George Fenn - The Star-Gazers

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The doctor started, and looked for the source of the gush of mirth.

A sweet ringing silvery laugh, that sounded like bell music in the gloomy room, for Lucy Alleyne had entered unheard, to catch the doctor’s last words, and burst into this girlish fit of merriment.

“Lucy!” exclaimed Mrs Alleyne with an angry glance, as she rose from her chair.

“Oh, I am so sorry, mamma. I beg your pardon, Mr Oldroyd, but it did seem so droll.”

She laughed again so merrily that it seemed infectious, and the young doctor would have joined in had not Mrs Alleyne been there; besides, as this was a professional call, he felt the necessity for some show of dignity.

“May I ask, Lucy, what is the meaning of this extremely unseemly mirth,” said Mrs Alleyne, with a good deal of annoyance in her tone.

“Don’t be angry with me, mamma dear, but it did seem so comical; the idea of Moray falling in love and being married.”

“I fail to see the ridiculous side of the matter,” said Mrs Alleyne, “especially at a time when Mr Oldroyd has been consulted by me upon the question of your brother’s health.”

“Oh, but you don’t think he is really ill, Mr Oldroyd, do you?” cried Lucy, anxiously.

“Indeed, I do not, Miss Alleyne. He requires nothing but plenty of open-air exercise, with more food and regular sleep.”

“And a wife,” said Lucy, with a mirthful look.

“And a wife,” said Oldroyd, gravely; and he gazed so intently at Lucy that her merry look passed away, and she coloured slightly, and glanced hastily at her mother.

“We must make Moray go out more, mamma dear,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll coax him to have walks with me, and I’ll teach him botany; Major Day would be delighted if he’d come with him – I mean go with him; and – oh, I say, mamma, isn’t dinner nearly ready? I am so hungry.”

“Lucy!” cried Mrs Alleyne, with a reproachful look, as Oldroyd rose.

“It is an enviable sensation, Miss Alleyne,” he said, as a diversion to the elder lady’s annoyance; “one of nature’s greatest boons. As I was saying, Mrs Alleyne, à propos of your son, he neglects his health in his scientific pursuits, and the beautifully complicated machine of his system grows rusty. Why, the commonest piece of mechanism will not go well if it is not properly cared for, so how can we expect it of ourselves.”

“Quite true, Mr Oldroyd. Did you ride over? Is your horse waiting?”

“Oh, no, I walked. Lovely weather, Miss Alleyne. Good-day, madam, good-day.”

“But you have not taken any refreshment, Mr Oldroyd. Allow me to – ”

“Why, dinner must be ready, mamma,” said Lucy. “Will not Mr Oldroyd stop?”

“Of course, yes, I had forgotten,” said Mrs Alleyne, with a slight colour in her cheek, and a peculiar hesitancy in her voice. “We – er – dine early – if you would join us, we should be very glad.”

“With great pleasure, madam,” said the young doctor, frankly; “it will save me a five miles’ walk, for I must go across the common this afternoon to Lindham.”

“To see poor old Mrs Wattley?” cried Lucy eagerly, as Mrs Alleyne tried to hide by a smile, her annoyance at her invitation being accepted.

“Yes; to see poor old Mrs Wattley,” said Oldroyd, nodding.

“Is she very ill?” said Lucy sympathetically.

“Stricken with a fatal disease, my dear young lady,” he replied.

“Oh!” ejaculated Lucy.

“One, however, that gives neither pain nor trouble. She will not suffer in the least.”

“I’m glad of that,” cried Lucy, “for I like the poor old lady. What is her complaint?”

“Senility,” said Oldroyd, smiling. “Why, my dear Miss Alleyne, she is ninety-five.”

“Will you come with me, Lucy,” said Mrs Alleyne, who had been vainly trying to catch her daughter’s eye, and then – “perhaps Mr Oldroyd will excuse us.”

“Not if you are going to make any additions to the meal on my account, madam,” said the doctor, hastily. “I am the plainest of plain men – a bachelor who lives on chops and steaks, and it needs a sharp-edged appetite to manage these country cuts.”

Mrs Alleyne smiled again, and the visitor was left alone.

“Old lady didn’t like my staying,” he said to himself. “Shouldn’t have asked me, then. I am hungry, but – Oh! what a pretty, natural, clever little witch it is. I wish I’d a good practice; I should try my luck if I had, and I don’t think there is any one in the way.”

“Humph! End of the world,” he said, rising and crossing to look at the picture. “What a ghastly daub!”

“What a wilderness; why don’t they have the garden done up?” he continued, going to one of the windows, and looking at the depressing, neglected place without. “Ugh! what a home for such a bright little blossom. It must be something awful on a wet, wintry day.”

“Sorry I stopped,” he said, soon after.

“No, I’m not; I’m glad. Now, I’ll be bound to say there’s boiled mutton and turnips for dinner, and plain rice pudding. It’s just the sort of meal one would expect in a house like this. Mum!”

He gave his lips a significant tap, for the door opened, and Lucy entered, accompanied by a sour-looking maid with a clayey skin and dull grey eyes, bearing a tray.

“Be as quick as you can, Eliza,” said Lucy. “You won’t mind my helping, Mr Oldroyd, will you?” she continued. “We only keep one servant now.”

“Mind? Not I,” he replied cheerily. “Let me help too. I’ll lay the knives and forks.”

“No, no, no!” cried Lucy, as she wondered what Mrs Alleyne would have said if she had heard her allusion to “one servant now.”

“Oh, but I shall,” he said; and the maid looked less grim as she saw the doctor begin to help. “Let’s see,” he said, “knives right, forks left. Won’t do to turn the table round if you place them wrong, as the Irishman did.”

Just then the maid – Eliza – left the room to fetch some addition to the table.

“I am glad you are going to stay, Mr Oldroyd,” said Lucy naïvely.

“Are you?” he said, watching her intently as the busy little hands produced cruets and glasses from the sideboard cupboard.

“Oh yes, for it is so dull here.”

“Do you find it so?”

“Oh, no, I don’t. I was thinking of Moray. It will be someone for him to talk to. Mamma fidgets about him so; but I felt as sure as could be that he only looked ill because he works so terribly hard.”

A step was heard outside, and the young doctor started from the table, where he was arranging a couple of spoons on either side of a salt-cellar, with so guilty a look that Lucy turned away her head to conceal a smile.

Oldroyd saw it though, and was annoyed at being so weak and boyish; but he felt that, after all, he was right, for it would have looked extremely undignified in Mrs Alleyne’s eyes if he had been caught playing so domestic a part in a strange house.

“I wish she had not laughed at me, though,” he said to himself; and then he tried to pass the matter off as Mrs Alleyne came back, bland and dignified, trying to conceal the fact that she had been out to make a few preparations that would help to hide the poverty of the land.

“You will excuse our meal being very simple, Mr Oldroyd,” she said quietly; “I did not expect company.”

“If you would kindly treat me as if I were not company, Mrs Alleyne, I should be greatly obliged,” replied Oldroyd; and then there was an interchange of bows – that on the lady’s part being of a very dignified but gracious kind, one that suggested tolerance, and an absolute refusal to accept the doctor as anything else than a visitor.

Oldroyd felt rather uncomfortable, but there was comfort in Lucy’s presence, as, utterly wanting in her mother’s reserve, she busied herself in trying to make everything pleasant and attractive for their guest, in so natural and homely a manner, that while the doctor had felt one moment that he wished he had not stayed, the next he was quite reconciled to his fate.