Miss Esperance and Mr Wycherly

by L. Allen Harker

"Will you talk to me then, like you generally do, and tell me things? Shall we go on about Jason? I do love stories where people do things."

Mr. Wycherly stood still in the middle of the road, and looked down into the little eager face uplifted to his. "You are right, Montagu," he said very gravely; "it is of little use to think things if you don't do them." And then it seemed as though Mr. Wycherly gave himself a mental shake, for he devoted his whole attention to Montagu for the rest of their walk.

Mr. Wycherly's early dinner was served in his own room, but he always supped downstairs with Miss Esperance at seven o'clock. He was the most unpunctual of mortals, and when he first came, infuriated Elsa by sometimes forgetting to eat any lunch at all. But when he discovered that these lapses really distressed Miss Esperance, he schooled himself to keep as nearly as possible to the appointed hours. He was never late for supper, for that would have been discourteous to Miss Esperance, and he was incapable of discourtesy; but he did allow himself a certain amount of laxity with regard to lunch. As for breakfast—ever since the coming of the children he had been a model of punctuality, for they woke him up so uncommonly early.

When he entered his room after the walk with Montagu, he found his lunch all ready set on the round table in the middle of the room. This table was sacred to meals, and he was not permitted to pile it with books and papers. Hence, he was wont to regard its oaken emptiness between whiles with a wistful envy. It was so much good space wasted. His lunch was always very nicely laid, and to-day there was cold beef, thin dainty slices adorned with parsley by Elsa's careful hand, and beside the beef stood a covered vegetable dish. Mr. Wycherly sat down at the table, poured out a glass of ale from the little Toby jug set at his right hand and mechanically lifted the cover of the dish. Potatoes were in that dish, and at the sight of them he rose hastily from the table. He went over to his big, knee-hole desk, and sitting down in front of it said aloud: "And all these years she has been digging potatoes for me!"

Like a tired schoolboy he leaned forward, his arms upon his desk, laid his head down on them, and the room was very still.

When Elsa went in to take away the dishes, he had gone out: but his lunch was untouched. She shook her head ominously, and went and turned down his bed, though it was only early afternoon.

Mr. Wycherly walked and walked till he was quite worn out. He got back to the house about four o'clock, crawled up to his room, and sank quite exhausted into his big chair by the window. All afternoon Elsa had been watching for him, and three minutes after his return she followed him upstairs bearing a little tray on which were set a cup of tea and a plate of most tempting-looking scones. She didn't even knock at his door, but went straight in, pushed the round table up to his elbow and laid the little tray upon it. She took up her stand at the window with her back to Mr. Wycherly, remarking fiercely: "From this place I'll not stir till you've taken that tea."

She did not even add the usual tardy "sir," and Mr. Wycherly was so startled that he never noticed the omission. He drank the tea, and ate two scones, and all the time Elsa stood with her back to him looking out of the window.

Presently he touched her on the arm. "I am very much obliged to you, Elsa," he said. "I think I must have forgotten to eat as much lunch as usual, I was so extremely tired, but I feel much refreshed now."

Elsa grunted something quite inaudible, took the tray off the table, and, still with averted head, stumped out of the room.