The Man with the Double Heart Part 39

He broke off and drained his gla.s.s.

"She'll like that--they always do!" then picked up his pen again.

"I'm really in a dreadful hole. I think I explained to you once that my father has never been quite fair to me--a hard man, fond of his money--and my sister is his favourite child. I lost my mother years ago and have no one to turn to in my trouble except yourself--so I hope you'll forgive me--but I'm feeling so utterly wretched to-night.

"The fact is I can't go on living in London on my means. It's impossible with my small salary and the result is pressing debts.

"I'm seriously thinking of cutting it all----" ("She won't like that!"--he smiled as he wrote) "and trying again in a new land--Australia--perhaps, or Canada. This country is played out--the compet.i.tion too strong--and, unless I can see my way clear to raising----"

he paused--"a hundred pounds ... (I daren't ask more at the start, and this would prove a useful sop...) I'm afraid I shall have to throw up my work and, what is more painful still--to say good-bye to my few real friends and start afresh overseas.

"I've written and written to my father!--but he simply ignores my prayer for help. If only my mother were alive how different life would be for me!"

He smiled sourly over the phrase. For Mrs. Somerfield's early death had been accelerated by drink--one of the many crus.h.i.+ng blows his hard-working father had survived.

"I know," he started to write again, "you will treat this letter as _strictly private_. I am bound to come in for a good round sum when my father dies, and with help _now_ I could guarantee to return the loan--with the usual interest, of course.

"I feel I have not the slightest excuse for turning to you in my need--but I can't bear to think of parting with the one true friend life has brought me.

"You have been _more_ than ... a sister to me (I can't say 'Mother'--it's too absurd), and, if ever a man were grateful for it, that man is

"Your ... broken, "STEPHEN."

He read it through thoughtfully, smiling a little at the finale.

"'Broke' would be better!--but, on the whole, I think it's a pretty useful epistle."

He fastened and sealed it carefully, then glanced at the clock and rang the bell.

"It ought to catch Mrs. Uniacke before Jill gets back from college."

An untidy maid answered the summons, thrusting her head round the door, with a soiled collar, elaborate hair and a certain pretty anaemic fairness.

"Well--what now, Mr. Stephen?"

"Come here, Letty." He beckoned to her. "Would you like to do something for me?" He smiled, laying a hand on her arm. The girl coloured at his touch.

"You're always wantin' somethin'," she said.

"And get it sometimes--eh, Letty? There--don't be cross! Give us a kiss..."

But she drew herself away from him with a toss of her averted head.

"I'm not that sort--I've told you so." Her voice was sullen, her face strained.

"You've no call to talk like that--I'd lose my place if the Missus knew--it ain't fair..."

She wavered suddenly under the sentimental eyes.

"Well--I'll do it. A letter, I s'pose? To that 'ouse in the Terrace where you go night after night to meet yer ... 'Jill'!" She brought the name out with a snap.

"Wrong this time----" he still smiled, looking up at the moody face, faintly coloured under its curls of puffed-out, ashen hair.

"Jill is no friend of mine, my dear. She hates me--and it's mutual!

This is a letter to her mother--business for the Woman's Cause."

The girl brightened visibly.

"Well--I 'ope we gets the vote. It's time we did and better wages.

I'm sick of being called 'Skivvy! Skivvy!' by every shop boy in Chalk Farm. We'll make _them_ 'skivvies' by-and-bye! I'm tired o'

men--they're all alike! They gets the fun while we slave--it's a dog's life to be a girl!"

"Not always." Stephen answered softly. "Not when you're pretty--eh, Letty?"

He placed the letter in her hand, and, stooping quickly, stole a kiss.

She sprang back with a little cry. Then stood there, her lip quivering, tears not far from her hazel eyes.

"I told you ... I wouldn't. Never again!"

"Oh! a kiss!--what's a kiss?" He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "There--run away--can't you see I'm busy?" He sat down again at the table.

For a moment the child hesitated--for child she was by the test of time--love and resentment struggling within her; then, with tight lips, she flung away.

"Good Lord!" Stephen yawned. "Bother the girl. I've turned her head.

I'd like to leave these beastly rooms--only there's that confounded bill. And Letty's useful, after a fas.h.i.+on."

His eyes fell on the fire. He knew she stole many a lump of coal when his meagre scuttle failed--pitying the improvident man she had made the hero of her dreams; under the spell of his green eyes and careless familiarity.

Meanwhile, as he sat and smoked one of Mrs. Uniacke's cigarettes, with which he had carefully filled his case after his last meal with her, the servant crossed Primrose Hill, through the damp evening air, and, gaining the terrace near the park, delivered her lord's begging letter.

Jill had not yet returned home. Roddy was far away at school and a silence hung about the house with its dingy blinds and fogged windows.

Mrs. Uniacke was upstairs, mending the edge of a shabby skirt that had suffered during a rainy day from a long tramp in a procession.

Indeed, the wear and tear of 'the Cause' reflected itself in her very clothes; but the thin face, with its bird-like look of brightness and vivid emotion, its high cheek-bones, and quick flush, was filled with the inner fire of hope.

They were getting nearer to their goal. She said the words softly aloud as she bent her frail shoulders over the bed, pinning together the frayed edges.

"Pioneers, O Pioneers..." She could hear the throb of marching steps, see at last the faint line of the distant hills where freedom lay.

What mattered, then, if the road were long, and the sharp rock cut her weary feet, when on the horizon a new day dawned--an era of justice for her s.e.x?

Something achieved, something done...

There came a knock at her bedroom door and Lizzie entered with a letter between a dirty finger and thumb.

An odd premonition of disaster seized Mrs. Uniacke as she took it. She waited for the servant to go before she broke the careful seal. And, as she read, she gave a gasp. Stephen--leaving her? ... deserting the Cause...? Here was a shattering of her dreams, a swift blow out of the dark.

She left her sewing and sat down, the letter open on her knees.