About a couple of hours earlier there was a ring at the gaunt-looking
gate at the Firs, and that ring caused Mrs Alleyne's Eliza to start as
if galvanised, and to draw her feet sharply over the sanded floor, and
beneath her chair.
Otherwise Eliza did not move. She had been darning black stockings, and
as her feet went under her chair, she sat there with the light--a yellow
and dim tallow dip, set up in a great tin candlestick--staring before
her, lips and eyes wide open, one hand and arm covered with a black
worsted stocking, the fingers belonging to the other arm holding up a
stocking needle, motionless, as if she were so much stone.
Anon, the bell, which hid in a little pent-house of its own high up on
the ivied wall, jangled again, and a shock of terror ran through Eliza's
body once more, but only for her to relapse into the former cataleptic
state.
Then came a third brazen clanging; and this time the kitchen door
opened, and Eliza uttered a squeal.
"Why, Eliza," cried Lucy, "were you asleep? The gate bell has rung
three times. Go and see who it is."
"Oh, please, miss, I dursn't," said Eliza with a shiver.
"Oh, how can you be so foolish!" cried Lucy. "There, bring the light,
and I'll come with you."
"There--there was a poor girl murdered once, miss," stammered Eliza, "at
a gate. Please, miss, I dursn't go."
"Then I must go myself," cried Lucy. "Don't be so silly. Mamma will be
dreadfully cross if you don't come."
Eliza seemed to think that it would be better to risk being murdered at
the gate than encounter Mrs Alleyne's anger, so she started up, caught
at the tin candlestick with trembling hand, and then unbolted the
kitchen door loudly, just as the bell was about to be pulled for the
fourth time.
"You speak, please, miss," whispered the girl. "I dursn't. Pray say
something before you open the gate."
"Who's there," cried Lucy.
"Only me, Miss Alleyne," said a well-known voice. "I was coming across
the common, and thought I'd call and see how your brother is."
Lucy eagerly began to unfasten the great gate, but for some reason,
probably best known to herself, she stopped suddenly, coloured a little,
and said--almost sharply,--
"Quick, Eliza, why don't you open the gate?"
Thus adjured, the maiden unfastened the ponderous lock, and admitted
Philip Oldroyd, who shook hands warmly with Lucy, and then seemed as if
he were about to change her hand over to his left, and feel her pulse
with his right.
"We always have the gate locked at dusk," said Lucy, "the place stands
so lonely, and--"
"You feel a little nervous," said Oldroyd, smiling, as they walked up to
the house.
"Oh, no!" said Lucy, eagerly; "I never think there is anything to mind,
but the maid is terribly alarmed lest we should be attacked by night.
My brother is out," she hastened to say, to fill up a rather awkward
pause. "He is taking one of your prescriptions," she added, archly.
"Wise man," cried Oldroyd, as they passed round to the front door and
went in. "I suppose he will not be long?"
"Oh, no!" said Lucy, eagerly; "if you will come in and wait, he is sure
to be back soon."
Then she hesitated, and hastened to speak again, feeling quite
uncomfortable and guilty, as if she had been saying something
unmaidenly--as if she had been displaying an eagerness for the young
doctor to stop--when all the time she told herself, it was perfectly
immaterial, and she did not care in the least.
"Of course I can't be sure," she added, growing a little quicker of
speech; "but I think he will not be long. He has gone round by the pine
wood."
"Then I should meet him if I went that way," said Oldroyd, who had also
become rather awkward and hesitant.
"Oh, yes; I think you would be sure to meet him," cried Lucy eagerly.
"Thanks," said Oldroyd, who felt rather vexed that she should be eager
to get rid of him; "then perhaps I had better go."
"But of course I can't tell which way he will come back," cried Lucy,
hastily; "and you might miss him."
"To be sure, yes," said Oldroyd, taking heart again; "so I might, and
then not see him at all." And he looked anxiously at Lucy's troubled
face over the tin candlestick, ornamented with drops of tallow that had
fallen upon its sides, while Eliza slowly closed the front door, and
gazed with her lips apart from one to the other.
Lucy was all repentance again, for in a flash her conscience had told
her that she had seemed eager, and pressed the doctor to stay.
An awkward pause ensued, one which neither the visitor nor Lucy seemed
able to break. Each tried very hard to find something to say, but in
vain.
"How stupid of me!" thought Lucy, angrily.
"What's come to me?" thought Oldroyd; the only idea beside being that he
ought to ask Lucy about her health, only he could not, for it would seem
so professional. So he looked helplessly at her, and she returned his
look half indignantly, while the candle was held on one side, and Eliza
gaped at them wonderingly.
Mrs Alleyne ended the awkward pause by opening the dining-room door, and
standing there framed like a silhouette.
"Oh, is it you, Mr Oldroyd?" she said, quietly.
"Yes, good evening," exclaimed the young doctor, quickly, like one
released from a spell; "as I told Miss Alleyne here, I was coming close
by, and I thought I would call and see how Mr Alleyne is."
"We are very glad to see you," said Mrs Alleyne, with grave courtesy.
"Pray come in, Mr Oldroyd," and Lucy uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.
"Of course this is not a professional visit, Mrs Alleyne," said Oldroyd;
and then he wished he had not said it, for Mrs Alleyne's face showed the
lines a little more deeply, and there was a slight twitching about her
lips.
"I am sorry that Mr Alleyne has not yet returned," she said, and as soon
as they were seated, she smiled, and tried to remove the restraint that
had fallen upon them in the dreary room.
"I am very grateful to you, Mr Oldroyd," she said; "my son is
wonderfully better."
"And would be in a position to laugh all doctors in the face, if he
would carry out my prescriptions a little more fully," said Oldroyd.
"But we must not be too hard upon him. I think it is a great thing to
wean him from his studies as we have."
"You dreadfully conceited man," thought Lucy. "How dare you have the
shamelessness to think you have done all this! I know better. No man
could have done it--there."
"Did you speak, Miss Alleyne?" said Oldroyd, looking round suddenly, and
finding Lucy's eyes intent upon him.
"I? No," cried Lucy, flushing; and then biting her lips with annoyance,
because her cheeks burned, "I was listening to you and mamma."
"It is quite time Moray returned," said Mrs Alleyne, anxiously glancing
towards the closed window.
"Yes, mamma; we shall hear his step directly," said Lucy.
"He does not generally stay so long," continued Mrs Alleyne, going to
the window to draw aside the curtain and look out. "Did he say which
way he would go, Lucy?"
"Yes, mamma. I asked him, and he said as far as the fir wood."
"Ah, yes," responded Mrs Alleyne; "he says he can think so much more
easily among the great trees--that his mind seems able to plunge into
the depths of the vast abysses of the heavens."
"I don't believe he does think about stars at all," thought Lucy. "I
believe he goes there to stare across the park, and think about Glynne."
A feeling of elation made the girl's heart glow, and her eyes sparkle,
as she more and more began to nurse this, one of the greatest ideas of
her heart. It was an exceedingly immoral proceeding on her part, for
she knew that Glynne was engaged to be married to Captain Rolph; but him
she utterly detested, she told herself, and that it was an entire
mistake; in fact, she assured herself that it would be an act of the
greatest benevolence, and one for which she would receive the thanks of
both parties all through her lifetime--if she could succeed in breaking
off the engagement and marrying Glynne to her brother.
The conversation went on, but it was checked from time to time by Mrs
Alleyne again rising to go to the window, and this movement on her part
always had the effect of making Lucy's eyes drop immediately upon her
work; and, though she had been the minute before frankly meeting
Oldroyd's gaze in conversation, such remarks as he addressed to her now
were answered with her look averted, as she busied herself over her
sewing.
"Moray never stayed so late as this before," said Mrs Alleyne, suddenly,
turning her pale face on those who were so wrapped in their own thoughts
that they had almost forgotten the absentee.
"No, mamma," cried Lucy, reproaching herself for her want of interest;
"he is an hour later."
"It is getting on towards two hours beyond his time," cried Mrs Alleyne,
in despairing tones. "I am very uneasy."
"Oh, but he has only gone a little farther than usual, mamma, dear,"
cried Lucy; "pray don't be uneasy."
"I cannot help it, my child," cried Mrs Alleyne; "he who is so punctual
in all his habits would never stay away like this. Is he likely to meet
poachers?"
"Let me go and try if I can meet him," said Oldroyd, jumping up.
"Poachers wouldn't touch him."
"Yes, do, Mr Oldroyd. I will go with you," cried Lucy, forgetting in
her excitement that such a proposal was hardly etiquette. But neither
mother nor daughter, in their anxiety, seemed to have the slightest idea
of there being anything extraordinary at such a time.
"It won't do," Oldroyd had been saying to himself, "even if it should
prove that I'm not a conceited ass to think such things, and she--bless
her sweet, bright little face--ever willing to think anything of me, I
should be a complete scoundrel to try and win her. Let me see, what did
I make last year by my practice? Twenty-eight pounds fifteen, and nine
pounds of it still owing, and likely to be owing, for I shall never get
a _sou_. Then this year, what shall I take? Well, perhaps another five
pounds on account of her brother's illness. I must be mad."
"Yes," he said, after a pause, "I must be mad, and must have been worse
to come down here to this out-of-the-way place, where there is not the
most remote chance of my getting together a practice. No, it won't do,
I must play misogynist, and be as cold towards the bright little thing
as if I were a monk."
As these thoughts ran through his mind, others came to crowd them out--
thoughts of a snug little home, made bright by a sweet face looking out
from door or window to see him coming back after a long, tiring round.
What was enough for one was enough for two--so people argued. That was
right enough as regarded a house, but doubtful when it came to food, and
absurd if you went as far as clothing.
"No, it would never do," he said to himself, "I could not take her from
her home to my poor, shabby place."
But as he thought this he involuntarily looked round Mrs Alleyne's
dining-room, that lady being at the window, and he could not help
thinking that, after all, his cottage-like home was infinitely
preferable to this great, gaunt, dingy place, where anything suggestive
of any comfort was out of the question.
"Yes, she would be more comfortable," he muttered; "and--there, I'm
going mad again. I will not think such things."
Just then Lucy came in ready for starting, and all Philip Oldroyd's good
intentions might have been dressed for departure as well. Certainly,
they all took flight, as he followed the eager little maiden into the
hall.
"Pray--pray let me have news of him directly you find him, Mr Oldroyd,"
cried Mrs Alleyne, piteously. "Run back yourself. You cannot tell what
I suffer. Something must have happened."
"You shall know about him directly, Mrs Alleyne," replied Oldroyd. "But
pray make your mind easy, nothing can have happened to him here. The
worst is that he may have gone to the Hall."
"No, he would not have gone there without first letting me know."
"Don't come to the gate, mamma," cried Lucy. "There, go in; Mr Oldroyd
will take care of me, and we'll soon bring the truant back, only pray be
satisfied. Come, Mr Oldroyd, let us run."
The next minute they were outside the gate, and hurrying down the slope
to the common, over whose rugged surface Lucy walked so fast that
Oldroyd had to step out boldly. Here the sandy road was reached, and
they went on, saying but little, wanting to say but little, for, in
spite of all, there was a strange new ecstatic feeling in Lucy's bosom;
while, in spite of his honesty something kept whispering to Oldroyd that
it would be very pleasant if they were unable to find Alleyne for hours
to come.
He was not to be gratified in this, though, for at the end of a quarter
of an hour's walking, when they came opposite to the big clump of pines,
Lucy proposed that they should go up there.
"I know how fond he is of this place," she said, rather excitedly; "and
as its clearer now, I should not be at all surprised to find him here
watching the moon, or the rising of some of the stars."
"We'll go if you wish it," said Oldroyd, "but it seems a very unlikely
place at a time like this."
"Ah, but my brother is very curious about such things," said Lucy, as
she left the road, and together they climbed up till all at once she
uttered a faint cry--
"Look! there--there he is!"
"Why, Alleyne! Is that you?" cried Oldroyd, as in the full moonlight
they saw a dark figure rise from the foot of a pine, and then come
slowly towards them silently, and in the same vacant fashion as one in a
dream.
"Moray, why don't you speak?" cried Lucy, piteously. "Why, you've not
been to sleep, have you?" and she caught his arm.
"Sleep?" he said, in a strangely absent manner.
"Yes, asleep? Poor mamma has been fretting herself to death about you,
and thinking I don't know what. Make haste."
"Are you unwell, Alleyne?" said Oldroyd, quietly; and the other looked
at him wistfully.
"No--no," he said at length; "quite well--quite well. I have been
thinking--that is all. Let us make haste back."
Lucy and Oldroyd exchanged meaning glances, and then the former bit her
lip, angry at having seemed to take the young doctor into her
confidence; and after that but little was said till they reached The
Firs, where Mrs Alleyne was pacing the hall, ready to fling her long,
thin arms round her son's neck, and hold him in her embrace as she
tenderly reproached him for the anxiety he had caused.
"She doesn't seem to trouble much about little Lucy," thought the
doctor. "Well, so much the more easy for any one who wanted her for a
wife."
"That couldn't be me," he said, at the end of a few minutes, and then--
"I wonder what all this means about Alleyne. He must have been having
an interview with someone in that Grove. Miss Day, for a hundred.
Humph! She must have said something he did not like, or he would not
look like this."
Then, to the great satisfaction of all, the doctor took his leave, and
walked home declaring he would not think of Lucy any more, with the
result that the more he strove, the more her pleasant little face made
itself plain before him, her eyes looking into his, and illustrating the
book he tried to read on every page with a most remarkable sameness, but
a repetition that did not tire him in the least.
Volume 2, Chapter IV.