Micky stood staring at the envelope in his hand. He felt as if
something had happened to paralyse all power of action.
Esther Shepstone and Ashton's girl from Eldred's were one and the
same; that was all he could grasp, and it sounded absurd and
impossible.
He had heard so much of this girl--Ashton had talked about her times
without number--Lallie he had called her; now he came to think of it,
Micky could not remember having ever heard her spoken of by any other
name; and Lallie and Esther Shepstone were one and the same.
Was this, then, why she had cried, because of Ashton...?
Ashton called to him impatiently from the stairs.
"What the deuce are you doing? I shall miss my train."
Micky roused himself with a start, and, dropping the letter into his
pocket, went slowly out of the room; he felt as if he could not have
hurried had his life depended upon it; there was an absurdly cold sort
of feeling round his heart.
It was ridiculous, of course; it was nothing to him if the girl with
whom he had dined an hour ago loved Ashton; he had never seen her
before. That sounded an absurd truth, too; it seemed impossible that
until this evening he and she had never met.
"For heaven's sake, hurry up, man," said Ashton again sharply.
He was at the bottom of the stairs; the face he turned over his
shoulder to Micky looked pale and harassed.
Micky quickened his steps and joined his friend in the porch below;
they stood together out on the path waiting for a taxicab.
Micky glanced at Ashton with a curious sense of unreality; he felt as
if he had never seen him before; it seemed impossible that this Ashton
could know Esther--and Charlie!
A taxicab drew up to the kerb; Ashton banged open the door and got in.
Micky followed, and they drove some way in silence.
"I'll take thundering good care I don't stay away long," Ashton said
suddenly, with a sort of growl. "And if the mater thinks it will make
me forget Lallie----"
"I thought her name was Esther," said Micky quietly. He was looking
out of the window into the starry night.
"So it is--but I always call her Lallie." He looked at his friend with
a sort of vague suspicion. "How do you know what her name is?" he
asked.
"I saw it on the letter you gave me."
Ashton grunted.
"I think it would be better if you posted it to her yourself and have
done with it," Micky said with an effort. "I'm a rotten hand at this
sort of thing. It can't do any good if I go and see her."
"You said you would go--you might be a sport and stick to your word,"
Ashton protested. "I'd do the same for you any day."
Micky rather doubted it, but did not like to say so.
"If you knew how sick I am about the whole business," Ashton went on
jerkily. "You may not believe me, but I tell you, Micky, that I'd
marry that girl to-morrow if only----"
"If only--what?" Micky asked as he paused.
"Oh, you know! What the dickens can I do without a bob to my name
except what the mater chooses to dole out? I tell you," he went on
with a sort of snarl, "it'll be very different when I get the money.
Gad! if only I'd got it now!"
"Money isn't everything," said Micky sententiously. "And if you like
the girl, why not marry her and face it out?"
Ashton gave a savage little laugh.
"It's all very fine for you to say that money isn't everything--that's
only because you've got it, and are never likely to be without it. You
don't know what it feels like to be up to your eyes in debt and not
knowing where to turn for a fiver. Bah! what's the good of talking?"
He let down the window with a run, turning his face to the keen night
air.
They were nearing their destination, and there was still something he
wanted to say to Micky which so far, he had been afraid to put into
words.
"Well, I suppose I shan't be seeing you again for a bit," he said,
with rather a forced laugh. "You've been a good pal to me, Micky----"
Micky said "Rot!" rather shortly; he frowned in the darkness; Ashton
got on his nerves; he rather wished he had not come to see him off.
"Oh, but you have--whether you like me to say so or not," the other
man went on obstinately. "And--and there's one last thing I'm going to
ask you before I go...."
He waited, but Micky did not speak.
The taxi was turning into the station yard now, moving slowly because
of the congested traffic.
"If you could give Lallie some money," Ashton went on with a rush.
"I'd send her some, but I've only just got enough to get out of the
way with. I'll pay you back as soon as the mater condescends to send
me another cheque...."
Micky's face felt hot.
"Hasn't she--hasn't she got any, then?" he asked with an effort.
"No--at least I promised her some when I saw her this morning.
She--she's left Eldred's. You see"--he drew a hard breath--"you see, I
hoped we'd be able to get married, and so--well, there was no sense in
her staying on there. She was worked to death, poor kid."
He glanced at Micky, but could not see his face.
"You understand, don't you?" he said, encouraged by his silence. "She
owes them a bit at the boarding-house where she is living. I promised
to wipe it off for her, but the mater cutting up rough altered
everything, and so ... if you could give her a little----"
"I'll see to it," said Micky. He opened the door of the taxi and got
out before it was at a standstill. He took off his hat and let the
cold air play on his hot forehead. He could hardly trust himself to
speak.
He was thankful when Ashton went off to see to his luggage. He walked
into the station and found himself aimlessly staring at a notice
board. He could not remember when he had felt so furiously angry.
Had Ashton changed? he was asking himself in bewilderment. Or was it
merely that he had never seen the man he really was until to-night?
He tried to remember what Ashton had told him about Esther Shepstone
in the past. That she had been at Eldred's he knew, and that Eldred's
was a place where women bought silk petticoats and things he also
knew. He had heard Marie Deland and her friends talking about it lots
of times. Marie had once invited him to accompany her there when they
had been out together, but he had refused and had waited outside for
her. Now he came to think of it, that was about all Ashton had ever
told him of Esther Shepstone.
He knew that Ashton had been seen about with her a great deal; knew
that he had had to stand a lot of harmless chaff in consequence; he
himself had joked about Ashton's "latest" as they had all called her:
it seemed a memory to be ashamed of, when he thought of the way he had
heard her sobbing in the street that night, of the distress in her
eyes, of the hopeless way in which she had spoken.
Ashton rejoined him.
"Buck up! The train's in."
They went along the platform, followed by a porter with Ashton's
baggage. Micky looked at it resentfully; Ashton was evidently
prepared to enjoy himself; this was no rush after mere solitude and
forgetfulness.
He stood stiffly at the carriage door while Ashton stowed his smaller
traps on the rack. Presently he came to the window.
"You'll do the best you can, won't you, old man?" There was a real
anxiety in his eyes, but Micky was not looking at him; he answered
stiffly--
"Yes, I'll do what I can."
"She'll soon get another job," Ashton went on, with forced confidence.
"I'm sorry she left Eldred's, now it's come to this, but how was I to
know?" he appealed to Micky, but he might as well have appealed to a
brick wall for all response he got.
"And when I come back----" he said again. "Tell her that when I come
back many things may be all right again ... tell her that, will you?"
"I'll tell her," said Micky stolidly.
The guard was blowing his whistle now, doors were being shut.
Micky roused himself and looked at his friend.
"Are you--er--are you going to write to her?" he asked constrainedly.
Ashton coloured.
"No--it's better not--far better let the thing drop till I come back.
I've explained it all in my letter--she'll understand. It's no use
writing--don't you think it's better not----"
Micky hunched his shoulders.
"It's your affair," he said laconically.
"Yes, well, I shan't write--I'll send you my address as soon as I know
where I'm staying, and you can let me know what she said and how she
takes it.... Oh, confound it!"
A porter had come along and slammed the door; the train was slowly
moving; Micky was vaguely glad that there had been no time in which to
shake hands. A moment, and he was walking away alone down the
platform.
His hands were deep thrust in the pockets of his coat; he took no
notice of anything; he walked on and out of the station.
Well, this had been an eventful New Year's Eve with a vengeance; he
glanced up at the clock in the dome behind him--only a quarter to
twelve now, and yet so much had been crowded into the past four hours.
Since the moment when the Delands rang up to cancel his engagement to
dine he seemed to have stepped out of the old world into a new. He
wondered what Esther Shepstone was doing in the very horrid
boarding-house of which she had told him--if she was thinking of
Ashton.
What a cad the man was, what a cad!--he was amazed that he had not
discovered it before--to clear off and leave a girl like this, without
a word of farewell except the letter. He wondered if he meant to
deliver it and admit that he knew Ashton, or if he meant just to stick
a stamp on and post it to her.
He realised that there was nothing very much to be proud of in an
admission that he knew Ashton, and yet they had been friends for
years.
It was striking twelve when he got home; he stood for a moment on the
doorstep, looking up at the starry sky.
Several clocks were chiming midnight in the distance; he listened with
a queer sense of fatalism.
This was the strangest New Year's Eve he had ever spent in his life.
At this hour last year he had been dancing the old year out, and
to-night, had things gone as he had thought, he would have been
somewhere with Marie Deland--he might even have proposed to her by
this time. He smiled faintly, remembering that the intention had
really been somewhere in the background of his mind; but that, too,
had faded out now to give place to other, more important, factors.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve! He counted the strokes mechanically; there
was a breathless pause, then the clash of bells.
Some irrepressibles in a block of flats near by raised a cheer; the
front door of a house opposite was open, and Micky caught a glimpse of
a crowded hall and black-coated men and girls in pretty frocks.
He felt strangely removed from all the noise and laughter; after a
moment he turned and went up to his room.
The fire had been carefully made up and his slippers and dressing-gown
put to warm. Micky looked at them with a sort of disgust; it was
sickening for a healthy grown man to be so pampered; he kicked the
slippers into a corner and tossed the dressing-gown on to the couch.
He wondered what sort of a room Esther Shepstone had in the very
horrid boarding-house--what odd corner the thin black cat curled into
to sleep.
He took Ashton's letter from his pocket and stuck it up against the
clock on the mantelshelf.
"Miss Esther Shepstone...."
It was fate, that's what it was! He wondered if she would ever have
lived to get that letter had fate not thrown her across his path that
night.
She had been desperate--at the end of her tether, and all for the sake
of that cad Ashton.
He turned his back on the letter and lit a cigarette, but he let it go
out almost at once, and turned back again to stare once more at the
name scrawled on the envelope.
What had Ashton written to her? It worried him because he did not
know. Ashton had had other love-affairs--not quite such serious ones,
perhaps, but still serious enough--and Micky knew that when he had
wearied of them he had set about getting free of them by the shortest
route, caring little if it were also a brutal one. He thought of the
despair he had seen in Esther's face that evening; he dreaded that
there might be something in Ashton's farewell letter that would plunge
her back more deeply into her misery.
Out in the night the bells were still ringing joyously.
It was New Year's morning, and perhaps, if he sent that letter ... He
stood quite still for a moment, staring at it; then suddenly he threw
his cigarette into the fire and snatched the letter down from the
shelf.
He tore it open impulsively and drew out the enclosure. He unfolded it
and began to read. The silence of the room was unbroken save for the
little crisp sound as Micky turned the paper; then the letter
fluttered to the rug at his feet and lay there, half-curled up, as if
it were ashamed of the words it bore and wished to hide them.
Micky raised his eyes and looked at his reflection in the glass above
the mantelshelf. The pallor of his face surprised him, and the look of
passionate anger in his eyes.
He was a man of the world. He was no better and no worse than many of
the men whom he knew and called his friends, but this letter, in its
brutal callousness, seemed to shame his very manhood.
He had liked Ashton, had been his constant companion for months, but
he had never suspected him of being capable of this.
He supposed he ought to be ashamed of having opened the letter, but he
was not ashamed; he was glad that he had been able to spare the girl
this last and hardest blow of all--the knowledge that the man whom she
loved and trusted was unworthy.
Presently he picked the letter up from the rug. He picked it up with
the tips of his fingers, as if it were something repulsive to him, and
threw it down on the table.
The first few words stared up at him as it lay there.
"DEAR LALLIE,--By the time you get this letter I shall be out of
England, and I hope you won't make things worse for me than they
already are by trying to find out where I have gone or by writing
to my people and making a scene. The worst of these little
flirtations is that they always have to end, as this must, and you
must have known it."...
Micky drew in his breath hard; not an hour ago in this very room
Ashton had made out how cut-up he was at the turn his affairs had
taken, and yet all the time he had written this letter.
He flicked over a page and read on:--
"... I shall never forget you and the good times we've had
together. I should try and get back at Eldred's, if I were you.
It's a good thing we didn't get married as matters have turned
out, or the fat would have been in the fire with a vengeance. As
it is, I shall have all my work cut out to put the mater in a good
temper again. I am sending you some money by Mickey Mellowes; he's
a friend of mine and as rich as Croesus, and as selfish as the
devil. If he offers to take you out, let him, by all means. It
wouldn't be a bad thing if he took a fancy to you; he doesn't care
a hang for any one but himself. If only I'd got half his money ...
but what's the use of talking about it? Anyway, this is good-bye;
I shan't write again. Be a sensible girl, and try to see things
from my point of view. It would only have meant ruin for both of
us if I'd stuck to you. Good-bye; I send you my love for the last
time.
RAYMOND ASHTON."
And this from the man whom she loved; the man who had pretended to
love her!
Micky dragged forward a chair with his foot and sat down straddlewise.
He leaned an elbow on the chair-back and ran his fingers through his
hair with a sort of bewilderment.
"He's as rich as Croesus and as selfish as the devil...."
And this from Ashton, his friend--the man whom he had helped out of
scrapes scores of times; the man to whom he had lent money without the
least hope of its ever being returned; Micky felt as if he had a blow
in the face.
His thoughts were in a whirl; the whole world needed readjusting. Was
he selfish? he asked himself in perplexity--if so, it was quite
unconsciously, and anyway Ashton was the last person who should have
made the accusation.
"I am sending you some money by a friend of mine...."
There was no hint that the money was first to be borrowed; he had
evidently been sure of his prey; Micky swore under his breath.
Of course, Ashton had not dreamed of the letter being opened, had not
dreamed of anything but that his carefully-made plans would be
minutely carried out and nothing more said.
Micky sat for a long time, lost in thought; the hands of the clock
crawled round to one and the chime struck; he looked up then, glancing
at the clock vaguely.
If he had not met Esther Shepstone there might have been no Esther in
the world at all now; if he allowed that letter to reach its
destination he would be plunging her back again into the abyss of
despair from which he had dragged her only that evening. She loved
Ashton; of that Micky was sure. Very well then, she should at least
have some part of her ideal left to her.
He went over to his desk and took up paper and pen; he spread Ashton's
letter out before him and studied the writing carefully.
Ordinary sort of writing, rather unformed and sprawly, but after a
trial run Micky managed a very presentable copy of it.
He sat back in his chair and eyed his handiwork with pride; he had
missed his vocation, he told himself with a chuckle; he ought to have
been a forger.
Then he dipped the pen in the ink again and squared his elbows. He had
never written a love-letter in his life, but he knew positively that
he was about to write one now.
He thought of Esther and the wistfulness of her grey eyes; she was the
girl whom a man could love. He coloured a little as the thought
involuntarily crossed his mind; she was a girl whom--he began to write
rapidly.
"My darling little girl----"
Micky was naturally rather eloquent with his pen, though he had never
before tried it in this especial direction.
"This is the most difficult letter I have ever had to write in all my
life; first, because I love you so much; and, secondly, because I am
afraid it is going to hurt you nearly as much as it hurts me. Dear, as
it will be some time before I see you again, and because I cannot
explain everything to you, I am going to ask you to trust me till we
meet again. I am leaving England to-night...."
Micky paused and ran his fingers through his hair agitatedly before he
struggled on once more: "I shall be thinking of you every minute till
we meet again, and of the happy times we have had together. I will
write to you whenever I can...." The pen paused, and Micky groaned,
recalling that Ashton had said he should not write at all.
"It'll have to do, anyway," he muttered, and again the pen flew: "I'm
not much of a hand at writing letters, as you know, but you must try
and read between the lines, and guess at all I would say were we
together ... All I will say to you when we meet again."
That last sentence was rather neat, Micky thought with pride, then a
wave of compunction swept through his heart as he remembered the
tragedy behind it all, and he finished the page soberly enough: "Ever
yours, Raymond Ashton."
"Damn him!" said Micky under his breath, as he blotted the signature;
then he took two ten-pound notes from a drawer in his desk, and,
enclosing them in the envelope, sealed and stamped it.
It was half-past one, but Micky climbed into his coat again. He locked
Ashton's letter into his desk, and, taking the one he had written,
went quietly down to the street.
The world was sleeping and deserted, and Micky's footsteps echoed
hollowly along the pavement.
"You're a fool, you know!" he told himself, with a sort of humour.
"You're a bally fool, my boy! It won't end here, you see if it does."
But he went on to the pillar-box at the street corner.
When he reached it he stood for a moment with the letter in his hand.
"You're a fool," he told himself again hardily. "Micky, my boy, you're
a bally idiot, interfering with what doesn't concern you--with what
doesn't concern you in the very least."
He looked up at the stars and thought of Esther Shepstone, of her eyes
and her wavering smile, and the soft note in her voice as she had
asked him--
"Are you always as kind to every one as you have been to me?"
No concern of his! It was every concern of his; he knew that he was
only living for the hours to pass before he saw her again. No concern
of his! when the greatest miracle of all the world had come to pass
during those last hours of the old year, inasmuch that Micky Mellowes,
heartwhole and a bachelor for thirty odd years, had been bowled over
by a girl without a shilling to her name--a girl who loved another
man, but a girl to whom Micky had without wishing it, without knowing
it, dedicated the rest of his life!
He was her champion for the future, some one to stand between her and
the callousness of the man of whom even now she was probably
thinking.
"No concern of mine!" said Micky to himself with fine scorn. "Why, of
course it is! Every concern of mine."
He squared his shoulders and dropped the envelope into the pillar-box.
And so Micky Mellowes posted his first love-letter.