"We"ll have a jolly time," said Mrs. Cluffins. "I often wish my husband was a seafaring man. A wife does have more freedom, doesn"t she?"
"More what?" inquired Mr. Gannett huskily.
"More freedom," said Mrs. Cluffins gravely. "I always envy sailors"
wives. They can do as they like. No husband to look after them for nine or ten months in the year."
Before the unhappy engineer could put his indignant thoughts into words there was a warning cry from the gangway, and with a hasty farewell he hurried below. The visitors went ash.o.r.e, the gangway was shipped, and in response to the clang of the telegraph the Curlew drifted slowly away from the quay and headed for the swing-bridge slowly opening in front of her.
The two ladies hurried to the pier-head and watched the steamer down the river until a bend hid it from view. Then Mrs. Gannett, with a sensation of having lost something, due, so her friend a.s.sured her, to the want of a cup of tea, went slowly back to her lonely home.
In the period of gra.s.s-widowhood which ensued, Mrs. Cluffins"s visits formed almost the sole relief to the bare monotony of existence. As a companion the parrot was an utter failure, its language being so irredeemably bad that it spent most of its time in the spare room with a cloth over its cage, wondering when the days were going to lengthen a bit. Mrs. Cluffins suggested selling it, but her friend repelled the suggestion with horror, and refused to entertain it at any price, even that of the publican at the corner, who, having heard of the bird"s command of language, was bent upon buying it.
"I wonder what that beauty will have to tell your husband," said Mrs.
Cluffins, as they sat together one day some three months after the Curlew"s departure.
"I should hope that he has forgotten that nonsense," said Mrs. Gannett, reddening; "he never alludes to it in his letters."
"Sell it," said Mrs. Cluffins peremptorily. "It"s no good to you, and Hobson would give anything for it almost."
Mrs. Gannett shook her head. "The house wouldn"t hold my husband if I did," she remarked with a shiver.
"Oh, yes, it would," said Mrs. Cluffins; "you do as I tell you, and a much smaller house than this would hold him. I told C. to tell Hobson he should have it for five pounds."
"But he mustn"t," said her friend in alarm.
"Leave yourself right in my hands," said Mrs. Cluffins, spreading out two small palms and regarding them complacently. "It"ll be all right, I promise you."
She put her arm round her friend"s waist and led her to the window, talking earnestly. In five minutes Mrs. Gannett was wavering, in ten she had given way, and in fifteen the energetic Mrs. Cluffins was en route for Hobson"s, swinging the cage so violently in her excitement that the parrot was reduced to holding on to its perch with claws and bill. Mrs.
Gannett watched the progress from the window, and with a queer look on her face sat down to think out the points of attack and defence in the approaching fray.
A week later a four-wheeler drove up to the door, and the engineer, darting upstairs three steps at a time, dropped an armful of parcels on the floor, and caught his wife in an embrace which would have done credit to a bear. Mrs. Gannett, for reasons of which lack of muscle was only one, responded less ardently.
"Ha, it"s good to be home again," said Gannett, sinking into an easy-chair and pulling his wife on his knee. "And how have you been?
Lonely?"
"I got used to it," said Mrs. Gannett softly.
The engineer coughed. "You had the parrot," he remarked.
"Yes, I had the magic parrot," said Mrs. Gannett.
"How"s it getting on?" said her husband, looking round. "Where is it?"
"Part of it is on the mantelpiece," said Mrs. Gannett, trying to speak calmly, "part of it is in a bonnet-box upstairs, some of it"s in my pocket, and here is the remainder."
She fumbled in her pocket and placed in his hand a cheap two-bladed clasp knife.
"On the mantelpiece!" repeated the engineer staring at the knife; "in a bonnet-box!" "Those blue vases," said his wife. Mr. Gannett put his hand to his head. If he had heard aright one parrot had changed into a pair of vases, a bonnet, and a knife. A magic bird with a vengeance.
"I sold it," said Mrs. Gannett suddenly.
The engineer"s knee stiffened inhospitably, and his arm dropped from his wife"s waist She rose quietly and took a chair opposite.
"Sold it!" said Mr. Gannett in awful tones. "Sold my parrot!"
"I didn"t like it, Jem," said his wife. "I didn"t want that bird watching me, and I did want the vases, and the bonnet, and the little present for you."
Mr. Gannett pitched the little present to the other end of the room.
"You see it mightn"t have told the truth, Jem," continued Mrs. Gannett.
"It might have told all sorts of lies about me, and made no end of mischief."
"It couldn"t lie," shouted the engineer pa.s.sionately, rising from his chair and pacing the room. "It"s your guilty conscience that"s made a coward of you. How dare you sell my parrot?"
"Because it wasn"t truthful, Jem," said his wife, who was somewhat pale.
"If you were half as truthful you"d do," vociferated the engineer, standing over her. "You, you deceitful woman."
Mrs. Gannett fumbled in her pocket again, and producing a small handkerchief applied it delicately to her eyes.
"I-I got rid of it for your sake," she stammered. "It used to tell such lies about you. I couldn"t bear to listen to it."
"About me!" said Mr. Gannett, sinking into his seat and staring at his wife with very natural amazement. "Tell lies about me! Nonsense! How could it?"
"I suppose it could tell me about you as easily as it could tell you about me?" said Mrs. Gannett. "There was more magic in that bird than you thought, Jem. It used to say shocking things about you. I couldn"t bear it."
"Do you think you"re talking to a child or a fool?" demanded the engineer.
Mrs. Gannett shook her head feebly. She still kept the handkerchief to her eyes, but allowed a portion to drop over her mouth.
"I should like to hear some of the stories it told about me-if you can remember them," said the engineer with bitter sarcasm.
"The first lie," said Mrs. Gannett in a feeble but ready voice, "was about the time you were at Genoa. The parrot said you were at some concert gardens at the upper end of the town."
One moist eye coming mildly from behind the handkerchief saw the engineer stiffen suddenly in his chair.
"I don"t suppose there even is such a place," she continued.
"I-b"leve-there-is," said her husband jerkily. "I"ve heard-our chaps-talk of it."
"But you haven"t been there?" said his wife anxiously.
"Never!" said the engineer with extraordinary vehemence.
"That wicked bird said that you got intoxicated there," said Mrs.
Gannett in solemn accents, "that you smashed a little marble-topped table and knocked down two waiters, and that if it hadn"t been for the captain of the Pursuit, who was in there and who got you away, you"d have been locked up. Wasn"t it a wicked bird?"
"Horrible!" said the engineer huskily.