"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 full
of work here then. It's hard lines to have to kick my heels in idleness
for two years, while I've so many plans in my head for improving the
place, and to have to ask your leave to spend so much as a halfpenny."
"It is rather tragic. It strikes me, however, that Cousin Edward will
be the financial partner of our firm. I shall attend to the literary
part of the business."
"And poor mother has to umpire in all your squabbles. Upon my word, why
couldn't I have been treated like a man straight off, instead of being
washed and dressed and fed with a spoon and wheeled in a perambulator by
three respectable middle-aged persons, who all vote me a nuisance."
"In the first place, Roger Ingleton, I am not yet middle-aged. In the
second place, I do not vote you a nuisance. In the third place, if you
stand there much longer like that, with your coat off, you will catch
your death of cold, which would annoy me exceedingly."
This was one of many conversations which took place. It was difficult
to say whether Mr Armstrong took his new duties seriously or not. He
generally contrived to say something flippant about them when his pupil
tackled him on the subject, but at the same time he rarely failed to
give the boy a hint or two that somewhere hidden away behind the cool,
odd exterior of the man, there lurked a very warm corner for the
fatherless heir of Maxfield.
For the next week or two the days passed uneventfully. The manor-house
settled down to its old routine, minus the old man who had once been its
master. The villagers, having satisfied themselves that things were
likely to be pretty much the same for them under the new _regime_ as the
old, resumed their usual ways, and touched their caps regularly to the
young Squire. The trampled grass in Yeld churchyard lifted its head
again, and a new inscription was added to the family roll on the door of
the vault.
"Armstrong," said the heir one day, as he stood inspecting this last
memorial, "I have a good mind to have my brother's name put on here
too."
This was the first time the tutor had ever heard the boy mention his
brother. Indeed, he had, like Dr Brandram, doubted whether Roger so
much as knew that he had had a brother.
"What brother?" he inquired vaguely.
"Oh, he died long ago, before I was born. He was the son of father's
first wife, you know," pointing to the inscription of Ruth Ingleton's
name. "He is not buried here--he died abroad, I believe--but I think
his death should be recorded with the others. Don't you?"
"Certainly," said the tutor.
"I must try to find the exact date," said Roger as they walked away.
"My father would hardly ever talk about him; his death must have been a
knock-down blow to him, and I believe it broke his mother's heart.
Sometimes I wish he had lived. He was called Roger too. I dare say
Brandram or the Vicar can tell me about it."
Mr Armstrong was a good deal concerned at this unexpected curiosity on
the boy's part. He doubted whether it would not be better to tell him
the sad story at once, as he had heard it from the doctor. He disliked
secrets extremely, especially when he happened to be the custodian of
them; and painful as the discovery of this one might be to his ward, it
might be best that he should know it now, instead of hovering
indefinitely in profitless mystery.
It was, therefore, with some sense of relief that, half-way home, he
perceived Dr Brandram in the road ahead. The doctor was, in fact,
bound for Maxfield.
"By the way, doctor," said the tutor, determined to take the bull by the
horns, and glaring at his friend rather fiercely through his eye-glass,
"we were talking about you just now. Roger has been telling me about an
elder brother of his who died long ago and thinks some record of the
death should be made on the vault. I think so too."
"I was saying," said Roger, "my father never cared to talk about it; so,
except that he died abroad, and that his name was the same as mine, I
really don't know much about him. Did you know him?"
The doctor looked uncomfortable, and not altogether grateful to Mr
Armstrong for landing him in this dilemma.
"Don't you think," said he, ignoring the last question, "as the Squire
did not put up an inscription, it would be better to leave the tomb as
it is?"
"I don't see that," said the boy. "Of course I should say where he
really did die. Where was that, by the way?"
"I really did not hear. Abroad, I understood your father to say."
"Was he delicate, then, that he had to go away? How old was he,
doctor?"
"Upon my word, he was so seldom at home, and, when he was, I saw so
little of him, that my memory is very hazy about him altogether. He
can't have been more than a boy of fifteen or sixteen, I should say. By
the way, Roger, how does the new cob do?"
"Middling. He's rather lumpy to ride. I shall get mother to swop him
for a horse, if she can. I say, doctor, what was he like?"
"Who?--The cob? Oh, your brother! I fancy he was a fine young fellow,
but not particularly good-looking."
"At all like me?"
"Not at all, I should say. But really, as I say, I can recall very
little about him."
The doctor uttered this in a tone which conveyed so broad a hint that he
did not relish the subject, that Roger, decidedly mystified, desisted
from further inquiries.
"What on earth," said the former to Mr Armstrong, when at last they had
reached Maxfield and the boy had left them, "what on earth has put all
this into his head?"
"I cannot tell you. I rather hoped you would tell him all you knew; it
would come better from you. If I know anything of Roger, he will find
it out for himself, whether you like it or not."
"Nice thing to be a family doctor," growled Dr Brandram, "and have
charge of the family skeletons. Between you and me, Armstrong, I was
never quite satisfied about the story of the boy's death abroad. The
old man said he had had news of it, and that was all anybody, even the
poor mother, ever got out of him."
"Really, Brandram," said the tutor, "you are a most uncomfortable
person. I wish you would not make me a party to these mysteries. I
don't like them, they are upsetting."
"Well, well, old fellow," replied the doctor, "whatever it was once,
it's no mystery now; for the poor fellow has long ago made good his
right to an inscription on the tombstone. You need have no doubt of
that."
A letter with an Indian post-mark, which arrived that same evening,
served for the present, at least, to divert the thoughts of Roger as
well as of his tutor to other channels.
The letter was from Captain Oliphant addressed to Mrs Ingleton.
"My very dear cousin," it read, "need I say with what deep sympathy I
received the news of our dear Roger's sudden call? At this great
distance, blows of this kind fall with cruel heaviness, and I assure you
I felt crushed as I realised that I should no more grasp the hand of one
of the noblest men it has been my privilege to call by the name of
friend. If my loss is so great, what must _yours_ be? I dare not think
of it! I was truly touched by our dear one's thought of me in desiring
that I should join you in the care of his orphaned boy. I regard this
dying wish as a sacred trust put upon me, which gratitude and love alike
require that I should accept. Ere this letter reaches you, I shall
myself be nearing England. The provision our dear Roger has made has
emboldened me to resign my commission, so that I may devote my whole
time without distraction to my new charge. You know, dear cousin, the
special bond of sympathy that unites us; your boy has been robbed of a
parent; my children long since have had to mourn a mother. I cannot
leave them here. They accompany me to England, where perhaps for all of
us there awaits a community of comfort. I bespeak your motherly heart
for them, as I promise you a father's affection for your boy. I will
write no more at present. The `Oriana' is due in London, I believe,
about February 20, and we shall, I need hardly assure you, not linger
long before bringing in our own persons to Maxfield whatever sympathy
four loving hearts can carry amongst them.
"With love to the dear boy, believe me, dear cousin, your loving and
sympathising fellow-mourner,--
"Edward Oliphant."
Mrs Ingleton, highly gratified, handed the beautiful letter first to
her son, then to Mr Armstrong.
Roger was hardly as taken with it as his mother.
"Civil enough," said he, "and I dare say he means all he says; but I
don't warm to the prospect of being cherished by him. Besides, there is
something a trifle too neat in the way he invites his whole family to
Maxfield. What do you think, Armstrong?"
Mr Armstrong was perusing the letter with knitted brows and a curl of
his lips. He vouchsafed no reply until he had come to the end. Then he
shook the glass ominously out of his eye and said--
"I'll tell you that when I see him."
Roger knew his tutor well enough to see that he did not like the letter
at all, and he felt somewhat fortified in his own misgivings
accordingly.
"I wonder what mother will do with them all?" said the boy. "Surely we
aren't to have the place turned into a nursery for two years."
"I understand the young people are more than children," said the tutor.
"So much the worse," growled Roger.
On the morning before the "Oriana" was due, Mrs Ingleton suggested to
her son that it would be a polite thing if he were to go to town and
meet the travellers on their arrival. Roger, not particularly charmed
with the prospect, stipulated that Mr Arm strong should come with him,
and somewhat shocked his fond parent by expressing the hope that the
vessel might be a few days late, and so allow time for a little jaunt in
London before the arrival of his new guardian.
Mr Armstrong meekly acquiesced in the proposal, and scarcely less
exhilarated than his pupil, retired to pack for the journey.
Roger meanwhile occupied the interval before starting by writing a
letter in the study. Since his father's death he had taken quiet
possession of this room, one of the pleasantest in the house. A feeling
of reverence for the dead had prompted him to disturb its contents and
furniture as little as possible, and hitherto his occupation had
scarcely extended beyond the arm-chair at the fire, and the writing-
table. To-day, however, as he sat biting his pen and looking for an
inspiration out of the window, his eye chanced to rest for a moment on a
frame corner peeping from behind a curtain. He thought nothing of it
for a while, and having found his idea, went on writing. But presently
his eyes strayed again, and once more lit upon the misplaced piece of
gilding.
He went over mechanically to adjust it, pondering his letter all the
while.
"Why ever can't they hang things where they can be seen?" said he as he
drew back the curtain.
The last words dropped half-spoken from his lips, as he disclosed the
portrait of a certain boy, flashing at him with his reckless eyes, and
half-defying him out of the canvas.
Like Mr Armstrong, when he had encountered the picture a month ago,
Roger Ingleton instinctively guessed in whose presence he stood.
The discovery had something in it both of a shock and a disappointment.
If this was really his elder brother, he was strangely different from
what he had in fancy pictured him. He had imagined him his own age,
whereas this was a boy considerably his junior. He had imagined him
dark and grave, whereas this was fair and mocking; and he had imagined
him amiable and sympathetic, whereas this was hostile and defiant.
Yet, for all that, Roger stood fascinated. A chord deep in his nature
thrilled as he said to himself, "My brother." He, the young man, felt
himself captive to this imperious boy. He wished he knew the mind of
the picture, or could hear its voice. What were the eyes flashing at?
At whom or what were the lips thus curled? Was it wickedness, or anger,
or insolence, or all together, that made the face so unlike any other
face he knew?
How long he spent over these speculations, half afraid, half enamoured
of the picture, he could not say. He forgot all about his letter; nor
did he finally descend from the clouds till a voice behind him said--
"What have you got there, old fellow?"
"Oh, Armstrong," said the boy, turning round hurriedly, like one
detected in mischief, "look here at this picture."
The tutor was looking.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"My elder brother, I'm sure. I didn't know we had it."
"There's not much family likeness in it," said Mr Armstrong. "Are you
sure it is he?"
"I feel positive of it. Stay, perhaps there's something written on the
back," and he lifted the picture from the nail.
The paper at the back was almost black with dust and age. They wiped it
carefully with a duster, and took it to the window.
"No," said Roger, "nothing there."
"Yes," said the tutor, "what's this?"
And he pointed out a few faint marks in very faded ink, which, after
considerable trouble, they deciphered.
"R.I., born 3 September 1849, died 186--," (the last figure was
illegible).
"That settles it," said Roger, "all except the exact date when he died.
Upon my word, I'm quite glad it is my brother after all. I shouldn't
have liked if he'd turned out any one else."
"Do you know," added he, as he was about to replace the picture, "I
think I shall take it up to my room. I've taken rather a fancy to him."
That afternoon the two friends took the train to London, where,
considerably to the relief of both, they heard that the "Oriana" was not
expected in dock for three days.