Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.
Venus more in the Field of View.
Lucy’s life about this time was not a happy one. Mrs Alleyne was cold and distant, Moray was growing more silent day by day, taking exercise as a duty, working or walking furiously, as if eager to get the duty done, so as to be able to drown harassing thoughts in his studies; hence he saw little of, and said little to his sister. The major looked stern when he met her, and Lucy’s sensitive little bosom heaved when she noticed his distant ways. Sir John, too, appeared abrupt and distant, not so friendly as of old, or else she thought so; and certainly Glynne was not so cordial, seeming to avoid her, and rarely now sending over one of her old affectionate notes imploring her to come to lunch and spend the day.
“Philip Oldroyd always looks at me as if I were a school-girl,” Lucy used to cry impetuously when she was alone, “and as if about to scold me for not wanting to learn my lessons. How dare he look at me like that, just as if there was anything between us, and he had a right!”
Then Lucy would have a long cry and take herself to task for speaking of the doctor as Philip Oldroyd, and, after a good sob, feel better.
Rolph was the only one of her acquaintances who seemed to be pleasant with her, and his pleasantry she disliked, avoiding him when she went out for a walk, but generally finding him in the way, ready to place himself at her side, and walk wherever she did.
Lucy planted barbed verbal arrows in the young officer’s thick hide, but the only effect of these pungent little attacks was to tickle him. He was not hurt in the slightest degree. In fact he enjoyed it under the impression that Lucy admired him immensely, and was ready to fall at his feet at any time, and declare her love.
“She doesn’t know anything,” he had mused. “Her sleepy brother noticed nothing, and as for the doctor—curse the doctor, let him mind his own business, or I’ll wring his neck. I could,” he added thoughtfully, “and I would.”
“Bah! it’s only a bit of flirtation, and the little thing is so clever and sharp and piquant that she’s quite a treat after a course of mushrooms with the major, and pigs and turnips with Sir John. If Alleyne should meet us—well, I met his sister, Glynne’s friend, and we were chatting—about Glynne of course. And as to the doctor, well, curse the doctor, as aforesaid. I believe the beast’s jealous, and I’ll make him worse before I’m done.”