MY LADY MELODY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 181, 13 May 1943, Page 6

MY LADY MELODY.

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CHAPTER XXY

THE LONELY MAN.

The dance band conductor’s eyes were unnaturally bright and his lips were almost purple. He wished Howard good morning politely. “Forgive my taking the kid away from you, Mr Ashley,” he apologised. “Hut it’s a forgotten appointment she made. I’ll bring her back safe by tea time.”

“It’s true, Howard,” said Sheila, taking him aside. “I did arrange to have lunch with him somewhere on the road to-day, but forgot it. I’m sorry." Howard cast a look of disgust at Eddie, unable to hide his disappointment.

“Watch how he drives,” he warned. “Sheila, are you safe with him? That’s a high-powei-ed car. Good lord, it may be something worse than drink, I think.”

“Drugs?” she asked in a horrified whisper. “I’m afraid so.”

“Howard, I was afraid of it too. I’ll be careful. Good-bye, old boy. Stay to supper. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The flashy car whirled them away and Howard watched it go with a leaden pain at his heart. Sheila had guessed the truth then, and w T as trying to save Eddie from himself. That was the real Sheila whom lie had always loved, j

Sheila was back by tea-time. Eddie stayed for a little while, talking amusingly, and Howard, waching him and listening, could understand why most people liked him. But was Sheila’s sacrifice worth while? After a little while Hales departed. Sheila went to show him out and lingered for a few minutes at the door. When Eddie drove the garish car away it flashed down the short steep hill to the main road at suicidal speed. “Howard,” said Sheila, when she came back to the drawing room, “after lunch to-night Eddie asked me to marry him. We went to the' Reindeer, at Breckon Hampstead. He opened his heart to me. I was the only being in the wide world who could make him pull up, he said. Of course, I refused. I tried not to hurt him. I felt sorry for him. You’d scarcely believe it. but with all his success and in spite of all his friends and the admiration they shower on him, he is really about the loneliest man I. have ever met.” Tears filled Sheila’s eyes.

“I know,” said Howai’d. “But supposing you did marry him, could you cure him? If the man can’t save himself, what a hell of a life it would be for you.” Sheila nodded.

“I know. I told him so. And ever so much more. He knows how impossible it all is—but still, I feel frightfully sorry for him.” How'ard saw no more of Eddie Hales until the middle of the week. On Wednesday, after dinner, he drove over to Pleasant Place, having arranged to spend the evening with Sheila. But she was out and the note she left for him explained that she had been called away to Garner Owen’s. She was to meet Mario Casini there and they were to talk over finally the last details of the concert. She would be back at about ten, she said. Mr and Mrs Huntley were out. Howard shut himself up in the library, smoked his favourite pipe and read a book.

At half-past nine the maid, Maria, came to him. Her eyes were wide and she looked embarrassed.

“Sir,” she said. “Mr Hales has called and lie’s —” “Drunk?”

“He’s -funny, sir. I told him Miss Sheila was out, but he didn’t seem to believe me.”

“Thanks. I’ll go and see him, Maria. Eddie was in the hall, standing in front of a mirror and rocking himself backwards and forwards on toes and heels, whilst he ran his fingers through his tumbled fair hair. “Sheila’s out, Hales,” said Howard coldly.

Eddie swung round and leered at him. His eyes were filmed and his speech was thick. “Hello,” he said. “It’s the mountebank. Sheila don’t want to see me, eh?"

, “She’s out. I say, don’t you think you had better go home?” “Too early to go home,’ objected Hales.

“Who’s looking after your band?

Eddie pulled a face

“Frank —Frankeiss,” he hicupped. “Fine fellow. Jesht as good as me. Didn’t feel like- it. Thought I’d take a night off. I wanted to see Sheila.” “Well, yon won’t see her to-night,” Howard told him. He gave Hales his hat and gloves. “Now, you go home. But you’d better not drive in your present condition. I tell you what, let me drive you home. I’ll garage your car and see you safely indoors.” Eddie wrenched his arm free of Howard and glowered truculently. “Who wants your help? I can drive a car as well as any man.” Howard urged him to the front door and opened it. He pushed him out gently. He followed Eddie to the car and tried to persuade him to take the spare seat and not to drive the car.

But Hales would not hear of it. Again he broke away. He slipped on getting into the car, but once stationed safely behind the steering Wheel he set the engine going and a moment later was flashing down the hill at the usual breakneck speed. It Was a miracle he had not his licence endorsed, Howard thought, as he watched the flashy car go. He had scarcely regained the front

door when a taxi chugged up the slope to No. 7, and Sheila climbed out of it.

“Howard, I saw Eddie’s car,” she said, her eyes wide with anxiety. “He very nearly collided with my taxi. Has he been here?”

“Yes, and I sent him away,” answer ed Howard. Sheila understood.

Within a few days of the tickets for Sheila’s concert being distributed for sale, every seat in the Aeolian Hall had been sold.

In an earlier essa} r in that direction Mr Huntley had lost money over tire venture, but at that time Sheila had been green and unknown and they had only the smaller circle of their own relations, friends and acquaintances to appeal to.

But on this occasion the venture had the magic of Casini’s name attached to it and Garner Owen loomed in the background, a colossal figure whose patronage was assurance that the concert would be worth while.

The singer and the pianist were star artists. And yet Miss Sheila Huntley’s name was printed in larger type than that assigned to the names of Mdm. Martitia and Signor Forsetti. Howard bought half-a-dozen tickets for his mother and father and some friends as soon as the tickets were offered for booking. He spent the eve before the great day with Sheila and found her nervously excited. To ensure her having the finest roses he could buy in London he placed a special order with a Bond Street florist’s and secured thirty exquisite blooms with stems almost as long as his arm. They were to be handed to Sheila at the end of the concert. When he rang her up in the morning she was quite elated. “Thank you for your letter of good wishes, Howard,” she said. “It was kind of you to write. I have already had over thirty letters. I am so excited I can’ eat. But it will soon be over now.”

“Good luck, dear heart,” he answered. “1 know you are going to make a great hit. You can’t help it.”

An hour before lunch Sheila took her violin out of its case and tried to play it. To her dismay she could scarcely move her fingers and the same nervous agitation that had almost caused a breakdown at Garner Owen’s assailed her again.

She put the violin away and looked at herself in the glass. Her face was like chalk. Dismayed, she dabbed some rouge on her cheeks, working it in cleverly. Supposing she were to fail? The thought terrified her. She would let Garner Owen down, Mario Casini, too, and everybody who had help her. She went down to lunch looking like a ghost. But later, when she donned her newdress and her wrap and went out to the taxi which was waiting to drive her mother and father and herself to Bond Street, the colour was back in her cheeks, and her step was firm. A smile curved her lips, her anxious frown had vanished. She talked brightly of the ordeal which faced her. When they reached the hall they found a long line of cars and cabs in front of them, each of which discharged its passengers at the doors. They swept into the hall and up the steps, a distinguished throng, mostly women, who chattered as they went. (To be Continued).

The characters in this story are entirely imaginary. No reference is intended to any living person or to any public or private company.