Short Cruises. William Wymark Jacobs

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      Short Cruises

      THE CHANGELING

      MR. GEORGE HENSHAW let himself in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter-of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung his hat on the peg and entered the kitchen.

      Mrs. Henshaw had just finished dinner. The neatly cleaned bone of a chop was on a plate by her side; a small dish which had contained a rice-pudding was empty; and the only food left on the table was a small rind of cheese and a piece of stale bread. Mr. Henshaw’s face fell, but he drew his chair up to the table and waited.

      His wife regarded him with a fixed and offensive stare. Her face was red and her eyes were blazing. It was hard to ignore her gaze; harder still to meet it. Mr. Henshaw, steering a middle course, allowed his eyes to wander round the room and to dwell, for the fraction of a second, on her angry face.

      “You’ve had dinner early?” he said at last, in a trembling voice.

      “Have I?” was the reply.

      Mr. Henshaw sought for a comforting explanation. “Clock’s fast,” he said, rising and adjusting it.

      His wife rose almost at the same moment, and with slow deliberate movements began to clear the table.

      “What—what about dinner?” said Mr. Henshaw, still trying to control his fears.

      “Dinner!” repeated Mrs. Henshaw, in a terrible voice. “You go and tell that creature you were on the ‘bus with to get your dinner.”

      Mr. Henshaw made a gesture of despair. “I tell you,” he said emphatically, “it wasn’t me. I told you so last night. You get an idea in your head and—”

      “That’ll do,” said his wife, sharply. “I saw you, George Henshaw, as plain as I see you now. You were tickling her ear with a bit o’ straw, and that good-for-nothing friend of yours, Ted Stokes, was sitting behind with another beauty. Nice way o’ going on, and me at ‘ome all alone by myself, slaving and slaving to keep things respectable!”

      “It wasn’t me,” reiterated the unfortunate.

      “When I called out to you,” pursued the unheeding Mrs. Henshaw, “you started and pulled your hat over your eyes and turned away. I should have caught you if it hadn’t been for all them carts in the way and falling down. I can’t understand now how it was I wasn’t killed; I was a mask of mud from head to foot.”

      Despite his utmost efforts to prevent it, a faint smile flitted across the pallid features of Mr. Henshaw.

      “Yes, you may laugh,” stormed his wife, “and I’ve no doubt them two beauties laughed too. I’ll take care you don’t have much more to laugh at, my man.”

      She flung out of the room and began to wash up the crockery. Mr. Henshaw, after standing irresolute for some time with his hands in his pockets, put on his hat again and left the house.

      He dined badly at a small eating-house, and returned home at six o’clock that evening to find his wife out and the cupboard empty. He went back to the same restaurant for tea, and after a gloomy meal went round to discuss the situation with Ted Stokes. That gentleman’s suggestion of a double alibi he thrust aside with disdain and a stern appeal to talk sense.

      “Mind, if my wife speaks to you about it,” he said, warningly, “it wasn’t me, but somebody like me. You might say he ‘ad been mistook for me before.”

      Mr. Stokes grinned and, meeting a freezing glance from his friend, at once became serious again.

      “Why not say it was you?” he said stoutly. “There’s no harm in going for a ‘bus-ride with a friend and a couple o’ ladies.”

      “O’ course there ain’t,” said the other, hotly, “else I shouldn’t ha’ done it. But you know what my wife is.”

      Mr. Stokes, who was by no means a favorite of the lady in question, nodded. “You were a bit larky, too,” he said thoughtfully. “You ‘ad quite a little slapping game after you pretended to steal her brooch.”

      “I s’pose when a gentleman’s with a lady he ‘as got to make ‘imself pleasant?” said Mr. Henshaw, with dignity. “Now, if my missis speaks to you about it, you say that it wasn’t me, but a friend of yours up from the country who is as like me as two peas. See?”

      “Name o’ Dodd,” said Mr. Stokes, with a knowing nod. “Tommy Dodd.”

      “I’m not playing the giddy goat,” said the other, bitterly, “and I’d thank you not to.”

      “All right,” said Mr. Stokes, somewhat taken aback. “Any name you like; I don’t mind.”

      Mr. Henshaw pondered. “Any sensible name’ll do,” he said, stiffly.

      “Bell?” suggested Mr. Stokes. “Alfred Bell? I did know a man o’ that name once. He tried to borrow a bob off of me.”

      “That’ll do,” said his friend, after some consideration; “but mind you stick to the same name. And you’d better make up something about him—where he lives, and all that sort of thing—so that you can stand being questioned without looking more like a silly fool than you can help.”

      “I’ll do what I can for you,” said Mr. Stokes, “but I don’t s’pose your missis’ll come to me at all. She saw you plain enough.”

      They walked on in silence and, still deep in thought over the matter, turned into a neighboring tavern for refreshment. Mr. Henshaw drank his with the air of a man performing a duty to his constitution; but Mr. Stokes, smacking his lips, waxed eloquent over the brew.

      “I hardly know what I’m drinking,” said his friend, forlornly. “I suppose it’s four-half, because that’s what I asked for.”

      Mr. Stokes gazed at him in deep sympathy. “It can’t be so bad as that,” he said, with concern.

      “You wait till you’re married,” said Mr. Henshaw, brusquely. “You’d no business to ask me to go with you, and I was a good-natured fool to do it.”

      “You stick to your tale and it’ll be all right,” said the other. “Tell her that you spoke to me about it, and that his name is Alfred Bell—B E double L—and that he lives in—in Ireland. Here! I say!”

      “Well,” said Mr. Henshaw, shaking off the hand which the other had laid on his arm.

      “You—you be Alfred Bell,” said Mr. Stokes, breathlessly.

      Mr. Henshaw started and eyed him nervously. His friend’s eyes were bright and, he fancied, a bit wild.

      “Be Alfred Bell,” repeated Mr. Stokes. “Don’t you see? Pretend to be Alfred Bell and go with me to your missis. I’ll lend you a suit o’ clothes and a fresh neck-tie, and there you are.”

      “What?” roared the astounded Mr. Henshaw.

      “It’s as easy as easy,” declared the other. “Tomorrow evening, in a new rig-out, I walks you up to your house and asks for you to show you to yourself. Of course, I’m sorry you ain’t in, and perhaps we walks in to wait for you.”

      “Show me to myself?” gasped Mr. Henshaw.

      Mr. Stokes winked. “On account o’ the surprising likeness,” he said, smiling. “It is surprising, ain’t it? Fancy the two of us sitting there and talking to her and waiting for you to come in and wondering what’s making you so late!”

      Mr. Henshaw regarded him steadfastly for some seconds, and then, taking a firm hold of his mug, slowly drained the contents.

      “And what about my voice?” he demanded, with something approaching a sneer.

      “That’s right,” said Mr. Stokes, hotly; “it wouldn’t be you if you didn’t try to make difficulties.”

      “But what about it?” said Mr. Henshaw, obstinately.

      “You can alter it, can’t you?” said the other.

      They were alone in the bar, and Mr. Henshaw, after some persuasion, was induced to try a few experiments. He ranged from bass, which hurt his throat, to a falsetto which put Mr. Stokes’s teeth on edge,