“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.”