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."