"Your ladyship's pious hope was amply fulfilled," Mr. Woodhouse replied.
"Won't you tell us who she was?" Lady Alicia demanded in honeyed tones.
"Alas, dear Lady Alicia, that I must not do. She is dead—de mortuis nil nisi bonum, you know—may she rest in peace!"
Lady Alicia folded up her knitting. "In that case," she said somewhat abruptly, "we must not keep you out of your bed any longer, you have had a tiring day."
* * * * *
"Is he quite capable of managing his own affairs?" Mr. Wycherly's brothers eagerly asked Mr. Woodhouse on his return some three days later.
"Perfectly capable," answered that gentleman decidedly. "Indeed, he shows quite remarkable business capacity, considering how long it is since he has undertaken anything of the kind. It's a thousand pities he resigned his fellowship. I would not advise you to attempt any sort of interference with him—for, however reluctant I might be to give evidence as to the impropriety of such a course, I should be obliged in common honesty to do so. It was certainly Quixotic to resign his fellowship when he did, but it could not be brought up as a proof of mental incapacity at this time of day."
Mr. Wycherly's brothers did not fail to remind him at this juncture that, had he listened to them, he would still be enjoying the income of his fellowship. "No one," they had reiterated, "could take it from him while he lived. Once a fellow, always a fellow—a fellowship was a freehold, and what did it matter to the authorities in Oxford what he did north of the Tweed?"
But Mr. Wycherly had loved his college too dearly to bring shame upon her, and if he could not serve, neither would he accept wage. And now that he had every reason to wish that his income was larger, it was the one step in all the inglorious past that he did not regret.
Through the family solicitor he demanded an account of all monies belonging to himself: explaining with the utmost clearness that he intended to educate both Montagu and Edmund "as befitted their position in life," that he wished to adopt both of them, and that, with their aunt's consent, the elder of the two was to take his name, and inherit whatever he could leave him.