Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

“Indeed!” said Mr Musgrave, and stared up at the cat, who glared back at him defiantly from her position of security. The cat was suffered, not as a pet, but because cats in a house were of use in keeping down the mice. “I think,” added Mr Musgrave, “that the cat would feel happier if Diogenes were removed.”

“Please,” pleaded Peggy humbly, “let us go by the front gate. I am really afraid to cross the fields again. Diogenes chases the bulls.”

“’Orrid brute!” muttered Eliza with a sniff so loud that it drew Mr Musgrave’s eyes in her direction.

“You had better,” he observed drily, “clear away this – rubbish.”

He indicated the broken crockery. Then he stood away from the door and looked at Peggy.

“If you will come with me, Miss Annersley, I will take you through the garden. Kindly keep the dog on the lead.”

Peggy preceded him from the kitchen in a chastened mood, feeling very like a small girl about to be reprimanded. She resented Mr Musgrave’s air of elderly superiority. He might have assured her, before the servants at least, that it did not matter, and told her not to distress herself. She had a conviction that he felt it was only proper she should distress herself, for which reason she determined not to be overwhelmingly contrite. It was his cat that had effected the damage; Diogenes had not scrambled over the furniture.

Mr Musgrave led her through a passage and into the hall, which was wide and spacious, and had a comfortable fire glowing on the low hearth. It was a very nice hall. Peggy looked about her with interested curiosity. It was a nice house altogether; and Mr Musgrave, as he paused and looked down at her a little uncertainly, did not appear so forbidding as he had looked in the kitchen. After all, considering the amount of damage she and Diogenes were responsible for between them, he had shown admirable control. Peggy was relenting. She experienced the desire to more adequately express her regret.

“Would you like to – rest a little while?” Mr Musgrave asked.

The question was so unexpected that Peggy wanted to laugh. She realised that courtesy alone dragged the reluctant suggestion from her unwilling host, and was aware that acceptance of the invitation by increasing his embarrassment would aggravate her former offence. Mischief prompted assent; but the new feeling of kindliness towards him overruled the teasing instinct, and to Mr Musgrave’s relief she declined.

“I think,” she said, “you have seen enough of us for one day. When I come again I will leave Diogenes behind.”

She put out a hand and laid it with girlish impulsiveness on his sleeve.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

Mr Musgrave looked down at the small hand as he might have looked at something that had alighted on his sleeve by accident, which could not be brushed off, but must be allowed to remove itself at its own convenience. It was a strong little hand, roughened with labour, and ungloved, because its owner had removed her glove the better to chastise Diogenes; but it was quite a nicely-shaped woman’s hand, and would have been fine and white had it been allowed to become so. Then he looked straight into the upturned face.

“Please don’t think any more about it,” he said, and meeting the grey eyes fully, smiled.

Chapter Thirteen

When Peggy Annersley parted from John Musgrave at his gate and set off down the road accompanied by the joyous Diogenes, now freed from the lead, Mr Musgrave turned about and slowly retraced his steps along the gravelled path he had traversed at Peggy’s side. His mind, despite the early prejudice which the sight of the young lady immodestly attired had excited, and the later annoyance of her unfortunate trespass, which anyone might well have resented, harboured no unkindly thought. He was even conscious of a faint amusement as he recalled the astonishing picture of her unexpected presence in his kitchen, and his own amazement at finding her there. She stimulated alike his interest and his curiosity. It is impossible to experience interest in another human being and remain altogether indifferent in feeling, particularly when that interest is centred in a member of the opposite sex. John Musgrave was not given to self-analysis, nor did he disturb his mind with problems of this nature. Had it occurred to him that a mild interest in a prepossessing young woman held possibilities of unexpected development he would promptly have banished the captivating Peggy from the place she engaged in his thoughts. At that stage in their acquaintance this would have been quite simple of accomplishment. John Musgrave would have thought so, at least. But the mind is an odd store-room, and many things dwell in it which the owner is powerless to eject – small, persistent, elusive thoughts which hide behind the lumber of inconsequent things.

As Mr Musgrave slowly paced the gravel walk, lost in a not unpleasing reverie, he became suddenly aware of an insignificant object lying in his path, and, stooping to examine this object at closer range, discovered that it was a woman’s glove. Since only one woman had used that path recently, since, too, the glove had assuredly not been there when he had accompanied Peggy to the gate, the inference pointed conclusively to the glove being Peggy’s property.

John Musgrave picked it up, and held it between his fingers. Then he placed it across the palm of one hand and examined it with curiosity, after the manner of a collector who has discovered some new object of interest. It was a small glove, absurdly small it seemed to John Musgrave as it lay across his large palm, and it was obviously new. Had Mr Musgrave been more experienced in the matter of women’s dress he would have realised from the fact of its newness that the owner would make some effort to recover her property, an odd glove being useless, and no woman caring to sacrifice a new pair. But Mr Musgrave did not consider this point. He was for the time absorbed in contemplation of the absurd thing.

Having examined it on the one side, he reversed it on his palm and examined it on the other. Then he took it up, and idly, in abstracted mood, thrust his fingers into it and began pulling it over his hand. The futility of attempting to fit a larger object into a smaller was immediately demonstrated; the kid split obligingly at the seams to accommodate the hand that was never intended to fill it, and John Musgrave, gazing at the mischief he had wrought, beheld his large knuckles bursting through the tear. The new glove was no longer a thing of any value.

At the moment of realising what he had done he became aware of a still more disquieting circumstance: the gate behind him clicked and the sound of rapid footsteps fell upon his ear. Hastily, with a change of colour which suggested a conscience not altogether free from guilt, he proceeded to drag the glove off his hand. But the thing resisted stubbornly, and the girl was almost at his elbow. He desisted from his efforts, and swung round and faced her, concealing his hand awkwardly behind his back. There was nothing in the expression of the demure face that met his gaze to betray that the girl had any suspicion why that right arm of his should be doubled behind his back; but to one familiar with Peggy the guilelessness of her look might have suggested knowledge.

“I’m sorry to trouble you again,” she said softly, “but I have dropped a glove. It’s a new glove, and I don’t wish to lose it. I thought it might be in the garden, perhaps.”

Mr Musgrave hesitated, and was lost. He dissembled. To have admitted in the first instance having found the glove, even though he had to confess to having spoilt it, would have been simple, but he had let the opportunity slip; to own to it now would prove embarrassing. He looked with discomfited eyes along the path.

“I do not see it,” he said.

“No,” replied Peggy, “neither do I. But I thought…”

“Perhaps,” said Mr Musgrave quickly, “you left it in the kitchen. I will tell the servants to look. It shall be returned to you.”

“I had it,” Peggy persisted, “when I was talking with you in the hall.”

“Yes?” he said. “Then – then perhaps it is there. It shall be found.”

A spirit of wickedness entered into Peggy.

“Never mind,” she said brightly. “It serves me right if I have lost it. Don’t trouble to hunt for it, Mr Musgrave. I came back because I thought I might find it near the gate; but plainly it isn’t here. Good-bye again.”

She held out a determined hand. Mr Musgrave was faced with the greatest dilemma he had ever experienced. What was he to do? Courtesy demanded that he should take her hand; to ignore it would be unpardonable. To extend the left hand was equally impossible; to offer the right was to acknowledge his duplicity, and might lead to an altogether wrong conception of his motives. A man when he acts upon impulse is not necessarily guided by any motive. For the fraction of a second he hesitated; then, with perfect gravity, he drew his arm from behind his back, and with the hand still wearing the torn fragments of the lost glove he silently touched her fingers. Peggy’s grey eyes were on his face; they did not fall, he observed, once to his hand. He felt grateful to her. A little tact – and tact is but the dictates of a kindly nature – smoothes over many awkward situations.

He returned with her to the gate and opened it for her, and raised his hat gravely as she passed through, to be greeted with boisterous effusiveness by Diogenes, who had reluctantly waited outside.

“He’s rather a dear, Diogenes,” she said, as she proceeded down the road, a little more soberly now. “He made me feel a little mean female cad.”

John Musgrave, returning along the path, drew off the torn glove and slipped it into his pocket. Another link had been formed in the chain of impressions.

By the time Peggy reached the Hall her self-abasement had evaporated, and her usual good spirits reasserted themselves. She made directly for the drawing-room, where Mrs Chadwick, after a disappointing afternoon, lay limply against the cushions of a sofa, solacing herself with the inevitable cigarette. She looked round at Peggy’s entrance, and was so relieved to see some one bright and young and wholesome that the resentment she was prepared to show vanished – in her welcoming smile. Peggy was one of those fortunate people who disarm wrath by reason of unfailing good temper.

“You are late,” Mrs Chadwick said. “If you want fresh tea you will have to ring for it.”

“I don’t mind it cold,” Peggy returned, attending to her needs at the tea-table and smiling pleasantly to herself the while. “Tired?” she asked, dropping comfortably into a seat, and surveying her aunt inquiringly above the tea-cup in her hand.

“Tired and bored,” Mrs Chadwick answered.

“Been entertaining the aborigines, I suppose?”

“Yes. You might have stayed to help me. These people… Peggy, I consider it is in the nature of a solecism to be so dull; it’s a breach of good taste.”

“They can’t help it,” Peggy said soothingly. “I expect if we had lived all our days in Moresby we should be dull too. It’s stultifying. I am sorry you have had such a slow time. I’ve been enjoying myself – hugely. I’ve had most surprising adventures.”

Mrs Chadwick laughed.

“You generally do,” she answered. “But it puzzles me to think how you contrive adventures in Moresby. Nothing ever happens when I pass beyond the gates. It would cause me a shock if it did.”

“It caused me several shocks,” Peggy replied, looking amused. “I experience them again when I review the afternoon’s doings. You’d never guess where I’ve been.”

“Then I won’t try to. Tell me. If you give me a shock it may shake off the ennui I am suffering. You have done something audacious, I suppose.”

Peggy ceased munching her cake and tried to look serious, but failed. Two tantalising dimples played at the corners of her mouth and her eyes shone wickedly.

“A little audacious, perhaps,” she allowed. “In the first place, I’ve been walking out with the sexton. He was quite interesting and agreeable until he began to discuss corpses. That made me feel uncomfortable; so I left him and went to call on Mr Musgrave.”

“What!” exclaimed Mrs Chadwick.

“It is all right,” Peggy proceeded reassuringly. “Nobody saw me. I slipped in through the tradesmen’s entrance and interviewed him in the kitchen chaperoned by the cook and a sour-faced parlourmaid. Having satisfied the proprieties thus far, we proceeded to the hall for more intimate conversation. He is not as fossilised as he looks. He accompanied me through the garden and kept my glove for a souvenir of the visit. And I think,” Peggy paused and looked into the fire with a dancing gleam of mischief in the grey eyes, “I think,” she added, smiling, “that he will send me a present of a new pair. Now confess, you would never have credited John with being such a sport.”

“When you have finished romancing,” Mrs Chadwick said severely, “perhaps you will explain exactly what you have been up to. If you had wished to see Mr Musgrave you could have accomplished your purpose by remaining at home. He was here this afternoon.”