Read Online The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife by Martin Armstrong - Free Book Online Page A
Book: The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife by Martin Armstrong
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Martin Armstrong
Ads: Link
Mr. Darby sang it with a whole-hearted conviction, and the outer Mr. Darby listened, approved, and indeed threw himself into the performance so zealously that his throat contracted and expanded in muscular sympathy, his lips twitched, and, to his surprise and concern, a rudimentary and quickly stifled sound escaped his lips during the closing verse.
Chapter IV
Mr. Darbyâs Conversion
But the Basses had not really cured him. Disillusion returned. Days passed, and a week, and another week, but Mr. Darby did not regain his old innocent composure. Those three experiences, his birthday party, the disillusionment of the following morning, and the visit to the Quayside and The Schooner, experiences which to a less sensitive man might have seemed the merest commonplace, had changed him radically. He returned to them again and again in thought, vibrating again to the keen and complex emotions connected with each. It was as if three doors had been mysteriously flung open and he had been permitted to move for a few brief moments in realms of life hitherto unvisited.
When he had regained his normal bodily state he had found that he could remember much more of the party than in those sick and clouded hours of the morning after. He was now able to enjoy in retrospect the rich solemnity of the occasion and to thrill once more to that sense of power and untrammelled self-expression which had filled him as he stood before the seated multitude and swayed them at his word. It was a stirring memory; for Mr. Darby had the soul of a poet, and memory, to a poet, takes its forms and colours not from the mundane and petty details of the actual event but from the emotions that made it what it was. And so in memory Mr. Darby swayed a multitude and not merely the four familiar friends and the somewhat sceptical wife who had, in fact, been the only persons present. Then, hard upon the release, the expansion, the fulfilment of that initial experience, had come its negative counterpart, the labours and tribulations of the night and early morning, and the cold, clear-eyed disillusionment of the forenoon. In the walk from Number Seven Moseley Terrace to Number Thirty SevenRanger Street Mr. Darby had done a very dangerous thing; he had turned upon his life a mercilessly analytic scrutiny which had revealed its hollowness. The voyage which during that brain-sick night he had deduced from the oceanic heavings of his bed had been as real asânay, much more real thanâany voyage taken on a tangible liner, for it had been a voyage that bore him away for ever from the old innocent Darby, Darby the child, and landed him in a remote new world, the world of Darby the man, the grim realist for whom the colourful trappings of dream and fancy (those trappings which had made life bearable to him hitherto) were only too lamentably threadbare. But thenâas if to save the man from bankruptcy and despairâkind Providence had interposed and, employing (as Providence so often does) a humble agent, had suggested, through the mouth of the clerk McNab, a Bass; and in his search for the Bass Mr. Darby had been drawn to the Quayside and to The Schooner.
And how deeply moving and how restorative that visit had been. For though it had not dimmed the keenness of his new analytic vision, it had, none the less, given back to life the old warmth and the old wonder, and it had taught Mr. Darby the miraculous truth that hope and happiness may subsist without visible means of support, that a man may face facts and yet not turn his back on romance. But it had suggested to him, too, a doubt that mere unexpressed longing for the life of adventure was enough to conjure it up into reality. If a man really wants to travel and see the wonders of the world he must, perhaps, do something about it.
Mr. Darby had, of course, often thought of doing something about it. We saw him, only yesterday evening, standing in the doorway of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street and actually
Chapter IV
Mr. Darbyâs Conversion
But the Basses had not really cured him. Disillusion returned. Days passed, and a week, and another week, but Mr. Darby did not regain his old innocent composure. Those three experiences, his birthday party, the disillusionment of the following morning, and the visit to the Quayside and The Schooner, experiences which to a less sensitive man might have seemed the merest commonplace, had changed him radically. He returned to them again and again in thought, vibrating again to the keen and complex emotions connected with each. It was as if three doors had been mysteriously flung open and he had been permitted to move for a few brief moments in realms of life hitherto unvisited.
When he had regained his normal bodily state he had found that he could remember much more of the party than in those sick and clouded hours of the morning after. He was now able to enjoy in retrospect the rich solemnity of the occasion and to thrill once more to that sense of power and untrammelled self-expression which had filled him as he stood before the seated multitude and swayed them at his word. It was a stirring memory; for Mr. Darby had the soul of a poet, and memory, to a poet, takes its forms and colours not from the mundane and petty details of the actual event but from the emotions that made it what it was. And so in memory Mr. Darby swayed a multitude and not merely the four familiar friends and the somewhat sceptical wife who had, in fact, been the only persons present. Then, hard upon the release, the expansion, the fulfilment of that initial experience, had come its negative counterpart, the labours and tribulations of the night and early morning, and the cold, clear-eyed disillusionment of the forenoon. In the walk from Number Seven Moseley Terrace to Number Thirty SevenRanger Street Mr. Darby had done a very dangerous thing; he had turned upon his life a mercilessly analytic scrutiny which had revealed its hollowness. The voyage which during that brain-sick night he had deduced from the oceanic heavings of his bed had been as real asânay, much more real thanâany voyage taken on a tangible liner, for it had been a voyage that bore him away for ever from the old innocent Darby, Darby the child, and landed him in a remote new world, the world of Darby the man, the grim realist for whom the colourful trappings of dream and fancy (those trappings which had made life bearable to him hitherto) were only too lamentably threadbare. But thenâas if to save the man from bankruptcy and despairâkind Providence had interposed and, employing (as Providence so often does) a humble agent, had suggested, through the mouth of the clerk McNab, a Bass; and in his search for the Bass Mr. Darby had been drawn to the Quayside and to The Schooner.
And how deeply moving and how restorative that visit had been. For though it had not dimmed the keenness of his new analytic vision, it had, none the less, given back to life the old warmth and the old wonder, and it had taught Mr. Darby the miraculous truth that hope and happiness may subsist without visible means of support, that a man may face facts and yet not turn his back on romance. But it had suggested to him, too, a doubt that mere unexpressed longing for the life of adventure was enough to conjure it up into reality. If a man really wants to travel and see the wonders of the world he must, perhaps, do something about it.
Mr. Darby had, of course, often thought of doing something about it. We saw him, only yesterday evening, standing in the doorway of Number Thirty Seven Ranger Street and actually
Similar Books
![Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02]](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/616522/thumbs/152x264/celeste-bradley-heiress-brides-02.jpg)
![Lakeshore Chronicles [10] Candlelight Christmas](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/572035/thumbs/152x264/lakeshore-chronicles-10-candlelight-christmas.jpg)
