition. He had been slighted at the H.C.S. meeting and he had been slighted at the dinner-party. He, who had always felt himself peculiarly fitted to cut a figure in society had been completely outstripped by Sarah who had no ambitions in that direction. This, it must be admitted, was a little hard.
Nor was this the end of it. Mr. Darby’s sense of insignificance had been acutely intensified when Sarah, after they had retired for the night, had at once squashed his suggestion that she should spend a few days with him in Bedford Square.
‘I can’t, Jim,’ she had said. ‘I’m much too busy.’ This unhesitating No had seemed to Mr. Darby to treat his request in much too cavalier a fashion.
‘You managed to spare the time to come and stay here,’ he had replied somewhat sternly.
But even this Sarah had failed to treat with becoming seriousness. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jim,’ she had said. ‘You know very well I came here on business. I can’t begin taking holidays when I’ve only just got started with the job. Lady Savershill herself is going back to work to-morrow, and if I tell her I’m going to stay idling here with you … well, she’d be quite justified in feeling let down.’
The word idling was unfortunate, but Sarah was recalling her fortnight at the Balmoral. Mr. Darby had pursed his lips. ‘You don’t seem to consider,’ he had said, ‘that I may feel let down, as you … ah … style it.’
But Sarah had flippantly brushed aside this dignified expostulation. ‘Get along with you, Jim! ‘had been her very inappropriate reply. The only proper response to that kind of thing was silence, and Mr. Darby in silent and resentful dignity had stepped into bed.
Now he lay sleepless and piqued. Sarah was having her head turned—that’s what it amounted to—by being taken up by Lady Savershill like this. She seemed to have exaggerated ideas of her importance. After all, what was she? A mere inspector of a quite ordinary society, a society like thousands of others. Indeed Mr. Darby was beginning to have his doubts about the H.C.S. business. He wasn’t at all sure that it wasn’t a lot of pother about nothing. He rather regretted that he had let himself in for that heavy subscription. However, it was too late to repent of that. He had already announced to Lord Savershill his intention of subscribing five hundred a year. Nothing, now, could be done about it; but, thinking the whole thing quietly over now, he was glad, yes, very glad, that he had not allowed himself to be dragged into the society in any active capacity. After all, he had something better to do. It would have been absurd to land himself once more, after thirty-five years of it, in a daily routine of hard work. It did not occur to him, when congratulating himself on this, that, in point of fact no one had asked him to do so. Yes, he assured himself once more, he had been wise, very wise. Besides, after all, he had all this National Gallery business on his hands, a much more important matter and one which required all his energy. ‘No, Lord Savershill. I have so much public work already on my hands that I positively must not undertake any more. Not that I don’t sympathize: I am willing, very willing, to afford the Society my … ah … peculiary support; but that, I fear, must suffice.’
Having thus, abruptly yet politely, made clear his attitude, Mr. Darby, much soothed, fell into an innocent sleep.
• • • • • • • •
Yet he awoke next morning out of humour. It was all very well, but Sarah’s behaviour, throughout this H.C.S. business, had left much to be desired. She had made a mystery of it to begin with, had never so much as mentioned that she was coming to London, and now, without consulting him, was hurrying back to Newchester. The truth was that Mr. Darby had grown accustomed, during the twenty years of his married life, to being an only child and had acquired the outlook of that pampered creature; and now that Sarah had presented him, in the H.C.S., with a little sister, he felt very keenly that his nose was put out. He hated his little sister and bitterly resented Sarah’s absorption in her. He began to hate the Savershills too; for were they not the precise equivalent of those tyrannical, busy, maternity nurses who intrude upon such occasions? They had taken possession of Sarah and put a barrier between him and her. His philosophy was, unhappily, not comprehensive enough to afford him much comfort, for it failed to point out to him that Sarah was doing to him only what, with the arrival of his fortune, he had done to her. It is truly said that it takes two to make a quarrel. If one of the pair refuses to fight there can be no duel. But in the matter of an assertion of independence the reverse is true. Mr. Darby had boldly asserted his independence and Sarah had aided and abetted him by revealing an unexpected dependence upon him. It was natural therefore that he should resent her change of attitude. By this assertion of her independence she was poaching on his preserves and robbing him of a large share of his game. Without really knowing why, Mr. Darby felt deeply aggrieved. Pink-faced, vague-eyed (for his spectacles were on the dressing-table), he lay on his back and gazed at the window with the furrowed brow of a baby that is slowly working up towards a cry. Yes, it was all very well, but, H.C.S. or no H.C.S. he was her husband, the man whom, twenty years ago, she had solemnly sworn to love, honour and obey. By means of these reflections Mr. Darby worked himself up into a state of righteous indignation, and now a series of heated dialogues passed through his mind in which he gave rein to his feelings with such telling effect that Sarah was rapidly convinced of sin and reduced to humble repentance. The rudimentary sounds of indignation with which he accompanied his part in these wordless arguments must have roused Sarah, for she turned over and asked in a sleepy voice: ‘What’s the matter, Jim? Have you got one of your throats?’
‘Throat? Certainly not,’ replied Mr. Darby sharply, embarrassed at the discovery that the intensity of his feelings had made them audible. ‘No!’ he added more mildly. ‘No throat, thank you!’ After a few minutes of silence he changed his mind and added loftily: ‘I was only wondering whether, after all, you and I are husband and wife.’
Sarah sat up and studied him grimly. ‘If there’s any doubt about it, you’d better get out of bed at once,’ she said sternly, and added aloud to herself, ‘Hm! What next?’
‘One wouldn’t have thought it was much to ask,’ went on Mr. Darby. ‘A simple and very … ah … natural request, one would have supposed.’
As a nurse might look at a child, wondering whether or not it had a slight temperature, Sarah studied him again, with knitted brows. ‘You’d better wake up and tell me what’s the matter, Jim, instead of lying there thinking and supposing.’
‘A day or two couldn’t make any difference,’ Mr. Darby went on, ignoring Sarah’s remarks; ‘and a husband has a right to expect …’
‘To expect what?’
‘A little consideration, some slight … ah … prefidence … I mean, preservence.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘Goodness knows what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘If you were to get up and have a wash and put on your spectacles, perhaps we should get some sense out of you.’
‘After all, you promised, every wife promises, at the … ah … the altar …’
Sarah threw aside the bedclothes. ‘I’m getting up,’ she said: ‘it’s time. When you’ve got something definite to say, I’ll attend to you.’
Mr. Darby, seeing that his somewhat impressionistic methods were producing no effect, came to the point. ‘I asked you to give me a day or two before you went back,’ he said, ‘and, without so much as stopping to think, you. you … ah …’
‘I told you why I couldn’t. That was all settled last night. Now up you get, or you’ll be late for breakfast.’
‘I put it,’ Mr. Darby stubbornly pursued, ‘as a request, a polite request. I might have made it an order, a command.’
‘Yes, I suppose you might,’ said Sarah with weary tolerance, ‘but it wouldn’t have made any difference.’
‘So the solemn promise, the solemn vow to love, honour and obey goes for nothing, I take it?’
‘You can’t love, honour and obey someone who isn’t there,’ said Sarah. ‘If you choose to leave me and your home and go idling about by yourself, well, you must take the consequences.’
‘I didn’t leave you, Sarah. How can you talk such … ah … falsehoods,’ replied Mr. Darby with some heat. ‘You left me. You refused to remain with me here in London.’
Sarah, in a bodice and petticoat with hands on hips, faced the recumbent Mr. Darby. ‘The only reason you didn’t leave me, Jim, was that I came with you: but you were going in any case, and you know it.’ She turned her back on him and went over to the dressing-table.
Mr. Darby, pink, fretful, blue-eyed, sat up in bed. ‘I shall not argue with you,’ he said. He felt a tide of indignation and eloquence rushing to his head. ‘If you prefer,’ he announced conclusively, ‘to be disingeenious and … ah … prevaricacious, there is no more to be said. I can only leave you to the … ah … contemplation of your broken promises.’
‘Thank you! ‘said Sarah. ‘You couldn’t do better. I’m quite able to look after my own promises.’ She took up a hairbrush and turned her head aggressively. ‘And in the meantime you’d better get hold of the Prayer Book and see what it was you promised and vowed. You’ve forgotten that part of it, it seems. Just you look it up. You’ll be surprised.’
‘I shall do nothing of the sort,’ Mr. Darby retorted angrily.
‘Don’t then!’ said Sarah. ‘But don’t try to teach me my business either. And unless you get up at once I shall come and pull the clothes off you: that’ll cool you.’
When, half an hour later, Mr. and Mrs. Darby appeared serenely at breakfast, no one could have suspected that a tempestuous gulf yawned between them. But it did, and Mr. Darby never ceased to be aware of it, even while relishing with a perfect placidity the sweets of a baronial breakfast-table. Lady Savershill and Sarah were leaving for the north by the morning train and Mr. Darby, still cherishing a fierce resentment against Sarah, resolved to exhibit it by leaving before they did. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, he waylaid the butler, asked for his bag to be packed immediately and a cab to be ordered, and, taking leave of his host and hostess with that old-world punctiliousness which so well became him, left the house without another word to Sarah.