Her bubble seemed to be bursting; and this state of affairs—nothing—was the end of it, after all!
Thus they were both in painful ignorance of each other's movements amid all the ready appliances of post and telegraph, while Laura Dalton, who would have been a certain means of communication between them, was gone from Chilcote Grange, Alison knew not where, but, as it eventually proved, to Portsmouth to await the returning expedition from the Gold Coast.
So Alison's days were passed in nursing and monotony now, and often she and Mrs. Rebecca Prune had their heads together over a cookery-book, studying the decoction or preparation of something 'for papa'—to tempt his appetite; for often he had one dish and Alison another of a more homely kind, or next to none, and though he might have a dainty spring chicken she dared not kill her hens, they were laying so well just then.
Sir Ranald had become, as Lord Cadbury remarked rather unfeelingly to Alison, 'deuced stupid and snoozy now.'
On an evening early in March he sat—as Alison long remembered—for the last time in his old arm-chair listening to the rooks cawing in the lofty beeches, the sparrows twittering under the eaves, and the setting sun was throwing a golden glory over the eastern uplands and a ruddy gleam on the square, ivyed tower of Chilcote Church in the distance; and then, without moving his head, which lay back on a pillow, his eyes, clear and keen though sunken, through the pince-nez balanced on his long thin nose, regarded lovingly and affectionately, the downcast face of Alison, whose pretty hands were adjusting in a vase some fragrant March violets that Archie had brought her—violets which, as Shakespeare says, are 'sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.'
Once upon a time Sir Ranald had found it a burden—a bore to sign a cheque, to read a letter, or see his lawyer when he had a land steward; now there were no cheques to sign, no letters to read save those of duns, and no lawyer to see, or land steward either; and now, for the last time he began to harp upon the old string, when she kissed him, and asked him of what he was thinking.
'Of what can I think save your future, Alison? who cares what becomes of mine—little as there is left of it, and tired as I am of a life that is too intolerable to be endured for one's-self alone!' was the querulous response.
Alison with difficulty restrained her tears, and in a mechanical way re-adjusted the bouquet of violets.
'Girls—especially poor ones—have only a certain number of chances, Alison, however handsome and attractive they may be,' he resumed. 'You, under great monetary disadvantages, have had one that is every way unexceptionable. What more do you want—what more can you want?' he added, rocking his bald head from side to side, and closing his eyes wearily.
Alison thought she had had two chances, and the most prized of them was now a richer offer than she ever deemed it could be; but this was the one her father chose to ignore as no chance at all.