Part 12

"O, say Guardie's much obliged and he'll be very pleased to come, and that we'll be very pleased to come, too," suggested Montagu, who appreciated tea at the Misses Moffat's.

"I did not ask you, Montagu," Miss Esperance remarked with dignity. "Well, dear friend, may I say you will go with me?"

"Do you _wish_ me to go, Miss Esperance?" groaned Mr. Wycherly.

"I don't wish you to do anything intensely disagreeable to yourself, but, if you did go, it would assuredly give great pleasure to them--and to me----"

"Then I will go," said Mr. Wycherly; and he said it with all the resolution of a man determined to do or die.

The Misses Moffat were greatly flustered, for Mr. and Mrs. Dewar were also to be of the party, and to entertain two gentlemen at once was an unheard-of plunge into the wildest dissipation.

They paid innumerable visits of inspection to their little dining-room, where the tea-table, laid early in the afternoon, positively groaned under its load of dainties. No less than four different kinds of jam gleamed jewel-like, each in a cut-glass dish, at the four corners of the table: while cookies, soda scones, dropped scones, short bread, and the cream cakes, so appreciated by Montagu, were piled up in abundance on the various plates. In the centre of the table was a large _epergne_ arranged with flowers by Miss Jeanie's artistic hands. These preparations all completed, there yet remained the arrangement of the guests at table.

"You see, me dear," said Miss Maggie, anxiously, "we must ask Mr. Dewar to take the foot of the table because he's the minister, and will ask the blessing. But the question is, where'll we put Mr. Wycherly? Because, you see, whoever sits by Mr. Wycherly will get a gentleman on either side, which doesn't seem quite fair somehow. If we put him on my right hand and give him Mrs. Dewar for a partner, then she'll be seated next her husband, and that doesn't seem quite correct; and yet, if we put Miss Esperance Bethune there, that's not right, either, and her seeing him every day."

"Don't you think," Miss Jeanie suggested, "that he'd better sit on your right hand and Mrs. Dewar on your left, with Miss Bethune between Mr. and Mrs. Dewar, and I'll separate the gentlemen?"

"We mustn't think of ourselves on occasions like these," Miss Maggie said, with just a tinge of reproof in her voice; "it's not a matter to be settled hastily."

"Well, there's not many ways we can sit unless you give up having Mr. Dewar at the bottom of the table," Miss Jeanie responded sharply.

"That," Miss Maggie replied solemnly, "is a necessity--because of the blessing."

So, after all, Miss Jeanie had it her way.

Mr. Wycherly had assuredly never been at a similar tea-party.

At the very beginning of the meal his polite commonplaces to Miss Maggie were drowned by the minister's voice, as with uplifted hand he asked a lengthy blessing. Mr. Wycherly was rather startled, but he bent his head decorously, and when it was over continued his sentence where he had broken off.

Mrs. Dewar was so odiously patronising to the Misses Moffat that Mr. Wycherly unconsciously ranged himself on their side, devoting himself to the entertainment of Miss Maggie, so that she became hopelessly flustered and forgot to ask Mrs. Dewar if she would take some more tea--an omission pointed out by the neglected lady with some asperity.

Mr. Wycherly filled the soul of Miss Jeanie with rapture by telling her how Montagu and Edmund were consumed with envy because they were not invited. When tea was over and they repaired to the front parlour he looked anxiously at Miss Esperance. Surely the stipulated hour must be up. The Misses Moffat were quite endurable: kind and simple and almost pathetic in their tremulous eagerness to please. But Mrs. Dewar was getting on his nerves, and she insisted on addressing her conversation to him as though she were on much more familiar terms with him than the rest of the party, a dreadful supposition not to be borne for an instant.

"Perhaps," said Miss Maggie, beaming upon her guests, "the gentlemen would like a game of draughts."

Mr. Wycherly's heart went down into his boots. Some years ago he would truthfully have said he didn't play draughts; since then, however, Mr. Gloag had taught him that he, in his turn, might teach the little boys; and Mr. Wycherly was scrupulously accurate in all his statements.

Miss Esperance came to the rescue. "I fear," said she, "that we must be going. We promised the children that we would be home by about six."

Miss Esperance never made any plan that she did not intend to carry out, and five minutes later she and Mr. Wycherly were on their way home. The little boys were waiting for them at the gate and volunteered to take Mr. Wycherly for a walk.

Miss Esperance stood looking after them and her eyes were fond and proud. Old Elsa came out to ask her mistress something about the supper and joined her at the gate, and she, too, looked after the trio marching down the road, Mr. Wycherly, as usual, in the middle, with a small boy hanging on to either hand.

"He's awfu' kind to they bairns," said Elsa. "They've wauken'd him up extraordinar'. He's no' the same gentleman he was afore they came."

"_He_ is exactly the same, Elsa," Miss Esperance said gently. "Circumstances have changed, and God in His great mercy has seen fit to call out the many beautiful qualities with which He has endowed His servant. But Mr. Wycherly is not changed."

Elsa's face softened, as it always did when she looked at her mistress.

"I'm thinkin', mem," she said, "that though the Lord has seen fit to do much, He made you His instrument."

Gradually by slow degrees, but daily more and more, was Mr. Wycherly shaken out of his groove. It was he who took the little boys twice a week to be drilled at Pier's Hill; when Mr. Gloag came back, he even went occasionally to the Manse to play chess with him because Miss Esperance declared the minister to be so lonely. And, more wonderful still, that winter he made two or three journeys to Shrewsbury to confer with Mr. Woodhouse and see after his affairs in person, leaving Montagu in charge of Miss Esperance and the household.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*MONTAGU AND HIS AUNT*

In a space of shining and fragrant clarity you have a vision of marble columns and stately cities, of men august in single-heartedness and strength, and women comely and simple and superb as goddesses; and with a music of leaves and winds and waters, of plunging ships and clanging armours, of girls at song and kindly gods discoursing, the sunny-eyed heroic age is revealed in all its nobleness, in all its majesty, its candour, and its charm.--W. E. HENLEY.

It happened that Elsa died quite suddenly while Mr. Wycherly was away upon one of these journeys, and Miss Esperance would not let him be told, lest he should--as he most assuredly would--hasten home to her assistance. It was a very cold spring, and Miss Esperance drove into Edinburgh to make arrangements for Elsa's funeral, in pouring rain and in the teeth of a cutting east wind. She caught a bad cold, but being naturally very upset at the time and having a great deal to see to, she took but little care of herself, and was laid aside with a sharp attack of bronchitis before Robina had realised that there was anything the matter.

Robina, with the best intentions in life, was no nurse. She worried Miss Esperance, and yet that decided little lady would have no stranger in the house. So it ended in Montagu--who was then nearly twelve years old--doing everything for her, deftly, quietly, and with the gentle skill so often developed by dreamy people when they are roused to action.

During his aunt's illness the little boy slept in a large cupboard off her bedroom; and that he might the better be able to attend to her wants through the night, and yet not entirely lose his sleep (as he did during the first night he was on duty), he tied one end of a long string round his big toe and the other round his patient's wrist, and if Miss Esperance wanted the fire made up, or fresh poultices, or the "jelly drink" she was too weak to reach for herself, she would give the string a gentle pull, and Montagu, who was a light sleeper, was by her side in a moment, quick to hear her faintest whisper.

During that time Montagu learned to know his aunt as he never could have done under any other circumstances. As her breathing grew easier, and her wonderful constitution--result of a life temperate and self-denying in all things--reasserted itself, they would have long and intimate talks, and the little boy learned a great deal about "the family" of which Miss Esperance was very proud. It had been settled that at Mr. Wycherly's death Montagu was to take his name. "He has no son, my dear, and he has done so much for us that we could not refuse him this; but I would have you remember always that you are a Bethune. There have been some bad men among them and many good--but bad and good alike, they have all been Scottish gentlemen. You will be educated in England, Montagu, you will go to the English church, and you will learn English ways--good and pleasant ways they are which go to the making of such men as our dear friend--so wise and kind and unselfish. But never forget that you yourself are a Bethune, for it is a proud name to bear."

And then the dear old lady would show him the family's coat-of-arms in a little, fat, square calf-bound "Scots _Compendium_ of Rudiments of Honour. Containing the succession of _Scots Kings_ from Fergus, who founded the Monarchy. ALSO the Nobility of Scotland Present and Extinct--The Fifth edition improved and brought down to the year 1752."

From this work Montagu would read aloud to his aunt almost as often as from the Bible itself, and would shudder as he read how one Archibald Bethune was "famish'd at Falkland in the year 1592 so that he nearly dy'd," but escaping to France "did afterward marry one Esperance de Lanois, daughter of a Marshal of France--" "and since then," Miss Esperance would interrupt eagerly, "there was never another Esperance Bethune till I was born."

"I think she must have been like you," Montagu said, "kind to him because he was so thin from being famish'd."

Miss Esperance laughed softly. "She was a girl of sixteen, my dear, when he married her."

"I'd rather marry you than any girl of sixteen that I've ever seen," Montagu said stoutly. "You're much prettier than any of them--except perhaps Margaret," he added, for he was very faithful in his enthusiasms.

Indeed, there were many who would have agreed with him, if they could have seen Miss Esperance at that moment, sitting up in bed propped up with pillows, with a pink bed jacket, not half such a dainty colour as her flushed cheeks, and the adorable white "mutch" framing the shimmering silver of her hair.

And here it must be confessed that it is just possible that Miss Esperance knew perfectly well what a pretty old lady she was; for all the other old ladies of her time wore "fronts"--dreadful, aggressive, black, brown or yellow fronts--whether they had any hair or not. To wear one's own white hair was unusual even to boldness; and yet, Miss Esperance, most decorous and delicately feminine of womankind, quietly ignored this unpleasing fashion, and was beautiful even as nature had intended her to be.

Many and exciting were the Jacobite stories she told to Montagu, till his enthusiasm for the house of Stuart knew no bounds. He read aloud gracefully and with understanding, and his reading of the Bible was a never-failing source of delight to Miss Esperance. She would lie with shining eyes and overflowing heart while the boy's voice, gravely emphatic and justly modulated, proclaimed to her the divine message to which she had ever lent so willing an ear. She even grew accustomed to the enunciation of Montagu's "extraordinary views"; as, when one day he had read to her the story of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, he said dreamily: "It's curious, isn't it, how disagreeable nearly all the women in the Bible are?"

"Oh, Montagu!" Miss Esperance exclaimed distressedly. "Think of the mother of our Lord, and Mary, and Martha, and Dorcas----"

"Well, aunt," he interrupted, "you know in the Old Testament there's very few of them at all kind and nice. The Greek women were far better: look at Alcestis, and Penelope, and Polyxena! I don't like those Hebrew women at all; they were so vindictive and dishonourable. Fancy you behaving like Sara or Rachel or Jael!--why even Helen was far nicer than most of them, and she wasn't considered particularly good though she was so beautiful."

"Tell me about Alcestis," said Miss Esperance, lying back on her pillows and feeling unequal just then to a discussion regarding the relative merits of Hebrew and Greek women.

"I'll fetch you Mr. Wycherly's 'Euripides,'" Montagu cried eagerly, "and read it to you in English as he used to read it to me. I really think, Aunt Esperance, if you'll only listen carefully you'll like it almost as well as the Bible!"

And Montagu fled from the room before his aunt's horrified expostulations reached him.

Then began a series of readings from Euripides, followed by arguments between Miss Esperance and Montagu which would have convulsed Mr. Wycherly had he been there to hear them.

Their extreme earnestness bridged over the gulf of years between them, and it must be confessed that Miss Esperance took the greatest delight in picking holes in the characters of some of Montagu's heroes.

It was quite useless for Montagu, in imitation of Mr. Wycherly's methods, to point out that such and such ideas were so deeply rooted in the national character as to be a part of it. Miss Esperance would only shake her pretty white head, exclaiming: "Na! na! my dear laddie--right is right, and wrong wrong, and that man Admetus was just no better than a coward: grumbling at his parents, forsooth, because they wouldn't die in his place; accepting his wife's sacrifice and then blaming those poor old people. Oh, I've no patience with him, a poor-spirited creature--no man he!"

In spite, however, of the shortcomings in the character of Admetus, the most human of the Greek dramatists certainly attracted Miss Esperance. She inquired in a detached and impersonal manner whether there was not a printed translation of "Ion" in the house, and looked distinctly disappointed when Montagu informed her that there was no such thing. She had perforce to leave the characters in no matter what impasse whenever Montagu stopped reading, as he would occasionally for very mischief, at the most exciting place, just for the pleasure of being asked to "go on a little longer, dear laddie, I shall not sleep if I don't know for certain whether that poor body Kreusa knew that fine young man Ion for her son or no'."

But directly afterward her conscience smote her, and she herself stopped Montagu; fearing that, entertaining as these plays undoubtedly were, they were apt perhaps to distract her mind from higher things; and she bade him take Euripides back to Mr. Wycherly's room, and bring her Jeremy Taylor instead. When Montagu would read "The Remedies Against Wandering Thoughts," "The Remedies of Temptations Proper to Sickness," or "General Exercises Preparatory to Death."

*CHAPTER XIX*

*THE FOND ADVENTURE*

But warily tent, when ye come to court me, And come na unless the back--yett be ajee. _Old Song._

Miss Esperance was decidedly better, and she had at last allowed Montagu to tell Mr. Wycherly of old Elsa's sudden death, and also of her own illness. The letter, according to her instructions, put it, that she had been "rather ailing," and this guarded statement produced a telegram from Mr. Wycherly announcing his return next day.

Therefore the little household was commanded to retire especially early, and by half-past eight that night every light in Remote, save that of the fires, was extinguished; and the whole family were, as Robina would have put it, "safely bedded."

Miss Esperance had that evening insisted that Montagu should return to the bedroom he shared with Edmund; declaring that she was perfectly capable of getting anything that she wanted for herself. No one guessed how terribly Miss Esperance missed old Elsa's ministrations at every turn, for the old woman, though frail and incapable of any hard work for some time past, was yet most jealous of all personal service to her mistress, and Robina had never been permitted to do anything that brought her into direct contact with that lady.

Robina, bustling, buxom, industrious, and far handsomer at three and twenty than she had been at seventeen, had for a long time now entirely managed the housework; but as a personal attendant she left much to be desired. When she brought her mistress a cup of excellent beef-tea, she invariably slopped it over into the saucer, often on to the tray-cloth. She was economically minded, too, as regards laundry work (most people are when they have to do it themselves), and looked upon stains as a very minor matter in setting out a tray. It was Montagu who noticed the intense disfavour with which Miss Esperance regarded such small untidinesses: how often the nourishing dishes prepared by Robina with the utmost care were sent away untasted because they were not daintily served; and he took the matter and the trays into his own hands, with the result that things were served even as Elsa had served them, and Miss Esperance drank her beef-tea without remark.

Not that she was unobservant; she noted everything that Montagu did for her; and even when she was at her weakest and worst, she was filled with a tender, admiring sort of amusement at the boy's deft, dainty ways of waiting upon her--ways undoubtedly acquired during his long and close association with Mr. Wycherly.

At first Robina exclaimed in horror at the enormous number of tray-cloths and dinner napkins discarded by Montagu if they had the smallest spot or stain; but Montagu pointed out that it was better to have mountains of washing than that his aunt should be starved; and the girl gave in gracefully, for she was very eager to fill Elsa's place as far as she possibly could.

There is no doubt that she thoroughly enjoyed her new dignity and independence, and she wrote to the still faithful Sandie that he might, if he was in the mind, look in and see her one evening--"the mistress had said she was perfectly willing, though still confined to her bed."

Sandie was now in partnership with a butcher on the other side of Edinburgh, ten long miles from Burnhead, and the bicycle was not within everybody's reach in those days. Still he managed every fortnight or so to get over to see Robina, for they were now formally betrothed, and their engagement was smiled upon by the authorities.

Sandie wanted to get married at once, but Robina had declared long before Elsa's death that she could not bring herself to leave Miss Esperance, and now she felt that such a course was quite out of the question. Besides, she was in no hurry to get married. That she could get married, and well married, whenever she liked was a matter for complacent reflection, but otherwise she was very contented with things as they were.

Sandie was hardly so satisfied. If not exactly an ardent lover, he had assuredly proved himself a very faithful one, and he ruled his life largely by the somewhat strict conceptions of Robina.

Montagu was very tired. He had had a hard fortnight, with many broken, anxious nights. The responsibility had lain heavily on his young, slender shoulders. He was supremely thankful that Mr. Wycherly would be home on the morrow. It was pleasant to lie once more in his big four-post bed instead of in the somewhat cramped and stuffy cupboard where he had spent his nights lately. He stretched himself luxuriously, and turned and turned that he might find the absolutely comfortable position in which to fall asleep. But somehow sleep would not come. Every smallest sound disturbed him. Whenever a little piece of cinder fell into the grate from the fire in his aunt's bedroom, he started up to listen, thinking she had moved and might want him. But all was perfectly quiet.

Edmund, who preserved his infantile capacity for falling asleep directly he lay down, slumbered peacefully in the little bed beside the big one. Miss Esperance slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of old age and exhaustion. Mause, old now and very deaf, slept soundly in her kennel outside the little house, and Robina already slept the healthy sleep of hard-working youth. Only the little boy in the big bed with carved oaken posts and brocade canopy lay wide-eyed and wakeful with that dreadful, useless wakefulness that comes sometimes to the overtired. There was no moon to shine companionably through the blind, the room was in absolute, black darkness, and when Montagu had been in bed about half an hour it seemed to him that it must be the middle of the night. The casement window was wide open, but the night was so still that the blind never stirred. Again and again he sat up to listen for some sound from his aunt's room; it would have been a relief had she wanted him, but there was no sound of any kind.

Still he could not sleep, and at last his listening was rewarded, for he heard a step outside--a stealthy step that paused hesitating, then crept fumblingly forward.

There was no doubt whatever that it was a step; and Montagu, convinced that it must at least be midnight, immediately jumped to the conclusion that whoever was there could be there for no lawful purpose.

If it was a burglar, he must be got away without noise. That was Montagu's first thought. On no account must Miss Esperance be wakened or alarmed.

He flew out of bed, and, squeezing in behind the dressing-table, leant out of the window. Soft, impenetrable, wet darkness met him and enveloped him. A fine rain was falling, and he could see nothing, but he distinctly heard the hesitating footsteps turn and go round the house toward the front.

Softly, on naked feet, he made his way to Edmund's side and shook him. But Edmund was difficult to wake, for Montagu did not dare to speak above a whisper, and it was not until he had reiterated several times: "There's someone creeping round the house; it's a thief, probably," in the eeriest of stage whispers, that Edmund was roused.

When he did grasp the situation, however, he arose instantly, exclaiming in a joyful whisper, "Come on, and let's bash his head for him; then he can make no noise, nor break in neither."

"That's all very well," said the more cautious Montagu, whose teeth were chattering, partly from cold and partly from fear for his aunt. "We've got to catch him first. Let's come to Guardie's room and see if we can get a glimpse of the fellow from the window. The night's as black as pitch though."

Very quietly Montagu lit a candle, and the two little boys sped across the landing to Mr. Wycherly's room.

"Close the door behind you and that'll stifle his groans," the valiant Edmund whispered as they reached their goal. "I just wish we had the villain here."

"I don't," Montagu responded gloomily, "he might jump about and make no end of a row before we got him under."

They had no sort of doubt as to their ultimate triumph over the nefarious designs of this prowling stranger, but they were, unfortunately, handicapped by the necessity for extreme quietude.

"I expect it's the parlour he'll be wanting to break into," Edmund suggested. "All those silver cups and things on the sideboard, you know. The basket with the forks and spoons is in aunt's room. We must take care he doesn't go there. Don't let him see a light!" and Edmund promptly blew out the candle that Montagu held.

Together they softly opened the window and leant out. Neither could, of course, see anything, nor at the moment was anything to be heard.