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The Black Poodle
by
I agreed, with an inward shudder, that it was very deep, thinking privately that, if this was a specimen of Bingo’s usual treatment of the natives, it would be odd if he did not find himself deeper still before–probably just before–he died.
“Poor, faithful old doggie!” murmured Mrs. Currie; “he thought Tacks was a nasty burglar, didn’t he? He wasn’t going to see master robbed was he?”
“Capital house-dog, sir,” struck in the colonel. “Gad, I shall never forget how he made poor Heavisides run for it the other day! Ever met Heavisides of the Bombay Fusileers? Well, Heavisides was staying here, and the dog met him one morning as he was coming down from the bath-room. Didn’t recognise him in ‘pajamas’ and a dressing-gown, of course, and made at him. He kept poor old Heavisides outside the landing window on top of the cistern for a quarter of an hour, till I had to come and raise the siege!”
Such were the stories of that abandoned dog’s blunderheaded ferocity to which I was forced to listen, while all the time the brute sat opposite me on the hearth-rug, blinking at me from under his shaggy mane with his evil, bleared eyes, and deliberating where he would have me when I rose to go.
This was the beginning of an intimacy which soon displaced all ceremony. It was very pleasant to go in there after dinner, even to sit with the colonel over his claret, and hear more stories about Bingo; for afterward I could go into the pretty drawing-room and take my tea from Lilian’s hands, and listen while she played Schubert to us in the summer twilight.
The poodle was always in the way, to be sure, but even his ugly black head seemed to lose some of its ugliness and ferocity when Lilian laid her pretty hand on it.
On the whole, I think that the Currie family were well disposed toward me, the colonel considering me as a harmless specimen of the average eligible young man,–which I certainly was,–and Mrs. Currie showing me favour for my mother’s sake, for whom she had taken a strong liking.
As for Lilian, I believed I saw that she soon suspected the state of my feelings toward her, and was not displeased by it. I looked forward with some hopefulness to a day when I could declare myself with no fear of a repulse.
But it was a serious obstacle in my path that I could not secure Bingo’s good opinion on any terms. The family would often lament this pathetically themselves. “You see,” Mrs. Currie would observe in apology, “Bingo is a dog that does not attach himself easily to strangers”–though, for that matter, I thought he was unpleasantly ready to attach himself to me.
I did try hard to conciliate him. I brought him propitiatory buns, which was weak and ineffectual, as he ate them with avidity, and hated me as bitterly as ever; for he had conceived from the first a profound contempt for me, and a distrust which no blandishments of mine could remove. Looking back now, I am inclined to think it was a prophetic instinct that warned him of what was to come upon him through my instrumentality.
Only his approbation was wanting to establish for me a firm footing with the Curries, and perhaps determine Lilian’s wavering heart in my direction; but, though I wooed that inflexible poodle with an assiduity I blush to remember, he remained obstinately firm.
Still, day by day, Lilian’s treatment of me was more encouraging; day by day I gained in the esteem of her uncle and aunt; I began to hope that soon I should be able to disregard canine influence altogether.
Now there was one inconvenience about our villa (besides its flavour of 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.