Just after dusk Munro arrived.
'Just in time,' he said. 'There's going to be a hell of a storm.'
He was in great spirits. He had come upon a fine plateau, with lots of water, from which there was a magnificent view to the sea. He had found two or three rare butterflies and a flying squirrel. He was full of plans to move the camp to this new place. All about it he had seen abundant evidence of animal life. Presently he went into the house to take off his heavy walking boots. He came out at once.
'Where's Darya?'
Neil stiffened himself to behave with naturalness.
'Isn't she in her room?'
'No. Perhaps she's gone down to the servants' quarters for something.'
He walked down the steps and strolled a few yards.
'Darya,' he called. 'Darya.' There was no answer. 'Boy.'
A Chinese servant came running up and Angus asked him where his mistress was. He did not know. He had not seen her since tiffin.
'Where can she be?' asked Munro, coming back, puzzled.
He went to the back of the house and shouted.
'She can't have gone out. There's nowhere to go. When did you see her last, Neil?'
'I went out collecting after tiffin. I'd had a rather unsatisfactory morning and I thought I'd try my luck again.'
'Strange.'
They hunted everywhere round the camp. Munro thought she might have made herself comfortable somewhere and gone to sleep, 'It's too bad of her to frighten one like this.'
The whole party joined in the search. Munro began to grow alarmed..
'It's not possible that she should have gone for a stroll in the jungle and lost her way. She's never moved more than a hundred yards from the house to the best of my knowledge since we've been here.'
Neil saw the fear in Munro's eyes and looked down.
'We'd better get everyone along and start hunting. There's one thing, she can't be far. She knows that if you get lost the best thing is to stay where you are and wait for people to come and find you. She'll be scared out of her wits, poor thing.'
He called out the Dyak hunters and told the Chinese servants to bring lanterns. He fired his gun as a signal. They separated into two parties, one under Munro, the other under Neil, and went down the two rough paths that in the course of the month they had made in their comings and goings. It was arranged that whoever found Darya should fire three shots in quick succession. Neil walked with his face stern and set. His conscience was clear. He seemed to bear in his hands the decree of immanent justice. He knew that Darya would never be found. The two parties met. It was not necessary to look at Munro's face. He was distracted. Neil felt like a surgeon who is forced to perform a dangerous operation without assistance or appliances to save the life of someone he loves. It behoved him to be firm.
'She could never have got so far as this,' said Munro. 'We must go back and beat the jungle within the radius of a mile from the house inch by inch. The only explanation is that she was frightened by something or fainted or was stung by a snake.'
Neil did not answer. They started out again and, making lines, combed the undergrowth. They shouted. Every now and then they fired a gun and listened for a faint call in answer. Birds of the night flew with a whirring of wings, frightened, as they advanced with their lanterns; and now and then they half saw, half guessed at an animal, deer, boar, or rhino, that fled at their approach. The storm broke suddenly. A great wind blew and then the lightning rent the darkness, like a scream of a woman in pain, and the tortured flashes, quick, quick, one on the heels of the other, like demon dancers in a frantic reel, wriggled down the night. The horror of the forest was revealed in an unearthly day. The thunder crashed down the sky in huge rollers, peal upon peal, like vast, primeval waves dashing against the shores of eternity. That fearful din hurtled through space as though sound had size and weight. The rain pelted in fierce torrents. Rocks and gigantic trees came tumbling down the mountain. The tumult was awful. The Dyak hunters cowered, gibbering in terror of the angry spirits who spoke in the storm, but Munro urged them on. The rain fell all night, with lightning and thunder, and did not cease till dawn. Wet through and shivering they returned to the camp. They were exhausted. When they had eaten Munro meant to resume the desperate search. But he knew that it was hopeless. They would never see her alive again. He flung himself down wearily. His face was tired and white and anguished.
'Poor child. Poor child.'
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
OF HUMAN
BONDAGE
'It was not true that he would never see her again. It was not true because it was impossible.'
Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It tells the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor.
And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.
It is in Of Human Bondage that the essential themes of autonomy and enslavement which dominate so much of Maugham's writing are most profoundly explored.
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
THE MOON AND
SIXPENCE
'Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.'
Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence tells the story of Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker who abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. Whilst his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications. The Moon and Sixpence is at once a satiric caricature of Edwardian mores and a vivid portrayal of the mentality of genius.
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
THE RAZOR'S EDGE
'There was in the soul of that boy some confused striving, whether of half-thought-out ideas or of dimly felt emotions, I could not tell . . .'
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters – his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob.
The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
CAKES AND ALE
'They did not behave like lovers, butlike familiar friends . . . her eyes rested on him quietly, as though he were not a man, but a chair or a table.
Cakes and Ale is the book that roused a storm of controversy when it was first published. It is both a wickedly satirical novel about contemporary literary poseurs and a skilfully crafted study of freedom. It is also the book by which Maugham most wanted to be remembered – and probably still is.
A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents . . . preci-sion, tact, irony, and that beautiful negative thing which in so good a writer becomes positive – total, but total absence of pomposity'
Spectator
'One of my favourite writers'
Gabriel García Márquez
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
UP AT THE VILLA
'A great writer determined to tell the truth in a form which releases all the possibilities of his art'
Cyril Connolly
Newly widowed after an unhappy marriage, Mary Panton finds tranquillity in a beautiful villa high in the hills above Florence. From this haven of peace, she contemplates the prospect of a second marriage to the k
indly and distinguished Sir Edgar Swift. But a sudden and tragic rush of events destroys Mary's tenuous serenity and, thrown head-long into a nightmare of violence, she realises that to deny love, with all its manifold risks, is to deny life itself.
Profound, moving and written with taut and vivid economy, Up at the Villa is a superb example of Maugham's artistry and craftsmanship.
W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories Volume 4
(Series: # )
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