Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 45

Roger reached his hotel that night in more than mental distress. The fatigue and anxiety of the last few days had had their inevitable result on his health, and though the penalty had been postponed, it was coming to account at last.

When his worthy guardian returned on the following day, he was much shocked to find his ward really ill. He did his best. He tried to induce the patient to make an effort to "shake off" his ailments. He sat up late in his room at night, talking and attempting to amuse him.

He even purchased a few amateur specifics; and finally, when the boy was as ill as ill could be, called in a pettifogging pract.i.tioner, who might be trusted to bungle the case.

"Regular bad case," said that learned gentleman, after the third or fourth visit. "May last a week with care."

The good captain naturally grew concerned. Matters seemed to be progressing beyond even his expectations. The pract.i.tioner's verdict speedily got wind in the hotel. Visitors came anxiously to inquire after the young gentleman's condition, and urged a second opinion. And one or two were inconsiderate enough to suggest that the patient was not having fair play.

Under these distressing circ.u.mstances, Captain Oliphant decided to write a line to Dr Brandram.

"Roger has unfortunately taken a chill. Will you kindly forward me the prescription which benefited him so much last summer, as I am naturally anxious to omit no precaution for the dear fellow's good. He is being well cared for, and will, I trust, be all right in a day or two."

Dr Brandram's reply to this transparent communication was to order his dogcart and take the first train to London. Before starting, he had time to send a telegram to Armstrong to meet him at the hotel the same evening.

Little dreaming of the effect of his message, Captain Oliphant was spending a resigned afternoon in the sick-room. Fate was working on his side once more. Mr Ratman had apparently vanished into s.p.a.ce. Mr Armstrong was out of the way. The pract.i.tioner's face had been longer than ever when he took his leave a few hours ago. The difficulties and disappointments of the past few months were giving way to better prospects. The good man's conscience accused him of no actual injury to his ward. On the contrary, he could honestly say he had devoted time, money, personal fatigue, to tending him. He had secured him medical attendance, he had advised the family doctor of his indisposition. He had sat up with him day and night. Was it his fault if the illness took a bad turn, and the Maxfield property changed its owner? He should like to meet the man who could lay anything at his door.

Roger turned on his pillow and began to wander--

"Tell him I believe it. I'll go and find the grave-digger. Ask Fastnet, and Compton, and all of them. No more sherry, thanks. Yes, sir, I said you were no gentleman. I repeat it. You have no right to mention her name. Shut the door, Rosalind. There's only eleven months to do it in. He is waiting at the General Post Office. Armstrong has gone away. They expelled him from the club."

"Poor fellow," sighed the captain, as he smoothed the sufferer's pillow; "poor fellow! How absurdly he talks."

So engrossed was he in his ministrations that he failed to perceive the door behind him softly open and a gentleman enter.

Mr Armstrong had outstripped the doctor in the race to town. Without a word the tutor walked to the bed and bent over the troubled form of his pupil. Then with face almost as white as that of his enemy, he turned.

"What brings you here?" gasped the captain.

"How long has he been like this?" demanded the tutor.

"Do you hear my question?"

"Do you hear mine?"

The weaker man capitulated, with a malediction, to the stronger.

"Since yesterday. He is being carefully tended."

"By whom--you alone?"

"By a doctor."

"What doctor?"

"When I know your right to catechise me, I will answer," snarled the captain.

Mr Armstrong rang the bell.

"Light the fire here at once," said he to the maid, "and then send the messenger up."

In the interval the two men stood eyeing one another, while the patient from time to time tossed on his pillow and muttered to himself.

Mr Armstrong hurriedly scrawled two notes.

"Take a cab, and leave this note at --- Hospital. Let the nurse I have asked for come back in the cab at once. Then go on with this note to Sir William Dove, and bring word from him the earliest moment he can be here. Don't lose an instant."

"Captain Oliphant," said he, as soon as the messenger had gone, "three is too many for this room. I am here to relieve guard. You need rest.

Dr Brandram will be here any moment. Bring him up directly he comes."

Captain Oliphant was certainly deserving of a little sympathy. He had borne the burden and heat of the day, and now another was entering into his labour. But the tutor's tone had an ugly ring about it, which, for the moment, cowed the injured gentleman, and constrained him, after glowering for a moment or two, and trying to articulate a protest, meekly to withdraw.

"My responsibility ends where yours begins," said he, with his best sneer. "I grudge none of the trouble I have taken for the dear boy, but I must decline to remain here as the a.s.sistant of Signor Francisco the music-hall cad."

"I can imagine it might be painful," said Mr Armstrong drily; "but the immediate thing to be desired is that you should not consume the oxygen in this room. Explanations will do later."

Captain Oliphant was not at hand that evening to meet the doctors. A business engagement had summoned him to Maxfield, where he rejoiced the hearts of his two children by a sudden arrival at breakfast-time.

A curt note from Armstrong the same afternoon apprised him that his movements had been antic.i.p.ated.

"Doctors not without hope. Admirable nurse secured. Brandram and I remain here."

Captain Oliphant derived scant consolation from this announcement, and quite forgot his business engagement in his mortification and ill temper. He dropped in during the day to see Mr Pottinger, to discuss his grievance with that legal luminary. But Mr Pottinger, as the reader is aware, had complications of another kind to disclose. He astonished his visitor with an account of the surprise visit of Mr Ratman a few days previously, and of that gentleman's astounding claims to the name of Ingleton.

"What!" exclaimed the captain, "you mean to say that scoundrel actually claimed to be the lost son? I always had a high opinion of his impudence, but I never imagined it capable of that. Why, my dear sir, I have known him as a pettifogging money-lender in India for years."

"Quite so; but did you know why and when he came to India?"

"I can't say I did. Surely you don't credit his story?"

"Well, not exactly. But it strikes me the gentleman will give us some difficulty."

"Why? What good can it do him even if he is what he claims! He cannot upset the will, which emphatically cuts him out of every possibility of benefit."

"No; that leaves him no loophole, certainly. But he may calculate on working on the chivalry of his younger brother, or if that fails, on blackmailing him."

"If so, he will have us to deal with. For once in a way Armstrong and I are likely to be of the same opinion. Surely there is evidence enough to prosecute for conspiracy."

"Hardly. He claims nothing but the name. He admits he has no rights.

My opinion, Captain Oliphant, is that we have not heard the end of him."

"Very likely not, especially as I unluckily owe him money."

"That is awkward. The sooner you square accounts and get rid of him the better."

"Easier said than done," remarked the captain, and returned with a decided headache to Maxfield.

Roger, with Armstrong to nurse him, with Dr Brandram to attend him, with his own strong bias towards life to buoy him up, emerged slowly from the valley of the shadow of death, and in due time stood once more on his feet. Weeks before that happened he had told and heard all that was to be said about his lost brother. Dr Brandram had recounted the incident at Miss Jill's party, and he in turn had confided to his tutor his meeting with Fastnet, and the feeble clue in which that conference had resulted.

"Armstrong, old fellow," said he one day at the close of the year, "won't you help me in this? I know you hate the business, and think me a fool for my pains. I must do it, with you or without you, and would sooner do it with you. In ten months it will be too late."