The Courage of Lodge

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 932, 27 March 1930, Page 5

The Courage of Lodge

COPYUHGHT

CHAPTER XIII. As he got up to go, the young journalist looked very tenderly at Hugh’s mother. “I think It was very good and sweet of you to send for me, Mrs. Waverley,” he said. “You know what I feel for Hugh. He is one of the finest and best that one can meet in this world, and it's pretty awful that such a disaster and sorrow should have come to him when he was doing so splendidly in his career.” Mrs. Waverley clung to Martin Joyce's hand.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARR ANfIEMEMT

by

MADAME ALBANESI

Author of ” Lora's Hnrrcat,** " The Road Love.*' "The Way to Win,*.’ etc., —m-

“Only give him back his courage, put some tranquillity into liis mind, my dear, the rest will come naturally. I shall tell Hugh I have seen you, I know that will be a gleam of great pleasure in all that is so dark.”

Despite his contemptuous dismissal of Henry Burke’s fears and dreads, as the days went by and Diana still remained very ill, Townley, too, began to feel very uncomfortable. The spell of unconsciousness was very long, and the first medical man who had been called in told Townley that he strongly advised the calling in

of a specialist. As he remarked: “It may be a case of nothing but ordinary concussion; but, on the other hand, the wounds on the head may have disastrous results.”

So a specialist was summoned, and after he had examined Diana, and heard all there was to hear, he declared that in his opinion the girl would recover consciousness, but he could not say until some time had elapsed whether the accident would leave any permanent injury. He was very much more difficult to deal with than the other doct,of, and put some very pertinent questions to Townley. The story, given to him of how the accident happened was so glibly said, and it seemed to be so strange altogether, that he went away with the feeling that there was something strange going on in that old house up in the northern part of London.

And there came one evening when the nurse had gone out for a little fresh air, and the, housekeeper, Mrs Stanton, was sitting by the bedside, when Diana opened her eyes and looked about her. There was an ex pressiou of wonderment in her eyes, a dazed look which comes after a long spell of heavy sleep. The housekeeper felt her heart beat very quickly as she got up and asked the girl if there was anything she wanted.

“I should like a drink of water," Diana said. “My throat is very dry ” After the water had been brought the housekeeper, with her heart still beating wildly in her breast, sat down and began to ask the girl other questions, if she felt better? —if she would like something to eat. Diana shook her head. “I am not hungry,” she answered. “I am only thirsty.” She closed her eyes then when she opened them again, she said: “Would you ask my father to come?”

The housekeeper got up and went out of the room very hurriedly. She went downstairs, where, as usual, Townley and Burke were arguing and snarling at each other. They had had a very big dinner, and they had had plenty of wine, and it was evident that the bad feeling between the two men was getting deeper each day. As the housekeeper came into the room looking very white, and with fear in. her eyes, both men got up. “She’s not worse, is she?” queried Townley.

“She’s awake,” the housekeeper answered. “She’s spoken to me; she asked for some water; then-then she asked me to find her father and send him to her.”

Cyril Townley stood staring at the woman, the flush in his face died out. “Her father!” he said.

“Gone dotty!” remarked Henry Burke, curtly. “That often happens when people fall on their heads same as she did.”

“I came to you,” said Mrs. Stanton hurriedly, “because I didn’t know what to say to her. She just took me by surprise.” “Did she seem frightened?”

The woman shook her head. “No. She said she was thirsty and her throat was dry. And then she sent me to find her father. What shall I say to her when I go back?” “Humour her,” said Townley, in a grim sort of way. “Tell her that her father is very tired with travelling, and he’s resting and he mustn’t be disturbed.”

But after the housekeeper had gone upstairs again, she came down in a little while.

“I told her what you said I was to say and she gave me a smile and thanked me, and she has turned over and she is sleeping quietly.” “This is a queer sort of business,” said Townley to himself. "Yes, it’s queer,” said Burke in his sullen way. “She’s had a bak knockout blow, but it won’t last. You’ll see, she’ll come back to where she was. I’ve seen this sort? of accident before, I know what I am talking about.” But Townley had no use for his partner’s views. The one thing that filled him with relief and satisfaction was that Diana vas alive. And in the next

few days he had more cause for satisfaction because when he had called in the doctor, and against anything that Henry Burke could urge he insisted on having the doctor, the medical man gave it as his opinion that the violence of the blow she had had, had wiped away from Diana all remembrance of what had passed in her life just recently. Though she could speak distinctly, she expressed no surprise, or even nervousness at being in strange surroundings. As a matter of fact, Townley discovered before long that the girl had gone back in her memory to the days when, although she had been a little child, Diana had moved about with her father and had stayed so frequently in different places, with travelling and new rooms, and new faces which became a matter of course with her. He had presented himself in her room very nervously, for after all they had had a very close and ugly encounter. But Diana greeted him with a smile when he came, and talked to him quite easily. So that the man grasped that chance had been very kind to him, for he saw there was nothing to fear from Diana. Everything that had been connected with her life in her aunt’s house had been blotted out of her memory altogether. When this fact came home to Townley at its full significance, it not only meant an immense relief, but it smoothed out the immediate path he meant to tread in the most extraordinary way. For here again he had prepared himself, that if the girl had retained her mental faculties, there would have been a very tiresome and extremely dangerous period to go through before he had conquered her spirit and her will. CHAPTER XIV. The satisfaction Townley allowed himself to enjoy on realising no danger was to be feared from Diana now communicated itself to his partner and fellow-conspirator, who grudgingly allowed that things were better •than he had expected they could be. The only difficulty they had to face was to satisfy Diana that all was well with her father. She never asked questions, and she accepted the appearanec of these two strange-look-ing men in her life, and appeared to be quite content when she was told that her father had left her in their charge while he had been ordered a short sea voyage. This explanation for Janies Ladbroke’s absence had been put forward, anxiously enough, but Diana accepted it in the strange manner in which she accepted all that went on round about her. She gradually grew stronger, and drifted into the kitchen very often to sit and talk with Mrs. Stanton, to whom she had taken a great liking. Her talk was always about her father, and about the strange places she had been to with him, and about all the things that she and her father were going to do when he got back to England. Her mind was like the mind of a little child. When she asked a question and was rather. rebuked for asking it, Diana would grow nervous and colour. Her hair had been cut so that the wound on her head could be dressed properly, and sometimes she complained of having headaches. She looked almost transparently thin, but she was very pretty, and her close-cropped hair made her seem even younger thah she was.

The heart of the woman who had to serve Townley warmed to this young creature, and even though she knew' what was planned in the future, and the part her son was going to play, she had a longing to put her arms round Diana and carry her away somewhere out of touch, or reach • of these evil men, even away from all

association with her own son. For though she adored this son. she never shut her ej'es to the fact that he had not as yet proved worthy of her love, her devotion, or the way in which she had sacrificed herself for him. Townley was watching her very carefully. It was certainly not what he had expected. He had, in fact, imagined that Mrs. Stanton would be harsh, and show very little consideration for the girl with whom she had been brought so strangely into contact. He was not averse from the fact that Mrs. Stanton should care for Diana, even to him there was something very sweet and appealing j about the girl. But time was getting very short, and he began in a little while to insist that Mrs. Stanton should bring her son and Diana together, and so start leading the way to the mar riage that he had planned should take place. Whenever the woman pleaded that Diana was still very delicate, that the least shock would probably send her back into the spell of unconsciousness from which she had emerged so mentally blind, Townley would address her in his roughest and most brutal way. He had /also to deal very severely with Francis Stanton, who was the case of a very self-indulgent, idle, and lazy young man ruined by his mother’s adoration, and who, although he knew that a good deal of money would come to him when he had carried through his part of the scheme, j did not hesitate to express to his j mother, and in a less violent degree j to Townley, his objection to what he j was called upon to do.

“Money’s all very well,” he said on one occasion, “but what am I going to do with a half-witted creature like that tacked on to me?” He did not say much to Cyril Townlev, but to his mother he had no hesitation in saying that if he had to go through a form of marriage with Diana he should do this only because of the money that was coming to him, •and that he had not the slightest intention of remaining tied to her. Mrs. Stanton reproached him on one occasion. “You are hard to please, my boy,” she said. “This is a sweet girl, and you are not half good enough for her.” Her son sneered at her. “Oh, I i know' you have gone off the deep end j about her! But I tell you one thing, mother—she gives me the creeps. I | don’t know* how you can stick it when j she is always talking about her father, j ’and we know' her father is dead. She ; may be sweet, but I’ve got no use j for her, and I wish to Heaven that ! Townley would find someone else to | take on my job.” | Henry Burke, too, began to regard i j the marriage with this young Stanton \ : as being a very unnecessary part of j | their scheme. j “What do we want with a young rot- • j ter like that?” he queried once. “What j i do you want to get her married for at j j all? She’s far best as she is. she’s j Superfluous hair destroyed by “RUSMA" (Regd.) Signed j j stamped, guaranteed cure. £5 I2s 6d.— : : Florence Hullen. C M D., 7 Courtenay j I Place, Wellington Send stamped J addressed envelope for particulars. ,

content to be with us, and she’s in no condition of mind or body to be mar ried.” “You are very considerate all of a sudden, my dear Henry,” Townley answered. “I tell you she has got to be • married, and she’s got to settle all the money of which she is possessed . on her husband.” “But what will this precious husband do?” queried Henry Burke furii -ously. “Don’t you suppose he’s got something working in his pretence of ■j a brain? Francis Stanton isn’t one to i go in, and to be handled as you handle j him, without having seen something very big for himself coming along. You are having it all your own way j up to the present, CyriJ, but you wait, j just wait.” i It was on the evening of that same I day that Burke, who had been down ito the West End —where he passed j his time generally in playing billiards, | and smoking, and drinking in various \ bars—came back in hot haste to the j house. He was trembling in every ! limb, and as he passed into the house ; and found Cyril Townley words were ! almost impossible to him. At last, holding to a chair for supi port, he stammered out: “I’ve had a : big fright! I’ve seen him! You know j who I mean! He looks as he used to j look, well, and a strong man, and | he’ll be watching out for us. We got rid of Ladbroke,” the man stammered j on, catching his breath painfully, “but Iwe won’t get rid of him so easily.” To be Continued Tomorrow.