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قراءة كتاب Roger Ingleton, Minor
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
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 assuming the duties of guardian to the heir, and provision is made accordingly. The third trustee and guardian is Mr Frank Armstrong, who is entitled 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 passes 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 superstitious 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.
“Mr Armstrong,” said she, “I hope for all our sakes you see your way to accept the duties my dear husband requested of you.”
“I have written to Mr Pottinger to notify my consent.”
“I am so glad. I shall have to depend on you for so much. It will be so good for Roger to have you with him. His father was always anxious about him—most anxious. You know, Mr Armstrong,” added she, “if there is any—any question as to salary, or anything I can do to make your position here comfortable, you must tell me. For Roger’s sake I am anxious you should be happy here.”
“Thank you, madam. I am most comfortable,” said Mr Armstrong, looking anything but what he described himself. He had a detestation of business interviews, and wished profoundly he was out of this.
“I am sure you will like Captain Oliphant,” said the widow. “I have not seen him for many years—indeed, since shortly after Roger was born; but we have heard from him constantly, and Mr Ingleton had a high opinion of him. He is a very distant cousin of mine, you know.”
“So I understand.”
“Poor fellow! his wife died quite young. His three children will be quite grown up now, poor things. Well, thank you very much, Mr Armstrong. I hope we shall always be good friends for dear Roger’s sake. Good-bye.”
Roger, as may be imagined, had not waited a whole week before ascertaining his tutor’s intentions.
He had been a good deal staggered at first by his father’s will, with its curious provisions; but, amongst a great deal that was perplexing and disappointing in it, he derived no little comfort from the fact that Mr Armstrong was to be one of his legal protectors.
“I don’t see, you know,” said he, as he lounged against his tutor’s mantelpiece one evening. “I don’t see why a fellow of nineteen can’t be trusted to behave himself without being tied up in this way. It’s my impression I know as well how to behave now as I am likely to do when I am twenty-one.”
“That is a reflection in advance on my dealings with you during the next two years,” said the tutor with a grin, as he swung himself half round on the piano-stool so as to get his hand within reach of the keys.
“I don’t mind you,” said the boy, “but I hope this Cousin Edward, or whoever he is, won’t try to ‘deal’ with me too.”
“I am informed he is virtue and amiability itself,” said the tutor.
“If he is, all serene. I’ll take my walks abroad with one little hand in yours, and the other in his, like a good boy. If he’s not, there’ll be a row, Armstrong. In anticipation of which I feel in the humour for a turn at the foils.”
So they adjourned into the big empty room dedicated to the manly sports of the man and his boy, and there for half an hour a mortal combat raged, at the end of which Roger pulled off his mask and said, panting—
“Where did you learn foils, Armstrong? For a year I’ve been trying to run you through the body, and I’ve never even yet scratched your arm.”
“I fenced a good deal at Oxford.”
“Ah! I wonder if I shall ever go to Oxford? This will cuts me out of that nicely.”
“Not at all. How?”
“Well, you can’t be my tutor here while I’m an undergraduate there, can you? I’d sooner give up Oxford than you, Armstrong.”
“Kind of you—wrong of you too, perhaps. But at twenty-one you’ll be your own master.”
“I may not be in the humour then. Besides, I shall have my hands