We have said, we think, in a preceding chapter that he wrote to his solicitors at Gray's Inn an important letter concerning the acquisition of certain property at Chilcote; thus when he took Archie Auchindoir into his service as a personal valet (which he did forthwith), great was the astonishment of the old man on first entering his master's rooms in Piccadilly at what he saw there, and a cry of joy escaped him and he almost wept.
There hung all the old family pictures, and there were many a relic and chattel dearly prized by Sir Ranald and Alison too, in that superstition of the heart, which few sensitive or affectionate natures are without.
There on the sideboard was the great silver tankard, the gift of Queen Elizabeth—the Bride of the Bruce—filled with red wine and emptied on hundreds of occasions by many successions of Cheynes, even after the 24th of June, 1314, was nigh forgotten, and above it hung the portraits of the two pale, haughty, yet dashing and noble-looking cavalier brothers, with their love-locks and long rapiers, who fell in battle for the King of Scotland, and Archie, greeting them as old friends, passed his shrivelled hands tenderly and caressingly over the unconscious canvas, as if he could scarcely believe his eyes.
'A' for her, a' for her—God bless him!' he muttered, knowing well why Goring had rescued these objects from Sir Ranald's creditors.
In Piccadilly, Archie, though rather a puzzle to Goring's other servants—his grooms, coachman, and so forth—found himself 'in clover;' and, till the marriage came off, Alison was to remain with the family of the vicar, who was to perform the ceremony, at which little Netty Dalton figured as a bridesmaid.
After all she had undergone, and had feared she might yet have to undergo, she was again with Goring—his strong arms round her, his lips upon her cheek and brow!
She was at times confused, bewildered—unable to comprehend it all. She could but lay her head upon his breast and resign herself to the rapture of the occasion, and close her eyes as if it would be happiness even if she opened them no more.
How joyous was that mute embrace—that love-making without words—the spell that neither knew how—or wished—to break! All her past woes, and all her future hopes, seemed merged in the joy of the present time; while the pressure of Bevil's hand, his impassioned murmur, his fond gaze and studious tenderness, his attention to every wish and want, caused a sense of joy in her soul of which it had never been conscious before.
As Jerry said, in his off-hand way, when he visited them, like Bella and himself, 'they were in a high state of sentimental gush.'
Now she knew that she belonged to Goring, and he to her, and that the life and love of each belonged to each other, that they would be always together till death—a distant event, let us hope—parted them; that his handsome face would never smile on another woman as it smiled on her; and that no other woman's lips would be touched by him as hers had been on the day she ceased to be Alison Cheyne of Essilmont and that ilk.