Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

“I am going to the gate with Robert,” she called to him, “to look for spooks. You can come to meet me, to see that I am not carried away on a broomstick.”

Robert did not approve of the levity of her manner. He felt, indeed, so resentful as he hurried along the avenue at her side, with Diogenes in attendance, that he was doubly relieved when they reached the lodge gates without any further supernatural visitation, the absence of which he attributed, he informed her, to the presence of the dog. But the transfer of half a crown from Peggy’s slim hand to Robert’s horny palm softened his resentment sufficiently to allow him to wish her a friendly good-night, and to further express the hope that “nothing dreadful” met her on the way back.

Nothing more dreadful than Mr Chadwick awaited her in the elm avenue; but Peggy at the moment would almost as soon have encountered a ghost as her uncle; a ghost, at least, would not have asked awkward questions.

“What did Robert want?” Mr Chadwick inquired.

“He came with a message – for me.”

“What about?”

“A private message,” Peggy replied.

“Oh?” he said. He threw away his cigar and linked an arm within Peggy’s. “I thought he might have come to fetch Musgrave’s dog. That animal seems pretty much at home here.”

“Y-es,” Peggy returned dubiously.

“I wonder if Musgrave would be inclined to sell him. I’ve half a mind to ask him.”

“Oh, please don’t do that!” Peggy said quickly.

“Why not?”

“I think – he wouldn’t like it. He is so fond of the dog.”

Will Chadwick laughed, and since his niece did not express any curiosity as to the cause of his amusement, he did not explain it. But he wondered why, when they changed the colour of Diogenes’ coat, they had not taken the precaution to buy him a new collar. He had been interested that evening in inspecting the collar and reading his own name and address inscribed thereon.

Chapter Twenty Nine

When Mr Musgrave entered the yard on the following morning, from force of habit rather than in the expectation of finding Diogenes there, it was to discover Diogenes in his kennel, for all the world as though he had never absented himself in the interval.

Diogenes’ welcome of Mr Musgrave was almost as effusive as his greeting of Peggy on the previous evening; he was beginning to realise his position as a dog with two homes and a divided allegiance. Doubtless were he received back at the Hall he would on occasion find his way to Mr Musgrave’s home as a matter of course. There were many things in Mr Musgrave’s home that Diogenes approved of. He approved of Martha’s attentions in the matter of table delicacies, and he appreciated the thick skin rug before the fire in Mr Musgrave’s drawing-room; but the kennel and the chain were indignities against which he felt constrained to protest.

Mr Musgrave unfastened the chain and took Diogenes for his walk, an attention which Diogenes did not merit, but Mr Musgrave felt so ridiculously pleased to see him again that he forgave the overnight defection, as he had forgiven the smashing of his dinner-service; he simply ignored it.

In view of this magnanimous treatment it was distinctly ungracious of Diogenes to repeat his truant performance within a fortnight of his previous escapade; yet repeat it he did, as soon as by his docile behaviour he had allayed Mr Musgrave’s doubts of him so far as to lead to a decrease of vigilance, and a greater laxity in the matter of open doors.

Diogenes broke bounds again at about the same hour on a balmy evening in June; and Mr Musgrave hastened as before to the vicarage with a second note to be entrusted to the handy sexton. But here a check awaited him. Robert, on being appealed to by the vicar, stoutly refused to go to the Hall on any business after dusk.

“Not if you was to offer me a hund’ed pounds, sir,” he affirmed earnestly. “I wouldn’ go up thicky avenue in the dimpsy again, not for a thousand – no, I wouldn’. Leave it bide till the mornin’ an’ I’ll take it.”

Mr Errol returned to John Musgrave with the tale of his non-success.

“I daresay I could find someone else to take it, John,” he said, with a whimsical smile. “But my reputation is likely to suffer, unless you sanction the note being delivered at the door, instead of into Miss Annersley’s own hand. That stipulation is highly compromising.”

Mr Musgrave flushed.

“I am afraid I didn’t think of that,” he said, and took the note from the vicar and tore it in half. “I am glad you mentioned it. It is not fair, either, to Miss Annersley.”

“What is to be done now?” the vicar said.

“I will,” returned Mr Musgrave quietly, “go to the Hall myself, and bring Diogenes back.”

“Well, I rather wonder you didn’t do that before.”

Mr Musgrave wondered also. The idea had not, as a matter of fact, presented itself to him until the delicacy of entrusting the mission to a third person had been pointed out. Now that it had presented itself it occurred to him not only as the proper course to pursue, but the more agreeable. He therefore scattered the fragments of his note to the winds of heaven, and set forth on his walk to the Hall.

It was dusk when he started; when he arrived at the gates and passed through, the dusk appeared to deepen perceptibly, and as he pursued his way, as Robert had done, along the avenue beneath the green archway of interlacing boughs, it seemed to him that night descended abruptly and dispersed the last lingering gleams of departing day.

Mr Musgrave was not superstitious, and his thoughts, unlike his footsteps, did not follow in the direction which Robert’s had taken. Nothing was farther from his mind at the moment than ghosts; therefore when an ungainly-looking object pounded towards him in the gloom, instead of his imagination playing him tricks, he recognised immediately the clumsy, familiar figure of Diogenes, even before Diogenes rushed at him with a joyous bark of welcome. Mr Musgrave’s thought on the spur of the moment was to secure Diogenes and take him home; but, as though suspicious of his motives in grabbing at his collar, Diogenes broke away from the controlling hand, and dived hastily for cover, making for some bushes of rhododendrons, into which Mr Musgrave plunged recklessly in pursuit, so intent on the capture of his elusive trust that he failed to note the figure of a man, which, bearing in sight as he broke into the bushes, hurried forward in hot pursuit, and, following close upon his heels, seized him with a pair of strong arms and dragged him, choking and amazed, into the open path.

“Musgrave!” said Mr Chadwick. He released Mr Musgrave’s collar, and stood back and stared at his captive. “What, in the name of fortune, are you up to?”

Mr Musgrave inserted two fingers inside his collar, felt his throat tenderly, and coughed.

“You need not have been so rough,” he complained.

“Upon my word, I mistook you for a tramp,” Mr Chadwick explained, laughing. “What on earth were you playing hide-and-seek in the bushes for? I begin to believe this path must be bewitched, by the extraordinary manner in which people using it behave. Have you been seeing ghosts too?”

“I saw my dog,” Mr Musgrave explained with dignity. “I was following him.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, you had better come on to the house. I expect we shall find Diogenes there. He was, before you arrived, taking a stroll with me. Seems to be pretty much at home here. Why can’t you keep him at your place?”

“He is – ” Mr Musgrave coughed again, as though his throat still troubled him – “very much attached to Miss Annersley.”

“Rather sudden in his attachments, isn’t he?” Mr Chadwick suggested.

“Miss Annersley takes considerable notice of him,” Mr Musgrave replied. “I have been thinking that, subject to your permission, I would like to make her a present of the dog.”

“I am at least gratified to find that you realise I have a right to a say in the matter,” Diogenes’ lawful owner remarked with irony. “I should like to ask you a question, Musgrave. Possession being nine-tenths of the law, should you say that constituted the right to give away what doesn’t, in the strict sense of the word, belong to you?”

Mr Musgrave, experiencing further difficulty with his throat, was thereby prevented from replying to this question. His interlocutor tapped him lightly on the chest.

“There is another inquiry I would like to put while we are on the subject,” he said. “Don’t you think you might offer to pay for the collar?”

John Musgrave regained his voice and his composure at the same time.

“No,” he said; “I don’t. If there has been any ill-practice over this transaction, my conscience at least is clear.”

Abruptly Will Chadwick put out a hand and grasped the speaker’s.

“Come along to the house,” he said, “and make your offering to Peggy.”

When they were within full view of the house Mr Musgrave became suddenly aware of two significant facts; these, in their order, being the presence of Peggy walking on the terrace companioned by Diogenes, and the disturbing knowledge that the sight of her pacing leisurely among the shadows beyond the lighted windows filled him with a strange, almost overwhelming shyness, an emotion at once so unaccountable and so impossible to subdue that, had it not been for the restraining influence of Mr Chadwick’s presence at his elbow, he would in all probability have beaten a retreat.

Arrived below the terrace he halted, and Peggy, having advanced to meet them as they approached, leaned down over the low stone parapet and gave him her hand.

“You!” she said softly.