The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

with a nod to George Stedman. ‘You’ll make a better job of it.’
    Stedman rose and went to the sideboard. ‘I’ll manage this one, Jim,’ he murmured confidentially. ‘You’ve got the ladies on your hands.’ And there was so little of the romantic and spectacular in George Stedman’s treatment of the champagne-bottle that they none of them knew that anything was happening till they found him at their elbows filling their glasses.
    Mr. Darby stared in blue-eyed wonder when Mrs. Bricketts appeared, to remove the plates, in a neat black dress and snowy apron. He was accustomed to see her in the slatternly guise of a char with an old tweed cap skewered on to her head with a black hatpin. ‘Now isn’t that Sarah all over!’ he thought to himself.
    The next course was a plum-pudding.
    â€˜Plum-pudding
before
Christmas, Mrs. D?’ said Stedman.
    â€˜Plum-pudding
after
Christmas, Mr. Stedman,’ replied Sarah. ‘This one is two years old. It’s the proper sort. I learnt to make them from my grandmother, and, for all I know, she learnt it from hers.’
    Mrs. Bricketts put a decanter in front of Mr. Darby. He eyed it: it was the port. Suddenly his heart began to beat very fast: the great moment, the event of the evening, was almost upon him. The champagne had gone to his head and he felt vigorous, elated, but a little insecure. He was not in perfect control, but perhaps that was all to the good. ‘Don’t let my mind dwell on it,’ he admonished himself. ‘It’s all
there.
Don’t worry. When I start talking, it’ll all come back.’ He took up his spoon and fork and fell upon his plum-pudding.
    Sarah’s helpings were large ones, and everyone, though pressed, refused a second. The port had been round. Everybody’s glass was full: Mr. Darby sat with his eyes fixed on his, as though it were a mousetrap likely to go off at any minute. Then George Stedman pushed back his chair and at the sound of it Mr. Darby’s heart leapt with delicious terror. ‘The Baronet’s health,’ his poetic imagination whispered to him, ‘was proposed by his old friend Mr. George Stedman. In the course of a moving speech …’ But George Stedman was on his feet, surveying the company with bland composure. The silence was absolute.
    â€˜Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he began with slow and solemn deliberation. ‘We are met together this evening on an Unusual, a unique, occasion. We are met together to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of an old and very valued friend.’ He paused and once more surveyed the company. The faces ofall had dropped to an expression of strained and gloomy solemnity. Mr. Darby gazed at his port glass with eyes of melancholy reproach. Then, ending this weighty pause, Stedman’s tone suddenly grew livelier, more confidential. He broke from his funeral pace into an easier movement and simultaneously the faces of his listeners relaxed. ‘I have known Jim Darby now,’ he said, rolling his head back on his deep shoulders, ‘for a matter of twenty years. Now twenty years is a long time, Ladies and Gentlemen; a very long time; a fifth of a century.’ Mrs. Cribb gave a little scandalized shriek and, with an arch glance at Mr. Darby, muzzled herself with the palm of her hand. But Mr. Darby, it appeared, had not heard her. His eyes were still fixed with an infinite sadness on his port-glass. His mood was not to be interrupted by humorous trivialities. ‘I have changed a good deal myself in the last twenty years,’ said Mr. Stedman, running both hands down his ample waistcoat, ‘and so—I would deny it, Ladies and Gentlemen, if I could—has Jim Darby. In those far off days, Jim was a gay young spark.’ Stedman paused for the expected ripple of laughter. Mr. Darby, still deep in meditation, slightly raised his eyebrows and smiled wistfully. ‘Only a few months