What she saw was a handsome, white-haired old gentleman seated at a table with his back to the light. Ranged on either side of him were two boys who regarded her with looks of dark suspicion, and on the faces of all three dismay and consternation were writ large, while Edmund's face was both tear-stained and exceedingly dirty.
Mr. Wycherly rose hastily as she came in.
Pretty Mrs. Methuen, wife of one of the youngest dons in Oxford, was quite unused to manifestations other than those of pleasure at her approach, and she stopped abruptly just inside the door to remark rather incoherently:
"Perhaps it is too soon; it may be inconvenient, but my husband asked me to call directly you arrived to see if I could be of any use.... He is still fishing in Hampshire, and as I passed I saw that you were here."
Mr. Wycherly let go of the table, which he had seized nervously, and advanced to shake her outstretched hand. Montagu pulled out a chair for her.
"Pray be seated," said Mr. Wycherly. "It is most kind of you to call.... These are my wards."
The lady took the proffered chair and shook hands with the boys, who still looked dubious, although Edmund was distinctly attracted.
On Mr. Wycherly's gentle, scholarly face bewilderment struggled to break through the mask of polite interest through which he regarded his visitor.
"You've only just come, haven't you?" she asked.
"We've been living in the house for three days, but we are far from being properly established; our servant has not arrived yet...."
"And we keep on finding out things we haven't got," Edmund interpolated.
"We hope to be a little more settled before term begins," Mr. Wycherly continued, ignoring Edmund.
"Have you been able to get everything you want?" asked the lady. "Should you need any information about the best shops ... or the people who do things ..."
"Ask about blinds!" whispered the irrepressible Edmund.
"You are most kind," Mr. Wycherly began, again ignoring his younger ward, "but..."
"Mr. Wycherly," the lady said suddenly, "I don't believe you have a ghost of an idea who I am. Did the woman not announce me? My husband is Westall Methuen, son of your old friend, and my father-in-law wrote saying that I was to be sure and call directly you arrived in case I could be of any use."
"I am ashamed to say," replied Mr. Wycherly, in tones full of courteous apology, "that if Mrs. Griffin did announce your name I did not catch it. I assure you..."
"She never said any name, just 'a lady,'" Edmund again interrupted, "and we thought you must be her."
"Were you expecting somebody dreadful that you all looked so horrified when I walked in?" asked Mrs. Methuen with laughter in her eyes as she turned to Edmund as being plainly the most communicative of the party.
"Well, we thought it very likely you had come to complain," Edmund continued, "and that is always rather beastly."
Mrs. Methuen did not possess six brothers without a familiarity with such possibilities. She did not press for an explanation, but tactfully changed the subject. Nor had she been in the room five minutes before she discovered that man and boys were all equally incapable of starting to housekeep, and that everything was in a desperately uncomfortable state. She herself had been at a "Hall." She knew Mrs. Griffin's type, and the very tea-table told its own dismal tale. She was young, kind-hearted, and energetic; nor had she been in Oxford long enough to achieve the indifference to the affairs of outsiders that is said to characterise the inhabitants of that city. So she promptly asked them all three to lunch on the morrow, nor would she take any denial; and she further suggested that the boys should walk back with her there and then so that they would know where to come.
The boys were charmed, and the three set off down the street, while Mr. Wycherly watched them from the front door till they turned the corner into Mansfield Road. He went up to his study unaccountably cheered and comforted.
"After all," he reflected, "I might ask that most charming young lady for advice if we fall into any serious dilemma. She looks so extremely alert and capable. Nevertheless, we must try to manage our own affairs without plaguing kind friends to assist us."
He forgot all about the curtainless windows, and set himself to unpack the large case marked "Earlier Latin Authors" that stood by itself nearest the door.
Mrs. Methuen took Edmund by the arm, asking confidentially: "Now what mischief had you been up to when I came in? What did you expect the people to complain about? Don't tell me if you'd rather not, but I know a good deal about boys, and I might be able to help."
"It wasn't us," Edmund answered quite seriously. "It was Guardie. He was afraid of them grumbling. Our one had complained already."
"Mr. Wycherly!" Mrs. Methuen repeated in astonishment. "Oh, nonsense! I'm perfectly sure he would never do anything anyone could complain of."
"Not willingly," said Montagu, who began to think it was time he took a small part in the conversation, "but, you see, people in this town seem rather huffy about curtains and blinds and things, and we've always lived in the country, where no one could see in, so we never thought of it. We were so proud of having the electric light too, but now it seems we'd have been better with just candles, for then, perhaps, Miss Selina Brooks wouldn't have written to complain. We'd best go to bed in the dark to-night."
"But do you mean to tell me someone wrote to complain that they could see you?"
"Yes, she did," cried Edmund. "'Paforming our ablutions' and 'it was very depressing,' and Guardie thinks the lady in the house opposite him will be writing next—you see, there's two houses opposite us; we're kind of between them, and one can see right into our room and the other right into his; but his bed's in a deep recess, so perhaps he wasn't quite so depressing."
Mrs. Methuen stood still in the middle of the road, seemingly not quite sure whether to laugh or to cry. Finally she laughed, but her voice was not very steady as she said: "Oh, poor dear Mr. Wycherly; how dreadful!"
"Oh, do you think," cried Montagu, "that you could tell us where we could buy blinds or something now, to-night? Such things do worry him so, and then he blames himself and remembers Aunt Esperance is away, and it feels so sad somehow. You see she always did everything like that."
"But that's the very sort of thing I can help in," cried this kind and understanding young lady, and this time she took Montagu's arm, so that they all three were linked confidingly together. "Did you bring no curtains from Scotland?"
"I don't know what we brought. There's boxes and boxes not unpacked yet. Perhaps it will be better when the servant comes, but you never saw such a muddle as there is just now," groaned Montagu.
"But why isn't your servant there to help you? It seems to me that just now is the time when she could be of the very greatest use."
"She was coming," Edmund said gloomily, "but her miserable mother went and got ill, and now she won't come at all, and there's only Mrs. Griffin. Do you know Mrs. Griffin?"
"I do not," Mrs. Methuen replied decidedly, "and from what I saw of her when she let me in, I don't desire her further acquaintance. How did you get her?"
"It was the man in the blue cotton jacket; we asked him, and he gave us a lot of names, but we chose Mrs. Griffin 'cause she lived so near and we liked her name. We got her, not Guardie."
"That, I should think, is a comforting reflection for Mr. Wycherly," Mrs. Methuen murmured; "but here we are. Now I'll take you in to see my baby and meanwhile I'll find some curtains and come back with you, and we'll put them up with tapes; that'll do anyway until Monday. You'll be well shrouded from the public gaze and can depress nobody—what a curious way to put it though."
"It was 'distressing,' not 'depressing,'" Montagu explained.
"Well, she depressed