Fenn George Manville
The Star-Gazers

Volume One – Chapter Fifteen.
Glynne Looks at the Moon, the Professor at his Heart

The secret of the poverty of Mrs Alleyne’s home was read by the major and Sir John, as they followed their host and Glynne along a bare passage and through two green-baized doors, into the great dome-covered chambers where Alleyne pursued his studies, for on all sides were arranged astronomical instruments of the newest invention and costliest kind. The outlay had been slow – a hundred now and a hundred then; but the result had been thousands of pounds spent upon the various pieces of intricate mechanism, and their mounting upon solid iron pillars, resting on massive piers of cement or stone.

Glynne uttered a faint cry of surprise and delight as she saw the long tubes with their wheels and pivots arranged so that the reclining observer could turn his glass in any direction; gazed in the great trough that seemed to have a bottom covered with looking-glass, but which was half full of quicksilver; noted that there were sliding shutters in the roof, and various pieces of mechanism, whose uses she longed to have explained.

It was all old to Lucy, who felt a new pleasure, though, in her friend’s eagerness, while Mrs Alleyne, who had suffered torments all the evening in mortified pride, felt, as she saw the looks of wonder of the guests, and their appreciation of her son’s magnificent observatory, that she was now reaping her reward.

“Bless my soul!” cried Sir John, “I am astounded. I did not think there was such a place outside Greenwich.”

Mrs Alleyne bowed and smiled; and then, as Sir John began eagerly inspecting the various objects and arrangements around, and the major chatted to Lucy, she gave a curious look at her son, who was bending over Glynne, explaining to her the use of the quicksilver trough, and arranging a glass afterwards, so that she might see how it was brought to bear upon a reflected star.

As Mrs Alleyne glanced round she saw that Oldroyd was also watching her son and Glynne, and her eyes directly after met those of the young doctor, whose thoughts she tried to read – perhaps with success.

For the next half-hour, Glynne was being initiated in the mysteries of the transit instrument, and had the pleasure of seeing star after star cross the zenith, after which, the moon having risen well above the refracting and magnifying mists of earth, the largest reflector was brought to bear upon its surface.

Ejaculations of delight kept escaping from Glynne’s lips as she gazed at the bright tops of the various volcanoes, searched the dark shadows and craters, and literally revelled in the glories of the brightly embossed silver crescent. She had a hundred questions to ask, with all the eager curiosity and animation of a child, and with the advantage of having one as patient as he was learned, ready to respond upon the instant.

“I feel so terribly selfish,” cried Glynne, at last. “Oh, papa, you must come and look. Uncle, it is wonderful.”

“We’ll have a look another time,” said Sir John, good-humouredly; “only don’t wear out Mr Alleyne’s patience.”

“Oh, I hope he will not think me tiresome,” cried Glynne, whose eye was directed to the glass again on the instant, “but it is so wonderful. I could watch the moon all night. Now, Mr Alleyne, just a little way from the left edge, low down, there is a brilliant ring of light – no, not quite a ring; it is as if a portion of it had been torn away, and – Oh! Robert! how you startled me.”

The spell was broken, for Rolph had entered the observatory, having finished his cigar. He had been standing at the door for a few moments, watching the scene before him, and a frown came over his forehead as he heard the eagerness of his betrothed’s words, and saw the impressive way in which Alleyne was bending towards her, and answering her questions. Directly after, the young officer crossed the observatory, laid his hand almost rudely upon Alleyne’s shoulder, and nodded to him as if to say, “Stand on one side.”

Alleyne started, coloured, and then drew back, with the major watching him intently, while Rolph laid his hand playfully upon Glynne’s forehead, and slipped it before her eyes.

“Now then, have you found the focus. What is it? A penny a peep? Here, Mr Alleyne, do you take the money?”

A dead silence fell upon the group till the major hastened to break it by saying a few words of praise of the place to Mrs Alleyne.

Soon afterwards they went back to the drawing-room and partook of tea, the carriage arriving directly after, and everyone thinking it time to leave, for a curious chill had come over the party, Glynne having subsided into her old, silent, inanimate way, and no effort of the major or Sir John producing anything more than a temporary glow.

“Why, how quiet you are, Glynne,” said Rolph, as they were on their way home.

“I was thinking,” she replied, quietly.

“What about?”

“About? – Oh, the wonders of – of what I have seen to-night.”

“Are you satisfied, my son?” said Mrs Alleyne, when she kissed him that night.

“Yes, dear mother, thoroughly,” he said to her; and then to himself – “No.”

End of Volume One

Volume Two – Chapter One.
After a Lapse

It was about a mile from the Alleynes’ where the sandy lane, going north, led by an eminence, rugged, scarped, and crowned with great columnar firs that must have sprung from seeds a couple of hundred years ago. By day, when the sun shone in from the east at his rising, or from the west at his going down, the great towering trunks that ran up seventy or eighty feet without a branch looked as if cast in ruddy bronze, while overhead the thick, dark, boughs interlaced and shut out the sky.

It was a gloomy enough spot by day amidst the maze of tall columns, with the ground beneath slippery from the dense carpeting of pine needles; by night, whether a soft breeze was overhead whispering in imitation of the surging waves, or it was a storm, there was ever that never-ending sound of the sea upon the shore, making the place in keeping with the spirit of him who sought for change and relief from troublous thoughts.

Moray Alleyne’s brain was full of trouble, of imperious thoughts that would not be kept back, and one night, to calm his disturbed spirit, he went out from the observatory, bare-headed, to walk for a few minutes up and down the garden.

But there was no rest there, and, feeling confined and cribbed within fence and hedge, he glanced for a moment or two at the tall window with its undrawn blinds, through which he could see Mrs Alleyne, seated stiff and with an uncompromising look upon her face, busy stitching at a piece of linen in which she was making rows of the finest nature, in preparation for a garment to be worn by her son.

Lucy was at the other side of the table, also working, but, as the lamplight fell upon her face, Alleyne could see that it was unruffled and full of content.

He sighed as he turned away, and thought of the past, when his thoughts went solely to his absorbing work – when this strange attraction, as he termed it, had not come upon him and drawn him, as it were, out of his course.

Only a short time back, and he went on in his matter-of-fact, mundane orbit, slowly working out problems, sometimes failing, but always returning to the task with the same calm peaceful serenity of spirit, waiting patiently for the triumph of science that sooner or later came for his reward.

How calm and unruffled all this had been. No fever of the soul, no tempest of spirit to disturb the even surface of his life. But now all was changed. They had torn him amongst them from the happy, placid life, to give him rage, and bitterness and pain.

His brow grew rugged and his hands clenched as he walked rapidly out on to the wild heath, heedless of the bushes and the inequalities of the ground, until he fell heavily, and leaped up again, to turn back. Then, giving up the wide waste of moor which he had instinctively chosen as being in accord with his frame of mind, he made straight for the next desolate spot, where it seemed to him that he could be alone with his thoughts, and perhaps school them into subjection.

“Cool down this madness,” he once said aloud, laughing bitterly the while; and the sound of his strange voice made him start and hurry on along the shady lane, as if to escape from the unseen monitor who had reminded him of his suffering.

“Yes, it is madness,” he muttered, “I could not have believed it true. But, discipline, patience, I shall conquer yet.”

He walked on, with the beads of perspiration coming softly out upon his brow; then, from being like a fine dew, they began to join one with the other, till they stood out in great drops unheeded, as he went swiftly on, and almost blindly at last turned rapidly up the steep ascent, climbing at times, and avoiding the pine trunks by a kind of blind instinct. He toiled on farther and farther, till he stood at the highest part of the great natural temple, with its windswept roof hidden in the darkness overhead, and two huge pines bending over to each other, like the sides of some huge east window, at the precipitous broken edge of the hill. Through this he could look straight away over the intervening billowy estate, to where Brackley Hall stood surrounded by trees, and with its lights shining softly against a vast background of darkness.

And now as he rested a hand upon a trunk, his vivid imagination pictured Glynne as being there, behind one or other of the softly-illumined panes.

Here he stopped and stood motionless for a time, gazing straight before him through the dimly-seen vista of the trunks, breathing in the soft, cool night air, dry and invigorating at that height. All was so still and silent, that, obeying his blind instinct, he seemed to have come there to find calmness and repose.

But they were not present; neither was the place dark – to him. For, as he stood there, with knotted brow, and teeth and hands clenched, turn which way he would there was light, and within that light, gazing at him with its intense, rapt expression – as if living and breathing upon his words – the one face that always haunted him now.

It had been so strange at first – that look of thoughtful veneration, that air of belief. Then, from being half-pleased, half-flattered, had come the time when it had created a want in his life – the desire to be master and go on teaching this obedient disciple who dwelt upon his words, took them so faithfully to heart, and waited patiently for fresh utterances from his lips.

It was not love on her part. He knew that. He was sure of it. At least it was the love of the science that he strove to teach – the thirsting of a spirit to know more and more of the wonders of infinite space. She liked to be in his society, to listen to his words. He knew he was gauging Glynne Day’s heart, when, with a sensation of misery that swept over him like some icy wave, he went over the hours they had spent together. But, when he tried to gauge his own he trembled, and asked himself why this madness had come upon him, robbing him of his peace and rest – making him so unfit for his daily work.

He strode on to and fro, winding in and out amongst the tall pillars of this darkened nature-temple, fighting his mental fight and praying from time to time for help to crush down the madness that had assailed him where he had thought himself so strong.

Strive how he would, though, there was Glynne’s face ever gazing up into his; and beside it, half-mockingly, in its calm, satisfied content, was Rolph’s; and as he met the eyes, there was the cool, contemptuous, pitying look, such as he had seen upon the young officer’s face again and again, mingled with the arrogant air of dislike that he made so little effort to conceal.

For a time Alleyne had been growing calmer; his determined efforts to master himself had seemed as if about to be attended with success; but as in fancy he had seen Rolph’s face beside that of Glynne, a feeling of rage – of envious rage – that mastered him in turn held sway.

But it was not for long; the power of a well-disciplined brain was brought to bear, and Moray Alleyne stood at last with his arms folded, leaning against a tree, thinking that after this mad ebullition of passion, he had gained the victory, and that henceforth all this was going to be as a bygone dream.

It must have been by some occult law of attraction that deals with human beings as inanimate objects are drawn together upon the surface of a pond, that Rolph, in contemptuous scorn of the sedative tea that would be on the way in Sir John’s drawing-room, and holding himself free for a little self-indulgence, took three cigars from his future father-in-law’s cabinet in the smoking-room, secured a box of matches, and, after putting on a light overcoat and soft hat, strolled out on to the lawn.

“Been on duty with her all day,” he said, with a half laugh, “and a fellow can’t quite give himself up to petticoat government – not hers. If it wasn’t for Aldershot being so near, it would be awful.”

Glynne was seated alone in the drawing-room, where the shaded lamp stood on the side-table, deep in a book that she was reading with avidity; and as Rolph, with his hands in his pockets, strolled round the house, he, too, stopped to look in at the window.

“There’s no nonsense about it,” he said, “she is pretty – I might say beautiful, and there isn’t a girl in the regiment who comes near her.”

“Humph! what a chance. The old boys are snoring in the dining-room, each with a handkerchief over his head, and for the next two hours I dare say we should be alone, and – drink tea!” he said with an air of disgust. “I hope she won’t be so confoundedly fond of tea when we’re married. It’s rather too much of a good thing sometimes. And a man wants change.”

He thrust his hands deeply into his coat pockets, where one of them came in contact with a cigar, which he took out, bit off the end mechanically, and stood rolling it to and fro between his lips.

“Shall I go in?” he asked himself. “Hang it, no! If one’s too much with a girl she’ll grow tired of you before marriage. Better keep her off a little, and not spoil her too soon. Yes, she really is a very handsome girl. Just fancy her in one of the smartest dresses a tip-top place could turn out, and sitting beside a fellow on a four-in-hand – Ascot, say, or to some big meet. There won’t be many who will put us – her, I mean” – he added, with a dash of modesty – “in the shade. Here, I’ll go and have a talk to her. No, I won’t. I sha’n’t get my cigar if I do. We shall have plenty of tête-à-têtes, I dare say. And I promised to-night – What’s she reading, I wonder? Last new novel, I suppose. Puzzles me,” he said to himself, as he swung round, “how a woman can go on reading novels at the rate some of them do. Such stuff! It’s only about one in a hundred that is written by anybody who knows what life really is – about horses and dogs – and sport,” he added after a little thought. “Poor little Glynne. It pleases her, though, and I sha’n’t interfere, but she might cultivate subjects more that agree with my tastes – say the hunt – and the field.”

He gave one glance over his shoulder at the picture of the reading girl in the drawing-room and then went off across the lawn, to be stopped by the wire fence, against which he paused as if measuring its height. Then going back for a dozen yards or so he took a sharp run, meaning to leap it, but stopped short close to the wire.

“Won’t do,” he muttered; “too dark.”

He then stepped over it, bending the top wire down and making it give a loud twang when released, as he walked on sharply towards the footway that crossed the path and led away to the fir woods, whistling the while.

Perhaps if he had known that the book Glynne was reading with such eagerness did not happen to be a novel, but a study of the heavens, by one, Mr Lockyer, the ideas that coursed through his mind would not have been of quite so complacent a character – that is to say, if the strain upon his nature to supply him with muscles and endurance had left him wit enough to put that and that together, and judge by the result.

“It’s getting precious dull here, and home’s horrid,” said Rolph, as he stopped in the shadow of a tree, whose huge trunk offered shelter from the breeze.

Here he proceeded, in the quiet deliberate fashion of a man who makes a study of such matters, and who would not on any consideration let a cigar burn sidewise, to light the roll he held in his teeth. He struck a match, coquetted with the flame, holding it near and drawing it away, till the leaf was well alight, when he placed his hands in his pockets, and walked on, puffing complacently, for a short distance at a moderate pace, but, finding the path easy and smooth, his mind began to turn to athletics, and, taking his hands from his pockets, he stopped short and doubled his fists.

“Won’t do to get out of condition with this domestic spaniel life,” he said, with a laugh, and, drawing a long breath, he set off walking, taking long, regular strides, and getting over the ground at a tremendous pace for about half a mile, when he stopped short to smile complacently.

“Not bad that,” he said aloud, “put out my cigar though;” and, again sheltering himself behind a tree, he struck a match and relit the roll of tobacco.

“I must do a little more of this early of a morning,” he said, as he regained his breath, and cooled down gradually by slowly walking on, and as fate arranged it, entering the great fir clump on the side farthest from the lane.

“They say the smell of the fir is healthy, and does a man good,” said Rolph. “I’ll have a good sniff or two.”

There was more of the odour of tobacco, though, than of the pines, as with his footsteps deadened by the soft, half-decayed vegetable matter, he threaded his way amongst the tall trunks.

“Humph! moon rising! see the gates!” said Rolph, with a satisfied air, as if the great yellow orb, slowly rising above the wood and darting horizontal rays through the pines, were illumining the path for his special benefit. Then he looked at his watch. “Ten minutes too soon. But I dare say she’s waiting. If this place were mine I should have all these trees cut down for timber and firewood. Fetch a lot!”

The wondrous effects of black velvety darkness and golden lines of light were thrown away upon the young baronet, who saw in the pale gilding of the tree-trunks only so much to avoid.

All at once his thoughts took a turn in another direction, and unwittingly he began to ponder upon the intimacy that had grown up between the people at the Hall and the Alleynes.

“It’s a great mistake, and I don’t like it,” Rolph said to himself. “That fellow hangs about after Glynne like some great dog. I shall have to speak to the old man about it. Glynne doesn’t see it, of course, and I don’t mean that she should, but it gets to be confoundedly unpleasant to a – to a thoughtful man – to a man of the world. Wiser, perhaps, to have a few words with the fellow himself, and tell him what I think of his conduct. I will too,” he said, after a pause. “He is simply ignorant of the common decencies of society, or he wouldn’t do it. I shall – What the devil’s he doing here – come to watch?”

Rolph stopped short, completely astounded upon seeing, not two yards away, the statue-like figure of Alleyne, with arms folded, leaning against a tree, thoroughly intent upon his thoughts.

For some time neither Rolph nor Alleyne spoke, the latter being profoundly ignorant of the presence of the former.

The shadows of the fir wood, as well as those of Alleyne’s mind, were to blame for this, for where Rolph had paused the moonbeams had not touched, and though Alleyne’s eyes were turned in that direction, they were filmed by the black darkness of the future, a deep shadow that he could not pierce. But by degrees, as the great golden shield, whose every light or speck was as familiar to him as his daily life, swept slowly on, a broad bar of darkness passed to his left, revealing first a part, then the whole of Sir Robert Rolph’s figure, as he stood scowling there, his hands in his pockets, and puff after puff of smoke coming from his lips.

Some few moments glided by before Alleyne realised the truth. He had been thinking so deeply – so bitterly of his rival, that it seemed as if his imagination had evoked this figure, and that his nerves had been so overstrained that this was some waking dream.

Then came the reaction, making him start violently, as Rolph emitted a tremendous cloud of smoke, and then said shortly, without taking his cigar from his lips, —

“How do?”

“Captain Rolph!” cried Alleyne, finding speech at last. “That’s me. Well, what is it?” There was another pause, for what appeared to be an interminable time. Alleyne wished to speak, but his lips were sealed. Years of quiet, thoughtful life had made him, save when led on by some object in which he took deep interest, slow of speech, while now the dislike, more than the disgust this man caused him, seemed to have robbed him of all power of reply.

“Confounded cad!” thought Rolph; “he is watching;” and then, aloud, “Star-gazing and mooning?”

The bitterly contemptuous tone in which this was said stung Alleyne to the quick, and he replied, promptly, —

“No.”

There was something in that tone that startled Rolph for the moment, but he was of too blunt and heavy a nature to detect the subtle meaning a tone of voice might convey, and, seizing the opportunity that had come to him, he ran at it with the clumsiness of a bull at some object that offends its eye.

“Hang the cad, there couldn’t be a better chance,” he said to himself; and, adopting the attitude popular with cavalry officers not largely addicted to brains, he straddled as if on horseback, and setting his feet down as though he expected each heel to make the rowel of a spur to ring, he walked straight up to Alleyne, smoking furiously, and puffed a cloud almost into his face.

“Look here, Mr – Mr – er – Alleyne,” he said, loudly, “I wanted to talk to you, and present time seems as suitable as any other time.”

Alleyne had recovered himself, and bowed coldly.

“I was not aware that Captain Rolph had any communication to make to me,” he said quietly.

“S’pose not,” replied Rolph, offensively; “people of your class never do. – Hang the cad! He is spying so as to get a pull on me,” he muttered to himself.

“I’m just in the humour, and for two pins I’d give him as good a thrashing as I really could.”

“Will you proceed,” said Alleyne, in whose pale cheeks a couple of spots were coming, for it was impossible not to read the meaning of the other’s words and tone.

“When I please,” said Rolph, in the tone of voice he would have adopted towards some groom, or to one of the privates of his troop.

Alleyne bowed his head and stood waiting, for he said to himself – “I am in the wrong – I am bitterly to blame. Whatever he says, I will bear without a word.”

A deep silence followed, for, though Rolph pleased to speak, he could not quite make up his mind what to say. He did not wish to blurt out anything, he told himself, that should compromise his dignity, nor yet to let Alleyne off too easily. Hence, being unprepared, he was puzzled.

“Look here, you know,” he said at last, and angrily; for he was enraged with himself for his want of words, “you come a good deal to Sir John’s.”

“Yes, I am invited,” said Alleyne, quietly.

Rolph’s rehearsal was gone.

“I’ll let him have it,” he muttered; “I’m not going to fence and spar. Yes,” he cried aloud, “I know you are. Sir John’s foolishly liberal in that way; but you know, Mr Allen, or Alleyne, or whatever your name is, I’m not blind.”

Alleyne remained silent; and, being now wound up, Rolph swaggered and straddled about with an imaginary horse between his legs.

“Look here, you know, I don’t want to be hard on a man who is ready to own that he is in the wrong, and apologises, and keeps out of the way for the future; but this sort of thing won’t do. By Jove, no, it sha’n’t do, you know. I won’t have it. Do you hear? I won’t have it.”

Something seemed to rise to Moray Alleyne’s throat – some vital force to run through his nerves and muscles, making them twitch and quiver, as the young officer went on in an increasingly bullying tone. For some moments Alleyne, of the calm, peaceful existence, did not realise what it meant – what this sensation was; but at last it forced itself upon him that it was the madness of anger, the fierce desire of a furious man to seize an enemy and struggle with him till he is beaten down, crushed beneath the feet.

As he realised all this he wondered and shrank within himself, gazing straight before him with knitted brows and half-closed eyes.

“You see,” continued Rolph, “I always have my eyes open – make a point of keeping my eyes open, and it’s time you understood that, because Miss – ”

“Silence!” cried Alleyne fiercely. “What! What do you mean?” cried Rolph, as if he was addressing some delinquent in his regiment.

“Confound it all! How dare you, sir! How dare you speak to me like that?”

“Say what you like, speak what you will to me,” said Alleyne, excitedly, “but let that name be held sacred. It must not be drawn into this quarrel.”

“How dare you, sir! How dare you!” roared Rolph. “What do you mean in dictating to me what I should say? Name held sacred? Drawn into this – what do you say – quarrel. Do you think I should stoop to quarrel with you?”

Alleyne raised one hand deprecatingly. “I’d have you to know, sir, that I am telling you that I am not blind,” – he repeated this as if to mend his observations – “I tell you to keep away from the Hall, and to recollect that because a certain lady has condescended to speak to you in the innocency of her heart – yes, innocency of her heart,” he repeated, for it was a phrase that pleased him, and sounded well – “it is not for you to dare to presume to talk to her as you do – to look at her as you do – or to come to the Hall as you do. I’ve watched you, and I’ve seen your looks and ways – confound your insolence! And now, look here, if ever you dare to presume to speak to Miss – to the lady, I mean, as you have addressed her before, I’ll take you, sir, and horsewhip you till you cannot stand. Do you hear, sir; do you hear? Till you cannot stand.”

Alleyne stood there without speaking, while this brutal tirade was going on. His breast heaved, and his breath was drawn heavily; but he gave no sign, and presuming upon the success that had attended his speaking, Rolph continued with all the offensiveness of tone and manner that he had acquired from his colonel, a rough, overbearing martinet of the old school.

“I cannot understand your presumption,” continued Rolph. “I cannot understand of what you have been thinking, coming cringing over to the Hall, day after day, forcing your contemptible twaddle about stars and comets, and such far-fetched nonsense upon unwilling ears. Good heavens, sir! are you mad, or a fool? – I say, do you hear me – what are you, mad or a fool?”

Still Alleyne did not reply, but listened to his rival’s words with so bitter a feeling of anguish at his heart, that it took all his self-command to keep him from groaning aloud.

And still Rolph went on, for, naturally sluggish of mind, it took some time to bring that mind, as he would have termed it, into action. Once started, however, he found abundance of words of a sort, and he kept on loudly, evidently pleased with what he was saying, till once more he completed the circle in which he had been galloping, and ended with, —

“You hear me – thrash you as I would a dog.”

Rolph had run down, and, coughing to clear away the huskiness of his throat, he muttered to himself, —

“Cigar’s out.”

Hastily taking another from his pocket, he bit off the end, lit up, gave a few puffs, scowling at Alleyne the while, and then said loudly, —

“And now you understand, I think, sir?”

There were spurs imaginary jingling at Rolph’s heels, and the steel scabbard of a sabre banging about his legs, as he turned and strode away, whistling.

And then there was silence amidst the tall columnar pines, which looked as if carved out of black marble, save where the moonlight streamed through, cutting them sharply as it were, leaving some with bright patches of light, and dividing others into sections of light and darkness. There was not even a sigh now in the dark branches overhead, not a sound but the heavy, hoarse breathing of Moray Alleyne, as he stood there fighting against the terrible emotion that made him quiver.

He had listened to the coarsely brutal language of this man of athleticism, borne his taunts, his insults, as beneath him to notice, for there was another and a greater mental pain whose contemplation seemed to madden him till his sufferings were greater than he could bear.

If it had been some bright, talented man – officer, civilian, cleric, anything, so that he had been worthy and great, he could have borne it; but for Glynne, whose sweet eyes seemed day by day to be growing fuller of wisdom, whose animated countenance was brightening over with a keener intelligence that told of the workings of a mind whose latent powers were beginning to dawn, to be pledged to this overbearing brutal man of thews and sinews, it was a sacrilege; and, after standing there, forgetful of his own wrongs, the insults that he had borne unmoved, he suddenly seemed to awaken to his agony; and, uttering a bitter cry, he flung himself face downwards upon the earth.

“Glynne, my darling – my own love!”

There was none to hear, none to heed, as he lay there clutching at the soft loose pine needles for a time, and then lying motionless, lost to everything – to time, to all but his own misery and despair.