Chapter III The Education of Mr. Wycherly
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
LONGFELLOW.
For several days Mr. Wycherly’s privacy was not again invaded before breakfast, though he heard through the wall continual and loudly expressed demands to visit “man” from his friend of the curly pate and strap shoes. One morning, however, Robina’s suspicions as to Edmund’s propensity for roving were lulled into security by particularly exemplary conduct on his part during the time of dressing; and she slipped downstairs to give a hand with the breakfast, leaving the children safety shut in their nursery.
No sooner had she departed than Montagu, of whom people expected better things, suggested that they should go and visit Mr. Wycherly next door. The morning hours had been so unusually quiet that that gentleman was still dozing, although Elsa had already brought his hot water. When he heard the now unmistakable fumbling with the door handle, which always proclaimed the advent of the children, he called out—“Come in, but for heaven’s sake mind the hot-water can.”
In they came without accident of any kind, as Elsa had taken the precaution of placing the can well on the hinge side of the door. Very fresh and spick and span did the two little boys look in clean, blue pinafores, and shining morning faces. Edmund made a dash for Mr. Wycherly, with his usual joyful cry of “Uppee! Uppee!” Montagu hastily banged the door after him to keep Robina out, and he, too, climbed up on Mr. Wycherly’s bed. The soft, indescribable fragrance of clean children was supremely pleasurable to Mr. Wycherly, and excited strange, unfamiliar stirrings of recollections, long buried but by no means dead, of his own nursery days in the old house in Shropshire where he and his brothers were brought up.
But there was no time to indulge in retrospect, for Edmund had already settled the programme. “Sing!” he commanded. “Sing, man!”
“I fear,” Mr. Wycherly said, somewhat breathlessly, for Edmund was sitting upon that portion of his body known in sporting circles as “the wind,” “that I cannot sing, for I don’t know any songs.”
“Say, zen, say, man,” Edmund cried, jumping up and down upon poor Mr. Wycherly’s yielding frame.
“He means you to say him a poem,” Montagu explained.
Now of poetry Mr. Wycherly knew plenty, both in Greek and Latin and English, but none of it seemed particularly suitable to the present circumstances. The only lines that came willingly to his call were—
Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste,
which he felt would meet with but scant approval from his present audience.
“Say ’ime, say ’ime, man!” cried Edmund, with an ominous droop of the corners of his mouth.
“Say ‘Hickory, dickory, dock,” Montagu suggested kindly, “he likes that—and you tickle him where it runs up, and where it runs down, and at the end, you know.”
“But I don’t know any poem called ‘Hickory, dickory, dock,” Mr. Wycherly protested despairingly.
“Say ’ime, man! Say dock!” Edmund persisted, punching Mr. Wycherly in the chest to emphasise his wishes. “Say dock. Quit.”
“I’ll whisper it to you,” murmured the helpful Montagu, “it goes like this—‘Hickory, dickory, dock.”
“Hickory, dickory, dock,” Mr. Wycherly repeated dutifully and distinctly.
“The mouse ran up the clock,” Montagu continued.
“The mouse ran up the clock——”
“But you didn’t tickle him,” Montagu interrupted.
Mr. Wycherly looked at Edmund, and Edmund looked with eager expectation at Mr. Wycherly.
Now to tickle any one appeared to Mr. Wycherly a most unwarrantable liberty. Such a mode of procedure had never entered into his scheme of life at all. He was not even sure how he ought to set about it. He decided that tickling was altogether out of his province, and he would not experiment, even upon Edmund.
He cleared his throat nervously. “Ahem,” said Mr. Wycherly, “Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock——”
“No! No!” shouted Edmund. “’E mouse ’an down.”
“The mouse ran down the clock,” echoed the obedient Mr. Wycherly.
“No, No,” cried both the little boys. “The clock struck one.” Here Edmund gave a most tremendous bounce that really hurt Mr. Wycherly.
“Ve mouse ’an down,” he continued, scrabbling with his fingers all over Mr. Wycherly’s face, and seizing him by the collar of his night shirt to burrow in his neck.
“Hickory, dickory, dock,” Montagu concluded in a joyful chant. “Now you know it, only you must run up and down, you know.”
“Oh, I really cannot do that,” Mr. Wycherly expostulated, “not before I am dressed.”
Montagu looked puzzled. “You ought to tickle us, you know, like Edmund did, and with your fingers; it’s quite easy, really.”
“Adain!” Edmund commanded, squirming and jumping all over the very softest portions of Mr. Wycherly’s person, and causing that patient gentleman acute agony. “Adain!”
“Let us all say it together,” Mr. Wycherly gasped, painfully drawing himself a little higher up in the bed, “and do you think you could sit a little more to one side, or a little further forward, or a little lower down, or anywhere except just where you are at present?”
“Edmund heavy boy,” that youth remarked proudly.
“He is,” Mr. Wycherly fervently agreed, “a very heavy boy—ah, that’s better now.”
“Hickory, dickory, dock” was now performed in chorus, and if one of the trio made any mistakes, his companions were making such a row that they did not detect him. At the conclusion of the verse the little boys gave Mr. Wycherly a practical demonstration as to what they meant by tickling.
It was only when the racket had somewhat subsided that they heard Robina’s timid voice outside the door bidding the children come at once to their breakfast.
“Det up, man,” Edmund directed, “and take me to ‘Obina.”
“You are perfectly able to trot across to the door,” said Mr. Wycherly, mildly remonstrant and much exhausted.
“Come in,” shouted Edmund, “come and fesh me.”
“No, don’t do anything of the kind,” cried Mr. Wycherly, horror-stricken; “he can quite well come to you.”
“I’ll surely no come in,” said Robina in a slightly offended voice. “They’re to come oot at once, the mistress is waitin’ breakfast.”
“Me tiahed,” Edmund announced, languidly lying down beside Mr. Wycherly. “Me tay heah.”
Robina knocked sharply. “Come at once,” she cried. “Please, sir, make them come, or the mistress will be rale vexed.”
“Go, Montagu,” said Mr. Wycherly firmly. “I suppose I must carry this—myself.”
Robina, outside, heard much gurgling and giggling on the part of Edmund, as Mr. Wycherly arose and hastily donned his dressing-gown. He carried the struggling baby across to the door, which he had to open widely in order to give his charge into his nurse’s arms. Montagu departed with his little brother, but not one moment sooner.
Mr. Wycherly shut and locked his door, only to remember that he had left his hot water outside. When he had secured it and again made the door fast, he sank upon his bed: “I must certainly lock my door overnight,” he reflected; “to be tickled is a truly dreadful experience.”
He dressed to the rhythm of “Hickory, dickory, dock,” and although the two things had no sort of connection he found himself thinking of the forget-me-nots on the banks of the Cherwell; they were exactly the colour of Baby Edmund’s eyes.
It had already become a matter of course that the children should spend half an hour in Mr. Wycherly’s study before they went to bed.
They were left in his charge while Robina got things ready for the night, and he strove to make the time pass pleasantly for them by every means in his power. Edmund’s requests were occasionally a little difficult to understand, as although his speech was fluent and his vocabulary singularly large for his age, he had a habit of omitting any consonant that was troublesome to pronounce. Both “l” and “r” were of this number. He did not attempt to provide a substitute but simply left the letter out, and nothing delighted old Elsa more than to hear him repeat after her—“’ound the ’ugged ’ock the ’adical ’ascals ’an.”
Mr. Wycherly did his best to correct this defect in Edmund’s speech, and on this particular evening was showing him a picture book of coloured animals.
“Poor little Edmund can’t say lion,” he said sadly, apropos of a picture of the king of beasts.
“He can say tigah,” that infant rejoined cheerfully; “no maw pitchers. Man, make a ’abbit,” and Edmund scrambled off Mr. Wycherly’s knee the better to behold the feat in question.
Mr. Wycherly shook his head hopelessly while Montagu shyly explained: “He means a rabbit out of a handkerchief, you know. Daddie always did it, and it ran up his arm and jumped so. Do make one!”
Mr. Wycherly almost groaned. He hadn’t the faintest notion how to make a rabbit, and felt that he had lived in vain. He proposed building a tower with some bricks that the children had brought with them, but Edmund would have none of such well-worn devices. He persisted in his demands for “a ’abbit,” growing more and more vociferous, till his wishes culminated in a roar that brought Robina to the rescue and to Mr. Wycherly’s door, whence she bore Edmund away, wailing dismally.
Mr. Wycherly, helpless and distressed, looked appealingly at Montagu, who only said rather reproachfully, “You might learn to make a rabbit, you know,” and followed Robina.
Almost unconsciously the student’s eyes sought the book-shelves where generally was to be found any information that he wanted; but among the familiar calf-bound backs there was not one that seemed to promise any information about the manufacture of rabbits, and for the first time Mr. Wycherly felt dissatisfied with a scholarship that seemed to ignore so many possible contingencies in a man’s life. Of what use was the utmost familiarity with Aristotle’s Politics if an indignant baby could put one so wholly out of countenance? For a few minutes he moved restlessly about the room, then he took his hat and went out.
He had a vaguely formulated plan in his head that he would knock at the door of every house in the village till he found somebody capable of instructing him in the art of making rabbits; for learn he would, even if he had to advertise in the “Scottish Press” for a teacher.
As he walked down the road leading to the village he met the minister, who immediately remarked that something or other was amiss. Whether Edmund had ruffled Mr. Wycherly’s hair and neck-cloth as well as his equanimity we are not told, but it is certain that the Reverend Peter Gloag thought him looking less “Oxfordish” than usual, and stopped him to ask kindly, “Nothing wrong up at the house I hope?”
“No, I thank you,” said Mr. Wycherly, stopping in his turn. “At least—I wonder now if you happen to know of any one who can make rabbits out of handkerchiefs?”
The minister stared at Mr. Wycherly as though for a moment he feared for his reason, then he looked as though he were about to laugh, when quite suddenly his face changed, and the eyes under his bushy eyebrows were wonderfully kind and gentle as he said, “You’ll hardly believe it, but I can do something in that sort myself. I used often to make them when the bairns were wee.”
“My dear friend,” Mr. Wycherly exclaimed delightedly, “can you really? But of course you can, you have children of your own. Why didn’t I think of you at the very first? Are you pressed for time at present? Could you return with me now, at once?”
For answer the minister turned and walked with Mr. Wycherly toward Remote, and not only did he teach him how to make the most lively and enchanting of rabbits, but he also instructed him how to originate one “Sandy,” who sat on the manipulator’s hand, whose arms were worked by his fingers, a creature of infinite jest and dexterity. Mr. Wycherly was not half so elated when he got the Newdigate as when he achieved this latter feat.
But Oh, dear me, Mr. Wycherly had a tremendous deal to learn! Every day was he confronted with new deficiencies in his education. The constant demand for songs was most embarrassing: even Miss Esperance seemed to fail the children here, for although she knew innumerable psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and endless and delightful Scottish ballads, yet her repertoire of purely nursery ditties was but small. It was heartrending to Mr. Wycherly, when, during their first days at Remote, Edmund would remark reproachfully anent his inability to sing some hitherto unheard-of nursery song, “Mamma singed it.” And the eyes of Miss Esperance would fill with tears at the thought of these two little ones bereft of their young parents, who seemed to have been so light-hearted, so ready to sing upon every possible occasion. No books of nursery rhymes had come with the children from Portsmouth. Perhaps they were forgotten in the hurry of their departure. Perhaps they did not exist: where was the need, with a girl-mother whose store of such ditties seemed inexhaustible? It did not occur either to Miss Esperance or Mr. Wycherly that such books could be purchased. It is true that the latter received many catalogues, but they mostly concerned learned works dealing with the more obscure of the Latin authors.
Miss Esperance possessed a whole shelf of little “Gilt-Books,” which had belonged to her mother and herself, and Mr. Wycherly feverishly rummaged among these to find some childish lore suitable for the little boys: with the result that he became exceedingly interested in the books from an antiquarian point of view, and forgot his original quest. They were most of them published by John Newbery, the philanthropic bookseller in Saint Paul’s Churchyard, who bought the MS. of the “Vicar of Wakefield” for sixty pounds and kept it two years before he published it. One find, however, he did make, a tiny two-inch “Cries of London, as they are Exhibited in the Streets, With an Epigram in verse adapted to Each, embellished with sixty-two elegant Cuts.” Some of these epigrams found much favour with the children, as, “My old Soul, will you buy a Bowl?” “Who Buys my Pig and Plumb Sauce,” or—
Who liveth so merry in all this land,
As doth the poor Widow that selleth the Sand?
And ever she singeth, as I can guess,
“Will you buy any Sand, any Sand, Mistress?”
He also discovered among the verses of that most genial and child-like of poets, Robert Herrick, many rhymes that delighted the children, a special favourite being the old watch rhyme—
From noise of scare fires rest ye free,
From murders, Benedicite.
From all mischances that may fright
Your pleasing slumbers in the night,
Mercy secure ye all and keep
The Goblin from ye while ye sleep.
Past one o’clock and almost two,
My masters all, Good day to you.
Mr. Wycherly was a little put to it to explain the “Goblin,” as he would not for the world have told the children anything that might frighten them. He passed it over lightly as “a bad dream,” and when Montagu further demanded what that was, Mr. Wycherly felt inexpressibly comforted at the child’s ignorance; he had dreamed so many evil dreams himself.
Summer had passed, the late September days were drawing in, but it was still almost hot, as it often is in autumn in the north. Even Mr. Wycherly, who was always cold, admitted that the weather had remained agreeably mild. And when Lady Alicia came, and partly by means of bluster and partly by reason of prolonged petitioning, succeeded in carrying off Miss Esperance to dine at the Big House, Mr. Wycherly seconded her efforts nobly. She had asked Mr. Wycherly, too, but he never went anywhere, and on this occasion he had pointed out that his presence made it perfectly safe for Miss Esperance to leave the children. He would sit with his door open, so that he would hear the faintest sound in the children’s room, he would go and see them last thing—“and hear them their prayers,” Miss Esperance anxiously interpolated—he would do everything that Miss Esperance usually did.
“Now there’s nothing whatever can happen to those children,” said Lady Alicia, as they drove away. “They’re both looking as brown and bonny as they can well look, and once they’re in their beds, they’ll just sleep the round of the clock. As for you, my dear, you’ve hardly been out of the house since they came, and it’s very bad for you.”
As a rule the children did sleep the round of the clock, but on this particular evening, although they went to sleep directly they were “bedded,” as Robina put it, and she had gone home for the night, while Elsa had retired to the back door for a gossip with the minister’s maid, Edmund took it into his head to wake up.
Mr. Wycherly was sitting in his arm-chair reading “Marius the Epicurean.” It was one of his many imperfections, in the eyes of the inhabitants of Burnhead, that he was known to revel in the works of “yon man, Pater.” The very name seemed redolent of papistry, even if the man himself did not happen to be a papist, and it was known that the Reverend Peter Gloag did not approve of his writings. In an English village nobody would have concerned himself as to what anybody read—the amount of reading done at all being quite a negligible quantity—but in a Scottish village, where the cobbler probably reads the “Saturday Review” and the works of Carlyle are as household words, people regard the reading of their neighbours.
The light from the lamp fell full on Mr. Wycherly’s white hair and regular, scholarly profile; and the figure in the chair made a pleasant picture of erudite repose. There was something clear-cut and delicately finished about everything connected with Mr. Wycherly’s appearance. One long, slim hand with exquisitely tended nails held his book; the other kept up a noiseless rhythmic beat upon the arm of his chair.
Suddenly he heard a little sound, an indescribable small sound as of some soft body moving. He laid down his book and leant forward to listen. Again he heard it, and with it a request for “‘Obina.” It was not a cry; it was rather a curious, tentative flinging of the word into space to see what would happen.
The children’s door was closed but not fastened, Mr. Wycherly’s was wide open, and he immediately hurried across the landing to the children’s room. The light from his lamp exactly opposite to their door, shone in as he pushed it open, showing a fair, curly head and a pair of bright eyes appearing above the side of the cot. Montagu was still fast asleep.
“Lie down, my child,” Mr. Wycherly whispered, “it is night time, you must go to sleep again.”
“No,” said Edmund firmly but kindly, “you must take me.”
Mr. Wycherly looked at the wide-awake mutinous person in the cot, then he looked at the peacefully sleeping Montagu in the big four-post bed. To engage in argument with Edmund meant the inevitable waking of his brother. For there would be tears; perhaps loud outcries which would bring Elsa, scornful and capable, to his assistance.
It is to be feared that in some respects Mr. Wycherly was a weak man. He would do anything to avoid a disturbance, almost anything to avoid an argument. Small wonder, then, that he was despised in Burnhead, where argument flourished as the green bay tree and was the chief object of social intercourse.
He wrapped Edmund in his quilt, carried him across to the study, and sat down in his big chair with the deliciously warm, naughty bundle on his knee. Edmund blinked at the bright light, wriggled his arms out of the enwrapping counterpane, and remarked “Bikky” in a tone whose subtly seductive combination of command and supplication Mr. Wycherly never could resist. The children had not been three months in the house without teaching him to keep a store of biscuits in his cupboard. When Edmund was duly supplied, he leant his head luxuriously against Mr. Wycherly’s shoulder, saying sleepily, “Say, deah man—say anysing.”
This was gracious of Edmund, and Mr. Wycherly had already discovered that when the baby was sleepy he did not cavil even at Latin verse. Mr. Wycherly had a singularly musical voice; and as he “said,” the biscuit dropped from Edmund’s hand and his head lay heavy on the kind shoulder that supported it. As the reciter reached the lines: “Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem,” he discovered, to his joy, that Edmund was asleep. Softly he repeated the musical last two lines again, smiling down at the little figure in his arms. But it was not of Lalage that Mr. Wycherly was thinking.
He succeeded in putting Edmund into bed without waking him, and just as he had got back to his study he heard Miss Esperance come in.
Softly he closed the door so that it only stood open a little way, and seated himself once more in his favourite chair. If all was quiet it was quite unlikely Miss Esperance would come to speak to him that night. She would go straight to her little bedroom next that of the children. He heard her door shut. Mr. Wycherly rubbed his hands together quite gleefully. “I really am learning how to manage those children,” he said.