Fenn George Manville
The Star-Gazers

Volume Three – Chapter Fourteen.
Far Seeing

“Poor old soul, she can’t be long for this world,” said Oldroyd one day on receiving a message from Lindham, and, mounting Peter, he rode over across the commons to the old cottage.

“Oh, you’ve come at last, then,” said the old woman, raising herself in bed and frowning heavily. “There, don’t you go telling me no lies. I know where you’ve been wasting the parish time as you’re paid for.”

“Wasting the time?” said Oldroyd, laughing.

“Ah, it’s nothing to make fun of. When I told you to take to Miss Lucy, I didn’t mean you to go courting for months, but to marry her and done with it, so as she might be a bit useful, visiting and nursing some o’ the sick folk on your rounds.”

“Why, you dissatisfied old woman,” cried Oldroyd merrily, “I rode over as soon as I got your message.”

“Well, then, why don’t you do me some good at once, and not stand talking. If you knowed the aggynies I suffer, you wouldn’t stand talking. You heered the news?”

“What, about the French?”

“Tchut! What do I know about the French? I mean about my grandbairn.”

“Miss Hayle? No.”

“The captain took her off, and we thought he’d married her, you know, but he didn’t.”

“Poor girl!” said Oldroyd, sadly.

“Bah! I haven’t patience with her. Got her head turned up at The Warren, being with that girl there; and then, in spite of all I said, and her father said, she must be always thinking of the captain, and breaking her heart when she heard he was going to marry first this one and then that. She got so that at last he had only to hold up his finger and say come, and away she went; and now she’s back in London, left to shift for herself, with lots of fine clothes. She’s writ home to her father for help. But we shall see – we shall see.”

“A scoundrel!” exclaimed Oldroyd.

“Yes, he’s a bad un,” said the old woman, “a reg’lar bad un, but he’ll get his deserts; you see if he don’t. Ben Hayle arn’t Sir John Day up at the Hall. He won’t let my gentleman off so easy; you see if he do. Ah, it’s a strange world, doctor, and I begin to think it gets worse and worse.”

Oldroyd listened to a good deal more of the old lady’s moralising about the state of the world, as he ministered to her “aggynies,” and finally left, after undertaking to call again very soon.

“Mind, you shut the door!” shouted the old woman; “the haps don’t fit well. You must try it after you’ve let go.”

“I’ll mind,” said Oldroyd good-humouredly; and, mounting Peter, he was thoughtfully jogging homeward, when the pony stopped in front of a gate, on which a man was seated – the pony having apparently recognised an old patient, and paused for the doctor to have a chat.

“Do, sir?” said the man, getting down slowly and touching his hat.

“Ah, Hayle, glad to see you looking so strong again.”

“Ay, sir,” said the man, smiling sadly; “you ought to be proud o’ me, and make a show of what you’ve done for me. ’Bout your best job, warn’t I?”

“Well, I suppose you were, in surgery,” said Oldroyd, looking hard at the man’s pinched face and settled frown; “but, I say, my man, hadn’t you better drop that life now, and try something different?”

“Easier said than done, doctor,” replied Hayle grimly. “Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Nobody wouldn’t employ me. S’pose I said to you. ‘Change your life and turn parson.’ Wouldn’t be easy, would it?”

Oldroyd shook his head.

“Perhaps not,” he said; “but you’re too good a man for a poacher. Look here, Hayle; Morton has left and gone to Lord Bogmere’s. Sir John Day is very friendly to me. Let me go and state your case to him frankly.”

“Wouldn’t be no good, sir.”

“Don’t say that. He’s a thorough English gentleman, always ready to do anyone a good turn. I believe in you, Hayle; and if I say to him that you would gladly come and serve him faithfully, I should say so believing honestly that you would. Shall I speak to him?”

“Thank you kindly, sir, but not now. I’ve got too much else on my mind,” said Hayle, gazing at the doctor searchingly. “Been to see the old lady?”

“Yes.”

“Did – did she tell you any news?”

Oldroyd nodded.

“Ah, she would,” said the ex-keeper thoughtfully. “Hah! he’s a bad un; but I didn’t think he’d be quite so bad as that to her; for she’s a handsome gal, doctor – a handsome gal.”

“More’s the pity,” thought Oldroyd, though he did not speak.

“It’s well for him that I haven’t run again him, I can tell you. Don’t happen to know where the captain is, do you, sir?”

“No, I have not the least idea; and if I had, I don’t think I should tell you.”

“S’pose not, doctor,” said the man, with a strange laugh, “seeing what’s coming off.”

“Why; what are you going to do?”

“Do, sir,” said Hayle slowly, as he leaned on the gate, and looked down the dark path in the wood. “When I was a young man, and made up my mind to trap a hare or a fezzan, or p’raps only a rabbud, I trapped it. P’r’aps I didn’t the first time; p’raps I didn’t the second or third; but I kept on at it till I did, and I’m going to trap him.”

“What, Captain Rolph! Make him pay for the injury to your daughter?”

“I’m going to see if he’ll make it up to her first. If he won’t, I’ll make him pay.”

“Make it up! Do you mean marry her?”

“Yes; that’s what I mean, sir,” said Hayle slowly, and then, turning round to face the doctor, and fix him with his big dark eyes. “He shall pay his debt if he don’t marry her!”

“Do you mean in money – breach of promise?”

“No,” said the man, speaking to him fiercely. “No money wouldn’t pay my gal nor me. He took a fancy to her, and she liked him, and I forgive him for his cunning way of following her when I was laid by. I forgive him, too, for what he did to me. It was fair fight so far, but it was his gun as shot me that night. I didn’t bear no malice again him for all that, as long as he was square toward Judith; but he’s thrown her off, and I’m going to see him about it.”

“Man, man, what are you going to do?” cried Oldroyd.

“What am I going to do?” roared Hayle, blazing up into sudden fury. “You’re going to marry sweet young Miss Lucy, yonder. S’pose eighteen or nineteen years, by-and-by, doctor, there’s another Miss Lucy as you’re very proud on. You’re genteel people, we’re not; but the stuff’s all the same. I was proud o’ my Judith, same as you’ll be proud of your Miss Lucy when she comes. What am I going to do? What would you do to the man as took her from you, and when his fancy was over sent her off?”

Oldroyd stood gazing at the fierce face before him.

“Doctor, when I heerd first as he’d thrown her over, I said to myself, ‘He’s a proud chap – proud of his strong body, and his running and racing: he shall know what it is to suffer now. Curse him, I’ll break him across my knee.’ Then I stopped and thought, doctor, and made up my mind that he should marry her, and if he don’t – ”

Hayle stopped short, with his lips tightened and his fists clenched; and then, in a curiously furtive way, he turned his face aside, sprang lightly over the gate into the wood, and disappeared from the doctor’s sight.

“If I had done that fellow a deadly wrong I should not feel very happy and comfortable in my own mind,” said Oldroyd, as he looked in the direction in which the man had disappeared. “Ah, well, it’s no business of mine; and, thank goodness, I lead too busy a life to have many of the temptations talked of by good old Doctor Watts.”

“Now, then, I’ve taken my physic,” he added, after a few minutes’ thought, and with a cheery smile on his countenance, “so I’ll go and have my sugar. Go on, Peter.”

Peter went on, and, as if knowing where to go, took the doctor straight to The Firs.

Volume Three – Chapter Fifteen.
The Image Fades

“Oh, how you startled me.”

“Can’t help being ugly,” said Oldroyd merrily. “Eliza said you had come in, and were down the garden, so I took the liberty of following.”

“Does mamma know?” said Lucy, with a guilty look at the house.

“I really can’t tell,” said Oldroyd, smiling. “I shall not look for her permission now, since I consider myself your duly qualified medical attendant, your life physician, I hope.”

“Really, Mr Oldroyd,” said Lucy, “you need not feel my pulse to-day.”

“Indeed, but I must,” he said; “and look into your eyes to see if they are clear.”

“What nonsense!” said Lucy. “I suppose next you’ll want me to put out my tongue.”

“No,” he said laughing, “your lips will do.”

“Philip! For shame! Anyone might have seen. You shouldn’t.”

“Save that I would not have anyone witness of so holy a joy as that kiss was to me,” whispered Oldroyd, “the whole world might see my love for you, little wife to be. There’s no shame in it, Lucy. I am so happy. And you?”

“I’m very, very miserable,” she cried, looking in his face with eyes that denied the fact.

“Then you are to tell me your trouble,” he whispered, fondly, “and I am to console you.”

“But I don’t think you can, Philip.”

“Well, let us hear,” he said. “What is the trouble?”

“It is about poor Moray.”

“Ah! Yes!” said Oldroyd slowly.

“And Glynne!”

“Whom you have just been to see, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I once knew a case,” said Oldroyd, “where two people were most tenderly attached to each other – the gentleman far more so than the lady; but they, loving as they did, were kept apart by foolish doubts and misconceptions and pride.”

“It is not true,” said Lucy sharply.

“That they were kept apart like that?”

“No; that – that – ”

“The gentleman was more deeply touched than the lady? No; that part is not true. It was just the reverse.”

“And that is not true either,” said Lucy archly.

“Well, we’ll not argue the point,” said Oldroyd, laughing. “But I’ll go on. In their case no one interfered to set matters straight, and they only came right through the tender affection and good heart of the dearest little girl who ever lived.”

“You may say that again, Philip,” said Lucy, nestling to him, and looking up through a veil of tears; “but it isn’t a bit true. I’m afraid I was very, very weak, and proud and foolish, and I feel now as if I could never forgive myself for much that I have done.”

“I’ll forgive you, and you shall forgive me,” said Oldroyd. “And now I don’t think I need go on speaking in parables. I only wanted to point out the difference. Our trouble arranged itself without the help of friends. That of someone else ought soon to be set right, with two such energetic people as ourselves to help.”

“But sometimes interference makes matters worse,” sighed Lucy.

“Yes; because those who see about these matters are ignorant pretenders. Now, we are both duly qualified practitioners, Lucy, and, I think, can settle the matter right off, and cure them both.”

“But how? It is so dreadful.”

“Lucy, Lucy!”

It was a sharp, agonised call, as of one in extreme anguish, and, startled by the cry, Lucy sprang up and ran towards the house, closely followed by Oldroyd.

“Mamma, dear mamma, what is it?” she cried.

“Your brother. Oh, thank heaven, Mr Oldroyd, you are here.”

“What is it?” cried Oldroyd, catching Mrs Alleyne’s white and trembling hand.

“I – I went – I ventured to go into the observatory just now, my son seemed so quiet, and – oh, heaven, what have I done that I should suffer this?”

It was a wild appeal, uttered by one in deep agony of spirit, as Mrs Alleyne reeled, and would have fallen, had not Oldroyd caught her in his arms, and gently lowered her on the carpet.

“Only fainting,” he whispered. “Let her lie; loosen her dress, and bathe her face. I’ll run on to your brother.”

Satisfied that he was not wanted there, and, giving Lucy an encouraging nod, Oldroyd ran quickly along the passage to the observatory, whose door he found open, but almost in total darkness, for the shutters were carefully closed, and the shaded lamp gave so little light, save in one place on the far side of the table, that he was compelled to cross the great room cautiously, for fear of falling over some one or other of the philosophical instruments, whose places the student often changed.

On reaching the table, he could see that Alleyne was lying prone upon the well-worn rug before his chair; and, making his way to the window, Oldroyd tore open the shutters, admitting a burst of sunshine, and completely changing the aspect of the great dusty place.

Going back to the table, he took in the position at a glance. There were bottles there, in a little rack such a chemist would use, and one stood alone.

He caught it up, removed the stopper, then put it down with an impatient “Pish!” and was turning to the prostrate man, when, previously hidden by a book, another stopper caught his eye, and, drawing in his breath with a loud hiss, he sprang to Alleyne’s side, to find that the fingers of his right hand tightly clasped a small cut-glass bottle, the one to which the stopper belonged.

“I was afraid so,” muttered Oldroyd, with his eyes scanning the white, fixed countenance before him. “He must have taken it as he stood by the table, and fallen at once. Poor fellow! Poor fellow! He must have been mad.”

These words were uttered as, with all the prompt decision of a medical man, Oldroyd was examining his friend; his first act being to ascertain what the little bottle had contained.

It was no easy task to free it from the stiffened fingers; but he tore it away at last, held it to the light, to his nostrils, and then set it quickly upon the table, with an impatient exclamation.

“And I call myself a practised doctor,” he muttered, “and let my fancy carry me away as it did. Poor fellow! He must have felt it coming on, and tried that ammonia to keep off the sensation. Suffered from it before, perhaps,” he continued, as he laid Alleyne’s head more easily, tore open his handkerchief and collar; and then, after drawing up the lids and examining the pupils of his eyes, he hurriedly threw open both windows, and caught up a chart from a side table.

His next act was to ring the bell furiously, and then return to Alleyne’s side and begin fanning his head vigorously.

It was Lucy who answered the bell, running in exclaiming, —

“Oh, Philip, what is it, pray?”

“Don’t make a fuss, darling,” he said, quickly. “Be a firm little woman. I want your help. Cold water, a big basin, sponge, brandy, vinegar. Quick?”

Lucy made an effort to compose herself, and the prompt order had its due effect, for she ran out, to return in a few minutes laden with all Oldroyd had demanded.

“That’s right,” he said, quickly; and in answer to Lucy’s inquiring eyes, “A fit, dear. He has overdone it. Exhaustion. Brain symptoms. Over pressure. That’s well. Now, the brandy. Here, you take this card and keep on fanning, while I bathe his head with the spirit and water. We must cool his head. Fan away. Be calm now. A doctor’s wife must not cry. That’s brave.”

All the while he was applying the sponge, saturated with spirit and water, to Alleyne’s temples, and checking Lucy when she seemed disposed to break down, the result being that she worked busily and well.

“Well done, brave little woman,” he cried, encouragingly. “It is a regular fit of exhaustion, and we must not let it come to anything more. Give me the fan, dear. No, go on. I’ll apply some more water. Evaporates quickly, you see, and relieves the brain. Spirit stimulates, even taken through the pores like that. Good heavens, what a mat of hair. Quick! Scissors. I must get rid of some of this.”

He now took the extemporised fan from Lucy’s fingers, using it energetically, while she rose from her knees, and ran to get a pair of her sharpest scissors, with which Oldroyd remorselessly sheared off the long unkempt locks from his patient’s temples.

Meanwhile Alleyne lay there perfectly motionless, breathing heavily, and with a strange fixed look in his eyes. At times a slight spasm seemed to convulse him, but only to be succeeded by long intervals of rigidity, during which Lucy plied the fan, gazing at her brother with horror-stricken eyes, while Oldroyd continued the cold bathing in the most matter-of-fact manner.

“If we could get some ice,” muttered Oldroyd, as as he laid a cool hand upon his patient’s head; and just then Mrs Alleyne, looking very white and weak, came into the room.

“I am better now,” she whispered. “It was very foolish of me. What can I do?”

“Nothing, at present,” replied Oldroyd. “Yes; send to the Hall. I know they have ice there. Ask Sir John Day to let us have some at once.”

Mrs Alleyne darted an agonised look at her son, and then glided out of the room, when Lucy looked up piteously at Oldroyd.

“Pray, pray, tell me the truth,” she whispered; “does this mean – death?”

“Heaven forbid!” he replied, quickly. “It is a bad fit, but a man may have several such as this and live to seventy. Lucy, we were looking about for a means to a certain – keep on fanning, my dear, that’s right – certain end.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said piteously.

“Alleyne – Glynne – to bring them together. This is her work – thinking of her and over-toiling. Surely her place is here.”

Lucy heaved a sigh, but she held her peace, and busily wafted the cool air to her brother’s forehead.

Mrs Alleyne returned, to kneel down a short distance away, in obedience to a whisper from the doctor; and then an hour passed, and there was no change, while hope seemed to be slowly departing from poor Lucy’s eyes.

Suddenly a horse’s feet were heard coming at a gallop, and a minute or two later there was a tap at the door.

“I came on at once,” said Sir John, entering on tiptoe. “My brother is having the ice well opened, and he will be over directly with one of the men. Now, Mr Oldroyd, what can I do? I have the cob outside. Shall I – don’t be offended, you might like help – shall I gallop over and get Doctor Blunt.”

“It is not necessary,” said Oldroyd thoughtfully, “but it would be more satisfactory to all parties. I should be glad if you could go, Sir John.”

“Yes; exactly. How is he?”

“There’s no change, and not likely to be for some time,” replied Oldroyd, quietly.

Sir John looked pityingly at Alleyne, turned to Mrs Alleyne, took her hand and pressed it gently. Then, bending over Lucy, he took her hand in his.

“Keep a good heart, my dear,” he whispered. “He’ll be better soon;” and going out on tiptoe, it hardly seemed a minute before the regular beat of his horse’s hoofs could be heard dying away in the distance.

A few minutes later the rumble of wheels was heard, and directly after Eliza came to the door with a pail of ice.

“And Major Day’s in the dining-room, please, ma’am,” whispered the girl, in a broken voice; “and is master better, and can he do anything?”

“Go and speak to him, Lucy. Here, your handkerchief first. That’s right!” said Oldroyd sharply. “Now, the smallest pieces of the ice. That’s right. Go and say – No change. Perhaps he’ll sit down and wait.”

As he spoke, with Mrs Alleyne’s help, he was busily arranging the smaller fragments from the pail of ice in a couple of handkerchiefs, and applying them to his patient’s head.

“There,” he said, “that’s better than all our fanning. Now, I hope to see some difference.”

The change was long in coming, Alleyne remaining perfectly insensible for hour after hour. Towards evening the principal physician of the neighbourhood arrived, and was for some time with the sick man, returning afterwards to where Mrs Alleyne, Lucy, Sir John, and the major were, waiting impatiently for news.

He said he was not surprised at the seizure, upon learning the history of the case from his friend, Mr Oldroyd, upon whose treatment he could make no change whatever.

“Then you think the worst!” cried Mrs Alleyne piteously.

“Pardon me, my dear madam; not at all. There are cases that time alone can decide. The ailment has been growing for many months. Your son must have had premonitory warnings, attacks of faintness, and the like; for he had provided himself with a strong preparation of ammonia; but he has not been leading a life that would improve the general state of his health. Over-study and general mental anxiety have, no doubt, been the causes of this attack; and as it has taken months to reach this culmination, it will take a long time to bring him back to health.”

“Then you think there is no danger?” said Sir John eagerly.

“I think there is great danger, Sir John; but I hope that we shall be able to successfully ward it off.”

Oldroyd and Mrs Alleyne resumed their places by the patient, the observatory being turned into a sick chamber, and mattresses and bedding were brought down; and there the astronomer lay, in the midst of the trophies of his study, his instruments and his piles of notes; the great grim tubes pointing through the opened shutters at the far-off worlds, towards which it almost seemed as if – weary with the struggle to reach them while chained to earth – he was about to wing his flight.

Lucy came in on tiptoe to bend forward over her brother, but Oldroyd rose.

“Go back, dear,” he said, “and get some refreshment. It is time you dined.”

“Dined! – at a time like this!” she said reproachfully.

“Yes; at a time like this. It will be a case of long nights of watching. He must not be left, and we must have strength to attend him through it all. Leave it to me, dear, and do as I wish.”

Lucy bent down and kissed his hand in token of obedience, and soon after joined Sir John and the major in the dining-room.

“Can I do anything else now?” said Sir John; “if not, I’ll go. I promised Glynne to go back with news as soon as there was any to carry. Are you coming, Jem?”

“No,” said the major quietly. “I’m going to stop and help, if it’s only to see that Miss Lucy here has rest and food.”