Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

Arrived at the house, Mr Musgrave and Peggy and Diogenes behaved very much after the manner of three conspirators. In a sense they were conspirators, and the third was a criminal conspirator. Diogenes, with agreeable recollections of former sport connected with Mr Musgrave’s back entrance, plucked up his spirit on passing through the gate and looked expectantly round for Mr Musgrave’s cat; Peggy, with less pleasant memories of that former occasion, tightened her hold on the lead and kept an attentive eye on her charge; Mr Musgrave, conscious of nothing save the undesirability of being seen by the servants under existing circumstances, walked with a sheepish and cautious air past the back of his dwelling, and on reaching the stables threw open the door with guilty haste and drew it after him as he followed close upon Peggy’s heels. Once inside, safe from observation, with the door shut against intrusion, he assumed his normal manner, and ceased to look like a middle-aged Guy Fawkes, or a gentlemanly dog-stealer.

Chapter Twenty Four

“What jolly stables!” Peggy cried, breathing herself more freely since the imminent discovery of Diogenes was a danger past. They had met no one in the road, had been seen by no one from the house. “You will be quite happy here, Diogenes. You must be very good, and give no trouble, mind.”

Diogenes, who was engaged on an inspection of his temporary quarters, disregarded these injunctions; he was snuffling round for rats. Peggy looked at Mr Musgrave. By a strange coincidence Mr Musgrave was looking at Peggy, looking with a close and curious scrutiny.

“You are kind,” she said. “I can never thank you.”

Her gratitude had the effect of inclining Mr Musgrave towards a greater kindliness; but, since he had undertaken to perform the sole service that presented itself as practicable, he could bethink him of nothing kinder, and so modestly deprecated her thanks.

“If Diogenes had been shot,” she said, and shivered, “it would have made me very unhappy. I’m unhappy enough as it is. I hate the thought of losing him. I can’t bear to think of never seeing him in the future.”

To hide the sudden rush of tears which she realised would be as embarrassing for John Musgrave to witness as for her to shed before him, she dropped on her knees in the straw and drew Diogenes to her and put her arms about his neck.

“Oh, Diogenes, my poor dear?” she sobbed. “Why ever did you do it? I’ve got to let you go, Diogenes. I shan’t see you any more, ever. We’ll never go for walks together again. If I’d only been with him,” she said, lifting to John Musgrave her tear-dimmed eyes, “it wouldn’t have happened.”

John Musgrave, with the scene of his wrecked china, and Diogenes standing triumphant amid the wreckage, with Peggy, dismayed and helpless, beside him, had a passing doubt whether her presence would have availed in preventing the tragedy. But, with those upturned, tear-filled eyes appealing for his sympathy, to remind her that her authority was sometimes in default was a brutality of which he was incapable.

“I am exceedingly sorry,” he said gently, “for your distress. I wish I could help you.”

“But you are helping me,” she cried. “You have taken such a load off my mind. I daresay in time I’ll get used to being without him. But he was such a – chum.”

As she knelt almost at his feet, with her arms about the ugly brute from which she was so loth to separate, she presented a picture at once so appealing and pathetic that Mr Musgrave found himself struggling with all manner of absurd impulses in his very earnest and not unnatural desire to see her grief change to gladness, and the tears melt away in smiles. He had the same feeling of uncomfortable distress in witnessing her trouble as he experienced over the lesser but more assertive troubles of John Sommers. Her tears hurt him.

“I suppose,” he said, with a certain halting indecision of manner, “we couldn’t, perhaps, find a home for him somewhere not too far away – somewhere, in fact, near enough for you to see him occasionally? I wonder… Perhaps that might be managed.”

Peggy brightened visibly and looked up at him with such a light of hope in her eyes that Mr Musgrave, from thinking that this might be managed, finally decided that it must be managed; that he, in short, must manage it. This resolve once firmly established in his mind, his thoughts busied themselves with ways and means for the safe and convenient disposal of Diogenes. But the only way which presented itself was so disturbing to Mr Musgrave that, after first considering it, he paused to reflect, and looking upon Diogenes, and having very clearly in mind the great personal inconvenience that would result from such a course, he promptly rejected it. Having rejected it, finally, as he believed, he paused again for reflection; and looking this time not upon Diogenes but straight into those clear, hopeful eyes, which seemed to look to him with such a perfect confidence in his ability to solve this difficulty that to disappoint her expectation seemed cruel after having raised her hopes, Mr Musgrave felt it imperative on him to reconsider the matter. After a somewhat protracted silence, he said: “Do you think it would be possible for me to keep him?”

Peggy was so amazed at this proposal, which in her wildest moments she had not conceived, that she released Diogenes and stood up slowly, fixing upon John Musgrave a look so charged with gratitude and admiration and an emotion which partook of neither of these qualities, but which was so expressive of itself as to move Mr Musgrave to a desire to house Diogenes, or any other beast, in order to oblige her. She approached and put her two hands into his, and, oddly, John Musgrave did not feel embarrassed. He held the small hands firmly, and looked gravely into the earnest face.

“I never thought of that,” she said. “I never thought of anything half so good as that. I don’t know what to say… It doesn’t seem fair to let you do it. I expect he’ll be an awful nuisance for a time.”

Mr Musgrave was very certain that he would be a nuisance; but he was warming to the business, and felt equal to any undertaking with that soft look in the grey eyes melting his reluctance and the small hands gripping his with such eager warmth.

“I don’t suppose we should get through without a little trouble,” he answered, smiling. “It will certainly be necessary to keep him for some weeks on the chain. I could take him for a run every day – in the early morning, and after dusk. The greatest difficulty I foresee is in the matter of his identity. I should not like to annoy Mr Chadwick. It seems acting not quite properly towards him.”

“Uncle would be as grateful as I am,” Peggy assured him, “if he knew. He hated the thought of having Diogenes destroyed. Couldn’t we disguise him somehow – paint him? I believe he could be dyed.”

“I’ll take him into Rushleigh and see what can be contrived,” he replied. “And, anyway, if necessary he can be sent away later. For the present I will adopt him. And – and any time you wish to see him you can come in and take him off the chain.”

Peggy grasped his hands more tightly.

“You are so kind, so very kind,” she said. “I will never forget. I wish there was something I could do for you.”

She looked so earnest in expressing this wish so really anxious to prove her gratitude, that Mr Musgrave felt himself sufficiently rewarded for the service he was rendering. The charge of a dog, even of a dog with such a record as Diogenes, was after, all no superhuman undertaking.

“You overestimate the service,” he said. “There is really no need for you to feel under any obligation.”

But Peggy would not allow this.

“Once,” she said slowly, taking her hands from his and moving a pace or two away, “you asked me to do something to oblige you – and I refused; refused because I saw no reason, I told you, for complying with the request.” She suddenly smiled as she met his quiet scrutiny, and made a slight gesture with her hand in the direction of the dog. “You might quite as aptly apply that argument in this case; there really isn’t any reason why you should oblige me now.”

“Not so,” he interrupted. “The reason lies in my wish to oblige you.” Peggy nodded.

“That is a reason I also have discovered,” she said. “I can give the promise now which you asked me for on Christmas Eve – do you remember?.. about the smoking… because the argument I used then doesn’t hold any longer. I wish,” she added, “that I had given the promise at the time.”

“Thank you,” John Musgrave returned quietly.

It was a curious fact, in consideration of how objectionable the practice of smoking in women had once appeared to Mr Musgrave, that he should experience so little triumph in this victory. He had seen Peggy smoke on two separate occasions, and, although the sight had pleased him ill, he had reluctantly admitted that with some women the habit, if deplorable, was not unbecoming. The reason Peggy allowed for making the promise, rather than the promise itself, gave John Musgrave pleasure.

Peggy took an affectionate farewell of the wondering Diogenes, enjoining on him the necessity for behaving with the utmost propriety; and then, while Mr Musgrave held the door cautiously ajar, she slipped out after him through the narrow opening and left Diogenes, indignantly protesting, on the other side.

Peggy returned home with a heart so lightened that she found it difficult to dissemble before the Chadwicks and wear a mien becoming to the double tragedy that had robbed Mrs Chadwick of her pampered pet and herself of her daily companion.

“I am awfully sorry, Peggy,” her uncle said, putting an arm through hers as they went in to lunch together, “about Diogenes. I know you will miss him a lot. But your aunt was so upset there was nothing else for it. He had to be got rid of.”

“He had to be got rid of,” echoed Peggy, and lifted a pair of reproachful eyes to his face. “You might have thought of a kinder way out,” she said. “You could quite easily have found him a home, and have got rid of him that way. Poor Diogenes!”

“I wish I had,” he said. “But Ruby worried me. There wasn’t time to think… Well, his troubles are over now, poor brute!”

Whereat Peggy involuntarily smiled. Diogenes’ troubles, like John Musgrave’s, were, she realised, only just beginning.

Chapter Twenty Five

The troubles of Mr Musgrave as the owner of a bull-dog began forthwith and multiplied exceedingly. Diogenes was driven into Rushleigh that afternoon in the car, and subsequently, to his secret disgust, returned disguised as a brindle, which disguise he diligently sought to remove with so much success that the journeys to Rushleigh became periodic, and Diogenes underwent chameleon-like changes in the intervals.

A large dog-kennel and brand-new chain were purchased, and, save when Mr Musgrave took Diogenes for the daily run, and Peggy, availing herself of his permission, slipped in through the tradesmen’s entrance and released her excited pet, Diogenes spent his days in complaining inactivity, with ample time in which to reflect upon his misdeeds.

The arrival of Diogenes affected some change in Mr Musgrave’s household. Eliza promptly gave notice. She would, she informed the surprised master of the establishment, as soon remain in a place with an elephant. Martha, who would have suffered elephants and other undesirable pets rather than quit Mr Musgrave’s service, sought to propitiate Diogenes, and, being a disciple of the famous explorer who phrased the axiom that the stomach governs the world, she carried bones and other delicacies to Diogenes’ kennel, to the detriment of his figure, and so won his affections that after Peggy, whom he adored, and Mr Musgrave, to whom he became speedily attached, Martha ranked as his very good friend.

The chauffeur had his doubts about Diogenes, and he nursed darker doubts in regard to his employer. To take a white bull-dog into Rushleigh and fetch home a brindle that was constantly changing its coat occurred to King is a highly suspicious circumstance.

“There’ll be a police case over that dog,” he remarked to Martha. “You mark my words. I’ve known similar cases and they’ve always been found out. The governor’s asking for trouble.”

The weight upon Mr Musgrave’s conscience attendant on the duplicity which he of necessity was called upon to practise daily was so burdensome that he was imperatively moved to confide in some one, and thereby share, if not shift, the responsibility. Some idea of confiding in Walter Errol had been with him from the first; and, meeting the vicar one morning when he was returning from an early walk with Diogenes, the desire to unburden his mind hardened to a determination upon perceiving the amazement in the vicar’s eyes as they rested upon the dog he led an unwilling captive on the chain.

The vicar halted in the road and laughed.

“I heard you were starting kennels,” he said; “but, upon my word! I didn’t believe it. Wherever did you buy that dog?”

Mr Musgrave had not bought Diogenes and he had no intention of pretending 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 not been given to him; he had offered to take it.