CAUTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21935, 19 October 1934, Page 4

CAUTION

BY J. MCK. HEN-SOX

He was drifting very lightly through swaying clouds, now in confusing circles, now in long sickening swoops, and now he seemed to be sailing steadily into a blinding glare that dyed the whole of the firmament a dazzling crimson. The cloud beneath him came to a rest. It felt very solid and warm and comforting. When he opened his eyes the blinding glare had given place to a white Light. He lay very still on his cloud, trying to make out why he should be confronted by pale pink and pale green leaves, all massed together in an endless vista before him. Only the sky was dark brown. He tried to move and see if there were pink and green leaves behind him, bu.fc his head lay too heavily on the cloud and something jabbed into his side. He was vaguely disturbed. " Ah, there you are," said a low voice. " How do you feel now? " He looked away from the leaves and, strangely enough, found a young woman beside him. He did not speak to her, but regarded her intently while she touched his wrist with cool, firm fingers. " That's.fine," she said, smiling down at him. He looked at her and found to his relief that she was wearing a bunch of violets. That was one thing settled, anyway. Noticing her friendly eyes he decided to confide in her. r< Could, you tell me —" he began, and stopped, surprised at his own weak voice; " doing here? " he concluded. " You've been ill," she replied, " but you have just had a good sleep." That did not give him much satisfaction. "Where? " he asked. " Several miles from Hawera. This is . my father'B house." He stared at her. j "Who?-".. | " Blakeney. My name is Jean Blakeney." . "Do you think you could drink this? asked the girl with the violets. She approached him with a little howl of something that was steaming. A look of relief spread over his face at the sight of her, for she was the only tangible thing in the blankness. " Are you hungry? " she asked, with a smile. * As he looked at the bowl the ogre was banished temporarily from his mind, for he discovered that he was very hungry. His" pallid, attractive face was illuminated with an answering smile. .She slipped her arm beneath the young man's pillow. "Does your head ache? " she asked. "A little," he admitted, for it was throbbing painfully. "What happened?" " Eat this and then vou'll hear about ft." She supported him and held the bowl while he manipulated the spoon. He was astonishingly weak and his side was troubling him. " That's good. You'll feel much better after that." " I'd feel much better," he protested as she set him down gently, " if I could remember something." • His eyes were very troubled and she knew he would not sleep. Nanette had rung the doctor. She wished he would come soon, for she did not know how to cope with this unusual situation. Her elder sister had had no nursing experience and none of her neighbours were likely to be of any assistance. " Don't worry," she said in—a, comforting voice. " Things-will clear up when you feel better. You've been unconscious for two days." She set the empty bowl down on the little table and sat down on the end of the bed. " Whj^-" " Yon were knocked down by a car just outside our gate. By a miracle you weren't more seriously injured. It must have struck you slightly*on the side and thrown you to the side of the road. "They didn't pull up. but I was at the gate and saw you fall with your head on a stone. We brought you in here and rang for the doctor. I was a nurse until recently." He put his hand to his head and felt .the bandages carefully. '"Bad cut?"*' " No." He lay silent for some time. " Where was I going?" he asked at length " Towards Hawera. You were walking with a rucksack on your shoulder." " Rucksack?" he said, bewildered. " Perhaps if you saw your clothes," she suggested. : She left the room and returned with a neatly-folded bundle of clothes, including a presentable grey suit of good cut, well-worn, but obviously goad shoes, and a light raincoat. "This is your rucksack. It. has a few shirts and things in it, you see, and some money. We couldn't find out your name so we have not been able to let your people know." He looked at his clothes and examined his pocket book closely. Without a word he shoved them aside and lay staring at the foot of the bed. "We rang the police," she said tentatively. He did not answer, but turned hi 3 face wearily to the wall. " Thev are making inquiries and should have some news by to-morrow at the latest." It was to her immense relief that she heard the doctor's car pall up at the door. Hurrying from the room she met him on the verandah. " He has lost his memory, doctor," she said in a -quick, anxious voice. " I'm so glad you've come. We don't know what we had better do." " You can't do anything," he told her briefly after his examination. '"All you can do is wait until the police get m touch with his people. Physically there isn't anything to worry about." " You don't think his brain—? Oh, doctor! How terrible! " " It's no use working yourself up like that," said Nanette. " You didn't run into him." " Jean, do you realise that I have been here five weeks?" " Five, Jim? "Well, we can expect to hear something any day now." " If anyone were ever going to claim me they would have done so by now. I suspect that T am only a dead-end after all." " Now, you know you promised not to talk like that." " Sorry, Jean," he said, with a short mirthless laugh. "My promise is apt to slip when I feel a bit, blue about the Kills."" " Then you haven't any business being blue about the gills." She knelt down again to the bed of seedlings which she had been weeding when he approached across the lawn. "I can never repay you." he began. " Don't talk rot. There isn't any question of payment. You know very well that Father has been praying night and day for someone who knows a draught horse from a hunter. You will simply save his reason if you take the job." * " You do lore exaggerating," he remarked. " Still, t admit that I seem to know something of horses. E wonder—'' He stopped with a gesture of hopelessness. "If I only so much as knew my name." "I know,' Jim. But people don't vanish off the face of the earth without some enquiries being made. After all they have found out that you

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bought you rucksack in Stratford and left your suitcase there. And you had £lO in your possession." " Perhaps I'm a thief," he suggested with a humorous inflexion that had been more apparent of late. " Thieves don't come to Taranaki," she replied. " There isn't anything here for them to take." " Perhaps it's a cars of' a swamped market for them." She I aligned her delightful, soft laugh. " That's why you"" came to grief, Jim —our fear of a powerful competitor." She turned and looked up into hi 3 face, and detected there an unguarded expression thai; forced her to drop her eyes in sudden confusion. "" You've stolen something, anyway, Jean," he said quickly in a tone concerning which there was no mistaking. He checked himself on the point t of saying mot-e. His deep-set eyes were full of pain that she did not see, for she had turned back to her weeding to- hide the colour that had flushed over her olive skin. " You can have it back whenever you want it," she said crisply. " I'm sorrj", Jean," he said in a voice which he struggled to make _ mat-ter-of-fact. He could not explain to her that in the desperately blank world to which he had awakened she was everything in his life. He had certainly no glimmering of right to tell her that her voice was the only music he wanted to hear, that the smile in her eyes, and the gleam of sunshine in her bown hair mean more than his broken life could ever mean. Do you think the mail will be here?" "he enquired after a few moments of electric silence. " You can at least go and look," she answered brightly. As he strode away across the lawn she glanced furtively at his retreating figure and sighed heavily. >. She could not tell him of the caution | which, forbade her from making a j second mistake. He was not to know that a prior love affair had drained the impetuosity from her heart, or that she was telling herself she must wait until she knew for certain, and until he knew the whole circumstances of his previous life. Supposing he had a wife living. She suppressed the sweet excitement that had overtaken her and remonstrated with herself for her own weakness, Jim —so they called him, for he did not know his name —broqght the mail fi'om the box at the gate and took the letter to Jean in the garden. He »at down on the wheelbarrow and waited for her to finish her letter, for he had steeled himself to the decision that he must leave this hospitable place and try his fortune elsewhere. She stood before him slender and graceful, a smile of pleasure on her face. " I have an old school friend coming to-morrow," said Jean. "She is passing throng;h oh her way to Wellington—alone, I think. Yes. Her husband went to Sydney about six weeks ago.,He is Tony Welch, the racing man, you know. They have a marvellous home, gardener and so on. So if you like you can mow the lawns again." Tony Welch! Tony Welch! His heart bounded with sudden excitement. At last some hidden chord in his memory seemed to have been • touched. With an exclamation he jumped to his feet. _ " Tony Welch! " he cried. He put his hand to his forehead. "Who is Tony Welch? " " I've just told you. He's my friend's —why, Jim? Do you know him? " " The name," he said, haltingly, "is familiar. It is the only thing that has seemed familiar." She caught her breath sharply. " If you try and place it, Jim, perhaps you might—" She left her sentence unfinished and grasped his'arm excitedly. " Can't you connect it, Jim?" He regarded her blankly, his fore- ! head contracted. j " Who am I, tfien? "he asked as I though in a dream. Her hand dropped as a sudden icy fear clutched at her. " I've never seen him —Tony Welch, she said deliberately. "Don't you understand? I wouldn't know him if I saw him." . Her face was as white a3 his. On the point of losing him she had discovered that her caution had deserted her at the critical moment. In spite of that she must go through with it for his sake. *.* Her name is Monica. Doesn't that call up anything?"' She paused as a new thought struck her. " But she says Tony has gone to Sydney." " Monica! " he exclaimed suddenly, turning a puzzled look upon her. " Do you think—are you Tony?" she asked in a small, stifled voice. He sat down again with his head in his hands and stayed like that for interminable minutes. Jean stood and dusted the earth from her hands with Monica's letter. If this were Monica's husband why had she said that he had gone to Sydney? Obviously because she herself did not know where he was and was too proud to say so. | " Yes," he said, all at once, in a bewildered voice, " Tony went to Sydney. Don't you remember, Monica? He went, to buy Leviathan." Jean's arm went round him quickly and caught him as he swayed. "So he is still away, is he? " her patient was saying some twenty minutes later. " Well, anyway, I shall not have to run away from Monica now." He laughed at her " I told her I had to go to Wellington on business. Tony is my friend and partner and Monica is—well—impetuous." " Have she and Tony quarrelled? " "Their life is one long quarrel so she imagines that she is in love with me." " And why did you run away? " " Because"! hadn't met you then," he answered light-heartedly. He noted with satisfaction the sudden guarding of her eyes and the quivering of the smile on her lips. " Have you any people? " she asked quickly. " Yes, a sister. She lives in Dunedin. Nobody inquired for me, I suppose, because Monica said I was in Wellington and my Wellington friends thought I was in Auckland. All the time I was really in heaven." " But why did you come to Taranaki? " •* " Because Monica would follow me to Wellington." " She didn't." " No, But she is." " Well, why walk ? ■' " Why not? " She sat silent and looked at her | earth-covered hands. " Can't you think of anything else to ask me, sweet, to put off the evil hour? " He regarded <■ her quizzically and swung his legs off the bed on which , they had laid him. " You have to stay there till the doctor comes," she protested, rising I from the wicker charr. " Nanette is | making you some tea—you mustn't — | you're weak*yet—" All at once she was swung off the 1 floor as lightly as though she were a i child, :uid held against his witdly-beat- | ing heart. " That's how weak I am," he was saying joyously, as the doctor hurried into the room.