Roger Ingleton, Minor

by Talbot Baines Reed

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—