Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor
Page 31
cases and they've always been foundout. The governor's asking for trouble."
The weight upon Mr Musgrave's conscience attendant on the duplicitywhich he of necessity was called upon to practise daily was soburdensome that he was imperatively moved to confide in some one, andthereby share, if not shift, the responsibility. Some idea of confidingin Walter Errol had been with him from the first; and, meeting the vicarone morning when he was returning from an early walk with Diogenes, thedesire to unburden his mind hardened to a determination upon perceivingthe amazement in the vicar's eyes as they rested upon the dog he led anunwilling captive on the chain.
The vicar halted in the road and laughed.
"I heard you were starting kennels," he said; "but, upon my word! Ididn't believe it. Wherever did you buy that dog?"
Mr Musgrave had not bought Diogenes and he had no intention ofpretending that he had.
"It was given to me," he said.
"Oh, that explains it," the vicar answered.
But even while he spoke it occurred to Mr Musgrave that the dog had notbeen given to him; he had offered to take it.
"I am taking care of it for some one," he corrected himself.
The vicar looked mystified and faintly amused.
"That's doing a lot for friendship, isn't it, John?" he asked.
John Musgrave reddened.
"Is obliging a friend an excessive courtesy?" he inquired.
"Well, no. I stand rebuked."
The vicar stooped and patted Diogenes and looked him over critically.
"It's a funny thing," he said, "but he's extraordinarily like the bullthey had up at the Hall--except, of course, for his colour."
"He is," Mr Musgrave said, firing off his bomb as calmly as though hewere making a very ordinary statement, "the same dog."
"Oh!" said the vicar, and straightened himself and looked John Musgravesquarely in the eyes. "I understood," he said, "that Diogenes wasshot."
"Diogenes ought to have been shot," replied Mr Musgrave, and it ranthrough his mind at the moment to wish that Diogenes had been shot, buthe checked the ungenerous thought, and added: "Miss Annersley rescuedhim and smuggled him away. He is, as a matter of fact, in hiding fromthe authorities."
"Which accounts," remarked the vicar, "for his colour." He stooped topat Diogenes again in order to conceal from his friend's eyes the smilein his own. "And Miss Annersley brought him to you?" he said, with themental addition, "Little baggage?"
"No," said Mr Musgrave, and proceeded with great care to outline thefacts of the case, omitting details as far as possible. "She was sovery upset," he finished. "And really it seemed regrettable tosacrifice a valuable dog after the mischief was done. The onlyuneasiness I feel in the matter is in regard to the Chadwicks. I shouldnot like to annoy them."
"I think you may put that fear out of your thoughts at least," Mr Errolreplied. "Only yesterday Mr Chadwick was telling me how vexed he wasto have been obliged to destroy the dog. He expressed the wish that hehad sent him away instead."
Reassured on this head, Mr Musgrave looked relieved.
"I'm glad to know that," he said. "Quite possibly Diogenes will bereceived back into the family later on, when time has softened MrsChadwick's chagrin."
"In the meanwhile," Walter Errol said, laughing, "I foresee yourattachment for the--dog having grown to the extent of refusing to partwith him."
John Musgrave was by nature literal, nor did he on this occasion departfrom his habit of interpreting his friend's speech to the letter ratherthan the spirit.
"My affection for Diogenes," he returned, "will be tempered always withanxiety. And in any case the motive which led to my adoption of himwill qualify any distress I may feel in parting with him. It will giveme immense pleasure to restore her pet to Miss Annersley."
"Yes," agreed the vicar decidedly, "Miss Annersley, of course, must haveDiogenes back."
He returned to the vicarage for breakfast in a highly amused frame ofmind, but, having been sworn by John Musgrave to secrecy, was denied thepleasure of relating this amazing tale of Mr Musgrave's benevolence forthe benefit of his wife. The story of Diogenes must for the presentremain a secret.
But as a secret shared by an increasing number of persons it stood inconsiderable danger of ultimate disclosure. The risk of discovery inthe quarter in which discovery was most to be avoided was minimised bythe departure, of the Chadwicks for the Continent a month earlier thanhad been intended. The responsibility for hastening the departurerested with Mr Chadwick, who, worried with his wife's constantbewailing her pet's untimely end, and equally harassed by his niece'suncomplaining but very obvious regret for her faithful four-footedcompanion, decided that change of scene might help them to forget thesesmall troubles which depressed the atmosphere of his hitherto genialhome.
Peggy, from motives quite apart from the distress she successfullyfeigned, encouraged him in this belief, and once away from Moresbybrightened so suddenly and became so surprisingly cheerful that heruncle was puzzled to understand why his wife did not show acorresponding gaiety, but continued to bemoan her loss as she had doneat home.
Because the murder of Diogenes had lain heavily on his conscience inconsideration of the girl's affection for the dog, the reaction ofPeggy's spirits occasioned Mr Chadwick immense relief. She could not,he decided, have been so devoted to the brute as he had supposed. Butin any case he felt grateful to her for her generosity in sparing himreproach. The only reproach he received in respect of Diogenes' endcame from a quarter whence he least expected it, and from whence it wasleast deserved. So little prepared was he to hear his wife denounce theexecution of Diogenes as mistaken and absurd, and to complain of thisill-advised act as vexatious to herself, that he found no words in whichto answer her. It was significant of the unreasonableness of humannature, he reflected, that she could hurl such a charge at him, and feelherself ill-used by a prompt obedience to her expressed wish. Also itpointed to the unwisdom of carrying out a death sentence withintwenty-four hours of its delivery. The road was already in the makingalong which Diogenes would eventually return.
Peggy decided that when they got home she would bring Diogenes to lifeby degrees. She was not specially desirous of bringing him to life in ahurry, her reasons for a gradual resuscitation being governed byconsiderations of so complex and feminine a character that Mr Musgravewould have failed to follow them. The vicar, on the other hand, wouldhave apprehended her motives very readily; he had a surer grasp thanJohn Musgrave on the complexities of the human mind.
To one person in Moresby the addition of Diogenes to Mr Musgrave'sestablishment afforded entire satisfaction; that person was MissSimpson. For the bull-dog at the Hall she had confessed to absoluteterror; but Mr Musgrave's brindle was a dear, so much handsomer andmore gentle.
She noted the hour for Mr Musgrave's walk in Diogenes' company and,though he changed the direction of his walk daily, almost invariably thepertinacious spinster ran him to earth, and, to his intense annoyance,joined him and entreated permission to hold Diogenes' chain.
That was the greatest of the many embarrassments Diogenes occasioned MrMusgrave. He began unconsciously to look for Miss Simpson's sparefigure furtively behind trees and hedges as he proceeded on his way;when it flashed abruptly upon him, appearing unexpectedly round a bendof the road, or starting up, as it seemed to his surprised eyes, out ofthe very ground, he experienced a desire to loosen Diogenes' chain andset him at her. He was growing to hate the sight of her thin, eagerface. And her comparisons of the two dogs, which were one dog,disconcerted him. He came near to taking her into the secret at times.It puzzled him to think what she would make of it if she learned thetruth.
Miss Simpson was so anxious to establish the fact of the markedsimilarity in their tastes that she blundered into the declaration thatshe doted on dogs, particularly bull-dogs. Mr Musgrave received thisstatement coldly.
"I am afraid I cannot sympathise with your enthusiasm," he replied. "Idislike dogs--particularly bu
ll-dogs."
"Then why," asked Miss Simpson very naturally, "do you keep a bull-dog?"
"I am only taking care of it for a friend," he explained.
"How very kind of you," she gushed. "Such a responsibility, otherpeople's pets."
She embarked upon a windy dissertation about a cat she had once takencharge of for some one, and the trouble and expense this ungratefulanimal had caused her.
"But you can't chain up a cat," she explained. "People are so selfish.They never consider how they trespass on one's kindness."
"If service called for no sacrifice it