Woman's World

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 261, 2 April 1914, Page 6

Woman's World

HER RIVAL A MOTOIt ItOJIANCE. Ainelia Sheridan was a chejmsl's daughter, ami lived over the shop. <She ignored tho shop, and talked about alchemy. Jim Pollard was a bank clerk, lie did -His routine work admirably, and had a passion fur machinery. Amelia belonged by temperament to the eighteenth century. Jim was in all respects ii youth of the twentieth.

Yet not withstanding their differences, and the fact that a couple of centuries, or even more, separated their outlook on life, they were so sure that they loved each other that they became engaged. Amelia had read somewhere that Love gives understanding. So she trusted to Love, and didn't worry about trifles. Jim had never read anything much except ledgers, but he considered Amelia a topper, and so he didn't worry about trillcs either.

For three weeks the engagement had lasted, and then had come Christmas and the Christmas holidays, and Jim had begun to grow restless and to talk about testing his car. Now. it is no doubt unusual, even in these (lays, for bank clerks to own cars, but the car in question was no ordinary one. It was to a laTge extent, home-constructed by its owner and another, and even Amelia, who liad an inherent aversion to dirty and noisy tilings like machinery, could not fail to recognise that it was full of character. Ever since she had been engaged, she had disliked that car, and she had tried as far as possible to ignore its existence, though with poor success. Jt took up Jim's time, it accounted for Jim's hands, it used rip all Jim's small store of superfluous cash. And then to make matters worse, Jim, on the foolish excuse of wishing to see a distant sister, bad elected to waste his two precious days of holiday in going a run in his car. In Amelia's judgment it was not as a lover should behave, and she said so plaintively (or was it peevishly?). She even cried a little, hut Jim only laughed at her. When Amelia spoke of the parting as "a wrench," Jim only really thought privately of the patent wrench he had bought for his motor, though aloud lie chaffed her jovially, which was his notion of sympathy. Amelia was reduced to suffering her wrench in silence and in secret._ But he promised to write to lie.r a long, long letter.

A"nd now, after twenty-four hours, the letter had come, and Amelia stood by the window in the fading evening' light, her letter held tightly to her breast. She was too excited to open it, for she realised and recognised it for the immensely important Hung il was—her lirst loveletter.

Now, though Jim's vocabulary, s* far as speech was concerned, was limited, though Amelia had long realised that he had not the gift of expressing himself—being, as she explained to him (hut only behind his back), "one of the dear dumb things of the earth"—yet even tn»j speechless could write, and a man's first love-letter to his lieloved. . . Ah . . t Still standing by the window, she took the letter out of the envelope and pressed it lightly to her lips. (Sentimentally speaking, the action was Correct, but why was her imagination not strong enough to ignore the,smell of oil that hung about it? She frowned slightly. What poet had ever written of a love-letter that smelt of lubricating oil? Midnight oil, perhaps; but was that <iuite the same thing?) "Rather late getting off," so ran the letter. "Spent quite half «n hour getting her hood fixed on securely." Her hood! Amelia, winced. Though she knew that, he spoke only of a horrid machine, the woman in her resented her lover's use of the feinine pronoun applied to any other than herself. (Amelia you understand, was a very foolish and sentimental and out-of-date woman). .

■'11.30 p.m. Pulled up on Burton Hillroad. llcr belts both wanted shorten-

ing." Her again. This time Amelia snif'

'•1.30 a.m. Reached Lichfield—narrow streets, 110 one about; tram-lino slip, got her jammed across the road. Thankful of help from a couple of scavengers, as could do nothing with her alone.

Scavengers! . . . What people even to mcntionin a so-called love-letter. But scavengers were good enough for her any dav! This thing . . . ! "2.30 a.m. Arrived at garage. She refused to pull over door-step. J broadened by Pylice for disturbing Patients in Hospital Opposite." (dim in a vulgar brawl and she responsible for getting him into it! The Creature! Amelia's nostrils dilated.) "3.30 a.m. Had to force admission into Queen's Hotel over the way. Wash, feed, sleep. •\S.3O a.m. Looked her over. .Spciu ovc an hour trving to find out what s wrong v.Hli her. Something serious, Piie's'Vomg to be expensive. Certain of that. Her body ..." Here Amelia flung the lcttor on to the floor, and in a manner at once theatrical and unladylike, stamped upon it. "Beast," she ejaculated; "Beast; I hate you. You've cheated me out of inv letter. There's nothing but you in it! And never, never in all my life shall I have a first love-letter again." (Which was perfectly true, of course.) Tears of disappointment made her eyes smart with all the rage she might have felt against a human rival. ... Then slowly she raised her hand, the hand on which dim's engagement ring glittered. Instinctively she clutched the true woman's natural weapon, the slender weapon which in olden days was called a stiletto, and now is known by the vulgar name of hatpin. She drew it out of the dark recesses of her but and laid it on her open palm and stared at it. . . . . . And then a vision rose m Amelia s mind, a vision that she knew would eventually materialise. She was herself in the dead of night, creeping out of the chemist's shop, disguised, not. it is true, in a domino, but in an ancient Aquasciitum (a woman must adapt herself to the time and clothes in which she lives). Slut saw herself creeping up beside her hated rival, her weapon in her hand. She saw herself with set lips liftin" her arm above her head and stabbing."stabbing- a rubber tyre in place of a human heart. . . Stabbing'; Aye, that was what they called it in the old davs, lmt to-day they call it puncturing. Puncturing? I'or a moment Amelia's eves grew dim. and she became uncomfortably conscious that the word lacked—distinction. Almost it vul«arised her action. Almost, but not entirely, for suddenly, in her vision, the contents of her first love-letter (lamed afresh, and she knew herself a woman tragic beyond the tyranny of words. Fiercely (in imagination) with hei lutpiu she stabbed the tyre again and again ? Revenge! oh the glorious «uiv faction of revenge! (\nd vet some folk aver, that women cannot, love to-day. that Passion and Romance are dead!)— Eva Au-trutbei .n Westminster Gazette." ... : U! J" '*