The question interests us also. Where is John Stedman?
Not at Chesnut Hill, certainly. There is nobody at Chesnut Hill but the old gardener and his wife. He tends the plants in the hothouse, and keeps them comfortable in this dreary Lancashire winter by the help of Lancashire coal. But the house is all shut up, except on the rare days when a bit of sunshine comes, and the old woman opens the shutters and draws up the blinds to let the bright rays in. Every thing seems ready for Alice, if she would only come. There is her little pretty room upstairs, and there are twenty things of hers in the drawing-room that wait for their absent mistress.
Miss Alice is far away in the south, and her father is with her—and there is a third, who never leaves them.
They had been travelling towards Italy, but when they reached Avignon, Alice became suddenly worse, and they stayed there to give her a long rest. The weather happened to be very pure and clear, and it suited her. The winter weather about Avignon is often very exhilarating and delicious, when the keen frost keeps aloof, and the dangerous winds are at rest.
As for saving Alice now, not one of the three had a vestige of delusive hope. The progress of the malady had been terribly rapid; every week had been, a visible advance towards the grave. John Stedman had hoped little from the very beginning, Philip Stanburne had hoped much longer, and Alice herself longest of all. But none of the three hoped any longer now.
When Alice found herself settled at Avignon, she felt a strong indisposition to go farther. The railway tired and agitated her, and the dust made her cough more painful. "Papa," she said one day, as she sat in her easy-chair looking up the Rhone, "I think we cannot do better than just remain where we are. I shall not keep you in this place very long. No climate can save me now, and this weather is as pleasant as any Italian weather could be. I am cowardly about travelling, and it troubles me to think of the journey before us." Mr. Stedman feebly tried to encourage Alice, and talked of the beautiful Italian coast as if they were going to see it; but it soon became tacitly understood that Alice's travels were at an end.
Mr. Stedman, who, since he had left England with his daughter, had never considered expense in any thing in which her comfort was, or seemed to be, involved, sought out a pleasanter lodging than the hotel they had chosen as a temporary resting-place. He found a charming villa on the slopes that look towards Mount Ventoux. The view from its front windows included the great windings of the Rhone and the beautiful mountainous distance; whilst from the back there was a very near view of Avignon, strikingly picturesque in composition, crowned by the imposing mass of the Papal palace. Alice preferred the mountains, and chose a delightful little salon upstairs as her own sitting-room, whilst her bedroom was close at hand. There was a balcony, and she liked to sit there in the mild air during the warmest and brightest hours.
Mr. Stedman's powerful and active nature suffered from their monotonous life at the villa, and he needed exercise both for the body and the mind. Alice perceived this, and, well knowing that it was impossible for her father to do any thing except in her service, plotted a little scheme by which she hoped to make him take the exercise and the interest in outward things which in these sad days were more than ever necessary to him.
"Papa," she said one day, "I think if I'd a little regular work to do, it would do me good. I wish you would go geologizing for me, and bring me specimens. You might botanize a little, too, notwithstanding the time of the year; it would be amusing to puzzle out some of the rarer plants. It's a very curious country, isn't it, papa? I'm sure, if I were well, we should find a great deal of work to do together here." Then she began to question him about the geology and botany of the district, and made him buy some books which have been written upon these subjects by scientific inhabitants of Avignon. Her little trick succeeded. Mr. Stedman, under the illusion that he was working to please his poor Alice, trudged miles and miles in the country, and extended his explorations to the very slopes of Mount Ventoux itself. In this way he improved the tone of his physical constitution, and Alice saw with satisfaction that it would be better able to endure the impending sorrow.