In the sad confusion which followed upon Mrs Ingleton's sudden death,
no one appeared to remark the abrupt departure of Mr Robert Ratman.
Roger certainly never bestowed a thought on the occurrence, and if any
of the other members of the household thought twice about it, they all--
even Jill--kept their ideas on the subject to themselves.
To Roger the week that followed his twentieth birthday was the most
dismal of his life. When a similar blow had fallen months ago he had
been too bewildered and benumbed to realise fully his own loss. Now he
realised everything only too vividly.
His own trouble; the loss of the last near relative he had in the world;
his own sickly health, chaining him down when he would fain seek comfort
in action; the uncertainty of his position as heir of Maxfield; the
hopeless task before him of finding his lost brother; Rosalind's
indifference to his affection--all seemed now to pile up in one great
mountain to oppress him, and he half envied the gentle dead her quiet
resting-place.
It was in the second week after the funeral, when Maxfield once more
began to assume its normal aspect, and Captain Oliphant was allowing
himself to hope that, notwithstanding the removal of his latest "dear
departed," things were likely to shape themselves a trifle more
comfortably for his own designs in her absence--it was in the middle of
November that a letter was handed to Roger as he dressed one morning in
his room.
It bore the London post-mark, and looked mysterious enough to induce
Roger to lay down his brushes and open it there and then. This is what
it said:--
"Dear Roger,--You'll have been expecting to hear from me, as no doubt
your moral friend, Mr Armstrong, has told you who I am. I don't
fancy you are specially pleased with the discovery, and it may suit
you to turn up your nose at your affectionate brother. You may turn
up what you like, but it doesn't alter the fact. I am your brother.
When I heard of my father's death I was in India, and made up my mind
to come home on the chance the old boy had forgiven me and left me
some of the needful in his will. Your guardian, Oliphant, had little
idea that the Indian chum who made such a long journey to pay him a
visit at Maxfield was really the man to whom the place ought to have
belonged if every one had his rights. Of course I soon found out my
mistake. The old man kept up his grudge to the end, and cut me out of
his will without even a shilling. So you've nothing to be afraid of.
I dare say when you come into the property you will do something for
your big brother. Meanwhile I don't expect much out of the pair of
hypocrites my father chose to leave as your guardians. But as I am
hard up, and you can probably do what you like with your pocket-money,
let me have a £10 note once and again, say fortnightly, addressed to
Robert Ratman, to be called for at the General Post Office. If I
don't get this, I shall conclude the Ingletons are true to their
reputation of being a good deal fonder of their money than their flesh
and blood.
"I don't know whether I shall turn up again or not. It will depend
pretty much on what I hear. No doubt you've set me down as a cad and
a blackleg. Perhaps I am. I've not had the advantages you have.
But, cad or no cad, I've a right to sign myself your brother,--
"Roger Ingleton, _alias_ Robert Ratman."
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
coarser--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 document 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 associations--"
"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 crape on my arm."
Jill flushed up guiltily. The housekeeper, who since Mrs Ingleton's
death had assumed 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 reassured, however, when Mr Armstrong smiled grimly.
"Nobody could see," said she; "and Tom _did_ want a game so dreadfully."
"We played Association," 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 identity. 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--"
"Pardon me--kindness is not the word. I appeal to your common-sense--"
Unlucky speech! Roger, who was painfully aware that he was not clever,
was naturally touchy at any reference to his common-sense.
"It doesn't seem much use discussing," said he. "I made a mistake in
showing you the letter."
"I heartily regret you did."
"I hoped you would have helped me in my difficulty."
"I will do anything for you except believe, without proof, and in spite
of every probability, that Ratman is your brother."
"He is just the age my brother would have been now."
"So is George the coachman, so am I, so are half a dozen men in the
village."
"He certainly has some resemblance to the portrait."
"I could find you a score more like it in London."
"The long and short of it is, Armstrong, I cannot look to you to back me
up in this."
"To make Robert Ratman into Roger Ingleton?--I fear not. To back you up
in all else, and be at your call whether you think well or ill of me--
certainly."
They parted angrily, though without a quarrel. Mr Armstrong had rarely
felt himself so put out, and crashed away ruthlessly at his piano all
the morning.
Roger, perhaps conscious that logic was not on his side, whatever
instinct and feeling might be, retired disappointed and miserable to the
park, and never remembered his appointment with the eager Tom.