This Freedom Part 42

Rosalie was called up on the telephone by the foreign friend.

It was the evening, about ten o'clock. Doda was away for a week at Brighton with the foreign friend. She was due back to-morrow.

Harry was out with Benji. Benji was nineteen then and was home on vacation from Oxford. Harry never could bear Benji out of his sight when Benji was home. In the affliction that had come upon them, he seemed to cling to Benji. Rosalie had persuaded him that evening to go with Benji to a concert. Harry said the idea of anything like that was detestable to him, but Rosalie had pleaded with him. Just a little chamber concert was different. It would do him so much good to have an evening away and to hear a little music and Benji would love it. Harry allowed himself to be persuaded and went off arm-in-arm with Benji. He always put his arm in Benji's when he walked with Benji.

Rosalie was waiting for them when the telephone bell rang and she was spoken to by the foreign friend.

It then happened like this.

The voice of the foreign friend was very alarmingly urgent. "Would she come and see Doda at once, at once, at once?"

The voice struck a chill to the heart of Rosalie. "But where are you? You're at Brighton, aren't you? Are you speaking from Brighton?"

"No, no. At my flat. At my flat."

"But what is it? What is it? Why don't you tell me what it is?"

"It's an--it's an--." The voice stammered and hesitated.

"Oh, speak! Oh, speak."

She could hear the voice gulping.

"Oh, please do speak!"

"Doda isn't very well. Doda's very ill. It's an--it's an accident."

"I'll come. I'll come."

"Is Mr. Occleve there?"

"He isn't. He's out."

"Can you get him?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. I can't think. Oh, tell me. Tell me."

"Will you leave a message for him to come at once?"

"At once. At once."

She wrote a message for Harry and she picked up a wrap and she ran out hatless to find a cab.

She found a cab and went to Doda.

This all happened as quickly as bewilderingly. It was not like a dream, and it was not like a nightmare. It was like a kind of trance to Rosalie.

The foreign friend was not seen at the flat. She was in some other room and did not appear. She said afterwards, and proved, that she had been away the previous night, leaving Doda at the flat, and had returned to find her--as she was found; and had immediately called the nearest doctor and then Doda's mother.

It was the doctor that opened the door to Rosalie. He was a Scotchman; a big and rugged man, all lines and whiskers and with a rugged accent.

He said, "You'rre her mother, arren't ye? Where's her father?"

"He's coming. Where is my child?"

The doctor jerked his head towards a wall. "She's yon."

"Tell me, please."

He pushed a chair towards her but she shook her head. "Please tell me."

"Ye'll want your courage." He again indicated the chair. She again shook her head. "It'll try ye. She's dying."

The lips of Rosalie formed the words: "Tell me." There was no sound in her.

The doctor said, "I cannot tell ye. It is for your husband to hear."

The heart of Rosalie stood still. She put both her hands upon her heart and she said to the doctor, "Tell me. I am strong."

The doctor looked upon Rosalie intently and he said: (he was perhaps dexterously giving her time that she might weld herself) he said, "Ye'll need be strong. Ye look sensible. Ye'll need be sensible."

He said, "There's been before me here another--There's been a creature here before me. There's been blackguarrd work here. There's been--that poor child there..." He told her.

She moaned: "O G.o.d, be merciful!"

That child, as that night went, was in delirium. She seemed to lie upon a bed. She lay, in fact, upon the altar of her G.o.ds, of self, of what is vain, of liberty undisciplined, of restless itch for pleasure, and of the G.o.ds of Rosalie, a piteous sacrifice to them.

You that have tears to shed prepare to shed them now. Or if you have no tears, but for emotion only sneers, do stop and put the thing away. It is intolerable to think to have beside that bed, beside that child, beside that Rosalie, your sneers. It's not for you, and you do but exacerbate the frightful pain there's been in feeling it with them.

Rosalie was all night with that child. Harry was there upon the other side upon his knees and never raised his head. Benji was there that loved his sister so. Across the unblinded window strove a moon that fought with ma.s.s on ma.s.s of fierce, submerging clouds as it might be a soul that rose through infinite calamity to G.o.d.

That child was in much torment. That child was in delirium and often cried aloud. That child burned with a fever, incredible, at touch of her poor flesh, to think that human flesh such flame could hold and not incinerate. That child in her delirium moaned often names and sometimes cried them out. Nicknames that in the s.e.xless jargon of her day and of her kind might have been names of women and might be names of men. Darkie, Topsy, Skipper, Kitten, Bluey, Tip, Bill, Kid. Names, sometimes, more familiar. Once Huggo; once father; once loud and very piteously, "Benji, Benji, Benji, Benji, Benji!"

She never once said mother.

She calmed and a long s.p.a.ce was mute. The moon, its duress pa.s.sed, stood high, serene, alone. The doctor breathed, "She's pa.s.sing."

That child raised her lids and her eyes looked out upon her watchers.

Rosalie cried, "Oh, Doda!"

That child sighed. "Oh, mother!"

There was no note of love. There was of tenderness no note. There only was in that child's sigh a deathly weariness. "Oh, mother!"

That child pa.s.sed out.

They came home in the very early morning. Rosalie was in her working room. She had some things to do. She wrote to Mr. Field a letter of her resignation from Field's Bank. She only wrote two lines. They ended, "This is Final. I have done."

She sealed that letter and she moved about the room unlaying and as she unlaid, destroying, all evidences, all treasures, all landmarks, all that in any way referred to or touched upon her working life. There were cherished letters, there were treasured papers.

She destroyed them all. From one bundle, not touched for years, dust-covered and time-discoloured, there came out a battered volume.

She turned it over. "Lombard Street." She opened it and saw the eager underlinings and saw the eager margin notes, and ghosts...

(it's written earlier in these pages). She rent the book across its perished cover and pressed it on the fire and on to the flames in the fire. "I have done."

But she was not done with and she had the feeling that she was not done with. She said to Harry, "This is not the children's tragedy.

This is my tragedy. These were not the children's faults. These were my transgressions. Life is sacrifice. I never sacrificed.