1938-12-09 — Page 15

CHINA

MAIL

FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, DECEMBER

DECEMBER 9, 1938

LARE had been left alone in

CLAR

life when she was only*

She had made

twenty-four.

one

an

He

unfortunate marriage. It was

of

into those marriages

launch which very yoùng girls themselves, without thinking. Brian had been attractive. had been glamorous, and they had met at a staff dance. Then Clare had been working in the baby linen department of a big store, and thankful for that work, for, after her people had died, she had been left in the tragic position of having not one bean.

And she hated every moment of that penniless state.

J

on

"ALONE IN LIFE"

herself, something will change it all.

me

out. That was when the large lady turned hastily to Clare.

"What are you touching for?" she asked.

Clare had not touched her, and simply was so amazed that she very

stared. "Touching you?" she

The thing happened when baby Brian Bob was ten weeks old. and his friends went to the dog races, and coming home, much in cash, and in drink too, the car struck a skiddy road. There was a crash, and suddenly Clare found herself sitting in the rooms, clutching baby Bob to her heart and with no idea where the next penny would come from.

She tried to get back her old job, in the baby linen department of the big shop, but it was filled. She tried to get a similar job, and walked the streets, but somehow It nothing seemed to be available. It-

wasn't easy. it

She had hated sponging friends, and the terror with which one viewed a thin purse; she had -loathed the tramping.from_place

to place searching for a job.

It made complicated life. hideous. Then suddenly she had that taken this post, and after everything had run smoothly. She met Brian. She met him and was dazzled by him. Brian, in hyper- smart suits. Brian who talked parties and baby cars and liked a good-time. She had said “I am. not a good time girl” and he had laughed, and declared that must change all that.

he

In the shop the other assistants

warned her.

"He doesn't mean

Short Story

of

marriage; he isn't that sort man. He flirts and fools, but he isn't the sort that pops along with a wedding ring."

She had told herself that if only she had a little fun, something more than fear of poverty, some- thing

more than sitting night

She did not know what to do next. She changed her rooms for cheaper ones every time, and now had come the day when she lived in a dull street, and took in a little mending. She worked for one or two ladies, and she was only too thankful to get the work. It kept her and baby Bob, you could call it anything-

more.

To-day she had come up to the West End.

She had the child by the hand

By Ursula Bloom

and had wandered into the big stores. Somehow there was an air of comfort and opulence about the big building, and the sight of well-dressed people, and the stalls with their burden of beautiful things.

de- She went into the grocery

It made her feel hungry. She went upstairs where there were sweets displayed, and little pink iced cakes.

"Oh Mummy?" begged Baby Bob. "Buy me one."

after night in lonely diggings,partment. then she did not care. And when he asked her to marry him, she They just could not believe it. married one bright August day. A summer wedding. The frou of white organdi, the scent of lilies, and Clare hardly believing that it was herself, her very own self, walking up the aisle to meet Brian at the altar.

He was too good for her, oh, so much too good for her.

are

There are some marriages that the word go, happy from others that fail. The girls had had been right about Brian, he never been Clare's sort, but be- cause she had had so little happi- burden of ness and so big a

she had not responsibilities,

a

realised that their paths should have lain apart. They lived in rooms, he had never wanted house. She had found with a jar that he had noisy friends of whom the landlady disapproved. He bet- ted a good deal. Some weeks his luck was in and then they were flush, other weeks he would be like bear with a sore head, because somebody had given him

a poor tip and he had been let down. And, then of course, he would take drop of something to see through a bad time.

a

him

When the baby was coming. Clare realised that this marriage had been a mistake, but because she was a splendid, loyal little creature she clung to it. Some- thing will happen, she kept telling

She hadn't the money. She look- ed around her desperately. Here who were rich women, women could never miss a couple of pen- nies which were all such

a cake would cost. She felt suddenly that she was at her wits' end, and before she could stop herself she had reached 'out a furtive hand, One of the pink cakes had changed places and was slipped into her bag. A twopenny iced cake, and no one had seen,

"Buy me one, Mummy," persist- ed the child.

repeated.

"I felt you."" The large lady looked down to the front of her dress, and she gave a little scream. "My brooch! My diamond brooch, the one that my hushand gave me when we were married, it's gone. You must have taken it."

The little foxy-faced woman had gone, and in her place a crowd was gathering. Clare, at first not un- --derstanding what was afoot, star- ed from the large lady to the lift crowd. girl and then out to the

hand She clutched Baby Bob's closer. She said, "I didn't touch your and I haven't got you, brooch."

"But I felt you. Of course you. I felt the have got my brooch. very moment that you took it."

en-

The lift girl eyed them both. She said, "I'll call the house de- tective," and signalled to a tall man who was standing behind the crowd. Clare, her eyes growing misty, saw him approaching. She heard the large lady talking volubly, and he was making quiries. Then she remembered the cake. If they took her to the manager's office and searched her she knew of course that the brooch would not be found; she was sure of that, put the cake would be found. They would never listen to her story of Baby Bob being hungry and of her sudden longing to buy him the cake he wanted, and because she had no money the fact that she had taken They would brand her as a thief. She knew that her cheeks blarching.

it.

were

"Step this way," said the house detective.

ushered

They were all being through a side entrance up some She stone steps to the first floor. saw the door marked Manager's Office. She knew that she would faint in a moment. She touched the large woman's arm.

"I

brooch. didn't take your Truly I didn't. Won't you believe me? Won't you understand?” ́

But the woman was not going She to be mollified like that.

angrily. shook off Clare's hand She said something about "com. time mon thieyes" and "quite

somebody, did it," and Clare was

Vall

something about the while sure, quite sure that the foxy-faced Kitle woman had slipped out of the lift with the diamond brooch, and that she would now be unable to prove her own innocence.

1

Inside the office there was sun- shine. There was a big bowl of flowers on the manager's desk, and he himself sitting behind it. He man with a was a grey-haired kind face.. Seeing him there, Clare realised that he understood humanity, that he was not going to be bustled into forming wrong conclusion, and that he would do his best to put this mat- ter right. "I mustn't be frighten- ed," she kept telling herself, but all the while she remembered that she would be sure to be searched, and that in her handbag was the twopenny cake, very daming evi- dence that she had stolen some- thing.

And if one thing why not an- other?

:

The large lady and the house. detective were talking. Clare stood there, and she stooped and lifted She Baby Bob__into_her arms. watched them with round eyes. The evidence seemed to be so con- clusive. It would be so much more conclusive when they found the cake, All the while the mana- ta ger listened, then he turned Clare. He said. "Did you take the brooch ?"

And she said, "No sir," and then because somehow he seemed to be the type of man she could confide in, "There was another little woman in the lift, she slipped out when we got to the ground floor."

"She ought to be searched," said the large lady.

"Let me look-in your handbag" said the manager.

For one moment she held back, and he must have seen the reluc- tance in her face.

"Your handbag" he repeated. She gave it to him. He opened it and instantly there

was the pink iced cake in its celophane wrapping. There was the miserable fourpence that was all Clare had until the lady paid for her darning; she was to fetch the money on her way back.

He said, "What's this?" She stood there quite still. His eyes mot hers, and perhaps he saw "He said, the message in them. "Perhaps you will ask the nurse in the rest room to search her, and I then will you bring her back? (Continued on Page 7):

Sow her one idea was to escape. SPECIAL OFFER IN TRAVELLING RUGS

The moment she had done it, she knew she had done the wrong thing, but somehow she could not be sorry. Baby Bob wanted it so much. She wanted it for him. She gripped his little hand closer and pushed her way across the building to the lift. Three of them were there. A small foxy- faced woman in the corner. large lady from the suburbs, wear- ing an expensive frock and smart jewellery, and, with an enormous bust. Clare took her place by the side of the large lady,

A

the

"Going down" said the lift girl, The lift sank downwards. As they drew level with ground floor, street level, the little foxy woman was all ready to hop

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