Beggar’s Choice

VI

September 15th-Something has happened which I can’t understand at all. I was too wild to write about it last night, but I’m going to put everything down to-day.

I posted my letter to the International Employment Exchange and came back to my room, where I made quite a decent supper of bread and cheese. I was just about ready for it, as I hadn’t had anything since breakfast. I’m getting quite good at knowing how long one can go without it’s being uneconomic in the long run. I suppose one really used to eat a great deal too much.

When I had finished my supper I opened the drawer where I had put Isobel’s letter-and it wasn’t there. That sounds awfully bald, but that’s how I felt. It wasn’t there. I felt as if I’d tried to take a step that wasn’t there to take. You know how that brings you up short. I took everything out of the drawer-there wasn’t much to take-but the letter wasn’t there. Then I went through the other drawers, and every minute I was getting angrier because, although I felt bound to go on looking, I knew that the letter was gone, and that meant that some one had come into my room and taken it. I turned out everything I’d got, and I went through my pockets. But the letter was gone.

I went downstairs in a rage and tackled Mrs. Bell. At first she was as angry as I was, and said no one hadn’t ever accused her of thieving. But after a bit she sobered down and was pretty decent about it in a sentimental sympathizing sort of way, so I had to beg her pardon, though I really preferred her being angry. I don’t know why she should have thought it was a girl’s letter, because of course I took care to say it was about business. She told me a long story about a letter she’d had from her husband before they were engaged, and how there was mischief made-“And you couldn’t believe the artfulness, nor the perseveringness of that girl Maud. All was fish that came to her net, whether it was her own young gentleman or some one else’s-and a bad end was what she did ought to have come to, instead of marrying the greengrocer and riding in her Morris car like a lady. Some folks have all the luck. And don’t you never trust a red-haired girl, Mr. Fairfax. Sandy eyelashes too, she had.”

She’s not a bad old thing. Just as I was going out, she called me back.

“What about that rent, Mr. Fairfax?” she said in a hesitating sort of voice.

I felt an awful brute.

“I haven’t got it, Mrs. Bell.”

“Well, you’d give it me if you had-I know that.”

I thought I had better know the worst, so I asked her if she wanted me to go, but she flared up all over again, and said she wasn’t a bloodsucker nor a thief, and folks that misjudged other folks would live to be sorry for it. And then she began to cry and talk about her son that was killed at Mons, and I patted her on the shoulder, and she said I was his living image-which I hope to goodness I’m not, because the photograph she’s so proud of is pretty awful. And then she got to calling me “my dear,” and I escaped. She’s an awfully good old soul.

On the way upstairs I met Fay. Her door opened just as I passed. She had on the green lace frock she was making yesterday, and I should think she’d used the best part of a box of make-up on her face. I can’t think why. Her skin’s good enough when she leaves it alone. She came out looking at me as if she wanted me to flirt with her. It didn’t improve my temper. Women always seem to think they’ve only to look at you through their eyelashes, to get anything out of you that they want. It makes me wild. So I was going on; but then I thought of something, so I turned back.

“Did you come up to my room for anything whilst I was out?”

She began to put a sort of scarf thing over her head.

“Why should I?”

“I don’t know. Did you?”

She looked over her shoulder.

“Would you have been sorry if you’d missed me?”

I suppose it was rude of me, but I said “No.” Fay wants whipping.

She whirled round in a rage.

“Thank you! How polite you are! Do you really flatter yourself that I should come running after you into your beastly attic?”

I said, “I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense. I can’t think why you can’t answer a plain question. I’ve lost an important letter, and if you’d been up to my room-”

She stamped her foot.

“Why should I come up to your room?”

“You might have wanted me-and you might have noticed the letter if I’d left it on the table.” Of course I knew I hadn’t left Isobel’s letter on the table. I knew I had put it in the right-hand top drawer of the chest of drawers.

Fay dropped being angry.

“Would you like me to come and pay you a visit?”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

“Perhaps I will some day.”

It’s no good talking to her when she’s in that mood. I turned my back and went upstairs, and when I was about half way up I heard her run down into the hall so fast that I was afraid she’d break her neck. She didn’t. She went out and banged the door as hard as she could.

I went back to my room, and when I opened the door something rustled. I bent down to look. There was a scrap of paper dragging along with the door-I could just see the edge of it. I got it out with a match and looked at it under the gas. It was a scrap of writing-paper with one word on it. The word was, “hide.” Isobel had written it. The piece of paper had been torn from her letter. I looked everywhere, but there were no more pieces. Some one had come into my room whilst I was out and torn up Isobel’s letter. I didn’t believe it was Mrs. Bell.