"How did you guess that? I tried to think about other things, you know, but--"
"Luckily you chose to be natural instead. Well, I hope you"ll be elected, when the time comes."
The two beguiled their walk in talk which, if not exactly what might have been expected of mourners, at least served to restore the boy"s highly-strung mind to its proper tone, and to make the aspect of things in general brighter for him than it had been when he started so dismally from the graveyard.
"Now," said he, with a sigh, as they entered the house, "now comes the awful business of reading the will. Pottinger is sure to make an occasion of it. It would be worth your while to be present to hear him perform."
"Thanks!" said the tutor; "I"ll look to you for a full account of the ceremony by and by. I"ll accompany it to slow music upstairs."
But as it happened, Mr Armstrong was not permitted to escape, as he had fondly hoped, to his piano. Raffles followed him presently to his room and said--
"Please, sir, Mr Pottinger sends his compliments, and will be glad if you will step down to the library, sir."
Mr Armstrong scowled.
"What does he want?" he muttered.
"He wants a gentleman or two to say "ear, "ear, I fancy," said the page, with a grin.
Mr Armstrong gave a melancholy glance at his piano, and screwed his gla.s.s in his eye aggressively.
"All right, Raffles; you can go."
"What does the old idiot want with me, I wonder," said he to himself, "unless it"s to give me a month"s notice, and tell me I may clear out?
Heigho! I hope not."
With which pleasant misgivings, he strolled down-stairs.
In the library was a.s.sembled a small but select audience to do Mr Pottinger, the Yeld attorney, honour. The widow was there, looking pale but charming in her deep mourning and tasteful cap. Roger was there, restless, impatient, and a little angry at all the fuss. Dr Brandram and the Rector were there, resigned, as men who had been through ceremonies of the kind before. And a deputation of dead-servants sat on chairs near the door, gratified to be included in the party, and mentally going over their services to the testator, and appraising them in antic.i.p.ation.
"We were waiting for you, Mr Armstrong," said the attorney severely, as the tutor entered.
Mr Armstrong looked not at all well pleased to be thus accosted, and walked to a seat in the bay-window behind Mr Pottinger.
The man of the law put on his gla.s.ses, took a sip of water from a tumbler he had had brought in, blew his nose, and glancing round on his audience with all the enjoyment of a man who feels himself master of the situation, began to make a little speech.
There was first a little condescending preamble concerning the virtues of the deceased, which every one but Roger listened to respectfully.
The son felt it as much as he could put up with to sit still and hear it, and began to fidget ominously, and greatly to the disturbance of the speaker. When Mr Pottinger, after a few reproachful pauses, left this topic and began to discourse on his own relations with the late Squire, it was the turn of Dr Brandram to become restless.
"This is not the occasion for dwelling on the gratification I received from--"
Here the doctor deliberately rose and walked across the room for a footstool, which, as deliberately, he walked back with and laid at the feet of Mrs Ingleton. "Beg pardon--go on," said he, meeting the astonished eye of the attorney.
"The gratification I received from the kind expressions--"
Here a large coal inconsiderately fell out of the fire with a loud clamour. Raffles, with considerable commotion, came from his seat and proceeded to restore it to its lost estate.
Mr Pottinger took his gla.s.ses from his nose and regarded the performance with such abject distress, that Roger, catching sight of his face, involuntarily smiled. "Really," exclaimed the now thoroughly offended friend of the family, "really, my boy, on an occasion such as this--"
Here the Rector, to every one"s relief, came gallantly to the rescue.
"This is very tedious, Mr Pottinger," said he. "The friends here, I am sure, will prefer that you should omit all these useless preliminaries, and come to the business at once. Let me read the doc.u.ment for you; my eyes are younger than yours."
At this terrific act of insubordination, and the almost blasphemous suggestion which capped it, the lawyer fell back in his chair and broke out into a profuse perspiration, gazing at the Rector as he would at some suddenly intruding wild animal. Then, with a gasp, taking in the peril of the whole situation, he hastily took up the will and plunged into it.
It was a long, tedious doc.u.ment, hard to understand; and when it was ended, no one exactly grasped its purport.
Then came the moment of Mr Pottinger"s revenge. The party was at his mercy after all.
"What does it all amount to?" said the doctor, interpreting the perplexed looks of the company.
"I had better perhaps explain it in simple words," said the attorney condescendingly, "if you will give me your attention."
You might have heard a pin drop now.
"Briefly, the provisions of our dear friend"s will are these. Proper provision is made for the support in comfort of the widow during her life. Legacies are also left, as you have heard, to certain friends, servants, and charities. The whole of the remaining property, which it is my impression will be found to be very considerable, is left in trust for the testator"s only son, Roger, our young friend here, who is to receive it absolutely on reaching the age of twenty-one. The conditions of the trust are a trifle peculiar. There are three trustees, who are also guardians of the heir. The first is Mrs Ingleton, the widow; the second is Edward Oliphant, Esquire, of Her Majesty"s Indian Army, second cousin, I understand, of Mrs Ingleton, and, in the event (which I trust is not likely) of the death of our young friend here, heir-presumptive to the property. His trusteeship is dependent on his coming to this country and a.s.suming the duties of guardian to the heir, and provision is made accordingly. The third trustee and guardian is Mr Frank Armstrong, who is ent.i.tled to act so long as he holds his present post of tutor to the heir, which post he will retain only during Mrs Ingleton"s pleasure. It is also provided that, in the event of any difference of opinion among the trustees, Mrs Ingleton (as is most proper) shall be permitted to decide; and lastly--a curious eccentricity on our dear friend"s part, which was perhaps hardly necessary to insert--in the event of Roger Ingleton, previous to his attaining his majority, becoming a felon, a lunatic, or marrying, he is to be regarded as dead, and the property thereby pa.s.ses to the next heir, Captain Oliphant. I think we may congratulate ourselves on what is really a very simple will, and which, provided the trustees named consent to act, presents very little difficulty. I have telegraphed already to Captain Oliphant. Mr Armstrong, will you do me the favour, at your convenience, of intimating to me your consent or otherwise?"
Mr Armstrong made no response. It was indeed doubtful whether he had heard the question. For at that precise moment, gazing about him in bewilderment at the unexpected responsibility thus thrown upon him, his eyes became suddenly riveted by a picture. It was a portrait, partly concealed behind the curtain of the window in which he sat, but unveiled sufficiently to disclose the face of a fair-haired boy, younger by some years than Roger, with clear blue eyes and strong compressed mouth, somewhat sullen in temper, but with an air of recklessness and determination which, even in the portrait, fascinated the beholder. Mr Armstrong, although he had frequently been in his late employer"s study, had never noticed this picture before. Now, as he caught sight of it and suddenly met the flash of those wild bright eyes, he experienced something like a shock. He could not help recalling Dr Brandram"s sad story the other day. Something seemed mysteriously to connect this portrait and the story together in his mind. Strange that at such a moment, when the fate of the younger son was being decided, his guardian should thus come suddenly face to face with the elder!
Mr Armstrong was not a superst.i.tious man, but he felt decidedly glad when a general break up of the party allowed him to get out of range of these not altogether friendly eyes, and escape to the seclusion of his own room.
CHAPTER THREE.
A MISSING INSCRIPTION.
A week later, Mr Pottinger, as he trotted into his office, found a letter and a telegram lying side by side on his desk.
He opened the telegram first and read--
"Bombay, January 17. Consent. Am starting, Oliphant."
"That"s all right," said the lawyer to himself. "We shall have one competent executor, at any rate."
He endorsed the telegram and proceeded to open the letter. It too was a very brief communication.
"Sir, I beg to say I accept the duties of trustee and guardian conferred on me by the will of the late Roger Ingleton, Esquire.
"Yours, etcetera,
"Frank Armstrong."
"Humph!" growled the attorney. "I was afraid so. Well, well, it"s not my affair. The Squire knew my opinion, so my conscience is clear. An adventurer, nothing less--a dangerous man. Don"t like him! Well, well!"
To do Mr Pottinger justice, this opinion of his was of no recent date.
Indeed, it was of as long standing as the tutor"s first arrival at Maxfield, eighteen months ago. It was one of the few matters on which he and his late client had differed.
Calmly indifferent as to the effect of his communication on the lawyer, Mr Armstrong was at that moment having an audience with his co-trustee and mistress, Mrs Ingleton.