“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 ashore, 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 spring 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 assured her, to the want of a cup of tea, went slowly back to her lonely home.
In the period of grass widowhood which ensued, Mrs. Cluffins’ 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 had heard of the bird’s command of language, and 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.