CHAPTER VIII.
A BIRTHDAY GIFT.
'Twa heads are better than ane, though they are but sheep's anes,' remarked Archie Auchindoir, with a smirk on his wrinkled face, to old Mrs. Prune, as he gave her a lesson in the art of cooking mutton to imitate venison, with minced onions and ham, parsley and port wine, to please the fastidious palate of his ailing master Sir Ranald, who dearly doted on many things he could not procure now, and of course longed for venison. So these two old servitors were again to their joy installed with the little household once more at Chilcote.
And most welcome again to Alison was old silver-haired Archie, with his genuine ancient Scottish fidelity 'to the auld family'—a species of fidelity as beautiful and unselfish as it is rare now-a-days.
Mr. Solomon Slagg had failed to let Chilcote; the ruse under which Sir Ranald and Cadbury had lured Alison to accompany them in a sudden departure from England in the Firefly had failed, so there was no reason why they should not return; thus Sir Ranald and his daughter had returned accordingly.
Daisy Prune's mother had soon restocked the hen-house, and her old occupations came pleasantly back to Alison. At present she was full of one thing and another; home was home again; her plants, her greenhouse, her flowers occasioned many a deep consultation with the factotum of the establishment, old Archie, anent slips, bulbs, and seedlings, for her love of flowers amid all her cares and anxieties had never deserted her.
So father and daughter were back again to homelier fare than that of the Hôtel St. Antoine, for their dessert after dinner, if served upon the scanty remains of ancient plate, often consisted of only two bald dishes of oranges and a few little biscuits.
In her singleness and simplicity of heart, Alison rejoiced to be again amid her familiar surroundings, as she was destitute of her father's spirit of futile repining and regrets for the unattainable; thus every bit of furniture looked an old friend, more particularly those relics of Essilmont, the family portraits, some of which—especially those of two handsome cavalier brothers who fell in battle for King Charles—seemed to the girl's fancy to relax their haughty features, and smile a welcome home to her—the last of the Cheynes—as she nestled with one of Mudie's last novels in her favourite window-seat and strove to read, while her thoughts wandered to Bevil Goring, wherever he might be, and she pined for him, but in vain.
Lord Cadbury was in town just then. Her father had not seen fit to enlighten her as to the circumstance of Goring having followed them to Antwerp, a fact which would have enhanced his interest in the eyes of Alison. Of the Cadbury episode, and the meeting which never came off at the Lunette St. Laurent, he knew nothing; but he was old-fashioned enough and high-spirited enough to have revolted at such cowardice, if he had been aware of it.
Alison speculated deeply. If Bevil Goring was in England, how was it that he made no effort to trace her? Could it be that stung by her father's imperious manner, and hopeless of ever being rich enough to please him, he had relinquished her and her love, and perhaps given himself up to the adoration of another? She had heard and read of such things, and these surmises saddened and agitated her.
Laura had left Chilcote Grange, none knew for where, thus Alison could not learn from her any knowledge of Goring's movements, or whether he was at the camp, or in Africa. She was, in her isolation, without the means of knowing if he were in the land of the living.