George Fenn - The Star-Gazers

“I feel as sure as can be that I am right,” thought Oldroyd, as at the end of a few minutes, Eliza entered with a large dish, whose contents were hidden by a battered and blackened cover, placed it upon the table, retreated, came back with a couple of vegetable dishes, retreated once more and came back with four dinner-plates, whose edges were chipped and stained from long usage.

Oldroyd glanced at Lucy, and saw her pretty forehead wrinkled up, reading accurately enough that she was troubled at the shabbiness of the table’s furnishings; and, as if she felt that he was gazing at her, she looked up quickly, caught his eye, and coloured with vexation, feeling certain as she did that he had read her thoughts.

“Will you excuse me a moment, Mr Oldroyd?” said Mrs Alleyne, with dignity. “We do not use a dinner-bell, the noise disturbs my son. I always fetch him from the observatory myself.”

Oldroyd bowed again, and crossed the room to open the door for his hostess to pass out.

“What a nuisance all this formality is,” he thought to himself, “I hate it;” but all the same, he felt constrained to follow Mrs Alleyne’s lead, and he was beginning once more to regret his stay when he turned to encounter the fresh, natural, girlish look of the daughter of the house.

“Mamma makes a regular habit of fetching my brother to meals, Mr Oldroyd,” said Lucy; “I don’t believe he would come unless she went. But while she is away, do tell me once again you don’t think Moray is going to be seriously ill?”

“But I do think so,” he replied.

“Oh, Mr Oldroyd!”

The young doctor gazed at the pretty sympathetic face with no little pleasure, as he saw its troubled look, and the tears rising in the eyes.

“How nice,” he thought, “to be anyone she cares for like this,” and then he hugged himself upon his knowledge, which in this case was power – the power of being able to change that troubled face to one full of smiles.

“I think he is going to be very seriously ill – if he does not alter his way of life.”

“He could avoid the illness, then?” cried Lucy, with the change coming.

“Certainly he could. He has only to take proper rest and out-door exercise to be as well as you are.”

“Then pray advise him, Mr Oldroyd,” said Lucy, who was beaming now. “Do try and get him to be sensible. It is of no use to send him medicine – he would not take a drop. Hush! here he is.”

At that moment there were slow, deliberate steps in the hall, and then the door opened, and Mrs Alleyne, with a smile full of pride upon her calm, stern face, entered, leaning upon the arm of a tall, grave, thoughtful-looking man, whose large dark-grey eyes seemed to be gazing straight before him, through everything, into the depths of space, while his mind was busy with that which he sought to see.

He was apparently about three or four-and-thirty, well-built and muscular; but his muscles looked soft and rounded. There was an appearance of relaxation, even in his walk; and, though his eyes were wide open, he gave one the idea of being in a dream. He was dressed in a loose, easy-fitting suit of tweeds, but they had been put on anyhow, and the natural curls of his dark-brown hair and beard made it very evident that the time he spent at the toilet-table was short.

What struck the visitor most was the veneration given to the student by his mother and sister, the former full of pride in her offspring, as she drew back his chair, and waited until he had seated himself, before she took her own place at the head of the table, and signed to her guest to follow her example.

It was a reversal of the ordinary arrangements at a board, for Oldroyd found himself opposite Moray Alleyne, with Mrs Alleyne and her daughter at the head and foot. In fact, it soon became evident that Mrs Alleyne’s son took no interest whatever in matters terrestrial of a domestic nature, his mind being generally far away.

Mrs Alleyne had announced to him, as they came towards the dining-room, that Mr Oldroyd would join them at the meal; but the scrap of social information was covered by a film of nebular theory, till the astronomer took his place at the table, when he seemed to start out of a fit of celestial dreaming, and to come back to earth.

“Ah, Mr Oldroyd,” he said, with his face lighting up and becoming quite transformed. “I had forgotten that you were to join us. Pray forgive my rudeness. I get so lost in my calculations.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Oldroyd, nodding; and then he looked hard at his vis-à-vis , marvelling at the change, and the tones of his deep mellow voice, and thinking what a man this would be if he had become statesman, orator, or the like, concluding by saying mentally, “What a physique for a West End physician! Why, that presence – a little more grey, and that soft, winning, confidential voice, would be a fortune to him. But he would have to dress.”

“I am sorry we have only plain boiled mutton to offer you, Mr Oldroyd,” said Mrs Alleyne, as the covers were removed.

“I knew it was,” thought Oldroyd, glancing at the livid, steaming leg of mutton. Then aloud: “One of the joints I most appreciate, madam – with its appropriate trimmings, Miss Alleyne,” he added smiling at Lucy.

“I’m afraid the potatoes are not good,” said Lucy, colouring with vexation; “and the turnips seem very hard and stringy.”

“Don’t prejudge them, my dear,” said Mrs Alleyne with dignity. “We have great difficulty in getting good vegetables, Mr Oldroyd,” she continued, “though we are in the country. We – er – we do not keep a gardener.”

“And the cottage people don’t care to sell,” said Oldroyd. “I have found that out. But you have a large garden here, Mrs Alleyne.”

“Yes,” said the lady, coldly.

“Ah,” said Oldroyd, looking across at Moray Alleyne. “Now, there’s your opportunity. Why not take to gardening?”

“Take to gardening?” said Alleyne, shaking off the dreamy air that had come upon him as he mechanically ate what his mother had carefully placed upon his plate, that lady selecting everything, and her son taking it without question, as a furnace fire might swallow so much coal.

“Yes; take to gardening, my good sir,” said Oldroyd. “It is a very ancient occupation, and amply rewards its votaries.”

“I am well rewarded by much higher studies,” said Alleyne, smiling; and Oldroyd was more than ever impressed by his voice and manner.

“Exactly, but you must have change.”

Alleyne shook his head.

“I do not feel the want of change,” he said.

“But your body does,” replied Oldroyd, “and it is crying out in revolt against the burden your mind is putting upon it.”

“Why, doctor,” said Alleyne, with his face lighting up more and more, “I thought you had stayed to dinner. This is quite a professional visit.”

“My dear sir, pray don’t call it so,” said Oldroyd. “I only want to give you good advice. I want you to give me better vegetables than these – from your own garden,” he added, merrily, as he turned to Lucy, who was eagerly watching her brother’s face.

“Thank you, doctor,” replied Alleyne shaking his head; “but I have no time.”

Oldroyd hesitated for a moment or two, as he went on with his repast of very badly cooked, exceedingly tough mutton; but a glance at his hostess and Lucy showed him that his words found favour with them, and he persevered in a pleasant, half-bantering strain that had, however, a solid basis of sound shrewd sense beneath its playful tone.

“Hark at him!” he said. “Has not time! Now, look here, my dear Mr Alleyne – pray excuse my familiarity, for though we have been neighbours these past five years, we have not been intimate – I say, look here, my dear sir – potatoes! Thank you, Miss Alleyne. That one will do. I like them waxey. Now look here, my dear sir, you are an astronomer.”