Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 35

Roger read this remarkable epistle once or twice, in a state of mind bordering on stupefaction. Robert Ratman, cad, sharper, blasphemer, insolent profligate, his brother! The notion was ludicrous. And yet, when he tried to laugh, the laugh died on his lips. He walked over to the portrait on the wall and looked at the wild, mocking boy's face there. For a moment, as he met its gaze, it seemed to grow older and coa.r.s.er--the light died out of the eyes, the mouth lost its strength, the lines of shame and vice came out on the brow. Then the old face looked out again--the face of the lost Roger Ingleton.

"Ratman my brother!" he groaned to himself.

Then of a sudden he seemed to see it all. It was a fraud, an imposition, an impudent plot to extort money. But no! As he read the letter again that hope vanished. This was not the letter of an impostor. Had it been, there would have been more about his rights, more brotherly affection, a greater anxiety to appear in good colours.

As it was, the writer wrote in the reckless vein of a man who knows he is detested and expects little; who owes a grudge to fortune for his bad luck, and being hard up for money, appeals not to his rights, but to the good nature of his more lucky younger brother.

What a sad letter it seemed, read in that light. And how every word drove the unhappy heir of Maxfield deeper and deeper into the slough of perplexity.

Three weeks ago, when his dead father's letter had come into his hands, he had not hesitated for a moment as to his duty or his desire in the matter. He had cheerfully accepted the task of finding that lost, aggrieved, perhaps hardly-used brother, to whom his heart went out as he gazed on the likeness of what he once had been.

But now! To abdicate in favour of this blackguard. To look for him, to tell him that Maxfield was his, to have to depend on his generosity for a livelihood, to see the good name of Ingleton represented in the county by a drunken profligate. What a task was that. The writer evidently did not know of the second will, or suspect that after all Maxfield was his own. No one knew of that doc.u.ment but Roger and Armstrong. For a moment there returned to the boy's mind the words of his father's letter--

"If after reading the papers you choose to destroy them, no one will blame you; no one will know--you will do no one an injury. You are free to act as you choose."

And Armstrong, the only other being who had seen the papers, had urged him to avail himself of the permission thus accorded. Why not take the advice and save Maxfield and the family name, and himself--ay, and Rosalind--from the discredit that threatened. He could yet be generous, beyond his hopes, to the prodigal. He would pay to get him abroad, to-- to--

A flush of shame mounted to the boy's cheeks as he suddenly discovered himself listening to these unworthy suggestions.

"Heaven help me," he said, "to be a man." It was a brief inward fight, though a sore one.

Roger Ingleton, weak in body, often dull of wit and infirm of temper, had yet certain old-fashioned ideas of his own as to how it behoves a gentleman to act.

He cherished, too, certain still older-fashioned ideas as to how when a Christian gentleman wants help and courage he may obtain it. And he was endowed with that glorious obstinacy which, when it once satisfies itself on a question of right and wrong, declines to listen to argument.

Therefore when, later than usual, he joined the family party at breakfast, it was with a grim sense of a misery ahead to be faced, but by no manner of means to be avoided.

For fear the reader should be disposed to rank Roger at once among the saints, let it be added that he took his place in as genuine a bad temper as a strong mind and a weak body between them are capable of generating.

"Roger, my dear boy," said the captain mournfully, as became the weeds he wore, "you are looking poorly. You need a change. We both need one after the trouble we have been through. I think a run up to London would brace us up. Would you like it?"

"I don't know," said Roger shortly. "I don't think so."

"It is trying to you, I am sure, to remain here, in your delicate health, among so many sad a.s.sociations--"

"I'm quite well, thank you," said the boy. "Tom, how does the football get on?"

"Oh," said Tom, rather taken aback by the introduction of so congenial a theme from so unexpected a quarter, "I've not played very much lately.

Jill and I had a little punt about yesterday; but we did it quite slowly, you know, and I had my c.r.a.pe on my arm."

Jill flushed up guiltily. The housekeeper, who since Mrs Ingleton's death had a.s.sumed the moral direction of the young lady, had expostulated with her in no mild terms on the iniquity of young ladies playing football, even of a funereal order, and she felt it very treacherous on the part of the faithless Tom to divulge her ill-doings now.

She felt rea.s.sured, however, when Mr Armstrong smiled grimly.

"n.o.body could see," said she; "and Tom _did_ want a game so dreadfully."

"We played a.s.sociation," said Tom. "Jill got two goals and I got fifty- six."

"No, I got three," said Jill.

"Oh, that first wasn't a goal," said Tom. "You see, she got past me with a neat bit of dribbling; but she ran, and the rule was only to walk, you know, because of being in mourning."

"I really didn't run, I only walked very fast," said Jill.

"I should think you might allow her the goal," said Mr Armstrong.

Mr Armstrong was always coming to Jill's rescue; and if any of her heart had been left to win, he would have won it now. Tom gave in, and said he supposed he would have to let her count it; and was vastly consoled for his self-denial by Roger's proposal to join him in a game that very day.

Before that important function came off, however, Roger and his tutor had a somewhat uncomfortable talk in the library.

"You are feeling out of sorts, old fellow," said the latter when they were left alone.

"I've had a letter," said Roger.

"Another?"

"Read it, please."

"If you wish it, I will. Last time, however, it wasn't a success consulting me."

"I want you to read this."

The tutor took the letter and turned to the signature.

His brow knitted as he did so, and the lines grew deeper and more scornful as he turned to the beginning and read through.

"If I were you," said he, returning it, "I would frame this letter as a good specimen of a barefaced fraud."

It irritated Roger considerably, in his present over-wrought frame of mind--and particularly after the memorable inward struggle of that morning--to have what seemed so serious a matter to him regarded by any one else as a jest. For once in a way the tutor failed to understand his ward.

"It does not seem to be a fraud at all," said Roger. "Why didn't you tell me of it before?"

"I did not regard the statement seriously. Nor do I now. There is lie written in every line of the letter. A clumsy attempt to extort money, which ought not to be allowed to succeed. He gives not a single proof of his ident.i.ty. I horsewhipped him on the night of your birthday for insulting a lady, and--"

"What lady?" asked Roger.

"Miss Oliphant," said the tutor, flushing a little. "He then, as a desperate expedient for getting off the punishment he deserved, blurted out this preposterous story. And having once published it, it appears he means to make capital out of it. Roger, old fellow, you are no fool."

"I am fool enough to believe there is something in the story," said Roger; "at any rate I must follow it up. If this Ratman is my brother--"

The tutor, who himself was showing signs of irritation, laughed abruptly.

"It may be a joke to you, but it is none to me," said Roger angrily.

"It may not concern you--"

"It concerns me very much," said the tutor. "I am your guardian, and it is my duty to protect you from schemers."

The two stood looking at one another, and in that moment each relented a little of his anger.

"I know, old fellow," said Roger, "you think you are doing me a kindness, but--"