Love stories; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Switzerland -- Fiction
Isobel’s face, however, showed none of her wonderings. She read the
letter quite composedly, but with such care that afterwards she could
have repeated it by heart. Then she handed it back, saying:
“Well, Godfrey seems to have been fortunate.”
“Yes, but why? I find no explanation of this bequest—if there is a
bequest.”
“No doubt there is, Mr. Knight. Godfrey was always most truthful and
above-board,” she answered, looking at him.
Mr. Knight flinched and coloured at her words, and the steady gaze of
those grey eyes. She wondered why though she was not to learn for a
long while.
“I thought perhaps you could lend me some book, or books, which would
enable me to find out about Miss Ogilvy. I have never heard of her
before, though I think that in one of his brief communications Godfrey
did mention a lady who was kind to him in the train.”
“Certainly, there are lots of them. ‘Who’s
Who’—only she would not be there unless she was very rich, but you
might look. Peerages; they’re no good as she was Miss Ogilvy, though,
of course, she might be the daughter of a baron. ‘County Families,’
Red Books, etc. Let’s try some of them.”
So they did try. Various Ogilvys there were, but none who gave them any
clue. This was not strange, as both Miss Ogilvy’s parents had died in
Australia, when she was young, leaving her to be brought up by an aunt
of another name in England, who was also long dead.
So Mr. Knight retreated baffled. Next morning, however, a letter arrived
addressed “Godfrey Knight, Esq.,” which after his pleasing fashion
he opened promptly. It proved to be a communication from a well-known
firm of lawyers, which enclosed a copy of Miss Ogilvy’s will, called
special attention to the codicil affecting himself, duly executed
before the British Consul and his clerk in Lucerne, gave the names of
the English trustees, solicited information as to where the interest on
the sum bequeathed was to be paid, and so forth.
To this inquiry Mr. Knight at once replied that the moneys might be paid
to him as the father of the legatee, and was furious when all sorts of
objections were raised to that course, unless every kind of guarantee
were given that they would be used solely and strictly for the benefit
of his son. Finally, an account had to be opened on which cheques could
be drawn signed by one of the trustees and Mr. Knight. This proviso
made the latter even more indignant than before, especially as it was
accompanied by an intimation that the trustees would require his
son’s consent, either by letter or in a personal interview, to any
arrangements as to his career, etc., which involved expenditure of the
trust moneys. When a somewhat rude and lengthy letter to them to that
effect was met with a curt acknowledgment of its receipt and a
reference to their previous decision, Mr. Knight’s annoyance hardened
into a permanent grievance against his son, whom he seemed to hold
responsible for what he called an “affront” to himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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