Next morning she was awakened by some sound she could not at first
define, but which she presently identified as the remote ringing of the
telephone bell. She listened. The servants would answer it, of course,
but she wondered who could be calling the house so early in the day.
Feeling very wide awake she slipped into her dressing-gown and slippers
and went to the top of the stairs to listen. She heard Henry’s voice,
downstairs in the hall.
“Yes, yes, hullo. Yes, I’m here. Is that you, darling? Sorry to ring you
up at this hour, but later on every word I said would be overheard. Yes,
infernally public.” He laughed softly. “No, I don’t suppose anyone ever
uses this telephone for purposes they’d rather keep to themselves. Oh,
all right, thanks. Pleased to see me? Yes, I think so. Look here, things
are going to be deuced awkward. Well, she expects me to spend most of my
time here—Yes, an awful bore—Oh, well, it’s natural enough, I suppose.
Five years, and all that, don’t you know. Well, but what am I to say?
Can’t be too brutal, can one?—Oh, bored stiff in two days, of course, I
simply don’t know what to do about it. Besides, I’m dying to get back to
you.—Yes, silly, of course.—I wish you’d help, Isabel. Tell me what to
say to the old lady.—No, she seems to take it quite for granted. Oh, all
the year round, with an occasional week in London.—I can’t say I think
it in the least funny.—Well, of course, if I was a downright brute....”
Mrs. Martin turned and went back into her bedroom. She shut the door
very gently behind her. Presently she heard Henry come upstairs and go
into his room.
THE PARROT
_To H. G. N._
I
Once upon a time there was a small green parrot, with a coral-coloured
head. It should have lived in Uruguay, but actually it lived in Pimlico,
in a cage, a piece of apple stuck between the bars at one end of its
perch, and a lump of sugar between the bars at the other. It was
well-cared for; its drinking water was fresh every day, the seed in its
little trough was daily renewed, and the cage stood on a table in the
window to get the yellow sunlight that occasionally penetrated the
muslin curtains. The room, furthermore, was well-warmed, and all cats
and such dangers kept rigorously away. In spite of all this, the bird
was extremely disagreeable. If anyone went to stand beside its cage, in
order to admire its beautiful and brilliant colouring, it took refuge in
a corner, buried its head beneath the seed-trough, and screamed on a
harsh, shrill note like a pig in the shambles. Whenever it believed
itself to be unobserved, it returned to the eternal and unavailing
occupation of trying to get out of its cage.
In early days, it had had a cage of less substantial make: being a
strong little bird it had contrived to loosen a bar and to make its
escape once or twice into the room; but, consequent on this, a more
adequate cage had been procured, the bars of which merely twanged like
harp-strings under the assault of the beak, and yielded not at all.
Nevertheless the parrot was not discouraged. It had twenty-four hours
out of every day at its disposal, and three hundred and sixty-five days
out of every year. It worked at the bars with its beak; it stuck its
feet against the sides, and tugged at the bar. Once it discovered how to
open the door, after which the door had to be secured with a piece of
string. The owners of the parrot explained to it, that, should it make
good its escape from the house, it would surely fall a prey to a cat, a
dog, or a passing motor; and if to none of these things, then to the
climate of England, which in no way resembled the climate of Uruguay.
When they stood beside its cage giving those explanations, it got down
into the corner, cowered, and screamed.
The parrot was looked after by the under-housemaid, a slatternly girl of
eighteen, with smudges of coal on her apron, and a smear of violet eyes
in a white sickly face. She used to talk to the parrot while she was
cleaning out the tray at the bottom of the cage, confiding to it all her
perplexities, which she could safely do without fear of being overheard,
by reason of the din the parrot maintained meanwhile. In spite of its
lack of response, she had for the parrot a passion which transformed it
into a symbol. Its jade-green and coral seemed to give her a hint of
something marvellously far removed from Pimlico. Her fifteen minutes
with the parrot every morning remained the one fabulous excursion of her
day; it was a journey to Bagdad, a peep into the caves of Aladdin.
“Casting down their golden crowns upon a glassy sea,” she murmured, in a
hotch-potch of religion and romance—for the two in her mind were plaited
together into an unexplained but beautiful braid, that was a source of
confusion, rapture, and a strange unhappiness.
Apart from the function of cleaning out the cage, which she performed
with efficiency, she was, considered as a housemaid, a failure.
Perpetually in trouble, she tried to mend her ways; would turn
energetic, would scrub and polish; then, as she relapsed into
day-dreams, the most important part of her work would be left forgotten.
Scolding and exasperation stormed around her ears. Sometimes she
appeared disheartened and indifferent; sometimes she gazed in a scared
fashion at the indignant authority and set about her work with a dazed
vehemence. But black-lead and Brasso remained to her, in spite of her
efforts, of small significance.
Meanwhile the parrot gave up the attempt to get out of its cage, and
spent its days moping upon the topmost perch.