  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; 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 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 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.
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:––
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. |
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