"It won't be much," he said to Mr. Woodhouse, when he was discussing ways and means with him, "for I intend Montagu to go to Winchester and New College, and of course Edmund, should he go into the navy, will need a considerable allowance for years to come. But whatever there is, that they are to have, and, above all, I beg you to make it perfectly clear to Miss Esperance that she need be under no apprehension as to their future."
For the sake of "Archie's boys" Mr. Wycherly even bethought him of old friends from whose kindly questioning eyes he would fain have hidden. Insensibly, too, he accustomed himself to dwell fondly upon the past, that pleasant past once so full of success, of dignity, and of the intellectual honours so dear to him; that happy time preceding those dark years of weakness and shame and mental degradation.
Thus he found himself telling Montagu all about William of Wykeham of pious memory: of the "Founder's Crozier" and the "Great West Window," and of the Warden's library at New College where they keep the Founder's Jewel. Day by day Montagu would revert to these entrancing topics till Oxford rivalled even Troy in his affections, and the knowledge that he himself was destined one day to go and live in this wonderful place gave an even greater zeal to his studies than before.
Moreover, pictures of this same Oxford were found in boxes stored away, and were brought forth and, at Montagu's request, hung up, till what with books and what with engravings there was hardly an inch of drab-coloured wall to be seen.
As to the matter of breakfast—Elsa was so piteous in her account of how that meal was neglected by Mr. Wycherly, and he proclaimed his loneliness in such moving terms, that Miss Esperance came to the conclusion that he was really far more in need of her supervision than the little boys, and it ended in their breakfasting together in his room at eight o'clock, and Mr. Wycherly, on the morning that initiated this new arrangement, was as nervous and excited as an undergraduate who expects "ladies to lunch" in his rooms for the first time.
CHAPTER VIII
EDMUND RECHRISTENS MR. WYCHERLY
"Time was," the golden head
Irrevocably said;
"But time which none can bind,
While flowing fast away, leaves love behind."
R.L.S.
"It is just a year to-day since the children came," said Miss Esperance, smiling across the table at Mr. Wycherly, as they sat together at breakfast in his room.
"In some ways," he replied thoughtfully, "it seems as though they must always have been here: it is impossible to conceive of life without them—now. In others, the time has gone so fast that it might be but yesterday they came."