Читать книгу The Phantom Lover - Ruby M. Ayres - Страница 5

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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.”...

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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 Crœsus, 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 Crœsus 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....”

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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.

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“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.

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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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