There was an attic at the top of a dark flight of stairs in the
suburban villa that was now the sisters' home. It contained a fireplace
and a long dormer window--three square casements in a row, of which the
outer pair opened like doors--facing the morning sun and a country
landscape. The previous tenants had used it for a box and lumber room,
and left it cobwebbed, filthy and asphyxiating. Deb ordered a charwoman
to clean it, and a man to distemper the grubby plaster and stain the
floor, and then laid down rugs, and assembled tables and books, and
basket-chairs, and girls' odds and ends; whereby it was transformed
into a cosy boudoir and their favourite room. Hither came Mary when she
could escape from that treadmill of which she never spoke, bringing her
black-eyed boy to astonish his aunts with his cleverness, and
astonishing them herself with the heretical notions which an intimate
association with orthodoxy seemed to have implanted in her. But Bennet
was not admitted, nor any other outsider.
The little bricked hearth, when reminiscent wood fires burned on it,
was a pleasant gathering-place in cold weather; but it was the window
in the projecting gable towards which the sisters most commonly
converged. It was about eight feet long by two feet high, and close up
under it, nearly flush with its sill, stood a substantial
six-foot-by-four table, the chairs at either end comfortably filling
the rest of the alcove. They could sit here to write or sew, or drink
afternoon tea, and look out upon as pleasant a rural landscape--the
Malvern Hills--as any suburban villa could command. It was that view,
indeed, which had decided Deb to take the house.
There was, of course, a towny foreground to it; and this it was, rather
than the distant blue ranges, that held the gaze of Rose Pennycuick
when she looked forth--the back-yard of the villa next to their own. It
was a well-washed-and-swept enclosure, spacious and well-appointed, and
amongst its appointments displayed a semi-circular platform of
brickwork, slightly raised above the asphalted ground, and supporting
the biggest and best dog-kennel that she had ever seen.
"Those are nice people," she remarked, "for they have given their dog
as good a house as they have given themselves. Isn't it a beauty? I
wish to goodness everybody was as considerate for the poor things. I
wonder what sort of a dear beast it is?"
She watched so long for its appearance that she thought the kennel
untenanted, but presently saw a maid come out from the kitchen with a
tin dish. This she dumped upon the brick platform, turning her back
instantly; and a fine, ruffed, feather-tailed collie stepped over the
kennel threshold to get his dinner.
"Chained!" cried Rose. "And she never spoke to him!"
Deb looked over her shoulder, sympathetically concerned. "Is he really?
What a shame! I expect they are too awfully clean and tidy to stand a
dog's paws on anything; but no doubt they let him out for a run."
Rose waited for days, and never saw this happen. The master of the
house and a dapper young man, his son, went to town every morning at a
certain hour, evidently for the day's business; a stout, smart lady,
with smart daughters, was seen going forth in the afternoons; the maids
took their little outings; but no one took the dog. He lived alone on
his patch of brick, either hidden in the kennel or lying in the sun
with his nose between his paws. He had his food regularly, for it was a
regular household; but beyond that, no notice seemed taken of him.
Rose, worked up from day to day, declared at last that she could not
stand it. "Why, what can you do?" said Deb. "He is their dog, not
yours." "Oh, I don't know; but I must do something."
One moonlight night she heard him--always silent and supine, except
when suspicious persons came into the yard--baying softly to himself,
plainly (to her) voicing the weariness of his unhappy life. She sat up
in bed and listened to him, and to his master shouting to him at
intervals to "be quiet"; and she wept with sympathetic grief.
It was a Saturday night. On Sunday morning she excused herself from
going to church. She saw Deb and Francie go, and she saw the family of
the next house go--heard their front door bang, and caught gleams of
smart dresses through the foliage of their front garden. Then she put
on her hat and stole forth to intercede for the collie with the cook of
his establishment, a kindly-looking person, who had once been observed
to pat his head.
The gleaming imitation-mahogany door at which she rang with a
determined hand but a fluttering heart, was, to her dismay, opened to
her by a young man--the son of the house, whom she had seen going to
business every week-day morning, tailored beautifully, and wearing a
silk hat that dazzled one. He was now in a very old suit,
flannel-shirted and collarless, so that at first she did not recognise
him.
The desire of each was to turn and fly, but the necessity upon them was
to face their joint mishap and see it through. Crimson, the young man
mumbled apologies for his state of unreadiness to receive ladies;
equally crimson, Rose begged him not to mention it, and apologised for
her own untimely call.
"Miss Pennycuick, I believe?" stammered he, with an awkward bow.
"Miss Rose Pennycuick--yes," said she, struggling through her
overwhelming embarrassment. "I called--I wanted--I--I--MIGHT I speak to
you for just one minute, Mr Breen?"
She had lived beside him long enough to know his name, also his
occupation. The Breens were drapers. Their shop in the city was not to
be compared with Buckley & Nunn's or Robertson & Moffat's, but it was a
good shop in its way, as this good home of the proprietors testified.
"Certainly," said young Mr Breen, whose name was Peter. "With pleasure.
By all means. Walk in, Miss Pennycuick."
She walked into a gorgeous drawing-room, where all was of the best, and
wore that shining air of furniture too valuable for daily use. Mr Peter
drew up a cream linen blind that was one mass of lace insertion, and
apologised anew for his unseemly costume.
"The fact is, Miss Pennycuick--I hope you won't be shocked at my doing
such things on Sunday--I was cleaning my gun. There is a holiday this
week, and I am going shooting with a friend. It was he I expected to
see when I went to the door in this state." "Oh," said Rose, more at
her ease, "I often do things on Sundays; I don't see why not. In fact,
I am doing something now--"
She cast about for words wherein to explain her errand, while he shot a
stealthy glance at her. Though not beautiful, like Deb and Francie, she
was a wholesome, healthy, bonnie creature, and he was as well aware of
her position in life as she was of his.
"I came, Mr Breen--I thought there were only servants in the house--I
am sure you must wonder how I can take such a liberty, such an utter
stranger, but I wanted to speak about that poor dog of yours--"
"Bruce--ah!" Enlightenment seemed to come to the young man. "You have
called to complain of the row he made last night. We were only saying
at breakfast--"
"No, no, indeed!" Rose spread out protesting hands, and ceased to feel
embarrassed. "Not to complain of him, poor dear, but--but--if you will
forgive such impertinence, to ask somebody--I thought I should see your
cook, who looks kind--to do something to make his life a little less
miserable."
"Miserable!" Mr Breen broke in, and sat up, stiffening, as if half
inclined to be offended, even with this very nice young lady.
"There isn't a dog in the country better off. We had his place in the
yard built on purpose for him; had his kennel made to a special
design--"
"A lovely kennel! I never saw a better."
"Clean straw every few days; all his food cooked--"
"But CHAINED, Mr Breen. And a collie, too!"
"Well, we couldn't have him messing all over the place; at any rate, my
people wouldn't. Oh, I assure you, Miss Pennycuick, Bruce is in clover.
He was only baying the moon. Dogs often do that. It's only their
fun--though it isn't fun to us."
"Fun!" sighed Rose helplessly. And she fixed her eyes upon her
companion, as they sat VIS-A-VIS on the edges of their brocaded chairs,
with no sense that he was a strange young man--a gaze that troubled and
disconcerted him. "I am sure," she answered earnestly, "that you have a
kind heart. One has only to look at you to know it."
"The idea never occurred to me before," he mumbled, flattered by her
discernment, and no more offended with her.
"I am sure no one could mean better by a dog than you, giving him all
those nice things," she continued. "But--but you don't THINK. You don't
try to imagine yourself chained up in one spot night and day, week in
and week out, with nothing to do--no interests, no amusements, unable
to get to your work, to go shooting with your friends, to do anything
that you were born to do--and consider how you would like it."
Mr Peter submitted to her humbly the fact that he was not a dog.
"And you think you are not both made of the same stuff? That's just
where people make the mistake, even the kindest of them. Mr Breen, I
once had a long talk with the curator of a zoological garden, and he
told me that animals in confinement suffer mentally, just as we should
do in their place. Unless they have occupation and companionship they
go out of their minds. They get sullen and savage, and people say they
are vicious, and punish them, when it is only misery. He said no happy
dog ever got hydrophobia unless it was bitten; and that it was to save
themselves from going mad that squirrels kept whirling their wheel and
tigers running round and round their cages. They want notice, and
change, and work, or they cannot bear it. The stagnation kills them--or
I wish it did kill them quicker than it does. Look at your Bruce, born
to work sheep, to scamper over miles of country, free as air, to be
mates with some man who would know the value of such a friend, and be
worthy of him. Oh, it is too cruel!"
Never had Rose displayed such eloquence, and a sudden glisten in her
candid eyes put the piercing climax to it. Mr Peter's kind heart, which
had been growing softer and softer with every word she spoke, was in
melting state.
"Upon my soul," he declared, "you put quite a new light on it; you do
indeed, Miss Pennycuick. I see your point of view exactly. But--"
With the utmost willingness to meet her views, he was unable to see how
to do it. It was easy to say "Let him off the chain," but the mater,
who was very particular, would never stand a dog muddying the verandahs
and digging holes for his bones in the flower-beds. He, Mr Peter, was
an only son, and she would do most things for him, but he was afraid
she would draw the line at that.
"Well, you might at least take him for walks," Rose pleaded. "Nobody
could object to that." "Yes, I might take him for walks," the young man
conceded thoughtfully. "Of course, I don't get home from business till
tea-time, and I have to leave directly after breakfast--"
"Our Pepper, when we go to town, takes us to the station and sees us
off; and you are not at business on Saturday afternoons." "I usually
play tennis or something on Saturday afternoons--"
"Well, take him and let him see you play tennis. He'd love it."
"I question whether my club would. But see here, Miss Pennycuick, I WAS
going to meet some lady friends this afternoon, but now I won't; I will
take him for a walk instead. And I'll get up in the mornings, and give
him a run before breakfast. There!"
"Oh, how kind, how good you are!" she exclaimed delightedly.
"Not at all," he returned, glowing. "It is you who are good, taking all
this trouble about us. I am only ashamed that you should have had to do
it, and that you should have caught me in this state"--another blushing
reference to his distressing toilet.
"Never mind your state," she consoled him sweetly, rising from her
chair. "I like you better in this state than I do when you are smart. I
thought you were too smart to--to condescend to trouble yourself about
a poor dog."
"I am sorry you had such a bad opinion of me. It was simply--the thing
didn't occur to me until you mentioned it."
"I know. But it is all right now. Well, I must go. You will never get
your gun cleaned at this rate."
"Bother the gun! This is better than--I mean--won't you take a glass of
wine?"
She declined emphatically and with haste, and hurried into the hall. He
opened the front door for her, and they stood together for a moment on
the dustless door-mat, mathematically laid upon verandah boards as
white as new-peeled almonds.
"What a lovely garden!" remarked Rose, as she stepped down to it. Those
were her words, but what she really said in her mind was: "Who would
think he was a draper?"
Francie was aroused from her Sunday afternoon snooze on the
drawing-room sofa.
"What IS the matter with that dog?" she complained pettishly. "Surely,
after howling like a starved dingo all night--be quiet, Pepper! One of
you is enough." Rose's terrier was up and fidgeting, with pricked ears.
"They must be killing him!" cried Deb, lifting her handsome head from
her book.
"Oh, no," said Rose; "that sort of bark means joy, not pain."
"Poor, dear beast! What's making him joyful, I wonder?"
"I must go up and see," said Rose, who had carefully refrained from
mentioning her forenoon proceedings.
The drowsy pair sank back upon their cushions; only Pepper accompanied
her to the attic room. He jumped upon the window seat, wriggling and
yapping, and they looked forth together from the open casement upon the
spectacle of Bruce and Mr Peter apparently engaged in mortal combat.
The collie had realised that he was off the chain and about to take a
walk, and was expressing himself not merely in frenzied yells, but in
acrobatic feats that threatened to overwhelm his master. The latter,
tall-hatted, frock-coated, lavender-trousered, with a cane in his hand
and a flower in his button-hole, jumped and dodged wildly to escape the
leaping mass, his face puckered with anxiety for the results of his
experiment. Pepper's delighted comments drew his eyes upwards, and he
made shift to raise his hat, with a smile that was instantly and
generously repaid. Rose nodded and waved her hand, and Peter went off,
making gestures and casting backward glances at her, until he was a
mere dot upon the distant road, with another dot circling around him.
"Dear fellow!" she mused, when he was out of sight.