“Oh, doctor, is that all?” said Mrs Alleyne more warmly; and she laid her thin, white hand upon her visitor’s arm.
“Well, not quite,” he said, with a smile. “He is a great student; no one admires his work more than I, or the wonderful capacity of his mind, but he must be taken out of it a little – a man cannot always be studying the stars.”
“No, no; he does too much,” said Mrs Alleyne. “You are quite right. But what would you recommend?”
“Nature again, madam. Something to give him an interest in this world, as well as in the other worlds he makes his study. In short, Mrs Alleyne, it would be the saving of your son if he fell in love.”
“Doctor!”
“And took to himself some sweet good girl as a wife.”
“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