“It is not likely. In most of these cases perfect oblivion is the rule as to the occurrence that stimulated the predisposition to these attacks. Sir Roland will not have the smallest idea that—that anything has happened to you.”
And so it proved. When Alice came to her father’s side, he looked at her exactly as he used to do, except that his glance was weak and wavering, and full of desire to comfort her. The doctor had told her to look cheerful, and even gay—and she did her best. Sir Roland had lost all power of speech; but his hearing was as good as ever; and being ordered to take turtle-soup, he was propped up on a bank of pillows, and doing his best to execute medical directions.
“Oh, my darling, darling!” cried Alice, after a little while, being left to feed her father delicately: “I have got such a surprise for you! You will say you were never so astonished in all the course of your life before.”
She knew how her father would have answered if he had been at all himself. He would have lifted his eyebrows, and aroused her dutiful combativeness, with some of that little personal play which passes between near relatives, who love and understand each other. As it was, he could only nod, to show his anxiety for some surprise. And then Alice did a thing which under any other circumstances, would have been most inconsistent in her. In the drawer of his looking-glass she found his best-beloved snuff-box, and she put one little pinch between his limp forefinger and white thumb, and raised them towards the proper part, and trusted to nature to do the rest. A pleasant light shone forth his eyes; and she felt that she had earned a kiss. Betwixt a smile and a tear, she took it; and then, for fear of a chill, she tucked him up, and sat quietly by him. She had learned, as we learn in our syntax, what “vacuis committere venis.”
When he had slept for two or three hours, with Alice hushing the sound of her breath, he was seized with sudden activity. His body had been greatly strengthened by the most nourishing of all food; and now his mind began to aim at like increase of movement.
“What do you think I have got to show you?” said Alice, perceiving this condition. “Nothing less, I do believe, than the key of the fine old Astrologer’s case! Of course, I can only guess, because you have got it locked away, papa. But from the metal looking just the same, and the shape of it, and the seven corners, and its being found at Shoreham, in the sea, where Memel was said to have lost it, I do think it must be that very same key. And I found it, papa—well I found it under rather peculiar circumstances. Now may I go and try? There can be no harm, if it turns out to be pure fancy.”
Her father nodded, and pointed to a drawer where he kept his important keys, as his daughter of course was well aware. And in five minutes, Alice came back again, with the strange old case in one hand, and Polly’s queer doll in the other. Mabel lingered in the passage, not being sure that she ought to come in, though Alice tried to fetch her. Then Alice set the case, or cushion, upon her father’s bedside table, and with a firm hand pushed the key down, and endeavoured to turn it. Not a tittle would anything yield or budge; although it was clear to the dullest eye that lock and key belonged together.
“It is the key, papa,” cried Alice; “it fits to a hair; but it won’t turn. This queer old thing goes round and round, instead of staying quiet, and waiting to be unlocked justly. I suppose my hands are too weak. Oh there! Provoking thing, it goes round again. I know how I could manage it, if I may, my darling father. In the Astrologer’s room, I saw a tremendous vice, fit to take anything. I have inherited some of his turn for tools and mechanism; though of course in a most degenerate degree. Now may I go up? I shall have no fear whatever, if Mabel comes with me.”
Winning mute assent, she ran for the key of that room, and took Mabel with her: and soon they had that obstinate case set fast in a vice, whose screw had not been turned for more than two centuries. The bottom of the cone was hard and solid, and bedded itself in the old oak slabs.
“Now turn, Mabel, turn; the key is warped, or we might apply more force,” said Alice. They did not know that it had been crooked by the jaws of Jack the donkey. Even so, it would not yield, until they passed an ancient chisel through its loop, and worked away. Then, with a thin and sulky screech, the cogs began to move, and the upper half of the case to slide aside.