“Oh, bother the saucepans!” said Madge impatiently. “I didn’t mean that—though it’s more my work than yours to wash them, anyhow. Washing-up isn’t a man’s job.”
“There isn’t any man-and-woman business about this establishment,” said Colin firmly, “except that I’m boss. Just get that clearly in your young mind. And what did you mean, if you meant anything?”
“Why, it’s as clear as daylight,” Madge announced. “Doris’s health is more important than music: you admitted that yourself. Well, then, let’s sell the piano!”
We looked at each other in blank amazement. Sell the piano! Madge’s adored piano, Father’s last gift to her. Beneath her fingers it was a very wonder-chest of magic and delight: all the fairies of laughter, all the melody of rippling water, all the dearest dreams come true were there when Madge played. Already old Ferrari, her Italian music-master, talked to us of triumphs ahead—triumphs in a wider field than Australia. And she sat on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, and talked of selling her Bechstein! No wonder we gasped.
“Talk sense!” growled Colin, when his breath came back.
“It is sense,” Madge retorted. “It’s worth ever so much money: a cheaper piano would do me just as well to practise on. Even if I gave up music altogether it would be worth it to give Doris a rest. She can’t go on as she is—you can see that for yourself, Colin Earle!”
“I certainly can’t go on hearing you rave!” I said. “Why, when you’re a second Paderewski you have got to be the prop of our declining years. It would be just about the finish for Colin and me if your music were interfered with, and——” at which point I suddenly found something hard in my throat. I suppose it was because I was a bit tired, for we aren’t a weepy family, but I just howled.
It alarmed Colin and Madge very badly. They patted me on the back and assured me I shouldn’t be bothered in any way, and begged me to drink some water: and when I managed to get hold of my voice again I seized the opportunity to make Madge promise that she wouldn’t mention the word “selling” in connection with the Bechstein again, unless we were really at our last gasp. This accomplished, we dispatched her to practice, and Colin returned to the washing-up.
Madge went, rather reluctantly, and Colin rubbed away at the saucepans, with the furrow deepening between his brows. I was in the midst of explaining clearly to him that I did not need a change, quite conscious the while of my utter failure to convince him, when there was a clatter in the passage, and Madge burst in, waving a newspaper, and incoherent with excitement.
“What on earth is the matter with the kid?” Colin asked, a little wearily. “Do go easy, Madge, and say what you want to, when you have finished brandishing that paper in your lily hand. Meanwhile, get off my sand-soap.” He rescued it, and turned a critical eye on the bottom of a saucepan. We were more or less used to Madge’s outbreaks, but to-night they seemed to be taking an acute form.