The Star-Gazers Part 28

"Then come and sit down till you want to see him again," said Sir John.

"I'm very glad to know you, Mr Oldroyd. You do know my brother? Yes, and Mr Alleyne? That's well. Now come and see Miss Day and her friend.--Oh, my dears," cried the baronet, in his hearty tones, "here is Mr Oldroyd come to cheer you with the best of news. Mr Oldroyd, my daughter--Well, Morris, what is it?"

"If you please. Sir John, cook says, Sir John, she's very sorry that there should be any unpleasant feeling about the mushrooms; but she had an accident with the ones Major Day sent to be cooked, and those you had for dinner were Jones's own growing in the pits."

"I could have sworn they had the regular mushroom flavour," cried the major.

"Then we needn't fidget about our dinner," said Sir John, laughing.

"Doctor, you're right. Morris, that will do."

Somehow from that minute the evening brightened very pleasantly at Brackley. Lucy thought it charming, and Glynne was an attentive listener to every astronomical word that fell from Alleyne's lips.

Twice over Oldroyd went up to see his patient, and each time came back with the information that he was sleeping heavily, and that there was not the slightest cause for alarm.

After that, no one was uneasy, and Rolph was almost forgotten. Alleyne left with his sister about eleven, the two being sent home in the brougham. Glynne needed no persuasion to go to bed, and Oldroyd sat and smoked a cigar with the major and Sir John in the library till twelve, when he went and had another look at his patient.

"Well," said the baronet, on his return, "what news?"

"Sleeping like a baby," replied Oldroyd. "I think I'll go now."

"Anybody sitting up for you, Mr Oldroyd?"

"Oh, no."

"Then there's no one to be uneasy about your absence?"

"Certainly not."

"Then would you oblige me by stopping here to-night, in case you are wanted?"

Oldroyd was perfectly willing to oblige, and he was shown to a spare bedroom, where he slept heartily till eight, and then rose and went to the patient, whom he found dressing for his morning walk, while his self-issued bulletin was that he was better.

He would not believe the cook.

Volume 1, Chapter XIV.

TERRESTRIAL TRIALS.

"I think it was very foolish of your brother to invite them, Lucy," said Mrs Alleyne, austerely. "All these preparations are not made without money; and when they are made, we have the bitterness of feeling that what is luxury to us is to them contemptible and mean."

"Oh, but, mamma, you don't know Glynne, or you would not talk like that.

She is as simple in her tastes as can be, and thinks nothing of the luxury in which they live."

"She would think a great deal of it, my dear, if, by any misfortune in life, it should all pa.s.s from her."

"No, mamma, I don't think she would," said Lucy. "She is a strange girl."

"For my part," said Mrs Alleyne, very sternly, "I don't think we are doing wisely in keeping up this intimacy."

"Oh, mamma!"

"I have said it. Look at the expense I have been put to in preparations. In the constant struggle which I go through day after day, paring and contriving to make our little income last out; any addition of this kind is a weariness and a care. Of what good, pray, is this visit but to satisfy the curiosity of a few heartless people?"

"Oh, mamma, don't say that. Glynne is the kindest and most amiable of girls, and n.o.body could be nicer to me than the major and Sir John."

"Of course they are nice to you--to my daughter," said Mrs Alleyne, pulling up her mittens--a very dingy black pair that had lain by till they were specked with a few grey spots of mildew.

"And the major thinks very highly of Moray."

"It is only natural that he should," said Mrs Alleyne, haughtily. "But I repeat, I see no advantage of a social nature to be gained by this intimacy, even if we wished it."

"But you forget about Moray, mamma, dear."

"I forget nothing about your brother, Lucy. But pray, what do you mean by this allusion?"

"His need of change. He has certainly been better lately."

"Decidedly not," replied Mrs Alleyne, making a fresh effort to cover a very large and unpleasantly prominent vein that ran from the back of her hand above her wrist. "I have noticed that Moray is more quiet and thoughtful than ever."

"But Mr Oldroyd said yesterday, mamma, that he was better."

"Mr Oldroyd gave his opinion, my dear, but it was only the opinion of one man. Mr Oldroyd may be mistaken."

"But, mamma, he seems so clever, and to know so much about Moray's case."

"Yes, my child--seems; but these young medical men often jump at conclusions, and are ready to take for granted that they understand matters which are completely sealed."

Lucy coloured slightly, and remained silent.

"For my part," continued Mrs Alleyne, "I do not feel at all easy respecting Moray's state, and his health is too serious a thing to be trifled with."

Lucy's colour deepened as Mrs Alleyne swept out of the room.

"I'm sure he's clever, and I'm sure he was quite right about Moray," she said. "It's a shame to say so, but I wish mamma would not be so prejudiced. She will not be, though, when she knows Glynne better."

There was a pause here, and Lucy sat looking very intently before her, the intent gaze in her face being precisely similar to that seen in her brother's countenance when he was watching a far-off planet, and striving to learn from it something of its mysteries and ways.

But Lucy was not studying some far-off planet, though her task was perhaps as hard, for she was trying to read the future, and to discover what there was in store for her brother and herself. She could not think of Moray being always engaged studying stars, nor of herself as continually at home with her mother leading that secluded life in the sombre brick mansion, finding it cheerless and dull in summer, cold and bleak in winter when the wind roared in the pine trees, till it was as if the sea were beating the sh.o.r.e hard by.

"There is sure to be some change," she said, brightening up. "I know it, but I hope it will not bring trouble."

No further allusions were made to the coming visit of the family from Brackley, but the next day and the next, to use Lucy's words, mamma led her such a life that she wished--and yet she did not wish--that the visit was not coming off, so troublesome did the preparations grow.

Mrs Alleyne was going about her blank, chilly house one morning, looking very much troubled; and now and then she stopped to wring her hands, but it was generally in a cupboard or in a drawer, when there was not the slightest likelihood of her being seen. Her forehead was deeply lined, and there was a peculiar drawing down about the corners of her lips that indicated care.

It was the old story--money. She had been up to town only the week before to sell out a sum in Government Stock, to pay for an astronomical instrument her son required--a tremendously costly piece of mechanism, thus leaving herself poorer than ever; and now her idol had been putting her to fresh expense.

"So thoughtless of him," she moaned, with her face in the linen closet--"so foolish. He seems to have no idea whatever of the value of money, and I don't know what I shall do."

But all the same there was the same glow of satisfaction in Mrs Alleyne's breast that she used to feel when she had bought the idol a wooden horse, or a toy waggon full of sacks, or one of those instruments of torture upon wheels, which, when a child draws it across the floor, emits a series of wire-born notes of a most discordant kind.