suicide) which it is necessary to mention here. By common consent all
the cats of the neighbourhood had selected our garden for their evening
reunions. I fancy that a tortoise-shell kitchen cat of ours must have
been a sort of leader of local feline society--I know she was “at home,”
with music and recitations, on most evenings.
My poor mother found this to interfere with her after-dinner nap, and no
wonder; for if a cohort of ghosts had been “shrieking and squealing,”
as Calpurnia puts it, in our back garden, or it had been fitted up as a
creche for a nursery of goblin infants in the agonies of teething, the
noise could not possibly have been more unearthly.
We sought for some means of getting rid of the nuisance: there was
poison, of course; but we thought it would have an invidious appearance,
and even lead to legal difficulties, if each dawn were to discover an
assortment of cats expiring in hideous convulsions in various parts of
the same garden.
Firearms too were open to objection, and would scarcely assist my
mother’s slumbers; so for some time we were at a loss for a remedy. At
last, one day, walking down the Strand, I chanced to see (in an evil
hour) what struck me as the very thing: it was an air-gun of superior
construction, displayed in a gunsmith’s window. I went in at once,
purchased it, and took it home in triumph; it would be noiseless, and
would reduce the local average of cats without scandal,--one or two
examples,--and feline fashion would soon migrate to a more secluded
spot.
I lost no time in putting this to the proof. That same evening I lay in
wait after dusk at the study window, protecting my mother’s repose. As
soon as I heard the long-drawn wail, the preliminary sputter, and the
wild stampede that followed, I let fly in the direction of the sound. I
suppose I must have something of the national sporting instinct in me,
for my blood was tingling with excitement; but the feline constitution
assimilates lead without serious inconvenience, and I began to fear that
no trophy would remain to bear witness to my marksmanship.
But all at once I made out a dark, indistinct form slinking in from
behind the bushes. I waited till it crossed a belt of light which
streamed from the back kitchen below me, and then I took careful aim and
pulled the trigger.
This time at least I had not failed; there was a smothered yell, a
rustle, and then silence again. I ran out with the calm pride of a
successful revenge to bring in the body of my victim, and I found
underneath a laurel no predatory tom-cat, but (as the discerning reader
will no doubt have foreseen long since) the quivering carcass of the
colonel’s black poodle!
I intend to set down here the exact unvarnished truth, and I confess
that at first, when I knew what I had done, I was _not_ sorry. I was
quite innocent of any intention of doing it, but I felt no regret. I
even laughed--madman that I was--at the thought that there was the end
of Bingo, at all events; that impediment was removed; my weary task of
conciliation was over for ever!
But soon the reaction came; I realised the tremendous nature of my deed,
and shuddered. I had done that which might banish me from Lilian’s side
for ever! All unwittingly I had slaughtered a kind of sacred beast, the
animal around which the Currie household had wreathed their choicest
affections! How was I to break it to them? Should I send Bingo in, with
a card tied to his neck and my regrets and compliments? That was too
much like a present of game. Ought I not to carry him in myself? I would
wreathe him in the best crape, I would put on black for him; the Curries
would hardly consider a taper and a white sheet, or sack-cloth and
ashes, an excessive form of atonement, but I could not grovel to quite
such an abject extent.
I wondered what the colonel would say. Simple and hearty, as a general
rule, he had a hot temper on occasions, and it made me ill as I thought,
would he and, worse still, would _Lilian_ believe it was really an
accident? They knew what an interest I had in silencing the deceased
poodle--would they believe the simple truth?
I vowed that they _should_ believe me. My genuine remorse and the
absence of all concealment on my part would speak powerfully for me. I
would choose a favourable time for my confession; that very evening I
would tell all.
Still I shrank from the duty before me, and, as I knelt down sorrowfully
by the dead form and respectfully composed his stiffening limbs, I
thought that it was unjust of fate to place a well-meaning man, whose
nerves were not of iron, in such a position.
Then, to my horror, I heard a well-known ringing tramp on the road
outside, and smelled the peculiar fragrance of a Burmese cheroot. It was
the colonel himself, who had been taking out the doomed Bingo for his
usual evening run.
I don’t know how it was, exactly, but a sudden panic came over me. I
held my breath, and tried to crouch down unseen behind the laurels; but
he had seen me, and came over at once to speak to me across the hedge.
He stood there, not two yards from his favourite’s body! Fortunately it
was unusually dark that evening.
“Ha, there you are, eh!” he began, heartily; “don’t rise, my boy, don’t
rise.”
I was trying to put myself in front of the poodle, and did not rise--at
least, only my hair did.
“You’re out late, ain’t you?” he went on; “laying out your garden, hey?”
I could not tell him that I was laying out his poodle! My voice shook
as, with a guilty confusion that was veiled by the dusk, I said it was a
fine evening--which it was not.
“Cloudy, sir,” said the colonel, “cloudy; rain before morning, I think.
By the way, have you seen anything of Bingo in here?”
This was the turning-point. What I _ought_ to have done was to say
mournfully, “Yes, I’m sorry to say I’ve had a most unfortunate accident
with him. Here he is; the fact is, I’m afraid I’ve _shot_ him!”
But I couldn’t. I could have told him at my own time, in a prepared form
of words--but not then. I felt I must use all my wits to gain time, and
fence with the questions.
“Why,” I said, with a leaden airiness, “he hasn’t given you the slip,
has he?”
“Never did such a thing in his life!” said the colonel, warmly; “he
rushed off after a rat or a frog or something a few minutes ago, and as
I stopped to light another cheroot I lost sight of him. I thought I saw
him slip in under your gate, but I’ve been calling him from the front
there and he won’t come out.”
No, and he never _would_ come out any more. But the colonel must not be
told that just yet. I temporised again: “If,” I said, unsteadily--“if he
had slipped in under the gate I should have seen him. Perhaps he took it
into his head to run home?”
“Oh, I shall find him on the door-step, I expect, the knowing old scamp!
Why, what d’ ye think was the last thing he did, now?”
I could have given him the very latest intelligence, but I dared not.
However, it was altogether too ghastly to kneel there and laugh at
anecdotes of Bingo told across Bingo’s dead body; I could not stand
that. “Listen,” I said, suddenly, “wasn’t that his bark? There, again;
it seems to come from the front of your house, don’t you think?”
“Well,” said the colonel, “I’ll go and fasten him up before he’s off
again. How your teeth are chattering! You’ve caught a chill, man; go
indoors at once, and, if you feel equal to it, look in half an hour
later, about grog-time, and I’ll tell you all about it. Compliments to
your mother. Don’t forget--about grog-time!”
I had got rid of him at last, and I wiped my forehead, gasping with
relief. I would go round in half an hour, and then I should be prepared
to make my melancholy announcement. For, even then, I never thought
of any other course, until suddenly it flashed upon me with terrible
clearness that my miserable shuffling by the hedge had made it
impossible to tell the truth! I had not told a direct lie, to be sure,
but then I had given the colonel the impression that I had denied having
seen the dog. Many people can appease their consciences by reflecting
that, whatever may be the effect their words produce, they did contrive
to steer clear of a downright lie. I never quite knew where the
distinction lay morally, but there _is_ that feeling--I have it myself.
Unfortunately, prevarication has this drawback: that, if ever the truth
comes to light, the prevaricator is in just the same case as if he had
lied to the most shameless extent, and for a man to point out that
the words he used contained no absolute falsehood will seldom restore
confidence.
I might, of course, still tell the colonel of my misfortune, and leave
him to infer that it had happened after our interview; but the poodle
was fast becoming cold and stiff, and they would most probably suspect
the real time of the occurrence.
And then Lilian would hear that I had told a string of falsehoods to her
uncle over the dead body of their idolised Bingo--an act, no doubt, of
abominable desecration, of unspeakable profanity, in her eyes.
If it would have been difficult before to prevail on her to accept a
blood-stained hand, it would be impossible after that. No, I had burned
my ships, I was cut off for ever from the straightforward course; that
one moment of indecision had decided my conduct in spite of me; I must
go on with it now, and keep up the deception at all hazards.
It was bitter. I had always tried to preserve as many of the moral
principles which had been instilled into me as can be conveniently
retained in this grasping world, and it had been my pride that, roughly
speaking, I had never been guilty of an unmistakable falsehood.
But henceforth, if I meant to win Lilian, that boast must be
relinquished for ever. I should have to lie now with all my might,
without limit or scruple, to dissemble incessantly, and “wear a mask,”
as the poet Bunn beautifully expressed it long ago, “over my hollow
heart.” I felt all this keenly; I did not think it was right, but what
was I to do?
After thinking all this out very carefully, I decided that my only
course was to bury the poor animal where he fell, and say nothing about
it. With some vague idea of precaution, I first took off the silver
collar he wore, and then hastily interred him with a garden-trowel, and
succeeded in removing all traces of the disaster.
I fancy I felt a certain relief in the knowledge that there would now
be no necessity to tell my pitiful story and risk the loss of my
neighbours’ esteem.
By-and-by, I thought, I would plant a rose-tree over his remains, and
some day, as Lilian and I, in the noontide of our domestic bliss, stood
before it admiring its creamy luxuriance, I might (perhaps) find courage
to confess that the tree owed some of that luxuriance to the long-lost
Bingo.
There was a touch of poetry in this idea that lightened my gloom for the
moment.
I need scarcely say that I did not go round to Shuturgarden that
evening. I was not hardened enough for that yet; my manner might betray
me, and so I very prudently stayed at home.
But that night my sleep was broken by frightful dreams. I was
perpetually trying to bury a great, gaunt poodle, which would persist
in rising up through the damp mould as fast as I covered him up. . . .
Lilian and I were engaged, and we were in church together on Sunday, and
the poodle, resisting all attempts to eject him, forbade our banns with
sepulchral barks. . . . It was our wedding-day, and at the critical
moment the poodle leaped between us and swallowed the ring. . . . Or we
were at the wedding-breakfast, and Bingo, a grisly black skeleton with
flaming eyes, sat on the cake and would not allow Lilian to cut it. Even
the rose-tree fancy was reproduced in a distorted form--the tree grew,
and every blossom contained a miniature Bingo, which barked; and as I
woke I was desperately trying to persuade the colonel that they were
ordinary dog-roses.
I went up to the office next day with my gloomy secret gnawing my bosom,
and, whatever I did, the spectre of the murdered poodle rose before me.
For two days after that I dared not go near the Curries, until at last
one evening after dinner I forced myself to call, feeling that it was
really not safe to keep away any longer.
My conscience smote me as I went in. I put on an unconscious, easy
manner, which was such a dismal failure that it was lucky for me that
they were too much engrossed to notice it.
I never before saw a family so stricken down by a domestic misfortune
as the group I found in the drawing-room, making a dejected pretence
of reading or working. We talked at first--and hollow talk it was--on
indifferent subjects, till I could bear it no longer, and plunged boldly
into danger.
“I don’t see the dog,” I began, “I suppose you--you found him all right
the other evening, colonel?” I wondered, as I spoke, whether they would
not notice the break in my voice, but they did not.
“Why, the fact is,” said the colonel, heavily, gnawing his gray
moustache, “we’ve not heard anything of him since; he’s--he’s run off!”
“Gone, Mr. Weatherhead; gone without a word!” said Mrs. Currie,
plaintively, as if she thought the dog might at least have left an
address.
“I wouldn’t have believed it of him,” said the colonel; “it has
completely knocked me over. Haven’t been so cut up for years--the
ungrateful rascal!”
“O uncle!” pleaded Lilian, “don’t talk like that; perhaps Bingo couldn’t
help it--perhaps some one has s-s-shot him!”
“Shot!” cried the colonel, angrily. “By heaven! if I thought there was a
villain on earth capable of shooting that poor inoffensive dog, I’d--Why
_should_ they shoot him, Lilian? Tell me that! I--I hope you won’t
let me hear you talk like that again. _You_ don’t think he’s shot, eh,
Weatherhead?”
I said--Heaven forgive me!--that I thought it highly improbable.
“He’s not dead!” cried Mrs. Currie. “If he were dead I should know it
somehow--I’m sure I should! But I’m certain he’s alive. Only last night
I had such a beautiful dream about him. I thought he came back to us,
Mr. Weatherhead, driving up in a hansom-cab, and he was just the same
as ever--only he wore blue spectacles, and the shaved part of him was
painted a bright red. And I woke up with the joy--so, you know, it’s
sure to come true!”
It will be easily understood what torture conversations like these were
to me, and how I hated myself as I sympathised and spoke encouraging
words concerning the dog’s recovery, when I knew all the time he
was lying hid under my garden mould. But I took it as a part of my
punishment, and bore it all uncomplainingly; practice even made me an
adept in the art of consolation--I believe I really was a great comfort
to them.
I had hoped that they would soon get over the first bitterness of their
loss, and that Bingo would be first replaced and then forgotten in the
usual way; but there seemed no signs of this coming to pass.
The poor colonel was too plainly fretting himself ill about it; he went
pottering about forlornly, advertising, searching, and seeing people,
but all, of course, to no purpose; and it told upon him. He was more
like a man whose only son and heir had been stolen than an Anglo-Indian
officer who had lost a poodle. I had to affect the liveliest interest
in all his inquiries and expeditions, and to listen to and echo the most
extravagant eulogies of the departed; and the wear and tear of so much
duplicity made me at last almost as ill as the colonel himself.
I could not help seeing that Lilian was not nearly so much impressed
by my elaborate concern as her relatives, and sometimes I detected
an incredulous look in her frank brown eyes that made me very uneasy.
Little by little, a rift widened between us, until at last in despair
I determined to know the worst before the time came when it would be
hopeless to speak at all. I chose a Sunday evening as we were walking
across the green from church in the golden dusk, and then I ventured to
speak to her of my love. She heard me to the end, and was evidently very
much agitated. At last she murmured that it could not be, unless--no, it
never could be now.
“Unless, what?” I asked. “Lilian--Miss Roseblade, something has come
between us lately; you will tell me what that something is, won’t you?”
“Do you want to know _really_?” she said, looking up at me through her
tears. “Then I’ll tell you; it--it’s Bingo!”
I started back overwhelmed. Did she know all? If not, how much did she
suspect? I must find out that at once. “What about Bingo?” I managed to
pronounce, with a dry tongue.
“You never l-loved him when he was here,” she sobbed; “you know you
didn’t!”
I was relieved to find it was no worse than this.
“No,” I said, candidly; “I did not love Bingo. Bingo didn’t love _me_,
Lilian; he was always looking out for a chance of nipping me somewhere.
Surely you won’t quarrel with me for that!”
“Not for that,” she said; “only, why do you pretend to be so fond of him
now, and so anxious to get him back again? Uncle John believes you, but
_I_ don’t. I can see quite well that you wouldn’t be glad to find him.
You could find him easily if you wanted to!”
“What do you mean, Lilian?” I said, hoarsely. “_How_ could I find him?”
Again I feared the worst.
“You’re in a government office,” cried Lilian, “and if you only chose,
you could easily g-get g-government to find Bingo! What’s the use of
government if it can’t do that? Mr. Travers would have found him long
ago if I’d asked him!”
Lilian had never been so childishly unreasonable as this before, and yet
I loved her more madly than ever; but I did not like this allusion
to Travers, a rising barrister, who lived with his sister in a pretty
cottage near the station, and had shown symptoms of being attracted by
Lilian.
He was away on circuit just then, luckily; but, at least, even he would
have found it a hard task to find Bingo--there was comfort in that.
“You know that isn’t just, Lilian,” I observed; “but only tell me what
you want me to do.”
“Bub-bub-bring back Bingo!” she said.
“Bring back Bingo!” I cried, in horror. “But suppose I _can’t_--suppose
he’s out of the country, or--dead, what then Lilian?”
“I can’t help it,” she said, “but I don’t believe he _is_ out of the
country or dead. And while I see you pretending to uncle that you cared
awfully about him, and going on doing nothing at all, it makes me think
you’re not quite--quite _sincere_! And I couldn’t possibly marry any one
while I thought that of him. And I shall always have that feeling unless
you find Bingo!”
It was of no use to argue with her; I knew Lilian by that time. With
her pretty, caressing manner she united a latent obstinacy which it
was hopeless to attempt to shake. I feared, too, that she was not quite
certain as yet whether she cared for me or not, and that this condition
of hers was an expedient to gain time.
I left her with a heavy heart. Unless I proved my worth by bringing back
Bingo within a very short time, Travers would probably have everything
his own way. And Bingo was dead!
However, I took heart. I thought that perhaps if I could succeed by my
earnest efforts in persuading Lilian that I really was doing all in my
power to recover the poodle, she might relent in time, and dispense with
his actual production.
So, partly with this object, and partly to appease the remorse which
now revived and stung me deeper than before, I undertook long and weary
pilgrimages after office hours. I spent many pounds in advertisements; I
interviewed dogs of every size, colour, and breed, and of course I took
care to keep Lilian informed of each successive failure. But still her
heart was not touched; she was firm. If I went on like that, she told
me, I was certain to find Bingo one day; then, but not before, would her
doubts be set at rest.
I was walking one day through the somewhat squalid district which lies
between Bow Street and High Holborn, when I saw, in a small theatrical
costumer’s window, a hand-bill stating that a black poodle had “followed
a gentleman” on a certain date, and if not claimed and the finder
remunerated before a stated time would be sold to pay expenses.
I went in and got a copy of the bill to show Lilian, and, although by
that time I scarcely dared to look a poodle in the face, I thought I
would go to the address given and see the animal, simply to be able to
tell Lilian I had done so.
The gentleman whom the dog had very unaccountably followed was a certain
Mr. William Blagg, who kept a little shop near Endell Street, and called
himself a bird-fancier, though I should scarcely have credited him with
the necessary imagination. He was an evil-browed ruffian in a fur cap,
with a broad broken nose and little shifty red eyes; and after I had
told him what I wanted he took me through a horrible little den, stacked
with piles of wooden, wire, and wicker prisons, each quivering with
restless, twittering life, and then out into a back yard, in which were
two or three rotten old kennels and tubs. “That there’s him,” he said,
jerking his thumb to the farthest tub; “follered me all the way ‘ome
from Kinsington Gardens, _he_ did. Kim out, will yer?”
And out of the tub there crawled slowly, with a snuffling whimper and
a rattling of its chain, the identical dog I had slain a few evenings
before!
At least, so I thought for a moment, and felt as if I had seen a
spectre; the resemblance was so exact--in size, in every detail, even to
the little clumps of hair about the hind parts, even to the lop of half
an ear, this dog might have been the _doppelganger_ of the deceased
Bingo. I suppose, after all, one black poodle is very like any other
black poodle of the same size, but the likeness startled me.
I think it was then that the idea occurred to me that here was a
miraculous chance of securing the sweetest girl in the whole world, and
at the same time atoning for my wrong by bringing back gladness with me
to Shuturgarden. It only needed a little boldness; one last deception,
and I could embrace truthfulness once more.
Almost unconsciously, when my guide turned round and asked, “Is that
there dawg yourn?” I said hurriedly, “Yes, yes; that’s the dog I want;
that--that’s Bingo!”
“He don’t seem to be a-puttin’ of ‘isself out about seein’ you again,”
observed Mr. Blagg, as the poodle studied me with calm interest.
“Oh, he’s not exactly _my_ dog, you see,” I said; “he belongs to a
friend of mine!”
He gave me a quick, furtive glance. “Then maybe you’re mistook about
him,” he said, “and I can’t run no risks. I was a-goin’ down in the
country this ‘ere werry evenin’ to see a party as lives at Wistaria
Willa; he’s been a-hadwertisin’ about a black poodle, _he_ has!”
“But look here,” I said; “that’s _me_.”
He gave me a curious leer. “No offence, you know, guv’nor,” he said,
“but I should wish for some evidence as to that afore I part with a
vallyable dawg like this ‘ere!”
“Well,” I said, “here’s one of my cards; will that do for you?”
He took it and spelled it out with a pretence of great caution; but I
saw well enough that the old schoundrel suspected that if I had lost a
dog at all it was not this particular dog. “Ah,” he said, as he put
it in his pocket, “if I part with him to you I must be cleared of all
risks. I can’t afford to get into trouble about no mistakes. Unless you
likes to leave him for a day or two you must pay accordin’, you see.”
I wanted to get the hateful business over as soon as possible. I did
not care what I paid--Lilian was worth all the expense! I said I had no
doubt myself as to the real ownership of the animal, but I would give
him any sum in reason, and would remove the dog at once.
And so we settled it. I paid him an extortionate sum, and came away with
a duplicate poodle, a canine counterfeit, which I hoped to pass off at
Shuturgarden as the long-lost Bingo.
I know it was wrong,--it even came unpleasantly near dog-stealing,--but
I was a desperate man. I saw Lilian gradually slipping away from me,
I knew that nothing short of this could ever recall her, I was sorely
tempted, I had gone far on the same road already; it was the old story
of being hung for a sheep. And so I fell.
Surely some who read this will be generous enough to consider the
peculiar state of the case, and mingle a little pity with their
contempt.