It was three days since they had, as Mr. Wycherly put it, "come into residence," and during that time Mrs. Griffin's cooking had not improved. Neither had the house become less dusty or more tidy. The time was afternoon, about five o'clock, and they sat at tea; a singularly unappetising tea.Smeary silver, cups and plates all bearing the impress of Mrs. Griffin's thumb, two plates of thick bread-and-butter and a tin of bloater-paste were placed upon a dirty tablecloth. Neither Mr. Wycherly nor the boys liked bloater-paste, but Mrs. Griffin did. Hence it graced the feast.Edmund was tired of bad meals. The novelty, what he at first called the "Swissishness," was wearing off, and as he took his place at table that afternoon there flashed into his mind a vivid picture of the tea-table at Remote. Aunt Esperance sitting kind and smiling behind the brilliant silver teapot that reflected such funny-looking little boys; the white, white napery—Aunt Esperance was so particular about tablecloths—laden with scones, such good scones, both plain and currant! Shortbread in a silver cake-basket; and jam, crystal dishes full of jam, two kinds, topaz-coloured and ruby.Somehow the sight of that horrid tin of bloater-paste evoked a poignantly beatific vision of the jam. It was the jam broke Edmund down.He gave a dry sob, laid his arms on the table and his head on his arms, wailing: "Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish Aunt Esperance hadn't gone and died."Mr. Wycherly started up, looking painfully distressed. Montagu ran round to his little brother and put his arm round his shoulder—at the same time he murmured to his guardian: "It's the butter, it really is very bad.""It's all bad," lamented Edmund; "we shall starve, all of us, if it goes on. One morning that bed-making body will come in and she'll find three skeletons. I know she will."Mr. Wycherly sat down again. "Edmund, my dear little boy," he said brokenly, "I am so sorry, I ought not to have brought you here yet....""Look, look at poor Guardie," whispered Montagu.Edmund raised his head."Would you like me to telegraph to Lady Alicia and ask her to have you for the rest of the holidays? I know she would, and by-and-bye, surely, by-and-bye we shall find some one less incompetent than that—than Mrs. Griffin."Edmund shook himself free of his brother's arm and literally flung himself upon his guardian, exclaiming vehemently: "No, no, I want to stay with you. It's just as bad for you."It was worse, for Mr. Wycherly could not restore exhausted nature with liberal supplies of Banbury cakes and buns. For the last three days he had eaten hardly anything and was, moreover, seriously concerned that the boys were assuredly not getting proper food. He would have gone back with them to the King's Arms immediately he discovered how extremely limited were Mrs. Griffin's powers had it not been that just then he received the furniture removers' bill, and, as Lady Alicia had warned him, it was very heavy.He had come in to tea with a sore heart that afternoon, for Mrs. Griffin had half an hour before informed him that she could not come on the morrow; so that now even her poor help would be lost to them. She was going, she said, to her "sister-in-law" at Abingdon for Sunday, as she needed a rest."So much cookin' and cleanin' is what I ain't used to; no, not if it was ever so; and I can't keep on with it for long at a stretch. I'll come on Monday just to oblige you if so be as I'm up to it.""I wish you had told me this sooner," Mr. Wycherly remonstrated, "then perhaps I might have been able to obtain help for to-morrow elsewhere."But what they were to do on the morrow was no concern of Mrs. Griffin's. It was an easy and lucrative place and she wanted no interlopers. But she also wanted her outing to Abingdon, and she was going.Mr. Wycherly poured out the black tea and Edmund attacked a piece of bread-and-butter.The red rep curtains from the dining-room at Remote were hung in the dining-room at Oxford, but they in no way shrouded its inmates from the public gaze except when they were drawn at night. The house stood right on the pavement; even a small child could see in, and a good many availed themselves of the privilege.Over this room was the boys' bedroom. Here there were no "fixtures" on which to suspend curtains, nor did it strike either of the three most concerned that blinds or curtains were an immediate necessity. They had all lived in a house that stood so far from other houses (as its name signified) that such a contingency as prying neighbours never occurred to them and it never entered their heads to concern themselves with those on the other side of the road.Presently Mrs. Griffin brought in a note held gingerly between her finger and thumb, remarking that it was from the "lady as lives hopposite."Mr. Wycherly opened it hastily, found he had mislaid his glasses, and handed it to Montagu to read.Edmund immediately rushed round to assist Montagu, thinking it was probably an invitation, and Edmund liked invitations.Montagu read it slowly and impressively as follows:—"DEAR SIR,"I think it only right to inform you that I can see the young gentlemen performing their ablutions and dressing and undressing both when the light is on and in the morning. Such publicity is most distressing, and I venture to suggest that blinds or curtains should be affixed in their room without delay."Yours faithfully,"SELINA BROOKS."Mr. Wycherly sank back in his chair with a groan. "I quite forgot curtains and blinds," he exclaimed in bitter self-reproach. "There are none in my room either; do you suppose the people in the next house can seeme?""Sure to!" cried Edmund gleefully; "they'll be writing next that they can see anoldgentleman 'paforming his ablutions'; but I can't see how they do for we all wash in the bath-room, and that's at the back. I suppose they see us washing our teeth and you shaving. I wonder if that's more depressing or they don't mind so much?""But what can we do?" Mr. Wycherly exclaimed despairingly. "It is already Saturday evening and we ought to have blinds or something now, to-night. How do they fix blinds, by the way?"Montagu went and stood at the window and gloomily surveyed the houses opposite."You can't see a thing in her house," he said sadly. "There's white curtains with frills downstairs and a straight thing right across the windows upstairs, and a looking-glass in one window shows just above the straight thing. You've got that, you know, for shaving; we might put ours there too; it would fill up a bit. It's against the wall just now because we liked to see out.""Oh! they'd just peek round it," said Edmund. "We'd best nail a sheet across for to-night.""But won't that look funny from outside?" Montagu objected."Not half so funny as us skipping about with nothing on," Edmund retorted.Mr. Wycherly sat, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands: "Boys, boys, it is appalling that at the very outset we should have scandalised a neighbour and made ourselves a nuisance.""Not a nuisance, Guardie," Edmund remonstrated; "she must havelikedto watch us or she wouldn't have done it. If Mrs. Thingummy had kept behind her own curtains she couldn't have seen us so plain."Here Mrs. Griffin tapped at the door again, opened it about three inches, and called through: "A lady to see you, sir.""That'll be your one come to complain," Edmund whispered to his distracted guardian."Am I interrupting you? May I come in?" asked an exceedingly pleasant voice which was followed by a kind-looking, pretty young lady, who was rather surprised at her reception.What she saw was a handsome, white-haired old gentleman seated at a table with his back to the light. Ranged on either side of him were two boys who regarded her with looks of dark suspicion, and on the faces of all three dismay and consternation were writ large, while Edmund's face was both tear-stained and exceedingly dirty.Mr. Wycherly rose hastily as she came in.Pretty Mrs. Methuen, wife of one of the youngest dons in Oxford, was quite unused to manifestations other than those of pleasure at her approach, and she stopped abruptly just inside the door to remark rather incoherently:"Perhaps it is too soon; it may be inconvenient, but my husband asked me to call directly you arrived to see if I could be of any use.... He is still fishing in Hampshire, and as I passed I saw that you were here."Mr. Wycherly let go of the table, which he had seized nervously, and advanced to shake her outstretched hand. Montagu pulled out a chair for her."Pray be seated," said Mr. Wycherly. "It is most kind of you to call.... These are my wards."The lady took the proffered chair and shook hands with the boys, who still looked dubious, although Edmund was distinctly attracted.On Mr. Wycherly's gentle, scholarly face bewilderment struggled to break through the mask of polite interest through which he regarded his visitor."You've only just come, haven't you?" she asked."We've been living in the house for three days, but we are far from being properly established; our servant has not arrived yet....""And we keep on finding out things we haven't got," Edmund interpolated."We hope to be a little more settled before term begins," Mr. Wycherly continued, ignoring Edmund."Have you been able to get everything you want?" asked the lady. "Should you need any information about the best shops ... or the people who do things ...""Ask about blinds!" whispered the irrepressible Edmund."You are most kind," Mr. Wycherly began, again ignoring his younger ward, "but...""Mr. Wycherly," the lady said suddenly, "I don't believe you have a ghost of an idea who I am. Did the woman not announce me? My husband is Westall Methuen, son of your old friend, and my father-in-law wrote saying that I was to be sure and call directly you arrived in case I could be of any use.""I am ashamed to say," replied Mr. Wycherly, in tones full of courteous apology, "that if Mrs. Griffin did announce your name I did not catch it. I assure you...""She never said any name, just 'a lady,'" Edmund again interrupted, "and we thought you must beher.""Were you expecting somebody dreadful that you all looked so horrified when I walked in?" asked Mrs. Methuen with laughter in her eyes as she turned to Edmund as being plainly the most communicative of the party."Well, we thought it very likely you had come to complain," Edmund continued, "and that is always rather beastly."Mrs. Methuen did not possess six brothers without a familiarity with such possibilities. She did not press for an explanation, but tactfully changed the subject. Nor had she been in the room five minutes before she discovered that man and boys were all equally incapable of starting to housekeep, and that everything was in a desperately uncomfortable state. She herself had been at a "Hall." She knew Mrs. Griffin's type, and the very tea-table told its own dismal tale. She was young, kind-hearted, and energetic; nor had she been in Oxford long enough to achieve the indifference to the affairs of outsiders that is said to characterise the inhabitants of that city. So she promptly asked them all three to lunch on the morrow, nor would she take any denial; and she further suggested that the boys should walk back with her there and then so that they would know where to come.The boys were charmed, and the three set off down the street, while Mr. Wycherly watched them from the front door till they turned the corner into Mansfield Road. He went up to his study unaccountably cheered and comforted."After all," he reflected, "I might ask that most charming young lady for advice if we fall into any serious dilemma. She looks so extremely alert and capable. Nevertheless, we must try to manage our own affairs without plaguing kind friends to assist us."He forgot all about the curtainless windows, and set himself to unpack the large case marked "Earlier Latin Authors" that stood by itself nearest the door.Mrs. Methuen took Edmund by the arm, asking confidentially: "Now what mischief had you been up to when I came in? What did you expect the people to complain about? Don't tell me if you'd rather not, but I know a good deal about boys, and I might be able to help.""It wasn't us," Edmund answered quite seriously. "It was Guardie. He was afraid of them grumbling. Our one had complained already.""Mr. Wycherly!" Mrs. Methuen repeated in astonishment. "Oh, nonsense! I'm perfectly sure he would never do anything anyone could complain of.""Not willingly," said Montagu, who began to think it was time he took a small part in the conversation, "but, you see, people in this town seem rather huffy about curtains and blinds and things, and we've always lived in the country, where no one could see in, so we never thought of it. We were so proud of having the electric light too, but now it seems we'd have been better with just candles, for then, perhaps, Miss Selina Brooks wouldn't have written to complain. We'd best go to bed in the dark to-night.""But do you mean to tell me someone wrote to complain that they could see you?""Yes, she did," cried Edmund. "'Paforming our ablutions' and 'it was very depressing,' and Guardie thinks the lady in the house opposite him will be writing next—you see, there's two houses opposite us; we're kind of between them, and one can see right into our room and the other right into his; but his bed's in a deep recess, so perhaps he wasn't quite so depressing."Mrs. Methuen stood still in the middle of the road, seemingly not quite sure whether to laugh or to cry. Finally she laughed, but her voice was not very steady as she said: "Oh, poor dear Mr. Wycherly; how dreadful!""Oh, do you think," cried Montagu, "that you could tell us where we could buy blinds or something now, to-night? Such things do worry him so, and then he blames himself and remembers Aunt Esperance is away, and it feels so sad somehow. You see she always did everything like that.""But that's the very sort of thing I can help in," cried this kind and understanding young lady, and this time she took Montagu's arm, so that they all three were linked confidingly together. "Did you bring no curtains from Scotland?""I don't know what we brought. There's boxes and boxes not unpacked yet. Perhaps it will be better when the servant comes, but you never saw such a muddle as there is just now," groaned Montagu."But why isn't your servant there to help you? It seems to me that just now is the time when she could be of the very greatest use.""She was coming," Edmund said gloomily, "but her miserable mother went and got ill, and now she won't come at all, and there's only Mrs. Griffin. Do you know Mrs. Griffin?""I do not," Mrs. Methuen replied decidedly, "and from what I saw of her when she let me in, I don't desire her further acquaintance. How did you get her?""It was the man in the blue cotton jacket; we asked him, and he gave us a lot of names, but we chose Mrs. Griffin 'cause she lived so near and we liked her name. We got her, not Guardie.""That, I should think, is a comforting reflection for Mr. Wycherly," Mrs. Methuen murmured; "but here we are. Now I'll take you in to see my baby and meanwhile I'll find some curtains and come back with you, and we'll put them up with tapes; that'll do anyway until Monday. You'll be well shrouded from the public gaze and can depress nobody—what a curious way to put it though.""It was 'distressing,' not 'depressing,'" Montagu explained."Well, she depressed Guardie anyhow. I'll go into the attic when I get home, and if I can see the least little bit of her doing anythingI'llwrite and complain.""You won't be able to see," Montagu said sadly; "she sleeps at the top, and her house is higher than ours—I saw her open her window yesterday while I was in bed.""You wait," said Edmund, wagging his curly head. "I bet you I'll see something somehow—and then I'll punish her for vexing Guardie.""I expect she only meant to be kind," Mrs. Methuen suggested. "She probably realised that you, none of you, had thought of anyone seeing in.""She might have waited a wee while," said Edmund, not at all disposed to take a charitable view of Miss Selina Brooks; "one can't have everything straight in a new house all in a minute. Why is your house like a church outside?"Mrs. Methuen laughed. "It isn't in the least like a church inside. Come and see!" and as she opened the front door the boys followed her into a square hall furnished like a room. It was a big house, and extremely comfortable, with wide staircase and easy steps not half so steep as those in Holywell.Mrs. Methuen ran up very fast, the boys after her.She took them into a room where a plump, pink baby, about eighteen months old, had just been bathed and was sitting smiling and majestic on the nurse's knee. His clothing, it was a boy baby, as yet consisted of a flannel band; while a dab of violet powder on one cheek gave him a rakish air."My precious," said Mrs. Methuen, kissing the scantily attired one; "you must look after these gentlemen for me for a few minutes;" and she forthwith vanished from the room.The nurse smiled and nodded to them. The baby remarked, "Mamma!" to no one in particular, and looked puzzled and hurt that she could tear herself away so soon. He wasn't used to it.Edmund and Montagu advanced shyly towards their youthful host."Say how d'you do to the nice young gentlemen, like a good baby," said the nurse in tones that subtly combined command and supplication."Do," said the baby obediently."Will I turn for him?" asked Edmund, who had an idea that infants must always be amused or else they cried. Without waiting for an affirmative he flung himself over on his hands and turned Catherine wheels right round the room. Edmund was light and active and an adept in the art. The baby was charmed. His fat sides shook with delighted laughter, and he shouted gleefully, "Adain!"Nurse deftly slipped a little shirt over his head and a flannel nightgown over that, and behold! he sat clothed and joyous on her knee before Edmund had finished his second acrobatic feat.Edmund walked on his hands. He did handsprings. He turned somersaults, and finally played leap-frog with Montagu, but whatever he did that insatiable baby shouted, "Adain," bouncing up and down on his nurse's knee in enthusiastic appreciation of the entertainment.Meanwhile Mrs. Methuen had found and packed up two pairs of thick cream-coloured casement curtains. She ran tapes in them ready to put up, for she was convinced there would be no rods; she also packed a hammer and nails, but she never knew what it was caused her to slip her travelling flask of brandy into the pocket of her coat.She fetched the boys, and her small son roared in indignation at their departure, which upset her extremely.However, it was getting late and the windows in Holywell were bare.Meanwhile Mr. Wycherly had been working very hard: stooping and lifting, carrying and stretching, to arrange the Earlier Latin Authors in the top shelf of an empty bookcase. Some of the authors were heavy and calf-bound and Mr. Wycherly, who had eaten hardly anything at all that day, began to feel very tired. He was quite unused to violent exercise of any kind, and presently he became conscious of a most unpleasant pain in his left side. "A stitch, I suppose," he said to himself and went on stooping and lifting, for he had come to the last layer of books and wanted to feel that one case at any rate was unpacked.The boys and Mrs. Methuen returned, but he didn't hear them."I'll go upstairs and begin at once," said Mrs. Methuen, "and you needn't tell Mr. Wycherly anything about it till I've gone."She and Edmund went up into Mr. Wycherly's bedroom while Montagu tried to find his guardian. He was not in either of the sitting-rooms. That they had seen from the windows before they came in. Nor was he in the kitchen or the garden. At last Montagu bethought him of the hitherto unused study, climbed the steep, crooked staircase, and went down the sloping passage to look.Mrs. Methuen was standing on a chair at one side of the window fastening the tape of a curtain round a nail she had just knocked in, while Edmund stood on another chair at the other side, holding the rest of the curtain that its fairness might not be sullied by contact with the extremely dusty floor, when Montagu burst into the room looking very frightened."D'you think you could come?" he asked breathlessly. "I'm afraid Guardie's ill or something, he's so white and he doesn't seem able to speak for gasping."Down went the nice curtains in an untidy heap on the dressing-table as Mrs. Methuen leapt off the chair, seized something from her coat which was lying on the bed, and followed Montagu. Edmund had already gone.Mr. Wycherly was sitting huddled up in his chair. His face looked wan and drawn in the fading light; he certainly was breathing heavily and with great difficulty. But when he saw Mrs. Methuen he made an ineffectual attempt to rise. She tore the silver cup from the bottom of the flask and tumbled the contents hastily into it."Don't try to get up," she said as she knelt down beside him; "you're a little faint; drink this, please, at once."She literally poured the brandy down Mr. Wycherly's throat. "Clear those books off the sofa, boys," she commanded; "carefully now! Ah, that's better. Now you must lie down for a few minutes; it's bad to sit forward like that."Somehow in three minutes this energetic young lady had taken entire command of the situation. Mr. Wycherly was helped on to the sofa, Edmund had fetched a rug to cover him, and she and Montagu were wrestling with the huge gothic window, which should have opened like a door in the centre and was, apparently, hermetically sealed. At last it yielded to their combined efforts, and the sweet, fresh evening air rushed into the room."Please finish the brandy," said Mrs. Methuen in precisely the same voice in which she would have adjured her baby not to leave any milk in his bottle. "You're completely done up; no proper food, no fresh air. I never felt anything like the atmosphere of this room; and then stooping and lifting heavy books on the top of all the rest. No wonder your heart gave out. I can't think why they make the cups of flasks such an awkward shape."Mr. Wycherly meekly took the cup from her hand and drained it. Already his face looked less ashy and he could speak."I cannot tell you," he began——"Don't try to tell us anything yet; for five minutes you are to stay perfectly quiet. I'll leave Montagu in charge, and he is not to allow you to stir till I come back. Come, Edmund."Edmund's round face was very serious as he followed Mrs. Methuen back to the bedroom. Aunt Esperance, as he always put it, "was away." Aunt Esperance, who had seemed a necessary part of life—beneficent, immutable, inevitable. Yet she had gone, and her place knew her no more. Might not a like thing happen to Mr. Wycherly? And, if so, what was to become of him and Montagu?Edmund was not imaginative. He lived his jolly life wholly without thought of the morrow. But at that moment he was startled into a realisation of how much he loved his guardian.As once more he and Mrs. Methuen mounted their two chairs and started to put up the curtains again he looked across at her and noted with a sudden painful contraction of the heart that her face was very grave."You don't think, do you," he asked in a low voice, "that Guardie is going to die?"Mrs. Methuen started and nearly dropped the curtain. "Oh, dear, no," she exclaimed hastily; "but you must take more care of him and not let him lift books or anything of that sort. When people are not very young they have to take things easily. You and Montagu must unpack the books and he can arrange them, but you must not let him stoop over the cases. Do you understand? He mustn't do it."They finished the curtains in no time, and when Mrs. Methuen went back to the study Mr. Wycherly hastily arose from the sofa, where he had lain obediently ever since she put him there."I don't know how to thank you," he began——"Please don't try," Mrs. Methuen said briskly. "The boys and I are having such fun, but I'm sorry to say that I must—I simply must—give you a little lecture. Boys! someone is knocking at the front door; go down and see who it is while I scold Mr. Wycherly."Mrs. Methuen's own kitchen-maid, accompanied by a stout, fresh-coloured woman, carrying a large brown-paper parcel, were at the door, and Mrs. Methuen herself came down in a minute or two, when she explained that the rosy woman was one Mrs. Dew, that she had come "to look after them," and would stay with them till they got a proper servant. Moreover, the kitchen-maid carried a large basket of provisions. The fires had gone out in both kitchen and dining-room, and the evening was growing chill. That kitchen-maid lit both in no time. Mr. Wycherly was brought downstairs and installed in his big chair by the dining-room fire, and Mrs. Methuen went home. Yet once more she came back that night, and she swept the two boys up to their room and insisted on their putting all their clothes in drawers and cupboards under her supervision, and she and Mrs. Dew did the same by Mr. Wycherly without informing him of the fact.Nothing could less have resembled the methods of Mrs. Griffin than those of Mrs. Dew. With her advent everything was changed at the house in Holywell. Order was evolved out of chaos, dust disappeared as if by magic, boxes were unpacked and removed empty to the attic, while, most important of all, meals were punctual and appetising.Mrs. Dew had the extremely deferent manner of the well-trained servant who has "lived in good families." To Mr. Wycherly this manner was immensely soothing, coming as it did after his long experience of the dictatorial and somewhat familiar bearing of the Scottish servants at Remote. Mrs. Dew "knew her place" and kept to it rigidly, and Edmund found her rather unapproachable. Anything like reserve in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures was abhorrent to Edmund, and he pursued Mrs. Dew with questions as to her past, her present, and her future, getting, however, but small satisfaction for his pains."Have you any children, Mrs. Dew?" he demanded one day, when he had sought her in the kitchen for social purposes."No, sir, not of my own.""Any grandchildren?""Certainly not, sir.""No one belonging to you at all?""Of course, sir, I 'ave my relations, same as other folks.""What sort of relations?""Well, for one, sir, I have a niece.""Big or little?""About your own size, sir, though, I daresay, she's a bit older.""Where does she live?""With me, sir, when she isn't at school. She's an orphan.""Oh, like us. Where is she now?""Here, in Oxford.""What's her name?""Jane-Anne, sir; but if I may say so, I don't think the kitchen's the proper place for a young gentleman like you.""When shall I see Jane-Anne?""I don't suppose as you'll see her at all, sir, your paths in life being, so to speak, different."Edmund sighed. "I wish you were a more telling sort of person, Mrs. Dew," he said sadly. "If you like to ask me any questions, you'll soon see what a lot I'd tell you.""I hope I know my place better, sir!" Mrs. Dew remarked primly.That afternoon he gave it up as a bad job.Edmund did not forget his grudge against Miss Selina Brooks. By some curious mental process of unreasoning he traced Mr. Wycherly's sudden faintness, that had frightened them so much, to that good lady's letter about the curtainless windows. She had worried his Guardie, and therefore she was his enemy.It did not in the least affect Edmund's opinion of her that Mr. Wycherly wrote a most courteous note thanking her for hers.Edmund intended to be even with Miss Selina Brooks, but he bided his time.The attics in Holywell were particularly large and splendid. There were only two, and they occupied the whole of the top floor, while each was reached by a separate staircase, and had no communication with the other. In all, there were five different sets of stairs in that old house. One attic was dedicated to the reception of empty boxes; but the other—which possessed a heavenly little crooked room opening out of it, in that third gable which boasted the small square window looking sideways down the street—Mr. Wycherly had given to the boys for their very own play-room.At present there was nothing in it save two or three derelict chairs and a four-post bed with canopy and voluminous white dimity curtains. For some reason best known to herself, Mrs. Griffin had put up the curtains belonging to this bed which nobody wanted.Just outside one of the doors on that landing was a curious little cupboard with strong oak doors, not more than three feet high. This cupboard was very dark, apparently very deep, and quite devoid of shelves or pegs.During their first uncomfortable days the boys had not felt particularly interested in cupboards; but as things grew more peaceful and accustomed Edmund of the inquiring mind discovered this particular cubby-house. Montagu was not with him at the time, as now that they were settled, he did Greek for an hour every morning with Mr. Wycherly just before luncheon.Edmund thrust his arm in as far as it would go, but couldn't reach the back, though the floor seemed to slope upwards. Carefully propping the door open with a chair, he crawled in on hands and knees. Once in, he found that floor and roof sloped steeply upwards and the roof was just over his head, he couldn't even kneel. He crawled further in, quite a long way, and the tunnel turned sharply to the right. He could no longer see the glimmer of light from the landing, but he had reached the end of the tunnel. At the same moment his head struck something that stuck out, and when he put up his hand he felt that it was a key by its shape. This was most exciting and must be investigated at once. There was no room to turn, so Edmund half crawled, half slid backwards out of the sloping tunnel, and flew downstairs to get some matches. To his joy he met nobody, which was as well, for he was covered with dust and cobwebs from head to foot. He rushed upstairs again feeling very adventurous and important, and once more crawled into the cupboard to the very end of the tunnel. He struck a match and found that he was up against another door, in the roof this time and precisely like the first one in every respect except that it had a large, heavy lock at one side, and in the lock was the rusty key that had hit him on the head. By no endeavour could Edmund get that key to turn. He lit match after match, throwing them carelessly on the old oak floor in a fashion that would have made Mr. Wycherly's hair stand on end had he seen it, and finally decided that alone he could not manage that door, and that Montagu must be taken into the secret.Montagu was still closeted with Mr. Wycherly, so Edmund wandered into the kitchen, where Mrs. Dew, exclaiming at his appearance, promptly dusted, brushed, and washed him, much to his annoyance. However, he bore it with as good grace as possible, and then with disarming meekness asked: "What do you do, Mrs. Dew, when a key won't turn; an old sort of key in an iron lock?""Have you been down in the cellar, Master Edmund?" Mrs. Dew asked suspiciously. "Is that where you got all that dust and cobwebs? You've no business there, you know, meddlin' with locks.""I haven't been near the cellar," Edmund answered indignantly; "dust and cobwebs seem just to come and sit on me wherever I go; I can't help it. But what do you do to a box, now, that won't open?" he added diplomatically, "when the key sticks and won't turn?""You wait till afternoon, sir, and I'll help you to open any box you want opened. But you might go and oil the lock if you like, then it can soak in till I come."Edmund joyfully accepted the little bottle of oil and the feather that Mrs. Dew offered him, and flew upstairs again. This time he borrowed the candle from beside Mr. Wycherly's bed, lighted it, and took it with him.Into his cupboard he went. He oiled and oiled: himself, the lock, the door, and the floor. He tried the key with one hand, he tried it with two. He got fearfully hot and exceedingly cross, and still that key refused to turn. Finally, in a rage, he put his shoulders under the door and heaved with all his might. The door in the roof seemed to yield a little, and this inspired Edmund to further efforts. He shoved and shoved, and pushed and pushed, till at last, quite suddenly, the whole thing gave, opening upwards and outwards. Edmund's head emerged into the light of day, and with rapture he discovered that he had only to step out on to the flat roof of a portion of the next house, which was considerably higher than Mr. Wycherly's.His mysterious door was a skylight that had been boarded in. Why that curious tunnel was cut off from the rest of the house they never knew, but the little square of leads was a source of infinite joy to Edmund and Montagu till they grew too wide to wiggle through the passage. Nor did Edmund, with the curious reticence of children, inform either Mr. Wycherly or Mrs. Dew of his find.A low parapet faced the street, and sloping slate roofs formed the two other sides of this delightful square. Edmund advanced to the edge of the parapet. He found that he looked straight across the road into a top bedroom of the house opposite. A bedroom so high that it had only curtains, ordinary dark curtains, not drawn at all; no short blind, and only a low dressing-table and small looking-glass to fill up the window. Edmund sat down hastily lest he should be seen, for there was somebody in the room opposite. Somebody with bare arms who was doing her hair.Cautiously Edmund's head appeared above the parapet, and a look of vindictive glee overspread his hot and dirty face.It was Miss Selina Brooks herself, and fate had delivered her into his hands.The hair of Miss Selina Brooks was not abundant, and she added to it sundry tresses such as are described by fashion-papers as "graceful adjuncts." Edmund waited till the adjuncts were all in their proper place. Then he descended into his passage, shut the oak skylight, shut also the little gothic door leading to this undreamt-of paradise, retired to the bath-room to wash, lest Mrs. Dew should catch him again; and then, very quietly, went downstairs to the parlour, where, in the words of the French exercise, he sought "pens, ink and paper."Edmund did not possess the pen of a ready writer; it was some time before he drafted a letter to his liking, but in its final form the missive ran thus:—"DEAR MADDUM,"I think it only right to inform you that I can see you doing your hair, both what is on and what is off, and I find it very depressing. I therefore venture to suggest that a blind should be affixed without delay. It's worse than ablushuns."Yours truly,"EDMUND BETHUNE ESQRE."This Edmund folded and placed in an envelope, which he sealed with his great-grandfather's seal. He then trotted across the road and dropped it into Miss Selina Brooks' letter-box.Unlike Mr. Wycherly, Miss Brooks did not write to thank Edmund Bethune, Esqre. for his information; but that afternoon Nottingham lace curtains were put up at that top window, so closely drawn that not even a chink remained between them. When he beheld them Edmund smiled seraphically.CHAPTER IIITHE PRINCESS"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,Sudden glances, sweet and strange,Delicious spites and darling angers,And airy forms of flitting change."LORD TENNYSON.There were white curtains at the windows in all the front rooms now. Mr. Wycherly's books were ranged on their appointed shelves and the packing cases removed to the attic. Mrs. Dew was admitted to the study with duster and broom, and it began to look home-like and habitable. Once more did Mr. Wycherly sit at his knee-hole table engaged in his great work upon the Nikomachean ethics. The family was settling down."Will everybody come and see us now they know we're here?" asked Edmund, who had invaded the study one afternoon just after luncheon."I'm not at all sure that anyone will come and see us," Mr. Wycherly answered serenely. "Why should they?""Oh, well, for friendliness. How are we to get to know people if they don't come and see us? Shall we go and see them?""Certainly not," Mr. Wycherly said hastily. "That would be pushing and impertinent.""But I like knowing folks," Edmund persisted. "I knew everybody at Burnhead.""Burnhead is a little village. Oxford is a big town, and in big towns people are too busy to concern themselves about newcomers.""Not Mrs. Methuen," Edmund argued. "She takes a great interest in us.""She is a kind and gracious lady," said Mr. Wycherly, "but you mustn't expect everybody to be like Mrs. Methuen.""I don't want them to be like her. I want them to be different; but I want some more people to come soon. I know the milkman, of course, and the butcher and two postmen (we'd only one in Burnhead), but that's not enough. You see they don't come in and have a crack. The butcher's an awfully nice man. I wish you knew him, Guardie. Why don't they ever come in?""I expect they are too busy. As it is, it seems to me that some people's meat must arrive very late if you have already found time to discover the butcher's amiable qualities during his morning visit.""You should hear him whistle," Edmund persisted. "I'd give anything to whistle like him."Mr. Wycherly did not answer. His mental attitude with regard to the butcher's musical efforts was coldly unsympathetic."Why do you never whistle, Guardie?""I don't feel the smallest desire to whistle.""But,whydon't you?"Just at this moment Mrs. Dew appeared bearing a tray with a visiting card upon it, while behind her came Montagu, breathless with excitement, to announce that "a lady and a gentleman and a wee girl were waiting in the parlour to see Mr. Wycherly."On the card were the names of "Mr. and Mrs. William Wycherly.""There, Edmund," said Mr. Wycherly, "you've got your wish. Here are visitors, and one of them is an old friend," and looking really pleased he hastened downstairs to the parlour, followed by the boys.Seated in the deep window-seat was a tall young lady with fair hair; beside her was a little girl, and a gentleman was standing on the hearthrug. As Mr. Wycherly came in the lady crossed the room towards him holding out both her hands. She seemed extraordinarily glad to see him, and he held the friendly hands in his for quite a long time, while she laughed and blushed and introduced her husband. Then she turned to the boys: "Do neither of you remember me? Six years is a long time—but you might, Montagu?""Weren't you bonnie Margaret?" Montagu asked shyly."She is bonnie Margaret," said Mr. Wycherly, "and this is my nephew.""Nobody is taking any notice of me," said a clear, high voice, and the handshaking group in the middle of the room turned to look at the little figure standing all lonely in the window-seat."That is our daughter Herrick," laughed Mrs. Wycherly; "a very important person—quite unused to be overlooked."This was evident. The small girl stood in the seat silhouetted against the window, a quaint, sedately fearless little figure with a somewhat reproving expression on the round face framed in a Dutch bonnet. Under the bonnet and over her shoulders billowed masses of yellow curls that broke into misty clouds of fine spun floss that caught and held the April sunshine. Her short-waisted coat, reaching nearly to her heels, was of a warm tan-colour, and she carried a large, imposing-looking muff of the same material bordered with fur.Her mother lifted her down and led her to Mr. Wycherly, who bowed gravely over the small hand extended to him, but did not kiss her, as she evidently expected him to do; for she looked at him with large, trustful eyes, smiling the while a confident smile that showed even white teeth and deliciously uneven dimples in cheeks as fresh and pink as the almond blossom just then bursting into flower.Mrs. William Wycherly was Lady Alicia's youngest daughter. Montagu vaguely remembered that there was a great fuss at the time of bonnie Margaret's marriage, and that he had heard it whispered that she had run away and that her mother was very angry. So he looked with great interest at the gracious and beautiful young woman who had been so kind to them when they were little. Certainly retribution did not appear to have overtaken her. She looked radiantly well and happy, and Montagu decided that her husband looked kind and pleasant. Herrick stood leaning up against her mother's knee, silently taking stock first of Montagu, then of Edmund, then of Montagu again, turning her gravely scrutinising eyes from one to the other without a trace of embarrassment or shyness.Presently Mr. Wycherly suggested that the boys should show Herrick the garden."Will you go with them, darling?" asked her mother, and Herrick, evidently satisfied with her investigations, declared her willingness to do so.Once outside the parlour door, the steep, crooked staircase attracted her attention."I'd like to go up that; can I, boy?" she asked Edmund."Let's take her and show her our attic," he suggested. Edmund loved the attics."Shall I carry you?" asked Montagu; "it's a long stair.""Certainly not," said the little girl with great dignity; "peoples as old as me always walk upstairs."She fell up a good many times during the ascent, for she kept stepping on her long coat in front, and every time she tripped she said: "Oh, dear, how tahsome!"At length they reached the attic, and the moment she saw the four-post bed with the curtains she made a dart towards it, crying joyfully, "Oh, what a beautiful castle it will make. Now we can play my game."She attempted to scramble up on to the bed, but again the coat got in the way and prevented her."Please take it off," she commanded, standing quite still, "and my bonnet."Montagu unbuttoned the coat and untied the strings of the bonnet."That's better," she said; "now we can begin."In a moment she was up on the bed and had darted behind the curtains which she immediately drew closely till she was well hidden.Montagu and Edmund looked at one another. What in the world did this portend?Presently the curtains were parted a little, and a round, rosy face appeared in the aperture.The boys stood at the end of the bed looking awkward and sheepish."Go on," she said impatiently; and she stamped her foot. "You mustsayit now.""But we don't know what to say. Is it a game like proverbs, or what?" asked Edmund.Herrick sighed, and stepped out from behind the curtains. "I suppose I must esplain," she said, "but I thought everybody knowed that game; it's my most favourite play. This," she said, waving her hand dramatically, "is agloomywood"—mere printers' ink can never depict the darkness and density of that wood as portrayed in Herrick's voice—"and you are a wandering prince.""Which of us?" asked Edmund; "or are we both princes?""No, there can't be two, there can only be one. You'd better be him," she said, pointing to Montagu, "you're the biggest, and the littler one can be his servant.""A varlet," Montagu, who was just then much under the influence of Sir Walter Scott, suggested helpfully."A Scotch varlet, mind," Edmund stipulated."And presently you see," continued the little girl as though there had been no interruption of any kind, "a most frowning sort of castle, but just as you're wondering what you'll do there appears at the window——""Castles haven't got windows," Edmund objected, "only kind of slits.""This castle has a casement," Herrick responded with dignity. "Don't interrupt—and the curtains are drawn, but pesenly they are drawn back, and then you seethemost beautiful princess you ever dreamed of——""And then?" asked Montagu."Why, you go down on your knees, of course, and say so. Now, let's begin; you do need such a lot of esplanation."The princess retired behind her curtains; the prince and the varlet, who manifested an unseemly inclination to giggle, marched about the room."By my halidome!" exclaimed the prince, who had determined to play the part after the fashion of his then favourite characters, "this place is stoutly fortified.""Will we win through, think ye?" asked the varlet familiarly."Hush!" said a voice from behind the curtains.They were parted. First the ravishingly lovely countenance (it really was an adorably pretty little face, intensely solemn and earnest) appeared, then more of the princess, till she stood revealed in short embroidered muslin frock and a blue sash.Flump! Prince and varlet went down on their knees."What light from yonder window breaks?" exclaimed the prince, who had been doing "Romeo and Juliet" at school, and thought the quotation appropriate."An' wha'll yon lassie be, prince?" asked the varlet."I," said the princess slowly and solemnly, "Iam the Princess Hildegarde——""Losh me!" interjected the varlet."Silence, dog!" said the prince severely. "How came you here, fair lady?""I am imprisoned in this dreadful castle," the princess continued plaintively, "by a wicked baron, an enemy of my kingly father.""Where is the baron, lady? That we may slay him!" valiantly exclaimed the prince."Is your faither deed?" further inquired the varlet, who really was shockingly familiar."He died"—here the princess faltered and looked almost as though she might weep at any moment—"while I was yet a babe, nigh upon forty years ago.""That's a long time," murmured the prince thoughtfully."It is," the princess agreed, "and meanwhile my evil cousin has usurped the throne—— Now let us do it all over again." Here she spoke in a perfectly natural voice. "Perhaps you'll be a bit better this time. You ought to be much more surprised when I first appear, you ought to be struck dumb with amazement and delight, and then say all sorts of beautiful things. You should see my daddie do it.""No, no," protested the varlet, as he arose and rubbed his knees, "we've got to find that old baron first and kill him. Wouldn't you like to be the baron now for a change?""Certainly not," said the princess with great dignity. "I'm only the princess always; we never have killings or horrid things of that sort. Are you ready?""Wouldn't you like to see the garden?" Montagu suggested; "it's very very pretty.""I've seen plenty of gardens, thank you. This town is all over gardens. Are you ready?"The princess was once more shrouded by her curtains. Edmund looked despairingly at Montagu."Shall we show her our secret place?" he whispered. "We simply can't play that silly old game all over again.""She's got such a smart frock on," Montagu objected. "Suppose she got dirty.""What secret place?" asked the princess, emerging from behind the curtains."It's a wee tunnel, and you go up it and come out on the roof, but you'd spoil your dress. Are you going to a party, that you're so fine?""I'm not fine," the princess cried indignantly. "It's just an or'nary dress; it'll wash.Doshow me the secret place.""Will you promise not to play princess when we get there?" Edmund demanded."Not if you don't like it," she answered, looking very surprised; "but it's such a lovely game.""Hush! they're calling us," Montagu exclaimed; "we must go down.""But the secret place," cried Herrick. "I must see the secret place.""You can't now; we must go. Next time, perhaps. All right, Guardie, we're coming. Here, you'd better let me carry you, the stairs are awfully steep. Bring her coat and things, Edmund."This time the princess consented, and Montagu staggered downstairs bearing this precious and, for him, exceedingly heavy burden."What have you been doing, children?" Mrs. Wycherly asked."I didn't want to go in the garden," Herrick said as if that explained everything. "So we went upstairs and there was a lovely bed and we played princess, but they're not good. They didn't do it really well. You and daddie are much better."Mrs. Wycherly looked across at her husband and laughed. "One needs educating up to that game," she said. "I daresay Edmund and Montagu will play it very well when they've got little girls of their own.""They didn't seem to 'preciate me much," the child said sadly, "but," tolerantly, "they did their best. I like the big one, he's more respectful."When their visitors had gone, Edmund sought Mr. Wycherly and climbed upon his knee."Funny little kid, wasn't she?" he said."She is a remarkably beautiful child.""Yes, she is nice to look at; all that hair's so jolly. We were very good to her, Guardie, really; we did everything she asked us once—but we really couldn't do it all over again.""Do what all over again?""Oh, be princes and admire her, and rubbish. She wouldn't let us kill the wicked baron or anything really jolly like that.""You've had very little to do with girls, ever," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully. "It is rather a pity. I sometimes wish we knew some nice little girls for you to play with. They have, I expect, a refining influence.""I don't want any refining influences if it's princesses and that sort of thing. I couldn't go on doing it to please anybody.""She's only a baby, Edmund. You liked all sorts of queer games when you were very little. I'm sure I'd be quite willing to play princes or anything else to please the young lady.""And go down on your knees?""Certainly," said Mr. Wycherly, who, however, looked rather startled, "if it gave her pleasure.""I suppose we gave her pleasure," Edmund grumbled, "but she didn't seem over-pleased, somehow. I can't thinkwhatshe wanted, really.""Perhaps she didn't know herself.""Oh, yes, she did, for she was so sure we were doing it wrong.""Perhaps," suggested Mr. Wycherly, with unconscious irony, "it is a better game for two.""Well, you won't catch Montagu and me playing that game anyhow.""Who knows—some day," said Mr. Wycherly.
It was three days since they had, as Mr. Wycherly put it, "come into residence," and during that time Mrs. Griffin's cooking had not improved. Neither had the house become less dusty or more tidy. The time was afternoon, about five o'clock, and they sat at tea; a singularly unappetising tea.
Smeary silver, cups and plates all bearing the impress of Mrs. Griffin's thumb, two plates of thick bread-and-butter and a tin of bloater-paste were placed upon a dirty tablecloth. Neither Mr. Wycherly nor the boys liked bloater-paste, but Mrs. Griffin did. Hence it graced the feast.
Edmund was tired of bad meals. The novelty, what he at first called the "Swissishness," was wearing off, and as he took his place at table that afternoon there flashed into his mind a vivid picture of the tea-table at Remote. Aunt Esperance sitting kind and smiling behind the brilliant silver teapot that reflected such funny-looking little boys; the white, white napery—Aunt Esperance was so particular about tablecloths—laden with scones, such good scones, both plain and currant! Shortbread in a silver cake-basket; and jam, crystal dishes full of jam, two kinds, topaz-coloured and ruby.
Somehow the sight of that horrid tin of bloater-paste evoked a poignantly beatific vision of the jam. It was the jam broke Edmund down.
He gave a dry sob, laid his arms on the table and his head on his arms, wailing: "Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish Aunt Esperance hadn't gone and died."
Mr. Wycherly started up, looking painfully distressed. Montagu ran round to his little brother and put his arm round his shoulder—at the same time he murmured to his guardian: "It's the butter, it really is very bad."
"It's all bad," lamented Edmund; "we shall starve, all of us, if it goes on. One morning that bed-making body will come in and she'll find three skeletons. I know she will."
Mr. Wycherly sat down again. "Edmund, my dear little boy," he said brokenly, "I am so sorry, I ought not to have brought you here yet...."
"Look, look at poor Guardie," whispered Montagu.
Edmund raised his head.
"Would you like me to telegraph to Lady Alicia and ask her to have you for the rest of the holidays? I know she would, and by-and-bye, surely, by-and-bye we shall find some one less incompetent than that—than Mrs. Griffin."
Edmund shook himself free of his brother's arm and literally flung himself upon his guardian, exclaiming vehemently: "No, no, I want to stay with you. It's just as bad for you."
It was worse, for Mr. Wycherly could not restore exhausted nature with liberal supplies of Banbury cakes and buns. For the last three days he had eaten hardly anything and was, moreover, seriously concerned that the boys were assuredly not getting proper food. He would have gone back with them to the King's Arms immediately he discovered how extremely limited were Mrs. Griffin's powers had it not been that just then he received the furniture removers' bill, and, as Lady Alicia had warned him, it was very heavy.
He had come in to tea with a sore heart that afternoon, for Mrs. Griffin had half an hour before informed him that she could not come on the morrow; so that now even her poor help would be lost to them. She was going, she said, to her "sister-in-law" at Abingdon for Sunday, as she needed a rest.
"So much cookin' and cleanin' is what I ain't used to; no, not if it was ever so; and I can't keep on with it for long at a stretch. I'll come on Monday just to oblige you if so be as I'm up to it."
"I wish you had told me this sooner," Mr. Wycherly remonstrated, "then perhaps I might have been able to obtain help for to-morrow elsewhere."
But what they were to do on the morrow was no concern of Mrs. Griffin's. It was an easy and lucrative place and she wanted no interlopers. But she also wanted her outing to Abingdon, and she was going.
Mr. Wycherly poured out the black tea and Edmund attacked a piece of bread-and-butter.
The red rep curtains from the dining-room at Remote were hung in the dining-room at Oxford, but they in no way shrouded its inmates from the public gaze except when they were drawn at night. The house stood right on the pavement; even a small child could see in, and a good many availed themselves of the privilege.
Over this room was the boys' bedroom. Here there were no "fixtures" on which to suspend curtains, nor did it strike either of the three most concerned that blinds or curtains were an immediate necessity. They had all lived in a house that stood so far from other houses (as its name signified) that such a contingency as prying neighbours never occurred to them and it never entered their heads to concern themselves with those on the other side of the road.
Presently Mrs. Griffin brought in a note held gingerly between her finger and thumb, remarking that it was from the "lady as lives hopposite."
Mr. Wycherly opened it hastily, found he had mislaid his glasses, and handed it to Montagu to read.
Edmund immediately rushed round to assist Montagu, thinking it was probably an invitation, and Edmund liked invitations.
Montagu read it slowly and impressively as follows:—
"DEAR SIR,
"I think it only right to inform you that I can see the young gentlemen performing their ablutions and dressing and undressing both when the light is on and in the morning. Such publicity is most distressing, and I venture to suggest that blinds or curtains should be affixed in their room without delay.
"SELINA BROOKS."
Mr. Wycherly sank back in his chair with a groan. "I quite forgot curtains and blinds," he exclaimed in bitter self-reproach. "There are none in my room either; do you suppose the people in the next house can seeme?"
"Sure to!" cried Edmund gleefully; "they'll be writing next that they can see anoldgentleman 'paforming his ablutions'; but I can't see how they do for we all wash in the bath-room, and that's at the back. I suppose they see us washing our teeth and you shaving. I wonder if that's more depressing or they don't mind so much?"
"But what can we do?" Mr. Wycherly exclaimed despairingly. "It is already Saturday evening and we ought to have blinds or something now, to-night. How do they fix blinds, by the way?"
Montagu went and stood at the window and gloomily surveyed the houses opposite.
"You can't see a thing in her house," he said sadly. "There's white curtains with frills downstairs and a straight thing right across the windows upstairs, and a looking-glass in one window shows just above the straight thing. You've got that, you know, for shaving; we might put ours there too; it would fill up a bit. It's against the wall just now because we liked to see out."
"Oh! they'd just peek round it," said Edmund. "We'd best nail a sheet across for to-night."
"But won't that look funny from outside?" Montagu objected.
"Not half so funny as us skipping about with nothing on," Edmund retorted.
Mr. Wycherly sat, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands: "Boys, boys, it is appalling that at the very outset we should have scandalised a neighbour and made ourselves a nuisance."
"Not a nuisance, Guardie," Edmund remonstrated; "she must havelikedto watch us or she wouldn't have done it. If Mrs. Thingummy had kept behind her own curtains she couldn't have seen us so plain."
Here Mrs. Griffin tapped at the door again, opened it about three inches, and called through: "A lady to see you, sir."
"That'll be your one come to complain," Edmund whispered to his distracted guardian.
"Am I interrupting you? May I come in?" asked an exceedingly pleasant voice which was followed by a kind-looking, pretty young lady, who was rather surprised at her reception.
What she saw was a handsome, white-haired old gentleman seated at a table with his back to the light. Ranged on either side of him were two boys who regarded her with looks of dark suspicion, and on the faces of all three dismay and consternation were writ large, while Edmund's face was both tear-stained and exceedingly dirty.
Mr. Wycherly rose hastily as she came in.
Pretty Mrs. Methuen, wife of one of the youngest dons in Oxford, was quite unused to manifestations other than those of pleasure at her approach, and she stopped abruptly just inside the door to remark rather incoherently:
"Perhaps it is too soon; it may be inconvenient, but my husband asked me to call directly you arrived to see if I could be of any use.... He is still fishing in Hampshire, and as I passed I saw that you were here."
Mr. Wycherly let go of the table, which he had seized nervously, and advanced to shake her outstretched hand. Montagu pulled out a chair for her.
"Pray be seated," said Mr. Wycherly. "It is most kind of you to call.... These are my wards."
The lady took the proffered chair and shook hands with the boys, who still looked dubious, although Edmund was distinctly attracted.
On Mr. Wycherly's gentle, scholarly face bewilderment struggled to break through the mask of polite interest through which he regarded his visitor.
"You've only just come, haven't you?" she asked.
"We've been living in the house for three days, but we are far from being properly established; our servant has not arrived yet...."
"And we keep on finding out things we haven't got," Edmund interpolated.
"We hope to be a little more settled before term begins," Mr. Wycherly continued, ignoring Edmund.
"Have you been able to get everything you want?" asked the lady. "Should you need any information about the best shops ... or the people who do things ..."
"Ask about blinds!" whispered the irrepressible Edmund.
"You are most kind," Mr. Wycherly began, again ignoring his younger ward, "but..."
"Mr. Wycherly," the lady said suddenly, "I don't believe you have a ghost of an idea who I am. Did the woman not announce me? My husband is Westall Methuen, son of your old friend, and my father-in-law wrote saying that I was to be sure and call directly you arrived in case I could be of any use."
"I am ashamed to say," replied Mr. Wycherly, in tones full of courteous apology, "that if Mrs. Griffin did announce your name I did not catch it. I assure you..."
"She never said any name, just 'a lady,'" Edmund again interrupted, "and we thought you must beher."
"Were you expecting somebody dreadful that you all looked so horrified when I walked in?" asked Mrs. Methuen with laughter in her eyes as she turned to Edmund as being plainly the most communicative of the party.
"Well, we thought it very likely you had come to complain," Edmund continued, "and that is always rather beastly."
Mrs. Methuen did not possess six brothers without a familiarity with such possibilities. She did not press for an explanation, but tactfully changed the subject. Nor had she been in the room five minutes before she discovered that man and boys were all equally incapable of starting to housekeep, and that everything was in a desperately uncomfortable state. She herself had been at a "Hall." She knew Mrs. Griffin's type, and the very tea-table told its own dismal tale. She was young, kind-hearted, and energetic; nor had she been in Oxford long enough to achieve the indifference to the affairs of outsiders that is said to characterise the inhabitants of that city. So she promptly asked them all three to lunch on the morrow, nor would she take any denial; and she further suggested that the boys should walk back with her there and then so that they would know where to come.
The boys were charmed, and the three set off down the street, while Mr. Wycherly watched them from the front door till they turned the corner into Mansfield Road. He went up to his study unaccountably cheered and comforted.
"After all," he reflected, "I might ask that most charming young lady for advice if we fall into any serious dilemma. She looks so extremely alert and capable. Nevertheless, we must try to manage our own affairs without plaguing kind friends to assist us."
He forgot all about the curtainless windows, and set himself to unpack the large case marked "Earlier Latin Authors" that stood by itself nearest the door.
Mrs. Methuen took Edmund by the arm, asking confidentially: "Now what mischief had you been up to when I came in? What did you expect the people to complain about? Don't tell me if you'd rather not, but I know a good deal about boys, and I might be able to help."
"It wasn't us," Edmund answered quite seriously. "It was Guardie. He was afraid of them grumbling. Our one had complained already."
"Mr. Wycherly!" Mrs. Methuen repeated in astonishment. "Oh, nonsense! I'm perfectly sure he would never do anything anyone could complain of."
"Not willingly," said Montagu, who began to think it was time he took a small part in the conversation, "but, you see, people in this town seem rather huffy about curtains and blinds and things, and we've always lived in the country, where no one could see in, so we never thought of it. We were so proud of having the electric light too, but now it seems we'd have been better with just candles, for then, perhaps, Miss Selina Brooks wouldn't have written to complain. We'd best go to bed in the dark to-night."
"But do you mean to tell me someone wrote to complain that they could see you?"
"Yes, she did," cried Edmund. "'Paforming our ablutions' and 'it was very depressing,' and Guardie thinks the lady in the house opposite him will be writing next—you see, there's two houses opposite us; we're kind of between them, and one can see right into our room and the other right into his; but his bed's in a deep recess, so perhaps he wasn't quite so depressing."
Mrs. Methuen stood still in the middle of the road, seemingly not quite sure whether to laugh or to cry. Finally she laughed, but her voice was not very steady as she said: "Oh, poor dear Mr. Wycherly; how dreadful!"
"Oh, do you think," cried Montagu, "that you could tell us where we could buy blinds or something now, to-night? Such things do worry him so, and then he blames himself and remembers Aunt Esperance is away, and it feels so sad somehow. You see she always did everything like that."
"But that's the very sort of thing I can help in," cried this kind and understanding young lady, and this time she took Montagu's arm, so that they all three were linked confidingly together. "Did you bring no curtains from Scotland?"
"I don't know what we brought. There's boxes and boxes not unpacked yet. Perhaps it will be better when the servant comes, but you never saw such a muddle as there is just now," groaned Montagu.
"But why isn't your servant there to help you? It seems to me that just now is the time when she could be of the very greatest use."
"She was coming," Edmund said gloomily, "but her miserable mother went and got ill, and now she won't come at all, and there's only Mrs. Griffin. Do you know Mrs. Griffin?"
"I do not," Mrs. Methuen replied decidedly, "and from what I saw of her when she let me in, I don't desire her further acquaintance. How did you get her?"
"It was the man in the blue cotton jacket; we asked him, and he gave us a lot of names, but we chose Mrs. Griffin 'cause she lived so near and we liked her name. We got her, not Guardie."
"That, I should think, is a comforting reflection for Mr. Wycherly," Mrs. Methuen murmured; "but here we are. Now I'll take you in to see my baby and meanwhile I'll find some curtains and come back with you, and we'll put them up with tapes; that'll do anyway until Monday. You'll be well shrouded from the public gaze and can depress nobody—what a curious way to put it though."
"It was 'distressing,' not 'depressing,'" Montagu explained.
"Well, she depressed Guardie anyhow. I'll go into the attic when I get home, and if I can see the least little bit of her doing anythingI'llwrite and complain."
"You won't be able to see," Montagu said sadly; "she sleeps at the top, and her house is higher than ours—I saw her open her window yesterday while I was in bed."
"You wait," said Edmund, wagging his curly head. "I bet you I'll see something somehow—and then I'll punish her for vexing Guardie."
"I expect she only meant to be kind," Mrs. Methuen suggested. "She probably realised that you, none of you, had thought of anyone seeing in."
"She might have waited a wee while," said Edmund, not at all disposed to take a charitable view of Miss Selina Brooks; "one can't have everything straight in a new house all in a minute. Why is your house like a church outside?"
Mrs. Methuen laughed. "It isn't in the least like a church inside. Come and see!" and as she opened the front door the boys followed her into a square hall furnished like a room. It was a big house, and extremely comfortable, with wide staircase and easy steps not half so steep as those in Holywell.
Mrs. Methuen ran up very fast, the boys after her.
She took them into a room where a plump, pink baby, about eighteen months old, had just been bathed and was sitting smiling and majestic on the nurse's knee. His clothing, it was a boy baby, as yet consisted of a flannel band; while a dab of violet powder on one cheek gave him a rakish air.
"My precious," said Mrs. Methuen, kissing the scantily attired one; "you must look after these gentlemen for me for a few minutes;" and she forthwith vanished from the room.
The nurse smiled and nodded to them. The baby remarked, "Mamma!" to no one in particular, and looked puzzled and hurt that she could tear herself away so soon. He wasn't used to it.
Edmund and Montagu advanced shyly towards their youthful host.
"Say how d'you do to the nice young gentlemen, like a good baby," said the nurse in tones that subtly combined command and supplication.
"Do," said the baby obediently.
"Will I turn for him?" asked Edmund, who had an idea that infants must always be amused or else they cried. Without waiting for an affirmative he flung himself over on his hands and turned Catherine wheels right round the room. Edmund was light and active and an adept in the art. The baby was charmed. His fat sides shook with delighted laughter, and he shouted gleefully, "Adain!"
Nurse deftly slipped a little shirt over his head and a flannel nightgown over that, and behold! he sat clothed and joyous on her knee before Edmund had finished his second acrobatic feat.
Edmund walked on his hands. He did handsprings. He turned somersaults, and finally played leap-frog with Montagu, but whatever he did that insatiable baby shouted, "Adain," bouncing up and down on his nurse's knee in enthusiastic appreciation of the entertainment.
Meanwhile Mrs. Methuen had found and packed up two pairs of thick cream-coloured casement curtains. She ran tapes in them ready to put up, for she was convinced there would be no rods; she also packed a hammer and nails, but she never knew what it was caused her to slip her travelling flask of brandy into the pocket of her coat.
She fetched the boys, and her small son roared in indignation at their departure, which upset her extremely.
However, it was getting late and the windows in Holywell were bare.
Meanwhile Mr. Wycherly had been working very hard: stooping and lifting, carrying and stretching, to arrange the Earlier Latin Authors in the top shelf of an empty bookcase. Some of the authors were heavy and calf-bound and Mr. Wycherly, who had eaten hardly anything at all that day, began to feel very tired. He was quite unused to violent exercise of any kind, and presently he became conscious of a most unpleasant pain in his left side. "A stitch, I suppose," he said to himself and went on stooping and lifting, for he had come to the last layer of books and wanted to feel that one case at any rate was unpacked.
The boys and Mrs. Methuen returned, but he didn't hear them.
"I'll go upstairs and begin at once," said Mrs. Methuen, "and you needn't tell Mr. Wycherly anything about it till I've gone."
She and Edmund went up into Mr. Wycherly's bedroom while Montagu tried to find his guardian. He was not in either of the sitting-rooms. That they had seen from the windows before they came in. Nor was he in the kitchen or the garden. At last Montagu bethought him of the hitherto unused study, climbed the steep, crooked staircase, and went down the sloping passage to look.
Mrs. Methuen was standing on a chair at one side of the window fastening the tape of a curtain round a nail she had just knocked in, while Edmund stood on another chair at the other side, holding the rest of the curtain that its fairness might not be sullied by contact with the extremely dusty floor, when Montagu burst into the room looking very frightened.
"D'you think you could come?" he asked breathlessly. "I'm afraid Guardie's ill or something, he's so white and he doesn't seem able to speak for gasping."
Down went the nice curtains in an untidy heap on the dressing-table as Mrs. Methuen leapt off the chair, seized something from her coat which was lying on the bed, and followed Montagu. Edmund had already gone.
Mr. Wycherly was sitting huddled up in his chair. His face looked wan and drawn in the fading light; he certainly was breathing heavily and with great difficulty. But when he saw Mrs. Methuen he made an ineffectual attempt to rise. She tore the silver cup from the bottom of the flask and tumbled the contents hastily into it.
"Don't try to get up," she said as she knelt down beside him; "you're a little faint; drink this, please, at once."
She literally poured the brandy down Mr. Wycherly's throat. "Clear those books off the sofa, boys," she commanded; "carefully now! Ah, that's better. Now you must lie down for a few minutes; it's bad to sit forward like that."
Somehow in three minutes this energetic young lady had taken entire command of the situation. Mr. Wycherly was helped on to the sofa, Edmund had fetched a rug to cover him, and she and Montagu were wrestling with the huge gothic window, which should have opened like a door in the centre and was, apparently, hermetically sealed. At last it yielded to their combined efforts, and the sweet, fresh evening air rushed into the room.
"Please finish the brandy," said Mrs. Methuen in precisely the same voice in which she would have adjured her baby not to leave any milk in his bottle. "You're completely done up; no proper food, no fresh air. I never felt anything like the atmosphere of this room; and then stooping and lifting heavy books on the top of all the rest. No wonder your heart gave out. I can't think why they make the cups of flasks such an awkward shape."
Mr. Wycherly meekly took the cup from her hand and drained it. Already his face looked less ashy and he could speak.
"I cannot tell you," he began——
"Don't try to tell us anything yet; for five minutes you are to stay perfectly quiet. I'll leave Montagu in charge, and he is not to allow you to stir till I come back. Come, Edmund."
Edmund's round face was very serious as he followed Mrs. Methuen back to the bedroom. Aunt Esperance, as he always put it, "was away." Aunt Esperance, who had seemed a necessary part of life—beneficent, immutable, inevitable. Yet she had gone, and her place knew her no more. Might not a like thing happen to Mr. Wycherly? And, if so, what was to become of him and Montagu?
Edmund was not imaginative. He lived his jolly life wholly without thought of the morrow. But at that moment he was startled into a realisation of how much he loved his guardian.
As once more he and Mrs. Methuen mounted their two chairs and started to put up the curtains again he looked across at her and noted with a sudden painful contraction of the heart that her face was very grave.
"You don't think, do you," he asked in a low voice, "that Guardie is going to die?"
Mrs. Methuen started and nearly dropped the curtain. "Oh, dear, no," she exclaimed hastily; "but you must take more care of him and not let him lift books or anything of that sort. When people are not very young they have to take things easily. You and Montagu must unpack the books and he can arrange them, but you must not let him stoop over the cases. Do you understand? He mustn't do it."
They finished the curtains in no time, and when Mrs. Methuen went back to the study Mr. Wycherly hastily arose from the sofa, where he had lain obediently ever since she put him there.
"I don't know how to thank you," he began——
"Please don't try," Mrs. Methuen said briskly. "The boys and I are having such fun, but I'm sorry to say that I must—I simply must—give you a little lecture. Boys! someone is knocking at the front door; go down and see who it is while I scold Mr. Wycherly."
Mrs. Methuen's own kitchen-maid, accompanied by a stout, fresh-coloured woman, carrying a large brown-paper parcel, were at the door, and Mrs. Methuen herself came down in a minute or two, when she explained that the rosy woman was one Mrs. Dew, that she had come "to look after them," and would stay with them till they got a proper servant. Moreover, the kitchen-maid carried a large basket of provisions. The fires had gone out in both kitchen and dining-room, and the evening was growing chill. That kitchen-maid lit both in no time. Mr. Wycherly was brought downstairs and installed in his big chair by the dining-room fire, and Mrs. Methuen went home. Yet once more she came back that night, and she swept the two boys up to their room and insisted on their putting all their clothes in drawers and cupboards under her supervision, and she and Mrs. Dew did the same by Mr. Wycherly without informing him of the fact.
Nothing could less have resembled the methods of Mrs. Griffin than those of Mrs. Dew. With her advent everything was changed at the house in Holywell. Order was evolved out of chaos, dust disappeared as if by magic, boxes were unpacked and removed empty to the attic, while, most important of all, meals were punctual and appetising.
Mrs. Dew had the extremely deferent manner of the well-trained servant who has "lived in good families." To Mr. Wycherly this manner was immensely soothing, coming as it did after his long experience of the dictatorial and somewhat familiar bearing of the Scottish servants at Remote. Mrs. Dew "knew her place" and kept to it rigidly, and Edmund found her rather unapproachable. Anything like reserve in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures was abhorrent to Edmund, and he pursued Mrs. Dew with questions as to her past, her present, and her future, getting, however, but small satisfaction for his pains.
"Have you any children, Mrs. Dew?" he demanded one day, when he had sought her in the kitchen for social purposes.
"No, sir, not of my own."
"Any grandchildren?"
"Certainly not, sir."
"No one belonging to you at all?"
"Of course, sir, I 'ave my relations, same as other folks."
"What sort of relations?"
"Well, for one, sir, I have a niece."
"Big or little?"
"About your own size, sir, though, I daresay, she's a bit older."
"Where does she live?"
"With me, sir, when she isn't at school. She's an orphan."
"Oh, like us. Where is she now?"
"Here, in Oxford."
"What's her name?"
"Jane-Anne, sir; but if I may say so, I don't think the kitchen's the proper place for a young gentleman like you."
"When shall I see Jane-Anne?"
"I don't suppose as you'll see her at all, sir, your paths in life being, so to speak, different."
Edmund sighed. "I wish you were a more telling sort of person, Mrs. Dew," he said sadly. "If you like to ask me any questions, you'll soon see what a lot I'd tell you."
"I hope I know my place better, sir!" Mrs. Dew remarked primly.
That afternoon he gave it up as a bad job.
Edmund did not forget his grudge against Miss Selina Brooks. By some curious mental process of unreasoning he traced Mr. Wycherly's sudden faintness, that had frightened them so much, to that good lady's letter about the curtainless windows. She had worried his Guardie, and therefore she was his enemy.
It did not in the least affect Edmund's opinion of her that Mr. Wycherly wrote a most courteous note thanking her for hers.
Edmund intended to be even with Miss Selina Brooks, but he bided his time.
The attics in Holywell were particularly large and splendid. There were only two, and they occupied the whole of the top floor, while each was reached by a separate staircase, and had no communication with the other. In all, there were five different sets of stairs in that old house. One attic was dedicated to the reception of empty boxes; but the other—which possessed a heavenly little crooked room opening out of it, in that third gable which boasted the small square window looking sideways down the street—Mr. Wycherly had given to the boys for their very own play-room.
At present there was nothing in it save two or three derelict chairs and a four-post bed with canopy and voluminous white dimity curtains. For some reason best known to herself, Mrs. Griffin had put up the curtains belonging to this bed which nobody wanted.
Just outside one of the doors on that landing was a curious little cupboard with strong oak doors, not more than three feet high. This cupboard was very dark, apparently very deep, and quite devoid of shelves or pegs.
During their first uncomfortable days the boys had not felt particularly interested in cupboards; but as things grew more peaceful and accustomed Edmund of the inquiring mind discovered this particular cubby-house. Montagu was not with him at the time, as now that they were settled, he did Greek for an hour every morning with Mr. Wycherly just before luncheon.
Edmund thrust his arm in as far as it would go, but couldn't reach the back, though the floor seemed to slope upwards. Carefully propping the door open with a chair, he crawled in on hands and knees. Once in, he found that floor and roof sloped steeply upwards and the roof was just over his head, he couldn't even kneel. He crawled further in, quite a long way, and the tunnel turned sharply to the right. He could no longer see the glimmer of light from the landing, but he had reached the end of the tunnel. At the same moment his head struck something that stuck out, and when he put up his hand he felt that it was a key by its shape. This was most exciting and must be investigated at once. There was no room to turn, so Edmund half crawled, half slid backwards out of the sloping tunnel, and flew downstairs to get some matches. To his joy he met nobody, which was as well, for he was covered with dust and cobwebs from head to foot. He rushed upstairs again feeling very adventurous and important, and once more crawled into the cupboard to the very end of the tunnel. He struck a match and found that he was up against another door, in the roof this time and precisely like the first one in every respect except that it had a large, heavy lock at one side, and in the lock was the rusty key that had hit him on the head. By no endeavour could Edmund get that key to turn. He lit match after match, throwing them carelessly on the old oak floor in a fashion that would have made Mr. Wycherly's hair stand on end had he seen it, and finally decided that alone he could not manage that door, and that Montagu must be taken into the secret.
Montagu was still closeted with Mr. Wycherly, so Edmund wandered into the kitchen, where Mrs. Dew, exclaiming at his appearance, promptly dusted, brushed, and washed him, much to his annoyance. However, he bore it with as good grace as possible, and then with disarming meekness asked: "What do you do, Mrs. Dew, when a key won't turn; an old sort of key in an iron lock?"
"Have you been down in the cellar, Master Edmund?" Mrs. Dew asked suspiciously. "Is that where you got all that dust and cobwebs? You've no business there, you know, meddlin' with locks."
"I haven't been near the cellar," Edmund answered indignantly; "dust and cobwebs seem just to come and sit on me wherever I go; I can't help it. But what do you do to a box, now, that won't open?" he added diplomatically, "when the key sticks and won't turn?"
"You wait till afternoon, sir, and I'll help you to open any box you want opened. But you might go and oil the lock if you like, then it can soak in till I come."
Edmund joyfully accepted the little bottle of oil and the feather that Mrs. Dew offered him, and flew upstairs again. This time he borrowed the candle from beside Mr. Wycherly's bed, lighted it, and took it with him.
Into his cupboard he went. He oiled and oiled: himself, the lock, the door, and the floor. He tried the key with one hand, he tried it with two. He got fearfully hot and exceedingly cross, and still that key refused to turn. Finally, in a rage, he put his shoulders under the door and heaved with all his might. The door in the roof seemed to yield a little, and this inspired Edmund to further efforts. He shoved and shoved, and pushed and pushed, till at last, quite suddenly, the whole thing gave, opening upwards and outwards. Edmund's head emerged into the light of day, and with rapture he discovered that he had only to step out on to the flat roof of a portion of the next house, which was considerably higher than Mr. Wycherly's.
His mysterious door was a skylight that had been boarded in. Why that curious tunnel was cut off from the rest of the house they never knew, but the little square of leads was a source of infinite joy to Edmund and Montagu till they grew too wide to wiggle through the passage. Nor did Edmund, with the curious reticence of children, inform either Mr. Wycherly or Mrs. Dew of his find.
A low parapet faced the street, and sloping slate roofs formed the two other sides of this delightful square. Edmund advanced to the edge of the parapet. He found that he looked straight across the road into a top bedroom of the house opposite. A bedroom so high that it had only curtains, ordinary dark curtains, not drawn at all; no short blind, and only a low dressing-table and small looking-glass to fill up the window. Edmund sat down hastily lest he should be seen, for there was somebody in the room opposite. Somebody with bare arms who was doing her hair.
Cautiously Edmund's head appeared above the parapet, and a look of vindictive glee overspread his hot and dirty face.
It was Miss Selina Brooks herself, and fate had delivered her into his hands.
The hair of Miss Selina Brooks was not abundant, and she added to it sundry tresses such as are described by fashion-papers as "graceful adjuncts." Edmund waited till the adjuncts were all in their proper place. Then he descended into his passage, shut the oak skylight, shut also the little gothic door leading to this undreamt-of paradise, retired to the bath-room to wash, lest Mrs. Dew should catch him again; and then, very quietly, went downstairs to the parlour, where, in the words of the French exercise, he sought "pens, ink and paper."
Edmund did not possess the pen of a ready writer; it was some time before he drafted a letter to his liking, but in its final form the missive ran thus:—
"DEAR MADDUM,
"I think it only right to inform you that I can see you doing your hair, both what is on and what is off, and I find it very depressing. I therefore venture to suggest that a blind should be affixed without delay. It's worse than ablushuns.
"EDMUND BETHUNE ESQRE."
This Edmund folded and placed in an envelope, which he sealed with his great-grandfather's seal. He then trotted across the road and dropped it into Miss Selina Brooks' letter-box.
Unlike Mr. Wycherly, Miss Brooks did not write to thank Edmund Bethune, Esqre. for his information; but that afternoon Nottingham lace curtains were put up at that top window, so closely drawn that not even a chink remained between them. When he beheld them Edmund smiled seraphically.
CHAPTER III
THE PRINCESS
"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,Sudden glances, sweet and strange,Delicious spites and darling angers,And airy forms of flitting change."LORD TENNYSON.
"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,Sudden glances, sweet and strange,Delicious spites and darling angers,And airy forms of flitting change."LORD TENNYSON.
"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change."LORD TENNYSON.
And airy forms of flitting change."
LORD TENNYSON.
LORD TENNYSON.
There were white curtains at the windows in all the front rooms now. Mr. Wycherly's books were ranged on their appointed shelves and the packing cases removed to the attic. Mrs. Dew was admitted to the study with duster and broom, and it began to look home-like and habitable. Once more did Mr. Wycherly sit at his knee-hole table engaged in his great work upon the Nikomachean ethics. The family was settling down.
"Will everybody come and see us now they know we're here?" asked Edmund, who had invaded the study one afternoon just after luncheon.
"I'm not at all sure that anyone will come and see us," Mr. Wycherly answered serenely. "Why should they?"
"Oh, well, for friendliness. How are we to get to know people if they don't come and see us? Shall we go and see them?"
"Certainly not," Mr. Wycherly said hastily. "That would be pushing and impertinent."
"But I like knowing folks," Edmund persisted. "I knew everybody at Burnhead."
"Burnhead is a little village. Oxford is a big town, and in big towns people are too busy to concern themselves about newcomers."
"Not Mrs. Methuen," Edmund argued. "She takes a great interest in us."
"She is a kind and gracious lady," said Mr. Wycherly, "but you mustn't expect everybody to be like Mrs. Methuen."
"I don't want them to be like her. I want them to be different; but I want some more people to come soon. I know the milkman, of course, and the butcher and two postmen (we'd only one in Burnhead), but that's not enough. You see they don't come in and have a crack. The butcher's an awfully nice man. I wish you knew him, Guardie. Why don't they ever come in?"
"I expect they are too busy. As it is, it seems to me that some people's meat must arrive very late if you have already found time to discover the butcher's amiable qualities during his morning visit."
"You should hear him whistle," Edmund persisted. "I'd give anything to whistle like him."
Mr. Wycherly did not answer. His mental attitude with regard to the butcher's musical efforts was coldly unsympathetic.
"Why do you never whistle, Guardie?"
"I don't feel the smallest desire to whistle."
"But,whydon't you?"
Just at this moment Mrs. Dew appeared bearing a tray with a visiting card upon it, while behind her came Montagu, breathless with excitement, to announce that "a lady and a gentleman and a wee girl were waiting in the parlour to see Mr. Wycherly."
On the card were the names of "Mr. and Mrs. William Wycherly."
"There, Edmund," said Mr. Wycherly, "you've got your wish. Here are visitors, and one of them is an old friend," and looking really pleased he hastened downstairs to the parlour, followed by the boys.
Seated in the deep window-seat was a tall young lady with fair hair; beside her was a little girl, and a gentleman was standing on the hearthrug. As Mr. Wycherly came in the lady crossed the room towards him holding out both her hands. She seemed extraordinarily glad to see him, and he held the friendly hands in his for quite a long time, while she laughed and blushed and introduced her husband. Then she turned to the boys: "Do neither of you remember me? Six years is a long time—but you might, Montagu?"
"Weren't you bonnie Margaret?" Montagu asked shyly.
"She is bonnie Margaret," said Mr. Wycherly, "and this is my nephew."
"Nobody is taking any notice of me," said a clear, high voice, and the handshaking group in the middle of the room turned to look at the little figure standing all lonely in the window-seat.
"That is our daughter Herrick," laughed Mrs. Wycherly; "a very important person—quite unused to be overlooked."
This was evident. The small girl stood in the seat silhouetted against the window, a quaint, sedately fearless little figure with a somewhat reproving expression on the round face framed in a Dutch bonnet. Under the bonnet and over her shoulders billowed masses of yellow curls that broke into misty clouds of fine spun floss that caught and held the April sunshine. Her short-waisted coat, reaching nearly to her heels, was of a warm tan-colour, and she carried a large, imposing-looking muff of the same material bordered with fur.
Her mother lifted her down and led her to Mr. Wycherly, who bowed gravely over the small hand extended to him, but did not kiss her, as she evidently expected him to do; for she looked at him with large, trustful eyes, smiling the while a confident smile that showed even white teeth and deliciously uneven dimples in cheeks as fresh and pink as the almond blossom just then bursting into flower.
Mrs. William Wycherly was Lady Alicia's youngest daughter. Montagu vaguely remembered that there was a great fuss at the time of bonnie Margaret's marriage, and that he had heard it whispered that she had run away and that her mother was very angry. So he looked with great interest at the gracious and beautiful young woman who had been so kind to them when they were little. Certainly retribution did not appear to have overtaken her. She looked radiantly well and happy, and Montagu decided that her husband looked kind and pleasant. Herrick stood leaning up against her mother's knee, silently taking stock first of Montagu, then of Edmund, then of Montagu again, turning her gravely scrutinising eyes from one to the other without a trace of embarrassment or shyness.
Presently Mr. Wycherly suggested that the boys should show Herrick the garden.
"Will you go with them, darling?" asked her mother, and Herrick, evidently satisfied with her investigations, declared her willingness to do so.
Once outside the parlour door, the steep, crooked staircase attracted her attention.
"I'd like to go up that; can I, boy?" she asked Edmund.
"Let's take her and show her our attic," he suggested. Edmund loved the attics.
"Shall I carry you?" asked Montagu; "it's a long stair."
"Certainly not," said the little girl with great dignity; "peoples as old as me always walk upstairs."
She fell up a good many times during the ascent, for she kept stepping on her long coat in front, and every time she tripped she said: "Oh, dear, how tahsome!"
At length they reached the attic, and the moment she saw the four-post bed with the curtains she made a dart towards it, crying joyfully, "Oh, what a beautiful castle it will make. Now we can play my game."
She attempted to scramble up on to the bed, but again the coat got in the way and prevented her.
"Please take it off," she commanded, standing quite still, "and my bonnet."
Montagu unbuttoned the coat and untied the strings of the bonnet.
"That's better," she said; "now we can begin."
In a moment she was up on the bed and had darted behind the curtains which she immediately drew closely till she was well hidden.
Montagu and Edmund looked at one another. What in the world did this portend?
Presently the curtains were parted a little, and a round, rosy face appeared in the aperture.
The boys stood at the end of the bed looking awkward and sheepish.
"Go on," she said impatiently; and she stamped her foot. "You mustsayit now."
"But we don't know what to say. Is it a game like proverbs, or what?" asked Edmund.
Herrick sighed, and stepped out from behind the curtains. "I suppose I must esplain," she said, "but I thought everybody knowed that game; it's my most favourite play. This," she said, waving her hand dramatically, "is agloomywood"—mere printers' ink can never depict the darkness and density of that wood as portrayed in Herrick's voice—"and you are a wandering prince."
"Which of us?" asked Edmund; "or are we both princes?"
"No, there can't be two, there can only be one. You'd better be him," she said, pointing to Montagu, "you're the biggest, and the littler one can be his servant."
"A varlet," Montagu, who was just then much under the influence of Sir Walter Scott, suggested helpfully.
"A Scotch varlet, mind," Edmund stipulated.
"And presently you see," continued the little girl as though there had been no interruption of any kind, "a most frowning sort of castle, but just as you're wondering what you'll do there appears at the window——"
"Castles haven't got windows," Edmund objected, "only kind of slits."
"This castle has a casement," Herrick responded with dignity. "Don't interrupt—and the curtains are drawn, but pesenly they are drawn back, and then you seethemost beautiful princess you ever dreamed of——"
"And then?" asked Montagu.
"Why, you go down on your knees, of course, and say so. Now, let's begin; you do need such a lot of esplanation."
The princess retired behind her curtains; the prince and the varlet, who manifested an unseemly inclination to giggle, marched about the room.
"By my halidome!" exclaimed the prince, who had determined to play the part after the fashion of his then favourite characters, "this place is stoutly fortified."
"Will we win through, think ye?" asked the varlet familiarly.
"Hush!" said a voice from behind the curtains.
They were parted. First the ravishingly lovely countenance (it really was an adorably pretty little face, intensely solemn and earnest) appeared, then more of the princess, till she stood revealed in short embroidered muslin frock and a blue sash.
Flump! Prince and varlet went down on their knees.
"What light from yonder window breaks?" exclaimed the prince, who had been doing "Romeo and Juliet" at school, and thought the quotation appropriate.
"An' wha'll yon lassie be, prince?" asked the varlet.
"I," said the princess slowly and solemnly, "Iam the Princess Hildegarde——"
"Losh me!" interjected the varlet.
"Silence, dog!" said the prince severely. "How came you here, fair lady?"
"I am imprisoned in this dreadful castle," the princess continued plaintively, "by a wicked baron, an enemy of my kingly father."
"Where is the baron, lady? That we may slay him!" valiantly exclaimed the prince.
"Is your faither deed?" further inquired the varlet, who really was shockingly familiar.
"He died"—here the princess faltered and looked almost as though she might weep at any moment—"while I was yet a babe, nigh upon forty years ago."
"That's a long time," murmured the prince thoughtfully.
"It is," the princess agreed, "and meanwhile my evil cousin has usurped the throne—— Now let us do it all over again." Here she spoke in a perfectly natural voice. "Perhaps you'll be a bit better this time. You ought to be much more surprised when I first appear, you ought to be struck dumb with amazement and delight, and then say all sorts of beautiful things. You should see my daddie do it."
"No, no," protested the varlet, as he arose and rubbed his knees, "we've got to find that old baron first and kill him. Wouldn't you like to be the baron now for a change?"
"Certainly not," said the princess with great dignity. "I'm only the princess always; we never have killings or horrid things of that sort. Are you ready?"
"Wouldn't you like to see the garden?" Montagu suggested; "it's very very pretty."
"I've seen plenty of gardens, thank you. This town is all over gardens. Are you ready?"
The princess was once more shrouded by her curtains. Edmund looked despairingly at Montagu.
"Shall we show her our secret place?" he whispered. "We simply can't play that silly old game all over again."
"She's got such a smart frock on," Montagu objected. "Suppose she got dirty."
"What secret place?" asked the princess, emerging from behind the curtains.
"It's a wee tunnel, and you go up it and come out on the roof, but you'd spoil your dress. Are you going to a party, that you're so fine?"
"I'm not fine," the princess cried indignantly. "It's just an or'nary dress; it'll wash.Doshow me the secret place."
"Will you promise not to play princess when we get there?" Edmund demanded.
"Not if you don't like it," she answered, looking very surprised; "but it's such a lovely game."
"Hush! they're calling us," Montagu exclaimed; "we must go down."
"But the secret place," cried Herrick. "I must see the secret place."
"You can't now; we must go. Next time, perhaps. All right, Guardie, we're coming. Here, you'd better let me carry you, the stairs are awfully steep. Bring her coat and things, Edmund."
This time the princess consented, and Montagu staggered downstairs bearing this precious and, for him, exceedingly heavy burden.
"What have you been doing, children?" Mrs. Wycherly asked.
"I didn't want to go in the garden," Herrick said as if that explained everything. "So we went upstairs and there was a lovely bed and we played princess, but they're not good. They didn't do it really well. You and daddie are much better."
Mrs. Wycherly looked across at her husband and laughed. "One needs educating up to that game," she said. "I daresay Edmund and Montagu will play it very well when they've got little girls of their own."
"They didn't seem to 'preciate me much," the child said sadly, "but," tolerantly, "they did their best. I like the big one, he's more respectful."
When their visitors had gone, Edmund sought Mr. Wycherly and climbed upon his knee.
"Funny little kid, wasn't she?" he said.
"She is a remarkably beautiful child."
"Yes, she is nice to look at; all that hair's so jolly. We were very good to her, Guardie, really; we did everything she asked us once—but we really couldn't do it all over again."
"Do what all over again?"
"Oh, be princes and admire her, and rubbish. She wouldn't let us kill the wicked baron or anything really jolly like that."
"You've had very little to do with girls, ever," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully. "It is rather a pity. I sometimes wish we knew some nice little girls for you to play with. They have, I expect, a refining influence."
"I don't want any refining influences if it's princesses and that sort of thing. I couldn't go on doing it to please anybody."
"She's only a baby, Edmund. You liked all sorts of queer games when you were very little. I'm sure I'd be quite willing to play princes or anything else to please the young lady."
"And go down on your knees?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Wycherly, who, however, looked rather startled, "if it gave her pleasure."
"I suppose we gave her pleasure," Edmund grumbled, "but she didn't seem over-pleased, somehow. I can't thinkwhatshe wanted, really."
"Perhaps she didn't know herself."
"Oh, yes, she did, for she was so sure we were doing it wrong."
"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Wycherly, with unconscious irony, "it is a better game for two."
"Well, you won't catch Montagu and me playing that game anyhow."
"Who knows—some day," said Mr. Wycherly.