MICROCOSM

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 303, 23 December 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

MICROCOSM

Second Prize Story

H'M. A mixed grill. A very mixed grill! Smithy, the service car driver, surveyed his passengers in a lightning glance. Three women and two men. First woman a faded blonde. Colour washed out of her hair and cheeks. Lines round t mouth and eyes, hands roughened by hard work. Maybe the country was easy for some people, but not if you were the wife of a farmer with a mortgage hanging like a millstone round his neck. That second woman now—with the silver fox below her silver hair—had never known what real work was. Money there all right. She was just as well-tended—in figure as well as face—as the farmer's wife was worn and gaunt. As for the third woman—well, she looked just about down and out, poor beggar. Sort of desperate about the eyes. A derelict. . . . Oh, well, in with this mail for McAllister's. He'd nearly forgotten to collect it from the post office. Pretty well loaded up at the back now. A couple of suitcases could be dumped beside the two men in the rear seat. There wsffe another contrast. One big, well-fed and prosperous,: the other small, shabby and worried. Still, time to be off. Late in starting as it was. "All set?" he looked round at his passengers, and put the big car into .action, hoping for smooth going. Everything looked all right, but you never could telL The farmer woman and silver hair, for instance, looked as though they • were at daggers drawn. Lifelong • enemies or something. He did not know, when he sensed that hostility, how close his idle thought came to the truth. The enmity was not lifelong, but long enough. Fifteen years actually. Yes, it was fifteen and a half years almost to the day since Cedric had walked out on her and off with Bessie Silver, Qwen Farmer was thinking at that moment, Bessie hadn't been silver in those days, of course, but a brown-haired girl with laughing eyes who had come dancing into Cedric's life and swept him off his emotional balance. That wasn't what had hurt so damnably all the years though. What had kept the wound raw was the way Cedric had betrayed her trust. Why, that last night they had gone out he'd made love to her as usual—a bit more ardently than usual if anything—and promised her a ring a week later. Yet at this very time he was promising her that he knew that a week later he'd be married to Bessie. If only he'd been man enough to have made a clean breast of things the hurt wouldn't have gone so deep that it had poisoned things for her ever since. But to let her find out by chance, through a casual remark, that the very day on which she was expecting her ring he had married someone else! That was what had rankled and festered all the years 110 matter how she hafr tried to forget it. • Well, Bessie had had the best of it then and she certainly had the best of it now. Look at her clothes—superbly tailored and superbly finished by that magnificent silver fox. She'd never lacked anything. Never known what it was not only to go without new frocks but without sheer necessities as well; not just for a few weeks, either, but month after month and year after year during the slnmp. She didn't know what it was to get up at half-past four in the morning, however ill you felt, put on a pair of dungarees and traipse through the mud to the milking shed. She'd had everything money could give her: Cedric's money—the money that rightly shouldn't have been hers, and look at the difference it had madel

By Una Auld

Gwen glanced down at her own dated frock, the shoes bought for service instead of smartness, the worn gloves. Still, worn as they were, those gloves at least hid the roughness of her hands. Bessie's hands were as soft as her life had been. Suddenly feeling surged up in her. A flood of resentment elementary and savage in its bitterness; against Bessie, against Cedric, against life, that made things smooth and easy for some women and nothing but an endurance test for others! Christmas? Her eyes darkened at the word. The thoughts of the shabby little man in the back seat ran somewhat along the same lines. How could he help it, with such a neighbour—big in pwrer as well as frame? Hand-made shoes as well as handtailored suits. Everything about him the best that money could buy. The little man's mind tossed back to his own pressing problem—how the dickens to get Kath something decent for Christmas when every cent of his money for years had gone to a widowed mother with rheumatoid arthritis. Not that he grudged her a penny of it. She'd worked like a galley slave for years to keep him when he was a kid. That was the cruel part of it now, that just when she could have sat back and taken it a bit easy, this fiendish disease had got her in its worst form. It was

damnable for everybody. Ti«d him—and tied Kath with him. What chance was there of ever giving her a home bo long as he was weighed down with such responsibilities? A home? when he couldn't even see how on earth he could rake together enough to give her something really nice for Christmas ? His glance dropped to his shoes. A hole in the soles, but they'd have to wait for repair. Then his eyes, shifting restlessly again, fell on the Big Man's hand-made shoes. Suddenly feeling surged in him. A flood of resentment against the odds that were stacked against him; against fate, against life, that made things smooth and easy for some men*—and damnably difficult for thte wordP hrißtmaS? His eye " darken ed at ' * * * ~ ♦ Huddled into the collar of her -coat, the third woman in the car stared rigidly ahead. She'd noticed the first quick look faces of those other two women. Getting used to it . by now—from women. These two had seen the way she was and that she had no wedding ring. Well, let them. Her tired mind fought to conquer her despair by giving her the courage of defiance. But in herself she knew she was too weary to fight much longer without help. Not financial help, though God knew she needed that badly enough. But more than anything, a friendly word. When all was said and done, hundreds of women eot themselves into this mess, and hundreds got themselves out of it by any means they could. Well, sho wouldn't. She'd been a fool and she d stand up to the consequences. It wasn t the physical nausea that got you down, though, but tha way you knew other women were thinking of you. Women whod always been protected. Never let down. Never pushed against a wall and made to stand there facing tha world on their own. Suddenly feeling surged in her. A flood envy of those other women who had everything that mattered; who were going S 3 men who cared them and i ' who would Bh «e Christmas with them. word riß F»nnl 6ye> !* arkened at the I , -Y ?/'. course—if only you could look at it that way. A time sacred to a Woman and a Child—and a time when a h W a 7* a n -th chil . d was outcast unlesß she had a wedding ring upon her finger! in l IL ,i at t he . Bervice car » swung in a split second of time to the left to avoid a horse that flung wildly round the rnnH Cr ' a K ,dded violently to the side of the road-and over the bank. Rir?m[l e quai i er J ?' an hour while Smithy was trudging for help to the nearest farmhouse (the McAllister'.), the vlcA?. C u dent 8111 round a hastilyand ahJto n AI L one> the derelict. White nut " v® la y the «» a t they had "Nice time and place for It!" the Bi«» Man broke the silence. "Couldn't have picked a more isloated spot if we'd tried Dark coming on, too. Can't underhand now how no one got hurt. A miracle!" It was that!" The Little Man, accentfn? a Cl .® forgot the problems of the future in the needs of the present. He niore dead branches on the fire. The flames leaped up, and in their flickering light the derclict's white face gained an illusion of colour. gainea w." 8 ? l0 ° k8! " The Lit «e Man's voice was hushed. c

jsggs ___ r 7 j; "M'n!" The Big Man drew on a pipe had fished from his pocket. In a desultory fashion the two auitalked, but the two women who sat upririT said no word. The antagonism between them was an almost tangible thing. the two men felt the undercurrent, stirred uneasily. Women were hmor * thought the Little Man. There was, some- • thing between those two, but you'd that with that other poor soul so sick they? have forgotten everything else. But it wa« not till the woman lying do»» sat up convulsively and was suddenly violently sick that they spoke. Then each there was a long-drawn "Oh-h poor thing!" * *;V|gGwen, wiping the perspiration from glistening forehead, thought with a nMflSte of pity, "To be like that—and no one 'care for her. To have to face all that alone. The mental as well as the suffering. To know nobody cared ISffP nobody would help. That you had no m, to depend on. Why, to know you could depend on your man was all that mat* Ht life worth living to a woman." Thinking of Alec, she realised that. Bor-'Si? wonderful he'd been when John was How good ever since. Helping with bottles, never minding what he did, long as he could give her a bit of nrffSM being so patient when her nerves were edge, so considerate when exhaustion madi W her snap at him. She'd certainly beea lucky in Alec . . . Yet still the old wound S" throbbed as she looked at Bessie Silv« Nothing could alter the fact that Be*S»'l had had the best of it all through. Newr known hardship, let alone want. L, As if reading her mind, Bessie said simply > and quietly, but through stiff lips, haven't got—your values straight. Money**important. Terribly important. I've l£ji||p everything it could give me.-and I've had— 'p ■ nothing. I've never counted with Cedrie-iisll not except for the first few months. the only time I've ever been—the only on®||i-

It's not in him to be faithful Cbn't yon :J* see that if he'd do to you what he did he'd do it to me, too? He has—all along, rd give every penny I've ever had to have had a man to whom I mattered—and a child of my own. Yes, eVen the way this poor soul's having one!" Her voice rose with .feeling, then stopped as the sick woman moved' her head. As Beeeie stroked the wet forehead with her cool fingers the Little Man asked diffidently: "Anything we can do?" "No thanks. It's just the shock and shaking up—at a time like this." "Poor devil!" the Big Man spoke abruptly. "Some people do get it in tile neck." "And others glide along!" The Little ~ Man was abrupt, too. The inequality of things burnt in him again. Inequality between the sick woman and the other two. Between himself and the Big Man who WM too insulated by money to ever be tfflH by anything. - The Big Man's voice interrupted tji thoughts. "Yes, and the others glide along— apparently. But there's always something underneath, you know.- Things are nevtr quite as smooth as they Seem." His voice jerked. "I've given my life to my tati- ' liess. Sent my boy—all I've got—to England on a job. ! The ship he was coming* back on was sunk by a mine yesterds*. He was drowned." <■ Sis voice was devoid - of expression, bttt the_ utter desolation in it struck a chill to theLittleJdan's heart. At least Kath " vf'J? * and lo y al » and while there w»» life there was hope.. There was always the chance of something turning up. At lfttft . they had that—but the Big Man's hope J°? e -, Lyin » «»ld fathoms deep. And to think that all the time he'd been envy-, ing him! How childish envy was after '/ all when underneath there was always something! Envy— and hatred born of it— could bring only tragedy, yet that was what had the nations at each other's throats to-day. They hadn't grown up any more than the individuals who composed them, yet surely tolerance and compassion could triumph in them as in individuals? The five of them here now, for instance, were poles asunder in ways of livin" and M °u thougnt, yet the need of one had united' them all in compassion. He himself had lost envy in pity. The .Big Man, unobtrusively folding the notes that were his way of helping, had for a time at least put his own grief aside. The two other women, pressing the sick woman's fingers in theirs, had found in an upwelling of humanity healing for their own wounds; and through the current of sympathy that had passed from them to hope a ad been given help and The little group was the world, and the ?L orUl ,™ the group. Microcosm, thought the Little Man. That was the word he d heard someone use once. That vras it. Microcosm . Suddenly feeling surged in him. A flood of exultation for the fact that when the ? arose human beings could soar towards it and touch the very stars themse ves. The spirit of compassion—which was the spirit of Christinas—dwelt forth m them ' waitin S t 0 called word'' 8 * 111 * 8 ? eyes at the They knew the meaning of it now. Each of them. All of them. Microcosm ...