This Freedom Part 7

There was a light in the room and Rosalie saw that Anna, on her knees, had her head and arms thrown forward on the bed more as if she were asleep than praying. "It is hard for women." Rosalie had heard Anna say that so often. And she was going to be a woman one day. And she had always known that men were the important and wonderful people of the world. Now Anna said that for women it was hard and that G.o.d knew it was hard. Why? She peered across again.

Anna certainly had done her prayers. She said, "Anna. Anna. Why is it hard for women?"

Anna started to her knees and turned her body round. "Rosalie! Why are you awake? You've no right to be awake."

"No, but I am. I woke up. Anna, why is it hard for women?"

"You weren't meant to hear. You couldn't understand."

"But I would like to know, Anna."

Anna got up and came across to Rosalie's bed; and by her manner, and by her voice, and by the tall white figure she was, frightened Rosalie. She said, "Go to sleep. You can sleep. Why don't you when you can? One day perhaps you'll be like me and can't."

It reminded Rosalie of "Sleep on now and take your rest" in the Bible, and frightened her. Anna said, "It's hard for women because men can do what they like but women can't." She turned away. She stood still and said with her back to Rosalie, "I've got a longing here." Her hands were clasped and she brought them up and struck them against her breast with a thud. "And I always have had and I always will have. Here. Burning. Aching. And when you've got a longing like that you must--you must--" Then she said very violently, "I hate men. I hate them. I hate them." Then she went very quickly to the candlestick on the dressing table and fumbled with it to blow it out, and it fell on the ground and broke and the room was black.

The next day was Sunday. Anna said she would not go to Church as she had a headache. Rosalie had been invited to spend the day with the little girl of Colonel and Mrs. Measures and she had lunch and tea there and then came home. The path from the gate to the house was bounded by a thick hedge. On the right was the rectory paddock and through the hedge Rosalie saw that something very strange was going on in the paddock. Away in the corner where there was a little copse with a pond in the middle was a crowd of people, some men from the village and her mother and Robert and some others.

Whatever was it? While she peered, Harold came running out of the group towards the house. His coat was off, and his waistcoat; and his s.h.i.+rt and trousers looked funny and he ran funnily. He came near Rosalie and she saw that he was dripping wet. Had he fallen in the pond? Then two men came round from the back of the house carrying something, and Harold ran to them and they all ran with the thing to the pond. It looked like the door of the shed they were carrying. Rosalie scrambled through the hedge and ran towards the pond. Some one called out "Here's Rosalie." Hilda came out from among the people and waved her arms and called out, "Go back! Go back! You're not to come here, Rosalie! You're not to come here!"

Rosalie stood still.

People were stooping. They had the door on the ground and Harold and a man were stooping and walking backwards over the door, carrying something. Presently there was more stooping, and then Harold and Robert and three men were carrying the door between them and walking as if the door were very heavy. Whatever was happening? Hilda came running to Rosalie. She was crying. "Rosalie, you're to keep away.

You're not to come into the house yet. I'll tell you when you can come. Go and stay in the garden till I tell you."

Rosalie wandered about by the drive. Whatever was the matter?

Robert appeared with his bicycle. Harold came out after him. "Go to Ashborough station with it, you understand. See the station master. Tell him it must be sent off at once. Tell him what has happened." Robert was sniffling and nodding. Away went Robert, bending over the handle bar of his bicycle, riding furiously.

Evening began to come on. Rosalie was wandering at the back by the stables when Hilda came out through the kitchen door. "Rosalie, I've been looking for you. Rosalie, Anna is--dead."

They went in through the kitchen. On the big kitchen clothes rail before the fire were clothes of Anna's. They were muddy and sopping wet and steam was rising off them.

Rosalie ran to her mother to cry.

"Ran to her mother to cry." That's a thing not to pa.s.s over without a stop. Lucky, lucky Rosalie to have one to whom to take her grief!

You can imagine her small heart's twistings by those days of sorrow, of terrifying and mysterious and dreadful things that the child never could clearly have understood; of grief, of mourning; of atmosphere most eerie made of whispers, of tiptoe treading, of shrouded windows, of conversations, as of conspirators, shut off with "Not in front of Rosalie." "Hush, not now. Here's Rosalie."

Yes, twisting stuff that; but in that "ran to her mother to cry"

something that much more dreadfully twists the heart than those.

Those were for Rosalie--they are for all--but frets upon the sands of time that each most kind expunging day, flowing from dawn to sunset like a tide, heals and obliterates. There are no common griefs, and death's a common grief, that can be drawn above that tide's highwater mark. But there's that sentence: "Rosalie ran to her mother to cry." That's of the aching voids of life, deep-seated like a cancer, that no tide reaches. That twists the heart to hear it because--O happy Rosalie!--the aching thing in life is not having where you can take your weariness. Your successes, your triumphs, there are a hundred eyes to s.h.i.+ne with yours in those. Oh, it is the defeats you want where to tell--some one you can take the defeats to, the failures, the lost things; the lamps that are gone out, the hopes that are ashes, the springs that spring no more, the secret sordid things that eat you up, that hedge you all about, that draw you down. Those! To have some one to tell those to! Yes, there's a thought that comes with living: Let who may receive a man's triumphs; to whom a soul can take its defeats, that one has the imprint of G.o.dhood. They walk near G.o.d.

Awfully frightening days followed for Rosalie. There wasn't a room that wasn't dark and frightening with all the blinds down, and wasn't a voice that wasn't dark and frightening, all in whispers; and then came this that closed them and that was like a finger pressed right down on Rosalie.

There was that Rosalie in the church at the funeral service. She sat at the inner end of the pew with Hilda beside her. The coffin had stood before the altar all night, with the lamps lit all night, and Rosalie believed her father had stayed with it all night. He was struck right down by what had happened, Rosalie's father. She had heard him, when Anna lay on the bed, and he crouched beside her, crying out loud, "I hated my lot! O G.o.d, I was blind to this my child that shared my lot!"

Well, there was that Rosalie in the pew beside Hilda, and while she waited for her father to begin (ever and ever so long he was upon his knees at the altar, his back to them) while she waited she turned back the leaves of her prayer book from the burial service and noticed with a curious interest the correctness of the order in which the special services came. There, in its order, was the complete record of life. Rosalie must have had an imagination and she must have had budding then what was a strong characteristic of her afterwards,--a very orderly mind. She appreciated the correctness of the order of the services and she turned them over one by one and could imagine it, like a story: that record of a life. First the service of Baptism; you were born and baptised. Then the Catechism; you were a child and learnt your catechism. Then the Order of Confirmation; you were getting older and were confirmed. Then the marriage service; you were married. Then the Order for the Visitation of the Sick: you were growing old and you were ill. Then the Burial Service; you died. Born, brought up, growing up, married, ill, dead.

Yes, it was like a story. Rosalie turned on. The next service was called The Churching of Women. It was new to Rosalie. She had never noticed it before. "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty G.o.d of His goodness to give you safe deliverance..." Rosalie had heard the word deliverance used in the Bible in connection with death. She thought this must be a service special to the burial of a woman--of Anna. She read the small print. "The woman at the usual time after her delivery shall come into the church decently apparelled...."

Decently apparelled? Anna was in one of those nightgowns in which Rosalie so often had seen her praying. "... and there shall kneel down in some convenient place." Kneel down? How could she?...

There came upon the book while Rosalie pondered it the long, black-gloved forefinger of Hilda. It turned back the thin leaves to the burial service and then pushed over one or two of the thin leaves and indicated certain places. Then Hilda's new black hat was touching her own new black hat, and Hilda whispered, "Where it says 'brother' and 'his' father will say 'sister' and 'her.' It's written for men, do you see?"

Always for men! Even in the prayer book!

And it was because of men that Anna had drowned herself in the pond. Over and over again Rosalie had thought of that, wondering upon it, shuddering at the thought of men because of it. How she came to know that Anna had not died as ordinary people die, but had drowned herself in the pond she never could remember. No one told her. Rosalie was twelve then but the others were all so much older, and were so accustomed to treating Rosalie as so very much younger, that the pain and mystery of poor Anna's death was outstandingly of the cla.s.s of things that were kept within the established wheel of the rectory by "Not in front of Rosalie," or "Hush, here's Rosalie."

The effect was that when Rosalie somehow found out, she felt it to be a guilty knowledge. She was not supposed to know and she felt she ought not to have known. And sharing, but secretly, the others'

knowledge that Anna had drowned herself in the pond, she supposed that they equally shared with her her knowledge of why poor Anna had drowned herself in the pond--because of men. She overheard many conversations that a.s.sured her in this belief. "Some man we knew nothing about," the conversation used to say. "What else could it have been? Hush, here's Rosalie." And again, after they had all been out of the house to attend what was called the inquest, "You heard what the coroner said--that there was almost invariably something to do with a man in these cases. Poor Anna! Poor darling Anna. If she had only told us. What else could it have been? Harold, hus.h.!.+ Not in front of Rosalie!"

Of course it was nothing else. It was that. It was men. Anna had said so. "I hate men. I hate them." Yes, men had done this to Anna.

Her mind went violently, as it were with a violent clutch of both her hands, as of one in horrible dark, clutching at means of light, to the thought that next week she was to be away at school--to be right away and in the safe middle of lots and lots of girls, and only girls. She had a frightening, a shuddering, at the thought of men who caused these terrible things to be done, who mysteriously and horribly somehow had done this thing to Anna.

The long, black finger poked at the page again. "There. 'This our brother.' Father will say 'This our sister.' Do you see, Rosalie?

This our sister."

A shower of tears sprang out of Rosalie's eyes and pattered upon the page.

She wiped them. She set her teeth. A new and most awful concern possessed her. 'This our sister.' Would father remember? When he came to brother would he remember to say sister? And when 'his'

would he remember to say 'her?' She searched for the places. A most frightful agitation seized her that father would forget. What would happen if he forgot?

And at the very first place father did forget!

They were come from the church to the grave. They were grouped about that most terrible and frightening pit. Rosalie was clutching her mother's dear hand, and in her other hand held her prayer book.

There it was, the first place for the change. Brokenly her father's voice came out upon the air, and at his very first word--the fatal word--Rosalie caught her breath in sharp and agonized dismay.

"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery...."

She called out--she could not help it--"Father!"

Her mother's hand, squeezing hers, restrained her.

The broken voice went on "... cometh up and is cut down like a flower."

She heaved relief. No one had noticed it. It was all right. No one else had heard the terrible mistake. It was all right. But it was very wrong. Above all other places this was the place that should have been changed. Woman... that is full of misery. How could it ever be Man? Anna, in almost her last words, had said it. "It is hard for women" and that G.o.d knew it was hard for them--"O G.o.d, thou knowest how hard it is for women."

In the next week she went away to school.

PART TWO--HOUSE OF WOMEN

CHAPTER I

What anybody can have n.o.body wants; but what only one person can have there's a queue to get.

This is an elementary principle of the frailty of human nature, and knowledge of it, and experience of its mighty truth, used to cause, during the three holiday periods of the year, a standing advertis.e.m.e.nt to appear on the front page of the Morning Post.