Twilight and evening bell And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell— When I embark. LORD TENNYSON.
When Montagu first went to Winchester he was something of a puzzle both to masters and boys, although his housemaster, an old pupil of Mr. Wycherly, knew enough of the boy's curious upbringing to explain matters somewhat to his colleagues:
"He knows far more classics than the average sixth-form boy, and practically nothing else. Of the world he knows about as much as a child of three, and of games and other boys, less than any old maid in the kingdom—a most difficult boy to place. It's a very risky experiment."
And Montagu's housemaster shook his head, for he felt worried about the child.
Contrary to every one's expectation, however, he got on wonderfully well with his school-fellows. Boys are tolerant enough of "queerness" if it is unaccompanied by surliness or "side." If Montagu was "green" he was also singularly obliging and good-natured. A readiness to render a good turn is a passport to favour all the world over, and when his housemaster declared Montagu to know less of other boys than any old maid in the kingdom he made a mistake. Montagu had lived a good many years with Edmund, and healthy boyhood is very much the same all the world over.
He was always ready to give a construe or a copy of verses and it never ceased to fill him with wonder that the boys in his own form, so much bigger and wiser and self-assertive than he, apparently found such difficulty in applying rules he could not remember to have learnt.
His accurate and old-fashioned way of expressing himself in ordinary conversation was looked upon by the boys as an especially subtle form of "rotting" or witticism; and it was quite a long time before Montagu understood how it was that his simplest remarks, offered in all good faith, were greeted with appreciative grins by his companions, who generally took it that he was parodying one of the masters. Week by week he committed fewer solecisms, and except that he seldom got into trouble over his work, which he thoroughly enjoyed, his school life was very like that of the rest and entirely happy.
The same term that Montagu went to Winchester Edmund was sent to a preparatory school, also in England, and the little house at Burnhead seemed very quiet and deserted.
They had all missed the old servant, Elsa, unspeakably, at first: but youth is quick to accustom itself to new conditions, and Mr. Wycherly was roused to so many fresh interests and activities that he hardly realised what an important piece of the mechanism of Remote had stopped working. But Miss Esperance mourned silently and deeply for the faithful friend and servant who had ministered to her so tirelessly, and, though neither she nor Elsa knew it, ruled her so beneficently for fifty years.
After the departure of the boys, Miss Esperance grew more and more fragile till the time came when she was fain to follow Elsa, and fare forth into the unknown with the same dignified serenity that had characterised her every act during her long life of upright dealing and beautiful self-sacrifice.
The end came in the boys' second term at school.
"I am glad the boys have both entered upon their careers," she said to Mr. Wycherly, in her kind, weak voice, as he sat by her bed the night she died, "I shall tell Archie what dear, good lads they are—and that poor young mother I never saw. I can tell her how proud she would have been, how proud she may be—but perhaps she knows," and Miss Esperance gave a little sigh as though she would have liked to be the first to bear this pleasing intelligence. Then putting the thought from her as savouring of selfishness, she continued, "I'm sure she knows, but she'll be glad to hear it again: just as I am, when people praise them to me, who know so well how dear they are."
Mr. Wycherly could not speak, but his hand tightened on the weak little hand he held. "I would like to have seen Montagu again," she said wistfully. "He is such a kind boy. But it is so far and he has only just gone back, and my bonnie wee Edmund, too. It is better as it is. I have you—and what is far more important, they have you.... I have indeed been wonderfully blest. I used to look forward with such dread to a lonely death-bed with no kind hand to hold mine at the last, but the Lord has been very merciful. His merciful kindness is great toward us...."
The faint, whispering voice died away into silence. The fluttering in the frail small hand was stilled. And Mr. Wycherly was left alone, for Miss Esperance had gone on.
A month later Mr. Wycherly went back to Oxford. Miss Esperance left all she was possessed of to him, in trust for the boys, with the exception of a hundred pounds to Robina; and to Montagu, her lace, her jewels—such humble, old-fashioned trinkets they were—and her miniatures, "in memory of his great kindness to me when I was ill."
Mr. Wycherly took a tall, old house in Holywell Street, close to his college, and there the boys always came to spend their holidays. The quaint three, so strangely linked together by fate and affection, aroused benevolent curiosity and interest in the minds of friendly dons and their families. In fact, the curious household was largely managed by outsiders when the boys were at home. But they loved each other greatly and it is that alone "which maketh light all that is burthensome and equally bears all that is unequal. For it carrieth a burthen without being burthened and maketh all that which is bitter sweet and savoury."