THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JULY 1, 1988
THE WITCH BOWL
(Continued from Page 1)
that; mulish, irritated. There was nothing between him and the girl, he maintained.
If the village
must chat, let it chat, what did he care? He had a guiltless con- science and that was that.. Why should it matter?
And the village did chat,
Wherever she went, Edna was conscious of pitying glances in
·her direction. Once she spoke to Myrtle. She met her coming across the pasture land in a short green smock, swinging along, her body bending to the wind. They met in the middle of the green field, where the bath twisted bc- tween the hummocks of grass.
Myrtle stopped dead. She looked into Edna's face and she laughed. "Why can't we be friends?" she asked.
husband.
Edna said, "It's my Why did you come into our house that night and take our hospi- tality, and our friendliness, then behave like this?"
and
"You never felt friendly to- wards me" was the answer, "he did, but you didn't. And you resented the feeling that he cared for me.
Why shouldn't I be friends with him if I wish? Why` shouldn't I? You can't stop me.'
It was true. She could not She turned and clung stop her. on to Myrtle's hand. “Listen,” she said, "I'll tell you something that I haven't even told Jim." I will open my heart to you. You are hurting me more than know, and it is so wrong. I am going to have a baby. I haven't told a soul, not even Jim. I haven't told a soul but I am telling you, because I want you to go away and leave us in peace, and let us be happy again."
you
The girl looked at her, and the.. dark eyes seemed to pierce right down into Edna's soul. She said, "If you are going to have a baby, that's your look-out, not mine." It is nothing to do with me. No, you never liked me. I am not going to be friends.” She shook herself free, and went off striding through the grass and not looking to right or to left.
"What shall I do?" Edna asked herself.
She knew it was useless to try to make the peace with Myrtle. She knew that she had got to do something more than that. She waited, and it happened the next time she went into the town by She bus to do the shopping. finished early, and was waiting at the corner of the street for the bus back. She happened to see the antique dealer's opposite, and something in the dark jumble of the window caught her eye. She trotted across and looked in. there, shining in the centre of it all, was a big witch bowl. It was much like the one they had broken; but to her it gave an idea. Sud denly her superstition armed her and she saw. this bowl as an insur- ance on her future. She still be- lieved that had the other never been broken, Myrtle would never have come into the house that night. She opened the shop door and went inside to ask the price. : It was within her means. She
bought it, handing it carefully
and sitting in the bus all the way home, hugging it in her lap. She was panicky that it would get bro ken. She was afraid that would be hurt. “
"Whatever have you got there?" asked a neighbour on the other
side of the bus.
"It's a witch bowl."".
“Whatever for?”
She smiled. Well, I've got my own ideas about them.
Our house was happier with one than without it."
The neighbour read her. thoughts. She said, "Yes per- haps you're right.” and when they came to the lonely cottage, she helped Edna out and handed her the big round parcel. “You take care of it," she said, and then as she glanced at the darkness of the sky, it looks like a storm blowing up."
Thunder coming against the wind. A dark sky driving with a sudden force across the brightness. Not a happy_omen, thought Edna.
She went inside, and took the paper wrapping from the bowl. There it was set on the table, just as the other one had been. There it stood glittering and radiant in the queer uncertain light which comes just before the storm. Jim was not home yet. Edna put the tea ready and set the things about the table. Then she went to the widow. in a heavy downpour. She saw someone coming up the lane. Jim was hurrying, and by his side walking with big strides was the girl. Evidently they had not sup- posed she would be back so soon, and were comng to the cottage to shelter. A sudden gust of wind, herald of a tempest, caught at the ash tree by the gate and tore at the leaves. They turned
The rain had begun
in. Jim came on ahead, running to open the door.
"Come in," he called.
Edna drew back.
She saw
́him framed in the lintels, and the girl half way up the path. Her hair was wet and clung to her head like a dark veil. Her eyes looked in through the open door, and in that moment a zigzag of lightning forked across the sky. It struck right into the house, it seemed, reflecting in the shine of the witch bowl.. Edna heard a scream. She heard a sharp cry as the thunder came, and just knew that she herself was reeling against the mantelshelf. What had happened? Everything was so sudden. Everything so strange that it took her a moment to pull herself together.The witch bowl still radiated the dim room, Jim stood in the doorway staring stupi- dly as though he could not fathom what had happened.“ But the girl had fallen in the path. Be- hind her was emptiness, strange emptiness, for the leafy ash had gone. The lightning had got it. It was Edna who pushed her way past Jim and ran down the path to the girl lying there.
eyes
"The lightning," she cried, "the lightning has got her."
"She was very still; her were closed and her face has gone pale, her hands twitched nervous- ly together.
Jim came and stood beside her. "What happened?" he asked..
"We must get help.
She was struck, or shock, or something, Jim, you must get help.”
For an hour the storm raged. In that hour the ambulance came and fetched Myrtle away, somehow Edna knew that she would never see her again. It was not that he would d die; it was that the witch bowl had done its work. Myrtle would not return.
Across the tea table, with the sky growing clearer and the day merging into the lovely evening,
CABBAGES AND KINGS
PAINLESS
"Three brothers named - Day have opened a surgery for
· painless extraction of teeth.
New York City. So we really must be allowed to observe that the Days are drawing out,”
*
JOKE FOR THE CHILDREN
"There are millions. of square miles in Africa," said the teacher, ""where little boys and girls have no Sunday schools. So for what should we save our money?”)!
"To go to Africa," replied, the class in chorus.
#
*
*
· NOW WE'RE MARRIED "It takes two to make quarrel," says a magistrate.
"My wife has little difficulty in finding the other one.
Jim looked at Edna with troubled eyes. He said, "Edna, I feel something peculiar has happened. I feel sort of funny. Just as though I had been somebody else ever since the last storm, and now Can had become myself again. you understand?””
"Of course I can," she said. It was what she had felt all along; everybody else had laughed about it, but she did understand how he was feeling. She put out her hand and took his.
"Edna, I've been rather beas- tly."
"You couldn't help it, dear. knew that."
*"How how are we going face the future?” he asked.
The sun came out and drifted
"You're right.
DEFINITION
Conscience is the still small voice, that tells a financier where to draw the line.
QUERY
Boarding-house Landlady: All my boarders are gentlemen in the City.
New Maid: An' what are they like at tome?
* *
WRONG
"What a quaint_old_\village” the rapturous tourist. "How true it is that one half of the world doesn't know how, the other half lives.".
"Ah!" said the native, "But not in this village, ma'am, not in this .village."
across the green of pastureland in a golden film. The ash by the gate stripped of its leaves looked stark and sinister beside it.
She said, "It is going to be a new future, different from any- thing we ever had before, my dear. I had not been able to tell I want to tell you you before. now,"
She went across and nestled closely to him, and he stroked her
In hair with gentle fingers. corner of the room the witch bowl glittered and shimmered.
"A future for three of us," she whispered, "the sweetest trinity in all the world. You and I and a baby-to-be.".
"Oh, my dear, tenderly.
. I can tell
White Horse
blindfold!"
he said
very
White Horse has its own distinctive fragrance: you could judge this whisky by its aroma alone. But you have your palate to tell you as well : mellow smoothness such 25 this is a pleasure to remember, a joy to find again.
EQUAL TO FINE LIQUEUR
Sole ugents for S. China: JARDINE MATHESON & CO.LTD.
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