The Star-Gazers

“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.

“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.”

“Only a very humble student of a great science, Mr Oldroyd,” said the other, meekly.

“Ah, well, we will not discuss that. At all events you are a mathematician, and deal in algebraic quantities, and differential calculus, and logarithms, and all that sort of thing.”

“Yes – yes,” said Alleyne, going on eating in his mechanical way as if he diligently took to heart the epigrammatic teaching of the old philosopher – “Live not to eat, but eat to live.”

“Well then, my dear sir, I’ll give you a calculation to make.”

“Not now, doctor, pray,” said Mrs Alleyne, quickly. “My son’s digestion is very weak.”

“This won’t hurt his digestion, madam,” said Oldroyd; “a child could do it without a slate.”

“Pray ask me,” said Alleyne, “and I will endeavour to answer you.”

“Well, then: here is my problem,” said Oldroyd; “perhaps you will try and solve it too, Miss Alleyne. Suppose two men set to work to perform a task, and the one – as you mathematicians would put it, say A, worked twenty hours a day for five years, while B worked eight hours a day for twenty years, which would do most work?”

“I know,” said Lucy, quickly; “the busy B, for he would do a hundred and sixty hours’ work, while A would only do a hundred hours’ work.”

Alleyne smiled and nodded very tenderly at his sister.

“Isn’t that right?” she said quickly, and her cheeks flushed.

“Quite right as to proportion, Lucy,” he said, “but in each case it would be three hundred and sixty-five times, or three hundred and thirteen times as much.”

“Of course,” she said. “How foolish of me.”

“Well, Mr Oldroyd, what about your problem?” continued Alleyne, commencing upon a fresh piece of tough mutton.

“You have solved it,” said Oldroyd. “You have shown me that the eight-hour’s man does more work than the twenty-hour’s man.”

“Yes, but one works five years, the other twenty, according to your arrangement.”

“Not my arrangement, sir, Nature’s. The man who worked twenty hours per diem would be worn out mentally at the end of five years. The man who worked eight hours a day, all surroundings being reasonable, would, at the end of twenty years, be in a condition to go on working well for another ten, perhaps twenty years. Now, my dear sir, do you see my drift?”

Moray Alleyne laid down his knife and fork, placed his elbows on either side of his plate, clasped his hands together, and then seemed to cover them with his thick, dark beard, as he rested his chin.

A dead silence fell upon the little party, and, as if it were some chemical process going on, small round discs of congealed fat formed on the mutton gravy in the dish.

Mrs Alleyne was about to break the silence, but she saw that her son was ready to answer, and she refrained, sitting very upright and motionless in her chair, as she watched the furrows coming and going on his brow.

“That is bringing it home, doctor,” he said, and there was a slight huskiness in his voice as he spoke. “But you are exaggerating.”

“I protest, no,” said Oldroyd, eagerly. “Allow me, I have made some study of animal physiology, and I have learned this: Nature strengthens the muscles, nerves and tissues, if they are well used, up to a certain point. If that mark is passed – in other words, if you trespass on the other side – punishment comes, the deterioration is rapid and sure.”

“Mother,” said Alleyne, turning to her affectionately; “you have been setting the doctor to tell me this.”

“Indeed, no, my dear,” she cried, “I was not aware what course our conversation would take; but, believe me, Moray, I am glad, for this must be true.”

“True?” cried Oldroyd. “My dear madam, the world teems with proofs.”

“Yes,” said Alleyne thoughtfully: and there was a far-off, dreamy look in his eyes as he gazed straight before him as if into space, “it is true – it must be true; but with so much to learn – such vast discoveries to make – who can pause?”

“The man who wishes to win in the long race,” said Oldroyd smiling, and again there was a minute’s absolute silence, during which the young doctor caught a reconnaissant look from Lucy.

Then Alleyne spoke again.

“Yes, Mr Oldroyd, you are right,” he said. “Nature is a hard mistress.”

“What, for not breaking her laws?” cried Oldroyd. “Come, come, Mr Alleyne, my knowledge of astronomy extends to the Great Bear, Perseus, Cassiopeia, and a few more constellations; but where would your science be if her laws were not immutable?”

For answer, to the surprise of all, Moray Alleyne slowly unclasped his hands, and stretched one across to the young doctor.

“Thank you,” he said. “You are quite right. I give way, for I am beaten. Mother, dear, I yield unwillingly, but Nature’s laws are immutable, and I’ll try to obey them. Are you content?”

“My boy!”

Stern, unbending Mrs Alleyne was for the moment carried away by her emotion, and forgetting the doctor’s presence, she left her chair to throw her arms round her son’s neck, bend down, kiss his forehead, and then hurry from the room.

“She loves me, Mr Oldroyd,” said Alleyne simply. “Lucy dear, bring mamma back. We are behaving very badly to our guest.”

Lucy had already left her chair, and she, too, impulsively kissed her brother and then ran from the room to hide her tears.

“Poor things,” said Alleyne, smiling. “I behave very badly to them, doctor, and worry them to death; but I am so lost in my studies that I neglect everything. They have made such sacrifices for me, and I forget it. I don’t see them – I don’t notice what they do. It was to humour me that they came to live in this desolate spot, and my poor mother has impoverished herself to meet the outlay for my costly instruments. It is too bad, but I am lost in my work, and nothing will ever take me from it now.”

“Nothing?” said Oldroyd.

“Nothing,” was the reply, given in all simple childlike earnestness, as the young doctor gazed straight into the deep full eyes that did not for a moment blanch. “So you will not give me pills and draughts, doctor,” said Alleyne at last, smiling.

“Medicine? No. Take exercise, man. Go more into society. See friends. Take walks. Garden. Make this desert bloom with roses.”

“Yes – yes – yes,” said Alleyne, thoughtfully. “I must try. Mr Oldroyd,” he said suddenly, “I should like to see more of you – if – if you would allow me.”

“My dear sir, nothing would give me greater pleasure. Here, I’ll come and garden with you, if you like.”

“I should be very grateful,” said Alleyne. “Give me your advice,” he continued, earnestly, “for I – I must live – I have so much to do – endless labour – and if I do not husband my strength, I – you are right: a man must take exercise and sleep. Mr Oldroyd, I shall take your advice, and – Hush, here they come.”

In effect, looking red-eyed, but perfectly calm now, Mrs Alleyne entered with Lucy, and the rest of the dinner passed off most pleasantly to Oldroyd, who was ready to accord that the poor, badly-cooked mutton was the most delicious he had ever eaten, and the vegetables as choice as could have been grown. Doubtless this was due to Lucy’s grateful glances, and the quiet, grave condescension with which Mrs Alleyne turned from her idol to say a few words now and then.

Even Alleyne himself seemed to be making efforts to drag himself back from the company of the twin orbs in space, or the star-dust of the milky way, to chat about the ordinary things of every-day life; and at last, it was with quite a guilty sensation of having overstepped the bounds of hospitality in his stay that Oldroyd rose to go.

“You will call and see us again soon, Mr Oldroyd?” said Mrs Alleyne, with the dignity of a reigning queen.

“Professionally, madam,” he said, “there is no need. I have exhausted my advice at this first visit. It is for you to play the nurse, and see that my suggestions are carried out.”

“Then as a friend,” said the lady, extending her thin white hand. “I am sure my son feels grateful to you, and will be glad to see you at any time.”

She glanced at Alleyne, who was seated in the sunshine, holding a pair of smoked glass spectacles to his eyes, and gazing up at the dazzling orb passing onwards towards the west.

“I thank you heartily,” said Oldroyd. “Society is not so extensive here that one can afford to slight so kind an invitation.”

“Mr Oldroyd going?” said Alleyne, starting, as, in obedience to a look from her mother, Lucy bent over him, and, pressing the glasses down with one hand, whispered a few words in his ear.

“Yes, I must be off now,” said the young doctor.

“You will come and see us again soon?” said Alleyne. “Would you care to see my observatory? It might interest you a little.”

“I shall be glad,” said Oldroyd, “very glad – some day,” and after a most friendly good-bye, he took his soft hat and stout stick, and, leaving the cheerless, sombre house, went down the steep slope, and took a short cut across the rough boggy land towards his patient’s cottage.

“Thorough lady, but she is very stiff; and she worships her son. Charming little girl that. Nice and natural. No modern young-ladyism in her,” he muttered, as he picked his way. “I should think it would be possible to be in her company a whole day without a single allusion to frilling, or square-cut, or trains, or the colour and shape of Miss Blank’s last new bonnet. Quite a sensible little girl. Pretty flower growing in very uncongenial soil, but she seems happy enough.”

Philip Oldroyd’s communings were checked by some very boggy patches, which had to be leaped and skirted, and otherwise avoided; but as soon as he was once more upon firm ground, he resumed where he had left off.

“Wonderfully fond of her brother, too. Well, I don’t wonder. He’s a fine fellow after all. I thought him a dullard – a book-worm; but he’s something more than that. Why, when he wakes up out of his dreamy state, he’s a noble-looking fellow. What a model he would make for an artist who wanted to paint a Roman senator. Why doesn’t nature give us all those fine massive heads, with crisp hair and beard? Humph! lost in his far-seeing studies, and nothing will draw him out of them for more than a few hours. Nothing would ever draw him away but one thing. One thing? No, not it, though. He’s not the sort of man. He’s good-looking enough, and he has a voice that, if bent to woo, would play mischief with a woman’s heart. He’ll never take that complaint, though, I’ll vow. It would be all on the lady’s side. And yet, I don’t know: man is mortal after all. I am for one. Very mortal indeed, and if I go often to The Firs, I shall be mixing Lucy Alleyne up with my prescriptions, and that won’t do at all.”