This Freedom Part 39

"Oh, I can't be tidy," said Doda. "I simply can't. It's no good trying."

"Darling, you ought to try. It's so odd. I'm so fearfully tidy.

It's almost a vice with me. One would have thought you'd have had it too."

Doda said indifferently, "I don't see why." She said, "Oh, I am sleepy. It's a matter of teaching when you're a kid, that sort of thing. You're tidy, but you never taught me to be tidy."

Rosalie said some more of encouragement to tidiness. She then said, "And there's another thing, Doda. I think you ought not to have rushed off like that to the Trevors last night without telling me."

"Mother, you knew where I was. I told the maids."

"You should have consulted me, Doda."

The child a.s.sumed the Huggo look. "Mother, how could I? They only asked me on the telephone at tea-time. How could I have consulted you?"

"In the same way as you were invited. On the telephone."

"Well, I never thought about it. Why should I if I had? I knew you'd have agreed. You wouldn't have stopped me, would you? It's dull enough, goodness knows."

"Doda, what I've come in to talk about is this. When I was tidying your room last night--"

Doda sat up. "Did you tidy my room?"

"I couldn't possibly leave a room like that. Well, I went to tidy your box--"

"I'll get up," said Doda. She jumped very quickly out of bed and put on a wrapper and her slippers. "Yes, well?"

"Are you writing to men at the front, Doda?"

"Every girl is. It's a thing to do. It helps them."

"Are they friends of yours, dear? Personal friends."

"They're brothers of girls I've stayed with."

"All?"

"Practically all. There're not more than two or three. Lonely soldiers, they're called. They used to advertise. It helps them.

There's no harm in it, is there?"

"I haven't suggested there is, Doda."

"I can see you're going to, though. If you ask me--" She stopped.

"I don't think I like the idea, quite. I never did when I heard of it being done. Why should they send you their photographs?"

"But what's the harm? Why shouldn't they?"

"Darling, it's I am asking you. I'm your mother."

"Well, if you ask me--" Doda walked over to the window. She stood there a moment looking out. She suddenly turned. "If you ask me, I don't think it's right to--Of course if you think it right to--if you've been reading my letters--"

"Doda, I haven't. I just saw them there. But I'd like to read them, Doda. May I?"

"They're private letters. I don't see how you can expect me to show you private letters."

Rosalie went over to Doda and stood by her and stroked her hair.

"Doda, I think we'll look at it like this. Let me read the letters and we'll talk about them and see if it's nice to go on writing to the men, in each individual case. That certainly you shall do, continue writing, if it all seems nice to us, together, Doda. If you won't show them to me--well, let us say if you'd rather not show them to me--then I'll ask you just to burn them and we'll forget it."

Doda stepped violently away from the hand that stroked her hair.

"No. I won't show them."

"Then it's to burn them, Doda."

Doda looked slowly around the room. Her face was not nice. She said sullenly, "There's no fire here."

"Bring them down with you to the breakfast-room. Your father will have gone. We'll see Benji's not there."

She went to Doda and kissed her on the forehead. Doda shut her eyes. Her hand on Doda's shoulder could feel Doda quivering. She went to the door and at the door said, "And the photographs, dear.

I should bring them too."

She had long finished breakfast when at last Doda came down. The tall, slim, beautiful and pale creature appeared in the doorway.

She walked towards the fire, her head held high, her brown hair in a thick tail to her waist. She had a packet in her hands. As she began to stoop over the fire she suddenly uprighted herself and turned upon her mother. She said violently, "Perhaps you'd like to count them?"

Rosalie said very softly, "Doda!"

Doda bent to the flames and pressed the packet down upon them. She stood watching them mount about it. A half-burnt photograph slid onto the hearth. She gave a sound that was a catching at her breath and swiftly stooped and s.n.a.t.c.hed the burning fragment up and cast it on its fellows. The leaping flames died down. She turned violently towards Rosalie, seated at the table watching her, her heart sick. That tall, slim, beautiful creature whose face had been pale and was habitually pale was in her face crimson, her slight young bosom heaving, her eyes, so often sleepy, flas.h.i.+ng, her young hands clenched. "I call it a shame!" Her voice was high and raw. "I call it a shame! I call it wicked! I call it abominable! I call it an--an outrage!"

Rosalie said, "Doda! Doda, I haven't reproached you. I haven't reproved you. If they had been letters you could have shown me, yes, then a shame--"

The child called out, "I'm nearly seventeen! I call it an outrage!"

Rosalie got up and went to her. "Darling, they couldn't be shown.

They're just burnt. They're forgotten." She put out inviting arms.

"My poor Doda!"

That child, almost touched by her arms, brushed herself from the arms. "Why should I have things like this done to me by you?"

"Doda, I am your mother. You have a duty--"

"Well, I won't have a duty! Why should I have a duty? I didn't ask to be born, did I? You chose for me to be born, didn't you? I didn't choose it. I'll never forget this. Never, never, never!"

Tears rushed into her eyes and leapt from her eyes. She gave an impa.s.sioned gesture. She rushed from the room.

Strike on!

Look at her. There she is. She's only eighteen but she's woman now. Grown-up. "Out," as one would have said in the old and stupid days, but out much wider than the freest budding woman then. It's 1919. They've caught, the rising generation, the flag of liberty that the war flamed across the world; license, the curmudgeons call it; liberty, the young set free. It's 1919. She's been a year war-working in one of the huge barracks run up all over London for the mult.i.tudes of women clerks the Government departments needed and, the war over, not too quickly can give up. She loves it. She's made a host of friends. Her friends are all the girls of wealthy parents, like herself, or of parents of position if not of means; and all, like her, are far from with complaint against the war that's given them this priceless avenue away from home. She loves it. Of course she doesn't love the actual work. Who would? What she loves is the constant t.i.tillation of it. The t.i.tillation of getting down there of a morning and of the greetings and the meetings and the rapt resumptions of the past day's fun; the t.i.tillation of watching the clock for lunch and of those lunches, here to-day, to-morrow there, and of the rush to get back not too late. The t.i.tillation of watching the clock for tea, and of tea, and then, most sharpest t.i.tillation of them all, watching the clock for--time!; for--off!; for--out!; away! That is the charm of it in detail. The charm in general, as once expressed to Rosalie by one of Doda's friends brought in to tea one Sunday is, "You see, it gets you through the day."

That's it. The night's all right. There's nearly always something doing for the night. It's just the day would be so hopeless were there not this lively way of "getting through the day." That's it, for Doda.