Volume Three—Chapter Two.
The Stars at the Nadir.
“I will see him again, Mrs Alleyne, and try a little more persuasion; perhaps he will yield.”
“But are you sure you are right, Mr Oldroyd? I know my son’s constitution so well. Would it be better to go to some specialist?”
“My dear madam, I would advise you directly to persuade him to go up to town and see any of our magnates, but it would be so much money wasted.”
“But he seems so ill again!” sighed Mrs Alleyne.
“He does, indeed, but this illness is one of the simplest of ailments. It needs no doctor to tell you what it is. Really, Mrs Alleyne, if you will set maternal anxiety aside for one moment, and look at your son as you would at a stranger, you will see directly what is wrong. It is only an aggravated form of the complaint for which you consulted me before.”
“If I could only feel so,” sighed Mrs Alleyne.
“Really, madam, you may,” replied Oldroyd. “When you first called me in, you know what I prescribed, and how much better he grew. I prescribe the same again. If we set Nature and her simple laws at defiance, she will punish us.”
“But he grows worse,” sighed Mrs Alleyne. “He devotes himself more and more to his studies, and it is hard work to get him out of the observatory. He says he has some discovery on the way, and to make that he is turning himself into an old man. Will you go and see him now?”
Oldroyd bowed his acquiescence, and rose to go.
“You had better go alone,” said Mrs Alleyne, “as if you had called in as a friend. He is very sensitive and strange at times, and I should not like him to think that I had sent for you.”
“It would be as well not,” said Oldroyd; and, taking the familiar way, he was crossing the hall, when he came suddenly upon Lucy, who stopped short, turned very red, turned hastily, and hurried through the next door, which closed after her with quite a bang.
Oldroyd’s brow filled with lines, and he drew a long breath as he went on to the door of the observatory, knocked, and, receiving no answer, turned the handle gently and stepped in, closing the door behind him.
He stood for a few minutes in what seemed to be intense darkness; but as his eyes grew more accustomed to the great place, he could see that through the closed shutters a white stream of light came here and there, and on one side there was a very small, closely-shaded lamp, which threw a ring of softened yellow light down upon a sheet of paper covered with figures. Saving these faint traces of light all was gloom and obscurity, through which loomed out in a weirdly, grotesque fashion the great tubes and pedestals and wheels of the various instruments that stood in the place. On one side, too, a bright ray of light shone from a spot near the floor, and, after a moment or two, Oldroyd recalled that there stood the large trough of mercury, glittering like a mirror, and now reflecting a ray of light as if it were a star.
The silence was perfect, not a breath could be heard, and it was some few minutes before Oldroyd made out that his friend was seated on the other side of the table that bore the shaded lamp, his head resting upon his hand, perfectly motionless, but whether asleep or thinking it was impossible to say.
Oldroyd had not seen the astronomer for some weeks. There had been no falling off from the friendly feeling existing between them, but Alleyne had completely secluded himself since the encounter with Rolph in the fir wood, and, for reasons of his own, Oldroyd had refrained from calling, the principal cause being, as he told himself, a desire not to encounter Lucy.
He stood waiting for a short time watching the dimly-seen figure, and half-expecting that it would move and speak; but the minutes sped on, and the dead silence continued till Oldroyd, as he gave another look round the gloomy place, black as night in the early part of the afternoon of a sunny day, could not help saying to himself—“How can a man expect health when he shuts himself up in such a tomb?”
He crossed the place cautiously, and with outstretched hands, lest he should fall over a chair or philosophical instrument; but though he made some little noise, Alleyne did not stir, even when his visitor was close up to the table, looking down upon the head resting upon the dimly-seen hand.
“He must be asleep, worn out with watching,” thought Oldroyd; and he remained silent again for a few minutes, waiting for his friend to move. But Alleyne remained motionless; and now the visitor could see that his hair was rough and untended, and that he was in a loose kind of dressing-gown.
“Alleyne! Alleyne!” said Oldroyd at last, but there was no movement. “Alleyne!” cried Oldroyd, louder now, but without result, and, feeling startled, he caught the shade from the lamp, so that the light might fall upon the heavily-bearded face.
As he did so, Alleyne moved, slowly raising his head, and letting his hand drop till he was gazing full at his visitor.
“Were you asleep?” said Oldroyd uneasily, “or are you ill?”
“Asleep?—ill?” replied Alleyne, in a low, dreamy voice, his eyes blinking uneasily in the light, as he displayed a white and ghastly face to his visitor, one that was startling in its aspect. “No, I am quite well. I was thinking.”
Oldroyd was not ignorant of his friend’s trouble, but he was surprised and shocked at the change that had taken place in so short a time; and laying his hand upon Alleyne’s shoulder, and closely scanning the deeply-lined, ashy face, he said quietly,—
“May I open a shutter or two, and admit the light?”
“Light?—shutter?” said Alleyne dreamily; “is it morning?”
“Yes; glorious sunny morning, man. There, now we can see each other,” cried Oldroyd cheerfully, as he threw back one or two shutters. “Why, Alleyne, how you do stick to the work.”
“Yes—yes,” in a low, dreamy voice. “There is so much to do, and one gets on so slowly.”
“Big problem on, I suppose, as usual, eh?”
“Yes; a difficult problem,” said Alleyne vacantly. “These things take time.”
“Ah, I suppose so,” replied Oldroyd. “How’s the garden getting on now?”
“Garden?—the garden! Oh, yes; I had forgotten. Very well, I think; but I have been too much occupied for the past few weeks—months—weeks to attend to it myself.”
“I suppose so. One has to work hard to do more than one’s fellows, eh?”
Alleyne looked at him blankly.
“Yes, one has to work hard,” he replied.
“I thought, perhaps, as you have been shut up so much lately, you would come and have a round with me,” continued Oldroyd. “It is a splendid day.”
Alleyne looked at him dreamily, as if he felt that something of the brightness of the outer day had accompanied his friend into the room, but he merely shook his head.
“Oh, nonsense, man!” cried Oldroyd, speaking with energy. “You work too hard. I am sure you do.”
“I am obliged,” said Alleyne gravely. “It is the only rest I have.”
He seemed to be growing more animated already, and to be fully awakened to the presence of his friend, for his next words possessed more energy, when, in reply to a little more persuasion, he exclaimed,—
“Don’t ask me, Oldroyd. I have, I tell you, too much to do.”
It seemed useless to press him further, and the doctor felt that it would be unwise, perhaps, to say more, so he took a seat and waited for Alleyne to speak again, apparently like any idler who might have called, but really observant of him all the time.
It was a curious study the manner in which these two men bore their trouble. Each was a student in a different field, and each had sought relief in his own particular subject, with the result that the one had grown old and careworn and neglectful of self in a few weeks, while the other was only more grave and energetic than before.
It may have been that the love of one was deeper than that of the other, though that was doubtful. It rather seemed to be that while Alleyne was cut to the heart by the bitterness of the rebuff that he had met, a certain amount of resentment against one whom he looked upon as a light and trivial flirt had softened Oldroyd’s blow.
But, to the latter’s surprise, his friend and patient made no further remark. He sat gazing at vacancy for a few moments, and then allowed his head to rest once more upon his hand, as if about to go to sleep; but at the first movement made by Oldroyd he looked up again, and replaced the shade upon his lamp.
“Life is so short,” he said, with a grave smile; “time goes so very fast, Oldroyd, I must get on. You will excuse me, I know.”
“Yes, I must be getting on as well. I shall call in upon you oftener than I have lately. You will perhaps come out with me again sometimes.”
“Out with you! To see your patient the poacher?”
“Oh, no,” replied Oldroyd, smiling. “He is quite well again now. I have not been there these two months; but I can soon find an object for a walk.”
“A walk? Yes, perhaps. We shall see. Will you close the shutters when you go. I must have darkness for such work as this.”
“Yes, I’ll close them,” said Oldroyd quietly; and crossing the room he did what he had been requested before walking out of the observatory, leaving Alleyne absorbed once more in his thoughts, and too intent to raise his head as his visitor bade him good-day.
By accident or design, Oldroyd encountered Lucy once more in crossing the hall, bowing to her gravely, his salute being received with chilling courtesy by the young lady, who again hurried away, truth to tell, to ascend to her bedroom and cry over the unhappy way in which her life course was being turned.
“Well,” said Mrs Alleyne anxiously, as she advanced to meet Oldroyd, “what do you think?”
“Exactly what I thought before I saw your son, madam. He is again setting Nature at defiance and suffering for the sin.”
“And what is to be done?”
Oldroyd shook his head as he thought of the medicine that would have cured Alleyne’s complaint—a remedy that appeared to be unattainable, watched as it were by a military dragon of the name of Rolph, and all the young doctor could say for the anxious mother’s comfort was on leaving,—
“We must wait.”