diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6415-0.txt | 11837 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6415-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 241104 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6415-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 252667 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6415-h/6415-h.htm | 13798 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6415.txt | 11837 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 6415.zip | bin | 0 -> 239621 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/tfrdm10.txt | 12523 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/tfrdm10.zip | bin | 0 -> 239720 bytes |
11 files changed, 50011 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6415-0.txt b/6415-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44d1d54 --- /dev/null +++ b/6415-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11837 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: This Freedom + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + + +Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6415] +This file was first posted on December 8, 2002 +Last Updated: November 8, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + + + + + + + +THIS FREEDOM + +By A. S. M. Hutchinson + +“With a great sum obtained I this freedom.”--ACTS xxii, 28. + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART ONE--HOUSE OF MEN + +PART TWO--HOUSE OF WOMEN + +PART THREE--HOUSE OF CHILDREN + +PART FOUR--HOUSE OF CARDS + + + + +PART ONE--HOUSE OF MEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Rosalie’s earliest apprehension of the world was of a mysterious and +extraordinary world that revolved entirely about her father and that +entirely and completely belonged to her father. Under her father, all +males had proprietory rights in the world and dominion over it; no +females owned any part of the world or could do anything with it. All +the males in this world--her father, and Robert and Harold her brothers, +and all the other boys and men one sometimes saw--did mysterious and +extraordinary things; and all the females in this world--her mother, and +Anna and Flora and Hilda her sisters, and Ellen the cook and Gertrude +the maid--did ordinary and unexciting and generally rather tiresome +things. All the males were like story books to Rosalie: you never knew +what they were going to do next; and all the females were like lesson +books: they just went on and on and on. + +Rosalie always stared at men when she saw them. Extraordinary and +wonderful creatures who could do what they liked and were always doing +mysterious and wonderful things, especially and above all her father. + +Being with her father was like being with a magician or like watching +a conjuror on the stage. You never knew what he was going to do next. +Whatever he suddenly did was never surprising in the sense of being +startling, for (this cannot be emphasised too much) nothing her father +did was ever surprising to Rosalie; but it was surprising in the sense +of being absorbingly wonderful and enthralling. Even better than reading +when she first began to read, and far better than anything in the world +before the mysteries in books were discoverable, Rosalie liked to sit +and stare at her father and think how wonderful he was and wonder what +extraordinary thing he would do next. Everything belonged to him. The +whole of life was ordered with a view to what he would think about it. +The whole of life was continually thrown off its balance and whirled +into the most entrancing convulsions by sudden activities of this most +wonderful man. + +Entrancing convulsions! Wonderful, wonderful father with a bull after +him! Why, that was her very earliest recollection of him! That showed +you how wonderful he was! Father, seen for the first time (as it were) +flying before a bull! Bounding wildly across a field towards her with +a bull after him! Wonderful father! Did her mother ever rush along in +front of a bull? Never. Was it possible to imagine any of the women she +knew rushing before a bull? It was not possible. To see a woman rushing +before a bull would have alarmed Rosalie for she would have felt it was +unnatural; but for her father to be bounding wildly along in front of a +bull seemed to her perfectly natural and ordinary and she was not in the +least alarmed; only, as always, enthralled. + +Her father, while Rosalie watched him, was not in great danger. He came +ballooning along towards Rosalie, not running as ordinarily fit and +efficient men run, but progressing by a series of enormous leaps and +bounds, arms and legs spread-eagling, and at each leap and bound always +seeming to Rosalie to spring as high in the air as he sprung forward +over the ground. It would not have surprised Rosalie, who was then about +four, to see one of these stupendous leaps continue in a whirling flight +through mid-air and her father come hurtling over the gate and drop with +an enormous plunk at her feet like a huge dead bird, as a partridge once +had come plunk over the hedge and out of the sky when she was in a lane +adjacent to a shooting party. It would not have surprised her in the +least. Nothing her father did ever surprised Rosalie. The world was his +and the fulness thereof, and he did what he liked with it. + +Arrived, however, from the bull, not as a ballooning bird out of +the sky, but as a headlong avalanche over the gate, Rosalie’s father +tottered to a felled tree trunk, and sat there heaving, and groaned +aloud, “Infernal parish; hateful parish; forsaken parish!” + +Rosalie, wonderingly regarding him, said, “Mother says dinner is waiting +for you, father.” + +Her mother and her sisters and the servants and the entire female +establishment of the universe seemed to Rosalie always to be waiting for +something from her father, or for her father himself, or waiting for or +upon some male other than her father. That was another of the leading +principles that Rosalie first came to know in her world. Not only were +the males, paramountly her father, able to do what they liked and always +doing wonderful and mysterious things, but everything that the females +did either had some relation to a male or was directly for, about, or on +behalf of a male. + +Getting Robert off to school in the morning, for instance. That was +another early picture. + +There would be Robert, eating; and there was the entire female +population of the rectory feverishly attending upon Robert while he ate. +Six females, intensely and as if their lives depended upon it, occupied +with one male. Three girls--Anna about sixteen, Flora fourteen, Hilda +twelve--and three grown women, all exhaustingly occupied in pushing out +of the house one heavy and obstinate male aged about ten! Rosalie used +to stand and watch entranced. How wonderful he was! Where did he go to +when at last he was pushed off? What happened to him? What did he do? + +There he is, eating; there they are, ministering. Entrancing and +mysterious spectacle! + +Robert, very solid and heavy and very heated and agitated, would be +seated at the table shoving porridge into himself against the clock. +One of his legs, unnaturally flexed backward and outward, is in the +possession of Rosalie’s mother who is on her knees mending a hole in his +stocking. The other leg, similarly contorted, is on the lap of Ellen +the cook, who with very violent tugs, as if she were lashing a box, is +lacing a boot on to it. Behind Robert is Anna, who is pressing his head +down with one hand and washing the back of his neck with the other. In +front of him across the table is Hilda, staring before her with bemused +eyes and moving lips and rapidly counting on drumming fingers. Hilda is +doing his sums for him. Beside him on his right side, apparently engaged +in throttling him, is Gertrude the maid. Gertrude the maid is trying +to tear off him a grimed collar and put on him a clean collar. Facing +Gertrude on his other side is Flora. Flora is bawling his history in his +ear. + +Everybody is working for Robert; everybody is working at top speed for +him, and everybody is loudly soliciting his attention. + +“Oh, do give over wriggling, master Robert!” (The boot-fastener.) + +“‘Simon de Montford, Hubert de Burgh, and Peter de Roche.’ Well, say it +then, you dreadful little idiot!” (The history crammer.) + +“Oh, master Robert, do please keep up!” (The collar fastener.) + +“Keep down, will you!” (The neck washer.) + +“Four sixes are twenty-four and six you carried thirty!” (The +arithmetician.) + +“Robert, you must turn your foot further round!” (The stocking-darner.) + +“‘The Barons were now incensed. The Barons were now incensed. The Barons +were now incensed.’ Say it, you ghastly little stupid!” + +“Do they make you do these by fractions or by decimals?... Well, what do +you know, then?” + +Entrancing spectacle! + +Now the discovery is by everybody simultaneously made and simultaneously +announced that Robert is already later in starting than he has ever been +(he always was) and immediately Rosalie would become witness of the last +and most violent skirmish in this devoted attendance. Everybody rushes +around hunting for things and pushing them on to Robert and pushing +Robert, festooned with them, towards the door. Where was his cap? Where +was his satchel? Where was his lunch? Where were his books? Who had seen +his atlas? Who had seen his pencil box? Who had seen his gymnasium belt? +Was his bicycle ready? Was his coat on his bicycle? Was that button on +his coat? + +With these alarums at their height and the excursions attendant on +them at their busiest, another splendid male would enter the room +and immediately there was, as Rosalie always saw, a transference of +attendance to him and a violent altercation between him and the first +splendid male. This new splendid male is Rosalie’s other brother, +Harold. Harold was eighteen and him also the entire female population +of the rectory combined to push out of the rectory every morning. Harold +was due to be pushed off half an hour later than Robert, and as he was +a greater and more splendid male than Robert (though infinitely lesser +than her father) so the place to which he was pushed off was far more +mysterious and enthralling than the place to which Robert was pushed +off. A school Rosalie could dimly understand. But a bank! Why Harold +should go to sit on a bank all day, and why he should ride on a bicycle +to Ashborough to find a bank when there were banks all around the +rectory, and even in the garden itself, Rosalie never could imagine. +Mysterious Harold! Anna had told her that men kept money in banks; +but Rosalie had never found money in a bank though she had looked; yet +banks--of all extraordinary places--were where men chose to put their +money! Mysterious men! And Harold could find these banks and find this +money though he never took a trowel or a spade and was always shiningly +clean with a very high collar and very long cuffs. Wonderful, wonderful +Harold! + +Robert was due to be pushed off half an hour before Harold was due to be +pushed off, but he never was; the two splendid creatures always clashed +and there was always between them, because they clashed, a violent scene +which Rosalie would not have missed for worlds. A meeting of two males, +so utterly unlike a meeting of two females, was invariably of the most +entrancingly noisy or violent description. When ladies came to the +rectory to see her mother they sat in the drawing-room and sipped tea +and spoke in thin voices; but when men came to see her father and went +into the study, there was very loud talking and often a row. Yes, and +once in the village street, Rosalie had seen two men stand up and thump +one another with their fists and fall down and get up and thump again. +When two women, her sisters or others, quarrelled, they only shrilled, +and went on and on shrilling. It was impossible to imagine the collision +of two women producing anything so exciting and splendid as invariably +was produced by the collision of two males. + +As now---- + +In comes Harold in great heat and hurry (as men always were) with his +splendid button boots in one hand and an immense pair of shining cuffs +in the other hand. + +“Haven’t you gone yet, you lazy young brute?” + +“No, I haven’t, you lazy old brute!” + +Agitated feminine cries of “Robert! Robert! You are not to speak to +Harold like that.” + +“Well, he spoke to me like that.” + +“Yes, and I’ll do a jolly sight more than speak to you in a minute if +you don’t get out of it. Get out of it, do you hear?” + +“Shan’t!” + +“Robert! Robert! Harold! Harold!” + +“Well, get him out of it, or he’ll be sorry for it. Why is he always +here when I’m supposed to be having my breakfast? Not a thing ready, as +usual. Look here, where I’m supposed to sit--flannel and soap! That’s +washing his filthy neck, I suppose. Filthy young brute! Why don’t you +wash your neck, pig?” + +“Why do you wear girl’s boots with buttons, pig?” + +Commotion. Enthralling commotion. Half the female assemblage hustle the +splendid creature Robert out of the door and down the hall and on to his +bicycle; half the female assemblage cover his retreat and block the dash +after him of the still more splendid Harold; all the female assemblage, +battle having been prevented and one splendid male despatched, combine +to minister to the requirements of the second splendid male now +demanding attention. + +Busy scene. Enthralling spectacle. There he is, eating; shoving sausages +into himself against the clock just as Robert had shovelled porridge +into himself against the clock. One ministrant is sewing a button on to +his boot, another with blotting paper and hot iron is removing a stain +from his coat, divested for the purpose; one is pouring out his coffee, +another is cutting his bread, a third is watching for his newspaper by +the postman. And suddenly he whirls everything into a whirlpool just as +men, if Rosalie watches them long enough, always whirl everything into a +whirlpool. + +“Oh, my goodness, the pump!” + +Chorus, “The pump?” + +“The bicycle pump! Has that young brute taken the bicycle pump?” + +“Yes, he took it. I saw it.” + +Commotion. + +“Catch him across the field! Catch him across the field! Where are +my boots? Where the devil are my boots? Well, never mind the infernal +button. How am I going to get to the bank with a flat tyre? Can’t some +one catch him across the field instead of all standing there staring?” + +Away they go! Rosalie, seeking a good place for the glorious spectacle, +is knocked over in the stampede for the door. Nobody minds Rosalie. +Rosalie doesn’t mind--anything to see this entrancing sight! Away they +go, flying over the meadow, shouting, scrambling, falling. Out after +them plunges Harold, shirt-sleeved, one boot half on, hobbling, leaping, +bawling. Glorious to watch him! He outruns them all; he outbellows +them all. Of course he does. He is a man. He is one of those splendid, +wonderful, mysterious creatures to whom, subject only to Rosalie’s +father, the entire world belongs. Look at him, bounding, bawling! +Wonderful, wonderful Harold! + +But Robert is wonderful too. If it had been Anna or Flora or Hilda +gone off with the pump, she would have been easily caught. Not Robert. +Wonderful and mysterious Robert, wonderfully and mysteriously pedalling +at incredible speed, is not caught. The hunt dejectedly trails back. The +business of pushing Harold out of the house is devotedly resumed. + +And again--enthralling spectacle--just as the reign of Robert was +terminated by the accession of Harold, so the dominion of Harold is +overthrown by the accession of father. Harold is crowded about with +ministrants. Nobody can leave him for a minute. Rosalie’s father +appears. Everybody leaves Harold simultaneously, abruptly, and as if by +magic. Rosalie’s father appears. Everybody disappears. Wonderful father! +Everybody melts away: but Harold does not melt away. Courageous +Harold! Everybody melts; only Harold is left, and Rosalie watching; and +immediately, as always, the magnificent males clash with sound and fury. + +Rosalie’s father scowls upon Harold and delivers his morning greeting. +No “Good morning, dear,” as her mother would have said. “Aren’t you gone +yet?” like a bark from a kennel. + +“Just going.” + +Wonderful father! A moment before there had been not the remotest sign +of Harold ever going. Now Harold is very anxious to go. He is very +anxious to go but, like Robert, he will not abandon the field without +defiance of the authority next above his own. While he collects his +things he whistles. Rosalie shudders (but deliciously as one in old Rome +watching the gladiators). + +“Do you see the clock, sir?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, quicken yourself, sir. Quicken yourself.” + +“The clock’s fast.” + +“It is not fast, sir. And let me add that the clock with which you could +keep time of a morning, or of any hour in the day, would have to be an +uncommonly slow clock.” + +Harold with elaborate unconcern adjusts his trouser clips. “I should +have thought that was more a matter for the Bank to complain of, if +necessary. I may be wrong, of course----” + +“You may be wrong, sir, because in my experience you almost invariably +are wrong and never more so than when you lad-di-dah that you are right. +You may be wrong, but let me tell you what you may not be. You may not +be impertinent to me, sir. You may not lad-di-dah me, sir.” + +“Father, I really do not see why at my age I should be hounded out of +the house like this every morning.” + +“You are hounded out, as you elegantly express it, because morning after +morning, owing to your disgustingly slothful habits, you clash with me, +sir. My breakfast is delayed because you clash with me, and the house +is delayed because you clash with me, and the whole parish is delayed +because you clash with me.” + +“Perhaps you’re not aware that Robert clashes with me.” + +“Dash Robert! Are you going or are you not going?” + +He goes. + +“Bring back the paper.” + +He brings it back. + +Wonderful father! + +Rosalie’s father gives a tug at the bell cord that would have dislocated +the neck of a horse. The cord comes away in his hand. He hurls it across +the room. + +Glorious father! + +There was a most frightful storm one night and Rosalie, in Anna’s bed +with Flora crowded in also and Hilda shivering in her nightgown beside +them, too young to be frightened but with her sister’s fright beginning +to communicate itself to her, said, “Ask father to go and stop it.” + +“Fool!” cried Flora. “How could father stop the storm?” + +Why not? + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Flora’s sharp and astounding reply to that question of Rosalie’s +was recalled by Rosalie, with hurt surprise at Flora’s sharpness and +ignorance, when, shortly afterwards, she found in a book a man who +could, and actually did, stop a storm. This was a man called Prospero in +a book called “The Tempest.” + +She was never--that Rosalie--the conventional wonder-child of fiction +who reads before ten all that its author probably never read before +thirty; but she could read when she was six and she read widely and +curiously, choosing her entertainment, from her father’s bookshelves, +solely by the method of reading every book that had pictures. + +There was but one picture to “The Tempest,” a frontispiece, but it +sufficed, and at the period when Rosalie believed the ownership of +the world to be vested in her father and under him in all males, “The +Tempest,” because it reflected that condition, was the greatest joy of +all the joys the bookshelves discovered to her. She read it over and +over again. It presented life exactly as life presented itself to the +round eyes of Rosalie: all males doing always noisy and violent and +important and enthralling things, with Prospero, her father, by far the +most important of all; and women scarcely appearing and doing only +what the men told them to do. Miranda’s appearances in the story were +indifferently skipped by Rosalie; the noisy action and language in the +wreck, and the noisy action and language of the drunkards in the wood +were what she liked, and all the magic arts of Prospero were what she +thoroughly appreciated and understood. That was life as she knew it. + +Rosalie’s father, when Rosalie thought the world belonged to him and +revolved about him, was tall and cleanshaven and of complexion a dark +and burning red. When he was excited or angry his face used to burn as +the embers in the study fire burned when Rosalie pressed the bellows +against them. He had thick black eyebrows and a most powerful nose. His +nose jutted from his face like a projection from a cliff beneath a clump +of bushes. He had been at Cambridge and he was most ferociously fond of +Cambridge. One of the most fearful scenes Rosalie ever witnessed was on +one boat-race day when Harold appeared with a piece of Oxford ribbon in +his buttonhole. It was at breakfast, the family for some reason or other +most unusually all taking breakfast together. Rosalie’s father +first jocularly bantered Harold on his choice of colour, and +everybody--anxious as always to please and placate the owner of the +world--laughed with father against Harold. But Harold did not laugh. +Harold smouldered resentment and defiance, and out of his smouldering +began to maintain “from what chaps had said” that Oxford was altogether +and in every way a much better place than Cambridge. In every branch of +athletics there were better athletes, growled Harold, at Oxford. + +Rosalie has been watching the embers in her father’s face glowing to +dark-red heat. Everybody had been watching them except Harold who, +though addressing his father, had been mumbling “what chaps had said” to +his plate. + +“Athletes!” cried Rosalie’s father suddenly in a very terrible voice. +“Athletes! And what about scholars, sir?” + +Harold informed his plate that he wasn’t talking about scholars. + +Rosalie’s father raised a marmalade jar and thumped it down upon the +table so that it cracked. “Then what the dickens right have you to talk +at all, sir? How dare you try to compare Oxford with Cambridge when you +know no more about either than you know of Jupiter or Mars? Athletes!” + He went off into record of University contests, cricket scores, running +times, football scores, as if his whole life had been devoted to +collecting them. They all showed Cambridge first and Oxford beaten and +he hurled each one at Harold’s head with a thundering, “What about that, +sir?” after it. He leapt to scholarship and reeled off scholarships and +scholars and schools, and professors and endowments and prize men, as +if he had been an educational year-book gifted with speech and with +particularly loud and violent speech. He spoke of the colleges of +Cambridge, and with every college and every particular glory of every +college demanded of the unfortunate Harold, “What have you got in Oxford +against that, sir?” + +It was awful. It was far more frightening than the night of the storm. +Nobody ate. Nobody drank. Everybody shuddered and tried by every means +to avoid catching father’s rolling eye and thereby attracting the +direct blast of the tempest. Rosalie, who of course, being a completely +negligible quantity in the rectory, is not included in the everybody, +simply stared, more awed and enthralled than ever before. And with much +reason. As he declaimed of the glories of the colleges of Cambridge +there was perceptible in her father’s voice a most curious crack or +break. It became more noticeable and more frequent. He suddenly and most +astoundingly cried out, “Cambridge! Cambridge!” and threw his arms out +before him on the table, and buried his head on them, and sobbed out, +“Cambridge! My youth! My youth! My God, my God, my youth!” + +Somehow or other they all slipped out of the room and left him +there,--all except Rosalie who remained in her high chair staring upon +her father, and upon his shoulders that heaved up and down, and upon the +coffee from an overturned cup that oozed slowly along the tablecloth. + +Extraordinary father! + +Rosalie’s father had been a wrangler and one of the brilliant men of his +year at Cambridge. All manner of brilliance was expected for him and of +him. He unexpectedly went into the Church and as unexpectedly married. + +His bride was the daughter of a clergyman, a widower, who kept a small +private school in Devonshire. She helped her father to run the school +(an impoverished business which, begun exclusively for the “sons of +gentlemen,” had slid down into paying court to tradesmen in order to get +the sons of tradesmen) and she maintained him in the very indifferent +health he suffered. Harold Aubyn, the brilliant wrangler with the +brilliant future, who had begun his brilliance by unexpectedly entering +the Church, and continued it by unexpectedly marrying while on a holiday +in the little Devonshire town where he had gone to ponder his future (a +little unbalanced by the unpremeditated plunge into Holy Orders) further +continued his brilliance by unexpectedly finding himself the assistant +master in his father-in-law’s second-rate and failing school. The +daughter would not leave her father; the suitor would not leave his +darling; the brilliant young wrangler who at Cambridge used to dream of +waking to find himself famous awoke instead to find himself six years +buried in a now third-rate and moribund school in a moribund Devonshire +town. He had a father-in-law now permanent invalid, bedridden. He had +four children and another, Robert, on the way. + +It was his father-in-law’s death that awoke him; and he awoke +characteristically. The old man dead! Come, that was one burden lifted, +one shackle removed! The school finally went smash at the same time. +Never mind! Another burden gone! Another shackle lifted! Dash the +school! How he hated the school! How he loathed and detested the lumping +boys! How he loathed and abominated teaching them simple arithmetic (he +the wrangler!) and history that was a string of dates, and geography +that was a string of capes and bays, and Latin as far as the +conjugations (he the wrangler!) how he loathed and abominated it! Now a +fresh start! Hurrah! + +That was like Rosalie’s father--in those days. That way blew the cold +fit and the hot fit--then. + +The magnificent fresh start after the magnificent escape from the morass +of the moribund father-in-law and the moribund school and the moribund +Devonshire town proved to be but a stagger down into morass heavier and +more devastating of ambition. He always jumped blindly and wildly into +things. Blindly and wildly into the Church, blindly and wildly into +marriage, blindly and wildly into the school, blindly and wildly, one +might say, into fatherhood on a lavish scale. Blindly and wildly--the +magnificent fresh start--into the rectory in which Rosalie was born. + +It was “a bit in the wilds” (of Suffolk); “a bit of a tight fit” (L200 a +year) and a bit or two or three other drawbacks; but it was thousands +of miles from Devonshire and from the school and schooling, that was the +great thing; and it was a jolly big rectory with a ripping big +garden; and above all and beyond everything it was just going to be a +jumping-off place while he looked around for something suitable to his +talents and while he got in touch again with his old friends of the +brilliant years. + +It was just going to be a jumping-off place, but he never jumped off +from it; a place from which to look around for something suitable, but +instead he sunk in it up to his chin; a place from which to get in touch +again with his friends of the brilliant years, but his friends were all +doing brilliant things and much too busy at their brilliance to open up +with one who had missed fire. + +The parish of St. Mary’s, Ibbotsfield, had an enormous rectory, falling +to pieces; an enormous church, crumbling away; an enormous area, purely +agricultural; and a cure of a very few hundred agricultural souls, +enormously-scattered. Years and years before, prior to railways, prior +to mechanical reapers and thrashers, and prior to everything that took +men to cities or whirled them and their produce farther in an hour than +they ever could have gone in a week, Ibbotsfield and its surrounding +villages and hamlets were a reproach to the moral conditions of the +day in that they had no sufficiently enormous church. Well-intentioned +persons removed this reproach, adding in their zeal an enormous rectory; +and the time they chose for their beneficent and lavish action was +precisely the time when Ibbotsfield, through its principal land-owners, +was stoutly rejecting the monstrous idea of encouraging a stinking, +roaring, dangerous railway in their direction, and combining together by +all means in their power to keep the roaring, dangerous atrocity as far +away from them as possible. + +It thus, and by like influences, happened that, whereas one generation +of the devoutly intentioned sat stolidly under the reproach of an +enormous and thickly populated area without a church, later generations +with the same stolidity sat under the reproach of an enormous church, +an enormous rectory and an infinitesimal stipend, in an area which a man +might walk all day without meeting any other man. + +But the devout of the day, not having to live in this rectory or preach +in this church or laboriously trudge about this area, did not unduly +worry themselves with this reproach. + +That was (in his turn) the lookout of the Rev. Harold Aubyn--also his +outlook. + +He is to be imagined, in those days when Rosalie first came to know him +and to think of him as Prospero, as a terribly lonely man. He stalked +fatiguingly about the countryside in search of his parishioners, and his +parishioners were suspicious of him and disliked his fierce, thrusting +nose, and he returned from them embittered with them and hating them. He +genuinely longed to be friendly with them and on terms of Hail, fellow, +well met, with them; but they exasperated him because they could not +meet him either on his own quick intellectual level or upon his own +quick and very sensitive emotional level. They could not respond to his +humour and they could not respond, in the way he thought they ought to +respond, to his sympathy. + +He once found a man--a farm labourer--who in conversation disclosed a +surprising interest in the traces of early and mediaeval habitation +of the country. The discovery delighted him. In the catalogue of a +secondhand bookseller of Ipswich he noticed the “Excursions in the +County of Suffolk,” two volumes for three shillings, and he wrote and +had them posted to the man. For days he eagerly looked in the post +for the grateful and delighted letter that in similar circumstances he +himself would have written. He composed in his mind the phrases of the +letter and warmed in spirit over anticipation of reading them. No letter +arrived. + +When he came into the rectory from visiting he was always asking, “Has +that man Bolas from Hailsham called?” Bolas never called. He furiously +began to loathe Bolas. He was furious with himself for having “lowered +himself” to Bolas. Bolas in his ignorance no doubt thought the books +were a cheap charity of cast-off lumber. Uncouth clod! Stupid clod! +Uncouth parish! Hateful, loathsome parish! For weeks he kept away from +Hailsham and the possible vicinity of Bolas. One day he met him. Bolas +passed with no more than a “Good day, Mr. Aubyn.” He could have killed +the man. He swung round and pushed his dark face and jutty nose into the +face of Bolas. “Did you ever get some books I sent you?” + +“Ou, ay, to be sure, they books----” + +He rushed with savage strides away from the man. All the way home he +savagely said to himself, aloud, keeping time to it with his feet, +“Uncouth clod, ill-mannered clod, horrible, hateful place! Uncouth +clods, hateful clods, horrible, hateful place!” + +That was his attitude to his parishioners. They could not come up to +the level of his sensibilities; he could not get down to the level of +theirs. + +With the few gentle families that composed the society of Ibbotsfield he +was little better accommodated. They led contented, well-ordered lives, +busy about their gardens, busy about their duties, busy about their +amusements. His life was ill-ordered and he was never busy about +anything: he was always either neglecting what had to be done or doing +it, late, with a ferocious and exhausting energy that caused him to +groan over it and detest it while he did it. In the general level of his +life he was below the standard of his neighbours and knew that he was +below it; in the sudden bounds and flights of his intellect and of his +imagination he was immeasurably above the intel-lects of his neighbours +and knew that he was immeasurably above them. Therefore, and in both +moods, he commonly hated and despised them. “Fools, fools! Unread, +pompous, petty!” + +At the rectory, among his family, he seemed to himself to be surrounded +by incompetent women and herds of children. + +He was a terribly lonely man when Rosalie first came to know him and +thought of him as Prospero. He is to be imagined in those days as a +fierce, flying, futile figure scudding about on the face of the parish +and in the vast gaunt spaces of the rectory, with his burning face and +his jutting nose, trying to get away from people, hungering to meet +sympathetic people; trying to get way from himself, hungering after the +things that his self had lost. In his young manhood he was known for +moods of intense reserve alternated by fits of tremendous gaiety and +boisterous high spirits. (“A fresh start! Hurrah!” when release from the +school came. “What does anything matter? Now we’re really off at last! +Hurrah! Hurrah!”) In his set manhood, when Rosalie knew him, there were +substituted for the fits of boisterous spirits, paroxysms of violent +outburst against his lot. “Infernal parish! Hateful parish! Forsaken +parish!” after the ignominy of flight before the bull. “Blow the dinner! +Dash the dinner! Blow the dinner!” after wrestling a soggy steak from +his pocket and hurling it half a mile through the air. These and that +single but terrible occasion of “Cambridge! Cambridge! My youth! My God, +my God, my youth!” + +A terribly lonely man. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The Aubyn family occupied only a portion of the enormous rectory. There +was a whole floor upstairs, and there were several rooms on the ground +and first floors, that were never used, were unfurnished except for odds +and ends of lumber left behind by the previous vicar, and were never +entered. Rosalie once explored them all, systematically though very +fearfully, and also very excitedly. She was searching for some one, for +two people. + +In the household she knew her father and her mother, her brothers and +sisters and the servants; but there were two mysterious inhabitants of +whom she often heard but whom she never saw and never could find. It +used to frighten her sometimes, lying awake at night, or creeping about +the house of an evening, to think of those two mysterious people hidden +away somewhere and perhaps likely to pounce on her out of the dark. What +did they eat? Where did they live? What did they do? What were they? + +One of these two eerie and invisible people was heard of from her +father. Several times Rosalie had heard him, when talking to persons +not of the family, speak of “my wife.” The other eerie and invisible +creature was heard of from her mother: “My husband.” + +Where were they? Of all the mysterious things which Rosalie used to +wonder over in those days, this undiscoverable “wife” and “husband” were +the most mysterious of all, and more mysterious than ever after that +day on which, walking on tiptoe for fear of coming upon them suddenly, +holding her breath and pausing in fearful apprehension before entering +the untenanted rooms upstairs, she explored the whole house in search of +them. She got to know all sorts of little odds and ends about them; that +the wife felt the cold very much, for instance, for she had heard her +father say so; and that the husband did not like mutton, for her mother +told that to Mr. Grant the butcher: and she was often hot on their +tracks for she had heard her father say, “My wife is upstairs” and had +rushed upstairs and searched; and her mother say, “My husband is in the +garden,” and had run into the garden and hunted. But all these clues +only deepened the mystery. They were never to be found. + +It was mysterious. + +Then one day the wife (she heard) fell ill, and through her great +concern about that--for she was profoundly interested in these people +and used to feel awfully sorry for them, hidden away like that perhaps +with no fire and nothing to eat but mutton--the mystery was explained. + +With the family she was going towards church one Sunday morning and +she heard her father tell a lady that “my wife” was not very well +that morning and couldn’t come. Rosalie during the service prayed very +earnestly for the wife’s recovery and took the opportunity of praying +also that she might be permitted to see the wife “if she is not very +frightening, O Lord, and the husband too, if possible, for Jesus +Christ’s sake, amen.” + +And at lunch, having thought of nothing else all the morning, there was +suddenly shot out of her the question, “Father, is your wife any better +now?” + +Rosalie commonly never spoke at all at meals; and as to speaking to her +father, though it is obvious she must have had some sort of intercourse +with him, this famous question (a standing joke in the house for +years) was the single direct speech of those early years she ever could +remember. She spoke to her father when she was bidden to speak in the +form of messages, generally about meals being ready, or relative to +shopping commissions he had been asked to execute; but he was far too +wonderful, powerful and mysterious for conversation with him on her +own initiative. “Father, is your wife any better now?” stood out in her +later recollection, alone and lonelily startling. + +There was from all the company an astounded stare and astounded gasp; +all the table sitting with astounded eyes, forks suspended in mid-air, +mouths half open in astonishment, and Rosalie sitting in her high chair +wonderingly regarding their wonderment. What were they staring at? + +There was then an enormous howl of laughter, led by Rosalie’s father, +and repeated, and louder than before, because it was so very unusual +for the family to be laughing in accord with father. Gertrude, the +maid, fled hysterically from the room and laughter howled back from the +kitchen. + +Rosalie’s father said, “You’d better go and ask your mother.” Her mother +had stayed in bed that day with a chill. + +Robert “undid” Rosalie--a wooden rod with a fixed knob at one end went +through the arms of her high chair and was fastened by a removable knob +at the other end--and Rosalie slid down very gravely, and with their +laughter still echoing trod upstairs to her mother’s bedside and related +what she had been told to ask, and, on inquiry, why she had asked it. “I +only said ‘Father, is your wife any better now?’” and on further inquiry +explained her long searching after the undiscoverable pair. + +Rosalie’s mother laughed also then, but had a sudden wetness in her +eyes. She put her arms about Rosalie and pressed her to her bosom and +cried, “Oh, my poor darling!” and explained the tremendous mystery. Wife +and husband, Rosalie’s mother explained, were the names used by other +people for her father and her mother. A man and a woman loved one +another very, very dearly (“as I loved your dear father”) and then they +lived together in a dear house of their own and then God gave them dear +little children of their own to live with them, said Rosalie’s mother. + +This thoroughly satisfied Rosalie and completely entranced her, +especially about the presentation of the dear little children. She would +have supposed that naturally it thoroughly satisfied Anna and Harold +and Flora and the others; and the point of interest rests here, that +Rosalie’s mother also believed that this explanation of marriage and +procreation completely satisfied Anna at sixteen and Harold in the Bank +at eighteen. She never gave them any other explanation of the phenomenon +of birth; and it is to be supposed that, just as she instructed them +that God sent the dear little children, so she believed that God, at the +right time, in some mysterious way, communicated the matter to them in +greater detail. Years and years afterwards, Flora told Rosalie that +when Rosalie was born all the children were sent away to stay with a +neighbour and not allowed to return till Rosalie’s mother, downstairs, +was able to show them the dear little sister that God had surprisingly +delivered at the house, as it were in a parcel. + +One is given pain by a state of affairs so monstrous; but one suffers +that pain proudly because one belongs, proudly, to a day in which +nothing but stark truth may go from mother to child, not even fairy +stories, not even Bible stories. Rosalie’s mother is gone and her kind +is no more, and in the graces and the manners of this day’s generation +one perceives, proudly, the inestimable benefits of the passing of her +kind. Lamentable specimen of her kind, she had no interests other than +her home and her husband and her children and the pleasures and the +treasures and the friends of her husband and her children. She belonged +to that dark age when duty towards others was the guiding principle of +moral life; she came only to the threshold of this enlightened age in +which duty to oneself is known to be the paramount and first and last +consideration of life as it should be lived. + +Rosalie’s mother, whose name had been Anna Escott, kept at the bottom of +a drawer five most exquisite little miniatures. They were in a case of +faded blue plush, and they had been in that case and at the bottom of +one drawer or another ever since the girl Anna Escott, aged twenty, had +placed them in the case, then exquisitely blue and new and soft, and +given up painting miniatures forever, in order to devote her whole time +to looking after her invalid father and the failing preparatory school +that was his livelihood. + +Rosalie was herself nearly thirty when she first saw the miniatures. She +was come back to the rectory from the pursuits that then occupied her to +visit, rather impatiently and rather vexedly, her mother on what proved +to be her death bed. She was tidying her mother’s drawers, impatient +with the amazing collection of rubbish they contained and hating herself +for being impatient, while her mother, on the bed, patiently watched +her; and she came upon the case and opened it and stared in astonishment +and admiration at the beauty of the five miniatures. + +She asked her mother and her mother told her she had painted them. “I +used to do that when I was a girl,” said Rosalie’s mother. + +All Rosalie’s impatience was drowned and utterly engulfed in a most +dreadful flood of emotion. She set down the case on the bed and flung +herself on her knees beside her mother and clasped her arms about her. + +“Oh, mother, mother! Oh, beloved little mother!” But that is out of its +place. + +Yes, that girl Anna Escott, who had an exquisite talent, and all sorts +of fond dreams of its development, gave it up wholly and entirely and +forever when her mother died and her father said, “I would like you, +Anna dear, to give up your painting and come and look after me and the +school now.” + +Anna said, “Of course I will, Papa. It’s my duty. Of course I will.” + +Girls did that, and parents and husbands asked them to do that, in the +days when Rosalie’s mother was a girl. + +Rosalie’s mother gave away everything, first to her father, then to +her husband, then to her children. She believed the whole of the Bible, +literally, as it is written, from the first word of Genesis to the last +word of Revelations. She taught it as literal, final and initial +truth to all her children, and one knows how wickedly wrong it is now +considered to teach children that the Bible-stories are true. She taught +them the whole of the Bible from books called “Line Upon Line,” and “The +Child’s Bible,” and in stories of her own making, and from the Bible +itself. Regrettably, the ignorantly imposed-upon children loved it! Till +each child was eight she taught them everything at her knee. All the +nursery rhymes, and all the Bible, and reading out of “Step by Step,” + and then “Reading Without Tears,” and then, in advancing series, the +“Royal Readers,” and writing, first holding their hands, and then--first +in pencil and afterwards with pens having three huge blobs to teach you +how to place your fingers properly--in copybooks graded from enormous +lines which had brick-red covers to astoundingly narrow little lines +enclosing pious and moral maxims which had severe grey covers; and the +multiplication tables and then simple arithmetic; and General Knowledge +out of “The Child’s Guide to Knowledge,” which asked you “What is +sago?” and required you to reply by heart, “Sago is a dried, granulated +substance prepared from the pith of several different palms.” “Where are +these palms found?” “These palms are found in the East Indies.” + +Likewise history out of Mrs. Markham and “Little Arthur”; also, at a +ridiculously early age, how to tell the time and how to know the coinage +of the realm and its values; also, whether girl or boy, the making +of kettle-holders by threading brightly coloured wools through little +squares of canvas; also very many pieces of poetry: “Oft had I heard of +Lucy Grey,” and “It was the Schooner Hesperus” and hymns--also learnt +by heart and sung while Rosalie’s mother played the piano--“We are but +little children weak,” and “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” + +All these things were taught at her knee to each child in turn by +Rosalie’s mother, and each was taught out of the self-same books, +miraculously preserved by Rosalie’s mother; the backs of most of them +carefully stitched and re-stitched, and marked all through by the dates +of each child’s daily lesson, written in pencil by Rosalie’s mother. The +dates ranged from 1869 when Harold was being taught and when the books +were fresh and clean, and Rosalie’s mother fresh and ardent with her +first-born, to 1884, when Rosalie was being taught, and the books +very old and thumbed and most terribly crowded with pencil marks, and +Rosalie’s mother no longer fresh but rather worn, but teaching as fondly +and earnestly as ever, because it was her duty. Literally at the knee of +Rosalie’s mother these things were taught. On her knee with one of her +arms about you for the Bible teaching; and standing at her knee, hands +behind you, for the teaching of most of the rest. Yes, that was the +early education, and the manner of the education, of Rosalie and of her +brothers and sisters, and one perceives with indignation the spectacle +of a mother wasting her time like that and wasting her children’s time +like that. + +Rosalie’s mother did everything in the house and she was always doing +something in the house--for somebody else. She never rested and she +was always worried. Her brows were always wrinkled with the feverish +concentration of one anxiously doing one thing while anxiously thinking +of another thing waiting to be done. She had a driven and a hunted look. + +Now Rosalie’s father had a driving and a hunting look. + +Rosalie’s father in his youth threw away everything. Rosalie’s mother +throughout the whole of her life gave away everything. Rosalie’s father +was a tragic figure dwelling in a house of bondage; but he was at least +a tragic king, ruling his house and venting his griefs upon his house. +Rosalie’s mother was a tragic figure and she was a tragic slave in the +house of bondage. The life of Rosalie’s father was a tragedy, but a +tragedy in some measure relieved because he knew it was a tragedy and +could wave his arms and shout and smash things and hurl beefsteaks +through the air because of the tragedy of it. But the life of Rosalie’s +mother was an infinitely deeper tragedy because she never knew or +suspected that it was a tragedy. + +Still, that is so often the difference between the tragedy of a woman +and the tragedy of a man. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The very great difference between her father and her mother maintained +in Rosalie that early perception of the wondrousness of her father. She +loved her mother, but in the atmosphere surrounding her mother there was +often flurry and worry and there was nothing whatever in her mother to +mystify and entrance by sudden and violent eruptions of the miraculous. +She did not love her father for he was entirely too remote and awe-ful +for love, but he entranced her with his marvellousness. This maintained +in her also her perception of the altogether greater superiority of all +males over all females. + +Rosalie came into her family rather like a new little girl first +entering a boarding school. When she was about four, and first beginning +to realise herself, the next in age to her was Robert, who not only was +at the immense distance of ten, but was of the male sex and therefore +had a controlling interest in the world. Then was Hilda who was twelve, +then Flora fourteen, then Anna towering away in sixteen, and then Harold +utterly removed in the enormous heights of eighteen, second only to +Rosalie’s father in ownership of the world and often awfully disputing +that supreme ownership. + +So they were all immeasurably older than Rosalie; and they were not only +immeasurably older but, which counted for much more, they all had their +fixed and recognised places in their world just as girls of several +terms’ experience have their recognised places in their school, and for +Rosalie there seemed to be no place at all, just as for new girls there +is no place. Her brothers and sisters all had their fixed and recognised +places, their interests, their occupations, their friendships: they +all knew their own places and each other’s places; they had learnt +to respect and admit each other’s places; they knew the weight of one +another’s hand in those places; they were accustomed to one another; +they tolerated one another. + +It was all very strange and wonderful and mysterious to Rosalie. + +She was, as it were, pitchforked into this established and regulated +order and to find a place for her was like trying to fit a new spoke +into a revolving wheel. It cannot be done; and with Rosalie it could +not be done. The established wheel went on revolving in its established +orbit and the new spoke, which was Rosalie, lay outside and watched +it revolve. Intrusions within the circumference of the wheel commonly +resulted in a sharp knock from one of the spokes. No one was in any +degree unkind to Rosalie, but there was no proper place for her and +everybody’s will was in authority over her will. She rather got in the +way. To be with her was not to enjoy her company or to enjoy battle with +her and the putting of her company to flight. To be with her was to have +to look after her, and in the community of the rectory, every member, +when Rosalie came, was fully occupied in look-ing after itself and +defending itself from the predatory excursions of any other member. + +What happened was that in time, just as a slight and negligible body +cannot be in the sphere of a powerful motion without being affected by +it, so Rosalie began to move sympathetically to the wheel but on her own +axis. She moved round with the wheel but she was not of the wheel and +she never became really incorporated with the wheel. The spokes were +revolving with incredible rapidity when she first, began to notice them +and they always remained relatively faster. There she was, sitting and +watching and wondering; and the twig grows as it is bent or as it is +left to bend. She looked on and absorbed things; and the first and by +far the deepest of her settled perceptions was that, though she was +subject to all powers, all girls and women were themselves subject to +the power of all boys and men. + +Up to the age of eighteen, six years represents an enormous gulf in the +relative ages of brothers and sisters. You have only to figure it out in +the case of Rosalie to realise how far behind she was always left, and +why, though one of a family of six, she occupied a position outside the +group and was a watcher of them rather than a sharer with them. She was +four when Robert the next above her was ten, which is a baby against a +sturdy and well-developed giant; when she was eight Robert was fourteen, +which is a greater gulf than the first; when she was twelve Robert was +eighteen which, from eighteen’s point of view, is as the difference +between an aged man and an infant; and when she was sixteen Robert was +twenty-two, which is a schoolgirl against one of the oldest and most +experienced periods of life. She came in as a new little girl in a big +school; when she had been there eight years--counting from four, when +first she was conscious of arrival--she was still relatively the same: +there she was, twelve, with Robert eighteen and the others twenty, +twenty-two, twenty-four and twenty-six. + +But there she is at eight when she had had four years’ experience from +the day of first seeing her father leaping before the bull and thinking +it was perfectly natural that he should leap before the bull. She had +learnt a tremendous lot in that second four years. She knew at eight +that the world did not belong to her father and that on that night of +the storm Flora was right to call her a fool for believing that he could +stop the storm. She knew he was not nearly so wonderful as she used +to think he was; but he was still enormously wonderful and, which she +thought rather curious, she began to see that he rather liked showing +her how wonderful he was. He could sharpen a pencil wonderfully, and he +could eat a herring wonderfully. The thing discovered was that he +was very proud of how wonderfully he could sharpen a pencil or eat a +herring. Strange father! + +“Who sharpened that pencil? Your mother? H’nf! I should think so! No +woman can sharpen a pencil. Now look at me. Watch. I hold it in my left +hand, see? Arm supported against my body. Now look how I cut at it. +Bold, strong strokes, see? No niggling at it as if a mouse was nibbling +it; long, bold sweeps, slashes. See! Look at that. Ah, drat! That’s +because I was holding it down for you to see. Watch again. There! There, +that’s the way to sharpen a pencil. Look at that. Do you see that long, +firm point? See how clean and long those strokes are? That’s the way to +sharpen a pencil. Show that to your mother.” + +He was as pleased with himself and as proud as if he had turned the +pencil into gold. + +Funny father! + +Or how to eat a herring. + +“Herrings! Well, a herring is one of the most delicious fish, if it’s +eaten properly. There’s a right way to eat a herring and a wrong way. +Now watch me and I’ll show you how to eat a herring. Rosalie, watch.” + +“Rosalie, dear,” (from her mother) “watch while your father shows you +how to eat a herring.” + +All eyes on father demonstrating how to eat a herring! + +And Rosalie used to notice this about the watching eyes. Her mother’s +eyes--most anxiously and nervously upon the operation, as if watching a +thing she would soon be called upon to perform and would not be able to +perform; the eyes of Robert (14) sulkily; of Flora (18) admiringly (it +was getting to be a complaint in the family circle that Flora “sucked +up” to father); the eyes of Anna (20) wearily; the eyes of Harold (22) +contemptuously. + +The herrings (a very frequent dish at the rectory, so much cheaper than +meat) came headless to the table. First father nipped off the tail with +a firm, neat stroke. Then he deftly slit the herring down the stomach. +It fell into two exact perfectly divided halves. Then he lifted out the +backbone, not one scrap of flesh adhering to it, and laid it on the +side of his plate. Then four firm pressures of his knife and the little +lateral bones were exactly removed and exactly laid on the backbone. +Next a precise insertion of his fork and out came the silvery strip +known to Rosalie as “the swimming thing” and was laid in its turn upon +the bones, exactly, neatly, as if it were a game of spillikins. “Now +pepper. Plenty of pepper for the roe, you see. There. Now.” + +And in about six mouthfuls father’s plate would be as clean as when it +was brought in, decorated rather than marred by the exquisitely neat +pile of the backbone, the tail, the little bones, and the silvery +swimming thing. “There! Delicious! That’s the way to eat a herring”; +and he would direct a glance at the plate of Rosalie’s mother. Rosalie’s +mother made a herring into the most frightful mess it was possible to +imagine. She spent the whole of her time in removing bones from her +mouth; and her plate, when she was half-way though, looked to contain +the mangled remains of about two dozen herrings. “Very few women know +how to eat a herring,” Rosalie’s father would say. + +Wonderful father! How to sharpen a pencil, how to eat a herring, how to +do up a parcel, how to undo a parcel, how to cut your finger nails, how +to sit with regard to the light when you wrote or read, how to tie a +knot, how to untie a knot. Clever father, natty father! + +Yes, still enormously wonderful father; but also rather strangely proud +of being wonderful father. Rosalie now was constantly being struck +by that. It began to give her rather a funny sensation. She couldn’t +describe the sensation or interpret it, but it was a feeling, when +father was glowing with pride over one of these things he did so +wonderfully well--a feeling of being rather uncomfortable, shy, +ashamed--something like that. She contracted the habit when father +beamed and glowed and looked around for applause of giving a sudden +little blink. + +And it was the same in regard to Robert and the same in regard to +Harold. Robert at the height of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness +caused the funny feeling and the blink in her; and Harold at the height +of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness caused the funny feeling and the +blink in her. And the wonderfulness of Robert was always being shown off +by Robert, and the wonderfulness of Harold was always being shown off by +Harold. Men liked showing off how wonderful they were.... + +When Rosalie was about nine, she one day was permitted to have Lily +Waters in to tea with her. Lily Waters was the Doctor’s little girl, +also nine. For a great treat they had tea together out of Rosalie’s +doll’s tea service in the room called the schoolroom. Robert came home +unusually early from school and came into the schoolroom and began to +do wonderful things before the two little girls. He spoke in a very loud +voice while he did them. He stood on a footstool on his head and clapped +his boots together. He held his breath for seventy-five seconds by the +clock. He took off his coat and made Lily and Rosalie tie a piece of +string around his biceps and then he jerked up his arm and snapped the +string. Wonderful Robert! Lily screamed with delight and clapped her +hands, and the more she screamed and clapped, the louder Robert talked. +He did still more wonderful things. He held a cork to the flame of a +match and then blacked his nose and blacked a moustache with the cork. +He did a most frightfully daring and dangerous thing. He produced the +stump of a cigarette from his pocket and lit it and blew smoke through +his nose. Wonderful Robert! Lily went into ecstasies of delight. Rosalie +also went into ecstasies but also strongly experienced that funny +feeling. While Robert held his breath till his eyes bulged and till his +face was crimson, and while he danced about with his nose blacked, and +while he held the cigarette in his fingers and puffed smoke through his +nose--while he did these things Rosalie glanced at Lily (squealing) and +felt that funny feeling of being rather shy, uncomfortable, ashamed; +something like that; and blinked. Wonderful though Robert was, she felt +somehow rather glad when at last he went. + +And just the same with Harold. At supper one night, Rosalie’s father not +being present, Harold talked and talked and talked about a call he had +paid at the house of some ladies in Ashborough. Wonderful Harold, to pay +a call all by himself! It appeared that he had been the only man there, +and when Rosalie’s mother said, “I wonder you didn’t feel shy, Harold,” + he said with a funny sort of “Haw” sound in his voice, “Not in the +least. Haw! Why on earth should I feel shy? Haw.” He had evidently very +much entertained the party. The more he talked about it the more Rosalie +noticed the funny “Haw.” “They must have been very glad you came,” + Rosalie’s mother said. + +Harold put the first and second fingers of his right hand on his collar +and gave it a pull up. “I rather--haw--think they were,” Harold said. +“Haw.” + +Rosalie gave that blink. + +Years afterwards, when she was grown up, a grown man boastfully +said something in her presence, and in a flash were recalled father +dissecting a herring, Robert holding his breath till he nearly burst, +Harold hitching up his collar and with the “haw” sound saying, “I rather +think they were.” In a flash those childhood scenes, and instantly with +them interpretation of the funny feeling and the blink that they had +caused: they had been the rooting in her of a new perception added to +the impregnably rooted impression of the wonder and power of men,--the +perception that men knew they were wonderful and powerful and liked to +show off how wonderful and powerful they were. + +They were superior creatures but they were apt to be rather +make-you-blinky creatures; that was the new perception. + +On the day after her eighth birthday, the birthday itself being a +treat and a holiday, Rosalie began to do lessons with Hilda. Hilda, at +sixteen, had “finished her education” as had Anna and Flora at the same +age. Harold, who had been a boarder at a Grammar School, had stayed +there till he was eighteen; and Robert, ultimately, continued at +Helmsbury Grammar School till he was eighteen. It was apparent--and it +was another manifestation of the greater importance of males--that boys +had more education to finish, or were permitted longer to finish it, +than girls. + +The school at which Anna, Flora and Hilda thus in the eight years +between leaving their mother’s knee at eight and completing their +education at sixteen, learnt everything it was possible to know, was +kept by two very thin ladies called (ungrammatically) the Miss Pockets. +The Miss Pockets were daughters of the former vicar of St. Mary’s and +inhabitant of the rectory, and on their father dying and Mr. Aubyn +coming, they established themselves in a prim villa near-by and did what +they called “took in pupils.” They were very thin, they had very long +thin noses, they were always very cold, and from the sharp end of the +long thin nose of the elder Miss Pocket there always depended, much +fascinating Rosalie, a shining bead of moisture. + +Rosalie’s chief recollection of the Miss Pockets was of being constantly +met by them as she approached the age of eight, and of them always, on +these occasions, fondling icy hands about her neck and saying to her +father or her mother, “And when will our new little pupil be coming to +us?” + +But no direct reply was ever given to this question, either by Rosalie’s +mother, who was always made to look uncomfortable when it was asked by +the Miss Pockets, or by Rosalie’s father who always seemed to jut out +his nose at it and make the Miss Pockets look thinner and colder than +ever. + +On the morning of her eighth birthday, Rosalie received from the Miss +Pockets by post an illuminated text provided with a piece of red cord +for hanging on the wall and inquiring, rather abruptly, + +“Who Hath Believed Our Report?” + +Rosalie thought at first this was a plaintive question directly from +the Miss Pockets in their capacity as school-teachers and therefore +as licensed makers of reports; but immediately afterwards saw “Isaiah” + printed under it in discreet characters-- + +“Who Hath Believed our Report? --Isaiah.” + +and concluded that it was Isaiah who had believed it. On the back was +written in the tall, thin handwriting of the Miss Pockets, “To our +dear little pupil Rosalie, on her eighth birthday, from Agnes and Lydia +Pocket.” + +In the afternoon, the Miss Pockets called at the rectory and there was +evidently some high mystery about their visit. Rosalie was in the study +looking for a drawing pin wherewith to affix her illuminated card to the +wall. Hilda ran in. “The Miss Pockets. Where’s father? Come out,” and +Rosalie was hurriedly run out and shut into the dining-room, leaving the +vindication of Isaiah in the matter of the report on the table. Opening +the door to a chink, Rosalie saw the Miss Pockets, shivering, the +permanent decoration on the nose of the elder Miss Pocket very +conspicuous and agitatedly swinging, ushered into the study, and +presently her father follow his jutty nose into the study after them, +and very shortly after that the Miss Pockets driven out as it were by +the jutty nose and looking thinner and colder than ever before. +Miss Lydia Pocket, who had lost the appendage to her nose and looked +curiously undressed and indelicate without it, was saying feebly, “But +it was understood. We always thought it was understood.” + +They shuddered away; and when Rosalie went into the study immediately +afterwards to recover her card, there was upon the word Isaiah, as +though somebody had literally thrown doubt upon his belief of the +report, a large damp spot. + +On the following day, Rosalie began lessons with Hilda. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The lessons with Hilda period lasted till Rosalie was twelve. “Take her +off your mother’s hands. That’s what you’ve left school for,” was her +father’s instruction to Hilda; and so there was Rosalie, put out from +her mother’s knee to the schoolroom like a small new ship out from the +haven to the bay; and there was that small mind of hers come in to the +company of Hilda and of Flora and of Anna with the obsession that men +were infinitely more important and much more wonderful than women. She +knew now that the world did not belong to men in the literal sense, but +belonged, as her mother had instructed her, to God; but she knew with +the abundant evidence of all that went on about her that everything in +the world was done for men and that women were largely occupied in +doing it; and she knew, from the same testimony, that men were much more +interesting to watch than women, rather in the way that dogs were much +more interesting than cats. Men, like dogs, were much more satisfactory: +that was it. Her mind was throwing out feelers towards the wonders of +the world and this was the feeler that was most developed. She came +to her sisters very highly sensitive to the difference between men and +women. And her sisters showed her the difference. + +Anna was twenty then. Anna had “finished her education” four years ago. +She had left school “to help your mother in the house”; and when Flora, +two years later, finished her education and left school for the same +purpose, she found Anna grooved in the business of helping her mother in +the house and she was not in the least anxious to help Anna out of the +grooves and herself become imbedded in them. + +This annoyed Anna. + +Rosalie used to hear Anna say to Flora a dozen times a day, “I really +don’t see why you should be the one to do nothing but amuse yourself all +day long. I really don’t.” + +Flora used to say, “Well, you’ve always done it”--whatever the duty in +dispute might be--“so why on earth should I?” + +Then either Anna’s face would give a twitch and she would walk out of +the room, or her face would get very red and there would be a row. + +Or sometimes Flora to Anna’s “I really don’t see why--” would say +enticingly, “Don’t you?” + +“No, I don’t.” + +“Then ask the Pope,” and Flora would give a mocking laugh and run away +out of the reach of Anna’s fury. + +The sting in this was that Anna was suspected of having Roman Catholic +tendencies. + +Flora was very pretty and had a gay, bold way. Anna was not pretty. She +had a great habit of compressing her lips, especially in encounters with +Flora, and somehow her face gave the impression that her lips always +were compressed. That was the expression it normally had; it was only +when Rosalie saw Anna actually compress her lips that she realised they +had not been compressed before. It was as though she was always annoyed +about something and then, when she compressed her lips, a little more +annoyed than usual. She had also a permanent affliction which much +puzzled Rosalie. Young men friends of Harold’s frequently called at the +rectory, and one afternoon, when two of them called, Anna was the only +one at home to entertain them (except Rosalie). Flora and Hilda rushed +into the drawing-room, directly they came in, and shortly afterwards +Rosalie saw Anna come out. Anna stood in the hall quite a long time with +her lips compressed, and then went into the dining-room and sat down, +but almost at once got up again and went back into the drawing-room, and +Rosalie heard Flora call out, “You can’t join in now, Anna. You can’t +join in now. We’re in the middle of it.” Shrieks of laughter were going +on. When the young men went, Flora and Hilda, who had their hats on, +walked away with them. Anna was left at the door. When the girls came +back Anna said to Flora, “I do think you might have told me you’d +arranged to go with them to see it.” + +Flora said, “Oh, darling, I thought the Pope had told you.” + +They had the worst row Rosalie had ever heard them have. Anna did not +come down to supper. After supper, when Rosalie was in the room with +only Harold and her father and mother, her mother spoke of the scene +there had been between Anna and Flora and it was then that Rosalie heard +for the first time of Anna’s most strange affliction. Harold said, “Of +course, the fact of the matter is that ever since Flora left school, +Anna’s had her nose put out of joint.” + +Rosalie felt most awfully sorry for Anna. Often after that she used to +stare at Anna’s nose and the more so because there was nothing visible +the matter with it. Anna’s nose was a singularly long and straight nose; +now if it had been Flora’s nose that was out of joint!--for Flora’s nose +turned up in a very odd way. Rosalie slept in Anna’s room and that same +night, Anna’s disjointed nose and every other part of her face and head +being covered with the clothes when Rosalie went up to bed, Rosalie, +unable to sleep for curiosity and sympathy, got out of bed and lit the +candle and went across to look at Anna’s nose, and very gently felt it +with her finger. Absolutely nothing amiss to be seen or felt! But the +lashes of Anna’s eyes were wet and there were stains of tears upon the +upper side of the mysterious nose. It was true, then, for obviously it +hurt. And yet no sign! + +Rosalie got back into bed feeling of her own nose rather anxiously. + +Rosalie used formerly to sleep in Hilda’s room and Flora with Anna, but +she was changed one day by her sisters (without being consulted or +given any reason) and the new arrangement was continued. Anna was very +devotional. She used to say enormously long prayers night and morning. +She prayed in the middle of the night also, Rosalie used to think at +first, awakened and hearing her voice, but later found out that Anna +was talking in her sleep, a thing that was mysterious to Rosalie and +frightening. The room of Flora and Hilda, adjoined Anna’s and often at +night, when Rosalie was awakened by Anna undressing and lay watching her +at her immense prayers, the chattering voices of Flora and Hilda could +be heard through the wall and shrieks of high laughter. At that, Anna’s +shoulders used to shudder beneath her nightgown and she used to twist +herself lower on her knees. For some reason this also used rather to +frighten Rosalie. + +Sometimes, but very seldom, Flora and Hilda used to quarrel; sometimes, +and more often, Hilda and Anna; nearly every day, as it seemed to +Rosalie, Anna and Flora. Rosalie got to dislike these quarrels very +much. They went on and on and on; that was the disturbing unpleasantness +of them. The parties to them would sit in a room and simply keep it +up forever, not arguing all the time, but between long pauses suddenly +coming out with things at one another; or they wouldn’t speak to one +another sometimes for days together, and all sorts of small enterprises +of Rosalie’s were interfered with by these ruptures of relations. +Innumerable things in Rosalie’s life seemed to her to depend on the +mutual good will of two quarrellers; many books, some old toys, walks, +combined games with Carlo who was Anna’s and Rover who was Flora’s; +innumerable delights with such seemed to be unexpectedly stopped because +of “Oh, no, if you prefer to be with Anna you can stay with Anna”; or, +“Oh, no. If you like Flora’s paints so much you can use Flora’s brushes; +these are my brushes.” A quarrel would in any case produce a strained +atmosphere in which everything became unnatural and this strained +atmosphere went on and on and on. + +And the thing that Rosalie noticed was the complete difference between +these quarrels of her sisters and the quarrels between Harold and +Robert. Robert was rising between the years of fourteen and eighteen in +those days and Harold between twenty-two and twenty-six. Most violent +quarrels sometimes sprung up between them but they were physically +violent, that was the point, and after swift and appalling fury, and +terrible kicks from Robert and horrifying thumps from Harold they were +astonishingly soon over and done with and forgotten. On one awful day, +Rosalie saw Robert and Harold rolling on the floor together. Robert +bumped Harold’s head three most frightful bumps on the floor and said +between his teeth, “There! There! There!” Harold twisted himself up and +hurled Robert half across the room and then rushed at him and punched +him with punches that made Robert go, “Ur! Ur! Ur!” + +Rosalie, at her age, ought to have cried with grief and dismay or to +have run away screaming; but instead she only watched with awe. With +terrified awe, as with the terrified awe that an encounter of tigers or +of elephants at the Zoo might arouse; but with awe and no sort of grief +as her sole emotion. Men were different. There it was again! They +did these fearful things, and these fearful things were much more +satisfactory to behold, not nearly so disturbing and aggravating to +watch, as the interminable bickerings of the quarrels of her sisters. + +Her brothers’ quarrels were entirely different in all their aspects. In +the quarrels of her sisters, one or the other invariably cried if the +bickering went far enough. These two men, though Robert especially might +have been excused for bellowing, just solidly and only, with fearful +gasps, thumped and clutched and strove. Not a tear! Her sisters’ +quarrels were always carried by one or the other to her mother or her +father. How extraordinarily different Robert and Harold! Their sole +anxiety was that neither father nor mother should be told! If any +one threatened to tell, the two, sinking their private heat, would +immediately band together against the talebearer. Extraordinary men! To +that particularly ferocious struggle that has been described, Anna +and Hilda had been attracted by the din, when Robert, overpowered, was +receiving terrible chastisement, and with cries and prayers had somehow +separated them. Behold, the very first coherent thing these two men did +was, while they still panted and glared upon one another, to unite in a +mutual threat. + +“And look out you don’t go telling father or mother,” panted Harold to +the girls. + +“Yes, mind you jolly well don’t,” panted Robert. + +Anna said she certainly would. + +Both the extraordinary creatures unitedly rounded on Anna. It might have +been thought that the battle had been, not between them, but between +them and the sisters who had saved them one from another. Astounding +men! + +And most astounding of all to Rosalie was that at supper, little +more than an hour later, Harold and Robert presented themselves as +on exceptionally good terms of friendship. They talked and laughed +together. They had a long exchange of views about some football teams. +Harold laid down the law about the principle of four three-quarters in +Rugby football instead of three and Robert listened as to an oracle. +They had not been so friendly for weeks. And an hour before-! Yes, men +were different. + +And Rosalie found that her sisters, too, knew how different and how +superior men were. Flora and Hilda seemed to Rosalie always to be +talking about men. Flora used to come into the schoolroom while Rosalie +was at her lessons and talk to Hilda. Rosalie was very fond of her +lessons and Hilda was an uncommonly good teacher and took a great +interest in leading Rosalie along the paths she had herself so recently +followed. But directly Flora came in, Hilda’s interest was entirely +diverted to what Flora had to say and to what she had to say to Flora, +and it was always about men,--boys or men. Rosalie would at once be put +to learning passages or working out exercises and Flora and Hilda would +go over to the window and talk. They talked mostly in whispers with +their heads close together; they laughed a good deal; they showed one +another letters. Often they came over to the table and wrote letters. +And they used to look up from their whisperings and say, “Go on with +your lessons, Rosalie.” + +But it was very difficult to go on while they whispered and laughed +and it was also very troublesome to have Hilda’s most interesting +explanations suddenly cut short by the entrance of Flora. Rosalie began +to have the habit of saying “Oh, dear!” and going “Tchk!” with her +tongue when Flora came in. Also restlessly to say “Oh, dear!” and go +“Tchk!” when the whisperings and the laughing about men went on and +distracted her attention while she tried to do her exercises. + +A new aspect of men began to grow out of this. Rosalie began to feel +rather aggrieved against boys and ten. They interfered. + +And this went further. Just as boys and men spoilt lessons so they +began to spoil walks. While Hilda attended the Miss Pockets’ school and +Rosalie was taught by her mother, it was always her mother with whom +Rosalie took walks. Anna “never cared to go out” and Flora, whose +position in the house was more like that of Harold and Robert, did much +as she liked, and “dragging Rosalie about for walks” as she expressed +it, was not one of the things she liked. Rosalie therefore went out with +her mother until Hilda took her off her mother’s hands, when the taking +off included not only education but exercise. At the beginning, Hilda +showed herself as enthusiastic and as entertaining a walker as she +was teacher. She was ready for jolly scrambles through woods and over +fields, she was as keen as Rosalie on damming little watercourses, and +exploring woodland tracts, and other similar delights, and she had a +most splendid knowledge of the names of plants and flowers and birds +and insects and delighted to tell them to Rosalie. Rosalie had loved the +walks with her mother, always holding her dear hand, but she loved much +more, though in a different way, the walks with Hilda. + +Then men began, in Rosalie’s private phrase, to “ruin” the walks. + +First Flora took to joining the walks and she and Hilda talked and +talked together and always, as it seemed, about men, and Rosalie +just trailed along with them, their heads miles above hers and their +conversation equally out of her reach. But even that was not so bad as +it became. At least there were only her sisters and sometimes they +did talk to her, or sometimes one or other would break off from their +chatter and cry “Oh, poor Rosalie! We’ve not been taking the least +notice of you, have we? Now, what would you like to do?” And perhaps +they would run races, or perhaps explore, or perhaps tell her a story, +and Rosalie’s spirits would come bursting out from their dulness and all +would be splendid. + +Not so when on the walks men, from being talked of, began to be met. + +There were at Robert’s Grammar School certain young men who were in +no way connected with the school but were the “private pupils” of the +headmaster and were reading for the universities. One day Hilda started +for the walk in her church hat and Flora also in her church hat and her +church gloves. They walked very fast; Rosalie could hardly keep up. And +then at a corner of a lane they suddenly started to walk very slowly +indeed, and suddenly again at a stile, two of these young men were met. + +The young men raised their hats much farther than Rosalie had ever seen +a man raise his hat and one of them said, “Well, you have come then?” + +Flora said, “Well, we just happened to be strolling along this way.” + Then she said, “You needn’t imagine we came to see you!” which Rosalie +thought very rude; but the young men seemed to like it and all of them +laughed a great deal. + +Presently they all started to walk together, Hilda and Flora in the +middle and one of the young men on either side. The walk lasted much +later than the walks usually lasted and the whole way Rosalie trailed +along behind; and on the whole afternoon the only words addressed to +Rosalie by her sisters came just as, the young men hav-ing taken their +leave a mile away, they were turning in at the rectory gate. Flora then +said, “Rosalie, darling, don’t tell mother or father or any one that we +met any one.” And Hilda said, “Yes, remember, Rosalie, you’re not to say +anything about that.” + +After that, the young men were met, and the four walked, and Rosalie +trailed, nearly every day. + +One of these young men was called Mr. Chalton and the other Mr. Ricks. +Like all men, and even more so, they were splendid and wonderful. They +had silver cigarette cases and smoked a lot, and they wore most handsome +waistcoats and ties, and some of their conversation that came back to +Rosalie, trailing behind, was of very wonderful and exciting things they +had done or were going to do. Mr. Holland, the headmaster of the Grammar +School, was the terror of Robert’s life, but it appeared that Mr. +Chalton and Mr. Ricks were not in the least afraid of Mr. Holland, and +they talked a great deal of what they would do to him if he ever tried +to interfere with them and a great deal of what they did do in the +way of utterly disregarding him. They were undeniably splendid and +wonderful, but they utterly ruined Rosalie’s walks and they greatly +intensified Rosalie’s new feelings towards men and boys,--that men and +boys were a great nuisance and spoilt things. + +Time went along. Other young men were met. In the holidays, quite +a number of young men came for their vacations to their homes in +Ibbotsfield and the surrounding district. Certain of these, unlike +the Grammar School private pupils, called openly at the rectory on one +pretext or another, but they were nevertheless also met secretly by +Flora and Hilda, ruined the walks precisely as Messrs. Chalton and Ricks +had first ruined them, and were on no account to be mentioned by Rosalie +to her father or mother. + +The reason for this secrecy was never explained to Rosalie and the +secrecy oppressed Rosalie. It took not only the form of being a thing +she was not able to tell to her mother, and Rosalie was in the habit of +telling everything she did to her mother, but it took also the form +of mysterious and vaguely alarming perils during the walks. An immense +watchfulness was kept up against chance encounters with people. One of +the party would often cry, “Look! Who’s this?” and the young men +would separate from the girls and appear as if they were walking by +themselves. Sometimes they would break right away and run off and not +be met again. Very often Rosalie would be sent on ahead to a turning and +told to come back at once if anybody was to be seen and then would be +examined as to who the person was. Sometimes she was posted to keep +watch while the girls and the young men slipped off somewhere, over +a gate or into a barn. She got to know by sometimes rushing in with +warnings that Flora and Hilda on these occasions smoked the young men’s +cigarettes. Then when they got home, they would rush up to their room +and wash their teeth and put scent on themselves. And invariably when +the young men took their leave at the end of a walk there would be long +and close whisperings in which were always to be heard the words, “Well, +say you were--” or “Look here, we’ll say we were--” and generally, “Go +away, Rosalie. There’s nothing for you to listen to.” + +It all had the effect of making Rosalie feel unhappy and rather +frightened. She sometimes asked, “Why mustn’t I say anything to mother?” + She was always told, and only told, “Because father doesn’t like us +meeting men.” + +No reason why father should not like them meeting men was ever given, +and Rosalie, ceaselessly disturbed by the concealment, could never +imagine what the reason could be. There could be no reason that she +could imagine; and she was thus immensely taken aback when one evening +at supper her father made a most surprising statement: “The girls have +no chance of ever meeting men in this infernal place.” + +Amazing! + +Rosalie’s father had been abusing Ibbotsfield and everything that +pertained to Ibbotsfield. Some question of expenses had started him. He +was storming in his wild way, addressing himself to Rosalie’s mother +but haranguing at large to all, everybody sitting in silence and with +oppressed faces, avoiding looking at one another and avoiding especially +the eyes of father. They were literally ground down with poverty, +Rosalie’s father was saying. He didn’t know what was going to happen to +them all. “It’s all this place, this infernal, buried-alive place. The +girls ought to be moving about and seeing people. How can they? Very +well. My mind’s made up. There’s my brother Tom in India. He could +have one of the girls. There’s your sister Mrs. Pounce in London. She’s +Rosalie’s godmother. What’s she ever done for Rosalie? Very well. My +mind’s made up. I shall write to Tom and I shall write to Belle. I shall +tell them how we are situated. It’s humiliating to have to tell them but +what’s humiliation? I’m accustomed to humiliation. Ever since we came +here, I have eaten the bread and drunk the water of humiliation. Now the +children are growing up to share it. What can they do in this loathsome +and forsaken and miserable place? What chance have the girls got? Can +you tell me that?” + +He glared at Rosalie’s mother. It was clear that he regarded her as to +blame. Rosalie thought that her dear mother must be to blame. Her mother +looked so beaten and frightened. There was glistening in her eyes. +Rosalie’s heart felt utterly desolated for her mother. She wished +like anything she could say something for her dear mother. Then most +amazingly the chance to say something came. + +“Can you tell me that?” cried Rosalie’s father. “What chance have the +girls of ever meeting men in this infernal place?” + +Rosalie burst out, “Oh, but father, nearly every day--” + +“Rosalie, don’t interrupt!” cried Flora very sharply. + +“Rosalie, be quiet!” cried Hilda. + +Father glared and then went on and on. + +It was the beginning of a chain of most startling upheavals. It was +also, and the upheavals were also, a new manifestation to Rosalie of +the all-importance of men. After supper, in the first place, Flora and +Hilda, taking Rosalie very severely to task for her perilous outburst, +explained to her that the men they met were not the kind of men that +father meant they ought to meet. It was necessary, it was essential, +they explained, for every girl to meet men she could marry. That was +what every girl had to do. Men--surely you understand that, Rosalie--had +all the money and everything and met girls and asked them to marry. +Those men sometimes met on walks, you little stupid, were too young and +had no money yet. “There, that’s enough,” they explained. “Anyhow, we +shan’t be meeting them much more. One of us is probably going to India; +you heard what father said, didn’t you?... Well, of course you can’t +understand properly. You will when you’re grown up. Surely that’s quite +enough for you to understand at present.... How can a woman live if she +doesn’t marry, stupid? She must have money to live and it is men who +have the money.... Well, of course they do because they earn it; look +at Harold; and Robert will have money when he’s a little older.... Well, +how can women? Now, I said that’s enough and it is enough.” + +It was enough and most satisfactorily enough for one purpose. It was +the first explanation of men as a race apart from women that Rosalie had +ever received and it precisely bore out all that she had conceived about +them. It affirmed her perception of the wonder and greatness of men as +compared with women. It intensified that perception. + +Wonderful men! Marvellous and most fortunate men! + +And then the chain of most startling upheavals began. Father wrote to +Uncle Tom in India. Father wrote to Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, +in London. What he wrote was not to be known by Rosalie, outside the +rectory wheel. The others knew, for father, with enormous pride at his +wonderful epistolatory style in his voice, was heard reading the +letter to them. But the others, of course, knew also what Rosalie never +realised, the grinding poverty of the rectory. She knew no other life +than the herrings, the makeshifts, and the general shabbiness of +the rectory. It was not till long afterwards that, looking back, she +realised the pinching and the screwing that served--almost--to make ends +meet. + +So father wrote. India was far, London was near. Aunt Belle’s reply +came while the letter to Uncle Tom was still upon the sea. Such a reply! +Wonderful father to win such a reply from Aunt Belle! “You see what it +is to be able to write a telling and forceful letter!” cried father. +Such an exciting reply! Aunt Belle was coming on a visit “to talk it +over and see what she could do.” + +Aunt Belle came. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Oh, a red carpet, a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, to come +into the story! And if at the end of the red carpet there could be an +“At Home” in the splendid drawing-room of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, +at Pilchester Square, Notting Hill, an At Home with about sixty-five +ladies crammed into it, all of them wives of most successful and +well-off men, mostly retired from the Indian Army and the Indian Civil +Service, and all of them chattering ecstatically, and nibbling, and +pluming themselves, and tinkling their teacups, and Aunt Belle, Mrs. +Pyke Pounce, enthroned in their midst, and owning everything and seeming +to own her five and sixty guests, and chattering and nibbling and +pluming and tinkling more ecstatically than any; and then if there could +come into them beautiful cousin Laetitia (when about fifteen) with sleek +black hair beautifully ribboned behind, and with pale, fine brow, and +wearing the sweetest white frock, and if she could move delightfully +about among her mother’s guests, and then play the sweetest little +trifle on the pianoforte to the delighted murmurs of the five and sixty +guests of her mother (“She’s under Pflunk. The great Pflunk!”); and then +if there could come in from the City Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, +R.E., (retired) now director of several highly important companies, and +if Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., could stand on the hearthrug +with his massy jowl and his determined stomach, and grunt, and rattle +the money in his pockets, and grunt again; and if then there could +come in the new parlour maid of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, with her +tallness and her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence of +air, and all the five and sixty gazing upon her as haughty but envious +patricians gazing upon a slave, and when she had gone swishing out if +Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, could tell all the sixty and five of +her tallness, her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence of +manner---- + +Oh, if there could be this and these and a fine red carpet, how exactly +and how fittingly would Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, step upon the +scene! + +“Dear thing!” That was Rosalie’s portrait and thought of her in long +after years. Dear thing! The drawing-room of her crowded triumphs is now +the shabby drawing-room of a second-rate boarding house; the jolly horse +bus she used so commandingly to stop in the Holland Park Avenue and so +regally to enter (whip-waving driver, cap-touching conductor) long +has given place to a thundering motor saloon that stops wheresoever it +listeth and wherein Aunt Belles and old-clothes women fight to hang by a +strap. + +Dear thing! Her ownership of five and sixty guests is exchanged for +ownership of not more than seven and fifty inches of cold earth in +Brompton Cemetery. She is passed and Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, +R.E., is grunted past to lay himself beside her. They are passed. +Up-reared upon her and upon him is a stupendous granite chunk (in a +way not unlike Uncle Pyke on his hearthrug) erected by their sorrowing +daughter. She is passed; she came into Rosalie’s life and Rosalie +crossed her life and she never forgave Rosalie. + +Dear thing! Lie lightly on her, stones! + +She came to the rectory “to talk it over and see what can be done” for +a week’s visit, and she stepped out of the cab, all the family assembled +to greet her, a new and most surprising figure such as Rosalie had never +seen before. She was dressed in startling fashions of a most wonderful +richness, and she had immense plumes in her hat that nodded when she +moved and trembled when she stood still, and she was herself either +always nodding with glittering animation or straightening her back and +quivering as if straining at a leash and just about to burst it and go +off. She was like Rosalie’s mother and yet not a bit like her. She was +older and yet terribly brisker and stronger. Those were the days when +frosted Christmas cards were of the artistic marvels of the age, and +Aunt Belle beside Rosalie’s mother somehow made Rosalie think of a +frosted card beside one of the plain cards. When Rosalie’s mother was in +a room you often might not know she was there; but when Aunt Belle was +in a room there seemed to be no one there except Aunt Belle. She began +to talk, in a voice as high as the house, while she was still descending +from the cab on her arrival, and the only time Rosalie ever saw her not +talking was during service in Church on Sunday, when she was alternately +glittering or whispering or else bending down so extraordinarily low +that Rosalie thought she was going to lie prone upon the floor. + +Dear thing! She was so kind to Rosalie and so kind to them all, and +yet----And yet they all, except Rosalie who was too small (then) to +appreciate the resented quality in Aunt Belle’s kindness, and Rosalie’s +mother who was too gentle to resent anything, and yet they all, save +Rosalie and her mother, loathed and abominated Aunt Belle. It was her +way of doing things. She gave kind gifts, but it was the way she gave +them. She admired everything and everybody in the rectory, but it was +the way she admired. She said most kind and affectionate things, but it +was her way of saying them. + +“Why, how very nice indeed!” That was her insistent comment upon +everything in the rectory. But the tone was, “How very nice indeed--for +you.” + +That was the trouble. That was what made Harold (who at twenty-six +was getting very like his father) hurl about a thousand miles over the +garden wall the three apples Aunt Belle gave him as his share of the +“very best apples from the Army and Navy Stores” which she brought down +with other “goodies” for “the dear children”; and made, him grit his +teeth after she had been in the house two days and cry, “Dash her! Poor +relations; that’s how she treats us! I’m dashed if I’m a poor relation. +I’m earning three pound ten a week at the Bank and I bet that appalling +old Uncle Pyke didn’t get it or anything like it at my age!” + +Dear thing! “She meant it kindly.” That was the sweet apologetic excuse +with which Rosalie’s mother followed the track of the storms Aunt Belle +aroused and with which she sought to abate them. “She means it kindly. +She means it kindly, dear.” + +It should be Aunt Belle’s epitaph. It ought to be graven upon that +granite chunk in Brompton Cemetery. “She meant it kindly!” + +Issuing from the cab, Aunt Belle began by kissing Rosalie’s mother in +a most astonishing series of kisses that whizzed from cheek to cheek so +that it was a miracle to Rosalie that the two noses did not collide and +her dear mother’s be knocked right off; and then most enthusiastically +kissed all the family, applying to each the phrase with which she began +on Harold “Well, well, so this is Harold!” (As if it were the most +astounding and unexpected thing in the world that it was Harold.) “So +this is Harold! Why, what a great big clever fellow, and what a comfort +to your dear mother, I am sure!” And then gazed rapturously upon the +house and said to Rosalie’s mother and to them all, “Well, well, what a +very, very nice house, to be sure!” + +(“For you!”) + +She meant it kindly. Her manner of talking about herself and about her +possessions was not that of bragging or of conscious superiority; +it was, to the whole rectory family, and to all poorer than herself +wherever she met them, that of one entertaining a party of children--of +a kind lady telling stories to a group of round-eyed infants. When she +first had tea on the afternoon of her arrival, she gazed upon the silver +teapot as it was carried in and exclaimed, “Well, well, what a very, +very handsome teapot! And hot-water jug to match! How very, very nice! +Now how ever do you think I keep my water hot at tea? I have a very +nice service all in silver gilt! It looks just like gold! And there’s +a kettle to match with a spirit flame under it. The maid brings in the +kettle boiling and we just light the spirit with a match and there it is +gently boiling all the time!” + +Dusk drew in and the lamps were lit. “Lamps!” ecstatically exclaimed +Aunt Belle! “How nice! And Hilda keeps the lamps clean, does she? What a +dear, helpful girl and how very, very bright and nice they are! Now what +do you think? In my house, everywhere, even in the kitchen, we’ve got +this new electric light! Your kind uncle Pyke had it put in for me. +Installed, as they call it. Now, just fancy, all you have is a little +brass knob by each door, and you just touch a little switch, and there’s +your light! No matches, no trouble, just click! and there you are. +Of course it was very expensive, but your Uncle Pyke insisted upon my +having it. He always will insist upon my having everything of the best.” + +Dear thing! The echo of her ceaseless tongue brings her exactly to +life again--glittering, chattering, pluming, presenting, praising--her +servants! her house! her parties! her friends! her daughter! her +husband!--Oh, yes, a red carpet! a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke +Pounce, to come into the story, and so (at the end of her visit) into +Rosalie’s life like this: + +“And Rosalie is going away to school! To a boarding school in London +where there will be ever so many very nice playmates of her own age, and +such romps, and such good wholesome food, and such nice, kind, clever +mistresses! Why, what a lucky, lucky girl! There, Rosalie, what do you +think of that? You are my godchild, and I and your kind uncle Pyke are +going to send you to school and pay for your education because of course +we are well off and can afford it and your dear mother and father can’t. +There! Now isn’t that delightful? Come and give me a nice kiss then. The +dear child!” + +Tremendous moment! Supernal upheaval! First and greatest upheaval of the +chain of upheavals! Rosalie was to go away to school! + +That was at the rectory breakfast table on the last morning of the +visit, and that was Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, coming into Rosalie’s +life. “Come and give me a kiss then”; that was kind, kind Aunt Belle, +inviting acknowledgment of her kindness and the kindness of Uncle Pyke +(with a cheque) and the kindness of Cousin Laetitia (with a box of +beautiful cast-off clothes that would do beautifully for Rosalie’s +school outfit). “The dear child!” That was Aunt Belle’s acknowledgment +of Rosalie’s most dutiful and most affectionate and most delighted kiss. +(Most amazed and excited and rather fearful Rosalie! Going to school! +Going away to a boarding school in London!) + +“The dear child!” Such a warm and loving kiss from Rosalie! And time +was to prove it the kiss of Judas! Yes, in a few years, “I’ve done +everything for you!” Aunt Belle was to cry. “Everything! And this is the +return I get!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Next, in its turn, and exactly a fortnight before the beginning of the +term at which Rosalie was to join the boarding school in London, came +the letter from Uncle Tom in India, and with it the beginning of the +second upheaval in the chain of upheavals. + +All of this upheaval was very bewildering to Rosalie. She never +understood it properly. At the beginning it had nothing at all to do +with Anna, and yet Anna from the very first reading of Uncle Tom’s +letter--All that Rosalie understood of it was this. + +First the letter came. Tremendous excitement! Father in wild excitement, +Flora and Hilda in frantic excitement, everyone in highest excitement. +Father read the letter aloud at breakfast to Rosalie’s mother and to the +girls. Such a splendid letter, said father. Really, Tom was a splendid +fellow, said father. He had wronged Tom. He had thought Tom selfish in +his wealthy indifference. By Jove, Tom wasn’t. “By Jove, the way Tom +wrote almost brought tears to your eyes. Listen to this. Listen, mother. +Listen, you girls.” + +Uncle Tom, said the letter, would by all means, old man, have one of the +girls. He’d no idea that things were so bad with you. Poor old man! Why +didn’t you tell us before? He was sending home a small draft to Field +and Company, his bankers, to help towards the girl’s outfit and her +passage money. “‘Which girl shall you send?’ you ask. Well, it’s no +good asking us, old man. You must decide that for yourselves. She’ll be +abundantly welcome, whichever it is, and we can promise her a jolly good +time. We are at Simla most of the year. If you want my advice which girl +to send, send the pretti--” + +Father stopped reading. + +Rosalie was staring at Anna. Anna’s face, which had been pale, suddenly +went crimson. The suddenness and the violence of it was extraordinary. +One moment she had been pale. In the next, she was burning red. It was +exactly as if a crimson paint had suddenly been dashed over the whole +of her face. It was extraordinary. Whatever was it? That nose of hers, +perhaps? a sudden frightful twinge like Rosalie once had had a sudden +most awful jump in a tooth? But Anna didn’t say anything and no one +but Rosalie seemed to notice it. They were all intent upon father. So +intent! Flora’s eyes were simply shining! + +And Flora’s eyes soon after that were shining more than ever. She was +wild with excitement. Rosalie heard the news just before tea. Flora was +going to India to Uncle Tom! + +“Oh,” cried Flora, “I’m so excited I simply don’t know what to do with +myself!” It was all arranged. Father had settled it. She was to go in +about six weeks’ time. Very shortly she was to go up to London with +father and buy heaps of clothes and all sorts of things. They were going +to stay at a hotel. “Not with Aunt Belle, thank goodness!” said Flora. +“At a hotel! Fancy that!” Mother wasn’t going and Flora was glad mother +wasn’t going. She would have a much better time with father. Father had +decided everything. He had decided that mother couldn’t leave him in the +rectory with all the housekeeping to look after, and the change would do +him good, and Aunt Belle would be able to help with the shopping. They +were going to see some theatres and all kinds of things and were going +to have a most splendid time and then, soon afterwards--India! “Oh I +shall go mad with excitement in a minute!” cried Flora. + +The next thing was in the evening. Rosalie, searching for her mother +to ask her something, could not find her. She went into her mother’s +bedroom and there was the most surprising thing. There was Anna on +her knees by her mother and her head on her mother’s lap and Anna was +sobbing; and she was crying in her sobs, “But it’s my right! I’m the +eldest. It’s my right!” + +Rosalie stood there, unnoticed, amazed. Whatever was it? + +Rosalie’s mother stroked Anna’s head and spoke very softly, “My darling! +My darling!” She said, “My darling, your father has decided. Your father +knows best. Men always know best, my darling.” + +“It’s my right, mother. It’s my right. It’s always Flora. Oh, why should +it always be Flora?” + +“Dear Anna. Poor Anna. You must be reasonable, dear Anna. We women must +always be reasonable. Don’t you see that your father thinks of me? He +thinks my eldest girl--my dear eldest girl--ought to stay at home to +look after her mother. It’s on my account, dear Anna. He thinks of me.” + +“Oh, mother, what’s the good of telling me that? A lot he thinks of +you or ever has! Why is he going up to London with Flora when it’s your +place to go? A lot he thinks of you! You say we must be reasonable. You +can be. You’ve been unselfish all your life. I can’t be. Not in this. +I’ve never had a pleasure in my life; I’ve never had a chance; I’ve +never had anything done for me. Ever since I can remember it’s always +been Flora, Flora, Flora. Now there’s this. I’m getting on, mother. I’m +nearly twenty-four. What have I got to look forward to? Flora’s younger, +Flora’s different. She’ll have lots of chances of enjoying herself. This +is my right. It’s my right, mother.” + +“My dear Anna. My eldest girl. My first dear, sweet girlie. How could I +do without you? How happy we’ve been. How happy we will be.” + +Rosalie crept away. + +After a time, Flora and her father went away on the great visit to +London. They were to be away over two Sundays. A clergyman was coming +from Ashborough to take service at the church. Rosalie’s father went off +in spirits as high and youthful as the spirits of Flora. For days before +he was quite a different man. Everybody was asked to choose a present +which he would bring back. Everybody chose with much excitement and +chaffing except Anna, who said she could not think of anything. At +meals, father kept on saying how he wished he could regularly make a +point of getting up to town for a bit, it made all the difference being +able to get away from this infernal place for a bit. When herrings were +on the table, he actually came round and did her herring for Rosalie’s +mother and Rosalie’s mother was able to eat the whole of it and said how +delicious it was and how clever father was. + +It was all splendid. Rosalie had never known such a jolly spirit in the +house. The only thing that spoilt Rosalie’s happiness in the new jolly +spirit was the nights in Anna’s room. Anna was most frightening to +Rosalie. She prayed now longer than ever, her shoulders moving beneath +her nightgown as if she was shuddering all the time she prayed. And at +night she talked more than ever in her sleep; also she used to get out +of bed at night and walk about the room and talk aloud to herself. It +was frightening. + +Then Flora and father were in London and tremendous long letters came +from Flora to her mother and to all: they were buying heaps of dresses +and underclothes and white drill coats and skirts and a riding habit and +goodness knows what all. “A regular trousseau!” wrote Flora with +about seventeen marks of exclamation after the word. And all they were +seeing--they had been to the Lyceum Theatre and seen Mr. Henry Irving +and Miss Ellen Terry and to the Savoy and seen “The Mikado.” Every +moment of the day was taken up and half the night. Oh, this was a change +from Ibbotsfield! + +Anna would never listen to the letters. When they were read out, she +either would put her fingers in her ears or go out of the room. And yet, +curiously, she often later in the day would say in a funny constricted +voice, “Let me see Flora’s letter. Give it to me, will you please?” And +would take it away and read it by herself. + +Anna was stranger and stranger in her manner and in her behaviour at +night. Rosalie came quite to dread the nights. Anna began to pray out +loud. She used to pray over and over again the same thing: “It’s not +that I’m jealous, O Lord. O purge my heart of jealousy. It is that I see +what could be and what ought to be for me and what never will be for me. +I’ve nothing to look forward to, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. It +is hard for women. O God, thou knowest how hard it is for women.” + +It was frightening. + +Then came the second Sunday of the absence in London. In the night of +Saturday, Rosalie was again awakened by the sounds of Anna and again +heard her praying and again heard “It is hard for women. O God, thou +knowest how hard it is for women.” + +She had heard it so often! Anna seemed to have stopped praying. 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 God 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 shirt 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 pass 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 shine 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 Godhood. +They walk near God. + +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 God, 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 +God 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 class 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 assured +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, hush! 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 +God knew it was hard for them--“O God, 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 nobody 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 advertisement +to appear on the front page of the Morning Post. + +“High-class Ladies’ School for the Daughters of Gentlemen of the +Professions has UNEXPECTED VACANCY for ONE ONLY pupil at reduced +terms--Mrs. Impact, Oakwood House School, St. John’s Wood, London.” + +ONE ONLY pupil! That was the magic touch. + +The very first words addressed to Rosalie by a fellow boarder at Oakwood +House were from a short, sharp-featured girl of her own age, which then +was twelve, who said to her sharply, “You’re a One Only. I can see you +are. Aren’t you a One Only?” + +“Well, I’m by myself,” said Rosalie, not understanding but most anxious +to say the right thing. + +“Stupid, you’re not,” said the sharp girl, “because I’m with you. Did +your mother see the advertisement in the Morning Post? The advertisement +of this school?” + +It happened that Rosalie knew her mother had seen it for Aunt Belle had +shown it to her and to them all. “One of the very best schools,” + Aunt Belle had said. “You see, it’s only quite by chance there was a +vacancy.” + +“Yes, she did,” said Rosalie. + +“She’s the cat’s grandmother,” said the sharp girl. “Never say ‘she’ for +a person’s name. Well, if your mother saw the advertisement then you +are a One Only at reduced terms, and I knew you were directly I saw you. +Now, tell me. Don’t blink--unless of course you’re an idiot; all idiots +blink. Tell me. Was that dress made for you or was it cut down?” + +“It was my cousin Laetitia’s,” said Rosalie. + +“Of course it was,” returned the sharp girl very triumphantly. “Every +One Only’s clothes are cut down for her. Poopers! Do you know what a +pooper is? A pooper is half a poop and half a pauper. Every One Only’s +a pooper. Well, now you know what you are. You see that girl over there. +Do you know what she is?” + +Rosalie said she did not. + +“She’s a Red Indian.” + +“Is she?” said Rosalie, much surprised, for the girl did not look in the +least like a Red Indian. + +“Ask her,” said the sharp girl. “Do you know what I am?” + +Rosalie shook her head. + +“Answer,” said the sharp girl. + +“No, I don’t,” said Rosalie. + +“I’m a Sultan,” said the sharp girl. “All the nice girls are Sultans and +the school belongs to them. Do I look nice?” + +“Very,” said Rosalie, though she did not think so. + +“Then why didn’t you know I was a Sultan? The school belongs to the +Sultans. The One Onlys and the Red Indians are interlopers, especially +the One Onlys. Always shudder when you see a Sultan. Shudder now.” + +Rosalie wriggled her shoulders. + +“Again, poop.” + +Rosalie repeated the wriggle. + +“Vanish, poop,” said the sharp girl, and herself sprung away with +mysterious crouching bounds, her head thrust forward, looking very like +Gagool, the witch, in King Solomon’s Mines; and was seen by Rosalie to +pounce upon another small girl who was probably a One Only and, from her +forlorn aspect, certainly a sad and desolated new. + +One Onlys, Red Indians, Sultans. They were the three castes into which +the girls divided themselves: One Onlys the poopers brought by the +advertisement; Red Indians the daughters of parents resident in India; +Sultans the proud creatures who paid full fees and took their title from +the nickname of the headmistress--the Sultana. This Oakwood House School +in which Rosalie now found herself was one of those very big old houses +with a spacious, walled-in garden that probably was occupied in the +Fifties somewhere, when St. John’s Wood was out in the country, by a +wealthy old City merchant who rode in to business two or three times +a week, never dreaming that one day London was going to stretch miles +beyond St. John’s Wood, and his imposing residence go dropping down the +scale of fashion eventually to become a school for young ladies who on +their crocodile walks would huddle, giggling, along the kerbstone while +the dangerous traffic roared up and down the Maida Vale highway. + +Those crocodiles! There was a news agent’s shop just opposite where the +crocodile used to cross when it went out every morning, and one of the +great excitements of the walk was to get around the corner and see what +the newspaper bills had to tell. There were about forty girls at the +school--a crocodile twenty files long--and on the days of sensational +events the news from the placards used to come flashing back in +emotional little screams from the head of the crocodile, gazing with +goggling eyes, to the tail of the crocodile pressing deliriously up +behind. “The Maybrick Case”; “Jack the Ripper Again”; “Death of the Duke +of Clarence”; “Loss of H.M.S. Victoria”; Rosalie never afterwards could +hear those terrific things referred to without recalling instantly the +convulsions of the crocodile and experiencing within her own bosom the +tumults that contributed their share to the convulsions. She was in the +writhing tail of the crocodile when “Jack the Ripper Again” caused it +almost to swoon, and she was in its weeping head when “Death of the Duke +of Clarence” and “Loss of H.M.S. Victoria” struck its orderly coils into +a tangled and hysterical knot. + +Mrs. Impact, who kept this school, was a massive and frightening figure +of doom who wore always upon her head, and was suspected of sleeping +in, a strange erection having the appearance of a straw beehive. She was +called the Sultana and her appearance and her habits seemed to Rosalie +precisely the appearance and habits that would belong to a sultana. The +Sultana appeared virtually never among the girls. The direction of the +discipline and education of the pupils was in the hands of the chief of +the Sultana’s staff of badly paid and much intimidated mistresses. This +chief of staff, by name Miss Ough, but called the Vizier, appeared +from and disappeared into the quarters occupied by the Sultana, and was +popularly supposed to be kept there in a dungeon. If you were near +the door through which the Vizier passed from public gaze there was +unquestionably to be heard shortly afterwards a metallic clank. This was +the portal of the Vizier’s dungeon being closed upon her and was very +shuddering to hear. The Vizier, moreover, like one long incarcerated, +was skeletonized of form, cadaverous and sallow of countenance, and grew +upon her face, as all right prisoners in royal custody grow, a thick +covering of greyish down. + +A second known inhabitant of the Sultana’s quarters was Mr. Ponders, her +butler, who sometimes slid into the classrooms in a very eerie way with +messages and whom Rosalie came to know strangely well; a third, but he +did not exactly live in the awful regions, was the Sultana’s husband. +The Sultana’s husband lived in two rooms over the stable. From the front +classroom windows he was to be seen every morning disappearing through +the front gates at about eleven o’clock; very shiny top hat; very tight +tail coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; +very tight grey-yellow moustache; very tight pasty face; curiously +constricted, jerky gait as though his boots, too, were very tight. +Precisely the sort of chronic, half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see +in billiard rooms or eating cloves in West End bars. By association of +ideas with the orientalism of Sultana he was called by the girls the +Bashibazook. + +Junior to Miss Ough, the vizier, were four or five other mistresses, all +known by nicknames. Children are exactly like savages in their horrible +sharpness at picking out physical peculiarities and labelling by them. +One would imagine these governesses, judged by their nicknames, a +deplorable collection of oddities. Actually they must have been a +presentable enough and a capable enough set of spinsters, though +sicklied o’er by the pale cast of indifferent personalities, +indifferently housed, indifferently fed, indifferently paid; all +anaemic, all without any prospects whatsoever, all dominated by and +domineered over by the masterful personality of the Sultana. + +Only one of them contributed to the life of Rosalie and this was +“Keggo,” Miss Keggs, who taught mathematics. This Keggo was rather like +Anna in appearance, Rosalie thought, and was most popular of all the +mistresses with the girls, partly because of her bright moments in which +she was a human creature and an entertaining creature; partly because +of her curiously supine periods in which she would be utterly listless, +allow her class to do anything they liked provided they kept perfectly +quiet, and would make no attempt whatsoever to correct idleness or to +impart the lesson of the hour. Miss Keggs had been known to knock over +the inkpot on her desk and sit and watch the ink dripping in a pool +on to the floor without making the least attempt even to upstand the +vessel. No one knew why Keggo had these moods. But it was known that for +her to come into class looking rather flushed was a sign foreshadowing +them. + +She appeared to take a fancy to Rosalie from the first, and Rosalie to +her, probably by reason of the fancied resemblance to Anna. She invited +Rosalie to her room and Rosalie loved to go there because the One Onlys +were in a very weak and humble minority in Rosalie’s first term and +were rather hunted by the Sultans who were then particularly strong in +numbers and rich in apparel, in pocket money, and in friends. The poor +little One Onlys led rather abashed lives and they had no chance at all +around the playroom fire where the Sultans stretched their elegant legs +and warmed their shapely toes. + +One evening in her first few weeks Rosalie had to take an exercise up +to Miss Keggs, and Miss Keggs’s room was warm, and Miss Keggs like +Anna, and Rosalie lingered and was invited to linger; after that Rosalie +sought and invented reasons for going up to Miss Keggs’s room and Miss +Keggs would nearly always say, “Well, you may stay a little, Rosalie, as +you’re here.” + +Miss Keggs’s room was right at the top of the house where were also the +servants’ room and the room shared by Miss Downer and Miss Frost. It was +a long, narrow room with sloping ceiling and the window high up in the +ceiling. In the winter it was warmed with a small oil stove which smelt +terribly when you first went in but to the smell of which you almost at +once got accustomed. It was curious to Rosalie that even in summer when +there was no oil stove there was nearly always a very strong smell +in Miss Keggs’s room. Miss Keggs used eau de Cologne for bathing her +forehead and temples on account of the very bad headaches from which +she said she suffered and the smell was like eau de Cologne but with an +unpleasantly harsh strong tang in it, like bad eau de Cologne, Rosalie +used to think. However, you almost at once got accustomed to that also. +These headaches of Miss Keggs were a symptom of the very bad health from +which she suffered, and on the occasions of Rosalie’s visits to her +room Miss Keggs was very communicative about her ill health. It was the +reason, she told Rosalie, why, alone of all the mistresses, she had a +room to herself instead of sharing one. The Sultana had granted her that +privilege, provided she would use this remote and rather poky attic, +because it was so essential she should be quiet and undisturbed. + +“Don’t you have any medicine, Miss Keggs?” said the small Rosalie, +in one part genuinely sympathetic and in the other eager to discuss +anything that would prolong her stay by the warm oil stove. + +“Nothing does me any good,” said Miss Keggs wearily. After a minute +she added, “But I really am feeling very bad to-night. Mr. Ponders very +kindly gives me some medicine that relieves my bad attacks. I wonder, +Rosalie, if you could find your way down to Mr. Ponders and give him +this medicine bottle and ask him if he could very kindly oblige me with +a little of my medicine?” + +“Oh, I’m sure I could, Miss Keggs,” cried Rosalie, delighted at the +opportunity of doing a service. + +Miss Keggs became extraordinarily animated with the feverish animation +of one who, having made up her mind after hesitation, furiously tramples +hesitation under foot. + +“Go right downstairs,” directed Miss Keggs, “right down below the hall +into the basement. You know the basement stairs?” She proceeded with her +directions, detailing them most exactly. She accompanied Rosalie to the +door and when Rosalie was a little down the passage sharply called her +back. “And, Rosalie! If you should meet any one--if you should meet any +one, on no account say where you are going or where you have been. On no +account. If it should be known how ill I continue to be, I might be sent +away. They might think I am not strong enough to continue my work here. +Say you have lost your way if you should be met. You are a new little +girl and it is easy to lose your way in this big, rambling house. Keep +the bottle in your pocket and remember, Rosalie, on no account to tell. +On no account.” And so dismissed her. + +A creepy business, going down to interview Mr. Ponders! The Sultana’s +butler was only seen by the girls on momentous and thrilling occasions. +He opened the hall door when new little girls arrived with their +mothers, and he would sometimes appear in a classroom and walk +thrillingly to the mistress and thrillingly whisper. This always meant +that for some fortunate girl a parent or an aunt had arrived and that +the presence of the fortunate girl was desired by the Sultana. He was a +shortish, dingy man with a considerable moustache. As he walked between +the desks to deliver his message, his eyes were always glancing from +side to side as though furtively in search of something, and always as +he left the room he would stand a moment with his hand on the door +as though meditating some statement and then suddenly de-termining to +disappear without making it. A rather mysterious and thrilling man. + +Come into the basement, Rosalie walked as bid along the passage, then +to the right and then past two doors to the third, whereon she tapped +gently, and when a man’s voice said “Come in,” quaked rather, and went +in. The walls of Mr. Ponders’ room were completely surrounded by narrow +shelves. Beneath the shelves were the closed doors of low cupboards and +on the shelves were ranged many glasses, china and silverware. At one +end beneath the window was a sink with two taps, both dripping. On the +right-hand side was a fire before which in a wicker armchair sat Mr. +Ponders smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. + +“What do you want?” inquired Mr. Ponders. + +Rosalie said, “If you please, Mr. Ponders, Miss Keggs is not feeling +at all well and would you be so very kind as to give her some of her +medicine, please?” + +Mr. Ponders rose and regarded Rosalie from the hearthrug. “So it’s going +to be you coming for the medicine now, is it?” he said. He looked rather +a mean little man, standing there; not thrilling as when he appeared in +the schoolrooms for there was an unpleasing familiarity in his air, but +still decidedly mysterious, for though he smiled and looked snakily at +Rosalie, he still glanced from side to side as though furtively looking +for something and he still, before committing himself to an action, +paused as though meditating a statement and then suddenly performed the +action as though he had made up his mind not to speak--yet. + +“You’re Rosalie, aren’t you?” inquired Ponders, putting his hands in +his pockets and stretching out his stomach like one much at his ease. +“Rosalie Aubyn. You come with your Auntie. What’s your Pa?” + +“A clergyman, Mr. Ponders.” + +“Oh, he’s a clergyman, is he?” Mr. Ponders’s eyes slid from side to +side, rather as if he had somewhere in the room some confirmation or +some refutation of Rosalie’s statement that he could produce if he could +catch sight of it, and continued thus to slide with the same suggestion +while he playfully put Rosalie through a further examination relative to +her “Auntie,” her “Ma” and her brothers and sisters. He appeared then +to be meditating a question of some other order but instead suddenly +straightened himself, withdrew his hands from his pockets and said, +“Well, you’d better be running along with the medicine.” + +He took from Rosalie the bottle Miss Keggs had given her and from his +pockets a bunch of keys. In the lock of one of his cupboards he fitted a +key, paused a meditative moment, then with a decisive action opened the +cupboard and from a tall black bottle very carefully and steadily filled +the medicine bottle. The medicine was dark red. It first ran in a fine +dark red cloud around the inner shoulders and sides of the bottle and +then plunged in a steady stream direct from the larger receptacle to the +smaller. + +Rosalie, watching, was moved to say, “How well you pour it, Mr. +Ponders.” + +“I’ve poured a tidy drop in my time,” said Mr. Ponders, completing the +operation and corking the medicine bottle. He held it towards Rosalie, +paused in his mysteriously deliberative way, and then suddenly handed it +to her. “And a tidy fair drop for Miss Keggs at that,” he added. He went +to the door, again paused as though uncertain whether to open it, then +opened it for Rosalie to pass out. “Good night,” said Mr. Ponders. + +Lucky Mr. Ponders to have for his own a cosy room like that--men, always +for some reason, with the best of everything again! Unpleasing Mr. +Ponders to look at you like that and to speak to you like that--men, +always horrible again! Rosalie, thus thinking, made a swift and +unobserved climb to the attics. Miss Keggs must have heard her coming. +The door was pulled sharply from Rosalie’s hand and there was Miss Keggs +and the bottle almost snatched away from Rosalie. “How long you’ve been! +But you’ve got it! And no one saw you?” Miss Keggs went very swiftly +to the washstand and took up a small tumbler. Clear that she wanted her +medicine very badly. She toppled in the contents of the bottle, its neck +clinking against the glass, the dark red medicine splashing and some +spilling, so differently from Mr. Ponders’s performance of a far more +difficult operation, and with the bottle still in her hand held the +glass to her lips and drank deeply. + +Yet there was a funny thing about the draught. It seemed to Rosalie that +Miss Keggs with that eager draught yet did not swallow at once but only +filled her mouth to its capacity. She then swallowed very slowly and +with movements of her cheeks as though she was sucking down the medicine +and tasting it in every portion of her mouth. Colour came into her +cheeks. The medicine certainly appeared to do her immense good. + +Miss Keggs’s friendliness towards Rosalie was settled and established +from that night. Thereafter it became a very regular thing for Rosalie +to visit the room of Miss Keggs of an evening; and at intervals, +sometimes twice a week, sometimes not three times in a month, to descend +to the den of Mr. Ponders for the dark-red medicine which did Miss Keggs +so much good and which she always took in that peculiar sucking way from +a full mouth, one would be so long sometimes in swallowing a mouthful, +beginning a sentence and then drinking and then all that time in +swallowing before she completed the sentence, that she several times, by +way of apology, ex-plained the reason to Rosalie. “I have to swallow it +very slowly like that,” explained Miss Keggs, “because that’s the way +for it to do me good. It’s my doctor’s orders.” + +“It seems a business,” was Rosalie’s comment. + +“Yes, it is a business,” Miss Keggs agreed. + +Rosalie added, “How very lucky it is, Miss Keggs, that Mr. Ponders keeps +your medicine.” + +“Yes, it’s certainly very lucky,” Miss Keggs agreed. + +The effect of her medicine was always to make her very complaisant. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +One seeks to give only the things in Rosalie’s life that contributed to +her record, as time judges a record. Of her years at Oakwood House, so +far as Oakwood House itself is concerned, only that friendship with +Miss Keggs thus contributed. The rest does not matter and may be passed. +Rosalie was happy there. It naturally was all very strange at first +but she soon shook down and found her place and formed friendships. The +thing to notice is this--that even in the strangeness of her first few +weeks the place was actively felt by her to be a haven. There is to be +recalled that aching desire of hers, when poor Anna lay dead, to get +right away from men: men who (though still pre-eminently wonderful) +caused her by their showing off to blink and have a funny feeling; and +by their distasteful presence spoilt her walks and her lessons; and by +the frightening things they did had brought that frightening death to +Anna. Thus had accumulated that aching desire to get right away from +men and be only amongst girls; and the feeling remained most lively in +Rosalie at the Sultana’s, and intensified. Those men! She used to see +the Bashibazook and shudder at him; and Mr. Ponders and shudder at him; +and sometimes Uncle Pyke, and because of ways he had, feel quite sick +to be near him. Men still were wonderful. The Bashibazook, Mr. Ponders, +Uncle Pyke, Uncle Pyke’s friends--all were infinitely superior and did +what they pleased; but, oh, not nice, frightening. It was safe and nice +to be only with girls. Girls were in heaps of ways extraordinarily silly +and unsatisfactory. Men though not nice, unquestionably did everything +better and could do things. Unquestionably theirs was the best time in +life. Unquestionably they were to be envied. But--not nice, frightening. + +It was like that that her ideas at Oakwood House were shaping. + +And all this time, most important and much contributory to the life of +Rosalie--Aunt Belle. Tremendous occasions in those years were the visits +to the Sultana’s of Aunt Belle. Frequently on a Saturday, kind Aunt +Belle used to call at Oakwood House for Rosalie and take her to a tea +shop for tea. Beautiful cousin Laetitia would accompany her, and kind +Aunt Belle would always invite Rosalie to bring with her another little +One Only. Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Aunt Belle used to sit by in the tea +shop, affectionate and loquacious as ever, while the two schoolgirls +stuffed themselves with cakes (not beautiful Laetitia who just nicely +sipped a cup of tea and nicely smiled at the two gross appetites) and +always kind Aunt Belle brought a small hamper of sweets and cake and +apples--“The very best goodies from the Army and Navy Stores, dear +child. They know us so well at the Army and Navy Stores. Your Uncle Pyke +has a standing deposit account there. We can go in without a penny in +our pockets and buy anything we please. Fancy that, dear child!” And +always half a crown for Rosalie, as kind Aunt Belle was leaving. + +Once in every term, also, Rosalie spent a week-end at the magnificent +house in Pilchester Square. Such luxuries! Fire in her bedroom and +palatial late dinner! Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning (“Just to let +you lie as a little change from school, dear child.”) and Laetitia’s +maid to do her hair! Rosalie immensely im-pressed and Aunt Belle +immensely gratified at Rosalie’s awe and appreciation and gratitude. + +A curious manifestation there was of Aunt Belle’s attitude in this +regard. On that famous visit to the rectory she had treated every one +like children. Here, in her own house, while Rosalie was still a child, +twelve, thirteen and fourteen, she was treated by Aunt Belle and shown +off to by her much as if she were a grown-up woman. About her servants, +and about prices, and about dress, and about her dinner parties, Aunt +Belle chattered to Rosalie; and about Uncle Pyke, what he liked, and +what he didn’t like, and what he did in the City, and what he did at his +club, and about her hosts of friends and their matrimonial experiences, +Aunt Belle chattered to her, confiding in her and telling her all kinds +of things she but dimly understood precisely as if she were a grown-up +young woman. + +Then as Rosalie grew older, sixteen, seventeen and getting on for +eighteen, was reversion by Aunt Belle to the rectory manner. The child +had been treated as a young woman; the budding maiden was treated +precisely as if she were a small child or a small savage to be +entertained by mere sight of the wonders all about her in Pilchester +Square and by having them explained to her in words of one syllable. + +“There, Rosalie,” (Rosalie at seventeen) “do you know you’re eating with +a solid silver spoon! Feel the weight of it! Balance it in your hand, +dear child. We usually only use this service for our dinner parties and +your uncle Pyke keeps it locked up and carries the key about with him. +Show Rosalie the key, Pyke. But I got it out for you to-day because I +knew you would like to see real solid silver plate. Dear child!” + +Dear thing! Lightly on her, you Brompton Cemetery stones! + +Uncle Pyke never would produce the key or whatever he might be asked to +show. Uncle Pyke would grunt and go on with his soup with enormous noise +as though having a bath in it. Uncle Pyke never spoke at all to Rosalie +on these week-end visits except, always, to put her through examination +on what she was learning at school. Rosalie, though horribly frightened +of Uncle Pyke, always had pretty ready answers to the examination--she +did uncommonly well at school--but there never was from Uncle Pyke +any other mark of appreciation than a grunt. A grunt! Those Pyke-ish, +piggish men! The outstanding characteristic Rosalie came to see in Uncle +Pyke and in the other husbands (his cronies) of Aunt Belle’s friends +was that they thought about nothing else but their food, their wine and +their cigars. They disliked having about them anybody who interfered +with their enjoyment of their food, their wine and their cigars. They +were affectionately regarded by their wives as tame, necessary bears to +be fed and warmed and used to sit at the head of the table and awe the +servants. That was what Rosalie saw in them--and shuddered at in them. +Hogs! + +Cousin Laetitia all this time was living at home, attending a very +exclusive and expensive day school. Only twelve girls at beautiful +Laetitia’s school and more masters and mistresses than pupils--mostly +“visiting” masters--Italian, French, painting, singing, music, dancing. +Laetitia was about two years older than Rosalie. Very pretty in an +elegant, delicate fashion, and growing up decidedly beautiful in a +sheltered, hothouse, Rossetti type of beauty. Always very affectionate +to Rosalie and glad to see her; not patronising in the way she might +have been patronising and yet, as the two grew older, patronising in a +conscious effort to dissemble a conscious superiority. + +Rosalie never could remember how early in their acquaintance it was she +first understood that the great aim of Laetitia’s life, and the great +aim of Aunt Belle’s life for Laetitia, was to “make a good match”; but +she seemed to have known it ever since she first heard of Laetitia, +certainly at a point of her childhood when too young exactly to +understand what “good match” meant. Later on, when Laetitia had left +school and was within sight of putting up her hair, “good match” was +openly spoken of by Aunt Belle in her crowded drawing-room or alone in +company of the two girls and Uncle Pyke. + +“And soon dear Laetitia will be making a good match, a splendid match”; +and beautiful Laetitia would faintly colour and faintly smile. + +There began to come to Rosalie, growing older, an acute and an odd +feeling of the physical and mental difference between herself and +beautiful Laetitia--a feeling in Laetitia’s company that she was a boy, +a young man, in the company of one most pronouncedly a young woman. +Rosalie was always very plainly dressed by comparison with Laetitia; her +voice was much clearer and sharper, her air very vigorous against an air +very langorous. Her hands used to feel extraordinarily big when she sat +with Laetitia and her wrists extraordinarily bare. She would glance down +at her lap sometimes and could have felt a sense of surprise not to see +trousers on her legs. + +That was how, as they grew older, Rosalie often felt with Laetitia. + +Her last term came. She was nearly eighteen. She was going to earn her +own living. That was decided. Exactly how was not decided; but Rosalie +had decided it. There was an idea that she should remain at the +Sultana’s as a junior teacher, but that was not Rosalie’s idea. + +“Oh, don’t be a schoolmistress, Rosalie,” Keggo had said when Rosalie +told of the suggestion (propounded, through the Sultana, by Miss Ough +and warmly endorsed by Aunt Belle and grunted upon by Uncle Pyke). “Oh, +Rosalie, don’t be one of us. Don’t you see how we are just drifting, +drifting? Don’t do anything where you’ll just drift, Rosalie.” + +“No, I’m not going to drift, Keggo,” said Rosalie. (Miss Keggs, in +the little room, had been “Keggo” a long time then.) “I’m not going to +drift. I’m going to have a man’s career. I’m going into business! Keggo, +that’s the mystery of that book I’m always reading that you’re always +asking me about: ‘Lombard Street’--Bagehot’s ‘Lombard Street.’ Oh, +Keggo, thrilling.” + +She began to tell Keggo her stupendous enterprise.... + +There is in the study of man nothing more curious or more interesting +than the natural bent of an individual mind. An arrow shot to the north +and another from the same bow to the south spring not apart more swiftly +or more opposedly than the minds of two children brought up from one +mother in the same nursery. The natural bent of each impels it. Art this +one, science that; to Joe adventure, to Tom a bookish habit. Rosalie’s +natural bent declared itself in “figures”; in the operations, as she +discovered them, of commerce; in the mysterious powers, as they appealed +to her, developed in countinghouses and exerted by countinghouses. The +romance of commerce! A mind double-edged, with inquisitiveness the one +edge and acquisitiveness the other (as certainly Rosalie’s) is a sword +double-edged that will cut through the tough shell and into the lively +heart of anything. No more is required than to give the young mind a +glimpse of the lively heart that is there. Rosalie’s young mind was +already beating with half-fledged wings against the shell about that +side of life wherein, in her experience, (of her brothers, of Uncle +Pyke, of Uncle Pyke’s friends) men did the things that earned them +livelihood and gave them independence. Along, by happy chance, buried in +dust in the rectory study and found one holiday, came “Lombard Street” + and Bagehot, and that was the book and Bagehot was the man to give +pinions to those fledgling wings. She saw romance, and thrusted for +it, in the business of countinghouses. It was fascinating to her beyond +anything the discovery that money was not, as she had always supposed, +a thing that you took with one hand and paid away, and lost, with the +other. Not at all! It was a thing that, properly handled, you never +lost. Enthralling! Thrilling! You invested it and it returned to you; +you expended it and propped it up with fascinating things called sinking +funds, and, although you had spent it, there it was coming back to you +again! It was the most mysterious and wonderful commodity in the world. +She got hold of that and she went on from that. + +The romance of business! That ships should go out across the seas with +one cargo and sell it, not, in effect, for money, but for another and +an entirely different cargo; that cheques passing between countries, and +cheques circulating about the United Kingdom, should be traded off one +against the other in magic conjuring palaces called Clearing Houses with +the result that thousands of little streams merged into few great rivers +and only differences need be paid; that money (heart and driving-force +of all the mysteries) should have within itself the mysterious and +astounding quality of ceaselessly reduplicating itself--“the only thing +in the world,” as Rosalie quaintly put it to Miss Keggs--“the only thing +m the world that people, business people, will take care of for you +without charging you for storage or for trouble”--that these mysterious +and extraordinary things should be thrilled Rosalie as the mysterious +and extraordinary things of science or of nature or the mysterious +and beautiful things of art or of literature or of music will thrill +another. + +That natural bent of her mind! That Bagehot that ministered to +her natural bent! Fascinated by Banks, fascinated by the Exchange, +fascinated by the Pool of London, where, obedient to the behests of +the counting-houses, floated the wealth that the countinghouses made, +fascinated by these was Rosalie as maidens of her years commonly are +fascinated by palaces, by the Tower and by the Abbey. Remember, it is +not what their eyes see that fascinates these romantic young misses. A +dolt can see the Tower walls and see no more than crumbling bricks and +stone. It is what their minds see that fascinates the ardent creatures. +Well, Rosalie’s mind saw strange romance in countinghouses. + +That Bagehot! + +And then must be picked up--and were with time picked up--others of the +magic man’s enchantments. “Literary Studies,” but she passed over that, +the burning subject was not there. “Economic Studies”; it much was +there. “International Coinage.” She read that! It approached the subject +of a Universal Money and her thought was, “Why, what a splendid idea +to have one coinage that would go everywhere!” And then, opening a new +field, and yet a connected field and a field profoundly engrossing to +her, “The English Constitution.” How laws came; how laws worked; the +mysteriousness (her word) within the Council chambers that produced +governance as the mysteriousness within the countinghouses produced +wealth! The mysterious quality within precedent and necessity and change +that reproduced itself in laws as the mysterious quality within money +caused money to reproduce itself in wealth; the romance of governance. + +It was like that that her interests were shaping. + +It was very easy, it was utterly delightful, to tell all this to Keggo. +It was not at all easy, it was very terrible, to tell it before Uncle +Pyke. It was appalling, it was terrific, to break to the house in +Notting Hill that she desired to earn her living, not as a teacher, but +in business--like men. + +It was at dinner at the glittering table in the splendid dining-room of +the magnificent house in Notting Hill, Rosalie there on the half-term +week-end of her last term, that the frightful thing was done. At dinner: +Uncle Pyke Pounce bathing in his soup; beautiful Laetitia elegantly +toying with hers; Aunt Belle beaming over her solid silver spoon at +Rosalie. “Try that soup, dear child. It’s delicious. My cook makes such +delicious soups. Lady Houldsworth Hopper--Sir Humbo Houldsworth Hopper, +you know he’s in the India Office, you must have heard of him--was +dining with us last week and said she had never tasted such delicious +soup. It was the same as this. I asked cook specially to make it for +you. Now next term, when you are one of the mistresses at Oakwood House +and living at their table and you have soup, you’ll be able to say--for +you must speak up when you are with them, dear child, and not be +shy--you’ll be able to tell them what delicious soup you always get at +your Uncle Colonel Pyke Pounce’s. Be sure to mention your Uncle by name, +Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., not just ‘my uncle,’ and that he was a great +deal in India where he was entirely responsible for the laying of the +Puttapong Railway and received an illuminated address from the Rajah +of Puttapongpoo, such a fine old fellow, not being allowed of course to +take a present, which you have seen many times hanging in his study in +his fine house in Pilchester Square, Notting Hill (some of them are +sure to have heard of Pilchester Square, though never visited there, of +course); your uncle will show you the address again after dinner; that +will be nice, won’t it, dear? Won’t you, Pyke?” + +(F-r-r-r-r-r-rup! from the splendid holder of the illuminated address +from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo, bathing in his soup.) + +“Be sure to speak up for yourself like that, dear child, and let them +know who you are and that though you are poor and have to earn your +living, you have wealthy relations (though of course we are only +comfortably off and do not pretend to be rich) and are not at all like +ordinary governesses. Be sure to, dear. There; now you’ve finished that +soup and wasn’t it delicious, just? You will have another helping, I +know you will. A second helping of soup is not usual, dear, and Laetitia +or any one at any of our parties would never take it, but it’s quite +different for you, and I do love to see you enjoy the nice food I get +for you. More soup for Miss Aubyn, Parker.” + +Now for it! + +“Aunt, I won’t have any more soup. I won’t really. It was delicious. +Delicious, but really no more. Really. Aunt.... About the governesses +there and being one of them. I wanted to say... Aunt, I don’t want to be +a pupil-teacher. Aunt...” + +Fr-r-r-r-rup! Frr-r-roosh! Woosh! Fr-r-r-roosh! + +It is the holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of +Puttapongpoo most terribly and fear-strikingly struggling up out of his +soup. “Don’t want to be a pupil teacher? Wat d’ye mean? Wat d’ye mean?” + +“Why, Rosalie, darling!” It is the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the +holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo. + +“Never mind them, Rosalie. The dear child! Why, how crimson she is. Let +the dear child speak. What is it, dear child?” It is kind Aunt Belle. + +“Aunt Belle. Aunt Belle, I don’t want to earn my living like that. +I want to earn it like--like a man. I want to--well, it’s hard to +explain--to go to an office like a man--and have my pay every week, like +a man--and have a chance to get on like men, like a man. I want to go +into the City if I possibly could, or start in some way like going into +the City. I know it sounds awful--telling it to you--but girls are doing +it, a few. They’re just secretaries and clerks, of course. They’re just +nothing, of course. But, oh, it’s something, and I do want it so. To +have office hours and a--a desk--and a--an employer and be--be like men. +I don’t mean, I don’t mean a bit, imitate men like all that talk there +is now about imitating men. I hate women in stiff collars and shirts +and ties and mannishness like that; and indeed I hate--I dislike men--I +can’t stand them, not in that way, if you understand what I mean--” + +“.Rosalie!” (Laetitia.) + +“Oh, Laetitia, oh, Aunt Belle, I’m only saying that to show I don’t mean +I want to be--. It is so fearfully difficult to explain, this. But Aunt, +you do see what I am trying to mean. It’s just a man’s work that I mean +because I’d love it and because I don’t see why--. And it’s just that +particular kind of work--in the City. Because I believe, I do believe, +I would be sharp and good at that work. Figures and things. I love +that. I’m quick at that, very quick. And I’ve read heaps about it--about +business I mean--about--” + +Uncle Pyke Pounce. Uncle Pyke Pounce, holding his breath because he is +holding his exasperation as one holds one’s breath in performance of a +delicate task. Uncle Pyke Pounce crimson, purply blotched, infuriated, +kept from his food, blowing up at last at the parlour-maid: “Bring in +the next course! Bring in the next course! Watyer staring at? Watyer +waiting for? Watyer listening to? Rubbish. Pack of rubbish.” + +The parlour-maid flies out on the gust of the explosion. Rosalie +finishes her sentence while the gust inflates again. + +“Read heaps about it--about business--about trade and finance and that. +It fascinates me.” + +The gust explodes at her. + +“Wat d’yer mean read about it? Read about what?” + +“Uncle, about money, about finance and things. I know it’s extraordinary +I should like such things. But I do. I can’t tell why. It’s like--like a +romance to me, all about money and how it is made and managed. There’s +a book I found in father’s study at home. ‘Lombard Street’ by Bagehot. +That’s all about it, isn’t it? I can’t tell you how I have read it and +reread it.” + +“Never heard of it. ‘Lombard Street?’ Bagehot? Who’s Bagehot?” + +“I think he was a banker, Uncle.” + +“I think he was a fool!” + +It comes out of the red and swollen face of the holder of the +illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo like a plum-stone +spat at her across the table. Rosalie blinked. These beastly men! +Violent, vulgar, fat, rude beasts! Uncle Pyke the worst of them! But she +came back bravely from her flinch. “If he wasn’t a banker, he knew all +about banking. Oh, that’s what I would be more than anything--that’s +what I do want to be--a banker--in a bank!” + +The holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo as +if, having expectorated the plum-stone, he desired to expectorate also +the taste thereof, spat out an obscene sound of contempt and disgust. +“Fah! I say the man, whoever he was, was a fool. And I say this, Miss. I +don’t often speak sharply, but I say that I think I know another fool--a +little fool--at this table. Pah! Enough of it! What’s this? Trout?” + +Aunt Belle to the rescue! If Uncle Pyke and Aunt Belle had kept house in +Seven Dials instead of Notting Hill, Uncle Pyke would have beaten Aunt +Belle and Aunt Belle would have taken the blows without flinching and +then have wheedled Uncle Pyke with drops of gin. As it was, Uncle +Pyke was merely boorish or torpidly savage towards Aunt Belle and Aunt +Belle’s way with him--as with all combative men--was to rally him with a +kind of boisterous chaff and to discharge it at him as an urchin with an +armful of snowballs fearfully discharges them at an old gentleman in a +silk hat: backing away, that is to say, before an advance and advancing +before a retreat. Uncle Pyke usually retreated, either to eat or sleep. + +Aunt Belle had blinked, as Rosalie had blinked, at that horrible +epithet “Little fool!” across the table. The lips that uttered it were +immediately stuffed with trout and Aunt Belle immediately rushed in in +her rallying way to the rescue. “Why, you great, big stupid Uncle Pyke!” + cried Aunt Belle vivaciously. “It’s you who don’t know what you’re +talking about, you unkind old thing, you. Why, many, many girls, quite +nice girls, are going into business now and being secretaries and things +and doing very, very well indeed. Why, I declare it would do you good to +have a lady secretary yourself in that big, dusty office of yours in the +City, never dusted from one year’s end to another, I’m sure! Laetitia, +wouldn’t it do your father good, the cross, grumpy old thing? Give your +master some more of the sauce, Parker. Isn’t that trout delicate and +nice, Pyke? Trout for a pike! And I’m sure very like a nasty, savage old +pike the way you tried to gobble up poor Rosalie, the dear child. Now, +Rosalie, dear child, I think that’s a very, very good idea of yours to +go into business. I think it’s a splendid idea, and more and more quite +nice girls will soon be doing it. Now we’ll just see what we can do and +we’ll make that cross old uncle help and ask all his cross old friends +in the City, just to punish him. A young Lady Clerk, or a young Lady +Secretary! Now I think that’s the very, very thing for you. Just the +thing, and a dear, clever child to think of it. Yes!” + +Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Victory through Aunt Belle! Accomplishment! A +career like a man! Aunt Belle had said it and Aunt Belle would do it! A +career like a man! Oh, ecstatic joy! “Lombard Street” had been brought +with her in her week-end suitcase. Directly she could get to bed +she rushed up to it and took it out and read, and read. It was all +underlined. She underlined it more that happy, happy night! + +Ah, never underline a book till you are forty. Never memorialise what +you were, your lovely innocence, your generous heart, your ardent hopes, +lest the memorial be found one day by what you have become. Rosalie, +finding that “Lombard Street,” unearthed from lumber, in long after +years, turned over the pages and from the pages ghosts rushed up and +filled the room, and filled the air, and filled her heart, and filled +her eyes; and she rent the book across its perished binding and pushed +it from her with both her hands on to the fire and on to the flames in +the fire. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Incredibly soon, so stealthy swift is time, came this last term of +Rosalie’s at the Sultana’s. Time does not play an open game. It’s of the +cloak and dagger sort. It stalks and pounces. Rosalie was astonished +to think she was leaving; and now the time had come she was sorry to be +going. Not very sorry; very excited; but having just enough regret to +realise, on looking back, that she had been very happy at school and to +realise, actively, happiness in this last term. One knows what it is. +It’s always like that. One always was happy; one so seldom is. Happiness +to be realised needs faint perception of sadness as needs the egg the +touch of salt to manifest its flavour. Flashes of entertainment may +enliven the most wretched of us; but that’s pleasure; that’s not +happiness. One comes to know the only true and ideal happiness is +happiness tinctured with faintest, vaguest hint of tears. It is peace; +and who knows peace that has not come to it through storm, or knoweth +storm ahead, or in storm past hath not lost one that would have shared +this peace? + +So that girl’s last term was (in her words) “tremendously jolly.” She +was just eighteen, and she was leaving, and responsive to this the +harness of the school was drawn off her as at the paddock gate the +headstall from a colt. She was out of lessons. She did some teaching of +the younger girls. She was on terms with the mistresses. She had the run +of Keggo’s room. + +Such talks in Keggo’s room.... She was out from the cove of childhood; +she was into the bay of youth; breasting towards the sea of womanhood +(that sea that’s sailed by stars and by no chart); and she was +encountering tides that come to young mariners to perplex them and Keggo +could talk about such things with the experience that so enraptures +young mariners and of which young mariners are at the same time so +confidently contemptuous, so superiorly sceptical. Nearer to press the +simile, youth at the feet of experience is as one, experienced, climbing +a mountain with the young thing panting behind. “Go on! Go on!” pants +the growing young thing. “This is ripping. Go on. Show the way. But I +don’t want your hand. I can do it easily by myself--better.” And one +evening while Rosalie stumblingly explained, and eagerly received, and +sceptically doubted, “But look here, Keggo,” she cried, and stopped and +blushed, abashed at her use of the nickname. + +Miss Keggs laughed. “Don’t mind, Rosalie. Call me Keggo. I like it. It’s +much more friendly. I’m very fond of you, Rosalie.” + +They were by the oil stove, Miss Keggs in her wicker armchair, Rosalie +on the floor, her back propped against Miss Keggs’s knees. One of Miss +Keggs’s hands was on Rosalie’s shoulder and she moved it to touch the +girl’s face. “Are you fond of me, Rosalie?” + +Rosalie turned towards her and spoke impulsively. “Oh, awfully--Keggo.” + +The woman stooped and kissed the growing young thing, hugging her +strongly, pressing her lips upon the lips of Rosalie with a great +intensity. “Oh, I shall be sorry when you go, Rosalie.” + +“We can still be friends, Keggo dear.” + +Miss Keggs shook her head. “Ships that pass in the night.” + +“O Keggo!” + +Miss Keggs smiled, a wintry smile. “O Rosalie!” she mimicked. She +sighed. “Oh, my dear, it’s true--true! Don’t you remember how the lines +go-- + + + ‘Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; + Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.’ + + +Just remember that in a few years. You’ll hail again perhaps. ‘O Keggo!’ +Or I--it is more likely--wilt hail ‘O Rosalie!’ Just remember it then.” + Her hand came down to Rosalie and Rosalie took it. It was so cold; and +on her face a strained and beaten look as though hand and face belonged +to one that stood most chilled and storm-beat upon the bridge, peering +through the storm. Her fingers made no motion responsive to Rosalie’s +warm touch. She said strangely, as though it was to herself she spoke, +“Does it mean anything to you, Rosalie, a vision like that? Can you +see a black and violent night and a ship going by full speed, and one +labouring, and through the wind and the blackness a hail.--and gone, and +the wreck left foundering?” + +Ah, that most generous and quickly moved and loving-Rosalie--then! How +she twisted to her knees and stretched her arms about that poor Keggo, +sitting there--so drooped! How readily into her eyes her young and warm +and ardent sympathies pressed the tears, their flowers! How warm her +words? How warmly spoken! “O Keggo! Keggo, dear! Keggo, why do you talk +like that? How can you? After all the kindness you’ve shown me, accusing +me that I’ll forget and not mind. Keggo, you shan’t. You mustn’t.” + +Then Keggo responded, catching her arms about Rosalie and straining +Rosalie to her as though here was some cable to hold against the driving +sea. “O Rosalie!” + +And after a little Rosalie said, “You won’t again say I ever shall +forget, or hail and pass by. Oh, that was cruel, Keggo!” + +Keggo was gently crying. “Natural. Natural.” + +“Unnatural. Horrible. And you? Why do you say such things about +yourself? You didn’t mean it? It’s nothing? How can you ever be a wreck, +foundering?” + +Keggo dried her eyes and by her voice seemed to put those things right +away. “No, nothing. Of course not. Darling girl, only this--you’re +young--young and so of course you are going by full sail as young things +do. Full sail! O happy ship! Rosalie, go on telling. Go on asking. I +love it, Rosalie.” + +She was always “Keggo” after that; and the things that Rosalie told and +asked! + +Such things! It is to be seen that now there were bursting into blossom +out of bud within that Rosalie those seeds planted in her by the +extraordinary ideas of her childhood. About men. First and always +predominating, about men as compared with women--their wonder, their +power, their importance, their infinite superiority; then about men in +their relations with women--their rather grand and noisy ways that made +Rosalie blink; their interfering presence that spoilt lessons and spoilt +walks; those sinister attributes of theirs, arising somehow out of their +freedom to do as they liked in the world, that somehow left the world +very hard for women. Grotesque ideas, but masterful ideas, masterfully +shaping the child mind wherein they germinated; burrowing in clutchy +roots; pressing up in strong young saplings. Agreed the child is father +of the man, but much more the girl is mother of the woman. It is the +man’s part to sow and ride away; conception is the woman’s office and +that which she receives she tends to cherish and incorporate within her. +Of her body that function is her glory; of her mind it is her millstone. +Man always rides away, a tent dweller and an Arab, with a horse and with +the plains about him; woman is a dweller in a city with a wall, a house +dweller, storing her possessions about her in her house, abiding with +them, not to be sundered from them. + +So with that Rosalie. Those childhood ideas of hers were grotesque ideas +but she had received them into her house and they remained with her, +shorn of their grotesqueness, as garish furniture may be upholstered +in a new pattern, but tincturing her life as the appointments of a +room will influence the mood of one that sits therein. Father owned the +world--all males had proprietorship in the world under father--all +men were worshipful and giants and genii. That was the established +perception and those its earliest images. The perception remained, +deepening, changing only in hue, as a viscid liquid solidifies and +darkens in a vessel over the fire. It remained, persisted. Time but +steadied the focus as the wise oculist, seeking for his patient the +perfect image, drops lenses in the frame through which the vision +chart is viewed. In a little the perfect image is found. There was that +Rosalie, come to maidenhood, come to the dizzy edge of leaving school, +with the perfect image of her persistent obsession; with the belief no +longer that men were magicians having the world for their washpot and +women for their footstool, but unquestionably that they “had a better +time” than women and that they secured this “better time” by virtue of +their independence. + +“And, Keggo,” (she is explaining it) “I’m going to be like that. I’m +going to be what a man can be. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t a woman?” + She paused and then went on. “Why, that’s the thing that’s been with me +all my life, ever since I can remember. I’ve always known that men were +the creatures. Always. Since I was so high. Oh, I used to have the most +ridiculous ideas about them. You’d scream, Keggo. And I’ve always had +the same attitude towards them--towards them as contrasted with women, I +mean. First awe, then envy, then, since I’ve been growing up here, just +as having a desirable position in life, as having the desirable position +in life, independence, a career, work, freedom, a goal--yes, and a goal +that’s always and always a little bit in front of you, always something +better. That’s the thing. That’s the thing, Keggo. Just look at the +other side. Take a case in point. Take my painful cousin, Laetitia, +sweet but in lots of ways very painful. What’s her goal? A good match! +A good match! Did you ever hear anything so futile and sickening? +Sickening in itself, but I’ll tell you what’s really sickening about +it--why, that she’ll get it--get her goal and then it’s done, over, +finished, won. Settle down then and get fat. Oh, I don’t want a goal I +can win. I want a goal I can’t win. One that’s always just in front.” + +She suddenly realised the intensity of her voice and laughed and shook +her head sideways and back. She had just recently put her hair up and +it still felt funny and tight and the laugh and the shake eased away +the tightness of voice and of hair. She said thoughtfully, “You know, +I believe I’m rather like a man in many ways, in points of view. It’s +through always thinking them better, I daresay. The ideas I’ve had about +them!” and she laughed again. She said slowly, “Though mind you, Keggo, +they are better in many ways. They can get away from things. They don’t +stick about on one thing. And they’re violent, not fussing. When they’re +angry they bawl and hit and it’s over and they forget it. They don’t +just nag on and on. Oh, yes, they’re better.” + +She extended her palms to the oil flame, and watching the X-ray-like +effects of the light and shadow upon her fingers, she added +indifferently, as one idly letting drop a remark requiring no comment, +negligently with the voice of one saying “Tomorrow is Tuesday,” or “It’s +mutton today,”--“Of course they’re beasts,” she added. + +“Of course they’re beasts.” It was the adjusted image to which she had +brought that other perception of men which, running parallel with the +perception of their superior position, had permeated her childhood +years. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She’s left the school! She’s living in the splendid house in Pilchester +Square looking for a post! + +She’s found a post! She’s private secretary to Mr. Simcox! + +She’s left the splendid house in Pilchester Square! She’s living an +independent life! She’s going to Mr. Simcox’s office, her office, every +day, just like a man! She’s living on her own salary in a boarding house +in Bayswater! + +What jumps! One clutches, as at flying papers in a whirlwind, at a +stable moment in which to pin her down and describe her as she jumps. +One can’t. The thing’s too breathless. It’s a maelstrom. It’s an +earthquake. It’s a deluge. It’s a boiling pot. It’s youth. What it must +be to live it! One thing pouring on to another so that it’s impossible +anywhere to pick hold of a bit that isn’t changing into something else +even as it is examined. That’s youth all over. Always and all the time +all change. What it must be to live it! + +What it must be! Why, when youth comes bursting out of tutelage there’s +not a stable thing beneath its feet nor above its head a sky that stays +the same for two hours together! Every stride’s a stepping-stone that +tilts and throws you; every dawn a sudden midnight even while it breaks, +and every night a blinding brilliance when it’s darkest. New faces, new +places, new dresses, new dishes; new foes, new friends; new tasks, new +triumphs; never a pause, never a platform; every day a year and every +year a day--not life on a firm round world but life in the heart of a +whirling avalanche. How youth can live it! And all the time, all the +time while poor, dear youth is hurtling through it, there’s age, instead +of streaming sympathy like oil upon those boiling waters, standing +in slippered safety, in buttoned dignity, in obese repose, bawling at +tumbling youth, “Why can’t you settle down! Why can’t you settle down! +Why do you behave like that? Why can’t you do as I do? Why can’t you +be like your wise and sober Uncle Forty? Or like your good and earnest +Auntie Fifty? Why can’t you behave like your pious grandmother? Why +can’t you imitate your noble grandfather? Oh, grrrr-r, why can’t you, +you impious, unnatural, ill-mannered, irresponsive, irresponsible +exasperating young nuisance, you!” Is it any wonder poor youth bawls +back, or feels and behaves like bawling back, “How to goodness can I +behave like my infernal uncle or my maddening aunt when I’m whirling +along head over heels in the middle of a roaring avalanche?” + +Oh, poor youth, that all have lived but none remembers! + +One clings, faut au mieux, to the intention to tell of her life only +the things in her life that contributed to her record, as records are +judged. There shall be enormous omissions. They shall be excused by +vital insertions. + +She shall be glimpsed, first, in the splendid house in Pilchester +Square, in the desperate business that getting a place for a woman in a +business house was when women were in business houses far more rare +than are silk hats in the City in 1922. It was desperate. Uncle Pyke +and Uncle Pyke’s friends were the only channel of opportunity; and Uncle +Pyke and Uncle Pyke’s friends refused to be a channel of opportunity. +They had never heard of such a thing and they desired to bathe in their +soup and smack over their wine and not be troubled with such a thing. + +Aunt Belle rallied them and baited them and told them they were “great +big grumpy things”; and Aunt Belle, in her crowded drawing-room, loved +talking about the search for work and did talk about it. “Has to earn +her own living,” Aunt Belle would chatter, “and is going into business! +Oh, yes, ever so many girls who have to earn their own living are going +into business now. She’ll wear a nice tailormade coat and skirt and +carry a little satchel and flick about on the tops of buses, in the City +at nine and out again at six and a nice plain wholesome lunch with a +glass of milk in a tea shop. Oh, it’s wonderful what girls who have to +earn their own living do nowadays. Quite right, you know. Quite right, +(for them). Come over here, Rosalie. Come over here, dear child, and +tell Mrs. Roodle-Hoops what you are going to do. The dear child!” + +But nothing done. + +Just that glimpse and then comes Mr. Simcox. + +Mr. Simcox was first met by Rosalie while walking with Aunt Belle and +beautiful cousin Laetitia in the Cromwell Road. He came along carrying +a letter in his hand with the obvious air of one who will forget to post +it if he puts it in his pocket and probably will forget to do so in +any case. He was as obviously “a man of about fifty-six” that curiously +precise figure, neither a ten nor a five, always used for men who look +as Mr. Simcox looked and always continued to look while Rosalie knew +him, and probably always had looked. Men of “about fifty-six”--one +never says “about thirty-six” or “about sixty-six”; it would be “about +thirty-five” or “about seventy”--men of “about fifty-six” are almost +certainly born at that age and with that appearance and they seem to +continue in it to their graves. + +Mr. Simcox was like that, and was short and had two little bunchy grey +whiskers, and wore always a pepper and salt jacket suit, unbuttoned, the +pockets of which always bulged and the skirts of which, containing +the pockets, always swayed and flapped. When he talked he was always +talking--if that is understood--and when he was busy he was always +frantically busy and looking at the clock or at his watch as if it were +going to explode at a certain rapidly approaching hour and he must at +all costs be through with what he was doing before it did explode. He +talked in very rapid jerks, always seeming to be about to come to rest +and then instantaneously bounding off again, rather like a man bounding +along stepping-stones, red-hot stepping-stones that each time burnt his +feet and set him flying off again. + +He had been in the Bombay house of a firm of indigo merchants and there +had known Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke. He had retired and settled in +London and he now came very briskly up to Aunt Belle, to Rosalie and +to beautiful Laetitia, greeting them and bursting into full stream of +chatter while he was yet some distance away; and, having been introduced +to Rosalie and snatched at her hand precisely as if doing so while +shooting in midair between one red-hot stepping-stone and the next, +whizzed presently to “I really came out to post a letter” and flapped +the letter in the air as if it were a bothersome thing stuck to his +fingers and refusing absolutely to be stuffed into a post-box. + +“Why, there’s a pillar-box just there; you’ve just passed it,” cried +Rosalie. + +“Why, so there is!” exclaimed Mr. Simcox, jumping round to stare at +the pillar-box as if it had stretched out an arm and given him a sudden +punch in the back, and then spinning towards Rosalie and staring at her +rather as if he suspected her of having put the pillar-box there while +he was not looking; and while Mr. Simcox was so exclaiming and so doing +Rosalie had said, “Do let me just post it for you. Do let me,” and had +snapped the obstinate letter from his fingers, and posted it and was +back again smiling at Mr. Simcox, whom she rather liked and who reminded +her very much of a jack-in-the-box. + +Indeed with his quick ways, his shortness, his bushy little grey +whiskers and his pepper and salt suit with its flapping pockets, Mr. +Simcox was very like one of those funny little jack-in-the-boxes they +used to sell. He said to her, regarding her with very apparent pleasure +and esteem, “Well, that’s very nice of you. That really is very nice +of you. And it’s most wonderful. It is indeed. Do you know, I must have +walked more than a mile looking for a letter-box and I daresay I should +have walked another mile and then forgotten it and taken the letter home +again.” He addressed Aunt Belle: “It’s a most astonishing thing, Mrs. +Pyke Pounce, but I cannot post a letter. I positively cannot post a +single letter. When I say single, I do not mean I can post no letter at +all. No, no. Far from it. I mean I can post no letter singly, by itself, +solus. My daily correspondence, my office batch, I take out in a bundle, +perhaps in a table basket. That is simple. But a single letter--as you +see, a clever young lady like this has to find a box for me or I +might carry the thing for days together. Astonishing that, you +know. Astonishing, annoying, and mind you, sometimes serious and +embarrassing.” + +“Why, you busy, busy person, you!” cried Aunt Belle with her customary +air towards a man of shaking her finger at him. “You very busy person! +Fancy a basket full of correspondence! Why what a heap you must have!” + +Mr. Simcox said he had indeed a heap. “Sometimes I think more than I can +manage.” + +“Indeed,” agreed Aunt Belle, “you don’t seem to have much time to spare. +Why, I haven’t seen you in my drawing-room for quite a month (“You busy +little creature, you,” expressed without being stated). I expect you’re +getting very rich and disagreeable.” (“You rich little rascal, you!”) + +Mr. Simcox declared that as to that his business wasn’t one to get rich +at. “In no sense. Oh, no, in no sense. It keeps me occupied. It gives +me an interest. That’s all. No more than that.” As to Mrs. Pyke Pounce’s +delightful drawing-room, most certainly he had been there less than a +month ago and most certainly he would present himself again on the +very next opportunity. To-morrow, was it? He would without fail present +himself there tomorrow, “and I hope,” said Mr. Simcox, taking his leave, +“I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing my postmistress there again.” + He smiled very cordially at Rosalie and went flapping away up the street +at the pace and with the air, not of one who had come out to post a +letter and had posted it, but of one who had come out to post a letter, +had dropped it, and was flying back to look for it. + +“Oh, isn’t he an ugly little monster!” cried Aunt Belle, resuming the +walk. + +“But I think he’s nice,” said Rosalie. “What is his business, Aunt +Belle?” + +Aunt Belle hadn’t an idea. “He’s an agent,” said Aunt Belle, “but an +agent for what I’m sure I don’t know. He’s a very mysterious, fussy, +funny little person. We knew him in Bombay where he had a very good +position, but he retired and what he does now I’m sure I can’t say. But +he’s very busy. You heard him say how busy he is. Rosalie, he might know +of something for you. We’ll ask him, dear child. The funny, ugly little +monster! We’ll ask him. He might help.” + +He did help. A very short while afterwards, Rosalie received the +appointment of Private Secretary to Mr. Simcox; twenty-five shillings +a week; one pound five shillings a week! Office hours ten to five! +Saturdays ten to one! Holiday a fortnight a year! A man’s work! A man’s +weekly salary! A man’s office hours! The ecstasy of it! The ecstasy! + +The matter with Mr. Simcox was that, in India a man of affairs, in +England he found himself a man of no affairs and a man who had “lost +touch.” On a leave from the Bombay house of the indigo firm he had been +prevailed upon by his mother and his maiden sister to remain at home and +look after them and he had done it and gone on doing it, and they had +died and he had never married, and he had now no relatives, and by +this and by that (as he told Rosalie early in her installation) he had +dropped out of friendships and, as he expressed it “lost touch.” He +owned and occupied one of those enormous houses in Bayswater. It had +been his mother’s and he lived on in it after her death and the death +of his sister, alone with a housekeeper. The housekeeper resided in the +vast catacombs of the basement of the enormous house; Mr. Simcox resided +in the immense reception rooms, miles above, of the first floor; the +three suites above him, scowling gloomily across a square at the twin +mausoleums opposite, were unoccupied and un-visited; on the first floor +Mr. Simcox had his office. The business done in this office, which +Rosalie was now to assist, and why it was done, was in this wise and was +thus explained to Rosalie. + +Mr. Simcox, more than ever dropped out and more than ever having lost +touch after the deaths of his sister and mother, found himself irked +more than anything else by the absence of correspondence. He had been +accustomed in India to a big receipt of letters--a big dhak, as he +called it, using the Hindustani word--now he received no letters at all; +and he told Rosalie that when you are in the habit of getting a regular +daily post, its gradual falling off and then its complete cessation is +one of the most melancholy things that can befall a man. A nice bunch of +letters in the morning, he said, is like a cold bath to a young man, a +stimulant and an appetiser; and a similar packet by the night delivery +is an entertainment to look forward to from sunset till it arrives and +the finest possible digestive upon which to go to bed. Mr. Simcox found +himself cut off from both these necessities of a congenial life and it +depressed him beyond conception. Dressing in the morning he would hear +the postman come splendidly rat tatting along the square and would hold +his breath for that glorious thunder to come echoing up from his own +front door--and it never did. Only the sound of the footsteps came, +hurrying past--always. + +Set to his solitary dinner in the evening, again would come along that +glorious, reverberating music, and again Mr. Simcox would hold his +breath as it approached and again--! Oh, particularly in the winter, +it was awful, Mr. Simcox told Rosalie. Awful; she wouldn’t believe how +awful it was. In the winter, in the dark nights, there is, Mr. Simcox +said, about the sound of the postman banging along the doors something +that is the sheer essence of all the mystery, and all the poetry, and +all the life, and all the comfort, and all the light and all the warmth +in the world. Often on winter nights Mr. Simcox would get up quickly +from the table (He couldn’t help it) and go tiptoe (Why tiptoe? He +didn’t know. You had to. It was the mystery and the aching atmosphere of +the thing) tiptoe across the room to the window, and draw an inch of +the heavy curtain and peer out into the darkness and towards the music. +There would be the little round gleam of the postman’s lantern, bobbing +along as he hurried. And flick! it was gone into a doorway, and rat-tat, +flick, and there it was again--coming! Flick, rat-tat! Flick, flick, +rat-tat! Coming, coming! Growing larger, growing brighter, growing +louder! Next door now. They always get it next door. Flick, rat-tat! +What a crasher! You can feel it echo! Flick! Now then! Now then! How it +gleams! He’s stopped! He’s looking at his letters! He’s coming in! +He is--ah, he’s passed; he’s gone; it’s over; nothing... nothing for +here.... Rat-tat! That’s next door. The party wall shakes. The lustres +on the mantelpiece shake. Mr. Simcox’s hands shake. He sits down, pushes +his plate away.... + +It is absurd; it is ridiculous, of course it is; but it was pathetic, +it was moving, as it was received from Mr. Simcox by that young and most +warm-hearted Rosalie. Her eyes positively were caused to blink as she +listened. She had an exact vision of that funny little jack-in-the-box +figure up from the table and tiptoeing across the enormous dining +room in his little pepper and salt suit with the pockets swaying, not +flapping, as he trod along, and opening that inch of the heavy curtain +and pressing out his gaze through the black window pane, and watching +the gleam and the flick and then the crash and the gleam again, and then +holding his breath and hearing his heart go thump, and then dropping the +curtain, and back again, with his hands shaking a little and hearing the +lustres tinkle.... + +Yes, very moving to that Rosalie in her youth and warmth. She had +actually to touch her nose (high up, between her eyes) with her +handkerchief and she said, “Oh, Mr. Simcox.... Yes, and then what?” + +“Then what? Ah! ‘Then what’ is this.” They were seated in Mr. Simcox’s +great office on the ground floor. The office of a man of many affairs. +A very large writing table furnished with every conceivable facility for +writing, not only note papers and envelopes racked up in half a dozen +sizes, but sealing waxes in several hues, labels, string, “In” basket, +“Out” basket, “Pending Decision” basket, all sorts of pens, all sorts +of pencils, wafers, clips, scales, letter weights, rulers--the +table obviously of a man to whom correspondence was a devotional, an +engrossing, an exact art, and an art practised on an expansive, an +impressive, and a lordly scale. There were also in the office a very +large plain table on which were spread newspapers, a basket containing +clippings from newspapers, an immense blue chalk for marking newspapers +and a very long, also a very short, pair of scissors for cutting out +clippings from newspapers. A range of filing cabinets stood against one +wall; a library of directories and catalogues occupied shelves against +another wall. + +“‘Then what’ is this,” said Mr. Simcox, indicating these impressive +appointments of the room with a wave of his hand. “You ask me ‘then +what?’ ‘Then what’ is all this. ‘Then what’ has grown now to be you. +I’ll tell you.” + +It was this--the oddest, most eccentric notion (not that Rosalie it +thought so). Mr. Simcox, cut off from letters, had determined that he +must get letters. He would get letters. If the postman would not come of +himself (so to speak) then he must be forced to come. And Mr. Simcox set +about forcing him to come by answering advertisements. Not employment +advertisements; no; the advertisements to which Mr. Simcox re-plied were +the advertisements that offered to send you something for nothing--that +implored you to permit them to send you something for nothing. They +are common objects of the periodical press. Every paper is stuffed with +them. “Write for free samples.” “Catalogues.” “Trial packet sent +post free on application.” “Write for our beautifully illustrated +art brochure.” “Descriptive booklet by return.” “Write for full +particulars.” “Free sample bottle sufficient for seven days’ trial.” + “Approval gladly. Postpaid.” “Plans and particulars of the sole agents.” + “Superbly printed art volume on receipt of postcard.” + +The advertisement columns of every paper are stuffed with them and soon +the letter-box of Mr. Simcox was stuffed with them. The postman who +never stopped at Mr. Simcox’s house now never missed Mr. Simcox’s house. +He went on a lighter and a brisker man after having dealt with Mr. +Simcox’s house. The agitation with which his approach was heard was +now exchanged for a superb confidence as his approach was heard. The +deliveries that for Mr. Simcox had never been deliveries were now, +not deliveries, but avalanches. They roared into the letter-box of Mr. +Simcox. They cascaded upon the floor of the hall of Mr. Simcox. + +A mail thus composed does not perhaps sound interesting. Mr. Simcox, +once he had got into the full swing of the thing, discovered it to be +profoundly and exhaustively interesting. It possessed in the highest +degree the two primary essentials of a really good mail,--surprise and +variety. There would always be two or three fascinating little parcels, +there would always be two or three handsome packets, there would always +be two or three imposing looking letters. No common correspondence could +possibly have had the number of attractively boxed gifts, the amount of +handsomely printed literary and il-lustrated matter, and certainly not +the unfailing persistency of flow, that constituted the correspondence +of Mr. Simcox. + +The mine once discovered proved to be a mine inexhaustible and +containing lodes or galleries of new and unsuspected wealth. Mr. Simcox +took in but two daily papers, and two penny weekly papers, and they +might well have sufficed. But an appetite whetted and an eye opened +they did not suffice. There thundered from the Bayswater free library a +positive babel of cries from advertisers in the score of journals +there displayed, howling for Mr. Simcox graciously to permit them to +contribute their toll to his letter-box; and there were at the news +agents periodicals catering for every specialised class of the community +and falling over themselves to put before Mr. Simcox the full range +of the mysteries, the luxuries and the necessities of every trade +and profession and pursuit, from shipbuilding to cycling and from +ironmongery to the ownership of castles, moors, steam yachts and salmon +fisheries. + +Mr. Simcox, entirely happy, one of the busiest men that might be found +in the metropolis, struck out new lines. Hitherto he had received his +correspondence interestedly and pleasurably but passively. He began +to take it up actively and sharply. He began to write back, either +graciously approving or very sharply criticising his samples, +his specimens and his free trials; and the advertisers responded +voluminously, either abjectly with regret and enclosing further samples +for Mr. Simcox’s esteemed trial, or abjectly with delight and soliciting +the very great favour of utilising Mr. Simcox’s esteemed letter for +publicity purposes. This, however, Mr. Simcox, courteously but firmly, +invariably refused to permit. + +The engagement of Rosalie was a development of Mr. Simcox’s hobby as +natural as the development of any other hobby from rabbit breeding to +china collecting. The craze intensifies, the scope is enlarged. To have +a secretary made Mr. Simcox’s mail and the work that produced his mail +even more real than already it had become to him. Following up the +personal touch that had been discovered by the criticism of samples, +Mr. Simcox had opened up a line that produced the personal touch in +most intimate degree: personal touch with schools and with insurance +companies. He created for himself sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, +wards. He endowed them, severally, with ages, with backwardness, with +brilliancy, with robustness, with delicacy, with qualities that were +immature and required development, with absence of qualities that +were desirable and required implanting, with unfortunate tendency to +qualities that were undesirable and needed repression and nipping in the +bud. He placed these children, thus handicapped or endowed, before +the principals of selected schools; he desired that terms and full +particulars might be placed before him to assist him in the anxious task +of right selection. They were placed before him. “Your backward nephew +Robin” (to take a single example) engaged the personal attention of +preparatory schoolmasters from Devonshire to Cumberland and from Norfolk +to Carnarvon. Similarly with insurance companies. Again dependents +and friends were created, by the dozen, by Mr. Simcox. Male and female +created he them, cumbered with all imaginable risks, and darkly brooding +upon all manner of contingencies; and male and female, cumbered and +perplexed, they were studied and advised upon by insurance companies +earnest beyond measure to show Mr. Simcox what astounding and +unparalleled benefits could be obtained for them. + +At the time when Rosalie joined him, Mr. Simcox’s attention was in much +greatest proportion devoted to this development of his pursuit. Under +the instruction of a friend, long since dropped out and lost, who had +held a considerable position in a leading assurance company, he had +acquired a sound working knowledge of the principles and mysteries of +insurance. The subject had greatly interested him. In the phrase he used +to Rosalie he had “taken it up”; and in the phrase that so often sequels +and rounds off a thing suddenly “taken up” he had suddenly “dropped it.” + He now, by way of the new development of his correspondence, approached +it again. It received him as a former habitation receives a returned +native. Mr. Simcox (if the metaphor may be pursued) roamed all about +the familiar rooms and corridors of the house of the principles and +mysteries of insurance. His knowledge of its possibilities enabled him +to develop an astonishing ingenuity in creating cases ripe and yearning +for the benefits of provision against contingencies, and as he very +easily was able to prove to Rosalie, and found immense delight in +proving, he had under his finger, that is to say in his exquisitely +arranged filing cabinets, also in his head, a range of insurance +companies’ literature which enabled him to work out for any conceivable +case the most suitable office or offices and the finest possible cover +for his risks. “Different companies specialize,” said Mr. Simcox, “in +different classes of risk. A man should no more walk into one of the +leading offices just because it happens to be one of the leading offices +and there take out his policy or policies than he should walk into and +take for occupation the first vacant house he sees, merely because it +is, as a house, a good house. It may be a most excellent house but it +may not be in the least the house most suitable to his requirements.” + +Rosalie nodded intelligently. “But how is a man to find out, Mr. +Simcox?” + +“Why, I suppose only by going round to every company and choosing the +best, just as I make out and send around these cases of mine. But of +course no one does that--the trouble for one thing, and ignorance for +another, and inability to realise their real requirements and to state +them clearly if they do realise them for a third. That’s what it is.” + +Rosalie’s intelligent nodding had not ceased. She had a trick, when Mr. +Simcox was explaining things to her, of maintaining, with eyes fixed +widely upon him, a slow, affirmative movement of her head rather as +though she were some engine, and her head the dial, absorbing power +from a flow of energy. The dial never indicated repletion. Mr. Simcox +delighted to talk to Rosalie, to watch that grave movement of her head, +and to hear the short occasional “Why’s?” and comments that came like +little spurts or quivers as of the engine in initial throbbings pulsing +the power it stored. + +She was absorbing power. The months were going on. The earlier +initiation into Mr. Simcox’s business might have had a tinge of +disappointment were it not that, whatever the nature of her work, +manifestly work it was, paid for, with regular hours, with an office to +attend, such as a man might do. The tinge of disappointment, if she +had suffered it, would have stung out of the thought: Where, in this +manufactured correspondence, in this pretence at a business which was in +fact no business at all, where in all this was Lombard Street? Where the +romance and mystery of finance? Where the touch with the power that was +made in countinghouses and with the exercise of the power exerted from +those countinghouses? + +But it happened for Rosalie, first, that this thought could not come +because she was too busy with the glorious novelty of being in an office +and learning office ways; then, when the novelty had worn, that it could +not come because a new and a real element arrived to nullify it. In the +early days there was no realisation of sham because there was the real +business, to herself, of learning business methods and the whole theory +and practice of office routine. She could have had no better instructor +than Mr. Simcox, she could have had no better training than the +handling, the sorting and the filing of his curious and various +correspondence. She had become an efficient and a singularly apt and +keen office clerk when, more leisured because she had mastered her +duties, she might first have had time for realisation that Lombard +Street was not here nor all the romance and mystery with which she had +invested the power of countinghouses within a thousand miles of this +house of most elaborate pretence. And then, at once to prevent that +realisation and to dissipate its cause, came Lombard Street to her in +Mr. Simcox’s new absorption in (to her) the mysteries and the romance +and the astounding possibilities of the business of insurance. How the +mammoth companies, whose names soon were as household words to +Rosalie, accumulated their enormous funds and invested them; how, while +provisioning for to-day, they must calculate against liabilities falling +due in a to-morrow generations ahead; how they would put their money +into property the leases of which would fall in and the estate become +marketable again perhaps a hundred years hence, when officers of +the company yet unborn would be looking to the prudence of those now +reigning to maintain the inflowing tide; how risks were calculated and +vital statistics and chances and averages studied--all this, delightedly +and delightfully narrated by Mr. Simcox (watching that gravely nodding +head and those wide intelligent eyes) was sheer fascination to the +mind that had found romance and mystery in “Lombard Street” as commonly +romance and mystery are found in poetry and music. + +Then one day she took a step towards applying the fascination that she +found. + +It was the day of the conversation that has been recorded. How, Rosalie +had asked, was the seeker after insurance to find the policies best +suited to his case? Rosalie had asked; and had been told--he must go +round but he never does; he must know what there is to be had but he +never does know; he must realise exactly what he really wants but he +never does realise it; and if he does realise it he must be able to +state it clearly but he never can state it clearly. + +Mr. Simcox, detailing this, permitted himself an amused contempt. The +public were ignoramuses, mere children; they knew nothing whatever about +insurance. + +Rosalie said in a voice consonant with the grave measure of her nods: +“Of course, if it was a man, as you said, looking for a house, he’d go +to an agent. A house agent would tell him of houses best suited to his +needs that he could choose between. Well, there are insurance agents. +You’ve told me about them.” + +“Ah, but not the same thing, not the same thing,” corrected Mr. Simcox. +“An insurance agent, the ordinary insurance agent, is agent for a +particular company. He only knows what his own company can do and he +only wants his own company to do it. That’s no good to the kind of man +in the position we’re speaking of. He wants some one who can tell him +what all the companies will do for him. Some one who can hear his case, +analyse it, put it before him in the right light and advise him the +best way of placing it. That’s what he wants. Exactly the same as these +letters I send out--as you and I send out, I should say. Why, I’ve had +practical examples of it. There was a young fellow I met at your aunt’s +house. There’ve been three or four cases of it for that matter but this +happens to be some one you know--” + +He proceeded to tell her of a visitor at Aunt Belle’s, a young man home +on leave from the Indian army and recently married, with whom he had got +into conversation on the subject of insurance and had most ably helped. +The young man had a certain policy in view. Mr. Sim-cox had put an +infinitely better before him. “If he had come to me before his marriage +when he was first taking out a policy in his wife’s favour, I could have +saved him and gained her hundreds, literally hundreds,” said Mr. Simcox. +“He’d made a most awful mess of the business. As it was I helped him +very considerably. He was very grateful, devilish grateful. He went +straight to an agent of the office I recommended and did it.” + +“There must be hundreds like him that would be grateful,” said Rosalie. + +“Thousands,” said Mr. Simcox. “Tens of thousands. Every single soul who +insures, you may say.” + +“Who got the commission?” said Rosalie. + +“The agent, of course,” said Mr. Simcox. + +“Oh,” said Rosalie. + +“Why?” said Mr. Simcox. + +“Nothing,” said Rosalie. “Only ‘oh ‘.” + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +There’s much virtue in an If, says Touchstone; and there’s much virtue +in an “Oh”--a wise, a thoughtful, a speculative, a discerning “Oh” such +as that “Oh” pronounced by Rosalie to Mr. Simcox’s information that +agents, and not he, drew the commissions for the insurance policies +which, out of his knowledge and experience, he had advised. There +followed from that “Oh” its plain outcome: her suggestion to Mr. Simcox +of why not make a business, a real business, of expert advice upon +insurance, and (out of the make-believe intercourse with schools) a +business, a real business, of expert advice upon schools? And there +shall follow also from that “Oh” a sweeping use of the intention that +has been mentioned to tell only of her life that which contributed to +her life. We’ll fix her stage from first to last, then see her walk upon +it. + +This was her stage: Her suggestion was adopted. It has, astonishingly +soon, astonishing success. Advice upon insurance, advice upon schools, +commissions from each, are found wonderfully to work in together, each +bringing clients to the other. Aunt Belle’s swarms of friends, their +swarms of friends, the swarms of friends of those swarms of friends, +and so on, snowball fashion, are the first nucleus of the thing. It +succeeds. It grows. Real offices are taken. “Simcox’s.” Advertisements, +clerks, banking-accounts. Appearance of Mr. Sturgiss, partner in Field +and Company--“Field’s”--the bankers and agents. Field’s is a private +bank. Its business is principally with persons resident in the East, +soldiers, civil servants, tea planters, East India merchants. Field’s +is in Lombard Street. (Lombard Street!) Later Field’s opens a West End +office. Field’s is frequently asked to advise its clients and their +wives on all manner of domestic matters,--schools for their children, +holiday homes, homes for clients over on leave, insurance, investment, +whatnot, a hundred things. Comes to this Sturgiss, partner in Field’s, +an idea of great possibilities in this advisory business if developed +as might be developed and run as might be run. Tremendously attracted by +Rosalie as the person for the job. Makes her an offer. She declines it. +Mr. Simcox’s death. Sturgiss comes along again. Ends in Rosalie going +to Field’s. Lombard Street! Room of her own in the big offices. Glass +partitioned. Huge mahogany table. Huge mahogany desk. Field’s open the +West End office, in Pall Mall. More convenient for wives of clients. +Rosalie is moved there. Manager of her own side of the business. The war +comes. Sturgiss goes out. Other important officers of the bank go out. +Her importance increases very much in other sides of the bank’s business +than her own. Press scents her out and writes her up. “The only woman +banker.” “Brilliant woman financier.” Contributes articles to the +reviews. Very much a leading woman of her day. Very much a most +remarkable woman. + +That’s her stage. Thus she walked upon it: + +The beginning part--that tumult of youth, those dizzy jumps that we have +seen her in--was frightfully exciting, frightfully absorbing. She was +so tremendously absorbed, so terrifically intent, so tremendously eager, +that the transition from the Sultana’s to Aunt Belle’s, and the start +with Mr. Simcox, and the transition from Aunt Belle’s to independence +in the boarding house, was done with scarcely a visit--and then a rather +grudged and rather impatient visit--to the rectory home. + +No, the absorption was too profound for much of that: indeed, for much +of home in any form. Letters came from Rosalie’s mother three and four +times a week. In the beginning, when fresh left school and at Aunt +Belle’s, Rosalie always kissed the dear handwriting on the envelope, +and kissed the dear signature before returning the letters to their +envelopes; and she would sit up late at night writing enormously long +and passionately devoted letters in reply. But she wasn’t going back; +she wasn’t going down; no, not even for a week-end, “my own darling +and beloved little mother,” until she had found an employment and was +established on her own feet, “just like one of the boys.” Then she would +come, oh, wouldn’t she just! She would have an annual holiday, “just as +men have,” and she would come down to the dear, beloved old rectory and +she would give her own sweet, adored little mother the most wonderful +time she ever could imagine! + +Rosalie would sit up late at night writing these most loving letters, +pages and pages long; and her mother’s letters (which always arrived by +the first post) she would carry about with her all day and read again +before answering. + +And yet.... + +The fond intention in thus carrying them on her person instead of +bestowing them in her writing case was to read them a dozen times in the +opportunities the day would afford. And yet... Somehow it was not done. +The day of the receipt of the very first letter was generous of such +opportunities and at each of them the letter was remembered... but not +drawn forth. Rosalie did not attempt to analyse why not. Her repression, +each time, of the suggestion that the letter should now be taken out and +read again was not a deliberate repression. She merely had a negative +impulse towards the action and accepted it; and so negligible was the +transaction in her record of her thoughts, so mere a cypher in the petty +cash of the day’s ledger, that in the evening when, gone up to bed, the +letter was at last drawn out and kissed and read and answered, and then +kissed and read again, no smallest feeling of remorse was suffered by +her to reflect that the intended reading in the dozen opportunities of +the day had not been done. + +And yet... Was it, perhaps, this mere acceptance of a negative impulse, +a cloud no bigger than the size of a man’s hand upon the horizon of +her generous impulses? There is this to be admitted--that the letters, +accumulating, began to bulk inconveniently in her writing case. What +a lot dear mother wrote! Room might be made for them by removing or +destroying the letters from friends who had left the Sultana’s with her, +but about those letters there was a peculiar attraction; they were from +other emancipated One Onlys who watched with admiration the progress in +her wonderful adventure of brilliant, unconventional Rosalie, and it was +nice thus to be watched. Or room for her mother’s letters might be made +by removing or destroying letters that began to amass directly touching +her desire for employment--from city friends of Uncle Pyke, from Mr. +Simcox. But, no, unutterably precious those! Unutterably precious, too, +of course, those accumulating bundles of letters from her dear mother; +but precious on a different plane: they belonged to her heart; it was +to her head, to the voice in her that cried “Live your life--your +life--yours!” that these others belonged. + +She was tingling to that voice one night, turning over the employment +letters; and, tingling, put her mother’s letters from her case to her +box. + +Yes, upon the horizon of her generous impulses perhaps the tiniest +possible cloud. And then perhaps enlarging. You see, she was so very +full of her intentions, of her prospects. She had read somewhere that +the perfect letter to one absent from home was a letter stuffed with +home gossip,--who had been seen and who was doing what, and what had +been had for dinner yesterday and whence obtained. But she did not +subscribe to that view. She was from home and her mother’s letters were +minutest record of the home life; but she began to skip those portions +to read “afterwards.” One day the usual letter was there at breakfast +and she put it away unopened so as to have “a really good, jolly read” + of it “afterwards.” In a little after that she got the habit of always, +and for the same reason (she told herself) keeping the letters till the +evening. One day she gave the slightest possible twitch of her brows at +seeing the very, very familiar handwriting. She had had a letter only +the previous day and two running was not expected: more than that, this +previous letter had slightly vexed her by its iteration of the longing +to see her and by very many closely written lines of various little +troubles. She was a little impatient at the idea of a further edition of +it so soon. She forgot to open it that night. She remembered it when +she was in bed; but she was in bed then... When, next day, she read the +letter it was, again, an iteration of the longing to see her and, again, +more, much more, of the little troubles: the residue was of the gossipy +gossip that Rosalie already had formed the habit of skipping till +“afterwards.” Altogether a vexatious letter. + +After that, when the letters were frequent, it was frequent for Rosalie +to greet the sight of them with just the swiftest, tiniest little +contraction of her brows. Nothing at all really. Meaning virtually +nothing and of itself absolutely nothing. Possessing a significance +only by contrast, as a fine shade in silk or wool will not disclose a +pronounced hue until contrasted with another. The contrast here, to give +the thing significance, was between that swiftest, tiniest contraction +of the brows at the sight of her mother’s letters and the eager spring +to them, the quick snatching up, and the impulsive pressing to her lips +when first those letters began to come. Likewise answering them, that +had been an impulsive outpouring and brimming over, now was a very +slightly laboured squeezing. The pen, before, had flooded love upon the +page. Now the pen halted, paused, and had to think of expressions that +would give pleasure. + +The change did not happen at a blow. If it had, Rosalie would have +noticed it. It slipped imperceptibly from stage to stage and she did not +notice it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +There was a thing she said about men once (in the boarding house now) +and often repeated. “They’re very fond of saying women are cats,” she +once said. “Fools! It’s men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby +cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren’t they +just? And look at them--tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats +the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool +creatures, tomcats disgusting creatures, stray cats--on the whole the +stray cats are the least objectionable, they are bearable: at the right +time and for a short time.” + +This characterisation of men as Rosalie, in sequent development of her +attitude towards men, had come to regard them was delivered to the girl +with whom (for cheapness) her room in the boarding house was shared. +Rosalie went from Aunt Belle’s to this boarding house to assert and to +achieve her greater independence. A man, Rosalie debated, would have +gone into bachelor rooms; but young women did not go into bachelor rooms +in those days and the singularity of Rosalie’s attitude towards life +is rather well presented in the fact that she never set herself against +conventions inhibitory of her sex merely because they were inhibitory +of her sex. When the years brought those violent scenes and emotions of +what has been called the suffragette campaign, Rosalie, who might have +been expected to be a militant of the militants, took no part nor even +interest in it whatever. She did not desire the privileges of men merely +because they were the privileges of men; she desired a status which +happened to be in the right of men and she went towards it without +seeking to change the established order of things, just as, from one +field desiring a flower in another field, she would have gone to fetch +it without changing her dress. + +A man, anxious for full independence, would have gone into bachelor +rooms; but young women did not go into bachelor rooms. They achieved +their independence perfectly well, and far more cheaply, by going into +a boarding house. She therefore, very excitedly, went into a boarding +house. + +There was no difficulty about leaving Aunt Belle’s. Once Rosalie was +established in business with Mr. Simcox, tied to business hours, and +earning a weekly salary, she no longer occupied in Aunt Belle’s house +the position of dependence which was in Aunt Belle’s house the first, +and indeed the only, qualification for all who occupied her house. Aunt +Belle’s guests had to be guests: wealthy guests who could be entertained +from early morning tea (beautifully served) to bedtime and made +graciously to admire; or if poor guests, and particularly poor +relations, guests who could be even more impressed and were naturally +much more enthusiastically delighted and profoundly admiring. Rosalie, +in business, could not be entertained and did not sufficiently admire. +She had to have a special early breakfast; she disappeared; she was not +in to lunch or tea; she was not sufficiently impressed by what cook had +prepared but had rather too much to say about what she had been doing, +at dinner; and she excused herself away to early bed on the ground of +fatigue or of having certain books to study. Rosalie, in business, was +not a guest at all in Aunt Belle’s sense of the word: indeed there came +an occasion--Rosalie twice in one week late for dinner--when Aunt Belle +said awfully, “My house is not a hotel, Rosalie. I cannot have my nice +house turned into a hotel.” + +It was the nearest thing to an unkind word ever spoken by Aunt Belle to +Rosalie, and it was so near that it brought Aunt Belle up to Rosalie’s +bed that night--solicitude in a terrific dressing gown of crimson +silk--to express the hope that Rosalie was not crying (she was not; she +had been sound asleep) at anything Aunt Belle “might have said.” “But +you see, dear child, there are the servants to consider, all that +delicious soup and all that most tasty turbot au gratin to be kept warm +for you, and there is your kind Uncle Pyke to consider; men do not like +their meals to be...” + +The boarding house, which Rosalie, with qualms as to its reception by +Aunt Belle, had for some time been secretly meditating, came easily +after that. The boarding house had moreover for Aunt Belle a double +attraction. It not only removed Rosalie in her capacity of one +threatening to turn Aunt Belle’s nice house into a hotel; it also +restored Rosalie in her capacity of overwhelmed, grateful and admiring +poor relation. Rosalie was now invited from the boarding house just as +previously she had been invited from the Sultana’s; the table and +the appointments of Aunt Belle’s house were now lavishly displayed in +contrast to the display and the table endured by Rosalie at the boarding +house; Aunt Belle was again supremely happy in Rosalie and abundantly +kind; dinner each Saturday night was a standing invitation and +frequently for these dinners Aunt Belle arranged “a little dinner party +for you, dear child, just one or two really nice people that it is nice +for you to meet and that you can tell your friends at the boarding house +about, dear child.” + +Aunt Belle helped Rosalie to choose the boarding house and saw that it +was “nice.” Nice people went there and the proprietress, Miss Kentish, +was nice. Miss Kentish had a grey, detachable fringe which became, and +re-mained, semi-detached immediately after breakfast, and a mobile front +tooth which came out surprisingly far when she talked and went in with +a sharp click when she stopped. She had for newcomers a single +conversational sentence--“My name is Kentish, though funnily enough we +come from Sussex”--and, for all purposes, a single business principle, +that of willingness “to come to an arrangement.” “I am afraid I cannot +remedy your water not being hot at eight o’clock,” she would say to a +boarder, “but I will gladly come to an arrangement with you. Ten minutes +to eight or ten minutes past eight” (click). She would come to an +arrangement on anything. She became very fond of Rosalie in course of +time and once told her that though her duties never permitted her to +attend church she had “come to an arrangement” with the vicar and felt +that she had “come to an arrangement with Our Lord” (click). She came to +an arrangement with Rosalie in the matter of tariff, receiving her and a +Miss Salmon, who also sought arrangement, as “two friends as one.” This +was two persons sharing a room at the tariff of a person and a half. +Living was very cheap in those days. Rosalie, at the beginning, with +Miss Salmon, paid 18/6 a week, and out of the twenty-five shillings paid +her, at first, every Friday by Mr. Simcox there remained what seemed to +Rosalie great wealth. + +She set herself to save on it and her first purpose in thus saving was +to accumulate money on which she could draw so as to be able to pay +for a room private to herself. That would have taken some time. Her +successive increases in her earnings, as Mr. Simcox’s hobby developed +into a business, brought privacy, and in time what amounted to luxury, +by much swifter process. Rosalie was a very long time at the boarding +house. From being two friends as one she passed to a small remote +room of her own, then to a larger and more accessible room, then to a +bed-sitting-room, finally to a very delightful arrangement. There was on +the second floor a fine roomy apartment having a dressing-room opening +out of it. Rosalie, by then in much favour with Miss Kentish, not only +secured the suite but “came to an arrangement” with Miss Kentish by +which the furniture and fittings were removed from the rooms and Rosalie +permitted to fit, decorate and furnish them herself. Rosalie never knew +happier hours than in the furnishing of those two rooms into a little +kingdom of her own: she never in all her life knew days as happy as the +days there spent. + +But at the beginning, two friends as one with Miss Salmon and first +contact with life from the angle presented by some twenty various +individuals met at meals and in the public rooms. Miss Salmon was a +pale, fussy creature with pince-nez in some mysterious way set so far +from her eyes that she always appeared to be running after them as if to +keep them balanced. Whenever anything of which she did not approve was +being said to Miss Salmon or was being done before Miss Salmon, she +maintained throughout it, moving about in pursuit of her pince-nez, a +rather loud, constant, tuneless humming. When her moment came she +would always begin “Well, now” and then swallow forcibly as though the +swallowing gave her pain. “Well, now” (gulp). This introduction was +always precedent to speech by Miss Salmon, whether after humming or not. +Rosalie frequently went to Sunday church service with her and there +was an occasion in the Litany on which Miss Salmon, who either had been +wandering or sleeping, suddenly came to herself at the correct moment +and said: “Well, now”--(gulp)--“We beseech thee to hear us, O Lord.” + +Miss Salmon was employed as a daily nursery governess by a family +resident across the park who, not hav-ing room for her, had “come to +an arrangement” with Miss Kentish for her accommodation at the boarding +house; and with her fussiness, her nose pursuit, her humming and her +general ineptitude of habit and of thought, she was as it were a fated +companion for Rosalie; and it was the case that all the other inmates of +the boarding house were, in regard to Rosalie, equally and in the same +sense fated. Miss Salmon and they were fated, or fatal, to Rosalie, in +the sense that it would have been well then for Rosalie, as always well +for any developing young thing, to have been among companions who drew +upon her sympathies and called for her consideration. The contrary was +here presented to her. She was ripe to be intolerant for she was very +full of purpose and purpose is a motive power of much impatience. Miss +Salmon, who would have made a saint impatient, made Rosalie, who was not +a saint, very impatient and the virus of this impatience was that very +soon Rosalie made no attempt to conceal it. It seemed to Rosalie that +whenever she projected any plan to Miss Salmon--as to “do” a pit at a +theatre--or any theory--as that men and not women were manifestly the +cat tribe--it seemed to her that Miss Salmon always hummed with +the maddening humming denotive of disapproval, and always prefaced +stupendously stubborn idiocy with the “Well, now” and the gulp that +alone were sufficient to drive enthusiasm crazy. + +“Mmmmm--mm. Mmm--mmmm--mm--mm,” would go Miss Salmon, following her +pince-nez up and down the little bedroom. And then, the pince-nez +poised, “Well, now” (gulp). + +And Rosalie came to cry, “Oh, never mind. Never mind, for goodness’ +sake. I know exactly what you’re going to say so what is the good of +saying it?” Miss Salmon nevertheless would say it, in full measure, +pressed down at intervals in solid lumps with reiterated “Well, now” + (gulp). And then Rosalie would hum to show she was not listening and +thus in time to the position that Rosalie, beyond the ordinary changes +of everyday conversation, took not the slightest notice of Miss Salmon +but busied herself in their room, or came into it or went out of it, +precisely as if Miss Salmon, who with her gulps, her fussiness and +her balancing was very much there, was in fact not there at all. When +Rosalie for the weekly dinner at Aunt Belle’s used to dress in the +evening frock of Laetitia’s given her for the purpose by Aunt Belle, she +used, at first, to say to Miss Salmon, “There, how do I look, Gertrude? +Can you see that mend in the lace?” + +“Well, now--” (gulp). + +Very soon she was dressing (at the common dressing table) with no more +regard for Miss Salmon or for the continuous humming of Miss Salmon +(signification of Miss Salmon’s disapproval of the monopolisation of the +dressing table) than if Miss Salmon had been an automaton wound up to +balance a pince-nez around the room, to hum, and at intervals to gulp. + +This was a small thing, but it was an important small thing. Rosalie was +entirely insensible to the opinions and the existence of Miss Salmon, +and it followed that she became entirely insensible to the feelings of +Miss Salmon. To begin by ignoring a person with whom you are in daily +contact is certainly to end by not caring at all what happens to that +person. It was the misfortune of Miss Salmon to suffer periodically and +acutely from biliousness (which she called neuralgia). In an attack, she +took instantly to her bed and lay there flat on her back, absurdly and +unnecessarily poising her pince-nez, and looking, unquestionably, very +unpleasant. Rosalie,--who believed that Miss Salmon on these occasions +had overeaten herself, the attacks invariably coinciding with pork in +winter and with a fruit trifle known in the boarding house as “Kentish +Delight” in the summer, of both of which Miss Salmon was avowedly fond, +was at first warmly sympathetic and attentive on their occurrence, +anointing the fevered brows with eau-de-Cologne, nipping the unnecessary +pince-nez off the pallid nose, darkening the room, and stealing about +on tiptoe. In time her attitude came to be expressed by her reception +of the sight of Miss Salmon prone, stricken, yellow, pince-nez, poising. +“What, again?” + +“Well, now----” (Gulp). + +But Rosalie would be gone. + +And it came to be the same with all the other fellow inmates of the +boarding house, alike the men and the women. Rosalie, in a colloquialism +of to-day not then coined, “had no use for them.” There was in none of +them anything that aroused her esteem; there was in each of them, in +degree greater or less, much that provoked her scorn. The result was +as resulted from Miss Salmon--she did not bother about them; and not +bothering about them she suffered an inhibition of her sympathies. To +repeat the thing said, her environment here was, as it were, fated +or fatal. In her eagerness for her career, her generous emotions were +likely to be laid aside and to wither; and the environment of the +boarding house in no way drew upon her sympathies. + +This was not good for Rosalie. + +Moreover, the community of the boarding house served Rosalie ill on +another point. She came there with all those grotesque ideas of her +childhood on the respective positions of men and women precipitated +through her older years to the perception given to Keggo: women +were this, women were that; in their commonest characteristics they +contrasted very badly with men; men did things better than women; they +had by far the better lot in life than women; unquestionably men were +the creatures; of course--off-handedly--they were beasts. She came to +the boarding house with these ideas and the boarding house presented +these ideas to her in living fact and assured her in her ideas. She came +there very susceptible to the qualities she believed to be rooted with +their sex in men and women and she saw those qualities there at once. +The boarding house might have been all her ideas of women and of men +taken away by an artist and put into an exact picture. It was her words +to Keggo in terms of actual life. Its population, little varying, was +always round about twenty; the proportion in sex always in the region +of fifteen women to five men. The figures were always constant and the +characters, when they changed, seemed always to Rosalie to be constant; +the names changed, the personalities did not change. Even the faces did +not change: there are certain types of faces that either are produced +by permanent residence in boarding houses or that go instinctively to +boarding houses for their permanent residence. There is a boarding-house +mould. There would always be two husbands with wives and three men +without wives. The men were never spoken to by any of the women but with +a certain archness which Rosalie detested; and they never spoke to the +women but with a certain boisterousness, a kind of rubbing together of +the hands and a “Ha! What miserable weather, Mrs. Keeley. How does it +suit you? Ha!” which Rosalie equally detested. It was as though the +women, leading boarding-house lives, knew that the men (who were +never in to lunch and sometimes absent from dinner) did not lead +boarding-house lives but secret, dashing and mysterious lives; and as +though the men knew that they lived secret, dashing and mysterious lives +but condescended to the women who lived only boarding-house lives; and +the archness on the one side and the boisterousness on the other +implied tribute and worthiness of tribute. This implication Rosalie also +detested. + +Men--as she now saw men and women--she dismissed; generally as “of +course they’re beasts,” severally and in the groups to which they +belonged, as cats--of the cat tribe--tame cats, wild cats, Cheshire +cats, tomcats and stray cats. But she dismissed them. That was her +attitude, as it developed, towards men. They had been, in her regard, +owners of the earth, possessing and having dominion over the round world +and all that therein is, as a stage magician owns and dominates his +stage; they had next been wonderful things but apt to be troublesome and +braggart things whose braggadocio caused you to blink and have a funny +feeling; they had then been sinister and frightening things that caused +poor Anna to say it was hard for women; they became, at last, creatures +that had the best of life, that is to say the better time in life, not +because they merited it, but because it was theirs by tradition and they +stepped into it, or were put into it, as naturally as a man child is +put into trousers; and they had, when all was reckoned up, the better +qualities--largeness, tolerance, directness, explosiveness (as opposed +to smouldering-ness)--not, Rosalie thought, because they were males, but +because they had the position that males have, just as by the habit of +command is given to small boys in the Navy and very young men in the +Army the air and the poise of command. + +Yes, certainly men were, as they had always been, the creatures; but the +eyes that formerly saw them as magicians, as by a savage is seen only +the mystery of the moving hands, the tick, and the strike of a +clock, now looked inside the case and saw the works. No mystery. +No exclusiveness of natural power. Nothing abnormal. Men, on their +estimable qualities and position, were what they were merely because, +as the works of a watch, thus and thus the wheels were made to go round. +Easy. Nothing in it. On the contrary. On the contrary, men were the more +despicable in that, dowered as by tradition they were dowered, they yet +were--what they were! The eyes that had been caused to blink by Robert +blowing smoke through his nose and by Harold pulling up his collar and +speaking with a “haw!” sound, blinked from a contempt yet more profound +(because now known for contempt) at the exhibition, seen all about her, +of men’s unlovely side. And she dismissed them. They did not attract her +in the smallest degree. All that they had in them to esteem, whether +of qualities or of position, they had--here was the parallel--in common +with drones in a hive. They had the best of everything; they were +blundering, blustering, noisy, careless, buccaneering owners of the +world, and to her--as all the roystering swarm to any individual worker +bee--to her, negligible. She was a worker bee, busy, purposeful. + +There is a special function belonging to drones in a hive. That special +function of men in regard to women was repellant to Rosalie. All that +pertained to it was repulsive to her. She loathed to think of men in +that capacity and she loathed to see women ensnared in that regard by +men. Beautiful cousin Laetitia and the “good match” that obviously had +been found for her: she detested seeing those two together: it made her +feel sick. + +Men! By this and by that in passage of time she was in contact with a +good number and a good variety of men. There was the frequently changing +male contribution to the boarding-house community; there were clients +met in the development of her work at Simcox’s; there were the men of +the circle of Uncle Pyke Pounce; there were the men of the circle of +cousin Laetitia, brought to the little Saturday-dinner parties. A very +fair average, a rather wider than the normal average of contact with +men; and she dismissed them. They had not any attraction for her at +all. If, rarely, she met one whose superficial points were superficially +attractive, his contribution to her attitude to men was to make her +blink (inwardly) the more, albeit on a different note. That one so +exceptionally dowered should find pleasure in, for instance, dalliance +of sex! Contemptible! Oh, sickening and contemptible! One Harry Occleve, +of Laetitia’s circle, so obviously “the good match,” was outstandingly +such a case. It was thought upon him, scornful and disgusted thought, +that made her, walking back from one of the Saturday-evening parties--he +was always there--arrange her experiences with men in that analogy +between men and cats which, as related, had been delivered to Miss +Salmon. + +Like a tame cat! She never had met a man she despised so much. You’d +think a man like that couldn’t help but be above such things as Cousin +Laetitia and Aunt Belle made of him. “Occleve.” The very name that +he owned had a nice sound; and he was brilliantly clever and looked +brilliantly clever. He was a barrister and Aunt Belle, who was forever +talking about him, had said that evening, just before his arrival, that +some famous counsel had declared of him that he was unquestionably +the most brilliant of the young men of the day at the Bar. So he was +talented, had a great future before him, had a strong, most taking +presence, a commanding air, a voice of uncommon charm--and was in bonds +to Laetitia! Looked sickly at her! Mouthed fatuous nothings with her! +Was obviously marked down to be that “good match” that Laetitia was to +make, and was content, was eager, to be the tame cat of her languishing +glances and of Aunt Belle’s excessive gushings! Was to be seen in +a future not distant mated with Laetitia and sharing with her an +atmosphere of milk and silk and babies and kisses! Tame cat! What an end +to which to bring such qualities! What a desecration of such qualities +to set them to win such an end! Tame cat! + +But they all were cats of one kind or another. Yes, men are of the +cat tribe! Tabby cats--the soft, fattish kind, without any manlike +qualities, that seemed to be by far the greater proportion of all the +men one saw about in buses and in the streets and met in business; +tabby cats--sloppy, old-womanish creatures. Cheshire cats--the kind +that grinned out of vacuous minds and that never could speak to a woman +without grinning; the unattached men at the boarding house invariably +were of the Cheshire-cat cats. Tomcats--the beastly ones with lecherous +eyes that looked at you. “Of course they’re beasts.” It had been a large +experience of the tomcat cats that had made her add that final summary +of men to Keggo. The Bashibazook, once or twice encountered in her last +terms at the Sultana’s, though never spoken with, had looked at her in +a horrible way, not understood, but felt to be frightening and horrible; +Mr. Ponders, on a dreadful occasion after handing over the medicine for +Miss Keggs, had horribly said, “Well, now, wouldn’t a kiss be nice? +I think a nice kiss would be very nice.” She had managed to get away +without being touched; the nausea in her eyes perhaps had frightened +him. It was nausea she felt, not fear, a horrible physical sickness; +and finally to round off the “of course they’re beasts” of men as then +experienced and now to fill up the schedule of tomcat cats the friends +of Uncle Pyke Pounce’s circle and Uncle Pyke Pounce himself and the +men like the men of his circle--tomcats something past their prime as +lechers (but at a hint only more lecherous for that) but in the full +prime of their beastliness as guzzlers, who with guzzle eyes eyed their +food. She had come across a word in Carlyle’s “French Revolution” that +instantly brought Uncle Pyke Pounce and his friends to her mind and +that always thereafter she applied to the elderly tomcat encountered +or passed in the street--“atrabilious.” Atrabilious! The very word! She +looked it up in the dictionary, was disappointed to find it did not +mean exactly what she thought it meant, but gave it her own meaning, and +applied it to them. It sounded like them. They had small beady eyes, set +in yellow; no apparent eyelids either above or below, just an unblinking +eye set in a puffy face like a currant in a slab of cold pudding that +gloated or glared at everything and everybody as if it was a thing to +be devoured; guzzlers who gloated upon their food and wallowed in their +soup, always with little streaks of red veins and blue veins in their +faces. Atrabilious! Tomcats! + +Wild cats--the roamers, the untamed ones, the ones with cruel and with +wicked faces that made you not sick, but frightened; mostly they were +dressed in rough clothes, men hanging about the streets who patently +were thieves or worse, who looked at you and at once looked all around +as if to see if any were about that might protect you; but often dressed +in gentle dress and then with the cruel and wicked look more cruel and +more wicked, to make your shudder to think of a woman having to belong +to that. + +Stray cats--on the whole the only really bearable ones; the lonely ones +that seemed to have lost something or to be lost, that seemed to need +looking after, that made you have a funny tender feeling towards them, a +wanting as it were to pick them up and carry them home and be sharp with +them because they couldn’t take care of themselves, and to be kind to +them also because they couldn’t take care of themselves; yes, the only +bearable ones: Mr. Simcox was precisely one. + +All cats, of the cat tribe. There wasn’t one you couldn’t place. There +wasn’t one, save dear little Mr. Simcox and the stray cat ones you +sometimes saw, that was not in some trait contemptible. The only thing +to be said for them was that it was their nature. They were created like +that. You just shrugged your shoulders at them and let them go at that, +negligible entities. Active disgust was only felt of them when one of +their traits was manifested directly towards you; or, much more, when +the sight was given of such a one as this Harry Occleve making such an +exhibition of himself and enjoying it, delighting in it, asking nothing +better than to be philandering with Laetitia, or escorting Laetitia, or +gazing at Laetitia. That did make you angry enough with a man to hate +a man. It was like seeing a good book--as it might be “Lombard +Street”--used to prop a table leg; or a jolly dog--as the dearest Scotch +terrier once brought to the boarding house--led for a walk on a leash by +an old maiden mistress and wearing a lapdog’s flannel coat with ribbon +bows at the corner. Her aversion to Harry Occleve was such that, in +their rare passages together, she was almost openly rude to him. It +seemed there was even no physical quality he had but he used it to abase +himself or to make an exhibition of himself. He had noticeably long, +strong-looking arms, but the sickening thing to see him once using those +arms to hold silk for Laetitia while she wound it! He had a striking +face that she named, from a line in Browning, a “marching” face--“one +who never turned his back but marched breast forward”--but to see that +face bent fatuously towards Laetitia! There radiated from the corners of +his eyes towards his temples those little lines that sailors often have, +“horizon tracks,” she called them; but to see them deeply marked while +he mouthed earnest nothings with Laetitia! There was an odd, nice smell +about him, of peat, of tobacco, of soap, of heather with the wind across +it, of things like that most agreeably mixed, and actually she had heard +Laetitia say to him in the babyish way she spoke to him, “You smoke too +much. You do.” And he, like a moon calf: “Oh, you’re not going to ask me +to give up smoking, are you?” And she with a trailing eye and hint of +a blush, “Perhaps I shall--some day.” And he--a sigh! Positively a +love-sick sigh straight out of a novel! Ah, positively she could detest +the man! She came to discover it as an odd thing that, while commonly +she was entirely indifferent to men, always after a Saturday meeting +with Laetitia’s Harry she had for quite a day or two an active +detestation of them. + +But it was the women at the boarding house--to instance the boarding +house--the fifteen women, the immense, straggling army of women as they +looked to be, when they came trooping in to dinner or went trailing out +again, that had Rosalie’s sharpest observation and that best pointed +her youthful estimates. Unlike men who had fallen woefully from her +childhood estimate of them, the women maintained and intensified her +early estimate of women. The women in the boarding house showed Rosalie +what women come to. A few were emphatically old; the rest, with the +single exception of Miss Salmon, were emphatically not old; on the other +hand they were emphatically not young. They were at pains to let you +see they were not old and the pains they were at rather dreadfully (to +Rosalie) emphasised the fact that they were not young. The thing about +them, the warning, the proof that they exhibited of all Rosalie’s ideas +about the inferiority of women, was that they were, in her phrase, +derelicts--not wanted; abandoned; homeless; or they would not be +here. Yes, derelict; and what was worse, derelict not in the sense of +desuetude of powers or of powers outworn, but with the suggestion of +never having had any powers, of having been always the mere vessels of +another’s powers--some man’s; and now, with that power withdrawn--the +man, whether father, brother, lover or husband, gone--derelict as a +ship, abandoned of crew, rudderless and dismasted, is derelict; as an +obscure habitation, cold of hearth, crazy of walls, abandoned to decay, +is derelict. She summed them all up as having arrived at what they +were precisely because in their earlier years they had been what in +her childhood she had supposed women to be: inferior creatures at the +disposal and for the benefit and service of men. What a warning never to +be that! There they were--manless. And therefore derelict. And because +derelict for such a reason, therefore testimony to a social condition +that was abominable, and because seen to be abominable never, never +herself should enfold. Never! Manless. Husbandless. There they were, +the straggling mob of them,--deserted by husbands, semi-detached from +husbands, relict of husbands fallen out with a stitch in the side in the +race for husbands. Urh! + +She was very young, Rosalie. + +“Despised and rejected of men,” she said to Miss Salmon, holding forth +in their bedroom on her subject. “That’s what I call them. Despised and +rejected of men. Oh, don’t hum louder than ever. It’s not irreverent to +say that. It describes a condition, that’s all, and I’m using it because +it describes this condition, their condition, exactly. It does. You can +hum; but it does. They’ve never done anything, they’ve never meant to +do anything, they’ve never tried to do anything except hang round after +some man. That’s all. They’ve either caught him and now lost him; or +they’ve missed him and now go on missing him. That’s their lives. That’s +nearly any woman’s life. It’s not going to be mine. If anything were +wanted to make the whole idea of marriage and all that repulsive to +me--and nothing is wanted--that would. Despised and rejected of men! I +used to think and to say I intended to be like a man and to do a man’s +work and have a man’s share. I tell you that even getting so close to +a man as that--I mean as close as intentional emulation of him--even +getting as close as that makes me feel sick now. It’s my own life I’m +going to have, my own place, my own share; not modelled on any one +else’s. If it were conceivable that I ever met a man I cared tuppence +about--but it isn’t conceivable; that’s a quality that’s been left clean +out of me, thank goodness--but if it were conceivable, what I’d offer +would be just to share; to go on living my own way and he his--Oh, +your humming! I mean after marriage, of course; I think this free-love +business they talk about is even more detestable than the lawful +kind--just animalism. That’s all I’d do. Me my life; he his life; +meeting, as equals, when it was convenient to meet. I’d like to bring +all these poets and people who write about love into our dining-room to +see those people. That’d teach them! + + Man’s love is of his life a thing apart; + ‘Tis woman’s whole existence. + +What an existence!” + +“Well, now--” (gulp). + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +“You have pretended to dislike and to despise men, but it was a pretence +to deceive me and you are a liar.” + +This was the astounding opening of an astounding letter, pages and +pages, to Rosalie from Miss Salmon. Pages and pages, having the +appearance, each one, of a battlefield or of a riot: a welter of thick, +black underscores strewn about like coffins or like corpses, and a +bristling pin-cushionful (black pins) of notes of exclamation leaping +about like war-dancing Zulus or staggering about like drunken or like +wounded men. A welter you had to pick your way through with epithets +rushing against you at every step like units of a surging mob hounding +and charging against an unfortunate pedestrian caught in the trouble. + +Miss Salmon had two months before introduced “a gentleman friend” to the +boarding house. He was a clerk in some big business firm. His name was +Upsmith and he bore upon a fattish face a troubled, beseeching look, +rather as though something internal and not to be mentioned was severely +incommoding him and might at any moment become acute. Miss Salmon called +him Boo, which Rosalie considered grotesque but not unsuitable, and +it was communicated to the boarding house that the twain were at +a mysterious point of affinity called, not an engagement, but an +understanding. + +Rosalie had by this time taken the second step in her upward progression +of comfort in the boarding house. She had moved into a separate room, +leaving Miss Salmon to become half of another two friends as one, and +she and Miss Salmon therefore saw much less of each other. But Rosalie +still sat at the same table as Miss Salmon at dinner and there Mr. +Upsmith joined them. + +The thing may be hurried along to its astounding conclusion in the +astounding letter. It was not in itself an event of any sort of moment +to Rosalie. She was in no way outraged by being called a liar. There is +no hurt at all in being called a liar when you know you are not a +liar. The accusation has sting only if you are a liar; and indeed it is +comforting evidence of some inner self within us that only when we have +ourselves debased that inner self become we open to wounds from without. +That citadel is never taken by storm; only by treachery. No, the +significance of the astounding letter reposed in the fact that her +reception of it opened to Rosalie a glimpse of a quality rising beneath +her to carry her forward as a wave beneath a swimmer. It has been +perceived in her but Rosalie had not perceived it. + +A great triumph and a great happiness swelled within Miss Salmon with +the arrival of Mr. Upsmith and with the circulation about the boarding +house that there was an understanding between herself and Mr. Upsmith. +Her humming took on a loud, defiant quality, as of triumph; she pursued +her pince-nez with a certain eagerness, as of confidence of balance and +certitude of capture. Her note and her air seemed to say that she was +Boo’s and Boo hers and she gloried in it with that exalted and yet +something fearful glory that is to be seen, pathetically, on the faces +of very plain young women, or of distinctly ageing young women, who have +got a Boo but for whom the Boos of this world are elusive to capture +and slippery to hold. The look is to be seen a dozen times on any Sunday +afternoon when the young couples are out. + +At dinner time Miss Salmon would talk much to Boo in whispers and then +would look up and hum across at Rosalie in triumph, as of one that knew +things that Rosalie could not know and that had a thing that Rosalie did +not possess. Mr. Upsmith looked also much at Rosalie, in no triumph, +but in an apparent great excess of his unfortunate complaint. He stared, +troubled and beseeching, at her at meals, and he stared, troubled and +beseeching, at her when he encountered her away from meals. The longer +he sojourned in the boarding house the more troubled and beseeching, +when Rosalie happened to notice him, did his fattish countenance appear +to become. That was all. There scarcely ever was exchanged between them +even the courtesies customary between dwellers beneath the same roof; +they never, that Rosalie could remember, were a minute alone together +and yet on a day in an August, Miss Salmon a week away on a month at the +seaside with the family to which she was nursery governess, Rosalie was +being told in the violent opening sentence of one letter that she had +pretended to despise and dislike men but had only done it to deceive +Miss Salmon and was a liar; and in the impassioned sentences of another +which had been enclosed and had fallen and to which bewildered she +stooped and then read, that the heart of Boo was at her feet (“your +proud, sweet little feet that I would kiss in my adorance”) that he had +adored her ever since he had first set eyes on her, that he treasured +“like pearls before swine” every encouragement she had given him from +her divine eyes and from her proud little lips, that he had had no sleep +for a fortnight and felt he would go mad unless he wrote these few +lines (nine pages), that he earned “good money,” and that he was, +in conclusion, to which Rosalie amazedly skipped, “ever and ever and +imperishably always her imperishably adoring Boo.” + +Two days previously Rosalie had received, but not read, another slightly +mysterious letter. It had been in her receptacle in the letter rack in +the hall, addressed to her in an unfamiliar writing and deposited by +hand, not through the post. It had begun “Dear Miss Salmon, re our +friendship I have to inform you--” Rosalie had turned to the end, +“B. Upsmith.” She had replaced it in its envelope, written upon the +envelope, “This is evidently for you, but addressed to me, as you +see--R.” and had placed it in another stamped wrapper to be forwarded +by Miss Kentish. She had only thought of it as in funny style for a love +letter, proper no doubt to the niceties of an “understanding.” And what +had happened was that the vile, egregious, and infamous Boo, writing to +break off one understanding and establish another, had placed them in +the wrong envelopes. The outpourings of his bursting heart to Rosalie +had been received by Miss Salmon; the information “re our friendship” + had gone to Rosalie. + +Of itself, as has been said, the whole incident was nothing at all in +the life of Rosalie. It came with the crash, but only startling and +quite harmless crash, of an unexpected clap of thunder, and it passed +as completely and as passively, doing no damage, leaving no mark. Miss +Salmon never returned to the boarding house; the vile, egregious and +infamous Boo haply incisively informed by Miss Salmon of what he had +done, incontinently, and without speech to Rosalie, fled from the +boarding house. They were gone, they were nothing to Rosalie; the +correspondence was destroyed, it was nothing to Rosalie. + +But the significance of the matter was here. There was in Miss Salmon’s +letter to Rosalie one paragraph that Rosalie read a second time. She +had received the letter when coming in just before dinner. Not at +all injured nor in any way discommoded by the hurtling epithets, +the terrific underscores intended to be as bludgeons, or the leaping +exclamatory notes set there for stabs, she had put the thing away in a +drawer and gone down to her meal. The passage alluded to came more than +once into her mind. When she was about to get into bed that night she +destroyed the letter, first reading that paragraph, and only that, +again. Sole in the violent welter of those sheets it had no underscores +nor any exclamations. It was added as a postscript. It said: + +“Well, now; Boo and I met the first time in a crowd watching a horse +that had fallen down. It kicked and I stepped back quickly and trod on +his foot. It made him put his hands on my arms and I looked around to +apologise and there was his dear face smiling at me, although in great +pain, for I had trodden on a corn he has; and I knew at once it was the +face I had looked for and longed for all my life and had found at last; +and I loved him from the first and we went out of the crowd and talked. +Well, now; I clung to him in all our happy, happy months together, in a +way you can never understand, because I loved him, and because I am not +the sort that men like because I am only plain, and I knew that if ever +he left me I could never get another. Well, now; you have taken him away +from me. You could get dozens and dozens of men to love you, but you +have taken mine, and I never, never can get another.” + +The thoughts of Rosalie, not sequent, but going about and amounting +thusly, were thus: “That is very pathetic. That is horribly sad and +pathetic. Coming at the end like that and without any strokes and +flourishes, it is as if she was exhausted of her hate and rage and just +put out an utterly tired hand and set this here like a sigh. That’s +pathetic, the mere look of it and that thought of it. And then what she +says. The dreadfully simple naivete of the beginning of it. Staring at a +fallen horse in the street. It’s just where they would be, both of them. +They’d stand there for hours and just stare and stare. And then she +steps back on his foot and there’s ‘his dear face’ smiling at her; ah, +it’s pathetic, it’s poignant! I can see it absolutely. Yes, I can. As if +I were in the crowd around the horse, watching them. There they are, the +horse between us, and all the doltish, staring faces round about; and +their two dull and stupid faces; and as their eyes meet that sudden look +upon their foolish faces, as of irradiation out of heaven, that would +make a clown’s face beautiful and cause the hardest heart to twist. +But it doesn’t cause mine to twist. That’s the odd thing. I remember +perfectly when a thing like that would have given me a little blinky +kind of feeling. I’ve always been awfully quick to notice things like +that. I’ve often seen them. Quite recently, so little, I believe, as a +year ago, things like that, things like this, would have moved me a lot. +They somehow do not now. That frightful ending of hers: ‘You could get +dozens and dozens of men to love you, but you have taken mine and I can +never, never get another.’ That is most terribly pathetic. I think that +is the most poignant thing I have ever heard. Well, I can realise its +utter pathos; I can realise it but I cannot feel it. It does not move +me. ‘And I never, never can get another.’ It’s frightful. I could cry. +But I do not a bit want to cry. I must have somehow changed. I am not a +bit sorry if I have changed. I would be sorry to go back and be as, if I +have changed, I must have been--sentimental. I have changed. I believe I +can look back and see it. About the time I left the Sultana’s, mother’s +letters, and keeping them and answering them, began to be--yes they +did begin to be a little, tiny bit of a nuisance to me. Yes, it was +beginning then, this. And I expect earlier, if I worked it out. There’s +nothing in it to regret. It’s just a growing out of a thing. It’s not, +when I see a thing that’s pathetic, that I’ve grown blunt or blind and +can’t see it for pathetic. It’s just--I know what it is--it’s just that +it doesn’t appeal to me in the same way. It’s like seeing a dish of most +tempting food in front of you, not that I ever remember my mouth, as +they say, watering at anything; but say strawberries and cream--I’m fond +of strawberries and cream--it’s like seeing a dish of strawberries and +cream in front of you, and knowing it’s good and knowing it’s delicious, +and knowing you’re awfully fond of it--and just not being hungry; +turning away and leaving it there, not because it’s not everything that +it ought to be, but just because--you don’t want it. I should say that’s +how it is with me about these--these pathetic things. I know they’re +pathetic. I don’t want them.” + +That is how it was, how it had become, with Rosalie. That was just her +first recognition of it, as the swimmer, intent on his own making of his +progression, recognises not, till he has been borne some distance by it, +the current that also is carrying him along. + +Visits home to the Rectory were further manifestations to her of this +arising symptom. + +There were appeals that should have arisen to her out of her home; and +they did arise; and she recognised them; but they did not appeal to +her--not in the old way. She went home very rarely for occasional +week-ends, always for her annual holidays, always for Christmas; and the +discovery she made was that she liked her home very much better when she +was away from it than when she was in it. When a visit was in prospect +she desired her home, that is to say her mother, most frightfully. But +when the visit was in being the joy she had promised herself she would +spread somehow was not at her command; the love she had yearned to show +somehow was chilled within her and not forthcoming. It was the tempting +dish in a new illustration--rushing eagerly to it, avid of its delights; +coming to it and finding, after all, one was not hungry. + +Strange! + +Her mother was ageing rapidly. She could have wept to see the ageing +signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not moved; received +the impression but was not sensitive to it; felt the tug but did not +respond to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be a little impatient. +Returned to London and to her engrossing work and longed to be back with +her mother; came back to her mother--and was not hungry. + +Strange! + +Then she began to analyse the strangeness of it and found it was not, +after all, so strange; at least it was not a thing to be distressed +about, nor bearing conviction of unnatural qualities, of hardness, of +unkindness. There was a line she knew that came in a verse: + + There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, + The earth, and every common thing + To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream. + It is not now as it hath been of yore. + Turn wheresoe’er I may + By night or day, + The things which I have seen I now can see no more. + +“The things which I have seen I now can see no more.” That was the line. +“The things which used to appeal to me now appeal no more--or rather +not quite in the same way. I think I used to be very sentimental. It +is stupid and useless to be sentimental. People must grow old. There’s +nothing sad in that. It is natural. It is life. It is life and one must +accept life. The unnatural thing, the foolish and wrong thing, is to +remain a sentimental child for ever, with a child’s ready foolish tears +at what are common, necessary facts of life. I can be much kinder, +much more really kind, by seeing things clearly--and in their right +perspective than by occluding them with false compassions. I am always +my dear, my darling mother’s devoted daughter, ever at her disposal, and +she knows it and loves me for it. When I am to her or to any friend but +as ships that pass in the night--Keggo’s phrase--then let me take myself +to task.” + +Keggo’s phrase! Keggo was being intermittently seen at this time and +these thoughts of Rosalie’s were very close to the occasion when finally +she lost sight of Keggo. It could be said like this--that Keggo here +made a contribution to Rosalie’s life that passed Rosalie on her way. + +They had kept touch for quite a time after their separation as governess +and pupil. They then lost touch. + +“Why, it must be more than a year!” cried Rosalie, suddenly encountering +Miss Keggs near the Marble Arch one evening and delightedly greeting +her. It was in the summer and Rosalie had gone out from the boarding +house after dinner for some fresh air in the park. She was enormously +glad to see Keggo again and carried her greeting straight on into +excuses for her share in their long sundering. “More than a year! You +know, the fact is, Keggo, that when I first left the Sultana’s, and for +quite a time afterwards, I used to gush. I did! I was so frightfully +full of all I was doing and it was all so new and so wonderful and I was +so excited about it that it was sheer letting off steam--gush--to write +you reams and reams of letters about it as I used to do. Then it got +normal and the--the tumultuousness of it wore off and I was just--I am, +you know--just absolutely absorbed in it and there was no more steam to +let off; all the energy went into the work, I suppose. So gradually, I +suppose, without quite realising it, I gave up writing. But, oh, if you +knew how glad I am to see you now!” + +Miss Keggs to all this presented only a fixed smile. A smile belongs +much more to the eyes than to the lips. The lips, but not the eyes, can +counterfeit a smile. False coin is “uttered” as they say in law; and the +lips utter. Not so the eyes. All metal that the mouth issues is to be +tested there. The expression in Miss Keggs’s eyes was not at all in +consonance with that of her mouth. The expression of her eyes was rather +oddly vacant as you may see on the face of a person who is apparently +attending to what you are saying but really is listening to another +conversation in the same room. “Not listening” as it is called. “An +absent look” as they say. + +Nevertheless she joined dove-tailed response to Rosalie’s words. “To +tell you the truth,” said Miss Keggs, speaking very slowly and repeating +the preamble. “To tell you the truth I wouldn’t have received your +letters if you had written them.” + +“You wouldn’t? Why not?” + +“To tell you the truth--” there had been a pause before she first spoke; +a pause again before this reply and then again a beginning with this +phrase about which there was nothing odd in itself but something odd in +the manner of its use by Miss Keggs. “To tell you the truth, I’ve left +the school.” + +“Left the Sultana’s!” + +Miss Keggs nodded with slow inclinations, like grave bows, of her head. + +“Whatever for? Keggo, when, why?” And then Rosalie, impelled by some +apprehension that suddenly pressed her, put a quick hand on Keggo’s arm +and cried sharply, “Keggo! There is something very strange about you. +What has happened to you? Something has happened. You can’t keep it from +me.” + +But Keggo could. At that quick gesture of suspicion of Rosalie’s, +animation sprung to meet it as a cat, at a sudden start, will leap from +profound slumber to a place of safety and to arched defence. Miss Keggs, +in their first exchanges, might have been as one drowsily answering +questions from a bed. She was suddenly, in her instant casting away of +her absent air, as that one flinging away the bedclothes and leaping +upright to the floor. What had she been saying? She had been quite lost +in something she was thinking of when Rosalie came up. She scarcely had +recollected her. She had been very, very ill with “this influenza” and +still was only convalescent. Why, how very, very glad she was to see her +dear Rosalie again! And how Rosalie had developed! + +“Why, Rosalie, you are beautiful! You are! And you don’t blush or simper +to hear it! Yes, you are beautiful.” + +There was a little room in a street somewhere off the Harrow Road that +Miss Keggs now occupied. It was a forbidding street. It was one of those +derelict streets frequent in certain quarters of London, in Holloway, in +Kentish Town, in Kilburn and all over South London, all about which life +teems and roars but where, along their own pavements, no life is. They +are most characteristic of themselves, these streets, when, as often to +be seen, there is no soul along them but a sad drab that is an itinerant +singer that drifts along wailing, at every few paces shuffling her body +in complete turns to scan the windows she has passed and the immediate +windows on either hand. She has no home and these are not homes to which +she wails. There is no flicker of life at any window. She’s a sad drab, +repulsive within; and they are sad drabs, not nice within. At night, +but not before dusk, forlorn things flicker in and out of them like drab +ghosts had on the strings of a puppet show. By day there sometimes is +an old man crawling in or crawling out; sometimes a woman, always with +a parcel or a net bag, fleeting along, expressionless. The high houses, +all of one pattern, appear to have no pattern. They are like dead walls +and the place they enclose like a vault, and the itinerant drab like +a thing in drab cerements (they trail the dust) that ought to be dead +wailing for entrance to things, tombed in those walls, that are dead. +There is no life at all in these streets. There is nothing active +or positive. There is just passivity and negation. There is just +nothingness. They are not habitations, which connote life; they are +repositories, which connote desuetude. They are the repositories of +creatures, not that have done with life, for the sheer fact of living +acknowledges service to life, but with whom life has done. + +These came to be Rosalie’s thoughts of this street--Limpen Street--but +they could not have been hers when she was first going there to spend +evenings with Miss Keggs, for it was in her earlier visits there to +Keggo that she cried there. When she could cry for pure compassion for +another she was still too--too ardent for Limpen Street to be seen as it +has been presented. From the first it affected her disagreeably but she +would have felt, then, a sympathy for its state, and a belief that it +could be aroused out of its state, and a wish so to arouse it; and in +her earlier visits she had ardently this sympathy, but it was raised to +a profound compassion; this belief, but it was a conviction; and this +wish, but it was a resolution, in regard to Keggo. + +For Keggo was drinking. + +Keggo had been drinking for years and years and now Keggo had walled +herself away in Limpen Street to drink and drink, still secretly with +the sharp cunning of the secret drinker, but now with cunning only +necessary when of her own wish she met the world. At the Sultana’s, +(only Mr. Ponders in her secret, and in her pay; “that vile man” + as, after the revelation, she always spoke of him to Rosalie) at the +Sultana’s and in all her life of that period she was, as it were, as one +whose life is threatened, dwelling among spies; that breastplate of her +cunning never could be laid off then; now, as one threatened, but secure +in a castle, the breastplate only was needed when sallies forth were +made. There was at the Sultana’s the need of constant care to inhibit +her cravings; there now was none to save her--unless Rosalie did. + +There is no need at all to tell all this and all that by which Rosalie +was led to this most terrible discovery and Keggo impelled to her most +painful revelation. There was deceit and its exposure; lies and +their crumpling in the hand; mystifications and their sinister +interpretations; contingencies and their ugly dissolutions. These would +be all beastly to tell. Beastly is a vile word but this is a vile +thing. There was about it all, all the time, a tainted and unwholesome +atmosphere. There was always in the little room in Limpen Street that +strange disagreeable smell of bad eau-de-Cologne that always had hung +about the little room at the Sultana’s. + +Beastly things.... + +But they were not felt to be beastly by Rosalie, then. They are said +here to be beastly, for they were beastly, only in excuse for Rosalie +afterwards. They only were to her, then, intensely sad, most deeply +pitiful, intensely increasing of her love for Keggo as pure love is +increased by seeing its object in tortures that may not be helped +because they will not be confessed. If only Keggo would tell her! Once +or twice she said to Keggo, speaking with an entreaty that must have +made obvious to Keggo her knowledge, “Keggo, haven’t you something to +tell me; something that you’d like to tell me?” The occasion was always +when she was leaving after a visit that had found Keggo very unwell, +very dejected of spirits, and that Keggo had at last terminated by +saying, “I think perhaps you had better go, Rosalie. I think perhaps I’d +be better lying down.” But Keggo’s answer always was, “Something to tell +you? No, nothing at all! What should I have to tell you?” + +And then one day something said brought them very near to the matter +between them. Miss Keggs came nearer yet. She said, “The fact is, +Rosalie, I sometimes get so I simply cannot make an effort, the smallest +effort. I believe when I’m like that if a thousand pounds were offered +me for the going out and asking of it, and God knows I want it badly +enough, I simply could not make the effort to do it. I’d simply let it +pass and know that I was letting it pass and not care. That’s how it’s +got with me, how it is sometimes with me, Rosalie.” + +Rosalie said with extraordinary emphasis, leaning forward on the chair +in which she sat facing Keggo. “Why is it, Keggo?” + +If Keggo had answered, the thing would not have happened. Keggo did not +answer. She was sitting with her hands crossed, one palm upon the +other, and resting on her lap, her eyes to the ground. Quite a long time +passed. Rosalie said, “You’re drinking, aren’t you, Keggo?” + +“Yes, drinking, Rosalie.” + +“Oh, Keggo!” + +It was then that Rosalie cried. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Sne cried. Her sympathies, though drying and slower now to be aroused, +still then were such that she could weep for pity. It is a glimpse of +her not to be seen again. There was she on her knees by Keggo, and with +her arms about Keggo’s waist, and with her head on Keggo’s lap, +crying for Keggo; and in the pauses of Keggo’s unfolding of her story +entreating her, as one that cried responses to a litany, “Don’t mind, +Keggo! Keggo, don’t mind now! Dear Keggo, poor Keggo, it’s all right +now.” + +And presently all the tale told: what Mr. Ponders’ medicine was; and all +the humiliation suffered in keeping in with “that vile man”; and that +vile man’s betrayal of her to the Sultana, and her dismissal; and all +the earlier dreadfulness of her first steps down into her dreadful +malady; and all the dreadful secrecy of all those years; and all the +horrible humiliation secretly to get her poison; and all the horrible +humiliations when her poison got. All the dark tale of that presently +told; and her head bowed down to Rosalie’s, and Rosalie’s wet face +against her face, and her face also wet; and just her murmurs, murmured +at intervals, as though her heart that had discharged its grievous load +ran slowly now, slowly to rise and then to well with, “God bless you, +Rosalie; oh, Rosalie, God bless you”; and for a long time just seated +thus, cheek to cheek, hand to hand, heart to heart; weakness bound about +with strength, sorrow in pity’s arms, travail in sanctuary.... + +It is desired that one should try to see that picture. Its counterpart +was not again in the life of Rosalie, hardening. + +There were, after that, such happy evenings in Keggo’s room. Keggo, +with one to help her, fighting for herself; Rosalie, with one to help, +elevated upon that high happiness that comes with fighting for another. +For a short time there seemed to be no lapses in Keggo’s struggle. When +they came (as Rosalie knew afterwards) the practised cunning of years of +secrecy had no difficulty in concealing them from the unsuspecting eyes +of Rosalie. Ill that it was so! Rosalie was harder when came the lapse +that cunning could not hide. She did not cry. Her eyes were hard. She +said with thin lips, “Why, even all this time you have been deceiving +me!” the which egged on, in that vile way in which exchanges of a +quarrel are as knives sharpening one against the other, Keggo’s enflamed +retort, “The more fool you! Little fool!” + +But at first, while the lapses were few and the cunning was equal to +them, only a closer friendship was set afoot between the woman that was +grown and the woman that was burgeoning, and there were such very happy +evenings in the room in Limpen Street. Such jolly talks. + +There was one talk that, forgotten with the very evening of its passage, +afterwards very strongly returned to Rosalie and abode with her. It had +in it rather vital things for Rosalie. + +She loved to talk about her work with intelligent and sympathetic Keggo, +and she had been on this occasion expounding to her the mysteries and +interest of life insurance: in particular explaining the “romance” of +vital statistics; in particular, again, the curious fact that, though +women in the United Kingdom largely outnumbered men, many more male +children were born than female. The disproportion “the other way about” + in maturity, said Rosalie, was because the death rate among men was much +higher--due to risks of their occupations. “A certain number of house +painters,” said Rosalie sagely, “fall off ladders every year and are +killed; women don’t paint houses, so they don’t fall off ladders and get +killed. Similarly on railways, Keggo. The death rate among railway men +is much higher in proportion, over an average, than the rate in any +other occupation. Porters doing shunting, for instance, are always +getting killed. Well, women don’t shunt trains so they don’t get killed +while shunting trains, so there you are again, so to speak. The thing in +a nutshell, Keggo, is that, by contrast, men lead dangerous lives.” + +Keggo, who always was very alert in response, was here very long in +responding. Then she responded an extraordinary thing that Rosalie +afterwards remembered. She said slowly, “Oh, but Rosalie, it’s very +dangerous to be a woman.” + +Rosalie questioned her. + +Keggo said, “Rosalie, you’ve great ideas, and I think very shrewd and +very striking ideas, about the difference between men and women, but +there’s this difference I think you haven’t thought of--the danger that +women carry in themselves; right in them, here”--she had a hand against +her breast and she pressed it there--“born in them, inerradicable, and +that men have not. Men go into dangers but they come out of them and go +home to tea. That’s what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always get +out. They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, body and +soul and heart and mind. Rosalie, women do. That’s their danger. That’s +why it is so very, very dangerous being a woman. Women can’t come back. +They can’t, Rosalie. Look at me. They take to a thing and it becomes a +craze, it becomes an obsession, it becomes a drug. Look at me. They take +to a thing--anything; a poison like mine, or a pursuit like some one +else’s, or an idea like some other’s, or a--a career in life like, like +yours, Rosalie,--they take to it and go deep enough, and they’re its; +they never will get away from it, they never, never will be able to come +out of it. Never.” + +She was extraordinarily vehement. It was embarrassing for Rosalie. +Rosalie desired to contest, as vehemently, these theories. She did +not believe them a bit. They were founded, she felt, on the tragedy of +Keggo’s own case. Keggo was unfairly, though very naturally, arguing +from the particular to the general, from the personal to the abstract. +But how could she reply to Keggo, “Of course you say that?” + +She was silent; but she betrayed perhaps her thoughts in a gesture, her +difficulty in some expression of her face. + +Keggo said very intensely, “But, Rosalie, if you only knew! With me +it’s drink and you’ll say--. But I say to you, Rosalie, never, never let +anything get the mastery of you. With me it’s drink and you’ll say that +is a matter altogether different, with which parallels are not to be +drawn. Oh, do not believe it, Rosalie. A woman should in all things be +desperately temperate--watchfully, desperately temperate. A man--nearly +every man--seems somehow to have his life and all his interests in +compartments. He can be immersed in one while he is in it, and can get +out of it and distribute himself over his others and close it and +forget it. Rosalie, a woman can’t. Men have hobbies. They don’t have +attachments; they have detachments. They detach themselves and turn to +a thing and they detach themselves from it and turn back again. Rosalie, +women don’t turn to a thing; they go to it. They don’t have hobbies, +they have obsessions. They don’t trifle, they plunge. They cannot sip, +they drain. It’s in their bone. They never would have occupied the place +they do occupy if it were not that from the beginning they have given +themselves over, or they were given over, to mastery. They are the +weaker vessel. Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman gives herself, +forgets moderation and gives herself to anything, she is its captive for +ever. She may think she can come back, but she can’t come back. For a +woman there is no comeback. They don’t issue return tickets to women. +For women there is only departure; there is no return.” + +Rosalie said, “Keggo, I think I could argue, but I won’t. But what I +can’t imagine is the application of it in hundreds of cases--in by far +the great majority of cases. Take mine. You’re not warning me, are you? +I don’t see the possibility--” + +Keggo said, “Darling, I’m not warning you and yet I am. I am warning you +because you are a woman; and because you are a woman you are susceptible +to danger. It’s what I’ve said; it’s what I would have you remember +for a day perhaps to come, that it is dangerous being a woman. I’m not +warning you, because there’s nothing to--well, but isn’t there? You’ve +got a theory of life and you are bent upon a career in life. There’s--” + +Rosalie cried, “Well, but there you are, Keggo. No comeback, no return +tickets--well, I don’t want to come back; I don’t want a return ticket.” + +“You might. You never know. Suppose you ever did?” + +“But you can’t suppose it. Why ever should I?” + +“Suppose you wanted to marry?” + +Rosalie laughed. The thing immediately lost reality. “Well, suppose the +incredible. Suppose I did. There’d be no comeback wanted there. I could +perfectly well marry and still keep my theory of life; I could perfectly +well marry and still keep on in my career--and most certainly I would +still keep on. Why, that is my theory of life, as you call it, or a very +outstanding principle of it. There’s nothing to me more detestable +in the whole business than the idea that because a woman marries she +therefore must give up her work. That’s what is the reason the boarding +house and every boarding house and every home and street and city swarms +with derelicts--with derelict women--just because their lives are all +planned as blind alley occupations, marriage at the end of the alley, +no need to do anything, no need to be anything because it’s only a blind +alley you’re in. When you reach the end--you reach the end! That’s it, +Keggo. You reach the end. You’re a woman, therefore for you--the end!” + +She laughed again. She was returning Keggo’s vehemence without +embarrassment upon the subject that had made return difficult. She +cried, “I’ve got you now, Keggo. I really have. You say they don’t issue +return tickets to women. No. Perhaps they don’t; but I’ll tell you where +they book them all to--from the cradle to a terminus.” + +Keggo smiled and would have spoken. But Rosalie was pleased with her +adroit turning of metaphors. She repeated “To a terminus. Well, I’ve +booked beyond, Keggo.” She laughed again. “And then the idea of marriage +for me! I’ve granted the preposterous just for the sake of the argument +and just to floor the argument. But you know, you know perfectly well +from all our talks, even so far back as at the Sultana’s, that it’s +simply too grotesque! Marriage, for me! Why, if a million men came to +me on their bended knees, each with a million pounds on their backs +you know perfectly well that I’d just feel sick. Tame cats, tabby cats, +tomcats, Cheshire cats, wild cats, stray cats,--I’m not going to set up +a cats’ home. No thanks.” + +So Rosalie had the laugh of that evening. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +But this was not to continue. Keggo began to lapse; Rosalie began to +weary of helping Keggo. She had herself to think of. Those who go down +in life, whether by age or by misfortune, are prone, engulfed, to cry to +those ascending, “You could help me!” There is a correct answer to this. +It is, “I have done (or I do) a great deal for you. I cannot do more. It +is not fair to ask me to do more. I have a duty to myself. I have myself +to think of.” Our generation endorses this. + +Rosalie had herself to think of. By stages that need not be detailed, +they are the common facts of life, the thing passes from that picture +of those two with Rosalie’s strong young arms about the other to a new +picture, the last, between them. + +The stages show Rosalie’s enormous, ardent plans for the rescue and +rehabilitation of Keggo, and they show the projection and the failure of +the plans. They show work found for Keggo (through Simcox’s scholastic +side) and lost and found again and again lost and still again. They +show Keggo’s remorse and they show Rosalie’s forgiveness. They show it +repeated and repeated. They show by degrees the gradual, and then the +rapid, staling of Rosalie’s fond sympathies. They show her finally, +immersed in her own purposeful interests, discovering to herself +feelings in regard to Keggo on a plane with feelings discovered to +herself in regard to her mother. It has been written: “Her mother was +ageing rapidly. Rosalie could have wept to see the ageing signs; +but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not moved; received the +impression but was not sensitive to it; felt the tug but did not respond +to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be a little impatient.” It is +not necessary to expand. Keggo was fast going downhill. Rosalie could +have wept to see the downhill signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not +weep; was not moved... rather, indeed... impatient. She had herself to +think of. + +Youth’s an excuse for youth as childhood’s an excuse for childishness. +Youth, still, like childhood, but unlike maturity, can be lost in its +emotions, absorbed in them to the exclusion of all else, abandoned to +them with all else pitched away as a swimmer discards his every stitch +and joyously plunges in the stream. Youth is not accountable for its +actions then: it is too happy or it is too sad. One oughtn’t to blame +youth, immersed. + +There was outstandingly one such day of absorption in delight, of +abandonment to ecstasy for Rosalie, and it was the day on which she made +her third advance in the social grade of Miss Kentish’s boarding house +and moved into the two rooms en suite, furnished and decorated by +herself to her own taste. She awoke to this great day, long anticipated; +and with the vigorous action of throwing off the clothes and jumping out +of bed, she plunged into it and was lost in it. The excitement and +the elation of taking possession of that enchanting, that significant +apartment of her own! She was excited; she was elated. Moving in was +the cumulative excitement of all the long-drawn, anxious excitements of +peering round the antique dealers and picking up the bits of furniture +and of placing them and moving them a shade to this side and then a +shade to that till was found the one and only exact position that suited +them and that they suited; and the terrible excitements of watching the +decorators at work, her scheme developing beneath their hands, and +the awful knowledge that now it was being done it was done for good or +bad--no altering it now!--and the agonizing excitements of putting down +the carpets--how can you tell exactly how a carpet is going to +look until you see it actually down upon its floor and between its +walls?--and the increasing excitement all the time of the knowledge +that everything was harmonising and was looking just as in dreams of the +ideal it had been made to look; and now all ready! The bed-sitting-room +slept in last night for the last time; the two utterly perfect rooms and +all that their possession connoted, to be occupied that evening for the +first time! Yes, in all the tumultuous pride and engrossment of that, +there was no place--how could there be place?--for tiresome things of +other people’s worlds, if such should offer. + +And in this tremendous day there was stuff more tremendous yet. This +also was the day on whose evening was made the tremendous tribute to her +work and to her talent, the evening of the dazzling offer that, like +a door swung open on a treasure house, disclosed to her new fields to +which her career had brought her, new triumphs that her career, in its +stride, might make her own--the evening when Mr. Sturgiss of Field’s +Bank leant across the dinner table in his house (at his request only she +and himself left in the room) and said in his quiet voice, “Well, +look here--to come to the point--the reason I’ve got you up here +to-night--it’s this: we want you, Field and Company, the Bank, we want +you to join us. We want you in Lombard Street.” + +Lombard Street! + +Cumulative also was this thrill, for it had begun some few days +previously when Mr. Sturgiss, calling at Simcox’s for a chat with Mr. +Simcox, an old friend, had come into her room and after mysteriously +fidgetting with business and conversational trifles, had issued +the invitation to dinner at his house at Cricklewood in language +mysteriously couched. “My wife would like to meet you,” said Mr. +Sturgiss. “She’s heard a lot from me, and from Field, of what an +astonishingly clever young person we think you and she’d--she’d like to +meet you. And more than that.” Mr. Sturgiss’s halting speech suddenly +became direct and definitive like a flag that had been fluttering +suddenly streaming upon the breeze. “And more than that. The fact is, +there’s a proposition I want to put up to you. A proposition. We could +go into it quietly and discuss it. I rather think it would interest you. +I’m sure it will. You’ll come? Good. I’m very glad. Very glad.” + +A proposition! From Mr. Sturgiss! Of Field and Company! What could it +be? + +But Rosalie was not of the sort to tread the succeeding days on the +enchanted air of fond surmises. She told herself that the mysterious +proposition might be everything or might be nothing: the fact that +outstood was that she had brought her aspirations to this--that a +partner in a London bank recognised in her stuff sufficient to invite +her to a confidential meeting, there to go into something with her +“quietly together,” to meet together over something and “discuss +it.” She had determined to establish herself and she was establishing +herself. And was it not an omen propitious and significant that this +recognition of her parts was to fall on the very day on which the +exercise of those parts brought her into the dignity and comfort of that +delicious, that significant apartment of her own? + +This solid stuff, and no mere daydreams, was the delight absorbing her +and the ecstasy to which she was abandoned when that great day came. In +the morning she put the last of her possessions, the equipment of her +dressing table, into the new apartment; after the day spent at Simcox’s, +she returned to dress for the first time before the noble cheval glass +purchased for the bedroom. She decided to go up in a hat; it could be +removed or not for dinner as Mrs. Sturgiss might seem to indicate. She +put on an evening bodice of black silk and net with a simple skirt in +keeping. She gave last approving glances about the delightful rooms and +set out, immersed in eager happiness, for Cricklewood. + +One of those old red buses that vied with the white Putney buses as +being the best horsed on the London routes took her there. Up the +Edgware Road; past the junction with the Harrow Road that led to Keggo’s +street--she only had for it the thought that it was weeks since she had +seen Keggo, almost months; along broad Maida Vale and past the turning +that led to the Sultana’s with the corner where often the crocodile had +huddled--and she was so engrossed in her happy achievements that she +passed it without thinking of it. The bus terminated its journey at the +foot of Shoot Up Hill. Rosalie, called upon to alight, came out of her +thoughts into her surroundings. She realised that she must have passed +Crocodile Corner without noticing and the realisation caused her to give +a little note of amused indifference. The indifference was not directed +precisely at the Sultana’s; it was at the idea, which came to her, that, +normally to human predilections, she ought to have given--ought now to +give--a sentimental thought to memories of the Sultana years. Well, +she did not. Funny! Yes, it was funny. As she sometimes thought of her +mother and of all her home ties; of Miss Salmon and that cry of hers of +never being able to find another lover; of Keggo now so seldom seen +and known to be going from bad to worse,--so with memories of Crocodile +Corner and the Sultana’s, she could see and appreciate the call of all +these attachments, but somehow, seeing and appreciating, did not respond +to them. What a very curious attitude! It was not unfeeling for she +could feel. It was not insensibility for she was sensitive to such +things. Sensitive! No, a better word than that. She was in such matters +sensible. She saw, as one should see, these things in their right +perspective. They were touching (as of her mother) or they were sad (as +of Keggo) or they were appealing (as the happy schoolgirl memories) +but they must not touch or sadden or appeal too closely. They must be +estimated in their degree and in their place; they must not be assumed, +be shouldered, be permitted to cumber. No good could be done to them by +encumbrance with them. That was the point. What good could it do them? +No good. Yes, that was sensible. + +She abated, in these thoughts, nothing of the eagerness with which she +was living this great day--the day whose points of suspension (on +which it tumultuously revolved) were the taking over of the significant +apartment from which she had just come and the entering upon the +significant invitation to which now her feet were taking her. These +thoughts, this analysis of her attitude to sentimental appeals, she +tossed upon her eager happiness that was her being as an airball tossed +upon laughing breath that yet is used, breathing, to support life. And +she was aware that this was so. And she enjoyed a flash of approval of +herself that it could be so; it was admirable, it was sensible, thus +to be able to detach and look upon a portion of her mind while her main +mind deflected not a shade from its occupation with the main chance. +That faculty was perhaps the secret of her success, the quality, that, +in exercise, had brought her to the significant apartment and to the +significant invitation. + +She was at the gate of Mr. Sturgiss’s house and she most happily passed +up the short drive, ascended the steps and rang the bell. + +Mr. Sturgiss’s house was almost on the summit of Shoot Up Hill. It was +one of those houses standing a few miles along the main thoroughfares +out of London that, now in decay or displaced by busy shops, packed +villas, or monstrous flats, were then the distinctly impressive +residences of distinctly well-to-do business people. Mr. Sturgiss was +a distinctly well-to-do business person. The house, double-fronted, had +that third sitting-room which confers such an immense superiority over +houses of but two sitting-rooms--“Such a convenience in so many ways” + as those newly promoted from two to three nowadays remark with +languid triumph to visitors still immured in two. Houses--new, two +sitting-roomed houses--extended beyond it and around it, and now stretch +miles beyond and about, but Mrs. Sturgiss told Rosalie that when they +first came there they actually had cows grazing and horses ploughing in +fields adjoining their garden. + +Mrs. Sturgiss told Rosalie this while personally attending Rosalie’s +removal of her hat (it was “no hat”; Rosalie felt so glad she had come +dressed for either indication) and Mrs. Sturgiss sighed pleasantly as +she said it. “Things are going ahead at such a pace now!” said Mrs. +Sturgiss. “It’s all very different from what it used to be. Why, the +very fact of your coming here, not as my guest but as my husband’s, ‘on +business!’ The idea of women being in business, or even knowing anything +about business, when I was a girl, why, I can’t tell you how, how +positively shocking it would have been considered.” + +Rosalie laughed. She liked Mrs. Sturgiss, who was motherly and seemed to +have her own dear mother’s gentle ways--this personally attending her in +her bedroom, for instance. “Oh, there are getting to be heaps of women +in business now, Mrs. Sturgiss,” she smiled. + +Mrs. Sturgiss returned brightly, “Oh, I know it. I know it well.” She +paused and her voice had a thoughtful note. “But even then.... Use the +long mirror, my dear; the light is better. Even then, there can be few +as,--as much in it as you. You know, my husband has an immense idea of +your abilities. He has spoken of you so much. Do you know, you are +a great surprise to me, now I see you. I could only imagine from all +John’s idea of you a rather terrible looking blue-stocking, as we used +to call the clever women.” She came and stood by Rosalie, regarding the +image in the glass that Rosalie regarded. She said simply, “But you are +beautiful.” + +A very odd feeling, akin to tears--but for what on earth +tears?--quickened in Rosalie. She turned sharply from the mirror. “I am +quite ready now.” She pretended she had not heard. + +Mrs. Sturgiss said, “My dear, do you like it, being what you are?” + +It was a great rescue for Rosalie to be able to spring away from that +odd feeling (in her bosom and in her throat) by swift animation. “Oh, +I love it. I simply love it. It is everything to me, everything in the +world!” + +Mrs. Sturgiss opened the door. “No, you go first, my dear. But if I had +had a dear girl, such as you, I would have wished her to stay with me at +home.” + +She had made with her hand the gesture of her wish that Rosalie should +precede her from the room. Rosalie impulsively touched the extended +fingers. “But, Mrs. Sturgiss, don’t you see, that’s just it, the +idea there is now. If you had had a daughter and she had stayed at +home--well, let that go, while you were with her. But when you died and +left her, what would there be--don’t you see it?--what would there be +for her then?” + +Mrs. Sturgiss pressed the warm young hand. “But I would have left her +married, a dear wife and a dear mother.” + +“Oh, that!” cried Rosalie and her stronger personality carried off the +exchanges in a laugh. Mrs. Sturgiss thought the expression and the tone +meant, happily, that marriage might happen to any one, in the market as +much as in the home. Rosalie, with all the fierce contempt that her +“Oh, that!” conveyed to her secret self, was ridden strongly away from +emotionalism in the conversation. Her thought as they went downstairs +was, “If I were to instruct her in the cat-men! Her horror!” + +There was downstairs a surprise that was very annoying, but that +was made to produce compensations. An unexpected fourth person, +presuming--so Rosalie was given to understand--on a long standing, +indefinite invitation, had dropped in to dinner. She recognised him +directly they entered the drawing-room and could not stop the emblem of +a swift vexation about her mouth and in her eyes. He caught it, she +was sure; and she hoped he did. It was Harry Occleve--Laetitia’s futile +slave! He had already informed his host that he knew her. She greeted +him with a mere touch of her hand, a touch made cold by intent, and with +“With a free evening off one would have expected you would spend it with +Laetitia,” said disdainfully. It was a rude and inept thing to say (in +the tone she said it) for the feeble creature, as she stigmatised him, +had not yet screwed his fatuous idolatry to the point of proposal of +marriage. But she intended it to be rude and to discomfort him and she +was glad to see some twinge at the flick pass across his face. She hated +his presence there. The presence of any man, in the capacity of a monkey +to entertain and to be entertained, was always, not to put too fine a +point upon it, repulsive to her. This man was of all men obnoxious +to her. When he approached her for their brief greeting (she turned +instantly away at its conclusion) she savoured immediately that odd, +nice smell there was about him, of mingled soap and peat and fresh +tobacco smoke and tweed; and that annoyed her. It was a reminder, +emanated from him and therefore not to be escaped, of a distinction he +had different from, and above common men. She always granted him +his distinction of looks, of air, of talent. It was why she so much +disdained him. To be dowered so well and so fatuously to betray his +dowry! Tame cat! + +But she made him, through the meal, pay compensations for his presence. +At the table of Aunt Belle, in his presence she was accustomed to sit +largely silent. Beautiful Laetitia was there the star; and while he +mouthed and languished in that star’s rays Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke, +(stealing about him to capture him as a farmer and his wife with mincing +steps and tempting morsel towards a fatted calf) fawned, flattered and +deferred to him, he returning it. There was no place for her, and she +would have shuddered to have held a place, in that society for mutual +admiration. She sat apart. She was very much the poor relation (Aunt +Belle could not comprehend her business success and Uncle Pyke would not +admit it) and especially odious to her was the Occleve’s polite interest +in her direction when Aunt Belle, poor-relationing her, would turn to +her from coquettish raillery of him with, “Dear child, you’re eating +nothing.” He would smile towards her and, fatuously anxious to please, +offer some remark that might draw her into the conversation. She never +would be so drawn. She scarcely ever exchanged words with him. She made +herself to be unconscious of his presence. He was so occupied with his +adoration of Laetitia that to be insensible of his presence was easy. +When sometimes she glanced towards him it was with the thought, “Fancy +being one of the rising young men at the Bar, being the rising young +man--the Bar, with silk and ermine and, why not? the Woolsack before +you--and being that, doing that! Fatted calf; dilly, dilly, come and be +killed, goose; tame cat!” + +Here, at the table of Mr. Sturgiss, it was very different. Intolerable +that he should be here, but she was able to make him provide her +compensation for his presumption. For the first time in her life, she +found herself with sufficient interest in a man to enjoy, nay, to seek, +a triumph over him. And she had that triumph. She was as certain as that +she sat there that Mr. Sturgiss, in the period before her arrival in +the drawing-room, had been telling him of her abilities and of his high +regard for her. There was an interest in his look at her across the +table that assured her he had been informed. There was, much more, a +conviction within her, from Mr. Sturgiss’s manner and from his choice of +subjects--confined almost entirely and to the absolute exclusion of Mrs. +Sturgiss to the political situation and to markets, exchanges and the +general tendency in the City--and particularly from the openings in +these subjects with which continuously he presented her--a conviction +arising out of these that Mr. Sturgiss, proud of her, of his discovery +of her, was bent upon showing her off to his second guest, bent upon +proving to his second guest what unquestionably he had said to him about +her. + +She most admirably responded. If she were indeed the subject of a +challenge she most admirably flattered her backer. She is not to be +imagined as a pundit excavating from within herself slabs of profound +wisdom, nor yet as a pupil astoundingly instructing her masters, nor +even as one of Mrs. Sturgiss’s blue stockings, packed with surprising +lore. Rosalie was nothing so foolishly impossible, but she displayed +herself knowledgeable. She was profoundly interested in the matters +under notice and therefore (for it follows) she was interesting in +her contributions to them; she was fascinated--the old fascination of +“Lombard Street” and of “The English Constitution” now intensified as +desire intensifies by gratification--and therefore she fascinated; she +was never silly--Rosalie could not be silly--but she was frequently in +her remarks ingenuous, but her ingenuousness, causing Mr. Sturgiss +more than once to laugh delightedly (Occleve, curiously grave, no doubt +because surprised, did not laugh) was born out of a shrewd touch towards +the heart of the matter, as the best schoolboy howlers are never the +work of the dullard but of him that has perceptions. Of her in her +childhood it has been said that she was never the wonder-child of +fiction who at ten has read all that its author probably had not read at +thirty. So now of her budding maturity she was not the wonder-woman of +fiction, causing by her brilliance her hearers, like Cortez’s men, to +stare at each other with a wild surmise. No, nothing so unlikely. But +she was intelligent and she was ardent; and there are not boundaries to +the distance one may go with that equipment. She was admirable and +she felt that she was effective. She had a consciousness of confidence +amounting almost to a feeling of being tuned up and now let go; to a +feeling of power, as of inspiration. And this strange animation that she +had, came, she knew, from the triumph over that man, from the feeling, +stated grimly, that she was giving him one. + +It is much more important, all that, than, when it came, the great +reason of the great invitation that had brought Rosalie to take part in +it. The great reason already has been disclosed--Mr. Sturgiss, bending +across the tablecloth, they two left alone, “Well, look here--to come +to the point--the reason why I’ve got you up here tonight--it’s this: +we want you--Field and Company, the Bank,--we want you to come to us--we +want you in Lombard Street.” + +She was beautiful to see in her proud happiness at that. Startled and +tremulous, she was; like some lovely fawn burst from thicket and at +breathless poise upon the crest of unsuspected pastures; within her +eyes the cloud of dreams passing like veils upon the gleam of her first +ecstasy; upon her face, shadowed as she sinks somewhat back, the tide +of colour (her rosy joy) flooding above her sudden pallor; her lips +slightly parted; her hand that had been plucking at the cloth caught to +her bosom where her heart had leapt. + +It may be left at that. It is enough; too much. What, in the +reconstruction of a life, are, in retrospect, its triumphs but empty +shards, drained and discarded, the litter of a picnic party that has fed +and passed along? + +Mr. Sturgiss bent farther across the tablecloth, expanding his proposal: +She knew, said he, what he represented, what the firm was. Field and +Company. A private bank. Well, the days of private banks were drawing +in. These huge joint-stock leviathans swallowing them up like pike among +the troutlings. But not swallowing up Field and Company! Not much! +If the old private houses were tumbling into the joint-stock maw, the +greater the chances for those that stood out and remained. The private +banks were tumbling in because they stood rooted in the old, solid, +stolid banking business and the leviathans came along and pounced while +they dozed. There was no dozing at Field’s. They were very much awake. +They were enterprising. + +“Look at this very matter between us. The idea of bringing a woman into +a bank! Even old Field himself was startled at first. Why? In America, +women are entering banking seriously and successfully. They’re going to +in England. At Field’s. You.” He wasn’t proposing to bring her in for +fun or for a chance that might turn up, like the man who picked up a dog +biscuit from the road on the chance that some one would give him a +dog before it got mildewed; no, he was bringing her in to develop an +enterprise that should be the parent of other and greater enterprises. +Her knowledge of insurance, her knowledge of schools, these, with +her sex, on the one side of the counter and all their clients--the +Anglo-Indian crowd who were the backbone of the business--on the other +side of the counter. Field’s, for cash, and, while it was drawing, for +advice, was always the first port of call of the wives and the mothers +home from India, to say nothing of the husbands and the fathers,--“well, +Field’s, you, shall be the fount of all that domestic advice that +is just what all those people, cut off from home, are constantly and +distractingly in need of.” She didn’t suppose, as it was, that Field’s +did no more, for them than bank their money? Field’s were their agents. +Field’s saw that they booked their passages, and that their baggage got +aboard; and when they arrived this end or the other, or when they broke +their journeys coming or going, Field’s representatives were there to +meet them and take over all their baggage troubles for them. “Very well. +Now Field’s--you--are going to look after their domestic troubles for +them--find them rooms, find them houses, find them schools for their +children. When people know what we can do for them, people will come to +us to bank with us because we can do it. When people come to us to bank +with us--we go ahead.” + +Mr. Sturgiss ended and drew back and looked at her. He lit a cigarette +and took a sip at his coffee. “We thought of offering you three--” he +set down his cup and looked at her again--“four hundred a year.” + +She declined the post. She was girlish, and delighted him, in her +expression of her enormous sense of the compliment he paid her; she was +a woman of uncommon purposefulness, and increased his admiration for her +by the directness and decision with which uncompromisingly she said him +no. She owed a loyalty which she could never fully pay to Simcox’s, to +Mr. Simcox; that was the beginning and the end of her refusal. Simcox’s +was her own, her idea, her child that daily she saw growing and that +daily absorbed her more: that was the material that filled in and +stiffened out the joints of her refusal. “But if you knew how proud I +am, Mr. Sturgiss! You don’t mind my refusing?” + +He laughed and rose to take her to the drawing-room. “I don’t mind a +bit. This is only what they call preliminary overtures. I shall ask you +again. We mean to have you.” + +Between the two rooms he said, “Yes, mean to. It’s a big thing. I’m +certain of it. We shall keep it open for you. We shan’t fill it.” He put +his hand on the drawing-room door and opened it. “We can’t.” + +She went in radiant. + +She was on the red bus again, going home. She had stayed but the +briefest time after dinner. She was too elevated, too buoyant, too +possessed possibly to remain in company; excitedly desirous to be alone +with her excited thoughts,--especially to be alone with them in that +significant apartment of hers. Significant! Why upon the very day of +entering it had come this most triumphant sign of its significance! +Significant!... + +She had a front seat on the outside of the omnibus. She gazed before +her along a path of night that the lamps jewelled in chains of gold, +and streamed along it her tumultuous thoughts, terrible as an army with +banners. It was very strange, and it vexed her, robbing her of her proud +consciousness of them, that there obtruded among them, as one plucking +at her skirt--as captain of them she rode before them--the figure of +Laetitia’s Harry. Similarly he had obtruded and been like to spoil the +pleasure of her visit; but he had been made to provide compensations and +he obtruded now only in rebirth of a passage with him that, rehearsed +again, much pleased her even while, annoyed, she cut him down. + +Taking her leave, she had been seen from the threshold by Mr. Sturgiss +and by Laetitia’s Harry. It was pitchy dark, emerging from the +brightness of the interior, and he had stepped with her to conduct her +to the gate. “It was an extraordinary coincidence, meeting you here,” he +had said. + +She did not reply. His voice was most strangely grave for an observation +so trite; he might have been speaking some deeply meditated thing, +profound, heavy with meaning, charged with fate. Fatuous! It was +extraordinary that there was not an action of his but aroused her +animosity. This vibrant gravity of tone--an organ used for a jig, just +as his gifts were used for his Laetitia moon-calfings--caused newly a +disturbance within her against him. She would have liked to whistle or +in some equal way to express indifference to his presence. + +They were at the gate and he stooped to the latch and appeared to have +some trouble with it. “Sturgiss has been telling me what a wonderful +person you are.” + +Again that immense gravity of tone. She was astonished at the sudden +surge of her animosity that it caused within her. She had desired to +express indifference. She desired now to assail. She made a sneer of her +voice. “I should have thought you had ears for the wonder of no one but +Laetitia.” + +“Why do you say that?” + +She felt her lip curl with her malevolence. “To see you raise your eyes +and hear you breathe ‘Ah, Laetitia!’” + +He opened the gate and she passed out, tingling. + +It astounded her to find herself a hundred yards gone from the house, +nay, now upon the bus a mile and more away, recalling it, trembling +and with her breath quickened. It was as if she had been engaged in a +contest of wills, very fierce; nay, in a contest physical, a wrestling. +She had not known, she told herself, that it was possible to hate so. +That man! These men! She put her eye upon the bus driver, strapped on +his perch so near to her that she could have touched him, and absurdly +in her repugnance of his sex hated him and shrank farther away from him. + +It was enormously, sickeningly real to her, her repugnance. Even on +detached consideration of her ridiculous shrinking from the bus driver +she could not have laughed at it. People who had an uncontrollable +antipathy to cats did not laugh at the grotesque puerilities to which it +carried them. Nor she at her antipathy. “Of course they’re beasts.” + Yes, the right word! It was the beastliness of sex that bottomed her +loathing. + +She could not have laughed; but she could and did with a conscious +intention of her will put that intruder on her animation finally out of +her mind. This very joyous uplifting of her spirit, was it not because, +in this world dominated by men, based for its fundamental principle upon +play of sex as commerce is based upon the principle of barter, she +was assured of position, of privilege, and of power that raised her +independent of such conventions and such laws? + +She was her own! All her proud joys, her glad imaginings, her delighted +hopes, arose amain and anew, tuned to this cumulative paean as a nourish +of trumpets at the climax of a proclamation. She was intoxicated on her +happiness. + +They were come to the lighted shops and the crowded pavements. The bus +drew up at the thronged corner adjacent to the divigation of the Harrow +Road and she leaned over and watched the scene, smilingly (for sheer +happiness) looking down upon it, as smilingly (for her triumphant +altitude) she felt that she looked down upon the world. She would not +have changed place with any life living or that could be lived; she was +so much abandoned to her happiness that she made the intention she would +sit up in her significant apartment all that night, not to lose a moment +of it. She grudged that even sleep upon her happiness should intrude. + +There came one in the traffic beneath her that caught her attention: a +woman whom people stood aside to let pass and turned to look upon with +grins; two or three urchins danced about the woman, pointing at her and +calling at her. Her dress was disordered, muddy all up one side as if +she had fallen; her face flushed; her hat awry; her hair escaped and +wisped about her eyes and on her shoulders. She was drunk. An obscene +and horrible spectacle, the mock of her beholders. A horrible woman. + +It was Keggo. + +Rosalie caught her breath. She made to rise but did not rise. Keggo +stopped and lifted all around a vacant gaze. Her eyes met Rosalie’s +straight above her. She lurched a step and stopped and swayed and looked +again, battling perhaps with hints within her fumy brain of recognition. +Rosalie made again to rise to go to her and again did not rise. The bus +moved forward. That wretched woman, making as if to pursue her aroused +be-fuddlement, turned about to follow and came a few steps, lurching +like a ship that foundered. The light blazed down upon her upturned +face. She lurched into some shadow and, as wreckage swallowed up in the +trough of the sea, her face was gone. + +Lurching... as a ship... that foundered. There was in Rosalie’s mind +some dim memory struggling. Lurching... as a ship... in the darkness... +in the night. And her face... seen and gone... as a ship... labouring... +as a ship... + +Ah! + +Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing; Only a +signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness. + +It came to Rosalie complete and word for word; and with perfect +clearness, as though she saw and sensed them, all its attendant +circumstances: the attic room at the Sultana’s, the strange smell +mingled with the smell of the oil lamp, Keggo in the wicker chair, she +beside her, her head against Keggo’s knee; and Keggo’s voice reciting +the lines and her young, protesting, loving cry, “O Keggo!” + +She saw it, sensed it, heard it--and stonily regarded it. A thing to +weep at, she knew it; but did not weep. A thing to stab her, it ought +to; but did not stab. What good could she do? Suppose she had got up +and gone down; suppose she now got up and went down and went back? What +good? All sentimentality that. Be sensible! If a thousand pounds would +do Keggo any good, and if she had a thousand pounds, freely and gladly +she would give the last penny of it. But to get down, to have got down, +what could she have done? Why should she worry about her? Keggo had had +her chance. Everybody had their chance. She now had hers. Why should +she... + +She never saw Keggo again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +She had not good health in the week immediately following that great +day. She did not feel well. She did not look very well. Mr. Simcox, +profoundly sympathetic to every mood of her who was at once his protege +and his support, told her he thought she had been overdoing it. She +seized upon that excuse and tried to persuade herself that perhaps she +had; or, which amounted to the same thing, that she was suffering +from the revulsion of those huge excitements. But she did not persuade +herself. Her malaise, whatever it was, was not of that kind. Its +manifestations were not in lassitude or sense of disability. They +were in a curious dis-ease whose occasion was not to be defined; in a +consuming restlessness beneath whose goad even the significant apartment +had not power to charm and hold her; in a certain feverishness whose +exsiccative heat, leaving her palms and temples cool (she sometimes felt +them and had surprise) caused inwardly a dry burning that made her long +for quiet places. + +She could not settle to anything. Her limbs, and they had their way, +desired not to rest; her mind, and it deposed her captaincy, would cast +no anchor. + +Mr. Simcox, as the week drew on, suggested a weekend at home. It had +occurred to her, very attractively, but she had negatived it. Aunt Belle +(before the idea had come to her) had written an invitation to one of +the Saturday dinners in which she had “most particularly, my dear child” + desired her presence. Something most delightful was going to happen and +she must be there. She had accepted and she later told herself she +did not like to refuse. She knew, instantly as she read, what was the +identity of this delightful thing that was to happen and she decided, +with a sharp turn within her of some emotion, that certainly she would +be there. To whet her scorn! She was thereafter much aggravated that her +drifting mind, against her wish, swayed constantly towards it sometimes +with that same sharp turn of that same emotion (nameless to her and +without meaning) always with aggravation of her restlessness, of +her fever, of her dis-ease. When came Mr. Simcox’s suggestion of the +week-end at home she decided, as swiftly as she had first accepted, to +revoke her acceptance. She would not be there! She would not--waste her +scorn! + +Impatient for movement, she that evening went to the splendid house +in Pilchester Square to tell her withdrawal. This most exasperating +dis-ease of hers! Now that she was come to change her mind she did not +want to change her mind. It was like going to the dentist with an +aching tooth. On his doorstep the tooth does not ache. Her governance of +herself was by her malaise so shaken that positively, as she came +into Aunt Belle’s presence, she did not know whether she was going to +withdraw or to confirm her acceptance of the invitation. + +Most comfortingly, Aunt Belle saved her the decision. “My dear child! +How unexpected! How opportune! I was just writing to you. Our little +dinner is put off! Sit here while I tell you. Now would you like +anything, dear child? A piece of cake? Some nice fruit? To please +me. Really, no? Well, now; our dinner that I so especially wanted you +for--did you guess?” + +She began to tell. + +She told what Rosalie had perfectly well known. The delightful thing +expected to happen was Harry Occleve’s proposal of marriage to darling +Laetitia. There had been certain signs and portents. They had come at +last. Their meaning was perfectly clear. There was not the least doubt +that at the next meeting Harry would ask Laetitia’s hand. Not the shadow +of a doubt! Aunt Belle knew all the signs! Every woman of Aunt Belle’s +experience knew them, dear child. So Harry had been asked for this +dinner; a meaningly written letter, dear child, to encourage him, the +dear, poor fellow! And had accepted, in terms so meaning too, the dear, +devoted fellow. Then-- + +“But, Aunt Belle--” + +“Listen, dear child. Then he suddenly wrote saying he found he had made +a mistake--” + +“Made a mistake!” The words went out from Rosalie in a small cry. + +“Dear child, it is nothing. How sweet to be so concerned! It is nothing, +it is the best of signs. Made a mistake that he was disengaged for +Saturday. The dear, devoted fellow was so absurdly vague about it. +Unavoidable circumstances prevented him; that was all; his writing and +all the appearance of his letter so delightfully distracted! How amused +we were, your Uncle Pyke and I! How amused, and how we felt for the +dear, devoted fellow! Screwing up his courage! How we remembered our own +courtship! You should hear your Uncle Pyke tell how he had to screw up +his courage to propose to me and how many times it failed him and he +fled. Dear, child, you’ve no idea how ridiculous these poor men are in +their love! How timorous! How they suffer! The dear, poor fellows. Your +Uncle Pyke wrote him at once a most kind and meaning letter--accepting +his unforeseen circumstances (he had to, of course) and positively +fixing him for Monday instead. ‘Laetitia is expecting you,’ your Uncle +Pyke wrote. The dear fellow! How happy it will make him! So it is +Monday, dear child. Monday, instead. We do so want you to be there. I +do so want you, and so does my darling, to be the first to congratulate +her. And you shall be a bridesmaid! Won’t that be nice? Kiss me, dear +child. I shall never forget your sweet concern before I told you his +excuse meant nothing. Dear child, you look startled yet.” + +There was only a faint voice that came to Rosalie’s lips. “Really +nothing, Aunt Belle?” + +“Dear child, nothing at all.” + +She went down to the Rectory on Saturday and found herself more glad +to be there and to be with her mother than she had ever been. When she +greeted her mother, “Kiss me again, dear, small mother,” she cried +and put her cheek against her mother’s and held it there some moments, +rather fiercely and with her eyes closed, as though there were in +that contact some febrifuge that abated her inward fever, some mooring +whereto, adrift, her mind made fast. + +What beset her? What was the matter with her? What worked within her? +Feverishly she inquired of herself, seeking to analyse her case; but she +could by no means inform herself; her case was not within what diagnosis +she could summon. What? Near as she could get she had the feeling, nay, +the wild longing, to get out: out of what? She did not know. To get +away: away from what? She could not say. + +She found in herself a great and an unusual tenderness towards the home +life. Only her mother and her father were now at home. Harold was at +a branch of his bank in Shanghai. Robert was in Canada. Flora was +in India, married, with two small children. Hilda was in Devonshire, +married to a doctor. These things had happened, these flights been +winged, and she had taken but the smallest interest in them. She had had +her own af-fairs. She had had herself to think of. She had lost touch +with her brothers and sisters. She scarcely ever thought about them. Now +she wanted very much to hear about them. What news of them was there? +How were they getting on? She did want--she could fix that much of her +state, or it presented a relief for her state--she did want to feel that +she belonged to them and they to her. She noticed with a large whelming +of pity how very small her mother seemed to have grown She was always +small, but now--much smaller, fallen in, very fragile. She noticed with +a quick pang how all her father’s violent blackness of hair, and violent +red of colouring, and violent glint of eye and violent energy of gesture +were faded, greyed, dimmed, devitalized to a hue and to an air that was +all one and lustreless, as if he had gone in a pond covered, not with +duckweed but with lichen, and had come out, not dripping, but limp and +shrouded head to foot in scaly grey. Was it possible that all this had +been so when she was last here? She had not noticed it. She noticed that +both her dear mother and her father walked on the flat soles of their +feet, and touched articles of furniture as they trod, heavily, across +the room. A most frightful tenderness towards them possessed her. She +wanted like anything to show them devotion and, most frightfully, to +receive from them signs of devotion to her--to be able to feel she was +theirs, and they hers. She wanted it terribly. + +But what else did she want? What? They gave her, all the home talk, but +soon it flagged and whatever in her desired satisfaction still gnawed +within her and was unsatisfied; she ministered to them and they were +pleased but they seemed very quickly tired; they had their accustomed +hours and habits, and whatever it was in her that found relief in +solicitude still tossed within her and was not relieved. What beset her? +What? + +Monday came. She was at this dinner, this festival for the consummation +and celebration of the betrothal of beautiful Laetitia and Laetitia’s +darling Harry. That sick dis-ease of hers had wonderfully vanished when +she came into the house, when she was hugged fit to crack her to Aunt +Belle’s bosom with “Dear child! Dear child! He’s just arrived! He’s with +your uncle downstairs. Look at Laetitia! Lovely! Isn’t she lovely? +Kiss me again, again, dear child!” When she was floated to by Laetitia, +exquisitely arrayed, pink and white, doll-faced, doll-headed, squeaking +with coquettish glee, “Rosalie! Darling! Isn’t this awful? Imagine it +for me, Rosalie! It oughtn’t to have been planned like this, ought it? +Do tell darling mamma it ought not to have been! I’m trembling. Wouldn’t +you be?” + +Yes, gone that sick dis-ease. How at this spectacle suffer dis-ease, +or any other disturbance of the emotions save only disgust, contempt at +such a horrid preparation for such a horrid rite. Excited responsiveness +to their most friendly excitation was not needed in her for it was not +expected. “The shy, quiet thing you always are, dear child,” Aunt Belle +often used to say to her and said now. (And within the week was to beat +her breast in that same drawing-room and cry with an exceeding bitter +cry, “Shy! We thought her shy! Sly! Sly! Sly to the tips of her fingers, +the wicked girl!”) + +So she need respond with no more than her normal quiet smile, her normal +tone, in their presence, of poor-relation deference and awe. So behind +that mask could curl her lip and shudder in the refinements of her views +at this most horrid preparation for this most horrid rite. And did. That +dis-ease strangely fled, there came to her the swift belief that +here, and she had not known it!--was that dis-ease’s cause. It was the +anticipation of this exhibition of all the things she hated most, of the +most glaring presentiment of outrage of all her strongest principles. +This Laetitia, embodiment of useless woman-hood, launching herself on +that disgusting dependence on a man that soon would strand her among the +derelicts; and that Laetitia’s Harry, that might have been a man among +men, coming to the apotheosis of his languishing to--oh, wreathed, +fatted calf with gilded horns! + +Yes, it was this had vexed her so; and suddenly informed of the seat of +her injury she turned upon it disgust and scorn such as never before had +she felt (and she, had felt it always) for the whole order of things for +which it stood. She felt her very blood run acid, causing her to twist, +in her acid contempt for the subservience of women, and most of all for +that Laetitia’s subservience, floated on that ghastly coquetry like a +shifting cargo that in the first gale will capsize the ship; she felt +her very temples throb, and almost thought they must be heard, in her +fierce detestation of all the masculinity of men and most of all--yes, +with a flash of eye she could not stay and hoped that he could see--that +fatuous Harry’s masculinity. + +He came into the room--looked pale--poor calf!--and went, with a nervous +halt in his walk--sick fool!--to his Laetitia; and looked across at +Rosalie and made a half-step to her; and she thought with all her force, +to send it to him, her last words to him: that most malevolent, “to see +you raise your eyes and hear you breathe, ‘Ah, Laetitia’”; and surely +sent it, for on that half-step towards her he stopped, hesitated, and +turned and engaged Laetitia again. + +She had told herself, leaving the Sturgiss’s house that night a week +ago, that she had not believed it possible to hate a man so. Now! Why +that was not hate; that, compared with the inimity that now consumed +her, was a mere chill indifference. And it had made her tremble! She was +rigid now. Stiff with hate! He personified for her all in life against +which she was in rebellion, all in life that her soul abhorred; and +while, in the moments before dinner, grunting Uncle Pyke and rallying +Aunt Belle and coquetting Laetitia crowded about him, leaving her alone +and far apart, she, for the reason that it gave to her hate, and for the +example that stood before her eyes, reviewed again her theories of life +and again pledged herself in their support.... + +“Dinner is served.” That group went laughing to the door, she followed. +“No, no, my boy. Don’t stand on ceremony. Pass along as we come. Why, +hang it, man, we regard you as one of the family! Ha! ha! haw!” Down +the stairs in a body, she following. There is, from their conversation, +something the wreathed calf is to get from his coat to bring to show +them, a letter or a token or something. The dining-room is to the front +on the ground floor. The coats hang in the hall, a narrow passage there, +that runs back to Uncle Pyke’s study. They are down. “Shall I get it +now?” “Yes, bring it along; bring it along, my boy.” “And Rosalie” (Aunt +Belle), “my fan, dear child. Dear child, I left it on the table in Uncle +Pyke’s den. You will? Dear child!” + +They pass in. The gilded calf turns from them for what it is he is to +fetch from his coat; she slips by him to the study and takes up the fan +and comes with it again. + +It is dim in the passage. A condition on which generous Uncle Pyke years +before installed this wonderful electric light that you flick on and +flick off as you require it was that it should always be flicked off +when you did not require it. Now as Rosalie came from the study the +passage was lit only by the shaft of light that gleamed from the +dining-room door; its only sound Aunt Belle’s noisy chatter from the +waiting table. + +He was fumbling at the coats, standing there sharply outlined against +the stream of light, his face cut on it in a perfect silhouette. She +had to pass him. That hateful he. She was seized with a fit of that same +trembling that had shaken her after the passage between them at the gate +on Shoot Up Hill. It shook her now, dreadfully. Her knees trembled. She +felt faint. Awful to hate so! She was quite close, almost touching him. +It was necessary he should move, forward or back, to give her room. But +he did not move. His hands, outstretched before him on the coats, and +sharp against the light, appeared to her to be shaking; but that was the +hallucination of this frightful trembling that possessed her. She tried +to say, “If you please--,” but, dreadfully, had no voice; but made some +sound; and he, most slowly, drew back. It was before him that she had to +pass. + +She advanced; and felt, as if she saw it, the intensity of the gaze of +his eyes upon her; and saw, as if the place were light and her look not +averted, his “marching” face and those lines radiating to his temples +(horizon tracks) where the faint touch of greyness was; and suddenly had +upon her senses, with an extraordinary pungency, causing them to swim, +that odd, nice smell there was about him of mingled peat and soap and +fresh tobacco, of tweed and heather and the sea. + +She caught her breath... + +The thing’s too poignant for the words a man has. + +She was caught in his arms, terribly enfolding her. He was crying in +her ears, passionately, triumphantly, “Rosalie! Rosalie!” She was in his +arms. Those long, strong arms of his were round her; and she was caught +against his heart, her face upturned to his, his face against her own; +and she was swooning, falling through incredible spaces, drowning in +incredible seas, sinking through incredible blackness; and in her ears +his voice, coming to her in her extremity like the beat of a wing in the +night, like the first pulsing roll of music enormously remote, “Rosalie! +Rosalie!” + +The thing’s too poignant for the words one has. This girl’s extremity +was very great, not to be set in words. Words cannot bring to earth that +which, ethereal, defies our comprehension as life and death defy it and, +like life and death, to our comprehension only sublimely IS. Words only +can say her spirit, bursting from bondage, streamed up to cleave to his; +how tell the anguish, how the ecstasy? Words only can say her spirit, +like a live part of her drawn out of her, seemed to be rushing upwards +from her body to her lips; words cannot tell the anguish that was bliss, +the rapture that was pain. Only can say that she was in his arms, her +heart to his, his lips against her own, and cannot tell-- + +But also it is to be accounted to her for her extremity that herein all +her life’s habit was delivered over by her to betrayal. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +He was saying, “We must go in. Can you go in?” She breathed, “I can.” + +That dinner! That after-dinner in the drawing-room upstairs! It is a +nightmare to be imagined, not to be described. Imagine walking from the +darkness and the frightful secret of the passage into the blazing +dazzle and the glittering eyes of the resplendent dinner party! They, in +Harry’s absence, have been exchanging the last private nods and flashes. +“Soon! Soon!” they have been nodding to one another. Uncle Pyke, licking +his chops anticipatorily of his bath in his soup, has been licking them +also in relish of working off his daughter in this excellent match; +Aunt Belle, kind, kind Aunt Belle, with a last satisfied eye about the +appointments of the table, has patted her Laetitia’s hand and conveyed +to her, “Soon, soon, darling; soon, soon!” Beautiful Laetitia has given +a gentle, glad squeeze to the patting hand and smiled a lovely, happy, +certain smile. “Soon! Soon!” has gone the jolly signal--and it is not +going to be soon, nor late; it is never, never going to happen; and +worse than never happen! + +Worse than never happen! That’s it. That is the awful knowledge of awful +guilt with which Rosalie sits there and freezes in guilty agony at every +pause in the conversation and could scream to notice how the pauses +grow longer and longer, more frequent and more frequent yet. There’s +a frightful constraint, a chilly, creepy dreadfulness steals about +the party. They go upstairs--Aunt Belle and Rosalie and beautiful +Laetitia--and the constraint goes with them. They sit and stare and +hardly a word said. Something’s up! What’s up? What’s the matter with +everything? Why is everything hanging like this! What’s up? And the men +come in--Uncle Pyke swollen with food, swollen with indigestion, swollen +with baffled perplexity and ferocious irritation; and Harry--she dare +not look at Harry--and the thing is worse, the awfulness more awful. +Glances go shooting round the awful silences--Uncle Pyke’s atrabilious +eye in the burning fiery furnace of his swollen face is a stupendous +note of interrogation directed upon Aunt Belle; Aunt Belle’s eyebrows +arch to scalp and appear likely to disappear into her scalp and remain +there in the effort to express, “I don’t know! I can’t imagine!”; +Laetitia--Laetitia’s eyes upon her mother are as a spaniel’s upon one +devouring meat at table. + +Frightfulness more frightful, awfulness more awful; in Rosalie almost +now beyond control the desire to scream, or to burst into tears or +wildly into laughter. Then she knows herself upon her feet and hears +her voice: “Aunt Belle. I must go, I think. I think I am very tired +to-night.” + +They suffer her to go. + +That’s all a nightmare; but, when the door is closed upon them, like a +nightmare gone. She was alone upon the staircase and then down in the +hall--by those coats!--and, as though no ghastly interval had been, the +amazing and beloved moment was returned to her. Out of a nightmare into +a dream! She stood in her dream a moment--two moments--three--by +the hall door. Who till that evening never had thought of love, +astonishingly was invested with all love’s darling cunning. She felt +somehow he would see her again before she left; and love’s dear cunning +told her right. He came swiftly down the stairs. She never knew on what +pretext he had left the room. He came to her. Love loves these snatched +moments and always makes them snatched to breathlessness. She opened +the door and must be gone. She said to him, speaking first, “Oh, we were +vile in there! How vile we were!” + +It was, the intimacy and the abruptness of it, the perfect comprehension +that their thoughts were shared, as if they had known and loved for +years. + +He caught her hand. “My conspirator! My secret-sharer!” + +She gave him her heart in her eyes. + +He said, “To-morrow, I will come to you.” + +She disengaged her hand. + +He gave a swift look all about and caught her in his arms. “You must +tell me, my Rosalie. Tell me.” + +She breathed, “You knew, before I knew, that I loved you.” + +When she was home and got to her room she undressed, suffering her +clothes to lie as they slipped from her. She got into bed, moving there +and then lying there as one in trance. + +Cataclysm! All she had been, all she had determined--all, all gone; +all nothing, surrendered all. At a touch, in a moment, without a cry, +without a shot, without a stroke, all her life’s habit swept away. All +she had been, all she’d designed, all she had built within herself +and walled about herself, all she had scorned, all that with a violent +antipathy she had shuddered from or with curled lip spurned away,--all, +all betrayed, breached, mined, calamitously riven, tumultously sundered, +burst away. + +She turned her face to the pillow and began to cry--most frightfully. + +It was very terrible for Rosalie. + + + + +PART THREE--HOUSE OF CHILDREN + +CHAPTER I + + +There’s none so sick as, brought to bed, that robust he that ever +has scorned sickness; nor any sinner like a saint suddenly gone from +saintliness to sin; and there can be no love like love suddenly leapt +from repression into being. + +Rosalie, that had abhorred the very name of love, now finding love was +quite consumed by love. She loved him so! Even to herself she never +could express how tremendous a thing to her their love was. She used +deliberately to call it to her mind (as the new, rapt possessor of a +jewel going specially to the case to peep and gloat again) and when she +called it up like that, or when, in the midst of occupation, her +mind secretly opened a door and she turned and saw it there, a surge, +physically felt, passed through her, and she would nearly gasp, her +breath taken by this new, this rapturous element, as the bather’s at his +first plunge in the cold, the splendid sea. + +She loved him so! She looked at him with eyes, not of an inexperienced +girl blinded by love, but of one cynically familiar with the traits of +common men, intolerantly prejudiced, sharply susceptible to every note +or motion of displeasing quality; and her eyes told her heart, and what +is much more told her mind, that nothing but sheer perfection was here. +Harry was brilliantly talented, Harry was in face and form one that +took the eye among a hundred men. But she had known all that and freely +granted him all that before. What she found as she came to know him, and +when they were married what she continued to find, was simply, that he +was perfect. He was perfect in every way and there was no way in +which, inclining neither to the too much nor the too little, he was not +perfect. + +The labour of a catalogue of her Harry’s virtues is thus discounted. +Name a virtue in a man and it was Harry’s. Declare too much perfection +is as ill to live with as too much fault, and it is precisely just +before too much is reached that Harry’s dowry stopped. Suggest she was +blind to defects, and it is to be answered that there was no man who +knew him that ever had a thought against him (except Uncle Pyke, Colonel +Pyke Pounce, R.E., who, justifiably, was warned by his physician never +to think upon the monster lest apoplexy should supervene) nor any fellow +man in his profession (and that is the supreme test) that ever grudged +him his success. Disgruntled barristers, morosely brooding upon the fall +of plums into other mouths than theirs, always said, when it was Harry’s +mouth: “Ah, Occleve; yes, but he’s different. No one grudges Harry +Occleve what he gets.” + +Different! In Rosalie’s fond, fondest love for him she often used to hug +her love by making that catalogue of all his parts that has been shown +not to be necessary. And it was the little, tiny things wherein he +differed from common men that especially she cherished. By the deepest +part of her nature terribly susceptible to the grosser manifestations +of the male habit, it was extraordinarily wonderful and delicious to her +that Harry of these had none. In an age much given to easy freedom of +language it will not be appreciated, it perhaps will cause the pair +of them to be sneered at, but it demands mention as illuminating +a characteristic of hers (and of his), that she had, for instance, +especial delight in the fact that Harry never even swore. The impossible +test in the matter of self-command is when a man hits his thumb with +a hammer. What does a bishop say when he does that? But she saw Harry +catch his thumb a proper crack hanging a picture in the house they +took, and, “Mice and Mumps!” cried Harry, and dropped the hammer and +the picture, and jumped off the stepladder, and did a hop, and wrung his +hand, and laughed at her and wrung his hand and laughed again. “Mice and +Mumps!” + +“Mice and Mumps!” It always seemed to her to characterise and to +epitomise him, that grotesque expression. It always made her laugh; and +the more serious the accident or the dilemma that brought it to Harry’s +lips, the more, by pathos, one was forced to laugh and the seriousness +thereby dissipated into an affair not serious at all. Yes, that was the +point of it and the reason it epitomised him. There was none of life’s +dilemmas--little dilemmas that irritate ordinary people or in which +ordinary people display themselves pusillanimous; or tragic dilemmas +that find ordinary people wanting and leave them in vacillation and +despair--there was none of any sort that Harry, receiving with his +comic, “Mice and Mumps! Mice and Mumps, old girl!” did not receive with +the assurance to her that, though this was a nuisance, he had metal and +to spare to settle such; that, though this was a catastrophe, a facer, +he’d too much courage, too much high, brave spirit for it to discommode +him; there was no fight in such, he was captain of such, trust him! + +“One who never turned his back but marched breast forward.” + +That was Harry! + +“Mice and Mumps!” On the evening of the day following that astounding +betrothal of theirs, affianced as it were at a blow--a day spent +together in the park complete, without a break for food or thought of +occupation--on the evening of that day he must go, he de-clared, to the +horrific castle in Pilchester Square and break the awful news, proclaim +his villainy. + +She was terrified. “They’ll kill you, Harry. Write.” + +“No, no. I’ve been a howling cad. It’s true, a howling cad, not of +guile, but of these astounding things that have happened to us outside +ourselves, but nevertheless a howling cad as such conduct is judged, +and will be judged. So I must go through it. I must. That’s certain. I +couldn’t hide behind a letter. They are entitled to tell me to my face +what they think of me. They must have their right. Oh, yes, I’ve got to +give them that. To-night. Now.” + +A howling cad, but of forces outside themselves (“Too quick for me,” he +had explained), not of guile. + +He had explained, in those enchanted hours in the park, that it was +really by resolve to do the right thing, and not to do the caddish +thing, that he had presented himself the howling cad that they would +hold him. That night at the Sturgiss’s at Cricklewood had charged him +(“Oh, Rosalie, like bursting awake to breathe from suffocation in a +dream.”) what for many days, only looking at her, never speaking to +her, suffering her not veiled contempt, he had felt as one feels a +premonition that is insistent but that cannot be defined--that night +had charged him that he loved her. He was no way definitely committed +to poor Laetitia. Was he more wrong if, now knowing his heart was +otherwhere, he maintained and carried to its consummation the intimacy +between Laetitia and himself, or if he stopped while yet he had not gone +too far? He had decided to break while yet it might, be broken. There +was an invitation from Mrs. Pyke Pounce he had accepted. He wrote, +endeavouring to give a meaning to his words, excusing himself from it. + +She murmured, “I remember.” (“Nothing in it, dear child; nothing in +it!”) + +There came back a letter from Colonel Pyke Pounce in which Colonel Pyke +Pounce also had endeavoured to give a meaning to his words, and had +succeeded. Now Harry knew his problem of moral conduct in a fiercer +form; now, resolving to do what he told himself was the right thing and +not the caddish thing, he took the step that made him be the howling cad +that they would think him. (“But, Rosalie, gave me you!”) + +He had resolved that he must accept the invitation, present himself at +the house--and let the hour decide. As the situation revealed itself +so he would accept it. If it was made clear to him, as the Pyke Pounce +letter much gave him to believe, that proposal for Laetitia’s hand was +expected of him, he would “do the right thing” and stand by what his +behaviour apparently had led them to expect; if the way still seemed +open, the door not shut behind him, he would very frankly explain to +Laetitia’s grisly father that he thought it best his visits to the house +from now should cease. The hour should decide! But there was in the +hour, when it came, one terrible, one lovely element that he never had +expected to be there. In all his visits to the house Rosalie never had +been met on any other day than Saturday. This dinner was on the Monday, +and arriving to face and carry through his ordeal, he was startled, he +was utterly shaken to see her there. (“To see my darling there.”) + +O forces outside themselves! “When you had to pass me in the passage +nothing mattered then--except I could not let you pass.” + +So it was that now, the right thing not having been done on that night, +the right thing in this new position must be done to-day. They were +entitled to tell him to his face what they thought of him and they must +have their right. That was his view and he would not abate it. + +“They’ll kill you, Harry.” + +They had come by this to the corner of Pilchester Square and there he +bade her wait. She said again, part laughing, most in fear, “They’ll +kill you.” + +“I’ve got to give them the chance to do their best.” + +And off he went, strongly, erect. One who never... but marched breast +forward. + +Waiting for him, she really was terrified for him. Ferocious Uncle +Pyke! Terrific Aunt Belle! Swollen and infuriated Uncle Pyke! Bitter and +outraged Aunt Belle! + +In twenty minutes came the crash of a slammed front door that clearly +and terribly was Uncle Pyke Pounce slamming it as if he would hurl it +through its portals and crash it on to Harry down the steps. + +Harry reappeared, uncommonly grave. + +She put out a hand to him, dreadfully anxious. + +“Mice and Mumps!” said Harry. “Mice and Mumps!” + +You couldn’t help laughing! But also, squeezing the strong arm beneath +which he tucked her hand, you felt, with such a thrill, from that +grotesque expression, and from his face as he said it, that this, like +every forward thing, had in it nothing that could discommode that high, +brave spirit: no fight in such; he was captain of such, trust him! + +Thus also her delight in another form, and yet in the same form, in that +grotesque expression, when it was ejaculated as his sole expletive when +he caught his thumb that frightful crack while hanging a picture in what +was to be his study in their newly taken house. + +Any other man in the world, even a bishop, would have sworn; would have +sworn no doubt harmlessly and with an honest heartiness to which the +most pious prude could not have taken exception. Agreed! But the point +was--that Harry didn’t! + +She loved him so! She insisted she must bind up the thumb with her +pocket handkerchief, and did, Harry protesting; and for years, still +loving him with the old, first love, she often would be reminded by the +picture of the incident and of her joy in it. + +Yes, the only expletive she ever heard him use; and, lo, in that very +room, years on, he seated beneath that very picture, she was to come to +him with news (and hers the guilt of it) that for the first time was to +strike him between the joints of his harness, visibly ageing him as she +spoke, and for the first time cause him to groan his pain. She was +to glance at the picture as she spoke and very terribly its merry +association to be recalled to her. She was to recall him young, gay, +tremendously splendid, wringing his damaged hand, laughing, “Mice and +Mumps!” She was to see him, grey ascendant upon the raven of his hair, +shrinking down in his seat, wilting as one slowly collapsing after a +stunning blow, and at her news (and hers the guilt of it) to hear +his voice go, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one dazed, +bewildered, in a fog, “My God, my God, my God, my God!” + +How could one ever have foreseen that? + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +She loved him so! On that first day together in the park she told +him everything about herself, about all her ideas and theories and +principles, particularly where these touched his sex, even about that +terrible fit of crying of hers in bed an hour after she had left him. +And Harry understood everything and agreed with her in everything. O +rapturous affinity! + +They met early when business London was rushing to business. They stayed +late, with no thought of food or of their occupations, till business +London was returning, and night, in lamps below and stars above, was +setting out its sentinels. + +She told him everything; and even if she had wished not to open all her +heart, there would have been the immense selection of everything--every +single thing about herself--from which to choose to tell him. For there +never had been such a betrothal as theirs; done at a blow with no single +intimate thing ever before passed between them! Her very first words to +him as they met, her greeting of him as they came together, showed how +preposterous and never-before-imagined was their affiancement. “You +know, it’s incredible,” she greeted him. “It’s incredible, it’s +grotesque, it’s flatly impossible--I’ve never before seen you except in +your dress clothes or at afternoon tea!” + +Harry took both her hands in his. “But I think I’ve wanted you,” said +Harry, “ever since I was in long clothes. I know I’ve wanted you ever +since first I saw you.” + +One knows another, in her place, would have bantered this off in that +modern attitude towards love which is a horror, boisterously expressed, +of admitting love as an emotion. Rosalie, that had scorned the very name +of love, and that, because betrayed by love, had turned her face to her +pillow and cried most frightfully, received it with a sound that was +between a sigh and a catching of her breath. She loved him so! + +And then they talked; and the thing between them, that had come so +wonderfully, was so wonderful that they were as it were transfigured by +it, as awe and spirituality and mysticism would fill the dwellers in a +house visited by a miracle of God. So wonderful, that conversation, they +would have felt, was not possibly a word for all that occupied them in +those rapturous hours: not conversation, no,--a sublime engagement of +their spirits wherein (possessing the keys of all the wonders), seas, +continents and worlds of thoughts were traversed by them, in every clime +most exquisite affinity discovered. + +As at a blow they had become affianced, so, with no stage between, +but in immediate sequence perfectly natural to them both, the natural +repercussion of the blow, they talked immediately of betrothal’s +consummation, of marriage, of their marriage. + +About marriage Rosalie had immensely much to tell Harry. It was what she +had principally to say, and this is how and why and what she told him. + +When from her first terrible dismay--that frightful crying, her face +turned to the pillow--she had recovered; when to the lovely ardour of +her love--stealing about her, soothing her, in the night; bursting upon +her, ravishing her, in the morning--she had passed on; she remembered +her second line of her defences and she fell back upon it. “If ever I +fell in love,” she had often said, alike to Keggo and to Miss Salmon, +“if such an impossible thing ever were to happen to me, I’d marry as +marriage should be. I’d enter a partnership. I would live my life; he +would live his life; together, when we wanted to, when we were off duty, +so to speak, we would live our life. A partnership, a mutually free and +independent partnership.” + +The second line of her defences! Oh, strong and reassuring thought! Of +course, of course the first line, breached and swept away, had never +really mattered. Foolish to have wept for it! It was built against +love and she knew now, by her darling and her terrible experience, that +against love----! Nay, in that whelming admission’s very tide, sweeping +upon her from envisagement of Harry and bearing her deliciously upon its +flood, there had come a thought as strong with wine as that was sweet +with honey. Built against love! Why, in seeking to build against love, +to shut away love from her life, was she not perpetrating against +herself the very act--denial of anything a free life might have--that it +was her life’s first principle to oppose? A man’s place, a man’s part, +everything that a man by conventional dowry is given, hers should be as +freely as a man’s it is! That was her aim; that at once the basis of her +standpoint and the target of her shaft; and lo, at the very outset of +her independence, she had sought to deny herself that which (as now +she knew) was life’s most lovely gift. She was steadfast, and she was +caparisoned, to obtain and to possess the things that, of her sex, +commonly a woman might not have, and she was shutting herself from that +which, if it offers, not all the man-owned world can deny the woman +lowliest in office, heaviest in chains, deepest in servitude! + +O senselessness! She could see, as looking upon an individuality not her +own, that foolish girl that for such had turned her face to her pillow +and cried out her heart; and at that very moment, and no other, of +smiling pity for that mistaken grief, there came to Rosalie a sudden +sense of womanhood attained; of much increase of years and wisdom; of +growth of stature; of transportation, as from one world to another, from +the character and the presence that had been hers to a personality and +a body that looked down upon that other as, tenderly, a mother upon the +innocence of her small child. + +That poor, brave, foolish Rosalie that was! Did she protest, that +foolish girl, that she was right in what had been her attitude to love? +Did she with would-be bitterness recall those views laid down upon the +women in the boarding house--that they were derelicts precisely through +this love business, abandoned of men, relict of men, footsore and fallen +in pursuit of men? + +Ah, small, misguided creature! The principles were right but all askew +the application. Love! Consider other attributes of life. Consider +learning; consider food. Learning and food--were they not bounties of +life’s treasure, to be absorbed and used for sustenance in order, by +their nourishment, to give to live this life more fully? Why, so with +love! Derelicts, those women, because receiving love (that loveliest +gift of all!) not as a means but as an end--the end of all: that +attained, everything attained; that won, all finished. That was it! That +the misapplication! Learning, or food, or love--the same with all! How +dead the life that only lived in scholarship; how gross the life that +only lived to eat; how derelict that she that only lived to love, to +marry--then ceased to live! + +And equally, O small, misguided girl, how starved the life that has no +books; how weak the frame that has no food; ah, dear (thus smiled she to +herself), how dead the life that knows not love! + +The second line of her defences! Nay, as now through this mature and +happy cogitation she saw it, the first and last and only line! In her +aloneness, in that girl’s single life, there had been nothing against +which to defend. She had fought phantoms, that girl; resisted shadows. +Now was the necessity, now the test; and now, because with Harry, +because she loved him so, because he was every way and in all things +perfect, now should be the triumphant exposition. + +And she told Harry: marriage that should be a partnership--not an +absorption by the greater of the less; not one part active and the other +passive; one giving, the other receiving; one maintaining, the other +maintained; none of these, but instead a perfect partnering, a perfect +equality that should be equality of place, equality of privilege, +equality of duty, equality of freedom. “Harry, each with work and with +a career. Harry, each living an own life as every man, away from home, +shutting his front door upon that home and off to work, leads an own and +separate life. Harry--” + +Oh, wonderful beneath this imperturbable sky, amongst these common, +passive things--these paths, those trees, that grass, this bench--within +this seclusion of that murmurous investment of this city, the ceaseless +roar of London, standing like patient walls, eternal and indifferent, +about her quietudes. Oh, wonderful in these accustomed and insensible +surroundings thus to be calling “Harry,” as he were brother, him that a +day and night away virtually was unmet; to be exposing, as to a gracious +patron, all her mind’s treasury of thought; to be revealing, as in +confessional, her inmost places of her heart; to be receiving, as by +transfusion, the glow of affirmation on her way and in her trust. Oh, +wonderful! + +Wonderful, because remember for her that she was still beneath the shock +of her dismay at her betrayal of herself; still breathless at that rout +from her prepared positions; not yet assured her banners were unsullied +in their withdrawal to her second line; not yet convinced it was no +rout but a withdrawal, wise and strategical, ranks unbroken, to the true +point of her defence. + +Do try to imagine her, tremulous in this her vital enterprise, tremulous +in this wonder that her armies found. It is very desirable to remember +what can be remembered for that girl. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Harry assured her! Harry convinced her! Harry was here upon the +battlements, come with her in her retirement, joined with her as her +ally. All her ideas were his ideas. He, too, had these new views of +marriage. He said they always had been his. He hated, as she hated, that +old dependence notion: all the privileges the man’s, the woman’s all the +duties. That was detestable to him, said Harry. Marriage in his view-- + +“I’ll tell you this,” was one thing Harry said. “I’ll show it to you +this way, Rosalie. I don’t exactly know what a reciprocating machine +is, but I know what it sounds like, and what it sounds like is what +a marriage ought to be,--a perfect fitting together, a perfect +harmonising, a perfect joining of two perfect halves that everywhere +reciprocate.” + +The word delighted her. A reciprocating machine! Yes, yes! Each an own +part; each with own and separate interests; and their parts, and +the production arising out of their interests--their individual +selves--approached together, by free will, to join towards a mutual +benefit, a shared endeavour, a common advancement, a single end. + +She was desperately in earnest and so was he. There was a mill near his +people’s home in Sussex, a water mill, and his illustration by it of the +design they had showed her how earnestly her own ideas were his. There +were two wheels to this mill, Harry told her, one on either side. Each +ran in its own stream, each was entirely independent of the other; they +worked alone, but each helped the other’s work; the mill joined them and +they joined to make the mill. + +That was it! + +And she was not talking any generalities, and Harry was not, either. +They weren’t, either of them, playing with this idea of mutual +independence. There would “of course” be a business basis to it, Rosalie +said. She was earning her own income and she would pay her half of the +upkeep of their home together. It was a stipulation that she advanced +with a definite fear that here, at last, she might be taking Harry from +his depth; that by natural instinct of generosity, or by instinct of +immemorial custom to endow the wife with all the husband’s worldly +goods, he would here reveal a flaw in his till now flawless duplication +of the views that were her own. + +But Harry (the never failing rapture of it!) was every way without spot +or blemish. He was looking straight and close into her eyes while she +put forward this, and there moved not the least dissentient shade across +his own while he received it. She need have had no fear. He said, “I +agree absolutely with that, Rosalie. There’s only one point--” and his +expansion of this point wholly entranced her because it established +conditions even more matter-of-fact and businesslike than her own broad +principle. + +“There’s only one point,” Harry said. “It can’t be half and half in +terms of actual bisection. Look, Rosalie, in this matter of running the +home we’re making a contract between two parties and--don’t forget I’m a +lawyer--it has to be an equable and just contract, and to be that it has +to be based for each party’s liability--Do you like me to use the law +jargon?” + +She nodded. “I do, I do!” This was frightfully, entrancingly serious for +her. This was a survey of the fortifications of her second line of her +defences. “I do, I do!” + +“Well, has to be based for each party’s liability on each party’s +interest, on the extent to which each party is involved. I’m making +more--an uncommon good bit more--than you are, Rosalie. My interest, +therefore my liability, that is, my share, has to be allowed to be +proportionately the more. Put it in another way. We’re going to run an +establishment as an establishment might be run by two or more people of +different incomes who wish to join forces for mutual pleasure, two or +three relatives, two or three friends. Well, there’s a regular principle +governing that kind of arrangement. You don’t all pay the same. If you +did, you’d reduce the scale of living to the level of what the poorest +can afford, and half the idea of the combination is to enjoy a very +much better scale. No, you run the show on the level the wealthiest is +willing to go to, and to the total charge each one contributes in the +proportion of his income. If one party has a thousand a year and the +other five hundred, and the thousand-pounder wants to live at the rate +of nine hundred a year, he pays six hundred and the other three hundred. +Each is paying his just share--that’s the point. That’s how we’d arrange +it, Rosalie.” + +She loved him so! If that were said a thousand times (as already perhaps +too often for the robust) it still would not approach the volume of its +swelling in the heart of Rosalie, for that was ceaseless. His attitude +in this matter now between them, as in every matter, might have been the +perfect agreement with her own view that it was and yet might so have +been presented as to be much antipathetic to her. His attitude might +have made her feel she ought to say, “Thank you, Harry, for agreeing to +that”; it might have had the note, “I know exactly how you feel about +marriage; I want to make every-thing just as you wish.” Quicksands! +Principles to be received as grants, bases of her defences to be +accepted as concessions! Quicksands! At either attitude, as at a foreign +flavour in a cup, she would have drawn back, suspicious; at either sense +within herself, of winning a favour, of accepting a hazard, she would +have taken alarm, dismayed. But it was why she loved him so that here, +as everywhere, his standpoint was her standpoint’s own reflection. She +was, as she would have said, deadly in earnest; deadly in earnest to +a depth that she could let go to absurdity and never know it for +absurdity; and so was he. + +Approving this plan of computation of the share that each would pay, “It +would have to be done strictly,” she said, “as though it were strictly +business. And--you don’t know, perhaps--I’m making, or soon shall be, +just on five hundred a year.” + +He smiled the nice smile of his she loved, more with his eyes than with +his lips. “I’m afraid mine’s a good bit more than that. Money’s rather +pushed at you at the Bar once it starts. You’d have to put up with +that.” + +Her fondness in her eyes reflected him. “I know how famous you are +getting. I’d not be stupid about that, Harry. It would be the just +share, each according to our means; that’s understood. Only, for me, it +would have to be the just share, that’s what I’m saying; not a matter of +form, a strict proportion.” + +“If you liked,” said Harry, “we’d give the figures to the costs clerk at +my chambers and let him work the contributions out.” + +“Absurd!” she might have laughed; and as an absurdity he might, with a +laugh, have presented it. But quite gravely he made the suggestion, and +quite gravely, after a moment’s grave thought, “I don’t think that would +be necessary,” she returned. + +His earnestness in this thing so vital to her matched her own, and +therefore she loved him; and he yet could bring to it lightly a touch +which, though light, yet was profoundly based; and therefore, newly, she +loved him. She knew she talked with immense profligacy of words in her +endeavour to make clear the principles this second line of her defences +must maintain. “Each with work and with a career, each with an own +and separate life.” She kept repeating that. “Equal in work and in +responsibility, Harry, and therefore equal in place, in privilege, in +freedom.” + +And Harry, with a light touch but a grave air, a happy setting for a +profound meaning, put it in a sentence. “Things which are equal to the +same thing are equal to one another,” said Harry. + +She loved him so! + +But there ought here to be explained for her what, loving him so and +he so loving her, she could not have known for herself. This plan of +maintaining their establishment by contribution of share and share was +maintained by Rosalie from the beginning--to the end. She never had +cause to doubt that in all the earnestness of that close conversation +Harry was utterly sincere. She often recalled that steady gaze with no +dissentient shade across it with which his eyes received her statement +of her case and knew that only truth was in that gaze. He did believe +what she believed. It only was afterwards she discovered that also he +believed that, both for her and him, the thing would mellow down as +mellows down the year, her heady Aprils burnt in June, her burning Junes +assuaging to September; that it would pass; that time-- + +Yes, it must be explained. It was not active in his mind, this +reservation. It was passive, underlying, subconscious, as beneath +vigour’s incredulity of death lies passively admission of death’s final +certitude. He believed what she believed; but he believed it as are +believed infinity and eternity: wherein mankind, believing, reposes upon +that limitation of the human mind which cannot conceive infinity but +sees ultimately an end, and can pretend eternity through myriad years +but feels ultimately a termination. Harry believed what she believed but +only by stabilisation of a man’s inherent articles of faith. He was of +the male kind; and observe, by an incident, what inherent processes of +thought the male kind has: + +When they were looking over the house which ultimately they took--an all +ways most desirable house in Montpelier Crescent, Knightsbridge--Rosalie +had only a single objection: it was far too big. + +“Miles too big,” cried Rosalie, coming up to the second floor where +Harry had preceded her. “What are you doing there, Harry? Miles too big, +I was saying. It really is. Of course I realise you must have a house +suitable to your fame but--What are you doing, Harry?” + +“Fame, yes,” breathed Harry, desperately occupied. “I’ve turned on this +tap and I can’t turn it off again. Eternal fame. After me the deluge!” + +She was looking around. “But, Harry, really! Look at this floor. Two +more huge rooms. What can we--” + +“Mice and Mumps!” groaned Harry, straining at the tap. “Mice and Mumps!” + +He came to her wiping his hands on his handkerchief. “Too big! Look +here, supposing this house isn’t washed away by that tap. Suppose it’s +still standing here tomorrow. Take a broad, courageous view of the +thing. Suppose this isn’t the beginning of the Great Flood of London, +and that we’re going to live in a house and not an ark. Well, what +you’ve got to remember is that we’re not coming in here for a week. +We’ve got to look ahead. Take these two rooms. Why, you can see what +they’re for, what they’ve been. Opening into one another, and those +little bars on the windows, and that protected fireplace. Nurseries. Day +nursery and night nursery.” + +Rosalie laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +That’s all done. The thing traverses the waters of the years, as across +seas a ship, and makes presently a new shore, a new clime, wherein are +met occasions new and strange, not anticipated by Rosalie. + +Here is one. + +Habitant in the new continent across these years, she is wife and, +though she had laughed, is mother, and on a day is with her Harry, and +Harry is saying, not at all with any hardness in his voice, but very +gravely: + +“I have a right to a home.” + +She replies, as grave as he, as one debating a matter that is weighty +but that is before the arbitrament, not of feeling, but of reason, +“Harry, you have a home.” + +A gesture of his head, much comprehensive, is made by him: “Is this a +home?” + +“It’s where we live.” + +“Ah, where we live, Rosalie!” + +She did not reply to this. Himself, and not she, spoke next; but his +note was as though she had answered and he were speaking in his turn. “I +have a right to a home. The children have a right to a home.” + +She said, “Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a home.” + +He said, “Rosalie, I am a man.” + +She answered, “Harry, I am a woman.” + +Harry was smoking and he indrew an inhalation from his pipe with a long +sibilant sound: her answer was very well understood by him. + +No, she never had anticipated this. + +Yet might not she have seen? Astounding how in life one’s suddenly +engulfed in depths and never has perceived the shoals from which they +led; suddenly entombed in night and never has perceived the gradual +declination of the day! Why, when she looked back, so far away as in +those days of choosing their house had been in seed this thing that now +was come to fruit. And she had watched it grow from seed to seedling, +and on to bud and blossom, and never had suspected. + +But had she not? Then it was curious, she knew, that, alone of all her +thoughts, all her beliefs, all her theories, her observations and +her deductions from her observations, curious that of them all only a +certain observation, made when choosing their house, she never had told +to Harry. + +Choosing their house! She had gone back to her rooms from the third day +of their house-hunting gently amused at an addition to her compendium of +lore on the male habit. It was in a way like the cat idea; at least it +was, like that, reversal of a common opinion on distinguishing traits +as between men and women. It went in her mind like this and, because +it arose out of Harry, she laughed softly to herself as like this she +shaped it: + +“They say a woman marries for a home. Wrong, wrong! It’s man that +marries for a home--a home that, having got it, superficially he cares +little enough about, and superficially uses as a good place to get away +from; but that’s just how he uses his business, how he uses everything. +Oh, he wants it, he wants it, and he marries for it far more than a +woman wants it or marries for it. How plain it is! A man marries to +settle down, a woman for just precisely the opposite: to break up; to +get away from the constraints of daughterhood and of Miss-hood, as a +schoolgirl, holiday-bound, from the constraints of school; to enlarge +her life, not to restrict it; to aerate her life, not to compose it. +Why, it’s inherent in a man, the desire for a home; it’s in his bones. +Look at little boys playing--it’s caves and tents and wigwams they +delight to play at; a place they can in part discover and in part +construct, and then arrange their things in, and then go off exploring +and then, all the time, be coming back to the delicious cave and creep +in and block up the door! Girls don’t play at that; they play at shops +and being grown up, at nursing dolls and not themselves being nursed. +But that’s your man--a hunter with a cave, and the return to the cave +the best part of the hunting. That’s what he marries for--a home; a +pitch of his own; a place to bring his things to and wherein to keep his +things; an establishment; a solid, anchored base; a place where he +can have his wife and his children and his dogs and his books and his +servants and his treasures and his slippers and his ease, and can feel, +comfortably, that she and they and it are his,--his mysterious cave with +the door blocked up, his base, his moorings, his settled and abiding +centre. Dear Harry!” + +“Dear Harry” because all this had come to her while with secret, fond +amusement she had watched Harry delightedly and entrancedly fussing +about the houses they explored. The boy with a cave! The man with a +home! She liked the idea of a new home, and a home with Harry, but, +given outstanding features obviously essential, almost any home would +have satisfied her. She was animated and interested in the choosing, +but not with Harry’s interest and animation. Hers were the feelings with +which she had established herself in the two-room suite at the boarding +house. There any two rooms would have done; here any pleasant house +would do. It was not the rooms; it was the significance of her entry +into their possession. It was not the house; it was the significance of +all connoted by the house. The rooms had been a stepping-off place to +independence larger and to triumphs new; the house was a stepping-off +place to independence, to triumphs, to battle of life and to joy of +life, lifted upon a plane high above her old world as the stars, as +bright and keen as they. + +But for Harry it was a stepping-in place. + +It was Harry that fussed and examined and measured and opened and shut +and tested and tried and must have this and must have that. It was Harry +who saw everything with the eye that was going to see it and live with +it permanently and for all time. It was Harry who invested every square +yard of every interior with the attributes that should be there when +they therein were domiciled. Harry who said, “This front door! Rosalie, +we’re going to have a front door that will hit you in the eye and make +you say ‘Mice and Mumps, there’s a distinguished couple that live behind +a door like that!’ None of your wretched browns and greens and blacks +and reds for our door, Rosalie! We’ll have a yellow front door, gamboge. +I’ve seen it on a house in Westminster. I’ll take you there. You wait +till you see it. Imagine it, Rosalie, beneath that lovely old fanlight +overhead. And then yellow window boxes tinted to match in every window +and crammed with flowers. It’ll be a house you’ll run to get into +directly you catch sight of it. Then inside here, in the hall, there’ll +be the thickest rugs money can buy and the brightest light and the +warmest stove. You’ll step in and shut the yellow door and, ‘Mice and +Mumps,’ you’ll say, ‘this is home!’ Now, look here; here’ll be my study; +I’ll have bookshelves built in all round there and there and there. +Pictures there. This nook--I’ll fix a little cupboard there and keep my +tools in. I’ll spend half my time our first weeks pottering about with a +hammer and a pair of pliers. This place just here on the landing. Looks +like a dungeon. We’ll knock out a window there and fit it up with hot +and cold water as a cloak room. Now here’s your room, your--” + +“My study,” she had interpolated, a little apprehensive lest for her +private room he should use another word. + +“Yes, your study, rather. Each of us with our own study! A lark, eh? +And Rosalie, in mine there’ll be a special chair for you and in yours a +special chair for me. We’ll stroll in on each other’s work--” + +She loved him for that. “Like two men in chambers,” she said. + +His reply was, “We’ll rip out this fireplace and put you in one in +oak; the walls something between gold and brown, eh? Now come into +the drawing-room. This’ll be the room. Let’s start with the hearth and +imagine it’s winter. This is where we’ll have tea the days when I get +back in time--” + +“And when I get back in time.” + +“Of course, I’d forgotten that. Why, then whichever of us is back first +will be all ready with the tea and waiting to welcome the other. Can’t +you see the room? Warm, shadowed, glowing here and there, here and there +gleaming, and the tea table shining? Won’t it be a place to rush back +to? I say, Rosalie, it’s going to be rather wonderful, isn’t it?” + +Dear Harry! Yes, men that married for a home. + +So she had known that from the start; and, the significant thing (as +later perceived) she never had mentioned it to Harry. There was not +a line of her life, as lived before she knew him, that she had not +revealed to him; there was not a passage of her life, when joined to +his, that was not handed to him to write upon; but this, that she knew +he’d married for a home, was never revealed, never inscribed upon the +tablets submitted daily for his annotation. + +Yes, significant! + +But how could its significance have been perceived? Look here, there had +been a night--a thousand years ago!--when a girl had turned her face to +her pillow and cried, most frightfully. Significant! Why, that girl’s +world had lain in atoms at the significance of that girl’s grief. And +she that now looked back had been born out of those tears, as the first +woman drawn from the side of the first man, and fondly had chid that +child that no significance was there at all. There was none. There was +nothing to fear. A natural joy of life that had been stifled had been +embraced, a shattered world had been remoulded on foundings firmer and, +ah, nearer to the heart’s desire. Significant! It had been so disproved +that not more possibly could fears arise from those, her lovely +dissipations of those fears, than from its watchful mother’s reassuring +candle and her soothing words new terrors to a frightened child at +night. + +Then how, she used to ask herself, could significance have been +perceived in not admitting Harry to her smiling thought on men and home? +Significance--then? Nay, memory bear witness, much, much the contrary! +Bear witness, memory, it was that very thought of Harry as boy with +cave, as man with home, had suddenly suffused her with... + +“Dear Harry!” she had thought, and with the thought... + +Anna! That cry of Anna’s upon that frightening night, striking her hands +against her bosom, “I have a longing--here!” Never till then its meaning +nor even thought upon its meaning. + +Then! Upon that thought--“Dear Harry!”--had come, with a catch at the +breath as at an obscure twinge of pain, a tremor of the sense that +was its meaning: thereafter flooding all her being as floods a flood +a pasture. A longing to be mother, Anna’s longing was! A longing to +be mother, to hold a tiny scrap against her breast; to have her heart, +bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers; to have her design +of God, insufferably overpacked within her by the remorseless pressure +of instinct through a million ages, relieved, discharged, fulfilled by +motherhood. Poor Anna! Ah, piteous! “Oh, God, thou knowest how hard it +is to be a woman.” Poor, piteous Anna, and poor, piteous every woman +that, made vessel of this yearning, must have it unfulfilled. + +Not she! + +The coronet of love, denied poor Anna, was hers. He’d said “These +rooms--the nurseries”; the crown of love; and she had laughed! + +Oh, stubborn still! Oh, still not cognisant of nature’s dower to her +sex. To wear the coronet and to refuse the crown! To be wife and not to +be mother! To think of baby fingers and to think to put away the offer +of their baby clutch! + +That girl that turned her face to her pillow and began to cry, most +frightfully, cried next again when she again lay abed and had a tiny +scrap, an ugly, exquisite, grotesque, miraculous scrap, a baby boy, a +baby man, along her arm and watched it there. Those had been passionate +and rending tears; these did not even flow. Those burned her eyes; these +stood within her eyes a lovely welling up of pride and adoration, +drawn from her by this newly risen wonder as by the sun at his arising +moisture in lovely mists is drawn from earth. + +Motherhood! When later he was christened, she and Harry named him Hugh; +but it was a caressing diminutive she made out of his name by which he +was always known. Her tiny son! His tiny arms hugged you as never tiny +arms possibly could have hugged before and so she called him “Huggo.” + +“Harry, if you could feel how he’s hugging me! It’s absurd he can +have such strength! It’s ridiculous he can love me so! And how can he +possibly know that hugging’s a sign of love? Harry, how can he? Take him +and hold him up like that and see if he hugs you the same. He is! He is! +Isn’t he?” + +“Mice and Mumps,” said Harry, “he is; he’s throttling me, the tiger.” + +“Ah, give him back, I’m jealous. There’s never, never been a hugger +like him since the world began. He’s Huggo. That’s his name. Creature +straight out of heaven, you’re Huggo.” + +Her love for infant Huggo so maternal; her unity with Harry so +exquisitely one; how could she have known were to be met across the +waters of the years occasions new and strange, as that already shown, +or, onward yet a further voyage, as this? + +The matter between them touched the same as when, “I have a right to a +home; the children have a right to a home,” Harry had said. But their +tones not the same; in Harry’s voice a quality of dulness as of one +reciting a lesson too often conned yet never understood; in hers a +certain weariness as with instruction too often given. + +They had been talking a very long time. Harry hadn’t any arguments. He +just kept coming back and coming back to the one thing. He said again, +the twentieth time, in that dull voice, “We are responsible for the +children. We have a duty towards them.” + +The twentieth time! She made a gesture, not impatient, just tired, that +was of repletion with this thing. “Ah, you say ‘we’ have a duty. You say +‘we’; but, Harry, you mean me. Why I a duty more than you? Why am I the +accused?” + +Harry’s dull note: “Because you are a woman.” Ineffable weariness was +in the murmur that was her reply. “Ah, my God, that reason!” No, she had +never anticipated this. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +How did it happen? Within her face abode the explanation of how it +happened. + +There was a mirage in her face. + +If she were taken (for a moment) when she had been married ten years, +her age thirty-two, and then taken again when she was forty-six, when +she had done, when, in 1922, she said, “I have done,” and her story +ceases, it is material to a portrait of her that in those fourteen years +her appearance did not greatly change. Events inscribed it; but these +writings were in two scripts, rendered in the two natures that were +hers, and, as it were, a balance was maintained between them; there +remained constant the aspect that her face presented to the world; +constant, that is to say, the spirit that looked out of her face. + +That girl that at the door of the great house in Pilchester Square had +breathed, “You knew, before I knew, that I loved you,” had been called +beautiful. This woman that now was wife and now was mother was beautiful +with that girl’s beauty and with her own, matured of years, set upon it. +That girl, shaded in her colouring, commonly was sombre in her hue, but +with a quick, impetuous spirit beneath her flesh that, flashing, somehow +lightened all her tints; this woman, albeit dark, had somehow about her +a deep golden hue as of dusk in a deep wood beheld against a sunset. +Her face had always had a boyish look and still, with years, was +boyish. There was a mirage in her face. The stranger glanced and saw a +mother--extraordinarily shielding and maternal and benignant things; +and looked again and saw a boy--astonishingly reckless and impetuous +and rather boyish, hard and mutinous things. Or glanced and saw a boy, +perhaps laughing and eager, perhaps obstinate and petulant; and looked +again and only much tenderness was there. + +There was a mirage in her face; and with its changes her voice changed. +When she was a boy her voice was April; when she was a mother September +was her voice. + +There were two natures in her and those were their reflections; two +lodestars set above her that by turns brightened and drew her gaze; two +lodestones set within her that claimed her banners as claim the moon and +earth the inconstant sea; one of head, one of heart; one of choice, one +of dower; one of will, one of nature. + +In that tenth year her married life there stood for the mother in her +face three children: Huggo who then was nine; Dora, whom she called Doda +because in her first prattle this heart’s delight of hers-“A baby girl! +A beloved one, Harry, to be daughter to me, and to be a tiny woman with +me as little girls always are, and then budding up beside me and being +myself to me again, my baby girl, my daughter, my woman-bud, my heart’s +own heart!”--had thus pronounced her name, who then was seven; and last +Benjamin, then five, whom she named Benjamin because, come third, come +after cognizance of confliction within herself, come after resentment of +his coming--called Benjamin because, come out of such, there were such +happy tears, such tender, thank-God, charged with meaning tears to greet +him, the one the last of three, the little tiny one, so wee beside the +lusty, toddling others. Benjamin she told Harry he must be named; Benji +she always called him. + +Huggo and Doda and Benji! Her children! Her darling ones, her lovely +ones! Love’s crown; and, what was more, worn in the persons of these +darling joys of hers (when they were growing up to nine and seven and +five years old) in signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of precedent +to the contrary, that woman might be mother and yet work freely in the +markets of the world precisely as man is father but follows a career. + +Children! There had been a time when, speaking from the boy that would +stand mutinous and reckless in her face, and with her April voice, she +had expressed her view on parentage in terms of the old resentment +at the old disability, encountered, bedrocked, wherever into life she +struck a new trail; in terms of the old invertion of an old conceit +wherever with her principles she touched conventional opinion. The +catlike attributes, the marriage for a home, here the familiar saw on +parenthood-- + +“They talk about hostages to fortune,” she had expressed her idea, +“they talk about a man with young children as having given hostages to +fortune. You know, it’s quite absurd. He doesn’t. I don’t say a man to +whom the support of children is a financial anxiety hasn’t, by begetting +them, placed himself in a position of captivity to fortune, or to the +future, or whatever you like to call it. He very much has. He’s backed +a bill that any day may fall due and find him without means to meet it; +he’s let himself in for blackmail, always over him a threat. But +I’m talking about men above the struggle line. They don’t, in their +children, give hostages. It’s the woman does that. Men don’t give nor +forfeit anything. It’s the woman gives and forfeits. Why, when his +friends meet a man who was last met a bachelor a couple or three years +ago, what change do they see in him? They don’t see any change at all. +There isn’t any change to see. He has to tell them; and he always tells +them rather sheepishly or rather boisterously. ‘I’m married, you know,’ +he says. ‘Yes, rather. Man alive, I’ve got two kids!’ The other says, +‘My aunt!’--more probably he says ‘My God!’--‘My God, fancy you!’ And +they both laugh--laugh! + +“Hostages to fortune! To a man and amongst men it’s just a joke. It’s no +joke to a woman. Do you suppose a married girl, meeting old friends, +has to tell them she’s a mother, or, if she had to tell them, would tell +them like that? Can’t they see it at a glance? Isn’t she changed? Isn’t +she, subtly perhaps, but unmistakably, altogether different from the +unfettered thing she used to be? Of course she is. How otherwise? She’s +given hostages to fortune and she’s paying; she’s being bled. She’s +giving up things, she’s not going out so much, she’s not reading so +much, she’s not playing so much, she’s not interested so much in what +used to interest her. How can she? There’s the children. How can she? +She’s given hostages to fortune. Oh, happy is the man that hath children +for they are as arrows in the quiver of a giant. But it’s the woman is +the arrowbearer! It’s the woman pays.” + +Lo, there had come to this intolerance the longing--“Here!”--that Anna’s +bosom had, the urge to hold a tiny scrap against her breast, to have +her heart, bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers. It had +o’erborne the other. She had thrown herself upon its flood; not yielded +to it as one drawn in by rising waters, but tempestuously engulfed by +it and borne away upon it as swallowed up and borne away in Harry’s arms +when “Rosalie! Rosalie!” he had cried to her. + +That which the subsidence revealed, adoringly she called her Huggo. + +There was a mirage in her face. When, turned again towards the star to +which she showed her boyish and impetuous look, and, following, she felt +again the call that set the mother in her face, she this time reasoned. +That idea that, having children, it was the woman who gave hostages to +fortune! Deadly and cruelly true it was, but only by convention. Why +should it be so? Why should motherhood that was the crown of love, of +woman’s life, be paid for in coin that no man was called upon to pay? +Unjust; and need not be! She perfectly well had carried on her work with +Huggo. Sleeping was the adored creature’s chief lot in life. If she had +ever thought (which she never had) of giving up her work and staying at +home on his account, what could she have done but twirl her thumbs and +watch him sleep and in his lovely lively hours superintend the nurse +who required no superintendence? As it was she was about him in the +delicious exercises of transporting him from cot through toilet and +refreshment to readiness to take the air. His lordship was off in his +lordship’s perambulator by nine o’clock every morning. She did not +herself leave, with Harry, till shortly before ten. There, in instance, +was an hour at home with not the smallest benefit to Huggo. It would +have been the same, had she remained at home, with three in four of all +the other hours. Ridiculous to lay down that a mother, having a good +nurse and a well-ordered house and a husband out all day, must tie +herself there, abandoning her own life, to attend her children! +Children! Darlings of her own! Ease for this yearning in her heart, +assumption of this lovely glory that was her natural right! Yes, she +had proved love not to be incompatible with her freedom; she would show +motherhood as beautifully could be joined. + +It seemed to her a blessing upon, and an assurance in, her purpose that +in the precious person of a little daughter came the embodiment of this +reasoning and of this design. A baby girl! A tiny woman-bud to be a +woman with her in the house of Harry and of Huggo! A woman treasury into +which she could pour her woman love! Her self’s own self, whose earliest +speech chose for herself her name--her Doda! + +It all worked splendidly. Winged on the eager pinions of their +individual lives these two nested their joined life in a home that for +every inmate was a perfect home; perfect for a husband, perfect for a +wife, perfect for the babies, perfect for the servants. The peace of +every home in civilized society rests ultimately on the kitchen, and the +peace of half the homes known to Harry and to Rosalie was in constant +rupture by upheavals thence. Not so behind the gamboge door. Rosalie +always granted it to men that, as was commonly said, servants worked +better for men. Men kept out of the irrational creatures’ way; that was +about it. The conduct of her life gave her the like advantage. Giving +her orders before she left the house, she was out all day and never +unexpectedly in. Positively the servants welcomed her on her return at +five o’clock! + +The babies, to whom then she flew, were with a perfect nurse. Harry had +helped in her appointment. She had come one evening, early in the life +of Huggo, when a change had to be made from the nurse who specialised +only up to the point then reached by Huggo, and she had presented +herself to them, seated together in Harry’s study, a short body, one +shape and a solid shape from her shoulders to her shoes, who announced +her name as Muffett. + +“Miss Muffett, I hope,” said Harry gravely. + +“Unmarried, sir,” said Muffett with equal gravity and with a sudden +drop and then recovery of her stature as though some one had knocked her +behind the knees. + +“There’s nothing to do,” said Harry when she had gone, “but to buy her +a turret and engage her”; and there was nothing to do, when she was +installed, but enjoy the babies and delight in them just as a man enjoys +and delights in his tiny ones,--in the early mornings before Rosalie +left for her work, in the evenings when she returned home. + +It all worked splendidly. In those early years, when two were in the +nursery and as yet no third, there wasn’t a sign that Harry who had +married for a home ever could say, “I have a right to a home.” He had, +and he was often saying so, the most perfect home. He came not home of a +night to a wife peevish with domestic frets and solitary confinement and +avid he should hear the tale of them, nor yet to one that butterflied +the day long between idleness and pleasures and gave him what was left. +He came nightly to a home that his wife sought as eagerly as he sought, +a place of rest well-earned and peace well-earned. That was it! “Things +which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” They had +discovered and had removed the worm of disparity that eats away the +heart of countless marriages. They not infrequently had friends in to +dinner, not infrequently dined at the tables of friends, made a point +of not infrequently attending a theatre or a concert; but however the +evening had been passed--and the evenings alone were always agreed to +be the best evenings of all--there was none but they ended sitting +together, not in the drawing-room, but in Harry’s study or in hers, just +talking happiness. Equal in endeavour, they were thereby made equal on +every plane and in every taste. A reciprocating machine. That was it! + +At least that was how, profoundly satisfied with it, she thought it was. + +Then Benji came. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +There were attendant upon the expectation and the coming of Benji +certain processes of mind that had not been with Huggo or with Doda. +When it was in prospect she had vexation, sometimes a sense of injury, +that again her work was to be interrupted. It would make no difference +to Harry. It happened that the days of her trial were timed to fall on +the date when a criminal prosecution of sensational public interest was +due for hearing at the Old Bailey. Harry, for the defence, had added +immensely to his brilliant reputation when seeing it through the +preliminary stages before the magistrate. The Old Bailey proceedings +were to be the greatest event, thus far, in his career. He had told +her--how proud and delighted to hear it she had been!--that if he pulled +it off (and he had set his heart on pulling it off) he would really +begin to think about “taking silk.” + +Well, but she also had her heart, in no single or sensational climax of +her work, but in its every phase and every hour. It absorbed her. Two +years earlier Mr. Simcox had begun disturbing signs of health that, +begun, developed rapidly. His brisk activity went out of him. His walk +had the odd suggestion of one carrying a load. His perky air went dull. +His mind was like a flagging watch, run down. He could not concentrate, +he suffered passages of aphasia, he began more and more to “give up the +office,” more and more to leave things to her. The agency in both its +branches, scholastic and insurance, developed well. She was its head +and it absorbed her. She had a sense, that was like wine to her, of +increasing swiftness of decision, of power, of judgment, of vision, +of resource. She used to hurry to her office of a morning as an artist +urgent with inspiration will hurry to his colours, or a poet to his +pen,--avid to exercise that which was within her. + +Well, it was to be stopped. Childbed. For a month at least, for two +months more likely, all was to be set aside, to go into abeyance, to +drift. Whereas Harry’s work.... Yes, vexatious! These laws that gave men +the desirable place in life were not laws but conventions and she had +proved them such; but with all proved there yet remained to the man +privileges, to the woman restraints, that were ordinances fundamental +and not to be escaped. Yes, injurious! + +Thus in those weeks of the coming of him that was to be Benji, solely +the boy of aspect mutinous and impetuous was in her face; and when +within a month stood her appointed time came an event that stiffened +there that aspect, turned it, indeed, actively upon the child within her +waiting deliverance. This event in its momentous incidence on her career +placed its occasion on parity with Harry’s anticipations of the Old +Bailey trial. Mr. Simcox died. + +There’s no use labouring why the emotions that at this loss should have +been hers were not hers. That girl whose eyes had gathered tears at the +picture of the little figure with flapping jacket peering through the +curtains at the postman’s “rat-tat-flick” was not present in the woman +whose first thought at the sudden news, brought to her seated in her +office, was, “At such a time! Just when--Now what is to be done?” True +for her that there followed gentle feelings, and gentler yet in her +attendance on her patron’s obsequies, in the discovery that all of which +he died possessed he’d left to her, but it is the duller surfaces that +are slowest to give refraction, the least used springs that are least +pliant. She was come a long road from her first signs of hardening. She +was past, now, the stage where, when grieving for the little old man, +she would have felt contrition that her first thought at his death had +been, not of him, but of his death’s effect upon her work. + +And there supervened, immediately, interests that caused the passing of +Mr. Simcox merely--to have passed. + +Mr. Sturgiss, of Field and Company, attending the funeral with her, said +to her as he was taking his leave, “One would say this isn’t a moment to +be talking of other things, business things, but after all--In a way it +is the moment. You’ll be making new arrangements and rearrangements now. +Before you start settling anything I want you to have in mind the old +proposition. You’ve been loyal to poor Simcox to the end. This business +is your own now. We want it. We want you. We want you in Lombard +Street.” + +This, cut and dried, glowingly enlarged in long interviews with Mr. +Sturgiss and Mr. Field, succinctly reduced to writing by the firm that +it might be fairly studied, was before her, not demanding, but eagerly +absorbing, her most earnest attention when she was a fortnight from her +trial. This was the event whose momentous incidence on her career +placed the days then in process and immediately in prospect on parity of +importance with their meaning to Harry, absorbed in preparation for his +case. There was so much to weigh; and like a threat, a doom, banked +her impending banishment from affairs, distracting her, haunting her, +hurrying her. There was so much to do, to settle, to wind up (for she +found herself arranging for the change even while she debated it); and +in the midst of it she was to be cut off as by term of imprisonment! +There was so much to scheme, to plan, to dream (her mind already +elevated among the high places of her new outlook); and between now and +action she was to go--out of action. + +Whereas Harry.... Whose child it was also to be.... + +Yes, injurious! + +Not injurious as between dear Harry and herself; but injurious as +between his sex and hers. There were moments of thinking upon the +difference when she could have conceived a grudge against the child she +was to bear. + +And Harry could not perceive the difference! Immersed in his +preparations and, when the case opened, lost to all else in his case, he +presented precisely that faculty (and that permission by convention) of +complete detachment from his home that long she had known to be man’s +most outstanding and most enviable quality. He had no attention to spare +for the consideration of her own problem and ambition, and she was too +honourable to his interests, and too devoted to him in his interests, to +bother him with hers. But, more significantly to her feelings than that, +he was also too immersed to offer her, in her ordeal of childbirth, the +sympathy and the anxiety that, unengrossed, he would have shown. It +was there, profound and loving, beneath the surface; but his work came +first. He was a man, capable of detachment, permitted by convention to +practise detachment, by gift of, nature not inhibited from detachment. +A man, he could put it beneath the surface. A woman, in conflict of her +instincts and her ambitions, it was her ambitions that she must sink. +That was it! Yes, injurious. + +And he did not even understand. + +On what proved to be the evening before her delivery, and was the third +day of Harry’s case, she was lying, as she had lain some days, on the +Chesterfield in the drawing-room, loosely robed. Harry had thought +he could get back to tea, and got back. He came to her with tenderest +concern, and with immense tenderness at once was talking to her. But she +could see! The apparent deepening of all the lines of his dear, striking +face, as of one who for hours has been under enormous concentration; +the slight huskiness of his voice, from hard service; the repressed +excitation in his air; the frequent glint behind the soft regard of his +eyes, as of one that has been hunting high and hunting well--she could +see; she could tell where was his spirit! + +Her own went lovingly to meet it where it was. “Ah, never mind all +that, Harry. Tell me all that’s been happening to you. How is it going, +Harry?” + +Dear Harry! Most mannish man! She laughed (and he laughed too, knowing +perfectly well why she laughed) to note the delight, like a dog from +chain, with which he bounded off into his mind’s absorption. He sat +upright. He grabbed for a cigarette and inhaled it tremendously. “It’s +going like cutting butter with a hot knife. I started cross-examining +today. I gave him three and a half hours of it, straight off the ice, +and I’m not through with him yet. Not half. If he had as many legs as a +centipede he’d still not have one left to stand on when I’m through with +him. I doubt he’ll have his marrow bones to crawl out on, the way he’s +crumpling up. Even old Hounslow at his worst can’t possibly misdirect +the jury, the way I’ve gummed their noses on the trail. I’ll tell you--” + +He told her. + +She had put out both her hands and taken one of his. “It’s splendid, +Harry. It’s too splendid. How delighted I am, and proud, proud! No one +would have imagined it at the beginning. What a triumph it will be for +you!” + +His grasp squeezed hers in fond response. “Why, it won’t do me any +harm,” he agreed. His tone was light. He released his hand and took up +a cup of tea, and his tone went deep. “Mind you, I’m glad about it,” + he said, and stirred the spoon thoughtfully within the cup. He had come +into the room declaring he was dying for some tea, but he had touched +none, and he now replaced the cup untasted on the table and she saw on +his face the deep “inward” look that she knew (and loved) for the sign +of intense concentration of his mind. “Yes, glad,” he spoke; his voice, +as was its habit when he was “inward,” sounding as though it was the +involuntary, and not the intentional, utterance of his thoughts. “I’ve +gone all out over this case. I saw, the minute they briefed me, that +one tiny flaw, his neglect to take up that option--you remember, I told +you--right down at the bottom of the whole tangle, and I went plumb down +for it and hung on to it and fought it up like, like a diver coming up +from fathoms down.” + +She had a quickness of imagery. It constantly delighted him. “Yes, +that’s good,” she declared. “Up like a diver, Harry. Not with goggles +and a helmet and all that, but shot up like a flash, all shining and +glistening and triumphant with the jewel aloft. What a shout there’d be! +Dear Harry! You’re splendid!” + +He smiled most lovingly. “As a matter of fact, I feel I ought to make a +mess of it. It’ll be the first big case since we’ve been together that, +while it’s been on, we haven’t had talks about. You couldn’t, of course, +with this so near to you. It would be significant, and proper, if I +drowned in it.” + +She shook her head. “Absurd! Why, the thing I’m most glad about, Harry, +is that all this”--she indicated with a gesture her pose, her dress, her +condition--“that all this hasn’t in the least upset your work. It might +have. It hasn’t--and when it happens, it won’t, will it?” + +Harry said, “I’m rather ashamed to say it hasn’t, in the least. I’ve +thought of you, often, but I’ve simply put the thought away. And when +it happens, I shall think of you--terribly--going through it; and of the +small thing--But we shall be in the crisis of the case and I shall have +to forget you. I’ll have to, Rosalie, as I have had to. The work must go +on.” + +She agreed emphatically. “Of course it must.” She then said, “Whereas +mine--” + +He did not attend her. The “inward” look was deep upon his face. There +was the suggestion of a grimmish smile about his mouth. One could +have guessed that he was rehearsing, with satisfaction, his enormous +application while the work was going on. + +She gave a sound of laughter, and that aroused him. “What’s the joke?” + +“Why, just how this does rather illuminate the point--” + +“The point...?” + +“Your work and mine--a man’s and a woman’s.” + +“Yes, tell me, dear.” + +“Why, Harry, I do think of it sometimes. We’ve planned it and arranged +it and settled it so nicely, these years, and you see the big thing +in marriage comes along and shatters it to bits. Your work goes on +precisely as if nothing at all were happening; mine has to stand by.” + +“Ah, but this,” Harry said, and in his turn indicated her condition. +“This--this is different. We agreed, before Huggo, that if we had +children it need make no difference to you, to your work, in a way. And +it hasn’t, and needn’t now--when it’s over. But this time, this period, +why, that’s bound to interfere.” + +“But it doesn’t interfere with you. It shows the difference.” + +“Oh, it shows the difference,” he assented. + +His tone was conspicuously careless, conceding the difference but +attaching to it no importance at all; and with it he rose--she had +instantly the impression of him as it were brushing the difference like +a crumb from his lap--and announced, “I’m going to my study now for a +couple of hours before dinner. I must. Our solicitor’s coming in.” He +bent over her and kissed her lovingly. “You understand, I know.” + +And he went. + +Yes, it showed the difference! And was not seen by him! Yes, injurious. +Yes, could conceive a grudge.... + +There was a mirage in her face. Her face, that had been boy’s and +mutinous these weeks, was Mary’s and was lovely in maternal love when it +was turned towards the scrap that on a morning lay against her breast; +her thoughts, that had been stubborn, hard, resentful while her days +approached, welled in remorse, compassion, yearning, joy, when they were +past and this was come. She’d grudged him, this littlest one! Grudged +his right, put her own right against it, this tiny, helpless one! When, +added to these thoughts, Huggo and Doda, those lovely darlings, were +permitted to see him, asleep beside her, he was so wee, so almost +nothing against their sturdy limbs, and had come so unwanted--yes, +unwanted, this cherishable one of all!--that she knew instantly what +name he must be given. Her Benjamin! + +Lying much alone in the succeeding days, contrite, adoring; with +frequent happy tears (she was left weak): with tender, thank-God, +charged with meaning tears, she found a vindication of her self-reproach +that immensely bound her up, forgave her, gave her comfort. She could +give up her work! She could leave all and be with her darlings! Of +course she could! At any time! She had grudged the right to come of +this defenceless scrap. She had set against his right her own right. Ah, +dangerous! A long road lay that way! In conflict of his coming, with her +own rights she had been much engaged. Here, on the sheet beside her, and +in the nursery, overhead, were other rights. Well, when they claimed.... +Of course she could! She had not thought enough about these things.... + +There is to be said for her that she thought not very widely nor +very deeply upon them now. Her resolution that she could, when it was +necessary, give up her work, scattered them. It came to her as comes to +a man, beset by poverty, scheming by this way and by that to abate it, +news of a legacy. He ceases, in his relief, his present schemes; he +has “no need to worry now.” Or came to her as comes a sail to one +shipwrecked and adrift, painfully calculating out his final dregs +of food and water. He ceases, at that emblem, his desperate plans to +stretch his days. He’s all right now. + +It was like that with Rosalie. + +While only she had realised her resentment of this baby’s claims, and +only now her contrite yielding to them; before she had conjectured +deeply on all the problem thus revealed; there came to her, like way +of escape to one imprisoned, like instantaneous lifting of a fog to one +therein occluded, the thought, “I can give up the work.” + +Of course she could! At any moment; by a word; by the mere formulation +of the step within her mind, she could abandon her career. Not now. +It was not necessary now. But if or when--she used that phrase, in set +terms propounding her resolution to herself--if or when the call of +her children, of her home, came and was paramount, she could give up +everything and respond to it. Oh, happy! Oh, glad discharge of her +remorse! When the children wanted her she could just--come back. Field +and Company, her career, her successes--what of them? She had done +well in her career, she still would do well. Let the claim of home and +children once come into the scale against the claim of those ambitions +and--she would just come back! + +Oh, happy! + +“Come back”? Who was it had said something about that, something about +“come back” for a woman, making the expression thus dimly familiar in +her mind? Who? Laetitia? No, Laetitia was always associated with another +phrase: striking because in terms identical with accusation previously +delivered against her. Well she remembered it! On the day following +Harry’s visit to the house to take his deserts from poor Aunt Belle and +Uncle Pyke, she also had gone there, following his high idea of what was +right. She had been refused admittance. There had come for her as the +last voice out of that house a quivering letter from Aunt Belle, seeming +to quiver in the hand with the passionate upbraiding that had indited +it, and a forlorn sentence from Laetitia. “I have done everything for +you, everything, everything, and this is how you have rewarded me,” had +pulsed the pages of Aunt Belle; Laetitia only had written: + +“Oh, Rosalie! You could have had any one you liked to love you, but you +took my Harry and I shall never, never have another.” + +Miss Salmon’s cry again! Twice identically accused. Once grotesquely +accused; once, on the surface, rightly accused. Both times aware how +poignant and pathetic was the cry; not moved the first time, not moved +the second. Recurring to her now, she knew again how broken-hearted sad +it was, and knew again it ought to move, but did not. Well, not strange +now. She was a long way out of those too soft compassions. No, not +Laetitia had made “come back” familiar to her. The phrase, as she seemed +to recollect its context, was too profoundly practical for the Laetitia +sort; and that was why, of course, it moved her nothing. She had learnt, +jostling off corners in the market place, what formerly she had only +conjectured,--that there was in life no room for sentiment, it clogged; +it hampered; it brought sticky unreality into that which was sharply +real. “Come back?” No, not Laetitia. Who? Keggo? Yes, it was Keggo; and +immediately with the name’s recovery was recovered the phrase’s context. +This very matter! “Rosalie, a woman can’t--come back.” + +Absurd! But, yes, how she remembered it now! “Very dangerous being a +woman,” Keggo had said. “Men go into dangers but they come out of them +and go home to tea. That’s what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always +get out. They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, heart +and soul, body and mind. Rosalie, women do. That’s why it is so very, +very dangerous being a woman. Women can’t come back. They take to a +thing, anything, and go deep enough, and they’re its; they never, never +will get away from it; they never, never will be able to come back out +of it. Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman gives herself, forgets +moderation and gives herself to anything, she is its captive for ever. +She may think she can come back but she can’t come back. For a woman +there is no comeback. They don’t issue return tickets to women. For +women there is only departure; there is no return.” + +Poor Keggo! + +Poor Keggo had of course founded her theory upon her own bitter plight. +How she had given her case away when she had said, “Look at me!” It +applied to her, of course, or to any woman--or man for that matter--who +drank or drugged. It applied not in the least to such a case as this of +her own. Keggo had tried to apply it. She had said, “You have a theory +of life. You are bent upon a career in life. Suppose you ever wanted to +come back?” + +She had laughed and declared she never would want to come back. Well, +look how absurd all poor Keggo’s idea was now being proved! It had +suddenly occurred to her that it might at some future time be required +of her to come back; and all she had to do was just--to come back. No +difficulty about it whatsoever! No struggle! Indeed, and fondly she +touched that by her side which had called up these thoughts, she would +come back joyously. Of course she would! Field and Company, ambition, +that for if and when her darlings called her! Yes, wrong every way, +that poor Keggo. Dangerous being a woman, she had said, and it was not +dangerous. It could be, and she had proved it, a state that could be +lived full in every aspect,--full in freedom, full in endeavour, full +in love, full in motherhood. Dangerous! A week ago, inimical to this +advent, injurious; now, in this advent’s presence, and with this +resolution gladly dedicated to it, only and wholly glorious. + +This one! Come after connection, come in contrition, come to call +her back when she should need to be called, the little tiny one, the +belovedest one, the Benjamin one--her Benji! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Those children were brought up with every modern advantage. Wisdom is +judged by the age in which it flourishes, and everything that the day +accounts wise for children those children had. Their father was of +considerable and always increasing means; their mother was of great +and untrammelled intelligence: anything that money could provide for +children, and that intelligent principles of upbringing said ought to be +provided for children, those children enjoyed. When they were out of the +care of Muffet, who was everything that a nurse ought to be, they +passed into the care of a resident governess, Miss Prescott, who was a +children’s governess, not for the old and fatuous reason that she “loved +children,” but for the new and intelligent reason that she was attracted +by the child-mind as a study and was certificated and diplomaed in the +study of children as an exact science,--Child Welfare as she called it. +Miss Prescott had complete charge of the children while they were tiny +and while they were growing up to eleven and nine and Benji to +seven years old. She taught them their lessons (on her own, the new, +principles) and on the same principles their habits and the formation of +their characters. It might roundly be said that everything troublesome +in regard to the children was left to Miss Prescott, and, left to her, +came never between the children and their mother. Their mother only +enjoyed her children, presented to her fresh, clean and happy for the +purpose of her enjoyment; and the children only enjoyed their mother, +visiting them smiling, devoted, unworried, for the purpose of their +happiness. + +It was a perfect, and a mutually beneficial arrangement. As there had +been, before the children came, two independent lives behind the gamboge +door, so, with the occupation of the nurseries, there were, as it might +be, three independent households, mingling, at selected times, only for +purposes of happiness. + +It was perfect. In the summer a house was taken at Cromer by the sea and +there, all through the fine weather, Miss Prescott was installed with +her charges. Their mother had three weeks from Field’s in the summer and +she and their father would spend the whole of it, and often week-ends, +at Cromer idling and playing with their darlings. That was jolly. The +children associated nothing whatever but happiness with their parents. + +In the other months of the year their mother was immensely occupied with +her work at Field’s, developing beyond expectation; and their father +early and late with his work in the Temple, his esteem by solicitors and +by litigants almost beyond his time to satisfy. Their father was +much paragraphed in the social journals, and their mother also. The +paragraphs said their father was making a “princely fortune” at the Bar +and never told of him without telling also of his wife. They described +her as “of Field’s Bank” and always drove the word “unique” hand in +hand with every mention of her parts. “Unique personality”; “unique +position”; “unique among professional women”; “unique,” said one, “in +combining notable beauty and rare business acumen; an office which +she attends daily and a charming home; a profession, three beautiful +children, and a brilliant husband.” + +The syntax is weak, but the truth is in it and those children were to be +envied in their mother. + +Miss Prescott, when she came, did not displace the Muffet. She +was installed additional to the Muffet; and as touching the modern +principles relating to children she very soon told Muffet a thing or +two not previously dreamt of in the Muffet philosophy but having, thence +forward, occasional place in the Muffet nightmares. + +The Muffet, however, was of lymphatic character, with, as her most +constant desire, the desire not to be “plagued.” She was one of those +people who are for ever declaring that they never eat anything, who at +meals, indeed, appear to eat very little, but who between meals, are +eating all day long. At all hours of the day the Muffet jaws, like the +jaws of a ruminant, were steadily munching, munching. When Benji was +three Muffet was getting distinctly fat. On a corner of the night +nursery mantelpiece she had a photographic group of her parents and of +an uncle and aunt who lived with her parents. These four were very fat +and one evening the children’s father made a remark about this portrait +that made their mother laugh delightedly. + +Benji was in his cot. Huggo had just come from his bath and was having +his toes wiped by his mother because he declared Muffet had not dried +them properly. He said Muffet groaned when she stooped. + +His mother said, “You know, Harry, Muffet is getting fat. Have you +noticed it?” + +Their father was bent almost double swinging Doda between his legs, +the stomach of Doda reposing on the palms of his joined hands and Doda +squealing ecstatically. + +Their father said, “I have. Go and look at that photograph, Rosalie, and +you’ll see why. Look at what her people are. Muffet’s broadening down +from precedent to precedent.” + +It made their mother laugh. The children didn’t know why it made her +laugh, but they laughed with her. They always did, or with their father +when he laughed. And there was always lots of jolly laughter when their +father and mother came up to the nurseries. + +Those children, as they passed through early childhood, never saw their +parents but happy and good-spirited. They never saw them worried nor +ever saw them sad. That was, as one might say, Rosalie’s chief offering +to her darlings. It was splendid to Rosalie that her way of life, far +from causing her (as prejudice would have prophesied) to neglect her +children, enabled her to consider them in their relations with herself +as, by their mothers, children in her childhood never were considered. +That they should associate nothing--nothing at all--but happiness with +her was the basis of it. Children, she held, ought not to see their +parents bad-tempered or distressed or in any way out of sorts or out of +control. For a child to do so has in two ways a bad effect on the child +mind. In the first place, it is harmful for children to come in contact +with the unpleasant things of life; in the second, parents should always +be to their children models of conduct and of disposition. They should +in themselves present ideals to their children. A man should be a hero +to his son; a woman an ideal to her daughter. Why is no man a hero to +his valet? It is simply because his valet sees him, as do not those +whose esteem he desires to win, in his off moments. Children should +never see their parents in their off moments. + +This principle was not Rosalie’s alone. It is the modern principle. The +point, to Rosalie, was that, by her way of life, she was able to apply +it. Children were too much with their parents. That was the fault; +in her childhood the universal fault, even now the fault among the +unenlightened. Parents, being human, must have off moments; are not off +moments, indeed, in the total of the day, of greater sum than moments +of circumspection? It follows that if children are always with their +parents, the more unlovely side cannot fail to be perceived, and, +arising out of it, must follow injury by example, harm by environment, +smirching of idealism, loss of respect. In those homes where the mother +(in Rosalie’s phrase) is the children’s slave, why has the father the +children’s greater respect? Why is it fine to do what father does? Why +jolly and exciting to be with father? It is only because the father +commonly is away all day, only seen by them when, shedding other +affairs, he comes to see them specially. + +Her life--oddly how well for everything and every one her attitude to +life fell out!--obtained for her and for them the same wise and happy +restriction from too free familiarity. She was able to come to her +children only when all her undivided attention and whole hearted love +could be given to them. They never saw her vexed, they never saw her +angry, they never saw her sad. It was not a commonplace to them to see +their mother. It was an event. A morning event and an evening event--and +unfailingly a completely happy event. She looked back upon her own +childhood with her own mother and reflected, fondly but clearly, +affectionately but not blinded by affection, how very different was +that. She was always with her mother. Her mother was often sad, often +worried, often, in distraction of her worries, irritable in speech. +Often sad! Why, she could remember time and again when her dear mother, +hunted by her cares, was broken down and crying. She would go to her +mother then and cry to see her crying, and her mother would put her arms +around her and hug her to her breast and declare she was her “little +comfort.” Was it good for a child to suffer scenes like that? She used +to be with her mother all day long, from early morning till last thing +at night. With what result? That she saw and suffered with her, or +suffered of her, all that her mother suffered; that she was sometimes +desolated to feeling that her heart was broken for her mother. Could +that be good for a child? Her Huggo, her Doda and her Benji never saw +her anything but radiant; and because that was so (as she told herself) +she never saw them cry, either on her account or on their own. + +Therein--grief in her presence on their own account--another point +arose. With as her ideal that only happiness should be associated with +her, she found her way of life beneficial to the preservation of that +ideal in that it prevented her from being the vessel that should convey +the restrictions, the reproofs and the instruction that are troublesome +to small minds. All that was left to Miss Prescott. She remembered +lessons with her mother; she remembered the irksome learning of a +hundred “don’ts” from her mother; and though they were tender and +pathetic memories she remembered also the reverse of the picture,--being +glad to escape from her mother, resentful against her mother when stood +in the corner by her mother, when stopped doing this that and the other +by her mother, when made to learn terribly hard lessons by her mother +and to go on learning them till she had learnt them. Only childish +resentment, of course, swept up and forgotten as by the sun emerging out +of clouds the shadow from a landscape. But why should children ever have +the tiniest frown against their mother? There must be frowns, there +must be tears. Let others bear the passing grudge of those. Let Miss +Prescott. + +Miss Prescott was willing and able to bear anything like that. She +delighted in such. She told Rosalie, when Rosalie engaged her, and after +she had seen the children, that her only hesitation in accepting the +post was that the children were too normal. “By normal,” said Miss +Prescott, speaking, as she always spoke, as if she were a passage out of +a book given utterance, “By normal, Mrs. Occleve, I do not, of course, +mean commonplace. Any one can see how attractive they are, how gifted; +any one can know how distinguished, with, if I may say so, such talented +parents, their inherited qualities must be. No, when I say normal, +I mean showing no disquieting signs, constitutionally tractable, not +refractory. In that sense of normality it is much more the abnormal +child to whom I would have liked to devote myself. I have specialised +in children. The harder the case the more I should be interested in it. +That’s what I mean. But I never could have hoped to find a household +where, though there can be no difficulties, I should have such +opportunities of helping children to be perfect men and women; nor a +mother to whose children I would more gladly, proudly, devote myself; +nor a place with which I should feel myself so entirely in sympathy. +If you feel, on reflection, that I should suit you, it will be, I am +sure--why should I not say so--an auspicious day for those little ones.” + +How happy was Rosalie thus by provision to destiny her darlings! + +Miss Prescott was thirty when engaged by Rosalie. She had a way of +looking at people which, if described, can best describe her appearance. +She was once in an omnibus in London and the conductor, standing against +her, and about to serve a ticket to a passenger seated next her, had +some trouble with his bell-punch. It would not work and he fumbled +with it, angry. Everybody in the bus watched him. It is not nice to be +watched when baffled and heated in bafflement but the only gaze to which +attention was given by the conductor was the gaze of Miss Prescott. +He glanced constantly from the obdurate machine to the face of Miss +Prescott. Suddenly he said: “‘Ere, suppose you do it, then,” and pushed +the bell-punch at her. Miss Prescott took it, did it, astoundingly and +instantaneously, and handed it back with no word. The conductor seemed +more angry than before. + +It was like that that Miss Prescott looked at people. + +There is right way of doing everything. Miss Prescott had an uncanny +instinct for finding it; and, applying this faculty to her training +of the child-mind, she presented herself as a notable exponent of the +system in which, as has been said, she was certificated and diplomaed. +She taught children how to play in the right way, how to learn in the +right way, and above all how, in every way and at every turn, to reason. +By the old, ignorant plan children were instructed, speaking broadly, +by love or by fear. It was by pure reason that Miss Prescott instructed +them. The child was treated as an earnest physician treats a case. Ill +temper or wrong behaviour in a child was neither vexing nor sad. It was +profoundly interesting. There was a right and scientific way to treat it +and that right and scientific way was thought out and administered. The +child was “a case.” + +It was taught nothing but truths and facts. Its mind was not permitted +to be befogged with fairy stories, with superstitions, with Father +Christmases and the like, nor yet with religious half-truths and +misty fables. These entailed not only befogging at the time, but +disillusionment thereafter. Disillusionment was wicked for a child. +It further was taught nothing at all (in the matter of lessons) at the +grotesquely early age at which children used to be taught. It was taught +first to reason. + +In general the whole system lay in developing the child’s reasoning +powers and then, at every turn and particularly at every manifestation +of indiscipline, appealing to its reason. “I am here to be happy”--that +was the first, and surely the kindest and easiest, knowledge to fix +in the child. From that foundation everything was worked. It never was +necessary to punish a child. It only was necessary to reason with it. In +the old phraseology a child meet to be punished was a naughty child. +In the terminology of Miss Prescott such a child was a sick child or an +unreasoning child: a case presenting an adverse symptom. But take the +older term,--a naughty child. A naughty child was an unhappy child. The +treatment went like this, “I am here to be happy. I am not happy. Why am +I not happy? Because I have done so and so and so and so....” + +Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. Rosalie in her childish +misdemeanours would have been prevailed upon by the unhappiness her +conduct caused her mother. All wrong! A faulty process of reasoning; +indeed not a process of reasoning at all: a crude appeal to the +emotions. Those three children who on the one part never saw their +mother sad and were constrained to comfort her, on the other never +were bribed to good behaviour by the thought of grieving her. They +only associated happiness with her and they enjoyed happiness simply by +reasoning away unhappiness. + +Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. + +Happy Huggo, happy Doda, happy Benji, happy Rosalie! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +It has been said of Time, earlier in these pages, the cloak-and-dagger +sort he is, that stalks and pounces. One seeks only to record him when +he thus assails, and there is this result; that it is necessary to +pare away so much. In instance, there’s to be inserted now a note on +Rosalie’s advance in her career. It’s cut to nothing. This is because +all that career ultimately was known to her never to have really +mattered. And so with other things. That girl, all through, pressing so +strong ahead, rises to the eye not cumbered with other importance than +her own. There might be asked for (by a reader) presentation of Harry’s +parents; of what was doing all this time to her own parents in the +rectory, to Harold, Robert, Flora, Hilda; of friends that Rosalie and +Harry had. That girl’s passage is not traced in such. Whose is? The +chart where such are marked is just a common public print, stamped for +the public eye. They’re not set down upon that secret chart all carry +in the cabin of their soul, and there, in that so hidden and inviolable +stateroom, poring over it by the uncertain swinging lamp of conscience, +prick out their way. + +Her installation in the bank had been a notable success. She dealt with +all the insurance advice and with income-tax advice and business; and +it was remarkable to her, at first, how many of Field’s clients were as +children in the mysteries of income tax, and as children alike in their +ignorance of the possibilities of life insurance and in their pleasure +at the discoveries she set before them. But further than this (and more +important, said Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. Field) was the quick response +of the clients to the various domestic advice that it was Rosalie’s +business to give. Husbands and wives from the East, or returned thither +from London and writing from the East, consulted her on innumerable +matters. When, in instance, an army officer wrote to her from India, +very diffidently wondering if she could help him in the matter of some +Christmas presents for his wife and children at home, Mr. Sturgiss was +uncommonly pleased. + +“I knew it!” said Mr. Sturgiss. “That’s the kind of thing. You watch how +side-lines like that will develop. That’s what these people want--some +one at home they can rely on. I tell you, Mrs. Occleve, you, that is +to say your department of Field’s, is what the Anglo-Eastern has been +wanting ever since Clive and Warren Hastings went out--a link with home. +You see.” + +She did see. Mr. Field saw. The clients saw. The friends of the clients +saw--and became clients. + +All of her position reposed, and was developed by her, on the cruel +disabilities of those who earn their bread in the East. For all such, +married, comes, in time, the sad and the costly business of the divided +home,--the two establishments, the sundering of children and parents, of +husband and wife. By the age of seven at latest, the children have to +be sent home for health and education. Then the sundering, the losing of +touch, the compulsion upon the man, that those at home may be promptly +supported, to deny himself year after year the longed-for visit home. +The losing of touch.... Invaluable to them to have in Field’s, in +“that Mrs. Occleve” a link, known personally or by reputation, that was +useable as relations (capricious, “touchy,” interfering) often are not +useable; and dependable as relations, unpractical, certainly are not +always dependable. Invaluable to the clients; declared by Mr. Field and +by Mr. Sturgiss to be invaluable to the bank; absorbing and splendid to +Rosalie. “And still,” Mr. Sturgiss was always saying, “still capable of +much bigger development.” + +He sketched one day a development that would be a stride indeed. +It began to be discussed by the three. It connoted so absolute a +recognition of Rosalie’s worth that she decided--lest it should fall +through--she would not mention it to Harry till either it was fallen +through or was afoot. Then! + +It made her busy. She told Harry once, when they’d been talking of +how much at office she was kept, of her work, and of the place she was +making for herself, “Well, it’s not bad, Harry,” she told him. “It’s +not bad. I’ll admit that. What pleases me is that it’s only a beginning; +well as it’s going, and long as I’ve now been at it, only a beginning. +I can’t, as I’ve often said to you, be doing all this without getting a +long insight into the actual banking business. Oh, don’t you remember +my telling you about that appalling evening when I told poor Uncle Pyke +that I wanted to be a banker? How outraged he was! Poor person, how +rightly outraged! The ridiculous notion that I ever could be a banker! A +grotesque dream!” She gave a small laugh as if tenderly smiling at image +before her of that innocent, eager girl at the Pyke Pounce table. She +said softly, “A grotesque dream. Now, with patent limitations--not a +dream.” + +It was like that that Time (disguised as triumph) kept out of the way; +and similarly disguised, showed no sign either on the children’s side. +All splendid there! Growing up! Huggo set to school! + +Huggo learnt with Miss Prescott till he was nine, then attended daily a +first-rate school for little boys in Kensington, at eleven started as a +boarder at a preparatory school for Tidborough. Next he was to go to +the great public school itself, afterwards to Oxford and the Bar. All’s +well! Time had nothing at all to say during the first two stages of the +programme. It was in Huggo’s first holidays from the preparatory school +that Time whipped out his blade and pounced. + +On a day that was a week before the end of that holidays the great new +scheme for Rosalie at Field’s rose to its feet and walked. It was a +special mission on behalf of the bank. + +It necessitated.. . . + +She came once or twice to a bit of a stop like that while waiting their +evening talk together in which she should tell Harry. It necessitated +a departure from the established order of things; but what of that? Was +not the way bill of her life all departures from things established, +and all successful, and were not all contingencies of this particular +departure fully insured against? She very easily cantered on, on this +rein. That bit of a stop was scarcely a check in the progression of her +thoughts. + +Seated with Harry in Harry’s room that night she was about to tell +him her great news when, “I’d an unusual offer made to me today,” said +Harry. + +Almost the very words herself had been about to use! + +“Why so had I to me!” she cried. + +They both laughed. “Tell on,” said Harry. + +“No, you. Yours first.” + +“Toss you,” cried Harry; and spun a coin and lost and went ahead: “Well, +mine doesn’t exactly shake the foundations of the world with excitement +because I refused it. It was to go out to defend in a big murder case in +Singapore!” + +She exclaimed, “In Singapore!” + +“Yes, Singapore. Why do you say it like that?” + +She did not answer. + +The prisoner, Harry went on, was a wealthy trader, immensely wealthy, +and immensely detested, it appeared, by the European settlement; had +native blood in his veins; was charged with poisoning an Englishman +with whose wife he was supposed to have been carrying on an amour. “A +wretched, unsavoury business,” said Harry, and went on to say that, +though the fee offered was extraordinarily handsome, he had declined the +proposal. It was doubtful he would actually make more money over it than +in his normal round at home, more than that it went against the grain to +be defending a man of native origins who had pretty obviously seduced a +white woman if not murdered her husband. “No, no ticket to Singapore for +me, thanks,” said Harry. + +Rosalie turned to him with a sudden, direct interest. “Harry, suppose +you had accepted, how long would you have been away?” + +“Not less than six months in all. Certainly not less. That’s another +point against--” + +“Yes, against the idea, because in any case you don’t want to go. But +suppose the circumstances had been different; suppose it was a case that +for various reasons very much attracted you; would you have gone?” + +Harry said indifferently, “Oh, no doubt, no doubt.” + +“Although it would have taken you from home six months--or more? You’d +not have minded that?” + +He laughed delightedly. “Ah, ha! I was beginning to wonder what you were +driving at. You’re a regular lawyer, Rosalie; you led me on and then +caught me out properly.” + +His amusement was not reflected by her. She said with a certain +insistence, “But you wouldn’t have minded?” + +He laughed again. “The judge ruled that the question was admissible and +must be answered. Well, minded--I’d have minded, of course, very much +in a way. I’m a home bird. I’d have hated being away the best part of a +year. But there you are. If the call was strong enough, there you are; +it would have been business.” + +She indrew a long breath. “That’s it. It would have been business.” + +There was then a pause. + +Harry, who had been talking lightly, then said slowly, “Rosalie, is +there something behind this?” + +She turned towards him with a very nice smile. “Harry, I’ve been doing a +very shocking thing. I’ve been making you commit yourself.” + +“Commit myself?” + +She nodded. “Been taking down your statement without warning you that it +may be used in evidence against you.” + +He said gravely, “Somehow I don’t like this.” + +She told him, “Ah, stupid me! I’m making a small thing seem big. Listen, +Harry. It was curious to me this about you and Singapore--” + +“Yes, I noticed that. Why?” + +“Because there’s an idea of my going out to Singapore.” + +He was astounded. She might have said to Mars. “You? To Singapore?” + +“To the East generally. To Bombay, to Rangoon, to Singapore. For about a +year.” + +He was all aback. “For about a year? Rosalie, I can’t--Why on earth--?” + +She did not like this. The great scheme! Her special mission! It +necessitated.... Here was the necessity at which she had checked +but confidently ridden on, and Harry was pulled right up by it. His +astonishment was not comfortable to her. Was there to be a check then? +He said again, “You? A year? But, Rosalie, what on earth--” + +She pronounced a single word, his own word: + +“Business.” + +He was standing before her on the hearthrug. He made a turn and at once +turned back. “Are you thinking of this seriously?” + +“Most seriously.” + +“Of going?” + +“Of going. It’s business.” + +“For a year?” + +“Harry, yes.” + +He began to fill his pipe with very slow movements of his fingers, his +eyes bent down upon her. “And you called this--just now--a small thing?” + +She said with a sudden eagerness, “Harry, it’s a very big thing for me, +for Field’s. I meant a small thing in the sense not to be made a fuss +about.” + +He made very slowly a negative movement with his head. “I don’t see it +like that.” + +“Let me tell you, Harry.” + +She told him how the great possibilities of the department she had +established in the bank rested on the personal touch established between +herself and the clients. The scheme was that those possibilities should +be developed to their fullest extent. While she was in London that +personal touch could be established with clients by dozens. If she +visited the branches in the East, at Bombay, at Rangoon, at Singapore, +it was by hundreds that the touch could be established. That was it. +Field’s customers would talk to her, and when she was returned they +would talk of her, and would tell others of her, as one met, not during +the jolly freedom of leave when the impulse was to feel that, after all, +nothing mattered much, but met out there when they were in the yoke +and the harness of the thing,--met as one fresh out from home in their +particular interests and shortly, charged with their special interests, +returning home. That was it! A novel mission, a valuable mission, her +mission. About a year. To start in about six weeks. “There, Harry, +that’s the plan.” + +“And you are going?” + +“I have agreed to go.” + +He said slowly, “It astonishes me.” + +There was then a pause. + +She spoke. “I think I do not like your astonishment, Harry.” + +“It is justified.” + +“No, no; not justified. When you told me of a possibility of Singapore +for you I was not astonished. I made no difficulty.” + +“Different,” he said. “Different.” + +“Not different, Harry. The same. How different? If you could go, I can +go. The same. Aren’t things with us always the same?” + +He shook his head. “Not this. If I had to go--” + +“Yes, yes. It’s the point. If you had to go you’d have to go. Well, I +have to go.” + +“Rosalie, if I had to go I could go. A man can.” + +She cried, “But, Harry, that--This isn’t us talking at all. You mean a +man can leave his home because his home can go on without him. But our +home--it’s just the same for me in our home. We’ve made it like that. +It runs itself. The kitchen--I don’t know when I last gave an order. +The children--there’s never a word. The thing’s organised. I’m an +organiser.” She laughed, “Dear, that’s why they’re sending me. Isn’t it +organised?” + +He assented, but with an inflexion on the word “It’s--organised.” + +She did not attend the inflexion. “Well, that’s no organisation that +can’t, in necessity, run by itself. This can. You know, quite well, this +will. You know, quite well, that you will not be put about a jot.” + +“Oh, I know that,” he said. + +“Well, then. Astonished--why astonished?” + +He looked at her. “Let’s call it,” he said, “the principle of the +thing.” + +Oh, now astonishment between them. Her voice, astounded, had an echo’s +sound--faint, faint, scarcely to be heard, gone. “The prin-ci-ple!” + +This room was lit, then, only by a standard lamp remote from where they +were beside the fire. She was in a deep armchair; its partner, Harry’s +chair, close by. He sat himself on the arm, looking towards her. The +firelight made shadows on his face. + +She presently murmured, her voice as though that echo, lost, was +murmuring back, “Oh, it is I that am astonished now. The principle! +It’s like a ghost. Harry, how possibly can there come between us the +principle?” + +His voice was deep, “Are we afraid of it, old girl?” + +She put out a hand and touched him and he touched her hand. They were +such lovers still. That was the thing about it. There never had been +an issue between them, not the smallest; the bloom of their first union +never had dissipated, not a rub. But there was in Harry the intention +now to take her, and there was in her the apprehension now of being +taken, to a new dimension of conversation, not previously trod by them. +As they proceeded it was seen not to be light in this place; a place +where touch might be lost. + +She said, “But to bring up the principle in this! It can’t be possible +you’ve changed. It isn’t conceivable to me that you have changed. Then +how the principle?” + +“It is the situation that has changed, Rosalie. It never occurred to me; +I never dreamt or imagined that a thing like this could arise.” + +She moved in her chair. “Oh, this goes deep....” + +He put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re not afraid.” + +“But I’m so strong in this. So always certain. In our dear years +together so utterly assured. Nothing within the principle could touch +me. I am steel everywhere upon the principle. I might hurt you, Harry.” + +“I’ll not be hurt.” + +“Well, say it, Harry.” + +He was silent a moment. “There isn’t really very much to say. To me it’s +so clear.” + +She murmured, “And to me.” + +He said, “We’ve made this home--eleven years. It’s been ideal. You have +combined your work with your--what shall I call it?--with your domestic +arrangements--your business with your domesticity--You’ve done it +wonderfully. We’ve never had to discuss the subject since we agreed upon +it.” + +She murmured, “That is why--agreed.” + +“Agreed in general. But when you take the home as between a man and a +woman, there are bound to be responsibilities which, however much you +share, cannot be divided. The woman’s are the--the domesticity.” + +“What are the man’s?” + +“To maintain the home.” + +“I share in that.” + +“Well, grant you do. I do not claim to share the other.” + +“You are not asked to, Harry.” + +“No, but, Rosalie, I’ve the right to ask you to provide the other.” + +Her murmur said, “Oh, do not let us bring up rights. I am so fixed on +rights.” + +“Rosalie, let’s keep the thing square. A man can leave his home; he +often has to. I think not so a woman; not a mother; not as you wish now +to leave it. It can’t, without her, go on--not in the same way.” + +“Yes, ours. Ours can.” + +“Not in the same way. You can’t take out the woman and leave it the +same,--the same for the man, the same for the children. We’re married. +The married state. With children. Doesn’t the whole fabric of the +married state rest on the domesticity of woman?” + +She murmured, “No, on her resignation, Harry.” + +As if he had touched something and been burnt he very sharply drew in +his breath. + +She said, “Ah, you’d be hurt, I told you. Dear, I can’t be other than I +am on this. Upon her resignation, Harry. Men call it domesticity. That’s +their fair word for their offence. It’s woman’s resignation is the +fabric of the married state. She lets her home be built upon her back. +She resigns everything to carry it. She has to. If she moves it shakes. +If she stands upright it crashes. Dear, not ours. I’ve stood upright all +the time. I’ve proved the fallacy. A woman can stand upright and yet +be wife, be mother, make home. Dear, you are not to ask me now--for +resignation.” + +Therein, and through all the passage of this place where the footway +was uneven, the light not good, the quality of her voice was low and +noteless, sometimes difficult to hear. There is to say it was by that +the more assured, as is more purposeful in its suggestion the tide that +enters, not upon the gale, but in the calm and steady flow of its own +strength. + +The quality of Harry’s voice was very deep and sometimes halting, as +though it were out of much difficulty that he spoke. He said, deeply, +“That you stand upright does not discharge you from responsibilities.” + +She said, “Dear, nor my responsibilities discharge me from my +privileges.” + +There was then a silence. + +He spoke, “But I am going to press this, Rosalie. I say, with all +admitted, this thing--this ‘I could go but you should not go’--is +different as between us. I am a man.” + +She made a movement in her chair. “Ah, let that go. I have a reply to +that.” + +“What reply?” + +“I am a woman.” + +He began--“It’s nothing--.” + +She said, “Oh, painful to give you pain. To me--everything.” + +He got up from his position beside her and went to his chair and seated +himself. He sat on the edge of the chair, bowed forward, his forearms on +his knees, his hands clasped; not smoking; his pipe between his fingers, +his eyes upon the fire. Once or twice, his hands close to his face, he +slightly raised them and with his pipe-stem softly tapped his teeth. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +He had called it the principle. She watched him. That attitude in which +he sat was of a profundity of meditation not to be looked upon without +that sense of awe, of oppression, of misgiving that is aroused by the +suggestion in man or nature of brooding forces mysteriously engrossed. +There came to her, watching him, a thought that newly disturbed her +thoughts. He had called it the principle. She had been astonished but +she had not been perturbed. Upon the principle as between man and woman, +husband and wife, she was, as she had said, so strong, so confident, +accustomed and assured, that there was nothing could be said could touch +her there. But it was not the principle. This was the knowledge brought +to her by the new thought suddenly appeared in her mind, standing there +like a strange face in a council of friends, unbidden and of a suspect +look. What if she communicated that knowledge to Harry brooding there? +He had called it the principle. What if she put across the shadowed room +the sentence that should inform him it was not the principle but was an +issue flying the flag of ships whose freights are dangerous? What if she +put across the shadowed room the sentence, “Men that marry for a home”? + +Ay, that was it! The thing she had always known and never told. +Those are keepsakes of our secret selves, those observations, vows, +conspiracies with which romantically we plot towards our ideals. This +the sole keepsake of her treasury she never had revealed to Harry. +Significant she had not. Some instinct must have stayed her. Yes, +significant! He had called it the principle. It was not the principle. +He was sincere upon the principle and in the examination of eleven years +had proved his sincerity. It was not the principle. It was that herein, +in her intention to exercise her freedom in a new dimension, she had +touched him, not through the principle, but upon the instinct that led +him, as she believed men to be led, to marry for a home, a settling-in +place, a settling-down place, a cave to enter into and to shut the door +upon. + +Oh, this was dangerous! There were no lengths to which this might not +lead! If at her first essay at that which countered his idea of home she +was to be asked to pause, what, in the increasing convolutions of the +years, might not she be asked to abandon? Let him attempt restriction of +her by appeal to principle and she could stand, and win, unscathed. Let +him oppose her by his wish within his home to shut the door, and that +was to put upon her an injury that only by giving him pain could be +fought. Oh, dangerous! Not less an injury because by sentiment and not +by reason done! Much more an injury because so subtly done! Much more! +Dangerous! Ah, from this the outset to be withstood! + +He spoke and his first words were confirmation of her fears. + +“Rosalie, do you feel quite all right about the children?” + +Yes, she could see where this was set to lead. He could leave her with +the children; but she--men that married for a home--could not leave him +with the children. + +She said gently, “Dear, there’ll not be the least difficulty. +Everything’s perfectly arranged. Everything will perfectly well go on.” + +He had not moved his pose and did not move it. His voice presented in +tone the profound meditation that his pose presented. He said, “I don’t +quite mean that. I mean, do you always feel everything’s quite all right +with them?” + +How setting now? She answered, “Dear, of course I do.” + +His eyes remained upon the fire. “Rosalie, d’you know I sometimes +don’t.” + +Her motion--a lifting of her face, a questing of her brows--was of a +helmsman’s gesture, suspicious to catch before it set a shifting of the +breeze. “Harry, in what way? They’re splendid.” + +“You feel that?” + +“Dear, you know they are.” + +He put his pipe to his mouth and with that meditative tapping tapped his +teeth. “Splendid, yes, in health, in appearance, in development, in all +that kind of thing. I don’t mean that.” He turned his face towards her +and spoke directly. “Rosalie, have you ever thought they’re not quite +like other children?” + +Oh, setting from what quarter this? She said, “They’re better--miles and +miles.” + +He got up. “Well, that’s all right. If you have noticed nothing, that’s +all right.” + +“But, Harry. I am at a loss, dear. Of course it’s all right. But what +have you noticed, think you’ve noticed?” + +He was standing before her, his back against the mantelpiece, looking +down at her. “Just that--not quite like other children.” + +“But in what way?” + +“It’s hard to say, old girl. If you’ve not noticed it, harder still. +Not quite so childish as at their age I seem to remember myself with +my brothers and sisters being childish. A kind of--reserve. A kind +of--self-contained.” + +She shook her head, “No, no.” + +“You think it’s fancy?” + +“I’m sure it is.” + +He was silent a moment. “It’s rather worried me. And of course now--If +you are going to be away--” + +Stand by! She had the drift of this! + +She said simply, “Harry, this can’t be.” + +“You can’t give up the idea?” + +Her hand upon the helm that steered her life constricted. “It is not to +be asked of me to give it up.” She paused. She said softly, “Dear, this +is a forward step for me. You are asking me to make a sacrifice. I would +not ask you.” + +He began, “There are sacrifices--” + +“They are not asked of men.” + +He said, “Rosalie, you said once, when Benji was born, that, if at any +time need be, you would give up, not a thing like this, but your work +entirely.” + +As if to shield or to support her heart she drew her left hand to it. +“Would you give up yours, Harry?” + +He said quickly, “I’m not suggesting such a thing. It is ridiculous. I’m +only showing you--” + +She began to say her say, her voice reflective as his own had been. “But +you have shown me frightful things, shown me how far and oh, how quick, +a thing that starts may go. Oh, my dear, know the answer before it ever +is suggested. Sacrifices! It is sacrifice for the children that you +profess to mean. Well, let us call it that. Have you ever heard of a +father sacrificing himself for his children? There’s no such phrase. +There’s only the feminine gender for that. ‘Sacrificed himself for his +wife and children.’ It’s a solecism. If grammar means good sense, +it isn’t grammar because it’s meaningless. It can’t be said. +It’s grotesque. But ‘Sacrificed herself for her husband and her +children,’--why, that the commonest of cliches. It’s written on half the +mothers’ brows; it should be carved on half the mothers’ tombs--upon my +own dear mother’s.” She stood up and faced him. “Harry, not on mine.” + She put a gentle hand on his. “I love you--you know what our love is. I +love the children--with a truer love that they have never been a burden +to me nor I on a single occasion out of mood with them. But, Harry, I +will not sacrifice myself for the children. When I ask that of you, ask +it of me. But I never will ask it of you.” + +She was trembling. + +He put an arm about her shoulders. “It’s over. It’s over. Let’s forget +it, Rosalie.” + +Of course she did not forget it. Of course she knew that Harry could +not. Men that marry for a home! Already in his mind the thought that +for his home she should give up, not only this present forward step, +but--everything! Oh, man-made world! Oh, man-made men! “It’s over. It’s +over,” he had said. Of course she knew it was not over. Men that marry +for a home! Secret she had kept it and in the same moment that she had +realised the significance of her secrecy it had been enlarged. Now it +stalked abroad. + +But what is to be observed is the quality of the love between them. It +was through the children that he had made this claim that he had sought +to impose upon her. She had told him, as she believed, that what he +thought he saw was fancy. It never occurred to her to imagine so base +a thing as that he, to give himself grounds, had invented or even +exaggerated his fancy; but it had been excusable in her (threatened as +she saw herself) to avoid, in the days that followed, discussion of that +fancy, much less herself to bring it forward. Her love for Harry was +never in that plane. It could admit no guile. It happened that within +the week she was herself a little pained by a matter with the children. +She took her pain straight to her Harry. + +On his last day of the holidays before he returned for his second term +at his preparatory school, Huggo was noisy with excitement at the idea +of returning. It rather pained Rosalie that he showed not the smallest +sign of regret at leaving home. Miss Prescott had done all the necessary +business of getting his clothes ready for school, but Rosalie took from +Field’s this last afternoon to do some shopping with her little man (as +she termed it) in Oxford Street; to buy him some little personal things +he wanted,--a purse of pigskin that fastened with a button, a knife with +a thing for taking stones out of horses’ hoofs, and a special kind of +football boots. Since there had come to her the “men that marry for +a home” significance, that mirage in her face had much presented that +mutinous and determined boy it often showed. Only the mother was there +when she set out with Huggo. And then the sense of pain. + +Oxford Street appeared to be swarming with small boys and their mothers +similarly engaged. All the small boys wore blue overcoats with velvet +collar and looked to Rosalie most lovably comic in bowler hats that +seemed enormously too big for their small heads. Huggo was dressed to +the same pattern but his hat exactly suited his face which was thin and, +by contrast with these others, old for his years. Rosalie wished somehow +that Huggo’s hat didn’t suit so well; the imminent extinguisher look of +theirs made them look such darling babies. And what really brought out +the difference was that all these other small boys invariably had a hand +stretched up to hold their mothers’ arms and walked with faces turned +up, chattering. Huggo didn’t. She asked him to. He said, “Mother, why?” + +“I’d love you to, darling.” + +He put up his hand and she pressed it with her arm to her side, but she +noticed that he was looking away into a shop window while he did as he +was asked, and there came in less than a dozen paces a congestion on the +pavement that caused him to slip behind her, removing his hand. He did +not replace it. + +In the shop where the knife was to be bought an immense tray of every +variety of pocketknife was put before them. Huggo opened and shut blades +with a curiously impatient air as though afraid of being interfered with +before he had made his choice. Immediately beside Rosalie was another +mother engaged with another son upon another tray. + +“It’s got to have a thing for levering stones out of horses’ hoofs,” + said Huggo, brushing aside a knife offered by the assistant and +rummaging a little roughly. + +Rosalie said, “Darling, I can’t think what you can want such a thing +for.” + +The lady beside her caught her eye and laughed. “That’s just what I’m +asking my small man,” she said. + +Her small man, whose face was merry and whose hat appeared to be +supported by his ears, looked up at Rosalie with an engaging smile and +said in a very frank voice, “It’s jolly useful for lugging up tight +things or to hook up toffee that’s stuck.” + +They all three laughed. Huggo, busily engaged, took no notice. + +He found the knife he wanted. Rosalie showed him another. “Huggo, I’m +sure that one’s too heavy and clumsy.” + +The voice of the little boy with the hat on his ears came, “Mummie, I’d +rather have this one because you chose it.” + +Rosalie said to Huggo, “It will weigh down your pocket so.” + +“This one! This one!” cried Huggo and made a vexed movement with a foot. + +Rosalie, sitting with Harry before the fire in Harry’s room that night +said, “Harry, tell me some more of what you said the other day about the +children.” + +He looked up at her. He clearly was surprised. “You’ve been thinking +about it?” + +“I’ve been with Huggo shopping for him this afternoon and been at little +things a little sad. Harry, when you said ‘not like other children’ did +you mean not--responsive?” + +He said intensely, “Rosalie, it is the word. It’s what I meant. I +couldn’t get it. I wonder I didn’t. It’s my meaning exactly--not +responsive. You’ve noticed it?” + +“Oh, tell me first.” + +“Rosalie, it’s sometimes that I’ve gone in to the three of them wanting +to be one with them, to be a child with them and invent things and +imagine things. Somehow they don’t seem to want it. They don’t--invite +it. Your word, they don’t--respond. I want them to open their hearts and +let me right inside. Somehow they don’t seem to open their hearts.” + +She said, “Harry, they’re such mites.” + +He shook his head. “They’re not mites, old girl. Only Benji. And even +Benji--It was different when they were wee things. It’s lately, all +this. They don’t seem to understand, Rosalie--to understand what it is I +want. That’s the thing that troubles me. It’s an extraordinary thing +to say, but it’s been to me sometimes as if I were the child longing +to be--what shall I say?--to have arms opened to me, and they were the +grown-ups, holding me off, not understanding what it is I want. Not +understanding. Rosalie, why don’t they understand?” + +She had a hand extended to the fire and she was slowly opening and +shutting her fingers at the flames. This, coming upon the feeling she +had had that afternoon with Huggo, was like a book wherein was analysed +that feeling. But, “I am sure they do understand, dear,” she said. “I’m +sure it’s fancy.” + +“I think you’re not sure, Rosalie.” + +“Oh, yes, I am. If it’s anything it’s just perhaps their way--all +children have their ways. What I thought about Huggo this afternoon +might perhaps be something what you mean. Harry, if it is, it’s just the +little man’s way.” + +“What was it you thought?” + +She maintained that movement of the fingers of her hand. “Why, only +things I noticed; tiny things; nothings, I’m sure. Out shopping with me, +Harry. Well, it was his last day and I would have expected somehow he +would have been fonder for that. He wasn’t and I rather felt it. Things +like that. I would so like him to have held my arm. He didn’t want to. +Not very grateful for the things we bought. But there, why should he be, +dear Huggo? But just his way; that’s what one ought to think. But I felt +it a little.” + +Harry said, “I know. I know. It’s that that I have felt--not responsive. +It’s what I’ve thought I’ve noticed in them all.” + +Telling him perhaps enlarged, as telling does, her sensibilities. She +said very quickly, “Not Benji!” + +“Well, Benji’s so very young. But even--But in the other two--” + +She said as quickly as before, “Ah, Doda’s responsive!” + +“You’ve seen it, dear, in Huggo.” + +“Oh, Harry, nothing, just his way. I’m sorry now I mentioned it.” + +He had been watching the flexion of her hand. He said, “I’m glad you +have. When I spoke of it the other day you said you didn’t see it. I +think it’s generous in you to admit you have.” + +She murmured, “Generous?” + +“It brings up--Rosalie, does this affect a little, alter perhaps, your +decision?” + +She shut her fingers sharply. “No.” She kept them shut. “There’s nothing +at all could alter that, Harry.” + +He turned aside and began to fill his pipe, with slow movements. + +It has been warned that it was in this holidays of Huggo’s from his +preparatory school that Time, that bravo of the cloak-and-dagger school, +whipped out his-blade and pounced. These, since that warning, were but +the doorways and the lurking posts he prowled along. + +He now was very close to Rosalie. + +Rosalie and Harry both were home to lunch next day. In the afternoon +they were to take Huggo to Charing Cross to see him off in the saloon +specially reserved for his school. All the children were at lunch for +this occasion. Benji in a high chair just like the high chair that had +been Rosalie’s years back--what years and years!--at the rectory. Huggo +was in boisterous spirits. You would think, you couldn’t help thinking, +it was his first day, not his last day home. Rosalie observed him as +she had not before observed him. How he talked! Well, that was good. How +could Harry have thought him reserved? But he talked a shade loudly and +with an air curiously self-opinionated. But he was such a child, and +opinions were delightful in a child. Yes, but something not childish +in his way of expressing his opinions, something a shade superior, +self-satisfied; and she particularly noticed that when anything in +the way of information was given him by Harry or by herself he never +accepted it but always argued. She grew very silent. She felt she would +have given anything to hear him, in the long topic of railways with his +father, and then of Tidborough School, say, “Do they, father?” or, “Does +it, father?” He never did. He always knew it before or knew different. +Once on a subject connected with the famous school Harry said, a shade +of rebuke in his voice, “My dear old chap, I was at Tidborough. I ought +to know.” Rosalie felt she would have given anything in the world for +Huggo to reply, “Sorry, father, of course you ought.” Instead he bent +upon his plate a look injured and resentful at being injured. But in a +minute she was reproaching herself for such ideas. Her Huggo! and she +was sitting here criticising him. Different from other children! Why, if +so, only in the way she had affirmed to Harry--miles and miles better. +Opinionated? Why, famously advanced for his years. Superior? Why, +bright, clever, not a nursery boy. She had been wronging him, she had +been criticising him, she had been looking for faults in him, her Huggo! +Unkind! Unnatural! + +Listen to him! The meal was ended. His father was bantering him about +what he learnt, or didn’t learn, at school; was offering him an extra +five shillings to his school tip if he could answer three questions. +The darling was deliciously excited over it. How his voice rang! He was +putting his father off the various subjects suggested. Not Latin--he +hadn’t done much Latin; not geography--he simply hated geography. Listen +to him! + +“Well, scripture,” Harry was saying. “Come, they give you plenty of +scripture?” + +“Oh, don’t they just! Tons and tons!” Listen to him! How merry he +was now! “Tons and tons. First lesson every morning. But don’t ask +scripture, father. Father, what’s the use of learning all that stuff, +about the Flood, about the Ark, about the Israelites, about Samuel, +about Daniel, about crossing the Red Sea, about all that stuff: what’s +the use?” + +Time closed his fingers on his haft and took a stride to Rosalie. + +She sat upright. She stared across the table at the boy. + +Harry said, “Here, steady, old man. ‘What’s the use of Scripture?’” + +“Well, what is the use? It’s all rot. You know it isn’t true.” + +Time flashed his blade and struck her terribly. + +She called out dreadfully, “Huggo!” + +“Mother, you know it’s all made up!” + +She cried out in a girl’s voice and with a girl’s impulsive gesture of +her arm across the table towards him, “It isn’t! It isn’t!” + +Her voice, her gesture, the look upon her face could not but startle +him. He was red, rather frightened. He said mumblingly, “Well, mother, +you’ve never taught me any different.” + +She was seen by Harry to let fall her extended arm upon the table and +draw it very slowly to her and draw her hand then to her heart and +slowly lean herself against her chair-back, staring at Huggo. No one +spoke. She then said to Huggo, her voice very low, “Darling, run now to +see everything is in your playbox. Doda, help him. Take Benji, darlings. +Benji, go and see the lovely playbox things.” + +When they had gone she was seen by Harry to be working with her fingers +at her key-ring. In one hand she held the ring, in the other a key that +she seemed to be trying to remove. It was obstinate. She wrestled at it. +She looked up at Harry. “I want to get this”--the key came away in her +hand--“off.” + +He recognised it for her office pass-key. + +Caused by that cry of hers to Huggo and by that ges-ture with her cry, +and since intensifying, there had been a constraint that he was very +glad to break. He remembered how childishly proud she had been of that +key on the day it was cut for her. They had had a little dinner to +celebrate it, and she had dipped it in her champagne glass. + +He said, “Your pass-key? Why?” + +She said, “I’m coming home, Harry.” + +“Coming home?” + +She was sitting back in her chair. She tossed, with a negligent movement +of her hand, the key upon the table. “I have done with all that. I am +coming home.” + +He got up very quickly and came around the table to her. + + + + +PART FOUR--HOUSE OF CARDS + +CHAPTER I + + +There is a state wherein the mind, normally the court of pleas where +reason receives and administers the supplications of the senses, is +not in session. Reason is sick, suspends his office, abrogates his +authority, withdraws to some deep fastness of the brain, and suffers the +hall of judgment to be the house of license or of dreams: of dreams, as +sleep, as vanity of reverie; of license when there is tumult in the body +politic, as fever, as excesses of the passions, as great shock. Reason +is sick, withdraws, and there is strange business in that place. + +If that is just the way one writes, not susceptible of easy +comprehension, and not enough explanatory of Rosalie’s condition, it +goes like this in Rosalie’s own words. Drooped back there in her chair +before that littered disarray of lunch, and that key lying there, and +Harry stooping over her and holding both her hands, she said, “Oh, +Harry! Oh, Harry! I feel deathly sick.” + +She said it had been a most frightful shock to her, what Huggo had +declared. She said, “Oh, Harry, I feel all undone.” + +Undone! We’ll try to feel her mind with that; to let that explain her +when she said this else, and when she wrote some things that shall be +given. + +She said she had suffered, in that moment of crying out to Huggo and +of stretching out her arm to him, the most extraordinary--what was the +word?--the most extraordinary hallucination. “Harry, when Huggo said +that frightful thing! Oh, Harry, like an extraordinary dream, I was a +child again. It wasn’t here; it was happening; it was the rectory; and +not you and the children but all us children that used to be around the +table there. No, not quite that. More extraordinary than that. Robert +was there; Robert, I think, in Huggo’s place; and all the rest were +me--me as I used to be when I was ten; small, grave, wondering, staring. +And yet myself me too as I was then--oh, horrified as I’d have then been +horrified to hear the Bible stories called untrue; jumped up and crying +out, ‘It isn’t! It isn’t!’ as I would then have jumped up and cried out; +and all the other Rosalies staring in wonder as I’d have stared. Oh, +extraordinary, extraordinary! Within this minute, I have been a child +again. The strangest thing, the strangest thing! + +“I was a child again, Harry, in a blue frock I used to wear and in a +pinafore that had a hole in it; and all those other Rosalies the same. +Those other Rosalies! To see them! Harry, I’ve not seen that Rosalie +I used to be--not years and years. That tiny innocent! It is upon me +still. I feel that small child still. Oh, I feel it! I remember--dear, +did I ever tell you?--when my father once... had been talking about +Cambridge... and suddenly cried out, it was at breakfast, ‘Cambridge! My +youth! My God, my God, my youth!’ There was coffee from a cup that he’d +knocked over came oozing, and I just sat there huge-eyed, staring, a +small, grave wondering child.... + +“Oh, Harry, my youth, my childhood--and now the children’s! The +difference! The difference!” + +Harry talked to her. He ended, “The teaching, all the ideas, dear girl, +you mustn’t worry, it’s all different nowadays.” + +“Harry, to hear it from a child like that!” + +“It’s startled you. It needn’t. We’ll talk it out. We’ll fix it. It’s +just what he’s been taught, old girl.” + +She said, “Oh, it is what he’s not been taught!” + +Then there were things that, while was still upon her this shock, this +sense of being again the small, grave child in the blue frock and in +the pinafore with the hole in it, she wrote down. She dismissed Miss +Prescott. She thought, when the interview of dismissal opened, that she +would end by upbraiding Miss Prescott, but she was abated all the time +in any anger that she might have felt by Huggo’s other frightful words, +“Well, mother, you never taught me any different.” She did not want to +hear Miss Prescott tell her that. She told Miss Prescott simply that +she was giving up her business and coming now to devote herself to the +children. She thought, she said, their education had in some respects +been faulty, and told Miss Prescott how. Miss Prescott, speaking like +a book, told her it had not been faulty and told her why. “Truth, +knowledge, reason,” said Miss Prescott. “Could it conceivably be +contested that these should not be the sole food and the guiding +principle of the child mind?” + +It was after that interview that Rosalie, sitting long into the night, +wrote down some things. She is to be imagined as wrenched back, as by a +violent hand, across the years, and in the blue frock and the pinafore +with a hole in it again, and awfully frightened, terribly unhappy, at +the thing she’d heard from Huggo. That was the form her shock took. +Beneath it she had at a blow abandoned all her ambitions as when a child +she would instantly have dropped her most immersing game and run to a +frightening cry from her mother; as once, in fact (and the incident and +the parallel came back to her), she had been building a house of cards, +holding her breath not to shake it, and her mother had scalded her hand +and had cried out to her, frighteningly. “Oh, mummie, mummie!” she had +cried, running to her; and flap! the house of cards had gone. Her inward +cry was now, “The children! The children!” and what amiss the leaving of +her work? Her work! Oh, house of cards! + +Her state of mind, the imaginings in which that shock came to her, is +better seen by what she wrote down privately, to relieve herself, +than by the talk about it all that she had with her Harry. She wrote +immediately after Miss Prescott had stood up for “truth, knowledge, +reason,” and by combating truth, knowledge, and reason more clearly +expressed herself than in her talk with Harry. It was in her diary she +wrote--well, it wasn’t exactly a diary, it was a desultory journal +in which sometimes she wrote things. As she wrote, her brow, in the +intensity of her thought, was all puckered up. She still felt “deathly +sick; all undone.” She wrote: + +“Of course it’s as she says (Miss Prescott). That is the kind of thing +to-day. Knowledge, stark truth--children must have in stark truth all +the knowledge there is on all the things that come about them. It’s +strange; yes, it is strange. No parent would be such a fool as to trust +a child with all the money she has nor with anything superlatively +precious that she possesses; but knowledge, which is above all wealth +and above all treasure, the child is to have to play with as it likes. +Oh, it is strange. Where is it going to stop? If you bring up a child on +the fact that all the Old Testament stories are untrue, a bundle, where +they are miraculous, of obviously impossible fairy tales, what’s +going to happen to the New Testament? The Immaculate Conception, the +Resurrection, the Ascension--what’s your child-mind that knows the +old stories for inventions going to say to those? Are they easier to +believe? The Creation or the Conception? The Flood or the Resurrection? +God speaking out of a burning bush or the Ascension to Heaven? The +pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire or the Three in One of the +Trinity? Oh, I wonder if Modern Thought has any thought to spare for +that side of the business--or for its results in a generation or two?” + +Then she wrote: + +“I’ve never taught them any different.” + +Then she wrote: + +“Mother, I am a child again to-night. Darling, in that blue frock I used +to wear. Darling, all that I to-night am thinking is what you taught +me. Oh, look down, beloved! I’ve been so wrong. I thought everything was +infinitely better for them than you made it, beloved mother, for me. I +didn’t realise.” + +Then she wrote: + +“It just means losing everything in God that’s human. It must mean that. +All our intelligence, if materialism may be called intelligence; all +modern teaching, if this new stuff that they pontificate may be called +teaching, offers us God the Spirit but, as it seems to me to-night, +denies us God the Father and God the Son. It may be--reasonable. But +things spiritual demand for their recognition emotions spiritual, and +there’s a pass that thousands reach when the spirit is a dead thing. +If they are to believe in God only as a Spirit, a Force, a Power; an +Essence to be felt but not seen; an Element to be absorbed into but not +to be visualised--if this, if these, there needs in them some spirit, +some force, some power of themselves to lift themselves to meet it. +They must be of themselves responsive as hath the sea within itself +that which respondeth to the sublimation of the sun. Well, there are +thousands (am I not one?) that have it not. It once was theirs. Now it +is not theirs. If there is for them only God the Spirit then is there +for them only that to which they have no more power to reach than has +one bedridden power to rise and find a mile away what may restore him. +They have only that, their breaking heart, which would cast itself, ah, +with what bliss of utter abandonment, before God the Father, a human and +a personal Father, quick to succor, and before God the Son, a human and +a personal Son, ardent to intercede. And that is denied them. That God +that existed and that was taught to exist for my mother and for her day +to this day may not exist. It may be--reasonable. Oh, it is offering a +stone where bread was sought.” + +She also wrote: + +“Oh, mother, if you could have been here, how you would have loved my +darlings, and how you would have given them all that you gave to me! +I will now, mother. Mother, I’ve come back home to them, in the blue +frock, and in the pinafore with a hole in it.” + +That was the spirit in which she came back home to the children, that +and all that went with it and that arose out of it. It was nothing at +all to her when she did it, the frightful break with Field’s. Harry +was distressed for her, but there was no need at all for him to be +distressed, she told him. There wasn’t a sigh in her voice, nor in her +inmost thoughts a sigh, when, telling him of the interview with Mr. +Field and with Mr. Sturgiss at her resignation of her post, she said +with a smile, “Carry on? Of course the department can perfectly well +carry on. Dear, it’s just the words I said to you a fortnight back on +the matter so very different. ‘The thing’s organised. It runs itself. +That is why it is the success it is, because it’s organised. That’s +why I can come away and leave it, because I’m an organiser. Aren’t I an +organiser?” + +He held her immensely long in his arms. “You are my Rosalie,” he said. + +Immensely long he held her, immensely close; oh, men that marry for a +home! Until, come home, she saw Harry’s tremendous happiness in the home +that now she gave him, she never had realised the longing that must have +been his for the home for which he had married, and never till now had +had. It was poignant to her, the sight of his tremendous happiness. +“Always to find you here!” he would cry, in the first weeks of the new +life, coming home to tea and coming in to her in the drawing-room where +she would be, all ready for him, with Doda and with Benji. “Always to +leave you here!” he would say, taking leave of her in the morning, and +she and Doda and Benji coming with him to the hall door to see him off. +“Mice and Mumps,” he used to add in codicil, “Mice and Mumps, I’m a +happy chap!” and was for ever bringing home trifles for her and for the +children, or plans and passes for how and where the Saturday and the +weekend should be spent, all four together. “Mice and Mumps, I’m gorged +with happiness! And you, Rosalie?” + +“Oh, happy!” she used to say. + +And was. It was poignant to her, his tremendous happiness, and it +brimmed up the cup of her own happiness. She was doing virtuously and +she had of her virtue that happiness which, as the pious old maxims tell +us, comes of being good. + +That should have been well; but virtue is a placid condition and the +happiness arising out of it placid. It brims no cups, flushes no cheeks, +sparkles no eyes. It is of the quality of happiness that one, loving a +garden, has from his garden, the happiness of tranquillity, not of stir; +of peace, not of thrills; of the country, not of the town. There was +more heady stuff than this that Rosalie had out of her new condition, +and that was dangerous. She was doing virtuously and she had out of her +virtue an intoxication of joy that, in so far as it is at all concerned +with virtue, arises, not from virtue’s self, but from the consciousness +of virtue. That was dangerous. The danger point in stimulants is when +they are resorted to, not as concomitant of the pleasures of the table, +but be-cause they stimulate. Rosalie, come to her children and her Harry +and her home, to the thought of her renunciation and of her happiness +constantly was turning for the enormous exhilaration of happiness that +there she found. “How glad I am I gave it up! How glad! How glad! +How right I’m doing now! How right! How right! How happy I am in this +happiness! How happy! How happy!” + +Is it not perceived that thus it was not well assured, this great joy +that she had, this cup of hers that brimmed? She started from that +danger point at which the drug is drunk for stimulant. On the very first +day of her new life she was saying, “How glad I am! How glad I am!” and +going on radiant from her gladness. But she, in her resort to this her +stimulant, suffered this grave disparity with the drinker’s case: he +must increase his doses--and he can. She, living upon her stimulant, +equally was compelled--but could not. The renunciation that brimmed her +happiness on the first day was available to her in no bigger dose on the +succeeding days, the hundredth day and the three hundredth and the five +hundredth. It never could increase. It had no capacity of increase. Is +it not perceivable that it had, on the contrary, a staling quality? + +It would have been all right if it had been all right. It would have +been all right if it had not been all wrong. If these absurd premises +can be understood, her case can be understood. She used them herself in +after years. “It would have been all right,” she used to say to herself, +twisting her hands together, “if it had been all right.” “It would have +been all right,” she used to say to herself, “if it had not been all +wrong.” What she meant, and what here is meant, requires it to be +recalled that it was in that spirit of that glimpse of herself back a +child again in the blue frock and in the pinafore with a hole in it that +she came back to the children, came back home to them. Shocked by +the thing that had come to pass, penitential by influence of the old +childhood influences that had stirred within her, most strangely and +most strongly transported back into that childhood vision of herself, it +was in the guise of that child and with that child’s guise as her ideal +for them that passionately she desired to take up her children’s lives. +Her Huggo, her man child, her first one! Her Doda, her self’s own self, +her woman-bud, her daughter! Her Benji, her littlest one, her darling! +She longed, as it were, to throw open the door, and in that blue frock +and in the spirit of that blue frock most ardently to run in to them +and hug them, blue frocked, to her breast, and be one with them and tell +them the things and the things and the things that were the blue frock’s +mysteries and joys, and hear from them the things and the things and the +things that were the blue frock’s all-enchanted world again. + +That was what most terribly she wanted and with most brimming gladness +set about to do--and there was borne, in upon her, hinted in weeks, +published in months, in seasons sealed and delivered to her, that there +was among her children no place for that spirit. They did not welcome +the blue frock; they did not understand the blue frock; they were not +children as she had been a child. It was what Harry had said of them, +they somehow were not quite like other children; it was what she herself +had noticed in Huggo; they did not respond. They’d gone, those children, +too long as they’d been left to go. She came to them ardently. They +greeted her--not very responsively. They didn’t understand. + +What happened was that, coming to them great with intention, she was, +by what she did not find in them, much dispirited in her intention. +What followed from that was that she turned the more frequently to the +stimulation of the thought of her renunciation, to the sensation of +happiness that arose in her by consciousness that she was doing what she +ought to be doing. She would be puzzled, she would be a little pained, +she would be a little tired at the effort, fruitless, to call up in the +children those lovely childish things that as a child had been hers. +She then would feel dispirited. She then would think, “But how glad I am +that I gave it all up; but how right I am to be at home with them; but +how happy I am that I am now doing that which is right.” That stimulated +her. That made her tell herself (as before she had told Harry) that +it was just fancy, this apparent difference, this indifference, in the +children. + +But the more she found necessary that stimulus, the less that stimulus +availed; and she began to feel, then, the first faint gnawings after +that which had been stimulus indeed, her work, her career. + +Of course this is making a case for her, this is special pleading for +her, but who so abandoned that in the ultimate judgment a case will +not for him be prepared? Try to consider how it went with her. First +intoxication of happiness; and must not intoxication in time wear +off? Then immense intention and then dispirited in her intention. Then +frequent resource to the stimulus of her realisation of virtue and then +the natural diminution of that cup’s effect. Is she not presented prey +for her life’s habit’s longings? Is she not shown dejected and caused by +that dejection (as caused by depression the reclaimed victim of a drug) +to desire again that which had been to her the breath of life? + +That was how it went with her. + +Doda was nine when she began; Huggo, when he was home for his holidays, +eleven, rising twelve; Benji only seven. They seemed to her, all +of them, wonderfully old for their years and, no getting over that, +different. She tried to read them the stories she used to love. They +didn’t like them. Doda didn’t like “The Wide Wide World” and didn’t like +“Little Women.” Huggo thought “The Swiss Family Robinson” awful rot, +and argued learnedly with her how grotesque it was to imagine all that +variety of animals and all that variety of plants in one same climate. +“But, Huggo, you needn’t worry whether it was possible. It was just +written as a means of telling a family of children natural history +things. They didn’t have to believe it. They only enjoyed it. I and +your uncle Robert never worried about whether it was possible; we simply +loved the adventure of it.” + +“Well, I can’t, mother,” said Huggo. “It’s not possible, and if it isn’t +possible, I think it’s stupid.” + +And Doda thought Ellen in the “Wide Wide World” silly, and Beth and Jo +and the others in “Little Women” dull. + +She read them Dickens, but it was always, “Oh, leave out that part, +mother. It’s dull.” And so was Scott Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare” + never had a chance at all. They had heard from Miss Prescott, or Huggo +had heard at school, that Shakespeare was a lesson. “Oh, not a thing +out of lessons, mother.” What they liked were what seemed to Rosalie +the crudely written stories, and the grotesque and usually rather vulgar +comic drawings, in the host of cheap periodicals for children that +seemed to have sprung up since her day. They called these exciting or +funny and they revelled in them. They were different. Benji was no more +than a baby, but he was extraordinarily devoted to Doda, liked only the +things that Doda liked, and did not like the things that Doda didn’t +like, or, in the language sometimes a little unpleasantly emphatic that +always was Doda’s and Huggo’s, that Doda “simply loathed.” Rosalie had +some old bound numbers of treasured juvenile periodicals of the rectory +days. Even Benji didn’t like them. They were markedly different from the +books the children did like. Their illustrations were mainly of children +in domestic scenes. “Don’t they look stupid?” was Doda’s comment; and +Benji, copying, thought they were stupid too. + +All this was a very small thing and of itself negligible; even, +as Rosalie told herself, natural--naturally children of succeeding +generations changed in their tastes. It only is introduced as +conveniently showing in an obscure aspect what was noticeable to +Rosalie, and felt by her, in many aspects, whose effect was +cumulative. “A kind of reserve,” Harry had said of them: “a kind +of--self-contained.” It was what she found. She wanted to be a child +with the children; they didn’t seem to understand. She wanted to open +her heart to them and have their hearts opened to her; they didn’t seem +to understand. She was always seeing that vision of Rosalie in the blue +frock among them, rather like Alice, the real Alice, Tenniel’s Alice. +She was always feeling that Rosalie, thus guised, was held off from +their circle, not welcomed, not understood, as certainly they did not +care for the demure, quaint Alice of Tenniel. + +She began to have sometimes when she was with the children an +extraordinary feeling (just what Harry had said) that she was younger +than the children, that it was she who was the child, they that were the +grown-ups. + +When the step of her renunciation was first taken, ardent to devote +herself to them in every moment of the day, she began to give their +lessons to Doda and to Benji. It was not a success. The methods of +teaching, as the text-books, had changed since she was a child. The +Prescott methods were here and to her own methods the children did not +respond. There it was again--did not respond. There was obtained a Miss +Dormer who came in daily and who confined herself, Rosalie saw to that, +solely to lessons; the walks and all the other hours of the day were +Rosalie’s. + +That’s all for that. The picture has been overdrawn if has been given +the suggestion that Rosalie was unhappy with the children or the +children openly indifferent to her. All of that nature that in fact +arose was that, whereas Rosalie had expected an immense and absorbing +occupation with the children, she found instead an occupation very +loving and very happy but not relieving her of all the interest and all +the affection she had desired to pour into it. It was rather like to a +hungry person a strange dish that had looked substantial but that, when +finished, was found not to have been substantial; still hungry. She +had thought the children would have been entirely dependent on her. She +found them in many ways independent and wishing to be independent. It +would have been all right if it had been all right. That was it. It +would have been all right if it had not been all wrong. That was it. + +She began to think of Field’s. + +When first she began to think of Field’s, which was when she had been +nine months away from Field’s, she would let her mind run upon it +freely, as it would. One day, thus thinking upon it, she brought up her +thoughts as it were with a round turn. She must not think so much about +Field’s--not like that. She sighed, and with the same abruptness of +mental action checked her sigh; she must not regret Field’s--not like +that. + +It was a fateful prohibition. It was the discovery to herself, as to +Eve of the tree by the serpent, of a temptation seductive and forbidden. +Thereafter “like that” her mind, missing no day nor no night, was often +found by her to be there. The quality that made “like that” not seemly +to her, increased, at each return, its potency. + +It became very difficult to drag her mind away. It became impossible to +drag her mind away. + +Her governance of her mind became infected and it became not necessary +to think it necessary to drag her mind away. + +She had not visited Field’s since she had left. Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. +Field had written to her reproaching her for carrying to such lengths +of neglect her desertion of them, and she had responded banteringly but +without a call. One day (she had lain much awake on the previous night) +she at breakfast told Harry she had the idea of going that afternoon to +see how Field’s was getting on. + +She was surprised at his supplement to his reply. The children had left +the room. He first agreed with her that the idea was good. “Yes, rather; +why not?” was the expression he used. He then said, surprising her, +“Rosalie, you’ve never, have you, regretted?” + +Her surprise framed for her her reply. “Why ever should you ask that?” + +“I’ve thought you’ve not been looking very well lately.” + +“But what’s the connection, Harry?” + +“Fretting?” + +She smiled. “I’m not the fretting sort.” + +He was perfectly satisfied. “I knew you’d tell me if you were. +Everything going well?” + +“Fine.” + +He shot out his arms with a luxurious stretching gesture. “Mice and +Mumps, it’s been fine for me, I can tell you. Fine, fine!” + +How happy he looked! How handsome he looked! Her thought was “Dear +Harry!” + +He got up and began to set about his departure. She went with him into +the hall and she called up the stairs, “Children, father’s going.” They +came bounding down. He joked and played with them. He loved this custom, +now long established. She brushed his hat, also a rite she knew he +loved. He kissed her with particular affection. “Yes, you go up to +Field’s and give old Sturgiss and old Field my love. You’ll almost have +forgotten the way there. I say, it’s funny, isn’t it, how time changes +things and how it goes? We couldn’t have imaged this once, and here it +is the most established thing in the world. Do you know, it’s almost +exactly a year since you chucked it?” + +“Chucked it!” The light expression smote her. O manlike man that thus +could phrase divorce that from her heart’s engrossment had cut her life +asunder! + +In the afternoon she set out upon her intention. It meant nothing, her +visit, she assured herself. It had no purpose beyond the exchange of +courtesies. But when she was leaving the house she paused. Should she +go? She went down the steps and through the gate, then paused again. She +returned to the house. She had an idea. She would take the children with +her. She called them, and while they gleefully dressed for the outing +she repeated to herself the word in which the idea of taking them with +her had come to her. + +“A bodyguard!” she said. + +The note of laughter she gave at the word had a tremulous sound. + +Tremulous would well have described her manner when they were at +Field’s. She was asking herself as they went towards the City what it +was that she wanted to hear--that Field’s was doing very well without +her? That her department was not doing very well without her? Which? + +She would not let her mind affirm which it was that she desired. + +It appeared, when they arrived, that it was neither, nor anything at +all to do with the Bank. Her first words to the partners were of +smiling apology at bringing to precincts sacred to business, “a herd of +children.” That was a natural introduction of herself; it was an unusual +thing to do. But not natural the way in which she maintained the subject +of the children. It seemed that she had come to talk of nothing +else. Tremulous she was; talking, of the children, with the incessant +eagerness, and with the nervous eagerness, of one either clamant to +establish a case or frightened of a break in the conversation lest +a break should cause appearance of a subject most desperately to be +avoided. + +Her bodyguard! + +Mr. Field and Mr. Sturgiss were delighted to see her and expressed +themselves delighted to see the children. There was plenty in the bank, +coffers and strong-rooms and all sorts of exciting things, said Mr. +Field, that would amuse the small people, and when tea was done they +should be taken around to see them. In an inner holy of holies, behind +the partners’ parlour, a very exciting tea was made. A clerk was sent +out for a parcel of pastries and returned with an enormous bag, and +there was no tablecloth, nor no proper tea-table, and the children, much +excited, were immensely entertained. + +Easy, while they were there, to make them the conversation’s centre. +But the meal ended and then became most evident her anxiety to keep the +chatter on the children. They became impatient to be off on the promised +exploration. She delayed it. Twice the clerk who was to conduct the tour +was about to be summoned. By a new gathering of general attention, she +stopped his coming. When at last he came she said she would be of the +party. The partners did not want that. The children did not want it. +“Mother, it will be much more exciting by ourselves.” She insisted. +She was aware for the first and only time in her life of a feeling +of nerves, of not being quite in control of herself, of making of her +insistence rather more than should be made. + +“Well, stay,” said Mr. Sturgiss, “at least for a minute’s chat before +you join them.” + +That was not possible, unless she was going to become hysterical, to +resist. The children trooped away. Her bodyguard! + +She turned aside and it is to be remembered for her that, her face +concealed from the partners, she gave the tiniest despairing gesture +with her hands. + +When, with the children, she was returning home, she was trying to +determine whether, while it was in suspense, she had or had not desired +to hear of the partners that which she had heard from them. They had +talked with her generally of the business. They had talked particularly +of the work of her department of the business. There was approaching all +the time the thing that sooner or later they must say. She was trembling +all the time to know how she would receive it. In whichever of its two +ways it came would she be glad or would she be sorry? She simply did not +know. She suddenly herself projected the point. She could not endure +any longer its delay. “And Miss Farmer,” she said. “How’s Miss Farmer +doing?” Miss Farmer, formerly one of her assistants, had on her +resignation taken her place. + +Miss Farmer, replied Mr. Sturgiss, was estimable but--he opened his +hands and made with them a deprecatory gesture. “She’s not you. How +could she be you, or any one be you? We could replace Miss Farmer. +What’s the good? It’s you we’ve got to replace. We can’t replace you.” + +Her heart had bounded. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That happened in the Christmas holidays, in January. In February was +Doda’s eleventh birthday. The child had friends rather older than +herself, neighbours, who for a year had been boarders at a school +in Surrey. She was desperately eager to join them there and it was a +promise from Rosalie that she should go when she was twelve, earlier if +she were good. On this eleventh birthday, which brought birthday letters +from the neighbours at the school and thus again brought up the subject, +“Oh, haven’t I been good?” cried Doda at the birthday breakfast. “Oh, +do let me go next term, mother. Father, do say I may.” Her eagerness for +school had been much fostered by Huggo’s holiday stories of school life; +and Huggo, as Doda now adduced, was leaving his preparatory and starting +at Tidborough next term; couldn’t she, oh, couldn’t she make also her +start then? + +Harry said, “O grown-up woman of enormous years, think of your sorrowing +parents. How will you like to leave your weeping mother, Doda? How will +you like to leave your heart-broken old father?” + +“Oh, I’d love to!” cried Doda. + +The ingenuousness of it made her parents laugh. + +“She’ll have her way, won’t she?” said Harry, when Doda, conscious, by +that laugh, of tolerance, had danced out of the room. + +“I think she’d better,” said Rosalie. + +The school was very well known to Rosalie. It was exclusive and +expensive; was limited to seventy girls, of whom twenty, under the age +of thirteen, were received in the adapted Dower House of the ancient +estate which was its home; and the last word in modernity was, in every +point of administration, its first word. It had been established only +eight years. The motto of its founders and of its lady principal was +“Not traditions--precedents!” + +The subject came up again between Rosalie and Harry that evening and it +was decided that Doda should be placed there after the next holidays, at +the opening of the summer term. Harry declared himself, “in my bones” as +he expressed it, against boarding schools for girls, “But that’s my old +fogeyism,” said he. “It’s the modern idea that girls should have the +same training and the same chances in life as their brothers, and +there’s no getting away from the right of it.” + +Rosalie said in a low voice, “To what end?” + +He did not hear her. She had got out from the accumulation of papers +of her business life prospectuses and booklets of the school and he was +amusedly browsing over the refinements and advantages therein, not by +traditions but by precedents, set forth. “Mice and Mumps, Rosalie,” + said he, “they not only do riding as a regular thing but ‘parents are +permitted, if they wish, to stable a pupil’s own pony (see page 26).’ +Oh, thanks, thanks! ‘Mr. Harry Occleve, barrister-at-law, availing +himself of your gracious permission on page twenty-six, is sending down +for his daughter a coach and four with ‘ostlers, grooms, coachmen, and +outriders complete.’ Ha!” + +She was just watching him. + +He said after an interval: “Yes, there’s a lot of sound stuff here, +Rosalie. It’s convincing. Not that any one needs convincing on the point +less than you and I.” He quoted again. “‘And advance them towards an +independent and a womanly womanhood.’ And it talks further back about +how ‘Idle women’ will soon be recognised as great a term of reproach +as ‘an idle man.’ It’s sound. I like this booklet here that each +girl’s given, ‘To the Girl of the Future.’ It tells them all about an +independent career, makes no fancy picture of it, tells ‘em everything. +Did you read that?” + +“A long time ago. It probably doesn’t tell them one thing.” + +“What?” + +“That they can always--chuck it.” + +He looked up quickly. “Hull-o!” + +She gave him no response to his expressed surprise and he laughed and +said, “D’you know, Rosalie, I don’t believe I’ve ever before heard you +use slang.” + +“You taught me that bit, Harry.” + +“Oh, I sling it about. When did I?” + +“One day last holidays when it was just on a year since I’d left +Field’s. Just a year, you said, since I’d--chucked it. O Harry--” + +There was a quality in her voice that might, from what she saw upon his +face, have been a tocsin’s roll. His face was as a place of assembly +into which, as it might be a people alarmed, there came crowding in +emotions. + +He said, “What’s up?” + +She said, “O Harry, you look out for yourself!” + +There was much movement in his face. “Look out for myself?” + +She said, “That came out of me. I didn’t know I was going to say it. +It’s a warning. It shows the fear I have.” + +“Rosalie, of what, of what?” + +“Harry, for you.” + +“You’re going to say something you think will hurt me?” + +“No, something you’ll have to fight--if you want to fight it. Harry, +perhaps I can’t go on like this. I want to go back to my work.” + +He expired a breath he had been holding. “I was guessing it.” + +“Before just now?” + +“No, while you’ve been speaking. Only now. I asked you weeks ago if you +ever felt you regretted--” + +She leant forward from the couch whereon she sat, and with an extended +hand interrupted him. She said intensely, “Look here, Harry, if it was +just regret I’d not mind and I would tell you No a hundred times, just +not to disturb you, dear. But when you asked me that you spoke, a minute +afterwards, of my having--chucked it, as if it was giving up sugar +or stopping bridge. Well, that’s why I’m warning you to look out for +yourself. Because, Harry, I don’t regret it. I’m craving to go back to +it, craving, craving, craving!” She stopped. She said, “Do you want me +not to go back, Harry?” + +He looked steadily at her. “Rosalie, it would be a blow to me.” + +She said, “Well, then!” and she leaned back in the couch as though all +now was explained. + +He very gravely asked her, “Are you going back, Rosalie?” + +“Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?” + +He said to her, “I believe in my soul it would be a disaster.” + +She got up. “Come over here to me, Harry.” + +He went to her and took the hands that she extended to him. “If you +think that, a disaster, and if to you it would be what you said, a blow; +then that’s what I mean by saying, Harry, you look out for yourself. I +don’t know if I’m going back. I want to go terribly, oh, terribly. There +was a woman I once knew told me that if a woman once gives herself to +a thing, abandons all else and gives herself to it, she never never can +come back from it. ‘They don’t issue return tickets to women,’ she said +to me. ‘If you give yourself,’ she said, ‘you’re its. You may think you +can get away but you never will get away. You’re its.’ She was right, +Harry. I believe I’ve got to go back. If you don’t want me to, well, +you look out for yourself.” She drew herself towards him by her hands. +“Harry, when I went down to Field’s with the children that day last +holidays I took them to be a bodyguard to me, to prevent me from being +captured. When they left me there alone for a few minutes, I turned away +and wrung my hands because I knew I was going to be terribly tempted. I +am terribly tempted. I’m being dragged.” She went into his arms. “Harry, +hold me terribly tight and say you don’t want me to go back.” + +He most tenderly embraced her. “Don’t go back, Rosalie.” + +She disengaged herself, and made a sound, “Ah!” as if, while he had held +her body, herself had held the fort of her solicitude for his desires +against the horde of her own cravings that swarmed about its walls. + +How long? + +There was a mirage in her face. While Easter came and Doda, in huge +spirits, made her start at school, and Huggo, boisterously elated, his +start at Tidborough, and Benji, much dejected at Doda’s going, his start +at Huggo’s former day school; and while the long summer term and the +holidays passed on, there was never again seen nor heard by Harry the +tenderness that had been in her face and in her voice when she had +warned him, “Well, Harry, you look out for yourself,” and when she had +asked him, “Harry, hold me terribly tight in your arms and say you do +not want me to go back.” There thenceforward did fill up her countenance +the boy, mutinous and defiant, that was her other self. It was almost +upon the morrow of that passage with him (whose poignancy the written +word has failed to show) that she had a revulsion from the attitude +she had then exposed to him. Avid now to go back to the life she had +abandoned, she was ferocious to herself when she remembered she had +asked him, “Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?” A crime! “Horrible +traitor to myself that I was” (her thoughts would go) “to question it a +crime just to take up my life again! A crime! Horrible fool that I was +to be able, with no sense of humour, to give to so natural a desire an +epithet so ludicrous as crime! A crime! A right, a right!” + +Worst of all, she had invited, she had implored, Harry when her longings +were manifest to reason with her. Her longings now always were manifest; +but when he reasoned with her it was out of the scorpions of her +revulsion that she answered him. + +He once said, “It appears to me that your attitude is changed from the +night you first mentioned this.” + +She said, “Harry, what’s disturbing me when we talk about it is not my +own case, it’s the general case. Here’s a woman--never mind that it’s +me--here’s a woman that has made a success in life, that has abandoned +it and that wants to go back to it. You argue she mustn’t. I could say +it’s monstrous. I don’t say that. I choose to say it’s pitiful. If it +was a man, he’d go. He wouldn’t think twice about it. And if he did +think twice about it, every opinion and every custom that he +consulted would tell him he was right to go. It happens to be a woman, +therefore--well, that’s the reason! It’s a woman--therefore, No. +That’s the beginning of the reason and the end of the reason. A +woman--therefore, No. Oh, it’s pitiful--for women.” + +Harry questioned: “Every opinion and every custom would tell a man to +go? No, no. You’re taking too much for granted, Rosalie. He wouldn’t +go, necessarily, and he wouldn’t be advised to go, if he had duties that +pulled him the other way.” + +She gave a note of amusement. “But that’s the point. He never would have +such duties. It’s notable that a man always makes his duties and his +ambitions go hand in hand. Yes, it’s notable, that.” + +“Well, put it another way. Suppose it wasn’t necessary for him to go.... +Suppose nothing depended on his going, much on his staying. That makes +the parallel, Rosalie.” + +She said to him, “Ah, I’ll agree to that. Let that make the parallel. +They’d tell a man in such a case, ‘Man, take up your ambitions. You are +a man. You have yourself to think of.’ That’s what they’d say. Well, +that’s what I’m saying. ‘I am a woman. I have myself to think of.’” + +He asked, “And shall you, Rosalie?” + +She said, “I’m thinking--every day.” + +The more she thought, the more she stiffened. This was the thought +against whose goad she always came--Why should she be hesitant? What a +position! What a light upon the case and upon the status of woman +that, just because she was a woman, she must not consider her own, her +personal interests! For no other reason; just that; because she was a +woman! + +“I’ve shut a gate behind me,” she on another day said to Harry. “That’s +what I’ve done. I’ve come out of a place and shut the gate behind me +and because I am a woman I mustn’t open it and go back. That’s what a +woman’s life is--always shutting gates behind her. There aren’t gates +for a man. There’re just turnstiles. As he came out so he can always go +back--even to his youth. When he’s fifty he still can go back and have +the society of twenty and play the fool as he did at twenty. Can a +woman?” + +“That’s physical,” said Harry. “A man much longer keeps his youth.” + +She said then the first aggressively bitter thing he ever had heard her +say. “Ah, keeps his youth!” she said. “So does a dog that’s run free. +It’s the chain and kennel sort that age.” + +She hardened her heart. + +She looked back upon the days when she had discovered for herself the +difference between sentiment and sense, between sentimentality and +sensibility. She then had made her life, and therefore then her +happiness, by putting away sentiment and using sense for spectacles. She +told herself she now was ruining her life, and certainly letting go her +happiness, by suffering herself to bear the sentimental handicap. + +The summer holidays came. It had been her obvious argument to Harry +that, now the elder children were at school, and Benji soon to be the +same, that reason for her constant presence in the home no longer was +advanceable. It had been Harry’s argument to her that there were the +holidays to remember. The holidays came. Huggo wrote that he wanted to +go straight from school to a topping time in Scotland to which he had +been invited by a chum; when that was over he had promised, and he was +sure he would be allowed, to have the last three weeks with another +friend whose people had a ripping place in Yorkshire. Doda came home and +Doda’s first excitement was that nothing arranged might interfere with +an invitation from mid-August to a schoolfellow whose family were going +to Brittany. So much for her holiday necessity! Rosalie thought. So much +for Harry’s idea of how the children would naturally long to spend the +vacation all together! Doda did not seem to have a thought for Huggo, +nor Huggo a thought for when he should see Doda. Neither of them, she +could not help noticing, had the faintest concern to be with Benji. She +and Harry with Benji went down to a furnished house in Devonshire, and +the other two, their plans in part curtailed, were brought to join them. +It was jolly enough. It would have been more truly jolly, she used +to think, if Doda had not largely divided her time between writing to +apparently innumerable school friends and counting the days to when she +might be released for the Brittany expedition; and if Huggo had not +for the first few days openly sulked at the veto on the Yorkshire +invitation. How independent they were, how absorbed in their friends, +how--different! + +She hardened her heart. + +The reopening of the schools drew on and return was made to London. +Huggo and Doda were made ready for school and returned to school. The +Law Courts reopened and Harry took up again his work. October! You +could not take up a paper without reading of the inauguration of the new +Sessions at all the universities and seats of education. October! The +newspapers that for months had been padding out vapid nothings became +intense with the activities of a nation back to the collar. October! The +first brisk breath of winter in the air! She could not stand this! Could +not, could not! + +She said suddenly one evening: “Harry, I was down at Field’s to-day. +They want me.” + +Ever since, by that simile of hers of the dog chained and kenneled, +she had put a bitter note into this matter between them, he had by this +means or by that contributed no share to it when she had presented it. +He once had referred to the dog incident. “I can’t talk to you when you +talk like that, old girl,” he had said. “That’s not us. We don’t talk +like that. You know how I feel about this matter. Talking only vexes +it.” + +“Harry, I was down at Field’s to-day. They want me.” It was now to be +faced. + +He put down the paper he had been reading and began to fill his pipe. +“This wants a smoke,” he said and smiled at her; and he then told her +that which the level quality of her voice, a note from end to end of +purpose, had informed him. “I think we’re getting to the end of this +business,” he said. + +Her voice maintained its quality. “Yes, near the end, Harry.” + +“Field’s want you. What are you going to do?” + +“Going back.” + +“I want you.” + +“I’m not leaving you. I am with you, as I came to you!” + +“The children want you.” + +“I am not leaving the children.” + +“It’s a question of home, Rosalie. It’s the home wants you.” + +She shook her head. + +“What are you going to do? + +“Going back.” + +“You’ve thought of everything?” + +“Everything.” + +“The children?” + +“Harry, the children don’t want me in the way that children used to want +their mothers when I was a child. They don’t display the same affection, +not in the same way, that we used to. I wish they did. I came back +for it. It wasn’t there. They’re darlings, but they’re self-reliant +darlings, self-assured, self-interested.” + +“They’ve a right to a home, Rosalie.” He paused. “And, Rosalie, I have a +right to a home.” + +She said, “Have I no rights?” + +“There are certain things--” he slowly said and paused +again--“established.” + +She said quickly, “Yes, men think that. They always have. Well, I +believe that nothing is.” + +He looked steadily before him. “If it’s not established that woman’s +part is the home part; if that is going to change, I wonder what’s going +to happen to the world?” + +She said, “Men always do. They always have--wondered, and the future +always has changed right out of their wondering. I believe that the +future is with woman. I believe that as empires have passed, Rome, +Greece, Carthage, that seemed to their rulers the pillars of the world, +so will pass man’s dominion. Woman’s revolt--it’s no use talking of it +as that, as a revolt. Women aren’t and never will be banded. They’re +like the Jews. They’re everywhere but nowhere. But the Jews have had +their day; woman--not yet. They work, not banded, but in single spies. +In every generation more single spies and more single spies. In +time.... In every generation man’s dominion, by like degree, decreased, +decreased. In time.... I’m one of this day’s single spies, Harry.” + +He said with a sudden animation, “Look here, let’s take it on that +level, Rosalie. In your case what’s the need? Call it dominion. I’ve +never exercised nor thought to exercise dominion over you.” + +“But you’ve not understood, Harry. I gave up what was my life to me. +To you I’d only--chucked it. Oh, but that hurt! That man’s supreme +indifference, that is dominion.” + +He said, “I’ll know it, dearest, for your sacrifice.” + +She put out a hand as if to hold that word away. “Oh, trust not that. +They talk of the ennoblement of sacrifice. Ah, do not believe it. It can +go too long, too far, and then like wine too long matured... just acid, +Harry. I never said a bitter thing to you until--thus sacrificing. It is +the kennel dog again. If I went on I’d grow more bitter yet, more bitter +and more bitter. It’s why women are so much more bitter than men. It’s +what they’ve sacrificed. I’m going back, Harry. I’ve got to. You ask +me if I’ve thought of everything. I have; but even if I had not this +outrides it all. I have gone too far. She was right, that woman I told +you of, who said that for a woman, once she has given herself to a +thing, there is no comeback from it. I have tried. It is not to be +done.” + +There was a very long silence. She said, “It’s settled, Harry.” + +He said, “Nothing’s been said, Rosalie, that gets over what I have said. +There’s no home here while both of us are working. I have a right to a +home. The children have a right to a home. Nothing gets over that.” + +She answered, “Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a +home.” + +He said, “I am a man.” + +She answered, “I am a woman.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The thing goes now at a most frightful pace for Rosalie. One hates the +slow, laborious written word that tries to show it. There needs a +pen with wings or that by leaping violence of script, by characters +blotched, huge and run together, would symbolise the pace at which the +thing now goes. There’s no procession of the days. Immersed in work or +lost in pleasure, there never is procession of the days, so hurtling +fast goes life. They crowd. They’re driven past like snow across a +window pane. The calendar astounds. It is the first of the month, +and lo, it is the tenth. It’s the sixteenth--half gone!--while yet it +scarcely had begun; a day after the twentieth is the date; it’s next +the twenty-fifth; it’s next--the month has gone.... The month! It is a +season that has flown. Here’s Summer where only yesterday the buds of +Spring; here’s Winter, coming--gone!--while yet the leaves seem falling. + +It was like that the thing now went with Rosalie. + +They call it a race. It isn’t a race, living like that. It’s a pursuit. +Engaged in it, you’re not in rivalry, you are in flight. You’re fleeing +all the time the reckoning; and he’s a sulky savage, forced to halt to +gather up what you have shed, ordered to pause to note the things that +you have missed, and at each duty cutting notches in a stick. + +That is his tally which, come up, he will present to you. + +Well, best perhaps to take that tally stick to try by it to show the +pace at which the thing now went. Rosalie, when all was done, could run +the tally over (you have to) in thought, that lightning vehicle that +makes to crawl the swiftest agency of man’s invention: runs through a +lifetime while the electric telegraph is stammering a line; reads memory +in twenty volumes between the whiff and passing of some remembered scent +that’s opened them; travels a life again, cradle to grave, between the +vision’s lighting on and lifting from some token of the past. + +All’s done; some years rush on; she sits in retrospection, that tally +stick in hand; and thought, first hovering, would always start for her +from when, returned to her career, the thing at frightful pace began to +go; and then, from there, away! from scene to scene (the notches cut by +reckoning in his stick) rending the womb of memory in dread delivery, +as it were flash on flash of lightning bursting the vault of night from +east to west across the world. + +Her thoughts first hovering: There’s Huggo and there’s Doda and there’s +Benji! Her children! Her darling ones! Her lovely ones! Love’s crown; +and, what was more, worn in the persons of those darling joys of hers +in signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of precedent to the contrary, +that woman might be mother and yet live freely and unfettered by her +home, precisely as man is father but follows a career. Ah.... + +Away! The womb of memory is rent, and rent, delivers. + +Look, there they are! She’s down with one or other at some gala at their +schools. It’s Founders’ Day at Tidborough, or it’s at Doda’s school on +Prize Day. Aren’t they just proud to be with her and show her off, +their lovely, brilliant mother so different from the other rather fussy +mothers that come crowding down! All the masters and all the mistresses +know the uncommon woman that she is. The children, growing older, know +it. “You must be very proud of your mother.” It has been said (the +self-same words) to each of them by their respective principals. Nice! +Nice to have your children proud of you! + +Look, there’s Huggo telling her how the headmaster had said the thing +to him (she’s just walking with her Huggo across the cricket ground on +Founders’ Day). “And a sloppy young ass that heard him,” says Huggo, +“oh, an awful ass, asked me why the Head had said I must be proud +of you, and I told him, and I said, ‘I bet you’re not proud of your +mother.’ And he said, ‘Of my father, I am. He got the V. C. in South +Africa.’ So I said, ‘Yes, but proud of your mother?’ So this frightful +ass said--what do you think he said? ‘No, I’m not proud of my mother. I +don’t think I’d want to be. I only love her.’” + +Huggo mimicked the voice in which the frightful ass had said this; and +Rosalie, at the words and at his tone, had across her body a sudden +chill, as it were physical. She wanted to say something. But it was the +kind of thing you couldn’t, somehow, say to Huggo, at fifteen. But she +said it. “Huggo, you do love me, don’t you?” + +He turned to her a face curiously thin-lipped. “Oh, I say, mother, do +look out, some one might hear you!” + +Her Huggo! (She wants to stop the passing scenes and to stretch out to +him across the years her arms.) Her Huggo! The one that first along her +arm had laid; the scrap that first within her eyes adoring tears had +brimmed; her baby boy, her tiny manling, her tiny hugging one, her first +born! It is in retrospection that she sits and there’s expelled for ever +from her face that aspect mutinous, intolerant, defiant, that used to +visit there. That, when she housed it, was the aspect of the young man +Ishmael whose hand was against every man. She is like Hagar now to be +imagined, sitting over against these things a good way off, as it were a +bowshot. + +Strike on! + +Her Huggo! Look, that’s the day they got that bad report of him from +school. She had questioned Harry about a letter in his post and, naming +the headmaster of Tidborough, “Yes, it’s from Hammond,” he had answered +her. + +“About Huggo?” + +“Yes, it’s about Huggo.” + +Nothing more. They were beginning to have exchanges terse as that. + +She said presently, “I suppose it would interest me, wouldn’t it?” + +His face was very hard. “Do you want to know the answer I feel like +giving to that?” + +“I’ve asked for it, haven’t I, Harry?” + +“You shall have it. The answer is that I think what the letter says +implicates you.” + +She preserved her composure. She by now had had practice in preserving +her composure. “What’s the matter, Harry?” + +“Hammond says--as good as says--that Huggo will have to be withdrawn +from Tidborough.” + +She knew perfectly well that this was only leading up to something. “May +I hear?” + +“You may.” He took up the letter and read from it. “‘Apart from that, +and it would of course be the reason given--the other, I am confident, +is susceptible of change--apart from that, the boy has now twice failed +to keep his place in the school. If he does not get his remove in the +coming term I shall be compelled to ask you to remove him.’” He put down +the letter and looked at her. “That’ll be nice, won’t it?” + +She made an appeal. “Harry, don’t. I mean, don’t talk like that. It +won’t happen.” + +He softened in no degree. He said sternly: “It will happen.” + +She persevered. “I’m quite sure it won’t. You’ve only got to talk +seriously to Huggo. This coming holidays you can get him some coaching. +He’s got brains.” + +There was a steely note in Harry’s voice: “Oh, he’s got brains. He can +have coaching. It’s what he hasn’t got and what he can’t get that’s +going to get Huggo withdrawn.” + +“What is it you mean?” + +“A home.” + +She slightly raised the fingers of her hands and dropped them. This +subject! + +Harry said: “Hammond says more than I’ve told you.” + +“I supposed he did. ‘Apart from that.’ Apart from what?” + +“It’s Huggo’s character he’s writing to me about. This is what he says. +‘The boy, though young, has not a good influence in his house. If I may +suggest it, he does not, during the holidays, see enough of his home.’” + +He folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. “Does it strike +you that is going to be easy for me to answer?” + +“It might be easier, Harry, if your tone made it possible for us to +discuss it.” + +He gave a sound that was glint, as it were, of the blade in his voice: +“Our discussions! I am a little tired of that blind alley, Rosalie.” + +She said sombrely, “And I.” + +“Will you suggest how the letter is to be answered?” + +She said: “It’s plain. If you agree with Mr. Hammond, it’s plain. You +can say you will stop Huggo’s invitations. Harry, we’re not by any means +the only family that doesn’t spend the whole of its holidays together. +It’s rather the practice nowadays, young people visiting their friends. +If you think Huggo shouldn’t--you can say so.” + +“Yes, I can say that. Tell me this. Is it going to give him a home?” + +Her voice sprung from a sudden higher note. “Oh, you insist, you +insist!” she cried. “You speak of blind alleys, but you insist.” + +He touched the letter. “This gives me ground for my insistence. This is +an outsider, a stranger, appreciating how we live. This is my son, at my +old school, condemned by how we live.” + +She interjected, “A schoolmaster’s primeval animosity--blame the +parent.” + +“Rosalie, a parent’s primeval duty. We are responsible for the children. +We have a duty towards them.” + +She softly struck her hands together. “Ah, how often, how often, and +always worse! You said just now that I am implicated. It’s always I. You +say we have a responsibility towards the children. But you don’t mean +us, you mean me. Why I more than you? Why am I the accused?” + +He began, “Because you--” + +“Ah, don’t, don’t!” + +But he concluded. “Because you are a woman.” + +Her voice that had gone high went numb. She made a gesture, as to the +same reason and with the same words she’d made before, of weariness with +this thing, “Ah, my God, that reason!” + +Strike on! + +Look, there’s Huggo, failing again to get his remove, superannuated, +withdrawn. There’s Harry having a scene with the boy. There ought to be +tears. There are tears. But they’re in Harry’s voice and twice he wipes +his eyes. They’re not in Huggo’s. + +Harry says to Huggo: “I say, I’m not going to be harsh; but, I say, +can’t you understand the disgrace; can’t you understand the shame, +old man? You’ve been at the finest school in England and you’ve had +to leave. You’re sixteen. Old man, when I was sixteen I got my footer +colours. I was the youngest chap in the team. You’re sixteen and you’ve +never even got a house cap and you’ve had to leave. Huggo, I’ve never +missed going down to a Founders’ Day since I went to Oxford. It’s always +been the day of the year for me. I don’t say I’ve ever done much in +life, but every time I’ve been down to Founders’ Day I’ve thought over, +in the train, any little thing I may have pulled out in the year and +I’ve felt, I’ve felt awfully proud to be taking it down to the old +school, so to speak. Old chap, the proudest, far the proudest of all, +was the year I went down when first you were there. I was proud. I’d +given a son to the place. I’d got a boy there. Another Occleve was going +to write the name up on the shields and rolls and things. It was the +year Garnett first came down as a Cabinet Minister. Huggo, I looked old +Garnett in the face with a grin. Whatever he’d done I’d got this much up +on him--he hadn’t given a son to the place. He hadn’t got a boy there. +That’s how I always felt. Well, old man, it’s all over. I can’t go +down to Founders’ Day ever again. I’ve never missed. Now--I’ve had to +withdraw my boy. I can’t go again. I couldn’t face it.” + +He wiped his eyes. No tears in Huggo’s eyes. On Huggo’s face only a +look sullen and aggrieved; and sullen and aggrieved his mutter, “Well, +perhaps it was different for you. I couldn’t stick the place.” + +She gasped out, “Huggo!” but Harry had heard, and Harry, perhaps in +offset to the emotion he had displayed, smashed his hand down on the +table before him and cried out, “Well, keep your mouth shut about it +then! Couldn’t stick it! What can you be? What can be the matter with +you? Couldn’t stick it! Tidborough! The finest school in the world! +Couldn’t stick it!” + +She interposed, “Harry, dear! Huggo; Huggo, tell your father you didn’t +mean that.” + +Huggo’s mumble: “I’m sorry, father.” + +Harry’s deep, kind voice: “I’m sorry too, old man. It rather jarred. +Look here, this is all over. It’s just been a side-slip. I’ve forgotten +it. So has your mother. You just think over sometimes what I’ve said, +my boy. We’re fixing up this tutor’s for you. You start in fresh and go +like steam. Finest thing in the world a fresh start. Makes a side-slip +worth while. I’m going to be--I am--prouder of you than anything on +earth. My eldest boy! Like steam from now, old chap, eh?” + +Strike on! + +After that interview and when the boy had left the room--shambled out +of the room in that sullen, aggrieved air he would always assume under +correction--after that she and Harry had talked, most fondly. It was +all, the talk, that poignantly affecting “fresh start” business that +he’d begun with Huggo. Poignantly affecting because Harry, piling upon +his love for Huggo and his pride in Huggo, which she shared, his love +for his old school and his pride in it, which she could understand but +could not share, had been so bravely, cheerfully earnest and assured +about the future. “One who never turned his back but marched breast +forward.” The boy would be all right. Mice and Mumps, old lady, he’d be +all right! It was just a mistake, just a side-slip. He’d got the right +stuff in him, Huggo had, eh, old lady? They must just pull together to +help the boy, eh? + +He paused the tiniest space at that and pressed her hand and looked at +her. She knew his meaning. If only.... + +He went on: This was a good place, this tutor’s down in Norfolk they +were sending him to, Harry was sure it was. It was a pity, of course, +he couldn’t go to another public school; but of course he couldn’t; they +wouldn’t take him; no use worrying about that. This tutor, this man they +were sending him to, was a first-class chap. Only took six pupils. Was +a clergyman. Understood boys and youths who hadn’t quite held their own +and wanted special coaching and attention. Huggo was keen on the idea. +After all, why shouldn’t he have disliked Tidborough? There were such +boys who didn’t like public-school life. There, there! Perhaps it was +the best thing that could have happened. Bet your life this was going +to be the making of old Huggo, this change. This tutor and the quiet, +self-reliant life there, each chap with his own jolly little bed-sitting +room, would prop him up and get him into Oxford when the time came and +make him no end happy and splendid. + +“There, there, old lady,” said Harry, and patted her and kissed her +(she’d been affected). “There, there, it’s going to be fine. The rest is +just up to us, eh? We know the boy’s weaknesses. We know what Hammond’s +told us about him--home life and home influences and all that stuff, and +that’s easy; we’ll see the boy gets that, won’t we?” + +She used to wring her hands at that, and crying “If only!” cry again +in desperation of excuse: “If only the war hadn’t come! If only the war +hadn’t come!” + +The war was on then. It was 1915. “You see,” she used to appeal to the +arbitrament before which, watching these pictures, she found herself, +“you see, the war made everything so difficult, so impossible, so +frightful, so confused, so blinding. Sturgiss had left the Bank to do +war service in the Treasury. More than half the clerks had gone. We were +understaffed and badly staffed at every turn. How could I give it up +then? I don’t say I would have. I’m on my knees. I’ve thrown in my hand. +I’m not pretending anything or anyway trying to delude myself. I don’t +say I would have given it up and come home to make home life for the boy +and for them all. I don’t say I would. I’m only saying how infinitely +harder, how impossibly harder, the war conditions made it. There was the +understaffing--that alone. There was the cry about releasing a man for +the front--that alone. I was releasing half a dozen men. Field said I +was. I knew I was. How could I go back and be one of the women sitting +at home? That alone! How could I? And there was more than that. It +wasn’t only the understaffing. It was Sturgiss going. I’d been absorbing +the banking business for years. It was meat and drink to me. I’d had a +bent for it ever since the Bagehot ‘Lombard Street’ days. I’d nourished +my bent. I’d been encouraged to nourish my bent. The work was just a +passion with me. Sturgiss went. I went practically into his place. I’d +a position in banking that no woman had ever held, nor no banker ever +imagined a woman ever holding, before. It was Sturgiss, a partner, I’d +released for war service. It was Sturgiss’s, a partner’s, place I’d +got. How could I give that up? How could I? How could I? If only the war +hadn’t come. If only....” Strike on! + +It isn’t all going as it should with the boy at the tutor’s. But wasn’t +it impossible to observe, at the time, that it wasn’t all going as it +should? Of course (her thoughts would go) it was her fault; but was +not the world, spiritual and material, in conspiracy against her, and +against Huggo, and against her other darlings, to make easy her fault? +Ah, that war, that war! Didn’t it unsettle everybody and everything? +Naturally it unsettled the boy down at the tutor’s. Naturally one did +not notice or foresee the trend of his unsettlement. Naturally it made +plausible the excuses that he made. + +There he is, down there at the tutor’s. He wanted to do war work, not +sitting there grinding lessons. All the tutor’s pupils did. Naturally +they did. The boy couldn’t go in the army. He was too young. He was in a +rural district. He got doing land-work. They all did. It was supposed to +be done in leisure hours. Naturally it encroached on, and unfitted for, +work hours. “After all,” as the tutor wrote, “how can you blame the +boys? After all, it’s very hard to seem to try to check this patriotic +spirit.” After all! Oh, why do people say “after all” when they mean +quite the contrary? This was before all, this seductive escape +from uncongenial duties, precedent of all, influencing to all that +happened--after all. Naturally it interfered with scholastic work. That +was condoned. As naturally it interfered with discipline. That was +not mentioned by the tutor. If he was cognisant of it was not domestic +discipline everywhere relaxed “on account of the war”? + +There Huggo is. These are his holidays. After the setback at Tidborough +he was to have spent all his holidays at home. He was not, for the +future, to go away on invitations. That war! He never spent any of his +holidays at home. How could the boy be tied down in London with this war +on? He made his land-work his excuse, most plausible. He spent all his +holidays with friends whose homes were in rural districts. + +Then it turned out that he had not, as he had given out, been always +at the house of friends. He was found in cottage lodgings living with a +friend, a fellow-pupil at the tutor’s; on land-work truly, but in gross +deception, and in worse. + +It came out quite by chance and in a way very horrible. Harry discovered +it. Harry, early in 1915, had been absorbed into the Home Office. His +work was very largely in connection with a special secret service body +dealing with spies. He examined in private arrested suspects. He advised +and he directed on criminal matters therewith connected. He was working, +under immense pressure, terrible hours. He was hardly ever in to dinner. +He often was away all night. He frequently was away travelling for days +together. When he was seen he showed signs of strain to Rosalie. + +He came in one evening about nine o’clock. It was early in 1916. Huggo +was then seventeen. Rosalie heard him in the hall and heard that some +one was with him. She heard him, by the dining-room door, say, “You’d +better go in there and get something to eat. I’ll attend to you +presently.” + +His voice was iron hard. Who was with him? What was the matter? + +He came in to her. His face was iron hard. He shut the door. “Do you +know who I’ve got here with me? Do you know where I’ve been? Do you know +what’s happened?” + +His manner was extraordinary. His voice was like heavy axes, thudding. +His face was dark and passionate, menacing. Happened? Things were always +happening in these appalling days. She said, “Oh, what is it, Harry?” + +“It’s Huggo.” + +“Huggo?” + +“Huggo!” + +Like axes! It seemed that, of his passion (and she never before had seen +passion in his face), he scarcely could speak. He fought for words. When +they came out they thudded out. + +“Do you know where Huggo’s been this past month?” + +“With the Thorntons, his friends.” + +“He’s not. He’s lied. He’s been living with some blackguard friend in +rooms in Turnhampton, in Buckinghamshire.” + +“Harry! Doing what? Land-work?” + +“Land-work! Loafing! Drinking!” + +“Drinking? Huggo?” + +“Listen to me. This is what I’ve come to. This is what that boy’s +come to. I had to go down to this place Turnhampton about a spy they’d +arrested. He was to come up in the police court there this morning. They +took the other cases first. Court going to be cleared for my man. I sat +there, waiting. The second case--this is what I’ve come to--was my son, +my boy, Huggo, brought up from the cells where he’d spent the night. +My son! Drunk and disorderly. He didn’t see me. The police gave him a +character. I sat there and listened to it. My son! A visitor, the police +described him. Supposed to be working on some farm. Not a desirable +character in the village. My son! Always loafing about. Always in the +inn. Last night drunk. Assaulted the landlady. My son! Arrested. My +son!” + +He turned away. + +She cried, “Harry! What happened?” + +He turned on her in a violence renewed. “I declare to you that if he had +gone to prison I would not have raised a hand to stop him. He’d had +the grace--or he’d all the time had the guile--to give an assumed name. +Would I have confessed, to save him, that he was my son? I believe I +couldn’t. He got off with a fine. I got hold of him. I’ve brought him +back. He’s here.” + +She went to the bell. “I must get you some food.” + +He stayed her. “Food! I’ll tell you what to get me. I’ll tell you what +to get that boy. Get me a home. Get him a home. That’s what’s caused +this. Do you know what he said to me coming up in the train? I said to +him, ‘Why are you always away like this? Why, in the holidays, are you +never at home?’ He said, ‘What home is there for me to come to? Who’s +ever there?’ He’s right. Who is? Are you?” + +She said quietly, “Harry, not now. Dear, you are not yourself.” + +He was not and continued not to be. “Well, answer my question. Are you +ever in the home?” + +She implored, “Oh, my dear!” + +He was not to be placated. “Where is the home?” + +“Harry!” + +“Where’s Doda?” + +She began in her spirit to move. “Staying with friends.” + +“Where’s Benji?” + +“You perfectly well know. Staying with friends.” + +“Where are you?” + +She put her hand to her bosom. “Oh, beware me, Harry. Here.” + +“For the night. Are you ever in the children’s home?” + +“Are you?” + +“That sophistry! I have my work!” + +“I’ve mine.” + +He smote his hand upon the mantelshelf by which he stood and turned and +left the room. + +Strike on! + +Of course it healed and was obliterated and all passed over. Of course +Harry forgave the boy. Of course he was handsome to the boy’s excuses. +Drunk! Of course it was just a slightly tipsy ebullition. Had been in +the hot sun in the fields all day and was affected by a too long slake +of beer. Assaulted the landlady! She’d been rough mannered and objected +to his noise and got in the way and he had pushed her. “The boy’s all +right,” Harry said to Rosalie after, the boy forgiven, he sat and talked +with her. “He’s got no vice. How could he have? It was wrong, it was +deceitful, going off like that to that place without telling us. But he +meant no harm. He’s explained. He’s genuinely sorry. He’s just got out +of hand a bit. They all have, the young people, in this war time. The +boy’s all right. He’s eighteen in a few months. I’ll see if I can speed +it up a bit getting him into the army. He’s magnificently keen. He’ll +do fine, God bless him. Think no more about it, old lady. In the whole +business I’m only sick with myself that I lost my temper with him as I +did--and with you, my dear, and with you.” And he put out his hand to +her. + +“One who never turned his back but marched breast forward.” + +“And with you.” Of course he was distressed he had been violent with +her. Of course that painful outbreak was healed, obliterated, put away. +He had expressed his utter regret. He’d been badly rattled with this +infernal war all that week; this business on the top of it had been +a most frightful shock to him. What had he said? Forgive, Rosalie, +forgive! Of course she had nothing to forgive. Forgiveness also was for +her to ask. As to the point thus violently raised, he saw, didn’t he, +the clear impossibility of her giving up her work, war work as much as +his own, at such a time? Not to say the unnecessity of it--the children +were growing up... it clearly could be done now. The position she +held... + +He said, “I know, old lady.” He said, “I know, I know,” and sighed. + +Ah, from that vision of him saying, “I know,” and sighing, and from the +mute appeal that then was in his eyes, from that--strike on! + +Most retentive to her, as it had passed, of Huggo’s share in all that +episode had been that she from her expostulation with Huggo had not come +away with the same satisfaction as seemingly had Harry. She put before +the boy how terribly his father had felt the shame of it, how almost +broken-hearted he had been. “He idolises you, Huggo. You’re always his +eldest son. He thinks the world of you.” + +Huggo took it all with that familiar air of his of being the party that +was aggrieved. He listened with impatience that was not concealed and he +had no contrition to display. “Well, mother, it’s all over. What is the +good of going on and on about it? I’ve had it by the hour from father. +He’s understood. What is the good?” + +She very lovingly talked to him. He all the time had an argument. +He kept up his own case. He presently said, “And I do wish, mother, +especially now I’m going into the army soon, I do wish you’d drop that +‘Huggo.’ You can’t tell how I hate it. You might just as well call me +Baby. It’s a baby’s name.” + +“Oh, Huggo, it was the name we loved you by.” + +“Well, I can’t stick it. My name’s Hugh.” + +Strike on! + +There he is. He’s in the army. He’s utterly splendid in his uniform. How +proud of him she is! They no longer gave commissions direct from civil +life; but he’d been in the cadet corps at Tidborough and Harry was able +to get him direct into an officer cadet battalion. He’s off to France +in what seems next to no time. He’s home on leave and there’s nothing +that’s too good for him and her purse at his disposal when he’s run +through Harry’s generous allowance. He seems to get through an immense +amount of money on leave. He’s never at home. He’s often out all +night. Well, he’s on leave. He’s fighting for his country. You can’t be +anything but utterly lenient with a boy that’s fighting for his country. +He went back. Three days after he was supposed to have gone back Rosalie +came face to face with him in Piccadilly. He was with some flapper +type of girl, in the detestable phrase (as she thought it) by which the +detestable products of the war (as she thought them) were called. He was +just getting into a cab. She called out to him, astounded. She heard him +swear and he jumped into the cab and was driven away. She didn’t tell +Harry. Harry found out. It came out that the boy for overstaying his +leave was to be court-martialled. She did not know what Harry did. She +noticed in those days what a beaten look Harry’s face was getting. It +was, of course, the war strain; but it only was first evident to her in +that time of the court-martial. He scarcely spoke to her. She did not +know what he did, but she knew he had much influence and exerted it at +no sparing of himself. The boy got off with a severe reprimand and was +returned to France. And to be in France, out there, in that ever-present +shadow of death, was to be excused everything and to be forgiven +everything. + +Miraculously the war ended. The boy had had rather more than two years +of it. He applied for immediate demobilisation as being a student, and +he was one of the batch that got away immediately on that ground. He +was nearly twenty then. Now what was he going to do? Oxford, of course, +Harry said, and then the Bar, as always intended. Huggo, larking about +in uniform long after he ought to have been out of it, was in immense +feather with himself. He didn’t say No and he didn’t say Yes to the +Oxford idea. All he said was that he voted all that wasn’t discussed the +very day he got back (it was more than six weeks since he had got back). +He surely, he said, was entitled to a bit of a holiday first, after +all he had been through. London seemed to be swarming with thousands +of young men who claimed they were entitled to a bit of a holiday first +after all they had been through. Huggo was never in the house. He had +picked up with a man, Telfer, whom he had met in France, a big business +man, Huggo described him as, and he seemed to spend all his time with +this man. Telfer was a much older man than Huggo. Huggo brought him to +dinner one night. It was rather a shock to Rosalie, meeting the man of +whom she had heard so much. Huggo had never said anything about his age. +He must have been quite forty. He had dull, cloudy eyes and a bad mouth. +He called Huggo “Kid,” using the word in every sentence, and it was easy +to see from Harry’s manner that Telfer was repellent to him. Easy, also, +and not nice, to see Telfer’s dominion over Huggo. Not nice to hear +Huggo’s loud, delighted laughter at everything addressed to him by +Telfer. Harry spoke less and less as the meal advanced. The two left +early; they were going to a music hall. When they had gone Rosalie and +Harry looked at one another across the table and by their look exchanged +a great deal. + +“That’s a detestable companion for Huggo,” Harry said. “Rosalie, there’s +been enough of this. The boy must get to work.” + +It appeared, in interviews following that evening, that Huggo was not a +bit keen on the Oxford idea. He wanted to go into business. He was not +clear as to precisely what kind of business, but he wanted the freedom +and the excitement of earning his own living, not to be cooped up at +the “Varsity” like back at school again. Harry took a firm line. The +boy resented the firm line. Well, anyway, he argued, he couldn’t go till +October, it was only June now; all right, he’d go in October--if he +had to. Harry made arrangements for some reading through the summer +preparatory to Oxford. It upset plans made by Huggo. He thought +it “uncommonly hard” that he should have to spend the whole summer +“swotting.” Oh, well, if he had to, he had to. He had an invitation for +a month for that immediate time to Scotland. The reading was arranged +to start a month ahead. He didn’t in the least want to be out of London +just when there was so much going on and all his pals here; but anything +was better than sticking this kind of life at home, father always at +him; so he’d go to Scotland; he supposed he was entitled to a bit of +country holiday before they cooped him up? He went to Scotland. + +Twice during that month Rosalie thought she saw Huggo in the West End. +But London was full of young men of the Huggo type. It wasn’t likely. + +It turned out to have been very likely. It turned out that Huggo had +never been in Scotland at all but in London all the time. And much worse +than that. One evening, towards the end of the so-called Scotland month, +Huggo unexpectedly walked into the house. Rosalie was sitting with Harry +in the dining-room over the end of dinner. Doda was upstairs putting +last touches to herself before going out to a dance. Doda was eighteen +then (it was 1919), had left school, and, with a large circle of +friends, was going out a great deal. Benji was still at school, at +Milchester. Harry had never resumed relations with beloved Tidborough. + +The door opened and Huggo walked in. His face was very flushed and his +articulation a little odd. When, after greetings, he sat down, he sat +down with a curiously unsteady thud and gave a little laugh and said, +“Whoa, mare, steady!” + +It appeared, after explanations, that he had come to talk about “this +Oxford business.” “I really can’t very well go to Oxford now, father. I +really ought to start in some money-making business now, and I’ve got a +jolly good opening promised me. I really ought to take it.” + +The decanters were on the table. He had already taken a glass of port. +He filled another and drank it. + +“The fact is, I’m--married.” + +There were some hard and bitter things said between his father and the +boy. The boy fumbled--he obviously had been drinking--between would not +or could not say very much as to who it was that he had married. + +Harry said, “Who are her people? That’s a plain question, isn’t it?” + +Huggo, very red, increasingly difficult to understand, said, “It’s a +plain enough question. It’s a plain enough question. I’ve come here to +be perfectly frank and plain and plain enough question. The fact is I +don’t know very much about her plain enough people.” + +Rosalie broke out of the frozen stupefaction that had numbed her. +“Huggo, you must know. You must know who her people are.” + +Huggo turned a very slow gaze around from his father to his mother. He +looked at her. He said with astonishing violence, “Well, I tell you I +don’t. People! What have her people got to do with it? I haven’t married +her people. She’s my little girl and I’ve married her, not her people. +Isn’t that enough for you?” + +Harry got up and went over to him. “Look here, you’d better run along. +You’re not in a fit state to talk to your mother. I’m not sure you’re +in a fit state to talk to any-body or to know what you’re saying. You’d +better go, my boy. We’ll go into this in the morning. Come round early +in the morning. We’ll settle it then.” + +He was passing with Huggo through the door when Doda, equipped for her +dance, came running down the stairs. “Hull-o, Huggo! Why, I haven’t seen +you for weeks. Where have you been?” + +Huggo, standing unsteadily, unsteadily regarded her. “Point is, where +are you going? All dressed up and somewhere to go! I’ll bet you have! +I’ve seen you jazzing about the place when you haven’t seen me, Dods. +And heard about you! There was a chap with me watching you at the Riddle +Club the other night told me some pretty fierce--” + +“Oh, dash, I’ve left my fan,” cried Doda, and turned and ran back up the +stairs. + +Huggo called, “I say, Dods. I’m in a row. So’ll you be one day, if you +don’t look out for yourself.” + +Doda’s voice: “Oh, dry up--you fool!” + +Strike on! + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Her Doda! The one that was her baby girl, that was her tiny daughter! +The one that was to be her woman treasury in which she’d pour her woman +love; that was to be her self’s own self, her heart’s own heart, her +tiny woman-bud to be a woman with her in the house of Harry and of +Huggo! Her Doda! + +Look, there she is! There’s lovely Doda! She’s fourteen. It’s early in +1915, in the first twelve months of the war. (That war!) She’s at that +splendid school. She’s been there nearly three years. She loves it. +She’s never so happy as when she’s there, except, judging by her +chatter, when she’s away in the holidays at the house of one of her +friends. It’s at home--when she is at home--that she’s never really +happy. She’s so dull, she always says, at home. She always wants to be +doing something, to be seeing something, to be playing with somebody. +She can’t bear being in the house. She can’t bear being, of an evening, +just alone with Rosalie. “Oh, dear!” she’s always saying. “Oh, dear, I +do wish it would hurry up and be term time again.” + +“Darling, you are a restless person,” Rosalie says. + +“Well, mother, it is dull just sticking here.” + +“You know how Benji loves to have you home, Doda. Benji simply lives for +you. I’ve never known a brother so devoted. You ought to think of Benji +sometimes, Doda.” + +“Well, I can’t be always thinking of Benji. I’m surely entitled to be +with my own friends sometimes. I don’t ask Benji to be devoted to me.” + +She’s strangely given to expressions like that: “I didn’t ask +for”--whatever circumstance or obligation it might be that was irksome +to her. “Not traditions--precedents!” The watchword of the school was +strangely to be traced in her attitude, still in her childish years, +towards a hundred commonplaces of the daily life. She was always +curiously older than her years. She seemed to have a natural bent +away from traditionally childish things and towards attractions not +associated with childhood. She did excellently well at the school. She +was, her reports said, uncommonly quick and vivid at her lessons. +She was always in a form above her years. Her friends, while she was +smallish, were always the elder girls, and the elder girls gave her +welcome place among them. “Perhaps a shade precocious,” wrote the lady +principal in one of the laconic, penetrating sentences with which, above +her signature, each girl’s report was terminated: and, in a later term, +“Has ‘Forward!’ for her banner, but should remember ‘not too fast’.” + +“Gripes! I know what she’s referring to,” said Doda, seeing it, and +laughed, obviously flattered. + +“Your expressions, Doda!” + +“Huggo uses it.” + +“They’re wretched even in Huggo. But Huggo’s a boy. You’re a girl.” + +“Well, mother, I didn’t ask to be a girl.” + +“Doda, that’s merely silly.” + +“A lot of us say it, that’s all I know.” + +“Then, darling, a lot of you are silly.” + +“Oh, I shall be glad when next week I go to the Fergussons. It is dull.” + +Look, there she is. She’s sixteen. She’s beautiful. She’s pretty as +a picture, and she knows she is. She’s grown out of the rather early +fullness of figure that had been hers. She’s slim and tall and straight +and supple and slender as a willow wand. If she had her hair up and her +skirts lengthened (skirts then were only starting on their diminution +to the knees), she’d pass for twenty anywhere, and a twenty singularly +attractive, curiously self-possessed, strikingly suggestive in her pale +and beautiful countenance, and in an alternating sleepiness and glinting +in her eyes; strikingly suggestive of, well, strikingly suggestive +according to the predilictions and the principles of the beholder. + +This was in 1917. She was beginning rather to hate school now. She +wanted to be out and doing some war work of some kind. Oh, those +sickening scarves and things they were eternally knitting, that wasn’t +war work. It was fun at first. They were fed to death with doing them +now. She didn’t much want to go into a hospital or into any of these +women’s corps. They were a jolly sight too cooped up in those things +from what she’d heard. She wanted to go into one of the Government +offices and do clerical work. Several of the school Old Girls who had +been there with her were doing that and it was the most ripping rag. Of +course you had to work, and of course it was jolly good patriotic work, +but you had a topping time in many ways. That was what she wanted to do. +Oh, mother, do let her chuck school now and get to it! Not till she was +seventeen? Well, it was sickening. Well, it was only another term, thank +goodness. + +It was in the holidays--in her brief days at home of the holidays--in +which these wishes were expressed, that Rosalie found Doda was +corresponding with officers at the front. + +Doda was appallingly untidy in her habits. She was out one evening to a +party--she managed to get a considerable number of parties into her dull +days at home. Rosalie, come in from Field’s, peeped into her bedroom to +find her. She had not known that Doda was going out. The bedroom cried +aloud that Doda had gone out. Drawers were open and articles of dress +hanging out of them. One drawer, no doubt stubborn in its yieldings, was +bodily out in the middle of the room. Clothes were on the floor. +Clothes strewed the bed. Powder was all over the mirror. It was as if a +whirlwind had passed through the room. + +“Powder!” murmured Rosalie. + +The state of the room dismayed her. The intense orderliness of her own +character forbade her ringing for a maid. She simply could not look at +untidiness like that without tidying it. She started to tidy. Doda’s box +was open. Its contents looked as if a dog had burrowed in it, throwing +up the things as he worked down. If anything was to go in, everything +must first come out. Rosalie lifted out an initial clearance. + +There lay scattered beneath it quite half a dozen photographs of +officers in khaki. + +There were all inscribed. “To the school kid.” “Wishing you were here.” + “With kisses.” “Till we meet.” And with slangy nicknames of the writers. +There lay with them a number of letters, all in their envelopes. There +lay also a sheet of paper covered in Doda’s bold handwriting. It began +“Wonderful Old Thing.” + +Rosalie had not touched these evidences of an unknown interest in Doda’s +life. She stooped, staring upon them, the lifted bundle of clothes in +her hand. The stare that took in “Wonderful Old Thing” took in also the +first few lines. They were not nice. But she oughtn’t to read it. One +didn’t do that kind of thing. She replaced the bundle and closed the +box. Then she tidied the room and wiped the mirror. + +Early next morning, immediately on coming out of her bath, she went in +to Doda. She opened the door softly and she distinctly saw the lids of +Doda’s eyes flash up and close again. + +“Doda!” + +Doda pretended to be asleep. Rosalie had sat up for Doda the previous +night but had said nothing to her either of her discovery or of going +to an invitation without having told her. Doda wasn’t pretending to be +asleep because she feared trouble. She was pretending to be asleep just +because she had no wish for an early talk with her mother. + +There was a little pang at the heart of Rosalie. + +But it was just that the child wasn’t demonstrative of her affections. +None of them were. Even Benji not really what you would call +demonstrative. How beautiful the child was! Her Doda! How little she +ever saw of her! + +She called her again. + +Doda opened her eyes. “Hullo, mother.” + +Just that. No more. They were different, the children. + +She sat down on Doda’s bed and began to talk to her. Tidiness! “Doda, +your room as you left it last night when you went out was simply +terrible. How can you?” + +“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 assumed 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 snatched 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, flashing, 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 +impassioned 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 multitudes 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 titillation of it. The titillation 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 titillation 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 titillation of watching the clock +for tea, and of tea, and then, most sharpest titillation 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. + +Until she found her feet--not in her office, but at home at first +emergence from her school--until she found her feet she often used to be +kept uncommonly late at office. In a very short while she found her +feet and that excuse no longer was put forward. Every girl of Doda’s +association was on her feet in 1919; and for Doda very much easier, at +that, than for the generality, to establish her position in the house. +By 1920, when she was nineteen, she was conducting her life as she +pleased, as nineteen manifestly should. In 1921, when she was twenty, +the war work was over and she was “getting through the day” much as she +lived the night. It was pretty easy to get through the day in 1921. That +which the curmudgeons called license, and liberty the free, was in 1921 +held by charter and by right prescriptive. + +Look at her. There she is. She’s lovelier yet, if that which was +her budding loveliness could bear a lovelier hue. She’s always out +somewhere, or she’s always off somewhere, or she’s always coming in from +somewhere. Her eyes, in presentation more pronounced, have always got +that sleepy look or got that glinting look. She never talks much at +home. She seems to keep her talking for her friends and she never +brings her friends home. She’s on good terms with Rosalie. That’s the +expression for it. She was to have been a woman treasury into which was +to be poured by Rosalie all her woman love. She was to have been a woman +with her mother in the house of Harry and of Huggo. But that’s all done. +She’s not a daughter to her mother. She never asked to be born to her +mother, as once she told her mother, and though that never now again is +said it is the basis of her stand. She owes no obligations. They just +meet. They get on very pleasantly. She’s on good terms with Rosalie. + +It is odd--or else it isn’t odd but only natural--that in all the +pictures seen by Rosalie there scarcely is a picture that ever shows +the children all together. They hardly ever, within the compass of +her pictures, were together. As in their schoolhood, so much more in +adolescence, they never showed a least desire for one another’s company. +They had their friends, each one, and much preferred their friends. +You’d not, it’s true, say that of Benji; but Benji in fraternal wish had +to take what was offered him and there was nothing offered him by Doda; +by Huggo less than nothing. + +Benji! + +Look, here’s the Benji one; the good, the quiet, gentle one; the one +that never gave a thought of trouble, Benji. + +Her Benji! The one that came after disfavour, after remorse; that came +with tears, with thank God, charged-with-meaning tears. The littlest +one. The one that was so tiny wee beside the big and sturdy others. Her +last one! Her Benji! + +Look, there he is. Always so quiet, gentle, good. Always, though +snubbed, so passionately fond of Doda. Look, there he is. He’s at +Milchester, in his spectacles, the darling! He’s always in his books. He +isn’t good at games. He does so well at school. Oh, isn’t Harry proud of +him and fond of him! Oh, doesn’t Harry often sigh and wish he could +have gone to Tidborough to win those prizes and those honours there. But +Tidborough’s closed to Harry, Harry says. Look, there goes Benji! It’s +1919. He’s sixteen. It’s Speech Day at Milchester. He’s in the Sixth. +He’s won all those prizes. She’s holding two and Harry’s holding three, +and there he goes to take the Heriot Gold Medal. All the great hall is +simply cheering Benji! The Head is saying that he’s the youngest boy +that’s ever won the Heriot. Look, there’s the Bishop handing it, and +shaking Benji by the hand, and patting Benji on the back, and saying +something to him. You can’t possibly hear what it is, every one is +cheering so. Look, here he comes with the medal, in his spectacles, the +darling! She can scarcely see, her eyes are brimming so. Harry’s quite +shameless. Harry’s got tears standing on his cheeks and he’s set down +the prizes and is stretching both his hands out to the boy. Feel, that’s +his hand--her Benji’s hand--snuggled a moment in hers, and then he turns +to his father and is eagerly whispering to his father, his spectacles +rubbing his father’s head, the darling! He’s more demonstrative to his +father than he is to her. She feels it rather sometimes. He’s awfully +sweet to her, but, you can’t help noticing it, it’s more his gracious +manner than the outpouring she’d give anything to have. It’s funny how +he always seems the tiniest atom strange with her as if he didn’t +know her very well or hadn’t known her very long. It sometimes pains a +little. He’s different with his father. He loves being with his father. +And doesn’t Harry love having the boy with him! Harry idolises the boy. +Of course Huggo is Harry’s eldest, and whatever Huggo’s disappointments, +these men--at least these perfect Harry type of men--have for their +eldest boy within their hearts a place no other child can quite exactly +fill. There’s some especial yearning that the eldest seems to call. +There’s some incorporation of the father’s self, there’s some reflection +that he sees, there’s some communion that he seems to find, that makes +“My eldest son” a thing apart. But, with that reservation, and that’s +ingrained in men, it’s Benji that’s the world to Harry. He’s going to +Ox-ford. He’s going to have the Bar career that Huggo wouldn’t take. But +Harry thinks there’s some especial wonders going to come to Benji. He +says the boy’s a dreamer. He says the boy’s a thinker. “Benji’s got +something rare about him, Rosalie,” he says. “That boy’s got a mark on +him that genius has. You wait and see, old lady. It’s Benji’s going to +make the old name shine!” Strike on! + +It is odd, sad, significant, that there is scarcely a picture that shows +together those three children, or even two of them. It’s 1921 now and +drawing very close to Finis; but always the old detachment, the seeming +want of mutual love, appears to hold the three apart. Doda is sometimes +glimpsed, no more, with Benji, always putting off or chilling off her +brother for her friends; sometimes she’s seen with Huggo, meeting him +and he her, more like an acquaintance of their sets than like fruit +of the same parents; familiar, apparently, with one another’s lives: +referring to places of amusement by both frequented, as had been done, +in instance, on that night of Huggo’s announcement of his marriage when +with a note that rung sinister he had bantered Doda and she had turned +and run upstairs. But no more than that. The children seem to have no +mutual love. They’re different. + +It’s 1921. Huggo was scarcely ever seen now. He had married in haste and +had in haste repented. He also had played a trick, involving a sum of +money, on his father. His wife, as it appeared, had been met at some +dancing club and the brief courtship had continued anywhere but at her +home. Of her home Huggo knew only what she told him; and what she +told him was only what she could invent. She was then, at their first +meeting, in the uniform of a war service corps to which she belonged. +She said her father was a clergyman. + +“A clergyman’s daughter!” cried Huggo bitterly, acquainting Rosalie +only three months after his marriage of his marriage’s failure. “A +clergyman’s daughter! That’s what they all say--those! Wasn’t I a fool +to be caught out by that! Oh, wasn’t I a fool! If you want to know what +she really was, she was a teashop waitress, in the city somewhere. If +you want to know what her reverend father in the country was, is, he +doesn’t live in the country; he lives in Holloway, and he doesn’t live +in a rectory in Holloway, he lives in a baker’s shop. That’s what he is, +a baker! That’s what I’ve done for myself, married a waitress! Yes, and +then you, you and father, when she comes whining here and complains I +ill-treat her and keep her without money, you two take her part and send +her back to me with your championship and get me here to pijaw me about +my duty to my pretty young wife! Well, now you know, now you know, and +you can tell father what my pretty young wife is--how she deceived me. +Deceived me! Now you know.” + +Rosalie said, “Huggo, you deceived her.” + +Huggo had been leaving and now very violently went. “That’s your tone, +is it? I might have known! That’s all you can say, is it? To see me ruin +my life and then reproach me! Ruin my life! It’s not I that’s ruined +my life. It’s you. There, now I’ve told you! I can see things now. What +sort of a chance have I ever had? What sort of a home have I ever had? +Have I ever had a mother? When I was a kid did I ever have a mother like +other kids have? I can see things now. A mother! I can’t ever remember a +time when I wasn’t in the charge of some servant or governess or other. +You said this afternoon before father that I didn’t love you. Did +you ever teach me to love you? By God, I can’t remember it. By God, I +can’t.” + +Strike on! + +Also that trick, touching a sum of money, upon his father. When he first +made known his marriage, and it was obvious he must have his way and be +set up to start in life, he had also, as he had said, the chance of a +lucrative business. It was the kind of thing he liked. It was the kind +of thing he was keen on. It was a motor-car business. There was a little +syndicate that was putting a new car on the market. They’d got works, +just outside London somewhere. They’d got show-rooms in the West End. +And they’d got an absolutely first-class article. That chap Telfer was +one of the directors; a first-class chap called Turner was another; +they’d let him in for eight thousand pounds and he’d be absolutely set +up for life and be pulling in an immense fortune in no time. You will, +won’t you, father? + +Of course Harry forgave the boy, his eldest son. The marriage was done, +what was the use of being unkind or stupid about it? Of course Rosalie +welcomed the wife, Lucy, the prettiest creature, a tiny shade common, +perhaps, but a sweet little soul with always about her a pathetic air of +being afraid of something (of when it should come out precisely what she +was, as the event proved). Of course Harry paid over the eight thousand +pounds. Huggo took, “to start with,” as he said, a tiny furnished flat +in Bayswater. Rosalie installed him and his bride therein and left him, +on their first night there, ever so gay, so confident, so happy. Her +Huggo! + +In two months it all came out. Lawyers are notoriously lax in making +their own wills. Harry, who could master a case quicker than any man at +the Bar, and could see to the soul and beyond it of a hostile witness a +minute after getting on his feet to cross-examine, was fooled blind by +the syndicate that was going to put the absolutely first-class article +on the market. Whether it was that there never had been a business, and +that Harry’s inspection of works, visits to show-rooms, and examination +of books, was all part of an elaborate swindle carried out with the aid +of some one who possessed these accessories; or whether it was that the +whole thing was bought up cheap merely to sell at a profit, was never +clearly known to Harry and to Rosalie. Harry was too grieved to pursue +the shock. “I’ll take not a step further in the matter, Rosalie,” Harry +said. “I can’t bear to find the boy out deeper. It’s done. There’s no +sense in being stupid or unkind about it.” + +What happened was that the car enterprise never was an enterprise at all +except an enterprise to get eight thousand pounds into the possession +of the syndicate. Nothing ever was properly announced by Huggo. It just +“came out.” It “came out” that the syndicate was not established in the +West End show-rooms but in three rather dingy offices in the city. It +“came out” that the syndicate was not running a motor-car business but +a business cryptically described as “Agents.” Huggo said disaster had +overtaken the car enterprise and that the syndicate, rescuing what +remained of the smash, had pluckily set up on another line. He thought +he could scrape along. It was a knockout of course, but he thought he +could scrape along. + +“But what I can’t make out, old man,” said Harry, when Huggo had +stumbled through an entirely non-explanatory explanation of the +syndicate’s business in its new capacity as agents, “What I can’t +make out, old man, is why you should trade under another name. Why, +‘So-and-So, and So-and-So, and So-and-So, Agents’--I can’t ever remember +the names? Why not ‘Telfer, Occleve and Turner’?” + +“Well, as a matter of fact, father--I want you to know everything +without any concealment--” + +“I know you do, old man. I know you do.” + +“Well, as a matter of fact, that’s just a bit of useful swank. The names +we’re trading under are swagger names and we think it sounds better.” + +“Occleve sounds pretty good to me, Huggo. We’ve been a good long way on +Occleve, the Occleves.” + +“Well, that’s what they think, father, and of course, as I’ve told you, +they know infinitely more about business than I do. They’ll explain the +whole thing to you any time you like. It’s all absolutely above-board, +father.” + +“My dearest old boy, don’t talk like that. Of course it is. We’re only +so grieved, your mother and I, that you should have had such a setback +so early. But remember, old man, the great thing is not to let your wife +suffer. No pinching or screwing for her, Huggo. Always your wife first, +Huggo. We’ll give you at the rate of three hundred a year just until +all’s going swimmingly, and that’s to keep Lucy merry and bright, see?” + +It was shortly after that it all came out that the thing was a ramp, the +motor-car business never in existence; shortly after that it came out +Huggo was neglecting his wife; shortly after that the high words to +Rosalie, telling her how his wife had deceived him; shortly after that +that the syndicate, amazingly prosperous, moved into offices better +situated and handsomely appointed; shortly after that it came out that +the business of the syndicate was in some way connected with company +promotion. + +Harry, seen among these developments, was not the man he used to be. +He was at the crest of his career at the Bar, working enormously and +earning richly, but the old bright, cheery way had gone from Harry. +There was permanently upon his face, and there was intensified, the +beaten look that Rosalie first had seen on that night, in the war, when +there had been the Huggo drinking business and when for the first and +only time he had spoken passionately to Rosalie. When he now was at +home he used to sit for long periods doing nothing, just thinking. When +sometimes, home earlier than he, Rosalie saw him coming up the street +towards the gamboge door she noticed, terribly, the bowed shoulders, +the weary gait, the set, careworn face. She used to run down then to the +famous gamboge door and open it and greet him and his face used to light +up in the old way, but it was not the same face, and the effect of its +radiation therefore not the same. It was not that the face was older. It +was that its aspect was changed. + +He used to look up from that chair where he sat just thinking, when +Doda, butterflied for the evening, butterflied across the room, and used +to say, “Out again, Doda?” He then would relapse back into his thoughts. +He had a habit of getting up suddenly and rather strangely wandering +about from room to room of all the principal rooms of the house, just +standing at the door of each, and looking in (they were all empty of +inhabitants), and then coming back and sitting again in the chair and +just sit, thinking. + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +She said more than once when he returned from such a tour, “Dear Harry, +looking for anything?” + +He’d say rather heavily, “No; no, dear. Just having a look around.” + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +But he used to be enormously brightened up when Benji came home. Benji +was just at Oxford then, eighteen. He was a different man when Benji was +at home. He used to say, “Rosalie, that boy’s going to make a name for +himself in the world. My heart’s wrapped round that boy, Rosalie. Ay, +me! I wish he’d been our eldest, Rosalie.” + +That was because he couldn’t tear away the wrappings of his heart from +about his eldest. Men can’t. + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +Of course, with everything now known, Huggo was forgiven. Huggo was +prosperous now, almost aggressively prosperous. He kept a car. The +syndicate, whatever it actually did, was obviously doing enormously +well. What was the good of being stupid and unkind to the boy now that, +at last, he had found his feet? But Huggo scarcely ever came to the +house. He had virtually left Lucy. Lucy lived on in the originally-taken +furnished flat in Bayswater. Huggo had rooms somewhere, no one quite +knew where, and lived there. Rosalie used to get Lucy to the house +sometimes, but Lucy was never at her ease on these visits, and Doda, who +sympathized entirely with Huggo in the matter, very much disliked her +and would not meet her. Lucy was in bad health and she was going to have +a baby. Her health and her condition made her look much more common than +she used to look. + +Then the baby was born; a little girl. Poor, grateful Lucy called it +Rosalie. She told Rosalie that Huggo said he didn’t care what the baby +was called. He was very angry about the baby. “He was worse than usual +when he was here last week,” said Lucy. “I think he’s got something on +his mind. I think he’s worrying about something. Oh, he was sharp.” + +Lucy was very ill with the birth of her baby. She didn’t seem able to +pick up again from her confinement. She kept her bed. Then, suddenly, +she developed pneumonia. The maternity nurse, paid by Rosalie, was still +in attendance. Rosalie sent in another nurse, and on that same night, +going straight to the sick bed from Field’s, and then coming home very +late, told Harry, who was waiting up for her, that the worst was feared +for Lucy. She then said, “Harry, if anything happens, I think we’ll have +that baby here. It will practically be a case of adopting the child.” + +Harry agreed. + +“I’d get in a nurse for her, the new little Rosalie.” She sighed. + +“Yes, yes,” said Harry. + +She said after a little, “Harry, the nurseries in use again!” + +He sat there as he was always sitting, thinking. + +She went over to him. “Dear, won’t you like the nurseries to be in use +again?” + +He said slowly, “I will, very much, Rosalie. It’s lonely, these empty +rooms. I will very much--in some ways.” + +Rosalie knew what Harry meant. She touched his hand. “Dear, I think it +can be made different.” + +Harry knew what Rosalie meant. He pressed the hand that touched his own. +“That’s all right, Rosalie. That’s all right, dearest.” + +Rosalie was down early next morning. She desired an early breakfast and +to go on to see Lucy before Field’s. It might be necessary to stay the +day with Lucy. There was also Huggo. What was Huggo doing? Overnight +Rosalie had seen Doda, come in late from an evening with a very intimate +friend of hers always known, through some private joke of Doda’s, as +“the foreign friend.” The foreign friend, not in the least foreign but +English, was a young married woman living apart from her husband. Doda +had brought her to the house once. She was very pretty and a cheery +soul. She would have been called fast when Rosalie was a girl. In 1921 +she would almost, in the manner she presented to Rosalie, have been +called slow. Doda and she were greatly attached. + +Doda, overnight, going straight upstairs to bed, had said, “Have you +seen Huggo to-day? He’s in a scrape of some sort.” + +“Oh, Doda, what kind of a scrape?” + +“He didn’t tell me. I ran into him quite by chance coming away from a +theatre with the foreign friend. We both thought he was rather badly +rattled.” + +“Was he going on to Lucy? Did he know Lucy was very ill indeed?” + +Doda said, “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. Is she?” and indifferently +passed upstairs. + +Rosalie at her early breakfast was thinking what news the day would +give of Lucy and of Huggo. She was suddenly, by Huggo in person, brought +intelligence of both. She heard the door bell ring and in a minute Huggo +surprisingly broke into the room. He had kept his hat on. He looked +white, drawn and very agitated. He shut the door behind him. “Lucy’s +dead.” + +Tears sprang into the eyes of Rosalie, “Oh, my poor Huggo!” + +He made a gesture. “Oh, that’s no good! Look here, mother, will you look +after things over there for me? That’s all I’ve come in to say. Will you +see to everything and will you take the kid? I can’t stop.” + +He made to go. + +“Huggo, of course I will. But you’ll be there? Are you going there now?” + +“I’m not. I’m going away.” + +“Going away?” + +His hand was on the door. “Yes, going away. Look here, there’s another +thing. If any one comes here for me will you say you haven’t seen me? +It’s important. It’s vital.” + +“Huggo, what is the matter?” + +“You’ll jolly soon know. You may as well know now. Then you’ll realise. +If you want to know--the police are after me.” + +He was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +In the Book of Job it all happened, to Job, in the apparent compass +of one piece of time not broken by diurnal intervals, not mitigated by +recuperative cessations between blow and blow. It seemed to Rosalie that +it was like that it happened also to her. There seemed no interval. It +seemed to her wrath on wrath, visitation upon visitation, judgment upon +judgment. + +It seemed to her that she was no sooner come down out of the Old +Bailey--her hand touching at things for support, her vision vertiginous, +causing the solid ground to be in motion, her ears resonant, crying +through her brain the words she saw in Huggo’s look as they removed him; +it seemed to her she was no sooner out from there than she was at the +telephone and summoned by the foreign friend and was there with Doda and +was in process of “Oh, Doda!”--“Oh, mother!”; it seemed to her she was +no sooner out from that than she was with that burly messenger, going +with him, returning from him. There were days and nights walled up in +weeks and months between these things, but that is how they seemed to +Rosalie. + +The syndicate was laid by the heels, one here, one there, Huggo in +France, very shortly after the warning that had put Huggo in flight. +The syndicate went through the police court where was unfolded a story +sensational with surprising sums of money, captivating with ingenuity of +fraud covered up by fraud to help new fraud again. The syndicate stood +in the dock at the Old Bailey. Those two of the syndicate described by +the prosecution and by the judge as the principals were sentenced to +three years’ penal servitude. “You,” said the judge, addressing with +a new note in his voice the third prisoner, “You, Occleve, stand in a +different--” + +Rosalie began to pray. + +Harry would not attend the trial. He had done all that could be done, +and of his position there was very much that he was able to do, and had +attended the police court during the initial proceedings. He would not +go to the Old Bailey. He would not go out. He would not read the papers. +He used to sit about the house. “My son a felon.... My boy a felon. My +son.... My eldest son....” + +Rosalie was given a seat in the floor of the court on the first days of +the hearing. On the day when the verdict was to be given and sentence +passed she could not bear that. An usher, much pitying, obtained her a +place in the gallery. She looked down immediately upon her Huggo. Her +hands, upon the ledge before her, were all the time clasped. Her eyes +alternately were in her hands and on her Huggo. Her heart moved between +her Huggo and her God. + +“You, Occleve, stand in a different position. . . .” + +She began to pray. All of her being, all of her soul, all of her life, +with a spiritual and a physical intensity transcending all that her body +and her mind had ever known, was in apotheosis of supplication. “O God +the Father! O God the Father! O God the Father!” + +Her Huggo! Those words that only in snatches she heard were being +addressed to her Huggo. + +“... Your counsel has most eloquently pleaded for you.... You bear an +honoured name.... You bear a name held in these precincts in honour, in +esteem, in love, in admiration.... You have had a good home, a great and +a noble father, a distinguished and devoted mother....” + +That suppliant crouched lower in her supplication. + +“... You have been the dupe, you have been the tool, you have been +in large part, as your counsel has pleaded, and as I believe, the +unsuspecting agent.... Nevertheless, the least sentence I can pass on +you--” + +“O God the Father, the Father!” + +“... is six months’ imprisonment.” + +That boy, whose head had been hung and eyes downcast, lifted his head +and raised his eyes and gave one look into the eyes of that suppliant +for him that sat above him. There was recalled by that suppliant a look +that had passed from the place of accusation to the place of assembly in +the place called the Sanhedrin. + +Her Huggo! + +They took him away. + +Doda didn’t stop going out. She seemed to go out more. The pain within +that house, brought there by Huggo, seemed to make that house more than +before unbearable to Doda. She often spent the night, or the week end +away, staying with the foreign friend, she generally said. She would +have nothing whatever to do with the baby now installed in the house. +She never would go near it. Once she passed it in the hall in its +perambulator. She stopped and stooped over the face of lovely innocence +that lay there and gazed upon it with an extraordinary intensity. She +drew back with a sharp catch at her breath and sharply stepped away and +turned and ran very quickly upstairs. After that when she chanced to +pass the child, she turned aside and would not look upon the child. She +began not to look well, Rosalie thought. There often was upon her +lovely face a pinched and drawn expression, disfiguring it. On the rare +occasions when she was in to dinner she sat strangely moody. There only +was a moodiness about that table then; but the moodiness of Doda was +noticeable to Rosalie. She ate hardly at all. She sometimes would get up +suddenly before a meal was ended and go away, generally to her own room. +Very many times Rosalie would seek anxiously to question her, but apart +from the independence which commonly she maintained towards Rosalie, +Doda seemed very much to resent solicitude upon her health. “What should +be the matter? I look perfectly well, don’t I?” + +“Doda, you don’t. I’ve noticed it a long time.” + +“Well, I am perfectly well. If I wasn’t I’d say so.” + +Strike on! + +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 God, 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 gods, of self, of what +is vain, of liberty undisciplined, of restless itch for pleasure, and of +the gods 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 mass on mass of fierce, submerging clouds as it might be a +soul that rose through infinite calamity to God. 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 sexless 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 space was mute. The moon, its duress passed, stood +high, serene, alone. The doctor breathed, “She’s passing.” 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 +passed 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. Sacrifice is +atonement. It now is not possible for me to atone.” + +She was on her knees beside his chair. He stroked her hair. + +There was an inquest. Harry went. She stayed at home and Benji stayed +with her to be with her. Benji was not to be consoled. His mood was very +dreadful. A report was printed in the evening paper before Harry came +home. Benji read it and told Rosalie a witness, a man, had been arrested +on the coroner’s warrant. Benji said, “I think I’ll go out now, mother, +for a little.” + +Later in the afternoon when Rosalie was with Harry a maid came into the +room and looked at Harry and saw how sunk he was in his chair and so +went to Rosalie and whispered to her. Rosalie went out. There was a man +wished to see the master. Rosalie spoke to him. He was a large, burly +man with a strong face. He looked like, and was, a police officer in +plain clothes. Rosalie heard what he began to say and said she would go +with him. In the cab, the man told her about it. All his sentences began +with or contained “The young gentleman.” + +“The young gentleman... the prisoner, when the young gentleman +came rushing in, happened to be in the charge-room writing out a +statement.... The young gentleman, before any one could stop him, rushed +at this prisoner and caught him by the throat and threw him and the +table over and banged the man’s head against the floor, fair trying to +kill him. They got the young gentleman off. They ought to have arrested +the young gentleman, and they did most earnestly wish they had of +arrested him, and blamed themselves properly that they didn’t arrest +him. But they felt cruelly sorry for the young gentleman and they got +him outside and let him go and no more said. Of course, as madam +knew, the police office wasn’t very far from Gower Street station, the +underground station with them steep stairs leading straight down from +the street to the platform, as madam might be aware.... The young +gentleman was seen by witnesses, whose names were took, to come rushing +down these stairs on to the platform as if some one was after him.... +The young gentleman come rushing down and there was a train just coming +in, and whether he couldn’t stop or whether he.... There’s some say +one thing and some say the other.... Whichever way it was the young +gentleman....” + +Rosalie did her errand with the man and then came back to Harry. She had +to tell Harry. + +He was sitting in his chair. He had an open book on his knees. She saw, +as one notices these things, it was a Shakespeare. She stood up there at +the door before him and she said, “Harry--Benji!” + +He saw it in her face. + +He groaned. + +He took the book off his knees and fumbled it, and with a groaning +mutter dropped it: “‘Unarm, Eros, the long day’s work is done.’” + +She came to him and saw, as one sees things, above his head the picture +he had hung when raven was his hair and radiant his face, and had hit +his thumb, and jumped, and cried out, “Mice and Mumps!” and had laughed +and wrung his hands, and cried out, “Mice and Mumps!” and laughed again. +She came to him and saw him wilt and crumple in his chair, and could +have sworn she saw the iron of his head, that had been raven, go grey +anew and greyer yet. She came to him and she said, “Harry--Benji--an +accident--not an accident--on the railway--killed.” + +His voice went, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one agrope, +in sudden darkness, befogged, betrayed. “My God, my God, my God, my God, +my God!” + +She fell on her knees; and on her arms and on his lap she buried then +her face. + +He suddenly stooped to her, and caught his arms about her, and raised +her to him, and pressed his face to hers, and held her there; and his +cry was as once before, passionately holding her, his cry had been; then +from his heart to her heart, now from the abysses of his soul to her +soul’s depths, “Rosalie! Rosalie!” + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + + +There was to have been some more of it; but there, they’re in each +other’s arms, and one has suffered so with them one cannot any more go +on. One’s suffered so! One has looked backward with her. The heart must +break but for a forward glimpse:-- + +They’re all right now. Huggo’s in Canada. He writes every week. They’re +all right now. That other Rosalie that they brought in is looking after +them. She’s looking after them, that elf, that sprite, that tricksy +scrap, that sunshine thing. She calls Harry father and Rosalie she +calls mother. She has all her meals with them. There’s no nurse. +It’s breakfast she loves best. She’s on the itch all breakfast. When +breakfast’s done she’s off her chair and hopping. She trumpets in +her tiny voice, “Lessons! Lessons!” She trumpets in her tiny voice, +“Lessons, lessons! On mother’s knee! On mother’s knee!” + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 6415-0.txt or 6415-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/6415/ + +Produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation’s web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/6415-0.zip b/6415-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..846d09b --- /dev/null +++ b/6415-0.zip diff --git a/6415-h.zip b/6415-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2ba49a --- /dev/null +++ b/6415-h.zip diff --git a/6415-h/6415-h.htm b/6415-h/6415-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0819d94 --- /dev/null +++ b/6415-h/6415-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13798 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: This Freedom + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + + +Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6415] +This file was first posted on December 8, 2002 +Last Updated: November 8, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + + + + +Text file produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THIS FREEDOM + </h1> + <h2> + By A. S. M. Hutchinson + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h4> + “With a great sum obtained I this freedom.”—ACTS xxii, 28. + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>PART ONE — HOUSE OF MEN</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> <b>PART TWO — HOUSE OF WOMEN</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XI </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> <b>PART THREE — HOUSE OF CHILDREN</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> <b>PART FOUR — HOUSE OF CARDS</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER IV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> POSTSCRIPT. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART ONE — HOUSE OF MEN + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + Rosalie’s earliest apprehension of the world was of a mysterious and + extraordinary world that revolved entirely about her father and that + entirely and completely belonged to her father. Under her father, all + males had proprietory rights in the world and dominion over it; no females + owned any part of the world or could do anything with it. All the males in + this world—her father, and Robert and Harold her brothers, and all + the other boys and men one sometimes saw—did mysterious and + extraordinary things; and all the females in this world—her mother, + and Anna and Flora and Hilda her sisters, and Ellen the cook and Gertrude + the maid—did ordinary and unexciting and generally rather tiresome + things. All the males were like story books to Rosalie: you never knew + what they were going to do next; and all the females were like lesson + books: they just went on and on and on. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie always stared at men when she saw them. Extraordinary and + wonderful creatures who could do what they liked and were always doing + mysterious and wonderful things, especially and above all her father. + </p> + <p> + Being with her father was like being with a magician or like watching a + conjuror on the stage. You never knew what he was going to do next. + Whatever he suddenly did was never surprising in the sense of being + startling, for (this cannot be emphasised too much) nothing her father did + was ever surprising to Rosalie; but it was surprising in the sense of + being absorbingly wonderful and enthralling. Even better than reading when + she first began to read, and far better than anything in the world before + the mysteries in books were discoverable, Rosalie liked to sit and stare + at her father and think how wonderful he was and wonder what extraordinary + thing he would do next. Everything belonged to him. The whole of life was + ordered with a view to what he would think about it. The whole of life was + continually thrown off its balance and whirled into the most entrancing + convulsions by sudden activities of this most wonderful man. + </p> + <p> + Entrancing convulsions! Wonderful, wonderful father with a bull after him! + Why, that was her very earliest recollection of him! That showed you how + wonderful he was! Father, seen for the first time (as it were) flying + before a bull! Bounding wildly across a field towards her with a bull + after him! Wonderful father! Did her mother ever rush along in front of a + bull? Never. Was it possible to imagine any of the women she knew rushing + before a bull? It was not possible. To see a woman rushing before a bull + would have alarmed Rosalie for she would have felt it was unnatural; but + for her father to be bounding wildly along in front of a bull seemed to + her perfectly natural and ordinary and she was not in the least alarmed; + only, as always, enthralled. + </p> + <p> + Her father, while Rosalie watched him, was not in great danger. He came + ballooning along towards Rosalie, not running as ordinarily fit and + efficient men run, but progressing by a series of enormous leaps and + bounds, arms and legs spread-eagling, and at each leap and bound always + seeming to Rosalie to spring as high in the air as he sprung forward over + the ground. It would not have surprised Rosalie, who was then about four, + to see one of these stupendous leaps continue in a whirling flight through + mid-air and her father come hurtling over the gate and drop with an + enormous plunk at her feet like a huge dead bird, as a partridge once had + come plunk over the hedge and out of the sky when she was in a lane + adjacent to a shooting party. It would not have surprised her in the + least. Nothing her father did ever surprised Rosalie. The world was his + and the fulness thereof, and he did what he liked with it. + </p> + <p> + Arrived, however, from the bull, not as a ballooning bird out of the sky, + but as a headlong avalanche over the gate, Rosalie’s father tottered to a + felled tree trunk, and sat there heaving, and groaned aloud, “Infernal + parish; hateful parish; forsaken parish!” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie, wonderingly regarding him, said, “Mother says dinner is waiting + for you, father.” + </p> + <p> + Her mother and her sisters and the servants and the entire female + establishment of the universe seemed to Rosalie always to be waiting for + something from her father, or for her father himself, or waiting for or + upon some male other than her father. That was another of the leading + principles that Rosalie first came to know in her world. Not only were the + males, paramountly her father, able to do what they liked and always doing + wonderful and mysterious things, but everything that the females did + either had some relation to a male or was directly for, about, or on + behalf of a male. + </p> + <p> + Getting Robert off to school in the morning, for instance. That was + another early picture. + </p> + <p> + There would be Robert, eating; and there was the entire female population + of the rectory feverishly attending upon Robert while he ate. Six females, + intensely and as if their lives depended upon it, occupied with one male. + Three girls—Anna about sixteen, Flora fourteen, Hilda twelve—and + three grown women, all exhaustingly occupied in pushing out of the house + one heavy and obstinate male aged about ten! Rosalie used to stand and + watch entranced. How wonderful he was! Where did he go to when at last he + was pushed off? What happened to him? What did he do? + </p> + <p> + There he is, eating; there they are, ministering. Entrancing and + mysterious spectacle! + </p> + <p> + Robert, very solid and heavy and very heated and agitated, would be seated + at the table shoving porridge into himself against the clock. One of his + legs, unnaturally flexed backward and outward, is in the possession of + Rosalie’s mother who is on her knees mending a hole in his stocking. The + other leg, similarly contorted, is on the lap of Ellen the cook, who with + very violent tugs, as if she were lashing a box, is lacing a boot on to + it. Behind Robert is Anna, who is pressing his head down with one hand and + washing the back of his neck with the other. In front of him across the + table is Hilda, staring before her with bemused eyes and moving lips and + rapidly counting on drumming fingers. Hilda is doing his sums for him. + Beside him on his right side, apparently engaged in throttling him, is + Gertrude the maid. Gertrude the maid is trying to tear off him a grimed + collar and put on him a clean collar. Facing Gertrude on his other side is + Flora. Flora is bawling his history in his ear. + </p> + <p> + Everybody is working for Robert; everybody is working at top speed for + him, and everybody is loudly soliciting his attention. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, do give over wriggling, master Robert!” (The boot-fastener.) + </p> + <p> + “‘Simon de Montford, Hubert de Burgh, and Peter de Roche.’ Well, say it + then, you dreadful little idiot!” (The history crammer.) + </p> + <p> + “Oh, master Robert, do please keep up!” (The collar fastener.) + </p> + <p> + “Keep down, will you!” (The neck washer.) + </p> + <p> + “Four sixes are twenty-four and six you carried thirty!” (The + arithmetician.) + </p> + <p> + “Robert, you must turn your foot further round!” (The stocking-darner.) + </p> + <p> + “‘The Barons were now incensed. The Barons were now incensed. The Barons + were now incensed.’ Say it, you ghastly little stupid!” + </p> + <p> + “Do they make you do these by fractions or by decimals?... Well, what do + you know, then?” + </p> + <p> + Entrancing spectacle! + </p> + <p> + Now the discovery is by everybody simultaneously made and simultaneously + announced that Robert is already later in starting than he has ever been + (he always was) and immediately Rosalie would become witness of the last + and most violent skirmish in this devoted attendance. Everybody rushes + around hunting for things and pushing them on to Robert and pushing + Robert, festooned with them, towards the door. Where was his cap? Where + was his satchel? Where was his lunch? Where were his books? Who had seen + his atlas? Who had seen his pencil box? Who had seen his gymnasium belt? + Was his bicycle ready? Was his coat on his bicycle? Was that button on his + coat? + </p> + <p> + With these alarums at their height and the excursions attendant on them at + their busiest, another splendid male would enter the room and immediately + there was, as Rosalie always saw, a transference of attendance to him and + a violent altercation between him and the first splendid male. This new + splendid male is Rosalie’s other brother, Harold. Harold was eighteen and + him also the entire female population of the rectory combined to push out + of the rectory every morning. Harold was due to be pushed off half an hour + later than Robert, and as he was a greater and more splendid male than + Robert (though infinitely lesser than her father) so the place to which he + was pushed off was far more mysterious and enthralling than the place to + which Robert was pushed off. A school Rosalie could dimly understand. But + a bank! Why Harold should go to sit on a bank all day, and why he should + ride on a bicycle to Ashborough to find a bank when there were banks all + around the rectory, and even in the garden itself, Rosalie never could + imagine. Mysterious Harold! Anna had told her that men kept money in + banks; but Rosalie had never found money in a bank though she had looked; + yet banks—of all extraordinary places—were where men chose to + put their money! Mysterious men! And Harold could find these banks and + find this money though he never took a trowel or a spade and was always + shiningly clean with a very high collar and very long cuffs. Wonderful, + wonderful Harold! + </p> + <p> + Robert was due to be pushed off half an hour before Harold was due to be + pushed off, but he never was; the two splendid creatures always clashed + and there was always between them, because they clashed, a violent scene + which Rosalie would not have missed for worlds. A meeting of two males, so + utterly unlike a meeting of two females, was invariably of the most + entrancingly noisy or violent description. When ladies came to the rectory + to see her mother they sat in the drawing-room and sipped tea and spoke in + thin voices; but when men came to see her father and went into the study, + there was very loud talking and often a row. Yes, and once in the village + street, Rosalie had seen two men stand up and thump one another with their + fists and fall down and get up and thump again. When two women, her + sisters or others, quarrelled, they only shrilled, and went on and on + shrilling. It was impossible to imagine the collision of two women + producing anything so exciting and splendid as invariably was produced by + the collision of two males. + </p> + <p> + As now—— + </p> + <p> + In comes Harold in great heat and hurry (as men always were) with his + splendid button boots in one hand and an immense pair of shining cuffs in + the other hand. + </p> + <p> + “Haven’t you gone yet, you lazy young brute?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I haven’t, you lazy old brute!” + </p> + <p> + Agitated feminine cries of “Robert! Robert! You are not to speak to Harold + like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he spoke to me like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and I’ll do a jolly sight more than speak to you in a minute if you + don’t get out of it. Get out of it, do you hear?” + </p> + <p> + “Shan’t!” + </p> + <p> + “Robert! Robert! Harold! Harold!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, get him out of it, or he’ll be sorry for it. Why is he always here + when I’m supposed to be having my breakfast? Not a thing ready, as usual. + Look here, where I’m supposed to sit—flannel and soap! That’s + washing his filthy neck, I suppose. Filthy young brute! Why don’t you wash + your neck, pig?” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you wear girl’s boots with buttons, pig?” + </p> + <p> + Commotion. Enthralling commotion. Half the female assemblage hustle the + splendid creature Robert out of the door and down the hall and on to his + bicycle; half the female assemblage cover his retreat and block the dash + after him of the still more splendid Harold; all the female assemblage, + battle having been prevented and one splendid male despatched, combine to + minister to the requirements of the second splendid male now demanding + attention. + </p> + <p> + Busy scene. Enthralling spectacle. There he is, eating; shoving sausages + into himself against the clock just as Robert had shovelled porridge into + himself against the clock. One ministrant is sewing a button on to his + boot, another with blotting paper and hot iron is removing a stain from + his coat, divested for the purpose; one is pouring out his coffee, another + is cutting his bread, a third is watching for his newspaper by the + postman. And suddenly he whirls everything into a whirlpool just as men, + if Rosalie watches them long enough, always whirl everything into a + whirlpool. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my goodness, the pump!” + </p> + <p> + Chorus, “The pump?” + </p> + <p> + “The bicycle pump! Has that young brute taken the bicycle pump?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he took it. I saw it.” + </p> + <p> + Commotion. + </p> + <p> + “Catch him across the field! Catch him across the field! Where are my + boots? Where the devil are my boots? Well, never mind the infernal button. + How am I going to get to the bank with a flat tyre? Can’t some one catch + him across the field instead of all standing there staring?” + </p> + <p> + Away they go! Rosalie, seeking a good place for the glorious spectacle, is + knocked over in the stampede for the door. Nobody minds Rosalie. Rosalie + doesn’t mind—anything to see this entrancing sight! Away they go, + flying over the meadow, shouting, scrambling, falling. Out after them + plunges Harold, shirt-sleeved, one boot half on, hobbling, leaping, + bawling. Glorious to watch him! He outruns them all; he outbellows them + all. Of course he does. He is a man. He is one of those splendid, + wonderful, mysterious creatures to whom, subject only to Rosalie’s father, + the entire world belongs. Look at him, bounding, bawling! Wonderful, + wonderful Harold! + </p> + <p> + But Robert is wonderful too. If it had been Anna or Flora or Hilda gone + off with the pump, she would have been easily caught. Not Robert. + Wonderful and mysterious Robert, wonderfully and mysteriously pedalling at + incredible speed, is not caught. The hunt dejectedly trails back. The + business of pushing Harold out of the house is devotedly resumed. + </p> + <p> + And again—enthralling spectacle—just as the reign of Robert + was terminated by the accession of Harold, so the dominion of Harold is + overthrown by the accession of father. Harold is crowded about with + ministrants. Nobody can leave him for a minute. Rosalie’s father appears. + Everybody leaves Harold simultaneously, abruptly, and as if by magic. + Rosalie’s father appears. Everybody disappears. Wonderful father! + Everybody melts away: but Harold does not melt away. Courageous Harold! + Everybody melts; only Harold is left, and Rosalie watching; and + immediately, as always, the magnificent males clash with sound and fury. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father scowls upon Harold and delivers his morning greeting. No + “Good morning, dear,” as her mother would have said. “Aren’t you gone + yet?” like a bark from a kennel. + </p> + <p> + “Just going.” + </p> + <p> + Wonderful father! A moment before there had been not the remotest sign of + Harold ever going. Now Harold is very anxious to go. He is very anxious to + go but, like Robert, he will not abandon the field without defiance of the + authority next above his own. While he collects his things he whistles. + Rosalie shudders (but deliciously as one in old Rome watching the + gladiators). + </p> + <p> + “Do you see the clock, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, quicken yourself, sir. Quicken yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “The clock’s fast.” + </p> + <p> + “It is not fast, sir. And let me add that the clock with which you could + keep time of a morning, or of any hour in the day, would have to be an + uncommonly slow clock.” + </p> + <p> + Harold with elaborate unconcern adjusts his trouser clips. “I should have + thought that was more a matter for the Bank to complain of, if necessary. + I may be wrong, of course——” + </p> + <p> + “You may be wrong, sir, because in my experience you almost invariably are + wrong and never more so than when you lad-di-dah that you are right. You + may be wrong, but let me tell you what you may not be. You may not be + impertinent to me, sir. You may not lad-di-dah me, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Father, I really do not see why at my age I should be hounded out of the + house like this every morning.” + </p> + <p> + “You are hounded out, as you elegantly express it, because morning after + morning, owing to your disgustingly slothful habits, you clash with me, + sir. My breakfast is delayed because you clash with me, and the house is + delayed because you clash with me, and the whole parish is delayed because + you clash with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you’re not aware that Robert clashes with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Dash Robert! Are you going or are you not going?” + </p> + <p> + He goes. + </p> + <p> + “Bring back the paper.” + </p> + <p> + He brings it back. + </p> + <p> + Wonderful father! + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father gives a tug at the bell cord that would have dislocated + the neck of a horse. The cord comes away in his hand. He hurls it across + the room. + </p> + <p> + Glorious father! + </p> + <p> + There was a most frightful storm one night and Rosalie, in Anna’s bed with + Flora crowded in also and Hilda shivering in her nightgown beside them, + too young to be frightened but with her sister’s fright beginning to + communicate itself to her, said, “Ask father to go and stop it.” + </p> + <p> + “Fool!” cried Flora. “How could father stop the storm?” + </p> + <p> + Why not? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + Flora’s sharp and astounding reply to that question of Rosalie’s was + recalled by Rosalie, with hurt surprise at Flora’s sharpness and + ignorance, when, shortly afterwards, she found in a book a man who could, + and actually did, stop a storm. This was a man called Prospero in a book + called “The Tempest.” + </p> + <p> + She was never—that Rosalie—the conventional wonder-child of + fiction who reads before ten all that its author probably never read + before thirty; but she could read when she was six and she read widely and + curiously, choosing her entertainment, from her father’s bookshelves, + solely by the method of reading every book that had pictures. + </p> + <p> + There was but one picture to “The Tempest,” a frontispiece, but it + sufficed, and at the period when Rosalie believed the ownership of the + world to be vested in her father and under him in all males, “The + Tempest,” because it reflected that condition, was the greatest joy of all + the joys the bookshelves discovered to her. She read it over and over + again. It presented life exactly as life presented itself to the round + eyes of Rosalie: all males doing always noisy and violent and important + and enthralling things, with Prospero, her father, by far the most + important of all; and women scarcely appearing and doing only what the men + told them to do. Miranda’s appearances in the story were indifferently + skipped by Rosalie; the noisy action and language in the wreck, and the + noisy action and language of the drunkards in the wood were what she + liked, and all the magic arts of Prospero were what she thoroughly + appreciated and understood. That was life as she knew it. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father, when Rosalie thought the world belonged to him and + revolved about him, was tall and cleanshaven and of complexion a dark and + burning red. When he was excited or angry his face used to burn as the + embers in the study fire burned when Rosalie pressed the bellows against + them. He had thick black eyebrows and a most powerful nose. His nose + jutted from his face like a projection from a cliff beneath a clump of + bushes. He had been at Cambridge and he was most ferociously fond of + Cambridge. One of the most fearful scenes Rosalie ever witnessed was on + one boat-race day when Harold appeared with a piece of Oxford ribbon in + his buttonhole. It was at breakfast, the family for some reason or other + most unusually all taking breakfast together. Rosalie’s father first + jocularly bantered Harold on his choice of colour, and everybody—anxious + as always to please and placate the owner of the world—laughed with + father against Harold. But Harold did not laugh. Harold smouldered + resentment and defiance, and out of his smouldering began to maintain + “from what chaps had said” that Oxford was altogether and in every way a + much better place than Cambridge. In every branch of athletics there were + better athletes, growled Harold, at Oxford. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie has been watching the embers in her father’s face glowing to + dark-red heat. Everybody had been watching them except Harold who, though + addressing his father, had been mumbling “what chaps had said” to his + plate. + </p> + <p> + “Athletes!” cried Rosalie’s father suddenly in a very terrible voice. + “Athletes! And what about scholars, sir?” + </p> + <p> + Harold informed his plate that he wasn’t talking about scholars. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father raised a marmalade jar and thumped it down upon the table + so that it cracked. “Then what the dickens right have you to talk at all, + sir? How dare you try to compare Oxford with Cambridge when you know no + more about either than you know of Jupiter or Mars? Athletes!” He went off + into record of University contests, cricket scores, running times, + football scores, as if his whole life had been devoted to collecting them. + They all showed Cambridge first and Oxford beaten and he hurled each one + at Harold’s head with a thundering, “What about that, sir?” after it. He + leapt to scholarship and reeled off scholarships and scholars and schools, + and professors and endowments and prize men, as if he had been an + educational year-book gifted with speech and with particularly loud and + violent speech. He spoke of the colleges of Cambridge, and with every + college and every particular glory of every college demanded of the + unfortunate Harold, “What have you got in Oxford against that, sir?” + </p> + <p> + It was awful. It was far more frightening than the night of the storm. + Nobody ate. Nobody drank. Everybody shuddered and tried by every means to + avoid catching father’s rolling eye and thereby attracting the direct + blast of the tempest. Rosalie, who of course, being a completely + negligible quantity in the rectory, is not included in the everybody, + simply stared, more awed and enthralled than ever before. And with much + reason. As he declaimed of the glories of the colleges of Cambridge there + was perceptible in her father’s voice a most curious crack or break. It + became more noticeable and more frequent. He suddenly and most + astoundingly cried out, “Cambridge! Cambridge!” and threw his arms out + before him on the table, and buried his head on them, and sobbed out, + “Cambridge! My youth! My youth! My God, my God, my youth!” + </p> + <p> + Somehow or other they all slipped out of the room and left him there,—all + except Rosalie who remained in her high chair staring upon her father, and + upon his shoulders that heaved up and down, and upon the coffee from an + overturned cup that oozed slowly along the tablecloth. + </p> + <p> + Extraordinary father! + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father had been a wrangler and one of the brilliant men of his + year at Cambridge. All manner of brilliance was expected for him and of + him. He unexpectedly went into the Church and as unexpectedly married. + </p> + <p> + His bride was the daughter of a clergyman, a widower, who kept a small + private school in Devonshire. She helped her father to run the school (an + impoverished business which, begun exclusively for the “sons of + gentlemen,” had slid down into paying court to tradesmen in order to get + the sons of tradesmen) and she maintained him in the very indifferent + health he suffered. Harold Aubyn, the brilliant wrangler with the + brilliant future, who had begun his brilliance by unexpectedly entering + the Church, and continued it by unexpectedly marrying while on a holiday + in the little Devonshire town where he had gone to ponder his future (a + little unbalanced by the unpremeditated plunge into Holy Orders) further + continued his brilliance by unexpectedly finding himself the assistant + master in his father-in-law’s second-rate and failing school. The daughter + would not leave her father; the suitor would not leave his darling; the + brilliant young wrangler who at Cambridge used to dream of waking to find + himself famous awoke instead to find himself six years buried in a now + third-rate and moribund school in a moribund Devonshire town. He had a + father-in-law now permanent invalid, bedridden. He had four children and + another, Robert, on the way. + </p> + <p> + It was his father-in-law’s death that awoke him; and he awoke + characteristically. The old man dead! Come, that was one burden lifted, + one shackle removed! The school finally went smash at the same time. Never + mind! Another burden gone! Another shackle lifted! Dash the school! How he + hated the school! How he loathed and detested the lumping boys! How he + loathed and abominated teaching them simple arithmetic (he the wrangler!) + and history that was a string of dates, and geography that was a string of + capes and bays, and Latin as far as the conjugations (he the wrangler!) + how he loathed and abominated it! Now a fresh start! Hurrah! + </p> + <p> + That was like Rosalie’s father—in those days. That way blew the cold + fit and the hot fit—then. + </p> + <p> + The magnificent fresh start after the magnificent escape from the morass + of the moribund father-in-law and the moribund school and the moribund + Devonshire town proved to be but a stagger down into morass heavier and + more devastating of ambition. He always jumped blindly and wildly into + things. Blindly and wildly into the Church, blindly and wildly into + marriage, blindly and wildly into the school, blindly and wildly, one + might say, into fatherhood on a lavish scale. Blindly and wildly—the + magnificent fresh start—into the rectory in which Rosalie was born. + </p> + <p> + It was “a bit in the wilds” (of Suffolk); “a bit of a tight fit” (L200 a + year) and a bit or two or three other drawbacks; but it was thousands of + miles from Devonshire and from the school and schooling, that was the + great thing; and it was a jolly big rectory with a ripping big garden; and + above all and beyond everything it was just going to be a jumping-off + place while he looked around for something suitable to his talents and + while he got in touch again with his old friends of the brilliant years. + </p> + <p> + It was just going to be a jumping-off place, but he never jumped off from + it; a place from which to look around for something suitable, but instead + he sunk in it up to his chin; a place from which to get in touch again + with his friends of the brilliant years, but his friends were all doing + brilliant things and much too busy at their brilliance to open up with one + who had missed fire. + </p> + <p> + The parish of St. Mary’s, Ibbotsfield, had an enormous rectory, falling to + pieces; an enormous church, crumbling away; an enormous area, purely + agricultural; and a cure of a very few hundred agricultural souls, + enormously-scattered. Years and years before, prior to railways, prior to + mechanical reapers and thrashers, and prior to everything that took men to + cities or whirled them and their produce farther in an hour than they ever + could have gone in a week, Ibbotsfield and its surrounding villages and + hamlets were a reproach to the moral conditions of the day in that they + had no sufficiently enormous church. Well-intentioned persons removed this + reproach, adding in their zeal an enormous rectory; and the time they + chose for their beneficent and lavish action was precisely the time when + Ibbotsfield, through its principal land-owners, was stoutly rejecting the + monstrous idea of encouraging a stinking, roaring, dangerous railway in + their direction, and combining together by all means in their power to + keep the roaring, dangerous atrocity as far away from them as possible. + </p> + <p> + It thus, and by like influences, happened that, whereas one generation of + the devoutly intentioned sat stolidly under the reproach of an enormous + and thickly populated area without a church, later generations with the + same stolidity sat under the reproach of an enormous church, an enormous + rectory and an infinitesimal stipend, in an area which a man might walk + all day without meeting any other man. + </p> + <p> + But the devout of the day, not having to live in this rectory or preach in + this church or laboriously trudge about this area, did not unduly worry + themselves with this reproach. + </p> + <p> + That was (in his turn) the lookout of the Rev. Harold Aubyn—also his + outlook. + </p> + <p> + He is to be imagined, in those days when Rosalie first came to know him + and to think of him as Prospero, as a terribly lonely man. He stalked + fatiguingly about the countryside in search of his parishioners, and his + parishioners were suspicious of him and disliked his fierce, thrusting + nose, and he returned from them embittered with them and hating them. He + genuinely longed to be friendly with them and on terms of Hail, fellow, + well met, with them; but they exasperated him because they could not meet + him either on his own quick intellectual level or upon his own quick and + very sensitive emotional level. They could not respond to his humour and + they could not respond, in the way he thought they ought to respond, to + his sympathy. + </p> + <p> + He once found a man—a farm labourer—who in conversation + disclosed a surprising interest in the traces of early and mediaeval + habitation of the country. The discovery delighted him. In the catalogue + of a secondhand bookseller of Ipswich he noticed the “Excursions in the + County of Suffolk,” two volumes for three shillings, and he wrote and had + them posted to the man. For days he eagerly looked in the post for the + grateful and delighted letter that in similar circumstances he himself + would have written. He composed in his mind the phrases of the letter and + warmed in spirit over anticipation of reading them. No letter arrived. + </p> + <p> + When he came into the rectory from visiting he was always asking, “Has + that man Bolas from Hailsham called?” Bolas never called. He furiously + began to loathe Bolas. He was furious with himself for having “lowered + himself” to Bolas. Bolas in his ignorance no doubt thought the books were + a cheap charity of cast-off lumber. Uncouth clod! Stupid clod! Uncouth + parish! Hateful, loathsome parish! For weeks he kept away from Hailsham + and the possible vicinity of Bolas. One day he met him. Bolas passed with + no more than a “Good day, Mr. Aubyn.” He could have killed the man. He + swung round and pushed his dark face and jutty nose into the face of + Bolas. “Did you ever get some books I sent you?” + </p> + <p> + “Ou, ay, to be sure, they books——” + </p> + <p> + He rushed with savage strides away from the man. All the way home he + savagely said to himself, aloud, keeping time to it with his feet, + “Uncouth clod, ill-mannered clod, horrible, hateful place! Uncouth clods, + hateful clods, horrible, hateful place!” + </p> + <p> + That was his attitude to his parishioners. They could not come up to the + level of his sensibilities; he could not get down to the level of theirs. + </p> + <p> + With the few gentle families that composed the society of Ibbotsfield he + was little better accommodated. They led contented, well-ordered lives, + busy about their gardens, busy about their duties, busy about their + amusements. His life was ill-ordered and he was never busy about anything: + he was always either neglecting what had to be done or doing it, late, + with a ferocious and exhausting energy that caused him to groan over it + and detest it while he did it. In the general level of his life he was + below the standard of his neighbours and knew that he was below it; in the + sudden bounds and flights of his intellect and of his imagination he was + immeasurably above the intel-lects of his neighbours and knew that he was + immeasurably above them. Therefore, and in both moods, he commonly hated + and despised them. “Fools, fools! Unread, pompous, petty!” + </p> + <p> + At the rectory, among his family, he seemed to himself to be surrounded by + incompetent women and herds of children. + </p> + <p> + He was a terribly lonely man when Rosalie first came to know him and + thought of him as Prospero. He is to be imagined in those days as a + fierce, flying, futile figure scudding about on the face of the parish and + in the vast gaunt spaces of the rectory, with his burning face and his + jutting nose, trying to get away from people, hungering to meet + sympathetic people; trying to get way from himself, hungering after the + things that his self had lost. In his young manhood he was known for moods + of intense reserve alternated by fits of tremendous gaiety and boisterous + high spirits. (“A fresh start! Hurrah!” when release from the school came. + “What does anything matter? Now we’re really off at last! Hurrah! + Hurrah!”) In his set manhood, when Rosalie knew him, there were + substituted for the fits of boisterous spirits, paroxysms of violent + outburst against his lot. “Infernal parish! Hateful parish! Forsaken + parish!” after the ignominy of flight before the bull. “Blow the dinner! + Dash the dinner! Blow the dinner!” after wrestling a soggy steak from his + pocket and hurling it half a mile through the air. These and that single + but terrible occasion of “Cambridge! Cambridge! My youth! My God, my God, + my youth!” + </p> + <p> + A terribly lonely man. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + The Aubyn family occupied only a portion of the enormous rectory. There + was a whole floor upstairs, and there were several rooms on the ground and + first floors, that were never used, were unfurnished except for odds and + ends of lumber left behind by the previous vicar, and were never entered. + Rosalie once explored them all, systematically though very fearfully, and + also very excitedly. She was searching for some one, for two people. + </p> + <p> + In the household she knew her father and her mother, her brothers and + sisters and the servants; but there were two mysterious inhabitants of + whom she often heard but whom she never saw and never could find. It used + to frighten her sometimes, lying awake at night, or creeping about the + house of an evening, to think of those two mysterious people hidden away + somewhere and perhaps likely to pounce on her out of the dark. What did + they eat? Where did they live? What did they do? What were they? + </p> + <p> + One of these two eerie and invisible people was heard of from her father. + Several times Rosalie had heard him, when talking to persons not of the + family, speak of “my wife.” The other eerie and invisible creature was + heard of from her mother: “My husband.” + </p> + <p> + Where were they? Of all the mysterious things which Rosalie used to wonder + over in those days, this undiscoverable “wife” and “husband” were the most + mysterious of all, and more mysterious than ever after that day on which, + walking on tiptoe for fear of coming upon them suddenly, holding her + breath and pausing in fearful apprehension before entering the untenanted + rooms upstairs, she explored the whole house in search of them. She got to + know all sorts of little odds and ends about them; that the wife felt the + cold very much, for instance, for she had heard her father say so; and + that the husband did not like mutton, for her mother told that to Mr. + Grant the butcher: and she was often hot on their tracks for she had heard + her father say, “My wife is upstairs” and had rushed upstairs and + searched; and her mother say, “My husband is in the garden,” and had run + into the garden and hunted. But all these clues only deepened the mystery. + They were never to be found. + </p> + <p> + It was mysterious. + </p> + <p> + Then one day the wife (she heard) fell ill, and through her great concern + about that—for she was profoundly interested in these people and + used to feel awfully sorry for them, hidden away like that perhaps with no + fire and nothing to eat but mutton—the mystery was explained. + </p> + <p> + With the family she was going towards church one Sunday morning and she + heard her father tell a lady that “my wife” was not very well that morning + and couldn’t come. Rosalie during the service prayed very earnestly for + the wife’s recovery and took the opportunity of praying also that she + might be permitted to see the wife “if she is not very frightening, O + Lord, and the husband too, if possible, for Jesus Christ’s sake, amen.” + </p> + <p> + And at lunch, having thought of nothing else all the morning, there was + suddenly shot out of her the question, “Father, is your wife any better + now?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie commonly never spoke at all at meals; and as to speaking to her + father, though it is obvious she must have had some sort of intercourse + with him, this famous question (a standing joke in the house for years) + was the single direct speech of those early years she ever could remember. + She spoke to her father when she was bidden to speak in the form of + messages, generally about meals being ready, or relative to shopping + commissions he had been asked to execute; but he was far too wonderful, + powerful and mysterious for conversation with him on her own initiative. + “Father, is your wife any better now?” stood out in her later + recollection, alone and lonelily startling. + </p> + <p> + There was from all the company an astounded stare and astounded gasp; all + the table sitting with astounded eyes, forks suspended in mid-air, mouths + half open in astonishment, and Rosalie sitting in her high chair + wonderingly regarding their wonderment. What were they staring at? + </p> + <p> + There was then an enormous howl of laughter, led by Rosalie’s father, and + repeated, and louder than before, because it was so very unusual for the + family to be laughing in accord with father. Gertrude, the maid, fled + hysterically from the room and laughter howled back from the kitchen. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father said, “You’d better go and ask your mother.” Her mother + had stayed in bed that day with a chill. + </p> + <p> + Robert “undid” Rosalie—a wooden rod with a fixed knob at one end + went through the arms of her high chair and was fastened by a removable + knob at the other end—and Rosalie slid down very gravely, and with + their laughter still echoing trod upstairs to her mother’s bedside and + related what she had been told to ask, and, on inquiry, why she had asked + it. “I only said ‘Father, is your wife any better now?’” and on further + inquiry explained her long searching after the undiscoverable pair. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s mother laughed also then, but had a sudden wetness in her eyes. + She put her arms about Rosalie and pressed her to her bosom and cried, + “Oh, my poor darling!” and explained the tremendous mystery. Wife and + husband, Rosalie’s mother explained, were the names used by other people + for her father and her mother. A man and a woman loved one another very, + very dearly (“as I loved your dear father”) and then they lived together + in a dear house of their own and then God gave them dear little children + of their own to live with them, said Rosalie’s mother. + </p> + <p> + This thoroughly satisfied Rosalie and completely entranced her, especially + about the presentation of the dear little children. She would have + supposed that naturally it thoroughly satisfied Anna and Harold and Flora + and the others; and the point of interest rests here, that Rosalie’s + mother also believed that this explanation of marriage and procreation + completely satisfied Anna at sixteen and Harold in the Bank at eighteen. + She never gave them any other explanation of the phenomenon of birth; and + it is to be supposed that, just as she instructed them that God sent the + dear little children, so she believed that God, at the right time, in some + mysterious way, communicated the matter to them in greater detail. Years + and years afterwards, Flora told Rosalie that when Rosalie was born all + the children were sent away to stay with a neighbour and not allowed to + return till Rosalie’s mother, downstairs, was able to show them the dear + little sister that God had surprisingly delivered at the house, as it were + in a parcel. + </p> + <p> + One is given pain by a state of affairs so monstrous; but one suffers that + pain proudly because one belongs, proudly, to a day in which nothing but + stark truth may go from mother to child, not even fairy stories, not even + Bible stories. Rosalie’s mother is gone and her kind is no more, and in + the graces and the manners of this day’s generation one perceives, + proudly, the inestimable benefits of the passing of her kind. Lamentable + specimen of her kind, she had no interests other than her home and her + husband and her children and the pleasures and the treasures and the + friends of her husband and her children. She belonged to that dark age + when duty towards others was the guiding principle of moral life; she came + only to the threshold of this enlightened age in which duty to oneself is + known to be the paramount and first and last consideration of life as it + should be lived. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s mother, whose name had been Anna Escott, kept at the bottom of a + drawer five most exquisite little miniatures. They were in a case of faded + blue plush, and they had been in that case and at the bottom of one drawer + or another ever since the girl Anna Escott, aged twenty, had placed them + in the case, then exquisitely blue and new and soft, and given up painting + miniatures forever, in order to devote her whole time to looking after her + invalid father and the failing preparatory school that was his livelihood. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie was herself nearly thirty when she first saw the miniatures. She + was come back to the rectory from the pursuits that then occupied her to + visit, rather impatiently and rather vexedly, her mother on what proved to + be her death bed. She was tidying her mother’s drawers, impatient with the + amazing collection of rubbish they contained and hating herself for being + impatient, while her mother, on the bed, patiently watched her; and she + came upon the case and opened it and stared in astonishment and admiration + at the beauty of the five miniatures. + </p> + <p> + She asked her mother and her mother told her she had painted them. “I used + to do that when I was a girl,” said Rosalie’s mother. + </p> + <p> + All Rosalie’s impatience was drowned and utterly engulfed in a most + dreadful flood of emotion. She set down the case on the bed and flung + herself on her knees beside her mother and clasped her arms about her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, mother, mother! Oh, beloved little mother!” But that is out of its + place. + </p> + <p> + Yes, that girl Anna Escott, who had an exquisite talent, and all sorts of + fond dreams of its development, gave it up wholly and entirely and forever + when her mother died and her father said, “I would like you, Anna dear, to + give up your painting and come and look after me and the school now.” + </p> + <p> + Anna said, “Of course I will, Papa. It’s my duty. Of course I will.” + </p> + <p> + Girls did that, and parents and husbands asked them to do that, in the + days when Rosalie’s mother was a girl. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s mother gave away everything, first to her father, then to her + husband, then to her children. She believed the whole of the Bible, + literally, as it is written, from the first word of Genesis to the last + word of Revelations. She taught it as literal, final and initial truth to + all her children, and one knows how wickedly wrong it is now considered to + teach children that the Bible-stories are true. She taught them the whole + of the Bible from books called “Line Upon Line,” and “The Child’s Bible,” + and in stories of her own making, and from the Bible itself. Regrettably, + the ignorantly imposed-upon children loved it! Till each child was eight + she taught them everything at her knee. All the nursery rhymes, and all + the Bible, and reading out of “Step by Step,” and then “Reading Without + Tears,” and then, in advancing series, the “Royal Readers,” and writing, + first holding their hands, and then—first in pencil and afterwards + with pens having three huge blobs to teach you how to place your fingers + properly—in copybooks graded from enormous lines which had brick-red + covers to astoundingly narrow little lines enclosing pious and moral + maxims which had severe grey covers; and the multiplication tables and + then simple arithmetic; and General Knowledge out of “The Child’s Guide to + Knowledge,” which asked you “What is sago?” and required you to reply by + heart, “Sago is a dried, granulated substance prepared from the pith of + several different palms.” “Where are these palms found?” “These palms are + found in the East Indies.” + </p> + <p> + Likewise history out of Mrs. Markham and “Little Arthur”; also, at a + ridiculously early age, how to tell the time and how to know the coinage + of the realm and its values; also, whether girl or boy, the making of + kettle-holders by threading brightly coloured wools through little squares + of canvas; also very many pieces of poetry: “Oft had I heard of Lucy + Grey,” and “It was the Schooner Hesperus” and hymns—also learnt by + heart and sung while Rosalie’s mother played the piano—“We are but + little children weak,” and “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” + </p> + <p> + All these things were taught at her knee to each child in turn by + Rosalie’s mother, and each was taught out of the self-same books, + miraculously preserved by Rosalie’s mother; the backs of most of them + carefully stitched and re-stitched, and marked all through by the dates of + each child’s daily lesson, written in pencil by Rosalie’s mother. The + dates ranged from 1869 when Harold was being taught and when the books + were fresh and clean, and Rosalie’s mother fresh and ardent with her + first-born, to 1884, when Rosalie was being taught, and the books very old + and thumbed and most terribly crowded with pencil marks, and Rosalie’s + mother no longer fresh but rather worn, but teaching as fondly and + earnestly as ever, because it was her duty. Literally at the knee of + Rosalie’s mother these things were taught. On her knee with one of her + arms about you for the Bible teaching; and standing at her knee, hands + behind you, for the teaching of most of the rest. Yes, that was the early + education, and the manner of the education, of Rosalie and of her brothers + and sisters, and one perceives with indignation the spectacle of a mother + wasting her time like that and wasting her children’s time like that. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s mother did everything in the house and she was always doing + something in the house—for somebody else. She never rested and she + was always worried. Her brows were always wrinkled with the feverish + concentration of one anxiously doing one thing while anxiously thinking of + another thing waiting to be done. She had a driven and a hunted look. + </p> + <p> + Now Rosalie’s father had a driving and a hunting look. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father in his youth threw away everything. Rosalie’s mother + throughout the whole of her life gave away everything. Rosalie’s father + was a tragic figure dwelling in a house of bondage; but he was at least a + tragic king, ruling his house and venting his griefs upon his house. + Rosalie’s mother was a tragic figure and she was a tragic slave in the + house of bondage. The life of Rosalie’s father was a tragedy, but a + tragedy in some measure relieved because he knew it was a tragedy and + could wave his arms and shout and smash things and hurl beefsteaks through + the air because of the tragedy of it. But the life of Rosalie’s mother was + an infinitely deeper tragedy because she never knew or suspected that it + was a tragedy. + </p> + <p> + Still, that is so often the difference between the tragedy of a woman and + the tragedy of a man. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + The very great difference between her father and her mother maintained in + Rosalie that early perception of the wondrousness of her father. She loved + her mother, but in the atmosphere surrounding her mother there was often + flurry and worry and there was nothing whatever in her mother to mystify + and entrance by sudden and violent eruptions of the miraculous. She did + not love her father for he was entirely too remote and awe-ful for love, + but he entranced her with his marvellousness. This maintained in her also + her perception of the altogether greater superiority of all males over all + females. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie came into her family rather like a new little girl first entering + a boarding school. When she was about four, and first beginning to realise + herself, the next in age to her was Robert, who not only was at the + immense distance of ten, but was of the male sex and therefore had a + controlling interest in the world. Then was Hilda who was twelve, then + Flora fourteen, then Anna towering away in sixteen, and then Harold + utterly removed in the enormous heights of eighteen, second only to + Rosalie’s father in ownership of the world and often awfully disputing + that supreme ownership. + </p> + <p> + So they were all immeasurably older than Rosalie; and they were not only + immeasurably older but, which counted for much more, they all had their + fixed and recognised places in their world just as girls of several terms’ + experience have their recognised places in their school, and for Rosalie + there seemed to be no place at all, just as for new girls there is no + place. Her brothers and sisters all had their fixed and recognised places, + their interests, their occupations, their friendships: they all knew their + own places and each other’s places; they had learnt to respect and admit + each other’s places; they knew the weight of one another’s hand in those + places; they were accustomed to one another; they tolerated one another. + </p> + <p> + It was all very strange and wonderful and mysterious to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + She was, as it were, pitchforked into this established and regulated order + and to find a place for her was like trying to fit a new spoke into a + revolving wheel. It cannot be done; and with Rosalie it could not be done. + The established wheel went on revolving in its established orbit and the + new spoke, which was Rosalie, lay outside and watched it revolve. + Intrusions within the circumference of the wheel commonly resulted in a + sharp knock from one of the spokes. No one was in any degree unkind to + Rosalie, but there was no proper place for her and everybody’s will was in + authority over her will. She rather got in the way. To be with her was not + to enjoy her company or to enjoy battle with her and the putting of her + company to flight. To be with her was to have to look after her, and in + the community of the rectory, every member, when Rosalie came, was fully + occupied in look-ing after itself and defending itself from the predatory + excursions of any other member. + </p> + <p> + What happened was that in time, just as a slight and negligible body + cannot be in the sphere of a powerful motion without being affected by it, + so Rosalie began to move sympathetically to the wheel but on her own axis. + She moved round with the wheel but she was not of the wheel and she never + became really incorporated with the wheel. The spokes were revolving with + incredible rapidity when she first, began to notice them and they always + remained relatively faster. There she was, sitting and watching and + wondering; and the twig grows as it is bent or as it is left to bend. She + looked on and absorbed things; and the first and by far the deepest of her + settled perceptions was that, though she was subject to all powers, all + girls and women were themselves subject to the power of all boys and men. + </p> + <p> + Up to the age of eighteen, six years represents an enormous gulf in the + relative ages of brothers and sisters. You have only to figure it out in + the case of Rosalie to realise how far behind she was always left, and + why, though one of a family of six, she occupied a position outside the + group and was a watcher of them rather than a sharer with them. She was + four when Robert the next above her was ten, which is a baby against a + sturdy and well-developed giant; when she was eight Robert was fourteen, + which is a greater gulf than the first; when she was twelve Robert was + eighteen which, from eighteen’s point of view, is as the difference + between an aged man and an infant; and when she was sixteen Robert was + twenty-two, which is a schoolgirl against one of the oldest and most + experienced periods of life. She came in as a new little girl in a big + school; when she had been there eight years—counting from four, when + first she was conscious of arrival—she was still relatively the + same: there she was, twelve, with Robert eighteen and the others twenty, + twenty-two, twenty-four and twenty-six. + </p> + <p> + But there she is at eight when she had had four years’ experience from the + day of first seeing her father leaping before the bull and thinking it was + perfectly natural that he should leap before the bull. She had learnt a + tremendous lot in that second four years. She knew at eight that the world + did not belong to her father and that on that night of the storm Flora was + right to call her a fool for believing that he could stop the storm. She + knew he was not nearly so wonderful as she used to think he was; but he + was still enormously wonderful and, which she thought rather curious, she + began to see that he rather liked showing her how wonderful he was. He + could sharpen a pencil wonderfully, and he could eat a herring + wonderfully. The thing discovered was that he was very proud of how + wonderfully he could sharpen a pencil or eat a herring. Strange father! + </p> + <p> + “Who sharpened that pencil? Your mother? H’nf! I should think so! No woman + can sharpen a pencil. Now look at me. Watch. I hold it in my left hand, + see? Arm supported against my body. Now look how I cut at it. Bold, strong + strokes, see? No niggling at it as if a mouse was nibbling it; long, bold + sweeps, slashes. See! Look at that. Ah, drat! That’s because I was holding + it down for you to see. Watch again. There! There, that’s the way to + sharpen a pencil. Look at that. Do you see that long, firm point? See how + clean and long those strokes are? That’s the way to sharpen a pencil. Show + that to your mother.” + </p> + <p> + He was as pleased with himself and as proud as if he had turned the pencil + into gold. + </p> + <p> + Funny father! + </p> + <p> + Or how to eat a herring. + </p> + <p> + “Herrings! Well, a herring is one of the most delicious fish, if it’s + eaten properly. There’s a right way to eat a herring and a wrong way. Now + watch me and I’ll show you how to eat a herring. Rosalie, watch.” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, dear,” (from her mother) “watch while your father shows you how + to eat a herring.” + </p> + <p> + All eyes on father demonstrating how to eat a herring! + </p> + <p> + And Rosalie used to notice this about the watching eyes. Her mother’s eyes—most + anxiously and nervously upon the operation, as if watching a thing she + would soon be called upon to perform and would not be able to perform; the + eyes of Robert (14) sulkily; of Flora (18) admiringly (it was getting to + be a complaint in the family circle that Flora “sucked up” to father); the + eyes of Anna (20) wearily; the eyes of Harold (22) contemptuously. + </p> + <p> + The herrings (a very frequent dish at the rectory, so much cheaper than + meat) came headless to the table. First father nipped off the tail with a + firm, neat stroke. Then he deftly slit the herring down the stomach. It + fell into two exact perfectly divided halves. Then he lifted out the + backbone, not one scrap of flesh adhering to it, and laid it on the side + of his plate. Then four firm pressures of his knife and the little lateral + bones were exactly removed and exactly laid on the backbone. Next a + precise insertion of his fork and out came the silvery strip known to + Rosalie as “the swimming thing” and was laid in its turn upon the bones, + exactly, neatly, as if it were a game of spillikins. “Now pepper. Plenty + of pepper for the roe, you see. There. Now.” + </p> + <p> + And in about six mouthfuls father’s plate would be as clean as when it was + brought in, decorated rather than marred by the exquisitely neat pile of + the backbone, the tail, the little bones, and the silvery swimming thing. + “There! Delicious! That’s the way to eat a herring”; and he would direct a + glance at the plate of Rosalie’s mother. Rosalie’s mother made a herring + into the most frightful mess it was possible to imagine. She spent the + whole of her time in removing bones from her mouth; and her plate, when + she was half-way though, looked to contain the mangled remains of about + two dozen herrings. “Very few women know how to eat a herring,” Rosalie’s + father would say. + </p> + <p> + Wonderful father! How to sharpen a pencil, how to eat a herring, how to do + up a parcel, how to undo a parcel, how to cut your finger nails, how to + sit with regard to the light when you wrote or read, how to tie a knot, + how to untie a knot. Clever father, natty father! + </p> + <p> + Yes, still enormously wonderful father; but also rather strangely proud of + being wonderful father. Rosalie now was constantly being struck by that. + It began to give her rather a funny sensation. She couldn’t describe the + sensation or interpret it, but it was a feeling, when father was glowing + with pride over one of these things he did so wonderfully well—a + feeling of being rather uncomfortable, shy, ashamed—something like + that. She contracted the habit when father beamed and glowed and looked + around for applause of giving a sudden little blink. + </p> + <p> + And it was the same in regard to Robert and the same in regard to Harold. + Robert at the height of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness caused the + funny feeling and the blink in her; and Harold at the height of his + exhibitions of his wonderfulness caused the funny feeling and the blink in + her. And the wonderfulness of Robert was always being shown off by Robert, + and the wonderfulness of Harold was always being shown off by Harold. Men + liked showing off how wonderful they were.... + </p> + <p> + When Rosalie was about nine, she one day was permitted to have Lily Waters + in to tea with her. Lily Waters was the Doctor’s little girl, also nine. + For a great treat they had tea together out of Rosalie’s doll’s tea + service in the room called the schoolroom. Robert came home unusually + early from school and came into the schoolroom and began to do wonderful + things before the two little girls. He spoke in a very loud voice while he + did them. He stood on a footstool on his head and clapped his boots + together. He held his breath for seventy-five seconds by the clock. He + took off his coat and made Lily and Rosalie tie a piece of string around + his biceps and then he jerked up his arm and snapped the string. Wonderful + Robert! Lily screamed with delight and clapped her hands, and the more she + screamed and clapped, the louder Robert talked. He did still more + wonderful things. He held a cork to the flame of a match and then blacked + his nose and blacked a moustache with the cork. He did a most frightfully + daring and dangerous thing. He produced the stump of a cigarette from his + pocket and lit it and blew smoke through his nose. Wonderful Robert! Lily + went into ecstasies of delight. Rosalie also went into ecstasies but also + strongly experienced that funny feeling. While Robert held his breath till + his eyes bulged and till his face was crimson, and while he danced about + with his nose blacked, and while he held the cigarette in his fingers and + puffed smoke through his nose—while he did these things Rosalie + glanced at Lily (squealing) and felt that funny feeling of being rather + shy, uncomfortable, ashamed; something like that; and blinked. Wonderful + though Robert was, she felt somehow rather glad when at last he went. + </p> + <p> + And just the same with Harold. At supper one night, Rosalie’s father not + being present, Harold talked and talked and talked about a call he had + paid at the house of some ladies in Ashborough. Wonderful Harold, to pay a + call all by himself! It appeared that he had been the only man there, and + when Rosalie’s mother said, “I wonder you didn’t feel shy, Harold,” he + said with a funny sort of “Haw” sound in his voice, “Not in the least. + Haw! Why on earth should I feel shy? Haw.” He had evidently very much + entertained the party. The more he talked about it the more Rosalie + noticed the funny “Haw.” “They must have been very glad you came,” + Rosalie’s mother said. + </p> + <p> + Harold put the first and second fingers of his right hand on his collar + and gave it a pull up. “I rather—haw—think they were,” Harold + said. “Haw.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie gave that blink. + </p> + <p> + Years afterwards, when she was grown up, a grown man boastfully said + something in her presence, and in a flash were recalled father dissecting + a herring, Robert holding his breath till he nearly burst, Harold hitching + up his collar and with the “haw” sound saying, “I rather think they were.” + In a flash those childhood scenes, and instantly with them interpretation + of the funny feeling and the blink that they had caused: they had been the + rooting in her of a new perception added to the impregnably rooted + impression of the wonder and power of men,—the perception that men + knew they were wonderful and powerful and liked to show off how wonderful + and powerful they were. + </p> + <p> + They were superior creatures but they were apt to be rather + make-you-blinky creatures; that was the new perception. + </p> + <p> + On the day after her eighth birthday, the birthday itself being a treat + and a holiday, Rosalie began to do lessons with Hilda. Hilda, at sixteen, + had “finished her education” as had Anna and Flora at the same age. + Harold, who had been a boarder at a Grammar School, had stayed there till + he was eighteen; and Robert, ultimately, continued at Helmsbury Grammar + School till he was eighteen. It was apparent—and it was another + manifestation of the greater importance of males—that boys had more + education to finish, or were permitted longer to finish it, than girls. + </p> + <p> + The school at which Anna, Flora and Hilda thus in the eight years between + leaving their mother’s knee at eight and completing their education at + sixteen, learnt everything it was possible to know, was kept by two very + thin ladies called (ungrammatically) the Miss Pockets. The Miss Pockets + were daughters of the former vicar of St. Mary’s and inhabitant of the + rectory, and on their father dying and Mr. Aubyn coming, they established + themselves in a prim villa near-by and did what they called “took in + pupils.” They were very thin, they had very long thin noses, they were + always very cold, and from the sharp end of the long thin nose of the + elder Miss Pocket there always depended, much fascinating Rosalie, a + shining bead of moisture. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s chief recollection of the Miss Pockets was of being constantly + met by them as she approached the age of eight, and of them always, on + these occasions, fondling icy hands about her neck and saying to her + father or her mother, “And when will our new little pupil be coming to + us?” + </p> + <p> + But no direct reply was ever given to this question, either by Rosalie’s + mother, who was always made to look uncomfortable when it was asked by the + Miss Pockets, or by Rosalie’s father who always seemed to jut out his nose + at it and make the Miss Pockets look thinner and colder than ever. + </p> + <p> + On the morning of her eighth birthday, Rosalie received from the Miss + Pockets by post an illuminated text provided with a piece of red cord for + hanging on the wall and inquiring, rather abruptly, + </p> + <p> + “Who Hath Believed Our Report?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie thought at first this was a plaintive question directly from the + Miss Pockets in their capacity as school-teachers and therefore as + licensed makers of reports; but immediately afterwards saw “Isaiah” + printed under it in discreet characters— + </p> + <p> + “Who Hath Believed our Report? —Isaiah.” + </p> + <p> + and concluded that it was Isaiah who had believed it. On the back was + written in the tall, thin handwriting of the Miss Pockets, “To our dear + little pupil Rosalie, on her eighth birthday, from Agnes and Lydia + Pocket.” + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon, the Miss Pockets called at the rectory and there was + evidently some high mystery about their visit. Rosalie was in the study + looking for a drawing pin wherewith to affix her illuminated card to the + wall. Hilda ran in. “The Miss Pockets. Where’s father? Come out,” and + Rosalie was hurriedly run out and shut into the dining-room, leaving the + vindication of Isaiah in the matter of the report on the table. Opening + the door to a chink, Rosalie saw the Miss Pockets, shivering, the + permanent decoration on the nose of the elder Miss Pocket very conspicuous + and agitatedly swinging, ushered into the study, and presently her father + follow his jutty nose into the study after them, and very shortly after + that the Miss Pockets driven out as it were by the jutty nose and looking + thinner and colder than ever before. Miss Lydia Pocket, who had lost the + appendage to her nose and looked curiously undressed and indelicate + without it, was saying feebly, “But it was understood. We always thought + it was understood.” + </p> + <p> + They shuddered away; and when Rosalie went into the study immediately + afterwards to recover her card, there was upon the word Isaiah, as though + somebody had literally thrown doubt upon his belief of the report, a large + damp spot. + </p> + <p> + On the following day, Rosalie began lessons with Hilda. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + The lessons with Hilda period lasted till Rosalie was twelve. “Take her + off your mother’s hands. That’s what you’ve left school for,” was her + father’s instruction to Hilda; and so there was Rosalie, put out from her + mother’s knee to the schoolroom like a small new ship out from the haven + to the bay; and there was that small mind of hers come in to the company + of Hilda and of Flora and of Anna with the obsession that men were + infinitely more important and much more wonderful than women. She knew now + that the world did not belong to men in the literal sense, but belonged, + as her mother had instructed her, to God; but she knew with the abundant + evidence of all that went on about her that everything in the world was + done for men and that women were largely occupied in doing it; and she + knew, from the same testimony, that men were much more interesting to + watch than women, rather in the way that dogs were much more interesting + than cats. Men, like dogs, were much more satisfactory: that was it. Her + mind was throwing out feelers towards the wonders of the world and this + was the feeler that was most developed. She came to her sisters very + highly sensitive to the difference between men and women. And her sisters + showed her the difference. + </p> + <p> + Anna was twenty then. Anna had “finished her education” four years ago. + She had left school “to help your mother in the house”; and when Flora, + two years later, finished her education and left school for the same + purpose, she found Anna grooved in the business of helping her mother in + the house and she was not in the least anxious to help Anna out of the + grooves and herself become imbedded in them. + </p> + <p> + This annoyed Anna. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie used to hear Anna say to Flora a dozen times a day, “I really + don’t see why you should be the one to do nothing but amuse yourself all + day long. I really don’t.” + </p> + <p> + Flora used to say, “Well, you’ve always done it”—whatever the duty + in dispute might be—“so why on earth should I?” + </p> + <p> + Then either Anna’s face would give a twitch and she would walk out of the + room, or her face would get very red and there would be a row. + </p> + <p> + Or sometimes Flora to Anna’s “I really don’t see why—” would say + enticingly, “Don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Then ask the Pope,” and Flora would give a mocking laugh and run away out + of the reach of Anna’s fury. + </p> + <p> + The sting in this was that Anna was suspected of having Roman Catholic + tendencies. + </p> + <p> + Flora was very pretty and had a gay, bold way. Anna was not pretty. She + had a great habit of compressing her lips, especially in encounters with + Flora, and somehow her face gave the impression that her lips always were + compressed. That was the expression it normally had; it was only when + Rosalie saw Anna actually compress her lips that she realised they had not + been compressed before. It was as though she was always annoyed about + something and then, when she compressed her lips, a little more annoyed + than usual. She had also a permanent affliction which much puzzled + Rosalie. Young men friends of Harold’s frequently called at the rectory, + and one afternoon, when two of them called, Anna was the only one at home + to entertain them (except Rosalie). Flora and Hilda rushed into the + drawing-room, directly they came in, and shortly afterwards Rosalie saw + Anna come out. Anna stood in the hall quite a long time with her lips + compressed, and then went into the dining-room and sat down, but almost at + once got up again and went back into the drawing-room, and Rosalie heard + Flora call out, “You can’t join in now, Anna. You can’t join in now. We’re + in the middle of it.” Shrieks of laughter were going on. When the young + men went, Flora and Hilda, who had their hats on, walked away with them. + Anna was left at the door. When the girls came back Anna said to Flora, “I + do think you might have told me you’d arranged to go with them to see it.” + </p> + <p> + Flora said, “Oh, darling, I thought the Pope had told you.” + </p> + <p> + They had the worst row Rosalie had ever heard them have. Anna did not come + down to supper. After supper, when Rosalie was in the room with only + Harold and her father and mother, her mother spoke of the scene there had + been between Anna and Flora and it was then that Rosalie heard for the + first time of Anna’s most strange affliction. Harold said, “Of course, the + fact of the matter is that ever since Flora left school, Anna’s had her + nose put out of joint.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie felt most awfully sorry for Anna. Often after that she used to + stare at Anna’s nose and the more so because there was nothing visible the + matter with it. Anna’s nose was a singularly long and straight nose; now + if it had been Flora’s nose that was out of joint!—for Flora’s nose + turned up in a very odd way. Rosalie slept in Anna’s room and that same + night, Anna’s disjointed nose and every other part of her face and head + being covered with the clothes when Rosalie went up to bed, Rosalie, + unable to sleep for curiosity and sympathy, got out of bed and lit the + candle and went across to look at Anna’s nose, and very gently felt it + with her finger. Absolutely nothing amiss to be seen or felt! But the + lashes of Anna’s eyes were wet and there were stains of tears upon the + upper side of the mysterious nose. It was true, then, for obviously it + hurt. And yet no sign! + </p> + <p> + Rosalie got back into bed feeling of her own nose rather anxiously. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie used formerly to sleep in Hilda’s room and Flora with Anna, but + she was changed one day by her sisters (without being consulted or given + any reason) and the new arrangement was continued. Anna was very + devotional. She used to say enormously long prayers night and morning. She + prayed in the middle of the night also, Rosalie used to think at first, + awakened and hearing her voice, but later found out that Anna was talking + in her sleep, a thing that was mysterious to Rosalie and frightening. The + room of Flora and Hilda, adjoined Anna’s and often at night, when Rosalie + was awakened by Anna undressing and lay watching her at her immense + prayers, the chattering voices of Flora and Hilda could be heard through + the wall and shrieks of high laughter. At that, Anna’s shoulders used to + shudder beneath her nightgown and she used to twist herself lower on her + knees. For some reason this also used rather to frighten Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes, but very seldom, Flora and Hilda used to quarrel; sometimes, + and more often, Hilda and Anna; nearly every day, as it seemed to Rosalie, + Anna and Flora. Rosalie got to dislike these quarrels very much. They went + on and on and on; that was the disturbing unpleasantness of them. The + parties to them would sit in a room and simply keep it up forever, not + arguing all the time, but between long pauses suddenly coming out with + things at one another; or they wouldn’t speak to one another sometimes for + days together, and all sorts of small enterprises of Rosalie’s were + interfered with by these ruptures of relations. Innumerable things in + Rosalie’s life seemed to her to depend on the mutual good will of two + quarrellers; many books, some old toys, walks, combined games with Carlo + who was Anna’s and Rover who was Flora’s; innumerable delights with such + seemed to be unexpectedly stopped because of “Oh, no, if you prefer to be + with Anna you can stay with Anna”; or, “Oh, no. If you like Flora’s paints + so much you can use Flora’s brushes; these are my brushes.” A quarrel + would in any case produce a strained atmosphere in which everything became + unnatural and this strained atmosphere went on and on and on. + </p> + <p> + And the thing that Rosalie noticed was the complete difference between + these quarrels of her sisters and the quarrels between Harold and Robert. + Robert was rising between the years of fourteen and eighteen in those days + and Harold between twenty-two and twenty-six. Most violent quarrels + sometimes sprung up between them but they were physically violent, that + was the point, and after swift and appalling fury, and terrible kicks from + Robert and horrifying thumps from Harold they were astonishingly soon over + and done with and forgotten. On one awful day, Rosalie saw Robert and + Harold rolling on the floor together. Robert bumped Harold’s head three + most frightful bumps on the floor and said between his teeth, “There! + There! There!” Harold twisted himself up and hurled Robert half across the + room and then rushed at him and punched him with punches that made Robert + go, “Ur! Ur! Ur!” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie, at her age, ought to have cried with grief and dismay or to have + run away screaming; but instead she only watched with awe. With terrified + awe, as with the terrified awe that an encounter of tigers or of elephants + at the Zoo might arouse; but with awe and no sort of grief as her sole + emotion. Men were different. There it was again! They did these fearful + things, and these fearful things were much more satisfactory to behold, + not nearly so disturbing and aggravating to watch, as the interminable + bickerings of the quarrels of her sisters. + </p> + <p> + Her brothers’ quarrels were entirely different in all their aspects. In + the quarrels of her sisters, one or the other invariably cried if the + bickering went far enough. These two men, though Robert especially might + have been excused for bellowing, just solidly and only, with fearful + gasps, thumped and clutched and strove. Not a tear! Her sisters’ quarrels + were always carried by one or the other to her mother or her father. How + extraordinarily different Robert and Harold! Their sole anxiety was that + neither father nor mother should be told! If any one threatened to tell, + the two, sinking their private heat, would immediately band together + against the talebearer. Extraordinary men! To that particularly ferocious + struggle that has been described, Anna and Hilda had been attracted by the + din, when Robert, overpowered, was receiving terrible chastisement, and + with cries and prayers had somehow separated them. Behold, the very first + coherent thing these two men did was, while they still panted and glared + upon one another, to unite in a mutual threat. + </p> + <p> + “And look out you don’t go telling father or mother,” panted Harold to the + girls. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, mind you jolly well don’t,” panted Robert. + </p> + <p> + Anna said she certainly would. + </p> + <p> + Both the extraordinary creatures unitedly rounded on Anna. It might have + been thought that the battle had been, not between them, but between them + and the sisters who had saved them one from another. Astounding men! + </p> + <p> + And most astounding of all to Rosalie was that at supper, little more than + an hour later, Harold and Robert presented themselves as on exceptionally + good terms of friendship. They talked and laughed together. They had a + long exchange of views about some football teams. Harold laid down the law + about the principle of four three-quarters in Rugby football instead of + three and Robert listened as to an oracle. They had not been so friendly + for weeks. And an hour before-! Yes, men were different. + </p> + <p> + And Rosalie found that her sisters, too, knew how different and how + superior men were. Flora and Hilda seemed to Rosalie always to be talking + about men. Flora used to come into the schoolroom while Rosalie was at her + lessons and talk to Hilda. Rosalie was very fond of her lessons and Hilda + was an uncommonly good teacher and took a great interest in leading + Rosalie along the paths she had herself so recently followed. But directly + Flora came in, Hilda’s interest was entirely diverted to what Flora had to + say and to what she had to say to Flora, and it was always about men,—boys + or men. Rosalie would at once be put to learning passages or working out + exercises and Flora and Hilda would go over to the window and talk. They + talked mostly in whispers with their heads close together; they laughed a + good deal; they showed one another letters. Often they came over to the + table and wrote letters. And they used to look up from their whisperings + and say, “Go on with your lessons, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + But it was very difficult to go on while they whispered and laughed and it + was also very troublesome to have Hilda’s most interesting explanations + suddenly cut short by the entrance of Flora. Rosalie began to have the + habit of saying “Oh, dear!” and going “Tchk!” with her tongue when Flora + came in. Also restlessly to say “Oh, dear!” and go “Tchk!” when the + whisperings and the laughing about men went on and distracted her + attention while she tried to do her exercises. + </p> + <p> + A new aspect of men began to grow out of this. Rosalie began to feel + rather aggrieved against boys and ten. They interfered. + </p> + <p> + And this went further. Just as boys and men spoilt lessons so they began + to spoil walks. While Hilda attended the Miss Pockets’ school and Rosalie + was taught by her mother, it was always her mother with whom Rosalie took + walks. Anna “never cared to go out” and Flora, whose position in the house + was more like that of Harold and Robert, did much as she liked, and + “dragging Rosalie about for walks” as she expressed it, was not one of the + things she liked. Rosalie therefore went out with her mother until Hilda + took her off her mother’s hands, when the taking off included not only + education but exercise. At the beginning, Hilda showed herself as + enthusiastic and as entertaining a walker as she was teacher. She was + ready for jolly scrambles through woods and over fields, she was as keen + as Rosalie on damming little watercourses, and exploring woodland tracts, + and other similar delights, and she had a most splendid knowledge of the + names of plants and flowers and birds and insects and delighted to tell + them to Rosalie. Rosalie had loved the walks with her mother, always + holding her dear hand, but she loved much more, though in a different way, + the walks with Hilda. + </p> + <p> + Then men began, in Rosalie’s private phrase, to “ruin” the walks. + </p> + <p> + First Flora took to joining the walks and she and Hilda talked and talked + together and always, as it seemed, about men, and Rosalie just trailed + along with them, their heads miles above hers and their conversation + equally out of her reach. But even that was not so bad as it became. At + least there were only her sisters and sometimes they did talk to her, or + sometimes one or other would break off from their chatter and cry “Oh, + poor Rosalie! We’ve not been taking the least notice of you, have we? Now, + what would you like to do?” And perhaps they would run races, or perhaps + explore, or perhaps tell her a story, and Rosalie’s spirits would come + bursting out from their dulness and all would be splendid. + </p> + <p> + Not so when on the walks men, from being talked of, began to be met. + </p> + <p> + There were at Robert’s Grammar School certain young men who were in no way + connected with the school but were the “private pupils” of the headmaster + and were reading for the universities. One day Hilda started for the walk + in her church hat and Flora also in her church hat and her church gloves. + They walked very fast; Rosalie could hardly keep up. And then at a corner + of a lane they suddenly started to walk very slowly indeed, and suddenly + again at a stile, two of these young men were met. + </p> + <p> + The young men raised their hats much farther than Rosalie had ever seen a + man raise his hat and one of them said, “Well, you have come then?” + </p> + <p> + Flora said, “Well, we just happened to be strolling along this way.” Then + she said, “You needn’t imagine we came to see you!” which Rosalie thought + very rude; but the young men seemed to like it and all of them laughed a + great deal. + </p> + <p> + Presently they all started to walk together, Hilda and Flora in the middle + and one of the young men on either side. The walk lasted much later than + the walks usually lasted and the whole way Rosalie trailed along behind; + and on the whole afternoon the only words addressed to Rosalie by her + sisters came just as, the young men hav-ing taken their leave a mile away, + they were turning in at the rectory gate. Flora then said, “Rosalie, + darling, don’t tell mother or father or any one that we met any one.” And + Hilda said, “Yes, remember, Rosalie, you’re not to say anything about + that.” + </p> + <p> + After that, the young men were met, and the four walked, and Rosalie + trailed, nearly every day. + </p> + <p> + One of these young men was called Mr. Chalton and the other Mr. Ricks. + Like all men, and even more so, they were splendid and wonderful. They had + silver cigarette cases and smoked a lot, and they wore most handsome + waistcoats and ties, and some of their conversation that came back to + Rosalie, trailing behind, was of very wonderful and exciting things they + had done or were going to do. Mr. Holland, the headmaster of the Grammar + School, was the terror of Robert’s life, but it appeared that Mr. Chalton + and Mr. Ricks were not in the least afraid of Mr. Holland, and they talked + a great deal of what they would do to him if he ever tried to interfere + with them and a great deal of what they did do in the way of utterly + disregarding him. They were undeniably splendid and wonderful, but they + utterly ruined Rosalie’s walks and they greatly intensified Rosalie’s new + feelings towards men and boys,—that men and boys were a great + nuisance and spoilt things. + </p> + <p> + Time went along. Other young men were met. In the holidays, quite a number + of young men came for their vacations to their homes in Ibbotsfield and + the surrounding district. Certain of these, unlike the Grammar School + private pupils, called openly at the rectory on one pretext or another, + but they were nevertheless also met secretly by Flora and Hilda, ruined + the walks precisely as Messrs. Chalton and Ricks had first ruined them, + and were on no account to be mentioned by Rosalie to her father or mother. + </p> + <p> + The reason for this secrecy was never explained to Rosalie and the secrecy + oppressed Rosalie. It took not only the form of being a thing she was not + able to tell to her mother, and Rosalie was in the habit of telling + everything she did to her mother, but it took also the form of mysterious + and vaguely alarming perils during the walks. An immense watchfulness was + kept up against chance encounters with people. One of the party would + often cry, “Look! Who’s this?” and the young men would separate from the + girls and appear as if they were walking by themselves. Sometimes they + would break right away and run off and not be met again. Very often + Rosalie would be sent on ahead to a turning and told to come back at once + if anybody was to be seen and then would be examined as to who the person + was. Sometimes she was posted to keep watch while the girls and the young + men slipped off somewhere, over a gate or into a barn. She got to know by + sometimes rushing in with warnings that Flora and Hilda on these occasions + smoked the young men’s cigarettes. Then when they got home, they would + rush up to their room and wash their teeth and put scent on themselves. + And invariably when the young men took their leave at the end of a walk + there would be long and close whisperings in which were always to be heard + the words, “Well, say you were—” or “Look here, we’ll say we were—” + and generally, “Go away, Rosalie. There’s nothing for you to listen to.” + </p> + <p> + It all had the effect of making Rosalie feel unhappy and rather + frightened. She sometimes asked, “Why mustn’t I say anything to mother?” + She was always told, and only told, “Because father doesn’t like us + meeting men.” + </p> + <p> + No reason why father should not like them meeting men was ever given, and + Rosalie, ceaselessly disturbed by the concealment, could never imagine + what the reason could be. There could be no reason that she could imagine; + and she was thus immensely taken aback when one evening at supper her + father made a most surprising statement: “The girls have no chance of ever + meeting men in this infernal place.” + </p> + <p> + Amazing! + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s father had been abusing Ibbotsfield and everything that + pertained to Ibbotsfield. Some question of expenses had started him. He + was storming in his wild way, addressing himself to Rosalie’s mother but + haranguing at large to all, everybody sitting in silence and with + oppressed faces, avoiding looking at one another and avoiding especially + the eyes of father. They were literally ground down with poverty, + Rosalie’s father was saying. He didn’t know what was going to happen to + them all. “It’s all this place, this infernal, buried-alive place. The + girls ought to be moving about and seeing people. How can they? Very well. + My mind’s made up. There’s my brother Tom in India. He could have one of + the girls. There’s your sister Mrs. Pounce in London. She’s Rosalie’s + godmother. What’s she ever done for Rosalie? Very well. My mind’s made up. + I shall write to Tom and I shall write to Belle. I shall tell them how we + are situated. It’s humiliating to have to tell them but what’s + humiliation? I’m accustomed to humiliation. Ever since we came here, I + have eaten the bread and drunk the water of humiliation. Now the children + are growing up to share it. What can they do in this loathsome and + forsaken and miserable place? What chance have the girls got? Can you tell + me that?” + </p> + <p> + He glared at Rosalie’s mother. It was clear that he regarded her as to + blame. Rosalie thought that her dear mother must be to blame. Her mother + looked so beaten and frightened. There was glistening in her eyes. + Rosalie’s heart felt utterly desolated for her mother. She wished like + anything she could say something for her dear mother. Then most amazingly + the chance to say something came. + </p> + <p> + “Can you tell me that?” cried Rosalie’s father. “What chance have the + girls of ever meeting men in this infernal place?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie burst out, “Oh, but father, nearly every day—” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, don’t interrupt!” cried Flora very sharply. + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, be quiet!” cried Hilda. + </p> + <p> + Father glared and then went on and on. + </p> + <p> + It was the beginning of a chain of most startling upheavals. It was also, + and the upheavals were also, a new manifestation to Rosalie of the + all-importance of men. After supper, in the first place, Flora and Hilda, + taking Rosalie very severely to task for her perilous outburst, explained + to her that the men they met were not the kind of men that father meant + they ought to meet. It was necessary, it was essential, they explained, + for every girl to meet men she could marry. That was what every girl had + to do. Men—surely you understand that, Rosalie—had all the + money and everything and met girls and asked them to marry. Those men + sometimes met on walks, you little stupid, were too young and had no money + yet. “There, that’s enough,” they explained. “Anyhow, we shan’t be meeting + them much more. One of us is probably going to India; you heard what + father said, didn’t you?... Well, of course you can’t understand properly. + You will when you’re grown up. Surely that’s quite enough for you to + understand at present.... How can a woman live if she doesn’t marry, + stupid? She must have money to live and it is men who have the money.... + Well, of course they do because they earn it; look at Harold; and Robert + will have money when he’s a little older.... Well, how can women? Now, I + said that’s enough and it is enough.” + </p> + <p> + It was enough and most satisfactorily enough for one purpose. It was the + first explanation of men as a race apart from women that Rosalie had ever + received and it precisely bore out all that she had conceived about them. + It affirmed her perception of the wonder and greatness of men as compared + with women. It intensified that perception. + </p> + <p> + Wonderful men! Marvellous and most fortunate men! + </p> + <p> + And then the chain of most startling upheavals began. Father wrote to + Uncle Tom in India. Father wrote to Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, in + London. What he wrote was not to be known by Rosalie, outside the rectory + wheel. The others knew, for father, with enormous pride at his wonderful + epistolatory style in his voice, was heard reading the letter to them. But + the others, of course, knew also what Rosalie never realised, the grinding + poverty of the rectory. She knew no other life than the herrings, the + makeshifts, and the general shabbiness of the rectory. It was not till + long afterwards that, looking back, she realised the pinching and the + screwing that served—almost—to make ends meet. + </p> + <p> + So father wrote. India was far, London was near. Aunt Belle’s reply came + while the letter to Uncle Tom was still upon the sea. Such a reply! + Wonderful father to win such a reply from Aunt Belle! “You see what it is + to be able to write a telling and forceful letter!” cried father. Such an + exciting reply! Aunt Belle was coming on a visit “to talk it over and see + what she could do.” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Belle came. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + Oh, a red carpet, a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, to come + into the story! And if at the end of the red carpet there could be an “At + Home” in the splendid drawing-room of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, at + Pilchester Square, Notting Hill, an At Home with about sixty-five ladies + crammed into it, all of them wives of most successful and well-off men, + mostly retired from the Indian Army and the Indian Civil Service, and all + of them chattering ecstatically, and nibbling, and pluming themselves, and + tinkling their teacups, and Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, enthroned in + their midst, and owning everything and seeming to own her five and sixty + guests, and chattering and nibbling and pluming and tinkling more + ecstatically than any; and then if there could come into them beautiful + cousin Laetitia (when about fifteen) with sleek black hair beautifully + ribboned behind, and with pale, fine brow, and wearing the sweetest white + frock, and if she could move delightfully about among her mother’s guests, + and then play the sweetest little trifle on the pianoforte to the + delighted murmurs of the five and sixty guests of her mother (“She’s under + Pflunk. The great Pflunk!”); and then if there could come in from the City + Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., (retired) now director of several + highly important companies, and if Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., + could stand on the hearthrug with his massy jowl and his determined + stomach, and grunt, and rattle the money in his pockets, and grunt again; + and if then there could come in the new parlour maid of Aunt Belle, Mrs. + Pyke Pounce, with her tallness and her deftness and her slight, very + slight, insolence of air, and all the five and sixty gazing upon her as + haughty but envious patricians gazing upon a slave, and when she had gone + swishing out if Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, could tell all the sixty and + five of her tallness, her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence + of manner—— + </p> + <p> + Oh, if there could be this and these and a fine red carpet, how exactly + and how fittingly would Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, step upon the scene! + </p> + <p> + “Dear thing!” That was Rosalie’s portrait and thought of her in long after + years. Dear thing! The drawing-room of her crowded triumphs is now the + shabby drawing-room of a second-rate boarding house; the jolly horse bus + she used so commandingly to stop in the Holland Park Avenue and so regally + to enter (whip-waving driver, cap-touching conductor) long has given place + to a thundering motor saloon that stops wheresoever it listeth and wherein + Aunt Belles and old-clothes women fight to hang by a strap. + </p> + <p> + Dear thing! Her ownership of five and sixty guests is exchanged for + ownership of not more than seven and fifty inches of cold earth in + Brompton Cemetery. She is passed and Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, + R.E., is grunted past to lay himself beside her. They are passed. + Up-reared upon her and upon him is a stupendous granite chunk (in a way + not unlike Uncle Pyke on his hearthrug) erected by their sorrowing + daughter. She is passed; she came into Rosalie’s life and Rosalie crossed + her life and she never forgave Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Dear thing! Lie lightly on her, stones! + </p> + <p> + She came to the rectory “to talk it over and see what can be done” for a + week’s visit, and she stepped out of the cab, all the family assembled to + greet her, a new and most surprising figure such as Rosalie had never seen + before. She was dressed in startling fashions of a most wonderful + richness, and she had immense plumes in her hat that nodded when she moved + and trembled when she stood still, and she was herself either always + nodding with glittering animation or straightening her back and quivering + as if straining at a leash and just about to burst it and go off. She was + like Rosalie’s mother and yet not a bit like her. She was older and yet + terribly brisker and stronger. Those were the days when frosted Christmas + cards were of the artistic marvels of the age, and Aunt Belle beside + Rosalie’s mother somehow made Rosalie think of a frosted card beside one + of the plain cards. When Rosalie’s mother was in a room you often might + not know she was there; but when Aunt Belle was in a room there seemed to + be no one there except Aunt Belle. She began to talk, in a voice as high + as the house, while she was still descending from the cab on her arrival, + and the only time Rosalie ever saw her not talking was during service in + Church on Sunday, when she was alternately glittering or whispering or + else bending down so extraordinarily low that Rosalie thought she was + going to lie prone upon the floor. + </p> + <p> + Dear thing! She was so kind to Rosalie and so kind to them all, and yet——And + yet they all, except Rosalie who was too small (then) to appreciate the + resented quality in Aunt Belle’s kindness, and Rosalie’s mother who was + too gentle to resent anything, and yet they all, save Rosalie and her + mother, loathed and abominated Aunt Belle. It was her way of doing things. + She gave kind gifts, but it was the way she gave them. She admired + everything and everybody in the rectory, but it was the way she admired. + She said most kind and affectionate things, but it was her way of saying + them. + </p> + <p> + “Why, how very nice indeed!” That was her insistent comment upon + everything in the rectory. But the tone was, “How very nice indeed—for + you.” + </p> + <p> + That was the trouble. That was what made Harold (who at twenty-six was + getting very like his father) hurl about a thousand miles over the garden + wall the three apples Aunt Belle gave him as his share of the “very best + apples from the Army and Navy Stores” which she brought down with other + “goodies” for “the dear children”; and made, him grit his teeth after she + had been in the house two days and cry, “Dash her! Poor relations; that’s + how she treats us! I’m dashed if I’m a poor relation. I’m earning three + pound ten a week at the Bank and I bet that appalling old Uncle Pyke + didn’t get it or anything like it at my age!” + </p> + <p> + Dear thing! “She meant it kindly.” That was the sweet apologetic excuse + with which Rosalie’s mother followed the track of the storms Aunt Belle + aroused and with which she sought to abate them. “She means it kindly. She + means it kindly, dear.” + </p> + <p> + It should be Aunt Belle’s epitaph. It ought to be graven upon that granite + chunk in Brompton Cemetery. “She meant it kindly!” + </p> + <p> + Issuing from the cab, Aunt Belle began by kissing Rosalie’s mother in a + most astonishing series of kisses that whizzed from cheek to cheek so that + it was a miracle to Rosalie that the two noses did not collide and her + dear mother’s be knocked right off; and then most enthusiastically kissed + all the family, applying to each the phrase with which she began on Harold + “Well, well, so this is Harold!” (As if it were the most astounding and + unexpected thing in the world that it was Harold.) “So this is Harold! + Why, what a great big clever fellow, and what a comfort to your dear + mother, I am sure!” And then gazed rapturously upon the house and said to + Rosalie’s mother and to them all, “Well, well, what a very, very nice + house, to be sure!” + </p> + <p> + (“For you!”) + </p> + <p> + She meant it kindly. Her manner of talking about herself and about her + possessions was not that of bragging or of conscious superiority; it was, + to the whole rectory family, and to all poorer than herself wherever she + met them, that of one entertaining a party of children—of a kind + lady telling stories to a group of round-eyed infants. When she first had + tea on the afternoon of her arrival, she gazed upon the silver teapot as + it was carried in and exclaimed, “Well, well, what a very, very handsome + teapot! And hot-water jug to match! How very, very nice! Now how ever do + you think I keep my water hot at tea? I have a very nice service all in + silver gilt! It looks just like gold! And there’s a kettle to match with a + spirit flame under it. The maid brings in the kettle boiling and we just + light the spirit with a match and there it is gently boiling all the + time!” + </p> + <p> + Dusk drew in and the lamps were lit. “Lamps!” ecstatically exclaimed Aunt + Belle! “How nice! And Hilda keeps the lamps clean, does she? What a dear, + helpful girl and how very, very bright and nice they are! Now what do you + think? In my house, everywhere, even in the kitchen, we’ve got this new + electric light! Your kind uncle Pyke had it put in for me. Installed, as + they call it. Now, just fancy, all you have is a little brass knob by each + door, and you just touch a little switch, and there’s your light! No + matches, no trouble, just click! and there you are. Of course it was very + expensive, but your Uncle Pyke insisted upon my having it. He always will + insist upon my having everything of the best.” + </p> + <p> + Dear thing! The echo of her ceaseless tongue brings her exactly to life + again—glittering, chattering, pluming, presenting, praising—her + servants! her house! her parties! her friends! her daughter! her husband!—Oh, + yes, a red carpet! a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, to come + into the story, and so (at the end of her visit) into Rosalie’s life like + this: + </p> + <p> + “And Rosalie is going away to school! To a boarding school in London where + there will be ever so many very nice playmates of her own age, and such + romps, and such good wholesome food, and such nice, kind, clever + mistresses! Why, what a lucky, lucky girl! There, Rosalie, what do you + think of that? You are my godchild, and I and your kind uncle Pyke are + going to send you to school and pay for your education because of course + we are well off and can afford it and your dear mother and father can’t. + There! Now isn’t that delightful? Come and give me a nice kiss then. The + dear child!” + </p> + <p> + Tremendous moment! Supernal upheaval! First and greatest upheaval of the + chain of upheavals! Rosalie was to go away to school! + </p> + <p> + That was at the rectory breakfast table on the last morning of the visit, + and that was Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, coming into Rosalie’s life. + “Come and give me a kiss then”; that was kind, kind Aunt Belle, inviting + acknowledgment of her kindness and the kindness of Uncle Pyke (with a + cheque) and the kindness of Cousin Laetitia (with a box of beautiful + cast-off clothes that would do beautifully for Rosalie’s school outfit). + “The dear child!” That was Aunt Belle’s acknowledgment of Rosalie’s most + dutiful and most affectionate and most delighted kiss. (Most amazed and + excited and rather fearful Rosalie! Going to school! Going away to a + boarding school in London!) + </p> + <p> + “The dear child!” Such a warm and loving kiss from Rosalie! And time was + to prove it the kiss of Judas! Yes, in a few years, “I’ve done everything + for you!” Aunt Belle was to cry. “Everything! And this is the return I + get!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + Next, in its turn, and exactly a fortnight before the beginning of the + term at which Rosalie was to join the boarding school in London, came the + letter from Uncle Tom in India, and with it the beginning of the second + upheaval in the chain of upheavals. + </p> + <p> + All of this upheaval was very bewildering to Rosalie. She never understood + it properly. At the beginning it had nothing at all to do with Anna, and + yet Anna from the very first reading of Uncle Tom’s letter—All that + Rosalie understood of it was this. + </p> + <p> + First the letter came. Tremendous excitement! Father in wild excitement, + Flora and Hilda in frantic excitement, everyone in highest excitement. + Father read the letter aloud at breakfast to Rosalie’s mother and to the + girls. Such a splendid letter, said father. Really, Tom was a splendid + fellow, said father. He had wronged Tom. He had thought Tom selfish in his + wealthy indifference. By Jove, Tom wasn’t. “By Jove, the way Tom wrote + almost brought tears to your eyes. Listen to this. Listen, mother. Listen, + you girls.” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Tom, said the letter, would by all means, old man, have one of the + girls. He’d no idea that things were so bad with you. Poor old man! Why + didn’t you tell us before? He was sending home a small draft to Field and + Company, his bankers, to help towards the girl’s outfit and her passage + money. “‘Which girl shall you send?’ you ask. Well, it’s no good asking + us, old man. You must decide that for yourselves. She’ll be abundantly + welcome, whichever it is, and we can promise her a jolly good time. We are + at Simla most of the year. If you want my advice which girl to send, send + the pretti—” + </p> + <p> + Father stopped reading. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie was staring at Anna. Anna’s face, which had been pale, suddenly + went crimson. The suddenness and the violence of it was extraordinary. One + moment she had been pale. In the next, she was burning red. It was exactly + as if a crimson paint had suddenly been dashed over the whole of her face. + It was extraordinary. Whatever was it? That nose of hers, perhaps? a + sudden frightful twinge like Rosalie once had had a sudden most awful jump + in a tooth? But Anna didn’t say anything and no one but Rosalie seemed to + notice it. They were all intent upon father. So intent! Flora’s eyes were + simply shining! + </p> + <p> + And Flora’s eyes soon after that were shining more than ever. She was wild + with excitement. Rosalie heard the news just before tea. Flora was going + to India to Uncle Tom! + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” cried Flora, “I’m so excited I simply don’t know what to do with + myself!” It was all arranged. Father had settled it. She was to go in + about six weeks’ time. Very shortly she was to go up to London with father + and buy heaps of clothes and all sorts of things. They were going to stay + at a hotel. “Not with Aunt Belle, thank goodness!” said Flora. “At a + hotel! Fancy that!” Mother wasn’t going and Flora was glad mother wasn’t + going. She would have a much better time with father. Father had decided + everything. He had decided that mother couldn’t leave him in the rectory + with all the housekeeping to look after, and the change would do him good, + and Aunt Belle would be able to help with the shopping. They were going to + see some theatres and all kinds of things and were going to have a most + splendid time and then, soon afterwards—India! “Oh I shall go mad + with excitement in a minute!” cried Flora. + </p> + <p> + The next thing was in the evening. Rosalie, searching for her mother to + ask her something, could not find her. She went into her mother’s bedroom + and there was the most surprising thing. There was Anna on her knees by + her mother and her head on her mother’s lap and Anna was sobbing; and she + was crying in her sobs, “But it’s my right! I’m the eldest. It’s my + right!” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie stood there, unnoticed, amazed. Whatever was it? + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s mother stroked Anna’s head and spoke very softly, “My darling! + My darling!” She said, “My darling, your father has decided. Your father + knows best. Men always know best, my darling.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s my right, mother. It’s my right. It’s always Flora. Oh, why should + it always be Flora?” + </p> + <p> + “Dear Anna. Poor Anna. You must be reasonable, dear Anna. We women must + always be reasonable. Don’t you see that your father thinks of me? He + thinks my eldest girl—my dear eldest girl—ought to stay at + home to look after her mother. It’s on my account, dear Anna. He thinks of + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, mother, what’s the good of telling me that? A lot he thinks of you or + ever has! Why is he going up to London with Flora when it’s your place to + go? A lot he thinks of you! You say we must be reasonable. You can be. + You’ve been unselfish all your life. I can’t be. Not in this. I’ve never + had a pleasure in my life; I’ve never had a chance; I’ve never had + anything done for me. Ever since I can remember it’s always been Flora, + Flora, Flora. Now there’s this. I’m getting on, mother. I’m nearly + twenty-four. What have I got to look forward to? Flora’s younger, Flora’s + different. She’ll have lots of chances of enjoying herself. This is my + right. It’s my right, mother.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Anna. My eldest girl. My first dear, sweet girlie. How could I do + without you? How happy we’ve been. How happy we will be.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie crept away. + </p> + <p> + After a time, Flora and her father went away on the great visit to London. + They were to be away over two Sundays. A clergyman was coming from + Ashborough to take service at the church. Rosalie’s father went off in + spirits as high and youthful as the spirits of Flora. For days before he + was quite a different man. Everybody was asked to choose a present which + he would bring back. Everybody chose with much excitement and chaffing + except Anna, who said she could not think of anything. At meals, father + kept on saying how he wished he could regularly make a point of getting up + to town for a bit, it made all the difference being able to get away from + this infernal place for a bit. When herrings were on the table, he + actually came round and did her herring for Rosalie’s mother and Rosalie’s + mother was able to eat the whole of it and said how delicious it was and + how clever father was. + </p> + <p> + It was all splendid. Rosalie had never known such a jolly spirit in the + house. The only thing that spoilt Rosalie’s happiness in the new jolly + spirit was the nights in Anna’s room. Anna was most frightening to + Rosalie. She prayed now longer than ever, her shoulders moving beneath her + nightgown as if she was shuddering all the time she prayed. And at night + she talked more than ever in her sleep; also she used to get out of bed at + night and walk about the room and talk aloud to herself. It was + frightening. + </p> + <p> + Then Flora and father were in London and tremendous long letters came from + Flora to her mother and to all: they were buying heaps of dresses and + underclothes and white drill coats and skirts and a riding habit and + goodness knows what all. “A regular trousseau!” wrote Flora with about + seventeen marks of exclamation after the word. And all they were seeing—they + had been to the Lyceum Theatre and seen Mr. Henry Irving and Miss Ellen + Terry and to the Savoy and seen “The Mikado.” Every moment of the day was + taken up and half the night. Oh, this was a change from Ibbotsfield! + </p> + <p> + Anna would never listen to the letters. When they were read out, she + either would put her fingers in her ears or go out of the room. And yet, + curiously, she often later in the day would say in a funny constricted + voice, “Let me see Flora’s letter. Give it to me, will you please?” And + would take it away and read it by herself. + </p> + <p> + Anna was stranger and stranger in her manner and in her behaviour at + night. Rosalie came quite to dread the nights. Anna began to pray out + loud. She used to pray over and over again the same thing: “It’s not that + I’m jealous, O Lord. O purge my heart of jealousy. It is that I see what + could be and what ought to be for me and what never will be for me. I’ve + nothing to look forward to, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. It is hard + for women. O God, thou knowest how hard it is for women.” + </p> + <p> + It was frightening. + </p> + <p> + Then came the second Sunday of the absence in London. In the night of + Saturday, Rosalie was again awakened by the sounds of Anna and again heard + her praying and again heard “It is hard for women. O God, thou knowest how + hard it is for women.” + </p> + <p> + She had heard it so often! Anna seemed to have stopped praying. 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 God 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?” + </p> + <p> + Anna started to her knees and turned her body round. “Rosalie! Why are you + awake? You’ve no right to be awake.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but I am. I woke up. Anna, why is it hard for women?” + </p> + <p> + “You weren’t meant to hear. You couldn’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “But I would like to know, Anna.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + shirt 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie ran to her mother to cry. + </p> + <p> + “Ran to her mother to cry.” That’s a thing not to pass 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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 shine 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 Godhood. They walk + near God. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 God, I was blind to this my child that shared my lot!” + </p> + <p> + 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 God 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?... + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + Always for men! Even in the prayer book! + </p> + <p> + 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 class of things that were kept within the + established wheel of the rectory by “Not in front of Rosalie,” or “Hush, + here’s Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + 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 assured 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, hush! Not in front of + Rosalie!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + A shower of tears sprang out of Rosalie’s eyes and pattered upon the page. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + And at the very first place father did forget! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of + misery....” + </p> + <p> + She called out—she could not help it—“Father!” + </p> + <p> + Her mother’s hand, squeezing hers, restrained her. + </p> + <p> + The broken voice went on “... cometh up and is cut down like a flower.” + </p> + <p> + 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 God knew it + was hard for them—“O God, thou knowest how hard it is for women.” + </p> + <p> + In the next week she went away to school. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART TWO — HOUSE OF WOMEN + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + What anybody can have nobody wants; but what only one person can have + there’s a queue to get. + </p> + <p> + 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 advertisement to appear + on the front page of the Morning Post. + </p> + <p> + “High-class Ladies’ School for the Daughters of Gentlemen of the + Professions has UNEXPECTED VACANCY for ONE ONLY pupil at reduced terms—Mrs. + Impact, Oakwood House School, St. John’s Wood, London.” + </p> + <p> + ONE ONLY pupil! That was the magic touch. + </p> + <p> + The very first words addressed to Rosalie by a fellow boarder at Oakwood + House were from a short, sharp-featured girl of her own age, which then + was twelve, who said to her sharply, “You’re a One Only. I can see you + are. Aren’t you a One Only?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’m by myself,” said Rosalie, not understanding but most anxious to + say the right thing. + </p> + <p> + “Stupid, you’re not,” said the sharp girl, “because I’m with you. Did your + mother see the advertisement in the Morning Post? The advertisement of + this school?” + </p> + <p> + It happened that Rosalie knew her mother had seen it for Aunt Belle had + shown it to her and to them all. “One of the very best schools,” Aunt + Belle had said. “You see, it’s only quite by chance there was a vacancy.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, she did,” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “She’s the cat’s grandmother,” said the sharp girl. “Never say ‘she’ for a + person’s name. Well, if your mother saw the advertisement then you are a + One Only at reduced terms, and I knew you were directly I saw you. Now, + tell me. Don’t blink—unless of course you’re an idiot; all idiots + blink. Tell me. Was that dress made for you or was it cut down?” + </p> + <p> + “It was my cousin Laetitia’s,” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “Of course it was,” returned the sharp girl very triumphantly. “Every One + Only’s clothes are cut down for her. Poopers! Do you know what a pooper + is? A pooper is half a poop and half a pauper. Every One Only’s a pooper. + Well, now you know what you are. You see that girl over there. Do you know + what she is?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said she did not. + </p> + <p> + “She’s a Red Indian.” + </p> + <p> + “Is she?” said Rosalie, much surprised, for the girl did not look in the + least like a Red Indian. + </p> + <p> + “Ask her,” said the sharp girl. “Do you know what I am?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “Answer,” said the sharp girl. + </p> + <p> + “No, I don’t,” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “I’m a Sultan,” said the sharp girl. “All the nice girls are Sultans and + the school belongs to them. Do I look nice?” + </p> + <p> + “Very,” said Rosalie, though she did not think so. + </p> + <p> + “Then why didn’t you know I was a Sultan? The school belongs to the + Sultans. The One Onlys and the Red Indians are interlopers, especially the + One Onlys. Always shudder when you see a Sultan. Shudder now.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie wriggled her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Again, poop.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie repeated the wriggle. + </p> + <p> + “Vanish, poop,” said the sharp girl, and herself sprung away with + mysterious crouching bounds, her head thrust forward, looking very like + Gagool, the witch, in King Solomon’s Mines; and was seen by Rosalie to + pounce upon another small girl who was probably a One Only and, from her + forlorn aspect, certainly a sad and desolated new. + </p> + <p> + One Onlys, Red Indians, Sultans. They were the three castes into which the + girls divided themselves: One Onlys the poopers brought by the + advertisement; Red Indians the daughters of parents resident in India; + Sultans the proud creatures who paid full fees and took their title from + the nickname of the headmistress—the Sultana. This Oakwood House + School in which Rosalie now found herself was one of those very big old + houses with a spacious, walled-in garden that probably was occupied in the + Fifties somewhere, when St. John’s Wood was out in the country, by a + wealthy old City merchant who rode in to business two or three times a + week, never dreaming that one day London was going to stretch miles beyond + St. John’s Wood, and his imposing residence go dropping down the scale of + fashion eventually to become a school for young ladies who on their + crocodile walks would huddle, giggling, along the kerbstone while the + dangerous traffic roared up and down the Maida Vale highway. + </p> + <p> + Those crocodiles! There was a news agent’s shop just opposite where the + crocodile used to cross when it went out every morning, and one of the + great excitements of the walk was to get around the corner and see what + the newspaper bills had to tell. There were about forty girls at the + school—a crocodile twenty files long—and on the days of + sensational events the news from the placards used to come flashing back + in emotional little screams from the head of the crocodile, gazing with + goggling eyes, to the tail of the crocodile pressing deliriously up + behind. “The Maybrick Case”; “Jack the Ripper Again”; “Death of the Duke + of Clarence”; “Loss of H.M.S. Victoria”; Rosalie never afterwards could + hear those terrific things referred to without recalling instantly the + convulsions of the crocodile and experiencing within her own bosom the + tumults that contributed their share to the convulsions. She was in the + writhing tail of the crocodile when “Jack the Ripper Again” caused it + almost to swoon, and she was in its weeping head when “Death of the Duke + of Clarence” and “Loss of H.M.S. Victoria” struck its orderly coils into a + tangled and hysterical knot. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Impact, who kept this school, was a massive and frightening figure of + doom who wore always upon her head, and was suspected of sleeping in, a + strange erection having the appearance of a straw beehive. She was called + the Sultana and her appearance and her habits seemed to Rosalie precisely + the appearance and habits that would belong to a sultana. The Sultana + appeared virtually never among the girls. The direction of the discipline + and education of the pupils was in the hands of the chief of the Sultana’s + staff of badly paid and much intimidated mistresses. This chief of staff, + by name Miss Ough, but called the Vizier, appeared from and disappeared + into the quarters occupied by the Sultana, and was popularly supposed to + be kept there in a dungeon. If you were near the door through which the + Vizier passed from public gaze there was unquestionably to be heard + shortly afterwards a metallic clank. This was the portal of the Vizier’s + dungeon being closed upon her and was very shuddering to hear. The Vizier, + moreover, like one long incarcerated, was skeletonized of form, cadaverous + and sallow of countenance, and grew upon her face, as all right prisoners + in royal custody grow, a thick covering of greyish down. + </p> + <p> + A second known inhabitant of the Sultana’s quarters was Mr. Ponders, her + butler, who sometimes slid into the classrooms in a very eerie way with + messages and whom Rosalie came to know strangely well; a third, but he did + not exactly live in the awful regions, was the Sultana’s husband. The + Sultana’s husband lived in two rooms over the stable. From the front + classroom windows he was to be seen every morning disappearing through the + front gates at about eleven o’clock; very shiny top hat; very tight tail + coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; very tight + grey-yellow moustache; very tight pasty face; curiously constricted, jerky + gait as though his boots, too, were very tight. Precisely the sort of + chronic, half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see in billiard rooms or eating + cloves in West End bars. By association of ideas with the orientalism of + Sultana he was called by the girls the Bashibazook. + </p> + <p> + Junior to Miss Ough, the vizier, were four or five other mistresses, all + known by nicknames. Children are exactly like savages in their horrible + sharpness at picking out physical peculiarities and labelling by them. One + would imagine these governesses, judged by their nicknames, a deplorable + collection of oddities. Actually they must have been a presentable enough + and a capable enough set of spinsters, though sicklied o’er by the pale + cast of indifferent personalities, indifferently housed, indifferently + fed, indifferently paid; all anaemic, all without any prospects + whatsoever, all dominated by and domineered over by the masterful + personality of the Sultana. + </p> + <p> + Only one of them contributed to the life of Rosalie and this was “Keggo,” + Miss Keggs, who taught mathematics. This Keggo was rather like Anna in + appearance, Rosalie thought, and was most popular of all the mistresses + with the girls, partly because of her bright moments in which she was a + human creature and an entertaining creature; partly because of her + curiously supine periods in which she would be utterly listless, allow her + class to do anything they liked provided they kept perfectly quiet, and + would make no attempt whatsoever to correct idleness or to impart the + lesson of the hour. Miss Keggs had been known to knock over the inkpot on + her desk and sit and watch the ink dripping in a pool on to the floor + without making the least attempt even to upstand the vessel. No one knew + why Keggo had these moods. But it was known that for her to come into + class looking rather flushed was a sign foreshadowing them. + </p> + <p> + She appeared to take a fancy to Rosalie from the first, and Rosalie to + her, probably by reason of the fancied resemblance to Anna. She invited + Rosalie to her room and Rosalie loved to go there because the One Onlys + were in a very weak and humble minority in Rosalie’s first term and were + rather hunted by the Sultans who were then particularly strong in numbers + and rich in apparel, in pocket money, and in friends. The poor little One + Onlys led rather abashed lives and they had no chance at all around the + playroom fire where the Sultans stretched their elegant legs and warmed + their shapely toes. + </p> + <p> + One evening in her first few weeks Rosalie had to take an exercise up to + Miss Keggs, and Miss Keggs’s room was warm, and Miss Keggs like Anna, and + Rosalie lingered and was invited to linger; after that Rosalie sought and + invented reasons for going up to Miss Keggs’s room and Miss Keggs would + nearly always say, “Well, you may stay a little, Rosalie, as you’re here.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs’s room was right at the top of the house where were also the + servants’ room and the room shared by Miss Downer and Miss Frost. It was a + long, narrow room with sloping ceiling and the window high up in the + ceiling. In the winter it was warmed with a small oil stove which smelt + terribly when you first went in but to the smell of which you almost at + once got accustomed. It was curious to Rosalie that even in summer when + there was no oil stove there was nearly always a very strong smell in Miss + Keggs’s room. Miss Keggs used eau de Cologne for bathing her forehead and + temples on account of the very bad headaches from which she said she + suffered and the smell was like eau de Cologne but with an unpleasantly + harsh strong tang in it, like bad eau de Cologne, Rosalie used to think. + However, you almost at once got accustomed to that also. These headaches + of Miss Keggs were a symptom of the very bad health from which she + suffered, and on the occasions of Rosalie’s visits to her room Miss Keggs + was very communicative about her ill health. It was the reason, she told + Rosalie, why, alone of all the mistresses, she had a room to herself + instead of sharing one. The Sultana had granted her that privilege, + provided she would use this remote and rather poky attic, because it was + so essential she should be quiet and undisturbed. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you have any medicine, Miss Keggs?” said the small Rosalie, in one + part genuinely sympathetic and in the other eager to discuss anything that + would prolong her stay by the warm oil stove. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing does me any good,” said Miss Keggs wearily. After a minute she + added, “But I really am feeling very bad to-night. Mr. Ponders very kindly + gives me some medicine that relieves my bad attacks. I wonder, Rosalie, if + you could find your way down to Mr. Ponders and give him this medicine + bottle and ask him if he could very kindly oblige me with a little of my + medicine?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m sure I could, Miss Keggs,” cried Rosalie, delighted at the + opportunity of doing a service. + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs became extraordinarily animated with the feverish animation of + one who, having made up her mind after hesitation, furiously tramples + hesitation under foot. + </p> + <p> + “Go right downstairs,” directed Miss Keggs, “right down below the hall + into the basement. You know the basement stairs?” She proceeded with her + directions, detailing them most exactly. She accompanied Rosalie to the + door and when Rosalie was a little down the passage sharply called her + back. “And, Rosalie! If you should meet any one—if you should meet + any one, on no account say where you are going or where you have been. On + no account. If it should be known how ill I continue to be, I might be + sent away. They might think I am not strong enough to continue my work + here. Say you have lost your way if you should be met. You are a new + little girl and it is easy to lose your way in this big, rambling house. + Keep the bottle in your pocket and remember, Rosalie, on no account to + tell. On no account.” And so dismissed her. + </p> + <p> + A creepy business, going down to interview Mr. Ponders! The Sultana’s + butler was only seen by the girls on momentous and thrilling occasions. He + opened the hall door when new little girls arrived with their mothers, and + he would sometimes appear in a classroom and walk thrillingly to the + mistress and thrillingly whisper. This always meant that for some + fortunate girl a parent or an aunt had arrived and that the presence of + the fortunate girl was desired by the Sultana. He was a shortish, dingy + man with a considerable moustache. As he walked between the desks to + deliver his message, his eyes were always glancing from side to side as + though furtively in search of something, and always as he left the room he + would stand a moment with his hand on the door as though meditating some + statement and then suddenly de-termining to disappear without making it. A + rather mysterious and thrilling man. + </p> + <p> + Come into the basement, Rosalie walked as bid along the passage, then to + the right and then past two doors to the third, whereon she tapped gently, + and when a man’s voice said “Come in,” quaked rather, and went in. The + walls of Mr. Ponders’ room were completely surrounded by narrow shelves. + Beneath the shelves were the closed doors of low cupboards and on the + shelves were ranged many glasses, china and silverware. At one end beneath + the window was a sink with two taps, both dripping. On the right-hand side + was a fire before which in a wicker armchair sat Mr. Ponders smoking a + pipe and reading a newspaper. + </p> + <p> + “What do you want?” inquired Mr. Ponders. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said, “If you please, Mr. Ponders, Miss Keggs is not feeling at + all well and would you be so very kind as to give her some of her + medicine, please?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ponders rose and regarded Rosalie from the hearthrug. “So it’s going + to be you coming for the medicine now, is it?” he said. He looked rather a + mean little man, standing there; not thrilling as when he appeared in the + schoolrooms for there was an unpleasing familiarity in his air, but still + decidedly mysterious, for though he smiled and looked snakily at Rosalie, + he still glanced from side to side as though furtively looking for + something and he still, before committing himself to an action, paused as + though meditating a statement and then suddenly performed the action as + though he had made up his mind not to speak—yet. + </p> + <p> + “You’re Rosalie, aren’t you?” inquired Ponders, putting his hands in his + pockets and stretching out his stomach like one much at his ease. “Rosalie + Aubyn. You come with your Auntie. What’s your Pa?” + </p> + <p> + “A clergyman, Mr. Ponders.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he’s a clergyman, is he?” Mr. Ponders’s eyes slid from side to side, + rather as if he had somewhere in the room some confirmation or some + refutation of Rosalie’s statement that he could produce if he could catch + sight of it, and continued thus to slide with the same suggestion while he + playfully put Rosalie through a further examination relative to her + “Auntie,” her “Ma” and her brothers and sisters. He appeared then to be + meditating a question of some other order but instead suddenly + straightened himself, withdrew his hands from his pockets and said, “Well, + you’d better be running along with the medicine.” + </p> + <p> + He took from Rosalie the bottle Miss Keggs had given her and from his + pockets a bunch of keys. In the lock of one of his cupboards he fitted a + key, paused a meditative moment, then with a decisive action opened the + cupboard and from a tall black bottle very carefully and steadily filled + the medicine bottle. The medicine was dark red. It first ran in a fine + dark red cloud around the inner shoulders and sides of the bottle and then + plunged in a steady stream direct from the larger receptacle to the + smaller. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie, watching, was moved to say, “How well you pour it, Mr. Ponders.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve poured a tidy drop in my time,” said Mr. Ponders, completing the + operation and corking the medicine bottle. He held it towards Rosalie, + paused in his mysteriously deliberative way, and then suddenly handed it + to her. “And a tidy fair drop for Miss Keggs at that,” he added. He went + to the door, again paused as though uncertain whether to open it, then + opened it for Rosalie to pass out. “Good night,” said Mr. Ponders. + </p> + <p> + Lucky Mr. Ponders to have for his own a cosy room like that—men, + always for some reason, with the best of everything again! Unpleasing Mr. + Ponders to look at you like that and to speak to you like that—men, + always horrible again! Rosalie, thus thinking, made a swift and unobserved + climb to the attics. Miss Keggs must have heard her coming. The door was + pulled sharply from Rosalie’s hand and there was Miss Keggs and the bottle + almost snatched away from Rosalie. “How long you’ve been! But you’ve got + it! And no one saw you?” Miss Keggs went very swiftly to the washstand and + took up a small tumbler. Clear that she wanted her medicine very badly. + She toppled in the contents of the bottle, its neck clinking against the + glass, the dark red medicine splashing and some spilling, so differently + from Mr. Ponders’s performance of a far more difficult operation, and with + the bottle still in her hand held the glass to her lips and drank deeply. + </p> + <p> + Yet there was a funny thing about the draught. It seemed to Rosalie that + Miss Keggs with that eager draught yet did not swallow at once but only + filled her mouth to its capacity. She then swallowed very slowly and with + movements of her cheeks as though she was sucking down the medicine and + tasting it in every portion of her mouth. Colour came into her cheeks. The + medicine certainly appeared to do her immense good. + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs’s friendliness towards Rosalie was settled and established from + that night. Thereafter it became a very regular thing for Rosalie to visit + the room of Miss Keggs of an evening; and at intervals, sometimes twice a + week, sometimes not three times in a month, to descend to the den of Mr. + Ponders for the dark-red medicine which did Miss Keggs so much good and + which she always took in that peculiar sucking way from a full mouth, one + would be so long sometimes in swallowing a mouthful, beginning a sentence + and then drinking and then all that time in swallowing before she + completed the sentence, that she several times, by way of apology, + ex-plained the reason to Rosalie. “I have to swallow it very slowly like + that,” explained Miss Keggs, “because that’s the way for it to do me good. + It’s my doctor’s orders.” + </p> + <p> + “It seems a business,” was Rosalie’s comment. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is a business,” Miss Keggs agreed. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie added, “How very lucky it is, Miss Keggs, that Mr. Ponders keeps + your medicine.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it’s certainly very lucky,” Miss Keggs agreed. + </p> + <p> + The effect of her medicine was always to make her very complaisant. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + One seeks to give only the things in Rosalie’s life that contributed to + her record, as time judges a record. Of her years at Oakwood House, so far + as Oakwood House itself is concerned, only that friendship with Miss Keggs + thus contributed. The rest does not matter and may be passed. Rosalie was + happy there. It naturally was all very strange at first but she soon shook + down and found her place and formed friendships. The thing to notice is + this—that even in the strangeness of her first few weeks the place + was actively felt by her to be a haven. There is to be recalled that + aching desire of hers, when poor Anna lay dead, to get right away from + men: men who (though still pre-eminently wonderful) caused her by their + showing off to blink and have a funny feeling; and by their distasteful + presence spoilt her walks and her lessons; and by the frightening things + they did had brought that frightening death to Anna. Thus had accumulated + that aching desire to get right away from men and be only amongst girls; + and the feeling remained most lively in Rosalie at the Sultana’s, and + intensified. Those men! She used to see the Bashibazook and shudder at + him; and Mr. Ponders and shudder at him; and sometimes Uncle Pyke, and + because of ways he had, feel quite sick to be near him. Men still were + wonderful. The Bashibazook, Mr. Ponders, Uncle Pyke, Uncle Pyke’s friends—all + were infinitely superior and did what they pleased; but, oh, not nice, + frightening. It was safe and nice to be only with girls. Girls were in + heaps of ways extraordinarily silly and unsatisfactory. Men though not + nice, unquestionably did everything better and could do things. + Unquestionably theirs was the best time in life. Unquestionably they were + to be envied. But—not nice, frightening. + </p> + <p> + It was like that that her ideas at Oakwood House were shaping. + </p> + <p> + And all this time, most important and much contributory to the life of + Rosalie—Aunt Belle. Tremendous occasions in those years were the + visits to the Sultana’s of Aunt Belle. Frequently on a Saturday, kind Aunt + Belle used to call at Oakwood House for Rosalie and take her to a tea shop + for tea. Beautiful cousin Laetitia would accompany her, and kind Aunt + Belle would always invite Rosalie to bring with her another little One + Only. Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Aunt Belle used to sit by in the tea shop, + affectionate and loquacious as ever, while the two schoolgirls stuffed + themselves with cakes (not beautiful Laetitia who just nicely sipped a cup + of tea and nicely smiled at the two gross appetites) and always kind Aunt + Belle brought a small hamper of sweets and cake and apples—“The very + best goodies from the Army and Navy Stores, dear child. They know us so + well at the Army and Navy Stores. Your Uncle Pyke has a standing deposit + account there. We can go in without a penny in our pockets and buy + anything we please. Fancy that, dear child!” And always half a crown for + Rosalie, as kind Aunt Belle was leaving. + </p> + <p> + Once in every term, also, Rosalie spent a week-end at the magnificent + house in Pilchester Square. Such luxuries! Fire in her bedroom and + palatial late dinner! Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning (“Just to let you + lie as a little change from school, dear child.”) and Laetitia’s maid to + do her hair! Rosalie immensely im-pressed and Aunt Belle immensely + gratified at Rosalie’s awe and appreciation and gratitude. + </p> + <p> + A curious manifestation there was of Aunt Belle’s attitude in this regard. + On that famous visit to the rectory she had treated every one like + children. Here, in her own house, while Rosalie was still a child, twelve, + thirteen and fourteen, she was treated by Aunt Belle and shown off to by + her much as if she were a grown-up woman. About her servants, and about + prices, and about dress, and about her dinner parties, Aunt Belle + chattered to Rosalie; and about Uncle Pyke, what he liked, and what he + didn’t like, and what he did in the City, and what he did at his club, and + about her hosts of friends and their matrimonial experiences, Aunt Belle + chattered to her, confiding in her and telling her all kinds of things she + but dimly understood precisely as if she were a grown-up young woman. + </p> + <p> + Then as Rosalie grew older, sixteen, seventeen and getting on for + eighteen, was reversion by Aunt Belle to the rectory manner. The child had + been treated as a young woman; the budding maiden was treated precisely as + if she were a small child or a small savage to be entertained by mere + sight of the wonders all about her in Pilchester Square and by having them + explained to her in words of one syllable. + </p> + <p> + “There, Rosalie,” (Rosalie at seventeen) “do you know you’re eating with a + solid silver spoon! Feel the weight of it! Balance it in your hand, dear + child. We usually only use this service for our dinner parties and your + uncle Pyke keeps it locked up and carries the key about with him. Show + Rosalie the key, Pyke. But I got it out for you to-day because I knew you + would like to see real solid silver plate. Dear child!” + </p> + <p> + Dear thing! Lightly on her, you Brompton Cemetery stones! + </p> + <p> + Uncle Pyke never would produce the key or whatever he might be asked to + show. Uncle Pyke would grunt and go on with his soup with enormous noise + as though having a bath in it. Uncle Pyke never spoke at all to Rosalie on + these week-end visits except, always, to put her through examination on + what she was learning at school. Rosalie, though horribly frightened of + Uncle Pyke, always had pretty ready answers to the examination—she + did uncommonly well at school—but there never was from Uncle Pyke + any other mark of appreciation than a grunt. A grunt! Those Pyke-ish, + piggish men! The outstanding characteristic Rosalie came to see in Uncle + Pyke and in the other husbands (his cronies) of Aunt Belle’s friends was + that they thought about nothing else but their food, their wine and their + cigars. They disliked having about them anybody who interfered with their + enjoyment of their food, their wine and their cigars. They were + affectionately regarded by their wives as tame, necessary bears to be fed + and warmed and used to sit at the head of the table and awe the servants. + That was what Rosalie saw in them—and shuddered at in them. Hogs! + </p> + <p> + Cousin Laetitia all this time was living at home, attending a very + exclusive and expensive day school. Only twelve girls at beautiful + Laetitia’s school and more masters and mistresses than pupils—mostly + “visiting” masters—Italian, French, painting, singing, music, + dancing. Laetitia was about two years older than Rosalie. Very pretty in + an elegant, delicate fashion, and growing up decidedly beautiful in a + sheltered, hothouse, Rossetti type of beauty. Always very affectionate to + Rosalie and glad to see her; not patronising in the way she might have + been patronising and yet, as the two grew older, patronising in a + conscious effort to dissemble a conscious superiority. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie never could remember how early in their acquaintance it was she + first understood that the great aim of Laetitia’s life, and the great aim + of Aunt Belle’s life for Laetitia, was to “make a good match”; but she + seemed to have known it ever since she first heard of Laetitia, certainly + at a point of her childhood when too young exactly to understand what + “good match” meant. Later on, when Laetitia had left school and was within + sight of putting up her hair, “good match” was openly spoken of by Aunt + Belle in her crowded drawing-room or alone in company of the two girls and + Uncle Pyke. + </p> + <p> + “And soon dear Laetitia will be making a good match, a splendid match”; + and beautiful Laetitia would faintly colour and faintly smile. + </p> + <p> + There began to come to Rosalie, growing older, an acute and an odd feeling + of the physical and mental difference between herself and beautiful + Laetitia—a feeling in Laetitia’s company that she was a boy, a young + man, in the company of one most pronouncedly a young woman. Rosalie was + always very plainly dressed by comparison with Laetitia; her voice was + much clearer and sharper, her air very vigorous against an air very + langorous. Her hands used to feel extraordinarily big when she sat with + Laetitia and her wrists extraordinarily bare. She would glance down at her + lap sometimes and could have felt a sense of surprise not to see trousers + on her legs. + </p> + <p> + That was how, as they grew older, Rosalie often felt with Laetitia. + </p> + <p> + Her last term came. She was nearly eighteen. She was going to earn her own + living. That was decided. Exactly how was not decided; but Rosalie had + decided it. There was an idea that she should remain at the Sultana’s as a + junior teacher, but that was not Rosalie’s idea. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don’t be a schoolmistress, Rosalie,” Keggo had said when Rosalie told + of the suggestion (propounded, through the Sultana, by Miss Ough and + warmly endorsed by Aunt Belle and grunted upon by Uncle Pyke). “Oh, + Rosalie, don’t be one of us. Don’t you see how we are just drifting, + drifting? Don’t do anything where you’ll just drift, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I’m not going to drift, Keggo,” said Rosalie. (Miss Keggs, in the + little room, had been “Keggo” a long time then.) “I’m not going to drift. + I’m going to have a man’s career. I’m going into business! Keggo, that’s + the mystery of that book I’m always reading that you’re always asking me + about: ‘Lombard Street’—Bagehot’s ‘Lombard Street.’ Oh, Keggo, + thrilling.” + </p> + <p> + She began to tell Keggo her stupendous enterprise.... + </p> + <p> + There is in the study of man nothing more curious or more interesting than + the natural bent of an individual mind. An arrow shot to the north and + another from the same bow to the south spring not apart more swiftly or + more opposedly than the minds of two children brought up from one mother + in the same nursery. The natural bent of each impels it. Art this one, + science that; to Joe adventure, to Tom a bookish habit. Rosalie’s natural + bent declared itself in “figures”; in the operations, as she discovered + them, of commerce; in the mysterious powers, as they appealed to her, + developed in countinghouses and exerted by countinghouses. The romance of + commerce! A mind double-edged, with inquisitiveness the one edge and + acquisitiveness the other (as certainly Rosalie’s) is a sword double-edged + that will cut through the tough shell and into the lively heart of + anything. No more is required than to give the young mind a glimpse of the + lively heart that is there. Rosalie’s young mind was already beating with + half-fledged wings against the shell about that side of life wherein, in + her experience, (of her brothers, of Uncle Pyke, of Uncle Pyke’s friends) + men did the things that earned them livelihood and gave them independence. + Along, by happy chance, buried in dust in the rectory study and found one + holiday, came “Lombard Street” and Bagehot, and that was the book and + Bagehot was the man to give pinions to those fledgling wings. She saw + romance, and thrusted for it, in the business of countinghouses. It was + fascinating to her beyond anything the discovery that money was not, as + she had always supposed, a thing that you took with one hand and paid + away, and lost, with the other. Not at all! It was a thing that, properly + handled, you never lost. Enthralling! Thrilling! You invested it and it + returned to you; you expended it and propped it up with fascinating things + called sinking funds, and, although you had spent it, there it was coming + back to you again! It was the most mysterious and wonderful commodity in + the world. She got hold of that and she went on from that. + </p> + <p> + The romance of business! That ships should go out across the seas with one + cargo and sell it, not, in effect, for money, but for another and an + entirely different cargo; that cheques passing between countries, and + cheques circulating about the United Kingdom, should be traded off one + against the other in magic conjuring palaces called Clearing Houses with + the result that thousands of little streams merged into few great rivers + and only differences need be paid; that money (heart and driving-force of + all the mysteries) should have within itself the mysterious and astounding + quality of ceaselessly reduplicating itself—“the only thing in the + world,” as Rosalie quaintly put it to Miss Keggs—“the only thing m + the world that people, business people, will take care of for you without + charging you for storage or for trouble”—that these mysterious and + extraordinary things should be thrilled Rosalie as the mysterious and + extraordinary things of science or of nature or the mysterious and + beautiful things of art or of literature or of music will thrill another. + </p> + <p> + That natural bent of her mind! That Bagehot that ministered to her natural + bent! Fascinated by Banks, fascinated by the Exchange, fascinated by the + Pool of London, where, obedient to the behests of the counting-houses, + floated the wealth that the countinghouses made, fascinated by these was + Rosalie as maidens of her years commonly are fascinated by palaces, by the + Tower and by the Abbey. Remember, it is not what their eyes see that + fascinates these romantic young misses. A dolt can see the Tower walls and + see no more than crumbling bricks and stone. It is what their minds see + that fascinates the ardent creatures. Well, Rosalie’s mind saw strange + romance in countinghouses. + </p> + <p> + That Bagehot! + </p> + <p> + And then must be picked up—and were with time picked up—others + of the magic man’s enchantments. “Literary Studies,” but she passed over + that, the burning subject was not there. “Economic Studies”; it much was + there. “International Coinage.” She read that! It approached the subject + of a Universal Money and her thought was, “Why, what a splendid idea to + have one coinage that would go everywhere!” And then, opening a new field, + and yet a connected field and a field profoundly engrossing to her, “The + English Constitution.” How laws came; how laws worked; the mysteriousness + (her word) within the Council chambers that produced governance as the + mysteriousness within the countinghouses produced wealth! The mysterious + quality within precedent and necessity and change that reproduced itself + in laws as the mysterious quality within money caused money to reproduce + itself in wealth; the romance of governance. + </p> + <p> + It was like that that her interests were shaping. + </p> + <p> + It was very easy, it was utterly delightful, to tell all this to Keggo. It + was not at all easy, it was very terrible, to tell it before Uncle Pyke. + It was appalling, it was terrific, to break to the house in Notting Hill + that she desired to earn her living, not as a teacher, but in business—like + men. + </p> + <p> + It was at dinner at the glittering table in the splendid dining-room of + the magnificent house in Notting Hill, Rosalie there on the half-term + week-end of her last term, that the frightful thing was done. At dinner: + Uncle Pyke Pounce bathing in his soup; beautiful Laetitia elegantly toying + with hers; Aunt Belle beaming over her solid silver spoon at Rosalie. “Try + that soup, dear child. It’s delicious. My cook makes such delicious soups. + Lady Houldsworth Hopper—Sir Humbo Houldsworth Hopper, you know he’s + in the India Office, you must have heard of him—was dining with us + last week and said she had never tasted such delicious soup. It was the + same as this. I asked cook specially to make it for you. Now next term, + when you are one of the mistresses at Oakwood House and living at their + table and you have soup, you’ll be able to say—for you must speak up + when you are with them, dear child, and not be shy—you’ll be able to + tell them what delicious soup you always get at your Uncle Colonel Pyke + Pounce’s. Be sure to mention your Uncle by name, Colonel Pyke Pounce, + R.E., not just ‘my uncle,’ and that he was a great deal in India where he + was entirely responsible for the laying of the Puttapong Railway and + received an illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo, such a + fine old fellow, not being allowed of course to take a present, which you + have seen many times hanging in his study in his fine house in Pilchester + Square, Notting Hill (some of them are sure to have heard of Pilchester + Square, though never visited there, of course); your uncle will show you + the address again after dinner; that will be nice, won’t it, dear? Won’t + you, Pyke?” + </p> + <p> + (F-r-r-r-r-r-rup! from the splendid holder of the illuminated address from + the Rajah of Puttapongpoo, bathing in his soup.) + </p> + <p> + “Be sure to speak up for yourself like that, dear child, and let them know + who you are and that though you are poor and have to earn your living, you + have wealthy relations (though of course we are only comfortably off and + do not pretend to be rich) and are not at all like ordinary governesses. + Be sure to, dear. There; now you’ve finished that soup and wasn’t it + delicious, just? You will have another helping, I know you will. A second + helping of soup is not usual, dear, and Laetitia or any one at any of our + parties would never take it, but it’s quite different for you, and I do + love to see you enjoy the nice food I get for you. More soup for Miss + Aubyn, Parker.” + </p> + <p> + Now for it! + </p> + <p> + “Aunt, I won’t have any more soup. I won’t really. It was delicious. + Delicious, but really no more. Really. Aunt.... About the governesses + there and being one of them. I wanted to say... Aunt, I don’t want to be a + pupil-teacher. Aunt...” + </p> + <p> + Fr-r-r-r-rup! Frr-r-roosh! Woosh! Fr-r-r-roosh! + </p> + <p> + It is the holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo + most terribly and fear-strikingly struggling up out of his soup. “Don’t + want to be a pupil teacher? Wat d’ye mean? Wat d’ye mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Rosalie, darling!” It is the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the + holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind them, Rosalie. The dear child! Why, how crimson she is. Let + the dear child speak. What is it, dear child?” It is kind Aunt Belle. + </p> + <p> + “Aunt Belle. Aunt Belle, I don’t want to earn my living like that. I want + to earn it like—like a man. I want to—well, it’s hard to + explain—to go to an office like a man—and have my pay every + week, like a man—and have a chance to get on like men, like a man. I + want to go into the City if I possibly could, or start in some way like + going into the City. I know it sounds awful—telling it to you—but + girls are doing it, a few. They’re just secretaries and clerks, of course. + They’re just nothing, of course. But, oh, it’s something, and I do want it + so. To have office hours and a—a desk—and a—an employer + and be—be like men. I don’t mean, I don’t mean a bit, imitate men + like all that talk there is now about imitating men. I hate women in stiff + collars and shirts and ties and mannishness like that; and indeed I hate—I + dislike men—I can’t stand them, not in that way, if you understand + what I mean—” + </p> + <p> + “.Rosalie!” (Laetitia.) + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Laetitia, oh, Aunt Belle, I’m only saying that to show I don’t mean I + want to be—. It is so fearfully difficult to explain, this. But + Aunt, you do see what I am trying to mean. It’s just a man’s work that I + mean because I’d love it and because I don’t see why—. And it’s just + that particular kind of work—in the City. Because I believe, I do + believe, I would be sharp and good at that work. Figures and things. I + love that. I’m quick at that, very quick. And I’ve read heaps about it—about + business I mean—about—” + </p> + <p> + Uncle Pyke Pounce. Uncle Pyke Pounce, holding his breath because he is + holding his exasperation as one holds one’s breath in performance of a + delicate task. Uncle Pyke Pounce crimson, purply blotched, infuriated, + kept from his food, blowing up at last at the parlour-maid: “Bring in the + next course! Bring in the next course! Watyer staring at? Watyer waiting + for? Watyer listening to? Rubbish. Pack of rubbish.” + </p> + <p> + The parlour-maid flies out on the gust of the explosion. Rosalie finishes + her sentence while the gust inflates again. + </p> + <p> + “Read heaps about it—about business—about trade and finance + and that. It fascinates me.” + </p> + <p> + The gust explodes at her. + </p> + <p> + “Wat d’yer mean read about it? Read about what?” + </p> + <p> + “Uncle, about money, about finance and things. I know it’s extraordinary I + should like such things. But I do. I can’t tell why. It’s like—like + a romance to me, all about money and how it is made and managed. There’s a + book I found in father’s study at home. ‘Lombard Street’ by Bagehot. + That’s all about it, isn’t it? I can’t tell you how I have read it and + reread it.” + </p> + <p> + “Never heard of it. ‘Lombard Street?’ Bagehot? Who’s Bagehot?” + </p> + <p> + “I think he was a banker, Uncle.” + </p> + <p> + “I think he was a fool!” + </p> + <p> + It comes out of the red and swollen face of the holder of the illuminated + address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo like a plum-stone spat at her + across the table. Rosalie blinked. These beastly men! Violent, vulgar, + fat, rude beasts! Uncle Pyke the worst of them! But she came back bravely + from her flinch. “If he wasn’t a banker, he knew all about banking. Oh, + that’s what I would be more than anything—that’s what I do want to + be—a banker—in a bank!” + </p> + <p> + The holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo as + if, having expectorated the plum-stone, he desired to expectorate also the + taste thereof, spat out an obscene sound of contempt and disgust. “Fah! I + say the man, whoever he was, was a fool. And I say this, Miss. I don’t + often speak sharply, but I say that I think I know another fool—a + little fool—at this table. Pah! Enough of it! What’s this? Trout?” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Belle to the rescue! If Uncle Pyke and Aunt Belle had kept house in + Seven Dials instead of Notting Hill, Uncle Pyke would have beaten Aunt + Belle and Aunt Belle would have taken the blows without flinching and then + have wheedled Uncle Pyke with drops of gin. As it was, Uncle Pyke was + merely boorish or torpidly savage towards Aunt Belle and Aunt Belle’s way + with him—as with all combative men—was to rally him with a + kind of boisterous chaff and to discharge it at him as an urchin with an + armful of snowballs fearfully discharges them at an old gentleman in a + silk hat: backing away, that is to say, before an advance and advancing + before a retreat. Uncle Pyke usually retreated, either to eat or sleep. + </p> + <p> + Aunt Belle had blinked, as Rosalie had blinked, at that horrible epithet + “Little fool!” across the table. The lips that uttered it were immediately + stuffed with trout and Aunt Belle immediately rushed in in her rallying + way to the rescue. “Why, you great, big stupid Uncle Pyke!” cried Aunt + Belle vivaciously. “It’s you who don’t know what you’re talking about, you + unkind old thing, you. Why, many, many girls, quite nice girls, are going + into business now and being secretaries and things and doing very, very + well indeed. Why, I declare it would do you good to have a lady secretary + yourself in that big, dusty office of yours in the City, never dusted from + one year’s end to another, I’m sure! Laetitia, wouldn’t it do your father + good, the cross, grumpy old thing? Give your master some more of the + sauce, Parker. Isn’t that trout delicate and nice, Pyke? Trout for a pike! + And I’m sure very like a nasty, savage old pike the way you tried to + gobble up poor Rosalie, the dear child. Now, Rosalie, dear child, I think + that’s a very, very good idea of yours to go into business. I think it’s a + splendid idea, and more and more quite nice girls will soon be doing it. + Now we’ll just see what we can do and we’ll make that cross old uncle help + and ask all his cross old friends in the City, just to punish him. A young + Lady Clerk, or a young Lady Secretary! Now I think that’s the very, very + thing for you. Just the thing, and a dear, clever child to think of it. + Yes!” + </p> + <p> + Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Victory through Aunt Belle! Accomplishment! A + career like a man! Aunt Belle had said it and Aunt Belle would do it! A + career like a man! Oh, ecstatic joy! “Lombard Street” had been brought + with her in her week-end suitcase. Directly she could get to bed she + rushed up to it and took it out and read, and read. It was all underlined. + She underlined it more that happy, happy night! + </p> + <p> + Ah, never underline a book till you are forty. Never memorialise what you + were, your lovely innocence, your generous heart, your ardent hopes, lest + the memorial be found one day by what you have become. Rosalie, finding + that “Lombard Street,” unearthed from lumber, in long after years, turned + over the pages and from the pages ghosts rushed up and filled the room, + and filled the air, and filled her heart, and filled her eyes; and she + rent the book across its perished binding and pushed it from her with both + her hands on to the fire and on to the flames in the fire. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + Incredibly soon, so stealthy swift is time, came this last term of + Rosalie’s at the Sultana’s. Time does not play an open game. It’s of the + cloak and dagger sort. It stalks and pounces. Rosalie was astonished to + think she was leaving; and now the time had come she was sorry to be + going. Not very sorry; very excited; but having just enough regret to + realise, on looking back, that she had been very happy at school and to + realise, actively, happiness in this last term. One knows what it is. It’s + always like that. One always was happy; one so seldom is. Happiness to be + realised needs faint perception of sadness as needs the egg the touch of + salt to manifest its flavour. Flashes of entertainment may enliven the + most wretched of us; but that’s pleasure; that’s not happiness. One comes + to know the only true and ideal happiness is happiness tinctured with + faintest, vaguest hint of tears. It is peace; and who knows peace that has + not come to it through storm, or knoweth storm ahead, or in storm past + hath not lost one that would have shared this peace? + </p> + <p> + So that girl’s last term was (in her words) “tremendously jolly.” She was + just eighteen, and she was leaving, and responsive to this the harness of + the school was drawn off her as at the paddock gate the headstall from a + colt. She was out of lessons. She did some teaching of the younger girls. + She was on terms with the mistresses. She had the run of Keggo’s room. + </p> + <p> + Such talks in Keggo’s room.... She was out from the cove of childhood; she + was into the bay of youth; breasting towards the sea of womanhood (that + sea that’s sailed by stars and by no chart); and she was encountering + tides that come to young mariners to perplex them and Keggo could talk + about such things with the experience that so enraptures young mariners + and of which young mariners are at the same time so confidently + contemptuous, so superiorly sceptical. Nearer to press the simile, youth + at the feet of experience is as one, experienced, climbing a mountain with + the young thing panting behind. “Go on! Go on!” pants the growing young + thing. “This is ripping. Go on. Show the way. But I don’t want your hand. + I can do it easily by myself—better.” And one evening while Rosalie + stumblingly explained, and eagerly received, and sceptically doubted, “But + look here, Keggo,” she cried, and stopped and blushed, abashed at her use + of the nickname. + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs laughed. “Don’t mind, Rosalie. Call me Keggo. I like it. It’s + much more friendly. I’m very fond of you, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + They were by the oil stove, Miss Keggs in her wicker armchair, Rosalie on + the floor, her back propped against Miss Keggs’s knees. One of Miss + Keggs’s hands was on Rosalie’s shoulder and she moved it to touch the + girl’s face. “Are you fond of me, Rosalie?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie turned towards her and spoke impulsively. “Oh, awfully—Keggo.” + </p> + <p> + The woman stooped and kissed the growing young thing, hugging her + strongly, pressing her lips upon the lips of Rosalie with a great + intensity. “Oh, I shall be sorry when you go, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + “We can still be friends, Keggo dear.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs shook her head. “Ships that pass in the night.” + </p> + <p> + “O Keggo!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs smiled, a wintry smile. “O Rosalie!” she mimicked. She sighed. + “Oh, my dear, it’s true—true! Don’t you remember how the lines go— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; + Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.’ +</pre> + <p> + Just remember that in a few years. You’ll hail again perhaps. ‘O Keggo!’ + Or I—it is more likely—wilt hail ‘O Rosalie!’ Just remember it + then.” Her hand came down to Rosalie and Rosalie took it. It was so cold; + and on her face a strained and beaten look as though hand and face + belonged to one that stood most chilled and storm-beat upon the bridge, + peering through the storm. Her fingers made no motion responsive to + Rosalie’s warm touch. She said strangely, as though it was to herself she + spoke, “Does it mean anything to you, Rosalie, a vision like that? Can you + see a black and violent night and a ship going by full speed, and one + labouring, and through the wind and the blackness a hail.—and gone, + and the wreck left foundering?” + </p> + <p> + Ah, that most generous and quickly moved and loving-Rosalie—then! + How she twisted to her knees and stretched her arms about that poor Keggo, + sitting there—so drooped! How readily into her eyes her young and + warm and ardent sympathies pressed the tears, their flowers! How warm her + words? How warmly spoken! “O Keggo! Keggo, dear! Keggo, why do you talk + like that? How can you? After all the kindness you’ve shown me, accusing + me that I’ll forget and not mind. Keggo, you shan’t. You mustn’t.” + </p> + <p> + Then Keggo responded, catching her arms about Rosalie and straining + Rosalie to her as though here was some cable to hold against the driving + sea. “O Rosalie!” + </p> + <p> + And after a little Rosalie said, “You won’t again say I ever shall forget, + or hail and pass by. Oh, that was cruel, Keggo!” + </p> + <p> + Keggo was gently crying. “Natural. Natural.” + </p> + <p> + “Unnatural. Horrible. And you? Why do you say such things about yourself? + You didn’t mean it? It’s nothing? How can you ever be a wreck, + foundering?” + </p> + <p> + Keggo dried her eyes and by her voice seemed to put those things right + away. “No, nothing. Of course not. Darling girl, only this—you’re + young—young and so of course you are going by full sail as young + things do. Full sail! O happy ship! Rosalie, go on telling. Go on asking. + I love it, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + She was always “Keggo” after that; and the things that Rosalie told and + asked! + </p> + <p> + Such things! It is to be seen that now there were bursting into blossom + out of bud within that Rosalie those seeds planted in her by the + extraordinary ideas of her childhood. About men. First and always + predominating, about men as compared with women—their wonder, their + power, their importance, their infinite superiority; then about men in + their relations with women—their rather grand and noisy ways that + made Rosalie blink; their interfering presence that spoilt lessons and + spoilt walks; those sinister attributes of theirs, arising somehow out of + their freedom to do as they liked in the world, that somehow left the + world very hard for women. Grotesque ideas, but masterful ideas, + masterfully shaping the child mind wherein they germinated; burrowing in + clutchy roots; pressing up in strong young saplings. Agreed the child is + father of the man, but much more the girl is mother of the woman. It is + the man’s part to sow and ride away; conception is the woman’s office and + that which she receives she tends to cherish and incorporate within her. + Of her body that function is her glory; of her mind it is her millstone. + Man always rides away, a tent dweller and an Arab, with a horse and with + the plains about him; woman is a dweller in a city with a wall, a house + dweller, storing her possessions about her in her house, abiding with + them, not to be sundered from them. + </p> + <p> + So with that Rosalie. Those childhood ideas of hers were grotesque ideas + but she had received them into her house and they remained with her, shorn + of their grotesqueness, as garish furniture may be upholstered in a new + pattern, but tincturing her life as the appointments of a room will + influence the mood of one that sits therein. Father owned the world—all + males had proprietorship in the world under father—all men were + worshipful and giants and genii. That was the established perception and + those its earliest images. The perception remained, deepening, changing + only in hue, as a viscid liquid solidifies and darkens in a vessel over + the fire. It remained, persisted. Time but steadied the focus as the wise + oculist, seeking for his patient the perfect image, drops lenses in the + frame through which the vision chart is viewed. In a little the perfect + image is found. There was that Rosalie, come to maidenhood, come to the + dizzy edge of leaving school, with the perfect image of her persistent + obsession; with the belief no longer that men were magicians having the + world for their washpot and women for their footstool, but unquestionably + that they “had a better time” than women and that they secured this + “better time” by virtue of their independence. + </p> + <p> + “And, Keggo,” (she is explaining it) “I’m going to be like that. I’m going + to be what a man can be. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t a woman?” She + paused and then went on. “Why, that’s the thing that’s been with me all my + life, ever since I can remember. I’ve always known that men were the + creatures. Always. Since I was so high. Oh, I used to have the most + ridiculous ideas about them. You’d scream, Keggo. And I’ve always had the + same attitude towards them—towards them as contrasted with women, I + mean. First awe, then envy, then, since I’ve been growing up here, just as + having a desirable position in life, as having the desirable position in + life, independence, a career, work, freedom, a goal—yes, and a goal + that’s always and always a little bit in front of you, always something + better. That’s the thing. That’s the thing, Keggo. Just look at the other + side. Take a case in point. Take my painful cousin, Laetitia, sweet but in + lots of ways very painful. What’s her goal? A good match! A good match! + Did you ever hear anything so futile and sickening? Sickening in itself, + but I’ll tell you what’s really sickening about it—why, that she’ll + get it—get her goal and then it’s done, over, finished, won. Settle + down then and get fat. Oh, I don’t want a goal I can win. I want a goal I + can’t win. One that’s always just in front.” + </p> + <p> + She suddenly realised the intensity of her voice and laughed and shook her + head sideways and back. She had just recently put her hair up and it still + felt funny and tight and the laugh and the shake eased away the tightness + of voice and of hair. She said thoughtfully, “You know, I believe I’m + rather like a man in many ways, in points of view. It’s through always + thinking them better, I daresay. The ideas I’ve had about them!” and she + laughed again. She said slowly, “Though mind you, Keggo, they are better + in many ways. They can get away from things. They don’t stick about on one + thing. And they’re violent, not fussing. When they’re angry they bawl and + hit and it’s over and they forget it. They don’t just nag on and on. Oh, + yes, they’re better.” + </p> + <p> + She extended her palms to the oil flame, and watching the X-ray-like + effects of the light and shadow upon her fingers, she added indifferently, + as one idly letting drop a remark requiring no comment, negligently with + the voice of one saying “Tomorrow is Tuesday,” or “It’s mutton today,”—“Of + course they’re beasts,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “Of course they’re beasts.” It was the adjusted image to which she had + brought that other perception of men which, running parallel with the + perception of their superior position, had permeated her childhood years. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + She’s left the school! She’s living in the splendid house in Pilchester + Square looking for a post! + </p> + <p> + She’s found a post! She’s private secretary to Mr. Simcox! + </p> + <p> + She’s left the splendid house in Pilchester Square! She’s living an + independent life! She’s going to Mr. Simcox’s office, her office, every + day, just like a man! She’s living on her own salary in a boarding house + in Bayswater! + </p> + <p> + What jumps! One clutches, as at flying papers in a whirlwind, at a stable + moment in which to pin her down and describe her as she jumps. One can’t. + The thing’s too breathless. It’s a maelstrom. It’s an earthquake. It’s a + deluge. It’s a boiling pot. It’s youth. What it must be to live it! One + thing pouring on to another so that it’s impossible anywhere to pick hold + of a bit that isn’t changing into something else even as it is examined. + That’s youth all over. Always and all the time all change. What it must be + to live it! + </p> + <p> + What it must be! Why, when youth comes bursting out of tutelage there’s + not a stable thing beneath its feet nor above its head a sky that stays + the same for two hours together! Every stride’s a stepping-stone that + tilts and throws you; every dawn a sudden midnight even while it breaks, + and every night a blinding brilliance when it’s darkest. New faces, new + places, new dresses, new dishes; new foes, new friends; new tasks, new + triumphs; never a pause, never a platform; every day a year and every year + a day—not life on a firm round world but life in the heart of a + whirling avalanche. How youth can live it! And all the time, all the time + while poor, dear youth is hurtling through it, there’s age, instead of + streaming sympathy like oil upon those boiling waters, standing in + slippered safety, in buttoned dignity, in obese repose, bawling at + tumbling youth, “Why can’t you settle down! Why can’t you settle down! Why + do you behave like that? Why can’t you do as I do? Why can’t you be like + your wise and sober Uncle Forty? Or like your good and earnest Auntie + Fifty? Why can’t you behave like your pious grandmother? Why can’t you + imitate your noble grandfather? Oh, grrrr-r, why can’t you, you impious, + unnatural, ill-mannered, irresponsive, irresponsible exasperating young + nuisance, you!” Is it any wonder poor youth bawls back, or feels and + behaves like bawling back, “How to goodness can I behave like my infernal + uncle or my maddening aunt when I’m whirling along head over heels in the + middle of a roaring avalanche?” + </p> + <p> + Oh, poor youth, that all have lived but none remembers! + </p> + <p> + One clings, faut au mieux, to the intention to tell of her life only the + things in her life that contributed to her record, as records are judged. + There shall be enormous omissions. They shall be excused by vital + insertions. + </p> + <p> + She shall be glimpsed, first, in the splendid house in Pilchester Square, + in the desperate business that getting a place for a woman in a business + house was when women were in business houses far more rare than are silk + hats in the City in 1922. It was desperate. Uncle Pyke and Uncle Pyke’s + friends were the only channel of opportunity; and Uncle Pyke and Uncle + Pyke’s friends refused to be a channel of opportunity. They had never + heard of such a thing and they desired to bathe in their soup and smack + over their wine and not be troubled with such a thing. + </p> + <p> + Aunt Belle rallied them and baited them and told them they were “great big + grumpy things”; and Aunt Belle, in her crowded drawing-room, loved talking + about the search for work and did talk about it. “Has to earn her own + living,” Aunt Belle would chatter, “and is going into business! Oh, yes, + ever so many girls who have to earn their own living are going into + business now. She’ll wear a nice tailormade coat and skirt and carry a + little satchel and flick about on the tops of buses, in the City at nine + and out again at six and a nice plain wholesome lunch with a glass of milk + in a tea shop. Oh, it’s wonderful what girls who have to earn their own + living do nowadays. Quite right, you know. Quite right, (for them). Come + over here, Rosalie. Come over here, dear child, and tell Mrs. Roodle-Hoops + what you are going to do. The dear child!” + </p> + <p> + But nothing done. + </p> + <p> + Just that glimpse and then comes Mr. Simcox. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox was first met by Rosalie while walking with Aunt Belle and + beautiful cousin Laetitia in the Cromwell Road. He came along carrying a + letter in his hand with the obvious air of one who will forget to post it + if he puts it in his pocket and probably will forget to do so in any case. + He was as obviously “a man of about fifty-six” that curiously precise + figure, neither a ten nor a five, always used for men who look as Mr. + Simcox looked and always continued to look while Rosalie knew him, and + probably always had looked. Men of “about fifty-six”—one never says + “about thirty-six” or “about sixty-six”; it would be “about thirty-five” + or “about seventy”—men of “about fifty-six” are almost certainly + born at that age and with that appearance and they seem to continue in it + to their graves. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox was like that, and was short and had two little bunchy grey + whiskers, and wore always a pepper and salt jacket suit, unbuttoned, the + pockets of which always bulged and the skirts of which, containing the + pockets, always swayed and flapped. When he talked he was always talking—if + that is understood—and when he was busy he was always frantically + busy and looking at the clock or at his watch as if it were going to + explode at a certain rapidly approaching hour and he must at all costs be + through with what he was doing before it did explode. He talked in very + rapid jerks, always seeming to be about to come to rest and then + instantaneously bounding off again, rather like a man bounding along + stepping-stones, red-hot stepping-stones that each time burnt his feet and + set him flying off again. + </p> + <p> + He had been in the Bombay house of a firm of indigo merchants and there + had known Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke. He had retired and settled in London + and he now came very briskly up to Aunt Belle, to Rosalie and to beautiful + Laetitia, greeting them and bursting into full stream of chatter while he + was yet some distance away; and, having been introduced to Rosalie and + snatched at her hand precisely as if doing so while shooting in midair + between one red-hot stepping-stone and the next, whizzed presently to “I + really came out to post a letter” and flapped the letter in the air as if + it were a bothersome thing stuck to his fingers and refusing absolutely to + be stuffed into a post-box. + </p> + <p> + “Why, there’s a pillar-box just there; you’ve just passed it,” cried + Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “Why, so there is!” exclaimed Mr. Simcox, jumping round to stare at the + pillar-box as if it had stretched out an arm and given him a sudden punch + in the back, and then spinning towards Rosalie and staring at her rather + as if he suspected her of having put the pillar-box there while he was not + looking; and while Mr. Simcox was so exclaiming and so doing Rosalie had + said, “Do let me just post it for you. Do let me,” and had snapped the + obstinate letter from his fingers, and posted it and was back again + smiling at Mr. Simcox, whom she rather liked and who reminded her very + much of a jack-in-the-box. + </p> + <p> + Indeed with his quick ways, his shortness, his bushy little grey whiskers + and his pepper and salt suit with its flapping pockets, Mr. Simcox was + very like one of those funny little jack-in-the-boxes they used to sell. + He said to her, regarding her with very apparent pleasure and esteem, + “Well, that’s very nice of you. That really is very nice of you. And it’s + most wonderful. It is indeed. Do you know, I must have walked more than a + mile looking for a letter-box and I daresay I should have walked another + mile and then forgotten it and taken the letter home again.” He addressed + Aunt Belle: “It’s a most astonishing thing, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, but I cannot + post a letter. I positively cannot post a single letter. When I say + single, I do not mean I can post no letter at all. No, no. Far from it. I + mean I can post no letter singly, by itself, solus. My daily + correspondence, my office batch, I take out in a bundle, perhaps in a + table basket. That is simple. But a single letter—as you see, a + clever young lady like this has to find a box for me or I might carry the + thing for days together. Astonishing that, you know. Astonishing, + annoying, and mind you, sometimes serious and embarrassing.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you busy, busy person, you!” cried Aunt Belle with her customary air + towards a man of shaking her finger at him. “You very busy person! Fancy a + basket full of correspondence! Why what a heap you must have!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox said he had indeed a heap. “Sometimes I think more than I can + manage.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” agreed Aunt Belle, “you don’t seem to have much time to spare. + Why, I haven’t seen you in my drawing-room for quite a month (“You busy + little creature, you,” expressed without being stated). I expect you’re + getting very rich and disagreeable.” (“You rich little rascal, you!”) + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox declared that as to that his business wasn’t one to get rich + at. “In no sense. Oh, no, in no sense. It keeps me occupied. It gives me + an interest. That’s all. No more than that.” As to Mrs. Pyke Pounce’s + delightful drawing-room, most certainly he had been there less than a + month ago and most certainly he would present himself again on the very + next opportunity. To-morrow, was it? He would without fail present himself + there tomorrow, “and I hope,” said Mr. Simcox, taking his leave, “I hope I + may have the pleasure of seeing my postmistress there again.” He smiled + very cordially at Rosalie and went flapping away up the street at the pace + and with the air, not of one who had come out to post a letter and had + posted it, but of one who had come out to post a letter, had dropped it, + and was flying back to look for it. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, isn’t he an ugly little monster!” cried Aunt Belle, resuming the + walk. + </p> + <p> + “But I think he’s nice,” said Rosalie. “What is his business, Aunt Belle?” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Belle hadn’t an idea. “He’s an agent,” said Aunt Belle, “but an agent + for what I’m sure I don’t know. He’s a very mysterious, fussy, funny + little person. We knew him in Bombay where he had a very good position, + but he retired and what he does now I’m sure I can’t say. But he’s very + busy. You heard him say how busy he is. Rosalie, he might know of + something for you. We’ll ask him, dear child. The funny, ugly little + monster! We’ll ask him. He might help.” + </p> + <p> + He did help. A very short while afterwards, Rosalie received the + appointment of Private Secretary to Mr. Simcox; twenty-five shillings a + week; one pound five shillings a week! Office hours ten to five! Saturdays + ten to one! Holiday a fortnight a year! A man’s work! A man’s weekly + salary! A man’s office hours! The ecstasy of it! The ecstasy! + </p> + <p> + The matter with Mr. Simcox was that, in India a man of affairs, in England + he found himself a man of no affairs and a man who had “lost touch.” On a + leave from the Bombay house of the indigo firm he had been prevailed upon + by his mother and his maiden sister to remain at home and look after them + and he had done it and gone on doing it, and they had died and he had + never married, and he had now no relatives, and by this and by that (as he + told Rosalie early in her installation) he had dropped out of friendships + and, as he expressed it “lost touch.” He owned and occupied one of those + enormous houses in Bayswater. It had been his mother’s and he lived on in + it after her death and the death of his sister, alone with a housekeeper. + The housekeeper resided in the vast catacombs of the basement of the + enormous house; Mr. Simcox resided in the immense reception rooms, miles + above, of the first floor; the three suites above him, scowling gloomily + across a square at the twin mausoleums opposite, were unoccupied and + un-visited; on the first floor Mr. Simcox had his office. The business + done in this office, which Rosalie was now to assist, and why it was done, + was in this wise and was thus explained to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox, more than ever dropped out and more than ever having lost + touch after the deaths of his sister and mother, found himself irked more + than anything else by the absence of correspondence. He had been + accustomed in India to a big receipt of letters—a big dhak, as he + called it, using the Hindustani word—now he received no letters at + all; and he told Rosalie that when you are in the habit of getting a + regular daily post, its gradual falling off and then its complete + cessation is one of the most melancholy things that can befall a man. A + nice bunch of letters in the morning, he said, is like a cold bath to a + young man, a stimulant and an appetiser; and a similar packet by the night + delivery is an entertainment to look forward to from sunset till it + arrives and the finest possible digestive upon which to go to bed. Mr. + Simcox found himself cut off from both these necessities of a congenial + life and it depressed him beyond conception. Dressing in the morning he + would hear the postman come splendidly rat tatting along the square and + would hold his breath for that glorious thunder to come echoing up from + his own front door—and it never did. Only the sound of the footsteps + came, hurrying past—always. + </p> + <p> + Set to his solitary dinner in the evening, again would come along that + glorious, reverberating music, and again Mr. Simcox would hold his breath + as it approached and again—! Oh, particularly in the winter, it was + awful, Mr. Simcox told Rosalie. Awful; she wouldn’t believe how awful it + was. In the winter, in the dark nights, there is, Mr. Simcox said, about + the sound of the postman banging along the doors something that is the + sheer essence of all the mystery, and all the poetry, and all the life, + and all the comfort, and all the light and all the warmth in the world. + Often on winter nights Mr. Simcox would get up quickly from the table (He + couldn’t help it) and go tiptoe (Why tiptoe? He didn’t know. You had to. + It was the mystery and the aching atmosphere of the thing) tiptoe across + the room to the window, and draw an inch of the heavy curtain and peer out + into the darkness and towards the music. There would be the little round + gleam of the postman’s lantern, bobbing along as he hurried. And flick! it + was gone into a doorway, and rat-tat, flick, and there it was again—coming! + Flick, rat-tat! Flick, flick, rat-tat! Coming, coming! Growing larger, + growing brighter, growing louder! Next door now. They always get it next + door. Flick, rat-tat! What a crasher! You can feel it echo! Flick! Now + then! Now then! How it gleams! He’s stopped! He’s looking at his letters! + He’s coming in! He is—ah, he’s passed; he’s gone; it’s over; + nothing... nothing for here.... Rat-tat! That’s next door. The party wall + shakes. The lustres on the mantelpiece shake. Mr. Simcox’s hands shake. He + sits down, pushes his plate away.... + </p> + <p> + It is absurd; it is ridiculous, of course it is; but it was pathetic, it + was moving, as it was received from Mr. Simcox by that young and most + warm-hearted Rosalie. Her eyes positively were caused to blink as she + listened. She had an exact vision of that funny little jack-in-the-box + figure up from the table and tiptoeing across the enormous dining room in + his little pepper and salt suit with the pockets swaying, not flapping, as + he trod along, and opening that inch of the heavy curtain and pressing out + his gaze through the black window pane, and watching the gleam and the + flick and then the crash and the gleam again, and then holding his breath + and hearing his heart go thump, and then dropping the curtain, and back + again, with his hands shaking a little and hearing the lustres tinkle.... + </p> + <p> + Yes, very moving to that Rosalie in her youth and warmth. She had actually + to touch her nose (high up, between her eyes) with her handkerchief and + she said, “Oh, Mr. Simcox.... Yes, and then what?” + </p> + <p> + “Then what? Ah! ‘Then what’ is this.” They were seated in Mr. Simcox’s + great office on the ground floor. The office of a man of many affairs. A + very large writing table furnished with every conceivable facility for + writing, not only note papers and envelopes racked up in half a dozen + sizes, but sealing waxes in several hues, labels, string, “In” basket, + “Out” basket, “Pending Decision” basket, all sorts of pens, all sorts of + pencils, wafers, clips, scales, letter weights, rulers—the table + obviously of a man to whom correspondence was a devotional, an engrossing, + an exact art, and an art practised on an expansive, an impressive, and a + lordly scale. There were also in the office a very large plain table on + which were spread newspapers, a basket containing clippings from + newspapers, an immense blue chalk for marking newspapers and a very long, + also a very short, pair of scissors for cutting out clippings from + newspapers. A range of filing cabinets stood against one wall; a library + of directories and catalogues occupied shelves against another wall. + </p> + <p> + “‘Then what’ is this,” said Mr. Simcox, indicating these impressive + appointments of the room with a wave of his hand. “You ask me ‘then what?’ + ‘Then what’ is all this. ‘Then what’ has grown now to be you. I’ll tell + you.” + </p> + <p> + It was this—the oddest, most eccentric notion (not that Rosalie it + thought so). Mr. Simcox, cut off from letters, had determined that he must + get letters. He would get letters. If the postman would not come of + himself (so to speak) then he must be forced to come. And Mr. Simcox set + about forcing him to come by answering advertisements. Not employment + advertisements; no; the advertisements to which Mr. Simcox re-plied were + the advertisements that offered to send you something for nothing—that + implored you to permit them to send you something for nothing. They are + common objects of the periodical press. Every paper is stuffed with them. + “Write for free samples.” “Catalogues.” “Trial packet sent post free on + application.” “Write for our beautifully illustrated art brochure.” + “Descriptive booklet by return.” “Write for full particulars.” “Free + sample bottle sufficient for seven days’ trial.” “Approval gladly. + Postpaid.” “Plans and particulars of the sole agents.” “Superbly printed + art volume on receipt of postcard.” + </p> + <p> + The advertisement columns of every paper are stuffed with them and soon + the letter-box of Mr. Simcox was stuffed with them. The postman who never + stopped at Mr. Simcox’s house now never missed Mr. Simcox’s house. He went + on a lighter and a brisker man after having dealt with Mr. Simcox’s house. + The agitation with which his approach was heard was now exchanged for a + superb confidence as his approach was heard. The deliveries that for Mr. + Simcox had never been deliveries were now, not deliveries, but avalanches. + They roared into the letter-box of Mr. Simcox. They cascaded upon the + floor of the hall of Mr. Simcox. + </p> + <p> + A mail thus composed does not perhaps sound interesting. Mr. Simcox, once + he had got into the full swing of the thing, discovered it to be + profoundly and exhaustively interesting. It possessed in the highest + degree the two primary essentials of a really good mail,—surprise + and variety. There would always be two or three fascinating little + parcels, there would always be two or three handsome packets, there would + always be two or three imposing looking letters. No common correspondence + could possibly have had the number of attractively boxed gifts, the amount + of handsomely printed literary and il-lustrated matter, and certainly not + the unfailing persistency of flow, that constituted the correspondence of + Mr. Simcox. + </p> + <p> + The mine once discovered proved to be a mine inexhaustible and containing + lodes or galleries of new and unsuspected wealth. Mr. Simcox took in but + two daily papers, and two penny weekly papers, and they might well have + sufficed. But an appetite whetted and an eye opened they did not suffice. + There thundered from the Bayswater free library a positive babel of cries + from advertisers in the score of journals there displayed, howling for Mr. + Simcox graciously to permit them to contribute their toll to his + letter-box; and there were at the news agents periodicals catering for + every specialised class of the community and falling over themselves to + put before Mr. Simcox the full range of the mysteries, the luxuries and + the necessities of every trade and profession and pursuit, from + shipbuilding to cycling and from ironmongery to the ownership of castles, + moors, steam yachts and salmon fisheries. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox, entirely happy, one of the busiest men that might be found in + the metropolis, struck out new lines. Hitherto he had received his + correspondence interestedly and pleasurably but passively. He began to + take it up actively and sharply. He began to write back, either graciously + approving or very sharply criticising his samples, his specimens and his + free trials; and the advertisers responded voluminously, either abjectly + with regret and enclosing further samples for Mr. Simcox’s esteemed trial, + or abjectly with delight and soliciting the very great favour of utilising + Mr. Simcox’s esteemed letter for publicity purposes. This, however, Mr. + Simcox, courteously but firmly, invariably refused to permit. + </p> + <p> + The engagement of Rosalie was a development of Mr. Simcox’s hobby as + natural as the development of any other hobby from rabbit breeding to + china collecting. The craze intensifies, the scope is enlarged. To have a + secretary made Mr. Simcox’s mail and the work that produced his mail even + more real than already it had become to him. Following up the personal + touch that had been discovered by the criticism of samples, Mr. Simcox had + opened up a line that produced the personal touch in most intimate degree: + personal touch with schools and with insurance companies. He created for + himself sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, wards. He endowed them, + severally, with ages, with backwardness, with brilliancy, with robustness, + with delicacy, with qualities that were immature and required development, + with absence of qualities that were desirable and required implanting, + with unfortunate tendency to qualities that were undesirable and needed + repression and nipping in the bud. He placed these children, thus + handicapped or endowed, before the principals of selected schools; he + desired that terms and full particulars might be placed before him to + assist him in the anxious task of right selection. They were placed before + him. “Your backward nephew Robin” (to take a single example) engaged the + personal attention of preparatory schoolmasters from Devonshire to + Cumberland and from Norfolk to Carnarvon. Similarly with insurance + companies. Again dependents and friends were created, by the dozen, by Mr. + Simcox. Male and female created he them, cumbered with all imaginable + risks, and darkly brooding upon all manner of contingencies; and male and + female, cumbered and perplexed, they were studied and advised upon by + insurance companies earnest beyond measure to show Mr. Simcox what + astounding and unparalleled benefits could be obtained for them. + </p> + <p> + At the time when Rosalie joined him, Mr. Simcox’s attention was in much + greatest proportion devoted to this development of his pursuit. Under the + instruction of a friend, long since dropped out and lost, who had held a + considerable position in a leading assurance company, he had acquired a + sound working knowledge of the principles and mysteries of insurance. The + subject had greatly interested him. In the phrase he used to Rosalie he + had “taken it up”; and in the phrase that so often sequels and rounds off + a thing suddenly “taken up” he had suddenly “dropped it.” He now, by way + of the new development of his correspondence, approached it again. It + received him as a former habitation receives a returned native. Mr. Simcox + (if the metaphor may be pursued) roamed all about the familiar rooms and + corridors of the house of the principles and mysteries of insurance. His + knowledge of its possibilities enabled him to develop an astonishing + ingenuity in creating cases ripe and yearning for the benefits of + provision against contingencies, and as he very easily was able to prove + to Rosalie, and found immense delight in proving, he had under his finger, + that is to say in his exquisitely arranged filing cabinets, also in his + head, a range of insurance companies’ literature which enabled him to work + out for any conceivable case the most suitable office or offices and the + finest possible cover for his risks. “Different companies specialize,” + said Mr. Simcox, “in different classes of risk. A man should no more walk + into one of the leading offices just because it happens to be one of the + leading offices and there take out his policy or policies than he should + walk into and take for occupation the first vacant house he sees, merely + because it is, as a house, a good house. It may be a most excellent house + but it may not be in the least the house most suitable to his + requirements.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie nodded intelligently. “But how is a man to find out, Mr. Simcox?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I suppose only by going round to every company and choosing the + best, just as I make out and send around these cases of mine. But of + course no one does that—the trouble for one thing, and ignorance for + another, and inability to realise their real requirements and to state + them clearly if they do realise them for a third. That’s what it is.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie’s intelligent nodding had not ceased. She had a trick, when Mr. + Simcox was explaining things to her, of maintaining, with eyes fixed + widely upon him, a slow, affirmative movement of her head rather as though + she were some engine, and her head the dial, absorbing power from a flow + of energy. The dial never indicated repletion. Mr. Simcox delighted to + talk to Rosalie, to watch that grave movement of her head, and to hear the + short occasional “Why’s?” and comments that came like little spurts or + quivers as of the engine in initial throbbings pulsing the power it + stored. + </p> + <p> + She was absorbing power. The months were going on. The earlier initiation + into Mr. Simcox’s business might have had a tinge of disappointment were + it not that, whatever the nature of her work, manifestly work it was, paid + for, with regular hours, with an office to attend, such as a man might do. + The tinge of disappointment, if she had suffered it, would have stung out + of the thought: Where, in this manufactured correspondence, in this + pretence at a business which was in fact no business at all, where in all + this was Lombard Street? Where the romance and mystery of finance? Where + the touch with the power that was made in countinghouses and with the + exercise of the power exerted from those countinghouses? + </p> + <p> + But it happened for Rosalie, first, that this thought could not come + because she was too busy with the glorious novelty of being in an office + and learning office ways; then, when the novelty had worn, that it could + not come because a new and a real element arrived to nullify it. In the + early days there was no realisation of sham because there was the real + business, to herself, of learning business methods and the whole theory + and practice of office routine. She could have had no better instructor + than Mr. Simcox, she could have had no better training than the handling, + the sorting and the filing of his curious and various correspondence. She + had become an efficient and a singularly apt and keen office clerk when, + more leisured because she had mastered her duties, she might first have + had time for realisation that Lombard Street was not here nor all the + romance and mystery with which she had invested the power of + countinghouses within a thousand miles of this house of most elaborate + pretence. And then, at once to prevent that realisation and to dissipate + its cause, came Lombard Street to her in Mr. Simcox’s new absorption in + (to her) the mysteries and the romance and the astounding possibilities of + the business of insurance. How the mammoth companies, whose names soon + were as household words to Rosalie, accumulated their enormous funds and + invested them; how, while provisioning for to-day, they must calculate + against liabilities falling due in a to-morrow generations ahead; how they + would put their money into property the leases of which would fall in and + the estate become marketable again perhaps a hundred years hence, when + officers of the company yet unborn would be looking to the prudence of + those now reigning to maintain the inflowing tide; how risks were + calculated and vital statistics and chances and averages studied—all + this, delightedly and delightfully narrated by Mr. Simcox (watching that + gravely nodding head and those wide intelligent eyes) was sheer + fascination to the mind that had found romance and mystery in “Lombard + Street” as commonly romance and mystery are found in poetry and music. + </p> + <p> + Then one day she took a step towards applying the fascination that she + found. + </p> + <p> + It was the day of the conversation that has been recorded. How, Rosalie + had asked, was the seeker after insurance to find the policies best suited + to his case? Rosalie had asked; and had been told—he must go round + but he never does; he must know what there is to be had but he never does + know; he must realise exactly what he really wants but he never does + realise it; and if he does realise it he must be able to state it clearly + but he never can state it clearly. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox, detailing this, permitted himself an amused contempt. The + public were ignoramuses, mere children; they knew nothing whatever about + insurance. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said in a voice consonant with the grave measure of her nods: “Of + course, if it was a man, as you said, looking for a house, he’d go to an + agent. A house agent would tell him of houses best suited to his needs + that he could choose between. Well, there are insurance agents. You’ve + told me about them.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but not the same thing, not the same thing,” corrected Mr. Simcox. + “An insurance agent, the ordinary insurance agent, is agent for a + particular company. He only knows what his own company can do and he only + wants his own company to do it. That’s no good to the kind of man in the + position we’re speaking of. He wants some one who can tell him what all + the companies will do for him. Some one who can hear his case, analyse it, + put it before him in the right light and advise him the best way of + placing it. That’s what he wants. Exactly the same as these letters I send + out—as you and I send out, I should say. Why, I’ve had practical + examples of it. There was a young fellow I met at your aunt’s house. + There’ve been three or four cases of it for that matter but this happens + to be some one you know—” + </p> + <p> + He proceeded to tell her of a visitor at Aunt Belle’s, a young man home on + leave from the Indian army and recently married, with whom he had got into + conversation on the subject of insurance and had most ably helped. The + young man had a certain policy in view. Mr. Sim-cox had put an infinitely + better before him. “If he had come to me before his marriage when he was + first taking out a policy in his wife’s favour, I could have saved him and + gained her hundreds, literally hundreds,” said Mr. Simcox. “He’d made a + most awful mess of the business. As it was I helped him very considerably. + He was very grateful, devilish grateful. He went straight to an agent of + the office I recommended and did it.” + </p> + <p> + “There must be hundreds like him that would be grateful,” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “Thousands,” said Mr. Simcox. “Tens of thousands. Every single soul who + insures, you may say.” + </p> + <p> + “Who got the commission?” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “The agent, of course,” said Mr. Simcox. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” said Mr. Simcox. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” said Rosalie. “Only ‘oh ‘.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + There’s much virtue in an If, says Touchstone; and there’s much virtue in + an “Oh”—a wise, a thoughtful, a speculative, a discerning “Oh” such + as that “Oh” pronounced by Rosalie to Mr. Simcox’s information that + agents, and not he, drew the commissions for the insurance policies which, + out of his knowledge and experience, he had advised. There followed from + that “Oh” its plain outcome: her suggestion to Mr. Simcox of why not make + a business, a real business, of expert advice upon insurance, and (out of + the make-believe intercourse with schools) a business, a real business, of + expert advice upon schools? And there shall follow also from that “Oh” a + sweeping use of the intention that has been mentioned to tell only of her + life that which contributed to her life. We’ll fix her stage from first to + last, then see her walk upon it. + </p> + <p> + This was her stage: Her suggestion was adopted. It has, astonishingly + soon, astonishing success. Advice upon insurance, advice upon schools, + commissions from each, are found wonderfully to work in together, each + bringing clients to the other. Aunt Belle’s swarms of friends, their + swarms of friends, the swarms of friends of those swarms of friends, and + so on, snowball fashion, are the first nucleus of the thing. It succeeds. + It grows. Real offices are taken. “Simcox’s.” Advertisements, clerks, + banking-accounts. Appearance of Mr. Sturgiss, partner in Field and Company—“Field’s”—the + bankers and agents. Field’s is a private bank. Its business is principally + with persons resident in the East, soldiers, civil servants, tea planters, + East India merchants. Field’s is in Lombard Street. (Lombard Street!) + Later Field’s opens a West End office. Field’s is frequently asked to + advise its clients and their wives on all manner of domestic matters,—schools + for their children, holiday homes, homes for clients over on leave, + insurance, investment, whatnot, a hundred things. Comes to this Sturgiss, + partner in Field’s, an idea of great possibilities in this advisory + business if developed as might be developed and run as might be run. + Tremendously attracted by Rosalie as the person for the job. Makes her an + offer. She declines it. Mr. Simcox’s death. Sturgiss comes along again. + Ends in Rosalie going to Field’s. Lombard Street! Room of her own in the + big offices. Glass partitioned. Huge mahogany table. Huge mahogany desk. + Field’s open the West End office, in Pall Mall. More convenient for wives + of clients. Rosalie is moved there. Manager of her own side of the + business. The war comes. Sturgiss goes out. Other important officers of + the bank go out. Her importance increases very much in other sides of the + bank’s business than her own. Press scents her out and writes her up. “The + only woman banker.” “Brilliant woman financier.” Contributes articles to + the reviews. Very much a leading woman of her day. Very much a most + remarkable woman. + </p> + <p> + That’s her stage. Thus she walked upon it: + </p> + <p> + The beginning part—that tumult of youth, those dizzy jumps that we + have seen her in—was frightfully exciting, frightfully absorbing. + She was so tremendously absorbed, so terrifically intent, so tremendously + eager, that the transition from the Sultana’s to Aunt Belle’s, and the + start with Mr. Simcox, and the transition from Aunt Belle’s to + independence in the boarding house, was done with scarcely a visit—and + then a rather grudged and rather impatient visit—to the rectory + home. + </p> + <p> + No, the absorption was too profound for much of that: indeed, for much of + home in any form. Letters came from Rosalie’s mother three and four times + a week. In the beginning, when fresh left school and at Aunt Belle’s, + Rosalie always kissed the dear handwriting on the envelope, and kissed the + dear signature before returning the letters to their envelopes; and she + would sit up late at night writing enormously long and passionately + devoted letters in reply. But she wasn’t going back; she wasn’t going + down; no, not even for a week-end, “my own darling and beloved little + mother,” until she had found an employment and was established on her own + feet, “just like one of the boys.” Then she would come, oh, wouldn’t she + just! She would have an annual holiday, “just as men have,” and she would + come down to the dear, beloved old rectory and she would give her own + sweet, adored little mother the most wonderful time she ever could + imagine! + </p> + <p> + Rosalie would sit up late at night writing these most loving letters, + pages and pages long; and her mother’s letters (which always arrived by + the first post) she would carry about with her all day and read again + before answering. + </p> + <p> + And yet.... + </p> + <p> + The fond intention in thus carrying them on her person instead of + bestowing them in her writing case was to read them a dozen times in the + opportunities the day would afford. And yet... Somehow it was not done. + The day of the receipt of the very first letter was generous of such + opportunities and at each of them the letter was remembered... but not + drawn forth. Rosalie did not attempt to analyse why not. Her repression, + each time, of the suggestion that the letter should now be taken out and + read again was not a deliberate repression. She merely had a negative + impulse towards the action and accepted it; and so negligible was the + transaction in her record of her thoughts, so mere a cypher in the petty + cash of the day’s ledger, that in the evening when, gone up to bed, the + letter was at last drawn out and kissed and read and answered, and then + kissed and read again, no smallest feeling of remorse was suffered by her + to reflect that the intended reading in the dozen opportunities of the day + had not been done. + </p> + <p> + And yet... Was it, perhaps, this mere acceptance of a negative impulse, a + cloud no bigger than the size of a man’s hand upon the horizon of her + generous impulses? There is this to be admitted—that the letters, + accumulating, began to bulk inconveniently in her writing case. What a lot + dear mother wrote! Room might be made for them by removing or destroying + the letters from friends who had left the Sultana’s with her, but about + those letters there was a peculiar attraction; they were from other + emancipated One Onlys who watched with admiration the progress in her + wonderful adventure of brilliant, unconventional Rosalie, and it was nice + thus to be watched. Or room for her mother’s letters might be made by + removing or destroying letters that began to amass directly touching her + desire for employment—from city friends of Uncle Pyke, from Mr. + Simcox. But, no, unutterably precious those! Unutterably precious, too, of + course, those accumulating bundles of letters from her dear mother; but + precious on a different plane: they belonged to her heart; it was to her + head, to the voice in her that cried “Live your life—your life—yours!” + that these others belonged. + </p> + <p> + She was tingling to that voice one night, turning over the employment + letters; and, tingling, put her mother’s letters from her case to her box. + </p> + <p> + Yes, upon the horizon of her generous impulses perhaps the tiniest + possible cloud. And then perhaps enlarging. You see, she was so very full + of her intentions, of her prospects. She had read somewhere that the + perfect letter to one absent from home was a letter stuffed with home + gossip,—who had been seen and who was doing what, and what had been + had for dinner yesterday and whence obtained. But she did not subscribe to + that view. She was from home and her mother’s letters were minutest record + of the home life; but she began to skip those portions to read + “afterwards.” One day the usual letter was there at breakfast and she put + it away unopened so as to have “a really good, jolly read” of it + “afterwards.” In a little after that she got the habit of always, and for + the same reason (she told herself) keeping the letters till the evening. + One day she gave the slightest possible twitch of her brows at seeing the + very, very familiar handwriting. She had had a letter only the previous + day and two running was not expected: more than that, this previous letter + had slightly vexed her by its iteration of the longing to see her and by + very many closely written lines of various little troubles. She was a + little impatient at the idea of a further edition of it so soon. She + forgot to open it that night. She remembered it when she was in bed; but + she was in bed then... When, next day, she read the letter it was, again, + an iteration of the longing to see her and, again, more, much more, of the + little troubles: the residue was of the gossipy gossip that Rosalie + already had formed the habit of skipping till “afterwards.” Altogether a + vexatious letter. + </p> + <p> + After that, when the letters were frequent, it was frequent for Rosalie to + greet the sight of them with just the swiftest, tiniest little contraction + of her brows. Nothing at all really. Meaning virtually nothing and of + itself absolutely nothing. Possessing a significance only by contrast, as + a fine shade in silk or wool will not disclose a pronounced hue until + contrasted with another. The contrast here, to give the thing + significance, was between that swiftest, tiniest contraction of the brows + at the sight of her mother’s letters and the eager spring to them, the + quick snatching up, and the impulsive pressing to her lips when first + those letters began to come. Likewise answering them, that had been an + impulsive outpouring and brimming over, now was a very slightly laboured + squeezing. The pen, before, had flooded love upon the page. Now the pen + halted, paused, and had to think of expressions that would give pleasure. + </p> + <p> + The change did not happen at a blow. If it had, Rosalie would have noticed + it. It slipped imperceptibly from stage to stage and she did not notice + it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + There was a thing she said about men once (in the boarding house now) and + often repeated. “They’re very fond of saying women are cats,” she once + said. “Fools! It’s men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby cats, wild + cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren’t they just? And look at + them—tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats the sloppy + creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool creatures, + tomcats disgusting creatures, stray cats—on the whole the stray cats + are the least objectionable, they are bearable: at the right time and for + a short time.” + </p> + <p> + This characterisation of men as Rosalie, in sequent development of her + attitude towards men, had come to regard them was delivered to the girl + with whom (for cheapness) her room in the boarding house was shared. + Rosalie went from Aunt Belle’s to this boarding house to assert and to + achieve her greater independence. A man, Rosalie debated, would have gone + into bachelor rooms; but young women did not go into bachelor rooms in + those days and the singularity of Rosalie’s attitude towards life is + rather well presented in the fact that she never set herself against + conventions inhibitory of her sex merely because they were inhibitory of + her sex. When the years brought those violent scenes and emotions of what + has been called the suffragette campaign, Rosalie, who might have been + expected to be a militant of the militants, took no part nor even interest + in it whatever. She did not desire the privileges of men merely because + they were the privileges of men; she desired a status which happened to be + in the right of men and she went towards it without seeking to change the + established order of things, just as, from one field desiring a flower in + another field, she would have gone to fetch it without changing her dress. + </p> + <p> + A man, anxious for full independence, would have gone into bachelor rooms; + but young women did not go into bachelor rooms. They achieved their + independence perfectly well, and far more cheaply, by going into a + boarding house. She therefore, very excitedly, went into a boarding house. + </p> + <p> + There was no difficulty about leaving Aunt Belle’s. Once Rosalie was + established in business with Mr. Simcox, tied to business hours, and + earning a weekly salary, she no longer occupied in Aunt Belle’s house the + position of dependence which was in Aunt Belle’s house the first, and + indeed the only, qualification for all who occupied her house. Aunt + Belle’s guests had to be guests: wealthy guests who could be entertained + from early morning tea (beautifully served) to bedtime and made graciously + to admire; or if poor guests, and particularly poor relations, guests who + could be even more impressed and were naturally much more enthusiastically + delighted and profoundly admiring. Rosalie, in business, could not be + entertained and did not sufficiently admire. She had to have a special + early breakfast; she disappeared; she was not in to lunch or tea; she was + not sufficiently impressed by what cook had prepared but had rather too + much to say about what she had been doing, at dinner; and she excused + herself away to early bed on the ground of fatigue or of having certain + books to study. Rosalie, in business, was not a guest at all in Aunt + Belle’s sense of the word: indeed there came an occasion—Rosalie + twice in one week late for dinner—when Aunt Belle said awfully, “My + house is not a hotel, Rosalie. I cannot have my nice house turned into a + hotel.” + </p> + <p> + It was the nearest thing to an unkind word ever spoken by Aunt Belle to + Rosalie, and it was so near that it brought Aunt Belle up to Rosalie’s bed + that night—solicitude in a terrific dressing gown of crimson silk—to + express the hope that Rosalie was not crying (she was not; she had been + sound asleep) at anything Aunt Belle “might have said.” “But you see, dear + child, there are the servants to consider, all that delicious soup and all + that most tasty turbot au gratin to be kept warm for you, and there is + your kind Uncle Pyke to consider; men do not like their meals to be...” + </p> + <p> + The boarding house, which Rosalie, with qualms as to its reception by Aunt + Belle, had for some time been secretly meditating, came easily after that. + The boarding house had moreover for Aunt Belle a double attraction. It not + only removed Rosalie in her capacity of one threatening to turn Aunt + Belle’s nice house into a hotel; it also restored Rosalie in her capacity + of overwhelmed, grateful and admiring poor relation. Rosalie was now + invited from the boarding house just as previously she had been invited + from the Sultana’s; the table and the appointments of Aunt Belle’s house + were now lavishly displayed in contrast to the display and the table + endured by Rosalie at the boarding house; Aunt Belle was again supremely + happy in Rosalie and abundantly kind; dinner each Saturday night was a + standing invitation and frequently for these dinners Aunt Belle arranged + “a little dinner party for you, dear child, just one or two really nice + people that it is nice for you to meet and that you can tell your friends + at the boarding house about, dear child.” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Belle helped Rosalie to choose the boarding house and saw that it was + “nice.” Nice people went there and the proprietress, Miss Kentish, was + nice. Miss Kentish had a grey, detachable fringe which became, and + re-mained, semi-detached immediately after breakfast, and a mobile front + tooth which came out surprisingly far when she talked and went in with a + sharp click when she stopped. She had for newcomers a single + conversational sentence—“My name is Kentish, though funnily enough + we come from Sussex”—and, for all purposes, a single business + principle, that of willingness “to come to an arrangement.” “I am afraid I + cannot remedy your water not being hot at eight o’clock,” she would say to + a boarder, “but I will gladly come to an arrangement with you. Ten minutes + to eight or ten minutes past eight” (click). She would come to an + arrangement on anything. She became very fond of Rosalie in course of time + and once told her that though her duties never permitted her to attend + church she had “come to an arrangement” with the vicar and felt that she + had “come to an arrangement with Our Lord” (click). She came to an + arrangement with Rosalie in the matter of tariff, receiving her and a Miss + Salmon, who also sought arrangement, as “two friends as one.” This was two + persons sharing a room at the tariff of a person and a half. Living was + very cheap in those days. Rosalie, at the beginning, with Miss Salmon, + paid 18/6 a week, and out of the twenty-five shillings paid her, at first, + every Friday by Mr. Simcox there remained what seemed to Rosalie great + wealth. + </p> + <p> + She set herself to save on it and her first purpose in thus saving was to + accumulate money on which she could draw so as to be able to pay for a + room private to herself. That would have taken some time. Her successive + increases in her earnings, as Mr. Simcox’s hobby developed into a + business, brought privacy, and in time what amounted to luxury, by much + swifter process. Rosalie was a very long time at the boarding house. From + being two friends as one she passed to a small remote room of her own, + then to a larger and more accessible room, then to a bed-sitting-room, + finally to a very delightful arrangement. There was on the second floor a + fine roomy apartment having a dressing-room opening out of it. Rosalie, by + then in much favour with Miss Kentish, not only secured the suite but + “came to an arrangement” with Miss Kentish by which the furniture and + fittings were removed from the rooms and Rosalie permitted to fit, + decorate and furnish them herself. Rosalie never knew happier hours than + in the furnishing of those two rooms into a little kingdom of her own: she + never in all her life knew days as happy as the days there spent. + </p> + <p> + But at the beginning, two friends as one with Miss Salmon and first + contact with life from the angle presented by some twenty various + individuals met at meals and in the public rooms. Miss Salmon was a pale, + fussy creature with pince-nez in some mysterious way set so far from her + eyes that she always appeared to be running after them as if to keep them + balanced. Whenever anything of which she did not approve was being said to + Miss Salmon or was being done before Miss Salmon, she maintained + throughout it, moving about in pursuit of her pince-nez, a rather loud, + constant, tuneless humming. When her moment came she would always begin + “Well, now” and then swallow forcibly as though the swallowing gave her + pain. “Well, now” (gulp). This introduction was always precedent to speech + by Miss Salmon, whether after humming or not. Rosalie frequently went to + Sunday church service with her and there was an occasion in the Litany on + which Miss Salmon, who either had been wandering or sleeping, suddenly + came to herself at the correct moment and said: “Well, now”—(gulp)—“We + beseech thee to hear us, O Lord.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Salmon was employed as a daily nursery governess by a family resident + across the park who, not hav-ing room for her, had “come to an + arrangement” with Miss Kentish for her accommodation at the boarding + house; and with her fussiness, her nose pursuit, her humming and her + general ineptitude of habit and of thought, she was as it were a fated + companion for Rosalie; and it was the case that all the other inmates of + the boarding house were, in regard to Rosalie, equally and in the same + sense fated. Miss Salmon and they were fated, or fatal, to Rosalie, in the + sense that it would have been well then for Rosalie, as always well for + any developing young thing, to have been among companions who drew upon + her sympathies and called for her consideration. The contrary was here + presented to her. She was ripe to be intolerant for she was very full of + purpose and purpose is a motive power of much impatience. Miss Salmon, who + would have made a saint impatient, made Rosalie, who was not a saint, very + impatient and the virus of this impatience was that very soon Rosalie made + no attempt to conceal it. It seemed to Rosalie that whenever she projected + any plan to Miss Salmon—as to “do” a pit at a theatre—or any + theory—as that men and not women were manifestly the cat tribe—it + seemed to her that Miss Salmon always hummed with the maddening humming + denotive of disapproval, and always prefaced stupendously stubborn idiocy + with the “Well, now” and the gulp that alone were sufficient to drive + enthusiasm crazy. + </p> + <p> + “Mmmmm—mm. Mmm—mmmm—mm—mm,” would go Miss Salmon, + following her pince-nez up and down the little bedroom. And then, the + pince-nez poised, “Well, now” (gulp). + </p> + <p> + And Rosalie came to cry, “Oh, never mind. Never mind, for goodness’ sake. + I know exactly what you’re going to say so what is the good of saying it?” + Miss Salmon nevertheless would say it, in full measure, pressed down at + intervals in solid lumps with reiterated “Well, now” (gulp). And then + Rosalie would hum to show she was not listening and thus in time to the + position that Rosalie, beyond the ordinary changes of everyday + conversation, took not the slightest notice of Miss Salmon but busied + herself in their room, or came into it or went out of it, precisely as if + Miss Salmon, who with her gulps, her fussiness and her balancing was very + much there, was in fact not there at all. When Rosalie for the weekly + dinner at Aunt Belle’s used to dress in the evening frock of Laetitia’s + given her for the purpose by Aunt Belle, she used, at first, to say to + Miss Salmon, “There, how do I look, Gertrude? Can you see that mend in the + lace?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now—” (gulp). + </p> + <p> + Very soon she was dressing (at the common dressing table) with no more + regard for Miss Salmon or for the continuous humming of Miss Salmon + (signification of Miss Salmon’s disapproval of the monopolisation of the + dressing table) than if Miss Salmon had been an automaton wound up to + balance a pince-nez around the room, to hum, and at intervals to gulp. + </p> + <p> + This was a small thing, but it was an important small thing. Rosalie was + entirely insensible to the opinions and the existence of Miss Salmon, and + it followed that she became entirely insensible to the feelings of Miss + Salmon. To begin by ignoring a person with whom you are in daily contact + is certainly to end by not caring at all what happens to that person. It + was the misfortune of Miss Salmon to suffer periodically and acutely from + biliousness (which she called neuralgia). In an attack, she took instantly + to her bed and lay there flat on her back, absurdly and unnecessarily + poising her pince-nez, and looking, unquestionably, very unpleasant. + Rosalie,—who believed that Miss Salmon on these occasions had + overeaten herself, the attacks invariably coinciding with pork in winter + and with a fruit trifle known in the boarding house as “Kentish Delight” + in the summer, of both of which Miss Salmon was avowedly fond, was at + first warmly sympathetic and attentive on their occurrence, anointing the + fevered brows with eau-de-Cologne, nipping the unnecessary pince-nez off + the pallid nose, darkening the room, and stealing about on tiptoe. In time + her attitude came to be expressed by her reception of the sight of Miss + Salmon prone, stricken, yellow, pince-nez, poising. “What, again?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now——” (Gulp). + </p> + <p> + But Rosalie would be gone. + </p> + <p> + And it came to be the same with all the other fellow inmates of the + boarding house, alike the men and the women. Rosalie, in a colloquialism + of to-day not then coined, “had no use for them.” There was in none of + them anything that aroused her esteem; there was in each of them, in + degree greater or less, much that provoked her scorn. The result was as + resulted from Miss Salmon—she did not bother about them; and not + bothering about them she suffered an inhibition of her sympathies. To + repeat the thing said, her environment here was, as it were, fated or + fatal. In her eagerness for her career, her generous emotions were likely + to be laid aside and to wither; and the environment of the boarding house + in no way drew upon her sympathies. + </p> + <p> + This was not good for Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, the community of the boarding house served Rosalie ill on + another point. She came there with all those grotesque ideas of her + childhood on the respective positions of men and women precipitated + through her older years to the perception given to Keggo: women were this, + women were that; in their commonest characteristics they contrasted very + badly with men; men did things better than women; they had by far the + better lot in life than women; unquestionably men were the creatures; of + course—off-handedly—they were beasts. She came to the boarding + house with these ideas and the boarding house presented these ideas to her + in living fact and assured her in her ideas. She came there very + susceptible to the qualities she believed to be rooted with their sex in + men and women and she saw those qualities there at once. The boarding + house might have been all her ideas of women and of men taken away by an + artist and put into an exact picture. It was her words to Keggo in terms + of actual life. Its population, little varying, was always round about + twenty; the proportion in sex always in the region of fifteen women to + five men. The figures were always constant and the characters, when they + changed, seemed always to Rosalie to be constant; the names changed, the + personalities did not change. Even the faces did not change: there are + certain types of faces that either are produced by permanent residence in + boarding houses or that go instinctively to boarding houses for their + permanent residence. There is a boarding-house mould. There would always + be two husbands with wives and three men without wives. The men were never + spoken to by any of the women but with a certain archness which Rosalie + detested; and they never spoke to the women but with a certain + boisterousness, a kind of rubbing together of the hands and a “Ha! What + miserable weather, Mrs. Keeley. How does it suit you? Ha!” which Rosalie + equally detested. It was as though the women, leading boarding-house + lives, knew that the men (who were never in to lunch and sometimes absent + from dinner) did not lead boarding-house lives but secret, dashing and + mysterious lives; and as though the men knew that they lived secret, + dashing and mysterious lives but condescended to the women who lived only + boarding-house lives; and the archness on the one side and the + boisterousness on the other implied tribute and worthiness of tribute. + This implication Rosalie also detested. + </p> + <p> + Men—as she now saw men and women—she dismissed; generally as + “of course they’re beasts,” severally and in the groups to which they + belonged, as cats—of the cat tribe—tame cats, wild cats, + Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats. But she dismissed them. That was + her attitude, as it developed, towards men. They had been, in her regard, + owners of the earth, possessing and having dominion over the round world + and all that therein is, as a stage magician owns and dominates his stage; + they had next been wonderful things but apt to be troublesome and braggart + things whose braggadocio caused you to blink and have a funny feeling; + they had then been sinister and frightening things that caused poor Anna + to say it was hard for women; they became, at last, creatures that had the + best of life, that is to say the better time in life, not because they + merited it, but because it was theirs by tradition and they stepped into + it, or were put into it, as naturally as a man child is put into trousers; + and they had, when all was reckoned up, the better qualities—largeness, + tolerance, directness, explosiveness (as opposed to smouldering-ness)—not, + Rosalie thought, because they were males, but because they had the + position that males have, just as by the habit of command is given to + small boys in the Navy and very young men in the Army the air and the + poise of command. + </p> + <p> + Yes, certainly men were, as they had always been, the creatures; but the + eyes that formerly saw them as magicians, as by a savage is seen only the + mystery of the moving hands, the tick, and the strike of a clock, now + looked inside the case and saw the works. No mystery. No exclusiveness of + natural power. Nothing abnormal. Men, on their estimable qualities and + position, were what they were merely because, as the works of a watch, + thus and thus the wheels were made to go round. Easy. Nothing in it. On + the contrary. On the contrary, men were the more despicable in that, + dowered as by tradition they were dowered, they yet were—what they + were! The eyes that had been caused to blink by Robert blowing smoke + through his nose and by Harold pulling up his collar and speaking with a + “haw!” sound, blinked from a contempt yet more profound (because now known + for contempt) at the exhibition, seen all about her, of men’s unlovely + side. And she dismissed them. They did not attract her in the smallest + degree. All that they had in them to esteem, whether of qualities or of + position, they had—here was the parallel—in common with drones + in a hive. They had the best of everything; they were blundering, + blustering, noisy, careless, buccaneering owners of the world, and to her—as + all the roystering swarm to any individual worker bee—to her, + negligible. She was a worker bee, busy, purposeful. + </p> + <p> + There is a special function belonging to drones in a hive. That special + function of men in regard to women was repellant to Rosalie. All that + pertained to it was repulsive to her. She loathed to think of men in that + capacity and she loathed to see women ensnared in that regard by men. + Beautiful cousin Laetitia and the “good match” that obviously had been + found for her: she detested seeing those two together: it made her feel + sick. + </p> + <p> + Men! By this and by that in passage of time she was in contact with a good + number and a good variety of men. There was the frequently changing male + contribution to the boarding-house community; there were clients met in + the development of her work at Simcox’s; there were the men of the circle + of Uncle Pyke Pounce; there were the men of the circle of cousin Laetitia, + brought to the little Saturday-dinner parties. A very fair average, a + rather wider than the normal average of contact with men; and she + dismissed them. They had not any attraction for her at all. If, rarely, + she met one whose superficial points were superficially attractive, his + contribution to her attitude to men was to make her blink (inwardly) the + more, albeit on a different note. That one so exceptionally dowered should + find pleasure in, for instance, dalliance of sex! Contemptible! Oh, + sickening and contemptible! One Harry Occleve, of Laetitia’s circle, so + obviously “the good match,” was outstandingly such a case. It was thought + upon him, scornful and disgusted thought, that made her, walking back from + one of the Saturday-evening parties—he was always there—arrange + her experiences with men in that analogy between men and cats which, as + related, had been delivered to Miss Salmon. + </p> + <p> + Like a tame cat! She never had met a man she despised so much. You’d think + a man like that couldn’t help but be above such things as Cousin Laetitia + and Aunt Belle made of him. “Occleve.” The very name that he owned had a + nice sound; and he was brilliantly clever and looked brilliantly clever. + He was a barrister and Aunt Belle, who was forever talking about him, had + said that evening, just before his arrival, that some famous counsel had + declared of him that he was unquestionably the most brilliant of the young + men of the day at the Bar. So he was talented, had a great future before + him, had a strong, most taking presence, a commanding air, a voice of + uncommon charm—and was in bonds to Laetitia! Looked sickly at her! + Mouthed fatuous nothings with her! Was obviously marked down to be that + “good match” that Laetitia was to make, and was content, was eager, to be + the tame cat of her languishing glances and of Aunt Belle’s excessive + gushings! Was to be seen in a future not distant mated with Laetitia and + sharing with her an atmosphere of milk and silk and babies and kisses! + Tame cat! What an end to which to bring such qualities! What a desecration + of such qualities to set them to win such an end! Tame cat! + </p> + <p> + But they all were cats of one kind or another. Yes, men are of the cat + tribe! Tabby cats—the soft, fattish kind, without any manlike + qualities, that seemed to be by far the greater proportion of all the men + one saw about in buses and in the streets and met in business; tabby cats—sloppy, + old-womanish creatures. Cheshire cats—the kind that grinned out of + vacuous minds and that never could speak to a woman without grinning; the + unattached men at the boarding house invariably were of the Cheshire-cat + cats. Tomcats—the beastly ones with lecherous eyes that looked at + you. “Of course they’re beasts.” It had been a large experience of the + tomcat cats that had made her add that final summary of men to Keggo. The + Bashibazook, once or twice encountered in her last terms at the Sultana’s, + though never spoken with, had looked at her in a horrible way, not + understood, but felt to be frightening and horrible; Mr. Ponders, on a + dreadful occasion after handing over the medicine for Miss Keggs, had + horribly said, “Well, now, wouldn’t a kiss be nice? I think a nice kiss + would be very nice.” She had managed to get away without being touched; + the nausea in her eyes perhaps had frightened him. It was nausea she felt, + not fear, a horrible physical sickness; and finally to round off the “of + course they’re beasts” of men as then experienced and now to fill up the + schedule of tomcat cats the friends of Uncle Pyke Pounce’s circle and + Uncle Pyke Pounce himself and the men like the men of his circle—tomcats + something past their prime as lechers (but at a hint only more lecherous + for that) but in the full prime of their beastliness as guzzlers, who with + guzzle eyes eyed their food. She had come across a word in Carlyle’s + “French Revolution” that instantly brought Uncle Pyke Pounce and his + friends to her mind and that always thereafter she applied to the elderly + tomcat encountered or passed in the street—“atrabilious.” + Atrabilious! The very word! She looked it up in the dictionary, was + disappointed to find it did not mean exactly what she thought it meant, + but gave it her own meaning, and applied it to them. It sounded like them. + They had small beady eyes, set in yellow; no apparent eyelids either above + or below, just an unblinking eye set in a puffy face like a currant in a + slab of cold pudding that gloated or glared at everything and everybody as + if it was a thing to be devoured; guzzlers who gloated upon their food and + wallowed in their soup, always with little streaks of red veins and blue + veins in their faces. Atrabilious! Tomcats! + </p> + <p> + Wild cats—the roamers, the untamed ones, the ones with cruel and + with wicked faces that made you not sick, but frightened; mostly they were + dressed in rough clothes, men hanging about the streets who patently were + thieves or worse, who looked at you and at once looked all around as if to + see if any were about that might protect you; but often dressed in gentle + dress and then with the cruel and wicked look more cruel and more wicked, + to make your shudder to think of a woman having to belong to that. + </p> + <p> + Stray cats—on the whole the only really bearable ones; the lonely + ones that seemed to have lost something or to be lost, that seemed to need + looking after, that made you have a funny tender feeling towards them, a + wanting as it were to pick them up and carry them home and be sharp with + them because they couldn’t take care of themselves, and to be kind to them + also because they couldn’t take care of themselves; yes, the only bearable + ones: Mr. Simcox was precisely one. + </p> + <p> + All cats, of the cat tribe. There wasn’t one you couldn’t place. There + wasn’t one, save dear little Mr. Simcox and the stray cat ones you + sometimes saw, that was not in some trait contemptible. The only thing to + be said for them was that it was their nature. They were created like + that. You just shrugged your shoulders at them and let them go at that, + negligible entities. Active disgust was only felt of them when one of + their traits was manifested directly towards you; or, much more, when the + sight was given of such a one as this Harry Occleve making such an + exhibition of himself and enjoying it, delighting in it, asking nothing + better than to be philandering with Laetitia, or escorting Laetitia, or + gazing at Laetitia. That did make you angry enough with a man to hate a + man. It was like seeing a good book—as it might be “Lombard Street”—used + to prop a table leg; or a jolly dog—as the dearest Scotch terrier + once brought to the boarding house—led for a walk on a leash by an + old maiden mistress and wearing a lapdog’s flannel coat with ribbon bows + at the corner. Her aversion to Harry Occleve was such that, in their rare + passages together, she was almost openly rude to him. It seemed there was + even no physical quality he had but he used it to abase himself or to make + an exhibition of himself. He had noticeably long, strong-looking arms, but + the sickening thing to see him once using those arms to hold silk for + Laetitia while she wound it! He had a striking face that she named, from a + line in Browning, a “marching” face—“one who never turned his back + but marched breast forward”—but to see that face bent fatuously + towards Laetitia! There radiated from the corners of his eyes towards his + temples those little lines that sailors often have, “horizon tracks,” she + called them; but to see them deeply marked while he mouthed earnest + nothings with Laetitia! There was an odd, nice smell about him, of peat, + of tobacco, of soap, of heather with the wind across it, of things like + that most agreeably mixed, and actually she had heard Laetitia say to him + in the babyish way she spoke to him, “You smoke too much. You do.” And he, + like a moon calf: “Oh, you’re not going to ask me to give up smoking, are + you?” And she with a trailing eye and hint of a blush, “Perhaps I shall—some + day.” And he—a sigh! Positively a love-sick sigh straight out of a + novel! Ah, positively she could detest the man! She came to discover it as + an odd thing that, while commonly she was entirely indifferent to men, + always after a Saturday meeting with Laetitia’s Harry she had for quite a + day or two an active detestation of them. + </p> + <p> + But it was the women at the boarding house—to instance the boarding + house—the fifteen women, the immense, straggling army of women as + they looked to be, when they came trooping in to dinner or went trailing + out again, that had Rosalie’s sharpest observation and that best pointed + her youthful estimates. Unlike men who had fallen woefully from her + childhood estimate of them, the women maintained and intensified her early + estimate of women. The women in the boarding house showed Rosalie what + women come to. A few were emphatically old; the rest, with the single + exception of Miss Salmon, were emphatically not old; on the other hand + they were emphatically not young. They were at pains to let you see they + were not old and the pains they were at rather dreadfully (to Rosalie) + emphasised the fact that they were not young. The thing about them, the + warning, the proof that they exhibited of all Rosalie’s ideas about the + inferiority of women, was that they were, in her phrase, derelicts—not + wanted; abandoned; homeless; or they would not be here. Yes, derelict; and + what was worse, derelict not in the sense of desuetude of powers or of + powers outworn, but with the suggestion of never having had any powers, of + having been always the mere vessels of another’s powers—some man’s; + and now, with that power withdrawn—the man, whether father, brother, + lover or husband, gone—derelict as a ship, abandoned of crew, + rudderless and dismasted, is derelict; as an obscure habitation, cold of + hearth, crazy of walls, abandoned to decay, is derelict. She summed them + all up as having arrived at what they were precisely because in their + earlier years they had been what in her childhood she had supposed women + to be: inferior creatures at the disposal and for the benefit and service + of men. What a warning never to be that! There they were—manless. + And therefore derelict. And because derelict for such a reason, therefore + testimony to a social condition that was abominable, and because seen to + be abominable never, never herself should enfold. Never! Manless. + Husbandless. There they were, the straggling mob of them,—deserted + by husbands, semi-detached from husbands, relict of husbands fallen out + with a stitch in the side in the race for husbands. Urh! + </p> + <p> + She was very young, Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + “Despised and rejected of men,” she said to Miss Salmon, holding forth in + their bedroom on her subject. “That’s what I call them. Despised and + rejected of men. Oh, don’t hum louder than ever. It’s not irreverent to + say that. It describes a condition, that’s all, and I’m using it because + it describes this condition, their condition, exactly. It does. You can + hum; but it does. They’ve never done anything, they’ve never meant to do + anything, they’ve never tried to do anything except hang round after some + man. That’s all. They’ve either caught him and now lost him; or they’ve + missed him and now go on missing him. That’s their lives. That’s nearly + any woman’s life. It’s not going to be mine. If anything were wanted to + make the whole idea of marriage and all that repulsive to me—and + nothing is wanted—that would. Despised and rejected of men! I used + to think and to say I intended to be like a man and to do a man’s work and + have a man’s share. I tell you that even getting so close to a man as that—I + mean as close as intentional emulation of him—even getting as close + as that makes me feel sick now. It’s my own life I’m going to have, my own + place, my own share; not modelled on any one else’s. If it were + conceivable that I ever met a man I cared tuppence about—but it + isn’t conceivable; that’s a quality that’s been left clean out of me, + thank goodness—but if it were conceivable, what I’d offer would be + just to share; to go on living my own way and he his—Oh, your + humming! I mean after marriage, of course; I think this free-love business + they talk about is even more detestable than the lawful kind—just + animalism. That’s all I’d do. Me my life; he his life; meeting, as equals, + when it was convenient to meet. I’d like to bring all these poets and + people who write about love into our dining-room to see those people. + That’d teach them! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Man’s love is of his life a thing apart; + ‘Tis woman’s whole existence. +</pre> + <p> + What an existence!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, now—” (gulp). + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + “You have pretended to dislike and to despise men, but it was a pretence + to deceive me and you are a liar.” + </p> + <p> + This was the astounding opening of an astounding letter, pages and pages, + to Rosalie from Miss Salmon. Pages and pages, having the appearance, each + one, of a battlefield or of a riot: a welter of thick, black underscores + strewn about like coffins or like corpses, and a bristling pin-cushionful + (black pins) of notes of exclamation leaping about like war-dancing Zulus + or staggering about like drunken or like wounded men. A welter you had to + pick your way through with epithets rushing against you at every step like + units of a surging mob hounding and charging against an unfortunate + pedestrian caught in the trouble. + </p> + <p> + Miss Salmon had two months before introduced “a gentleman friend” to the + boarding house. He was a clerk in some big business firm. His name was + Upsmith and he bore upon a fattish face a troubled, beseeching look, + rather as though something internal and not to be mentioned was severely + incommoding him and might at any moment become acute. Miss Salmon called + him Boo, which Rosalie considered grotesque but not unsuitable, and it was + communicated to the boarding house that the twain were at a mysterious + point of affinity called, not an engagement, but an understanding. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie had by this time taken the second step in her upward progression + of comfort in the boarding house. She had moved into a separate room, + leaving Miss Salmon to become half of another two friends as one, and she + and Miss Salmon therefore saw much less of each other. But Rosalie still + sat at the same table as Miss Salmon at dinner and there Mr. Upsmith + joined them. + </p> + <p> + The thing may be hurried along to its astounding conclusion in the + astounding letter. It was not in itself an event of any sort of moment to + Rosalie. She was in no way outraged by being called a liar. There is no + hurt at all in being called a liar when you know you are not a liar. The + accusation has sting only if you are a liar; and indeed it is comforting + evidence of some inner self within us that only when we have ourselves + debased that inner self become we open to wounds from without. That + citadel is never taken by storm; only by treachery. No, the significance + of the astounding letter reposed in the fact that her reception of it + opened to Rosalie a glimpse of a quality rising beneath her to carry her + forward as a wave beneath a swimmer. It has been perceived in her but + Rosalie had not perceived it. + </p> + <p> + A great triumph and a great happiness swelled within Miss Salmon with the + arrival of Mr. Upsmith and with the circulation about the boarding house + that there was an understanding between herself and Mr. Upsmith. Her + humming took on a loud, defiant quality, as of triumph; she pursued her + pince-nez with a certain eagerness, as of confidence of balance and + certitude of capture. Her note and her air seemed to say that she was + Boo’s and Boo hers and she gloried in it with that exalted and yet + something fearful glory that is to be seen, pathetically, on the faces of + very plain young women, or of distinctly ageing young women, who have got + a Boo but for whom the Boos of this world are elusive to capture and + slippery to hold. The look is to be seen a dozen times on any Sunday + afternoon when the young couples are out. + </p> + <p> + At dinner time Miss Salmon would talk much to Boo in whispers and then + would look up and hum across at Rosalie in triumph, as of one that knew + things that Rosalie could not know and that had a thing that Rosalie did + not possess. Mr. Upsmith looked also much at Rosalie, in no triumph, but + in an apparent great excess of his unfortunate complaint. He stared, + troubled and beseeching, at her at meals, and he stared, troubled and + beseeching, at her when he encountered her away from meals. The longer he + sojourned in the boarding house the more troubled and beseeching, when + Rosalie happened to notice him, did his fattish countenance appear to + become. That was all. There scarcely ever was exchanged between them even + the courtesies customary between dwellers beneath the same roof; they + never, that Rosalie could remember, were a minute alone together and yet + on a day in an August, Miss Salmon a week away on a month at the seaside + with the family to which she was nursery governess, Rosalie was being told + in the violent opening sentence of one letter that she had pretended to + despise and dislike men but had only done it to deceive Miss Salmon and + was a liar; and in the impassioned sentences of another which had been + enclosed and had fallen and to which bewildered she stooped and then read, + that the heart of Boo was at her feet (“your proud, sweet little feet that + I would kiss in my adorance”) that he had adored her ever since he had + first set eyes on her, that he treasured “like pearls before swine” every + encouragement she had given him from her divine eyes and from her proud + little lips, that he had had no sleep for a fortnight and felt he would go + mad unless he wrote these few lines (nine pages), that he earned “good + money,” and that he was, in conclusion, to which Rosalie amazedly skipped, + “ever and ever and imperishably always her imperishably adoring Boo.” + </p> + <p> + Two days previously Rosalie had received, but not read, another slightly + mysterious letter. It had been in her receptacle in the letter rack in the + hall, addressed to her in an unfamiliar writing and deposited by hand, not + through the post. It had begun “Dear Miss Salmon, re our friendship I have + to inform you—” Rosalie had turned to the end, “B. Upsmith.” She had + replaced it in its envelope, written upon the envelope, “This is evidently + for you, but addressed to me, as you see—R.” and had placed it in + another stamped wrapper to be forwarded by Miss Kentish. She had only + thought of it as in funny style for a love letter, proper no doubt to the + niceties of an “understanding.” And what had happened was that the vile, + egregious, and infamous Boo, writing to break off one understanding and + establish another, had placed them in the wrong envelopes. The outpourings + of his bursting heart to Rosalie had been received by Miss Salmon; the + information “re our friendship” had gone to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Of itself, as has been said, the whole incident was nothing at all in the + life of Rosalie. It came with the crash, but only startling and quite + harmless crash, of an unexpected clap of thunder, and it passed as + completely and as passively, doing no damage, leaving no mark. Miss Salmon + never returned to the boarding house; the vile, egregious and infamous Boo + haply incisively informed by Miss Salmon of what he had done, + incontinently, and without speech to Rosalie, fled from the boarding + house. They were gone, they were nothing to Rosalie; the correspondence + was destroyed, it was nothing to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + But the significance of the matter was here. There was in Miss Salmon’s + letter to Rosalie one paragraph that Rosalie read a second time. She had + received the letter when coming in just before dinner. Not at all injured + nor in any way discommoded by the hurtling epithets, the terrific + underscores intended to be as bludgeons, or the leaping exclamatory notes + set there for stabs, she had put the thing away in a drawer and gone down + to her meal. The passage alluded to came more than once into her mind. + When she was about to get into bed that night she destroyed the letter, + first reading that paragraph, and only that, again. Sole in the violent + welter of those sheets it had no underscores nor any exclamations. It was + added as a postscript. It said: + </p> + <p> + “Well, now; Boo and I met the first time in a crowd watching a horse that + had fallen down. It kicked and I stepped back quickly and trod on his + foot. It made him put his hands on my arms and I looked around to + apologise and there was his dear face smiling at me, although in great + pain, for I had trodden on a corn he has; and I knew at once it was the + face I had looked for and longed for all my life and had found at last; + and I loved him from the first and we went out of the crowd and talked. + Well, now; I clung to him in all our happy, happy months together, in a + way you can never understand, because I loved him, and because I am not + the sort that men like because I am only plain, and I knew that if ever he + left me I could never get another. Well, now; you have taken him away from + me. You could get dozens and dozens of men to love you, but you have taken + mine, and I never, never can get another.” + </p> + <p> + The thoughts of Rosalie, not sequent, but going about and amounting + thusly, were thus: “That is very pathetic. That is horribly sad and + pathetic. Coming at the end like that and without any strokes and + flourishes, it is as if she was exhausted of her hate and rage and just + put out an utterly tired hand and set this here like a sigh. That’s + pathetic, the mere look of it and that thought of it. And then what she + says. The dreadfully simple naivete of the beginning of it. Staring at a + fallen horse in the street. It’s just where they would be, both of them. + They’d stand there for hours and just stare and stare. And then she steps + back on his foot and there’s ‘his dear face’ smiling at her; ah, it’s + pathetic, it’s poignant! I can see it absolutely. Yes, I can. As if I were + in the crowd around the horse, watching them. There they are, the horse + between us, and all the doltish, staring faces round about; and their two + dull and stupid faces; and as their eyes meet that sudden look upon their + foolish faces, as of irradiation out of heaven, that would make a clown’s + face beautiful and cause the hardest heart to twist. But it doesn’t cause + mine to twist. That’s the odd thing. I remember perfectly when a thing + like that would have given me a little blinky kind of feeling. I’ve always + been awfully quick to notice things like that. I’ve often seen them. Quite + recently, so little, I believe, as a year ago, things like that, things + like this, would have moved me a lot. They somehow do not now. That + frightful ending of hers: ‘You could get dozens and dozens of men to love + you, but you have taken mine and I can never, never get another.’ That is + most terribly pathetic. I think that is the most poignant thing I have + ever heard. Well, I can realise its utter pathos; I can realise it but I + cannot feel it. It does not move me. ‘And I never, never can get another.’ + It’s frightful. I could cry. But I do not a bit want to cry. I must have + somehow changed. I am not a bit sorry if I have changed. I would be sorry + to go back and be as, if I have changed, I must have been—sentimental. + I have changed. I believe I can look back and see it. About the time I + left the Sultana’s, mother’s letters, and keeping them and answering them, + began to be—yes they did begin to be a little, tiny bit of a + nuisance to me. Yes, it was beginning then, this. And I expect earlier, if + I worked it out. There’s nothing in it to regret. It’s just a growing out + of a thing. It’s not, when I see a thing that’s pathetic, that I’ve grown + blunt or blind and can’t see it for pathetic. It’s just—I know what + it is—it’s just that it doesn’t appeal to me in the same way. It’s + like seeing a dish of most tempting food in front of you, not that I ever + remember my mouth, as they say, watering at anything; but say strawberries + and cream—I’m fond of strawberries and cream—it’s like seeing + a dish of strawberries and cream in front of you, and knowing it’s good + and knowing it’s delicious, and knowing you’re awfully fond of it—and + just not being hungry; turning away and leaving it there, not because it’s + not everything that it ought to be, but just because—you don’t want + it. I should say that’s how it is with me about these—these pathetic + things. I know they’re pathetic. I don’t want them.” + </p> + <p> + That is how it was, how it had become, with Rosalie. That was just her + first recognition of it, as the swimmer, intent on his own making of his + progression, recognises not, till he has been borne some distance by it, + the current that also is carrying him along. + </p> + <p> + Visits home to the Rectory were further manifestations to her of this + arising symptom. + </p> + <p> + There were appeals that should have arisen to her out of her home; and + they did arise; and she recognised them; but they did not appeal to her—not + in the old way. She went home very rarely for occasional week-ends, always + for her annual holidays, always for Christmas; and the discovery she made + was that she liked her home very much better when she was away from it + than when she was in it. When a visit was in prospect she desired her + home, that is to say her mother, most frightfully. But when the visit was + in being the joy she had promised herself she would spread somehow was not + at her command; the love she had yearned to show somehow was chilled + within her and not forthcoming. It was the tempting dish in a new + illustration—rushing eagerly to it, avid of its delights; coming to + it and finding, after all, one was not hungry. + </p> + <p> + Strange! + </p> + <p> + Her mother was ageing rapidly. She could have wept to see the ageing + signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not moved; received the + impression but was not sensitive to it; felt the tug but did not respond + to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be a little impatient. Returned to + London and to her engrossing work and longed to be back with her mother; + came back to her mother—and was not hungry. + </p> + <p> + Strange! + </p> + <p> + Then she began to analyse the strangeness of it and found it was not, + after all, so strange; at least it was not a thing to be distressed about, + nor bearing conviction of unnatural qualities, of hardness, of unkindness. + There was a line she knew that came in a verse: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, + The earth, and every common thing + To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream. + It is not now as it hath been of yore. + Turn wheresoe’er I may + By night or day, + The things which I have seen I now can see no more. +</pre> + <p> + “The things which I have seen I now can see no more.” That was the line. + “The things which used to appeal to me now appeal no more—or rather + not quite in the same way. I think I used to be very sentimental. It is + stupid and useless to be sentimental. People must grow old. There’s + nothing sad in that. It is natural. It is life. It is life and one must + accept life. The unnatural thing, the foolish and wrong thing, is to + remain a sentimental child for ever, with a child’s ready foolish tears at + what are common, necessary facts of life. I can be much kinder, much more + really kind, by seeing things clearly—and in their right perspective + than by occluding them with false compassions. I am always my dear, my + darling mother’s devoted daughter, ever at her disposal, and she knows it + and loves me for it. When I am to her or to any friend but as ships that + pass in the night—Keggo’s phrase—then let me take myself to + task.” + </p> + <p> + Keggo’s phrase! Keggo was being intermittently seen at this time and these + thoughts of Rosalie’s were very close to the occasion when finally she + lost sight of Keggo. It could be said like this—that Keggo here made + a contribution to Rosalie’s life that passed Rosalie on her way. + </p> + <p> + They had kept touch for quite a time after their separation as governess + and pupil. They then lost touch. + </p> + <p> + “Why, it must be more than a year!” cried Rosalie, suddenly encountering + Miss Keggs near the Marble Arch one evening and delightedly greeting her. + It was in the summer and Rosalie had gone out from the boarding house + after dinner for some fresh air in the park. She was enormously glad to + see Keggo again and carried her greeting straight on into excuses for her + share in their long sundering. “More than a year! You know, the fact is, + Keggo, that when I first left the Sultana’s, and for quite a time + afterwards, I used to gush. I did! I was so frightfully full of all I was + doing and it was all so new and so wonderful and I was so excited about it + that it was sheer letting off steam—gush—to write you reams + and reams of letters about it as I used to do. Then it got normal and the—the + tumultuousness of it wore off and I was just—I am, you know—just + absolutely absorbed in it and there was no more steam to let off; all the + energy went into the work, I suppose. So gradually, I suppose, without + quite realising it, I gave up writing. But, oh, if you knew how glad I am + to see you now!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs to all this presented only a fixed smile. A smile belongs much + more to the eyes than to the lips. The lips, but not the eyes, can + counterfeit a smile. False coin is “uttered” as they say in law; and the + lips utter. Not so the eyes. All metal that the mouth issues is to be + tested there. The expression in Miss Keggs’s eyes was not at all in + consonance with that of her mouth. The expression of her eyes was rather + oddly vacant as you may see on the face of a person who is apparently + attending to what you are saying but really is listening to another + conversation in the same room. “Not listening” as it is called. “An absent + look” as they say. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless she joined dove-tailed response to Rosalie’s words. “To tell + you the truth,” said Miss Keggs, speaking very slowly and repeating the + preamble. “To tell you the truth I wouldn’t have received your letters if + you had written them.” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn’t? Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “To tell you the truth—” there had been a pause before she first + spoke; a pause again before this reply and then again a beginning with + this phrase about which there was nothing odd in itself but something odd + in the manner of its use by Miss Keggs. “To tell you the truth, I’ve left + the school.” + </p> + <p> + “Left the Sultana’s!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Keggs nodded with slow inclinations, like grave bows, of her head. + </p> + <p> + “Whatever for? Keggo, when, why?” And then Rosalie, impelled by some + apprehension that suddenly pressed her, put a quick hand on Keggo’s arm + and cried sharply, “Keggo! There is something very strange about you. What + has happened to you? Something has happened. You can’t keep it from me.” + </p> + <p> + But Keggo could. At that quick gesture of suspicion of Rosalie’s, + animation sprung to meet it as a cat, at a sudden start, will leap from + profound slumber to a place of safety and to arched defence. Miss Keggs, + in their first exchanges, might have been as one drowsily answering + questions from a bed. She was suddenly, in her instant casting away of her + absent air, as that one flinging away the bedclothes and leaping upright + to the floor. What had she been saying? She had been quite lost in + something she was thinking of when Rosalie came up. She scarcely had + recollected her. She had been very, very ill with “this influenza” and + still was only convalescent. Why, how very, very glad she was to see her + dear Rosalie again! And how Rosalie had developed! + </p> + <p> + “Why, Rosalie, you are beautiful! You are! And you don’t blush or simper + to hear it! Yes, you are beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + There was a little room in a street somewhere off the Harrow Road that + Miss Keggs now occupied. It was a forbidding street. It was one of those + derelict streets frequent in certain quarters of London, in Holloway, in + Kentish Town, in Kilburn and all over South London, all about which life + teems and roars but where, along their own pavements, no life is. They are + most characteristic of themselves, these streets, when, as often to be + seen, there is no soul along them but a sad drab that is an itinerant + singer that drifts along wailing, at every few paces shuffling her body in + complete turns to scan the windows she has passed and the immediate + windows on either hand. She has no home and these are not homes to which + she wails. There is no flicker of life at any window. She’s a sad drab, + repulsive within; and they are sad drabs, not nice within. At night, but + not before dusk, forlorn things flicker in and out of them like drab + ghosts had on the strings of a puppet show. By day there sometimes is an + old man crawling in or crawling out; sometimes a woman, always with a + parcel or a net bag, fleeting along, expressionless. The high houses, all + of one pattern, appear to have no pattern. They are like dead walls and + the place they enclose like a vault, and the itinerant drab like a thing + in drab cerements (they trail the dust) that ought to be dead wailing for + entrance to things, tombed in those walls, that are dead. There is no life + at all in these streets. There is nothing active or positive. There is + just passivity and negation. There is just nothingness. They are not + habitations, which connote life; they are repositories, which connote + desuetude. They are the repositories of creatures, not that have done with + life, for the sheer fact of living acknowledges service to life, but with + whom life has done. + </p> + <p> + These came to be Rosalie’s thoughts of this street—Limpen Street—but + they could not have been hers when she was first going there to spend + evenings with Miss Keggs, for it was in her earlier visits there to Keggo + that she cried there. When she could cry for pure compassion for another + she was still too—too ardent for Limpen Street to be seen as it has + been presented. From the first it affected her disagreeably but she would + have felt, then, a sympathy for its state, and a belief that it could be + aroused out of its state, and a wish so to arouse it; and in her earlier + visits she had ardently this sympathy, but it was raised to a profound + compassion; this belief, but it was a conviction; and this wish, but it + was a resolution, in regard to Keggo. + </p> + <p> + For Keggo was drinking. + </p> + <p> + Keggo had been drinking for years and years and now Keggo had walled + herself away in Limpen Street to drink and drink, still secretly with the + sharp cunning of the secret drinker, but now with cunning only necessary + when of her own wish she met the world. At the Sultana’s, (only Mr. + Ponders in her secret, and in her pay; “that vile man” as, after the + revelation, she always spoke of him to Rosalie) at the Sultana’s and in + all her life of that period she was, as it were, as one whose life is + threatened, dwelling among spies; that breastplate of her cunning never + could be laid off then; now, as one threatened, but secure in a castle, + the breastplate only was needed when sallies forth were made. There was at + the Sultana’s the need of constant care to inhibit her cravings; there now + was none to save her—unless Rosalie did. + </p> + <p> + There is no need at all to tell all this and all that by which Rosalie was + led to this most terrible discovery and Keggo impelled to her most painful + revelation. There was deceit and its exposure; lies and their crumpling in + the hand; mystifications and their sinister interpretations; contingencies + and their ugly dissolutions. These would be all beastly to tell. Beastly + is a vile word but this is a vile thing. There was about it all, all the + time, a tainted and unwholesome atmosphere. There was always in the little + room in Limpen Street that strange disagreeable smell of bad + eau-de-Cologne that always had hung about the little room at the + Sultana’s. + </p> + <p> + Beastly things.... + </p> + <p> + But they were not felt to be beastly by Rosalie, then. They are said here + to be beastly, for they were beastly, only in excuse for Rosalie + afterwards. They only were to her, then, intensely sad, most deeply + pitiful, intensely increasing of her love for Keggo as pure love is + increased by seeing its object in tortures that may not be helped because + they will not be confessed. If only Keggo would tell her! Once or twice + she said to Keggo, speaking with an entreaty that must have made obvious + to Keggo her knowledge, “Keggo, haven’t you something to tell me; + something that you’d like to tell me?” The occasion was always when she + was leaving after a visit that had found Keggo very unwell, very dejected + of spirits, and that Keggo had at last terminated by saying, “I think + perhaps you had better go, Rosalie. I think perhaps I’d be better lying + down.” But Keggo’s answer always was, “Something to tell you? No, nothing + at all! What should I have to tell you?” + </p> + <p> + And then one day something said brought them very near to the matter + between them. Miss Keggs came nearer yet. She said, “The fact is, Rosalie, + I sometimes get so I simply cannot make an effort, the smallest effort. I + believe when I’m like that if a thousand pounds were offered me for the + going out and asking of it, and God knows I want it badly enough, I simply + could not make the effort to do it. I’d simply let it pass and know that I + was letting it pass and not care. That’s how it’s got with me, how it is + sometimes with me, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said with extraordinary emphasis, leaning forward on the chair in + which she sat facing Keggo. “Why is it, Keggo?” + </p> + <p> + If Keggo had answered, the thing would not have happened. Keggo did not + answer. She was sitting with her hands crossed, one palm upon the other, + and resting on her lap, her eyes to the ground. Quite a long time passed. + Rosalie said, “You’re drinking, aren’t you, Keggo?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, drinking, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Keggo!” + </p> + <p> + It was then that Rosalie cried. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + Sne cried. Her sympathies, though drying and slower now to be aroused, + still then were such that she could weep for pity. It is a glimpse of her + not to be seen again. There was she on her knees by Keggo, and with her + arms about Keggo’s waist, and with her head on Keggo’s lap, crying for + Keggo; and in the pauses of Keggo’s unfolding of her story entreating her, + as one that cried responses to a litany, “Don’t mind, Keggo! Keggo, don’t + mind now! Dear Keggo, poor Keggo, it’s all right now.” + </p> + <p> + And presently all the tale told: what Mr. Ponders’ medicine was; and all + the humiliation suffered in keeping in with “that vile man”; and that vile + man’s betrayal of her to the Sultana, and her dismissal; and all the + earlier dreadfulness of her first steps down into her dreadful malady; and + all the dreadful secrecy of all those years; and all the horrible + humiliation secretly to get her poison; and all the horrible humiliations + when her poison got. All the dark tale of that presently told; and her + head bowed down to Rosalie’s, and Rosalie’s wet face against her face, and + her face also wet; and just her murmurs, murmured at intervals, as though + her heart that had discharged its grievous load ran slowly now, slowly to + rise and then to well with, “God bless you, Rosalie; oh, Rosalie, God + bless you”; and for a long time just seated thus, cheek to cheek, hand to + hand, heart to heart; weakness bound about with strength, sorrow in pity’s + arms, travail in sanctuary.... + </p> + <p> + It is desired that one should try to see that picture. Its counterpart was + not again in the life of Rosalie, hardening. + </p> + <p> + There were, after that, such happy evenings in Keggo’s room. Keggo, with + one to help her, fighting for herself; Rosalie, with one to help, elevated + upon that high happiness that comes with fighting for another. For a short + time there seemed to be no lapses in Keggo’s struggle. When they came (as + Rosalie knew afterwards) the practised cunning of years of secrecy had no + difficulty in concealing them from the unsuspecting eyes of Rosalie. Ill + that it was so! Rosalie was harder when came the lapse that cunning could + not hide. She did not cry. Her eyes were hard. She said with thin lips, + “Why, even all this time you have been deceiving me!” the which egged on, + in that vile way in which exchanges of a quarrel are as knives sharpening + one against the other, Keggo’s enflamed retort, “The more fool you! Little + fool!” + </p> + <p> + But at first, while the lapses were few and the cunning was equal to them, + only a closer friendship was set afoot between the woman that was grown + and the woman that was burgeoning, and there were such very happy evenings + in the room in Limpen Street. Such jolly talks. + </p> + <p> + There was one talk that, forgotten with the very evening of its passage, + afterwards very strongly returned to Rosalie and abode with her. It had in + it rather vital things for Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + She loved to talk about her work with intelligent and sympathetic Keggo, + and she had been on this occasion expounding to her the mysteries and + interest of life insurance: in particular explaining the “romance” of + vital statistics; in particular, again, the curious fact that, though + women in the United Kingdom largely outnumbered men, many more male + children were born than female. The disproportion “the other way about” in + maturity, said Rosalie, was because the death rate among men was much + higher—due to risks of their occupations. “A certain number of house + painters,” said Rosalie sagely, “fall off ladders every year and are + killed; women don’t paint houses, so they don’t fall off ladders and get + killed. Similarly on railways, Keggo. The death rate among railway men is + much higher in proportion, over an average, than the rate in any other + occupation. Porters doing shunting, for instance, are always getting + killed. Well, women don’t shunt trains so they don’t get killed while + shunting trains, so there you are again, so to speak. The thing in a + nutshell, Keggo, is that, by contrast, men lead dangerous lives.” + </p> + <p> + Keggo, who always was very alert in response, was here very long in + responding. Then she responded an extraordinary thing that Rosalie + afterwards remembered. She said slowly, “Oh, but Rosalie, it’s very + dangerous to be a woman.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie questioned her. + </p> + <p> + Keggo said, “Rosalie, you’ve great ideas, and I think very shrewd and very + striking ideas, about the difference between men and women, but there’s + this difference I think you haven’t thought of—the danger that women + carry in themselves; right in them, here”—she had a hand against her + breast and she pressed it there—“born in them, inerradicable, and + that men have not. Men go into dangers but they come out of them and go + home to tea. That’s what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always get out. + They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, body and soul and + heart and mind. Rosalie, women do. That’s their danger. That’s why it is + so very, very dangerous being a woman. Women can’t come back. They can’t, + Rosalie. Look at me. They take to a thing and it becomes a craze, it + becomes an obsession, it becomes a drug. Look at me. They take to a thing—anything; + a poison like mine, or a pursuit like some one else’s, or an idea like + some other’s, or a—a career in life like, like yours, Rosalie,—they + take to it and go deep enough, and they’re its; they never will get away + from it, they never, never will be able to come out of it. Never.” + </p> + <p> + She was extraordinarily vehement. It was embarrassing for Rosalie. Rosalie + desired to contest, as vehemently, these theories. She did not believe + them a bit. They were founded, she felt, on the tragedy of Keggo’s own + case. Keggo was unfairly, though very naturally, arguing from the + particular to the general, from the personal to the abstract. But how + could she reply to Keggo, “Of course you say that?” + </p> + <p> + She was silent; but she betrayed perhaps her thoughts in a gesture, her + difficulty in some expression of her face. + </p> + <p> + Keggo said very intensely, “But, Rosalie, if you only knew! With me it’s + drink and you’ll say—. But I say to you, Rosalie, never, never let + anything get the mastery of you. With me it’s drink and you’ll say that is + a matter altogether different, with which parallels are not to be drawn. + Oh, do not believe it, Rosalie. A woman should in all things be + desperately temperate—watchfully, desperately temperate. A man—nearly + every man—seems somehow to have his life and all his interests in + compartments. He can be immersed in one while he is in it, and can get out + of it and distribute himself over his others and close it and forget it. + Rosalie, a woman can’t. Men have hobbies. They don’t have attachments; + they have detachments. They detach themselves and turn to a thing and they + detach themselves from it and turn back again. Rosalie, women don’t turn + to a thing; they go to it. They don’t have hobbies, they have obsessions. + They don’t trifle, they plunge. They cannot sip, they drain. It’s in their + bone. They never would have occupied the place they do occupy if it were + not that from the beginning they have given themselves over, or they were + given over, to mastery. They are the weaker vessel. Rosalie, I tell you + this, when a woman gives herself, forgets moderation and gives herself to + anything, she is its captive for ever. She may think she can come back, + but she can’t come back. For a woman there is no comeback. They don’t + issue return tickets to women. For women there is only departure; there is + no return.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said, “Keggo, I think I could argue, but I won’t. But what I can’t + imagine is the application of it in hundreds of cases—in by far the + great majority of cases. Take mine. You’re not warning me, are you? I + don’t see the possibility—” + </p> + <p> + Keggo said, “Darling, I’m not warning you and yet I am. I am warning you + because you are a woman; and because you are a woman you are susceptible + to danger. It’s what I’ve said; it’s what I would have you remember for a + day perhaps to come, that it is dangerous being a woman. I’m not warning + you, because there’s nothing to—well, but isn’t there? You’ve got a + theory of life and you are bent upon a career in life. There’s—” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie cried, “Well, but there you are, Keggo. No comeback, no return + tickets—well, I don’t want to come back; I don’t want a return + ticket.” + </p> + <p> + “You might. You never know. Suppose you ever did?” + </p> + <p> + “But you can’t suppose it. Why ever should I?” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose you wanted to marry?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie laughed. The thing immediately lost reality. “Well, suppose the + incredible. Suppose I did. There’d be no comeback wanted there. I could + perfectly well marry and still keep my theory of life; I could perfectly + well marry and still keep on in my career—and most certainly I would + still keep on. Why, that is my theory of life, as you call it, or a very + outstanding principle of it. There’s nothing to me more detestable in the + whole business than the idea that because a woman marries she therefore + must give up her work. That’s what is the reason the boarding house and + every boarding house and every home and street and city swarms with + derelicts—with derelict women—just because their lives are all + planned as blind alley occupations, marriage at the end of the alley, no + need to do anything, no need to be anything because it’s only a blind + alley you’re in. When you reach the end—you reach the end! That’s + it, Keggo. You reach the end. You’re a woman, therefore for you—the + end!” + </p> + <p> + She laughed again. She was returning Keggo’s vehemence without + embarrassment upon the subject that had made return difficult. She cried, + “I’ve got you now, Keggo. I really have. You say they don’t issue return + tickets to women. No. Perhaps they don’t; but I’ll tell you where they + book them all to—from the cradle to a terminus.” + </p> + <p> + Keggo smiled and would have spoken. But Rosalie was pleased with her + adroit turning of metaphors. She repeated “To a terminus. Well, I’ve + booked beyond, Keggo.” She laughed again. “And then the idea of marriage + for me! I’ve granted the preposterous just for the sake of the argument + and just to floor the argument. But you know, you know perfectly well from + all our talks, even so far back as at the Sultana’s, that it’s simply too + grotesque! Marriage, for me! Why, if a million men came to me on their + bended knees, each with a million pounds on their backs you know perfectly + well that I’d just feel sick. Tame cats, tabby cats, tomcats, Cheshire + cats, wild cats, stray cats,—I’m not going to set up a cats’ home. + No thanks.” + </p> + <p> + So Rosalie had the laugh of that evening. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + But this was not to continue. Keggo began to lapse; Rosalie began to weary + of helping Keggo. She had herself to think of. Those who go down in life, + whether by age or by misfortune, are prone, engulfed, to cry to those + ascending, “You could help me!” There is a correct answer to this. It is, + “I have done (or I do) a great deal for you. I cannot do more. It is not + fair to ask me to do more. I have a duty to myself. I have myself to think + of.” Our generation endorses this. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie had herself to think of. By stages that need not be detailed, they + are the common facts of life, the thing passes from that picture of those + two with Rosalie’s strong young arms about the other to a new picture, the + last, between them. + </p> + <p> + The stages show Rosalie’s enormous, ardent plans for the rescue and + rehabilitation of Keggo, and they show the projection and the failure of + the plans. They show work found for Keggo (through Simcox’s scholastic + side) and lost and found again and again lost and still again. They show + Keggo’s remorse and they show Rosalie’s forgiveness. They show it repeated + and repeated. They show by degrees the gradual, and then the rapid, + staling of Rosalie’s fond sympathies. They show her finally, immersed in + her own purposeful interests, discovering to herself feelings in regard to + Keggo on a plane with feelings discovered to herself in regard to her + mother. It has been written: “Her mother was ageing rapidly. Rosalie could + have wept to see the ageing signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; + was not moved; received the impression but was not sensitive to it; felt + the tug but did not respond to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be a + little impatient.” It is not necessary to expand. Keggo was fast going + downhill. Rosalie could have wept to see the downhill signs; but somehow, + seeing them, did not weep; was not moved... rather, indeed... impatient. + She had herself to think of. + </p> + <p> + Youth’s an excuse for youth as childhood’s an excuse for childishness. + Youth, still, like childhood, but unlike maturity, can be lost in its + emotions, absorbed in them to the exclusion of all else, abandoned to them + with all else pitched away as a swimmer discards his every stitch and + joyously plunges in the stream. Youth is not accountable for its actions + then: it is too happy or it is too sad. One oughtn’t to blame youth, + immersed. + </p> + <p> + There was outstandingly one such day of absorption in delight, of + abandonment to ecstasy for Rosalie, and it was the day on which she made + her third advance in the social grade of Miss Kentish’s boarding house and + moved into the two rooms en suite, furnished and decorated by herself to + her own taste. She awoke to this great day, long anticipated; and with the + vigorous action of throwing off the clothes and jumping out of bed, she + plunged into it and was lost in it. The excitement and the elation of + taking possession of that enchanting, that significant apartment of her + own! She was excited; she was elated. Moving in was the cumulative + excitement of all the long-drawn, anxious excitements of peering round the + antique dealers and picking up the bits of furniture and of placing them + and moving them a shade to this side and then a shade to that till was + found the one and only exact position that suited them and that they + suited; and the terrible excitements of watching the decorators at work, + her scheme developing beneath their hands, and the awful knowledge that + now it was being done it was done for good or bad—no altering it + now!—and the agonizing excitements of putting down the carpets—how + can you tell exactly how a carpet is going to look until you see it + actually down upon its floor and between its walls?—and the + increasing excitement all the time of the knowledge that everything was + harmonising and was looking just as in dreams of the ideal it had been + made to look; and now all ready! The bed-sitting-room slept in last night + for the last time; the two utterly perfect rooms and all that their + possession connoted, to be occupied that evening for the first time! Yes, + in all the tumultuous pride and engrossment of that, there was no place—how + could there be place?—for tiresome things of other people’s worlds, + if such should offer. + </p> + <p> + And in this tremendous day there was stuff more tremendous yet. This also + was the day on whose evening was made the tremendous tribute to her work + and to her talent, the evening of the dazzling offer that, like a door + swung open on a treasure house, disclosed to her new fields to which her + career had brought her, new triumphs that her career, in its stride, might + make her own—the evening when Mr. Sturgiss of Field’s Bank leant + across the dinner table in his house (at his request only she and himself + left in the room) and said in his quiet voice, “Well, look here—to + come to the point—the reason I’ve got you up here to-night—it’s + this: we want you, Field and Company, the Bank, we want you to join us. We + want you in Lombard Street.” + </p> + <p> + Lombard Street! + </p> + <p> + Cumulative also was this thrill, for it had begun some few days previously + when Mr. Sturgiss, calling at Simcox’s for a chat with Mr. Simcox, an old + friend, had come into her room and after mysteriously fidgetting with + business and conversational trifles, had issued the invitation to dinner + at his house at Cricklewood in language mysteriously couched. “My wife + would like to meet you,” said Mr. Sturgiss. “She’s heard a lot from me, + and from Field, of what an astonishingly clever young person we think you + and she’d—she’d like to meet you. And more than that.” Mr. + Sturgiss’s halting speech suddenly became direct and definitive like a + flag that had been fluttering suddenly streaming upon the breeze. “And + more than that. The fact is, there’s a proposition I want to put up to + you. A proposition. We could go into it quietly and discuss it. I rather + think it would interest you. I’m sure it will. You’ll come? Good. I’m very + glad. Very glad.” + </p> + <p> + A proposition! From Mr. Sturgiss! Of Field and Company! What could it be? + </p> + <p> + But Rosalie was not of the sort to tread the succeeding days on the + enchanted air of fond surmises. She told herself that the mysterious + proposition might be everything or might be nothing: the fact that + outstood was that she had brought her aspirations to this—that a + partner in a London bank recognised in her stuff sufficient to invite her + to a confidential meeting, there to go into something with her “quietly + together,” to meet together over something and “discuss it.” She had + determined to establish herself and she was establishing herself. And was + it not an omen propitious and significant that this recognition of her + parts was to fall on the very day on which the exercise of those parts + brought her into the dignity and comfort of that delicious, that + significant apartment of her own? + </p> + <p> + This solid stuff, and no mere daydreams, was the delight absorbing her and + the ecstasy to which she was abandoned when that great day came. In the + morning she put the last of her possessions, the equipment of her dressing + table, into the new apartment; after the day spent at Simcox’s, she + returned to dress for the first time before the noble cheval glass + purchased for the bedroom. She decided to go up in a hat; it could be + removed or not for dinner as Mrs. Sturgiss might seem to indicate. She put + on an evening bodice of black silk and net with a simple skirt in keeping. + She gave last approving glances about the delightful rooms and set out, + immersed in eager happiness, for Cricklewood. + </p> + <p> + One of those old red buses that vied with the white Putney buses as being + the best horsed on the London routes took her there. Up the Edgware Road; + past the junction with the Harrow Road that led to Keggo’s street—she + only had for it the thought that it was weeks since she had seen Keggo, + almost months; along broad Maida Vale and past the turning that led to the + Sultana’s with the corner where often the crocodile had huddled—and + she was so engrossed in her happy achievements that she passed it without + thinking of it. The bus terminated its journey at the foot of Shoot Up + Hill. Rosalie, called upon to alight, came out of her thoughts into her + surroundings. She realised that she must have passed Crocodile Corner + without noticing and the realisation caused her to give a little note of + amused indifference. The indifference was not directed precisely at the + Sultana’s; it was at the idea, which came to her, that, normally to human + predilections, she ought to have given—ought now to give—a + sentimental thought to memories of the Sultana years. Well, she did not. + Funny! Yes, it was funny. As she sometimes thought of her mother and of + all her home ties; of Miss Salmon and that cry of hers of never being able + to find another lover; of Keggo now so seldom seen and known to be going + from bad to worse,—so with memories of Crocodile Corner and the + Sultana’s, she could see and appreciate the call of all these attachments, + but somehow, seeing and appreciating, did not respond to them. What a very + curious attitude! It was not unfeeling for she could feel. It was not + insensibility for she was sensitive to such things. Sensitive! No, a + better word than that. She was in such matters sensible. She saw, as one + should see, these things in their right perspective. They were touching + (as of her mother) or they were sad (as of Keggo) or they were appealing + (as the happy schoolgirl memories) but they must not touch or sadden or + appeal too closely. They must be estimated in their degree and in their + place; they must not be assumed, be shouldered, be permitted to cumber. No + good could be done to them by encumbrance with them. That was the point. + What good could it do them? No good. Yes, that was sensible. + </p> + <p> + She abated, in these thoughts, nothing of the eagerness with which she was + living this great day—the day whose points of suspension (on which + it tumultuously revolved) were the taking over of the significant + apartment from which she had just come and the entering upon the + significant invitation to which now her feet were taking her. These + thoughts, this analysis of her attitude to sentimental appeals, she tossed + upon her eager happiness that was her being as an airball tossed upon + laughing breath that yet is used, breathing, to support life. And she was + aware that this was so. And she enjoyed a flash of approval of herself + that it could be so; it was admirable, it was sensible, thus to be able to + detach and look upon a portion of her mind while her main mind deflected + not a shade from its occupation with the main chance. That faculty was + perhaps the secret of her success, the quality, that, in exercise, had + brought her to the significant apartment and to the significant + invitation. + </p> + <p> + She was at the gate of Mr. Sturgiss’s house and she most happily passed up + the short drive, ascended the steps and rang the bell. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sturgiss’s house was almost on the summit of Shoot Up Hill. It was one + of those houses standing a few miles along the main thoroughfares out of + London that, now in decay or displaced by busy shops, packed villas, or + monstrous flats, were then the distinctly impressive residences of + distinctly well-to-do business people. Mr. Sturgiss was a distinctly + well-to-do business person. The house, double-fronted, had that third + sitting-room which confers such an immense superiority over houses of but + two sitting-rooms—“Such a convenience in so many ways” as those + newly promoted from two to three nowadays remark with languid triumph to + visitors still immured in two. Houses—new, two sitting-roomed houses—extended + beyond it and around it, and now stretch miles beyond and about, but Mrs. + Sturgiss told Rosalie that when they first came there they actually had + cows grazing and horses ploughing in fields adjoining their garden. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sturgiss told Rosalie this while personally attending Rosalie’s + removal of her hat (it was “no hat”; Rosalie felt so glad she had come + dressed for either indication) and Mrs. Sturgiss sighed pleasantly as she + said it. “Things are going ahead at such a pace now!” said Mrs. Sturgiss. + “It’s all very different from what it used to be. Why, the very fact of + your coming here, not as my guest but as my husband’s, ‘on business!’ The + idea of women being in business, or even knowing anything about business, + when I was a girl, why, I can’t tell you how, how positively shocking it + would have been considered.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie laughed. She liked Mrs. Sturgiss, who was motherly and seemed to + have her own dear mother’s gentle ways—this personally attending her + in her bedroom, for instance. “Oh, there are getting to be heaps of women + in business now, Mrs. Sturgiss,” she smiled. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sturgiss returned brightly, “Oh, I know it. I know it well.” She + paused and her voice had a thoughtful note. “But even then.... Use the + long mirror, my dear; the light is better. Even then, there can be few as,—as + much in it as you. You know, my husband has an immense idea of your + abilities. He has spoken of you so much. Do you know, you are a great + surprise to me, now I see you. I could only imagine from all John’s idea + of you a rather terrible looking blue-stocking, as we used to call the + clever women.” She came and stood by Rosalie, regarding the image in the + glass that Rosalie regarded. She said simply, “But you are beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + A very odd feeling, akin to tears—but for what on earth tears?—quickened + in Rosalie. She turned sharply from the mirror. “I am quite ready now.” + She pretended she had not heard. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sturgiss said, “My dear, do you like it, being what you are?” + </p> + <p> + It was a great rescue for Rosalie to be able to spring away from that odd + feeling (in her bosom and in her throat) by swift animation. “Oh, I love + it. I simply love it. It is everything to me, everything in the world!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sturgiss opened the door. “No, you go first, my dear. But if I had + had a dear girl, such as you, I would have wished her to stay with me at + home.” + </p> + <p> + She had made with her hand the gesture of her wish that Rosalie should + precede her from the room. Rosalie impulsively touched the extended + fingers. “But, Mrs. Sturgiss, don’t you see, that’s just it, the idea + there is now. If you had had a daughter and she had stayed at home—well, + let that go, while you were with her. But when you died and left her, what + would there be—don’t you see it?—what would there be for her + then?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Sturgiss pressed the warm young hand. “But I would have left her + married, a dear wife and a dear mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that!” cried Rosalie and her stronger personality carried off the + exchanges in a laugh. Mrs. Sturgiss thought the expression and the tone + meant, happily, that marriage might happen to any one, in the market as + much as in the home. Rosalie, with all the fierce contempt that her “Oh, + that!” conveyed to her secret self, was ridden strongly away from + emotionalism in the conversation. Her thought as they went downstairs was, + “If I were to instruct her in the cat-men! Her horror!” + </p> + <p> + There was downstairs a surprise that was very annoying, but that was made + to produce compensations. An unexpected fourth person, presuming—so + Rosalie was given to understand—on a long standing, indefinite + invitation, had dropped in to dinner. She recognised him directly they + entered the drawing-room and could not stop the emblem of a swift vexation + about her mouth and in her eyes. He caught it, she was sure; and she hoped + he did. It was Harry Occleve—Laetitia’s futile slave! He had already + informed his host that he knew her. She greeted him with a mere touch of + her hand, a touch made cold by intent, and with “With a free evening off + one would have expected you would spend it with Laetitia,” said + disdainfully. It was a rude and inept thing to say (in the tone she said + it) for the feeble creature, as she stigmatised him, had not yet screwed + his fatuous idolatry to the point of proposal of marriage. But she + intended it to be rude and to discomfort him and she was glad to see some + twinge at the flick pass across his face. She hated his presence there. + The presence of any man, in the capacity of a monkey to entertain and to + be entertained, was always, not to put too fine a point upon it, repulsive + to her. This man was of all men obnoxious to her. When he approached her + for their brief greeting (she turned instantly away at its conclusion) she + savoured immediately that odd, nice smell there was about him, of mingled + soap and peat and fresh tobacco smoke and tweed; and that annoyed her. It + was a reminder, emanated from him and therefore not to be escaped, of a + distinction he had different from, and above common men. She always + granted him his distinction of looks, of air, of talent. It was why she so + much disdained him. To be dowered so well and so fatuously to betray his + dowry! Tame cat! + </p> + <p> + But she made him, through the meal, pay compensations for his presence. At + the table of Aunt Belle, in his presence she was accustomed to sit largely + silent. Beautiful Laetitia was there the star; and while he mouthed and + languished in that star’s rays Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke, (stealing about + him to capture him as a farmer and his wife with mincing steps and + tempting morsel towards a fatted calf) fawned, flattered and deferred to + him, he returning it. There was no place for her, and she would have + shuddered to have held a place, in that society for mutual admiration. She + sat apart. She was very much the poor relation (Aunt Belle could not + comprehend her business success and Uncle Pyke would not admit it) and + especially odious to her was the Occleve’s polite interest in her + direction when Aunt Belle, poor-relationing her, would turn to her from + coquettish raillery of him with, “Dear child, you’re eating nothing.” He + would smile towards her and, fatuously anxious to please, offer some + remark that might draw her into the conversation. She never would be so + drawn. She scarcely ever exchanged words with him. She made herself to be + unconscious of his presence. He was so occupied with his adoration of + Laetitia that to be insensible of his presence was easy. When sometimes + she glanced towards him it was with the thought, “Fancy being one of the + rising young men at the Bar, being the rising young man—the Bar, + with silk and ermine and, why not? the Woolsack before you—and being + that, doing that! Fatted calf; dilly, dilly, come and be killed, goose; + tame cat!” + </p> + <p> + Here, at the table of Mr. Sturgiss, it was very different. Intolerable + that he should be here, but she was able to make him provide her + compensation for his presumption. For the first time in her life, she + found herself with sufficient interest in a man to enjoy, nay, to seek, a + triumph over him. And she had that triumph. She was as certain as that she + sat there that Mr. Sturgiss, in the period before her arrival in the + drawing-room, had been telling him of her abilities and of his high regard + for her. There was an interest in his look at her across the table that + assured her he had been informed. There was, much more, a conviction + within her, from Mr. Sturgiss’s manner and from his choice of subjects—confined + almost entirely and to the absolute exclusion of Mrs. Sturgiss to the + political situation and to markets, exchanges and the general tendency in + the City—and particularly from the openings in these subjects with + which continuously he presented her—a conviction arising out of + these that Mr. Sturgiss, proud of her, of his discovery of her, was bent + upon showing her off to his second guest, bent upon proving to his second + guest what unquestionably he had said to him about her. + </p> + <p> + She most admirably responded. If she were indeed the subject of a + challenge she most admirably flattered her backer. She is not to be + imagined as a pundit excavating from within herself slabs of profound + wisdom, nor yet as a pupil astoundingly instructing her masters, nor even + as one of Mrs. Sturgiss’s blue stockings, packed with surprising lore. + Rosalie was nothing so foolishly impossible, but she displayed herself + knowledgeable. She was profoundly interested in the matters under notice + and therefore (for it follows) she was interesting in her contributions to + them; she was fascinated—the old fascination of “Lombard Street” and + of “The English Constitution” now intensified as desire intensifies by + gratification—and therefore she fascinated; she was never silly—Rosalie + could not be silly—but she was frequently in her remarks ingenuous, + but her ingenuousness, causing Mr. Sturgiss more than once to laugh + delightedly (Occleve, curiously grave, no doubt because surprised, did not + laugh) was born out of a shrewd touch towards the heart of the matter, as + the best schoolboy howlers are never the work of the dullard but of him + that has perceptions. Of her in her childhood it has been said that she + was never the wonder-child of fiction who at ten has read all that its + author probably had not read at thirty. So now of her budding maturity she + was not the wonder-woman of fiction, causing by her brilliance her + hearers, like Cortez’s men, to stare at each other with a wild surmise. + No, nothing so unlikely. But she was intelligent and she was ardent; and + there are not boundaries to the distance one may go with that equipment. + She was admirable and she felt that she was effective. She had a + consciousness of confidence amounting almost to a feeling of being tuned + up and now let go; to a feeling of power, as of inspiration. And this + strange animation that she had, came, she knew, from the triumph over that + man, from the feeling, stated grimly, that she was giving him one. + </p> + <p> + It is much more important, all that, than, when it came, the great reason + of the great invitation that had brought Rosalie to take part in it. The + great reason already has been disclosed—Mr. Sturgiss, bending across + the tablecloth, they two left alone, “Well, look here—to come to the + point—the reason why I’ve got you up here tonight—it’s this: + we want you—Field and Company, the Bank,—we want you to come + to us—we want you in Lombard Street.” + </p> + <p> + She was beautiful to see in her proud happiness at that. Startled and + tremulous, she was; like some lovely fawn burst from thicket and at + breathless poise upon the crest of unsuspected pastures; within her eyes + the cloud of dreams passing like veils upon the gleam of her first + ecstasy; upon her face, shadowed as she sinks somewhat back, the tide of + colour (her rosy joy) flooding above her sudden pallor; her lips slightly + parted; her hand that had been plucking at the cloth caught to her bosom + where her heart had leapt. + </p> + <p> + It may be left at that. It is enough; too much. What, in the + reconstruction of a life, are, in retrospect, its triumphs but empty + shards, drained and discarded, the litter of a picnic party that has fed + and passed along? + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sturgiss bent farther across the tablecloth, expanding his proposal: + She knew, said he, what he represented, what the firm was. Field and + Company. A private bank. Well, the days of private banks were drawing in. + These huge joint-stock leviathans swallowing them up like pike among the + troutlings. But not swallowing up Field and Company! Not much! If the old + private houses were tumbling into the joint-stock maw, the greater the + chances for those that stood out and remained. The private banks were + tumbling in because they stood rooted in the old, solid, stolid banking + business and the leviathans came along and pounced while they dozed. There + was no dozing at Field’s. They were very much awake. They were + enterprising. + </p> + <p> + “Look at this very matter between us. The idea of bringing a woman into a + bank! Even old Field himself was startled at first. Why? In America, women + are entering banking seriously and successfully. They’re going to in + England. At Field’s. You.” He wasn’t proposing to bring her in for fun or + for a chance that might turn up, like the man who picked up a dog biscuit + from the road on the chance that some one would give him a dog before it + got mildewed; no, he was bringing her in to develop an enterprise that + should be the parent of other and greater enterprises. Her knowledge of + insurance, her knowledge of schools, these, with her sex, on the one side + of the counter and all their clients—the Anglo-Indian crowd who were + the backbone of the business—on the other side of the counter. + Field’s, for cash, and, while it was drawing, for advice, was always the + first port of call of the wives and the mothers home from India, to say + nothing of the husbands and the fathers,—“well, Field’s, you, shall + be the fount of all that domestic advice that is just what all those + people, cut off from home, are constantly and distractingly in need of.” + She didn’t suppose, as it was, that Field’s did no more, for them than + bank their money? Field’s were their agents. Field’s saw that they booked + their passages, and that their baggage got aboard; and when they arrived + this end or the other, or when they broke their journeys coming or going, + Field’s representatives were there to meet them and take over all their + baggage troubles for them. “Very well. Now Field’s—you—are + going to look after their domestic troubles for them—find them + rooms, find them houses, find them schools for their children. When people + know what we can do for them, people will come to us to bank with us + because we can do it. When people come to us to bank with us—we go + ahead.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sturgiss ended and drew back and looked at her. He lit a cigarette and + took a sip at his coffee. “We thought of offering you three—” he set + down his cup and looked at her again—“four hundred a year.” + </p> + <p> + She declined the post. She was girlish, and delighted him, in her + expression of her enormous sense of the compliment he paid her; she was a + woman of uncommon purposefulness, and increased his admiration for her by + the directness and decision with which uncompromisingly she said him no. + She owed a loyalty which she could never fully pay to Simcox’s, to Mr. + Simcox; that was the beginning and the end of her refusal. Simcox’s was + her own, her idea, her child that daily she saw growing and that daily + absorbed her more: that was the material that filled in and stiffened out + the joints of her refusal. “But if you knew how proud I am, Mr. Sturgiss! + You don’t mind my refusing?” + </p> + <p> + He laughed and rose to take her to the drawing-room. “I don’t mind a bit. + This is only what they call preliminary overtures. I shall ask you again. + We mean to have you.” + </p> + <p> + Between the two rooms he said, “Yes, mean to. It’s a big thing. I’m + certain of it. We shall keep it open for you. We shan’t fill it.” He put + his hand on the drawing-room door and opened it. “We can’t.” + </p> + <p> + She went in radiant. + </p> + <p> + She was on the red bus again, going home. She had stayed but the briefest + time after dinner. She was too elevated, too buoyant, too possessed + possibly to remain in company; excitedly desirous to be alone with her + excited thoughts,—especially to be alone with them in that + significant apartment of hers. Significant! Why upon the very day of + entering it had come this most triumphant sign of its significance! + Significant!... + </p> + <p> + She had a front seat on the outside of the omnibus. She gazed before her + along a path of night that the lamps jewelled in chains of gold, and + streamed along it her tumultuous thoughts, terrible as an army with + banners. It was very strange, and it vexed her, robbing her of her proud + consciousness of them, that there obtruded among them, as one plucking at + her skirt—as captain of them she rode before them—the figure + of Laetitia’s Harry. Similarly he had obtruded and been like to spoil the + pleasure of her visit; but he had been made to provide compensations and + he obtruded now only in rebirth of a passage with him that, rehearsed + again, much pleased her even while, annoyed, she cut him down. + </p> + <p> + Taking her leave, she had been seen from the threshold by Mr. Sturgiss and + by Laetitia’s Harry. It was pitchy dark, emerging from the brightness of + the interior, and he had stepped with her to conduct her to the gate. “It + was an extraordinary coincidence, meeting you here,” he had said. + </p> + <p> + She did not reply. His voice was most strangely grave for an observation + so trite; he might have been speaking some deeply meditated thing, + profound, heavy with meaning, charged with fate. Fatuous! It was + extraordinary that there was not an action of his but aroused her + animosity. This vibrant gravity of tone—an organ used for a jig, + just as his gifts were used for his Laetitia moon-calfings—caused + newly a disturbance within her against him. She would have liked to + whistle or in some equal way to express indifference to his presence. + </p> + <p> + They were at the gate and he stooped to the latch and appeared to have + some trouble with it. “Sturgiss has been telling me what a wonderful + person you are.” + </p> + <p> + Again that immense gravity of tone. She was astonished at the sudden surge + of her animosity that it caused within her. She had desired to express + indifference. She desired now to assail. She made a sneer of her voice. “I + should have thought you had ears for the wonder of no one but Laetitia.” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you say that?” + </p> + <p> + She felt her lip curl with her malevolence. “To see you raise your eyes + and hear you breathe ‘Ah, Laetitia!’” + </p> + <p> + He opened the gate and she passed out, tingling. + </p> + <p> + It astounded her to find herself a hundred yards gone from the house, nay, + now upon the bus a mile and more away, recalling it, trembling and with + her breath quickened. It was as if she had been engaged in a contest of + wills, very fierce; nay, in a contest physical, a wrestling. She had not + known, she told herself, that it was possible to hate so. That man! These + men! She put her eye upon the bus driver, strapped on his perch so near to + her that she could have touched him, and absurdly in her repugnance of his + sex hated him and shrank farther away from him. + </p> + <p> + It was enormously, sickeningly real to her, her repugnance. Even on + detached consideration of her ridiculous shrinking from the bus driver she + could not have laughed at it. People who had an uncontrollable antipathy + to cats did not laugh at the grotesque puerilities to which it carried + them. Nor she at her antipathy. “Of course they’re beasts.” Yes, the right + word! It was the beastliness of sex that bottomed her loathing. + </p> + <p> + She could not have laughed; but she could and did with a conscious + intention of her will put that intruder on her animation finally out of + her mind. This very joyous uplifting of her spirit, was it not because, in + this world dominated by men, based for its fundamental principle upon play + of sex as commerce is based upon the principle of barter, she was assured + of position, of privilege, and of power that raised her independent of + such conventions and such laws? + </p> + <p> + She was her own! All her proud joys, her glad imaginings, her delighted + hopes, arose amain and anew, tuned to this cumulative paean as a nourish + of trumpets at the climax of a proclamation. She was intoxicated on her + happiness. + </p> + <p> + They were come to the lighted shops and the crowded pavements. The bus + drew up at the thronged corner adjacent to the divigation of the Harrow + Road and she leaned over and watched the scene, smilingly (for sheer + happiness) looking down upon it, as smilingly (for her triumphant + altitude) she felt that she looked down upon the world. She would not have + changed place with any life living or that could be lived; she was so much + abandoned to her happiness that she made the intention she would sit up in + her significant apartment all that night, not to lose a moment of it. She + grudged that even sleep upon her happiness should intrude. + </p> + <p> + There came one in the traffic beneath her that caught her attention: a + woman whom people stood aside to let pass and turned to look upon with + grins; two or three urchins danced about the woman, pointing at her and + calling at her. Her dress was disordered, muddy all up one side as if she + had fallen; her face flushed; her hat awry; her hair escaped and wisped + about her eyes and on her shoulders. She was drunk. An obscene and + horrible spectacle, the mock of her beholders. A horrible woman. + </p> + <p> + It was Keggo. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie caught her breath. She made to rise but did not rise. Keggo + stopped and lifted all around a vacant gaze. Her eyes met Rosalie’s + straight above her. She lurched a step and stopped and swayed and looked + again, battling perhaps with hints within her fumy brain of recognition. + Rosalie made again to rise to go to her and again did not rise. The bus + moved forward. That wretched woman, making as if to pursue her aroused + be-fuddlement, turned about to follow and came a few steps, lurching like + a ship that foundered. The light blazed down upon her upturned face. She + lurched into some shadow and, as wreckage swallowed up in the trough of + the sea, her face was gone. + </p> + <p> + Lurching... as a ship... that foundered. There was in Rosalie’s mind some + dim memory struggling. Lurching... as a ship... in the darkness... in the + night. And her face... seen and gone... as a ship... labouring... as a + ship... + </p> + <p> + Ah! + </p> + <p> + Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing; Only a + signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness. + </p> + <p> + It came to Rosalie complete and word for word; and with perfect clearness, + as though she saw and sensed them, all its attendant circumstances: the + attic room at the Sultana’s, the strange smell mingled with the smell of + the oil lamp, Keggo in the wicker chair, she beside her, her head against + Keggo’s knee; and Keggo’s voice reciting the lines and her young, + protesting, loving cry, “O Keggo!” + </p> + <p> + She saw it, sensed it, heard it—and stonily regarded it. A thing to + weep at, she knew it; but did not weep. A thing to stab her, it ought to; + but did not stab. What good could she do? Suppose she had got up and gone + down; suppose she now got up and went down and went back? What good? All + sentimentality that. Be sensible! If a thousand pounds would do Keggo any + good, and if she had a thousand pounds, freely and gladly she would give + the last penny of it. But to get down, to have got down, what could she + have done? Why should she worry about her? Keggo had had her chance. + Everybody had their chance. She now had hers. Why should she... + </p> + <p> + She never saw Keggo again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + She had not good health in the week immediately following that great day. + She did not feel well. She did not look very well. Mr. Simcox, profoundly + sympathetic to every mood of her who was at once his protege and his + support, told her he thought she had been overdoing it. She seized upon + that excuse and tried to persuade herself that perhaps she had; or, which + amounted to the same thing, that she was suffering from the revulsion of + those huge excitements. But she did not persuade herself. Her malaise, + whatever it was, was not of that kind. Its manifestations were not in + lassitude or sense of disability. They were in a curious dis-ease whose + occasion was not to be defined; in a consuming restlessness beneath whose + goad even the significant apartment had not power to charm and hold her; + in a certain feverishness whose exsiccative heat, leaving her palms and + temples cool (she sometimes felt them and had surprise) caused inwardly a + dry burning that made her long for quiet places. + </p> + <p> + She could not settle to anything. Her limbs, and they had their way, + desired not to rest; her mind, and it deposed her captaincy, would cast no + anchor. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simcox, as the week drew on, suggested a weekend at home. It had + occurred to her, very attractively, but she had negatived it. Aunt Belle + (before the idea had come to her) had written an invitation to one of the + Saturday dinners in which she had “most particularly, my dear child” + desired her presence. Something most delightful was going to happen and + she must be there. She had accepted and she later told herself she did not + like to refuse. She knew, instantly as she read, what was the identity of + this delightful thing that was to happen and she decided, with a sharp + turn within her of some emotion, that certainly she would be there. To + whet her scorn! She was thereafter much aggravated that her drifting mind, + against her wish, swayed constantly towards it sometimes with that same + sharp turn of that same emotion (nameless to her and without meaning) + always with aggravation of her restlessness, of her fever, of her + dis-ease. When came Mr. Simcox’s suggestion of the week-end at home she + decided, as swiftly as she had first accepted, to revoke her acceptance. + She would not be there! She would not—waste her scorn! + </p> + <p> + Impatient for movement, she that evening went to the splendid house in + Pilchester Square to tell her withdrawal. This most exasperating dis-ease + of hers! Now that she was come to change her mind she did not want to + change her mind. It was like going to the dentist with an aching tooth. On + his doorstep the tooth does not ache. Her governance of herself was by her + malaise so shaken that positively, as she came into Aunt Belle’s presence, + she did not know whether she was going to withdraw or to confirm her + acceptance of the invitation. + </p> + <p> + Most comfortingly, Aunt Belle saved her the decision. “My dear child! How + unexpected! How opportune! I was just writing to you. Our little dinner is + put off! Sit here while I tell you. Now would you like anything, dear + child? A piece of cake? Some nice fruit? To please me. Really, no? Well, + now; our dinner that I so especially wanted you for—did you guess?” + </p> + <p> + She began to tell. + </p> + <p> + She told what Rosalie had perfectly well known. The delightful thing + expected to happen was Harry Occleve’s proposal of marriage to darling + Laetitia. There had been certain signs and portents. They had come at + last. Their meaning was perfectly clear. There was not the least doubt + that at the next meeting Harry would ask Laetitia’s hand. Not the shadow + of a doubt! Aunt Belle knew all the signs! Every woman of Aunt Belle’s + experience knew them, dear child. So Harry had been asked for this dinner; + a meaningly written letter, dear child, to encourage him, the dear, poor + fellow! And had accepted, in terms so meaning too, the dear, devoted + fellow. Then— + </p> + <p> + “But, Aunt Belle—” + </p> + <p> + “Listen, dear child. Then he suddenly wrote saying he found he had made a + mistake—” + </p> + <p> + “Made a mistake!” The words went out from Rosalie in a small cry. + </p> + <p> + “Dear child, it is nothing. How sweet to be so concerned! It is nothing, + it is the best of signs. Made a mistake that he was disengaged for + Saturday. The dear, devoted fellow was so absurdly vague about it. + Unavoidable circumstances prevented him; that was all; his writing and all + the appearance of his letter so delightfully distracted! How amused we + were, your Uncle Pyke and I! How amused, and how we felt for the dear, + devoted fellow! Screwing up his courage! How we remembered our own + courtship! You should hear your Uncle Pyke tell how he had to screw up his + courage to propose to me and how many times it failed him and he fled. + Dear, child, you’ve no idea how ridiculous these poor men are in their + love! How timorous! How they suffer! The dear, poor fellows. Your Uncle + Pyke wrote him at once a most kind and meaning letter—accepting his + unforeseen circumstances (he had to, of course) and positively fixing him + for Monday instead. ‘Laetitia is expecting you,’ your Uncle Pyke wrote. + The dear fellow! How happy it will make him! So it is Monday, dear child. + Monday, instead. We do so want you to be there. I do so want you, and so + does my darling, to be the first to congratulate her. And you shall be a + bridesmaid! Won’t that be nice? Kiss me, dear child. I shall never forget + your sweet concern before I told you his excuse meant nothing. Dear child, + you look startled yet.” + </p> + <p> + There was only a faint voice that came to Rosalie’s lips. “Really nothing, + Aunt Belle?” + </p> + <p> + “Dear child, nothing at all.” + </p> + <p> + She went down to the Rectory on Saturday and found herself more glad to be + there and to be with her mother than she had ever been. When she greeted + her mother, “Kiss me again, dear, small mother,” she cried and put her + cheek against her mother’s and held it there some moments, rather fiercely + and with her eyes closed, as though there were in that contact some + febrifuge that abated her inward fever, some mooring whereto, adrift, her + mind made fast. + </p> + <p> + What beset her? What was the matter with her? What worked within her? + Feverishly she inquired of herself, seeking to analyse her case; but she + could by no means inform herself; her case was not within what diagnosis + she could summon. What? Near as she could get she had the feeling, nay, + the wild longing, to get out: out of what? She did not know. To get away: + away from what? She could not say. + </p> + <p> + She found in herself a great and an unusual tenderness towards the home + life. Only her mother and her father were now at home. Harold was at a + branch of his bank in Shanghai. Robert was in Canada. Flora was in India, + married, with two small children. Hilda was in Devonshire, married to a + doctor. These things had happened, these flights been winged, and she had + taken but the smallest interest in them. She had had her own af-fairs. She + had had herself to think of. She had lost touch with her brothers and + sisters. She scarcely ever thought about them. Now she wanted very much to + hear about them. What news of them was there? How were they getting on? + She did want—she could fix that much of her state, or it presented a + relief for her state—she did want to feel that she belonged to them + and they to her. She noticed with a large whelming of pity how very small + her mother seemed to have grown She was always small, but now—much + smaller, fallen in, very fragile. She noticed with a quick pang how all + her father’s violent blackness of hair, and violent red of colouring, and + violent glint of eye and violent energy of gesture were faded, greyed, + dimmed, devitalized to a hue and to an air that was all one and + lustreless, as if he had gone in a pond covered, not with duckweed but + with lichen, and had come out, not dripping, but limp and shrouded head to + foot in scaly grey. Was it possible that all this had been so when she was + last here? She had not noticed it. She noticed that both her dear mother + and her father walked on the flat soles of their feet, and touched + articles of furniture as they trod, heavily, across the room. A most + frightful tenderness towards them possessed her. She wanted like anything + to show them devotion and, most frightfully, to receive from them signs of + devotion to her—to be able to feel she was theirs, and they hers. + She wanted it terribly. + </p> + <p> + But what else did she want? What? They gave her, all the home talk, but + soon it flagged and whatever in her desired satisfaction still gnawed + within her and was unsatisfied; she ministered to them and they were + pleased but they seemed very quickly tired; they had their accustomed + hours and habits, and whatever it was in her that found relief in + solicitude still tossed within her and was not relieved. What beset her? + What? + </p> + <p> + Monday came. She was at this dinner, this festival for the consummation + and celebration of the betrothal of beautiful Laetitia and Laetitia’s + darling Harry. That sick dis-ease of hers had wonderfully vanished when + she came into the house, when she was hugged fit to crack her to Aunt + Belle’s bosom with “Dear child! Dear child! He’s just arrived! He’s with + your uncle downstairs. Look at Laetitia! Lovely! Isn’t she lovely? Kiss me + again, again, dear child!” When she was floated to by Laetitia, + exquisitely arrayed, pink and white, doll-faced, doll-headed, squeaking + with coquettish glee, “Rosalie! Darling! Isn’t this awful? Imagine it for + me, Rosalie! It oughtn’t to have been planned like this, ought it? Do tell + darling mamma it ought not to have been! I’m trembling. Wouldn’t you be?” + </p> + <p> + Yes, gone that sick dis-ease. How at this spectacle suffer dis-ease, or + any other disturbance of the emotions save only disgust, contempt at such + a horrid preparation for such a horrid rite. Excited responsiveness to + their most friendly excitation was not needed in her for it was not + expected. “The shy, quiet thing you always are, dear child,” Aunt Belle + often used to say to her and said now. (And within the week was to beat + her breast in that same drawing-room and cry with an exceeding bitter cry, + “Shy! We thought her shy! Sly! Sly! Sly to the tips of her fingers, the + wicked girl!”) + </p> + <p> + So she need respond with no more than her normal quiet smile, her normal + tone, in their presence, of poor-relation deference and awe. So behind + that mask could curl her lip and shudder in the refinements of her views + at this most horrid preparation for this most horrid rite. And did. That + dis-ease strangely fled, there came to her the swift belief that here, and + she had not known it!—was that dis-ease’s cause. It was the + anticipation of this exhibition of all the things she hated most, of the + most glaring presentiment of outrage of all her strongest principles. This + Laetitia, embodiment of useless woman-hood, launching herself on that + disgusting dependence on a man that soon would strand her among the + derelicts; and that Laetitia’s Harry, that might have been a man among + men, coming to the apotheosis of his languishing to—oh, wreathed, + fatted calf with gilded horns! + </p> + <p> + Yes, it was this had vexed her so; and suddenly informed of the seat of + her injury she turned upon it disgust and scorn such as never before had + she felt (and she, had felt it always) for the whole order of things for + which it stood. She felt her very blood run acid, causing her to twist, in + her acid contempt for the subservience of women, and most of all for that + Laetitia’s subservience, floated on that ghastly coquetry like a shifting + cargo that in the first gale will capsize the ship; she felt her very + temples throb, and almost thought they must be heard, in her fierce + detestation of all the masculinity of men and most of all—yes, with + a flash of eye she could not stay and hoped that he could see—that + fatuous Harry’s masculinity. + </p> + <p> + He came into the room—looked pale—poor calf!—and went, + with a nervous halt in his walk—sick fool!—to his Laetitia; + and looked across at Rosalie and made a half-step to her; and she thought + with all her force, to send it to him, her last words to him: that most + malevolent, “to see you raise your eyes and hear you breathe, ‘Ah, + Laetitia’”; and surely sent it, for on that half-step towards her he + stopped, hesitated, and turned and engaged Laetitia again. + </p> + <p> + She had told herself, leaving the Sturgiss’s house that night a week ago, + that she had not believed it possible to hate a man so. Now! Why that was + not hate; that, compared with the inimity that now consumed her, was a + mere chill indifference. And it had made her tremble! She was rigid now. + Stiff with hate! He personified for her all in life against which she was + in rebellion, all in life that her soul abhorred; and while, in the + moments before dinner, grunting Uncle Pyke and rallying Aunt Belle and + coquetting Laetitia crowded about him, leaving her alone and far apart, + she, for the reason that it gave to her hate, and for the example that + stood before her eyes, reviewed again her theories of life and again + pledged herself in their support.... + </p> + <p> + “Dinner is served.” That group went laughing to the door, she followed. + “No, no, my boy. Don’t stand on ceremony. Pass along as we come. Why, hang + it, man, we regard you as one of the family! Ha! ha! haw!” Down the stairs + in a body, she following. There is, from their conversation, something the + wreathed calf is to get from his coat to bring to show them, a letter or a + token or something. The dining-room is to the front on the ground floor. + The coats hang in the hall, a narrow passage there, that runs back to + Uncle Pyke’s study. They are down. “Shall I get it now?” “Yes, bring it + along; bring it along, my boy.” “And Rosalie” (Aunt Belle), “my fan, dear + child. Dear child, I left it on the table in Uncle Pyke’s den. You will? + Dear child!” + </p> + <p> + They pass in. The gilded calf turns from them for what it is he is to + fetch from his coat; she slips by him to the study and takes up the fan + and comes with it again. + </p> + <p> + It is dim in the passage. A condition on which generous Uncle Pyke years + before installed this wonderful electric light that you flick on and flick + off as you require it was that it should always be flicked off when you + did not require it. Now as Rosalie came from the study the passage was lit + only by the shaft of light that gleamed from the dining-room door; its + only sound Aunt Belle’s noisy chatter from the waiting table. + </p> + <p> + He was fumbling at the coats, standing there sharply outlined against the + stream of light, his face cut on it in a perfect silhouette. She had to + pass him. That hateful he. She was seized with a fit of that same + trembling that had shaken her after the passage between them at the gate + on Shoot Up Hill. It shook her now, dreadfully. Her knees trembled. She + felt faint. Awful to hate so! She was quite close, almost touching him. It + was necessary he should move, forward or back, to give her room. But he + did not move. His hands, outstretched before him on the coats, and sharp + against the light, appeared to her to be shaking; but that was the + hallucination of this frightful trembling that possessed her. She tried to + say, “If you please—,” but, dreadfully, had no voice; but made some + sound; and he, most slowly, drew back. It was before him that she had to + pass. + </p> + <p> + She advanced; and felt, as if she saw it, the intensity of the gaze of his + eyes upon her; and saw, as if the place were light and her look not + averted, his “marching” face and those lines radiating to his temples + (horizon tracks) where the faint touch of greyness was; and suddenly had + upon her senses, with an extraordinary pungency, causing them to swim, + that odd, nice smell there was about him of mingled peat and soap and + fresh tobacco, of tweed and heather and the sea. + </p> + <p> + She caught her breath... + </p> + <p> + The thing’s too poignant for the words a man has. + </p> + <p> + She was caught in his arms, terribly enfolding her. He was crying in her + ears, passionately, triumphantly, “Rosalie! Rosalie!” She was in his arms. + Those long, strong arms of his were round her; and she was caught against + his heart, her face upturned to his, his face against her own; and she was + swooning, falling through incredible spaces, drowning in incredible seas, + sinking through incredible blackness; and in her ears his voice, coming to + her in her extremity like the beat of a wing in the night, like the first + pulsing roll of music enormously remote, “Rosalie! Rosalie!” + </p> + <p> + The thing’s too poignant for the words one has. This girl’s extremity was + very great, not to be set in words. Words cannot bring to earth that + which, ethereal, defies our comprehension as life and death defy it and, + like life and death, to our comprehension only sublimely IS. Words only + can say her spirit, bursting from bondage, streamed up to cleave to his; + how tell the anguish, how the ecstasy? Words only can say her spirit, like + a live part of her drawn out of her, seemed to be rushing upwards from her + body to her lips; words cannot tell the anguish that was bliss, the + rapture that was pain. Only can say that she was in his arms, her heart to + his, his lips against her own, and cannot tell— + </p> + <p> + But also it is to be accounted to her for her extremity that herein all + her life’s habit was delivered over by her to betrayal. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI + </h2> + <p> + He was saying, “We must go in. Can you go in?” She breathed, “I can.” + </p> + <p> + That dinner! That after-dinner in the drawing-room upstairs! It is a + nightmare to be imagined, not to be described. Imagine walking from the + darkness and the frightful secret of the passage into the blazing dazzle + and the glittering eyes of the resplendent dinner party! They, in Harry’s + absence, have been exchanging the last private nods and flashes. “Soon! + Soon!” they have been nodding to one another. Uncle Pyke, licking his + chops anticipatorily of his bath in his soup, has been licking them also + in relish of working off his daughter in this excellent match; Aunt Belle, + kind, kind Aunt Belle, with a last satisfied eye about the appointments of + the table, has patted her Laetitia’s hand and conveyed to her, “Soon, + soon, darling; soon, soon!” Beautiful Laetitia has given a gentle, glad + squeeze to the patting hand and smiled a lovely, happy, certain smile. + “Soon! Soon!” has gone the jolly signal—and it is not going to be + soon, nor late; it is never, never going to happen; and worse than never + happen! + </p> + <p> + Worse than never happen! That’s it. That is the awful knowledge of awful + guilt with which Rosalie sits there and freezes in guilty agony at every + pause in the conversation and could scream to notice how the pauses grow + longer and longer, more frequent and more frequent yet. There’s a + frightful constraint, a chilly, creepy dreadfulness steals about the + party. They go upstairs—Aunt Belle and Rosalie and beautiful + Laetitia—and the constraint goes with them. They sit and stare and + hardly a word said. Something’s up! What’s up? What’s the matter with + everything? Why is everything hanging like this! What’s up? And the men + come in—Uncle Pyke swollen with food, swollen with indigestion, + swollen with baffled perplexity and ferocious irritation; and Harry—she + dare not look at Harry—and the thing is worse, the awfulness more + awful. Glances go shooting round the awful silences—Uncle Pyke’s + atrabilious eye in the burning fiery furnace of his swollen face is a + stupendous note of interrogation directed upon Aunt Belle; Aunt Belle’s + eyebrows arch to scalp and appear likely to disappear into her scalp and + remain there in the effort to express, “I don’t know! I can’t imagine!”; + Laetitia—Laetitia’s eyes upon her mother are as a spaniel’s upon one + devouring meat at table. + </p> + <p> + Frightfulness more frightful, awfulness more awful; in Rosalie almost now + beyond control the desire to scream, or to burst into tears or wildly into + laughter. Then she knows herself upon her feet and hears her voice: “Aunt + Belle. I must go, I think. I think I am very tired to-night.” + </p> + <p> + They suffer her to go. + </p> + <p> + That’s all a nightmare; but, when the door is closed upon them, like a + nightmare gone. She was alone upon the staircase and then down in the hall—by + those coats!—and, as though no ghastly interval had been, the + amazing and beloved moment was returned to her. Out of a nightmare into a + dream! She stood in her dream a moment—two moments—three—by + the hall door. Who till that evening never had thought of love, + astonishingly was invested with all love’s darling cunning. She felt + somehow he would see her again before she left; and love’s dear cunning + told her right. He came swiftly down the stairs. She never knew on what + pretext he had left the room. He came to her. Love loves these snatched + moments and always makes them snatched to breathlessness. She opened the + door and must be gone. She said to him, speaking first, “Oh, we were vile + in there! How vile we were!” + </p> + <p> + It was, the intimacy and the abruptness of it, the perfect comprehension + that their thoughts were shared, as if they had known and loved for years. + </p> + <p> + He caught her hand. “My conspirator! My secret-sharer!” + </p> + <p> + She gave him her heart in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + He said, “To-morrow, I will come to you.” + </p> + <p> + She disengaged her hand. + </p> + <p> + He gave a swift look all about and caught her in his arms. “You must tell + me, my Rosalie. Tell me.” + </p> + <p> + She breathed, “You knew, before I knew, that I loved you.” + </p> + <p> + When she was home and got to her room she undressed, suffering her clothes + to lie as they slipped from her. She got into bed, moving there and then + lying there as one in trance. + </p> + <p> + Cataclysm! All she had been, all she had determined—all, all gone; + all nothing, surrendered all. At a touch, in a moment, without a cry, + without a shot, without a stroke, all her life’s habit swept away. All she + had been, all she’d designed, all she had built within herself and walled + about herself, all she had scorned, all that with a violent antipathy she + had shuddered from or with curled lip spurned away,—all, all + betrayed, breached, mined, calamitously riven, tumultously sundered, burst + away. + </p> + <p> + She turned her face to the pillow and began to cry—most frightfully. + </p> + <p> + It was very terrible for Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART THREE — HOUSE OF CHILDREN + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + There’s none so sick as, brought to bed, that robust he that ever has + scorned sickness; nor any sinner like a saint suddenly gone from + saintliness to sin; and there can be no love like love suddenly leapt from + repression into being. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie, that had abhorred the very name of love, now finding love was + quite consumed by love. She loved him so! Even to herself she never could + express how tremendous a thing to her their love was. She used + deliberately to call it to her mind (as the new, rapt possessor of a jewel + going specially to the case to peep and gloat again) and when she called + it up like that, or when, in the midst of occupation, her mind secretly + opened a door and she turned and saw it there, a surge, physically felt, + passed through her, and she would nearly gasp, her breath taken by this + new, this rapturous element, as the bather’s at his first plunge in the + cold, the splendid sea. + </p> + <p> + She loved him so! She looked at him with eyes, not of an inexperienced + girl blinded by love, but of one cynically familiar with the traits of + common men, intolerantly prejudiced, sharply susceptible to every note or + motion of displeasing quality; and her eyes told her heart, and what is + much more told her mind, that nothing but sheer perfection was here. Harry + was brilliantly talented, Harry was in face and form one that took the eye + among a hundred men. But she had known all that and freely granted him all + that before. What she found as she came to know him, and when they were + married what she continued to find, was simply, that he was perfect. He + was perfect in every way and there was no way in which, inclining neither + to the too much nor the too little, he was not perfect. + </p> + <p> + The labour of a catalogue of her Harry’s virtues is thus discounted. Name + a virtue in a man and it was Harry’s. Declare too much perfection is as + ill to live with as too much fault, and it is precisely just before too + much is reached that Harry’s dowry stopped. Suggest she was blind to + defects, and it is to be answered that there was no man who knew him that + ever had a thought against him (except Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, + R.E., who, justifiably, was warned by his physician never to think upon + the monster lest apoplexy should supervene) nor any fellow man in his + profession (and that is the supreme test) that ever grudged him his + success. Disgruntled barristers, morosely brooding upon the fall of plums + into other mouths than theirs, always said, when it was Harry’s mouth: + “Ah, Occleve; yes, but he’s different. No one grudges Harry Occleve what + he gets.” + </p> + <p> + Different! In Rosalie’s fond, fondest love for him she often used to hug + her love by making that catalogue of all his parts that has been shown not + to be necessary. And it was the little, tiny things wherein he differed + from common men that especially she cherished. By the deepest part of her + nature terribly susceptible to the grosser manifestations of the male + habit, it was extraordinarily wonderful and delicious to her that Harry of + these had none. In an age much given to easy freedom of language it will + not be appreciated, it perhaps will cause the pair of them to be sneered + at, but it demands mention as illuminating a characteristic of hers (and + of his), that she had, for instance, especial delight in the fact that + Harry never even swore. The impossible test in the matter of self-command + is when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. What does a bishop say when he + does that? But she saw Harry catch his thumb a proper crack hanging a + picture in the house they took, and, “Mice and Mumps!” cried Harry, and + dropped the hammer and the picture, and jumped off the stepladder, and did + a hop, and wrung his hand, and laughed at her and wrung his hand and + laughed again. “Mice and Mumps!” + </p> + <p> + “Mice and Mumps!” It always seemed to her to characterise and to epitomise + him, that grotesque expression. It always made her laugh; and the more + serious the accident or the dilemma that brought it to Harry’s lips, the + more, by pathos, one was forced to laugh and the seriousness thereby + dissipated into an affair not serious at all. Yes, that was the point of + it and the reason it epitomised him. There was none of life’s dilemmas—little + dilemmas that irritate ordinary people or in which ordinary people display + themselves pusillanimous; or tragic dilemmas that find ordinary people + wanting and leave them in vacillation and despair—there was none of + any sort that Harry, receiving with his comic, “Mice and Mumps! Mice and + Mumps, old girl!” did not receive with the assurance to her that, though + this was a nuisance, he had metal and to spare to settle such; that, + though this was a catastrophe, a facer, he’d too much courage, too much + high, brave spirit for it to discommode him; there was no fight in such, + he was captain of such, trust him! + </p> + <p> + “One who never turned his back but marched breast forward.” + </p> + <p> + That was Harry! + </p> + <p> + “Mice and Mumps!” On the evening of the day following that astounding + betrothal of theirs, affianced as it were at a blow—a day spent + together in the park complete, without a break for food or thought of + occupation—on the evening of that day he must go, he de-clared, to + the horrific castle in Pilchester Square and break the awful news, + proclaim his villainy. + </p> + <p> + She was terrified. “They’ll kill you, Harry. Write.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no. I’ve been a howling cad. It’s true, a howling cad, not of guile, + but of these astounding things that have happened to us outside ourselves, + but nevertheless a howling cad as such conduct is judged, and will be + judged. So I must go through it. I must. That’s certain. I couldn’t hide + behind a letter. They are entitled to tell me to my face what they think + of me. They must have their right. Oh, yes, I’ve got to give them that. + To-night. Now.” + </p> + <p> + A howling cad, but of forces outside themselves (“Too quick for me,” he + had explained), not of guile. + </p> + <p> + He had explained, in those enchanted hours in the park, that it was really + by resolve to do the right thing, and not to do the caddish thing, that he + had presented himself the howling cad that they would hold him. That night + at the Sturgiss’s at Cricklewood had charged him (“Oh, Rosalie, like + bursting awake to breathe from suffocation in a dream.”) what for many + days, only looking at her, never speaking to her, suffering her not veiled + contempt, he had felt as one feels a premonition that is insistent but + that cannot be defined—that night had charged him that he loved her. + He was no way definitely committed to poor Laetitia. Was he more wrong if, + now knowing his heart was otherwhere, he maintained and carried to its + consummation the intimacy between Laetitia and himself, or if he stopped + while yet he had not gone too far? He had decided to break while yet it + might, be broken. There was an invitation from Mrs. Pyke Pounce he had + accepted. He wrote, endeavouring to give a meaning to his words, excusing + himself from it. + </p> + <p> + She murmured, “I remember.” (“Nothing in it, dear child; nothing in it!”) + </p> + <p> + There came back a letter from Colonel Pyke Pounce in which Colonel Pyke + Pounce also had endeavoured to give a meaning to his words, and had + succeeded. Now Harry knew his problem of moral conduct in a fiercer form; + now, resolving to do what he told himself was the right thing and not the + caddish thing, he took the step that made him be the howling cad that they + would think him. (“But, Rosalie, gave me you!”) + </p> + <p> + He had resolved that he must accept the invitation, present himself at the + house—and let the hour decide. As the situation revealed itself so + he would accept it. If it was made clear to him, as the Pyke Pounce letter + much gave him to believe, that proposal for Laetitia’s hand was expected + of him, he would “do the right thing” and stand by what his behaviour + apparently had led them to expect; if the way still seemed open, the door + not shut behind him, he would very frankly explain to Laetitia’s grisly + father that he thought it best his visits to the house from now should + cease. The hour should decide! But there was in the hour, when it came, + one terrible, one lovely element that he never had expected to be there. + In all his visits to the house Rosalie never had been met on any other day + than Saturday. This dinner was on the Monday, and arriving to face and + carry through his ordeal, he was startled, he was utterly shaken to see + her there. (“To see my darling there.”) + </p> + <p> + O forces outside themselves! “When you had to pass me in the passage + nothing mattered then—except I could not let you pass.” + </p> + <p> + So it was that now, the right thing not having been done on that night, + the right thing in this new position must be done to-day. They were + entitled to tell him to his face what they thought of him and they must + have their right. That was his view and he would not abate it. + </p> + <p> + “They’ll kill you, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + They had come by this to the corner of Pilchester Square and there he bade + her wait. She said again, part laughing, most in fear, “They’ll kill you.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got to give them the chance to do their best.” + </p> + <p> + And off he went, strongly, erect. One who never... but marched breast + forward. + </p> + <p> + Waiting for him, she really was terrified for him. Ferocious Uncle Pyke! + Terrific Aunt Belle! Swollen and infuriated Uncle Pyke! Bitter and + outraged Aunt Belle! + </p> + <p> + In twenty minutes came the crash of a slammed front door that clearly and + terribly was Uncle Pyke Pounce slamming it as if he would hurl it through + its portals and crash it on to Harry down the steps. + </p> + <p> + Harry reappeared, uncommonly grave. + </p> + <p> + She put out a hand to him, dreadfully anxious. + </p> + <p> + “Mice and Mumps!” said Harry. “Mice and Mumps!” + </p> + <p> + You couldn’t help laughing! But also, squeezing the strong arm beneath + which he tucked her hand, you felt, with such a thrill, from that + grotesque expression, and from his face as he said it, that this, like + every forward thing, had in it nothing that could discommode that high, + brave spirit: no fight in such; he was captain of such, trust him! + </p> + <p> + Thus also her delight in another form, and yet in the same form, in that + grotesque expression, when it was ejaculated as his sole expletive when he + caught his thumb that frightful crack while hanging a picture in what was + to be his study in their newly taken house. + </p> + <p> + Any other man in the world, even a bishop, would have sworn; would have + sworn no doubt harmlessly and with an honest heartiness to which the most + pious prude could not have taken exception. Agreed! But the point was—that + Harry didn’t! + </p> + <p> + She loved him so! She insisted she must bind up the thumb with her pocket + handkerchief, and did, Harry protesting; and for years, still loving him + with the old, first love, she often would be reminded by the picture of + the incident and of her joy in it. + </p> + <p> + Yes, the only expletive she ever heard him use; and, lo, in that very + room, years on, he seated beneath that very picture, she was to come to + him with news (and hers the guilt of it) that for the first time was to + strike him between the joints of his harness, visibly ageing him as she + spoke, and for the first time cause him to groan his pain. She was to + glance at the picture as she spoke and very terribly its merry association + to be recalled to her. She was to recall him young, gay, tremendously + splendid, wringing his damaged hand, laughing, “Mice and Mumps!” She was + to see him, grey ascendant upon the raven of his hair, shrinking down in + his seat, wilting as one slowly collapsing after a stunning blow, and at + her news (and hers the guilt of it) to hear his voice go, not + exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one dazed, bewildered, in a fog, + “My God, my God, my God, my God!” + </p> + <p> + How could one ever have foreseen that? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + She loved him so! On that first day together in the park she told him + everything about herself, about all her ideas and theories and principles, + particularly where these touched his sex, even about that terrible fit of + crying of hers in bed an hour after she had left him. And Harry understood + everything and agreed with her in everything. O rapturous affinity! + </p> + <p> + They met early when business London was rushing to business. They stayed + late, with no thought of food or of their occupations, till business + London was returning, and night, in lamps below and stars above, was + setting out its sentinels. + </p> + <p> + She told him everything; and even if she had wished not to open all her + heart, there would have been the immense selection of everything—every + single thing about herself—from which to choose to tell him. For + there never had been such a betrothal as theirs; done at a blow with no + single intimate thing ever before passed between them! Her very first + words to him as they met, her greeting of him as they came together, + showed how preposterous and never-before-imagined was their affiancement. + “You know, it’s incredible,” she greeted him. “It’s incredible, it’s + grotesque, it’s flatly impossible—I’ve never before seen you except + in your dress clothes or at afternoon tea!” + </p> + <p> + Harry took both her hands in his. “But I think I’ve wanted you,” said + Harry, “ever since I was in long clothes. I know I’ve wanted you ever + since first I saw you.” + </p> + <p> + One knows another, in her place, would have bantered this off in that + modern attitude towards love which is a horror, boisterously expressed, of + admitting love as an emotion. Rosalie, that had scorned the very name of + love, and that, because betrayed by love, had turned her face to her + pillow and cried most frightfully, received it with a sound that was + between a sigh and a catching of her breath. She loved him so! + </p> + <p> + And then they talked; and the thing between them, that had come so + wonderfully, was so wonderful that they were as it were transfigured by + it, as awe and spirituality and mysticism would fill the dwellers in a + house visited by a miracle of God. So wonderful, that conversation, they + would have felt, was not possibly a word for all that occupied them in + those rapturous hours: not conversation, no,—a sublime engagement of + their spirits wherein (possessing the keys of all the wonders), seas, + continents and worlds of thoughts were traversed by them, in every clime + most exquisite affinity discovered. + </p> + <p> + As at a blow they had become affianced, so, with no stage between, but in + immediate sequence perfectly natural to them both, the natural + repercussion of the blow, they talked immediately of betrothal’s + consummation, of marriage, of their marriage. + </p> + <p> + About marriage Rosalie had immensely much to tell Harry. It was what she + had principally to say, and this is how and why and what she told him. + </p> + <p> + When from her first terrible dismay—that frightful crying, her face + turned to the pillow—she had recovered; when to the lovely ardour of + her love—stealing about her, soothing her, in the night; bursting + upon her, ravishing her, in the morning—she had passed on; she + remembered her second line of her defences and she fell back upon it. “If + ever I fell in love,” she had often said, alike to Keggo and to Miss + Salmon, “if such an impossible thing ever were to happen to me, I’d marry + as marriage should be. I’d enter a partnership. I would live my life; he + would live his life; together, when we wanted to, when we were off duty, + so to speak, we would live our life. A partnership, a mutually free and + independent partnership.” + </p> + <p> + The second line of her defences! Oh, strong and reassuring thought! Of + course, of course the first line, breached and swept away, had never + really mattered. Foolish to have wept for it! It was built against love + and she knew now, by her darling and her terrible experience, that against + love——! Nay, in that whelming admission’s very tide, sweeping + upon her from envisagement of Harry and bearing her deliciously upon its + flood, there had come a thought as strong with wine as that was sweet with + honey. Built against love! Why, in seeking to build against love, to shut + away love from her life, was she not perpetrating against herself the very + act—denial of anything a free life might have—that it was her + life’s first principle to oppose? A man’s place, a man’s part, everything + that a man by conventional dowry is given, hers should be as freely as a + man’s it is! That was her aim; that at once the basis of her standpoint + and the target of her shaft; and lo, at the very outset of her + independence, she had sought to deny herself that which (as now she knew) + was life’s most lovely gift. She was steadfast, and she was caparisoned, + to obtain and to possess the things that, of her sex, commonly a woman + might not have, and she was shutting herself from that which, if it + offers, not all the man-owned world can deny the woman lowliest in office, + heaviest in chains, deepest in servitude! + </p> + <p> + O senselessness! She could see, as looking upon an individuality not her + own, that foolish girl that for such had turned her face to her pillow and + cried out her heart; and at that very moment, and no other, of smiling + pity for that mistaken grief, there came to Rosalie a sudden sense of + womanhood attained; of much increase of years and wisdom; of growth of + stature; of transportation, as from one world to another, from the + character and the presence that had been hers to a personality and a body + that looked down upon that other as, tenderly, a mother upon the innocence + of her small child. + </p> + <p> + That poor, brave, foolish Rosalie that was! Did she protest, that foolish + girl, that she was right in what had been her attitude to love? Did she + with would-be bitterness recall those views laid down upon the women in + the boarding house—that they were derelicts precisely through this + love business, abandoned of men, relict of men, footsore and fallen in + pursuit of men? + </p> + <p> + Ah, small, misguided creature! The principles were right but all askew the + application. Love! Consider other attributes of life. Consider learning; + consider food. Learning and food—were they not bounties of life’s + treasure, to be absorbed and used for sustenance in order, by their + nourishment, to give to live this life more fully? Why, so with love! + Derelicts, those women, because receiving love (that loveliest gift of + all!) not as a means but as an end—the end of all: that attained, + everything attained; that won, all finished. That was it! That the + misapplication! Learning, or food, or love—the same with all! How + dead the life that only lived in scholarship; how gross the life that only + lived to eat; how derelict that she that only lived to love, to marry—then + ceased to live! + </p> + <p> + And equally, O small, misguided girl, how starved the life that has no + books; how weak the frame that has no food; ah, dear (thus smiled she to + herself), how dead the life that knows not love! + </p> + <p> + The second line of her defences! Nay, as now through this mature and happy + cogitation she saw it, the first and last and only line! In her aloneness, + in that girl’s single life, there had been nothing against which to + defend. She had fought phantoms, that girl; resisted shadows. Now was the + necessity, now the test; and now, because with Harry, because she loved + him so, because he was every way and in all things perfect, now should be + the triumphant exposition. + </p> + <p> + And she told Harry: marriage that should be a partnership—not an + absorption by the greater of the less; not one part active and the other + passive; one giving, the other receiving; one maintaining, the other + maintained; none of these, but instead a perfect partnering, a perfect + equality that should be equality of place, equality of privilege, equality + of duty, equality of freedom. “Harry, each with work and with a career. + Harry, each living an own life as every man, away from home, shutting his + front door upon that home and off to work, leads an own and separate life. + Harry—” + </p> + <p> + Oh, wonderful beneath this imperturbable sky, amongst these common, + passive things—these paths, those trees, that grass, this bench—within + this seclusion of that murmurous investment of this city, the ceaseless + roar of London, standing like patient walls, eternal and indifferent, + about her quietudes. Oh, wonderful in these accustomed and insensible + surroundings thus to be calling “Harry,” as he were brother, him that a + day and night away virtually was unmet; to be exposing, as to a gracious + patron, all her mind’s treasury of thought; to be revealing, as in + confessional, her inmost places of her heart; to be receiving, as by + transfusion, the glow of affirmation on her way and in her trust. Oh, + wonderful! + </p> + <p> + Wonderful, because remember for her that she was still beneath the shock + of her dismay at her betrayal of herself; still breathless at that rout + from her prepared positions; not yet assured her banners were unsullied in + their withdrawal to her second line; not yet convinced it was no rout but + a withdrawal, wise and strategical, ranks unbroken, to the true point of + her defence. + </p> + <p> + Do try to imagine her, tremulous in this her vital enterprise, tremulous + in this wonder that her armies found. It is very desirable to remember + what can be remembered for that girl. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + Harry assured her! Harry convinced her! Harry was here upon the + battlements, come with her in her retirement, joined with her as her ally. + All her ideas were his ideas. He, too, had these new views of marriage. He + said they always had been his. He hated, as she hated, that old dependence + notion: all the privileges the man’s, the woman’s all the duties. That was + detestable to him, said Harry. Marriage in his view— + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell you this,” was one thing Harry said. “I’ll show it to you this + way, Rosalie. I don’t exactly know what a reciprocating machine is, but I + know what it sounds like, and what it sounds like is what a marriage ought + to be,—a perfect fitting together, a perfect harmonising, a perfect + joining of two perfect halves that everywhere reciprocate.” + </p> + <p> + The word delighted her. A reciprocating machine! Yes, yes! Each an own + part; each with own and separate interests; and their parts, and the + production arising out of their interests—their individual selves—approached + together, by free will, to join towards a mutual benefit, a shared + endeavour, a common advancement, a single end. + </p> + <p> + She was desperately in earnest and so was he. There was a mill near his + people’s home in Sussex, a water mill, and his illustration by it of the + design they had showed her how earnestly her own ideas were his. There + were two wheels to this mill, Harry told her, one on either side. Each ran + in its own stream, each was entirely independent of the other; they worked + alone, but each helped the other’s work; the mill joined them and they + joined to make the mill. + </p> + <p> + That was it! + </p> + <p> + And she was not talking any generalities, and Harry was not, either. They + weren’t, either of them, playing with this idea of mutual independence. + There would “of course” be a business basis to it, Rosalie said. She was + earning her own income and she would pay her half of the upkeep of their + home together. It was a stipulation that she advanced with a definite fear + that here, at last, she might be taking Harry from his depth; that by + natural instinct of generosity, or by instinct of immemorial custom to + endow the wife with all the husband’s worldly goods, he would here reveal + a flaw in his till now flawless duplication of the views that were her + own. + </p> + <p> + But Harry (the never failing rapture of it!) was every way without spot or + blemish. He was looking straight and close into her eyes while she put + forward this, and there moved not the least dissentient shade across his + own while he received it. She need have had no fear. He said, “I agree + absolutely with that, Rosalie. There’s only one point—” and his + expansion of this point wholly entranced her because it established + conditions even more matter-of-fact and businesslike than her own broad + principle. + </p> + <p> + “There’s only one point,” Harry said. “It can’t be half and half in terms + of actual bisection. Look, Rosalie, in this matter of running the home + we’re making a contract between two parties and—don’t forget I’m a + lawyer—it has to be an equable and just contract, and to be that it + has to be based for each party’s liability—Do you like me to use the + law jargon?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded. “I do, I do!” This was frightfully, entrancingly serious for + her. This was a survey of the fortifications of her second line of her + defences. “I do, I do!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, has to be based for each party’s liability on each party’s + interest, on the extent to which each party is involved. I’m making more—an + uncommon good bit more—than you are, Rosalie. My interest, therefore + my liability, that is, my share, has to be allowed to be proportionately + the more. Put it in another way. We’re going to run an establishment as an + establishment might be run by two or more people of different incomes who + wish to join forces for mutual pleasure, two or three relatives, two or + three friends. Well, there’s a regular principle governing that kind of + arrangement. You don’t all pay the same. If you did, you’d reduce the + scale of living to the level of what the poorest can afford, and half the + idea of the combination is to enjoy a very much better scale. No, you run + the show on the level the wealthiest is willing to go to, and to the total + charge each one contributes in the proportion of his income. If one party + has a thousand a year and the other five hundred, and the thousand-pounder + wants to live at the rate of nine hundred a year, he pays six hundred and + the other three hundred. Each is paying his just share—that’s the + point. That’s how we’d arrange it, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + She loved him so! If that were said a thousand times (as already perhaps + too often for the robust) it still would not approach the volume of its + swelling in the heart of Rosalie, for that was ceaseless. His attitude in + this matter now between them, as in every matter, might have been the + perfect agreement with her own view that it was and yet might so have been + presented as to be much antipathetic to her. His attitude might have made + her feel she ought to say, “Thank you, Harry, for agreeing to that”; it + might have had the note, “I know exactly how you feel about marriage; I + want to make every-thing just as you wish.” Quicksands! Principles to be + received as grants, bases of her defences to be accepted as concessions! + Quicksands! At either attitude, as at a foreign flavour in a cup, she + would have drawn back, suspicious; at either sense within herself, of + winning a favour, of accepting a hazard, she would have taken alarm, + dismayed. But it was why she loved him so that here, as everywhere, his + standpoint was her standpoint’s own reflection. She was, as she would have + said, deadly in earnest; deadly in earnest to a depth that she could let + go to absurdity and never know it for absurdity; and so was he. + </p> + <p> + Approving this plan of computation of the share that each would pay, “It + would have to be done strictly,” she said, “as though it were strictly + business. And—you don’t know, perhaps—I’m making, or soon + shall be, just on five hundred a year.” + </p> + <p> + He smiled the nice smile of his she loved, more with his eyes than with + his lips. “I’m afraid mine’s a good bit more than that. Money’s rather + pushed at you at the Bar once it starts. You’d have to put up with that.” + </p> + <p> + Her fondness in her eyes reflected him. “I know how famous you are + getting. I’d not be stupid about that, Harry. It would be the just share, + each according to our means; that’s understood. Only, for me, it would + have to be the just share, that’s what I’m saying; not a matter of form, a + strict proportion.” + </p> + <p> + “If you liked,” said Harry, “we’d give the figures to the costs clerk at + my chambers and let him work the contributions out.” + </p> + <p> + “Absurd!” she might have laughed; and as an absurdity he might, with a + laugh, have presented it. But quite gravely he made the suggestion, and + quite gravely, after a moment’s grave thought, “I don’t think that would + be necessary,” she returned. + </p> + <p> + His earnestness in this thing so vital to her matched her own, and + therefore she loved him; and he yet could bring to it lightly a touch + which, though light, yet was profoundly based; and therefore, newly, she + loved him. She knew she talked with immense profligacy of words in her + endeavour to make clear the principles this second line of her defences + must maintain. “Each with work and with a career, each with an own and + separate life.” She kept repeating that. “Equal in work and in + responsibility, Harry, and therefore equal in place, in privilege, in + freedom.” + </p> + <p> + And Harry, with a light touch but a grave air, a happy setting for a + profound meaning, put it in a sentence. “Things which are equal to the + same thing are equal to one another,” said Harry. + </p> + <p> + She loved him so! + </p> + <p> + But there ought here to be explained for her what, loving him so and he so + loving her, she could not have known for herself. This plan of maintaining + their establishment by contribution of share and share was maintained by + Rosalie from the beginning—to the end. She never had cause to doubt + that in all the earnestness of that close conversation Harry was utterly + sincere. She often recalled that steady gaze with no dissentient shade + across it with which his eyes received her statement of her case and knew + that only truth was in that gaze. He did believe what she believed. It + only was afterwards she discovered that also he believed that, both for + her and him, the thing would mellow down as mellows down the year, her + heady Aprils burnt in June, her burning Junes assuaging to September; that + it would pass; that time— + </p> + <p> + Yes, it must be explained. It was not active in his mind, this + reservation. It was passive, underlying, subconscious, as beneath vigour’s + incredulity of death lies passively admission of death’s final certitude. + He believed what she believed; but he believed it as are believed infinity + and eternity: wherein mankind, believing, reposes upon that limitation of + the human mind which cannot conceive infinity but sees ultimately an end, + and can pretend eternity through myriad years but feels ultimately a + termination. Harry believed what she believed but only by stabilisation of + a man’s inherent articles of faith. He was of the male kind; and observe, + by an incident, what inherent processes of thought the male kind has: + </p> + <p> + When they were looking over the house which ultimately they took—an + all ways most desirable house in Montpelier Crescent, Knightsbridge—Rosalie + had only a single objection: it was far too big. + </p> + <p> + “Miles too big,” cried Rosalie, coming up to the second floor where Harry + had preceded her. “What are you doing there, Harry? Miles too big, I was + saying. It really is. Of course I realise you must have a house suitable + to your fame but—What are you doing, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + “Fame, yes,” breathed Harry, desperately occupied. “I’ve turned on this + tap and I can’t turn it off again. Eternal fame. After me the deluge!” + </p> + <p> + She was looking around. “But, Harry, really! Look at this floor. Two more + huge rooms. What can we—” + </p> + <p> + “Mice and Mumps!” groaned Harry, straining at the tap. “Mice and Mumps!” + </p> + <p> + He came to her wiping his hands on his handkerchief. “Too big! Look here, + supposing this house isn’t washed away by that tap. Suppose it’s still + standing here tomorrow. Take a broad, courageous view of the thing. + Suppose this isn’t the beginning of the Great Flood of London, and that + we’re going to live in a house and not an ark. Well, what you’ve got to + remember is that we’re not coming in here for a week. We’ve got to look + ahead. Take these two rooms. Why, you can see what they’re for, what + they’ve been. Opening into one another, and those little bars on the + windows, and that protected fireplace. Nurseries. Day nursery and night + nursery.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie laughed. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + That’s all done. The thing traverses the waters of the years, as across + seas a ship, and makes presently a new shore, a new clime, wherein are met + occasions new and strange, not anticipated by Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Here is one. + </p> + <p> + Habitant in the new continent across these years, she is wife and, though + she had laughed, is mother, and on a day is with her Harry, and Harry is + saying, not at all with any hardness in his voice, but very gravely: + </p> + <p> + “I have a right to a home.” + </p> + <p> + She replies, as grave as he, as one debating a matter that is weighty but + that is before the arbitrament, not of feeling, but of reason, “Harry, you + have a home.” + </p> + <p> + A gesture of his head, much comprehensive, is made by him: “Is this a + home?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s where we live.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, where we live, Rosalie!” + </p> + <p> + She did not reply to this. Himself, and not she, spoke next; but his note + was as though she had answered and he were speaking in his turn. “I have a + right to a home. The children have a right to a home.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a home.” + </p> + <p> + He said, “Rosalie, I am a man.” + </p> + <p> + She answered, “Harry, I am a woman.” + </p> + <p> + Harry was smoking and he indrew an inhalation from his pipe with a long + sibilant sound: her answer was very well understood by him. + </p> + <p> + No, she never had anticipated this. + </p> + <p> + Yet might not she have seen? Astounding how in life one’s suddenly + engulfed in depths and never has perceived the shoals from which they led; + suddenly entombed in night and never has perceived the gradual declination + of the day! Why, when she looked back, so far away as in those days of + choosing their house had been in seed this thing that now was come to + fruit. And she had watched it grow from seed to seedling, and on to bud + and blossom, and never had suspected. + </p> + <p> + But had she not? Then it was curious, she knew, that, alone of all her + thoughts, all her beliefs, all her theories, her observations and her + deductions from her observations, curious that of them all only a certain + observation, made when choosing their house, she never had told to Harry. + </p> + <p> + Choosing their house! She had gone back to her rooms from the third day of + their house-hunting gently amused at an addition to her compendium of lore + on the male habit. It was in a way like the cat idea; at least it was, + like that, reversal of a common opinion on distinguishing traits as + between men and women. It went in her mind like this and, because it arose + out of Harry, she laughed softly to herself as like this she shaped it: + </p> + <p> + “They say a woman marries for a home. Wrong, wrong! It’s man that marries + for a home—a home that, having got it, superficially he cares little + enough about, and superficially uses as a good place to get away from; but + that’s just how he uses his business, how he uses everything. Oh, he wants + it, he wants it, and he marries for it far more than a woman wants it or + marries for it. How plain it is! A man marries to settle down, a woman for + just precisely the opposite: to break up; to get away from the constraints + of daughterhood and of Miss-hood, as a schoolgirl, holiday-bound, from the + constraints of school; to enlarge her life, not to restrict it; to aerate + her life, not to compose it. Why, it’s inherent in a man, the desire for a + home; it’s in his bones. Look at little boys playing—it’s caves and + tents and wigwams they delight to play at; a place they can in part + discover and in part construct, and then arrange their things in, and then + go off exploring and then, all the time, be coming back to the delicious + cave and creep in and block up the door! Girls don’t play at that; they + play at shops and being grown up, at nursing dolls and not themselves + being nursed. But that’s your man—a hunter with a cave, and the + return to the cave the best part of the hunting. That’s what he marries + for—a home; a pitch of his own; a place to bring his things to and + wherein to keep his things; an establishment; a solid, anchored base; a + place where he can have his wife and his children and his dogs and his + books and his servants and his treasures and his slippers and his ease, + and can feel, comfortably, that she and they and it are his,—his + mysterious cave with the door blocked up, his base, his moorings, his + settled and abiding centre. Dear Harry!” + </p> + <p> + “Dear Harry” because all this had come to her while with secret, fond + amusement she had watched Harry delightedly and entrancedly fussing about + the houses they explored. The boy with a cave! The man with a home! She + liked the idea of a new home, and a home with Harry, but, given + outstanding features obviously essential, almost any home would have + satisfied her. She was animated and interested in the choosing, but not + with Harry’s interest and animation. Hers were the feelings with which she + had established herself in the two-room suite at the boarding house. There + any two rooms would have done; here any pleasant house would do. It was + not the rooms; it was the significance of her entry into their possession. + It was not the house; it was the significance of all connoted by the + house. The rooms had been a stepping-off place to independence larger and + to triumphs new; the house was a stepping-off place to independence, to + triumphs, to battle of life and to joy of life, lifted upon a plane high + above her old world as the stars, as bright and keen as they. + </p> + <p> + But for Harry it was a stepping-in place. + </p> + <p> + It was Harry that fussed and examined and measured and opened and shut and + tested and tried and must have this and must have that. It was Harry who + saw everything with the eye that was going to see it and live with it + permanently and for all time. It was Harry who invested every square yard + of every interior with the attributes that should be there when they + therein were domiciled. Harry who said, “This front door! Rosalie, we’re + going to have a front door that will hit you in the eye and make you say + ‘Mice and Mumps, there’s a distinguished couple that live behind a door + like that!’ None of your wretched browns and greens and blacks and reds + for our door, Rosalie! We’ll have a yellow front door, gamboge. I’ve seen + it on a house in Westminster. I’ll take you there. You wait till you see + it. Imagine it, Rosalie, beneath that lovely old fanlight overhead. And + then yellow window boxes tinted to match in every window and crammed with + flowers. It’ll be a house you’ll run to get into directly you catch sight + of it. Then inside here, in the hall, there’ll be the thickest rugs money + can buy and the brightest light and the warmest stove. You’ll step in and + shut the yellow door and, ‘Mice and Mumps,’ you’ll say, ‘this is home!’ + Now, look here; here’ll be my study; I’ll have bookshelves built in all + round there and there and there. Pictures there. This nook—I’ll fix + a little cupboard there and keep my tools in. I’ll spend half my time our + first weeks pottering about with a hammer and a pair of pliers. This place + just here on the landing. Looks like a dungeon. We’ll knock out a window + there and fit it up with hot and cold water as a cloak room. Now here’s + your room, your—” + </p> + <p> + “My study,” she had interpolated, a little apprehensive lest for her + private room he should use another word. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, your study, rather. Each of us with our own study! A lark, eh? And + Rosalie, in mine there’ll be a special chair for you and in yours a + special chair for me. We’ll stroll in on each other’s work—” + </p> + <p> + She loved him for that. “Like two men in chambers,” she said. + </p> + <p> + His reply was, “We’ll rip out this fireplace and put you in one in oak; + the walls something between gold and brown, eh? Now come into the + drawing-room. This’ll be the room. Let’s start with the hearth and imagine + it’s winter. This is where we’ll have tea the days when I get back in time—” + </p> + <p> + “And when I get back in time.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, I’d forgotten that. Why, then whichever of us is back first + will be all ready with the tea and waiting to welcome the other. Can’t you + see the room? Warm, shadowed, glowing here and there, here and there + gleaming, and the tea table shining? Won’t it be a place to rush back to? + I say, Rosalie, it’s going to be rather wonderful, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + Dear Harry! Yes, men that married for a home. + </p> + <p> + So she had known that from the start; and, the significant thing (as later + perceived) she never had mentioned it to Harry. There was not a line of + her life, as lived before she knew him, that she had not revealed to him; + there was not a passage of her life, when joined to his, that was not + handed to him to write upon; but this, that she knew he’d married for a + home, was never revealed, never inscribed upon the tablets submitted daily + for his annotation. + </p> + <p> + Yes, significant! + </p> + <p> + But how could its significance have been perceived? Look here, there had + been a night—a thousand years ago!—when a girl had turned her + face to her pillow and cried, most frightfully. Significant! Why, that + girl’s world had lain in atoms at the significance of that girl’s grief. + And she that now looked back had been born out of those tears, as the + first woman drawn from the side of the first man, and fondly had chid that + child that no significance was there at all. There was none. There was + nothing to fear. A natural joy of life that had been stifled had been + embraced, a shattered world had been remoulded on foundings firmer and, + ah, nearer to the heart’s desire. Significant! It had been so disproved + that not more possibly could fears arise from those, her lovely + dissipations of those fears, than from its watchful mother’s reassuring + candle and her soothing words new terrors to a frightened child at night. + </p> + <p> + Then how, she used to ask herself, could significance have been perceived + in not admitting Harry to her smiling thought on men and home? + Significance—then? Nay, memory bear witness, much, much the + contrary! Bear witness, memory, it was that very thought of Harry as boy + with cave, as man with home, had suddenly suffused her with... + </p> + <p> + “Dear Harry!” she had thought, and with the thought... + </p> + <p> + Anna! That cry of Anna’s upon that frightening night, striking her hands + against her bosom, “I have a longing—here!” Never till then its + meaning nor even thought upon its meaning. + </p> + <p> + Then! Upon that thought—“Dear Harry!”—had come, with a catch + at the breath as at an obscure twinge of pain, a tremor of the sense that + was its meaning: thereafter flooding all her being as floods a flood a + pasture. A longing to be mother, Anna’s longing was! A longing to be + mother, to hold a tiny scrap against her breast; to have her heart, + bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers; to have her design of + God, insufferably overpacked within her by the remorseless pressure of + instinct through a million ages, relieved, discharged, fulfilled by + motherhood. Poor Anna! Ah, piteous! “Oh, God, thou knowest how hard it is + to be a woman.” Poor, piteous Anna, and poor, piteous every woman that, + made vessel of this yearning, must have it unfulfilled. + </p> + <p> + Not she! + </p> + <p> + The coronet of love, denied poor Anna, was hers. He’d said “These rooms—the + nurseries”; the crown of love; and she had laughed! + </p> + <p> + Oh, stubborn still! Oh, still not cognisant of nature’s dower to her sex. + To wear the coronet and to refuse the crown! To be wife and not to be + mother! To think of baby fingers and to think to put away the offer of + their baby clutch! + </p> + <p> + That girl that turned her face to her pillow and began to cry, most + frightfully, cried next again when she again lay abed and had a tiny + scrap, an ugly, exquisite, grotesque, miraculous scrap, a baby boy, a baby + man, along her arm and watched it there. Those had been passionate and + rending tears; these did not even flow. Those burned her eyes; these stood + within her eyes a lovely welling up of pride and adoration, drawn from her + by this newly risen wonder as by the sun at his arising moisture in lovely + mists is drawn from earth. + </p> + <p> + Motherhood! When later he was christened, she and Harry named him Hugh; + but it was a caressing diminutive she made out of his name by which he was + always known. Her tiny son! His tiny arms hugged you as never tiny arms + possibly could have hugged before and so she called him “Huggo.” + </p> + <p> + “Harry, if you could feel how he’s hugging me! It’s absurd he can have + such strength! It’s ridiculous he can love me so! And how can he possibly + know that hugging’s a sign of love? Harry, how can he? Take him and hold + him up like that and see if he hugs you the same. He is! He is! Isn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “Mice and Mumps,” said Harry, “he is; he’s throttling me, the tiger.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, give him back, I’m jealous. There’s never, never been a hugger like + him since the world began. He’s Huggo. That’s his name. Creature straight + out of heaven, you’re Huggo.” + </p> + <p> + Her love for infant Huggo so maternal; her unity with Harry so exquisitely + one; how could she have known were to be met across the waters of the + years occasions new and strange, as that already shown, or, onward yet a + further voyage, as this? + </p> + <p> + The matter between them touched the same as when, “I have a right to a + home; the children have a right to a home,” Harry had said. But their + tones not the same; in Harry’s voice a quality of dulness as of one + reciting a lesson too often conned yet never understood; in hers a certain + weariness as with instruction too often given. + </p> + <p> + They had been talking a very long time. Harry hadn’t any arguments. He + just kept coming back and coming back to the one thing. He said again, the + twentieth time, in that dull voice, “We are responsible for the children. + We have a duty towards them.” + </p> + <p> + The twentieth time! She made a gesture, not impatient, just tired, that + was of repletion with this thing. “Ah, you say ‘we’ have a duty. You say + ‘we’; but, Harry, you mean me. Why I a duty more than you? Why am I the + accused?” + </p> + <p> + Harry’s dull note: “Because you are a woman.” Ineffable weariness was in + the murmur that was her reply. “Ah, my God, that reason!” No, she had + never anticipated this. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + How did it happen? Within her face abode the explanation of how it + happened. + </p> + <p> + There was a mirage in her face. + </p> + <p> + If she were taken (for a moment) when she had been married ten years, her + age thirty-two, and then taken again when she was forty-six, when she had + done, when, in 1922, she said, “I have done,” and her story ceases, it is + material to a portrait of her that in those fourteen years her appearance + did not greatly change. Events inscribed it; but these writings were in + two scripts, rendered in the two natures that were hers, and, as it were, + a balance was maintained between them; there remained constant the aspect + that her face presented to the world; constant, that is to say, the spirit + that looked out of her face. + </p> + <p> + That girl that at the door of the great house in Pilchester Square had + breathed, “You knew, before I knew, that I loved you,” had been called + beautiful. This woman that now was wife and now was mother was beautiful + with that girl’s beauty and with her own, matured of years, set upon it. + That girl, shaded in her colouring, commonly was sombre in her hue, but + with a quick, impetuous spirit beneath her flesh that, flashing, somehow + lightened all her tints; this woman, albeit dark, had somehow about her a + deep golden hue as of dusk in a deep wood beheld against a sunset. Her + face had always had a boyish look and still, with years, was boyish. There + was a mirage in her face. The stranger glanced and saw a mother—extraordinarily + shielding and maternal and benignant things; and looked again and saw a + boy—astonishingly reckless and impetuous and rather boyish, hard and + mutinous things. Or glanced and saw a boy, perhaps laughing and eager, + perhaps obstinate and petulant; and looked again and only much tenderness + was there. + </p> + <p> + There was a mirage in her face; and with its changes her voice changed. + When she was a boy her voice was April; when she was a mother September + was her voice. + </p> + <p> + There were two natures in her and those were their reflections; two + lodestars set above her that by turns brightened and drew her gaze; two + lodestones set within her that claimed her banners as claim the moon and + earth the inconstant sea; one of head, one of heart; one of choice, one of + dower; one of will, one of nature. + </p> + <p> + In that tenth year her married life there stood for the mother in her face + three children: Huggo who then was nine; Dora, whom she called Doda + because in her first prattle this heart’s delight of hers-“A baby girl! A + beloved one, Harry, to be daughter to me, and to be a tiny woman with me + as little girls always are, and then budding up beside me and being myself + to me again, my baby girl, my daughter, my woman-bud, my heart’s own + heart!”—had thus pronounced her name, who then was seven; and last + Benjamin, then five, whom she named Benjamin because, come third, come + after cognizance of confliction within herself, come after resentment of + his coming—called Benjamin because, come out of such, there were + such happy tears, such tender, thank-God, charged with meaning tears to + greet him, the one the last of three, the little tiny one, so wee beside + the lusty, toddling others. Benjamin she told Harry he must be named; + Benji she always called him. + </p> + <p> + Huggo and Doda and Benji! Her children! Her darling ones, her lovely ones! + Love’s crown; and, what was more, worn in the persons of these darling + joys of hers (when they were growing up to nine and seven and five years + old) in signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of precedent to the + contrary, that woman might be mother and yet work freely in the markets of + the world precisely as man is father but follows a career. + </p> + <p> + Children! There had been a time when, speaking from the boy that would + stand mutinous and reckless in her face, and with her April voice, she had + expressed her view on parentage in terms of the old resentment at the old + disability, encountered, bedrocked, wherever into life she struck a new + trail; in terms of the old invertion of an old conceit wherever with her + principles she touched conventional opinion. The catlike attributes, the + marriage for a home, here the familiar saw on parenthood— + </p> + <p> + “They talk about hostages to fortune,” she had expressed her idea, “they + talk about a man with young children as having given hostages to fortune. + You know, it’s quite absurd. He doesn’t. I don’t say a man to whom the + support of children is a financial anxiety hasn’t, by begetting them, + placed himself in a position of captivity to fortune, or to the future, or + whatever you like to call it. He very much has. He’s backed a bill that + any day may fall due and find him without means to meet it; he’s let + himself in for blackmail, always over him a threat. But I’m talking about + men above the struggle line. They don’t, in their children, give hostages. + It’s the woman does that. Men don’t give nor forfeit anything. It’s the + woman gives and forfeits. Why, when his friends meet a man who was last + met a bachelor a couple or three years ago, what change do they see in + him? They don’t see any change at all. There isn’t any change to see. He + has to tell them; and he always tells them rather sheepishly or rather + boisterously. ‘I’m married, you know,’ he says. ‘Yes, rather. Man alive, + I’ve got two kids!’ The other says, ‘My aunt!’—more probably he says + ‘My God!’—‘My God, fancy you!’ And they both laugh—laugh! + </p> + <p> + “Hostages to fortune! To a man and amongst men it’s just a joke. It’s no + joke to a woman. Do you suppose a married girl, meeting old friends, has + to tell them she’s a mother, or, if she had to tell them, would tell them + like that? Can’t they see it at a glance? Isn’t she changed? Isn’t she, + subtly perhaps, but unmistakably, altogether different from the unfettered + thing she used to be? Of course she is. How otherwise? She’s given + hostages to fortune and she’s paying; she’s being bled. She’s giving up + things, she’s not going out so much, she’s not reading so much, she’s not + playing so much, she’s not interested so much in what used to interest + her. How can she? There’s the children. How can she? She’s given hostages + to fortune. Oh, happy is the man that hath children for they are as arrows + in the quiver of a giant. But it’s the woman is the arrowbearer! It’s the + woman pays.” + </p> + <p> + Lo, there had come to this intolerance the longing—“Here!”—that + Anna’s bosom had, the urge to hold a tiny scrap against her breast, to + have her heart, bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers. It + had o’erborne the other. She had thrown herself upon its flood; not + yielded to it as one drawn in by rising waters, but tempestuously engulfed + by it and borne away upon it as swallowed up and borne away in Harry’s + arms when “Rosalie! Rosalie!” he had cried to her. + </p> + <p> + That which the subsidence revealed, adoringly she called her Huggo. + </p> + <p> + There was a mirage in her face. When, turned again towards the star to + which she showed her boyish and impetuous look, and, following, she felt + again the call that set the mother in her face, she this time reasoned. + That idea that, having children, it was the woman who gave hostages to + fortune! Deadly and cruelly true it was, but only by convention. Why + should it be so? Why should motherhood that was the crown of love, of + woman’s life, be paid for in coin that no man was called upon to pay? + Unjust; and need not be! She perfectly well had carried on her work with + Huggo. Sleeping was the adored creature’s chief lot in life. If she had + ever thought (which she never had) of giving up her work and staying at + home on his account, what could she have done but twirl her thumbs and + watch him sleep and in his lovely lively hours superintend the nurse who + required no superintendence? As it was she was about him in the delicious + exercises of transporting him from cot through toilet and refreshment to + readiness to take the air. His lordship was off in his lordship’s + perambulator by nine o’clock every morning. She did not herself leave, + with Harry, till shortly before ten. There, in instance, was an hour at + home with not the smallest benefit to Huggo. It would have been the same, + had she remained at home, with three in four of all the other hours. + Ridiculous to lay down that a mother, having a good nurse and a + well-ordered house and a husband out all day, must tie herself there, + abandoning her own life, to attend her children! Children! Darlings of her + own! Ease for this yearning in her heart, assumption of this lovely glory + that was her natural right! Yes, she had proved love not to be + incompatible with her freedom; she would show motherhood as beautifully + could be joined. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to her a blessing upon, and an assurance in, her purpose that in + the precious person of a little daughter came the embodiment of this + reasoning and of this design. A baby girl! A tiny woman-bud to be a woman + with her in the house of Harry and of Huggo! A woman treasury into which + she could pour her woman love! Her self’s own self, whose earliest speech + chose for herself her name—her Doda! + </p> + <p> + It all worked splendidly. Winged on the eager pinions of their individual + lives these two nested their joined life in a home that for every inmate + was a perfect home; perfect for a husband, perfect for a wife, perfect for + the babies, perfect for the servants. The peace of every home in civilized + society rests ultimately on the kitchen, and the peace of half the homes + known to Harry and to Rosalie was in constant rupture by upheavals thence. + Not so behind the gamboge door. Rosalie always granted it to men that, as + was commonly said, servants worked better for men. Men kept out of the + irrational creatures’ way; that was about it. The conduct of her life gave + her the like advantage. Giving her orders before she left the house, she + was out all day and never unexpectedly in. Positively the servants + welcomed her on her return at five o’clock! + </p> + <p> + The babies, to whom then she flew, were with a perfect nurse. Harry had + helped in her appointment. She had come one evening, early in the life of + Huggo, when a change had to be made from the nurse who specialised only up + to the point then reached by Huggo, and she had presented herself to them, + seated together in Harry’s study, a short body, one shape and a solid + shape from her shoulders to her shoes, who announced her name as Muffett. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Muffett, I hope,” said Harry gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Unmarried, sir,” said Muffett with equal gravity and with a sudden drop + and then recovery of her stature as though some one had knocked her behind + the knees. + </p> + <p> + “There’s nothing to do,” said Harry when she had gone, “but to buy her a + turret and engage her”; and there was nothing to do, when she was + installed, but enjoy the babies and delight in them just as a man enjoys + and delights in his tiny ones,—in the early mornings before Rosalie + left for her work, in the evenings when she returned home. + </p> + <p> + It all worked splendidly. In those early years, when two were in the + nursery and as yet no third, there wasn’t a sign that Harry who had + married for a home ever could say, “I have a right to a home.” He had, and + he was often saying so, the most perfect home. He came not home of a night + to a wife peevish with domestic frets and solitary confinement and avid he + should hear the tale of them, nor yet to one that butterflied the day long + between idleness and pleasures and gave him what was left. He came nightly + to a home that his wife sought as eagerly as he sought, a place of rest + well-earned and peace well-earned. That was it! “Things which are equal to + the same thing are equal to each other.” They had discovered and had + removed the worm of disparity that eats away the heart of countless + marriages. They not infrequently had friends in to dinner, not + infrequently dined at the tables of friends, made a point of not + infrequently attending a theatre or a concert; but however the evening had + been passed—and the evenings alone were always agreed to be the best + evenings of all—there was none but they ended sitting together, not + in the drawing-room, but in Harry’s study or in hers, just talking + happiness. Equal in endeavour, they were thereby made equal on every plane + and in every taste. A reciprocating machine. That was it! + </p> + <p> + At least that was how, profoundly satisfied with it, she thought it was. + </p> + <p> + Then Benji came. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + There were attendant upon the expectation and the coming of Benji certain + processes of mind that had not been with Huggo or with Doda. When it was + in prospect she had vexation, sometimes a sense of injury, that again her + work was to be interrupted. It would make no difference to Harry. It + happened that the days of her trial were timed to fall on the date when a + criminal prosecution of sensational public interest was due for hearing at + the Old Bailey. Harry, for the defence, had added immensely to his + brilliant reputation when seeing it through the preliminary stages before + the magistrate. The Old Bailey proceedings were to be the greatest event, + thus far, in his career. He had told her—how proud and delighted to + hear it she had been!—that if he pulled it off (and he had set his + heart on pulling it off) he would really begin to think about “taking + silk.” + </p> + <p> + Well, but she also had her heart, in no single or sensational climax of + her work, but in its every phase and every hour. It absorbed her. Two + years earlier Mr. Simcox had begun disturbing signs of health that, begun, + developed rapidly. His brisk activity went out of him. His walk had the + odd suggestion of one carrying a load. His perky air went dull. His mind + was like a flagging watch, run down. He could not concentrate, he suffered + passages of aphasia, he began more and more to “give up the office,” more + and more to leave things to her. The agency in both its branches, + scholastic and insurance, developed well. She was its head and it absorbed + her. She had a sense, that was like wine to her, of increasing swiftness + of decision, of power, of judgment, of vision, of resource. She used to + hurry to her office of a morning as an artist urgent with inspiration will + hurry to his colours, or a poet to his pen,—avid to exercise that + which was within her. + </p> + <p> + Well, it was to be stopped. Childbed. For a month at least, for two months + more likely, all was to be set aside, to go into abeyance, to drift. + Whereas Harry’s work.... Yes, vexatious! These laws that gave men the + desirable place in life were not laws but conventions and she had proved + them such; but with all proved there yet remained to the man privileges, + to the woman restraints, that were ordinances fundamental and not to be + escaped. Yes, injurious! + </p> + <p> + Thus in those weeks of the coming of him that was to be Benji, solely the + boy of aspect mutinous and impetuous was in her face; and when within a + month stood her appointed time came an event that stiffened there that + aspect, turned it, indeed, actively upon the child within her waiting + deliverance. This event in its momentous incidence on her career placed + its occasion on parity with Harry’s anticipations of the Old Bailey trial. + Mr. Simcox died. + </p> + <p> + There’s no use labouring why the emotions that at this loss should have + been hers were not hers. That girl whose eyes had gathered tears at the + picture of the little figure with flapping jacket peering through the + curtains at the postman’s “rat-tat-flick” was not present in the woman + whose first thought at the sudden news, brought to her seated in her + office, was, “At such a time! Just when—Now what is to be done?” + True for her that there followed gentle feelings, and gentler yet in her + attendance on her patron’s obsequies, in the discovery that all of which + he died possessed he’d left to her, but it is the duller surfaces that are + slowest to give refraction, the least used springs that are least pliant. + She was come a long road from her first signs of hardening. She was past, + now, the stage where, when grieving for the little old man, she would have + felt contrition that her first thought at his death had been, not of him, + but of his death’s effect upon her work. + </p> + <p> + And there supervened, immediately, interests that caused the passing of + Mr. Simcox merely—to have passed. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Sturgiss, of Field and Company, attending the funeral with her, said + to her as he was taking his leave, “One would say this isn’t a moment to + be talking of other things, business things, but after all—In a way + it is the moment. You’ll be making new arrangements and rearrangements + now. Before you start settling anything I want you to have in mind the old + proposition. You’ve been loyal to poor Simcox to the end. This business is + your own now. We want it. We want you. We want you in Lombard Street.” + </p> + <p> + This, cut and dried, glowingly enlarged in long interviews with Mr. + Sturgiss and Mr. Field, succinctly reduced to writing by the firm that it + might be fairly studied, was before her, not demanding, but eagerly + absorbing, her most earnest attention when she was a fortnight from her + trial. This was the event whose momentous incidence on her career placed + the days then in process and immediately in prospect on parity of + importance with their meaning to Harry, absorbed in preparation for his + case. There was so much to weigh; and like a threat, a doom, banked her + impending banishment from affairs, distracting her, haunting her, hurrying + her. There was so much to do, to settle, to wind up (for she found herself + arranging for the change even while she debated it); and in the midst of + it she was to be cut off as by term of imprisonment! There was so much to + scheme, to plan, to dream (her mind already elevated among the high places + of her new outlook); and between now and action she was to go—out of + action. + </p> + <p> + Whereas Harry.... Whose child it was also to be.... + </p> + <p> + Yes, injurious! + </p> + <p> + Not injurious as between dear Harry and herself; but injurious as between + his sex and hers. There were moments of thinking upon the difference when + she could have conceived a grudge against the child she was to bear. + </p> + <p> + And Harry could not perceive the difference! Immersed in his preparations + and, when the case opened, lost to all else in his case, he presented + precisely that faculty (and that permission by convention) of complete + detachment from his home that long she had known to be man’s most + outstanding and most enviable quality. He had no attention to spare for + the consideration of her own problem and ambition, and she was too + honourable to his interests, and too devoted to him in his interests, to + bother him with hers. But, more significantly to her feelings than that, + he was also too immersed to offer her, in her ordeal of childbirth, the + sympathy and the anxiety that, unengrossed, he would have shown. It was + there, profound and loving, beneath the surface; but his work came first. + He was a man, capable of detachment, permitted by convention to practise + detachment, by gift of, nature not inhibited from detachment. A man, he + could put it beneath the surface. A woman, in conflict of her instincts + and her ambitions, it was her ambitions that she must sink. That was it! + Yes, injurious. + </p> + <p> + And he did not even understand. + </p> + <p> + On what proved to be the evening before her delivery, and was the third + day of Harry’s case, she was lying, as she had lain some days, on the + Chesterfield in the drawing-room, loosely robed. Harry had thought he + could get back to tea, and got back. He came to her with tenderest + concern, and with immense tenderness at once was talking to her. But she + could see! The apparent deepening of all the lines of his dear, striking + face, as of one who for hours has been under enormous concentration; the + slight huskiness of his voice, from hard service; the repressed excitation + in his air; the frequent glint behind the soft regard of his eyes, as of + one that has been hunting high and hunting well—she could see; she + could tell where was his spirit! + </p> + <p> + Her own went lovingly to meet it where it was. “Ah, never mind all that, + Harry. Tell me all that’s been happening to you. How is it going, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + Dear Harry! Most mannish man! She laughed (and he laughed too, knowing + perfectly well why she laughed) to note the delight, like a dog from + chain, with which he bounded off into his mind’s absorption. He sat + upright. He grabbed for a cigarette and inhaled it tremendously. “It’s + going like cutting butter with a hot knife. I started cross-examining + today. I gave him three and a half hours of it, straight off the ice, and + I’m not through with him yet. Not half. If he had as many legs as a + centipede he’d still not have one left to stand on when I’m through with + him. I doubt he’ll have his marrow bones to crawl out on, the way he’s + crumpling up. Even old Hounslow at his worst can’t possibly misdirect the + jury, the way I’ve gummed their noses on the trail. I’ll tell you—” + </p> + <p> + He told her. + </p> + <p> + She had put out both her hands and taken one of his. “It’s splendid, + Harry. It’s too splendid. How delighted I am, and proud, proud! No one + would have imagined it at the beginning. What a triumph it will be for + you!” + </p> + <p> + His grasp squeezed hers in fond response. “Why, it won’t do me any harm,” + he agreed. His tone was light. He released his hand and took up a cup of + tea, and his tone went deep. “Mind you, I’m glad about it,” he said, and + stirred the spoon thoughtfully within the cup. He had come into the room + declaring he was dying for some tea, but he had touched none, and he now + replaced the cup untasted on the table and she saw on his face the deep + “inward” look that she knew (and loved) for the sign of intense + concentration of his mind. “Yes, glad,” he spoke; his voice, as was its + habit when he was “inward,” sounding as though it was the involuntary, and + not the intentional, utterance of his thoughts. “I’ve gone all out over + this case. I saw, the minute they briefed me, that one tiny flaw, his + neglect to take up that option—you remember, I told you—right + down at the bottom of the whole tangle, and I went plumb down for it and + hung on to it and fought it up like, like a diver coming up from fathoms + down.” + </p> + <p> + She had a quickness of imagery. It constantly delighted him. “Yes, that’s + good,” she declared. “Up like a diver, Harry. Not with goggles and a + helmet and all that, but shot up like a flash, all shining and glistening + and triumphant with the jewel aloft. What a shout there’d be! Dear Harry! + You’re splendid!” + </p> + <p> + He smiled most lovingly. “As a matter of fact, I feel I ought to make a + mess of it. It’ll be the first big case since we’ve been together that, + while it’s been on, we haven’t had talks about. You couldn’t, of course, + with this so near to you. It would be significant, and proper, if I + drowned in it.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “Absurd! Why, the thing I’m most glad about, Harry, is + that all this”—she indicated with a gesture her pose, her dress, her + condition—“that all this hasn’t in the least upset your work. It + might have. It hasn’t—and when it happens, it won’t, will it?” + </p> + <p> + Harry said, “I’m rather ashamed to say it hasn’t, in the least. I’ve + thought of you, often, but I’ve simply put the thought away. And when it + happens, I shall think of you—terribly—going through it; and + of the small thing—But we shall be in the crisis of the case and I + shall have to forget you. I’ll have to, Rosalie, as I have had to. The + work must go on.” + </p> + <p> + She agreed emphatically. “Of course it must.” She then said, “Whereas mine—” + </p> + <p> + He did not attend her. The “inward” look was deep upon his face. There was + the suggestion of a grimmish smile about his mouth. One could have guessed + that he was rehearsing, with satisfaction, his enormous application while + the work was going on. + </p> + <p> + She gave a sound of laughter, and that aroused him. “What’s the joke?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, just how this does rather illuminate the point—” + </p> + <p> + “The point...?” + </p> + <p> + “Your work and mine—a man’s and a woman’s.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, tell me, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Harry, I do think of it sometimes. We’ve planned it and arranged it + and settled it so nicely, these years, and you see the big thing in + marriage comes along and shatters it to bits. Your work goes on precisely + as if nothing at all were happening; mine has to stand by.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but this,” Harry said, and in his turn indicated her condition. “This—this + is different. We agreed, before Huggo, that if we had children it need + make no difference to you, to your work, in a way. And it hasn’t, and + needn’t now—when it’s over. But this time, this period, why, that’s + bound to interfere.” + </p> + <p> + “But it doesn’t interfere with you. It shows the difference.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it shows the difference,” he assented. + </p> + <p> + His tone was conspicuously careless, conceding the difference but + attaching to it no importance at all; and with it he rose—she had + instantly the impression of him as it were brushing the difference like a + crumb from his lap—and announced, “I’m going to my study now for a + couple of hours before dinner. I must. Our solicitor’s coming in.” He bent + over her and kissed her lovingly. “You understand, I know.” + </p> + <p> + And he went. + </p> + <p> + Yes, it showed the difference! And was not seen by him! Yes, injurious. + Yes, could conceive a grudge.... + </p> + <p> + There was a mirage in her face. Her face, that had been boy’s and mutinous + these weeks, was Mary’s and was lovely in maternal love when it was turned + towards the scrap that on a morning lay against her breast; her thoughts, + that had been stubborn, hard, resentful while her days approached, welled + in remorse, compassion, yearning, joy, when they were past and this was + come. She’d grudged him, this littlest one! Grudged his right, put her own + right against it, this tiny, helpless one! When, added to these thoughts, + Huggo and Doda, those lovely darlings, were permitted to see him, asleep + beside her, he was so wee, so almost nothing against their sturdy limbs, + and had come so unwanted—yes, unwanted, this cherishable one of all!—that + she knew instantly what name he must be given. Her Benjamin! + </p> + <p> + Lying much alone in the succeeding days, contrite, adoring; with frequent + happy tears (she was left weak): with tender, thank-God, charged with + meaning tears, she found a vindication of her self-reproach that immensely + bound her up, forgave her, gave her comfort. She could give up her work! + She could leave all and be with her darlings! Of course she could! At any + time! She had grudged the right to come of this defenceless scrap. She had + set against his right her own right. Ah, dangerous! A long road lay that + way! In conflict of his coming, with her own rights she had been much + engaged. Here, on the sheet beside her, and in the nursery, overhead, were + other rights. Well, when they claimed.... Of course she could! She had not + thought enough about these things.... + </p> + <p> + There is to be said for her that she thought not very widely nor very + deeply upon them now. Her resolution that she could, when it was + necessary, give up her work, scattered them. It came to her as comes to a + man, beset by poverty, scheming by this way and by that to abate it, news + of a legacy. He ceases, in his relief, his present schemes; he has “no + need to worry now.” Or came to her as comes a sail to one shipwrecked and + adrift, painfully calculating out his final dregs of food and water. He + ceases, at that emblem, his desperate plans to stretch his days. He’s all + right now. + </p> + <p> + It was like that with Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + While only she had realised her resentment of this baby’s claims, and only + now her contrite yielding to them; before she had conjectured deeply on + all the problem thus revealed; there came to her, like way of escape to + one imprisoned, like instantaneous lifting of a fog to one therein + occluded, the thought, “I can give up the work.” + </p> + <p> + Of course she could! At any moment; by a word; by the mere formulation of + the step within her mind, she could abandon her career. Not now. It was + not necessary now. But if or when—she used that phrase, in set terms + propounding her resolution to herself—if or when the call of her + children, of her home, came and was paramount, she could give up + everything and respond to it. Oh, happy! Oh, glad discharge of her + remorse! When the children wanted her she could just—come back. + Field and Company, her career, her successes—what of them? She had + done well in her career, she still would do well. Let the claim of home + and children once come into the scale against the claim of those ambitions + and—she would just come back! + </p> + <p> + Oh, happy! + </p> + <p> + “Come back”? Who was it had said something about that, something about + “come back” for a woman, making the expression thus dimly familiar in her + mind? Who? Laetitia? No, Laetitia was always associated with another + phrase: striking because in terms identical with accusation previously + delivered against her. Well she remembered it! On the day following + Harry’s visit to the house to take his deserts from poor Aunt Belle and + Uncle Pyke, she also had gone there, following his high idea of what was + right. She had been refused admittance. There had come for her as the last + voice out of that house a quivering letter from Aunt Belle, seeming to + quiver in the hand with the passionate upbraiding that had indited it, and + a forlorn sentence from Laetitia. “I have done everything for you, + everything, everything, and this is how you have rewarded me,” had pulsed + the pages of Aunt Belle; Laetitia only had written: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Rosalie! You could have had any one you liked to love you, but you + took my Harry and I shall never, never have another.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Salmon’s cry again! Twice identically accused. Once grotesquely + accused; once, on the surface, rightly accused. Both times aware how + poignant and pathetic was the cry; not moved the first time, not moved the + second. Recurring to her now, she knew again how broken-hearted sad it + was, and knew again it ought to move, but did not. Well, not strange now. + She was a long way out of those too soft compassions. No, not Laetitia had + made “come back” familiar to her. The phrase, as she seemed to recollect + its context, was too profoundly practical for the Laetitia sort; and that + was why, of course, it moved her nothing. She had learnt, jostling off + corners in the market place, what formerly she had only conjectured,—that + there was in life no room for sentiment, it clogged; it hampered; it + brought sticky unreality into that which was sharply real. “Come back?” + No, not Laetitia. Who? Keggo? Yes, it was Keggo; and immediately with the + name’s recovery was recovered the phrase’s context. This very matter! + “Rosalie, a woman can’t—come back.” + </p> + <p> + Absurd! But, yes, how she remembered it now! “Very dangerous being a + woman,” Keggo had said. “Men go into dangers but they come out of them and + go home to tea. That’s what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always get + out. They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, heart and + soul, body and mind. Rosalie, women do. That’s why it is so very, very + dangerous being a woman. Women can’t come back. They take to a thing, + anything, and go deep enough, and they’re its; they never, never will get + away from it; they never, never will be able to come back out of it. + Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman gives herself, forgets moderation + and gives herself to anything, she is its captive for ever. She may think + she can come back but she can’t come back. For a woman there is no + comeback. They don’t issue return tickets to women. For women there is + only departure; there is no return.” + </p> + <p> + Poor Keggo! + </p> + <p> + Poor Keggo had of course founded her theory upon her own bitter plight. + How she had given her case away when she had said, “Look at me!” It + applied to her, of course, or to any woman—or man for that matter—who + drank or drugged. It applied not in the least to such a case as this of + her own. Keggo had tried to apply it. She had said, “You have a theory of + life. You are bent upon a career in life. Suppose you ever wanted to come + back?” + </p> + <p> + She had laughed and declared she never would want to come back. Well, look + how absurd all poor Keggo’s idea was now being proved! It had suddenly + occurred to her that it might at some future time be required of her to + come back; and all she had to do was just—to come back. No + difficulty about it whatsoever! No struggle! Indeed, and fondly she + touched that by her side which had called up these thoughts, she would + come back joyously. Of course she would! Field and Company, ambition, that + for if and when her darlings called her! Yes, wrong every way, that poor + Keggo. Dangerous being a woman, she had said, and it was not dangerous. It + could be, and she had proved it, a state that could be lived full in every + aspect,—full in freedom, full in endeavour, full in love, full in + motherhood. Dangerous! A week ago, inimical to this advent, injurious; + now, in this advent’s presence, and with this resolution gladly dedicated + to it, only and wholly glorious. + </p> + <p> + This one! Come after connection, come in contrition, come to call her back + when she should need to be called, the little tiny one, the belovedest + one, the Benjamin one—her Benji! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + Those children were brought up with every modern advantage. Wisdom is + judged by the age in which it flourishes, and everything that the day + accounts wise for children those children had. Their father was of + considerable and always increasing means; their mother was of great and + untrammelled intelligence: anything that money could provide for children, + and that intelligent principles of upbringing said ought to be provided + for children, those children enjoyed. When they were out of the care of + Muffet, who was everything that a nurse ought to be, they passed into the + care of a resident governess, Miss Prescott, who was a children’s + governess, not for the old and fatuous reason that she “loved children,” + but for the new and intelligent reason that she was attracted by the + child-mind as a study and was certificated and diplomaed in the study of + children as an exact science,—Child Welfare as she called it. Miss + Prescott had complete charge of the children while they were tiny and + while they were growing up to eleven and nine and Benji to seven years + old. She taught them their lessons (on her own, the new, principles) and + on the same principles their habits and the formation of their characters. + It might roundly be said that everything troublesome in regard to the + children was left to Miss Prescott, and, left to her, came never between + the children and their mother. Their mother only enjoyed her children, + presented to her fresh, clean and happy for the purpose of her enjoyment; + and the children only enjoyed their mother, visiting them smiling, + devoted, unworried, for the purpose of their happiness. + </p> + <p> + It was a perfect, and a mutually beneficial arrangement. As there had + been, before the children came, two independent lives behind the gamboge + door, so, with the occupation of the nurseries, there were, as it might + be, three independent households, mingling, at selected times, only for + purposes of happiness. + </p> + <p> + It was perfect. In the summer a house was taken at Cromer by the sea and + there, all through the fine weather, Miss Prescott was installed with her + charges. Their mother had three weeks from Field’s in the summer and she + and their father would spend the whole of it, and often week-ends, at + Cromer idling and playing with their darlings. That was jolly. The + children associated nothing whatever but happiness with their parents. + </p> + <p> + In the other months of the year their mother was immensely occupied with + her work at Field’s, developing beyond expectation; and their father early + and late with his work in the Temple, his esteem by solicitors and by + litigants almost beyond his time to satisfy. Their father was much + paragraphed in the social journals, and their mother also. The paragraphs + said their father was making a “princely fortune” at the Bar and never + told of him without telling also of his wife. They described her as “of + Field’s Bank” and always drove the word “unique” hand in hand with every + mention of her parts. “Unique personality”; “unique position”; “unique + among professional women”; “unique,” said one, “in combining notable + beauty and rare business acumen; an office which she attends daily and a + charming home; a profession, three beautiful children, and a brilliant + husband.” + </p> + <p> + The syntax is weak, but the truth is in it and those children were to be + envied in their mother. + </p> + <p> + Miss Prescott, when she came, did not displace the Muffet. She was + installed additional to the Muffet; and as touching the modern principles + relating to children she very soon told Muffet a thing or two not + previously dreamt of in the Muffet philosophy but having, thence forward, + occasional place in the Muffet nightmares. + </p> + <p> + The Muffet, however, was of lymphatic character, with, as her most + constant desire, the desire not to be “plagued.” She was one of those + people who are for ever declaring that they never eat anything, who at + meals, indeed, appear to eat very little, but who between meals, are + eating all day long. At all hours of the day the Muffet jaws, like the + jaws of a ruminant, were steadily munching, munching. When Benji was three + Muffet was getting distinctly fat. On a corner of the night nursery + mantelpiece she had a photographic group of her parents and of an uncle + and aunt who lived with her parents. These four were very fat and one + evening the children’s father made a remark about this portrait that made + their mother laugh delightedly. + </p> + <p> + Benji was in his cot. Huggo had just come from his bath and was having his + toes wiped by his mother because he declared Muffet had not dried them + properly. He said Muffet groaned when she stooped. + </p> + <p> + His mother said, “You know, Harry, Muffet is getting fat. Have you noticed + it?” + </p> + <p> + Their father was bent almost double swinging Doda between his legs, the + stomach of Doda reposing on the palms of his joined hands and Doda + squealing ecstatically. + </p> + <p> + Their father said, “I have. Go and look at that photograph, Rosalie, and + you’ll see why. Look at what her people are. Muffet’s broadening down from + precedent to precedent.” + </p> + <p> + It made their mother laugh. The children didn’t know why it made her + laugh, but they laughed with her. They always did, or with their father + when he laughed. And there was always lots of jolly laughter when their + father and mother came up to the nurseries. + </p> + <p> + Those children, as they passed through early childhood, never saw their + parents but happy and good-spirited. They never saw them worried nor ever + saw them sad. That was, as one might say, Rosalie’s chief offering to her + darlings. It was splendid to Rosalie that her way of life, far from + causing her (as prejudice would have prophesied) to neglect her children, + enabled her to consider them in their relations with herself as, by their + mothers, children in her childhood never were considered. That they should + associate nothing—nothing at all—but happiness with her was + the basis of it. Children, she held, ought not to see their parents + bad-tempered or distressed or in any way out of sorts or out of control. + For a child to do so has in two ways a bad effect on the child mind. In + the first place, it is harmful for children to come in contact with the + unpleasant things of life; in the second, parents should always be to + their children models of conduct and of disposition. They should in + themselves present ideals to their children. A man should be a hero to his + son; a woman an ideal to her daughter. Why is no man a hero to his valet? + It is simply because his valet sees him, as do not those whose esteem he + desires to win, in his off moments. Children should never see their + parents in their off moments. + </p> + <p> + This principle was not Rosalie’s alone. It is the modern principle. The + point, to Rosalie, was that, by her way of life, she was able to apply it. + Children were too much with their parents. That was the fault; in her + childhood the universal fault, even now the fault among the unenlightened. + Parents, being human, must have off moments; are not off moments, indeed, + in the total of the day, of greater sum than moments of circumspection? It + follows that if children are always with their parents, the more unlovely + side cannot fail to be perceived, and, arising out of it, must follow + injury by example, harm by environment, smirching of idealism, loss of + respect. In those homes where the mother (in Rosalie’s phrase) is the + children’s slave, why has the father the children’s greater respect? Why + is it fine to do what father does? Why jolly and exciting to be with + father? It is only because the father commonly is away all day, only seen + by them when, shedding other affairs, he comes to see them specially. + </p> + <p> + Her life—oddly how well for everything and every one her attitude to + life fell out!—obtained for her and for them the same wise and happy + restriction from too free familiarity. She was able to come to her + children only when all her undivided attention and whole hearted love + could be given to them. They never saw her vexed, they never saw her + angry, they never saw her sad. It was not a commonplace to them to see + their mother. It was an event. A morning event and an evening event—and + unfailingly a completely happy event. She looked back upon her own + childhood with her own mother and reflected, fondly but clearly, + affectionately but not blinded by affection, how very different was that. + She was always with her mother. Her mother was often sad, often worried, + often, in distraction of her worries, irritable in speech. Often sad! Why, + she could remember time and again when her dear mother, hunted by her + cares, was broken down and crying. She would go to her mother then and cry + to see her crying, and her mother would put her arms around her and hug + her to her breast and declare she was her “little comfort.” Was it good + for a child to suffer scenes like that? She used to be with her mother all + day long, from early morning till last thing at night. With what result? + That she saw and suffered with her, or suffered of her, all that her + mother suffered; that she was sometimes desolated to feeling that her + heart was broken for her mother. Could that be good for a child? Her + Huggo, her Doda and her Benji never saw her anything but radiant; and + because that was so (as she told herself) she never saw them cry, either + on her account or on their own. + </p> + <p> + Therein—grief in her presence on their own account—another + point arose. With as her ideal that only happiness should be associated + with her, she found her way of life beneficial to the preservation of that + ideal in that it prevented her from being the vessel that should convey + the restrictions, the reproofs and the instruction that are troublesome to + small minds. All that was left to Miss Prescott. She remembered lessons + with her mother; she remembered the irksome learning of a hundred “don’ts” + from her mother; and though they were tender and pathetic memories she + remembered also the reverse of the picture,—being glad to escape + from her mother, resentful against her mother when stood in the corner by + her mother, when stopped doing this that and the other by her mother, when + made to learn terribly hard lessons by her mother and to go on learning + them till she had learnt them. Only childish resentment, of course, swept + up and forgotten as by the sun emerging out of clouds the shadow from a + landscape. But why should children ever have the tiniest frown against + their mother? There must be frowns, there must be tears. Let others bear + the passing grudge of those. Let Miss Prescott. + </p> + <p> + Miss Prescott was willing and able to bear anything like that. She + delighted in such. She told Rosalie, when Rosalie engaged her, and after + she had seen the children, that her only hesitation in accepting the post + was that the children were too normal. “By normal,” said Miss Prescott, + speaking, as she always spoke, as if she were a passage out of a book + given utterance, “By normal, Mrs. Occleve, I do not, of course, mean + commonplace. Any one can see how attractive they are, how gifted; any one + can know how distinguished, with, if I may say so, such talented parents, + their inherited qualities must be. No, when I say normal, I mean showing + no disquieting signs, constitutionally tractable, not refractory. In that + sense of normality it is much more the abnormal child to whom I would have + liked to devote myself. I have specialised in children. The harder the + case the more I should be interested in it. That’s what I mean. But I + never could have hoped to find a household where, though there can be no + difficulties, I should have such opportunities of helping children to be + perfect men and women; nor a mother to whose children I would more gladly, + proudly, devote myself; nor a place with which I should feel myself so + entirely in sympathy. If you feel, on reflection, that I should suit you, + it will be, I am sure—why should I not say so—an auspicious + day for those little ones.” + </p> + <p> + How happy was Rosalie thus by provision to destiny her darlings! + </p> + <p> + Miss Prescott was thirty when engaged by Rosalie. She had a way of looking + at people which, if described, can best describe her appearance. She was + once in an omnibus in London and the conductor, standing against her, and + about to serve a ticket to a passenger seated next her, had some trouble + with his bell-punch. It would not work and he fumbled with it, angry. + Everybody in the bus watched him. It is not nice to be watched when + baffled and heated in bafflement but the only gaze to which attention was + given by the conductor was the gaze of Miss Prescott. He glanced + constantly from the obdurate machine to the face of Miss Prescott. + Suddenly he said: “‘Ere, suppose you do it, then,” and pushed the + bell-punch at her. Miss Prescott took it, did it, astoundingly and + instantaneously, and handed it back with no word. The conductor seemed + more angry than before. + </p> + <p> + It was like that that Miss Prescott looked at people. + </p> + <p> + There is right way of doing everything. Miss Prescott had an uncanny + instinct for finding it; and, applying this faculty to her training of the + child-mind, she presented herself as a notable exponent of the system in + which, as has been said, she was certificated and diplomaed. She taught + children how to play in the right way, how to learn in the right way, and + above all how, in every way and at every turn, to reason. By the old, + ignorant plan children were instructed, speaking broadly, by love or by + fear. It was by pure reason that Miss Prescott instructed them. The child + was treated as an earnest physician treats a case. Ill temper or wrong + behaviour in a child was neither vexing nor sad. It was profoundly + interesting. There was a right and scientific way to treat it and that + right and scientific way was thought out and administered. The child was + “a case.” + </p> + <p> + It was taught nothing but truths and facts. Its mind was not permitted to + be befogged with fairy stories, with superstitions, with Father + Christmases and the like, nor yet with religious half-truths and misty + fables. These entailed not only befogging at the time, but disillusionment + thereafter. Disillusionment was wicked for a child. It further was taught + nothing at all (in the matter of lessons) at the grotesquely early age at + which children used to be taught. It was taught first to reason. + </p> + <p> + In general the whole system lay in developing the child’s reasoning powers + and then, at every turn and particularly at every manifestation of + indiscipline, appealing to its reason. “I am here to be happy”—that + was the first, and surely the kindest and easiest, knowledge to fix in the + child. From that foundation everything was worked. It never was necessary + to punish a child. It only was necessary to reason with it. In the old + phraseology a child meet to be punished was a naughty child. In the + terminology of Miss Prescott such a child was a sick child or an + unreasoning child: a case presenting an adverse symptom. But take the + older term,—a naughty child. A naughty child was an unhappy child. + The treatment went like this, “I am here to be happy. I am not happy. Why + am I not happy? Because I have done so and so and so and so....” + </p> + <p> + Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. Rosalie in her childish misdemeanours + would have been prevailed upon by the unhappiness her conduct caused her + mother. All wrong! A faulty process of reasoning; indeed not a process of + reasoning at all: a crude appeal to the emotions. Those three children who + on the one part never saw their mother sad and were constrained to comfort + her, on the other never were bribed to good behaviour by the thought of + grieving her. They only associated happiness with her and they enjoyed + happiness simply by reasoning away unhappiness. + </p> + <p> + Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. + </p> + <p> + Happy Huggo, happy Doda, happy Benji, happy Rosalie! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + It has been said of Time, earlier in these pages, the cloak-and-dagger + sort he is, that stalks and pounces. One seeks only to record him when he + thus assails, and there is this result; that it is necessary to pare away + so much. In instance, there’s to be inserted now a note on Rosalie’s + advance in her career. It’s cut to nothing. This is because all that + career ultimately was known to her never to have really mattered. And so + with other things. That girl, all through, pressing so strong ahead, rises + to the eye not cumbered with other importance than her own. There might be + asked for (by a reader) presentation of Harry’s parents; of what was doing + all this time to her own parents in the rectory, to Harold, Robert, Flora, + Hilda; of friends that Rosalie and Harry had. That girl’s passage is not + traced in such. Whose is? The chart where such are marked is just a common + public print, stamped for the public eye. They’re not set down upon that + secret chart all carry in the cabin of their soul, and there, in that so + hidden and inviolable stateroom, poring over it by the uncertain swinging + lamp of conscience, prick out their way. + </p> + <p> + Her installation in the bank had been a notable success. She dealt with + all the insurance advice and with income-tax advice and business; and it + was remarkable to her, at first, how many of Field’s clients were as + children in the mysteries of income tax, and as children alike in their + ignorance of the possibilities of life insurance and in their pleasure at + the discoveries she set before them. But further than this (and more + important, said Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. Field) was the quick response of the + clients to the various domestic advice that it was Rosalie’s business to + give. Husbands and wives from the East, or returned thither from London + and writing from the East, consulted her on innumerable matters. When, in + instance, an army officer wrote to her from India, very diffidently + wondering if she could help him in the matter of some Christmas presents + for his wife and children at home, Mr. Sturgiss was uncommonly pleased. + </p> + <p> + “I knew it!” said Mr. Sturgiss. “That’s the kind of thing. You watch how + side-lines like that will develop. That’s what these people want—some + one at home they can rely on. I tell you, Mrs. Occleve, you, that is to + say your department of Field’s, is what the Anglo-Eastern has been wanting + ever since Clive and Warren Hastings went out—a link with home. You + see.” + </p> + <p> + She did see. Mr. Field saw. The clients saw. The friends of the clients + saw—and became clients. + </p> + <p> + All of her position reposed, and was developed by her, on the cruel + disabilities of those who earn their bread in the East. For all such, + married, comes, in time, the sad and the costly business of the divided + home,—the two establishments, the sundering of children and parents, + of husband and wife. By the age of seven at latest, the children have to + be sent home for health and education. Then the sundering, the losing of + touch, the compulsion upon the man, that those at home may be promptly + supported, to deny himself year after year the longed-for visit home. The + losing of touch.... Invaluable to them to have in Field’s, in “that Mrs. + Occleve” a link, known personally or by reputation, that was useable as + relations (capricious, “touchy,” interfering) often are not useable; and + dependable as relations, unpractical, certainly are not always dependable. + Invaluable to the clients; declared by Mr. Field and by Mr. Sturgiss to be + invaluable to the bank; absorbing and splendid to Rosalie. “And still,” + Mr. Sturgiss was always saying, “still capable of much bigger + development.” + </p> + <p> + He sketched one day a development that would be a stride indeed. It began + to be discussed by the three. It connoted so absolute a recognition of + Rosalie’s worth that she decided—lest it should fall through—she + would not mention it to Harry till either it was fallen through or was + afoot. Then! + </p> + <p> + It made her busy. She told Harry once, when they’d been talking of how + much at office she was kept, of her work, and of the place she was making + for herself, “Well, it’s not bad, Harry,” she told him. “It’s not bad. + I’ll admit that. What pleases me is that it’s only a beginning; well as + it’s going, and long as I’ve now been at it, only a beginning. I can’t, as + I’ve often said to you, be doing all this without getting a long insight + into the actual banking business. Oh, don’t you remember my telling you + about that appalling evening when I told poor Uncle Pyke that I wanted to + be a banker? How outraged he was! Poor person, how rightly outraged! The + ridiculous notion that I ever could be a banker! A grotesque dream!” She + gave a small laugh as if tenderly smiling at image before her of that + innocent, eager girl at the Pyke Pounce table. She said softly, “A + grotesque dream. Now, with patent limitations—not a dream.” + </p> + <p> + It was like that that Time (disguised as triumph) kept out of the way; and + similarly disguised, showed no sign either on the children’s side. All + splendid there! Growing up! Huggo set to school! + </p> + <p> + Huggo learnt with Miss Prescott till he was nine, then attended daily a + first-rate school for little boys in Kensington, at eleven started as a + boarder at a preparatory school for Tidborough. Next he was to go to the + great public school itself, afterwards to Oxford and the Bar. All’s well! + Time had nothing at all to say during the first two stages of the + programme. It was in Huggo’s first holidays from the preparatory school + that Time whipped out his blade and pounced. + </p> + <p> + On a day that was a week before the end of that holidays the great new + scheme for Rosalie at Field’s rose to its feet and walked. It was a + special mission on behalf of the bank. + </p> + <p> + It necessitated.. . . + </p> + <p> + She came once or twice to a bit of a stop like that while waiting their + evening talk together in which she should tell Harry. It necessitated a + departure from the established order of things; but what of that? Was not + the way bill of her life all departures from things established, and all + successful, and were not all contingencies of this particular departure + fully insured against? She very easily cantered on, on this rein. That bit + of a stop was scarcely a check in the progression of her thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Seated with Harry in Harry’s room that night she was about to tell him her + great news when, “I’d an unusual offer made to me today,” said Harry. + </p> + <p> + Almost the very words herself had been about to use! + </p> + <p> + “Why so had I to me!” she cried. + </p> + <p> + They both laughed. “Tell on,” said Harry. + </p> + <p> + “No, you. Yours first.” + </p> + <p> + “Toss you,” cried Harry; and spun a coin and lost and went ahead: “Well, + mine doesn’t exactly shake the foundations of the world with excitement + because I refused it. It was to go out to defend in a big murder case in + Singapore!” + </p> + <p> + She exclaimed, “In Singapore!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Singapore. Why do you say it like that?” + </p> + <p> + She did not answer. + </p> + <p> + The prisoner, Harry went on, was a wealthy trader, immensely wealthy, and + immensely detested, it appeared, by the European settlement; had native + blood in his veins; was charged with poisoning an Englishman with whose + wife he was supposed to have been carrying on an amour. “A wretched, + unsavoury business,” said Harry, and went on to say that, though the fee + offered was extraordinarily handsome, he had declined the proposal. It was + doubtful he would actually make more money over it than in his normal + round at home, more than that it went against the grain to be defending a + man of native origins who had pretty obviously seduced a white woman if + not murdered her husband. “No, no ticket to Singapore for me, thanks,” + said Harry. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie turned to him with a sudden, direct interest. “Harry, suppose you + had accepted, how long would you have been away?” + </p> + <p> + “Not less than six months in all. Certainly not less. That’s another point + against—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, against the idea, because in any case you don’t want to go. But + suppose the circumstances had been different; suppose it was a case that + for various reasons very much attracted you; would you have gone?” + </p> + <p> + Harry said indifferently, “Oh, no doubt, no doubt.” + </p> + <p> + “Although it would have taken you from home six months—or more? + You’d not have minded that?” + </p> + <p> + He laughed delightedly. “Ah, ha! I was beginning to wonder what you were + driving at. You’re a regular lawyer, Rosalie; you led me on and then + caught me out properly.” + </p> + <p> + His amusement was not reflected by her. She said with a certain + insistence, “But you wouldn’t have minded?” + </p> + <p> + He laughed again. “The judge ruled that the question was admissible and + must be answered. Well, minded—I’d have minded, of course, very much + in a way. I’m a home bird. I’d have hated being away the best part of a + year. But there you are. If the call was strong enough, there you are; it + would have been business.” + </p> + <p> + She indrew a long breath. “That’s it. It would have been business.” + </p> + <p> + There was then a pause. + </p> + <p> + Harry, who had been talking lightly, then said slowly, “Rosalie, is there + something behind this?” + </p> + <p> + She turned towards him with a very nice smile. “Harry, I’ve been doing a + very shocking thing. I’ve been making you commit yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “Commit myself?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded. “Been taking down your statement without warning you that it + may be used in evidence against you.” + </p> + <p> + He said gravely, “Somehow I don’t like this.” + </p> + <p> + She told him, “Ah, stupid me! I’m making a small thing seem big. Listen, + Harry. It was curious to me this about you and Singapore—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I noticed that. Why?” + </p> + <p> + “Because there’s an idea of my going out to Singapore.” + </p> + <p> + He was astounded. She might have said to Mars. “You? To Singapore?” + </p> + <p> + “To the East generally. To Bombay, to Rangoon, to Singapore. For about a + year.” + </p> + <p> + He was all aback. “For about a year? Rosalie, I can’t—Why on earth—?” + </p> + <p> + She did not like this. The great scheme! Her special mission! It + necessitated.... Here was the necessity at which she had checked but + confidently ridden on, and Harry was pulled right up by it. His + astonishment was not comfortable to her. Was there to be a check then? He + said again, “You? A year? But, Rosalie, what on earth—” + </p> + <p> + She pronounced a single word, his own word: + </p> + <p> + “Business.” + </p> + <p> + He was standing before her on the hearthrug. He made a turn and at once + turned back. “Are you thinking of this seriously?” + </p> + <p> + “Most seriously.” + </p> + <p> + “Of going?” + </p> + <p> + “Of going. It’s business.” + </p> + <p> + “For a year?” + </p> + <p> + “Harry, yes.” + </p> + <p> + He began to fill his pipe with very slow movements of his fingers, his + eyes bent down upon her. “And you called this—just now—a small + thing?” + </p> + <p> + She said with a sudden eagerness, “Harry, it’s a very big thing for me, + for Field’s. I meant a small thing in the sense not to be made a fuss + about.” + </p> + <p> + He made very slowly a negative movement with his head. “I don’t see it + like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me tell you, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + She told him how the great possibilities of the department she had + established in the bank rested on the personal touch established between + herself and the clients. The scheme was that those possibilities should be + developed to their fullest extent. While she was in London that personal + touch could be established with clients by dozens. If she visited the + branches in the East, at Bombay, at Rangoon, at Singapore, it was by + hundreds that the touch could be established. That was it. Field’s + customers would talk to her, and when she was returned they would talk of + her, and would tell others of her, as one met, not during the jolly + freedom of leave when the impulse was to feel that, after all, nothing + mattered much, but met out there when they were in the yoke and the + harness of the thing,—met as one fresh out from home in their + particular interests and shortly, charged with their special interests, + returning home. That was it! A novel mission, a valuable mission, her + mission. About a year. To start in about six weeks. “There, Harry, that’s + the plan.” + </p> + <p> + “And you are going?” + </p> + <p> + “I have agreed to go.” + </p> + <p> + He said slowly, “It astonishes me.” + </p> + <p> + There was then a pause. + </p> + <p> + She spoke. “I think I do not like your astonishment, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “It is justified.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no; not justified. When you told me of a possibility of Singapore for + you I was not astonished. I made no difficulty.” + </p> + <p> + “Different,” he said. “Different.” + </p> + <p> + “Not different, Harry. The same. How different? If you could go, I can go. + The same. Aren’t things with us always the same?” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “Not this. If I had to go—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. It’s the point. If you had to go you’d have to go. Well, I have + to go.” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, if I had to go I could go. A man can.” + </p> + <p> + She cried, “But, Harry, that—This isn’t us talking at all. You mean + a man can leave his home because his home can go on without him. But our + home—it’s just the same for me in our home. We’ve made it like that. + It runs itself. The kitchen—I don’t know when I last gave an order. + The children—there’s never a word. The thing’s organised. I’m an + organiser.” She laughed, “Dear, that’s why they’re sending me. Isn’t it + organised?” + </p> + <p> + He assented, but with an inflexion on the word “It’s—organised.” + </p> + <p> + She did not attend the inflexion. “Well, that’s no organisation that + can’t, in necessity, run by itself. This can. You know, quite well, this + will. You know, quite well, that you will not be put about a jot.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I know that,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then. Astonished—why astonished?” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her. “Let’s call it,” he said, “the principle of the thing.” + </p> + <p> + Oh, now astonishment between them. Her voice, astounded, had an echo’s + sound—faint, faint, scarcely to be heard, gone. “The prin-ci-ple!” + </p> + <p> + This room was lit, then, only by a standard lamp remote from where they + were beside the fire. She was in a deep armchair; its partner, Harry’s + chair, close by. He sat himself on the arm, looking towards her. The + firelight made shadows on his face. + </p> + <p> + She presently murmured, her voice as though that echo, lost, was murmuring + back, “Oh, it is I that am astonished now. The principle! It’s like a + ghost. Harry, how possibly can there come between us the principle?” + </p> + <p> + His voice was deep, “Are we afraid of it, old girl?” + </p> + <p> + She put out a hand and touched him and he touched her hand. They were such + lovers still. That was the thing about it. There never had been an issue + between them, not the smallest; the bloom of their first union never had + dissipated, not a rub. But there was in Harry the intention now to take + her, and there was in her the apprehension now of being taken, to a new + dimension of conversation, not previously trod by them. As they proceeded + it was seen not to be light in this place; a place where touch might be + lost. + </p> + <p> + She said, “But to bring up the principle in this! It can’t be possible + you’ve changed. It isn’t conceivable to me that you have changed. Then how + the principle?” + </p> + <p> + “It is the situation that has changed, Rosalie. It never occurred to me; I + never dreamt or imagined that a thing like this could arise.” + </p> + <p> + She moved in her chair. “Oh, this goes deep....” + </p> + <p> + He put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re not afraid.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’m so strong in this. So always certain. In our dear years together + so utterly assured. Nothing within the principle could touch me. I am + steel everywhere upon the principle. I might hurt you, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll not be hurt.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, say it, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + He was silent a moment. “There isn’t really very much to say. To me it’s + so clear.” + </p> + <p> + She murmured, “And to me.” + </p> + <p> + He said, “We’ve made this home—eleven years. It’s been ideal. You + have combined your work with your—what shall I call it?—with + your domestic arrangements—your business with your domesticity—You’ve + done it wonderfully. We’ve never had to discuss the subject since we + agreed upon it.” + </p> + <p> + She murmured, “That is why—agreed.” + </p> + <p> + “Agreed in general. But when you take the home as between a man and a + woman, there are bound to be responsibilities which, however much you + share, cannot be divided. The woman’s are the—the domesticity.” + </p> + <p> + “What are the man’s?” + </p> + <p> + “To maintain the home.” + </p> + <p> + “I share in that.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, grant you do. I do not claim to share the other.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not asked to, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but, Rosalie, I’ve the right to ask you to provide the other.” + </p> + <p> + Her murmur said, “Oh, do not let us bring up rights. I am so fixed on + rights.” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, let’s keep the thing square. A man can leave his home; he often + has to. I think not so a woman; not a mother; not as you wish now to leave + it. It can’t, without her, go on—not in the same way.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, ours. Ours can.” + </p> + <p> + “Not in the same way. You can’t take out the woman and leave it the same,—the + same for the man, the same for the children. We’re married. The married + state. With children. Doesn’t the whole fabric of the married state rest + on the domesticity of woman?” + </p> + <p> + She murmured, “No, on her resignation, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + As if he had touched something and been burnt he very sharply drew in his + breath. + </p> + <p> + She said, “Ah, you’d be hurt, I told you. Dear, I can’t be other than I am + on this. Upon her resignation, Harry. Men call it domesticity. That’s + their fair word for their offence. It’s woman’s resignation is the fabric + of the married state. She lets her home be built upon her back. She + resigns everything to carry it. She has to. If she moves it shakes. If she + stands upright it crashes. Dear, not ours. I’ve stood upright all the + time. I’ve proved the fallacy. A woman can stand upright and yet be wife, + be mother, make home. Dear, you are not to ask me now—for + resignation.” + </p> + <p> + Therein, and through all the passage of this place where the footway was + uneven, the light not good, the quality of her voice was low and noteless, + sometimes difficult to hear. There is to say it was by that the more + assured, as is more purposeful in its suggestion the tide that enters, not + upon the gale, but in the calm and steady flow of its own strength. + </p> + <p> + The quality of Harry’s voice was very deep and sometimes halting, as + though it were out of much difficulty that he spoke. He said, deeply, + “That you stand upright does not discharge you from responsibilities.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Dear, nor my responsibilities discharge me from my privileges.” + </p> + <p> + There was then a silence. + </p> + <p> + He spoke, “But I am going to press this, Rosalie. I say, with all + admitted, this thing—this ‘I could go but you should not go’—is + different as between us. I am a man.” + </p> + <p> + She made a movement in her chair. “Ah, let that go. I have a reply to + that.” + </p> + <p> + “What reply?” + </p> + <p> + “I am a woman.” + </p> + <p> + He began—“It’s nothing—.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Oh, painful to give you pain. To me—everything.” + </p> + <p> + He got up from his position beside her and went to his chair and seated + himself. He sat on the edge of the chair, bowed forward, his forearms on + his knees, his hands clasped; not smoking; his pipe between his fingers, + his eyes upon the fire. Once or twice, his hands close to his face, he + slightly raised them and with his pipe-stem softly tapped his teeth. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + He had called it the principle. She watched him. That attitude in which he + sat was of a profundity of meditation not to be looked upon without that + sense of awe, of oppression, of misgiving that is aroused by the + suggestion in man or nature of brooding forces mysteriously engrossed. + There came to her, watching him, a thought that newly disturbed her + thoughts. He had called it the principle. She had been astonished but she + had not been perturbed. Upon the principle as between man and woman, + husband and wife, she was, as she had said, so strong, so confident, + accustomed and assured, that there was nothing could be said could touch + her there. But it was not the principle. This was the knowledge brought to + her by the new thought suddenly appeared in her mind, standing there like + a strange face in a council of friends, unbidden and of a suspect look. + What if she communicated that knowledge to Harry brooding there? He had + called it the principle. What if she put across the shadowed room the + sentence that should inform him it was not the principle but was an issue + flying the flag of ships whose freights are dangerous? What if she put + across the shadowed room the sentence, “Men that marry for a home”? + </p> + <p> + Ay, that was it! The thing she had always known and never told. Those are + keepsakes of our secret selves, those observations, vows, conspiracies + with which romantically we plot towards our ideals. This the sole keepsake + of her treasury she never had revealed to Harry. Significant she had not. + Some instinct must have stayed her. Yes, significant! He had called it the + principle. It was not the principle. He was sincere upon the principle and + in the examination of eleven years had proved his sincerity. It was not + the principle. It was that herein, in her intention to exercise her + freedom in a new dimension, she had touched him, not through the + principle, but upon the instinct that led him, as she believed men to be + led, to marry for a home, a settling-in place, a settling-down place, a + cave to enter into and to shut the door upon. + </p> + <p> + Oh, this was dangerous! There were no lengths to which this might not + lead! If at her first essay at that which countered his idea of home she + was to be asked to pause, what, in the increasing convolutions of the + years, might not she be asked to abandon? Let him attempt restriction of + her by appeal to principle and she could stand, and win, unscathed. Let + him oppose her by his wish within his home to shut the door, and that was + to put upon her an injury that only by giving him pain could be fought. + Oh, dangerous! Not less an injury because by sentiment and not by reason + done! Much more an injury because so subtly done! Much more! Dangerous! + Ah, from this the outset to be withstood! + </p> + <p> + He spoke and his first words were confirmation of her fears. + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, do you feel quite all right about the children?” + </p> + <p> + Yes, she could see where this was set to lead. He could leave her with the + children; but she—men that married for a home—could not leave + him with the children. + </p> + <p> + She said gently, “Dear, there’ll not be the least difficulty. Everything’s + perfectly arranged. Everything will perfectly well go on.” + </p> + <p> + He had not moved his pose and did not move it. His voice presented in tone + the profound meditation that his pose presented. He said, “I don’t quite + mean that. I mean, do you always feel everything’s quite all right with + them?” + </p> + <p> + How setting now? She answered, “Dear, of course I do.” + </p> + <p> + His eyes remained upon the fire. “Rosalie, d’you know I sometimes don’t.” + </p> + <p> + Her motion—a lifting of her face, a questing of her brows—was + of a helmsman’s gesture, suspicious to catch before it set a shifting of + the breeze. “Harry, in what way? They’re splendid.” + </p> + <p> + “You feel that?” + </p> + <p> + “Dear, you know they are.” + </p> + <p> + He put his pipe to his mouth and with that meditative tapping tapped his + teeth. “Splendid, yes, in health, in appearance, in development, in all + that kind of thing. I don’t mean that.” He turned his face towards her and + spoke directly. “Rosalie, have you ever thought they’re not quite like + other children?” + </p> + <p> + Oh, setting from what quarter this? She said, “They’re better—miles + and miles.” + </p> + <p> + He got up. “Well, that’s all right. If you have noticed nothing, that’s + all right.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Harry. I am at a loss, dear. Of course it’s all right. But what have + you noticed, think you’ve noticed?” + </p> + <p> + He was standing before her, his back against the mantelpiece, looking down + at her. “Just that—not quite like other children.” + </p> + <p> + “But in what way?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s hard to say, old girl. If you’ve not noticed it, harder still. Not + quite so childish as at their age I seem to remember myself with my + brothers and sisters being childish. A kind of—reserve. A kind of—self-contained.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head, “No, no.” + </p> + <p> + “You think it’s fancy?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure it is.” + </p> + <p> + He was silent a moment. “It’s rather worried me. And of course now—If + you are going to be away—” + </p> + <p> + Stand by! She had the drift of this! + </p> + <p> + She said simply, “Harry, this can’t be.” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t give up the idea?” + </p> + <p> + Her hand upon the helm that steered her life constricted. “It is not to be + asked of me to give it up.” She paused. She said softly, “Dear, this is a + forward step for me. You are asking me to make a sacrifice. I would not + ask you.” + </p> + <p> + He began, “There are sacrifices—” + </p> + <p> + “They are not asked of men.” + </p> + <p> + He said, “Rosalie, you said once, when Benji was born, that, if at any + time need be, you would give up, not a thing like this, but your work + entirely.” + </p> + <p> + As if to shield or to support her heart she drew her left hand to it. + “Would you give up yours, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + He said quickly, “I’m not suggesting such a thing. It is ridiculous. I’m + only showing you—” + </p> + <p> + She began to say her say, her voice reflective as his own had been. “But + you have shown me frightful things, shown me how far and oh, how quick, a + thing that starts may go. Oh, my dear, know the answer before it ever is + suggested. Sacrifices! It is sacrifice for the children that you profess + to mean. Well, let us call it that. Have you ever heard of a father + sacrificing himself for his children? There’s no such phrase. There’s only + the feminine gender for that. ‘Sacrificed himself for his wife and + children.’ It’s a solecism. If grammar means good sense, it isn’t grammar + because it’s meaningless. It can’t be said. It’s grotesque. But + ‘Sacrificed herself for her husband and her children,’—why, that the + commonest of cliches. It’s written on half the mothers’ brows; it should + be carved on half the mothers’ tombs—upon my own dear mother’s.” She + stood up and faced him. “Harry, not on mine.” She put a gentle hand on + his. “I love you—you know what our love is. I love the children—with + a truer love that they have never been a burden to me nor I on a single + occasion out of mood with them. But, Harry, I will not sacrifice myself + for the children. When I ask that of you, ask it of me. But I never will + ask it of you.” + </p> + <p> + She was trembling. + </p> + <p> + He put an arm about her shoulders. “It’s over. It’s over. Let’s forget it, + Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + Of course she did not forget it. Of course she knew that Harry could not. + Men that marry for a home! Already in his mind the thought that for his + home she should give up, not only this present forward step, but—everything! + Oh, man-made world! Oh, man-made men! “It’s over. It’s over,” he had said. + Of course she knew it was not over. Men that marry for a home! Secret she + had kept it and in the same moment that she had realised the significance + of her secrecy it had been enlarged. Now it stalked abroad. + </p> + <p> + But what is to be observed is the quality of the love between them. It was + through the children that he had made this claim that he had sought to + impose upon her. She had told him, as she believed, that what he thought + he saw was fancy. It never occurred to her to imagine so base a thing as + that he, to give himself grounds, had invented or even exaggerated his + fancy; but it had been excusable in her (threatened as she saw herself) to + avoid, in the days that followed, discussion of that fancy, much less + herself to bring it forward. Her love for Harry was never in that plane. + It could admit no guile. It happened that within the week she was herself + a little pained by a matter with the children. She took her pain straight + to her Harry. + </p> + <p> + On his last day of the holidays before he returned for his second term at + his preparatory school, Huggo was noisy with excitement at the idea of + returning. It rather pained Rosalie that he showed not the smallest sign + of regret at leaving home. Miss Prescott had done all the necessary + business of getting his clothes ready for school, but Rosalie took from + Field’s this last afternoon to do some shopping with her little man (as + she termed it) in Oxford Street; to buy him some little personal things he + wanted,—a purse of pigskin that fastened with a button, a knife with + a thing for taking stones out of horses’ hoofs, and a special kind of + football boots. Since there had come to her the “men that marry for a + home” significance, that mirage in her face had much presented that + mutinous and determined boy it often showed. Only the mother was there + when she set out with Huggo. And then the sense of pain. + </p> + <p> + Oxford Street appeared to be swarming with small boys and their mothers + similarly engaged. All the small boys wore blue overcoats with velvet + collar and looked to Rosalie most lovably comic in bowler hats that seemed + enormously too big for their small heads. Huggo was dressed to the same + pattern but his hat exactly suited his face which was thin and, by + contrast with these others, old for his years. Rosalie wished somehow that + Huggo’s hat didn’t suit so well; the imminent extinguisher look of theirs + made them look such darling babies. And what really brought out the + difference was that all these other small boys invariably had a hand + stretched up to hold their mothers’ arms and walked with faces turned up, + chattering. Huggo didn’t. She asked him to. He said, “Mother, why?” + </p> + <p> + “I’d love you to, darling.” + </p> + <p> + He put up his hand and she pressed it with her arm to her side, but she + noticed that he was looking away into a shop window while he did as he was + asked, and there came in less than a dozen paces a congestion on the + pavement that caused him to slip behind her, removing his hand. He did not + replace it. + </p> + <p> + In the shop where the knife was to be bought an immense tray of every + variety of pocketknife was put before them. Huggo opened and shut blades + with a curiously impatient air as though afraid of being interfered with + before he had made his choice. Immediately beside Rosalie was another + mother engaged with another son upon another tray. + </p> + <p> + “It’s got to have a thing for levering stones out of horses’ hoofs,” said + Huggo, brushing aside a knife offered by the assistant and rummaging a + little roughly. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said, “Darling, I can’t think what you can want such a thing for.” + </p> + <p> + The lady beside her caught her eye and laughed. “That’s just what I’m + asking my small man,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Her small man, whose face was merry and whose hat appeared to be supported + by his ears, looked up at Rosalie with an engaging smile and said in a + very frank voice, “It’s jolly useful for lugging up tight things or to + hook up toffee that’s stuck.” + </p> + <p> + They all three laughed. Huggo, busily engaged, took no notice. + </p> + <p> + He found the knife he wanted. Rosalie showed him another. “Huggo, I’m sure + that one’s too heavy and clumsy.” + </p> + <p> + The voice of the little boy with the hat on his ears came, “Mummie, I’d + rather have this one because you chose it.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said to Huggo, “It will weigh down your pocket so.” + </p> + <p> + “This one! This one!” cried Huggo and made a vexed movement with a foot. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie, sitting with Harry before the fire in Harry’s room that night + said, “Harry, tell me some more of what you said the other day about the + children.” + </p> + <p> + He looked up at her. He clearly was surprised. “You’ve been thinking about + it?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been with Huggo shopping for him this afternoon and been at little + things a little sad. Harry, when you said ‘not like other children’ did + you mean not—responsive?” + </p> + <p> + He said intensely, “Rosalie, it is the word. It’s what I meant. I couldn’t + get it. I wonder I didn’t. It’s my meaning exactly—not responsive. + You’ve noticed it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, tell me first.” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, it’s sometimes that I’ve gone in to the three of them wanting to + be one with them, to be a child with them and invent things and imagine + things. Somehow they don’t seem to want it. They don’t—invite it. + Your word, they don’t—respond. I want them to open their hearts and + let me right inside. Somehow they don’t seem to open their hearts.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Harry, they’re such mites.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “They’re not mites, old girl. Only Benji. And even + Benji—It was different when they were wee things. It’s lately, all + this. They don’t seem to understand, Rosalie—to understand what it + is I want. That’s the thing that troubles me. It’s an extraordinary thing + to say, but it’s been to me sometimes as if I were the child longing to be—what + shall I say?—to have arms opened to me, and they were the grown-ups, + holding me off, not understanding what it is I want. Not understanding. + Rosalie, why don’t they understand?” + </p> + <p> + She had a hand extended to the fire and she was slowly opening and + shutting her fingers at the flames. This, coming upon the feeling she had + had that afternoon with Huggo, was like a book wherein was analysed that + feeling. But, “I am sure they do understand, dear,” she said. “I’m sure + it’s fancy.” + </p> + <p> + “I think you’re not sure, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, I am. If it’s anything it’s just perhaps their way—all + children have their ways. What I thought about Huggo this afternoon might + perhaps be something what you mean. Harry, if it is, it’s just the little + man’s way.” + </p> + <p> + “What was it you thought?” + </p> + <p> + She maintained that movement of the fingers of her hand. “Why, only things + I noticed; tiny things; nothings, I’m sure. Out shopping with me, Harry. + Well, it was his last day and I would have expected somehow he would have + been fonder for that. He wasn’t and I rather felt it. Things like that. I + would so like him to have held my arm. He didn’t want to. Not very + grateful for the things we bought. But there, why should he be, dear + Huggo? But just his way; that’s what one ought to think. But I felt it a + little.” + </p> + <p> + Harry said, “I know. I know. It’s that that I have felt—not + responsive. It’s what I’ve thought I’ve noticed in them all.” + </p> + <p> + Telling him perhaps enlarged, as telling does, her sensibilities. She said + very quickly, “Not Benji!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Benji’s so very young. But even—But in the other two—” + </p> + <p> + She said as quickly as before, “Ah, Doda’s responsive!” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve seen it, dear, in Huggo.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Harry, nothing, just his way. I’m sorry now I mentioned it.” + </p> + <p> + He had been watching the flexion of her hand. He said, “I’m glad you have. + When I spoke of it the other day you said you didn’t see it. I think it’s + generous in you to admit you have.” + </p> + <p> + She murmured, “Generous?” + </p> + <p> + “It brings up—Rosalie, does this affect a little, alter perhaps, + your decision?” + </p> + <p> + She shut her fingers sharply. “No.” She kept them shut. “There’s nothing + at all could alter that, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + He turned aside and began to fill his pipe, with slow movements. + </p> + <p> + It has been warned that it was in this holidays of Huggo’s from his + preparatory school that Time, that bravo of the cloak-and-dagger school, + whipped out his-blade and pounced. These, since that warning, were but the + doorways and the lurking posts he prowled along. + </p> + <p> + He now was very close to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie and Harry both were home to lunch next day. In the afternoon they + were to take Huggo to Charing Cross to see him off in the saloon specially + reserved for his school. All the children were at lunch for this occasion. + Benji in a high chair just like the high chair that had been Rosalie’s + years back—what years and years!—at the rectory. Huggo was in + boisterous spirits. You would think, you couldn’t help thinking, it was + his first day, not his last day home. Rosalie observed him as she had not + before observed him. How he talked! Well, that was good. How could Harry + have thought him reserved? But he talked a shade loudly and with an air + curiously self-opinionated. But he was such a child, and opinions were + delightful in a child. Yes, but something not childish in his way of + expressing his opinions, something a shade superior, self-satisfied; and + she particularly noticed that when anything in the way of information was + given him by Harry or by herself he never accepted it but always argued. + She grew very silent. She felt she would have given anything to hear him, + in the long topic of railways with his father, and then of Tidborough + School, say, “Do they, father?” or, “Does it, father?” He never did. He + always knew it before or knew different. Once on a subject connected with + the famous school Harry said, a shade of rebuke in his voice, “My dear old + chap, I was at Tidborough. I ought to know.” Rosalie felt she would have + given anything in the world for Huggo to reply, “Sorry, father, of course + you ought.” Instead he bent upon his plate a look injured and resentful at + being injured. But in a minute she was reproaching herself for such ideas. + Her Huggo! and she was sitting here criticising him. Different from other + children! Why, if so, only in the way she had affirmed to Harry—miles + and miles better. Opinionated? Why, famously advanced for his years. + Superior? Why, bright, clever, not a nursery boy. She had been wronging + him, she had been criticising him, she had been looking for faults in him, + her Huggo! Unkind! Unnatural! + </p> + <p> + Listen to him! The meal was ended. His father was bantering him about what + he learnt, or didn’t learn, at school; was offering him an extra five + shillings to his school tip if he could answer three questions. The + darling was deliciously excited over it. How his voice rang! He was + putting his father off the various subjects suggested. Not Latin—he + hadn’t done much Latin; not geography—he simply hated geography. + Listen to him! + </p> + <p> + “Well, scripture,” Harry was saying. “Come, they give you plenty of + scripture?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, don’t they just! Tons and tons!” Listen to him! How merry he was now! + “Tons and tons. First lesson every morning. But don’t ask scripture, + father. Father, what’s the use of learning all that stuff, about the + Flood, about the Ark, about the Israelites, about Samuel, about Daniel, + about crossing the Red Sea, about all that stuff: what’s the use?” + </p> + <p> + Time closed his fingers on his haft and took a stride to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + She sat upright. She stared across the table at the boy. + </p> + <p> + Harry said, “Here, steady, old man. ‘What’s the use of Scripture?’” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what is the use? It’s all rot. You know it isn’t true.” + </p> + <p> + Time flashed his blade and struck her terribly. + </p> + <p> + She called out dreadfully, “Huggo!” + </p> + <p> + “Mother, you know it’s all made up!” + </p> + <p> + She cried out in a girl’s voice and with a girl’s impulsive gesture of her + arm across the table towards him, “It isn’t! It isn’t!” + </p> + <p> + Her voice, her gesture, the look upon her face could not but startle him. + He was red, rather frightened. He said mumblingly, “Well, mother, you’ve + never taught me any different.” + </p> + <p> + She was seen by Harry to let fall her extended arm upon the table and draw + it very slowly to her and draw her hand then to her heart and slowly lean + herself against her chair-back, staring at Huggo. No one spoke. She then + said to Huggo, her voice very low, “Darling, run now to see everything is + in your playbox. Doda, help him. Take Benji, darlings. Benji, go and see + the lovely playbox things.” + </p> + <p> + When they had gone she was seen by Harry to be working with her fingers at + her key-ring. In one hand she held the ring, in the other a key that she + seemed to be trying to remove. It was obstinate. She wrestled at it. She + looked up at Harry. “I want to get this”—the key came away in her + hand—“off.” + </p> + <p> + He recognised it for her office pass-key. + </p> + <p> + Caused by that cry of hers to Huggo and by that ges-ture with her cry, and + since intensifying, there had been a constraint that he was very glad to + break. He remembered how childishly proud she had been of that key on the + day it was cut for her. They had had a little dinner to celebrate it, and + she had dipped it in her champagne glass. + </p> + <p> + He said, “Your pass-key? Why?” + </p> + <p> + She said, “I’m coming home, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “Coming home?” + </p> + <p> + She was sitting back in her chair. She tossed, with a negligent movement + of her hand, the key upon the table. “I have done with all that. I am + coming home.” + </p> + <p> + He got up very quickly and came around the table to her. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PART FOUR — HOUSE OF CARDS + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + There is a state wherein the mind, normally the court of pleas where + reason receives and administers the supplications of the senses, is not in + session. Reason is sick, suspends his office, abrogates his authority, + withdraws to some deep fastness of the brain, and suffers the hall of + judgment to be the house of license or of dreams: of dreams, as sleep, as + vanity of reverie; of license when there is tumult in the body politic, as + fever, as excesses of the passions, as great shock. Reason is sick, + withdraws, and there is strange business in that place. + </p> + <p> + If that is just the way one writes, not susceptible of easy comprehension, + and not enough explanatory of Rosalie’s condition, it goes like this in + Rosalie’s own words. Drooped back there in her chair before that littered + disarray of lunch, and that key lying there, and Harry stooping over her + and holding both her hands, she said, “Oh, Harry! Oh, Harry! I feel + deathly sick.” + </p> + <p> + She said it had been a most frightful shock to her, what Huggo had + declared. She said, “Oh, Harry, I feel all undone.” + </p> + <p> + Undone! We’ll try to feel her mind with that; to let that explain her when + she said this else, and when she wrote some things that shall be given. + </p> + <p> + She said she had suffered, in that moment of crying out to Huggo and of + stretching out her arm to him, the most extraordinary—what was the + word?—the most extraordinary hallucination. “Harry, when Huggo said + that frightful thing! Oh, Harry, like an extraordinary dream, I was a + child again. It wasn’t here; it was happening; it was the rectory; and not + you and the children but all us children that used to be around the table + there. No, not quite that. More extraordinary than that. Robert was there; + Robert, I think, in Huggo’s place; and all the rest were me—me as I + used to be when I was ten; small, grave, wondering, staring. And yet + myself me too as I was then—oh, horrified as I’d have then been + horrified to hear the Bible stories called untrue; jumped up and crying + out, ‘It isn’t! It isn’t!’ as I would then have jumped up and cried out; + and all the other Rosalies staring in wonder as I’d have stared. Oh, + extraordinary, extraordinary! Within this minute, I have been a child + again. The strangest thing, the strangest thing! + </p> + <p> + “I was a child again, Harry, in a blue frock I used to wear and in a + pinafore that had a hole in it; and all those other Rosalies the same. + Those other Rosalies! To see them! Harry, I’ve not seen that Rosalie I + used to be—not years and years. That tiny innocent! It is upon me + still. I feel that small child still. Oh, I feel it! I remember—dear, + did I ever tell you?—when my father once... had been talking about + Cambridge... and suddenly cried out, it was at breakfast, ‘Cambridge! My + youth! My God, my God, my youth!’ There was coffee from a cup that he’d + knocked over came oozing, and I just sat there huge-eyed, staring, a + small, grave wondering child.... + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Harry, my youth, my childhood—and now the children’s! The + difference! The difference!” + </p> + <p> + Harry talked to her. He ended, “The teaching, all the ideas, dear girl, + you mustn’t worry, it’s all different nowadays.” + </p> + <p> + “Harry, to hear it from a child like that!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s startled you. It needn’t. We’ll talk it out. We’ll fix it. It’s just + what he’s been taught, old girl.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Oh, it is what he’s not been taught!” + </p> + <p> + Then there were things that, while was still upon her this shock, this + sense of being again the small, grave child in the blue frock and in the + pinafore with the hole in it, she wrote down. She dismissed Miss Prescott. + She thought, when the interview of dismissal opened, that she would end by + upbraiding Miss Prescott, but she was abated all the time in any anger + that she might have felt by Huggo’s other frightful words, “Well, mother, + you never taught me any different.” She did not want to hear Miss Prescott + tell her that. She told Miss Prescott simply that she was giving up her + business and coming now to devote herself to the children. She thought, + she said, their education had in some respects been faulty, and told Miss + Prescott how. Miss Prescott, speaking like a book, told her it had not + been faulty and told her why. “Truth, knowledge, reason,” said Miss + Prescott. “Could it conceivably be contested that these should not be the + sole food and the guiding principle of the child mind?” + </p> + <p> + It was after that interview that Rosalie, sitting long into the night, + wrote down some things. She is to be imagined as wrenched back, as by a + violent hand, across the years, and in the blue frock and the pinafore + with a hole in it again, and awfully frightened, terribly unhappy, at the + thing she’d heard from Huggo. That was the form her shock took. Beneath it + she had at a blow abandoned all her ambitions as when a child she would + instantly have dropped her most immersing game and run to a frightening + cry from her mother; as once, in fact (and the incident and the parallel + came back to her), she had been building a house of cards, holding her + breath not to shake it, and her mother had scalded her hand and had cried + out to her, frighteningly. “Oh, mummie, mummie!” she had cried, running to + her; and flap! the house of cards had gone. Her inward cry was now, “The + children! The children!” and what amiss the leaving of her work? Her work! + Oh, house of cards! + </p> + <p> + Her state of mind, the imaginings in which that shock came to her, is + better seen by what she wrote down privately, to relieve herself, than by + the talk about it all that she had with her Harry. She wrote immediately + after Miss Prescott had stood up for “truth, knowledge, reason,” and by + combating truth, knowledge, and reason more clearly expressed herself than + in her talk with Harry. It was in her diary she wrote—well, it + wasn’t exactly a diary, it was a desultory journal in which sometimes she + wrote things. As she wrote, her brow, in the intensity of her thought, was + all puckered up. She still felt “deathly sick; all undone.” She wrote: + </p> + <p> + “Of course it’s as she says (Miss Prescott). That is the kind of thing + to-day. Knowledge, stark truth—children must have in stark truth all + the knowledge there is on all the things that come about them. It’s + strange; yes, it is strange. No parent would be such a fool as to trust a + child with all the money she has nor with anything superlatively precious + that she possesses; but knowledge, which is above all wealth and above all + treasure, the child is to have to play with as it likes. Oh, it is + strange. Where is it going to stop? If you bring up a child on the fact + that all the Old Testament stories are untrue, a bundle, where they are + miraculous, of obviously impossible fairy tales, what’s going to happen to + the New Testament? The Immaculate Conception, the Resurrection, the + Ascension—what’s your child-mind that knows the old stories for + inventions going to say to those? Are they easier to believe? The Creation + or the Conception? The Flood or the Resurrection? God speaking out of a + burning bush or the Ascension to Heaven? The pillar of cloud and the + pillar of fire or the Three in One of the Trinity? Oh, I wonder if Modern + Thought has any thought to spare for that side of the business—or + for its results in a generation or two?” + </p> + <p> + Then she wrote: + </p> + <p> + “I’ve never taught them any different.” + </p> + <p> + Then she wrote: + </p> + <p> + “Mother, I am a child again to-night. Darling, in that blue frock I used + to wear. Darling, all that I to-night am thinking is what you taught me. + Oh, look down, beloved! I’ve been so wrong. I thought everything was + infinitely better for them than you made it, beloved mother, for me. I + didn’t realise.” + </p> + <p> + Then she wrote: + </p> + <p> + “It just means losing everything in God that’s human. It must mean that. + All our intelligence, if materialism may be called intelligence; all + modern teaching, if this new stuff that they pontificate may be called + teaching, offers us God the Spirit but, as it seems to me to-night, denies + us God the Father and God the Son. It may be—reasonable. But things + spiritual demand for their recognition emotions spiritual, and there’s a + pass that thousands reach when the spirit is a dead thing. If they are to + believe in God only as a Spirit, a Force, a Power; an Essence to be felt + but not seen; an Element to be absorbed into but not to be visualised—if + this, if these, there needs in them some spirit, some force, some power of + themselves to lift themselves to meet it. They must be of themselves + responsive as hath the sea within itself that which respondeth to the + sublimation of the sun. Well, there are thousands (am I not one?) that + have it not. It once was theirs. Now it is not theirs. If there is for + them only God the Spirit then is there for them only that to which they + have no more power to reach than has one bedridden power to rise and find + a mile away what may restore him. They have only that, their breaking + heart, which would cast itself, ah, with what bliss of utter abandonment, + before God the Father, a human and a personal Father, quick to succor, and + before God the Son, a human and a personal Son, ardent to intercede. And + that is denied them. That God that existed and that was taught to exist + for my mother and for her day to this day may not exist. It may be—reasonable. + Oh, it is offering a stone where bread was sought.” + </p> + <p> + She also wrote: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, mother, if you could have been here, how you would have loved my + darlings, and how you would have given them all that you gave to me! I + will now, mother. Mother, I’ve come back home to them, in the blue frock, + and in the pinafore with a hole in it.” + </p> + <p> + That was the spirit in which she came back home to the children, that and + all that went with it and that arose out of it. It was nothing at all to + her when she did it, the frightful break with Field’s. Harry was + distressed for her, but there was no need at all for him to be distressed, + she told him. There wasn’t a sigh in her voice, nor in her inmost thoughts + a sigh, when, telling him of the interview with Mr. Field and with Mr. + Sturgiss at her resignation of her post, she said with a smile, “Carry on? + Of course the department can perfectly well carry on. Dear, it’s just the + words I said to you a fortnight back on the matter so very different. ‘The + thing’s organised. It runs itself. That is why it is the success it is, + because it’s organised. That’s why I can come away and leave it, because + I’m an organiser. Aren’t I an organiser?” + </p> + <p> + He held her immensely long in his arms. “You are my Rosalie,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Immensely long he held her, immensely close; oh, men that marry for a + home! Until, come home, she saw Harry’s tremendous happiness in the home + that now she gave him, she never had realised the longing that must have + been his for the home for which he had married, and never till now had + had. It was poignant to her, the sight of his tremendous happiness. + “Always to find you here!” he would cry, in the first weeks of the new + life, coming home to tea and coming in to her in the drawing-room where + she would be, all ready for him, with Doda and with Benji. “Always to + leave you here!” he would say, taking leave of her in the morning, and she + and Doda and Benji coming with him to the hall door to see him off. “Mice + and Mumps,” he used to add in codicil, “Mice and Mumps, I’m a happy chap!” + and was for ever bringing home trifles for her and for the children, or + plans and passes for how and where the Saturday and the weekend should be + spent, all four together. “Mice and Mumps, I’m gorged with happiness! And + you, Rosalie?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, happy!” she used to say. + </p> + <p> + And was. It was poignant to her, his tremendous happiness, and it brimmed + up the cup of her own happiness. She was doing virtuously and she had of + her virtue that happiness which, as the pious old maxims tell us, comes of + being good. + </p> + <p> + That should have been well; but virtue is a placid condition and the + happiness arising out of it placid. It brims no cups, flushes no cheeks, + sparkles no eyes. It is of the quality of happiness that one, loving a + garden, has from his garden, the happiness of tranquillity, not of stir; + of peace, not of thrills; of the country, not of the town. There was more + heady stuff than this that Rosalie had out of her new condition, and that + was dangerous. She was doing virtuously and she had out of her virtue an + intoxication of joy that, in so far as it is at all concerned with virtue, + arises, not from virtue’s self, but from the consciousness of virtue. That + was dangerous. The danger point in stimulants is when they are resorted + to, not as concomitant of the pleasures of the table, but be-cause they + stimulate. Rosalie, come to her children and her Harry and her home, to + the thought of her renunciation and of her happiness constantly was + turning for the enormous exhilaration of happiness that there she found. + “How glad I am I gave it up! How glad! How glad! How right I’m doing now! + How right! How right! How happy I am in this happiness! How happy! How + happy!” + </p> + <p> + Is it not perceived that thus it was not well assured, this great joy that + she had, this cup of hers that brimmed? She started from that danger point + at which the drug is drunk for stimulant. On the very first day of her new + life she was saying, “How glad I am! How glad I am!” and going on radiant + from her gladness. But she, in her resort to this her stimulant, suffered + this grave disparity with the drinker’s case: he must increase his doses—and + he can. She, living upon her stimulant, equally was compelled—but + could not. The renunciation that brimmed her happiness on the first day + was available to her in no bigger dose on the succeeding days, the + hundredth day and the three hundredth and the five hundredth. It never + could increase. It had no capacity of increase. Is it not perceivable that + it had, on the contrary, a staling quality? + </p> + <p> + It would have been all right if it had been all right. It would have been + all right if it had not been all wrong. If these absurd premises can be + understood, her case can be understood. She used them herself in after + years. “It would have been all right,” she used to say to herself, + twisting her hands together, “if it had been all right.” “It would have + been all right,” she used to say to herself, “if it had not been all + wrong.” What she meant, and what here is meant, requires it to be recalled + that it was in that spirit of that glimpse of herself back a child again + in the blue frock and in the pinafore with a hole in it that she came back + to the children, came back home to them. Shocked by the thing that had + come to pass, penitential by influence of the old childhood influences + that had stirred within her, most strangely and most strongly transported + back into that childhood vision of herself, it was in the guise of that + child and with that child’s guise as her ideal for them that passionately + she desired to take up her children’s lives. Her Huggo, her man child, her + first one! Her Doda, her self’s own self, her woman-bud, her daughter! Her + Benji, her littlest one, her darling! She longed, as it were, to throw + open the door, and in that blue frock and in the spirit of that blue frock + most ardently to run in to them and hug them, blue frocked, to her breast, + and be one with them and tell them the things and the things and the + things that were the blue frock’s mysteries and joys, and hear from them + the things and the things and the things that were the blue frock’s + all-enchanted world again. + </p> + <p> + That was what most terribly she wanted and with most brimming gladness set + about to do—and there was borne, in upon her, hinted in weeks, + published in months, in seasons sealed and delivered to her, that there + was among her children no place for that spirit. They did not welcome the + blue frock; they did not understand the blue frock; they were not children + as she had been a child. It was what Harry had said of them, they somehow + were not quite like other children; it was what she herself had noticed in + Huggo; they did not respond. They’d gone, those children, too long as + they’d been left to go. She came to them ardently. They greeted her—not + very responsively. They didn’t understand. + </p> + <p> + What happened was that, coming to them great with intention, she was, by + what she did not find in them, much dispirited in her intention. What + followed from that was that she turned the more frequently to the + stimulation of the thought of her renunciation, to the sensation of + happiness that arose in her by consciousness that she was doing what she + ought to be doing. She would be puzzled, she would be a little pained, she + would be a little tired at the effort, fruitless, to call up in the + children those lovely childish things that as a child had been hers. She + then would feel dispirited. She then would think, “But how glad I am that + I gave it all up; but how right I am to be at home with them; but how + happy I am that I am now doing that which is right.” That stimulated her. + That made her tell herself (as before she had told Harry) that it was just + fancy, this apparent difference, this indifference, in the children. + </p> + <p> + But the more she found necessary that stimulus, the less that stimulus + availed; and she began to feel, then, the first faint gnawings after that + which had been stimulus indeed, her work, her career. + </p> + <p> + Of course this is making a case for her, this is special pleading for her, + but who so abandoned that in the ultimate judgment a case will not for him + be prepared? Try to consider how it went with her. First intoxication of + happiness; and must not intoxication in time wear off? Then immense + intention and then dispirited in her intention. Then frequent resource to + the stimulus of her realisation of virtue and then the natural diminution + of that cup’s effect. Is she not presented prey for her life’s habit’s + longings? Is she not shown dejected and caused by that dejection (as + caused by depression the reclaimed victim of a drug) to desire again that + which had been to her the breath of life? + </p> + <p> + That was how it went with her. + </p> + <p> + Doda was nine when she began; Huggo, when he was home for his holidays, + eleven, rising twelve; Benji only seven. They seemed to her, all of them, + wonderfully old for their years and, no getting over that, different. She + tried to read them the stories she used to love. They didn’t like them. + Doda didn’t like “The Wide Wide World” and didn’t like “Little Women.” + Huggo thought “The Swiss Family Robinson” awful rot, and argued learnedly + with her how grotesque it was to imagine all that variety of animals and + all that variety of plants in one same climate. “But, Huggo, you needn’t + worry whether it was possible. It was just written as a means of telling a + family of children natural history things. They didn’t have to believe it. + They only enjoyed it. I and your uncle Robert never worried about whether + it was possible; we simply loved the adventure of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I can’t, mother,” said Huggo. “It’s not possible, and if it isn’t + possible, I think it’s stupid.” + </p> + <p> + And Doda thought Ellen in the “Wide Wide World” silly, and Beth and Jo and + the others in “Little Women” dull. + </p> + <p> + She read them Dickens, but it was always, “Oh, leave out that part, + mother. It’s dull.” And so was Scott Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare” never + had a chance at all. They had heard from Miss Prescott, or Huggo had heard + at school, that Shakespeare was a lesson. “Oh, not a thing out of lessons, + mother.” What they liked were what seemed to Rosalie the crudely written + stories, and the grotesque and usually rather vulgar comic drawings, in + the host of cheap periodicals for children that seemed to have sprung up + since her day. They called these exciting or funny and they revelled in + them. They were different. Benji was no more than a baby, but he was + extraordinarily devoted to Doda, liked only the things that Doda liked, + and did not like the things that Doda didn’t like, or, in the language + sometimes a little unpleasantly emphatic that always was Doda’s and + Huggo’s, that Doda “simply loathed.” Rosalie had some old bound numbers of + treasured juvenile periodicals of the rectory days. Even Benji didn’t like + them. They were markedly different from the books the children did like. + Their illustrations were mainly of children in domestic scenes. “Don’t + they look stupid?” was Doda’s comment; and Benji, copying, thought they + were stupid too. + </p> + <p> + All this was a very small thing and of itself negligible; even, as Rosalie + told herself, natural—naturally children of succeeding generations + changed in their tastes. It only is introduced as conveniently showing in + an obscure aspect what was noticeable to Rosalie, and felt by her, in many + aspects, whose effect was cumulative. “A kind of reserve,” Harry had said + of them: “a kind of—self-contained.” It was what she found. She + wanted to be a child with the children; they didn’t seem to understand. + She wanted to open her heart to them and have their hearts opened to her; + they didn’t seem to understand. She was always seeing that vision of + Rosalie in the blue frock among them, rather like Alice, the real Alice, + Tenniel’s Alice. She was always feeling that Rosalie, thus guised, was + held off from their circle, not welcomed, not understood, as certainly + they did not care for the demure, quaint Alice of Tenniel. + </p> + <p> + She began to have sometimes when she was with the children an + extraordinary feeling (just what Harry had said) that she was younger than + the children, that it was she who was the child, they that were the + grown-ups. + </p> + <p> + When the step of her renunciation was first taken, ardent to devote + herself to them in every moment of the day, she began to give their + lessons to Doda and to Benji. It was not a success. The methods of + teaching, as the text-books, had changed since she was a child. The + Prescott methods were here and to her own methods the children did not + respond. There it was again—did not respond. There was obtained a + Miss Dormer who came in daily and who confined herself, Rosalie saw to + that, solely to lessons; the walks and all the other hours of the day were + Rosalie’s. + </p> + <p> + That’s all for that. The picture has been overdrawn if has been given the + suggestion that Rosalie was unhappy with the children or the children + openly indifferent to her. All of that nature that in fact arose was that, + whereas Rosalie had expected an immense and absorbing occupation with the + children, she found instead an occupation very loving and very happy but + not relieving her of all the interest and all the affection she had + desired to pour into it. It was rather like to a hungry person a strange + dish that had looked substantial but that, when finished, was found not to + have been substantial; still hungry. She had thought the children would + have been entirely dependent on her. She found them in many ways + independent and wishing to be independent. It would have been all right if + it had been all right. That was it. It would have been all right if it had + not been all wrong. That was it. + </p> + <p> + She began to think of Field’s. + </p> + <p> + When first she began to think of Field’s, which was when she had been nine + months away from Field’s, she would let her mind run upon it freely, as it + would. One day, thus thinking upon it, she brought up her thoughts as it + were with a round turn. She must not think so much about Field’s—not + like that. She sighed, and with the same abruptness of mental action + checked her sigh; she must not regret Field’s—not like that. + </p> + <p> + It was a fateful prohibition. It was the discovery to herself, as to Eve + of the tree by the serpent, of a temptation seductive and forbidden. + Thereafter “like that” her mind, missing no day nor no night, was often + found by her to be there. The quality that made “like that” not seemly to + her, increased, at each return, its potency. + </p> + <p> + It became very difficult to drag her mind away. It became impossible to + drag her mind away. + </p> + <p> + Her governance of her mind became infected and it became not necessary to + think it necessary to drag her mind away. + </p> + <p> + She had not visited Field’s since she had left. Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. Field + had written to her reproaching her for carrying to such lengths of neglect + her desertion of them, and she had responded banteringly but without a + call. One day (she had lain much awake on the previous night) she at + breakfast told Harry she had the idea of going that afternoon to see how + Field’s was getting on. + </p> + <p> + She was surprised at his supplement to his reply. The children had left + the room. He first agreed with her that the idea was good. “Yes, rather; + why not?” was the expression he used. He then said, surprising her, + “Rosalie, you’ve never, have you, regretted?” + </p> + <p> + Her surprise framed for her her reply. “Why ever should you ask that?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve thought you’ve not been looking very well lately.” + </p> + <p> + “But what’s the connection, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + “Fretting?” + </p> + <p> + She smiled. “I’m not the fretting sort.” + </p> + <p> + He was perfectly satisfied. “I knew you’d tell me if you were. Everything + going well?” + </p> + <p> + “Fine.” + </p> + <p> + He shot out his arms with a luxurious stretching gesture. “Mice and Mumps, + it’s been fine for me, I can tell you. Fine, fine!” + </p> + <p> + How happy he looked! How handsome he looked! Her thought was “Dear Harry!” + </p> + <p> + He got up and began to set about his departure. She went with him into the + hall and she called up the stairs, “Children, father’s going.” They came + bounding down. He joked and played with them. He loved this custom, now + long established. She brushed his hat, also a rite she knew he loved. He + kissed her with particular affection. “Yes, you go up to Field’s and give + old Sturgiss and old Field my love. You’ll almost have forgotten the way + there. I say, it’s funny, isn’t it, how time changes things and how it + goes? We couldn’t have imaged this once, and here it is the most + established thing in the world. Do you know, it’s almost exactly a year + since you chucked it?” + </p> + <p> + “Chucked it!” The light expression smote her. O manlike man that thus + could phrase divorce that from her heart’s engrossment had cut her life + asunder! + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon she set out upon her intention. It meant nothing, her + visit, she assured herself. It had no purpose beyond the exchange of + courtesies. But when she was leaving the house she paused. Should she go? + She went down the steps and through the gate, then paused again. She + returned to the house. She had an idea. She would take the children with + her. She called them, and while they gleefully dressed for the outing she + repeated to herself the word in which the idea of taking them with her had + come to her. + </p> + <p> + “A bodyguard!” she said. + </p> + <p> + The note of laughter she gave at the word had a tremulous sound. + </p> + <p> + Tremulous would well have described her manner when they were at Field’s. + She was asking herself as they went towards the City what it was that she + wanted to hear—that Field’s was doing very well without her? That + her department was not doing very well without her? Which? + </p> + <p> + She would not let her mind affirm which it was that she desired. + </p> + <p> + It appeared, when they arrived, that it was neither, nor anything at all + to do with the Bank. Her first words to the partners were of smiling + apology at bringing to precincts sacred to business, “a herd of children.” + That was a natural introduction of herself; it was an unusual thing to do. + But not natural the way in which she maintained the subject of the + children. It seemed that she had come to talk of nothing else. Tremulous + she was; talking, of the children, with the incessant eagerness, and with + the nervous eagerness, of one either clamant to establish a case or + frightened of a break in the conversation lest a break should cause + appearance of a subject most desperately to be avoided. + </p> + <p> + Her bodyguard! + </p> + <p> + Mr. Field and Mr. Sturgiss were delighted to see her and expressed + themselves delighted to see the children. There was plenty in the bank, + coffers and strong-rooms and all sorts of exciting things, said Mr. Field, + that would amuse the small people, and when tea was done they should be + taken around to see them. In an inner holy of holies, behind the partners’ + parlour, a very exciting tea was made. A clerk was sent out for a parcel + of pastries and returned with an enormous bag, and there was no + tablecloth, nor no proper tea-table, and the children, much excited, were + immensely entertained. + </p> + <p> + Easy, while they were there, to make them the conversation’s centre. But + the meal ended and then became most evident her anxiety to keep the + chatter on the children. They became impatient to be off on the promised + exploration. She delayed it. Twice the clerk who was to conduct the tour + was about to be summoned. By a new gathering of general attention, she + stopped his coming. When at last he came she said she would be of the + party. The partners did not want that. The children did not want it. + “Mother, it will be much more exciting by ourselves.” She insisted. She + was aware for the first and only time in her life of a feeling of nerves, + of not being quite in control of herself, of making of her insistence + rather more than should be made. + </p> + <p> + “Well, stay,” said Mr. Sturgiss, “at least for a minute’s chat before you + join them.” + </p> + <p> + That was not possible, unless she was going to become hysterical, to + resist. The children trooped away. Her bodyguard! + </p> + <p> + She turned aside and it is to be remembered for her that, her face + concealed from the partners, she gave the tiniest despairing gesture with + her hands. + </p> + <p> + When, with the children, she was returning home, she was trying to + determine whether, while it was in suspense, she had or had not desired to + hear of the partners that which she had heard from them. They had talked + with her generally of the business. They had talked particularly of the + work of her department of the business. There was approaching all the time + the thing that sooner or later they must say. She was trembling all the + time to know how she would receive it. In whichever of its two ways it + came would she be glad or would she be sorry? She simply did not know. She + suddenly herself projected the point. She could not endure any longer its + delay. “And Miss Farmer,” she said. “How’s Miss Farmer doing?” Miss + Farmer, formerly one of her assistants, had on her resignation taken her + place. + </p> + <p> + Miss Farmer, replied Mr. Sturgiss, was estimable but—he opened his + hands and made with them a deprecatory gesture. “She’s not you. How could + she be you, or any one be you? We could replace Miss Farmer. What’s the + good? It’s you we’ve got to replace. We can’t replace you.” + </p> + <p> + Her heart had bounded. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + That happened in the Christmas holidays, in January. In February was + Doda’s eleventh birthday. The child had friends rather older than herself, + neighbours, who for a year had been boarders at a school in Surrey. She + was desperately eager to join them there and it was a promise from Rosalie + that she should go when she was twelve, earlier if she were good. On this + eleventh birthday, which brought birthday letters from the neighbours at + the school and thus again brought up the subject, “Oh, haven’t I been + good?” cried Doda at the birthday breakfast. “Oh, do let me go next term, + mother. Father, do say I may.” Her eagerness for school had been much + fostered by Huggo’s holiday stories of school life; and Huggo, as Doda now + adduced, was leaving his preparatory and starting at Tidborough next term; + couldn’t she, oh, couldn’t she make also her start then? + </p> + <p> + Harry said, “O grown-up woman of enormous years, think of your sorrowing + parents. How will you like to leave your weeping mother, Doda? How will + you like to leave your heart-broken old father?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’d love to!” cried Doda. + </p> + <p> + The ingenuousness of it made her parents laugh. + </p> + <p> + “She’ll have her way, won’t she?” said Harry, when Doda, conscious, by + that laugh, of tolerance, had danced out of the room. + </p> + <p> + “I think she’d better,” said Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + The school was very well known to Rosalie. It was exclusive and expensive; + was limited to seventy girls, of whom twenty, under the age of thirteen, + were received in the adapted Dower House of the ancient estate which was + its home; and the last word in modernity was, in every point of + administration, its first word. It had been established only eight years. + The motto of its founders and of its lady principal was “Not traditions—precedents!” + </p> + <p> + The subject came up again between Rosalie and Harry that evening and it + was decided that Doda should be placed there after the next holidays, at + the opening of the summer term. Harry declared himself, “in my bones” as + he expressed it, against boarding schools for girls, “But that’s my old + fogeyism,” said he. “It’s the modern idea that girls should have the same + training and the same chances in life as their brothers, and there’s no + getting away from the right of it.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said in a low voice, “To what end?” + </p> + <p> + He did not hear her. She had got out from the accumulation of papers of + her business life prospectuses and booklets of the school and he was + amusedly browsing over the refinements and advantages therein, not by + traditions but by precedents, set forth. “Mice and Mumps, Rosalie,” said + he, “they not only do riding as a regular thing but ‘parents are + permitted, if they wish, to stable a pupil’s own pony (see page 26).’ Oh, + thanks, thanks! ‘Mr. Harry Occleve, barrister-at-law, availing himself of + your gracious permission on page twenty-six, is sending down for his + daughter a coach and four with ‘ostlers, grooms, coachmen, and outriders + complete.’ Ha!” + </p> + <p> + She was just watching him. + </p> + <p> + He said after an interval: “Yes, there’s a lot of sound stuff here, + Rosalie. It’s convincing. Not that any one needs convincing on the point + less than you and I.” He quoted again. “‘And advance them towards an + independent and a womanly womanhood.’ And it talks further back about how + ‘Idle women’ will soon be recognised as great a term of reproach as ‘an + idle man.’ It’s sound. I like this booklet here that each girl’s given, + ‘To the Girl of the Future.’ It tells them all about an independent + career, makes no fancy picture of it, tells ‘em everything. Did you read + that?” + </p> + <p> + “A long time ago. It probably doesn’t tell them one thing.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “That they can always—chuck it.” + </p> + <p> + He looked up quickly. “Hull-o!” + </p> + <p> + She gave him no response to his expressed surprise and he laughed and + said, “D’you know, Rosalie, I don’t believe I’ve ever before heard you use + slang.” + </p> + <p> + “You taught me that bit, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I sling it about. When did I?” + </p> + <p> + “One day last holidays when it was just on a year since I’d left Field’s. + Just a year, you said, since I’d—chucked it. O Harry—” + </p> + <p> + There was a quality in her voice that might, from what she saw upon his + face, have been a tocsin’s roll. His face was as a place of assembly into + which, as it might be a people alarmed, there came crowding in emotions. + </p> + <p> + He said, “What’s up?” + </p> + <p> + She said, “O Harry, you look out for yourself!” + </p> + <p> + There was much movement in his face. “Look out for myself?” + </p> + <p> + She said, “That came out of me. I didn’t know I was going to say it. It’s + a warning. It shows the fear I have.” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, of what, of what?” + </p> + <p> + “Harry, for you.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re going to say something you think will hurt me?” + </p> + <p> + “No, something you’ll have to fight—if you want to fight it. Harry, + perhaps I can’t go on like this. I want to go back to my work.” + </p> + <p> + He expired a breath he had been holding. “I was guessing it.” + </p> + <p> + “Before just now?” + </p> + <p> + “No, while you’ve been speaking. Only now. I asked you weeks ago if you + ever felt you regretted—” + </p> + <p> + She leant forward from the couch whereon she sat, and with an extended + hand interrupted him. She said intensely, “Look here, Harry, if it was + just regret I’d not mind and I would tell you No a hundred times, just not + to disturb you, dear. But when you asked me that you spoke, a minute + afterwards, of my having—chucked it, as if it was giving up sugar or + stopping bridge. Well, that’s why I’m warning you to look out for + yourself. Because, Harry, I don’t regret it. I’m craving to go back to it, + craving, craving, craving!” She stopped. She said, “Do you want me not to + go back, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + He looked steadily at her. “Rosalie, it would be a blow to me.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Well, then!” and she leaned back in the couch as though all now + was explained. + </p> + <p> + He very gravely asked her, “Are you going back, Rosalie?” + </p> + <p> + “Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?” + </p> + <p> + He said to her, “I believe in my soul it would be a disaster.” + </p> + <p> + She got up. “Come over here to me, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + He went to her and took the hands that she extended to him. “If you think + that, a disaster, and if to you it would be what you said, a blow; then + that’s what I mean by saying, Harry, you look out for yourself. I don’t + know if I’m going back. I want to go terribly, oh, terribly. There was a + woman I once knew told me that if a woman once gives herself to a thing, + abandons all else and gives herself to it, she never never can come back + from it. ‘They don’t issue return tickets to women,’ she said to me. ‘If + you give yourself,’ she said, ‘you’re its. You may think you can get away + but you never will get away. You’re its.’ She was right, Harry. I believe + I’ve got to go back. If you don’t want me to, well, you look out for + yourself.” She drew herself towards him by her hands. “Harry, when I went + down to Field’s with the children that day last holidays I took them to be + a bodyguard to me, to prevent me from being captured. When they left me + there alone for a few minutes, I turned away and wrung my hands because I + knew I was going to be terribly tempted. I am terribly tempted. I’m being + dragged.” She went into his arms. “Harry, hold me terribly tight and say + you don’t want me to go back.” + </p> + <p> + He most tenderly embraced her. “Don’t go back, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + She disengaged herself, and made a sound, “Ah!” as if, while he had held + her body, herself had held the fort of her solicitude for his desires + against the horde of her own cravings that swarmed about its walls. + </p> + <p> + How long? + </p> + <p> + There was a mirage in her face. While Easter came and Doda, in huge + spirits, made her start at school, and Huggo, boisterously elated, his + start at Tidborough, and Benji, much dejected at Doda’s going, his start + at Huggo’s former day school; and while the long summer term and the + holidays passed on, there was never again seen nor heard by Harry the + tenderness that had been in her face and in her voice when she had warned + him, “Well, Harry, you look out for yourself,” and when she had asked him, + “Harry, hold me terribly tight in your arms and say you do not want me to + go back.” There thenceforward did fill up her countenance the boy, + mutinous and defiant, that was her other self. It was almost upon the + morrow of that passage with him (whose poignancy the written word has + failed to show) that she had a revulsion from the attitude she had then + exposed to him. Avid now to go back to the life she had abandoned, she was + ferocious to herself when she remembered she had asked him, “Would it be a + crime, Harry, to go back?” A crime! “Horrible traitor to myself that I + was” (her thoughts would go) “to question it a crime just to take up my + life again! A crime! Horrible fool that I was to be able, with no sense of + humour, to give to so natural a desire an epithet so ludicrous as crime! A + crime! A right, a right!” + </p> + <p> + Worst of all, she had invited, she had implored, Harry when her longings + were manifest to reason with her. Her longings now always were manifest; + but when he reasoned with her it was out of the scorpions of her revulsion + that she answered him. + </p> + <p> + He once said, “It appears to me that your attitude is changed from the + night you first mentioned this.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Harry, what’s disturbing me when we talk about it is not my own + case, it’s the general case. Here’s a woman—never mind that it’s me—here’s + a woman that has made a success in life, that has abandoned it and that + wants to go back to it. You argue she mustn’t. I could say it’s monstrous. + I don’t say that. I choose to say it’s pitiful. If it was a man, he’d go. + He wouldn’t think twice about it. And if he did think twice about it, + every opinion and every custom that he consulted would tell him he was + right to go. It happens to be a woman, therefore—well, that’s the + reason! It’s a woman—therefore, No. That’s the beginning of the + reason and the end of the reason. A woman—therefore, No. Oh, it’s + pitiful—for women.” + </p> + <p> + Harry questioned: “Every opinion and every custom would tell a man to go? + No, no. You’re taking too much for granted, Rosalie. He wouldn’t go, + necessarily, and he wouldn’t be advised to go, if he had duties that + pulled him the other way.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a note of amusement. “But that’s the point. He never would have + such duties. It’s notable that a man always makes his duties and his + ambitions go hand in hand. Yes, it’s notable, that.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, put it another way. Suppose it wasn’t necessary for him to go.... + Suppose nothing depended on his going, much on his staying. That makes the + parallel, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + She said to him, “Ah, I’ll agree to that. Let that make the parallel. + They’d tell a man in such a case, ‘Man, take up your ambitions. You are a + man. You have yourself to think of.’ That’s what they’d say. Well, that’s + what I’m saying. ‘I am a woman. I have myself to think of.’” + </p> + <p> + He asked, “And shall you, Rosalie?” + </p> + <p> + She said, “I’m thinking—every day.” + </p> + <p> + The more she thought, the more she stiffened. This was the thought against + whose goad she always came—Why should she be hesitant? What a + position! What a light upon the case and upon the status of woman that, + just because she was a woman, she must not consider her own, her personal + interests! For no other reason; just that; because she was a woman! + </p> + <p> + “I’ve shut a gate behind me,” she on another day said to Harry. “That’s + what I’ve done. I’ve come out of a place and shut the gate behind me and + because I am a woman I mustn’t open it and go back. That’s what a woman’s + life is—always shutting gates behind her. There aren’t gates for a + man. There’re just turnstiles. As he came out so he can always go back—even + to his youth. When he’s fifty he still can go back and have the society of + twenty and play the fool as he did at twenty. Can a woman?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s physical,” said Harry. “A man much longer keeps his youth.” + </p> + <p> + She said then the first aggressively bitter thing he ever had heard her + say. “Ah, keeps his youth!” she said. “So does a dog that’s run free. It’s + the chain and kennel sort that age.” + </p> + <p> + She hardened her heart. + </p> + <p> + She looked back upon the days when she had discovered for herself the + difference between sentiment and sense, between sentimentality and + sensibility. She then had made her life, and therefore then her happiness, + by putting away sentiment and using sense for spectacles. She told herself + she now was ruining her life, and certainly letting go her happiness, by + suffering herself to bear the sentimental handicap. + </p> + <p> + The summer holidays came. It had been her obvious argument to Harry that, + now the elder children were at school, and Benji soon to be the same, that + reason for her constant presence in the home no longer was advanceable. It + had been Harry’s argument to her that there were the holidays to remember. + The holidays came. Huggo wrote that he wanted to go straight from school + to a topping time in Scotland to which he had been invited by a chum; when + that was over he had promised, and he was sure he would be allowed, to + have the last three weeks with another friend whose people had a ripping + place in Yorkshire. Doda came home and Doda’s first excitement was that + nothing arranged might interfere with an invitation from mid-August to a + schoolfellow whose family were going to Brittany. So much for her holiday + necessity! Rosalie thought. So much for Harry’s idea of how the children + would naturally long to spend the vacation all together! Doda did not seem + to have a thought for Huggo, nor Huggo a thought for when he should see + Doda. Neither of them, she could not help noticing, had the faintest + concern to be with Benji. She and Harry with Benji went down to a + furnished house in Devonshire, and the other two, their plans in part + curtailed, were brought to join them. It was jolly enough. It would have + been more truly jolly, she used to think, if Doda had not largely divided + her time between writing to apparently innumerable school friends and + counting the days to when she might be released for the Brittany + expedition; and if Huggo had not for the first few days openly sulked at + the veto on the Yorkshire invitation. How independent they were, how + absorbed in their friends, how—different! + </p> + <p> + She hardened her heart. + </p> + <p> + The reopening of the schools drew on and return was made to London. Huggo + and Doda were made ready for school and returned to school. The Law Courts + reopened and Harry took up again his work. October! You could not take up + a paper without reading of the inauguration of the new Sessions at all the + universities and seats of education. October! The newspapers that for + months had been padding out vapid nothings became intense with the + activities of a nation back to the collar. October! The first brisk breath + of winter in the air! She could not stand this! Could not, could not! + </p> + <p> + She said suddenly one evening: “Harry, I was down at Field’s to-day. They + want me.” + </p> + <p> + Ever since, by that simile of hers of the dog chained and kenneled, she + had put a bitter note into this matter between them, he had by this means + or by that contributed no share to it when she had presented it. He once + had referred to the dog incident. “I can’t talk to you when you talk like + that, old girl,” he had said. “That’s not us. We don’t talk like that. You + know how I feel about this matter. Talking only vexes it.” + </p> + <p> + “Harry, I was down at Field’s to-day. They want me.” It was now to be + faced. + </p> + <p> + He put down the paper he had been reading and began to fill his pipe. + “This wants a smoke,” he said and smiled at her; and he then told her that + which the level quality of her voice, a note from end to end of purpose, + had informed him. “I think we’re getting to the end of this business,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + Her voice maintained its quality. “Yes, near the end, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “Field’s want you. What are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Going back.” + </p> + <p> + “I want you.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not leaving you. I am with you, as I came to you!” + </p> + <p> + “The children want you.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not leaving the children.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a question of home, Rosalie. It’s the home wants you.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to do? + </p> + <p> + “Going back.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve thought of everything?” + </p> + <p> + “Everything.” + </p> + <p> + “The children?” + </p> + <p> + “Harry, the children don’t want me in the way that children used to want + their mothers when I was a child. They don’t display the same affection, + not in the same way, that we used to. I wish they did. I came back for it. + It wasn’t there. They’re darlings, but they’re self-reliant darlings, + self-assured, self-interested.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ve a right to a home, Rosalie.” He paused. “And, Rosalie, I have a + right to a home.” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Have I no rights?” + </p> + <p> + “There are certain things—” he slowly said and paused again—“established.” + </p> + <p> + She said quickly, “Yes, men think that. They always have. Well, I believe + that nothing is.” + </p> + <p> + He looked steadily before him. “If it’s not established that woman’s part + is the home part; if that is going to change, I wonder what’s going to + happen to the world?” + </p> + <p> + She said, “Men always do. They always have—wondered, and the future + always has changed right out of their wondering. I believe that the future + is with woman. I believe that as empires have passed, Rome, Greece, + Carthage, that seemed to their rulers the pillars of the world, so will + pass man’s dominion. Woman’s revolt—it’s no use talking of it as + that, as a revolt. Women aren’t and never will be banded. They’re like the + Jews. They’re everywhere but nowhere. But the Jews have had their day; + woman—not yet. They work, not banded, but in single spies. In every + generation more single spies and more single spies. In time.... In every + generation man’s dominion, by like degree, decreased, decreased. In + time.... I’m one of this day’s single spies, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + He said with a sudden animation, “Look here, let’s take it on that level, + Rosalie. In your case what’s the need? Call it dominion. I’ve never + exercised nor thought to exercise dominion over you.” + </p> + <p> + “But you’ve not understood, Harry. I gave up what was my life to me. To + you I’d only—chucked it. Oh, but that hurt! That man’s supreme + indifference, that is dominion.” + </p> + <p> + He said, “I’ll know it, dearest, for your sacrifice.” + </p> + <p> + She put out a hand as if to hold that word away. “Oh, trust not that. They + talk of the ennoblement of sacrifice. Ah, do not believe it. It can go too + long, too far, and then like wine too long matured... just acid, Harry. I + never said a bitter thing to you until—thus sacrificing. It is the + kennel dog again. If I went on I’d grow more bitter yet, more bitter and + more bitter. It’s why women are so much more bitter than men. It’s what + they’ve sacrificed. I’m going back, Harry. I’ve got to. You ask me if I’ve + thought of everything. I have; but even if I had not this outrides it all. + I have gone too far. She was right, that woman I told you of, who said + that for a woman, once she has given herself to a thing, there is no + comeback from it. I have tried. It is not to be done.” + </p> + <p> + There was a very long silence. She said, “It’s settled, Harry.” + </p> + <p> + He said, “Nothing’s been said, Rosalie, that gets over what I have said. + There’s no home here while both of us are working. I have a right to a + home. The children have a right to a home. Nothing gets over that.” + </p> + <p> + She answered, “Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a + home.” + </p> + <p> + He said, “I am a man.” + </p> + <p> + She answered, “I am a woman.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + The thing goes now at a most frightful pace for Rosalie. One hates the + slow, laborious written word that tries to show it. There needs a pen with + wings or that by leaping violence of script, by characters blotched, huge + and run together, would symbolise the pace at which the thing now goes. + There’s no procession of the days. Immersed in work or lost in pleasure, + there never is procession of the days, so hurtling fast goes life. They + crowd. They’re driven past like snow across a window pane. The calendar + astounds. It is the first of the month, and lo, it is the tenth. It’s the + sixteenth—half gone!—while yet it scarcely had begun; a day + after the twentieth is the date; it’s next the twenty-fifth; it’s next—the + month has gone.... The month! It is a season that has flown. Here’s Summer + where only yesterday the buds of Spring; here’s Winter, coming—gone!—while + yet the leaves seem falling. + </p> + <p> + It was like that the thing now went with Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + They call it a race. It isn’t a race, living like that. It’s a pursuit. + Engaged in it, you’re not in rivalry, you are in flight. You’re fleeing + all the time the reckoning; and he’s a sulky savage, forced to halt to + gather up what you have shed, ordered to pause to note the things that you + have missed, and at each duty cutting notches in a stick. + </p> + <p> + That is his tally which, come up, he will present to you. + </p> + <p> + Well, best perhaps to take that tally stick to try by it to show the pace + at which the thing now went. Rosalie, when all was done, could run the + tally over (you have to) in thought, that lightning vehicle that makes to + crawl the swiftest agency of man’s invention: runs through a lifetime + while the electric telegraph is stammering a line; reads memory in twenty + volumes between the whiff and passing of some remembered scent that’s + opened them; travels a life again, cradle to grave, between the vision’s + lighting on and lifting from some token of the past. + </p> + <p> + All’s done; some years rush on; she sits in retrospection, that tally + stick in hand; and thought, first hovering, would always start for her + from when, returned to her career, the thing at frightful pace began to + go; and then, from there, away! from scene to scene (the notches cut by + reckoning in his stick) rending the womb of memory in dread delivery, as + it were flash on flash of lightning bursting the vault of night from east + to west across the world. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts first hovering: There’s Huggo and there’s Doda and there’s + Benji! Her children! Her darling ones! Her lovely ones! Love’s crown; and, + what was more, worn in the persons of those darling joys of hers in + signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of precedent to the contrary, that + woman might be mother and yet live freely and unfettered by her home, + precisely as man is father but follows a career. Ah.... + </p> + <p> + Away! The womb of memory is rent, and rent, delivers. + </p> + <p> + Look, there they are! She’s down with one or other at some gala at their + schools. It’s Founders’ Day at Tidborough, or it’s at Doda’s school on + Prize Day. Aren’t they just proud to be with her and show her off, their + lovely, brilliant mother so different from the other rather fussy mothers + that come crowding down! All the masters and all the mistresses know the + uncommon woman that she is. The children, growing older, know it. “You + must be very proud of your mother.” It has been said (the self-same words) + to each of them by their respective principals. Nice! Nice to have your + children proud of you! + </p> + <p> + Look, there’s Huggo telling her how the headmaster had said the thing to + him (she’s just walking with her Huggo across the cricket ground on + Founders’ Day). “And a sloppy young ass that heard him,” says Huggo, “oh, + an awful ass, asked me why the Head had said I must be proud of you, and I + told him, and I said, ‘I bet you’re not proud of your mother.’ And he + said, ‘Of my father, I am. He got the V. C. in South Africa.’ So I said, + ‘Yes, but proud of your mother?’ So this frightful ass said—what do + you think he said? ‘No, I’m not proud of my mother. I don’t think I’d want + to be. I only love her.’” + </p> + <p> + Huggo mimicked the voice in which the frightful ass had said this; and + Rosalie, at the words and at his tone, had across her body a sudden chill, + as it were physical. She wanted to say something. But it was the kind of + thing you couldn’t, somehow, say to Huggo, at fifteen. But she said it. + “Huggo, you do love me, don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + He turned to her a face curiously thin-lipped. “Oh, I say, mother, do look + out, some one might hear you!” + </p> + <p> + Her Huggo! (She wants to stop the passing scenes and to stretch out to him + across the years her arms.) Her Huggo! The one that first along her arm + had laid; the scrap that first within her eyes adoring tears had brimmed; + her baby boy, her tiny manling, her tiny hugging one, her first born! It + is in retrospection that she sits and there’s expelled for ever from her + face that aspect mutinous, intolerant, defiant, that used to visit there. + That, when she housed it, was the aspect of the young man Ishmael whose + hand was against every man. She is like Hagar now to be imagined, sitting + over against these things a good way off, as it were a bowshot. + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + Her Huggo! Look, that’s the day they got that bad report of him from + school. She had questioned Harry about a letter in his post and, naming + the headmaster of Tidborough, “Yes, it’s from Hammond,” he had answered + her. + </p> + <p> + “About Huggo?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it’s about Huggo.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing more. They were beginning to have exchanges terse as that. + </p> + <p> + She said presently, “I suppose it would interest me, wouldn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + His face was very hard. “Do you want to know the answer I feel like giving + to that?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve asked for it, haven’t I, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + “You shall have it. The answer is that I think what the letter says + implicates you.” + </p> + <p> + She preserved her composure. She by now had had practice in preserving her + composure. “What’s the matter, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + “Hammond says—as good as says—that Huggo will have to be + withdrawn from Tidborough.” + </p> + <p> + She knew perfectly well that this was only leading up to something. “May I + hear?” + </p> + <p> + “You may.” He took up the letter and read from it. “‘Apart from that, and + it would of course be the reason given—the other, I am confident, is + susceptible of change—apart from that, the boy has now twice failed + to keep his place in the school. If he does not get his remove in the + coming term I shall be compelled to ask you to remove him.’” He put down + the letter and looked at her. “That’ll be nice, won’t it?” + </p> + <p> + She made an appeal. “Harry, don’t. I mean, don’t talk like that. It won’t + happen.” + </p> + <p> + He softened in no degree. He said sternly: “It will happen.” + </p> + <p> + She persevered. “I’m quite sure it won’t. You’ve only got to talk + seriously to Huggo. This coming holidays you can get him some coaching. + He’s got brains.” + </p> + <p> + There was a steely note in Harry’s voice: “Oh, he’s got brains. He can + have coaching. It’s what he hasn’t got and what he can’t get that’s going + to get Huggo withdrawn.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “A home.” + </p> + <p> + She slightly raised the fingers of her hands and dropped them. This + subject! + </p> + <p> + Harry said: “Hammond says more than I’ve told you.” + </p> + <p> + “I supposed he did. ‘Apart from that.’ Apart from what?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s Huggo’s character he’s writing to me about. This is what he says. + ‘The boy, though young, has not a good influence in his house. If I may + suggest it, he does not, during the holidays, see enough of his home.’” + </p> + <p> + He folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. “Does it strike you + that is going to be easy for me to answer?” + </p> + <p> + “It might be easier, Harry, if your tone made it possible for us to + discuss it.” + </p> + <p> + He gave a sound that was glint, as it were, of the blade in his voice: + “Our discussions! I am a little tired of that blind alley, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + She said sombrely, “And I.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you suggest how the letter is to be answered?” + </p> + <p> + She said: “It’s plain. If you agree with Mr. Hammond, it’s plain. You can + say you will stop Huggo’s invitations. Harry, we’re not by any means the + only family that doesn’t spend the whole of its holidays together. It’s + rather the practice nowadays, young people visiting their friends. If you + think Huggo shouldn’t—you can say so.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I can say that. Tell me this. Is it going to give him a home?” + </p> + <p> + Her voice sprung from a sudden higher note. “Oh, you insist, you insist!” + she cried. “You speak of blind alleys, but you insist.” + </p> + <p> + He touched the letter. “This gives me ground for my insistence. This is an + outsider, a stranger, appreciating how we live. This is my son, at my old + school, condemned by how we live.” + </p> + <p> + She interjected, “A schoolmaster’s primeval animosity—blame the + parent.” + </p> + <p> + “Rosalie, a parent’s primeval duty. We are responsible for the children. + We have a duty towards them.” + </p> + <p> + She softly struck her hands together. “Ah, how often, how often, and + always worse! You said just now that I am implicated. It’s always I. You + say we have a responsibility towards the children. But you don’t mean us, + you mean me. Why I more than you? Why am I the accused?” + </p> + <p> + He began, “Because you—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, don’t, don’t!” + </p> + <p> + But he concluded. “Because you are a woman.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice that had gone high went numb. She made a gesture, as to the same + reason and with the same words she’d made before, of weariness with this + thing, “Ah, my God, that reason!” + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + Look, there’s Huggo, failing again to get his remove, superannuated, + withdrawn. There’s Harry having a scene with the boy. There ought to be + tears. There are tears. But they’re in Harry’s voice and twice he wipes + his eyes. They’re not in Huggo’s. + </p> + <p> + Harry says to Huggo: “I say, I’m not going to be harsh; but, I say, can’t + you understand the disgrace; can’t you understand the shame, old man? + You’ve been at the finest school in England and you’ve had to leave. + You’re sixteen. Old man, when I was sixteen I got my footer colours. I was + the youngest chap in the team. You’re sixteen and you’ve never even got a + house cap and you’ve had to leave. Huggo, I’ve never missed going down to + a Founders’ Day since I went to Oxford. It’s always been the day of the + year for me. I don’t say I’ve ever done much in life, but every time I’ve + been down to Founders’ Day I’ve thought over, in the train, any little + thing I may have pulled out in the year and I’ve felt, I’ve felt awfully + proud to be taking it down to the old school, so to speak. Old chap, the + proudest, far the proudest of all, was the year I went down when first you + were there. I was proud. I’d given a son to the place. I’d got a boy + there. Another Occleve was going to write the name up on the shields and + rolls and things. It was the year Garnett first came down as a Cabinet + Minister. Huggo, I looked old Garnett in the face with a grin. Whatever + he’d done I’d got this much up on him—he hadn’t given a son to the + place. He hadn’t got a boy there. That’s how I always felt. Well, old man, + it’s all over. I can’t go down to Founders’ Day ever again. I’ve never + missed. Now—I’ve had to withdraw my boy. I can’t go again. I + couldn’t face it.” + </p> + <p> + He wiped his eyes. No tears in Huggo’s eyes. On Huggo’s face only a look + sullen and aggrieved; and sullen and aggrieved his mutter, “Well, perhaps + it was different for you. I couldn’t stick the place.” + </p> + <p> + She gasped out, “Huggo!” but Harry had heard, and Harry, perhaps in offset + to the emotion he had displayed, smashed his hand down on the table before + him and cried out, “Well, keep your mouth shut about it then! Couldn’t + stick it! What can you be? What can be the matter with you? Couldn’t stick + it! Tidborough! The finest school in the world! Couldn’t stick it!” + </p> + <p> + She interposed, “Harry, dear! Huggo; Huggo, tell your father you didn’t + mean that.” + </p> + <p> + Huggo’s mumble: “I’m sorry, father.” + </p> + <p> + Harry’s deep, kind voice: “I’m sorry too, old man. It rather jarred. Look + here, this is all over. It’s just been a side-slip. I’ve forgotten it. So + has your mother. You just think over sometimes what I’ve said, my boy. + We’re fixing up this tutor’s for you. You start in fresh and go like + steam. Finest thing in the world a fresh start. Makes a side-slip worth + while. I’m going to be—I am—prouder of you than anything on + earth. My eldest boy! Like steam from now, old chap, eh?” + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + After that interview and when the boy had left the room—shambled out + of the room in that sullen, aggrieved air he would always assume under + correction—after that she and Harry had talked, most fondly. It was + all, the talk, that poignantly affecting “fresh start” business that he’d + begun with Huggo. Poignantly affecting because Harry, piling upon his love + for Huggo and his pride in Huggo, which she shared, his love for his old + school and his pride in it, which she could understand but could not + share, had been so bravely, cheerfully earnest and assured about the + future. “One who never turned his back but marched breast forward.” The + boy would be all right. Mice and Mumps, old lady, he’d be all right! It + was just a mistake, just a side-slip. He’d got the right stuff in him, + Huggo had, eh, old lady? They must just pull together to help the boy, eh? + </p> + <p> + He paused the tiniest space at that and pressed her hand and looked at + her. She knew his meaning. If only.... + </p> + <p> + He went on: This was a good place, this tutor’s down in Norfolk they were + sending him to, Harry was sure it was. It was a pity, of course, he + couldn’t go to another public school; but of course he couldn’t; they + wouldn’t take him; no use worrying about that. This tutor, this man they + were sending him to, was a first-class chap. Only took six pupils. Was a + clergyman. Understood boys and youths who hadn’t quite held their own and + wanted special coaching and attention. Huggo was keen on the idea. After + all, why shouldn’t he have disliked Tidborough? There were such boys who + didn’t like public-school life. There, there! Perhaps it was the best + thing that could have happened. Bet your life this was going to be the + making of old Huggo, this change. This tutor and the quiet, self-reliant + life there, each chap with his own jolly little bed-sitting room, would + prop him up and get him into Oxford when the time came and make him no end + happy and splendid. + </p> + <p> + “There, there, old lady,” said Harry, and patted her and kissed her (she’d + been affected). “There, there, it’s going to be fine. The rest is just up + to us, eh? We know the boy’s weaknesses. We know what Hammond’s told us + about him—home life and home influences and all that stuff, and + that’s easy; we’ll see the boy gets that, won’t we?” + </p> + <p> + She used to wring her hands at that, and crying “If only!” cry again in + desperation of excuse: “If only the war hadn’t come! If only the war + hadn’t come!” + </p> + <p> + The war was on then. It was 1915. “You see,” she used to appeal to the + arbitrament before which, watching these pictures, she found herself, “you + see, the war made everything so difficult, so impossible, so frightful, so + confused, so blinding. Sturgiss had left the Bank to do war service in the + Treasury. More than half the clerks had gone. We were understaffed and + badly staffed at every turn. How could I give it up then? I don’t say I + would have. I’m on my knees. I’ve thrown in my hand. I’m not pretending + anything or anyway trying to delude myself. I don’t say I would have given + it up and come home to make home life for the boy and for them all. I + don’t say I would. I’m only saying how infinitely harder, how impossibly + harder, the war conditions made it. There was the understaffing—that + alone. There was the cry about releasing a man for the front—that + alone. I was releasing half a dozen men. Field said I was. I knew I was. + How could I go back and be one of the women sitting at home? That alone! + How could I? And there was more than that. It wasn’t only the + understaffing. It was Sturgiss going. I’d been absorbing the banking + business for years. It was meat and drink to me. I’d had a bent for it + ever since the Bagehot ‘Lombard Street’ days. I’d nourished my bent. I’d + been encouraged to nourish my bent. The work was just a passion with me. + Sturgiss went. I went practically into his place. I’d a position in + banking that no woman had ever held, nor no banker ever imagined a woman + ever holding, before. It was Sturgiss, a partner, I’d released for war + service. It was Sturgiss’s, a partner’s, place I’d got. How could I give + that up? How could I? How could I? If only the war hadn’t come. If + only....” Strike on! + </p> + <p> + It isn’t all going as it should with the boy at the tutor’s. But wasn’t it + impossible to observe, at the time, that it wasn’t all going as it should? + Of course (her thoughts would go) it was her fault; but was not the world, + spiritual and material, in conspiracy against her, and against Huggo, and + against her other darlings, to make easy her fault? Ah, that war, that + war! Didn’t it unsettle everybody and everything? Naturally it unsettled + the boy down at the tutor’s. Naturally one did not notice or foresee the + trend of his unsettlement. Naturally it made plausible the excuses that he + made. + </p> + <p> + There he is, down there at the tutor’s. He wanted to do war work, not + sitting there grinding lessons. All the tutor’s pupils did. Naturally they + did. The boy couldn’t go in the army. He was too young. He was in a rural + district. He got doing land-work. They all did. It was supposed to be done + in leisure hours. Naturally it encroached on, and unfitted for, work + hours. “After all,” as the tutor wrote, “how can you blame the boys? After + all, it’s very hard to seem to try to check this patriotic spirit.” After + all! Oh, why do people say “after all” when they mean quite the contrary? + This was before all, this seductive escape from uncongenial duties, + precedent of all, influencing to all that happened—after all. + Naturally it interfered with scholastic work. That was condoned. As + naturally it interfered with discipline. That was not mentioned by the + tutor. If he was cognisant of it was not domestic discipline everywhere + relaxed “on account of the war”? + </p> + <p> + There Huggo is. These are his holidays. After the setback at Tidborough he + was to have spent all his holidays at home. He was not, for the future, to + go away on invitations. That war! He never spent any of his holidays at + home. How could the boy be tied down in London with this war on? He made + his land-work his excuse, most plausible. He spent all his holidays with + friends whose homes were in rural districts. + </p> + <p> + Then it turned out that he had not, as he had given out, been always at + the house of friends. He was found in cottage lodgings living with a + friend, a fellow-pupil at the tutor’s; on land-work truly, but in gross + deception, and in worse. + </p> + <p> + It came out quite by chance and in a way very horrible. Harry discovered + it. Harry, early in 1915, had been absorbed into the Home Office. His work + was very largely in connection with a special secret service body dealing + with spies. He examined in private arrested suspects. He advised and he + directed on criminal matters therewith connected. He was working, under + immense pressure, terrible hours. He was hardly ever in to dinner. He + often was away all night. He frequently was away travelling for days + together. When he was seen he showed signs of strain to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + He came in one evening about nine o’clock. It was early in 1916. Huggo was + then seventeen. Rosalie heard him in the hall and heard that some one was + with him. She heard him, by the dining-room door, say, “You’d better go in + there and get something to eat. I’ll attend to you presently.” + </p> + <p> + His voice was iron hard. Who was with him? What was the matter? + </p> + <p> + He came in to her. His face was iron hard. He shut the door. “Do you know + who I’ve got here with me? Do you know where I’ve been? Do you know what’s + happened?” + </p> + <p> + His manner was extraordinary. His voice was like heavy axes, thudding. His + face was dark and passionate, menacing. Happened? Things were always + happening in these appalling days. She said, “Oh, what is it, Harry?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s Huggo.” + </p> + <p> + “Huggo?” + </p> + <p> + “Huggo!” + </p> + <p> + Like axes! It seemed that, of his passion (and she never before had seen + passion in his face), he scarcely could speak. He fought for words. When + they came out they thudded out. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know where Huggo’s been this past month?” + </p> + <p> + “With the Thorntons, his friends.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s not. He’s lied. He’s been living with some blackguard friend in + rooms in Turnhampton, in Buckinghamshire.” + </p> + <p> + “Harry! Doing what? Land-work?” + </p> + <p> + “Land-work! Loafing! Drinking!” + </p> + <p> + “Drinking? Huggo?” + </p> + <p> + “Listen to me. This is what I’ve come to. This is what that boy’s come to. + I had to go down to this place Turnhampton about a spy they’d arrested. He + was to come up in the police court there this morning. They took the other + cases first. Court going to be cleared for my man. I sat there, waiting. + The second case—this is what I’ve come to—was my son, my boy, + Huggo, brought up from the cells where he’d spent the night. My son! Drunk + and disorderly. He didn’t see me. The police gave him a character. I sat + there and listened to it. My son! A visitor, the police described him. + Supposed to be working on some farm. Not a desirable character in the + village. My son! Always loafing about. Always in the inn. Last night + drunk. Assaulted the landlady. My son! Arrested. My son!” + </p> + <p> + He turned away. + </p> + <p> + She cried, “Harry! What happened?” + </p> + <p> + He turned on her in a violence renewed. “I declare to you that if he had + gone to prison I would not have raised a hand to stop him. He’d had the + grace—or he’d all the time had the guile—to give an assumed + name. Would I have confessed, to save him, that he was my son? I believe I + couldn’t. He got off with a fine. I got hold of him. I’ve brought him + back. He’s here.” + </p> + <p> + She went to the bell. “I must get you some food.” + </p> + <p> + He stayed her. “Food! I’ll tell you what to get me. I’ll tell you what to + get that boy. Get me a home. Get him a home. That’s what’s caused this. Do + you know what he said to me coming up in the train? I said to him, ‘Why + are you always away like this? Why, in the holidays, are you never at + home?’ He said, ‘What home is there for me to come to? Who’s ever there?’ + He’s right. Who is? Are you?” + </p> + <p> + She said quietly, “Harry, not now. Dear, you are not yourself.” + </p> + <p> + He was not and continued not to be. “Well, answer my question. Are you + ever in the home?” + </p> + <p> + She implored, “Oh, my dear!” + </p> + <p> + He was not to be placated. “Where is the home?” + </p> + <p> + “Harry!” + </p> + <p> + “Where’s Doda?” + </p> + <p> + She began in her spirit to move. “Staying with friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Where’s Benji?” + </p> + <p> + “You perfectly well know. Staying with friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Where are you?” + </p> + <p> + She put her hand to her bosom. “Oh, beware me, Harry. Here.” + </p> + <p> + “For the night. Are you ever in the children’s home?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you?” + </p> + <p> + “That sophistry! I have my work!” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve mine.” + </p> + <p> + He smote his hand upon the mantelshelf by which he stood and turned and + left the room. + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + Of course it healed and was obliterated and all passed over. Of course + Harry forgave the boy. Of course he was handsome to the boy’s excuses. + Drunk! Of course it was just a slightly tipsy ebullition. Had been in the + hot sun in the fields all day and was affected by a too long slake of + beer. Assaulted the landlady! She’d been rough mannered and objected to + his noise and got in the way and he had pushed her. “The boy’s all right,” + Harry said to Rosalie after, the boy forgiven, he sat and talked with her. + “He’s got no vice. How could he have? It was wrong, it was deceitful, + going off like that to that place without telling us. But he meant no + harm. He’s explained. He’s genuinely sorry. He’s just got out of hand a + bit. They all have, the young people, in this war time. The boy’s all + right. He’s eighteen in a few months. I’ll see if I can speed it up a bit + getting him into the army. He’s magnificently keen. He’ll do fine, God + bless him. Think no more about it, old lady. In the whole business I’m + only sick with myself that I lost my temper with him as I did—and + with you, my dear, and with you.” And he put out his hand to her. + </p> + <p> + “One who never turned his back but marched breast forward.” + </p> + <p> + “And with you.” Of course he was distressed he had been violent with her. + Of course that painful outbreak was healed, obliterated, put away. He had + expressed his utter regret. He’d been badly rattled with this infernal war + all that week; this business on the top of it had been a most frightful + shock to him. What had he said? Forgive, Rosalie, forgive! Of course she + had nothing to forgive. Forgiveness also was for her to ask. As to the + point thus violently raised, he saw, didn’t he, the clear impossibility of + her giving up her work, war work as much as his own, at such a time? Not + to say the unnecessity of it—the children were growing up... it + clearly could be done now. The position she held... + </p> + <p> + He said, “I know, old lady.” He said, “I know, I know,” and sighed. + </p> + <p> + Ah, from that vision of him saying, “I know,” and sighing, and from the + mute appeal that then was in his eyes, from that—strike on! + </p> + <p> + Most retentive to her, as it had passed, of Huggo’s share in all that + episode had been that she from her expostulation with Huggo had not come + away with the same satisfaction as seemingly had Harry. She put before the + boy how terribly his father had felt the shame of it, how almost + broken-hearted he had been. “He idolises you, Huggo. You’re always his + eldest son. He thinks the world of you.” + </p> + <p> + Huggo took it all with that familiar air of his of being the party that + was aggrieved. He listened with impatience that was not concealed and he + had no contrition to display. “Well, mother, it’s all over. What is the + good of going on and on about it? I’ve had it by the hour from father. + He’s understood. What is the good?” + </p> + <p> + She very lovingly talked to him. He all the time had an argument. He kept + up his own case. He presently said, “And I do wish, mother, especially now + I’m going into the army soon, I do wish you’d drop that ‘Huggo.’ You can’t + tell how I hate it. You might just as well call me Baby. It’s a baby’s + name.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Huggo, it was the name we loved you by.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I can’t stick it. My name’s Hugh.” + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + There he is. He’s in the army. He’s utterly splendid in his uniform. How + proud of him she is! They no longer gave commissions direct from civil + life; but he’d been in the cadet corps at Tidborough and Harry was able to + get him direct into an officer cadet battalion. He’s off to France in what + seems next to no time. He’s home on leave and there’s nothing that’s too + good for him and her purse at his disposal when he’s run through Harry’s + generous allowance. He seems to get through an immense amount of money on + leave. He’s never at home. He’s often out all night. Well, he’s on leave. + He’s fighting for his country. You can’t be anything but utterly lenient + with a boy that’s fighting for his country. He went back. Three days after + he was supposed to have gone back Rosalie came face to face with him in + Piccadilly. He was with some flapper type of girl, in the detestable + phrase (as she thought it) by which the detestable products of the war (as + she thought them) were called. He was just getting into a cab. She called + out to him, astounded. She heard him swear and he jumped into the cab and + was driven away. She didn’t tell Harry. Harry found out. It came out that + the boy for overstaying his leave was to be court-martialled. She did not + know what Harry did. She noticed in those days what a beaten look Harry’s + face was getting. It was, of course, the war strain; but it only was first + evident to her in that time of the court-martial. He scarcely spoke to + her. She did not know what he did, but she knew he had much influence and + exerted it at no sparing of himself. The boy got off with a severe + reprimand and was returned to France. And to be in France, out there, in + that ever-present shadow of death, was to be excused everything and to be + forgiven everything. + </p> + <p> + Miraculously the war ended. The boy had had rather more than two years of + it. He applied for immediate demobilisation as being a student, and he was + one of the batch that got away immediately on that ground. He was nearly + twenty then. Now what was he going to do? Oxford, of course, Harry said, + and then the Bar, as always intended. Huggo, larking about in uniform long + after he ought to have been out of it, was in immense feather with + himself. He didn’t say No and he didn’t say Yes to the Oxford idea. All he + said was that he voted all that wasn’t discussed the very day he got back + (it was more than six weeks since he had got back). He surely, he said, + was entitled to a bit of a holiday first, after all he had been through. + London seemed to be swarming with thousands of young men who claimed they + were entitled to a bit of a holiday first after all they had been through. + Huggo was never in the house. He had picked up with a man, Telfer, whom he + had met in France, a big business man, Huggo described him as, and he + seemed to spend all his time with this man. Telfer was a much older man + than Huggo. Huggo brought him to dinner one night. It was rather a shock + to Rosalie, meeting the man of whom she had heard so much. Huggo had never + said anything about his age. He must have been quite forty. He had dull, + cloudy eyes and a bad mouth. He called Huggo “Kid,” using the word in + every sentence, and it was easy to see from Harry’s manner that Telfer was + repellent to him. Easy, also, and not nice, to see Telfer’s dominion over + Huggo. Not nice to hear Huggo’s loud, delighted laughter at everything + addressed to him by Telfer. Harry spoke less and less as the meal + advanced. The two left early; they were going to a music hall. When they + had gone Rosalie and Harry looked at one another across the table and by + their look exchanged a great deal. + </p> + <p> + “That’s a detestable companion for Huggo,” Harry said. “Rosalie, there’s + been enough of this. The boy must get to work.” + </p> + <p> + It appeared, in interviews following that evening, that Huggo was not a + bit keen on the Oxford idea. He wanted to go into business. He was not + clear as to precisely what kind of business, but he wanted the freedom and + the excitement of earning his own living, not to be cooped up at the + “Varsity” like back at school again. Harry took a firm line. The boy + resented the firm line. Well, anyway, he argued, he couldn’t go till + October, it was only June now; all right, he’d go in October—if he + had to. Harry made arrangements for some reading through the summer + preparatory to Oxford. It upset plans made by Huggo. He thought it + “uncommonly hard” that he should have to spend the whole summer + “swotting.” Oh, well, if he had to, he had to. He had an invitation for a + month for that immediate time to Scotland. The reading was arranged to + start a month ahead. He didn’t in the least want to be out of London just + when there was so much going on and all his pals here; but anything was + better than sticking this kind of life at home, father always at him; so + he’d go to Scotland; he supposed he was entitled to a bit of country + holiday before they cooped him up? He went to Scotland. + </p> + <p> + Twice during that month Rosalie thought she saw Huggo in the West End. But + London was full of young men of the Huggo type. It wasn’t likely. + </p> + <p> + It turned out to have been very likely. It turned out that Huggo had never + been in Scotland at all but in London all the time. And much worse than + that. One evening, towards the end of the so-called Scotland month, Huggo + unexpectedly walked into the house. Rosalie was sitting with Harry in the + dining-room over the end of dinner. Doda was upstairs putting last touches + to herself before going out to a dance. Doda was eighteen then (it was + 1919), had left school, and, with a large circle of friends, was going out + a great deal. Benji was still at school, at Milchester. Harry had never + resumed relations with beloved Tidborough. + </p> + <p> + The door opened and Huggo walked in. His face was very flushed and his + articulation a little odd. When, after greetings, he sat down, he sat down + with a curiously unsteady thud and gave a little laugh and said, “Whoa, + mare, steady!” + </p> + <p> + It appeared, after explanations, that he had come to talk about “this + Oxford business.” “I really can’t very well go to Oxford now, father. I + really ought to start in some money-making business now, and I’ve got a + jolly good opening promised me. I really ought to take it.” + </p> + <p> + The decanters were on the table. He had already taken a glass of port. He + filled another and drank it. + </p> + <p> + “The fact is, I’m—married.” + </p> + <p> + There were some hard and bitter things said between his father and the + boy. The boy fumbled—he obviously had been drinking—between + would not or could not say very much as to who it was that he had married. + </p> + <p> + Harry said, “Who are her people? That’s a plain question, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + Huggo, very red, increasingly difficult to understand, said, “It’s a plain + enough question. It’s a plain enough question. I’ve come here to be + perfectly frank and plain and plain enough question. The fact is I don’t + know very much about her plain enough people.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie broke out of the frozen stupefaction that had numbed her. “Huggo, + you must know. You must know who her people are.” + </p> + <p> + Huggo turned a very slow gaze around from his father to his mother. He + looked at her. He said with astonishing violence, “Well, I tell you I + don’t. People! What have her people got to do with it? I haven’t married + her people. She’s my little girl and I’ve married her, not her people. + Isn’t that enough for you?” + </p> + <p> + Harry got up and went over to him. “Look here, you’d better run along. + You’re not in a fit state to talk to your mother. I’m not sure you’re in a + fit state to talk to any-body or to know what you’re saying. You’d better + go, my boy. We’ll go into this in the morning. Come round early in the + morning. We’ll settle it then.” + </p> + <p> + He was passing with Huggo through the door when Doda, equipped for her + dance, came running down the stairs. “Hull-o, Huggo! Why, I haven’t seen + you for weeks. Where have you been?” + </p> + <p> + Huggo, standing unsteadily, unsteadily regarded her. “Point is, where are + you going? All dressed up and somewhere to go! I’ll bet you have! I’ve + seen you jazzing about the place when you haven’t seen me, Dods. And heard + about you! There was a chap with me watching you at the Riddle Club the + other night told me some pretty fierce—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dash, I’ve left my fan,” cried Doda, and turned and ran back up the + stairs. + </p> + <p> + Huggo called, “I say, Dods. I’m in a row. So’ll you be one day, if you + don’t look out for yourself.” + </p> + <p> + Doda’s voice: “Oh, dry up—you fool!” + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. + </h2> + <p> + Her Doda! The one that was her baby girl, that was her tiny daughter! The + one that was to be her woman treasury in which she’d pour her woman love; + that was to be her self’s own self, her heart’s own heart, her tiny + woman-bud to be a woman with her in the house of Harry and of Huggo! Her + Doda! + </p> + <p> + Look, there she is! There’s lovely Doda! She’s fourteen. It’s early in + 1915, in the first twelve months of the war. (That war!) She’s at that + splendid school. She’s been there nearly three years. She loves it. She’s + never so happy as when she’s there, except, judging by her chatter, when + she’s away in the holidays at the house of one of her friends. It’s at + home—when she is at home—that she’s never really happy. She’s + so dull, she always says, at home. She always wants to be doing something, + to be seeing something, to be playing with somebody. She can’t bear being + in the house. She can’t bear being, of an evening, just alone with + Rosalie. “Oh, dear!” she’s always saying. “Oh, dear, I do wish it would + hurry up and be term time again.” + </p> + <p> + “Darling, you are a restless person,” Rosalie says. + </p> + <p> + “Well, mother, it is dull just sticking here.” + </p> + <p> + “You know how Benji loves to have you home, Doda. Benji simply lives for + you. I’ve never known a brother so devoted. You ought to think of Benji + sometimes, Doda.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I can’t be always thinking of Benji. I’m surely entitled to be with + my own friends sometimes. I don’t ask Benji to be devoted to me.” + </p> + <p> + She’s strangely given to expressions like that: “I didn’t ask for”—whatever + circumstance or obligation it might be that was irksome to her. “Not + traditions—precedents!” The watchword of the school was strangely to + be traced in her attitude, still in her childish years, towards a hundred + commonplaces of the daily life. She was always curiously older than her + years. She seemed to have a natural bent away from traditionally childish + things and towards attractions not associated with childhood. She did + excellently well at the school. She was, her reports said, uncommonly + quick and vivid at her lessons. She was always in a form above her years. + Her friends, while she was smallish, were always the elder girls, and the + elder girls gave her welcome place among them. “Perhaps a shade + precocious,” wrote the lady principal in one of the laconic, penetrating + sentences with which, above her signature, each girl’s report was + terminated: and, in a later term, “Has ‘Forward!’ for her banner, but + should remember ‘not too fast’.” + </p> + <p> + “Gripes! I know what she’s referring to,” said Doda, seeing it, and + laughed, obviously flattered. + </p> + <p> + “Your expressions, Doda!” + </p> + <p> + “Huggo uses it.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re wretched even in Huggo. But Huggo’s a boy. You’re a girl.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, mother, I didn’t ask to be a girl.” + </p> + <p> + “Doda, that’s merely silly.” + </p> + <p> + “A lot of us say it, that’s all I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, darling, a lot of you are silly.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I shall be glad when next week I go to the Fergussons. It is dull.” + </p> + <p> + Look, there she is. She’s sixteen. She’s beautiful. She’s pretty as a + picture, and she knows she is. She’s grown out of the rather early + fullness of figure that had been hers. She’s slim and tall and straight + and supple and slender as a willow wand. If she had her hair up and her + skirts lengthened (skirts then were only starting on their diminution to + the knees), she’d pass for twenty anywhere, and a twenty singularly + attractive, curiously self-possessed, strikingly suggestive in her pale + and beautiful countenance, and in an alternating sleepiness and glinting + in her eyes; strikingly suggestive of, well, strikingly suggestive + according to the predilictions and the principles of the beholder. + </p> + <p> + This was in 1917. She was beginning rather to hate school now. She wanted + to be out and doing some war work of some kind. Oh, those sickening + scarves and things they were eternally knitting, that wasn’t war work. It + was fun at first. They were fed to death with doing them now. She didn’t + much want to go into a hospital or into any of these women’s corps. They + were a jolly sight too cooped up in those things from what she’d heard. + She wanted to go into one of the Government offices and do clerical work. + Several of the school Old Girls who had been there with her were doing + that and it was the most ripping rag. Of course you had to work, and of + course it was jolly good patriotic work, but you had a topping time in + many ways. That was what she wanted to do. Oh, mother, do let her chuck + school now and get to it! Not till she was seventeen? Well, it was + sickening. Well, it was only another term, thank goodness. + </p> + <p> + It was in the holidays—in her brief days at home of the holidays—in + which these wishes were expressed, that Rosalie found Doda was + corresponding with officers at the front. + </p> + <p> + Doda was appallingly untidy in her habits. She was out one evening to a + party—she managed to get a considerable number of parties into her + dull days at home. Rosalie, come in from Field’s, peeped into her bedroom + to find her. She had not known that Doda was going out. The bedroom cried + aloud that Doda had gone out. Drawers were open and articles of dress + hanging out of them. One drawer, no doubt stubborn in its yieldings, was + bodily out in the middle of the room. Clothes were on the floor. Clothes + strewed the bed. Powder was all over the mirror. It was as if a whirlwind + had passed through the room. + </p> + <p> + “Powder!” murmured Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + The state of the room dismayed her. The intense orderliness of her own + character forbade her ringing for a maid. She simply could not look at + untidiness like that without tidying it. She started to tidy. Doda’s box + was open. Its contents looked as if a dog had burrowed in it, throwing up + the things as he worked down. If anything was to go in, everything must + first come out. Rosalie lifted out an initial clearance. + </p> + <p> + There lay scattered beneath it quite half a dozen photographs of officers + in khaki. + </p> + <p> + There were all inscribed. “To the school kid.” “Wishing you were here.” + “With kisses.” “Till we meet.” And with slangy nicknames of the writers. + There lay with them a number of letters, all in their envelopes. There lay + also a sheet of paper covered in Doda’s bold handwriting. It began + “Wonderful Old Thing.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie had not touched these evidences of an unknown interest in Doda’s + life. She stooped, staring upon them, the lifted bundle of clothes in her + hand. The stare that took in “Wonderful Old Thing” took in also the first + few lines. They were not nice. But she oughtn’t to read it. One didn’t do + that kind of thing. She replaced the bundle and closed the box. Then she + tidied the room and wiped the mirror. + </p> + <p> + Early next morning, immediately on coming out of her bath, she went in to + Doda. She opened the door softly and she distinctly saw the lids of Doda’s + eyes flash up and close again. + </p> + <p> + “Doda!” + </p> + <p> + Doda pretended to be asleep. Rosalie had sat up for Doda the previous + night but had said nothing to her either of her discovery or of going to + an invitation without having told her. Doda wasn’t pretending to be asleep + because she feared trouble. She was pretending to be asleep just because + she had no wish for an early talk with her mother. + </p> + <p> + There was a little pang at the heart of Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + But it was just that the child wasn’t demonstrative of her affections. + None of them were. Even Benji not really what you would call + demonstrative. How beautiful the child was! Her Doda! How little she ever + saw of her! + </p> + <p> + She called her again. + </p> + <p> + Doda opened her eyes. “Hullo, mother.” + </p> + <p> + Just that. No more. They were different, the children. + </p> + <p> + She sat down on Doda’s bed and began to talk to her. Tidiness! “Doda, your + room as you left it last night when you went out was simply terrible. How + can you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I can’t be tidy,” said Doda. “I simply can’t. It’s no good trying.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Mother, you knew where I was. I told the maids.” + </p> + <p> + “You should have consulted me, Doda.” + </p> + <p> + The child assumed the Huggo look. “Mother, how could I? They only asked me + on the telephone at tea-time. How could I have consulted you?” + </p> + <p> + “In the same way as you were invited. On the telephone.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Doda, what I’ve come in to talk about is this. When I was tidying your + room last night—” + </p> + <p> + Doda sat up. “Did you tidy my room?” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t possibly leave a room like that. Well, I went to tidy your box—” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll get up,” said Doda. She jumped very quickly out of bed and put on a + wrapper and her slippers. “Yes, well?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you writing to men at the front, Doda?” + </p> + <p> + “Every girl is. It’s a thing to do. It helps them.” + </p> + <p> + “Are they friends of yours, dear? Personal friends.” + </p> + <p> + “They’re brothers of girls I’ve stayed with.” + </p> + <p> + “All?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t suggested there is, Doda.” + </p> + <p> + “I can see you’re going to, though. If you ask me—” She stopped. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “But what’s the harm? Why shouldn’t they?” + </p> + <p> + “Darling, it’s I am asking you. I’m your mother.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Doda, I haven’t. I just saw them there. But I’d like to read them, Doda. + May I?” + </p> + <p> + “They’re private letters. I don’t see how you can expect me to show you + private letters.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + Doda stepped violently away from the hand that stroked her hair. “No. I + won’t show them.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it’s to burn them, Doda.” + </p> + <p> + Doda looked slowly around the room. Her face was not nice. She said + sullenly, “There’s no fire here.” + </p> + <p> + “Bring them down with you to the breakfast-room. Your father will have + gone. We’ll see Benji’s not there.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said very softly, “Doda!” + </p> + <p> + 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 snatched 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, + flashing, 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!” + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + The child called out, “I’m nearly seventeen! I call it an outrage!” + </p> + <p> + 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!” + </p> + <p> + That child, almost touched by her arms, brushed herself from the arms. + “Why should I have things like this done to me by you?” + </p> + <p> + “Doda, I am your mother. You have a duty—” + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + Tears rushed into her eyes and leapt from her eyes. She gave an + impassioned gesture. She rushed from the room. + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + 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 multitudes 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 titillation of it. The titillation 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 titillation 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 titillation of watching the clock for tea, and of tea, + and then, most sharpest titillation 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Until she found her feet—not in her office, but at home at first + emergence from her school—until she found her feet she often used to + be kept uncommonly late at office. In a very short while she found her + feet and that excuse no longer was put forward. Every girl of Doda’s + association was on her feet in 1919; and for Doda very much easier, at + that, than for the generality, to establish her position in the house. By + 1920, when she was nineteen, she was conducting her life as she pleased, + as nineteen manifestly should. In 1921, when she was twenty, the war work + was over and she was “getting through the day” much as she lived the + night. It was pretty easy to get through the day in 1921. That which the + curmudgeons called license, and liberty the free, was in 1921 held by + charter and by right prescriptive. + </p> + <p> + Look at her. There she is. She’s lovelier yet, if that which was her + budding loveliness could bear a lovelier hue. She’s always out somewhere, + or she’s always off somewhere, or she’s always coming in from somewhere. + Her eyes, in presentation more pronounced, have always got that sleepy + look or got that glinting look. She never talks much at home. She seems to + keep her talking for her friends and she never brings her friends home. + She’s on good terms with Rosalie. That’s the expression for it. She was to + have been a woman treasury into which was to be poured by Rosalie all her + woman love. She was to have been a woman with her mother in the house of + Harry and of Huggo. But that’s all done. She’s not a daughter to her + mother. She never asked to be born to her mother, as once she told her + mother, and though that never now again is said it is the basis of her + stand. She owes no obligations. They just meet. They get on very + pleasantly. She’s on good terms with Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + It is odd—or else it isn’t odd but only natural—that in all + the pictures seen by Rosalie there scarcely is a picture that ever shows + the children all together. They hardly ever, within the compass of her + pictures, were together. As in their schoolhood, so much more in + adolescence, they never showed a least desire for one another’s company. + They had their friends, each one, and much preferred their friends. You’d + not, it’s true, say that of Benji; but Benji in fraternal wish had to take + what was offered him and there was nothing offered him by Doda; by Huggo + less than nothing. + </p> + <p> + Benji! + </p> + <p> + Look, here’s the Benji one; the good, the quiet, gentle one; the one that + never gave a thought of trouble, Benji. + </p> + <p> + Her Benji! The one that came after disfavour, after remorse; that came + with tears, with thank God, charged-with-meaning tears. The littlest one. + The one that was so tiny wee beside the big and sturdy others. Her last + one! Her Benji! + </p> + <p> + Look, there he is. Always so quiet, gentle, good. Always, though snubbed, + so passionately fond of Doda. Look, there he is. He’s at Milchester, in + his spectacles, the darling! He’s always in his books. He isn’t good at + games. He does so well at school. Oh, isn’t Harry proud of him and fond of + him! Oh, doesn’t Harry often sigh and wish he could have gone to + Tidborough to win those prizes and those honours there. But Tidborough’s + closed to Harry, Harry says. Look, there goes Benji! It’s 1919. He’s + sixteen. It’s Speech Day at Milchester. He’s in the Sixth. He’s won all + those prizes. She’s holding two and Harry’s holding three, and there he + goes to take the Heriot Gold Medal. All the great hall is simply cheering + Benji! The Head is saying that he’s the youngest boy that’s ever won the + Heriot. Look, there’s the Bishop handing it, and shaking Benji by the + hand, and patting Benji on the back, and saying something to him. You + can’t possibly hear what it is, every one is cheering so. Look, here he + comes with the medal, in his spectacles, the darling! She can scarcely + see, her eyes are brimming so. Harry’s quite shameless. Harry’s got tears + standing on his cheeks and he’s set down the prizes and is stretching both + his hands out to the boy. Feel, that’s his hand—her Benji’s hand—snuggled + a moment in hers, and then he turns to his father and is eagerly + whispering to his father, his spectacles rubbing his father’s head, the + darling! He’s more demonstrative to his father than he is to her. She + feels it rather sometimes. He’s awfully sweet to her, but, you can’t help + noticing it, it’s more his gracious manner than the outpouring she’d give + anything to have. It’s funny how he always seems the tiniest atom strange + with her as if he didn’t know her very well or hadn’t known her very long. + It sometimes pains a little. He’s different with his father. He loves + being with his father. And doesn’t Harry love having the boy with him! + Harry idolises the boy. Of course Huggo is Harry’s eldest, and whatever + Huggo’s disappointments, these men—at least these perfect Harry type + of men—have for their eldest boy within their hearts a place no + other child can quite exactly fill. There’s some especial yearning that + the eldest seems to call. There’s some incorporation of the father’s self, + there’s some reflection that he sees, there’s some communion that he seems + to find, that makes “My eldest son” a thing apart. But, with that + reservation, and that’s ingrained in men, it’s Benji that’s the world to + Harry. He’s going to Ox-ford. He’s going to have the Bar career that Huggo + wouldn’t take. But Harry thinks there’s some especial wonders going to + come to Benji. He says the boy’s a dreamer. He says the boy’s a thinker. + “Benji’s got something rare about him, Rosalie,” he says. “That boy’s got + a mark on him that genius has. You wait and see, old lady. It’s Benji’s + going to make the old name shine!” Strike on! + </p> + <p> + It is odd, sad, significant, that there is scarcely a picture that shows + together those three children, or even two of them. It’s 1921 now and + drawing very close to Finis; but always the old detachment, the seeming + want of mutual love, appears to hold the three apart. Doda is sometimes + glimpsed, no more, with Benji, always putting off or chilling off her + brother for her friends; sometimes she’s seen with Huggo, meeting him and + he her, more like an acquaintance of their sets than like fruit of the + same parents; familiar, apparently, with one another’s lives: referring to + places of amusement by both frequented, as had been done, in instance, on + that night of Huggo’s announcement of his marriage when with a note that + rung sinister he had bantered Doda and she had turned and run upstairs. + But no more than that. The children seem to have no mutual love. They’re + different. + </p> + <p> + It’s 1921. Huggo was scarcely ever seen now. He had married in haste and + had in haste repented. He also had played a trick, involving a sum of + money, on his father. His wife, as it appeared, had been met at some + dancing club and the brief courtship had continued anywhere but at her + home. Of her home Huggo knew only what she told him; and what she told him + was only what she could invent. She was then, at their first meeting, in + the uniform of a war service corps to which she belonged. She said her + father was a clergyman. + </p> + <p> + “A clergyman’s daughter!” cried Huggo bitterly, acquainting Rosalie only + three months after his marriage of his marriage’s failure. “A clergyman’s + daughter! That’s what they all say—those! Wasn’t I a fool to be + caught out by that! Oh, wasn’t I a fool! If you want to know what she + really was, she was a teashop waitress, in the city somewhere. If you want + to know what her reverend father in the country was, is, he doesn’t live + in the country; he lives in Holloway, and he doesn’t live in a rectory in + Holloway, he lives in a baker’s shop. That’s what he is, a baker! That’s + what I’ve done for myself, married a waitress! Yes, and then you, you and + father, when she comes whining here and complains I ill-treat her and keep + her without money, you two take her part and send her back to me with your + championship and get me here to pijaw me about my duty to my pretty young + wife! Well, now you know, now you know, and you can tell father what my + pretty young wife is—how she deceived me. Deceived me! Now you + know.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie said, “Huggo, you deceived her.” + </p> + <p> + Huggo had been leaving and now very violently went. “That’s your tone, is + it? I might have known! That’s all you can say, is it? To see me ruin my + life and then reproach me! Ruin my life! It’s not I that’s ruined my life. + It’s you. There, now I’ve told you! I can see things now. What sort of a + chance have I ever had? What sort of a home have I ever had? Have I ever + had a mother? When I was a kid did I ever have a mother like other kids + have? I can see things now. A mother! I can’t ever remember a time when I + wasn’t in the charge of some servant or governess or other. You said this + afternoon before father that I didn’t love you. Did you ever teach me to + love you? By God, I can’t remember it. By God, I can’t.” + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + Also that trick, touching a sum of money, upon his father. When he first + made known his marriage, and it was obvious he must have his way and be + set up to start in life, he had also, as he had said, the chance of a + lucrative business. It was the kind of thing he liked. It was the kind of + thing he was keen on. It was a motor-car business. There was a little + syndicate that was putting a new car on the market. They’d got works, just + outside London somewhere. They’d got show-rooms in the West End. And + they’d got an absolutely first-class article. That chap Telfer was one of + the directors; a first-class chap called Turner was another; they’d let + him in for eight thousand pounds and he’d be absolutely set up for life + and be pulling in an immense fortune in no time. You will, won’t you, + father? + </p> + <p> + Of course Harry forgave the boy, his eldest son. The marriage was done, + what was the use of being unkind or stupid about it? Of course Rosalie + welcomed the wife, Lucy, the prettiest creature, a tiny shade common, + perhaps, but a sweet little soul with always about her a pathetic air of + being afraid of something (of when it should come out precisely what she + was, as the event proved). Of course Harry paid over the eight thousand + pounds. Huggo took, “to start with,” as he said, a tiny furnished flat in + Bayswater. Rosalie installed him and his bride therein and left him, on + their first night there, ever so gay, so confident, so happy. Her Huggo! + </p> + <p> + In two months it all came out. Lawyers are notoriously lax in making their + own wills. Harry, who could master a case quicker than any man at the Bar, + and could see to the soul and beyond it of a hostile witness a minute + after getting on his feet to cross-examine, was fooled blind by the + syndicate that was going to put the absolutely first-class article on the + market. Whether it was that there never had been a business, and that + Harry’s inspection of works, visits to show-rooms, and examination of + books, was all part of an elaborate swindle carried out with the aid of + some one who possessed these accessories; or whether it was that the whole + thing was bought up cheap merely to sell at a profit, was never clearly + known to Harry and to Rosalie. Harry was too grieved to pursue the shock. + “I’ll take not a step further in the matter, Rosalie,” Harry said. “I + can’t bear to find the boy out deeper. It’s done. There’s no sense in + being stupid or unkind about it.” + </p> + <p> + What happened was that the car enterprise never was an enterprise at all + except an enterprise to get eight thousand pounds into the possession of + the syndicate. Nothing ever was properly announced by Huggo. It just “came + out.” It “came out” that the syndicate was not established in the West End + show-rooms but in three rather dingy offices in the city. It “came out” + that the syndicate was not running a motor-car business but a business + cryptically described as “Agents.” Huggo said disaster had overtaken the + car enterprise and that the syndicate, rescuing what remained of the + smash, had pluckily set up on another line. He thought he could scrape + along. It was a knockout of course, but he thought he could scrape along. + </p> + <p> + “But what I can’t make out, old man,” said Harry, when Huggo had stumbled + through an entirely non-explanatory explanation of the syndicate’s + business in its new capacity as agents, “What I can’t make out, old man, + is why you should trade under another name. Why, ‘So-and-So, and + So-and-So, and So-and-So, Agents’—I can’t ever remember the names? + Why not ‘Telfer, Occleve and Turner’?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, as a matter of fact, father—I want you to know everything + without any concealment—” + </p> + <p> + “I know you do, old man. I know you do.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, as a matter of fact, that’s just a bit of useful swank. The names + we’re trading under are swagger names and we think it sounds better.” + </p> + <p> + “Occleve sounds pretty good to me, Huggo. We’ve been a good long way on + Occleve, the Occleves.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, that’s what they think, father, and of course, as I’ve told you, + they know infinitely more about business than I do. They’ll explain the + whole thing to you any time you like. It’s all absolutely above-board, + father.” + </p> + <p> + “My dearest old boy, don’t talk like that. Of course it is. We’re only so + grieved, your mother and I, that you should have had such a setback so + early. But remember, old man, the great thing is not to let your wife + suffer. No pinching or screwing for her, Huggo. Always your wife first, + Huggo. We’ll give you at the rate of three hundred a year just until all’s + going swimmingly, and that’s to keep Lucy merry and bright, see?” + </p> + <p> + It was shortly after that it all came out that the thing was a ramp, the + motor-car business never in existence; shortly after that it came out + Huggo was neglecting his wife; shortly after that the high words to + Rosalie, telling her how his wife had deceived him; shortly after that + that the syndicate, amazingly prosperous, moved into offices better + situated and handsomely appointed; shortly after that it came out that the + business of the syndicate was in some way connected with company + promotion. + </p> + <p> + Harry, seen among these developments, was not the man he used to be. He + was at the crest of his career at the Bar, working enormously and earning + richly, but the old bright, cheery way had gone from Harry. There was + permanently upon his face, and there was intensified, the beaten look that + Rosalie first had seen on that night, in the war, when there had been the + Huggo drinking business and when for the first and only time he had spoken + passionately to Rosalie. When he now was at home he used to sit for long + periods doing nothing, just thinking. When sometimes, home earlier than + he, Rosalie saw him coming up the street towards the gamboge door she + noticed, terribly, the bowed shoulders, the weary gait, the set, careworn + face. She used to run down then to the famous gamboge door and open it and + greet him and his face used to light up in the old way, but it was not the + same face, and the effect of its radiation therefore not the same. It was + not that the face was older. It was that its aspect was changed. + </p> + <p> + He used to look up from that chair where he sat just thinking, when Doda, + butterflied for the evening, butterflied across the room, and used to say, + “Out again, Doda?” He then would relapse back into his thoughts. He had a + habit of getting up suddenly and rather strangely wandering about from + room to room of all the principal rooms of the house, just standing at the + door of each, and looking in (they were all empty of inhabitants), and + then coming back and sitting again in the chair and just sit, thinking. + </p> + <p> + It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + She said more than once when he returned from such a tour, “Dear Harry, + looking for anything?” + </p> + <p> + He’d say rather heavily, “No; no, dear. Just having a look around.” + </p> + <p> + It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + But he used to be enormously brightened up when Benji came home. Benji was + just at Oxford then, eighteen. He was a different man when Benji was at + home. He used to say, “Rosalie, that boy’s going to make a name for + himself in the world. My heart’s wrapped round that boy, Rosalie. Ay, me! + I wish he’d been our eldest, Rosalie.” + </p> + <p> + That was because he couldn’t tear away the wrappings of his heart from + about his eldest. Men can’t. + </p> + <p> + It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + Of course, with everything now known, Huggo was forgiven. Huggo was + prosperous now, almost aggressively prosperous. He kept a car. The + syndicate, whatever it actually did, was obviously doing enormously well. + What was the good of being stupid and unkind to the boy now that, at last, + he had found his feet? But Huggo scarcely ever came to the house. He had + virtually left Lucy. Lucy lived on in the originally-taken furnished flat + in Bayswater. Huggo had rooms somewhere, no one quite knew where, and + lived there. Rosalie used to get Lucy to the house sometimes, but Lucy was + never at her ease on these visits, and Doda, who sympathized entirely with + Huggo in the matter, very much disliked her and would not meet her. Lucy + was in bad health and she was going to have a baby. Her health and her + condition made her look much more common than she used to look. + </p> + <p> + Then the baby was born; a little girl. Poor, grateful Lucy called it + Rosalie. She told Rosalie that Huggo said he didn’t care what the baby was + called. He was very angry about the baby. “He was worse than usual when he + was here last week,” said Lucy. “I think he’s got something on his mind. I + think he’s worrying about something. Oh, he was sharp.” + </p> + <p> + Lucy was very ill with the birth of her baby. She didn’t seem able to pick + up again from her confinement. She kept her bed. Then, suddenly, she + developed pneumonia. The maternity nurse, paid by Rosalie, was still in + attendance. Rosalie sent in another nurse, and on that same night, going + straight to the sick bed from Field’s, and then coming home very late, + told Harry, who was waiting up for her, that the worst was feared for + Lucy. She then said, “Harry, if anything happens, I think we’ll have that + baby here. It will practically be a case of adopting the child.” + </p> + <p> + Harry agreed. + </p> + <p> + “I’d get in a nurse for her, the new little Rosalie.” She sighed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes,” said Harry. + </p> + <p> + She said after a little, “Harry, the nurseries in use again!” + </p> + <p> + He sat there as he was always sitting, thinking. + </p> + <p> + She went over to him. “Dear, won’t you like the nurseries to be in use + again?” + </p> + <p> + He said slowly, “I will, very much, Rosalie. It’s lonely, these empty + rooms. I will very much—in some ways.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie knew what Harry meant. She touched his hand. “Dear, I think it can + be made different.” + </p> + <p> + Harry knew what Rosalie meant. He pressed the hand that touched his own. + “That’s all right, Rosalie. That’s all right, dearest.” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie was down early next morning. She desired an early breakfast and to + go on to see Lucy before Field’s. It might be necessary to stay the day + with Lucy. There was also Huggo. What was Huggo doing? Overnight Rosalie + had seen Doda, come in late from an evening with a very intimate friend of + hers always known, through some private joke of Doda’s, as “the foreign + friend.” The foreign friend, not in the least foreign but English, was a + young married woman living apart from her husband. Doda had brought her to + the house once. She was very pretty and a cheery soul. She would have been + called fast when Rosalie was a girl. In 1921 she would almost, in the + manner she presented to Rosalie, have been called slow. Doda and she were + greatly attached. + </p> + <p> + Doda, overnight, going straight upstairs to bed, had said, “Have you seen + Huggo to-day? He’s in a scrape of some sort.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Doda, what kind of a scrape?” + </p> + <p> + “He didn’t tell me. I ran into him quite by chance coming away from a + theatre with the foreign friend. We both thought he was rather badly + rattled.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he going on to Lucy? Did he know Lucy was very ill indeed?” + </p> + <p> + Doda said, “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. Is she?” and indifferently + passed upstairs. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie at her early breakfast was thinking what news the day would give + of Lucy and of Huggo. She was suddenly, by Huggo in person, brought + intelligence of both. She heard the door bell ring and in a minute Huggo + surprisingly broke into the room. He had kept his hat on. He looked white, + drawn and very agitated. He shut the door behind him. “Lucy’s dead.” + </p> + <p> + Tears sprang into the eyes of Rosalie, “Oh, my poor Huggo!” + </p> + <p> + He made a gesture. “Oh, that’s no good! Look here, mother, will you look + after things over there for me? That’s all I’ve come in to say. Will you + see to everything and will you take the kid? I can’t stop.” + </p> + <p> + He made to go. + </p> + <p> + “Huggo, of course I will. But you’ll be there? Are you going there now?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not. I’m going away.” + </p> + <p> + “Going away?” + </p> + <p> + His hand was on the door. “Yes, going away. Look here, there’s another + thing. If any one comes here for me will you say you haven’t seen me? It’s + important. It’s vital.” + </p> + <p> + “Huggo, what is the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll jolly soon know. You may as well know now. Then you’ll realise. If + you want to know—the police are after me.” + </p> + <p> + He was gone. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + In the Book of Job it all happened, to Job, in the apparent compass of one + piece of time not broken by diurnal intervals, not mitigated by + recuperative cessations between blow and blow. It seemed to Rosalie that + it was like that it happened also to her. There seemed no interval. It + seemed to her wrath on wrath, visitation upon visitation, judgment upon + judgment. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to her that she was no sooner come down out of the Old Bailey—her + hand touching at things for support, her vision vertiginous, causing the + solid ground to be in motion, her ears resonant, crying through her brain + the words she saw in Huggo’s look as they removed him; it seemed to her + she was no sooner out from there than she was at the telephone and + summoned by the foreign friend and was there with Doda and was in process + of “Oh, Doda!”—“Oh, mother!”; it seemed to her she was no sooner out + from that than she was with that burly messenger, going with him, + returning from him. There were days and nights walled up in weeks and + months between these things, but that is how they seemed to Rosalie. + </p> + <p> + The syndicate was laid by the heels, one here, one there, Huggo in France, + very shortly after the warning that had put Huggo in flight. The syndicate + went through the police court where was unfolded a story sensational with + surprising sums of money, captivating with ingenuity of fraud covered up + by fraud to help new fraud again. The syndicate stood in the dock at the + Old Bailey. Those two of the syndicate described by the prosecution and by + the judge as the principals were sentenced to three years’ penal + servitude. “You,” said the judge, addressing with a new note in his voice + the third prisoner, “You, Occleve, stand in a different—” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie began to pray. + </p> + <p> + Harry would not attend the trial. He had done all that could be done, and + of his position there was very much that he was able to do, and had + attended the police court during the initial proceedings. He would not go + to the Old Bailey. He would not go out. He would not read the papers. He + used to sit about the house. “My son a felon.... My boy a felon. My + son.... My eldest son....” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie was given a seat in the floor of the court on the first days of + the hearing. On the day when the verdict was to be given and sentence + passed she could not bear that. An usher, much pitying, obtained her a + place in the gallery. She looked down immediately upon her Huggo. Her + hands, upon the ledge before her, were all the time clasped. Her eyes + alternately were in her hands and on her Huggo. Her heart moved between + her Huggo and her God. + </p> + <p> + “You, Occleve, stand in a different position. . . .” + </p> + <p> + She began to pray. All of her being, all of her soul, all of her life, + with a spiritual and a physical intensity transcending all that her body + and her mind had ever known, was in apotheosis of supplication. “O God the + Father! O God the Father! O God the Father!” + </p> + <p> + Her Huggo! Those words that only in snatches she heard were being + addressed to her Huggo. + </p> + <p> + “... Your counsel has most eloquently pleaded for you.... You bear an + honoured name.... You bear a name held in these precincts in honour, in + esteem, in love, in admiration.... You have had a good home, a great and a + noble father, a distinguished and devoted mother....” + </p> + <p> + That suppliant crouched lower in her supplication. + </p> + <p> + “... You have been the dupe, you have been the tool, you have been in + large part, as your counsel has pleaded, and as I believe, the + unsuspecting agent.... Nevertheless, the least sentence I can pass on you—” + </p> + <p> + “O God the Father, the Father!” + </p> + <p> + “... is six months’ imprisonment.” + </p> + <p> + That boy, whose head had been hung and eyes downcast, lifted his head and + raised his eyes and gave one look into the eyes of that suppliant for him + that sat above him. There was recalled by that suppliant a look that had + passed from the place of accusation to the place of assembly in the place + called the Sanhedrin. + </p> + <p> + Her Huggo! + </p> + <p> + They took him away. + </p> + <p> + Doda didn’t stop going out. She seemed to go out more. The pain within + that house, brought there by Huggo, seemed to make that house more than + before unbearable to Doda. She often spent the night, or the week end + away, staying with the foreign friend, she generally said. She would have + nothing whatever to do with the baby now installed in the house. She never + would go near it. Once she passed it in the hall in its perambulator. She + stopped and stooped over the face of lovely innocence that lay there and + gazed upon it with an extraordinary intensity. She drew back with a sharp + catch at her breath and sharply stepped away and turned and ran very + quickly upstairs. After that when she chanced to pass the child, she + turned aside and would not look upon the child. She began not to look + well, Rosalie thought. There often was upon her lovely face a pinched and + drawn expression, disfiguring it. On the rare occasions when she was in to + dinner she sat strangely moody. There only was a moodiness about that + table then; but the moodiness of Doda was noticeable to Rosalie. She ate + hardly at all. She sometimes would get up suddenly before a meal was ended + and go away, generally to her own room. Very many times Rosalie would seek + anxiously to question her, but apart from the independence which commonly + she maintained towards Rosalie, Doda seemed very much to resent solicitude + upon her health. “What should be the matter? I look perfectly well, don’t + I?” + </p> + <p> + “Doda, you don’t. I’ve noticed it a long time.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I am perfectly well. If I wasn’t I’d say so.” + </p> + <p> + Strike on! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie was waiting for them when the telephone bell rang and she was + spoken to by the foreign friend. + </p> + <p> + It then happened like this. + </p> + <p> + The voice of the foreign friend was very alarmingly urgent. “Would she + come and see Doda at once, at once, at once?” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no. At my flat. At my flat.” + </p> + <p> + “But what is it? What is it? Why don’t you tell me what it is?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s an—it’s an—.” The voice stammered and hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, speak! Oh, speak.” + </p> + <p> + She could hear the voice gulping. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please do speak!” + </p> + <p> + “Doda isn’t very well. Doda’s very ill. It’s an—it’s an accident.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll come. I’ll come.” + </p> + <p> + “Is Mr. Occleve there?” + </p> + <p> + “He isn’t. He’s out.” + </p> + <p> + “Can you get him?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Yes. I don’t know. I can’t think. Oh, tell me. Tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you leave a message for him to come at once?” + </p> + <p> + “At once. At once.” + </p> + <p> + She wrote a message for Harry and she picked up a wrap and she ran out + hatless to find a cab. + </p> + <p> + She found a cab and went to Doda. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + He said, “You’rre her mother, arren’t ye? Where’s her father?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s coming. Where is my child?” + </p> + <p> + The doctor jerked his head towards a wall. “She’s yon.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, please.” + </p> + <p> + He pushed a chair towards her but she shook her head. “Please tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye’ll want your courage.” He again indicated the chair. She again shook + her head. “It’ll try ye. She’s dying.” + </p> + <p> + The lips of Rosalie formed the words: “Tell me.” There was no sound in + her. + </p> + <p> + The doctor said, “I cannot tell ye. It is for your husband to hear.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + She moaned: “O God, be merciful!” + </p> + <p> + 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 gods, of self, of what is + vain, of liberty undisciplined, of restless itch for pleasure, and of the + gods 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 mass + on mass of fierce, submerging clouds as it might be a soul that rose + through infinite calamity to God. 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 + sexless 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!” + </p> + <p> + She never once said mother. + </p> + <p> + She calmed and a long space was mute. The moon, its duress passed, stood + high, serene, alone. The doctor breathed, “She’s passing.” That child + raised her lids and her eyes looked out upon her watchers. + </p> + <p> + Rosalie cried, “Oh, Doda!” + </p> + <p> + That child sighed. “Oh, mother!” + </p> + <p> + 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 passed + out. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. Sacrifice is + atonement. It now is not possible for me to atone.” + </p> + <p> + She was on her knees beside his chair. He stroked her hair. + </p> + <p> + There was an inquest. Harry went. She stayed at home and Benji stayed with + her to be with her. Benji was not to be consoled. His mood was very + dreadful. A report was printed in the evening paper before Harry came + home. Benji read it and told Rosalie a witness, a man, had been arrested + on the coroner’s warrant. Benji said, “I think I’ll go out now, mother, + for a little.” + </p> + <p> + Later in the afternoon when Rosalie was with Harry a maid came into the + room and looked at Harry and saw how sunk he was in his chair and so went + to Rosalie and whispered to her. Rosalie went out. There was a man wished + to see the master. Rosalie spoke to him. He was a large, burly man with a + strong face. He looked like, and was, a police officer in plain clothes. + Rosalie heard what he began to say and said she would go with him. In the + cab, the man told her about it. All his sentences began with or contained + “The young gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “The young gentleman... the prisoner, when the young gentleman came + rushing in, happened to be in the charge-room writing out a statement.... + The young gentleman, before any one could stop him, rushed at this + prisoner and caught him by the throat and threw him and the table over and + banged the man’s head against the floor, fair trying to kill him. They got + the young gentleman off. They ought to have arrested the young gentleman, + and they did most earnestly wish they had of arrested him, and blamed + themselves properly that they didn’t arrest him. But they felt cruelly + sorry for the young gentleman and they got him outside and let him go and + no more said. Of course, as madam knew, the police office wasn’t very far + from Gower Street station, the underground station with them steep stairs + leading straight down from the street to the platform, as madam might be + aware.... The young gentleman was seen by witnesses, whose names were + took, to come rushing down these stairs on to the platform as if some one + was after him.... The young gentleman come rushing down and there was a + train just coming in, and whether he couldn’t stop or whether he.... + There’s some say one thing and some say the other.... Whichever way it was + the young gentleman....” + </p> + <p> + Rosalie did her errand with the man and then came back to Harry. She had + to tell Harry. + </p> + <p> + He was sitting in his chair. He had an open book on his knees. She saw, as + one notices these things, it was a Shakespeare. She stood up there at the + door before him and she said, “Harry—Benji!” + </p> + <p> + He saw it in her face. + </p> + <p> + He groaned. + </p> + <p> + He took the book off his knees and fumbled it, and with a groaning mutter + dropped it: “‘Unarm, Eros, the long day’s work is done.’” + </p> + <p> + She came to him and saw, as one sees things, above his head the picture he + had hung when raven was his hair and radiant his face, and had hit his + thumb, and jumped, and cried out, “Mice and Mumps!” and had laughed and + wrung his hands, and cried out, “Mice and Mumps!” and laughed again. She + came to him and saw him wilt and crumple in his chair, and could have + sworn she saw the iron of his head, that had been raven, go grey anew and + greyer yet. She came to him and she said, “Harry—Benji—an + accident—not an accident—on the railway—killed.” + </p> + <p> + His voice went, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one agrope, + in sudden darkness, befogged, betrayed. “My God, my God, my God, my God, + my God!” + </p> + <p> + She fell on her knees; and on her arms and on his lap she buried then her + face. + </p> + <p> + He suddenly stooped to her, and caught his arms about her, and raised her + to him, and pressed his face to hers, and held her there; and his cry was + as once before, passionately holding her, his cry had been; then from his + heart to her heart, now from the abysses of his soul to her soul’s depths, + “Rosalie! Rosalie!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + POSTSCRIPT. + </h2> + <p> + There was to have been some more of it; but there, they’re in each other’s + arms, and one has suffered so with them one cannot any more go on. One’s + suffered so! One has looked backward with her. The heart must break but + for a forward glimpse:— + </p> + <p> + They’re all right now. Huggo’s in Canada. He writes every week. They’re + all right now. That other Rosalie that they brought in is looking after + them. She’s looking after them, that elf, that sprite, that tricksy scrap, + that sunshine thing. She calls Harry father and Rosalie she calls mother. + She has all her meals with them. There’s no nurse. It’s breakfast she + loves best. She’s on the itch all breakfast. When breakfast’s done she’s + off her chair and hopping. She trumpets in her tiny voice, “Lessons! + Lessons!” She trumpets in her tiny voice, “Lessons, lessons! On mother’s + knee! On mother’s knee!” + </p> + <h3> + THE END + </h3> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 6415-h.htm or 6415-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/6415/ + + +Text file produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation’s web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + + +</pre> + + </body> +</html> diff --git a/6415.txt b/6415.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d99efc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/6415.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11837 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: This Freedom + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + + +Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6415] +This file was first posted on December 8, 2002 +Last Updated: July 4, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + + + + + + + +THIS FREEDOM + +By A. S. M. Hutchinson + +"With a great sum obtained I this freedom."--ACTS xxii, 28. + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART ONE--HOUSE OF MEN + +PART TWO--HOUSE OF WOMEN + +PART THREE--HOUSE OF CHILDREN + +PART FOUR--HOUSE OF CARDS + + + + +PART ONE--HOUSE OF MEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Rosalie's earliest apprehension of the world was of a mysterious and +extraordinary world that revolved entirely about her father and that +entirely and completely belonged to her father. Under her father, all +males had proprietory rights in the world and dominion over it; no +females owned any part of the world or could do anything with it. All +the males in this world--her father, and Robert and Harold her brothers, +and all the other boys and men one sometimes saw--did mysterious and +extraordinary things; and all the females in this world--her mother, and +Anna and Flora and Hilda her sisters, and Ellen the cook and Gertrude +the maid--did ordinary and unexciting and generally rather tiresome +things. All the males were like story books to Rosalie: you never knew +what they were going to do next; and all the females were like lesson +books: they just went on and on and on. + +Rosalie always stared at men when she saw them. Extraordinary and +wonderful creatures who could do what they liked and were always doing +mysterious and wonderful things, especially and above all her father. + +Being with her father was like being with a magician or like watching +a conjuror on the stage. You never knew what he was going to do next. +Whatever he suddenly did was never surprising in the sense of being +startling, for (this cannot be emphasised too much) nothing her father +did was ever surprising to Rosalie; but it was surprising in the sense +of being absorbingly wonderful and enthralling. Even better than reading +when she first began to read, and far better than anything in the world +before the mysteries in books were discoverable, Rosalie liked to sit +and stare at her father and think how wonderful he was and wonder what +extraordinary thing he would do next. Everything belonged to him. The +whole of life was ordered with a view to what he would think about it. +The whole of life was continually thrown off its balance and whirled +into the most entrancing convulsions by sudden activities of this most +wonderful man. + +Entrancing convulsions! Wonderful, wonderful father with a bull after +him! Why, that was her very earliest recollection of him! That showed +you how wonderful he was! Father, seen for the first time (as it were) +flying before a bull! Bounding wildly across a field towards her with +a bull after him! Wonderful father! Did her mother ever rush along in +front of a bull? Never. Was it possible to imagine any of the women she +knew rushing before a bull? It was not possible. To see a woman rushing +before a bull would have alarmed Rosalie for she would have felt it was +unnatural; but for her father to be bounding wildly along in front of a +bull seemed to her perfectly natural and ordinary and she was not in the +least alarmed; only, as always, enthralled. + +Her father, while Rosalie watched him, was not in great danger. He came +ballooning along towards Rosalie, not running as ordinarily fit and +efficient men run, but progressing by a series of enormous leaps and +bounds, arms and legs spread-eagling, and at each leap and bound always +seeming to Rosalie to spring as high in the air as he sprung forward +over the ground. It would not have surprised Rosalie, who was then about +four, to see one of these stupendous leaps continue in a whirling flight +through mid-air and her father come hurtling over the gate and drop with +an enormous plunk at her feet like a huge dead bird, as a partridge once +had come plunk over the hedge and out of the sky when she was in a lane +adjacent to a shooting party. It would not have surprised her in the +least. Nothing her father did ever surprised Rosalie. The world was his +and the fulness thereof, and he did what he liked with it. + +Arrived, however, from the bull, not as a ballooning bird out of +the sky, but as a headlong avalanche over the gate, Rosalie's father +tottered to a felled tree trunk, and sat there heaving, and groaned +aloud, "Infernal parish; hateful parish; forsaken parish!" + +Rosalie, wonderingly regarding him, said, "Mother says dinner is waiting +for you, father." + +Her mother and her sisters and the servants and the entire female +establishment of the universe seemed to Rosalie always to be waiting for +something from her father, or for her father himself, or waiting for or +upon some male other than her father. That was another of the leading +principles that Rosalie first came to know in her world. Not only were +the males, paramountly her father, able to do what they liked and always +doing wonderful and mysterious things, but everything that the females +did either had some relation to a male or was directly for, about, or on +behalf of a male. + +Getting Robert off to school in the morning, for instance. That was +another early picture. + +There would be Robert, eating; and there was the entire female +population of the rectory feverishly attending upon Robert while he ate. +Six females, intensely and as if their lives depended upon it, occupied +with one male. Three girls--Anna about sixteen, Flora fourteen, Hilda +twelve--and three grown women, all exhaustingly occupied in pushing out +of the house one heavy and obstinate male aged about ten! Rosalie used +to stand and watch entranced. How wonderful he was! Where did he go to +when at last he was pushed off? What happened to him? What did he do? + +There he is, eating; there they are, ministering. Entrancing and +mysterious spectacle! + +Robert, very solid and heavy and very heated and agitated, would be +seated at the table shoving porridge into himself against the clock. +One of his legs, unnaturally flexed backward and outward, is in the +possession of Rosalie's mother who is on her knees mending a hole in his +stocking. The other leg, similarly contorted, is on the lap of Ellen +the cook, who with very violent tugs, as if she were lashing a box, is +lacing a boot on to it. Behind Robert is Anna, who is pressing his head +down with one hand and washing the back of his neck with the other. In +front of him across the table is Hilda, staring before her with bemused +eyes and moving lips and rapidly counting on drumming fingers. Hilda is +doing his sums for him. Beside him on his right side, apparently engaged +in throttling him, is Gertrude the maid. Gertrude the maid is trying +to tear off him a grimed collar and put on him a clean collar. Facing +Gertrude on his other side is Flora. Flora is bawling his history in his +ear. + +Everybody is working for Robert; everybody is working at top speed for +him, and everybody is loudly soliciting his attention. + +"Oh, do give over wriggling, master Robert!" (The boot-fastener.) + +"'Simon de Montford, Hubert de Burgh, and Peter de Roche.' Well, say it +then, you dreadful little idiot!" (The history crammer.) + +"Oh, master Robert, do please keep up!" (The collar fastener.) + +"Keep down, will you!" (The neck washer.) + +"Four sixes are twenty-four and six you carried thirty!" (The +arithmetician.) + +"Robert, you must turn your foot further round!" (The stocking-darner.) + +"'The Barons were now incensed. The Barons were now incensed. The Barons +were now incensed.' Say it, you ghastly little stupid!" + +"Do they make you do these by fractions or by decimals?... Well, what do +you know, then?" + +Entrancing spectacle! + +Now the discovery is by everybody simultaneously made and simultaneously +announced that Robert is already later in starting than he has ever been +(he always was) and immediately Rosalie would become witness of the last +and most violent skirmish in this devoted attendance. Everybody rushes +around hunting for things and pushing them on to Robert and pushing +Robert, festooned with them, towards the door. Where was his cap? Where +was his satchel? Where was his lunch? Where were his books? Who had seen +his atlas? Who had seen his pencil box? Who had seen his gymnasium belt? +Was his bicycle ready? Was his coat on his bicycle? Was that button on +his coat? + +With these alarums at their height and the excursions attendant on +them at their busiest, another splendid male would enter the room +and immediately there was, as Rosalie always saw, a transference of +attendance to him and a violent altercation between him and the first +splendid male. This new splendid male is Rosalie's other brother, +Harold. Harold was eighteen and him also the entire female population +of the rectory combined to push out of the rectory every morning. Harold +was due to be pushed off half an hour later than Robert, and as he was +a greater and more splendid male than Robert (though infinitely lesser +than her father) so the place to which he was pushed off was far more +mysterious and enthralling than the place to which Robert was pushed +off. A school Rosalie could dimly understand. But a bank! Why Harold +should go to sit on a bank all day, and why he should ride on a bicycle +to Ashborough to find a bank when there were banks all around the +rectory, and even in the garden itself, Rosalie never could imagine. +Mysterious Harold! Anna had told her that men kept money in banks; +but Rosalie had never found money in a bank though she had looked; yet +banks--of all extraordinary places--were where men chose to put their +money! Mysterious men! And Harold could find these banks and find this +money though he never took a trowel or a spade and was always shiningly +clean with a very high collar and very long cuffs. Wonderful, wonderful +Harold! + +Robert was due to be pushed off half an hour before Harold was due to be +pushed off, but he never was; the two splendid creatures always clashed +and there was always between them, because they clashed, a violent scene +which Rosalie would not have missed for worlds. A meeting of two males, +so utterly unlike a meeting of two females, was invariably of the most +entrancingly noisy or violent description. When ladies came to the +rectory to see her mother they sat in the drawing-room and sipped tea +and spoke in thin voices; but when men came to see her father and went +into the study, there was very loud talking and often a row. Yes, and +once in the village street, Rosalie had seen two men stand up and thump +one another with their fists and fall down and get up and thump again. +When two women, her sisters or others, quarrelled, they only shrilled, +and went on and on shrilling. It was impossible to imagine the collision +of two women producing anything so exciting and splendid as invariably +was produced by the collision of two males. + +As now---- + +In comes Harold in great heat and hurry (as men always were) with his +splendid button boots in one hand and an immense pair of shining cuffs +in the other hand. + +"Haven't you gone yet, you lazy young brute?" + +"No, I haven't, you lazy old brute!" + +Agitated feminine cries of "Robert! Robert! You are not to speak to +Harold like that." + +"Well, he spoke to me like that." + +"Yes, and I'll do a jolly sight more than speak to you in a minute if +you don't get out of it. Get out of it, do you hear?" + +"Shan't!" + +"Robert! Robert! Harold! Harold!" + +"Well, get him out of it, or he'll be sorry for it. Why is he always +here when I'm supposed to be having my breakfast? Not a thing ready, as +usual. Look here, where I'm supposed to sit--flannel and soap! That's +washing his filthy neck, I suppose. Filthy young brute! Why don't you +wash your neck, pig?" + +"Why do you wear girl's boots with buttons, pig?" + +Commotion. Enthralling commotion. Half the female assemblage hustle the +splendid creature Robert out of the door and down the hall and on to his +bicycle; half the female assemblage cover his retreat and block the dash +after him of the still more splendid Harold; all the female assemblage, +battle having been prevented and one splendid male despatched, combine +to minister to the requirements of the second splendid male now +demanding attention. + +Busy scene. Enthralling spectacle. There he is, eating; shoving sausages +into himself against the clock just as Robert had shovelled porridge +into himself against the clock. One ministrant is sewing a button on to +his boot, another with blotting paper and hot iron is removing a stain +from his coat, divested for the purpose; one is pouring out his coffee, +another is cutting his bread, a third is watching for his newspaper by +the postman. And suddenly he whirls everything into a whirlpool just as +men, if Rosalie watches them long enough, always whirl everything into a +whirlpool. + +"Oh, my goodness, the pump!" + +Chorus, "The pump?" + +"The bicycle pump! Has that young brute taken the bicycle pump?" + +"Yes, he took it. I saw it." + +Commotion. + +"Catch him across the field! Catch him across the field! Where are +my boots? Where the devil are my boots? Well, never mind the infernal +button. How am I going to get to the bank with a flat tyre? Can't some +one catch him across the field instead of all standing there staring?" + +Away they go! Rosalie, seeking a good place for the glorious spectacle, +is knocked over in the stampede for the door. Nobody minds Rosalie. +Rosalie doesn't mind--anything to see this entrancing sight! Away they +go, flying over the meadow, shouting, scrambling, falling. Out after +them plunges Harold, shirt-sleeved, one boot half on, hobbling, leaping, +bawling. Glorious to watch him! He outruns them all; he outbellows +them all. Of course he does. He is a man. He is one of those splendid, +wonderful, mysterious creatures to whom, subject only to Rosalie's +father, the entire world belongs. Look at him, bounding, bawling! +Wonderful, wonderful Harold! + +But Robert is wonderful too. If it had been Anna or Flora or Hilda +gone off with the pump, she would have been easily caught. Not Robert. +Wonderful and mysterious Robert, wonderfully and mysteriously pedalling +at incredible speed, is not caught. The hunt dejectedly trails back. The +business of pushing Harold out of the house is devotedly resumed. + +And again--enthralling spectacle--just as the reign of Robert was +terminated by the accession of Harold, so the dominion of Harold is +overthrown by the accession of father. Harold is crowded about with +ministrants. Nobody can leave him for a minute. Rosalie's father +appears. Everybody leaves Harold simultaneously, abruptly, and as if by +magic. Rosalie's father appears. Everybody disappears. Wonderful father! +Everybody melts away: but Harold does not melt away. Courageous +Harold! Everybody melts; only Harold is left, and Rosalie watching; and +immediately, as always, the magnificent males clash with sound and fury. + +Rosalie's father scowls upon Harold and delivers his morning greeting. +No "Good morning, dear," as her mother would have said. "Aren't you gone +yet?" like a bark from a kennel. + +"Just going." + +Wonderful father! A moment before there had been not the remotest sign +of Harold ever going. Now Harold is very anxious to go. He is very +anxious to go but, like Robert, he will not abandon the field without +defiance of the authority next above his own. While he collects his +things he whistles. Rosalie shudders (but deliciously as one in old Rome +watching the gladiators). + +"Do you see the clock, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, quicken yourself, sir. Quicken yourself." + +"The clock's fast." + +"It is not fast, sir. And let me add that the clock with which you could +keep time of a morning, or of any hour in the day, would have to be an +uncommonly slow clock." + +Harold with elaborate unconcern adjusts his trouser clips. "I should +have thought that was more a matter for the Bank to complain of, if +necessary. I may be wrong, of course----" + +"You may be wrong, sir, because in my experience you almost invariably +are wrong and never more so than when you lad-di-dah that you are right. +You may be wrong, but let me tell you what you may not be. You may not +be impertinent to me, sir. You may not lad-di-dah me, sir." + +"Father, I really do not see why at my age I should be hounded out of +the house like this every morning." + +"You are hounded out, as you elegantly express it, because morning after +morning, owing to your disgustingly slothful habits, you clash with me, +sir. My breakfast is delayed because you clash with me, and the house +is delayed because you clash with me, and the whole parish is delayed +because you clash with me." + +"Perhaps you're not aware that Robert clashes with me." + +"Dash Robert! Are you going or are you not going?" + +He goes. + +"Bring back the paper." + +He brings it back. + +Wonderful father! + +Rosalie's father gives a tug at the bell cord that would have dislocated +the neck of a horse. The cord comes away in his hand. He hurls it across +the room. + +Glorious father! + +There was a most frightful storm one night and Rosalie, in Anna's bed +with Flora crowded in also and Hilda shivering in her nightgown beside +them, too young to be frightened but with her sister's fright beginning +to communicate itself to her, said, "Ask father to go and stop it." + +"Fool!" cried Flora. "How could father stop the storm?" + +Why not? + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Flora's sharp and astounding reply to that question of Rosalie's +was recalled by Rosalie, with hurt surprise at Flora's sharpness and +ignorance, when, shortly afterwards, she found in a book a man who +could, and actually did, stop a storm. This was a man called Prospero in +a book called "The Tempest." + +She was never--that Rosalie--the conventional wonder-child of fiction +who reads before ten all that its author probably never read before +thirty; but she could read when she was six and she read widely and +curiously, choosing her entertainment, from her father's bookshelves, +solely by the method of reading every book that had pictures. + +There was but one picture to "The Tempest," a frontispiece, but it +sufficed, and at the period when Rosalie believed the ownership of +the world to be vested in her father and under him in all males, "The +Tempest," because it reflected that condition, was the greatest joy of +all the joys the bookshelves discovered to her. She read it over and +over again. It presented life exactly as life presented itself to the +round eyes of Rosalie: all males doing always noisy and violent and +important and enthralling things, with Prospero, her father, by far the +most important of all; and women scarcely appearing and doing only +what the men told them to do. Miranda's appearances in the story were +indifferently skipped by Rosalie; the noisy action and language in the +wreck, and the noisy action and language of the drunkards in the wood +were what she liked, and all the magic arts of Prospero were what she +thoroughly appreciated and understood. That was life as she knew it. + +Rosalie's father, when Rosalie thought the world belonged to him and +revolved about him, was tall and cleanshaven and of complexion a dark +and burning red. When he was excited or angry his face used to burn as +the embers in the study fire burned when Rosalie pressed the bellows +against them. He had thick black eyebrows and a most powerful nose. His +nose jutted from his face like a projection from a cliff beneath a clump +of bushes. He had been at Cambridge and he was most ferociously fond of +Cambridge. One of the most fearful scenes Rosalie ever witnessed was on +one boat-race day when Harold appeared with a piece of Oxford ribbon in +his buttonhole. It was at breakfast, the family for some reason or other +most unusually all taking breakfast together. Rosalie's father +first jocularly bantered Harold on his choice of colour, and +everybody--anxious as always to please and placate the owner of the +world--laughed with father against Harold. But Harold did not laugh. +Harold smouldered resentment and defiance, and out of his smouldering +began to maintain "from what chaps had said" that Oxford was altogether +and in every way a much better place than Cambridge. In every branch of +athletics there were better athletes, growled Harold, at Oxford. + +Rosalie has been watching the embers in her father's face glowing to +dark-red heat. Everybody had been watching them except Harold who, +though addressing his father, had been mumbling "what chaps had said" to +his plate. + +"Athletes!" cried Rosalie's father suddenly in a very terrible voice. +"Athletes! And what about scholars, sir?" + +Harold informed his plate that he wasn't talking about scholars. + +Rosalie's father raised a marmalade jar and thumped it down upon the +table so that it cracked. "Then what the dickens right have you to talk +at all, sir? How dare you try to compare Oxford with Cambridge when you +know no more about either than you know of Jupiter or Mars? Athletes!" +He went off into record of University contests, cricket scores, running +times, football scores, as if his whole life had been devoted to +collecting them. They all showed Cambridge first and Oxford beaten and +he hurled each one at Harold's head with a thundering, "What about that, +sir?" after it. He leapt to scholarship and reeled off scholarships and +scholars and schools, and professors and endowments and prize men, as +if he had been an educational year-book gifted with speech and with +particularly loud and violent speech. He spoke of the colleges of +Cambridge, and with every college and every particular glory of every +college demanded of the unfortunate Harold, "What have you got in Oxford +against that, sir?" + +It was awful. It was far more frightening than the night of the storm. +Nobody ate. Nobody drank. Everybody shuddered and tried by every means +to avoid catching father's rolling eye and thereby attracting the +direct blast of the tempest. Rosalie, who of course, being a completely +negligible quantity in the rectory, is not included in the everybody, +simply stared, more awed and enthralled than ever before. And with much +reason. As he declaimed of the glories of the colleges of Cambridge +there was perceptible in her father's voice a most curious crack or +break. It became more noticeable and more frequent. He suddenly and most +astoundingly cried out, "Cambridge! Cambridge!" and threw his arms out +before him on the table, and buried his head on them, and sobbed out, +"Cambridge! My youth! My youth! My God, my God, my youth!" + +Somehow or other they all slipped out of the room and left him +there,--all except Rosalie who remained in her high chair staring upon +her father, and upon his shoulders that heaved up and down, and upon the +coffee from an overturned cup that oozed slowly along the tablecloth. + +Extraordinary father! + +Rosalie's father had been a wrangler and one of the brilliant men of his +year at Cambridge. All manner of brilliance was expected for him and of +him. He unexpectedly went into the Church and as unexpectedly married. + +His bride was the daughter of a clergyman, a widower, who kept a small +private school in Devonshire. She helped her father to run the school +(an impoverished business which, begun exclusively for the "sons of +gentlemen," had slid down into paying court to tradesmen in order to get +the sons of tradesmen) and she maintained him in the very indifferent +health he suffered. Harold Aubyn, the brilliant wrangler with the +brilliant future, who had begun his brilliance by unexpectedly entering +the Church, and continued it by unexpectedly marrying while on a holiday +in the little Devonshire town where he had gone to ponder his future (a +little unbalanced by the unpremeditated plunge into Holy Orders) further +continued his brilliance by unexpectedly finding himself the assistant +master in his father-in-law's second-rate and failing school. The +daughter would not leave her father; the suitor would not leave his +darling; the brilliant young wrangler who at Cambridge used to dream of +waking to find himself famous awoke instead to find himself six years +buried in a now third-rate and moribund school in a moribund Devonshire +town. He had a father-in-law now permanent invalid, bedridden. He had +four children and another, Robert, on the way. + +It was his father-in-law's death that awoke him; and he awoke +characteristically. The old man dead! Come, that was one burden lifted, +one shackle removed! The school finally went smash at the same time. +Never mind! Another burden gone! Another shackle lifted! Dash the +school! How he hated the school! How he loathed and detested the lumping +boys! How he loathed and abominated teaching them simple arithmetic (he +the wrangler!) and history that was a string of dates, and geography +that was a string of capes and bays, and Latin as far as the +conjugations (he the wrangler!) how he loathed and abominated it! Now a +fresh start! Hurrah! + +That was like Rosalie's father--in those days. That way blew the cold +fit and the hot fit--then. + +The magnificent fresh start after the magnificent escape from the morass +of the moribund father-in-law and the moribund school and the moribund +Devonshire town proved to be but a stagger down into morass heavier and +more devastating of ambition. He always jumped blindly and wildly into +things. Blindly and wildly into the Church, blindly and wildly into +marriage, blindly and wildly into the school, blindly and wildly, one +might say, into fatherhood on a lavish scale. Blindly and wildly--the +magnificent fresh start--into the rectory in which Rosalie was born. + +It was "a bit in the wilds" (of Suffolk); "a bit of a tight fit" (L200 a +year) and a bit or two or three other drawbacks; but it was thousands +of miles from Devonshire and from the school and schooling, that was the +great thing; and it was a jolly big rectory with a ripping big +garden; and above all and beyond everything it was just going to be a +jumping-off place while he looked around for something suitable to his +talents and while he got in touch again with his old friends of the +brilliant years. + +It was just going to be a jumping-off place, but he never jumped off +from it; a place from which to look around for something suitable, but +instead he sunk in it up to his chin; a place from which to get in touch +again with his friends of the brilliant years, but his friends were all +doing brilliant things and much too busy at their brilliance to open up +with one who had missed fire. + +The parish of St. Mary's, Ibbotsfield, had an enormous rectory, falling +to pieces; an enormous church, crumbling away; an enormous area, purely +agricultural; and a cure of a very few hundred agricultural souls, +enormously-scattered. Years and years before, prior to railways, prior +to mechanical reapers and thrashers, and prior to everything that took +men to cities or whirled them and their produce farther in an hour than +they ever could have gone in a week, Ibbotsfield and its surrounding +villages and hamlets were a reproach to the moral conditions of the +day in that they had no sufficiently enormous church. Well-intentioned +persons removed this reproach, adding in their zeal an enormous rectory; +and the time they chose for their beneficent and lavish action was +precisely the time when Ibbotsfield, through its principal land-owners, +was stoutly rejecting the monstrous idea of encouraging a stinking, +roaring, dangerous railway in their direction, and combining together by +all means in their power to keep the roaring, dangerous atrocity as far +away from them as possible. + +It thus, and by like influences, happened that, whereas one generation +of the devoutly intentioned sat stolidly under the reproach of an +enormous and thickly populated area without a church, later generations +with the same stolidity sat under the reproach of an enormous church, +an enormous rectory and an infinitesimal stipend, in an area which a man +might walk all day without meeting any other man. + +But the devout of the day, not having to live in this rectory or preach +in this church or laboriously trudge about this area, did not unduly +worry themselves with this reproach. + +That was (in his turn) the lookout of the Rev. Harold Aubyn--also his +outlook. + +He is to be imagined, in those days when Rosalie first came to know him +and to think of him as Prospero, as a terribly lonely man. He stalked +fatiguingly about the countryside in search of his parishioners, and his +parishioners were suspicious of him and disliked his fierce, thrusting +nose, and he returned from them embittered with them and hating them. He +genuinely longed to be friendly with them and on terms of Hail, fellow, +well met, with them; but they exasperated him because they could not +meet him either on his own quick intellectual level or upon his own +quick and very sensitive emotional level. They could not respond to his +humour and they could not respond, in the way he thought they ought to +respond, to his sympathy. + +He once found a man--a farm labourer--who in conversation disclosed a +surprising interest in the traces of early and mediaeval habitation +of the country. The discovery delighted him. In the catalogue of a +secondhand bookseller of Ipswich he noticed the "Excursions in the +County of Suffolk," two volumes for three shillings, and he wrote and +had them posted to the man. For days he eagerly looked in the post +for the grateful and delighted letter that in similar circumstances he +himself would have written. He composed in his mind the phrases of the +letter and warmed in spirit over anticipation of reading them. No letter +arrived. + +When he came into the rectory from visiting he was always asking, "Has +that man Bolas from Hailsham called?" Bolas never called. He furiously +began to loathe Bolas. He was furious with himself for having "lowered +himself" to Bolas. Bolas in his ignorance no doubt thought the books +were a cheap charity of cast-off lumber. Uncouth clod! Stupid clod! +Uncouth parish! Hateful, loathsome parish! For weeks he kept away from +Hailsham and the possible vicinity of Bolas. One day he met him. Bolas +passed with no more than a "Good day, Mr. Aubyn." He could have killed +the man. He swung round and pushed his dark face and jutty nose into the +face of Bolas. "Did you ever get some books I sent you?" + +"Ou, ay, to be sure, they books----" + +He rushed with savage strides away from the man. All the way home he +savagely said to himself, aloud, keeping time to it with his feet, +"Uncouth clod, ill-mannered clod, horrible, hateful place! Uncouth +clods, hateful clods, horrible, hateful place!" + +That was his attitude to his parishioners. They could not come up to +the level of his sensibilities; he could not get down to the level of +theirs. + +With the few gentle families that composed the society of Ibbotsfield he +was little better accommodated. They led contented, well-ordered lives, +busy about their gardens, busy about their duties, busy about their +amusements. His life was ill-ordered and he was never busy about +anything: he was always either neglecting what had to be done or doing +it, late, with a ferocious and exhausting energy that caused him to +groan over it and detest it while he did it. In the general level of his +life he was below the standard of his neighbours and knew that he was +below it; in the sudden bounds and flights of his intellect and of his +imagination he was immeasurably above the intel-lects of his neighbours +and knew that he was immeasurably above them. Therefore, and in both +moods, he commonly hated and despised them. "Fools, fools! Unread, +pompous, petty!" + +At the rectory, among his family, he seemed to himself to be surrounded +by incompetent women and herds of children. + +He was a terribly lonely man when Rosalie first came to know him and +thought of him as Prospero. He is to be imagined in those days as a +fierce, flying, futile figure scudding about on the face of the parish +and in the vast gaunt spaces of the rectory, with his burning face and +his jutting nose, trying to get away from people, hungering to meet +sympathetic people; trying to get way from himself, hungering after the +things that his self had lost. In his young manhood he was known for +moods of intense reserve alternated by fits of tremendous gaiety and +boisterous high spirits. ("A fresh start! Hurrah!" when release from the +school came. "What does anything matter? Now we're really off at last! +Hurrah! Hurrah!") In his set manhood, when Rosalie knew him, there were +substituted for the fits of boisterous spirits, paroxysms of violent +outburst against his lot. "Infernal parish! Hateful parish! Forsaken +parish!" after the ignominy of flight before the bull. "Blow the dinner! +Dash the dinner! Blow the dinner!" after wrestling a soggy steak from +his pocket and hurling it half a mile through the air. These and that +single but terrible occasion of "Cambridge! Cambridge! My youth! My God, +my God, my youth!" + +A terribly lonely man. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The Aubyn family occupied only a portion of the enormous rectory. There +was a whole floor upstairs, and there were several rooms on the ground +and first floors, that were never used, were unfurnished except for odds +and ends of lumber left behind by the previous vicar, and were never +entered. Rosalie once explored them all, systematically though very +fearfully, and also very excitedly. She was searching for some one, for +two people. + +In the household she knew her father and her mother, her brothers and +sisters and the servants; but there were two mysterious inhabitants of +whom she often heard but whom she never saw and never could find. It +used to frighten her sometimes, lying awake at night, or creeping about +the house of an evening, to think of those two mysterious people hidden +away somewhere and perhaps likely to pounce on her out of the dark. What +did they eat? Where did they live? What did they do? What were they? + +One of these two eerie and invisible people was heard of from her +father. Several times Rosalie had heard him, when talking to persons +not of the family, speak of "my wife." The other eerie and invisible +creature was heard of from her mother: "My husband." + +Where were they? Of all the mysterious things which Rosalie used to +wonder over in those days, this undiscoverable "wife" and "husband" were +the most mysterious of all, and more mysterious than ever after that +day on which, walking on tiptoe for fear of coming upon them suddenly, +holding her breath and pausing in fearful apprehension before entering +the untenanted rooms upstairs, she explored the whole house in search of +them. She got to know all sorts of little odds and ends about them; that +the wife felt the cold very much, for instance, for she had heard her +father say so; and that the husband did not like mutton, for her mother +told that to Mr. Grant the butcher: and she was often hot on their +tracks for she had heard her father say, "My wife is upstairs" and had +rushed upstairs and searched; and her mother say, "My husband is in the +garden," and had run into the garden and hunted. But all these clues +only deepened the mystery. They were never to be found. + +It was mysterious. + +Then one day the wife (she heard) fell ill, and through her great +concern about that--for she was profoundly interested in these people +and used to feel awfully sorry for them, hidden away like that perhaps +with no fire and nothing to eat but mutton--the mystery was explained. + +With the family she was going towards church one Sunday morning and +she heard her father tell a lady that "my wife" was not very well +that morning and couldn't come. Rosalie during the service prayed very +earnestly for the wife's recovery and took the opportunity of praying +also that she might be permitted to see the wife "if she is not very +frightening, O Lord, and the husband too, if possible, for Jesus +Christ's sake, amen." + +And at lunch, having thought of nothing else all the morning, there was +suddenly shot out of her the question, "Father, is your wife any better +now?" + +Rosalie commonly never spoke at all at meals; and as to speaking to her +father, though it is obvious she must have had some sort of intercourse +with him, this famous question (a standing joke in the house for +years) was the single direct speech of those early years she ever could +remember. She spoke to her father when she was bidden to speak in the +form of messages, generally about meals being ready, or relative to +shopping commissions he had been asked to execute; but he was far too +wonderful, powerful and mysterious for conversation with him on her +own initiative. "Father, is your wife any better now?" stood out in her +later recollection, alone and lonelily startling. + +There was from all the company an astounded stare and astounded gasp; +all the table sitting with astounded eyes, forks suspended in mid-air, +mouths half open in astonishment, and Rosalie sitting in her high chair +wonderingly regarding their wonderment. What were they staring at? + +There was then an enormous howl of laughter, led by Rosalie's father, +and repeated, and louder than before, because it was so very unusual +for the family to be laughing in accord with father. Gertrude, the +maid, fled hysterically from the room and laughter howled back from the +kitchen. + +Rosalie's father said, "You'd better go and ask your mother." Her mother +had stayed in bed that day with a chill. + +Robert "undid" Rosalie--a wooden rod with a fixed knob at one end went +through the arms of her high chair and was fastened by a removable knob +at the other end--and Rosalie slid down very gravely, and with their +laughter still echoing trod upstairs to her mother's bedside and related +what she had been told to ask, and, on inquiry, why she had asked it. "I +only said 'Father, is your wife any better now?'" and on further inquiry +explained her long searching after the undiscoverable pair. + +Rosalie's mother laughed also then, but had a sudden wetness in her +eyes. She put her arms about Rosalie and pressed her to her bosom and +cried, "Oh, my poor darling!" and explained the tremendous mystery. Wife +and husband, Rosalie's mother explained, were the names used by other +people for her father and her mother. A man and a woman loved one +another very, very dearly ("as I loved your dear father") and then they +lived together in a dear house of their own and then God gave them dear +little children of their own to live with them, said Rosalie's mother. + +This thoroughly satisfied Rosalie and completely entranced her, +especially about the presentation of the dear little children. She would +have supposed that naturally it thoroughly satisfied Anna and Harold +and Flora and the others; and the point of interest rests here, that +Rosalie's mother also believed that this explanation of marriage and +procreation completely satisfied Anna at sixteen and Harold in the Bank +at eighteen. She never gave them any other explanation of the phenomenon +of birth; and it is to be supposed that, just as she instructed them +that God sent the dear little children, so she believed that God, at the +right time, in some mysterious way, communicated the matter to them in +greater detail. Years and years afterwards, Flora told Rosalie that +when Rosalie was born all the children were sent away to stay with a +neighbour and not allowed to return till Rosalie's mother, downstairs, +was able to show them the dear little sister that God had surprisingly +delivered at the house, as it were in a parcel. + +One is given pain by a state of affairs so monstrous; but one suffers +that pain proudly because one belongs, proudly, to a day in which +nothing but stark truth may go from mother to child, not even fairy +stories, not even Bible stories. Rosalie's mother is gone and her kind +is no more, and in the graces and the manners of this day's generation +one perceives, proudly, the inestimable benefits of the passing of her +kind. Lamentable specimen of her kind, she had no interests other than +her home and her husband and her children and the pleasures and the +treasures and the friends of her husband and her children. She belonged +to that dark age when duty towards others was the guiding principle of +moral life; she came only to the threshold of this enlightened age in +which duty to oneself is known to be the paramount and first and last +consideration of life as it should be lived. + +Rosalie's mother, whose name had been Anna Escott, kept at the bottom of +a drawer five most exquisite little miniatures. They were in a case of +faded blue plush, and they had been in that case and at the bottom of +one drawer or another ever since the girl Anna Escott, aged twenty, had +placed them in the case, then exquisitely blue and new and soft, and +given up painting miniatures forever, in order to devote her whole time +to looking after her invalid father and the failing preparatory school +that was his livelihood. + +Rosalie was herself nearly thirty when she first saw the miniatures. She +was come back to the rectory from the pursuits that then occupied her to +visit, rather impatiently and rather vexedly, her mother on what proved +to be her death bed. She was tidying her mother's drawers, impatient +with the amazing collection of rubbish they contained and hating herself +for being impatient, while her mother, on the bed, patiently watched +her; and she came upon the case and opened it and stared in astonishment +and admiration at the beauty of the five miniatures. + +She asked her mother and her mother told her she had painted them. "I +used to do that when I was a girl," said Rosalie's mother. + +All Rosalie's impatience was drowned and utterly engulfed in a most +dreadful flood of emotion. She set down the case on the bed and flung +herself on her knees beside her mother and clasped her arms about her. + +"Oh, mother, mother! Oh, beloved little mother!" But that is out of its +place. + +Yes, that girl Anna Escott, who had an exquisite talent, and all sorts +of fond dreams of its development, gave it up wholly and entirely and +forever when her mother died and her father said, "I would like you, +Anna dear, to give up your painting and come and look after me and the +school now." + +Anna said, "Of course I will, Papa. It's my duty. Of course I will." + +Girls did that, and parents and husbands asked them to do that, in the +days when Rosalie's mother was a girl. + +Rosalie's mother gave away everything, first to her father, then to +her husband, then to her children. She believed the whole of the Bible, +literally, as it is written, from the first word of Genesis to the last +word of Revelations. She taught it as literal, final and initial +truth to all her children, and one knows how wickedly wrong it is now +considered to teach children that the Bible-stories are true. She taught +them the whole of the Bible from books called "Line Upon Line," and "The +Child's Bible," and in stories of her own making, and from the Bible +itself. Regrettably, the ignorantly imposed-upon children loved it! Till +each child was eight she taught them everything at her knee. All the +nursery rhymes, and all the Bible, and reading out of "Step by Step," +and then "Reading Without Tears," and then, in advancing series, the +"Royal Readers," and writing, first holding their hands, and then--first +in pencil and afterwards with pens having three huge blobs to teach you +how to place your fingers properly--in copybooks graded from enormous +lines which had brick-red covers to astoundingly narrow little lines +enclosing pious and moral maxims which had severe grey covers; and the +multiplication tables and then simple arithmetic; and General Knowledge +out of "The Child's Guide to Knowledge," which asked you "What is +sago?" and required you to reply by heart, "Sago is a dried, granulated +substance prepared from the pith of several different palms." "Where are +these palms found?" "These palms are found in the East Indies." + +Likewise history out of Mrs. Markham and "Little Arthur"; also, at a +ridiculously early age, how to tell the time and how to know the coinage +of the realm and its values; also, whether girl or boy, the making +of kettle-holders by threading brightly coloured wools through little +squares of canvas; also very many pieces of poetry: "Oft had I heard of +Lucy Grey," and "It was the Schooner Hesperus" and hymns--also learnt +by heart and sung while Rosalie's mother played the piano--"We are but +little children weak," and "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild." + +All these things were taught at her knee to each child in turn by +Rosalie's mother, and each was taught out of the self-same books, +miraculously preserved by Rosalie's mother; the backs of most of them +carefully stitched and re-stitched, and marked all through by the dates +of each child's daily lesson, written in pencil by Rosalie's mother. The +dates ranged from 1869 when Harold was being taught and when the books +were fresh and clean, and Rosalie's mother fresh and ardent with her +first-born, to 1884, when Rosalie was being taught, and the books +very old and thumbed and most terribly crowded with pencil marks, and +Rosalie's mother no longer fresh but rather worn, but teaching as fondly +and earnestly as ever, because it was her duty. Literally at the knee of +Rosalie's mother these things were taught. On her knee with one of her +arms about you for the Bible teaching; and standing at her knee, hands +behind you, for the teaching of most of the rest. Yes, that was the +early education, and the manner of the education, of Rosalie and of her +brothers and sisters, and one perceives with indignation the spectacle +of a mother wasting her time like that and wasting her children's time +like that. + +Rosalie's mother did everything in the house and she was always doing +something in the house--for somebody else. She never rested and she +was always worried. Her brows were always wrinkled with the feverish +concentration of one anxiously doing one thing while anxiously thinking +of another thing waiting to be done. She had a driven and a hunted look. + +Now Rosalie's father had a driving and a hunting look. + +Rosalie's father in his youth threw away everything. Rosalie's mother +throughout the whole of her life gave away everything. Rosalie's father +was a tragic figure dwelling in a house of bondage; but he was at least +a tragic king, ruling his house and venting his griefs upon his house. +Rosalie's mother was a tragic figure and she was a tragic slave in the +house of bondage. The life of Rosalie's father was a tragedy, but a +tragedy in some measure relieved because he knew it was a tragedy and +could wave his arms and shout and smash things and hurl beefsteaks +through the air because of the tragedy of it. But the life of Rosalie's +mother was an infinitely deeper tragedy because she never knew or +suspected that it was a tragedy. + +Still, that is so often the difference between the tragedy of a woman +and the tragedy of a man. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The very great difference between her father and her mother maintained +in Rosalie that early perception of the wondrousness of her father. She +loved her mother, but in the atmosphere surrounding her mother there was +often flurry and worry and there was nothing whatever in her mother to +mystify and entrance by sudden and violent eruptions of the miraculous. +She did not love her father for he was entirely too remote and awe-ful +for love, but he entranced her with his marvellousness. This maintained +in her also her perception of the altogether greater superiority of all +males over all females. + +Rosalie came into her family rather like a new little girl first +entering a boarding school. When she was about four, and first beginning +to realise herself, the next in age to her was Robert, who not only was +at the immense distance of ten, but was of the male sex and therefore +had a controlling interest in the world. Then was Hilda who was twelve, +then Flora fourteen, then Anna towering away in sixteen, and then Harold +utterly removed in the enormous heights of eighteen, second only to +Rosalie's father in ownership of the world and often awfully disputing +that supreme ownership. + +So they were all immeasurably older than Rosalie; and they were not only +immeasurably older but, which counted for much more, they all had their +fixed and recognised places in their world just as girls of several +terms' experience have their recognised places in their school, and for +Rosalie there seemed to be no place at all, just as for new girls there +is no place. Her brothers and sisters all had their fixed and recognised +places, their interests, their occupations, their friendships: they +all knew their own places and each other's places; they had learnt +to respect and admit each other's places; they knew the weight of one +another's hand in those places; they were accustomed to one another; +they tolerated one another. + +It was all very strange and wonderful and mysterious to Rosalie. + +She was, as it were, pitchforked into this established and regulated +order and to find a place for her was like trying to fit a new spoke +into a revolving wheel. It cannot be done; and with Rosalie it could +not be done. The established wheel went on revolving in its established +orbit and the new spoke, which was Rosalie, lay outside and watched +it revolve. Intrusions within the circumference of the wheel commonly +resulted in a sharp knock from one of the spokes. No one was in any +degree unkind to Rosalie, but there was no proper place for her and +everybody's will was in authority over her will. She rather got in the +way. To be with her was not to enjoy her company or to enjoy battle with +her and the putting of her company to flight. To be with her was to have +to look after her, and in the community of the rectory, every member, +when Rosalie came, was fully occupied in look-ing after itself and +defending itself from the predatory excursions of any other member. + +What happened was that in time, just as a slight and negligible body +cannot be in the sphere of a powerful motion without being affected by +it, so Rosalie began to move sympathetically to the wheel but on her own +axis. She moved round with the wheel but she was not of the wheel and +she never became really incorporated with the wheel. The spokes were +revolving with incredible rapidity when she first, began to notice them +and they always remained relatively faster. There she was, sitting and +watching and wondering; and the twig grows as it is bent or as it is +left to bend. She looked on and absorbed things; and the first and by +far the deepest of her settled perceptions was that, though she was +subject to all powers, all girls and women were themselves subject to +the power of all boys and men. + +Up to the age of eighteen, six years represents an enormous gulf in the +relative ages of brothers and sisters. You have only to figure it out in +the case of Rosalie to realise how far behind she was always left, and +why, though one of a family of six, she occupied a position outside the +group and was a watcher of them rather than a sharer with them. She was +four when Robert the next above her was ten, which is a baby against a +sturdy and well-developed giant; when she was eight Robert was fourteen, +which is a greater gulf than the first; when she was twelve Robert was +eighteen which, from eighteen's point of view, is as the difference +between an aged man and an infant; and when she was sixteen Robert was +twenty-two, which is a schoolgirl against one of the oldest and most +experienced periods of life. She came in as a new little girl in a big +school; when she had been there eight years--counting from four, when +first she was conscious of arrival--she was still relatively the same: +there she was, twelve, with Robert eighteen and the others twenty, +twenty-two, twenty-four and twenty-six. + +But there she is at eight when she had had four years' experience from +the day of first seeing her father leaping before the bull and thinking +it was perfectly natural that he should leap before the bull. She had +learnt a tremendous lot in that second four years. She knew at eight +that the world did not belong to her father and that on that night of +the storm Flora was right to call her a fool for believing that he could +stop the storm. She knew he was not nearly so wonderful as she used +to think he was; but he was still enormously wonderful and, which she +thought rather curious, she began to see that he rather liked showing +her how wonderful he was. He could sharpen a pencil wonderfully, and he +could eat a herring wonderfully. The thing discovered was that he +was very proud of how wonderfully he could sharpen a pencil or eat a +herring. Strange father! + +"Who sharpened that pencil? Your mother? H'nf! I should think so! No +woman can sharpen a pencil. Now look at me. Watch. I hold it in my left +hand, see? Arm supported against my body. Now look how I cut at it. +Bold, strong strokes, see? No niggling at it as if a mouse was nibbling +it; long, bold sweeps, slashes. See! Look at that. Ah, drat! That's +because I was holding it down for you to see. Watch again. There! There, +that's the way to sharpen a pencil. Look at that. Do you see that long, +firm point? See how clean and long those strokes are? That's the way to +sharpen a pencil. Show that to your mother." + +He was as pleased with himself and as proud as if he had turned the +pencil into gold. + +Funny father! + +Or how to eat a herring. + +"Herrings! Well, a herring is one of the most delicious fish, if it's +eaten properly. There's a right way to eat a herring and a wrong way. +Now watch me and I'll show you how to eat a herring. Rosalie, watch." + +"Rosalie, dear," (from her mother) "watch while your father shows you +how to eat a herring." + +All eyes on father demonstrating how to eat a herring! + +And Rosalie used to notice this about the watching eyes. Her mother's +eyes--most anxiously and nervously upon the operation, as if watching a +thing she would soon be called upon to perform and would not be able to +perform; the eyes of Robert (14) sulkily; of Flora (18) admiringly (it +was getting to be a complaint in the family circle that Flora "sucked +up" to father); the eyes of Anna (20) wearily; the eyes of Harold (22) +contemptuously. + +The herrings (a very frequent dish at the rectory, so much cheaper than +meat) came headless to the table. First father nipped off the tail with +a firm, neat stroke. Then he deftly slit the herring down the stomach. +It fell into two exact perfectly divided halves. Then he lifted out the +backbone, not one scrap of flesh adhering to it, and laid it on the +side of his plate. Then four firm pressures of his knife and the little +lateral bones were exactly removed and exactly laid on the backbone. +Next a precise insertion of his fork and out came the silvery strip +known to Rosalie as "the swimming thing" and was laid in its turn upon +the bones, exactly, neatly, as if it were a game of spillikins. "Now +pepper. Plenty of pepper for the roe, you see. There. Now." + +And in about six mouthfuls father's plate would be as clean as when it +was brought in, decorated rather than marred by the exquisitely neat +pile of the backbone, the tail, the little bones, and the silvery +swimming thing. "There! Delicious! That's the way to eat a herring"; +and he would direct a glance at the plate of Rosalie's mother. Rosalie's +mother made a herring into the most frightful mess it was possible to +imagine. She spent the whole of her time in removing bones from her +mouth; and her plate, when she was half-way though, looked to contain +the mangled remains of about two dozen herrings. "Very few women know +how to eat a herring," Rosalie's father would say. + +Wonderful father! How to sharpen a pencil, how to eat a herring, how to +do up a parcel, how to undo a parcel, how to cut your finger nails, how +to sit with regard to the light when you wrote or read, how to tie a +knot, how to untie a knot. Clever father, natty father! + +Yes, still enormously wonderful father; but also rather strangely proud +of being wonderful father. Rosalie now was constantly being struck +by that. It began to give her rather a funny sensation. She couldn't +describe the sensation or interpret it, but it was a feeling, when +father was glowing with pride over one of these things he did so +wonderfully well--a feeling of being rather uncomfortable, shy, +ashamed--something like that. She contracted the habit when father +beamed and glowed and looked around for applause of giving a sudden +little blink. + +And it was the same in regard to Robert and the same in regard to +Harold. Robert at the height of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness +caused the funny feeling and the blink in her; and Harold at the height +of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness caused the funny feeling and the +blink in her. And the wonderfulness of Robert was always being shown off +by Robert, and the wonderfulness of Harold was always being shown off by +Harold. Men liked showing off how wonderful they were.... + +When Rosalie was about nine, she one day was permitted to have Lily +Waters in to tea with her. Lily Waters was the Doctor's little girl, +also nine. For a great treat they had tea together out of Rosalie's +doll's tea service in the room called the schoolroom. Robert came home +unusually early from school and came into the schoolroom and began to +do wonderful things before the two little girls. He spoke in a very loud +voice while he did them. He stood on a footstool on his head and clapped +his boots together. He held his breath for seventy-five seconds by the +clock. He took off his coat and made Lily and Rosalie tie a piece of +string around his biceps and then he jerked up his arm and snapped the +string. Wonderful Robert! Lily screamed with delight and clapped her +hands, and the more she screamed and clapped, the louder Robert talked. +He did still more wonderful things. He held a cork to the flame of a +match and then blacked his nose and blacked a moustache with the cork. +He did a most frightfully daring and dangerous thing. He produced the +stump of a cigarette from his pocket and lit it and blew smoke through +his nose. Wonderful Robert! Lily went into ecstasies of delight. Rosalie +also went into ecstasies but also strongly experienced that funny +feeling. While Robert held his breath till his eyes bulged and till his +face was crimson, and while he danced about with his nose blacked, and +while he held the cigarette in his fingers and puffed smoke through his +nose--while he did these things Rosalie glanced at Lily (squealing) and +felt that funny feeling of being rather shy, uncomfortable, ashamed; +something like that; and blinked. Wonderful though Robert was, she felt +somehow rather glad when at last he went. + +And just the same with Harold. At supper one night, Rosalie's father not +being present, Harold talked and talked and talked about a call he had +paid at the house of some ladies in Ashborough. Wonderful Harold, to pay +a call all by himself! It appeared that he had been the only man there, +and when Rosalie's mother said, "I wonder you didn't feel shy, Harold," +he said with a funny sort of "Haw" sound in his voice, "Not in the +least. Haw! Why on earth should I feel shy? Haw." He had evidently very +much entertained the party. The more he talked about it the more Rosalie +noticed the funny "Haw." "They must have been very glad you came," +Rosalie's mother said. + +Harold put the first and second fingers of his right hand on his collar +and gave it a pull up. "I rather--haw--think they were," Harold said. +"Haw." + +Rosalie gave that blink. + +Years afterwards, when she was grown up, a grown man boastfully +said something in her presence, and in a flash were recalled father +dissecting a herring, Robert holding his breath till he nearly burst, +Harold hitching up his collar and with the "haw" sound saying, "I rather +think they were." In a flash those childhood scenes, and instantly with +them interpretation of the funny feeling and the blink that they had +caused: they had been the rooting in her of a new perception added to +the impregnably rooted impression of the wonder and power of men,--the +perception that men knew they were wonderful and powerful and liked to +show off how wonderful and powerful they were. + +They were superior creatures but they were apt to be rather +make-you-blinky creatures; that was the new perception. + +On the day after her eighth birthday, the birthday itself being a +treat and a holiday, Rosalie began to do lessons with Hilda. Hilda, at +sixteen, had "finished her education" as had Anna and Flora at the same +age. Harold, who had been a boarder at a Grammar School, had stayed +there till he was eighteen; and Robert, ultimately, continued at +Helmsbury Grammar School till he was eighteen. It was apparent--and it +was another manifestation of the greater importance of males--that boys +had more education to finish, or were permitted longer to finish it, +than girls. + +The school at which Anna, Flora and Hilda thus in the eight years +between leaving their mother's knee at eight and completing their +education at sixteen, learnt everything it was possible to know, was +kept by two very thin ladies called (ungrammatically) the Miss Pockets. +The Miss Pockets were daughters of the former vicar of St. Mary's and +inhabitant of the rectory, and on their father dying and Mr. Aubyn +coming, they established themselves in a prim villa near-by and did what +they called "took in pupils." They were very thin, they had very long +thin noses, they were always very cold, and from the sharp end of the +long thin nose of the elder Miss Pocket there always depended, much +fascinating Rosalie, a shining bead of moisture. + +Rosalie's chief recollection of the Miss Pockets was of being constantly +met by them as she approached the age of eight, and of them always, on +these occasions, fondling icy hands about her neck and saying to her +father or her mother, "And when will our new little pupil be coming to +us?" + +But no direct reply was ever given to this question, either by Rosalie's +mother, who was always made to look uncomfortable when it was asked by +the Miss Pockets, or by Rosalie's father who always seemed to jut out +his nose at it and make the Miss Pockets look thinner and colder than +ever. + +On the morning of her eighth birthday, Rosalie received from the Miss +Pockets by post an illuminated text provided with a piece of red cord +for hanging on the wall and inquiring, rather abruptly, + +"Who Hath Believed Our Report?" + +Rosalie thought at first this was a plaintive question directly from +the Miss Pockets in their capacity as school-teachers and therefore +as licensed makers of reports; but immediately afterwards saw "Isaiah" +printed under it in discreet characters-- + +"Who Hath Believed our Report? --Isaiah." + +and concluded that it was Isaiah who had believed it. On the back was +written in the tall, thin handwriting of the Miss Pockets, "To our +dear little pupil Rosalie, on her eighth birthday, from Agnes and Lydia +Pocket." + +In the afternoon, the Miss Pockets called at the rectory and there was +evidently some high mystery about their visit. Rosalie was in the study +looking for a drawing pin wherewith to affix her illuminated card to the +wall. Hilda ran in. "The Miss Pockets. Where's father? Come out," and +Rosalie was hurriedly run out and shut into the dining-room, leaving the +vindication of Isaiah in the matter of the report on the table. Opening +the door to a chink, Rosalie saw the Miss Pockets, shivering, the +permanent decoration on the nose of the elder Miss Pocket very +conspicuous and agitatedly swinging, ushered into the study, and +presently her father follow his jutty nose into the study after them, +and very shortly after that the Miss Pockets driven out as it were by +the jutty nose and looking thinner and colder than ever before. +Miss Lydia Pocket, who had lost the appendage to her nose and looked +curiously undressed and indelicate without it, was saying feebly, "But +it was understood. We always thought it was understood." + +They shuddered away; and when Rosalie went into the study immediately +afterwards to recover her card, there was upon the word Isaiah, as +though somebody had literally thrown doubt upon his belief of the +report, a large damp spot. + +On the following day, Rosalie began lessons with Hilda. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The lessons with Hilda period lasted till Rosalie was twelve. "Take her +off your mother's hands. That's what you've left school for," was her +father's instruction to Hilda; and so there was Rosalie, put out from +her mother's knee to the schoolroom like a small new ship out from the +haven to the bay; and there was that small mind of hers come in to the +company of Hilda and of Flora and of Anna with the obsession that men +were infinitely more important and much more wonderful than women. She +knew now that the world did not belong to men in the literal sense, but +belonged, as her mother had instructed her, to God; but she knew with +the abundant evidence of all that went on about her that everything in +the world was done for men and that women were largely occupied in +doing it; and she knew, from the same testimony, that men were much more +interesting to watch than women, rather in the way that dogs were much +more interesting than cats. Men, like dogs, were much more satisfactory: +that was it. Her mind was throwing out feelers towards the wonders of +the world and this was the feeler that was most developed. She came +to her sisters very highly sensitive to the difference between men and +women. And her sisters showed her the difference. + +Anna was twenty then. Anna had "finished her education" four years ago. +She had left school "to help your mother in the house"; and when Flora, +two years later, finished her education and left school for the same +purpose, she found Anna grooved in the business of helping her mother in +the house and she was not in the least anxious to help Anna out of the +grooves and herself become imbedded in them. + +This annoyed Anna. + +Rosalie used to hear Anna say to Flora a dozen times a day, "I really +don't see why you should be the one to do nothing but amuse yourself all +day long. I really don't." + +Flora used to say, "Well, you've always done it"--whatever the duty in +dispute might be--"so why on earth should I?" + +Then either Anna's face would give a twitch and she would walk out of +the room, or her face would get very red and there would be a row. + +Or sometimes Flora to Anna's "I really don't see why--" would say +enticingly, "Don't you?" + +"No, I don't." + +"Then ask the Pope," and Flora would give a mocking laugh and run away +out of the reach of Anna's fury. + +The sting in this was that Anna was suspected of having Roman Catholic +tendencies. + +Flora was very pretty and had a gay, bold way. Anna was not pretty. She +had a great habit of compressing her lips, especially in encounters with +Flora, and somehow her face gave the impression that her lips always +were compressed. That was the expression it normally had; it was only +when Rosalie saw Anna actually compress her lips that she realised they +had not been compressed before. It was as though she was always annoyed +about something and then, when she compressed her lips, a little more +annoyed than usual. She had also a permanent affliction which much +puzzled Rosalie. Young men friends of Harold's frequently called at the +rectory, and one afternoon, when two of them called, Anna was the only +one at home to entertain them (except Rosalie). Flora and Hilda rushed +into the drawing-room, directly they came in, and shortly afterwards +Rosalie saw Anna come out. Anna stood in the hall quite a long time with +her lips compressed, and then went into the dining-room and sat down, +but almost at once got up again and went back into the drawing-room, and +Rosalie heard Flora call out, "You can't join in now, Anna. You can't +join in now. We're in the middle of it." Shrieks of laughter were going +on. When the young men went, Flora and Hilda, who had their hats on, +walked away with them. Anna was left at the door. When the girls came +back Anna said to Flora, "I do think you might have told me you'd +arranged to go with them to see it." + +Flora said, "Oh, darling, I thought the Pope had told you." + +They had the worst row Rosalie had ever heard them have. Anna did not +come down to supper. After supper, when Rosalie was in the room with +only Harold and her father and mother, her mother spoke of the scene +there had been between Anna and Flora and it was then that Rosalie heard +for the first time of Anna's most strange affliction. Harold said, "Of +course, the fact of the matter is that ever since Flora left school, +Anna's had her nose put out of joint." + +Rosalie felt most awfully sorry for Anna. Often after that she used to +stare at Anna's nose and the more so because there was nothing visible +the matter with it. Anna's nose was a singularly long and straight nose; +now if it had been Flora's nose that was out of joint!--for Flora's nose +turned up in a very odd way. Rosalie slept in Anna's room and that same +night, Anna's disjointed nose and every other part of her face and head +being covered with the clothes when Rosalie went up to bed, Rosalie, +unable to sleep for curiosity and sympathy, got out of bed and lit the +candle and went across to look at Anna's nose, and very gently felt it +with her finger. Absolutely nothing amiss to be seen or felt! But the +lashes of Anna's eyes were wet and there were stains of tears upon the +upper side of the mysterious nose. It was true, then, for obviously it +hurt. And yet no sign! + +Rosalie got back into bed feeling of her own nose rather anxiously. + +Rosalie used formerly to sleep in Hilda's room and Flora with Anna, but +she was changed one day by her sisters (without being consulted or +given any reason) and the new arrangement was continued. Anna was very +devotional. She used to say enormously long prayers night and morning. +She prayed in the middle of the night also, Rosalie used to think at +first, awakened and hearing her voice, but later found out that Anna +was talking in her sleep, a thing that was mysterious to Rosalie and +frightening. The room of Flora and Hilda, adjoined Anna's and often at +night, when Rosalie was awakened by Anna undressing and lay watching her +at her immense prayers, the chattering voices of Flora and Hilda could +be heard through the wall and shrieks of high laughter. At that, Anna's +shoulders used to shudder beneath her nightgown and she used to twist +herself lower on her knees. For some reason this also used rather to +frighten Rosalie. + +Sometimes, but very seldom, Flora and Hilda used to quarrel; sometimes, +and more often, Hilda and Anna; nearly every day, as it seemed to +Rosalie, Anna and Flora. Rosalie got to dislike these quarrels very +much. They went on and on and on; that was the disturbing unpleasantness +of them. The parties to them would sit in a room and simply keep it +up forever, not arguing all the time, but between long pauses suddenly +coming out with things at one another; or they wouldn't speak to one +another sometimes for days together, and all sorts of small enterprises +of Rosalie's were interfered with by these ruptures of relations. +Innumerable things in Rosalie's life seemed to her to depend on the +mutual good will of two quarrellers; many books, some old toys, walks, +combined games with Carlo who was Anna's and Rover who was Flora's; +innumerable delights with such seemed to be unexpectedly stopped because +of "Oh, no, if you prefer to be with Anna you can stay with Anna"; or, +"Oh, no. If you like Flora's paints so much you can use Flora's brushes; +these are my brushes." A quarrel would in any case produce a strained +atmosphere in which everything became unnatural and this strained +atmosphere went on and on and on. + +And the thing that Rosalie noticed was the complete difference between +these quarrels of her sisters and the quarrels between Harold and +Robert. Robert was rising between the years of fourteen and eighteen in +those days and Harold between twenty-two and twenty-six. Most violent +quarrels sometimes sprung up between them but they were physically +violent, that was the point, and after swift and appalling fury, and +terrible kicks from Robert and horrifying thumps from Harold they were +astonishingly soon over and done with and forgotten. On one awful day, +Rosalie saw Robert and Harold rolling on the floor together. Robert +bumped Harold's head three most frightful bumps on the floor and said +between his teeth, "There! There! There!" Harold twisted himself up and +hurled Robert half across the room and then rushed at him and punched +him with punches that made Robert go, "Ur! Ur! Ur!" + +Rosalie, at her age, ought to have cried with grief and dismay or to +have run away screaming; but instead she only watched with awe. With +terrified awe, as with the terrified awe that an encounter of tigers or +of elephants at the Zoo might arouse; but with awe and no sort of grief +as her sole emotion. Men were different. There it was again! They +did these fearful things, and these fearful things were much more +satisfactory to behold, not nearly so disturbing and aggravating to +watch, as the interminable bickerings of the quarrels of her sisters. + +Her brothers' quarrels were entirely different in all their aspects. In +the quarrels of her sisters, one or the other invariably cried if the +bickering went far enough. These two men, though Robert especially might +have been excused for bellowing, just solidly and only, with fearful +gasps, thumped and clutched and strove. Not a tear! Her sisters' +quarrels were always carried by one or the other to her mother or her +father. How extraordinarily different Robert and Harold! Their sole +anxiety was that neither father nor mother should be told! If any +one threatened to tell, the two, sinking their private heat, would +immediately band together against the talebearer. Extraordinary men! To +that particularly ferocious struggle that has been described, Anna +and Hilda had been attracted by the din, when Robert, overpowered, was +receiving terrible chastisement, and with cries and prayers had somehow +separated them. Behold, the very first coherent thing these two men did +was, while they still panted and glared upon one another, to unite in a +mutual threat. + +"And look out you don't go telling father or mother," panted Harold to +the girls. + +"Yes, mind you jolly well don't," panted Robert. + +Anna said she certainly would. + +Both the extraordinary creatures unitedly rounded on Anna. It might have +been thought that the battle had been, not between them, but between +them and the sisters who had saved them one from another. Astounding +men! + +And most astounding of all to Rosalie was that at supper, little +more than an hour later, Harold and Robert presented themselves as +on exceptionally good terms of friendship. They talked and laughed +together. They had a long exchange of views about some football teams. +Harold laid down the law about the principle of four three-quarters in +Rugby football instead of three and Robert listened as to an oracle. +They had not been so friendly for weeks. And an hour before-! Yes, men +were different. + +And Rosalie found that her sisters, too, knew how different and how +superior men were. Flora and Hilda seemed to Rosalie always to be +talking about men. Flora used to come into the schoolroom while Rosalie +was at her lessons and talk to Hilda. Rosalie was very fond of her +lessons and Hilda was an uncommonly good teacher and took a great +interest in leading Rosalie along the paths she had herself so recently +followed. But directly Flora came in, Hilda's interest was entirely +diverted to what Flora had to say and to what she had to say to Flora, +and it was always about men,--boys or men. Rosalie would at once be put +to learning passages or working out exercises and Flora and Hilda would +go over to the window and talk. They talked mostly in whispers with +their heads close together; they laughed a good deal; they showed one +another letters. Often they came over to the table and wrote letters. +And they used to look up from their whisperings and say, "Go on with +your lessons, Rosalie." + +But it was very difficult to go on while they whispered and laughed +and it was also very troublesome to have Hilda's most interesting +explanations suddenly cut short by the entrance of Flora. Rosalie began +to have the habit of saying "Oh, dear!" and going "Tchk!" with her +tongue when Flora came in. Also restlessly to say "Oh, dear!" and go +"Tchk!" when the whisperings and the laughing about men went on and +distracted her attention while she tried to do her exercises. + +A new aspect of men began to grow out of this. Rosalie began to feel +rather aggrieved against boys and ten. They interfered. + +And this went further. Just as boys and men spoilt lessons so they +began to spoil walks. While Hilda attended the Miss Pockets' school and +Rosalie was taught by her mother, it was always her mother with whom +Rosalie took walks. Anna "never cared to go out" and Flora, whose +position in the house was more like that of Harold and Robert, did much +as she liked, and "dragging Rosalie about for walks" as she expressed +it, was not one of the things she liked. Rosalie therefore went out with +her mother until Hilda took her off her mother's hands, when the taking +off included not only education but exercise. At the beginning, Hilda +showed herself as enthusiastic and as entertaining a walker as she +was teacher. She was ready for jolly scrambles through woods and over +fields, she was as keen as Rosalie on damming little watercourses, and +exploring woodland tracts, and other similar delights, and she had a +most splendid knowledge of the names of plants and flowers and birds +and insects and delighted to tell them to Rosalie. Rosalie had loved the +walks with her mother, always holding her dear hand, but she loved much +more, though in a different way, the walks with Hilda. + +Then men began, in Rosalie's private phrase, to "ruin" the walks. + +First Flora took to joining the walks and she and Hilda talked and +talked together and always, as it seemed, about men, and Rosalie +just trailed along with them, their heads miles above hers and their +conversation equally out of her reach. But even that was not so bad as +it became. At least there were only her sisters and sometimes they +did talk to her, or sometimes one or other would break off from their +chatter and cry "Oh, poor Rosalie! We've not been taking the least +notice of you, have we? Now, what would you like to do?" And perhaps +they would run races, or perhaps explore, or perhaps tell her a story, +and Rosalie's spirits would come bursting out from their dulness and all +would be splendid. + +Not so when on the walks men, from being talked of, began to be met. + +There were at Robert's Grammar School certain young men who were in +no way connected with the school but were the "private pupils" of the +headmaster and were reading for the universities. One day Hilda started +for the walk in her church hat and Flora also in her church hat and her +church gloves. They walked very fast; Rosalie could hardly keep up. And +then at a corner of a lane they suddenly started to walk very slowly +indeed, and suddenly again at a stile, two of these young men were met. + +The young men raised their hats much farther than Rosalie had ever seen +a man raise his hat and one of them said, "Well, you have come then?" + +Flora said, "Well, we just happened to be strolling along this way." +Then she said, "You needn't imagine we came to see you!" which Rosalie +thought very rude; but the young men seemed to like it and all of them +laughed a great deal. + +Presently they all started to walk together, Hilda and Flora in the +middle and one of the young men on either side. The walk lasted much +later than the walks usually lasted and the whole way Rosalie trailed +along behind; and on the whole afternoon the only words addressed to +Rosalie by her sisters came just as, the young men hav-ing taken their +leave a mile away, they were turning in at the rectory gate. Flora then +said, "Rosalie, darling, don't tell mother or father or any one that we +met any one." And Hilda said, "Yes, remember, Rosalie, you're not to say +anything about that." + +After that, the young men were met, and the four walked, and Rosalie +trailed, nearly every day. + +One of these young men was called Mr. Chalton and the other Mr. Ricks. +Like all men, and even more so, they were splendid and wonderful. They +had silver cigarette cases and smoked a lot, and they wore most handsome +waistcoats and ties, and some of their conversation that came back to +Rosalie, trailing behind, was of very wonderful and exciting things they +had done or were going to do. Mr. Holland, the headmaster of the Grammar +School, was the terror of Robert's life, but it appeared that Mr. +Chalton and Mr. Ricks were not in the least afraid of Mr. Holland, and +they talked a great deal of what they would do to him if he ever tried +to interfere with them and a great deal of what they did do in the +way of utterly disregarding him. They were undeniably splendid and +wonderful, but they utterly ruined Rosalie's walks and they greatly +intensified Rosalie's new feelings towards men and boys,--that men and +boys were a great nuisance and spoilt things. + +Time went along. Other young men were met. In the holidays, quite +a number of young men came for their vacations to their homes in +Ibbotsfield and the surrounding district. Certain of these, unlike +the Grammar School private pupils, called openly at the rectory on one +pretext or another, but they were nevertheless also met secretly by +Flora and Hilda, ruined the walks precisely as Messrs. Chalton and Ricks +had first ruined them, and were on no account to be mentioned by Rosalie +to her father or mother. + +The reason for this secrecy was never explained to Rosalie and the +secrecy oppressed Rosalie. It took not only the form of being a thing +she was not able to tell to her mother, and Rosalie was in the habit of +telling everything she did to her mother, but it took also the form +of mysterious and vaguely alarming perils during the walks. An immense +watchfulness was kept up against chance encounters with people. One of +the party would often cry, "Look! Who's this?" and the young men +would separate from the girls and appear as if they were walking by +themselves. Sometimes they would break right away and run off and not +be met again. Very often Rosalie would be sent on ahead to a turning and +told to come back at once if anybody was to be seen and then would be +examined as to who the person was. Sometimes she was posted to keep +watch while the girls and the young men slipped off somewhere, over +a gate or into a barn. She got to know by sometimes rushing in with +warnings that Flora and Hilda on these occasions smoked the young men's +cigarettes. Then when they got home, they would rush up to their room +and wash their teeth and put scent on themselves. And invariably when +the young men took their leave at the end of a walk there would be long +and close whisperings in which were always to be heard the words, "Well, +say you were--" or "Look here, we'll say we were--" and generally, "Go +away, Rosalie. There's nothing for you to listen to." + +It all had the effect of making Rosalie feel unhappy and rather +frightened. She sometimes asked, "Why mustn't I say anything to mother?" +She was always told, and only told, "Because father doesn't like us +meeting men." + +No reason why father should not like them meeting men was ever given, +and Rosalie, ceaselessly disturbed by the concealment, could never +imagine what the reason could be. There could be no reason that she +could imagine; and she was thus immensely taken aback when one evening +at supper her father made a most surprising statement: "The girls have +no chance of ever meeting men in this infernal place." + +Amazing! + +Rosalie's father had been abusing Ibbotsfield and everything that +pertained to Ibbotsfield. Some question of expenses had started him. He +was storming in his wild way, addressing himself to Rosalie's mother +but haranguing at large to all, everybody sitting in silence and with +oppressed faces, avoiding looking at one another and avoiding especially +the eyes of father. They were literally ground down with poverty, +Rosalie's father was saying. He didn't know what was going to happen to +them all. "It's all this place, this infernal, buried-alive place. The +girls ought to be moving about and seeing people. How can they? Very +well. My mind's made up. There's my brother Tom in India. He could +have one of the girls. There's your sister Mrs. Pounce in London. She's +Rosalie's godmother. What's she ever done for Rosalie? Very well. My +mind's made up. I shall write to Tom and I shall write to Belle. I shall +tell them how we are situated. It's humiliating to have to tell them but +what's humiliation? I'm accustomed to humiliation. Ever since we came +here, I have eaten the bread and drunk the water of humiliation. Now the +children are growing up to share it. What can they do in this loathsome +and forsaken and miserable place? What chance have the girls got? Can +you tell me that?" + +He glared at Rosalie's mother. It was clear that he regarded her as to +blame. Rosalie thought that her dear mother must be to blame. Her mother +looked so beaten and frightened. There was glistening in her eyes. +Rosalie's heart felt utterly desolated for her mother. She wished +like anything she could say something for her dear mother. Then most +amazingly the chance to say something came. + +"Can you tell me that?" cried Rosalie's father. "What chance have the +girls of ever meeting men in this infernal place?" + +Rosalie burst out, "Oh, but father, nearly every day--" + +"Rosalie, don't interrupt!" cried Flora very sharply. + +"Rosalie, be quiet!" cried Hilda. + +Father glared and then went on and on. + +It was the beginning of a chain of most startling upheavals. It was +also, and the upheavals were also, a new manifestation to Rosalie of +the all-importance of men. After supper, in the first place, Flora and +Hilda, taking Rosalie very severely to task for her perilous outburst, +explained to her that the men they met were not the kind of men that +father meant they ought to meet. It was necessary, it was essential, +they explained, for every girl to meet men she could marry. That was +what every girl had to do. Men--surely you understand that, Rosalie--had +all the money and everything and met girls and asked them to marry. +Those men sometimes met on walks, you little stupid, were too young and +had no money yet. "There, that's enough," they explained. "Anyhow, we +shan't be meeting them much more. One of us is probably going to India; +you heard what father said, didn't you?... Well, of course you can't +understand properly. You will when you're grown up. Surely that's quite +enough for you to understand at present.... How can a woman live if she +doesn't marry, stupid? She must have money to live and it is men who +have the money.... Well, of course they do because they earn it; look +at Harold; and Robert will have money when he's a little older.... Well, +how can women? Now, I said that's enough and it is enough." + +It was enough and most satisfactorily enough for one purpose. It was +the first explanation of men as a race apart from women that Rosalie had +ever received and it precisely bore out all that she had conceived about +them. It affirmed her perception of the wonder and greatness of men as +compared with women. It intensified that perception. + +Wonderful men! Marvellous and most fortunate men! + +And then the chain of most startling upheavals began. Father wrote to +Uncle Tom in India. Father wrote to Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, +in London. What he wrote was not to be known by Rosalie, outside the +rectory wheel. The others knew, for father, with enormous pride at his +wonderful epistolatory style in his voice, was heard reading the +letter to them. But the others, of course, knew also what Rosalie never +realised, the grinding poverty of the rectory. She knew no other life +than the herrings, the makeshifts, and the general shabbiness of +the rectory. It was not till long afterwards that, looking back, she +realised the pinching and the screwing that served--almost--to make ends +meet. + +So father wrote. India was far, London was near. Aunt Belle's reply +came while the letter to Uncle Tom was still upon the sea. Such a reply! +Wonderful father to win such a reply from Aunt Belle! "You see what it +is to be able to write a telling and forceful letter!" cried father. +Such an exciting reply! Aunt Belle was coming on a visit "to talk it +over and see what she could do." + +Aunt Belle came. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Oh, a red carpet, a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, to come +into the story! And if at the end of the red carpet there could be an +"At Home" in the splendid drawing-room of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, +at Pilchester Square, Notting Hill, an At Home with about sixty-five +ladies crammed into it, all of them wives of most successful and +well-off men, mostly retired from the Indian Army and the Indian Civil +Service, and all of them chattering ecstatically, and nibbling, and +pluming themselves, and tinkling their teacups, and Aunt Belle, Mrs. +Pyke Pounce, enthroned in their midst, and owning everything and seeming +to own her five and sixty guests, and chattering and nibbling and +pluming and tinkling more ecstatically than any; and then if there could +come into them beautiful cousin Laetitia (when about fifteen) with sleek +black hair beautifully ribboned behind, and with pale, fine brow, and +wearing the sweetest white frock, and if she could move delightfully +about among her mother's guests, and then play the sweetest little +trifle on the pianoforte to the delighted murmurs of the five and sixty +guests of her mother ("She's under Pflunk. The great Pflunk!"); and then +if there could come in from the City Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, +R.E., (retired) now director of several highly important companies, and +if Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., could stand on the hearthrug +with his massy jowl and his determined stomach, and grunt, and rattle +the money in his pockets, and grunt again; and if then there could +come in the new parlour maid of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, with her +tallness and her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence of +air, and all the five and sixty gazing upon her as haughty but envious +patricians gazing upon a slave, and when she had gone swishing out if +Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, could tell all the sixty and five of +her tallness, her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence of +manner---- + +Oh, if there could be this and these and a fine red carpet, how exactly +and how fittingly would Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, step upon the +scene! + +"Dear thing!" That was Rosalie's portrait and thought of her in long +after years. Dear thing! The drawing-room of her crowded triumphs is now +the shabby drawing-room of a second-rate boarding house; the jolly horse +bus she used so commandingly to stop in the Holland Park Avenue and so +regally to enter (whip-waving driver, cap-touching conductor) long +has given place to a thundering motor saloon that stops wheresoever it +listeth and wherein Aunt Belles and old-clothes women fight to hang by a +strap. + +Dear thing! Her ownership of five and sixty guests is exchanged for +ownership of not more than seven and fifty inches of cold earth in +Brompton Cemetery. She is passed and Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, +R.E., is grunted past to lay himself beside her. They are passed. +Up-reared upon her and upon him is a stupendous granite chunk (in a +way not unlike Uncle Pyke on his hearthrug) erected by their sorrowing +daughter. She is passed; she came into Rosalie's life and Rosalie +crossed her life and she never forgave Rosalie. + +Dear thing! Lie lightly on her, stones! + +She came to the rectory "to talk it over and see what can be done" for +a week's visit, and she stepped out of the cab, all the family assembled +to greet her, a new and most surprising figure such as Rosalie had never +seen before. She was dressed in startling fashions of a most wonderful +richness, and she had immense plumes in her hat that nodded when she +moved and trembled when she stood still, and she was herself either +always nodding with glittering animation or straightening her back and +quivering as if straining at a leash and just about to burst it and go +off. She was like Rosalie's mother and yet not a bit like her. She was +older and yet terribly brisker and stronger. Those were the days when +frosted Christmas cards were of the artistic marvels of the age, and +Aunt Belle beside Rosalie's mother somehow made Rosalie think of a +frosted card beside one of the plain cards. When Rosalie's mother was in +a room you often might not know she was there; but when Aunt Belle was +in a room there seemed to be no one there except Aunt Belle. She began +to talk, in a voice as high as the house, while she was still descending +from the cab on her arrival, and the only time Rosalie ever saw her not +talking was during service in Church on Sunday, when she was alternately +glittering or whispering or else bending down so extraordinarily low +that Rosalie thought she was going to lie prone upon the floor. + +Dear thing! She was so kind to Rosalie and so kind to them all, and +yet----And yet they all, except Rosalie who was too small (then) to +appreciate the resented quality in Aunt Belle's kindness, and Rosalie's +mother who was too gentle to resent anything, and yet they all, save +Rosalie and her mother, loathed and abominated Aunt Belle. It was her +way of doing things. She gave kind gifts, but it was the way she gave +them. She admired everything and everybody in the rectory, but it was +the way she admired. She said most kind and affectionate things, but it +was her way of saying them. + +"Why, how very nice indeed!" That was her insistent comment upon +everything in the rectory. But the tone was, "How very nice indeed--for +you." + +That was the trouble. That was what made Harold (who at twenty-six +was getting very like his father) hurl about a thousand miles over the +garden wall the three apples Aunt Belle gave him as his share of the +"very best apples from the Army and Navy Stores" which she brought down +with other "goodies" for "the dear children"; and made, him grit his +teeth after she had been in the house two days and cry, "Dash her! Poor +relations; that's how she treats us! I'm dashed if I'm a poor relation. +I'm earning three pound ten a week at the Bank and I bet that appalling +old Uncle Pyke didn't get it or anything like it at my age!" + +Dear thing! "She meant it kindly." That was the sweet apologetic excuse +with which Rosalie's mother followed the track of the storms Aunt Belle +aroused and with which she sought to abate them. "She means it kindly. +She means it kindly, dear." + +It should be Aunt Belle's epitaph. It ought to be graven upon that +granite chunk in Brompton Cemetery. "She meant it kindly!" + +Issuing from the cab, Aunt Belle began by kissing Rosalie's mother in +a most astonishing series of kisses that whizzed from cheek to cheek so +that it was a miracle to Rosalie that the two noses did not collide and +her dear mother's be knocked right off; and then most enthusiastically +kissed all the family, applying to each the phrase with which she began +on Harold "Well, well, so this is Harold!" (As if it were the most +astounding and unexpected thing in the world that it was Harold.) "So +this is Harold! Why, what a great big clever fellow, and what a comfort +to your dear mother, I am sure!" And then gazed rapturously upon the +house and said to Rosalie's mother and to them all, "Well, well, what a +very, very nice house, to be sure!" + +("For you!") + +She meant it kindly. Her manner of talking about herself and about her +possessions was not that of bragging or of conscious superiority; +it was, to the whole rectory family, and to all poorer than herself +wherever she met them, that of one entertaining a party of children--of +a kind lady telling stories to a group of round-eyed infants. When she +first had tea on the afternoon of her arrival, she gazed upon the silver +teapot as it was carried in and exclaimed, "Well, well, what a very, +very handsome teapot! And hot-water jug to match! How very, very nice! +Now how ever do you think I keep my water hot at tea? I have a very +nice service all in silver gilt! It looks just like gold! And there's +a kettle to match with a spirit flame under it. The maid brings in the +kettle boiling and we just light the spirit with a match and there it is +gently boiling all the time!" + +Dusk drew in and the lamps were lit. "Lamps!" ecstatically exclaimed +Aunt Belle! "How nice! And Hilda keeps the lamps clean, does she? What a +dear, helpful girl and how very, very bright and nice they are! Now what +do you think? In my house, everywhere, even in the kitchen, we've got +this new electric light! Your kind uncle Pyke had it put in for me. +Installed, as they call it. Now, just fancy, all you have is a little +brass knob by each door, and you just touch a little switch, and there's +your light! No matches, no trouble, just click! and there you are. +Of course it was very expensive, but your Uncle Pyke insisted upon my +having it. He always will insist upon my having everything of the best." + +Dear thing! The echo of her ceaseless tongue brings her exactly to +life again--glittering, chattering, pluming, presenting, praising--her +servants! her house! her parties! her friends! her daughter! her +husband!--Oh, yes, a red carpet! a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke +Pounce, to come into the story, and so (at the end of her visit) into +Rosalie's life like this: + +"And Rosalie is going away to school! To a boarding school in London +where there will be ever so many very nice playmates of her own age, and +such romps, and such good wholesome food, and such nice, kind, clever +mistresses! Why, what a lucky, lucky girl! There, Rosalie, what do you +think of that? You are my godchild, and I and your kind uncle Pyke are +going to send you to school and pay for your education because of course +we are well off and can afford it and your dear mother and father can't. +There! Now isn't that delightful? Come and give me a nice kiss then. The +dear child!" + +Tremendous moment! Supernal upheaval! First and greatest upheaval of the +chain of upheavals! Rosalie was to go away to school! + +That was at the rectory breakfast table on the last morning of the +visit, and that was Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, coming into Rosalie's +life. "Come and give me a kiss then"; that was kind, kind Aunt Belle, +inviting acknowledgment of her kindness and the kindness of Uncle Pyke +(with a cheque) and the kindness of Cousin Laetitia (with a box of +beautiful cast-off clothes that would do beautifully for Rosalie's +school outfit). "The dear child!" That was Aunt Belle's acknowledgment +of Rosalie's most dutiful and most affectionate and most delighted kiss. +(Most amazed and excited and rather fearful Rosalie! Going to school! +Going away to a boarding school in London!) + +"The dear child!" Such a warm and loving kiss from Rosalie! And time +was to prove it the kiss of Judas! Yes, in a few years, "I've done +everything for you!" Aunt Belle was to cry. "Everything! And this is the +return I get!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Next, in its turn, and exactly a fortnight before the beginning of the +term at which Rosalie was to join the boarding school in London, came +the letter from Uncle Tom in India, and with it the beginning of the +second upheaval in the chain of upheavals. + +All of this upheaval was very bewildering to Rosalie. She never +understood it properly. At the beginning it had nothing at all to do +with Anna, and yet Anna from the very first reading of Uncle Tom's +letter--All that Rosalie understood of it was this. + +First the letter came. Tremendous excitement! Father in wild excitement, +Flora and Hilda in frantic excitement, everyone in highest excitement. +Father read the letter aloud at breakfast to Rosalie's mother and to the +girls. Such a splendid letter, said father. Really, Tom was a splendid +fellow, said father. He had wronged Tom. He had thought Tom selfish in +his wealthy indifference. By Jove, Tom wasn't. "By Jove, the way Tom +wrote almost brought tears to your eyes. Listen to this. Listen, mother. +Listen, you girls." + +Uncle Tom, said the letter, would by all means, old man, have one of the +girls. He'd no idea that things were so bad with you. Poor old man! Why +didn't you tell us before? He was sending home a small draft to Field +and Company, his bankers, to help towards the girl's outfit and her +passage money. "'Which girl shall you send?' you ask. Well, it's no +good asking us, old man. You must decide that for yourselves. She'll be +abundantly welcome, whichever it is, and we can promise her a jolly good +time. We are at Simla most of the year. If you want my advice which girl +to send, send the pretti--" + +Father stopped reading. + +Rosalie was staring at Anna. Anna's face, which had been pale, suddenly +went crimson. The suddenness and the violence of it was extraordinary. +One moment she had been pale. In the next, she was burning red. It was +exactly as if a crimson paint had suddenly been dashed over the whole +of her face. It was extraordinary. Whatever was it? That nose of hers, +perhaps? a sudden frightful twinge like Rosalie once had had a sudden +most awful jump in a tooth? But Anna didn't say anything and no one +but Rosalie seemed to notice it. They were all intent upon father. So +intent! Flora's eyes were simply shining! + +And Flora's eyes soon after that were shining more than ever. She was +wild with excitement. Rosalie heard the news just before tea. Flora was +going to India to Uncle Tom! + +"Oh," cried Flora, "I'm so excited I simply don't know what to do with +myself!" It was all arranged. Father had settled it. She was to go in +about six weeks' time. Very shortly she was to go up to London with +father and buy heaps of clothes and all sorts of things. They were going +to stay at a hotel. "Not with Aunt Belle, thank goodness!" said Flora. +"At a hotel! Fancy that!" Mother wasn't going and Flora was glad mother +wasn't going. She would have a much better time with father. Father had +decided everything. He had decided that mother couldn't leave him in the +rectory with all the housekeeping to look after, and the change would do +him good, and Aunt Belle would be able to help with the shopping. They +were going to see some theatres and all kinds of things and were going +to have a most splendid time and then, soon afterwards--India! "Oh I +shall go mad with excitement in a minute!" cried Flora. + +The next thing was in the evening. Rosalie, searching for her mother +to ask her something, could not find her. She went into her mother's +bedroom and there was the most surprising thing. There was Anna on +her knees by her mother and her head on her mother's lap and Anna was +sobbing; and she was crying in her sobs, "But it's my right! I'm the +eldest. It's my right!" + +Rosalie stood there, unnoticed, amazed. Whatever was it? + +Rosalie's mother stroked Anna's head and spoke very softly, "My darling! +My darling!" She said, "My darling, your father has decided. Your father +knows best. Men always know best, my darling." + +"It's my right, mother. It's my right. It's always Flora. Oh, why should +it always be Flora?" + +"Dear Anna. Poor Anna. You must be reasonable, dear Anna. We women must +always be reasonable. Don't you see that your father thinks of me? He +thinks my eldest girl--my dear eldest girl--ought to stay at home to +look after her mother. It's on my account, dear Anna. He thinks of me." + +"Oh, mother, what's the good of telling me that? A lot he thinks of +you or ever has! Why is he going up to London with Flora when it's your +place to go? A lot he thinks of you! You say we must be reasonable. You +can be. You've been unselfish all your life. I can't be. Not in this. +I've never had a pleasure in my life; I've never had a chance; I've +never had anything done for me. Ever since I can remember it's always +been Flora, Flora, Flora. Now there's this. I'm getting on, mother. I'm +nearly twenty-four. What have I got to look forward to? Flora's younger, +Flora's different. She'll have lots of chances of enjoying herself. This +is my right. It's my right, mother." + +"My dear Anna. My eldest girl. My first dear, sweet girlie. How could I +do without you? How happy we've been. How happy we will be." + +Rosalie crept away. + +After a time, Flora and her father went away on the great visit to +London. They were to be away over two Sundays. A clergyman was coming +from Ashborough to take service at the church. Rosalie's father went off +in spirits as high and youthful as the spirits of Flora. For days before +he was quite a different man. Everybody was asked to choose a present +which he would bring back. Everybody chose with much excitement and +chaffing except Anna, who said she could not think of anything. At +meals, father kept on saying how he wished he could regularly make a +point of getting up to town for a bit, it made all the difference being +able to get away from this infernal place for a bit. When herrings were +on the table, he actually came round and did her herring for Rosalie's +mother and Rosalie's mother was able to eat the whole of it and said how +delicious it was and how clever father was. + +It was all splendid. Rosalie had never known such a jolly spirit in the +house. The only thing that spoilt Rosalie's happiness in the new jolly +spirit was the nights in Anna's room. Anna was most frightening to +Rosalie. She prayed now longer than ever, her shoulders moving beneath +her nightgown as if she was shuddering all the time she prayed. And at +night she talked more than ever in her sleep; also she used to get out +of bed at night and walk about the room and talk aloud to herself. It +was frightening. + +Then Flora and father were in London and tremendous long letters came +from Flora to her mother and to all: they were buying heaps of dresses +and underclothes and white drill coats and skirts and a riding habit and +goodness knows what all. "A regular trousseau!" wrote Flora with +about seventeen marks of exclamation after the word. And all they were +seeing--they had been to the Lyceum Theatre and seen Mr. Henry Irving +and Miss Ellen Terry and to the Savoy and seen "The Mikado." Every +moment of the day was taken up and half the night. Oh, this was a change +from Ibbotsfield! + +Anna would never listen to the letters. When they were read out, she +either would put her fingers in her ears or go out of the room. And yet, +curiously, she often later in the day would say in a funny constricted +voice, "Let me see Flora's letter. Give it to me, will you please?" And +would take it away and read it by herself. + +Anna was stranger and stranger in her manner and in her behaviour at +night. Rosalie came quite to dread the nights. Anna began to pray out +loud. She used to pray over and over again the same thing: "It's not +that I'm jealous, O Lord. O purge my heart of jealousy. It is that I see +what could be and what ought to be for me and what never will be for me. +I've nothing to look forward to, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. It +is hard for women. O God, thou knowest how hard it is for women." + +It was frightening. + +Then came the second Sunday of the absence in London. In the night of +Saturday, Rosalie was again awakened by the sounds of Anna and again +heard her praying and again heard "It is hard for women. O God, thou +knowest how hard it is for women." + +She had heard it so often! Anna seemed to have stopped praying. 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 God 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 shirt 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 pass 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 shine 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 Godhood. +They walk near God. + +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 God, 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 +God 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 class 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 assured +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, hush! 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 +God knew it was hard for them--"O God, 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 nobody 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 advertisement +to appear on the front page of the Morning Post. + +"High-class Ladies' School for the Daughters of Gentlemen of the +Professions has UNEXPECTED VACANCY for ONE ONLY pupil at reduced +terms--Mrs. Impact, Oakwood House School, St. John's Wood, London." + +ONE ONLY pupil! That was the magic touch. + +The very first words addressed to Rosalie by a fellow boarder at Oakwood +House were from a short, sharp-featured girl of her own age, which then +was twelve, who said to her sharply, "You're a One Only. I can see you +are. Aren't you a One Only?" + +"Well, I'm by myself," said Rosalie, not understanding but most anxious +to say the right thing. + +"Stupid, you're not," said the sharp girl, "because I'm with you. Did +your mother see the advertisement in the Morning Post? The advertisement +of this school?" + +It happened that Rosalie knew her mother had seen it for Aunt Belle had +shown it to her and to them all. "One of the very best schools," +Aunt Belle had said. "You see, it's only quite by chance there was a +vacancy." + +"Yes, she did," said Rosalie. + +"She's the cat's grandmother," said the sharp girl. "Never say 'she' for +a person's name. Well, if your mother saw the advertisement then you +are a One Only at reduced terms, and I knew you were directly I saw you. +Now, tell me. Don't blink--unless of course you're an idiot; all idiots +blink. Tell me. Was that dress made for you or was it cut down?" + +"It was my cousin Laetitia's," said Rosalie. + +"Of course it was," returned the sharp girl very triumphantly. "Every +One Only's clothes are cut down for her. Poopers! Do you know what a +pooper is? A pooper is half a poop and half a pauper. Every One Only's +a pooper. Well, now you know what you are. You see that girl over there. +Do you know what she is?" + +Rosalie said she did not. + +"She's a Red Indian." + +"Is she?" said Rosalie, much surprised, for the girl did not look in the +least like a Red Indian. + +"Ask her," said the sharp girl. "Do you know what I am?" + +Rosalie shook her head. + +"Answer," said the sharp girl. + +"No, I don't," said Rosalie. + +"I'm a Sultan," said the sharp girl. "All the nice girls are Sultans and +the school belongs to them. Do I look nice?" + +"Very," said Rosalie, though she did not think so. + +"Then why didn't you know I was a Sultan? The school belongs to the +Sultans. The One Onlys and the Red Indians are interlopers, especially +the One Onlys. Always shudder when you see a Sultan. Shudder now." + +Rosalie wriggled her shoulders. + +"Again, poop." + +Rosalie repeated the wriggle. + +"Vanish, poop," said the sharp girl, and herself sprung away with +mysterious crouching bounds, her head thrust forward, looking very like +Gagool, the witch, in King Solomon's Mines; and was seen by Rosalie to +pounce upon another small girl who was probably a One Only and, from her +forlorn aspect, certainly a sad and desolated new. + +One Onlys, Red Indians, Sultans. They were the three castes into which +the girls divided themselves: One Onlys the poopers brought by the +advertisement; Red Indians the daughters of parents resident in India; +Sultans the proud creatures who paid full fees and took their title from +the nickname of the headmistress--the Sultana. This Oakwood House School +in which Rosalie now found herself was one of those very big old houses +with a spacious, walled-in garden that probably was occupied in the +Fifties somewhere, when St. John's Wood was out in the country, by a +wealthy old City merchant who rode in to business two or three times +a week, never dreaming that one day London was going to stretch miles +beyond St. John's Wood, and his imposing residence go dropping down the +scale of fashion eventually to become a school for young ladies who on +their crocodile walks would huddle, giggling, along the kerbstone while +the dangerous traffic roared up and down the Maida Vale highway. + +Those crocodiles! There was a news agent's shop just opposite where the +crocodile used to cross when it went out every morning, and one of the +great excitements of the walk was to get around the corner and see what +the newspaper bills had to tell. There were about forty girls at the +school--a crocodile twenty files long--and on the days of sensational +events the news from the placards used to come flashing back in +emotional little screams from the head of the crocodile, gazing with +goggling eyes, to the tail of the crocodile pressing deliriously up +behind. "The Maybrick Case"; "Jack the Ripper Again"; "Death of the Duke +of Clarence"; "Loss of H.M.S. Victoria"; Rosalie never afterwards could +hear those terrific things referred to without recalling instantly the +convulsions of the crocodile and experiencing within her own bosom the +tumults that contributed their share to the convulsions. She was in the +writhing tail of the crocodile when "Jack the Ripper Again" caused it +almost to swoon, and she was in its weeping head when "Death of the Duke +of Clarence" and "Loss of H.M.S. Victoria" struck its orderly coils into +a tangled and hysterical knot. + +Mrs. Impact, who kept this school, was a massive and frightening figure +of doom who wore always upon her head, and was suspected of sleeping +in, a strange erection having the appearance of a straw beehive. She was +called the Sultana and her appearance and her habits seemed to Rosalie +precisely the appearance and habits that would belong to a sultana. The +Sultana appeared virtually never among the girls. The direction of the +discipline and education of the pupils was in the hands of the chief of +the Sultana's staff of badly paid and much intimidated mistresses. This +chief of staff, by name Miss Ough, but called the Vizier, appeared +from and disappeared into the quarters occupied by the Sultana, and was +popularly supposed to be kept there in a dungeon. If you were near +the door through which the Vizier passed from public gaze there was +unquestionably to be heard shortly afterwards a metallic clank. This was +the portal of the Vizier's dungeon being closed upon her and was very +shuddering to hear. The Vizier, moreover, like one long incarcerated, +was skeletonized of form, cadaverous and sallow of countenance, and grew +upon her face, as all right prisoners in royal custody grow, a thick +covering of greyish down. + +A second known inhabitant of the Sultana's quarters was Mr. Ponders, her +butler, who sometimes slid into the classrooms in a very eerie way with +messages and whom Rosalie came to know strangely well; a third, but he +did not exactly live in the awful regions, was the Sultana's husband. +The Sultana's husband lived in two rooms over the stable. From the front +classroom windows he was to be seen every morning disappearing through +the front gates at about eleven o'clock; very shiny top hat; very tight +tail coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; +very tight grey-yellow moustache; very tight pasty face; curiously +constricted, jerky gait as though his boots, too, were very tight. +Precisely the sort of chronic, half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see +in billiard rooms or eating cloves in West End bars. By association of +ideas with the orientalism of Sultana he was called by the girls the +Bashibazook. + +Junior to Miss Ough, the vizier, were four or five other mistresses, all +known by nicknames. Children are exactly like savages in their horrible +sharpness at picking out physical peculiarities and labelling by them. +One would imagine these governesses, judged by their nicknames, a +deplorable collection of oddities. Actually they must have been a +presentable enough and a capable enough set of spinsters, though +sicklied o'er by the pale cast of indifferent personalities, +indifferently housed, indifferently fed, indifferently paid; all +anaemic, all without any prospects whatsoever, all dominated by and +domineered over by the masterful personality of the Sultana. + +Only one of them contributed to the life of Rosalie and this was +"Keggo," Miss Keggs, who taught mathematics. This Keggo was rather like +Anna in appearance, Rosalie thought, and was most popular of all the +mistresses with the girls, partly because of her bright moments in which +she was a human creature and an entertaining creature; partly because +of her curiously supine periods in which she would be utterly listless, +allow her class to do anything they liked provided they kept perfectly +quiet, and would make no attempt whatsoever to correct idleness or to +impart the lesson of the hour. Miss Keggs had been known to knock over +the inkpot on her desk and sit and watch the ink dripping in a pool +on to the floor without making the least attempt even to upstand the +vessel. No one knew why Keggo had these moods. But it was known that for +her to come into class looking rather flushed was a sign foreshadowing +them. + +She appeared to take a fancy to Rosalie from the first, and Rosalie to +her, probably by reason of the fancied resemblance to Anna. She invited +Rosalie to her room and Rosalie loved to go there because the One Onlys +were in a very weak and humble minority in Rosalie's first term and +were rather hunted by the Sultans who were then particularly strong in +numbers and rich in apparel, in pocket money, and in friends. The poor +little One Onlys led rather abashed lives and they had no chance at all +around the playroom fire where the Sultans stretched their elegant legs +and warmed their shapely toes. + +One evening in her first few weeks Rosalie had to take an exercise up +to Miss Keggs, and Miss Keggs's room was warm, and Miss Keggs like +Anna, and Rosalie lingered and was invited to linger; after that Rosalie +sought and invented reasons for going up to Miss Keggs's room and Miss +Keggs would nearly always say, "Well, you may stay a little, Rosalie, as +you're here." + +Miss Keggs's room was right at the top of the house where were also the +servants' room and the room shared by Miss Downer and Miss Frost. It was +a long, narrow room with sloping ceiling and the window high up in the +ceiling. In the winter it was warmed with a small oil stove which smelt +terribly when you first went in but to the smell of which you almost at +once got accustomed. It was curious to Rosalie that even in summer when +there was no oil stove there was nearly always a very strong smell +in Miss Keggs's room. Miss Keggs used eau de Cologne for bathing her +forehead and temples on account of the very bad headaches from which +she said she suffered and the smell was like eau de Cologne but with an +unpleasantly harsh strong tang in it, like bad eau de Cologne, Rosalie +used to think. However, you almost at once got accustomed to that also. +These headaches of Miss Keggs were a symptom of the very bad health from +which she suffered, and on the occasions of Rosalie's visits to her +room Miss Keggs was very communicative about her ill health. It was the +reason, she told Rosalie, why, alone of all the mistresses, she had a +room to herself instead of sharing one. The Sultana had granted her that +privilege, provided she would use this remote and rather poky attic, +because it was so essential she should be quiet and undisturbed. + +"Don't you have any medicine, Miss Keggs?" said the small Rosalie, +in one part genuinely sympathetic and in the other eager to discuss +anything that would prolong her stay by the warm oil stove. + +"Nothing does me any good," said Miss Keggs wearily. After a minute +she added, "But I really am feeling very bad to-night. Mr. Ponders very +kindly gives me some medicine that relieves my bad attacks. I wonder, +Rosalie, if you could find your way down to Mr. Ponders and give him +this medicine bottle and ask him if he could very kindly oblige me with +a little of my medicine?" + +"Oh, I'm sure I could, Miss Keggs," cried Rosalie, delighted at the +opportunity of doing a service. + +Miss Keggs became extraordinarily animated with the feverish animation +of one who, having made up her mind after hesitation, furiously tramples +hesitation under foot. + +"Go right downstairs," directed Miss Keggs, "right down below the hall +into the basement. You know the basement stairs?" She proceeded with her +directions, detailing them most exactly. She accompanied Rosalie to the +door and when Rosalie was a little down the passage sharply called her +back. "And, Rosalie! If you should meet any one--if you should meet any +one, on no account say where you are going or where you have been. On no +account. If it should be known how ill I continue to be, I might be sent +away. They might think I am not strong enough to continue my work here. +Say you have lost your way if you should be met. You are a new little +girl and it is easy to lose your way in this big, rambling house. Keep +the bottle in your pocket and remember, Rosalie, on no account to tell. +On no account." And so dismissed her. + +A creepy business, going down to interview Mr. Ponders! The Sultana's +butler was only seen by the girls on momentous and thrilling occasions. +He opened the hall door when new little girls arrived with their +mothers, and he would sometimes appear in a classroom and walk +thrillingly to the mistress and thrillingly whisper. This always meant +that for some fortunate girl a parent or an aunt had arrived and that +the presence of the fortunate girl was desired by the Sultana. He was a +shortish, dingy man with a considerable moustache. As he walked between +the desks to deliver his message, his eyes were always glancing from +side to side as though furtively in search of something, and always as +he left the room he would stand a moment with his hand on the door +as though meditating some statement and then suddenly de-termining to +disappear without making it. A rather mysterious and thrilling man. + +Come into the basement, Rosalie walked as bid along the passage, then +to the right and then past two doors to the third, whereon she tapped +gently, and when a man's voice said "Come in," quaked rather, and went +in. The walls of Mr. Ponders' room were completely surrounded by narrow +shelves. Beneath the shelves were the closed doors of low cupboards and +on the shelves were ranged many glasses, china and silverware. At one +end beneath the window was a sink with two taps, both dripping. On the +right-hand side was a fire before which in a wicker armchair sat Mr. +Ponders smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. + +"What do you want?" inquired Mr. Ponders. + +Rosalie said, "If you please, Mr. Ponders, Miss Keggs is not feeling +at all well and would you be so very kind as to give her some of her +medicine, please?" + +Mr. Ponders rose and regarded Rosalie from the hearthrug. "So it's going +to be you coming for the medicine now, is it?" he said. He looked rather +a mean little man, standing there; not thrilling as when he appeared in +the schoolrooms for there was an unpleasing familiarity in his air, but +still decidedly mysterious, for though he smiled and looked snakily at +Rosalie, he still glanced from side to side as though furtively looking +for something and he still, before committing himself to an action, +paused as though meditating a statement and then suddenly performed the +action as though he had made up his mind not to speak--yet. + +"You're Rosalie, aren't you?" inquired Ponders, putting his hands in +his pockets and stretching out his stomach like one much at his ease. +"Rosalie Aubyn. You come with your Auntie. What's your Pa?" + +"A clergyman, Mr. Ponders." + +"Oh, he's a clergyman, is he?" Mr. Ponders's eyes slid from side to +side, rather as if he had somewhere in the room some confirmation or +some refutation of Rosalie's statement that he could produce if he could +catch sight of it, and continued thus to slide with the same suggestion +while he playfully put Rosalie through a further examination relative to +her "Auntie," her "Ma" and her brothers and sisters. He appeared then +to be meditating a question of some other order but instead suddenly +straightened himself, withdrew his hands from his pockets and said, +"Well, you'd better be running along with the medicine." + +He took from Rosalie the bottle Miss Keggs had given her and from his +pockets a bunch of keys. In the lock of one of his cupboards he fitted a +key, paused a meditative moment, then with a decisive action opened the +cupboard and from a tall black bottle very carefully and steadily filled +the medicine bottle. The medicine was dark red. It first ran in a fine +dark red cloud around the inner shoulders and sides of the bottle and +then plunged in a steady stream direct from the larger receptacle to the +smaller. + +Rosalie, watching, was moved to say, "How well you pour it, Mr. +Ponders." + +"I've poured a tidy drop in my time," said Mr. Ponders, completing the +operation and corking the medicine bottle. He held it towards Rosalie, +paused in his mysteriously deliberative way, and then suddenly handed it +to her. "And a tidy fair drop for Miss Keggs at that," he added. He went +to the door, again paused as though uncertain whether to open it, then +opened it for Rosalie to pass out. "Good night," said Mr. Ponders. + +Lucky Mr. Ponders to have for his own a cosy room like that--men, always +for some reason, with the best of everything again! Unpleasing Mr. +Ponders to look at you like that and to speak to you like that--men, +always horrible again! Rosalie, thus thinking, made a swift and +unobserved climb to the attics. Miss Keggs must have heard her coming. +The door was pulled sharply from Rosalie's hand and there was Miss Keggs +and the bottle almost snatched away from Rosalie. "How long you've been! +But you've got it! And no one saw you?" Miss Keggs went very swiftly +to the washstand and took up a small tumbler. Clear that she wanted her +medicine very badly. She toppled in the contents of the bottle, its neck +clinking against the glass, the dark red medicine splashing and some +spilling, so differently from Mr. Ponders's performance of a far more +difficult operation, and with the bottle still in her hand held the +glass to her lips and drank deeply. + +Yet there was a funny thing about the draught. It seemed to Rosalie that +Miss Keggs with that eager draught yet did not swallow at once but only +filled her mouth to its capacity. She then swallowed very slowly and +with movements of her cheeks as though she was sucking down the medicine +and tasting it in every portion of her mouth. Colour came into her +cheeks. The medicine certainly appeared to do her immense good. + +Miss Keggs's friendliness towards Rosalie was settled and established +from that night. Thereafter it became a very regular thing for Rosalie +to visit the room of Miss Keggs of an evening; and at intervals, +sometimes twice a week, sometimes not three times in a month, to descend +to the den of Mr. Ponders for the dark-red medicine which did Miss Keggs +so much good and which she always took in that peculiar sucking way from +a full mouth, one would be so long sometimes in swallowing a mouthful, +beginning a sentence and then drinking and then all that time in +swallowing before she completed the sentence, that she several times, by +way of apology, ex-plained the reason to Rosalie. "I have to swallow it +very slowly like that," explained Miss Keggs, "because that's the way +for it to do me good. It's my doctor's orders." + +"It seems a business," was Rosalie's comment. + +"Yes, it is a business," Miss Keggs agreed. + +Rosalie added, "How very lucky it is, Miss Keggs, that Mr. Ponders keeps +your medicine." + +"Yes, it's certainly very lucky," Miss Keggs agreed. + +The effect of her medicine was always to make her very complaisant. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +One seeks to give only the things in Rosalie's life that contributed to +her record, as time judges a record. Of her years at Oakwood House, so +far as Oakwood House itself is concerned, only that friendship with +Miss Keggs thus contributed. The rest does not matter and may be passed. +Rosalie was happy there. It naturally was all very strange at first +but she soon shook down and found her place and formed friendships. The +thing to notice is this--that even in the strangeness of her first few +weeks the place was actively felt by her to be a haven. There is to be +recalled that aching desire of hers, when poor Anna lay dead, to get +right away from men: men who (though still pre-eminently wonderful) +caused her by their showing off to blink and have a funny feeling; and +by their distasteful presence spoilt her walks and her lessons; and by +the frightening things they did had brought that frightening death to +Anna. Thus had accumulated that aching desire to get right away from +men and be only amongst girls; and the feeling remained most lively in +Rosalie at the Sultana's, and intensified. Those men! She used to see +the Bashibazook and shudder at him; and Mr. Ponders and shudder at him; +and sometimes Uncle Pyke, and because of ways he had, feel quite sick +to be near him. Men still were wonderful. The Bashibazook, Mr. Ponders, +Uncle Pyke, Uncle Pyke's friends--all were infinitely superior and did +what they pleased; but, oh, not nice, frightening. It was safe and nice +to be only with girls. Girls were in heaps of ways extraordinarily silly +and unsatisfactory. Men though not nice, unquestionably did everything +better and could do things. Unquestionably theirs was the best time in +life. Unquestionably they were to be envied. But--not nice, frightening. + +It was like that that her ideas at Oakwood House were shaping. + +And all this time, most important and much contributory to the life of +Rosalie--Aunt Belle. Tremendous occasions in those years were the visits +to the Sultana's of Aunt Belle. Frequently on a Saturday, kind Aunt +Belle used to call at Oakwood House for Rosalie and take her to a tea +shop for tea. Beautiful cousin Laetitia would accompany her, and kind +Aunt Belle would always invite Rosalie to bring with her another little +One Only. Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Aunt Belle used to sit by in the tea +shop, affectionate and loquacious as ever, while the two schoolgirls +stuffed themselves with cakes (not beautiful Laetitia who just nicely +sipped a cup of tea and nicely smiled at the two gross appetites) and +always kind Aunt Belle brought a small hamper of sweets and cake and +apples--"The very best goodies from the Army and Navy Stores, dear +child. They know us so well at the Army and Navy Stores. Your Uncle Pyke +has a standing deposit account there. We can go in without a penny in +our pockets and buy anything we please. Fancy that, dear child!" And +always half a crown for Rosalie, as kind Aunt Belle was leaving. + +Once in every term, also, Rosalie spent a week-end at the magnificent +house in Pilchester Square. Such luxuries! Fire in her bedroom and +palatial late dinner! Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning ("Just to let +you lie as a little change from school, dear child.") and Laetitia's +maid to do her hair! Rosalie immensely im-pressed and Aunt Belle +immensely gratified at Rosalie's awe and appreciation and gratitude. + +A curious manifestation there was of Aunt Belle's attitude in this +regard. On that famous visit to the rectory she had treated every one +like children. Here, in her own house, while Rosalie was still a child, +twelve, thirteen and fourteen, she was treated by Aunt Belle and shown +off to by her much as if she were a grown-up woman. About her servants, +and about prices, and about dress, and about her dinner parties, Aunt +Belle chattered to Rosalie; and about Uncle Pyke, what he liked, and +what he didn't like, and what he did in the City, and what he did at his +club, and about her hosts of friends and their matrimonial experiences, +Aunt Belle chattered to her, confiding in her and telling her all kinds +of things she but dimly understood precisely as if she were a grown-up +young woman. + +Then as Rosalie grew older, sixteen, seventeen and getting on for +eighteen, was reversion by Aunt Belle to the rectory manner. The child +had been treated as a young woman; the budding maiden was treated +precisely as if she were a small child or a small savage to be +entertained by mere sight of the wonders all about her in Pilchester +Square and by having them explained to her in words of one syllable. + +"There, Rosalie," (Rosalie at seventeen) "do you know you're eating with +a solid silver spoon! Feel the weight of it! Balance it in your hand, +dear child. We usually only use this service for our dinner parties and +your uncle Pyke keeps it locked up and carries the key about with him. +Show Rosalie the key, Pyke. But I got it out for you to-day because I +knew you would like to see real solid silver plate. Dear child!" + +Dear thing! Lightly on her, you Brompton Cemetery stones! + +Uncle Pyke never would produce the key or whatever he might be asked to +show. Uncle Pyke would grunt and go on with his soup with enormous noise +as though having a bath in it. Uncle Pyke never spoke at all to Rosalie +on these week-end visits except, always, to put her through examination +on what she was learning at school. Rosalie, though horribly frightened +of Uncle Pyke, always had pretty ready answers to the examination--she +did uncommonly well at school--but there never was from Uncle Pyke +any other mark of appreciation than a grunt. A grunt! Those Pyke-ish, +piggish men! The outstanding characteristic Rosalie came to see in Uncle +Pyke and in the other husbands (his cronies) of Aunt Belle's friends +was that they thought about nothing else but their food, their wine and +their cigars. They disliked having about them anybody who interfered +with their enjoyment of their food, their wine and their cigars. They +were affectionately regarded by their wives as tame, necessary bears to +be fed and warmed and used to sit at the head of the table and awe the +servants. That was what Rosalie saw in them--and shuddered at in them. +Hogs! + +Cousin Laetitia all this time was living at home, attending a very +exclusive and expensive day school. Only twelve girls at beautiful +Laetitia's school and more masters and mistresses than pupils--mostly +"visiting" masters--Italian, French, painting, singing, music, dancing. +Laetitia was about two years older than Rosalie. Very pretty in an +elegant, delicate fashion, and growing up decidedly beautiful in a +sheltered, hothouse, Rossetti type of beauty. Always very affectionate +to Rosalie and glad to see her; not patronising in the way she might +have been patronising and yet, as the two grew older, patronising in a +conscious effort to dissemble a conscious superiority. + +Rosalie never could remember how early in their acquaintance it was she +first understood that the great aim of Laetitia's life, and the great +aim of Aunt Belle's life for Laetitia, was to "make a good match"; but +she seemed to have known it ever since she first heard of Laetitia, +certainly at a point of her childhood when too young exactly to +understand what "good match" meant. Later on, when Laetitia had left +school and was within sight of putting up her hair, "good match" was +openly spoken of by Aunt Belle in her crowded drawing-room or alone in +company of the two girls and Uncle Pyke. + +"And soon dear Laetitia will be making a good match, a splendid match"; +and beautiful Laetitia would faintly colour and faintly smile. + +There began to come to Rosalie, growing older, an acute and an odd +feeling of the physical and mental difference between herself and +beautiful Laetitia--a feeling in Laetitia's company that she was a boy, +a young man, in the company of one most pronouncedly a young woman. +Rosalie was always very plainly dressed by comparison with Laetitia; her +voice was much clearer and sharper, her air very vigorous against an air +very langorous. Her hands used to feel extraordinarily big when she sat +with Laetitia and her wrists extraordinarily bare. She would glance down +at her lap sometimes and could have felt a sense of surprise not to see +trousers on her legs. + +That was how, as they grew older, Rosalie often felt with Laetitia. + +Her last term came. She was nearly eighteen. She was going to earn her +own living. That was decided. Exactly how was not decided; but Rosalie +had decided it. There was an idea that she should remain at the +Sultana's as a junior teacher, but that was not Rosalie's idea. + +"Oh, don't be a schoolmistress, Rosalie," Keggo had said when Rosalie +told of the suggestion (propounded, through the Sultana, by Miss Ough +and warmly endorsed by Aunt Belle and grunted upon by Uncle Pyke). "Oh, +Rosalie, don't be one of us. Don't you see how we are just drifting, +drifting? Don't do anything where you'll just drift, Rosalie." + +"No, I'm not going to drift, Keggo," said Rosalie. (Miss Keggs, in +the little room, had been "Keggo" a long time then.) "I'm not going to +drift. I'm going to have a man's career. I'm going into business! Keggo, +that's the mystery of that book I'm always reading that you're always +asking me about: 'Lombard Street'--Bagehot's 'Lombard Street.' Oh, +Keggo, thrilling." + +She began to tell Keggo her stupendous enterprise.... + +There is in the study of man nothing more curious or more interesting +than the natural bent of an individual mind. An arrow shot to the north +and another from the same bow to the south spring not apart more swiftly +or more opposedly than the minds of two children brought up from one +mother in the same nursery. The natural bent of each impels it. Art this +one, science that; to Joe adventure, to Tom a bookish habit. Rosalie's +natural bent declared itself in "figures"; in the operations, as she +discovered them, of commerce; in the mysterious powers, as they appealed +to her, developed in countinghouses and exerted by countinghouses. The +romance of commerce! A mind double-edged, with inquisitiveness the one +edge and acquisitiveness the other (as certainly Rosalie's) is a sword +double-edged that will cut through the tough shell and into the lively +heart of anything. No more is required than to give the young mind a +glimpse of the lively heart that is there. Rosalie's young mind was +already beating with half-fledged wings against the shell about that +side of life wherein, in her experience, (of her brothers, of Uncle +Pyke, of Uncle Pyke's friends) men did the things that earned them +livelihood and gave them independence. Along, by happy chance, buried in +dust in the rectory study and found one holiday, came "Lombard Street" +and Bagehot, and that was the book and Bagehot was the man to give +pinions to those fledgling wings. She saw romance, and thrusted for +it, in the business of countinghouses. It was fascinating to her beyond +anything the discovery that money was not, as she had always supposed, +a thing that you took with one hand and paid away, and lost, with the +other. Not at all! It was a thing that, properly handled, you never +lost. Enthralling! Thrilling! You invested it and it returned to you; +you expended it and propped it up with fascinating things called sinking +funds, and, although you had spent it, there it was coming back to you +again! It was the most mysterious and wonderful commodity in the world. +She got hold of that and she went on from that. + +The romance of business! That ships should go out across the seas with +one cargo and sell it, not, in effect, for money, but for another and +an entirely different cargo; that cheques passing between countries, and +cheques circulating about the United Kingdom, should be traded off one +against the other in magic conjuring palaces called Clearing Houses with +the result that thousands of little streams merged into few great rivers +and only differences need be paid; that money (heart and driving-force +of all the mysteries) should have within itself the mysterious and +astounding quality of ceaselessly reduplicating itself--"the only thing +in the world," as Rosalie quaintly put it to Miss Keggs--"the only thing +m the world that people, business people, will take care of for you +without charging you for storage or for trouble"--that these mysterious +and extraordinary things should be thrilled Rosalie as the mysterious +and extraordinary things of science or of nature or the mysterious +and beautiful things of art or of literature or of music will thrill +another. + +That natural bent of her mind! That Bagehot that ministered to +her natural bent! Fascinated by Banks, fascinated by the Exchange, +fascinated by the Pool of London, where, obedient to the behests of +the counting-houses, floated the wealth that the countinghouses made, +fascinated by these was Rosalie as maidens of her years commonly are +fascinated by palaces, by the Tower and by the Abbey. Remember, it is +not what their eyes see that fascinates these romantic young misses. A +dolt can see the Tower walls and see no more than crumbling bricks and +stone. It is what their minds see that fascinates the ardent creatures. +Well, Rosalie's mind saw strange romance in countinghouses. + +That Bagehot! + +And then must be picked up--and were with time picked up--others of the +magic man's enchantments. "Literary Studies," but she passed over that, +the burning subject was not there. "Economic Studies"; it much was +there. "International Coinage." She read that! It approached the subject +of a Universal Money and her thought was, "Why, what a splendid idea +to have one coinage that would go everywhere!" And then, opening a new +field, and yet a connected field and a field profoundly engrossing to +her, "The English Constitution." How laws came; how laws worked; the +mysteriousness (her word) within the Council chambers that produced +governance as the mysteriousness within the countinghouses produced +wealth! The mysterious quality within precedent and necessity and change +that reproduced itself in laws as the mysterious quality within money +caused money to reproduce itself in wealth; the romance of governance. + +It was like that that her interests were shaping. + +It was very easy, it was utterly delightful, to tell all this to Keggo. +It was not at all easy, it was very terrible, to tell it before Uncle +Pyke. It was appalling, it was terrific, to break to the house in +Notting Hill that she desired to earn her living, not as a teacher, but +in business--like men. + +It was at dinner at the glittering table in the splendid dining-room of +the magnificent house in Notting Hill, Rosalie there on the half-term +week-end of her last term, that the frightful thing was done. At dinner: +Uncle Pyke Pounce bathing in his soup; beautiful Laetitia elegantly +toying with hers; Aunt Belle beaming over her solid silver spoon at +Rosalie. "Try that soup, dear child. It's delicious. My cook makes such +delicious soups. Lady Houldsworth Hopper--Sir Humbo Houldsworth Hopper, +you know he's in the India Office, you must have heard of him--was +dining with us last week and said she had never tasted such delicious +soup. It was the same as this. I asked cook specially to make it for +you. Now next term, when you are one of the mistresses at Oakwood House +and living at their table and you have soup, you'll be able to say--for +you must speak up when you are with them, dear child, and not be +shy--you'll be able to tell them what delicious soup you always get at +your Uncle Colonel Pyke Pounce's. Be sure to mention your Uncle by name, +Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., not just 'my uncle,' and that he was a great +deal in India where he was entirely responsible for the laying of the +Puttapong Railway and received an illuminated address from the Rajah +of Puttapongpoo, such a fine old fellow, not being allowed of course to +take a present, which you have seen many times hanging in his study in +his fine house in Pilchester Square, Notting Hill (some of them are +sure to have heard of Pilchester Square, though never visited there, of +course); your uncle will show you the address again after dinner; that +will be nice, won't it, dear? Won't you, Pyke?" + +(F-r-r-r-r-r-rup! from the splendid holder of the illuminated address +from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo, bathing in his soup.) + +"Be sure to speak up for yourself like that, dear child, and let them +know who you are and that though you are poor and have to earn your +living, you have wealthy relations (though of course we are only +comfortably off and do not pretend to be rich) and are not at all like +ordinary governesses. Be sure to, dear. There; now you've finished that +soup and wasn't it delicious, just? You will have another helping, I +know you will. A second helping of soup is not usual, dear, and Laetitia +or any one at any of our parties would never take it, but it's quite +different for you, and I do love to see you enjoy the nice food I get +for you. More soup for Miss Aubyn, Parker." + +Now for it! + +"Aunt, I won't have any more soup. I won't really. It was delicious. +Delicious, but really no more. Really. Aunt.... About the governesses +there and being one of them. I wanted to say... Aunt, I don't want to be +a pupil-teacher. Aunt..." + +Fr-r-r-r-rup! Frr-r-roosh! Woosh! Fr-r-r-roosh! + +It is the holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of +Puttapongpoo most terribly and fear-strikingly struggling up out of his +soup. "Don't want to be a pupil teacher? Wat d'ye mean? Wat d'ye mean?" + +"Why, Rosalie, darling!" It is the exquisitely beautiful daughter of the +holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo. + +"Never mind them, Rosalie. The dear child! Why, how crimson she is. Let +the dear child speak. What is it, dear child?" It is kind Aunt Belle. + +"Aunt Belle. Aunt Belle, I don't want to earn my living like that. +I want to earn it like--like a man. I want to--well, it's hard to +explain--to go to an office like a man--and have my pay every week, like +a man--and have a chance to get on like men, like a man. I want to go +into the City if I possibly could, or start in some way like going into +the City. I know it sounds awful--telling it to you--but girls are doing +it, a few. They're just secretaries and clerks, of course. They're just +nothing, of course. But, oh, it's something, and I do want it so. To +have office hours and a--a desk--and a--an employer and be--be like men. +I don't mean, I don't mean a bit, imitate men like all that talk there +is now about imitating men. I hate women in stiff collars and shirts +and ties and mannishness like that; and indeed I hate--I dislike men--I +can't stand them, not in that way, if you understand what I mean--" + +".Rosalie!" (Laetitia.) + +"Oh, Laetitia, oh, Aunt Belle, I'm only saying that to show I don't mean +I want to be--. It is so fearfully difficult to explain, this. But Aunt, +you do see what I am trying to mean. It's just a man's work that I mean +because I'd love it and because I don't see why--. And it's just that +particular kind of work--in the City. Because I believe, I do believe, +I would be sharp and good at that work. Figures and things. I love +that. I'm quick at that, very quick. And I've read heaps about it--about +business I mean--about--" + +Uncle Pyke Pounce. Uncle Pyke Pounce, holding his breath because he is +holding his exasperation as one holds one's breath in performance of a +delicate task. Uncle Pyke Pounce crimson, purply blotched, infuriated, +kept from his food, blowing up at last at the parlour-maid: "Bring in +the next course! Bring in the next course! Watyer staring at? Watyer +waiting for? Watyer listening to? Rubbish. Pack of rubbish." + +The parlour-maid flies out on the gust of the explosion. Rosalie +finishes her sentence while the gust inflates again. + +"Read heaps about it--about business--about trade and finance and that. +It fascinates me." + +The gust explodes at her. + +"Wat d'yer mean read about it? Read about what?" + +"Uncle, about money, about finance and things. I know it's extraordinary +I should like such things. But I do. I can't tell why. It's like--like a +romance to me, all about money and how it is made and managed. There's +a book I found in father's study at home. 'Lombard Street' by Bagehot. +That's all about it, isn't it? I can't tell you how I have read it and +reread it." + +"Never heard of it. 'Lombard Street?' Bagehot? Who's Bagehot?" + +"I think he was a banker, Uncle." + +"I think he was a fool!" + +It comes out of the red and swollen face of the holder of the +illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo like a plum-stone +spat at her across the table. Rosalie blinked. These beastly men! +Violent, vulgar, fat, rude beasts! Uncle Pyke the worst of them! But she +came back bravely from her flinch. "If he wasn't a banker, he knew all +about banking. Oh, that's what I would be more than anything--that's +what I do want to be--a banker--in a bank!" + +The holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo as +if, having expectorated the plum-stone, he desired to expectorate also +the taste thereof, spat out an obscene sound of contempt and disgust. +"Fah! I say the man, whoever he was, was a fool. And I say this, Miss. I +don't often speak sharply, but I say that I think I know another fool--a +little fool--at this table. Pah! Enough of it! What's this? Trout?" + +Aunt Belle to the rescue! If Uncle Pyke and Aunt Belle had kept house in +Seven Dials instead of Notting Hill, Uncle Pyke would have beaten Aunt +Belle and Aunt Belle would have taken the blows without flinching and +then have wheedled Uncle Pyke with drops of gin. As it was, Uncle +Pyke was merely boorish or torpidly savage towards Aunt Belle and Aunt +Belle's way with him--as with all combative men--was to rally him with a +kind of boisterous chaff and to discharge it at him as an urchin with an +armful of snowballs fearfully discharges them at an old gentleman in a +silk hat: backing away, that is to say, before an advance and advancing +before a retreat. Uncle Pyke usually retreated, either to eat or sleep. + +Aunt Belle had blinked, as Rosalie had blinked, at that horrible +epithet "Little fool!" across the table. The lips that uttered it were +immediately stuffed with trout and Aunt Belle immediately rushed in in +her rallying way to the rescue. "Why, you great, big stupid Uncle Pyke!" +cried Aunt Belle vivaciously. "It's you who don't know what you're +talking about, you unkind old thing, you. Why, many, many girls, quite +nice girls, are going into business now and being secretaries and things +and doing very, very well indeed. Why, I declare it would do you good to +have a lady secretary yourself in that big, dusty office of yours in the +City, never dusted from one year's end to another, I'm sure! Laetitia, +wouldn't it do your father good, the cross, grumpy old thing? Give your +master some more of the sauce, Parker. Isn't that trout delicate and +nice, Pyke? Trout for a pike! And I'm sure very like a nasty, savage old +pike the way you tried to gobble up poor Rosalie, the dear child. Now, +Rosalie, dear child, I think that's a very, very good idea of yours to +go into business. I think it's a splendid idea, and more and more quite +nice girls will soon be doing it. Now we'll just see what we can do and +we'll make that cross old uncle help and ask all his cross old friends +in the City, just to punish him. A young Lady Clerk, or a young Lady +Secretary! Now I think that's the very, very thing for you. Just the +thing, and a dear, clever child to think of it. Yes!" + +Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Victory through Aunt Belle! Accomplishment! A +career like a man! Aunt Belle had said it and Aunt Belle would do it! A +career like a man! Oh, ecstatic joy! "Lombard Street" had been brought +with her in her week-end suitcase. Directly she could get to bed +she rushed up to it and took it out and read, and read. It was all +underlined. She underlined it more that happy, happy night! + +Ah, never underline a book till you are forty. Never memorialise what +you were, your lovely innocence, your generous heart, your ardent hopes, +lest the memorial be found one day by what you have become. Rosalie, +finding that "Lombard Street," unearthed from lumber, in long after +years, turned over the pages and from the pages ghosts rushed up and +filled the room, and filled the air, and filled her heart, and filled +her eyes; and she rent the book across its perished binding and pushed +it from her with both her hands on to the fire and on to the flames in +the fire. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Incredibly soon, so stealthy swift is time, came this last term of +Rosalie's at the Sultana's. Time does not play an open game. It's of the +cloak and dagger sort. It stalks and pounces. Rosalie was astonished +to think she was leaving; and now the time had come she was sorry to be +going. Not very sorry; very excited; but having just enough regret to +realise, on looking back, that she had been very happy at school and to +realise, actively, happiness in this last term. One knows what it is. +It's always like that. One always was happy; one so seldom is. Happiness +to be realised needs faint perception of sadness as needs the egg the +touch of salt to manifest its flavour. Flashes of entertainment may +enliven the most wretched of us; but that's pleasure; that's not +happiness. One comes to know the only true and ideal happiness is +happiness tinctured with faintest, vaguest hint of tears. It is peace; +and who knows peace that has not come to it through storm, or knoweth +storm ahead, or in storm past hath not lost one that would have shared +this peace? + +So that girl's last term was (in her words) "tremendously jolly." She +was just eighteen, and she was leaving, and responsive to this the +harness of the school was drawn off her as at the paddock gate the +headstall from a colt. She was out of lessons. She did some teaching of +the younger girls. She was on terms with the mistresses. She had the run +of Keggo's room. + +Such talks in Keggo's room.... She was out from the cove of childhood; +she was into the bay of youth; breasting towards the sea of womanhood +(that sea that's sailed by stars and by no chart); and she was +encountering tides that come to young mariners to perplex them and Keggo +could talk about such things with the experience that so enraptures +young mariners and of which young mariners are at the same time so +confidently contemptuous, so superiorly sceptical. Nearer to press the +simile, youth at the feet of experience is as one, experienced, climbing +a mountain with the young thing panting behind. "Go on! Go on!" pants +the growing young thing. "This is ripping. Go on. Show the way. But I +don't want your hand. I can do it easily by myself--better." And one +evening while Rosalie stumblingly explained, and eagerly received, and +sceptically doubted, "But look here, Keggo," she cried, and stopped and +blushed, abashed at her use of the nickname. + +Miss Keggs laughed. "Don't mind, Rosalie. Call me Keggo. I like it. It's +much more friendly. I'm very fond of you, Rosalie." + +They were by the oil stove, Miss Keggs in her wicker armchair, Rosalie +on the floor, her back propped against Miss Keggs's knees. One of Miss +Keggs's hands was on Rosalie's shoulder and she moved it to touch the +girl's face. "Are you fond of me, Rosalie?" + +Rosalie turned towards her and spoke impulsively. "Oh, awfully--Keggo." + +The woman stooped and kissed the growing young thing, hugging her +strongly, pressing her lips upon the lips of Rosalie with a great +intensity. "Oh, I shall be sorry when you go, Rosalie." + +"We can still be friends, Keggo dear." + +Miss Keggs shook her head. "Ships that pass in the night." + +"O Keggo!" + +Miss Keggs smiled, a wintry smile. "O Rosalie!" she mimicked. She +sighed. "Oh, my dear, it's true--true! Don't you remember how the lines +go-- + + + 'Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; + Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.' + + +Just remember that in a few years. You'll hail again perhaps. 'O Keggo!' +Or I--it is more likely--wilt hail 'O Rosalie!' Just remember it then." +Her hand came down to Rosalie and Rosalie took it. It was so cold; and +on her face a strained and beaten look as though hand and face belonged +to one that stood most chilled and storm-beat upon the bridge, peering +through the storm. Her fingers made no motion responsive to Rosalie's +warm touch. She said strangely, as though it was to herself she spoke, +"Does it mean anything to you, Rosalie, a vision like that? Can you +see a black and violent night and a ship going by full speed, and one +labouring, and through the wind and the blackness a hail.--and gone, and +the wreck left foundering?" + +Ah, that most generous and quickly moved and loving-Rosalie--then! How +she twisted to her knees and stretched her arms about that poor Keggo, +sitting there--so drooped! How readily into her eyes her young and warm +and ardent sympathies pressed the tears, their flowers! How warm her +words? How warmly spoken! "O Keggo! Keggo, dear! Keggo, why do you talk +like that? How can you? After all the kindness you've shown me, accusing +me that I'll forget and not mind. Keggo, you shan't. You mustn't." + +Then Keggo responded, catching her arms about Rosalie and straining +Rosalie to her as though here was some cable to hold against the driving +sea. "O Rosalie!" + +And after a little Rosalie said, "You won't again say I ever shall +forget, or hail and pass by. Oh, that was cruel, Keggo!" + +Keggo was gently crying. "Natural. Natural." + +"Unnatural. Horrible. And you? Why do you say such things about +yourself? You didn't mean it? It's nothing? How can you ever be a wreck, +foundering?" + +Keggo dried her eyes and by her voice seemed to put those things right +away. "No, nothing. Of course not. Darling girl, only this--you're +young--young and so of course you are going by full sail as young things +do. Full sail! O happy ship! Rosalie, go on telling. Go on asking. I +love it, Rosalie." + +She was always "Keggo" after that; and the things that Rosalie told and +asked! + +Such things! It is to be seen that now there were bursting into blossom +out of bud within that Rosalie those seeds planted in her by the +extraordinary ideas of her childhood. About men. First and always +predominating, about men as compared with women--their wonder, their +power, their importance, their infinite superiority; then about men in +their relations with women--their rather grand and noisy ways that made +Rosalie blink; their interfering presence that spoilt lessons and spoilt +walks; those sinister attributes of theirs, arising somehow out of their +freedom to do as they liked in the world, that somehow left the world +very hard for women. Grotesque ideas, but masterful ideas, masterfully +shaping the child mind wherein they germinated; burrowing in clutchy +roots; pressing up in strong young saplings. Agreed the child is father +of the man, but much more the girl is mother of the woman. It is the +man's part to sow and ride away; conception is the woman's office and +that which she receives she tends to cherish and incorporate within her. +Of her body that function is her glory; of her mind it is her millstone. +Man always rides away, a tent dweller and an Arab, with a horse and with +the plains about him; woman is a dweller in a city with a wall, a house +dweller, storing her possessions about her in her house, abiding with +them, not to be sundered from them. + +So with that Rosalie. Those childhood ideas of hers were grotesque ideas +but she had received them into her house and they remained with her, +shorn of their grotesqueness, as garish furniture may be upholstered +in a new pattern, but tincturing her life as the appointments of a +room will influence the mood of one that sits therein. Father owned the +world--all males had proprietorship in the world under father--all +men were worshipful and giants and genii. That was the established +perception and those its earliest images. The perception remained, +deepening, changing only in hue, as a viscid liquid solidifies and +darkens in a vessel over the fire. It remained, persisted. Time but +steadied the focus as the wise oculist, seeking for his patient the +perfect image, drops lenses in the frame through which the vision +chart is viewed. In a little the perfect image is found. There was that +Rosalie, come to maidenhood, come to the dizzy edge of leaving school, +with the perfect image of her persistent obsession; with the belief no +longer that men were magicians having the world for their washpot and +women for their footstool, but unquestionably that they "had a better +time" than women and that they secured this "better time" by virtue of +their independence. + +"And, Keggo," (she is explaining it) "I'm going to be like that. I'm +going to be what a man can be. Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't a woman?" +She paused and then went on. "Why, that's the thing that's been with me +all my life, ever since I can remember. I've always known that men were +the creatures. Always. Since I was so high. Oh, I used to have the most +ridiculous ideas about them. You'd scream, Keggo. And I've always had +the same attitude towards them--towards them as contrasted with women, I +mean. First awe, then envy, then, since I've been growing up here, just +as having a desirable position in life, as having the desirable position +in life, independence, a career, work, freedom, a goal--yes, and a goal +that's always and always a little bit in front of you, always something +better. That's the thing. That's the thing, Keggo. Just look at the +other side. Take a case in point. Take my painful cousin, Laetitia, +sweet but in lots of ways very painful. What's her goal? A good match! +A good match! Did you ever hear anything so futile and sickening? +Sickening in itself, but I'll tell you what's really sickening about +it--why, that she'll get it--get her goal and then it's done, over, +finished, won. Settle down then and get fat. Oh, I don't want a goal I +can win. I want a goal I can't win. One that's always just in front." + +She suddenly realised the intensity of her voice and laughed and shook +her head sideways and back. She had just recently put her hair up and +it still felt funny and tight and the laugh and the shake eased away +the tightness of voice and of hair. She said thoughtfully, "You know, +I believe I'm rather like a man in many ways, in points of view. It's +through always thinking them better, I daresay. The ideas I've had about +them!" and she laughed again. She said slowly, "Though mind you, Keggo, +they are better in many ways. They can get away from things. They don't +stick about on one thing. And they're violent, not fussing. When they're +angry they bawl and hit and it's over and they forget it. They don't +just nag on and on. Oh, yes, they're better." + +She extended her palms to the oil flame, and watching the X-ray-like +effects of the light and shadow upon her fingers, she added +indifferently, as one idly letting drop a remark requiring no comment, +negligently with the voice of one saying "Tomorrow is Tuesday," or "It's +mutton today,"--"Of course they're beasts," she added. + +"Of course they're beasts." It was the adjusted image to which she had +brought that other perception of men which, running parallel with the +perception of their superior position, had permeated her childhood +years. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She's left the school! She's living in the splendid house in Pilchester +Square looking for a post! + +She's found a post! She's private secretary to Mr. Simcox! + +She's left the splendid house in Pilchester Square! She's living an +independent life! She's going to Mr. Simcox's office, her office, every +day, just like a man! She's living on her own salary in a boarding house +in Bayswater! + +What jumps! One clutches, as at flying papers in a whirlwind, at a +stable moment in which to pin her down and describe her as she jumps. +One can't. The thing's too breathless. It's a maelstrom. It's an +earthquake. It's a deluge. It's a boiling pot. It's youth. What it must +be to live it! One thing pouring on to another so that it's impossible +anywhere to pick hold of a bit that isn't changing into something else +even as it is examined. That's youth all over. Always and all the time +all change. What it must be to live it! + +What it must be! Why, when youth comes bursting out of tutelage there's +not a stable thing beneath its feet nor above its head a sky that stays +the same for two hours together! Every stride's a stepping-stone that +tilts and throws you; every dawn a sudden midnight even while it breaks, +and every night a blinding brilliance when it's darkest. New faces, new +places, new dresses, new dishes; new foes, new friends; new tasks, new +triumphs; never a pause, never a platform; every day a year and every +year a day--not life on a firm round world but life in the heart of a +whirling avalanche. How youth can live it! And all the time, all the +time while poor, dear youth is hurtling through it, there's age, instead +of streaming sympathy like oil upon those boiling waters, standing +in slippered safety, in buttoned dignity, in obese repose, bawling at +tumbling youth, "Why can't you settle down! Why can't you settle down! +Why do you behave like that? Why can't you do as I do? Why can't you +be like your wise and sober Uncle Forty? Or like your good and earnest +Auntie Fifty? Why can't you behave like your pious grandmother? Why +can't you imitate your noble grandfather? Oh, grrrr-r, why can't you, +you impious, unnatural, ill-mannered, irresponsive, irresponsible +exasperating young nuisance, you!" Is it any wonder poor youth bawls +back, or feels and behaves like bawling back, "How to goodness can I +behave like my infernal uncle or my maddening aunt when I'm whirling +along head over heels in the middle of a roaring avalanche?" + +Oh, poor youth, that all have lived but none remembers! + +One clings, faut au mieux, to the intention to tell of her life only +the things in her life that contributed to her record, as records are +judged. There shall be enormous omissions. They shall be excused by +vital insertions. + +She shall be glimpsed, first, in the splendid house in Pilchester +Square, in the desperate business that getting a place for a woman in a +business house was when women were in business houses far more rare +than are silk hats in the City in 1922. It was desperate. Uncle Pyke +and Uncle Pyke's friends were the only channel of opportunity; and Uncle +Pyke and Uncle Pyke's friends refused to be a channel of opportunity. +They had never heard of such a thing and they desired to bathe in their +soup and smack over their wine and not be troubled with such a thing. + +Aunt Belle rallied them and baited them and told them they were "great +big grumpy things"; and Aunt Belle, in her crowded drawing-room, loved +talking about the search for work and did talk about it. "Has to earn +her own living," Aunt Belle would chatter, "and is going into business! +Oh, yes, ever so many girls who have to earn their own living are going +into business now. She'll wear a nice tailormade coat and skirt and +carry a little satchel and flick about on the tops of buses, in the City +at nine and out again at six and a nice plain wholesome lunch with a +glass of milk in a tea shop. Oh, it's wonderful what girls who have to +earn their own living do nowadays. Quite right, you know. Quite right, +(for them). Come over here, Rosalie. Come over here, dear child, and +tell Mrs. Roodle-Hoops what you are going to do. The dear child!" + +But nothing done. + +Just that glimpse and then comes Mr. Simcox. + +Mr. Simcox was first met by Rosalie while walking with Aunt Belle and +beautiful cousin Laetitia in the Cromwell Road. He came along carrying +a letter in his hand with the obvious air of one who will forget to post +it if he puts it in his pocket and probably will forget to do so in +any case. He was as obviously "a man of about fifty-six" that curiously +precise figure, neither a ten nor a five, always used for men who look +as Mr. Simcox looked and always continued to look while Rosalie knew +him, and probably always had looked. Men of "about fifty-six"--one +never says "about thirty-six" or "about sixty-six"; it would be "about +thirty-five" or "about seventy"--men of "about fifty-six" are almost +certainly born at that age and with that appearance and they seem to +continue in it to their graves. + +Mr. Simcox was like that, and was short and had two little bunchy grey +whiskers, and wore always a pepper and salt jacket suit, unbuttoned, the +pockets of which always bulged and the skirts of which, containing +the pockets, always swayed and flapped. When he talked he was always +talking--if that is understood--and when he was busy he was always +frantically busy and looking at the clock or at his watch as if it were +going to explode at a certain rapidly approaching hour and he must at +all costs be through with what he was doing before it did explode. He +talked in very rapid jerks, always seeming to be about to come to rest +and then instantaneously bounding off again, rather like a man bounding +along stepping-stones, red-hot stepping-stones that each time burnt his +feet and set him flying off again. + +He had been in the Bombay house of a firm of indigo merchants and there +had known Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke. He had retired and settled in +London and he now came very briskly up to Aunt Belle, to Rosalie and +to beautiful Laetitia, greeting them and bursting into full stream of +chatter while he was yet some distance away; and, having been introduced +to Rosalie and snatched at her hand precisely as if doing so while +shooting in midair between one red-hot stepping-stone and the next, +whizzed presently to "I really came out to post a letter" and flapped +the letter in the air as if it were a bothersome thing stuck to his +fingers and refusing absolutely to be stuffed into a post-box. + +"Why, there's a pillar-box just there; you've just passed it," cried +Rosalie. + +"Why, so there is!" exclaimed Mr. Simcox, jumping round to stare at +the pillar-box as if it had stretched out an arm and given him a sudden +punch in the back, and then spinning towards Rosalie and staring at her +rather as if he suspected her of having put the pillar-box there while +he was not looking; and while Mr. Simcox was so exclaiming and so doing +Rosalie had said, "Do let me just post it for you. Do let me," and had +snapped the obstinate letter from his fingers, and posted it and was +back again smiling at Mr. Simcox, whom she rather liked and who reminded +her very much of a jack-in-the-box. + +Indeed with his quick ways, his shortness, his bushy little grey +whiskers and his pepper and salt suit with its flapping pockets, Mr. +Simcox was very like one of those funny little jack-in-the-boxes they +used to sell. He said to her, regarding her with very apparent pleasure +and esteem, "Well, that's very nice of you. That really is very nice +of you. And it's most wonderful. It is indeed. Do you know, I must have +walked more than a mile looking for a letter-box and I daresay I should +have walked another mile and then forgotten it and taken the letter home +again." He addressed Aunt Belle: "It's a most astonishing thing, Mrs. +Pyke Pounce, but I cannot post a letter. I positively cannot post a +single letter. When I say single, I do not mean I can post no letter at +all. No, no. Far from it. I mean I can post no letter singly, by itself, +solus. My daily correspondence, my office batch, I take out in a bundle, +perhaps in a table basket. That is simple. But a single letter--as you +see, a clever young lady like this has to find a box for me or I +might carry the thing for days together. Astonishing that, you +know. Astonishing, annoying, and mind you, sometimes serious and +embarrassing." + +"Why, you busy, busy person, you!" cried Aunt Belle with her customary +air towards a man of shaking her finger at him. "You very busy person! +Fancy a basket full of correspondence! Why what a heap you must have!" + +Mr. Simcox said he had indeed a heap. "Sometimes I think more than I can +manage." + +"Indeed," agreed Aunt Belle, "you don't seem to have much time to spare. +Why, I haven't seen you in my drawing-room for quite a month ("You busy +little creature, you," expressed without being stated). I expect you're +getting very rich and disagreeable." ("You rich little rascal, you!") + +Mr. Simcox declared that as to that his business wasn't one to get rich +at. "In no sense. Oh, no, in no sense. It keeps me occupied. It gives +me an interest. That's all. No more than that." As to Mrs. Pyke Pounce's +delightful drawing-room, most certainly he had been there less than a +month ago and most certainly he would present himself again on the +very next opportunity. To-morrow, was it? He would without fail present +himself there tomorrow, "and I hope," said Mr. Simcox, taking his leave, +"I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing my postmistress there again." +He smiled very cordially at Rosalie and went flapping away up the street +at the pace and with the air, not of one who had come out to post a +letter and had posted it, but of one who had come out to post a letter, +had dropped it, and was flying back to look for it. + +"Oh, isn't he an ugly little monster!" cried Aunt Belle, resuming the +walk. + +"But I think he's nice," said Rosalie. "What is his business, Aunt +Belle?" + +Aunt Belle hadn't an idea. "He's an agent," said Aunt Belle, "but an +agent for what I'm sure I don't know. He's a very mysterious, fussy, +funny little person. We knew him in Bombay where he had a very good +position, but he retired and what he does now I'm sure I can't say. But +he's very busy. You heard him say how busy he is. Rosalie, he might know +of something for you. We'll ask him, dear child. The funny, ugly little +monster! We'll ask him. He might help." + +He did help. A very short while afterwards, Rosalie received the +appointment of Private Secretary to Mr. Simcox; twenty-five shillings +a week; one pound five shillings a week! Office hours ten to five! +Saturdays ten to one! Holiday a fortnight a year! A man's work! A man's +weekly salary! A man's office hours! The ecstasy of it! The ecstasy! + +The matter with Mr. Simcox was that, in India a man of affairs, in +England he found himself a man of no affairs and a man who had "lost +touch." On a leave from the Bombay house of the indigo firm he had been +prevailed upon by his mother and his maiden sister to remain at home and +look after them and he had done it and gone on doing it, and they had +died and he had never married, and he had now no relatives, and by +this and by that (as he told Rosalie early in her installation) he had +dropped out of friendships and, as he expressed it "lost touch." He +owned and occupied one of those enormous houses in Bayswater. It had +been his mother's and he lived on in it after her death and the death +of his sister, alone with a housekeeper. The housekeeper resided in the +vast catacombs of the basement of the enormous house; Mr. Simcox resided +in the immense reception rooms, miles above, of the first floor; the +three suites above him, scowling gloomily across a square at the twin +mausoleums opposite, were unoccupied and un-visited; on the first floor +Mr. Simcox had his office. The business done in this office, which +Rosalie was now to assist, and why it was done, was in this wise and was +thus explained to Rosalie. + +Mr. Simcox, more than ever dropped out and more than ever having lost +touch after the deaths of his sister and mother, found himself irked +more than anything else by the absence of correspondence. He had been +accustomed in India to a big receipt of letters--a big dhak, as he +called it, using the Hindustani word--now he received no letters at all; +and he told Rosalie that when you are in the habit of getting a regular +daily post, its gradual falling off and then its complete cessation is +one of the most melancholy things that can befall a man. A nice bunch of +letters in the morning, he said, is like a cold bath to a young man, a +stimulant and an appetiser; and a similar packet by the night delivery +is an entertainment to look forward to from sunset till it arrives and +the finest possible digestive upon which to go to bed. Mr. Simcox found +himself cut off from both these necessities of a congenial life and it +depressed him beyond conception. Dressing in the morning he would hear +the postman come splendidly rat tatting along the square and would hold +his breath for that glorious thunder to come echoing up from his own +front door--and it never did. Only the sound of the footsteps came, +hurrying past--always. + +Set to his solitary dinner in the evening, again would come along that +glorious, reverberating music, and again Mr. Simcox would hold his +breath as it approached and again--! Oh, particularly in the winter, +it was awful, Mr. Simcox told Rosalie. Awful; she wouldn't believe how +awful it was. In the winter, in the dark nights, there is, Mr. Simcox +said, about the sound of the postman banging along the doors something +that is the sheer essence of all the mystery, and all the poetry, and +all the life, and all the comfort, and all the light and all the warmth +in the world. Often on winter nights Mr. Simcox would get up quickly +from the table (He couldn't help it) and go tiptoe (Why tiptoe? He +didn't know. You had to. It was the mystery and the aching atmosphere of +the thing) tiptoe across the room to the window, and draw an inch of +the heavy curtain and peer out into the darkness and towards the music. +There would be the little round gleam of the postman's lantern, bobbing +along as he hurried. And flick! it was gone into a doorway, and rat-tat, +flick, and there it was again--coming! Flick, rat-tat! Flick, flick, +rat-tat! Coming, coming! Growing larger, growing brighter, growing +louder! Next door now. They always get it next door. Flick, rat-tat! +What a crasher! You can feel it echo! Flick! Now then! Now then! How it +gleams! He's stopped! He's looking at his letters! He's coming in! +He is--ah, he's passed; he's gone; it's over; nothing... nothing for +here.... Rat-tat! That's next door. The party wall shakes. The lustres +on the mantelpiece shake. Mr. Simcox's hands shake. He sits down, pushes +his plate away.... + +It is absurd; it is ridiculous, of course it is; but it was pathetic, +it was moving, as it was received from Mr. Simcox by that young and most +warm-hearted Rosalie. Her eyes positively were caused to blink as she +listened. She had an exact vision of that funny little jack-in-the-box +figure up from the table and tiptoeing across the enormous dining +room in his little pepper and salt suit with the pockets swaying, not +flapping, as he trod along, and opening that inch of the heavy curtain +and pressing out his gaze through the black window pane, and watching +the gleam and the flick and then the crash and the gleam again, and then +holding his breath and hearing his heart go thump, and then dropping the +curtain, and back again, with his hands shaking a little and hearing the +lustres tinkle.... + +Yes, very moving to that Rosalie in her youth and warmth. She had +actually to touch her nose (high up, between her eyes) with her +handkerchief and she said, "Oh, Mr. Simcox.... Yes, and then what?" + +"Then what? Ah! 'Then what' is this." They were seated in Mr. Simcox's +great office on the ground floor. The office of a man of many affairs. +A very large writing table furnished with every conceivable facility for +writing, not only note papers and envelopes racked up in half a dozen +sizes, but sealing waxes in several hues, labels, string, "In" basket, +"Out" basket, "Pending Decision" basket, all sorts of pens, all sorts +of pencils, wafers, clips, scales, letter weights, rulers--the +table obviously of a man to whom correspondence was a devotional, an +engrossing, an exact art, and an art practised on an expansive, an +impressive, and a lordly scale. There were also in the office a very +large plain table on which were spread newspapers, a basket containing +clippings from newspapers, an immense blue chalk for marking newspapers +and a very long, also a very short, pair of scissors for cutting out +clippings from newspapers. A range of filing cabinets stood against one +wall; a library of directories and catalogues occupied shelves against +another wall. + +"'Then what' is this," said Mr. Simcox, indicating these impressive +appointments of the room with a wave of his hand. "You ask me 'then +what?' 'Then what' is all this. 'Then what' has grown now to be you. +I'll tell you." + +It was this--the oddest, most eccentric notion (not that Rosalie it +thought so). Mr. Simcox, cut off from letters, had determined that he +must get letters. He would get letters. If the postman would not come of +himself (so to speak) then he must be forced to come. And Mr. Simcox set +about forcing him to come by answering advertisements. Not employment +advertisements; no; the advertisements to which Mr. Simcox re-plied were +the advertisements that offered to send you something for nothing--that +implored you to permit them to send you something for nothing. They +are common objects of the periodical press. Every paper is stuffed with +them. "Write for free samples." "Catalogues." "Trial packet sent +post free on application." "Write for our beautifully illustrated +art brochure." "Descriptive booklet by return." "Write for full +particulars." "Free sample bottle sufficient for seven days' trial." +"Approval gladly. Postpaid." "Plans and particulars of the sole agents." +"Superbly printed art volume on receipt of postcard." + +The advertisement columns of every paper are stuffed with them and soon +the letter-box of Mr. Simcox was stuffed with them. The postman who +never stopped at Mr. Simcox's house now never missed Mr. Simcox's house. +He went on a lighter and a brisker man after having dealt with Mr. +Simcox's house. The agitation with which his approach was heard was +now exchanged for a superb confidence as his approach was heard. The +deliveries that for Mr. Simcox had never been deliveries were now, +not deliveries, but avalanches. They roared into the letter-box of Mr. +Simcox. They cascaded upon the floor of the hall of Mr. Simcox. + +A mail thus composed does not perhaps sound interesting. Mr. Simcox, +once he had got into the full swing of the thing, discovered it to be +profoundly and exhaustively interesting. It possessed in the highest +degree the two primary essentials of a really good mail,--surprise and +variety. There would always be two or three fascinating little parcels, +there would always be two or three handsome packets, there would always +be two or three imposing looking letters. No common correspondence could +possibly have had the number of attractively boxed gifts, the amount of +handsomely printed literary and il-lustrated matter, and certainly not +the unfailing persistency of flow, that constituted the correspondence +of Mr. Simcox. + +The mine once discovered proved to be a mine inexhaustible and +containing lodes or galleries of new and unsuspected wealth. Mr. Simcox +took in but two daily papers, and two penny weekly papers, and they +might well have sufficed. But an appetite whetted and an eye opened +they did not suffice. There thundered from the Bayswater free library a +positive babel of cries from advertisers in the score of journals +there displayed, howling for Mr. Simcox graciously to permit them to +contribute their toll to his letter-box; and there were at the news +agents periodicals catering for every specialised class of the community +and falling over themselves to put before Mr. Simcox the full range +of the mysteries, the luxuries and the necessities of every trade +and profession and pursuit, from shipbuilding to cycling and from +ironmongery to the ownership of castles, moors, steam yachts and salmon +fisheries. + +Mr. Simcox, entirely happy, one of the busiest men that might be found +in the metropolis, struck out new lines. Hitherto he had received his +correspondence interestedly and pleasurably but passively. He began +to take it up actively and sharply. He began to write back, either +graciously approving or very sharply criticising his samples, +his specimens and his free trials; and the advertisers responded +voluminously, either abjectly with regret and enclosing further samples +for Mr. Simcox's esteemed trial, or abjectly with delight and soliciting +the very great favour of utilising Mr. Simcox's esteemed letter for +publicity purposes. This, however, Mr. Simcox, courteously but firmly, +invariably refused to permit. + +The engagement of Rosalie was a development of Mr. Simcox's hobby as +natural as the development of any other hobby from rabbit breeding to +china collecting. The craze intensifies, the scope is enlarged. To have +a secretary made Mr. Simcox's mail and the work that produced his mail +even more real than already it had become to him. Following up the +personal touch that had been discovered by the criticism of samples, +Mr. Simcox had opened up a line that produced the personal touch in +most intimate degree: personal touch with schools and with insurance +companies. He created for himself sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, +wards. He endowed them, severally, with ages, with backwardness, with +brilliancy, with robustness, with delicacy, with qualities that were +immature and required development, with absence of qualities that +were desirable and required implanting, with unfortunate tendency to +qualities that were undesirable and needed repression and nipping in the +bud. He placed these children, thus handicapped or endowed, before +the principals of selected schools; he desired that terms and full +particulars might be placed before him to assist him in the anxious task +of right selection. They were placed before him. "Your backward nephew +Robin" (to take a single example) engaged the personal attention of +preparatory schoolmasters from Devonshire to Cumberland and from Norfolk +to Carnarvon. Similarly with insurance companies. Again dependents +and friends were created, by the dozen, by Mr. Simcox. Male and female +created he them, cumbered with all imaginable risks, and darkly brooding +upon all manner of contingencies; and male and female, cumbered and +perplexed, they were studied and advised upon by insurance companies +earnest beyond measure to show Mr. Simcox what astounding and +unparalleled benefits could be obtained for them. + +At the time when Rosalie joined him, Mr. Simcox's attention was in much +greatest proportion devoted to this development of his pursuit. Under +the instruction of a friend, long since dropped out and lost, who had +held a considerable position in a leading assurance company, he had +acquired a sound working knowledge of the principles and mysteries of +insurance. The subject had greatly interested him. In the phrase he used +to Rosalie he had "taken it up"; and in the phrase that so often sequels +and rounds off a thing suddenly "taken up" he had suddenly "dropped it." +He now, by way of the new development of his correspondence, approached +it again. It received him as a former habitation receives a returned +native. Mr. Simcox (if the metaphor may be pursued) roamed all about +the familiar rooms and corridors of the house of the principles and +mysteries of insurance. His knowledge of its possibilities enabled him +to develop an astonishing ingenuity in creating cases ripe and yearning +for the benefits of provision against contingencies, and as he very +easily was able to prove to Rosalie, and found immense delight in +proving, he had under his finger, that is to say in his exquisitely +arranged filing cabinets, also in his head, a range of insurance +companies' literature which enabled him to work out for any conceivable +case the most suitable office or offices and the finest possible cover +for his risks. "Different companies specialize," said Mr. Simcox, "in +different classes of risk. A man should no more walk into one of the +leading offices just because it happens to be one of the leading offices +and there take out his policy or policies than he should walk into and +take for occupation the first vacant house he sees, merely because it +is, as a house, a good house. It may be a most excellent house but it +may not be in the least the house most suitable to his requirements." + +Rosalie nodded intelligently. "But how is a man to find out, Mr. +Simcox?" + +"Why, I suppose only by going round to every company and choosing the +best, just as I make out and send around these cases of mine. But of +course no one does that--the trouble for one thing, and ignorance for +another, and inability to realise their real requirements and to state +them clearly if they do realise them for a third. That's what it is." + +Rosalie's intelligent nodding had not ceased. She had a trick, when Mr. +Simcox was explaining things to her, of maintaining, with eyes fixed +widely upon him, a slow, affirmative movement of her head rather as +though she were some engine, and her head the dial, absorbing power +from a flow of energy. The dial never indicated repletion. Mr. Simcox +delighted to talk to Rosalie, to watch that grave movement of her head, +and to hear the short occasional "Why's?" and comments that came like +little spurts or quivers as of the engine in initial throbbings pulsing +the power it stored. + +She was absorbing power. The months were going on. The earlier +initiation into Mr. Simcox's business might have had a tinge of +disappointment were it not that, whatever the nature of her work, +manifestly work it was, paid for, with regular hours, with an office to +attend, such as a man might do. The tinge of disappointment, if she +had suffered it, would have stung out of the thought: Where, in this +manufactured correspondence, in this pretence at a business which was in +fact no business at all, where in all this was Lombard Street? Where the +romance and mystery of finance? Where the touch with the power that was +made in countinghouses and with the exercise of the power exerted from +those countinghouses? + +But it happened for Rosalie, first, that this thought could not come +because she was too busy with the glorious novelty of being in an office +and learning office ways; then, when the novelty had worn, that it could +not come because a new and a real element arrived to nullify it. In the +early days there was no realisation of sham because there was the real +business, to herself, of learning business methods and the whole theory +and practice of office routine. She could have had no better instructor +than Mr. Simcox, she could have had no better training than the +handling, the sorting and the filing of his curious and various +correspondence. She had become an efficient and a singularly apt and +keen office clerk when, more leisured because she had mastered her +duties, she might first have had time for realisation that Lombard +Street was not here nor all the romance and mystery with which she had +invested the power of countinghouses within a thousand miles of this +house of most elaborate pretence. And then, at once to prevent that +realisation and to dissipate its cause, came Lombard Street to her in +Mr. Simcox's new absorption in (to her) the mysteries and the romance +and the astounding possibilities of the business of insurance. How the +mammoth companies, whose names soon were as household words to +Rosalie, accumulated their enormous funds and invested them; how, while +provisioning for to-day, they must calculate against liabilities falling +due in a to-morrow generations ahead; how they would put their money +into property the leases of which would fall in and the estate become +marketable again perhaps a hundred years hence, when officers of +the company yet unborn would be looking to the prudence of those now +reigning to maintain the inflowing tide; how risks were calculated and +vital statistics and chances and averages studied--all this, delightedly +and delightfully narrated by Mr. Simcox (watching that gravely nodding +head and those wide intelligent eyes) was sheer fascination to the +mind that had found romance and mystery in "Lombard Street" as commonly +romance and mystery are found in poetry and music. + +Then one day she took a step towards applying the fascination that she +found. + +It was the day of the conversation that has been recorded. How, Rosalie +had asked, was the seeker after insurance to find the policies best +suited to his case? Rosalie had asked; and had been told--he must go +round but he never does; he must know what there is to be had but he +never does know; he must realise exactly what he really wants but he +never does realise it; and if he does realise it he must be able to +state it clearly but he never can state it clearly. + +Mr. Simcox, detailing this, permitted himself an amused contempt. The +public were ignoramuses, mere children; they knew nothing whatever about +insurance. + +Rosalie said in a voice consonant with the grave measure of her nods: +"Of course, if it was a man, as you said, looking for a house, he'd go +to an agent. A house agent would tell him of houses best suited to his +needs that he could choose between. Well, there are insurance agents. +You've told me about them." + +"Ah, but not the same thing, not the same thing," corrected Mr. Simcox. +"An insurance agent, the ordinary insurance agent, is agent for a +particular company. He only knows what his own company can do and he +only wants his own company to do it. That's no good to the kind of man +in the position we're speaking of. He wants some one who can tell him +what all the companies will do for him. Some one who can hear his case, +analyse it, put it before him in the right light and advise him the +best way of placing it. That's what he wants. Exactly the same as these +letters I send out--as you and I send out, I should say. Why, I've had +practical examples of it. There was a young fellow I met at your aunt's +house. There've been three or four cases of it for that matter but this +happens to be some one you know--" + +He proceeded to tell her of a visitor at Aunt Belle's, a young man home +on leave from the Indian army and recently married, with whom he had got +into conversation on the subject of insurance and had most ably helped. +The young man had a certain policy in view. Mr. Sim-cox had put an +infinitely better before him. "If he had come to me before his marriage +when he was first taking out a policy in his wife's favour, I could have +saved him and gained her hundreds, literally hundreds," said Mr. Simcox. +"He'd made a most awful mess of the business. As it was I helped him +very considerably. He was very grateful, devilish grateful. He went +straight to an agent of the office I recommended and did it." + +"There must be hundreds like him that would be grateful," said Rosalie. + +"Thousands," said Mr. Simcox. "Tens of thousands. Every single soul who +insures, you may say." + +"Who got the commission?" said Rosalie. + +"The agent, of course," said Mr. Simcox. + +"Oh," said Rosalie. + +"Why?" said Mr. Simcox. + +"Nothing," said Rosalie. "Only 'oh '." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +There's much virtue in an If, says Touchstone; and there's much virtue +in an "Oh"--a wise, a thoughtful, a speculative, a discerning "Oh" such +as that "Oh" pronounced by Rosalie to Mr. Simcox's information that +agents, and not he, drew the commissions for the insurance policies +which, out of his knowledge and experience, he had advised. There +followed from that "Oh" its plain outcome: her suggestion to Mr. Simcox +of why not make a business, a real business, of expert advice upon +insurance, and (out of the make-believe intercourse with schools) a +business, a real business, of expert advice upon schools? And there +shall follow also from that "Oh" a sweeping use of the intention that +has been mentioned to tell only of her life that which contributed to +her life. We'll fix her stage from first to last, then see her walk upon +it. + +This was her stage: Her suggestion was adopted. It has, astonishingly +soon, astonishing success. Advice upon insurance, advice upon schools, +commissions from each, are found wonderfully to work in together, each +bringing clients to the other. Aunt Belle's swarms of friends, their +swarms of friends, the swarms of friends of those swarms of friends, +and so on, snowball fashion, are the first nucleus of the thing. It +succeeds. It grows. Real offices are taken. "Simcox's." Advertisements, +clerks, banking-accounts. Appearance of Mr. Sturgiss, partner in Field +and Company--"Field's"--the bankers and agents. Field's is a private +bank. Its business is principally with persons resident in the East, +soldiers, civil servants, tea planters, East India merchants. Field's +is in Lombard Street. (Lombard Street!) Later Field's opens a West End +office. Field's is frequently asked to advise its clients and their +wives on all manner of domestic matters,--schools for their children, +holiday homes, homes for clients over on leave, insurance, investment, +whatnot, a hundred things. Comes to this Sturgiss, partner in Field's, +an idea of great possibilities in this advisory business if developed +as might be developed and run as might be run. Tremendously attracted by +Rosalie as the person for the job. Makes her an offer. She declines it. +Mr. Simcox's death. Sturgiss comes along again. Ends in Rosalie going +to Field's. Lombard Street! Room of her own in the big offices. Glass +partitioned. Huge mahogany table. Huge mahogany desk. Field's open the +West End office, in Pall Mall. More convenient for wives of clients. +Rosalie is moved there. Manager of her own side of the business. The war +comes. Sturgiss goes out. Other important officers of the bank go out. +Her importance increases very much in other sides of the bank's business +than her own. Press scents her out and writes her up. "The only woman +banker." "Brilliant woman financier." Contributes articles to the +reviews. Very much a leading woman of her day. Very much a most +remarkable woman. + +That's her stage. Thus she walked upon it: + +The beginning part--that tumult of youth, those dizzy jumps that we have +seen her in--was frightfully exciting, frightfully absorbing. She was +so tremendously absorbed, so terrifically intent, so tremendously eager, +that the transition from the Sultana's to Aunt Belle's, and the start +with Mr. Simcox, and the transition from Aunt Belle's to independence +in the boarding house, was done with scarcely a visit--and then a rather +grudged and rather impatient visit--to the rectory home. + +No, the absorption was too profound for much of that: indeed, for much +of home in any form. Letters came from Rosalie's mother three and four +times a week. In the beginning, when fresh left school and at Aunt +Belle's, Rosalie always kissed the dear handwriting on the envelope, +and kissed the dear signature before returning the letters to their +envelopes; and she would sit up late at night writing enormously long +and passionately devoted letters in reply. But she wasn't going back; +she wasn't going down; no, not even for a week-end, "my own darling +and beloved little mother," until she had found an employment and was +established on her own feet, "just like one of the boys." Then she would +come, oh, wouldn't she just! She would have an annual holiday, "just as +men have," and she would come down to the dear, beloved old rectory and +she would give her own sweet, adored little mother the most wonderful +time she ever could imagine! + +Rosalie would sit up late at night writing these most loving letters, +pages and pages long; and her mother's letters (which always arrived by +the first post) she would carry about with her all day and read again +before answering. + +And yet.... + +The fond intention in thus carrying them on her person instead of +bestowing them in her writing case was to read them a dozen times in the +opportunities the day would afford. And yet... Somehow it was not done. +The day of the receipt of the very first letter was generous of such +opportunities and at each of them the letter was remembered... but not +drawn forth. Rosalie did not attempt to analyse why not. Her repression, +each time, of the suggestion that the letter should now be taken out and +read again was not a deliberate repression. She merely had a negative +impulse towards the action and accepted it; and so negligible was the +transaction in her record of her thoughts, so mere a cypher in the petty +cash of the day's ledger, that in the evening when, gone up to bed, the +letter was at last drawn out and kissed and read and answered, and then +kissed and read again, no smallest feeling of remorse was suffered by +her to reflect that the intended reading in the dozen opportunities of +the day had not been done. + +And yet... Was it, perhaps, this mere acceptance of a negative impulse, +a cloud no bigger than the size of a man's hand upon the horizon of +her generous impulses? There is this to be admitted--that the letters, +accumulating, began to bulk inconveniently in her writing case. What +a lot dear mother wrote! Room might be made for them by removing or +destroying the letters from friends who had left the Sultana's with her, +but about those letters there was a peculiar attraction; they were from +other emancipated One Onlys who watched with admiration the progress in +her wonderful adventure of brilliant, unconventional Rosalie, and it was +nice thus to be watched. Or room for her mother's letters might be made +by removing or destroying letters that began to amass directly touching +her desire for employment--from city friends of Uncle Pyke, from Mr. +Simcox. But, no, unutterably precious those! Unutterably precious, too, +of course, those accumulating bundles of letters from her dear mother; +but precious on a different plane: they belonged to her heart; it was +to her head, to the voice in her that cried "Live your life--your +life--yours!" that these others belonged. + +She was tingling to that voice one night, turning over the employment +letters; and, tingling, put her mother's letters from her case to her +box. + +Yes, upon the horizon of her generous impulses perhaps the tiniest +possible cloud. And then perhaps enlarging. You see, she was so very +full of her intentions, of her prospects. She had read somewhere that +the perfect letter to one absent from home was a letter stuffed with +home gossip,--who had been seen and who was doing what, and what had +been had for dinner yesterday and whence obtained. But she did not +subscribe to that view. She was from home and her mother's letters were +minutest record of the home life; but she began to skip those portions +to read "afterwards." One day the usual letter was there at breakfast +and she put it away unopened so as to have "a really good, jolly read" +of it "afterwards." In a little after that she got the habit of always, +and for the same reason (she told herself) keeping the letters till the +evening. One day she gave the slightest possible twitch of her brows at +seeing the very, very familiar handwriting. She had had a letter only +the previous day and two running was not expected: more than that, this +previous letter had slightly vexed her by its iteration of the longing +to see her and by very many closely written lines of various little +troubles. She was a little impatient at the idea of a further edition of +it so soon. She forgot to open it that night. She remembered it when +she was in bed; but she was in bed then... When, next day, she read the +letter it was, again, an iteration of the longing to see her and, again, +more, much more, of the little troubles: the residue was of the gossipy +gossip that Rosalie already had formed the habit of skipping till +"afterwards." Altogether a vexatious letter. + +After that, when the letters were frequent, it was frequent for Rosalie +to greet the sight of them with just the swiftest, tiniest little +contraction of her brows. Nothing at all really. Meaning virtually +nothing and of itself absolutely nothing. Possessing a significance +only by contrast, as a fine shade in silk or wool will not disclose a +pronounced hue until contrasted with another. The contrast here, to give +the thing significance, was between that swiftest, tiniest contraction +of the brows at the sight of her mother's letters and the eager spring +to them, the quick snatching up, and the impulsive pressing to her lips +when first those letters began to come. Likewise answering them, that +had been an impulsive outpouring and brimming over, now was a very +slightly laboured squeezing. The pen, before, had flooded love upon the +page. Now the pen halted, paused, and had to think of expressions that +would give pleasure. + +The change did not happen at a blow. If it had, Rosalie would have +noticed it. It slipped imperceptibly from stage to stage and she did not +notice it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +There was a thing she said about men once (in the boarding house now) +and often repeated. "They're very fond of saying women are cats," she +once said. "Fools! It's men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby +cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren't they +just? And look at them--tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats +the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool +creatures, tomcats disgusting creatures, stray cats--on the whole the +stray cats are the least objectionable, they are bearable: at the right +time and for a short time." + +This characterisation of men as Rosalie, in sequent development of her +attitude towards men, had come to regard them was delivered to the girl +with whom (for cheapness) her room in the boarding house was shared. +Rosalie went from Aunt Belle's to this boarding house to assert and to +achieve her greater independence. A man, Rosalie debated, would have +gone into bachelor rooms; but young women did not go into bachelor rooms +in those days and the singularity of Rosalie's attitude towards life +is rather well presented in the fact that she never set herself against +conventions inhibitory of her sex merely because they were inhibitory +of her sex. When the years brought those violent scenes and emotions of +what has been called the suffragette campaign, Rosalie, who might have +been expected to be a militant of the militants, took no part nor even +interest in it whatever. She did not desire the privileges of men merely +because they were the privileges of men; she desired a status which +happened to be in the right of men and she went towards it without +seeking to change the established order of things, just as, from one +field desiring a flower in another field, she would have gone to fetch +it without changing her dress. + +A man, anxious for full independence, would have gone into bachelor +rooms; but young women did not go into bachelor rooms. They achieved +their independence perfectly well, and far more cheaply, by going into +a boarding house. She therefore, very excitedly, went into a boarding +house. + +There was no difficulty about leaving Aunt Belle's. Once Rosalie was +established in business with Mr. Simcox, tied to business hours, and +earning a weekly salary, she no longer occupied in Aunt Belle's house +the position of dependence which was in Aunt Belle's house the first, +and indeed the only, qualification for all who occupied her house. Aunt +Belle's guests had to be guests: wealthy guests who could be entertained +from early morning tea (beautifully served) to bedtime and made +graciously to admire; or if poor guests, and particularly poor +relations, guests who could be even more impressed and were naturally +much more enthusiastically delighted and profoundly admiring. Rosalie, +in business, could not be entertained and did not sufficiently admire. +She had to have a special early breakfast; she disappeared; she was not +in to lunch or tea; she was not sufficiently impressed by what cook had +prepared but had rather too much to say about what she had been doing, +at dinner; and she excused herself away to early bed on the ground of +fatigue or of having certain books to study. Rosalie, in business, was +not a guest at all in Aunt Belle's sense of the word: indeed there came +an occasion--Rosalie twice in one week late for dinner--when Aunt Belle +said awfully, "My house is not a hotel, Rosalie. I cannot have my nice +house turned into a hotel." + +It was the nearest thing to an unkind word ever spoken by Aunt Belle to +Rosalie, and it was so near that it brought Aunt Belle up to Rosalie's +bed that night--solicitude in a terrific dressing gown of crimson +silk--to express the hope that Rosalie was not crying (she was not; she +had been sound asleep) at anything Aunt Belle "might have said." "But +you see, dear child, there are the servants to consider, all that +delicious soup and all that most tasty turbot au gratin to be kept warm +for you, and there is your kind Uncle Pyke to consider; men do not like +their meals to be..." + +The boarding house, which Rosalie, with qualms as to its reception by +Aunt Belle, had for some time been secretly meditating, came easily +after that. The boarding house had moreover for Aunt Belle a double +attraction. It not only removed Rosalie in her capacity of one +threatening to turn Aunt Belle's nice house into a hotel; it also +restored Rosalie in her capacity of overwhelmed, grateful and admiring +poor relation. Rosalie was now invited from the boarding house just as +previously she had been invited from the Sultana's; the table and +the appointments of Aunt Belle's house were now lavishly displayed in +contrast to the display and the table endured by Rosalie at the boarding +house; Aunt Belle was again supremely happy in Rosalie and abundantly +kind; dinner each Saturday night was a standing invitation and +frequently for these dinners Aunt Belle arranged "a little dinner party +for you, dear child, just one or two really nice people that it is nice +for you to meet and that you can tell your friends at the boarding house +about, dear child." + +Aunt Belle helped Rosalie to choose the boarding house and saw that it +was "nice." Nice people went there and the proprietress, Miss Kentish, +was nice. Miss Kentish had a grey, detachable fringe which became, and +re-mained, semi-detached immediately after breakfast, and a mobile front +tooth which came out surprisingly far when she talked and went in with +a sharp click when she stopped. She had for newcomers a single +conversational sentence--"My name is Kentish, though funnily enough we +come from Sussex"--and, for all purposes, a single business principle, +that of willingness "to come to an arrangement." "I am afraid I cannot +remedy your water not being hot at eight o'clock," she would say to a +boarder, "but I will gladly come to an arrangement with you. Ten minutes +to eight or ten minutes past eight" (click). She would come to an +arrangement on anything. She became very fond of Rosalie in course of +time and once told her that though her duties never permitted her to +attend church she had "come to an arrangement" with the vicar and felt +that she had "come to an arrangement with Our Lord" (click). She came to +an arrangement with Rosalie in the matter of tariff, receiving her and a +Miss Salmon, who also sought arrangement, as "two friends as one." This +was two persons sharing a room at the tariff of a person and a half. +Living was very cheap in those days. Rosalie, at the beginning, with +Miss Salmon, paid 18/6 a week, and out of the twenty-five shillings paid +her, at first, every Friday by Mr. Simcox there remained what seemed to +Rosalie great wealth. + +She set herself to save on it and her first purpose in thus saving was +to accumulate money on which she could draw so as to be able to pay +for a room private to herself. That would have taken some time. Her +successive increases in her earnings, as Mr. Simcox's hobby developed +into a business, brought privacy, and in time what amounted to luxury, +by much swifter process. Rosalie was a very long time at the boarding +house. From being two friends as one she passed to a small remote +room of her own, then to a larger and more accessible room, then to a +bed-sitting-room, finally to a very delightful arrangement. There was on +the second floor a fine roomy apartment having a dressing-room opening +out of it. Rosalie, by then in much favour with Miss Kentish, not only +secured the suite but "came to an arrangement" with Miss Kentish by +which the furniture and fittings were removed from the rooms and Rosalie +permitted to fit, decorate and furnish them herself. Rosalie never knew +happier hours than in the furnishing of those two rooms into a little +kingdom of her own: she never in all her life knew days as happy as the +days there spent. + +But at the beginning, two friends as one with Miss Salmon and first +contact with life from the angle presented by some twenty various +individuals met at meals and in the public rooms. Miss Salmon was a +pale, fussy creature with pince-nez in some mysterious way set so far +from her eyes that she always appeared to be running after them as if to +keep them balanced. Whenever anything of which she did not approve was +being said to Miss Salmon or was being done before Miss Salmon, she +maintained throughout it, moving about in pursuit of her pince-nez, a +rather loud, constant, tuneless humming. When her moment came she +would always begin "Well, now" and then swallow forcibly as though the +swallowing gave her pain. "Well, now" (gulp). This introduction was +always precedent to speech by Miss Salmon, whether after humming or not. +Rosalie frequently went to Sunday church service with her and there +was an occasion in the Litany on which Miss Salmon, who either had been +wandering or sleeping, suddenly came to herself at the correct moment +and said: "Well, now"--(gulp)--"We beseech thee to hear us, O Lord." + +Miss Salmon was employed as a daily nursery governess by a family +resident across the park who, not hav-ing room for her, had "come to +an arrangement" with Miss Kentish for her accommodation at the boarding +house; and with her fussiness, her nose pursuit, her humming and her +general ineptitude of habit and of thought, she was as it were a fated +companion for Rosalie; and it was the case that all the other inmates of +the boarding house were, in regard to Rosalie, equally and in the same +sense fated. Miss Salmon and they were fated, or fatal, to Rosalie, in +the sense that it would have been well then for Rosalie, as always well +for any developing young thing, to have been among companions who drew +upon her sympathies and called for her consideration. The contrary was +here presented to her. She was ripe to be intolerant for she was very +full of purpose and purpose is a motive power of much impatience. Miss +Salmon, who would have made a saint impatient, made Rosalie, who was not +a saint, very impatient and the virus of this impatience was that very +soon Rosalie made no attempt to conceal it. It seemed to Rosalie that +whenever she projected any plan to Miss Salmon--as to "do" a pit at a +theatre--or any theory--as that men and not women were manifestly the +cat tribe--it seemed to her that Miss Salmon always hummed with +the maddening humming denotive of disapproval, and always prefaced +stupendously stubborn idiocy with the "Well, now" and the gulp that +alone were sufficient to drive enthusiasm crazy. + +"Mmmmm--mm. Mmm--mmmm--mm--mm," would go Miss Salmon, following her +pince-nez up and down the little bedroom. And then, the pince-nez +poised, "Well, now" (gulp). + +And Rosalie came to cry, "Oh, never mind. Never mind, for goodness' +sake. I know exactly what you're going to say so what is the good of +saying it?" Miss Salmon nevertheless would say it, in full measure, +pressed down at intervals in solid lumps with reiterated "Well, now" +(gulp). And then Rosalie would hum to show she was not listening and +thus in time to the position that Rosalie, beyond the ordinary changes +of everyday conversation, took not the slightest notice of Miss Salmon +but busied herself in their room, or came into it or went out of it, +precisely as if Miss Salmon, who with her gulps, her fussiness and +her balancing was very much there, was in fact not there at all. When +Rosalie for the weekly dinner at Aunt Belle's used to dress in the +evening frock of Laetitia's given her for the purpose by Aunt Belle, she +used, at first, to say to Miss Salmon, "There, how do I look, Gertrude? +Can you see that mend in the lace?" + +"Well, now--" (gulp). + +Very soon she was dressing (at the common dressing table) with no more +regard for Miss Salmon or for the continuous humming of Miss Salmon +(signification of Miss Salmon's disapproval of the monopolisation of the +dressing table) than if Miss Salmon had been an automaton wound up to +balance a pince-nez around the room, to hum, and at intervals to gulp. + +This was a small thing, but it was an important small thing. Rosalie was +entirely insensible to the opinions and the existence of Miss Salmon, +and it followed that she became entirely insensible to the feelings of +Miss Salmon. To begin by ignoring a person with whom you are in daily +contact is certainly to end by not caring at all what happens to that +person. It was the misfortune of Miss Salmon to suffer periodically and +acutely from biliousness (which she called neuralgia). In an attack, she +took instantly to her bed and lay there flat on her back, absurdly and +unnecessarily poising her pince-nez, and looking, unquestionably, very +unpleasant. Rosalie,--who believed that Miss Salmon on these occasions +had overeaten herself, the attacks invariably coinciding with pork in +winter and with a fruit trifle known in the boarding house as "Kentish +Delight" in the summer, of both of which Miss Salmon was avowedly fond, +was at first warmly sympathetic and attentive on their occurrence, +anointing the fevered brows with eau-de-Cologne, nipping the unnecessary +pince-nez off the pallid nose, darkening the room, and stealing about +on tiptoe. In time her attitude came to be expressed by her reception +of the sight of Miss Salmon prone, stricken, yellow, pince-nez, poising. +"What, again?" + +"Well, now----" (Gulp). + +But Rosalie would be gone. + +And it came to be the same with all the other fellow inmates of the +boarding house, alike the men and the women. Rosalie, in a colloquialism +of to-day not then coined, "had no use for them." There was in none of +them anything that aroused her esteem; there was in each of them, in +degree greater or less, much that provoked her scorn. The result was +as resulted from Miss Salmon--she did not bother about them; and not +bothering about them she suffered an inhibition of her sympathies. To +repeat the thing said, her environment here was, as it were, fated +or fatal. In her eagerness for her career, her generous emotions were +likely to be laid aside and to wither; and the environment of the +boarding house in no way drew upon her sympathies. + +This was not good for Rosalie. + +Moreover, the community of the boarding house served Rosalie ill on +another point. She came there with all those grotesque ideas of her +childhood on the respective positions of men and women precipitated +through her older years to the perception given to Keggo: women +were this, women were that; in their commonest characteristics they +contrasted very badly with men; men did things better than women; they +had by far the better lot in life than women; unquestionably men were +the creatures; of course--off-handedly--they were beasts. She came to +the boarding house with these ideas and the boarding house presented +these ideas to her in living fact and assured her in her ideas. She came +there very susceptible to the qualities she believed to be rooted with +their sex in men and women and she saw those qualities there at once. +The boarding house might have been all her ideas of women and of men +taken away by an artist and put into an exact picture. It was her words +to Keggo in terms of actual life. Its population, little varying, was +always round about twenty; the proportion in sex always in the region +of fifteen women to five men. The figures were always constant and the +characters, when they changed, seemed always to Rosalie to be constant; +the names changed, the personalities did not change. Even the faces did +not change: there are certain types of faces that either are produced +by permanent residence in boarding houses or that go instinctively to +boarding houses for their permanent residence. There is a boarding-house +mould. There would always be two husbands with wives and three men +without wives. The men were never spoken to by any of the women but with +a certain archness which Rosalie detested; and they never spoke to the +women but with a certain boisterousness, a kind of rubbing together of +the hands and a "Ha! What miserable weather, Mrs. Keeley. How does it +suit you? Ha!" which Rosalie equally detested. It was as though the +women, leading boarding-house lives, knew that the men (who were +never in to lunch and sometimes absent from dinner) did not lead +boarding-house lives but secret, dashing and mysterious lives; and as +though the men knew that they lived secret, dashing and mysterious lives +but condescended to the women who lived only boarding-house lives; and +the archness on the one side and the boisterousness on the other +implied tribute and worthiness of tribute. This implication Rosalie also +detested. + +Men--as she now saw men and women--she dismissed; generally as "of +course they're beasts," severally and in the groups to which they +belonged, as cats--of the cat tribe--tame cats, wild cats, Cheshire +cats, tomcats and stray cats. But she dismissed them. That was her +attitude, as it developed, towards men. They had been, in her regard, +owners of the earth, possessing and having dominion over the round world +and all that therein is, as a stage magician owns and dominates his +stage; they had next been wonderful things but apt to be troublesome and +braggart things whose braggadocio caused you to blink and have a funny +feeling; they had then been sinister and frightening things that caused +poor Anna to say it was hard for women; they became, at last, creatures +that had the best of life, that is to say the better time in life, not +because they merited it, but because it was theirs by tradition and they +stepped into it, or were put into it, as naturally as a man child is +put into trousers; and they had, when all was reckoned up, the better +qualities--largeness, tolerance, directness, explosiveness (as opposed +to smouldering-ness)--not, Rosalie thought, because they were males, but +because they had the position that males have, just as by the habit of +command is given to small boys in the Navy and very young men in the +Army the air and the poise of command. + +Yes, certainly men were, as they had always been, the creatures; but the +eyes that formerly saw them as magicians, as by a savage is seen only +the mystery of the moving hands, the tick, and the strike of a +clock, now looked inside the case and saw the works. No mystery. +No exclusiveness of natural power. Nothing abnormal. Men, on their +estimable qualities and position, were what they were merely because, +as the works of a watch, thus and thus the wheels were made to go round. +Easy. Nothing in it. On the contrary. On the contrary, men were the more +despicable in that, dowered as by tradition they were dowered, they yet +were--what they were! The eyes that had been caused to blink by Robert +blowing smoke through his nose and by Harold pulling up his collar and +speaking with a "haw!" sound, blinked from a contempt yet more profound +(because now known for contempt) at the exhibition, seen all about her, +of men's unlovely side. And she dismissed them. They did not attract her +in the smallest degree. All that they had in them to esteem, whether +of qualities or of position, they had--here was the parallel--in common +with drones in a hive. They had the best of everything; they were +blundering, blustering, noisy, careless, buccaneering owners of the +world, and to her--as all the roystering swarm to any individual worker +bee--to her, negligible. She was a worker bee, busy, purposeful. + +There is a special function belonging to drones in a hive. That special +function of men in regard to women was repellant to Rosalie. All that +pertained to it was repulsive to her. She loathed to think of men in +that capacity and she loathed to see women ensnared in that regard by +men. Beautiful cousin Laetitia and the "good match" that obviously had +been found for her: she detested seeing those two together: it made her +feel sick. + +Men! By this and by that in passage of time she was in contact with a +good number and a good variety of men. There was the frequently changing +male contribution to the boarding-house community; there were clients +met in the development of her work at Simcox's; there were the men of +the circle of Uncle Pyke Pounce; there were the men of the circle of +cousin Laetitia, brought to the little Saturday-dinner parties. A very +fair average, a rather wider than the normal average of contact with +men; and she dismissed them. They had not any attraction for her at +all. If, rarely, she met one whose superficial points were superficially +attractive, his contribution to her attitude to men was to make her +blink (inwardly) the more, albeit on a different note. That one so +exceptionally dowered should find pleasure in, for instance, dalliance +of sex! Contemptible! Oh, sickening and contemptible! One Harry Occleve, +of Laetitia's circle, so obviously "the good match," was outstandingly +such a case. It was thought upon him, scornful and disgusted thought, +that made her, walking back from one of the Saturday-evening parties--he +was always there--arrange her experiences with men in that analogy +between men and cats which, as related, had been delivered to Miss +Salmon. + +Like a tame cat! She never had met a man she despised so much. You'd +think a man like that couldn't help but be above such things as Cousin +Laetitia and Aunt Belle made of him. "Occleve." The very name that +he owned had a nice sound; and he was brilliantly clever and looked +brilliantly clever. He was a barrister and Aunt Belle, who was forever +talking about him, had said that evening, just before his arrival, that +some famous counsel had declared of him that he was unquestionably +the most brilliant of the young men of the day at the Bar. So he was +talented, had a great future before him, had a strong, most taking +presence, a commanding air, a voice of uncommon charm--and was in bonds +to Laetitia! Looked sickly at her! Mouthed fatuous nothings with her! +Was obviously marked down to be that "good match" that Laetitia was to +make, and was content, was eager, to be the tame cat of her languishing +glances and of Aunt Belle's excessive gushings! Was to be seen in +a future not distant mated with Laetitia and sharing with her an +atmosphere of milk and silk and babies and kisses! Tame cat! What an end +to which to bring such qualities! What a desecration of such qualities +to set them to win such an end! Tame cat! + +But they all were cats of one kind or another. Yes, men are of the +cat tribe! Tabby cats--the soft, fattish kind, without any manlike +qualities, that seemed to be by far the greater proportion of all the +men one saw about in buses and in the streets and met in business; +tabby cats--sloppy, old-womanish creatures. Cheshire cats--the kind +that grinned out of vacuous minds and that never could speak to a woman +without grinning; the unattached men at the boarding house invariably +were of the Cheshire-cat cats. Tomcats--the beastly ones with lecherous +eyes that looked at you. "Of course they're beasts." It had been a large +experience of the tomcat cats that had made her add that final summary +of men to Keggo. The Bashibazook, once or twice encountered in her last +terms at the Sultana's, though never spoken with, had looked at her in +a horrible way, not understood, but felt to be frightening and horrible; +Mr. Ponders, on a dreadful occasion after handing over the medicine for +Miss Keggs, had horribly said, "Well, now, wouldn't a kiss be nice? +I think a nice kiss would be very nice." She had managed to get away +without being touched; the nausea in her eyes perhaps had frightened +him. It was nausea she felt, not fear, a horrible physical sickness; +and finally to round off the "of course they're beasts" of men as then +experienced and now to fill up the schedule of tomcat cats the friends +of Uncle Pyke Pounce's circle and Uncle Pyke Pounce himself and the +men like the men of his circle--tomcats something past their prime as +lechers (but at a hint only more lecherous for that) but in the full +prime of their beastliness as guzzlers, who with guzzle eyes eyed their +food. She had come across a word in Carlyle's "French Revolution" that +instantly brought Uncle Pyke Pounce and his friends to her mind and +that always thereafter she applied to the elderly tomcat encountered +or passed in the street--"atrabilious." Atrabilious! The very word! She +looked it up in the dictionary, was disappointed to find it did not +mean exactly what she thought it meant, but gave it her own meaning, and +applied it to them. It sounded like them. They had small beady eyes, set +in yellow; no apparent eyelids either above or below, just an unblinking +eye set in a puffy face like a currant in a slab of cold pudding that +gloated or glared at everything and everybody as if it was a thing to +be devoured; guzzlers who gloated upon their food and wallowed in their +soup, always with little streaks of red veins and blue veins in their +faces. Atrabilious! Tomcats! + +Wild cats--the roamers, the untamed ones, the ones with cruel and with +wicked faces that made you not sick, but frightened; mostly they were +dressed in rough clothes, men hanging about the streets who patently +were thieves or worse, who looked at you and at once looked all around +as if to see if any were about that might protect you; but often dressed +in gentle dress and then with the cruel and wicked look more cruel and +more wicked, to make your shudder to think of a woman having to belong +to that. + +Stray cats--on the whole the only really bearable ones; the lonely ones +that seemed to have lost something or to be lost, that seemed to need +looking after, that made you have a funny tender feeling towards them, a +wanting as it were to pick them up and carry them home and be sharp with +them because they couldn't take care of themselves, and to be kind to +them also because they couldn't take care of themselves; yes, the only +bearable ones: Mr. Simcox was precisely one. + +All cats, of the cat tribe. There wasn't one you couldn't place. There +wasn't one, save dear little Mr. Simcox and the stray cat ones you +sometimes saw, that was not in some trait contemptible. The only thing +to be said for them was that it was their nature. They were created like +that. You just shrugged your shoulders at them and let them go at that, +negligible entities. Active disgust was only felt of them when one of +their traits was manifested directly towards you; or, much more, when +the sight was given of such a one as this Harry Occleve making such an +exhibition of himself and enjoying it, delighting in it, asking nothing +better than to be philandering with Laetitia, or escorting Laetitia, or +gazing at Laetitia. That did make you angry enough with a man to hate +a man. It was like seeing a good book--as it might be "Lombard +Street"--used to prop a table leg; or a jolly dog--as the dearest Scotch +terrier once brought to the boarding house--led for a walk on a leash by +an old maiden mistress and wearing a lapdog's flannel coat with ribbon +bows at the corner. Her aversion to Harry Occleve was such that, in +their rare passages together, she was almost openly rude to him. It +seemed there was even no physical quality he had but he used it to abase +himself or to make an exhibition of himself. He had noticeably long, +strong-looking arms, but the sickening thing to see him once using those +arms to hold silk for Laetitia while she wound it! He had a striking +face that she named, from a line in Browning, a "marching" face--"one +who never turned his back but marched breast forward"--but to see that +face bent fatuously towards Laetitia! There radiated from the corners of +his eyes towards his temples those little lines that sailors often have, +"horizon tracks," she called them; but to see them deeply marked while +he mouthed earnest nothings with Laetitia! There was an odd, nice smell +about him, of peat, of tobacco, of soap, of heather with the wind across +it, of things like that most agreeably mixed, and actually she had heard +Laetitia say to him in the babyish way she spoke to him, "You smoke too +much. You do." And he, like a moon calf: "Oh, you're not going to ask me +to give up smoking, are you?" And she with a trailing eye and hint of +a blush, "Perhaps I shall--some day." And he--a sigh! Positively a +love-sick sigh straight out of a novel! Ah, positively she could detest +the man! She came to discover it as an odd thing that, while commonly +she was entirely indifferent to men, always after a Saturday meeting +with Laetitia's Harry she had for quite a day or two an active +detestation of them. + +But it was the women at the boarding house--to instance the boarding +house--the fifteen women, the immense, straggling army of women as they +looked to be, when they came trooping in to dinner or went trailing out +again, that had Rosalie's sharpest observation and that best pointed +her youthful estimates. Unlike men who had fallen woefully from her +childhood estimate of them, the women maintained and intensified her +early estimate of women. The women in the boarding house showed Rosalie +what women come to. A few were emphatically old; the rest, with the +single exception of Miss Salmon, were emphatically not old; on the other +hand they were emphatically not young. They were at pains to let you +see they were not old and the pains they were at rather dreadfully (to +Rosalie) emphasised the fact that they were not young. The thing about +them, the warning, the proof that they exhibited of all Rosalie's ideas +about the inferiority of women, was that they were, in her phrase, +derelicts--not wanted; abandoned; homeless; or they would not be +here. Yes, derelict; and what was worse, derelict not in the sense of +desuetude of powers or of powers outworn, but with the suggestion of +never having had any powers, of having been always the mere vessels of +another's powers--some man's; and now, with that power withdrawn--the +man, whether father, brother, lover or husband, gone--derelict as a +ship, abandoned of crew, rudderless and dismasted, is derelict; as an +obscure habitation, cold of hearth, crazy of walls, abandoned to decay, +is derelict. She summed them all up as having arrived at what they +were precisely because in their earlier years they had been what in +her childhood she had supposed women to be: inferior creatures at the +disposal and for the benefit and service of men. What a warning never to +be that! There they were--manless. And therefore derelict. And because +derelict for such a reason, therefore testimony to a social condition +that was abominable, and because seen to be abominable never, never +herself should enfold. Never! Manless. Husbandless. There they were, +the straggling mob of them,--deserted by husbands, semi-detached from +husbands, relict of husbands fallen out with a stitch in the side in the +race for husbands. Urh! + +She was very young, Rosalie. + +"Despised and rejected of men," she said to Miss Salmon, holding forth +in their bedroom on her subject. "That's what I call them. Despised and +rejected of men. Oh, don't hum louder than ever. It's not irreverent to +say that. It describes a condition, that's all, and I'm using it because +it describes this condition, their condition, exactly. It does. You can +hum; but it does. They've never done anything, they've never meant to +do anything, they've never tried to do anything except hang round after +some man. That's all. They've either caught him and now lost him; or +they've missed him and now go on missing him. That's their lives. That's +nearly any woman's life. It's not going to be mine. If anything were +wanted to make the whole idea of marriage and all that repulsive to +me--and nothing is wanted--that would. Despised and rejected of men! I +used to think and to say I intended to be like a man and to do a man's +work and have a man's share. I tell you that even getting so close to +a man as that--I mean as close as intentional emulation of him--even +getting as close as that makes me feel sick now. It's my own life I'm +going to have, my own place, my own share; not modelled on any one +else's. If it were conceivable that I ever met a man I cared tuppence +about--but it isn't conceivable; that's a quality that's been left clean +out of me, thank goodness--but if it were conceivable, what I'd offer +would be just to share; to go on living my own way and he his--Oh, +your humming! I mean after marriage, of course; I think this free-love +business they talk about is even more detestable than the lawful +kind--just animalism. That's all I'd do. Me my life; he his life; +meeting, as equals, when it was convenient to meet. I'd like to bring +all these poets and people who write about love into our dining-room to +see those people. That'd teach them! + + Man's love is of his life a thing apart; + 'Tis woman's whole existence. + +What an existence!" + +"Well, now--" (gulp). + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"You have pretended to dislike and to despise men, but it was a pretence +to deceive me and you are a liar." + +This was the astounding opening of an astounding letter, pages and +pages, to Rosalie from Miss Salmon. Pages and pages, having the +appearance, each one, of a battlefield or of a riot: a welter of thick, +black underscores strewn about like coffins or like corpses, and a +bristling pin-cushionful (black pins) of notes of exclamation leaping +about like war-dancing Zulus or staggering about like drunken or like +wounded men. A welter you had to pick your way through with epithets +rushing against you at every step like units of a surging mob hounding +and charging against an unfortunate pedestrian caught in the trouble. + +Miss Salmon had two months before introduced "a gentleman friend" to the +boarding house. He was a clerk in some big business firm. His name was +Upsmith and he bore upon a fattish face a troubled, beseeching look, +rather as though something internal and not to be mentioned was severely +incommoding him and might at any moment become acute. Miss Salmon called +him Boo, which Rosalie considered grotesque but not unsuitable, and +it was communicated to the boarding house that the twain were at +a mysterious point of affinity called, not an engagement, but an +understanding. + +Rosalie had by this time taken the second step in her upward progression +of comfort in the boarding house. She had moved into a separate room, +leaving Miss Salmon to become half of another two friends as one, and +she and Miss Salmon therefore saw much less of each other. But Rosalie +still sat at the same table as Miss Salmon at dinner and there Mr. +Upsmith joined them. + +The thing may be hurried along to its astounding conclusion in the +astounding letter. It was not in itself an event of any sort of moment +to Rosalie. She was in no way outraged by being called a liar. There is +no hurt at all in being called a liar when you know you are not a +liar. The accusation has sting only if you are a liar; and indeed it is +comforting evidence of some inner self within us that only when we have +ourselves debased that inner self become we open to wounds from without. +That citadel is never taken by storm; only by treachery. No, the +significance of the astounding letter reposed in the fact that her +reception of it opened to Rosalie a glimpse of a quality rising beneath +her to carry her forward as a wave beneath a swimmer. It has been +perceived in her but Rosalie had not perceived it. + +A great triumph and a great happiness swelled within Miss Salmon with +the arrival of Mr. Upsmith and with the circulation about the boarding +house that there was an understanding between herself and Mr. Upsmith. +Her humming took on a loud, defiant quality, as of triumph; she pursued +her pince-nez with a certain eagerness, as of confidence of balance and +certitude of capture. Her note and her air seemed to say that she was +Boo's and Boo hers and she gloried in it with that exalted and yet +something fearful glory that is to be seen, pathetically, on the faces +of very plain young women, or of distinctly ageing young women, who have +got a Boo but for whom the Boos of this world are elusive to capture +and slippery to hold. The look is to be seen a dozen times on any Sunday +afternoon when the young couples are out. + +At dinner time Miss Salmon would talk much to Boo in whispers and then +would look up and hum across at Rosalie in triumph, as of one that knew +things that Rosalie could not know and that had a thing that Rosalie did +not possess. Mr. Upsmith looked also much at Rosalie, in no triumph, +but in an apparent great excess of his unfortunate complaint. He stared, +troubled and beseeching, at her at meals, and he stared, troubled and +beseeching, at her when he encountered her away from meals. The longer +he sojourned in the boarding house the more troubled and beseeching, +when Rosalie happened to notice him, did his fattish countenance appear +to become. That was all. There scarcely ever was exchanged between them +even the courtesies customary between dwellers beneath the same roof; +they never, that Rosalie could remember, were a minute alone together +and yet on a day in an August, Miss Salmon a week away on a month at the +seaside with the family to which she was nursery governess, Rosalie was +being told in the violent opening sentence of one letter that she had +pretended to despise and dislike men but had only done it to deceive +Miss Salmon and was a liar; and in the impassioned sentences of another +which had been enclosed and had fallen and to which bewildered she +stooped and then read, that the heart of Boo was at her feet ("your +proud, sweet little feet that I would kiss in my adorance") that he had +adored her ever since he had first set eyes on her, that he treasured +"like pearls before swine" every encouragement she had given him from +her divine eyes and from her proud little lips, that he had had no sleep +for a fortnight and felt he would go mad unless he wrote these few +lines (nine pages), that he earned "good money," and that he was, +in conclusion, to which Rosalie amazedly skipped, "ever and ever and +imperishably always her imperishably adoring Boo." + +Two days previously Rosalie had received, but not read, another slightly +mysterious letter. It had been in her receptacle in the letter rack in +the hall, addressed to her in an unfamiliar writing and deposited by +hand, not through the post. It had begun "Dear Miss Salmon, re our +friendship I have to inform you--" Rosalie had turned to the end, +"B. Upsmith." She had replaced it in its envelope, written upon the +envelope, "This is evidently for you, but addressed to me, as you +see--R." and had placed it in another stamped wrapper to be forwarded +by Miss Kentish. She had only thought of it as in funny style for a love +letter, proper no doubt to the niceties of an "understanding." And what +had happened was that the vile, egregious, and infamous Boo, writing to +break off one understanding and establish another, had placed them in +the wrong envelopes. The outpourings of his bursting heart to Rosalie +had been received by Miss Salmon; the information "re our friendship" +had gone to Rosalie. + +Of itself, as has been said, the whole incident was nothing at all in +the life of Rosalie. It came with the crash, but only startling and +quite harmless crash, of an unexpected clap of thunder, and it passed +as completely and as passively, doing no damage, leaving no mark. Miss +Salmon never returned to the boarding house; the vile, egregious and +infamous Boo haply incisively informed by Miss Salmon of what he had +done, incontinently, and without speech to Rosalie, fled from the +boarding house. They were gone, they were nothing to Rosalie; the +correspondence was destroyed, it was nothing to Rosalie. + +But the significance of the matter was here. There was in Miss Salmon's +letter to Rosalie one paragraph that Rosalie read a second time. She +had received the letter when coming in just before dinner. Not at +all injured nor in any way discommoded by the hurtling epithets, +the terrific underscores intended to be as bludgeons, or the leaping +exclamatory notes set there for stabs, she had put the thing away in a +drawer and gone down to her meal. The passage alluded to came more than +once into her mind. When she was about to get into bed that night she +destroyed the letter, first reading that paragraph, and only that, +again. Sole in the violent welter of those sheets it had no underscores +nor any exclamations. It was added as a postscript. It said: + +"Well, now; Boo and I met the first time in a crowd watching a horse +that had fallen down. It kicked and I stepped back quickly and trod on +his foot. It made him put his hands on my arms and I looked around to +apologise and there was his dear face smiling at me, although in great +pain, for I had trodden on a corn he has; and I knew at once it was the +face I had looked for and longed for all my life and had found at last; +and I loved him from the first and we went out of the crowd and talked. +Well, now; I clung to him in all our happy, happy months together, in a +way you can never understand, because I loved him, and because I am not +the sort that men like because I am only plain, and I knew that if ever +he left me I could never get another. Well, now; you have taken him away +from me. You could get dozens and dozens of men to love you, but you +have taken mine, and I never, never can get another." + +The thoughts of Rosalie, not sequent, but going about and amounting +thusly, were thus: "That is very pathetic. That is horribly sad and +pathetic. Coming at the end like that and without any strokes and +flourishes, it is as if she was exhausted of her hate and rage and just +put out an utterly tired hand and set this here like a sigh. That's +pathetic, the mere look of it and that thought of it. And then what she +says. The dreadfully simple naivete of the beginning of it. Staring at a +fallen horse in the street. It's just where they would be, both of them. +They'd stand there for hours and just stare and stare. And then she +steps back on his foot and there's 'his dear face' smiling at her; ah, +it's pathetic, it's poignant! I can see it absolutely. Yes, I can. As if +I were in the crowd around the horse, watching them. There they are, the +horse between us, and all the doltish, staring faces round about; and +their two dull and stupid faces; and as their eyes meet that sudden look +upon their foolish faces, as of irradiation out of heaven, that would +make a clown's face beautiful and cause the hardest heart to twist. +But it doesn't cause mine to twist. That's the odd thing. I remember +perfectly when a thing like that would have given me a little blinky +kind of feeling. I've always been awfully quick to notice things like +that. I've often seen them. Quite recently, so little, I believe, as a +year ago, things like that, things like this, would have moved me a lot. +They somehow do not now. That frightful ending of hers: 'You could get +dozens and dozens of men to love you, but you have taken mine and I can +never, never get another.' That is most terribly pathetic. I think that +is the most poignant thing I have ever heard. Well, I can realise its +utter pathos; I can realise it but I cannot feel it. It does not move +me. 'And I never, never can get another.' It's frightful. I could cry. +But I do not a bit want to cry. I must have somehow changed. I am not a +bit sorry if I have changed. I would be sorry to go back and be as, if I +have changed, I must have been--sentimental. I have changed. I believe I +can look back and see it. About the time I left the Sultana's, mother's +letters, and keeping them and answering them, began to be--yes they +did begin to be a little, tiny bit of a nuisance to me. Yes, it was +beginning then, this. And I expect earlier, if I worked it out. There's +nothing in it to regret. It's just a growing out of a thing. It's not, +when I see a thing that's pathetic, that I've grown blunt or blind and +can't see it for pathetic. It's just--I know what it is--it's just that +it doesn't appeal to me in the same way. It's like seeing a dish of most +tempting food in front of you, not that I ever remember my mouth, as +they say, watering at anything; but say strawberries and cream--I'm fond +of strawberries and cream--it's like seeing a dish of strawberries and +cream in front of you, and knowing it's good and knowing it's delicious, +and knowing you're awfully fond of it--and just not being hungry; +turning away and leaving it there, not because it's not everything that +it ought to be, but just because--you don't want it. I should say that's +how it is with me about these--these pathetic things. I know they're +pathetic. I don't want them." + +That is how it was, how it had become, with Rosalie. That was just her +first recognition of it, as the swimmer, intent on his own making of his +progression, recognises not, till he has been borne some distance by it, +the current that also is carrying him along. + +Visits home to the Rectory were further manifestations to her of this +arising symptom. + +There were appeals that should have arisen to her out of her home; and +they did arise; and she recognised them; but they did not appeal to +her--not in the old way. She went home very rarely for occasional +week-ends, always for her annual holidays, always for Christmas; and the +discovery she made was that she liked her home very much better when she +was away from it than when she was in it. When a visit was in prospect +she desired her home, that is to say her mother, most frightfully. But +when the visit was in being the joy she had promised herself she would +spread somehow was not at her command; the love she had yearned to show +somehow was chilled within her and not forthcoming. It was the tempting +dish in a new illustration--rushing eagerly to it, avid of its delights; +coming to it and finding, after all, one was not hungry. + +Strange! + +Her mother was ageing rapidly. She could have wept to see the ageing +signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not moved; received +the impression but was not sensitive to it; felt the tug but did not +respond to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be a little impatient. +Returned to London and to her engrossing work and longed to be back with +her mother; came back to her mother--and was not hungry. + +Strange! + +Then she began to analyse the strangeness of it and found it was not, +after all, so strange; at least it was not a thing to be distressed +about, nor bearing conviction of unnatural qualities, of hardness, of +unkindness. There was a line she knew that came in a verse: + + There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, + The earth, and every common thing + To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream. + It is not now as it hath been of yore. + Turn wheresoe'er I may + By night or day, + The things which I have seen I now can see no more. + +"The things which I have seen I now can see no more." That was the line. +"The things which used to appeal to me now appeal no more--or rather +not quite in the same way. I think I used to be very sentimental. It +is stupid and useless to be sentimental. People must grow old. There's +nothing sad in that. It is natural. It is life. It is life and one must +accept life. The unnatural thing, the foolish and wrong thing, is to +remain a sentimental child for ever, with a child's ready foolish tears +at what are common, necessary facts of life. I can be much kinder, +much more really kind, by seeing things clearly--and in their right +perspective than by occluding them with false compassions. I am always +my dear, my darling mother's devoted daughter, ever at her disposal, and +she knows it and loves me for it. When I am to her or to any friend but +as ships that pass in the night--Keggo's phrase--then let me take myself +to task." + +Keggo's phrase! Keggo was being intermittently seen at this time and +these thoughts of Rosalie's were very close to the occasion when finally +she lost sight of Keggo. It could be said like this--that Keggo here +made a contribution to Rosalie's life that passed Rosalie on her way. + +They had kept touch for quite a time after their separation as governess +and pupil. They then lost touch. + +"Why, it must be more than a year!" cried Rosalie, suddenly encountering +Miss Keggs near the Marble Arch one evening and delightedly greeting +her. It was in the summer and Rosalie had gone out from the boarding +house after dinner for some fresh air in the park. She was enormously +glad to see Keggo again and carried her greeting straight on into +excuses for her share in their long sundering. "More than a year! You +know, the fact is, Keggo, that when I first left the Sultana's, and for +quite a time afterwards, I used to gush. I did! I was so frightfully +full of all I was doing and it was all so new and so wonderful and I was +so excited about it that it was sheer letting off steam--gush--to write +you reams and reams of letters about it as I used to do. Then it got +normal and the--the tumultuousness of it wore off and I was just--I am, +you know--just absolutely absorbed in it and there was no more steam to +let off; all the energy went into the work, I suppose. So gradually, I +suppose, without quite realising it, I gave up writing. But, oh, if you +knew how glad I am to see you now!" + +Miss Keggs to all this presented only a fixed smile. A smile belongs +much more to the eyes than to the lips. The lips, but not the eyes, can +counterfeit a smile. False coin is "uttered" as they say in law; and the +lips utter. Not so the eyes. All metal that the mouth issues is to be +tested there. The expression in Miss Keggs's eyes was not at all in +consonance with that of her mouth. The expression of her eyes was rather +oddly vacant as you may see on the face of a person who is apparently +attending to what you are saying but really is listening to another +conversation in the same room. "Not listening" as it is called. "An +absent look" as they say. + +Nevertheless she joined dove-tailed response to Rosalie's words. "To +tell you the truth," said Miss Keggs, speaking very slowly and repeating +the preamble. "To tell you the truth I wouldn't have received your +letters if you had written them." + +"You wouldn't? Why not?" + +"To tell you the truth--" there had been a pause before she first spoke; +a pause again before this reply and then again a beginning with this +phrase about which there was nothing odd in itself but something odd in +the manner of its use by Miss Keggs. "To tell you the truth, I've left +the school." + +"Left the Sultana's!" + +Miss Keggs nodded with slow inclinations, like grave bows, of her head. + +"Whatever for? Keggo, when, why?" And then Rosalie, impelled by some +apprehension that suddenly pressed her, put a quick hand on Keggo's arm +and cried sharply, "Keggo! There is something very strange about you. +What has happened to you? Something has happened. You can't keep it from +me." + +But Keggo could. At that quick gesture of suspicion of Rosalie's, +animation sprung to meet it as a cat, at a sudden start, will leap from +profound slumber to a place of safety and to arched defence. Miss Keggs, +in their first exchanges, might have been as one drowsily answering +questions from a bed. She was suddenly, in her instant casting away of +her absent air, as that one flinging away the bedclothes and leaping +upright to the floor. What had she been saying? She had been quite lost +in something she was thinking of when Rosalie came up. She scarcely had +recollected her. She had been very, very ill with "this influenza" and +still was only convalescent. Why, how very, very glad she was to see her +dear Rosalie again! And how Rosalie had developed! + +"Why, Rosalie, you are beautiful! You are! And you don't blush or simper +to hear it! Yes, you are beautiful." + +There was a little room in a street somewhere off the Harrow Road that +Miss Keggs now occupied. It was a forbidding street. It was one of those +derelict streets frequent in certain quarters of London, in Holloway, in +Kentish Town, in Kilburn and all over South London, all about which life +teems and roars but where, along their own pavements, no life is. They +are most characteristic of themselves, these streets, when, as often to +be seen, there is no soul along them but a sad drab that is an itinerant +singer that drifts along wailing, at every few paces shuffling her body +in complete turns to scan the windows she has passed and the immediate +windows on either hand. She has no home and these are not homes to which +she wails. There is no flicker of life at any window. She's a sad drab, +repulsive within; and they are sad drabs, not nice within. At night, +but not before dusk, forlorn things flicker in and out of them like drab +ghosts had on the strings of a puppet show. By day there sometimes is +an old man crawling in or crawling out; sometimes a woman, always with +a parcel or a net bag, fleeting along, expressionless. The high houses, +all of one pattern, appear to have no pattern. They are like dead walls +and the place they enclose like a vault, and the itinerant drab like +a thing in drab cerements (they trail the dust) that ought to be dead +wailing for entrance to things, tombed in those walls, that are dead. +There is no life at all in these streets. There is nothing active +or positive. There is just passivity and negation. There is just +nothingness. They are not habitations, which connote life; they are +repositories, which connote desuetude. They are the repositories of +creatures, not that have done with life, for the sheer fact of living +acknowledges service to life, but with whom life has done. + +These came to be Rosalie's thoughts of this street--Limpen Street--but +they could not have been hers when she was first going there to spend +evenings with Miss Keggs, for it was in her earlier visits there to +Keggo that she cried there. When she could cry for pure compassion for +another she was still too--too ardent for Limpen Street to be seen as it +has been presented. From the first it affected her disagreeably but she +would have felt, then, a sympathy for its state, and a belief that it +could be aroused out of its state, and a wish so to arouse it; and in +her earlier visits she had ardently this sympathy, but it was raised to +a profound compassion; this belief, but it was a conviction; and this +wish, but it was a resolution, in regard to Keggo. + +For Keggo was drinking. + +Keggo had been drinking for years and years and now Keggo had walled +herself away in Limpen Street to drink and drink, still secretly with +the sharp cunning of the secret drinker, but now with cunning only +necessary when of her own wish she met the world. At the Sultana's, +(only Mr. Ponders in her secret, and in her pay; "that vile man" +as, after the revelation, she always spoke of him to Rosalie) at the +Sultana's and in all her life of that period she was, as it were, as one +whose life is threatened, dwelling among spies; that breastplate of her +cunning never could be laid off then; now, as one threatened, but secure +in a castle, the breastplate only was needed when sallies forth were +made. There was at the Sultana's the need of constant care to inhibit +her cravings; there now was none to save her--unless Rosalie did. + +There is no need at all to tell all this and all that by which Rosalie +was led to this most terrible discovery and Keggo impelled to her most +painful revelation. There was deceit and its exposure; lies and +their crumpling in the hand; mystifications and their sinister +interpretations; contingencies and their ugly dissolutions. These would +be all beastly to tell. Beastly is a vile word but this is a vile +thing. There was about it all, all the time, a tainted and unwholesome +atmosphere. There was always in the little room in Limpen Street that +strange disagreeable smell of bad eau-de-Cologne that always had hung +about the little room at the Sultana's. + +Beastly things.... + +But they were not felt to be beastly by Rosalie, then. They are said +here to be beastly, for they were beastly, only in excuse for Rosalie +afterwards. They only were to her, then, intensely sad, most deeply +pitiful, intensely increasing of her love for Keggo as pure love is +increased by seeing its object in tortures that may not be helped +because they will not be confessed. If only Keggo would tell her! Once +or twice she said to Keggo, speaking with an entreaty that must have +made obvious to Keggo her knowledge, "Keggo, haven't you something to +tell me; something that you'd like to tell me?" The occasion was always +when she was leaving after a visit that had found Keggo very unwell, +very dejected of spirits, and that Keggo had at last terminated by +saying, "I think perhaps you had better go, Rosalie. I think perhaps I'd +be better lying down." But Keggo's answer always was, "Something to tell +you? No, nothing at all! What should I have to tell you?" + +And then one day something said brought them very near to the matter +between them. Miss Keggs came nearer yet. She said, "The fact is, +Rosalie, I sometimes get so I simply cannot make an effort, the smallest +effort. I believe when I'm like that if a thousand pounds were offered +me for the going out and asking of it, and God knows I want it badly +enough, I simply could not make the effort to do it. I'd simply let it +pass and know that I was letting it pass and not care. That's how it's +got with me, how it is sometimes with me, Rosalie." + +Rosalie said with extraordinary emphasis, leaning forward on the chair +in which she sat facing Keggo. "Why is it, Keggo?" + +If Keggo had answered, the thing would not have happened. Keggo did not +answer. She was sitting with her hands crossed, one palm upon the +other, and resting on her lap, her eyes to the ground. Quite a long time +passed. Rosalie said, "You're drinking, aren't you, Keggo?" + +"Yes, drinking, Rosalie." + +"Oh, Keggo!" + +It was then that Rosalie cried. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Sne cried. Her sympathies, though drying and slower now to be aroused, +still then were such that she could weep for pity. It is a glimpse of +her not to be seen again. There was she on her knees by Keggo, and with +her arms about Keggo's waist, and with her head on Keggo's lap, +crying for Keggo; and in the pauses of Keggo's unfolding of her story +entreating her, as one that cried responses to a litany, "Don't mind, +Keggo! Keggo, don't mind now! Dear Keggo, poor Keggo, it's all right +now." + +And presently all the tale told: what Mr. Ponders' medicine was; and all +the humiliation suffered in keeping in with "that vile man"; and that +vile man's betrayal of her to the Sultana, and her dismissal; and all +the earlier dreadfulness of her first steps down into her dreadful +malady; and all the dreadful secrecy of all those years; and all the +horrible humiliation secretly to get her poison; and all the horrible +humiliations when her poison got. All the dark tale of that presently +told; and her head bowed down to Rosalie's, and Rosalie's wet face +against her face, and her face also wet; and just her murmurs, murmured +at intervals, as though her heart that had discharged its grievous load +ran slowly now, slowly to rise and then to well with, "God bless you, +Rosalie; oh, Rosalie, God bless you"; and for a long time just seated +thus, cheek to cheek, hand to hand, heart to heart; weakness bound about +with strength, sorrow in pity's arms, travail in sanctuary.... + +It is desired that one should try to see that picture. Its counterpart +was not again in the life of Rosalie, hardening. + +There were, after that, such happy evenings in Keggo's room. Keggo, +with one to help her, fighting for herself; Rosalie, with one to help, +elevated upon that high happiness that comes with fighting for another. +For a short time there seemed to be no lapses in Keggo's struggle. When +they came (as Rosalie knew afterwards) the practised cunning of years of +secrecy had no difficulty in concealing them from the unsuspecting eyes +of Rosalie. Ill that it was so! Rosalie was harder when came the lapse +that cunning could not hide. She did not cry. Her eyes were hard. She +said with thin lips, "Why, even all this time you have been deceiving +me!" the which egged on, in that vile way in which exchanges of a +quarrel are as knives sharpening one against the other, Keggo's enflamed +retort, "The more fool you! Little fool!" + +But at first, while the lapses were few and the cunning was equal to +them, only a closer friendship was set afoot between the woman that was +grown and the woman that was burgeoning, and there were such very happy +evenings in the room in Limpen Street. Such jolly talks. + +There was one talk that, forgotten with the very evening of its passage, +afterwards very strongly returned to Rosalie and abode with her. It had +in it rather vital things for Rosalie. + +She loved to talk about her work with intelligent and sympathetic Keggo, +and she had been on this occasion expounding to her the mysteries and +interest of life insurance: in particular explaining the "romance" of +vital statistics; in particular, again, the curious fact that, though +women in the United Kingdom largely outnumbered men, many more male +children were born than female. The disproportion "the other way about" +in maturity, said Rosalie, was because the death rate among men was much +higher--due to risks of their occupations. "A certain number of house +painters," said Rosalie sagely, "fall off ladders every year and are +killed; women don't paint houses, so they don't fall off ladders and get +killed. Similarly on railways, Keggo. The death rate among railway men +is much higher in proportion, over an average, than the rate in any +other occupation. Porters doing shunting, for instance, are always +getting killed. Well, women don't shunt trains so they don't get killed +while shunting trains, so there you are again, so to speak. The thing in +a nutshell, Keggo, is that, by contrast, men lead dangerous lives." + +Keggo, who always was very alert in response, was here very long in +responding. Then she responded an extraordinary thing that Rosalie +afterwards remembered. She said slowly, "Oh, but Rosalie, it's very +dangerous to be a woman." + +Rosalie questioned her. + +Keggo said, "Rosalie, you've great ideas, and I think very shrewd and +very striking ideas, about the difference between men and women, but +there's this difference I think you haven't thought of--the danger that +women carry in themselves; right in them, here"--she had a hand against +her breast and she pressed it there--"born in them, inerradicable, and +that men have not. Men go into dangers but they come out of them and go +home to tea. That's what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always get +out. They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, body and +soul and heart and mind. Rosalie, women do. That's their danger. That's +why it is so very, very dangerous being a woman. Women can't come back. +They can't, Rosalie. Look at me. They take to a thing and it becomes a +craze, it becomes an obsession, it becomes a drug. Look at me. They take +to a thing--anything; a poison like mine, or a pursuit like some one +else's, or an idea like some other's, or a--a career in life like, like +yours, Rosalie,--they take to it and go deep enough, and they're its; +they never will get away from it, they never, never will be able to come +out of it. Never." + +She was extraordinarily vehement. It was embarrassing for Rosalie. +Rosalie desired to contest, as vehemently, these theories. She did +not believe them a bit. They were founded, she felt, on the tragedy of +Keggo's own case. Keggo was unfairly, though very naturally, arguing +from the particular to the general, from the personal to the abstract. +But how could she reply to Keggo, "Of course you say that?" + +She was silent; but she betrayed perhaps her thoughts in a gesture, her +difficulty in some expression of her face. + +Keggo said very intensely, "But, Rosalie, if you only knew! With me +it's drink and you'll say--. But I say to you, Rosalie, never, never let +anything get the mastery of you. With me it's drink and you'll say that +is a matter altogether different, with which parallels are not to be +drawn. Oh, do not believe it, Rosalie. A woman should in all things be +desperately temperate--watchfully, desperately temperate. A man--nearly +every man--seems somehow to have his life and all his interests in +compartments. He can be immersed in one while he is in it, and can get +out of it and distribute himself over his others and close it and +forget it. Rosalie, a woman can't. Men have hobbies. They don't have +attachments; they have detachments. They detach themselves and turn to +a thing and they detach themselves from it and turn back again. Rosalie, +women don't turn to a thing; they go to it. They don't have hobbies, +they have obsessions. They don't trifle, they plunge. They cannot sip, +they drain. It's in their bone. They never would have occupied the place +they do occupy if it were not that from the beginning they have given +themselves over, or they were given over, to mastery. They are the +weaker vessel. Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman gives herself, +forgets moderation and gives herself to anything, she is its captive for +ever. She may think she can come back, but she can't come back. For a +woman there is no comeback. They don't issue return tickets to women. +For women there is only departure; there is no return." + +Rosalie said, "Keggo, I think I could argue, but I won't. But what I +can't imagine is the application of it in hundreds of cases--in by far +the great majority of cases. Take mine. You're not warning me, are you? +I don't see the possibility--" + +Keggo said, "Darling, I'm not warning you and yet I am. I am warning you +because you are a woman; and because you are a woman you are susceptible +to danger. It's what I've said; it's what I would have you remember +for a day perhaps to come, that it is dangerous being a woman. I'm not +warning you, because there's nothing to--well, but isn't there? You've +got a theory of life and you are bent upon a career in life. There's--" + +Rosalie cried, "Well, but there you are, Keggo. No comeback, no return +tickets--well, I don't want to come back; I don't want a return ticket." + +"You might. You never know. Suppose you ever did?" + +"But you can't suppose it. Why ever should I?" + +"Suppose you wanted to marry?" + +Rosalie laughed. The thing immediately lost reality. "Well, suppose the +incredible. Suppose I did. There'd be no comeback wanted there. I could +perfectly well marry and still keep my theory of life; I could perfectly +well marry and still keep on in my career--and most certainly I would +still keep on. Why, that is my theory of life, as you call it, or a very +outstanding principle of it. There's nothing to me more detestable +in the whole business than the idea that because a woman marries she +therefore must give up her work. That's what is the reason the boarding +house and every boarding house and every home and street and city swarms +with derelicts--with derelict women--just because their lives are all +planned as blind alley occupations, marriage at the end of the alley, +no need to do anything, no need to be anything because it's only a blind +alley you're in. When you reach the end--you reach the end! That's it, +Keggo. You reach the end. You're a woman, therefore for you--the end!" + +She laughed again. She was returning Keggo's vehemence without +embarrassment upon the subject that had made return difficult. She +cried, "I've got you now, Keggo. I really have. You say they don't issue +return tickets to women. No. Perhaps they don't; but I'll tell you where +they book them all to--from the cradle to a terminus." + +Keggo smiled and would have spoken. But Rosalie was pleased with her +adroit turning of metaphors. She repeated "To a terminus. Well, I've +booked beyond, Keggo." She laughed again. "And then the idea of marriage +for me! I've granted the preposterous just for the sake of the argument +and just to floor the argument. But you know, you know perfectly well +from all our talks, even so far back as at the Sultana's, that it's +simply too grotesque! Marriage, for me! Why, if a million men came to +me on their bended knees, each with a million pounds on their backs +you know perfectly well that I'd just feel sick. Tame cats, tabby cats, +tomcats, Cheshire cats, wild cats, stray cats,--I'm not going to set up +a cats' home. No thanks." + +So Rosalie had the laugh of that evening. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +But this was not to continue. Keggo began to lapse; Rosalie began to +weary of helping Keggo. She had herself to think of. Those who go down +in life, whether by age or by misfortune, are prone, engulfed, to cry to +those ascending, "You could help me!" There is a correct answer to this. +It is, "I have done (or I do) a great deal for you. I cannot do more. It +is not fair to ask me to do more. I have a duty to myself. I have myself +to think of." Our generation endorses this. + +Rosalie had herself to think of. By stages that need not be detailed, +they are the common facts of life, the thing passes from that picture +of those two with Rosalie's strong young arms about the other to a new +picture, the last, between them. + +The stages show Rosalie's enormous, ardent plans for the rescue and +rehabilitation of Keggo, and they show the projection and the failure of +the plans. They show work found for Keggo (through Simcox's scholastic +side) and lost and found again and again lost and still again. They +show Keggo's remorse and they show Rosalie's forgiveness. They show it +repeated and repeated. They show by degrees the gradual, and then the +rapid, staling of Rosalie's fond sympathies. They show her finally, +immersed in her own purposeful interests, discovering to herself +feelings in regard to Keggo on a plane with feelings discovered to +herself in regard to her mother. It has been written: "Her mother was +ageing rapidly. Rosalie could have wept to see the ageing signs; +but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not moved; received the +impression but was not sensitive to it; felt the tug but did not respond +to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be a little impatient." It is +not necessary to expand. Keggo was fast going downhill. Rosalie could +have wept to see the downhill signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not +weep; was not moved... rather, indeed... impatient. She had herself to +think of. + +Youth's an excuse for youth as childhood's an excuse for childishness. +Youth, still, like childhood, but unlike maturity, can be lost in its +emotions, absorbed in them to the exclusion of all else, abandoned to +them with all else pitched away as a swimmer discards his every stitch +and joyously plunges in the stream. Youth is not accountable for its +actions then: it is too happy or it is too sad. One oughtn't to blame +youth, immersed. + +There was outstandingly one such day of absorption in delight, of +abandonment to ecstasy for Rosalie, and it was the day on which she made +her third advance in the social grade of Miss Kentish's boarding house +and moved into the two rooms en suite, furnished and decorated by +herself to her own taste. She awoke to this great day, long anticipated; +and with the vigorous action of throwing off the clothes and jumping out +of bed, she plunged into it and was lost in it. The excitement and +the elation of taking possession of that enchanting, that significant +apartment of her own! She was excited; she was elated. Moving in was +the cumulative excitement of all the long-drawn, anxious excitements of +peering round the antique dealers and picking up the bits of furniture +and of placing them and moving them a shade to this side and then a +shade to that till was found the one and only exact position that suited +them and that they suited; and the terrible excitements of watching the +decorators at work, her scheme developing beneath their hands, and +the awful knowledge that now it was being done it was done for good or +bad--no altering it now!--and the agonizing excitements of putting down +the carpets--how can you tell exactly how a carpet is going to +look until you see it actually down upon its floor and between its +walls?--and the increasing excitement all the time of the knowledge +that everything was harmonising and was looking just as in dreams of the +ideal it had been made to look; and now all ready! The bed-sitting-room +slept in last night for the last time; the two utterly perfect rooms and +all that their possession connoted, to be occupied that evening for the +first time! Yes, in all the tumultuous pride and engrossment of that, +there was no place--how could there be place?--for tiresome things of +other people's worlds, if such should offer. + +And in this tremendous day there was stuff more tremendous yet. This +also was the day on whose evening was made the tremendous tribute to her +work and to her talent, the evening of the dazzling offer that, like +a door swung open on a treasure house, disclosed to her new fields to +which her career had brought her, new triumphs that her career, in its +stride, might make her own--the evening when Mr. Sturgiss of Field's +Bank leant across the dinner table in his house (at his request only she +and himself left in the room) and said in his quiet voice, "Well, +look here--to come to the point--the reason I've got you up here +to-night--it's this: we want you, Field and Company, the Bank, we want +you to join us. We want you in Lombard Street." + +Lombard Street! + +Cumulative also was this thrill, for it had begun some few days +previously when Mr. Sturgiss, calling at Simcox's for a chat with Mr. +Simcox, an old friend, had come into her room and after mysteriously +fidgetting with business and conversational trifles, had issued +the invitation to dinner at his house at Cricklewood in language +mysteriously couched. "My wife would like to meet you," said Mr. +Sturgiss. "She's heard a lot from me, and from Field, of what an +astonishingly clever young person we think you and she'd--she'd like to +meet you. And more than that." Mr. Sturgiss's halting speech suddenly +became direct and definitive like a flag that had been fluttering +suddenly streaming upon the breeze. "And more than that. The fact is, +there's a proposition I want to put up to you. A proposition. We could +go into it quietly and discuss it. I rather think it would interest you. +I'm sure it will. You'll come? Good. I'm very glad. Very glad." + +A proposition! From Mr. Sturgiss! Of Field and Company! What could it +be? + +But Rosalie was not of the sort to tread the succeeding days on the +enchanted air of fond surmises. She told herself that the mysterious +proposition might be everything or might be nothing: the fact that +outstood was that she had brought her aspirations to this--that a +partner in a London bank recognised in her stuff sufficient to invite +her to a confidential meeting, there to go into something with her +"quietly together," to meet together over something and "discuss +it." She had determined to establish herself and she was establishing +herself. And was it not an omen propitious and significant that this +recognition of her parts was to fall on the very day on which the +exercise of those parts brought her into the dignity and comfort of that +delicious, that significant apartment of her own? + +This solid stuff, and no mere daydreams, was the delight absorbing her +and the ecstasy to which she was abandoned when that great day came. In +the morning she put the last of her possessions, the equipment of her +dressing table, into the new apartment; after the day spent at Simcox's, +she returned to dress for the first time before the noble cheval glass +purchased for the bedroom. She decided to go up in a hat; it could be +removed or not for dinner as Mrs. Sturgiss might seem to indicate. She +put on an evening bodice of black silk and net with a simple skirt in +keeping. She gave last approving glances about the delightful rooms and +set out, immersed in eager happiness, for Cricklewood. + +One of those old red buses that vied with the white Putney buses as +being the best horsed on the London routes took her there. Up the +Edgware Road; past the junction with the Harrow Road that led to Keggo's +street--she only had for it the thought that it was weeks since she had +seen Keggo, almost months; along broad Maida Vale and past the turning +that led to the Sultana's with the corner where often the crocodile had +huddled--and she was so engrossed in her happy achievements that she +passed it without thinking of it. The bus terminated its journey at the +foot of Shoot Up Hill. Rosalie, called upon to alight, came out of her +thoughts into her surroundings. She realised that she must have passed +Crocodile Corner without noticing and the realisation caused her to give +a little note of amused indifference. The indifference was not directed +precisely at the Sultana's; it was at the idea, which came to her, that, +normally to human predilections, she ought to have given--ought now to +give--a sentimental thought to memories of the Sultana years. Well, +she did not. Funny! Yes, it was funny. As she sometimes thought of her +mother and of all her home ties; of Miss Salmon and that cry of hers of +never being able to find another lover; of Keggo now so seldom seen +and known to be going from bad to worse,--so with memories of Crocodile +Corner and the Sultana's, she could see and appreciate the call of all +these attachments, but somehow, seeing and appreciating, did not respond +to them. What a very curious attitude! It was not unfeeling for she +could feel. It was not insensibility for she was sensitive to such +things. Sensitive! No, a better word than that. She was in such matters +sensible. She saw, as one should see, these things in their right +perspective. They were touching (as of her mother) or they were sad (as +of Keggo) or they were appealing (as the happy schoolgirl memories) +but they must not touch or sadden or appeal too closely. They must be +estimated in their degree and in their place; they must not be assumed, +be shouldered, be permitted to cumber. No good could be done to them by +encumbrance with them. That was the point. What good could it do them? +No good. Yes, that was sensible. + +She abated, in these thoughts, nothing of the eagerness with which she +was living this great day--the day whose points of suspension (on +which it tumultuously revolved) were the taking over of the significant +apartment from which she had just come and the entering upon the +significant invitation to which now her feet were taking her. These +thoughts, this analysis of her attitude to sentimental appeals, she +tossed upon her eager happiness that was her being as an airball tossed +upon laughing breath that yet is used, breathing, to support life. And +she was aware that this was so. And she enjoyed a flash of approval of +herself that it could be so; it was admirable, it was sensible, thus +to be able to detach and look upon a portion of her mind while her main +mind deflected not a shade from its occupation with the main chance. +That faculty was perhaps the secret of her success, the quality, that, +in exercise, had brought her to the significant apartment and to the +significant invitation. + +She was at the gate of Mr. Sturgiss's house and she most happily passed +up the short drive, ascended the steps and rang the bell. + +Mr. Sturgiss's house was almost on the summit of Shoot Up Hill. It was +one of those houses standing a few miles along the main thoroughfares +out of London that, now in decay or displaced by busy shops, packed +villas, or monstrous flats, were then the distinctly impressive +residences of distinctly well-to-do business people. Mr. Sturgiss was +a distinctly well-to-do business person. The house, double-fronted, had +that third sitting-room which confers such an immense superiority over +houses of but two sitting-rooms--"Such a convenience in so many ways" +as those newly promoted from two to three nowadays remark with +languid triumph to visitors still immured in two. Houses--new, two +sitting-roomed houses--extended beyond it and around it, and now stretch +miles beyond and about, but Mrs. Sturgiss told Rosalie that when they +first came there they actually had cows grazing and horses ploughing in +fields adjoining their garden. + +Mrs. Sturgiss told Rosalie this while personally attending Rosalie's +removal of her hat (it was "no hat"; Rosalie felt so glad she had come +dressed for either indication) and Mrs. Sturgiss sighed pleasantly as +she said it. "Things are going ahead at such a pace now!" said Mrs. +Sturgiss. "It's all very different from what it used to be. Why, the +very fact of your coming here, not as my guest but as my husband's, 'on +business!' The idea of women being in business, or even knowing anything +about business, when I was a girl, why, I can't tell you how, how +positively shocking it would have been considered." + +Rosalie laughed. She liked Mrs. Sturgiss, who was motherly and seemed to +have her own dear mother's gentle ways--this personally attending her in +her bedroom, for instance. "Oh, there are getting to be heaps of women +in business now, Mrs. Sturgiss," she smiled. + +Mrs. Sturgiss returned brightly, "Oh, I know it. I know it well." She +paused and her voice had a thoughtful note. "But even then.... Use the +long mirror, my dear; the light is better. Even then, there can be few +as,--as much in it as you. You know, my husband has an immense idea of +your abilities. He has spoken of you so much. Do you know, you are +a great surprise to me, now I see you. I could only imagine from all +John's idea of you a rather terrible looking blue-stocking, as we used +to call the clever women." She came and stood by Rosalie, regarding the +image in the glass that Rosalie regarded. She said simply, "But you are +beautiful." + +A very odd feeling, akin to tears--but for what on earth +tears?--quickened in Rosalie. She turned sharply from the mirror. "I am +quite ready now." She pretended she had not heard. + +Mrs. Sturgiss said, "My dear, do you like it, being what you are?" + +It was a great rescue for Rosalie to be able to spring away from that +odd feeling (in her bosom and in her throat) by swift animation. "Oh, +I love it. I simply love it. It is everything to me, everything in the +world!" + +Mrs. Sturgiss opened the door. "No, you go first, my dear. But if I had +had a dear girl, such as you, I would have wished her to stay with me at +home." + +She had made with her hand the gesture of her wish that Rosalie should +precede her from the room. Rosalie impulsively touched the extended +fingers. "But, Mrs. Sturgiss, don't you see, that's just it, the +idea there is now. If you had had a daughter and she had stayed at +home--well, let that go, while you were with her. But when you died and +left her, what would there be--don't you see it?--what would there be +for her then?" + +Mrs. Sturgiss pressed the warm young hand. "But I would have left her +married, a dear wife and a dear mother." + +"Oh, that!" cried Rosalie and her stronger personality carried off the +exchanges in a laugh. Mrs. Sturgiss thought the expression and the tone +meant, happily, that marriage might happen to any one, in the market as +much as in the home. Rosalie, with all the fierce contempt that her +"Oh, that!" conveyed to her secret self, was ridden strongly away from +emotionalism in the conversation. Her thought as they went downstairs +was, "If I were to instruct her in the cat-men! Her horror!" + +There was downstairs a surprise that was very annoying, but that +was made to produce compensations. An unexpected fourth person, +presuming--so Rosalie was given to understand--on a long standing, +indefinite invitation, had dropped in to dinner. She recognised him +directly they entered the drawing-room and could not stop the emblem of +a swift vexation about her mouth and in her eyes. He caught it, she +was sure; and she hoped he did. It was Harry Occleve--Laetitia's futile +slave! He had already informed his host that he knew her. She greeted +him with a mere touch of her hand, a touch made cold by intent, and with +"With a free evening off one would have expected you would spend it with +Laetitia," said disdainfully. It was a rude and inept thing to say (in +the tone she said it) for the feeble creature, as she stigmatised him, +had not yet screwed his fatuous idolatry to the point of proposal of +marriage. But she intended it to be rude and to discomfort him and she +was glad to see some twinge at the flick pass across his face. She hated +his presence there. The presence of any man, in the capacity of a monkey +to entertain and to be entertained, was always, not to put too fine a +point upon it, repulsive to her. This man was of all men obnoxious +to her. When he approached her for their brief greeting (she turned +instantly away at its conclusion) she savoured immediately that odd, +nice smell there was about him, of mingled soap and peat and fresh +tobacco smoke and tweed; and that annoyed her. It was a reminder, +emanated from him and therefore not to be escaped, of a distinction he +had different from, and above common men. She always granted him +his distinction of looks, of air, of talent. It was why she so much +disdained him. To be dowered so well and so fatuously to betray his +dowry! Tame cat! + +But she made him, through the meal, pay compensations for his presence. +At the table of Aunt Belle, in his presence she was accustomed to sit +largely silent. Beautiful Laetitia was there the star; and while he +mouthed and languished in that star's rays Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke, +(stealing about him to capture him as a farmer and his wife with mincing +steps and tempting morsel towards a fatted calf) fawned, flattered and +deferred to him, he returning it. There was no place for her, and she +would have shuddered to have held a place, in that society for mutual +admiration. She sat apart. She was very much the poor relation (Aunt +Belle could not comprehend her business success and Uncle Pyke would not +admit it) and especially odious to her was the Occleve's polite interest +in her direction when Aunt Belle, poor-relationing her, would turn to +her from coquettish raillery of him with, "Dear child, you're eating +nothing." He would smile towards her and, fatuously anxious to please, +offer some remark that might draw her into the conversation. She never +would be so drawn. She scarcely ever exchanged words with him. She made +herself to be unconscious of his presence. He was so occupied with his +adoration of Laetitia that to be insensible of his presence was easy. +When sometimes she glanced towards him it was with the thought, "Fancy +being one of the rising young men at the Bar, being the rising young +man--the Bar, with silk and ermine and, why not? the Woolsack before +you--and being that, doing that! Fatted calf; dilly, dilly, come and be +killed, goose; tame cat!" + +Here, at the table of Mr. Sturgiss, it was very different. Intolerable +that he should be here, but she was able to make him provide her +compensation for his presumption. For the first time in her life, she +found herself with sufficient interest in a man to enjoy, nay, to seek, +a triumph over him. And she had that triumph. She was as certain as that +she sat there that Mr. Sturgiss, in the period before her arrival in +the drawing-room, had been telling him of her abilities and of his high +regard for her. There was an interest in his look at her across the +table that assured her he had been informed. There was, much more, a +conviction within her, from Mr. Sturgiss's manner and from his choice of +subjects--confined almost entirely and to the absolute exclusion of Mrs. +Sturgiss to the political situation and to markets, exchanges and the +general tendency in the City--and particularly from the openings in +these subjects with which continuously he presented her--a conviction +arising out of these that Mr. Sturgiss, proud of her, of his discovery +of her, was bent upon showing her off to his second guest, bent upon +proving to his second guest what unquestionably he had said to him about +her. + +She most admirably responded. If she were indeed the subject of a +challenge she most admirably flattered her backer. She is not to be +imagined as a pundit excavating from within herself slabs of profound +wisdom, nor yet as a pupil astoundingly instructing her masters, nor +even as one of Mrs. Sturgiss's blue stockings, packed with surprising +lore. Rosalie was nothing so foolishly impossible, but she displayed +herself knowledgeable. She was profoundly interested in the matters +under notice and therefore (for it follows) she was interesting in +her contributions to them; she was fascinated--the old fascination of +"Lombard Street" and of "The English Constitution" now intensified as +desire intensifies by gratification--and therefore she fascinated; she +was never silly--Rosalie could not be silly--but she was frequently in +her remarks ingenuous, but her ingenuousness, causing Mr. Sturgiss +more than once to laugh delightedly (Occleve, curiously grave, no doubt +because surprised, did not laugh) was born out of a shrewd touch towards +the heart of the matter, as the best schoolboy howlers are never the +work of the dullard but of him that has perceptions. Of her in her +childhood it has been said that she was never the wonder-child of +fiction who at ten has read all that its author probably had not read at +thirty. So now of her budding maturity she was not the wonder-woman of +fiction, causing by her brilliance her hearers, like Cortez's men, to +stare at each other with a wild surmise. No, nothing so unlikely. But +she was intelligent and she was ardent; and there are not boundaries to +the distance one may go with that equipment. She was admirable and +she felt that she was effective. She had a consciousness of confidence +amounting almost to a feeling of being tuned up and now let go; to a +feeling of power, as of inspiration. And this strange animation that she +had, came, she knew, from the triumph over that man, from the feeling, +stated grimly, that she was giving him one. + +It is much more important, all that, than, when it came, the great +reason of the great invitation that had brought Rosalie to take part in +it. The great reason already has been disclosed--Mr. Sturgiss, bending +across the tablecloth, they two left alone, "Well, look here--to come +to the point--the reason why I've got you up here tonight--it's this: +we want you--Field and Company, the Bank,--we want you to come to us--we +want you in Lombard Street." + +She was beautiful to see in her proud happiness at that. Startled and +tremulous, she was; like some lovely fawn burst from thicket and at +breathless poise upon the crest of unsuspected pastures; within her +eyes the cloud of dreams passing like veils upon the gleam of her first +ecstasy; upon her face, shadowed as she sinks somewhat back, the tide +of colour (her rosy joy) flooding above her sudden pallor; her lips +slightly parted; her hand that had been plucking at the cloth caught to +her bosom where her heart had leapt. + +It may be left at that. It is enough; too much. What, in the +reconstruction of a life, are, in retrospect, its triumphs but empty +shards, drained and discarded, the litter of a picnic party that has fed +and passed along? + +Mr. Sturgiss bent farther across the tablecloth, expanding his proposal: +She knew, said he, what he represented, what the firm was. Field and +Company. A private bank. Well, the days of private banks were drawing +in. These huge joint-stock leviathans swallowing them up like pike among +the troutlings. But not swallowing up Field and Company! Not much! +If the old private houses were tumbling into the joint-stock maw, the +greater the chances for those that stood out and remained. The private +banks were tumbling in because they stood rooted in the old, solid, +stolid banking business and the leviathans came along and pounced while +they dozed. There was no dozing at Field's. They were very much awake. +They were enterprising. + +"Look at this very matter between us. The idea of bringing a woman into +a bank! Even old Field himself was startled at first. Why? In America, +women are entering banking seriously and successfully. They're going to +in England. At Field's. You." He wasn't proposing to bring her in for +fun or for a chance that might turn up, like the man who picked up a dog +biscuit from the road on the chance that some one would give him a +dog before it got mildewed; no, he was bringing her in to develop an +enterprise that should be the parent of other and greater enterprises. +Her knowledge of insurance, her knowledge of schools, these, with +her sex, on the one side of the counter and all their clients--the +Anglo-Indian crowd who were the backbone of the business--on the other +side of the counter. Field's, for cash, and, while it was drawing, for +advice, was always the first port of call of the wives and the mothers +home from India, to say nothing of the husbands and the fathers,--"well, +Field's, you, shall be the fount of all that domestic advice that +is just what all those people, cut off from home, are constantly and +distractingly in need of." She didn't suppose, as it was, that Field's +did no more, for them than bank their money? Field's were their agents. +Field's saw that they booked their passages, and that their baggage got +aboard; and when they arrived this end or the other, or when they broke +their journeys coming or going, Field's representatives were there to +meet them and take over all their baggage troubles for them. "Very well. +Now Field's--you--are going to look after their domestic troubles for +them--find them rooms, find them houses, find them schools for their +children. When people know what we can do for them, people will come to +us to bank with us because we can do it. When people come to us to bank +with us--we go ahead." + +Mr. Sturgiss ended and drew back and looked at her. He lit a cigarette +and took a sip at his coffee. "We thought of offering you three--" he +set down his cup and looked at her again--"four hundred a year." + +She declined the post. She was girlish, and delighted him, in her +expression of her enormous sense of the compliment he paid her; she was +a woman of uncommon purposefulness, and increased his admiration for her +by the directness and decision with which uncompromisingly she said him +no. She owed a loyalty which she could never fully pay to Simcox's, to +Mr. Simcox; that was the beginning and the end of her refusal. Simcox's +was her own, her idea, her child that daily she saw growing and that +daily absorbed her more: that was the material that filled in and +stiffened out the joints of her refusal. "But if you knew how proud I +am, Mr. Sturgiss! You don't mind my refusing?" + +He laughed and rose to take her to the drawing-room. "I don't mind a +bit. This is only what they call preliminary overtures. I shall ask you +again. We mean to have you." + +Between the two rooms he said, "Yes, mean to. It's a big thing. I'm +certain of it. We shall keep it open for you. We shan't fill it." He put +his hand on the drawing-room door and opened it. "We can't." + +She went in radiant. + +She was on the red bus again, going home. She had stayed but the +briefest time after dinner. She was too elevated, too buoyant, too +possessed possibly to remain in company; excitedly desirous to be alone +with her excited thoughts,--especially to be alone with them in that +significant apartment of hers. Significant! Why upon the very day of +entering it had come this most triumphant sign of its significance! +Significant!... + +She had a front seat on the outside of the omnibus. She gazed before +her along a path of night that the lamps jewelled in chains of gold, +and streamed along it her tumultuous thoughts, terrible as an army with +banners. It was very strange, and it vexed her, robbing her of her proud +consciousness of them, that there obtruded among them, as one plucking +at her skirt--as captain of them she rode before them--the figure of +Laetitia's Harry. Similarly he had obtruded and been like to spoil the +pleasure of her visit; but he had been made to provide compensations and +he obtruded now only in rebirth of a passage with him that, rehearsed +again, much pleased her even while, annoyed, she cut him down. + +Taking her leave, she had been seen from the threshold by Mr. Sturgiss +and by Laetitia's Harry. It was pitchy dark, emerging from the +brightness of the interior, and he had stepped with her to conduct her +to the gate. "It was an extraordinary coincidence, meeting you here," he +had said. + +She did not reply. His voice was most strangely grave for an observation +so trite; he might have been speaking some deeply meditated thing, +profound, heavy with meaning, charged with fate. Fatuous! It was +extraordinary that there was not an action of his but aroused her +animosity. This vibrant gravity of tone--an organ used for a jig, just +as his gifts were used for his Laetitia moon-calfings--caused newly a +disturbance within her against him. She would have liked to whistle or +in some equal way to express indifference to his presence. + +They were at the gate and he stooped to the latch and appeared to have +some trouble with it. "Sturgiss has been telling me what a wonderful +person you are." + +Again that immense gravity of tone. She was astonished at the sudden +surge of her animosity that it caused within her. She had desired to +express indifference. She desired now to assail. She made a sneer of her +voice. "I should have thought you had ears for the wonder of no one but +Laetitia." + +"Why do you say that?" + +She felt her lip curl with her malevolence. "To see you raise your eyes +and hear you breathe 'Ah, Laetitia!'" + +He opened the gate and she passed out, tingling. + +It astounded her to find herself a hundred yards gone from the house, +nay, now upon the bus a mile and more away, recalling it, trembling +and with her breath quickened. It was as if she had been engaged in a +contest of wills, very fierce; nay, in a contest physical, a wrestling. +She had not known, she told herself, that it was possible to hate so. +That man! These men! She put her eye upon the bus driver, strapped on +his perch so near to her that she could have touched him, and absurdly +in her repugnance of his sex hated him and shrank farther away from him. + +It was enormously, sickeningly real to her, her repugnance. Even on +detached consideration of her ridiculous shrinking from the bus driver +she could not have laughed at it. People who had an uncontrollable +antipathy to cats did not laugh at the grotesque puerilities to which it +carried them. Nor she at her antipathy. "Of course they're beasts." +Yes, the right word! It was the beastliness of sex that bottomed her +loathing. + +She could not have laughed; but she could and did with a conscious +intention of her will put that intruder on her animation finally out of +her mind. This very joyous uplifting of her spirit, was it not because, +in this world dominated by men, based for its fundamental principle upon +play of sex as commerce is based upon the principle of barter, she +was assured of position, of privilege, and of power that raised her +independent of such conventions and such laws? + +She was her own! All her proud joys, her glad imaginings, her delighted +hopes, arose amain and anew, tuned to this cumulative paean as a nourish +of trumpets at the climax of a proclamation. She was intoxicated on her +happiness. + +They were come to the lighted shops and the crowded pavements. The bus +drew up at the thronged corner adjacent to the divigation of the Harrow +Road and she leaned over and watched the scene, smilingly (for sheer +happiness) looking down upon it, as smilingly (for her triumphant +altitude) she felt that she looked down upon the world. She would not +have changed place with any life living or that could be lived; she was +so much abandoned to her happiness that she made the intention she would +sit up in her significant apartment all that night, not to lose a moment +of it. She grudged that even sleep upon her happiness should intrude. + +There came one in the traffic beneath her that caught her attention: a +woman whom people stood aside to let pass and turned to look upon with +grins; two or three urchins danced about the woman, pointing at her and +calling at her. Her dress was disordered, muddy all up one side as if +she had fallen; her face flushed; her hat awry; her hair escaped and +wisped about her eyes and on her shoulders. She was drunk. An obscene +and horrible spectacle, the mock of her beholders. A horrible woman. + +It was Keggo. + +Rosalie caught her breath. She made to rise but did not rise. Keggo +stopped and lifted all around a vacant gaze. Her eyes met Rosalie's +straight above her. She lurched a step and stopped and swayed and looked +again, battling perhaps with hints within her fumy brain of recognition. +Rosalie made again to rise to go to her and again did not rise. The bus +moved forward. That wretched woman, making as if to pursue her aroused +be-fuddlement, turned about to follow and came a few steps, lurching +like a ship that foundered. The light blazed down upon her upturned +face. She lurched into some shadow and, as wreckage swallowed up in the +trough of the sea, her face was gone. + +Lurching... as a ship... that foundered. There was in Rosalie's mind +some dim memory struggling. Lurching... as a ship... in the darkness... +in the night. And her face... seen and gone... as a ship... labouring... +as a ship... + +Ah! + +Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing; Only a +signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness. + +It came to Rosalie complete and word for word; and with perfect +clearness, as though she saw and sensed them, all its attendant +circumstances: the attic room at the Sultana's, the strange smell +mingled with the smell of the oil lamp, Keggo in the wicker chair, she +beside her, her head against Keggo's knee; and Keggo's voice reciting +the lines and her young, protesting, loving cry, "O Keggo!" + +She saw it, sensed it, heard it--and stonily regarded it. A thing to +weep at, she knew it; but did not weep. A thing to stab her, it ought +to; but did not stab. What good could she do? Suppose she had got up +and gone down; suppose she now got up and went down and went back? What +good? All sentimentality that. Be sensible! If a thousand pounds would +do Keggo any good, and if she had a thousand pounds, freely and gladly +she would give the last penny of it. But to get down, to have got down, +what could she have done? Why should she worry about her? Keggo had had +her chance. Everybody had their chance. She now had hers. Why should +she... + +She never saw Keggo again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +She had not good health in the week immediately following that great +day. She did not feel well. She did not look very well. Mr. Simcox, +profoundly sympathetic to every mood of her who was at once his protege +and his support, told her he thought she had been overdoing it. She +seized upon that excuse and tried to persuade herself that perhaps she +had; or, which amounted to the same thing, that she was suffering +from the revulsion of those huge excitements. But she did not persuade +herself. Her malaise, whatever it was, was not of that kind. Its +manifestations were not in lassitude or sense of disability. They +were in a curious dis-ease whose occasion was not to be defined; in a +consuming restlessness beneath whose goad even the significant apartment +had not power to charm and hold her; in a certain feverishness whose +exsiccative heat, leaving her palms and temples cool (she sometimes felt +them and had surprise) caused inwardly a dry burning that made her long +for quiet places. + +She could not settle to anything. Her limbs, and they had their way, +desired not to rest; her mind, and it deposed her captaincy, would cast +no anchor. + +Mr. Simcox, as the week drew on, suggested a weekend at home. It had +occurred to her, very attractively, but she had negatived it. Aunt Belle +(before the idea had come to her) had written an invitation to one of +the Saturday dinners in which she had "most particularly, my dear child" +desired her presence. Something most delightful was going to happen and +she must be there. She had accepted and she later told herself she +did not like to refuse. She knew, instantly as she read, what was the +identity of this delightful thing that was to happen and she decided, +with a sharp turn within her of some emotion, that certainly she would +be there. To whet her scorn! She was thereafter much aggravated that her +drifting mind, against her wish, swayed constantly towards it sometimes +with that same sharp turn of that same emotion (nameless to her and +without meaning) always with aggravation of her restlessness, of +her fever, of her dis-ease. When came Mr. Simcox's suggestion of the +week-end at home she decided, as swiftly as she had first accepted, to +revoke her acceptance. She would not be there! She would not--waste her +scorn! + +Impatient for movement, she that evening went to the splendid house +in Pilchester Square to tell her withdrawal. This most exasperating +dis-ease of hers! Now that she was come to change her mind she did not +want to change her mind. It was like going to the dentist with an +aching tooth. On his doorstep the tooth does not ache. Her governance of +herself was by her malaise so shaken that positively, as she came +into Aunt Belle's presence, she did not know whether she was going to +withdraw or to confirm her acceptance of the invitation. + +Most comfortingly, Aunt Belle saved her the decision. "My dear child! +How unexpected! How opportune! I was just writing to you. Our little +dinner is put off! Sit here while I tell you. Now would you like +anything, dear child? A piece of cake? Some nice fruit? To please +me. Really, no? Well, now; our dinner that I so especially wanted you +for--did you guess?" + +She began to tell. + +She told what Rosalie had perfectly well known. The delightful thing +expected to happen was Harry Occleve's proposal of marriage to darling +Laetitia. There had been certain signs and portents. They had come at +last. Their meaning was perfectly clear. There was not the least doubt +that at the next meeting Harry would ask Laetitia's hand. Not the shadow +of a doubt! Aunt Belle knew all the signs! Every woman of Aunt Belle's +experience knew them, dear child. So Harry had been asked for this +dinner; a meaningly written letter, dear child, to encourage him, the +dear, poor fellow! And had accepted, in terms so meaning too, the dear, +devoted fellow. Then-- + +"But, Aunt Belle--" + +"Listen, dear child. Then he suddenly wrote saying he found he had made +a mistake--" + +"Made a mistake!" The words went out from Rosalie in a small cry. + +"Dear child, it is nothing. How sweet to be so concerned! It is nothing, +it is the best of signs. Made a mistake that he was disengaged for +Saturday. The dear, devoted fellow was so absurdly vague about it. +Unavoidable circumstances prevented him; that was all; his writing and +all the appearance of his letter so delightfully distracted! How amused +we were, your Uncle Pyke and I! How amused, and how we felt for the +dear, devoted fellow! Screwing up his courage! How we remembered our own +courtship! You should hear your Uncle Pyke tell how he had to screw up +his courage to propose to me and how many times it failed him and he +fled. Dear, child, you've no idea how ridiculous these poor men are in +their love! How timorous! How they suffer! The dear, poor fellows. Your +Uncle Pyke wrote him at once a most kind and meaning letter--accepting +his unforeseen circumstances (he had to, of course) and positively +fixing him for Monday instead. 'Laetitia is expecting you,' your Uncle +Pyke wrote. The dear fellow! How happy it will make him! So it is +Monday, dear child. Monday, instead. We do so want you to be there. I +do so want you, and so does my darling, to be the first to congratulate +her. And you shall be a bridesmaid! Won't that be nice? Kiss me, dear +child. I shall never forget your sweet concern before I told you his +excuse meant nothing. Dear child, you look startled yet." + +There was only a faint voice that came to Rosalie's lips. "Really +nothing, Aunt Belle?" + +"Dear child, nothing at all." + +She went down to the Rectory on Saturday and found herself more glad +to be there and to be with her mother than she had ever been. When she +greeted her mother, "Kiss me again, dear, small mother," she cried +and put her cheek against her mother's and held it there some moments, +rather fiercely and with her eyes closed, as though there were in +that contact some febrifuge that abated her inward fever, some mooring +whereto, adrift, her mind made fast. + +What beset her? What was the matter with her? What worked within her? +Feverishly she inquired of herself, seeking to analyse her case; but she +could by no means inform herself; her case was not within what diagnosis +she could summon. What? Near as she could get she had the feeling, nay, +the wild longing, to get out: out of what? She did not know. To get +away: away from what? She could not say. + +She found in herself a great and an unusual tenderness towards the home +life. Only her mother and her father were now at home. Harold was at +a branch of his bank in Shanghai. Robert was in Canada. Flora was +in India, married, with two small children. Hilda was in Devonshire, +married to a doctor. These things had happened, these flights been +winged, and she had taken but the smallest interest in them. She had had +her own af-fairs. She had had herself to think of. She had lost touch +with her brothers and sisters. She scarcely ever thought about them. Now +she wanted very much to hear about them. What news of them was there? +How were they getting on? She did want--she could fix that much of her +state, or it presented a relief for her state--she did want to feel that +she belonged to them and they to her. She noticed with a large whelming +of pity how very small her mother seemed to have grown She was always +small, but now--much smaller, fallen in, very fragile. She noticed with +a quick pang how all her father's violent blackness of hair, and violent +red of colouring, and violent glint of eye and violent energy of gesture +were faded, greyed, dimmed, devitalized to a hue and to an air that was +all one and lustreless, as if he had gone in a pond covered, not with +duckweed but with lichen, and had come out, not dripping, but limp and +shrouded head to foot in scaly grey. Was it possible that all this had +been so when she was last here? She had not noticed it. She noticed that +both her dear mother and her father walked on the flat soles of their +feet, and touched articles of furniture as they trod, heavily, across +the room. A most frightful tenderness towards them possessed her. She +wanted like anything to show them devotion and, most frightfully, to +receive from them signs of devotion to her--to be able to feel she was +theirs, and they hers. She wanted it terribly. + +But what else did she want? What? They gave her, all the home talk, but +soon it flagged and whatever in her desired satisfaction still gnawed +within her and was unsatisfied; she ministered to them and they were +pleased but they seemed very quickly tired; they had their accustomed +hours and habits, and whatever it was in her that found relief in +solicitude still tossed within her and was not relieved. What beset her? +What? + +Monday came. She was at this dinner, this festival for the consummation +and celebration of the betrothal of beautiful Laetitia and Laetitia's +darling Harry. That sick dis-ease of hers had wonderfully vanished when +she came into the house, when she was hugged fit to crack her to Aunt +Belle's bosom with "Dear child! Dear child! He's just arrived! He's with +your uncle downstairs. Look at Laetitia! Lovely! Isn't she lovely? +Kiss me again, again, dear child!" When she was floated to by Laetitia, +exquisitely arrayed, pink and white, doll-faced, doll-headed, squeaking +with coquettish glee, "Rosalie! Darling! Isn't this awful? Imagine it +for me, Rosalie! It oughtn't to have been planned like this, ought it? +Do tell darling mamma it ought not to have been! I'm trembling. Wouldn't +you be?" + +Yes, gone that sick dis-ease. How at this spectacle suffer dis-ease, +or any other disturbance of the emotions save only disgust, contempt at +such a horrid preparation for such a horrid rite. Excited responsiveness +to their most friendly excitation was not needed in her for it was not +expected. "The shy, quiet thing you always are, dear child," Aunt Belle +often used to say to her and said now. (And within the week was to beat +her breast in that same drawing-room and cry with an exceeding bitter +cry, "Shy! We thought her shy! Sly! Sly! Sly to the tips of her fingers, +the wicked girl!") + +So she need respond with no more than her normal quiet smile, her normal +tone, in their presence, of poor-relation deference and awe. So behind +that mask could curl her lip and shudder in the refinements of her views +at this most horrid preparation for this most horrid rite. And did. That +dis-ease strangely fled, there came to her the swift belief that +here, and she had not known it!--was that dis-ease's cause. It was the +anticipation of this exhibition of all the things she hated most, of the +most glaring presentiment of outrage of all her strongest principles. +This Laetitia, embodiment of useless woman-hood, launching herself on +that disgusting dependence on a man that soon would strand her among the +derelicts; and that Laetitia's Harry, that might have been a man among +men, coming to the apotheosis of his languishing to--oh, wreathed, +fatted calf with gilded horns! + +Yes, it was this had vexed her so; and suddenly informed of the seat of +her injury she turned upon it disgust and scorn such as never before had +she felt (and she, had felt it always) for the whole order of things for +which it stood. She felt her very blood run acid, causing her to twist, +in her acid contempt for the subservience of women, and most of all for +that Laetitia's subservience, floated on that ghastly coquetry like a +shifting cargo that in the first gale will capsize the ship; she felt +her very temples throb, and almost thought they must be heard, in her +fierce detestation of all the masculinity of men and most of all--yes, +with a flash of eye she could not stay and hoped that he could see--that +fatuous Harry's masculinity. + +He came into the room--looked pale--poor calf!--and went, with a nervous +halt in his walk--sick fool!--to his Laetitia; and looked across at +Rosalie and made a half-step to her; and she thought with all her force, +to send it to him, her last words to him: that most malevolent, "to see +you raise your eyes and hear you breathe, 'Ah, Laetitia'"; and surely +sent it, for on that half-step towards her he stopped, hesitated, and +turned and engaged Laetitia again. + +She had told herself, leaving the Sturgiss's house that night a week +ago, that she had not believed it possible to hate a man so. Now! Why +that was not hate; that, compared with the inimity that now consumed +her, was a mere chill indifference. And it had made her tremble! She was +rigid now. Stiff with hate! He personified for her all in life against +which she was in rebellion, all in life that her soul abhorred; and +while, in the moments before dinner, grunting Uncle Pyke and rallying +Aunt Belle and coquetting Laetitia crowded about him, leaving her alone +and far apart, she, for the reason that it gave to her hate, and for the +example that stood before her eyes, reviewed again her theories of life +and again pledged herself in their support.... + +"Dinner is served." That group went laughing to the door, she followed. +"No, no, my boy. Don't stand on ceremony. Pass along as we come. Why, +hang it, man, we regard you as one of the family! Ha! ha! haw!" Down +the stairs in a body, she following. There is, from their conversation, +something the wreathed calf is to get from his coat to bring to show +them, a letter or a token or something. The dining-room is to the front +on the ground floor. The coats hang in the hall, a narrow passage there, +that runs back to Uncle Pyke's study. They are down. "Shall I get it +now?" "Yes, bring it along; bring it along, my boy." "And Rosalie" (Aunt +Belle), "my fan, dear child. Dear child, I left it on the table in Uncle +Pyke's den. You will? Dear child!" + +They pass in. The gilded calf turns from them for what it is he is to +fetch from his coat; she slips by him to the study and takes up the fan +and comes with it again. + +It is dim in the passage. A condition on which generous Uncle Pyke years +before installed this wonderful electric light that you flick on and +flick off as you require it was that it should always be flicked off +when you did not require it. Now as Rosalie came from the study the +passage was lit only by the shaft of light that gleamed from the +dining-room door; its only sound Aunt Belle's noisy chatter from the +waiting table. + +He was fumbling at the coats, standing there sharply outlined against +the stream of light, his face cut on it in a perfect silhouette. She +had to pass him. That hateful he. She was seized with a fit of that same +trembling that had shaken her after the passage between them at the gate +on Shoot Up Hill. It shook her now, dreadfully. Her knees trembled. She +felt faint. Awful to hate so! She was quite close, almost touching him. +It was necessary he should move, forward or back, to give her room. But +he did not move. His hands, outstretched before him on the coats, and +sharp against the light, appeared to her to be shaking; but that was the +hallucination of this frightful trembling that possessed her. She tried +to say, "If you please--," but, dreadfully, had no voice; but made some +sound; and he, most slowly, drew back. It was before him that she had to +pass. + +She advanced; and felt, as if she saw it, the intensity of the gaze of +his eyes upon her; and saw, as if the place were light and her look not +averted, his "marching" face and those lines radiating to his temples +(horizon tracks) where the faint touch of greyness was; and suddenly had +upon her senses, with an extraordinary pungency, causing them to swim, +that odd, nice smell there was about him of mingled peat and soap and +fresh tobacco, of tweed and heather and the sea. + +She caught her breath... + +The thing's too poignant for the words a man has. + +She was caught in his arms, terribly enfolding her. He was crying in +her ears, passionately, triumphantly, "Rosalie! Rosalie!" She was in his +arms. Those long, strong arms of his were round her; and she was caught +against his heart, her face upturned to his, his face against her own; +and she was swooning, falling through incredible spaces, drowning in +incredible seas, sinking through incredible blackness; and in her ears +his voice, coming to her in her extremity like the beat of a wing in the +night, like the first pulsing roll of music enormously remote, "Rosalie! +Rosalie!" + +The thing's too poignant for the words one has. This girl's extremity +was very great, not to be set in words. Words cannot bring to earth that +which, ethereal, defies our comprehension as life and death defy it and, +like life and death, to our comprehension only sublimely IS. Words only +can say her spirit, bursting from bondage, streamed up to cleave to his; +how tell the anguish, how the ecstasy? Words only can say her spirit, +like a live part of her drawn out of her, seemed to be rushing upwards +from her body to her lips; words cannot tell the anguish that was bliss, +the rapture that was pain. Only can say that she was in his arms, her +heart to his, his lips against her own, and cannot tell-- + +But also it is to be accounted to her for her extremity that herein all +her life's habit was delivered over by her to betrayal. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +He was saying, "We must go in. Can you go in?" She breathed, "I can." + +That dinner! That after-dinner in the drawing-room upstairs! It is a +nightmare to be imagined, not to be described. Imagine walking from the +darkness and the frightful secret of the passage into the blazing +dazzle and the glittering eyes of the resplendent dinner party! They, in +Harry's absence, have been exchanging the last private nods and flashes. +"Soon! Soon!" they have been nodding to one another. Uncle Pyke, licking +his chops anticipatorily of his bath in his soup, has been licking them +also in relish of working off his daughter in this excellent match; +Aunt Belle, kind, kind Aunt Belle, with a last satisfied eye about the +appointments of the table, has patted her Laetitia's hand and conveyed +to her, "Soon, soon, darling; soon, soon!" Beautiful Laetitia has given +a gentle, glad squeeze to the patting hand and smiled a lovely, happy, +certain smile. "Soon! Soon!" has gone the jolly signal--and it is not +going to be soon, nor late; it is never, never going to happen; and +worse than never happen! + +Worse than never happen! That's it. That is the awful knowledge of awful +guilt with which Rosalie sits there and freezes in guilty agony at every +pause in the conversation and could scream to notice how the pauses +grow longer and longer, more frequent and more frequent yet. There's +a frightful constraint, a chilly, creepy dreadfulness steals about +the party. They go upstairs--Aunt Belle and Rosalie and beautiful +Laetitia--and the constraint goes with them. They sit and stare and +hardly a word said. Something's up! What's up? What's the matter with +everything? Why is everything hanging like this! What's up? And the men +come in--Uncle Pyke swollen with food, swollen with indigestion, swollen +with baffled perplexity and ferocious irritation; and Harry--she dare +not look at Harry--and the thing is worse, the awfulness more awful. +Glances go shooting round the awful silences--Uncle Pyke's atrabilious +eye in the burning fiery furnace of his swollen face is a stupendous +note of interrogation directed upon Aunt Belle; Aunt Belle's eyebrows +arch to scalp and appear likely to disappear into her scalp and remain +there in the effort to express, "I don't know! I can't imagine!"; +Laetitia--Laetitia's eyes upon her mother are as a spaniel's upon one +devouring meat at table. + +Frightfulness more frightful, awfulness more awful; in Rosalie almost +now beyond control the desire to scream, or to burst into tears or +wildly into laughter. Then she knows herself upon her feet and hears +her voice: "Aunt Belle. I must go, I think. I think I am very tired +to-night." + +They suffer her to go. + +That's all a nightmare; but, when the door is closed upon them, like a +nightmare gone. She was alone upon the staircase and then down in the +hall--by those coats!--and, as though no ghastly interval had been, the +amazing and beloved moment was returned to her. Out of a nightmare into +a dream! She stood in her dream a moment--two moments--three--by +the hall door. Who till that evening never had thought of love, +astonishingly was invested with all love's darling cunning. She felt +somehow he would see her again before she left; and love's dear cunning +told her right. He came swiftly down the stairs. She never knew on what +pretext he had left the room. He came to her. Love loves these snatched +moments and always makes them snatched to breathlessness. She opened +the door and must be gone. She said to him, speaking first, "Oh, we were +vile in there! How vile we were!" + +It was, the intimacy and the abruptness of it, the perfect comprehension +that their thoughts were shared, as if they had known and loved for +years. + +He caught her hand. "My conspirator! My secret-sharer!" + +She gave him her heart in her eyes. + +He said, "To-morrow, I will come to you." + +She disengaged her hand. + +He gave a swift look all about and caught her in his arms. "You must +tell me, my Rosalie. Tell me." + +She breathed, "You knew, before I knew, that I loved you." + +When she was home and got to her room she undressed, suffering her +clothes to lie as they slipped from her. She got into bed, moving there +and then lying there as one in trance. + +Cataclysm! All she had been, all she had determined--all, all gone; +all nothing, surrendered all. At a touch, in a moment, without a cry, +without a shot, without a stroke, all her life's habit swept away. All +she had been, all she'd designed, all she had built within herself +and walled about herself, all she had scorned, all that with a violent +antipathy she had shuddered from or with curled lip spurned away,--all, +all betrayed, breached, mined, calamitously riven, tumultously sundered, +burst away. + +She turned her face to the pillow and began to cry--most frightfully. + +It was very terrible for Rosalie. + + + + +PART THREE--HOUSE OF CHILDREN + +CHAPTER I + + +There's none so sick as, brought to bed, that robust he that ever +has scorned sickness; nor any sinner like a saint suddenly gone from +saintliness to sin; and there can be no love like love suddenly leapt +from repression into being. + +Rosalie, that had abhorred the very name of love, now finding love was +quite consumed by love. She loved him so! Even to herself she never +could express how tremendous a thing to her their love was. She used +deliberately to call it to her mind (as the new, rapt possessor of a +jewel going specially to the case to peep and gloat again) and when she +called it up like that, or when, in the midst of occupation, her +mind secretly opened a door and she turned and saw it there, a surge, +physically felt, passed through her, and she would nearly gasp, her +breath taken by this new, this rapturous element, as the bather's at his +first plunge in the cold, the splendid sea. + +She loved him so! She looked at him with eyes, not of an inexperienced +girl blinded by love, but of one cynically familiar with the traits of +common men, intolerantly prejudiced, sharply susceptible to every note +or motion of displeasing quality; and her eyes told her heart, and what +is much more told her mind, that nothing but sheer perfection was here. +Harry was brilliantly talented, Harry was in face and form one that +took the eye among a hundred men. But she had known all that and freely +granted him all that before. What she found as she came to know him, and +when they were married what she continued to find, was simply, that he +was perfect. He was perfect in every way and there was no way in +which, inclining neither to the too much nor the too little, he was not +perfect. + +The labour of a catalogue of her Harry's virtues is thus discounted. +Name a virtue in a man and it was Harry's. Declare too much perfection +is as ill to live with as too much fault, and it is precisely just +before too much is reached that Harry's dowry stopped. Suggest she was +blind to defects, and it is to be answered that there was no man who +knew him that ever had a thought against him (except Uncle Pyke, Colonel +Pyke Pounce, R.E., who, justifiably, was warned by his physician never +to think upon the monster lest apoplexy should supervene) nor any fellow +man in his profession (and that is the supreme test) that ever grudged +him his success. Disgruntled barristers, morosely brooding upon the fall +of plums into other mouths than theirs, always said, when it was Harry's +mouth: "Ah, Occleve; yes, but he's different. No one grudges Harry +Occleve what he gets." + +Different! In Rosalie's fond, fondest love for him she often used to hug +her love by making that catalogue of all his parts that has been shown +not to be necessary. And it was the little, tiny things wherein he +differed from common men that especially she cherished. By the deepest +part of her nature terribly susceptible to the grosser manifestations +of the male habit, it was extraordinarily wonderful and delicious to her +that Harry of these had none. In an age much given to easy freedom of +language it will not be appreciated, it perhaps will cause the pair +of them to be sneered at, but it demands mention as illuminating +a characteristic of hers (and of his), that she had, for instance, +especial delight in the fact that Harry never even swore. The impossible +test in the matter of self-command is when a man hits his thumb with +a hammer. What does a bishop say when he does that? But she saw Harry +catch his thumb a proper crack hanging a picture in the house they +took, and, "Mice and Mumps!" cried Harry, and dropped the hammer and +the picture, and jumped off the stepladder, and did a hop, and wrung his +hand, and laughed at her and wrung his hand and laughed again. "Mice and +Mumps!" + +"Mice and Mumps!" It always seemed to her to characterise and to +epitomise him, that grotesque expression. It always made her laugh; and +the more serious the accident or the dilemma that brought it to Harry's +lips, the more, by pathos, one was forced to laugh and the seriousness +thereby dissipated into an affair not serious at all. Yes, that was the +point of it and the reason it epitomised him. There was none of life's +dilemmas--little dilemmas that irritate ordinary people or in which +ordinary people display themselves pusillanimous; or tragic dilemmas +that find ordinary people wanting and leave them in vacillation and +despair--there was none of any sort that Harry, receiving with his +comic, "Mice and Mumps! Mice and Mumps, old girl!" did not receive with +the assurance to her that, though this was a nuisance, he had metal and +to spare to settle such; that, though this was a catastrophe, a facer, +he'd too much courage, too much high, brave spirit for it to discommode +him; there was no fight in such, he was captain of such, trust him! + +"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward." + +That was Harry! + +"Mice and Mumps!" On the evening of the day following that astounding +betrothal of theirs, affianced as it were at a blow--a day spent +together in the park complete, without a break for food or thought of +occupation--on the evening of that day he must go, he de-clared, to the +horrific castle in Pilchester Square and break the awful news, proclaim +his villainy. + +She was terrified. "They'll kill you, Harry. Write." + +"No, no. I've been a howling cad. It's true, a howling cad, not of +guile, but of these astounding things that have happened to us outside +ourselves, but nevertheless a howling cad as such conduct is judged, +and will be judged. So I must go through it. I must. That's certain. I +couldn't hide behind a letter. They are entitled to tell me to my face +what they think of me. They must have their right. Oh, yes, I've got to +give them that. To-night. Now." + +A howling cad, but of forces outside themselves ("Too quick for me," he +had explained), not of guile. + +He had explained, in those enchanted hours in the park, that it was +really by resolve to do the right thing, and not to do the caddish +thing, that he had presented himself the howling cad that they would +hold him. That night at the Sturgiss's at Cricklewood had charged him +("Oh, Rosalie, like bursting awake to breathe from suffocation in a +dream.") what for many days, only looking at her, never speaking to +her, suffering her not veiled contempt, he had felt as one feels a +premonition that is insistent but that cannot be defined--that night +had charged him that he loved her. He was no way definitely committed +to poor Laetitia. Was he more wrong if, now knowing his heart was +otherwhere, he maintained and carried to its consummation the intimacy +between Laetitia and himself, or if he stopped while yet he had not gone +too far? He had decided to break while yet it might, be broken. There +was an invitation from Mrs. Pyke Pounce he had accepted. He wrote, +endeavouring to give a meaning to his words, excusing himself from it. + +She murmured, "I remember." ("Nothing in it, dear child; nothing in +it!") + +There came back a letter from Colonel Pyke Pounce in which Colonel Pyke +Pounce also had endeavoured to give a meaning to his words, and had +succeeded. Now Harry knew his problem of moral conduct in a fiercer +form; now, resolving to do what he told himself was the right thing and +not the caddish thing, he took the step that made him be the howling cad +that they would think him. ("But, Rosalie, gave me you!") + +He had resolved that he must accept the invitation, present himself at +the house--and let the hour decide. As the situation revealed itself +so he would accept it. If it was made clear to him, as the Pyke Pounce +letter much gave him to believe, that proposal for Laetitia's hand was +expected of him, he would "do the right thing" and stand by what his +behaviour apparently had led them to expect; if the way still seemed +open, the door not shut behind him, he would very frankly explain to +Laetitia's grisly father that he thought it best his visits to the house +from now should cease. The hour should decide! But there was in the +hour, when it came, one terrible, one lovely element that he never had +expected to be there. In all his visits to the house Rosalie never had +been met on any other day than Saturday. This dinner was on the Monday, +and arriving to face and carry through his ordeal, he was startled, he +was utterly shaken to see her there. ("To see my darling there.") + +O forces outside themselves! "When you had to pass me in the passage +nothing mattered then--except I could not let you pass." + +So it was that now, the right thing not having been done on that night, +the right thing in this new position must be done to-day. They were +entitled to tell him to his face what they thought of him and they must +have their right. That was his view and he would not abate it. + +"They'll kill you, Harry." + +They had come by this to the corner of Pilchester Square and there he +bade her wait. She said again, part laughing, most in fear, "They'll +kill you." + +"I've got to give them the chance to do their best." + +And off he went, strongly, erect. One who never... but marched breast +forward. + +Waiting for him, she really was terrified for him. Ferocious Uncle +Pyke! Terrific Aunt Belle! Swollen and infuriated Uncle Pyke! Bitter and +outraged Aunt Belle! + +In twenty minutes came the crash of a slammed front door that clearly +and terribly was Uncle Pyke Pounce slamming it as if he would hurl it +through its portals and crash it on to Harry down the steps. + +Harry reappeared, uncommonly grave. + +She put out a hand to him, dreadfully anxious. + +"Mice and Mumps!" said Harry. "Mice and Mumps!" + +You couldn't help laughing! But also, squeezing the strong arm beneath +which he tucked her hand, you felt, with such a thrill, from that +grotesque expression, and from his face as he said it, that this, like +every forward thing, had in it nothing that could discommode that high, +brave spirit: no fight in such; he was captain of such, trust him! + +Thus also her delight in another form, and yet in the same form, in that +grotesque expression, when it was ejaculated as his sole expletive when +he caught his thumb that frightful crack while hanging a picture in what +was to be his study in their newly taken house. + +Any other man in the world, even a bishop, would have sworn; would have +sworn no doubt harmlessly and with an honest heartiness to which the +most pious prude could not have taken exception. Agreed! But the point +was--that Harry didn't! + +She loved him so! She insisted she must bind up the thumb with her +pocket handkerchief, and did, Harry protesting; and for years, still +loving him with the old, first love, she often would be reminded by the +picture of the incident and of her joy in it. + +Yes, the only expletive she ever heard him use; and, lo, in that very +room, years on, he seated beneath that very picture, she was to come to +him with news (and hers the guilt of it) that for the first time was to +strike him between the joints of his harness, visibly ageing him as she +spoke, and for the first time cause him to groan his pain. She was +to glance at the picture as she spoke and very terribly its merry +association to be recalled to her. She was to recall him young, gay, +tremendously splendid, wringing his damaged hand, laughing, "Mice and +Mumps!" She was to see him, grey ascendant upon the raven of his hair, +shrinking down in his seat, wilting as one slowly collapsing after a +stunning blow, and at her news (and hers the guilt of it) to hear +his voice go, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one dazed, +bewildered, in a fog, "My God, my God, my God, my God!" + +How could one ever have foreseen that? + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +She loved him so! On that first day together in the park she told +him everything about herself, about all her ideas and theories and +principles, particularly where these touched his sex, even about that +terrible fit of crying of hers in bed an hour after she had left him. +And Harry understood everything and agreed with her in everything. O +rapturous affinity! + +They met early when business London was rushing to business. They stayed +late, with no thought of food or of their occupations, till business +London was returning, and night, in lamps below and stars above, was +setting out its sentinels. + +She told him everything; and even if she had wished not to open all her +heart, there would have been the immense selection of everything--every +single thing about herself--from which to choose to tell him. For there +never had been such a betrothal as theirs; done at a blow with no single +intimate thing ever before passed between them! Her very first words to +him as they met, her greeting of him as they came together, showed how +preposterous and never-before-imagined was their affiancement. "You +know, it's incredible," she greeted him. "It's incredible, it's +grotesque, it's flatly impossible--I've never before seen you except in +your dress clothes or at afternoon tea!" + +Harry took both her hands in his. "But I think I've wanted you," said +Harry, "ever since I was in long clothes. I know I've wanted you ever +since first I saw you." + +One knows another, in her place, would have bantered this off in that +modern attitude towards love which is a horror, boisterously expressed, +of admitting love as an emotion. Rosalie, that had scorned the very name +of love, and that, because betrayed by love, had turned her face to her +pillow and cried most frightfully, received it with a sound that was +between a sigh and a catching of her breath. She loved him so! + +And then they talked; and the thing between them, that had come so +wonderfully, was so wonderful that they were as it were transfigured by +it, as awe and spirituality and mysticism would fill the dwellers in a +house visited by a miracle of God. So wonderful, that conversation, they +would have felt, was not possibly a word for all that occupied them in +those rapturous hours: not conversation, no,--a sublime engagement of +their spirits wherein (possessing the keys of all the wonders), seas, +continents and worlds of thoughts were traversed by them, in every clime +most exquisite affinity discovered. + +As at a blow they had become affianced, so, with no stage between, +but in immediate sequence perfectly natural to them both, the natural +repercussion of the blow, they talked immediately of betrothal's +consummation, of marriage, of their marriage. + +About marriage Rosalie had immensely much to tell Harry. It was what she +had principally to say, and this is how and why and what she told him. + +When from her first terrible dismay--that frightful crying, her face +turned to the pillow--she had recovered; when to the lovely ardour of +her love--stealing about her, soothing her, in the night; bursting upon +her, ravishing her, in the morning--she had passed on; she remembered +her second line of her defences and she fell back upon it. "If ever I +fell in love," she had often said, alike to Keggo and to Miss Salmon, +"if such an impossible thing ever were to happen to me, I'd marry as +marriage should be. I'd enter a partnership. I would live my life; he +would live his life; together, when we wanted to, when we were off duty, +so to speak, we would live our life. A partnership, a mutually free and +independent partnership." + +The second line of her defences! Oh, strong and reassuring thought! Of +course, of course the first line, breached and swept away, had never +really mattered. Foolish to have wept for it! It was built against +love and she knew now, by her darling and her terrible experience, that +against love----! Nay, in that whelming admission's very tide, sweeping +upon her from envisagement of Harry and bearing her deliciously upon its +flood, there had come a thought as strong with wine as that was sweet +with honey. Built against love! Why, in seeking to build against love, +to shut away love from her life, was she not perpetrating against +herself the very act--denial of anything a free life might have--that it +was her life's first principle to oppose? A man's place, a man's part, +everything that a man by conventional dowry is given, hers should be as +freely as a man's it is! That was her aim; that at once the basis of her +standpoint and the target of her shaft; and lo, at the very outset of +her independence, she had sought to deny herself that which (as now +she knew) was life's most lovely gift. She was steadfast, and she was +caparisoned, to obtain and to possess the things that, of her sex, +commonly a woman might not have, and she was shutting herself from that +which, if it offers, not all the man-owned world can deny the woman +lowliest in office, heaviest in chains, deepest in servitude! + +O senselessness! She could see, as looking upon an individuality not her +own, that foolish girl that for such had turned her face to her pillow +and cried out her heart; and at that very moment, and no other, of +smiling pity for that mistaken grief, there came to Rosalie a sudden +sense of womanhood attained; of much increase of years and wisdom; of +growth of stature; of transportation, as from one world to another, from +the character and the presence that had been hers to a personality and +a body that looked down upon that other as, tenderly, a mother upon the +innocence of her small child. + +That poor, brave, foolish Rosalie that was! Did she protest, that +foolish girl, that she was right in what had been her attitude to love? +Did she with would-be bitterness recall those views laid down upon the +women in the boarding house--that they were derelicts precisely through +this love business, abandoned of men, relict of men, footsore and fallen +in pursuit of men? + +Ah, small, misguided creature! The principles were right but all askew +the application. Love! Consider other attributes of life. Consider +learning; consider food. Learning and food--were they not bounties of +life's treasure, to be absorbed and used for sustenance in order, by +their nourishment, to give to live this life more fully? Why, so with +love! Derelicts, those women, because receiving love (that loveliest +gift of all!) not as a means but as an end--the end of all: that +attained, everything attained; that won, all finished. That was it! That +the misapplication! Learning, or food, or love--the same with all! How +dead the life that only lived in scholarship; how gross the life that +only lived to eat; how derelict that she that only lived to love, to +marry--then ceased to live! + +And equally, O small, misguided girl, how starved the life that has no +books; how weak the frame that has no food; ah, dear (thus smiled she to +herself), how dead the life that knows not love! + +The second line of her defences! Nay, as now through this mature and +happy cogitation she saw it, the first and last and only line! In her +aloneness, in that girl's single life, there had been nothing against +which to defend. She had fought phantoms, that girl; resisted shadows. +Now was the necessity, now the test; and now, because with Harry, +because she loved him so, because he was every way and in all things +perfect, now should be the triumphant exposition. + +And she told Harry: marriage that should be a partnership--not an +absorption by the greater of the less; not one part active and the other +passive; one giving, the other receiving; one maintaining, the other +maintained; none of these, but instead a perfect partnering, a perfect +equality that should be equality of place, equality of privilege, +equality of duty, equality of freedom. "Harry, each with work and with +a career. Harry, each living an own life as every man, away from home, +shutting his front door upon that home and off to work, leads an own and +separate life. Harry--" + +Oh, wonderful beneath this imperturbable sky, amongst these common, +passive things--these paths, those trees, that grass, this bench--within +this seclusion of that murmurous investment of this city, the ceaseless +roar of London, standing like patient walls, eternal and indifferent, +about her quietudes. Oh, wonderful in these accustomed and insensible +surroundings thus to be calling "Harry," as he were brother, him that a +day and night away virtually was unmet; to be exposing, as to a gracious +patron, all her mind's treasury of thought; to be revealing, as in +confessional, her inmost places of her heart; to be receiving, as by +transfusion, the glow of affirmation on her way and in her trust. Oh, +wonderful! + +Wonderful, because remember for her that she was still beneath the shock +of her dismay at her betrayal of herself; still breathless at that rout +from her prepared positions; not yet assured her banners were unsullied +in their withdrawal to her second line; not yet convinced it was no +rout but a withdrawal, wise and strategical, ranks unbroken, to the true +point of her defence. + +Do try to imagine her, tremulous in this her vital enterprise, tremulous +in this wonder that her armies found. It is very desirable to remember +what can be remembered for that girl. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Harry assured her! Harry convinced her! Harry was here upon the +battlements, come with her in her retirement, joined with her as her +ally. All her ideas were his ideas. He, too, had these new views of +marriage. He said they always had been his. He hated, as she hated, that +old dependence notion: all the privileges the man's, the woman's all the +duties. That was detestable to him, said Harry. Marriage in his view-- + +"I'll tell you this," was one thing Harry said. "I'll show it to you +this way, Rosalie. I don't exactly know what a reciprocating machine +is, but I know what it sounds like, and what it sounds like is what +a marriage ought to be,--a perfect fitting together, a perfect +harmonising, a perfect joining of two perfect halves that everywhere +reciprocate." + +The word delighted her. A reciprocating machine! Yes, yes! Each an own +part; each with own and separate interests; and their parts, and +the production arising out of their interests--their individual +selves--approached together, by free will, to join towards a mutual +benefit, a shared endeavour, a common advancement, a single end. + +She was desperately in earnest and so was he. There was a mill near his +people's home in Sussex, a water mill, and his illustration by it of the +design they had showed her how earnestly her own ideas were his. There +were two wheels to this mill, Harry told her, one on either side. Each +ran in its own stream, each was entirely independent of the other; they +worked alone, but each helped the other's work; the mill joined them and +they joined to make the mill. + +That was it! + +And she was not talking any generalities, and Harry was not, either. +They weren't, either of them, playing with this idea of mutual +independence. There would "of course" be a business basis to it, Rosalie +said. She was earning her own income and she would pay her half of the +upkeep of their home together. It was a stipulation that she advanced +with a definite fear that here, at last, she might be taking Harry from +his depth; that by natural instinct of generosity, or by instinct of +immemorial custom to endow the wife with all the husband's worldly +goods, he would here reveal a flaw in his till now flawless duplication +of the views that were her own. + +But Harry (the never failing rapture of it!) was every way without spot +or blemish. He was looking straight and close into her eyes while she +put forward this, and there moved not the least dissentient shade across +his own while he received it. She need have had no fear. He said, "I +agree absolutely with that, Rosalie. There's only one point--" and his +expansion of this point wholly entranced her because it established +conditions even more matter-of-fact and businesslike than her own broad +principle. + +"There's only one point," Harry said. "It can't be half and half in +terms of actual bisection. Look, Rosalie, in this matter of running the +home we're making a contract between two parties and--don't forget I'm a +lawyer--it has to be an equable and just contract, and to be that it has +to be based for each party's liability--Do you like me to use the law +jargon?" + +She nodded. "I do, I do!" This was frightfully, entrancingly serious for +her. This was a survey of the fortifications of her second line of her +defences. "I do, I do!" + +"Well, has to be based for each party's liability on each party's +interest, on the extent to which each party is involved. I'm making +more--an uncommon good bit more--than you are, Rosalie. My interest, +therefore my liability, that is, my share, has to be allowed to be +proportionately the more. Put it in another way. We're going to run an +establishment as an establishment might be run by two or more people of +different incomes who wish to join forces for mutual pleasure, two or +three relatives, two or three friends. Well, there's a regular principle +governing that kind of arrangement. You don't all pay the same. If you +did, you'd reduce the scale of living to the level of what the poorest +can afford, and half the idea of the combination is to enjoy a very +much better scale. No, you run the show on the level the wealthiest is +willing to go to, and to the total charge each one contributes in the +proportion of his income. If one party has a thousand a year and the +other five hundred, and the thousand-pounder wants to live at the rate +of nine hundred a year, he pays six hundred and the other three hundred. +Each is paying his just share--that's the point. That's how we'd arrange +it, Rosalie." + +She loved him so! If that were said a thousand times (as already perhaps +too often for the robust) it still would not approach the volume of its +swelling in the heart of Rosalie, for that was ceaseless. His attitude +in this matter now between them, as in every matter, might have been the +perfect agreement with her own view that it was and yet might so have +been presented as to be much antipathetic to her. His attitude might +have made her feel she ought to say, "Thank you, Harry, for agreeing to +that"; it might have had the note, "I know exactly how you feel about +marriage; I want to make every-thing just as you wish." Quicksands! +Principles to be received as grants, bases of her defences to be +accepted as concessions! Quicksands! At either attitude, as at a foreign +flavour in a cup, she would have drawn back, suspicious; at either sense +within herself, of winning a favour, of accepting a hazard, she would +have taken alarm, dismayed. But it was why she loved him so that here, +as everywhere, his standpoint was her standpoint's own reflection. She +was, as she would have said, deadly in earnest; deadly in earnest to +a depth that she could let go to absurdity and never know it for +absurdity; and so was he. + +Approving this plan of computation of the share that each would pay, "It +would have to be done strictly," she said, "as though it were strictly +business. And--you don't know, perhaps--I'm making, or soon shall be, +just on five hundred a year." + +He smiled the nice smile of his she loved, more with his eyes than with +his lips. "I'm afraid mine's a good bit more than that. Money's rather +pushed at you at the Bar once it starts. You'd have to put up with +that." + +Her fondness in her eyes reflected him. "I know how famous you are +getting. I'd not be stupid about that, Harry. It would be the just +share, each according to our means; that's understood. Only, for me, it +would have to be the just share, that's what I'm saying; not a matter of +form, a strict proportion." + +"If you liked," said Harry, "we'd give the figures to the costs clerk at +my chambers and let him work the contributions out." + +"Absurd!" she might have laughed; and as an absurdity he might, with a +laugh, have presented it. But quite gravely he made the suggestion, and +quite gravely, after a moment's grave thought, "I don't think that would +be necessary," she returned. + +His earnestness in this thing so vital to her matched her own, and +therefore she loved him; and he yet could bring to it lightly a touch +which, though light, yet was profoundly based; and therefore, newly, she +loved him. She knew she talked with immense profligacy of words in her +endeavour to make clear the principles this second line of her defences +must maintain. "Each with work and with a career, each with an own +and separate life." She kept repeating that. "Equal in work and in +responsibility, Harry, and therefore equal in place, in privilege, in +freedom." + +And Harry, with a light touch but a grave air, a happy setting for a +profound meaning, put it in a sentence. "Things which are equal to the +same thing are equal to one another," said Harry. + +She loved him so! + +But there ought here to be explained for her what, loving him so and +he so loving her, she could not have known for herself. This plan of +maintaining their establishment by contribution of share and share was +maintained by Rosalie from the beginning--to the end. She never had +cause to doubt that in all the earnestness of that close conversation +Harry was utterly sincere. She often recalled that steady gaze with no +dissentient shade across it with which his eyes received her statement +of her case and knew that only truth was in that gaze. He did believe +what she believed. It only was afterwards she discovered that also he +believed that, both for her and him, the thing would mellow down as +mellows down the year, her heady Aprils burnt in June, her burning Junes +assuaging to September; that it would pass; that time-- + +Yes, it must be explained. It was not active in his mind, this +reservation. It was passive, underlying, subconscious, as beneath +vigour's incredulity of death lies passively admission of death's final +certitude. He believed what she believed; but he believed it as are +believed infinity and eternity: wherein mankind, believing, reposes upon +that limitation of the human mind which cannot conceive infinity but +sees ultimately an end, and can pretend eternity through myriad years +but feels ultimately a termination. Harry believed what she believed but +only by stabilisation of a man's inherent articles of faith. He was of +the male kind; and observe, by an incident, what inherent processes of +thought the male kind has: + +When they were looking over the house which ultimately they took--an all +ways most desirable house in Montpelier Crescent, Knightsbridge--Rosalie +had only a single objection: it was far too big. + +"Miles too big," cried Rosalie, coming up to the second floor where +Harry had preceded her. "What are you doing there, Harry? Miles too big, +I was saying. It really is. Of course I realise you must have a house +suitable to your fame but--What are you doing, Harry?" + +"Fame, yes," breathed Harry, desperately occupied. "I've turned on this +tap and I can't turn it off again. Eternal fame. After me the deluge!" + +She was looking around. "But, Harry, really! Look at this floor. Two +more huge rooms. What can we--" + +"Mice and Mumps!" groaned Harry, straining at the tap. "Mice and Mumps!" + +He came to her wiping his hands on his handkerchief. "Too big! Look +here, supposing this house isn't washed away by that tap. Suppose it's +still standing here tomorrow. Take a broad, courageous view of the +thing. Suppose this isn't the beginning of the Great Flood of London, +and that we're going to live in a house and not an ark. Well, what +you've got to remember is that we're not coming in here for a week. +We've got to look ahead. Take these two rooms. Why, you can see what +they're for, what they've been. Opening into one another, and those +little bars on the windows, and that protected fireplace. Nurseries. Day +nursery and night nursery." + +Rosalie laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +That's all done. The thing traverses the waters of the years, as across +seas a ship, and makes presently a new shore, a new clime, wherein are +met occasions new and strange, not anticipated by Rosalie. + +Here is one. + +Habitant in the new continent across these years, she is wife and, +though she had laughed, is mother, and on a day is with her Harry, and +Harry is saying, not at all with any hardness in his voice, but very +gravely: + +"I have a right to a home." + +She replies, as grave as he, as one debating a matter that is weighty +but that is before the arbitrament, not of feeling, but of reason, +"Harry, you have a home." + +A gesture of his head, much comprehensive, is made by him: "Is this a +home?" + +"It's where we live." + +"Ah, where we live, Rosalie!" + +She did not reply to this. Himself, and not she, spoke next; but his +note was as though she had answered and he were speaking in his turn. "I +have a right to a home. The children have a right to a home." + +She said, "Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a home." + +He said, "Rosalie, I am a man." + +She answered, "Harry, I am a woman." + +Harry was smoking and he indrew an inhalation from his pipe with a long +sibilant sound: her answer was very well understood by him. + +No, she never had anticipated this. + +Yet might not she have seen? Astounding how in life one's suddenly +engulfed in depths and never has perceived the shoals from which they +led; suddenly entombed in night and never has perceived the gradual +declination of the day! Why, when she looked back, so far away as in +those days of choosing their house had been in seed this thing that now +was come to fruit. And she had watched it grow from seed to seedling, +and on to bud and blossom, and never had suspected. + +But had she not? Then it was curious, she knew, that, alone of all her +thoughts, all her beliefs, all her theories, her observations and +her deductions from her observations, curious that of them all only a +certain observation, made when choosing their house, she never had told +to Harry. + +Choosing their house! She had gone back to her rooms from the third day +of their house-hunting gently amused at an addition to her compendium of +lore on the male habit. It was in a way like the cat idea; at least it +was, like that, reversal of a common opinion on distinguishing traits +as between men and women. It went in her mind like this and, because +it arose out of Harry, she laughed softly to herself as like this she +shaped it: + +"They say a woman marries for a home. Wrong, wrong! It's man that +marries for a home--a home that, having got it, superficially he cares +little enough about, and superficially uses as a good place to get away +from; but that's just how he uses his business, how he uses everything. +Oh, he wants it, he wants it, and he marries for it far more than a +woman wants it or marries for it. How plain it is! A man marries to +settle down, a woman for just precisely the opposite: to break up; to +get away from the constraints of daughterhood and of Miss-hood, as a +schoolgirl, holiday-bound, from the constraints of school; to enlarge +her life, not to restrict it; to aerate her life, not to compose it. +Why, it's inherent in a man, the desire for a home; it's in his bones. +Look at little boys playing--it's caves and tents and wigwams they +delight to play at; a place they can in part discover and in part +construct, and then arrange their things in, and then go off exploring +and then, all the time, be coming back to the delicious cave and creep +in and block up the door! Girls don't play at that; they play at shops +and being grown up, at nursing dolls and not themselves being nursed. +But that's your man--a hunter with a cave, and the return to the cave +the best part of the hunting. That's what he marries for--a home; a +pitch of his own; a place to bring his things to and wherein to keep his +things; an establishment; a solid, anchored base; a place where he +can have his wife and his children and his dogs and his books and his +servants and his treasures and his slippers and his ease, and can feel, +comfortably, that she and they and it are his,--his mysterious cave with +the door blocked up, his base, his moorings, his settled and abiding +centre. Dear Harry!" + +"Dear Harry" because all this had come to her while with secret, fond +amusement she had watched Harry delightedly and entrancedly fussing +about the houses they explored. The boy with a cave! The man with a +home! She liked the idea of a new home, and a home with Harry, but, +given outstanding features obviously essential, almost any home would +have satisfied her. She was animated and interested in the choosing, +but not with Harry's interest and animation. Hers were the feelings with +which she had established herself in the two-room suite at the boarding +house. There any two rooms would have done; here any pleasant house +would do. It was not the rooms; it was the significance of her entry +into their possession. It was not the house; it was the significance of +all connoted by the house. The rooms had been a stepping-off place to +independence larger and to triumphs new; the house was a stepping-off +place to independence, to triumphs, to battle of life and to joy of +life, lifted upon a plane high above her old world as the stars, as +bright and keen as they. + +But for Harry it was a stepping-in place. + +It was Harry that fussed and examined and measured and opened and shut +and tested and tried and must have this and must have that. It was Harry +who saw everything with the eye that was going to see it and live with +it permanently and for all time. It was Harry who invested every square +yard of every interior with the attributes that should be there when +they therein were domiciled. Harry who said, "This front door! Rosalie, +we're going to have a front door that will hit you in the eye and make +you say 'Mice and Mumps, there's a distinguished couple that live behind +a door like that!' None of your wretched browns and greens and blacks +and reds for our door, Rosalie! We'll have a yellow front door, gamboge. +I've seen it on a house in Westminster. I'll take you there. You wait +till you see it. Imagine it, Rosalie, beneath that lovely old fanlight +overhead. And then yellow window boxes tinted to match in every window +and crammed with flowers. It'll be a house you'll run to get into +directly you catch sight of it. Then inside here, in the hall, there'll +be the thickest rugs money can buy and the brightest light and the +warmest stove. You'll step in and shut the yellow door and, 'Mice and +Mumps,' you'll say, 'this is home!' Now, look here; here'll be my study; +I'll have bookshelves built in all round there and there and there. +Pictures there. This nook--I'll fix a little cupboard there and keep my +tools in. I'll spend half my time our first weeks pottering about with a +hammer and a pair of pliers. This place just here on the landing. Looks +like a dungeon. We'll knock out a window there and fit it up with hot +and cold water as a cloak room. Now here's your room, your--" + +"My study," she had interpolated, a little apprehensive lest for her +private room he should use another word. + +"Yes, your study, rather. Each of us with our own study! A lark, eh? +And Rosalie, in mine there'll be a special chair for you and in yours a +special chair for me. We'll stroll in on each other's work--" + +She loved him for that. "Like two men in chambers," she said. + +His reply was, "We'll rip out this fireplace and put you in one in +oak; the walls something between gold and brown, eh? Now come into +the drawing-room. This'll be the room. Let's start with the hearth and +imagine it's winter. This is where we'll have tea the days when I get +back in time--" + +"And when I get back in time." + +"Of course, I'd forgotten that. Why, then whichever of us is back first +will be all ready with the tea and waiting to welcome the other. Can't +you see the room? Warm, shadowed, glowing here and there, here and there +gleaming, and the tea table shining? Won't it be a place to rush back +to? I say, Rosalie, it's going to be rather wonderful, isn't it?" + +Dear Harry! Yes, men that married for a home. + +So she had known that from the start; and, the significant thing (as +later perceived) she never had mentioned it to Harry. There was not +a line of her life, as lived before she knew him, that she had not +revealed to him; there was not a passage of her life, when joined to +his, that was not handed to him to write upon; but this, that she knew +he'd married for a home, was never revealed, never inscribed upon the +tablets submitted daily for his annotation. + +Yes, significant! + +But how could its significance have been perceived? Look here, there had +been a night--a thousand years ago!--when a girl had turned her face to +her pillow and cried, most frightfully. Significant! Why, that girl's +world had lain in atoms at the significance of that girl's grief. And +she that now looked back had been born out of those tears, as the first +woman drawn from the side of the first man, and fondly had chid that +child that no significance was there at all. There was none. There was +nothing to fear. A natural joy of life that had been stifled had been +embraced, a shattered world had been remoulded on foundings firmer and, +ah, nearer to the heart's desire. Significant! It had been so disproved +that not more possibly could fears arise from those, her lovely +dissipations of those fears, than from its watchful mother's reassuring +candle and her soothing words new terrors to a frightened child at +night. + +Then how, she used to ask herself, could significance have been +perceived in not admitting Harry to her smiling thought on men and home? +Significance--then? Nay, memory bear witness, much, much the contrary! +Bear witness, memory, it was that very thought of Harry as boy with +cave, as man with home, had suddenly suffused her with... + +"Dear Harry!" she had thought, and with the thought... + +Anna! That cry of Anna's upon that frightening night, striking her hands +against her bosom, "I have a longing--here!" Never till then its meaning +nor even thought upon its meaning. + +Then! Upon that thought--"Dear Harry!"--had come, with a catch at the +breath as at an obscure twinge of pain, a tremor of the sense that +was its meaning: thereafter flooding all her being as floods a flood +a pasture. A longing to be mother, Anna's longing was! A longing to +be mother, to hold a tiny scrap against her breast; to have her heart, +bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers; to have her design +of God, insufferably overpacked within her by the remorseless pressure +of instinct through a million ages, relieved, discharged, fulfilled by +motherhood. Poor Anna! Ah, piteous! "Oh, God, thou knowest how hard it +is to be a woman." Poor, piteous Anna, and poor, piteous every woman +that, made vessel of this yearning, must have it unfulfilled. + +Not she! + +The coronet of love, denied poor Anna, was hers. He'd said "These +rooms--the nurseries"; the crown of love; and she had laughed! + +Oh, stubborn still! Oh, still not cognisant of nature's dower to her +sex. To wear the coronet and to refuse the crown! To be wife and not to +be mother! To think of baby fingers and to think to put away the offer +of their baby clutch! + +That girl that turned her face to her pillow and began to cry, most +frightfully, cried next again when she again lay abed and had a tiny +scrap, an ugly, exquisite, grotesque, miraculous scrap, a baby boy, a +baby man, along her arm and watched it there. Those had been passionate +and rending tears; these did not even flow. Those burned her eyes; these +stood within her eyes a lovely welling up of pride and adoration, +drawn from her by this newly risen wonder as by the sun at his arising +moisture in lovely mists is drawn from earth. + +Motherhood! When later he was christened, she and Harry named him Hugh; +but it was a caressing diminutive she made out of his name by which he +was always known. Her tiny son! His tiny arms hugged you as never tiny +arms possibly could have hugged before and so she called him "Huggo." + +"Harry, if you could feel how he's hugging me! It's absurd he can +have such strength! It's ridiculous he can love me so! And how can he +possibly know that hugging's a sign of love? Harry, how can he? Take him +and hold him up like that and see if he hugs you the same. He is! He is! +Isn't he?" + +"Mice and Mumps," said Harry, "he is; he's throttling me, the tiger." + +"Ah, give him back, I'm jealous. There's never, never been a hugger +like him since the world began. He's Huggo. That's his name. Creature +straight out of heaven, you're Huggo." + +Her love for infant Huggo so maternal; her unity with Harry so +exquisitely one; how could she have known were to be met across the +waters of the years occasions new and strange, as that already shown, +or, onward yet a further voyage, as this? + +The matter between them touched the same as when, "I have a right to a +home; the children have a right to a home," Harry had said. But their +tones not the same; in Harry's voice a quality of dulness as of one +reciting a lesson too often conned yet never understood; in hers a +certain weariness as with instruction too often given. + +They had been talking a very long time. Harry hadn't any arguments. He +just kept coming back and coming back to the one thing. He said again, +the twentieth time, in that dull voice, "We are responsible for the +children. We have a duty towards them." + +The twentieth time! She made a gesture, not impatient, just tired, that +was of repletion with this thing. "Ah, you say 'we' have a duty. You say +'we'; but, Harry, you mean me. Why I a duty more than you? Why am I the +accused?" + +Harry's dull note: "Because you are a woman." Ineffable weariness was +in the murmur that was her reply. "Ah, my God, that reason!" No, she had +never anticipated this. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +How did it happen? Within her face abode the explanation of how it +happened. + +There was a mirage in her face. + +If she were taken (for a moment) when she had been married ten years, +her age thirty-two, and then taken again when she was forty-six, when +she had done, when, in 1922, she said, "I have done," and her story +ceases, it is material to a portrait of her that in those fourteen years +her appearance did not greatly change. Events inscribed it; but these +writings were in two scripts, rendered in the two natures that were +hers, and, as it were, a balance was maintained between them; there +remained constant the aspect that her face presented to the world; +constant, that is to say, the spirit that looked out of her face. + +That girl that at the door of the great house in Pilchester Square had +breathed, "You knew, before I knew, that I loved you," had been called +beautiful. This woman that now was wife and now was mother was beautiful +with that girl's beauty and with her own, matured of years, set upon it. +That girl, shaded in her colouring, commonly was sombre in her hue, but +with a quick, impetuous spirit beneath her flesh that, flashing, somehow +lightened all her tints; this woman, albeit dark, had somehow about her +a deep golden hue as of dusk in a deep wood beheld against a sunset. +Her face had always had a boyish look and still, with years, was +boyish. There was a mirage in her face. The stranger glanced and saw a +mother--extraordinarily shielding and maternal and benignant things; +and looked again and saw a boy--astonishingly reckless and impetuous +and rather boyish, hard and mutinous things. Or glanced and saw a boy, +perhaps laughing and eager, perhaps obstinate and petulant; and looked +again and only much tenderness was there. + +There was a mirage in her face; and with its changes her voice changed. +When she was a boy her voice was April; when she was a mother September +was her voice. + +There were two natures in her and those were their reflections; two +lodestars set above her that by turns brightened and drew her gaze; two +lodestones set within her that claimed her banners as claim the moon and +earth the inconstant sea; one of head, one of heart; one of choice, one +of dower; one of will, one of nature. + +In that tenth year her married life there stood for the mother in her +face three children: Huggo who then was nine; Dora, whom she called Doda +because in her first prattle this heart's delight of hers-"A baby girl! +A beloved one, Harry, to be daughter to me, and to be a tiny woman with +me as little girls always are, and then budding up beside me and being +myself to me again, my baby girl, my daughter, my woman-bud, my heart's +own heart!"--had thus pronounced her name, who then was seven; and last +Benjamin, then five, whom she named Benjamin because, come third, come +after cognizance of confliction within herself, come after resentment of +his coming--called Benjamin because, come out of such, there were such +happy tears, such tender, thank-God, charged with meaning tears to greet +him, the one the last of three, the little tiny one, so wee beside the +lusty, toddling others. Benjamin she told Harry he must be named; Benji +she always called him. + +Huggo and Doda and Benji! Her children! Her darling ones, her lovely +ones! Love's crown; and, what was more, worn in the persons of these +darling joys of hers (when they were growing up to nine and seven and +five years old) in signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of precedent +to the contrary, that woman might be mother and yet work freely in the +markets of the world precisely as man is father but follows a career. + +Children! There had been a time when, speaking from the boy that would +stand mutinous and reckless in her face, and with her April voice, she +had expressed her view on parentage in terms of the old resentment +at the old disability, encountered, bedrocked, wherever into life she +struck a new trail; in terms of the old invertion of an old conceit +wherever with her principles she touched conventional opinion. The +catlike attributes, the marriage for a home, here the familiar saw on +parenthood-- + +"They talk about hostages to fortune," she had expressed her idea, +"they talk about a man with young children as having given hostages to +fortune. You know, it's quite absurd. He doesn't. I don't say a man to +whom the support of children is a financial anxiety hasn't, by begetting +them, placed himself in a position of captivity to fortune, or to the +future, or whatever you like to call it. He very much has. He's backed +a bill that any day may fall due and find him without means to meet it; +he's let himself in for blackmail, always over him a threat. But +I'm talking about men above the struggle line. They don't, in their +children, give hostages. It's the woman does that. Men don't give nor +forfeit anything. It's the woman gives and forfeits. Why, when his +friends meet a man who was last met a bachelor a couple or three years +ago, what change do they see in him? They don't see any change at all. +There isn't any change to see. He has to tell them; and he always tells +them rather sheepishly or rather boisterously. 'I'm married, you know,' +he says. 'Yes, rather. Man alive, I've got two kids!' The other says, +'My aunt!'--more probably he says 'My God!'--'My God, fancy you!' And +they both laugh--laugh! + +"Hostages to fortune! To a man and amongst men it's just a joke. It's no +joke to a woman. Do you suppose a married girl, meeting old friends, +has to tell them she's a mother, or, if she had to tell them, would tell +them like that? Can't they see it at a glance? Isn't she changed? Isn't +she, subtly perhaps, but unmistakably, altogether different from the +unfettered thing she used to be? Of course she is. How otherwise? She's +given hostages to fortune and she's paying; she's being bled. She's +giving up things, she's not going out so much, she's not reading so +much, she's not playing so much, she's not interested so much in what +used to interest her. How can she? There's the children. How can she? +She's given hostages to fortune. Oh, happy is the man that hath children +for they are as arrows in the quiver of a giant. But it's the woman is +the arrowbearer! It's the woman pays." + +Lo, there had come to this intolerance the longing--"Here!"--that Anna's +bosom had, the urge to hold a tiny scrap against her breast, to have +her heart, bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers. It had +o'erborne the other. She had thrown herself upon its flood; not yielded +to it as one drawn in by rising waters, but tempestuously engulfed by +it and borne away upon it as swallowed up and borne away in Harry's arms +when "Rosalie! Rosalie!" he had cried to her. + +That which the subsidence revealed, adoringly she called her Huggo. + +There was a mirage in her face. When, turned again towards the star to +which she showed her boyish and impetuous look, and, following, she felt +again the call that set the mother in her face, she this time reasoned. +That idea that, having children, it was the woman who gave hostages to +fortune! Deadly and cruelly true it was, but only by convention. Why +should it be so? Why should motherhood that was the crown of love, of +woman's life, be paid for in coin that no man was called upon to pay? +Unjust; and need not be! She perfectly well had carried on her work with +Huggo. Sleeping was the adored creature's chief lot in life. If she had +ever thought (which she never had) of giving up her work and staying at +home on his account, what could she have done but twirl her thumbs and +watch him sleep and in his lovely lively hours superintend the nurse +who required no superintendence? As it was she was about him in the +delicious exercises of transporting him from cot through toilet and +refreshment to readiness to take the air. His lordship was off in his +lordship's perambulator by nine o'clock every morning. She did not +herself leave, with Harry, till shortly before ten. There, in instance, +was an hour at home with not the smallest benefit to Huggo. It would +have been the same, had she remained at home, with three in four of all +the other hours. Ridiculous to lay down that a mother, having a good +nurse and a well-ordered house and a husband out all day, must tie +herself there, abandoning her own life, to attend her children! +Children! Darlings of her own! Ease for this yearning in her heart, +assumption of this lovely glory that was her natural right! Yes, she +had proved love not to be incompatible with her freedom; she would show +motherhood as beautifully could be joined. + +It seemed to her a blessing upon, and an assurance in, her purpose that +in the precious person of a little daughter came the embodiment of this +reasoning and of this design. A baby girl! A tiny woman-bud to be a +woman with her in the house of Harry and of Huggo! A woman treasury into +which she could pour her woman love! Her self's own self, whose earliest +speech chose for herself her name--her Doda! + +It all worked splendidly. Winged on the eager pinions of their +individual lives these two nested their joined life in a home that for +every inmate was a perfect home; perfect for a husband, perfect for a +wife, perfect for the babies, perfect for the servants. The peace of +every home in civilized society rests ultimately on the kitchen, and the +peace of half the homes known to Harry and to Rosalie was in constant +rupture by upheavals thence. Not so behind the gamboge door. Rosalie +always granted it to men that, as was commonly said, servants worked +better for men. Men kept out of the irrational creatures' way; that was +about it. The conduct of her life gave her the like advantage. Giving +her orders before she left the house, she was out all day and never +unexpectedly in. Positively the servants welcomed her on her return at +five o'clock! + +The babies, to whom then she flew, were with a perfect nurse. Harry had +helped in her appointment. She had come one evening, early in the life +of Huggo, when a change had to be made from the nurse who specialised +only up to the point then reached by Huggo, and she had presented +herself to them, seated together in Harry's study, a short body, one +shape and a solid shape from her shoulders to her shoes, who announced +her name as Muffett. + +"Miss Muffett, I hope," said Harry gravely. + +"Unmarried, sir," said Muffett with equal gravity and with a sudden +drop and then recovery of her stature as though some one had knocked her +behind the knees. + +"There's nothing to do," said Harry when she had gone, "but to buy her +a turret and engage her"; and there was nothing to do, when she was +installed, but enjoy the babies and delight in them just as a man enjoys +and delights in his tiny ones,--in the early mornings before Rosalie +left for her work, in the evenings when she returned home. + +It all worked splendidly. In those early years, when two were in the +nursery and as yet no third, there wasn't a sign that Harry who had +married for a home ever could say, "I have a right to a home." He had, +and he was often saying so, the most perfect home. He came not home of a +night to a wife peevish with domestic frets and solitary confinement and +avid he should hear the tale of them, nor yet to one that butterflied +the day long between idleness and pleasures and gave him what was left. +He came nightly to a home that his wife sought as eagerly as he sought, +a place of rest well-earned and peace well-earned. That was it! "Things +which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." They had +discovered and had removed the worm of disparity that eats away the +heart of countless marriages. They not infrequently had friends in to +dinner, not infrequently dined at the tables of friends, made a point +of not infrequently attending a theatre or a concert; but however the +evening had been passed--and the evenings alone were always agreed to +be the best evenings of all--there was none but they ended sitting +together, not in the drawing-room, but in Harry's study or in hers, just +talking happiness. Equal in endeavour, they were thereby made equal on +every plane and in every taste. A reciprocating machine. That was it! + +At least that was how, profoundly satisfied with it, she thought it was. + +Then Benji came. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +There were attendant upon the expectation and the coming of Benji +certain processes of mind that had not been with Huggo or with Doda. +When it was in prospect she had vexation, sometimes a sense of injury, +that again her work was to be interrupted. It would make no difference +to Harry. It happened that the days of her trial were timed to fall on +the date when a criminal prosecution of sensational public interest was +due for hearing at the Old Bailey. Harry, for the defence, had added +immensely to his brilliant reputation when seeing it through the +preliminary stages before the magistrate. The Old Bailey proceedings +were to be the greatest event, thus far, in his career. He had told +her--how proud and delighted to hear it she had been!--that if he pulled +it off (and he had set his heart on pulling it off) he would really +begin to think about "taking silk." + +Well, but she also had her heart, in no single or sensational climax of +her work, but in its every phase and every hour. It absorbed her. Two +years earlier Mr. Simcox had begun disturbing signs of health that, +begun, developed rapidly. His brisk activity went out of him. His walk +had the odd suggestion of one carrying a load. His perky air went dull. +His mind was like a flagging watch, run down. He could not concentrate, +he suffered passages of aphasia, he began more and more to "give up the +office," more and more to leave things to her. The agency in both its +branches, scholastic and insurance, developed well. She was its head +and it absorbed her. She had a sense, that was like wine to her, of +increasing swiftness of decision, of power, of judgment, of vision, +of resource. She used to hurry to her office of a morning as an artist +urgent with inspiration will hurry to his colours, or a poet to his +pen,--avid to exercise that which was within her. + +Well, it was to be stopped. Childbed. For a month at least, for two +months more likely, all was to be set aside, to go into abeyance, to +drift. Whereas Harry's work.... Yes, vexatious! These laws that gave men +the desirable place in life were not laws but conventions and she had +proved them such; but with all proved there yet remained to the man +privileges, to the woman restraints, that were ordinances fundamental +and not to be escaped. Yes, injurious! + +Thus in those weeks of the coming of him that was to be Benji, solely +the boy of aspect mutinous and impetuous was in her face; and when +within a month stood her appointed time came an event that stiffened +there that aspect, turned it, indeed, actively upon the child within her +waiting deliverance. This event in its momentous incidence on her career +placed its occasion on parity with Harry's anticipations of the Old +Bailey trial. Mr. Simcox died. + +There's no use labouring why the emotions that at this loss should have +been hers were not hers. That girl whose eyes had gathered tears at the +picture of the little figure with flapping jacket peering through the +curtains at the postman's "rat-tat-flick" was not present in the woman +whose first thought at the sudden news, brought to her seated in her +office, was, "At such a time! Just when--Now what is to be done?" True +for her that there followed gentle feelings, and gentler yet in her +attendance on her patron's obsequies, in the discovery that all of which +he died possessed he'd left to her, but it is the duller surfaces that +are slowest to give refraction, the least used springs that are least +pliant. She was come a long road from her first signs of hardening. She +was past, now, the stage where, when grieving for the little old man, +she would have felt contrition that her first thought at his death had +been, not of him, but of his death's effect upon her work. + +And there supervened, immediately, interests that caused the passing of +Mr. Simcox merely--to have passed. + +Mr. Sturgiss, of Field and Company, attending the funeral with her, said +to her as he was taking his leave, "One would say this isn't a moment to +be talking of other things, business things, but after all--In a way it +is the moment. You'll be making new arrangements and rearrangements now. +Before you start settling anything I want you to have in mind the old +proposition. You've been loyal to poor Simcox to the end. This business +is your own now. We want it. We want you. We want you in Lombard +Street." + +This, cut and dried, glowingly enlarged in long interviews with Mr. +Sturgiss and Mr. Field, succinctly reduced to writing by the firm that +it might be fairly studied, was before her, not demanding, but eagerly +absorbing, her most earnest attention when she was a fortnight from her +trial. This was the event whose momentous incidence on her career +placed the days then in process and immediately in prospect on parity of +importance with their meaning to Harry, absorbed in preparation for his +case. There was so much to weigh; and like a threat, a doom, banked +her impending banishment from affairs, distracting her, haunting her, +hurrying her. There was so much to do, to settle, to wind up (for she +found herself arranging for the change even while she debated it); and +in the midst of it she was to be cut off as by term of imprisonment! +There was so much to scheme, to plan, to dream (her mind already +elevated among the high places of her new outlook); and between now and +action she was to go--out of action. + +Whereas Harry.... Whose child it was also to be.... + +Yes, injurious! + +Not injurious as between dear Harry and herself; but injurious as +between his sex and hers. There were moments of thinking upon the +difference when she could have conceived a grudge against the child she +was to bear. + +And Harry could not perceive the difference! Immersed in his +preparations and, when the case opened, lost to all else in his case, he +presented precisely that faculty (and that permission by convention) of +complete detachment from his home that long she had known to be man's +most outstanding and most enviable quality. He had no attention to spare +for the consideration of her own problem and ambition, and she was too +honourable to his interests, and too devoted to him in his interests, to +bother him with hers. But, more significantly to her feelings than that, +he was also too immersed to offer her, in her ordeal of childbirth, the +sympathy and the anxiety that, unengrossed, he would have shown. It +was there, profound and loving, beneath the surface; but his work came +first. He was a man, capable of detachment, permitted by convention to +practise detachment, by gift of, nature not inhibited from detachment. +A man, he could put it beneath the surface. A woman, in conflict of her +instincts and her ambitions, it was her ambitions that she must sink. +That was it! Yes, injurious. + +And he did not even understand. + +On what proved to be the evening before her delivery, and was the third +day of Harry's case, she was lying, as she had lain some days, on the +Chesterfield in the drawing-room, loosely robed. Harry had thought +he could get back to tea, and got back. He came to her with tenderest +concern, and with immense tenderness at once was talking to her. But she +could see! The apparent deepening of all the lines of his dear, striking +face, as of one who for hours has been under enormous concentration; +the slight huskiness of his voice, from hard service; the repressed +excitation in his air; the frequent glint behind the soft regard of his +eyes, as of one that has been hunting high and hunting well--she could +see; she could tell where was his spirit! + +Her own went lovingly to meet it where it was. "Ah, never mind all +that, Harry. Tell me all that's been happening to you. How is it going, +Harry?" + +Dear Harry! Most mannish man! She laughed (and he laughed too, knowing +perfectly well why she laughed) to note the delight, like a dog from +chain, with which he bounded off into his mind's absorption. He sat +upright. He grabbed for a cigarette and inhaled it tremendously. "It's +going like cutting butter with a hot knife. I started cross-examining +today. I gave him three and a half hours of it, straight off the ice, +and I'm not through with him yet. Not half. If he had as many legs as a +centipede he'd still not have one left to stand on when I'm through with +him. I doubt he'll have his marrow bones to crawl out on, the way he's +crumpling up. Even old Hounslow at his worst can't possibly misdirect +the jury, the way I've gummed their noses on the trail. I'll tell you--" + +He told her. + +She had put out both her hands and taken one of his. "It's splendid, +Harry. It's too splendid. How delighted I am, and proud, proud! No one +would have imagined it at the beginning. What a triumph it will be for +you!" + +His grasp squeezed hers in fond response. "Why, it won't do me any +harm," he agreed. His tone was light. He released his hand and took up +a cup of tea, and his tone went deep. "Mind you, I'm glad about it," +he said, and stirred the spoon thoughtfully within the cup. He had come +into the room declaring he was dying for some tea, but he had touched +none, and he now replaced the cup untasted on the table and she saw on +his face the deep "inward" look that she knew (and loved) for the sign +of intense concentration of his mind. "Yes, glad," he spoke; his voice, +as was its habit when he was "inward," sounding as though it was the +involuntary, and not the intentional, utterance of his thoughts. "I've +gone all out over this case. I saw, the minute they briefed me, that +one tiny flaw, his neglect to take up that option--you remember, I told +you--right down at the bottom of the whole tangle, and I went plumb down +for it and hung on to it and fought it up like, like a diver coming up +from fathoms down." + +She had a quickness of imagery. It constantly delighted him. "Yes, +that's good," she declared. "Up like a diver, Harry. Not with goggles +and a helmet and all that, but shot up like a flash, all shining and +glistening and triumphant with the jewel aloft. What a shout there'd be! +Dear Harry! You're splendid!" + +He smiled most lovingly. "As a matter of fact, I feel I ought to make a +mess of it. It'll be the first big case since we've been together that, +while it's been on, we haven't had talks about. You couldn't, of course, +with this so near to you. It would be significant, and proper, if I +drowned in it." + +She shook her head. "Absurd! Why, the thing I'm most glad about, Harry, +is that all this"--she indicated with a gesture her pose, her dress, her +condition--"that all this hasn't in the least upset your work. It might +have. It hasn't--and when it happens, it won't, will it?" + +Harry said, "I'm rather ashamed to say it hasn't, in the least. I've +thought of you, often, but I've simply put the thought away. And when +it happens, I shall think of you--terribly--going through it; and of the +small thing--But we shall be in the crisis of the case and I shall have +to forget you. I'll have to, Rosalie, as I have had to. The work must go +on." + +She agreed emphatically. "Of course it must." She then said, "Whereas +mine--" + +He did not attend her. The "inward" look was deep upon his face. There +was the suggestion of a grimmish smile about his mouth. One could +have guessed that he was rehearsing, with satisfaction, his enormous +application while the work was going on. + +She gave a sound of laughter, and that aroused him. "What's the joke?" + +"Why, just how this does rather illuminate the point--" + +"The point...?" + +"Your work and mine--a man's and a woman's." + +"Yes, tell me, dear." + +"Why, Harry, I do think of it sometimes. We've planned it and arranged +it and settled it so nicely, these years, and you see the big thing +in marriage comes along and shatters it to bits. Your work goes on +precisely as if nothing at all were happening; mine has to stand by." + +"Ah, but this," Harry said, and in his turn indicated her condition. +"This--this is different. We agreed, before Huggo, that if we had +children it need make no difference to you, to your work, in a way. And +it hasn't, and needn't now--when it's over. But this time, this period, +why, that's bound to interfere." + +"But it doesn't interfere with you. It shows the difference." + +"Oh, it shows the difference," he assented. + +His tone was conspicuously careless, conceding the difference but +attaching to it no importance at all; and with it he rose--she had +instantly the impression of him as it were brushing the difference like +a crumb from his lap--and announced, "I'm going to my study now for a +couple of hours before dinner. I must. Our solicitor's coming in." He +bent over her and kissed her lovingly. "You understand, I know." + +And he went. + +Yes, it showed the difference! And was not seen by him! Yes, injurious. +Yes, could conceive a grudge.... + +There was a mirage in her face. Her face, that had been boy's and +mutinous these weeks, was Mary's and was lovely in maternal love when it +was turned towards the scrap that on a morning lay against her breast; +her thoughts, that had been stubborn, hard, resentful while her days +approached, welled in remorse, compassion, yearning, joy, when they were +past and this was come. She'd grudged him, this littlest one! Grudged +his right, put her own right against it, this tiny, helpless one! When, +added to these thoughts, Huggo and Doda, those lovely darlings, were +permitted to see him, asleep beside her, he was so wee, so almost +nothing against their sturdy limbs, and had come so unwanted--yes, +unwanted, this cherishable one of all!--that she knew instantly what +name he must be given. Her Benjamin! + +Lying much alone in the succeeding days, contrite, adoring; with +frequent happy tears (she was left weak): with tender, thank-God, +charged with meaning tears, she found a vindication of her self-reproach +that immensely bound her up, forgave her, gave her comfort. She could +give up her work! She could leave all and be with her darlings! Of +course she could! At any time! She had grudged the right to come of +this defenceless scrap. She had set against his right her own right. Ah, +dangerous! A long road lay that way! In conflict of his coming, with her +own rights she had been much engaged. Here, on the sheet beside her, and +in the nursery, overhead, were other rights. Well, when they claimed.... +Of course she could! She had not thought enough about these things.... + +There is to be said for her that she thought not very widely nor +very deeply upon them now. Her resolution that she could, when it was +necessary, give up her work, scattered them. It came to her as comes to +a man, beset by poverty, scheming by this way and by that to abate it, +news of a legacy. He ceases, in his relief, his present schemes; he +has "no need to worry now." Or came to her as comes a sail to one +shipwrecked and adrift, painfully calculating out his final dregs +of food and water. He ceases, at that emblem, his desperate plans to +stretch his days. He's all right now. + +It was like that with Rosalie. + +While only she had realised her resentment of this baby's claims, and +only now her contrite yielding to them; before she had conjectured +deeply on all the problem thus revealed; there came to her, like way +of escape to one imprisoned, like instantaneous lifting of a fog to one +therein occluded, the thought, "I can give up the work." + +Of course she could! At any moment; by a word; by the mere formulation +of the step within her mind, she could abandon her career. Not now. +It was not necessary now. But if or when--she used that phrase, in set +terms propounding her resolution to herself--if or when the call of +her children, of her home, came and was paramount, she could give up +everything and respond to it. Oh, happy! Oh, glad discharge of her +remorse! When the children wanted her she could just--come back. Field +and Company, her career, her successes--what of them? She had done +well in her career, she still would do well. Let the claim of home and +children once come into the scale against the claim of those ambitions +and--she would just come back! + +Oh, happy! + +"Come back"? Who was it had said something about that, something about +"come back" for a woman, making the expression thus dimly familiar in +her mind? Who? Laetitia? No, Laetitia was always associated with another +phrase: striking because in terms identical with accusation previously +delivered against her. Well she remembered it! On the day following +Harry's visit to the house to take his deserts from poor Aunt Belle and +Uncle Pyke, she also had gone there, following his high idea of what was +right. She had been refused admittance. There had come for her as the +last voice out of that house a quivering letter from Aunt Belle, seeming +to quiver in the hand with the passionate upbraiding that had indited +it, and a forlorn sentence from Laetitia. "I have done everything for +you, everything, everything, and this is how you have rewarded me," had +pulsed the pages of Aunt Belle; Laetitia only had written: + +"Oh, Rosalie! You could have had any one you liked to love you, but you +took my Harry and I shall never, never have another." + +Miss Salmon's cry again! Twice identically accused. Once grotesquely +accused; once, on the surface, rightly accused. Both times aware how +poignant and pathetic was the cry; not moved the first time, not moved +the second. Recurring to her now, she knew again how broken-hearted sad +it was, and knew again it ought to move, but did not. Well, not strange +now. She was a long way out of those too soft compassions. No, not +Laetitia had made "come back" familiar to her. The phrase, as she seemed +to recollect its context, was too profoundly practical for the Laetitia +sort; and that was why, of course, it moved her nothing. She had learnt, +jostling off corners in the market place, what formerly she had only +conjectured,--that there was in life no room for sentiment, it clogged; +it hampered; it brought sticky unreality into that which was sharply +real. "Come back?" No, not Laetitia. Who? Keggo? Yes, it was Keggo; and +immediately with the name's recovery was recovered the phrase's context. +This very matter! "Rosalie, a woman can't--come back." + +Absurd! But, yes, how she remembered it now! "Very dangerous being a +woman," Keggo had said. "Men go into dangers but they come out of them +and go home to tea. That's what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always +get out. They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, heart +and soul, body and mind. Rosalie, women do. That's why it is so very, +very dangerous being a woman. Women can't come back. They take to a +thing, anything, and go deep enough, and they're its; they never, never +will get away from it; they never, never will be able to come back out +of it. Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman gives herself, forgets +moderation and gives herself to anything, she is its captive for ever. +She may think she can come back but she can't come back. For a woman +there is no comeback. They don't issue return tickets to women. For +women there is only departure; there is no return." + +Poor Keggo! + +Poor Keggo had of course founded her theory upon her own bitter plight. +How she had given her case away when she had said, "Look at me!" It +applied to her, of course, or to any woman--or man for that matter--who +drank or drugged. It applied not in the least to such a case as this of +her own. Keggo had tried to apply it. She had said, "You have a theory +of life. You are bent upon a career in life. Suppose you ever wanted to +come back?" + +She had laughed and declared she never would want to come back. Well, +look how absurd all poor Keggo's idea was now being proved! It had +suddenly occurred to her that it might at some future time be required +of her to come back; and all she had to do was just--to come back. No +difficulty about it whatsoever! No struggle! Indeed, and fondly she +touched that by her side which had called up these thoughts, she would +come back joyously. Of course she would! Field and Company, ambition, +that for if and when her darlings called her! Yes, wrong every way, +that poor Keggo. Dangerous being a woman, she had said, and it was not +dangerous. It could be, and she had proved it, a state that could be +lived full in every aspect,--full in freedom, full in endeavour, full +in love, full in motherhood. Dangerous! A week ago, inimical to this +advent, injurious; now, in this advent's presence, and with this +resolution gladly dedicated to it, only and wholly glorious. + +This one! Come after connection, come in contrition, come to call +her back when she should need to be called, the little tiny one, the +belovedest one, the Benjamin one--her Benji! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Those children were brought up with every modern advantage. Wisdom is +judged by the age in which it flourishes, and everything that the day +accounts wise for children those children had. Their father was of +considerable and always increasing means; their mother was of great +and untrammelled intelligence: anything that money could provide for +children, and that intelligent principles of upbringing said ought to be +provided for children, those children enjoyed. When they were out of the +care of Muffet, who was everything that a nurse ought to be, they +passed into the care of a resident governess, Miss Prescott, who was a +children's governess, not for the old and fatuous reason that she "loved +children," but for the new and intelligent reason that she was attracted +by the child-mind as a study and was certificated and diplomaed in the +study of children as an exact science,--Child Welfare as she called it. +Miss Prescott had complete charge of the children while they were tiny +and while they were growing up to eleven and nine and Benji to +seven years old. She taught them their lessons (on her own, the new, +principles) and on the same principles their habits and the formation of +their characters. It might roundly be said that everything troublesome +in regard to the children was left to Miss Prescott, and, left to her, +came never between the children and their mother. Their mother only +enjoyed her children, presented to her fresh, clean and happy for the +purpose of her enjoyment; and the children only enjoyed their mother, +visiting them smiling, devoted, unworried, for the purpose of their +happiness. + +It was a perfect, and a mutually beneficial arrangement. As there had +been, before the children came, two independent lives behind the gamboge +door, so, with the occupation of the nurseries, there were, as it might +be, three independent households, mingling, at selected times, only for +purposes of happiness. + +It was perfect. In the summer a house was taken at Cromer by the sea and +there, all through the fine weather, Miss Prescott was installed with +her charges. Their mother had three weeks from Field's in the summer and +she and their father would spend the whole of it, and often week-ends, +at Cromer idling and playing with their darlings. That was jolly. The +children associated nothing whatever but happiness with their parents. + +In the other months of the year their mother was immensely occupied with +her work at Field's, developing beyond expectation; and their father +early and late with his work in the Temple, his esteem by solicitors and +by litigants almost beyond his time to satisfy. Their father was +much paragraphed in the social journals, and their mother also. The +paragraphs said their father was making a "princely fortune" at the Bar +and never told of him without telling also of his wife. They described +her as "of Field's Bank" and always drove the word "unique" hand in +hand with every mention of her parts. "Unique personality"; "unique +position"; "unique among professional women"; "unique," said one, "in +combining notable beauty and rare business acumen; an office which +she attends daily and a charming home; a profession, three beautiful +children, and a brilliant husband." + +The syntax is weak, but the truth is in it and those children were to be +envied in their mother. + +Miss Prescott, when she came, did not displace the Muffet. She +was installed additional to the Muffet; and as touching the modern +principles relating to children she very soon told Muffet a thing or +two not previously dreamt of in the Muffet philosophy but having, thence +forward, occasional place in the Muffet nightmares. + +The Muffet, however, was of lymphatic character, with, as her most +constant desire, the desire not to be "plagued." She was one of those +people who are for ever declaring that they never eat anything, who at +meals, indeed, appear to eat very little, but who between meals, are +eating all day long. At all hours of the day the Muffet jaws, like the +jaws of a ruminant, were steadily munching, munching. When Benji was +three Muffet was getting distinctly fat. On a corner of the night +nursery mantelpiece she had a photographic group of her parents and of +an uncle and aunt who lived with her parents. These four were very fat +and one evening the children's father made a remark about this portrait +that made their mother laugh delightedly. + +Benji was in his cot. Huggo had just come from his bath and was having +his toes wiped by his mother because he declared Muffet had not dried +them properly. He said Muffet groaned when she stooped. + +His mother said, "You know, Harry, Muffet is getting fat. Have you +noticed it?" + +Their father was bent almost double swinging Doda between his legs, +the stomach of Doda reposing on the palms of his joined hands and Doda +squealing ecstatically. + +Their father said, "I have. Go and look at that photograph, Rosalie, and +you'll see why. Look at what her people are. Muffet's broadening down +from precedent to precedent." + +It made their mother laugh. The children didn't know why it made her +laugh, but they laughed with her. They always did, or with their father +when he laughed. And there was always lots of jolly laughter when their +father and mother came up to the nurseries. + +Those children, as they passed through early childhood, never saw their +parents but happy and good-spirited. They never saw them worried nor +ever saw them sad. That was, as one might say, Rosalie's chief offering +to her darlings. It was splendid to Rosalie that her way of life, far +from causing her (as prejudice would have prophesied) to neglect her +children, enabled her to consider them in their relations with herself +as, by their mothers, children in her childhood never were considered. +That they should associate nothing--nothing at all--but happiness with +her was the basis of it. Children, she held, ought not to see their +parents bad-tempered or distressed or in any way out of sorts or out of +control. For a child to do so has in two ways a bad effect on the child +mind. In the first place, it is harmful for children to come in contact +with the unpleasant things of life; in the second, parents should always +be to their children models of conduct and of disposition. They should +in themselves present ideals to their children. A man should be a hero +to his son; a woman an ideal to her daughter. Why is no man a hero to +his valet? It is simply because his valet sees him, as do not those +whose esteem he desires to win, in his off moments. Children should +never see their parents in their off moments. + +This principle was not Rosalie's alone. It is the modern principle. The +point, to Rosalie, was that, by her way of life, she was able to apply +it. Children were too much with their parents. That was the fault; +in her childhood the universal fault, even now the fault among the +unenlightened. Parents, being human, must have off moments; are not off +moments, indeed, in the total of the day, of greater sum than moments +of circumspection? It follows that if children are always with their +parents, the more unlovely side cannot fail to be perceived, and, +arising out of it, must follow injury by example, harm by environment, +smirching of idealism, loss of respect. In those homes where the mother +(in Rosalie's phrase) is the children's slave, why has the father the +children's greater respect? Why is it fine to do what father does? Why +jolly and exciting to be with father? It is only because the father +commonly is away all day, only seen by them when, shedding other +affairs, he comes to see them specially. + +Her life--oddly how well for everything and every one her attitude to +life fell out!--obtained for her and for them the same wise and happy +restriction from too free familiarity. She was able to come to her +children only when all her undivided attention and whole hearted love +could be given to them. They never saw her vexed, they never saw her +angry, they never saw her sad. It was not a commonplace to them to see +their mother. It was an event. A morning event and an evening event--and +unfailingly a completely happy event. She looked back upon her own +childhood with her own mother and reflected, fondly but clearly, +affectionately but not blinded by affection, how very different was +that. She was always with her mother. Her mother was often sad, often +worried, often, in distraction of her worries, irritable in speech. +Often sad! Why, she could remember time and again when her dear mother, +hunted by her cares, was broken down and crying. She would go to her +mother then and cry to see her crying, and her mother would put her arms +around her and hug her to her breast and declare she was her "little +comfort." Was it good for a child to suffer scenes like that? She used +to be with her mother all day long, from early morning till last thing +at night. With what result? That she saw and suffered with her, or +suffered of her, all that her mother suffered; that she was sometimes +desolated to feeling that her heart was broken for her mother. Could +that be good for a child? Her Huggo, her Doda and her Benji never saw +her anything but radiant; and because that was so (as she told herself) +she never saw them cry, either on her account or on their own. + +Therein--grief in her presence on their own account--another point +arose. With as her ideal that only happiness should be associated with +her, she found her way of life beneficial to the preservation of that +ideal in that it prevented her from being the vessel that should convey +the restrictions, the reproofs and the instruction that are troublesome +to small minds. All that was left to Miss Prescott. She remembered +lessons with her mother; she remembered the irksome learning of a +hundred "don'ts" from her mother; and though they were tender and +pathetic memories she remembered also the reverse of the picture,--being +glad to escape from her mother, resentful against her mother when stood +in the corner by her mother, when stopped doing this that and the other +by her mother, when made to learn terribly hard lessons by her mother +and to go on learning them till she had learnt them. Only childish +resentment, of course, swept up and forgotten as by the sun emerging out +of clouds the shadow from a landscape. But why should children ever have +the tiniest frown against their mother? There must be frowns, there +must be tears. Let others bear the passing grudge of those. Let Miss +Prescott. + +Miss Prescott was willing and able to bear anything like that. She +delighted in such. She told Rosalie, when Rosalie engaged her, and after +she had seen the children, that her only hesitation in accepting the +post was that the children were too normal. "By normal," said Miss +Prescott, speaking, as she always spoke, as if she were a passage out of +a book given utterance, "By normal, Mrs. Occleve, I do not, of course, +mean commonplace. Any one can see how attractive they are, how gifted; +any one can know how distinguished, with, if I may say so, such talented +parents, their inherited qualities must be. No, when I say normal, +I mean showing no disquieting signs, constitutionally tractable, not +refractory. In that sense of normality it is much more the abnormal +child to whom I would have liked to devote myself. I have specialised +in children. The harder the case the more I should be interested in it. +That's what I mean. But I never could have hoped to find a household +where, though there can be no difficulties, I should have such +opportunities of helping children to be perfect men and women; nor a +mother to whose children I would more gladly, proudly, devote myself; +nor a place with which I should feel myself so entirely in sympathy. +If you feel, on reflection, that I should suit you, it will be, I am +sure--why should I not say so--an auspicious day for those little ones." + +How happy was Rosalie thus by provision to destiny her darlings! + +Miss Prescott was thirty when engaged by Rosalie. She had a way of +looking at people which, if described, can best describe her appearance. +She was once in an omnibus in London and the conductor, standing against +her, and about to serve a ticket to a passenger seated next her, had +some trouble with his bell-punch. It would not work and he fumbled +with it, angry. Everybody in the bus watched him. It is not nice to be +watched when baffled and heated in bafflement but the only gaze to which +attention was given by the conductor was the gaze of Miss Prescott. +He glanced constantly from the obdurate machine to the face of Miss +Prescott. Suddenly he said: "'Ere, suppose you do it, then," and pushed +the bell-punch at her. Miss Prescott took it, did it, astoundingly and +instantaneously, and handed it back with no word. The conductor seemed +more angry than before. + +It was like that that Miss Prescott looked at people. + +There is right way of doing everything. Miss Prescott had an uncanny +instinct for finding it; and, applying this faculty to her training +of the child-mind, she presented herself as a notable exponent of the +system in which, as has been said, she was certificated and diplomaed. +She taught children how to play in the right way, how to learn in the +right way, and above all how, in every way and at every turn, to reason. +By the old, ignorant plan children were instructed, speaking broadly, +by love or by fear. It was by pure reason that Miss Prescott instructed +them. The child was treated as an earnest physician treats a case. Ill +temper or wrong behaviour in a child was neither vexing nor sad. It was +profoundly interesting. There was a right and scientific way to treat it +and that right and scientific way was thought out and administered. The +child was "a case." + +It was taught nothing but truths and facts. Its mind was not permitted +to be befogged with fairy stories, with superstitions, with Father +Christmases and the like, nor yet with religious half-truths and +misty fables. These entailed not only befogging at the time, but +disillusionment thereafter. Disillusionment was wicked for a child. +It further was taught nothing at all (in the matter of lessons) at the +grotesquely early age at which children used to be taught. It was taught +first to reason. + +In general the whole system lay in developing the child's reasoning +powers and then, at every turn and particularly at every manifestation +of indiscipline, appealing to its reason. "I am here to be happy"--that +was the first, and surely the kindest and easiest, knowledge to fix +in the child. From that foundation everything was worked. It never was +necessary to punish a child. It only was necessary to reason with it. In +the old phraseology a child meet to be punished was a naughty child. +In the terminology of Miss Prescott such a child was a sick child or an +unreasoning child: a case presenting an adverse symptom. But take the +older term,--a naughty child. A naughty child was an unhappy child. The +treatment went like this, "I am here to be happy. I am not happy. Why am +I not happy? Because I have done so and so and so and so...." + +Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. Rosalie in her childish +misdemeanours would have been prevailed upon by the unhappiness her +conduct caused her mother. All wrong! A faulty process of reasoning; +indeed not a process of reasoning at all: a crude appeal to the +emotions. Those three children who on the one part never saw their +mother sad and were constrained to comfort her, on the other never +were bribed to good behaviour by the thought of grieving her. They +only associated happiness with her and they enjoyed happiness simply by +reasoning away unhappiness. + +Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. + +Happy Huggo, happy Doda, happy Benji, happy Rosalie! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +It has been said of Time, earlier in these pages, the cloak-and-dagger +sort he is, that stalks and pounces. One seeks only to record him when +he thus assails, and there is this result; that it is necessary to +pare away so much. In instance, there's to be inserted now a note on +Rosalie's advance in her career. It's cut to nothing. This is because +all that career ultimately was known to her never to have really +mattered. And so with other things. That girl, all through, pressing so +strong ahead, rises to the eye not cumbered with other importance than +her own. There might be asked for (by a reader) presentation of Harry's +parents; of what was doing all this time to her own parents in the +rectory, to Harold, Robert, Flora, Hilda; of friends that Rosalie and +Harry had. That girl's passage is not traced in such. Whose is? The +chart where such are marked is just a common public print, stamped for +the public eye. They're not set down upon that secret chart all carry +in the cabin of their soul, and there, in that so hidden and inviolable +stateroom, poring over it by the uncertain swinging lamp of conscience, +prick out their way. + +Her installation in the bank had been a notable success. She dealt with +all the insurance advice and with income-tax advice and business; and +it was remarkable to her, at first, how many of Field's clients were as +children in the mysteries of income tax, and as children alike in their +ignorance of the possibilities of life insurance and in their pleasure +at the discoveries she set before them. But further than this (and more +important, said Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. Field) was the quick response +of the clients to the various domestic advice that it was Rosalie's +business to give. Husbands and wives from the East, or returned thither +from London and writing from the East, consulted her on innumerable +matters. When, in instance, an army officer wrote to her from India, +very diffidently wondering if she could help him in the matter of some +Christmas presents for his wife and children at home, Mr. Sturgiss was +uncommonly pleased. + +"I knew it!" said Mr. Sturgiss. "That's the kind of thing. You watch how +side-lines like that will develop. That's what these people want--some +one at home they can rely on. I tell you, Mrs. Occleve, you, that is +to say your department of Field's, is what the Anglo-Eastern has been +wanting ever since Clive and Warren Hastings went out--a link with home. +You see." + +She did see. Mr. Field saw. The clients saw. The friends of the clients +saw--and became clients. + +All of her position reposed, and was developed by her, on the cruel +disabilities of those who earn their bread in the East. For all such, +married, comes, in time, the sad and the costly business of the divided +home,--the two establishments, the sundering of children and parents, of +husband and wife. By the age of seven at latest, the children have to +be sent home for health and education. Then the sundering, the losing of +touch, the compulsion upon the man, that those at home may be promptly +supported, to deny himself year after year the longed-for visit home. +The losing of touch.... Invaluable to them to have in Field's, in +"that Mrs. Occleve" a link, known personally or by reputation, that was +useable as relations (capricious, "touchy," interfering) often are not +useable; and dependable as relations, unpractical, certainly are not +always dependable. Invaluable to the clients; declared by Mr. Field and +by Mr. Sturgiss to be invaluable to the bank; absorbing and splendid to +Rosalie. "And still," Mr. Sturgiss was always saying, "still capable of +much bigger development." + +He sketched one day a development that would be a stride indeed. +It began to be discussed by the three. It connoted so absolute a +recognition of Rosalie's worth that she decided--lest it should fall +through--she would not mention it to Harry till either it was fallen +through or was afoot. Then! + +It made her busy. She told Harry once, when they'd been talking of +how much at office she was kept, of her work, and of the place she was +making for herself, "Well, it's not bad, Harry," she told him. "It's +not bad. I'll admit that. What pleases me is that it's only a beginning; +well as it's going, and long as I've now been at it, only a beginning. +I can't, as I've often said to you, be doing all this without getting a +long insight into the actual banking business. Oh, don't you remember +my telling you about that appalling evening when I told poor Uncle Pyke +that I wanted to be a banker? How outraged he was! Poor person, how +rightly outraged! The ridiculous notion that I ever could be a banker! A +grotesque dream!" She gave a small laugh as if tenderly smiling at image +before her of that innocent, eager girl at the Pyke Pounce table. She +said softly, "A grotesque dream. Now, with patent limitations--not a +dream." + +It was like that that Time (disguised as triumph) kept out of the way; +and similarly disguised, showed no sign either on the children's side. +All splendid there! Growing up! Huggo set to school! + +Huggo learnt with Miss Prescott till he was nine, then attended daily a +first-rate school for little boys in Kensington, at eleven started as a +boarder at a preparatory school for Tidborough. Next he was to go to +the great public school itself, afterwards to Oxford and the Bar. All's +well! Time had nothing at all to say during the first two stages of the +programme. It was in Huggo's first holidays from the preparatory school +that Time whipped out his blade and pounced. + +On a day that was a week before the end of that holidays the great new +scheme for Rosalie at Field's rose to its feet and walked. It was a +special mission on behalf of the bank. + +It necessitated.. . . + +She came once or twice to a bit of a stop like that while waiting their +evening talk together in which she should tell Harry. It necessitated +a departure from the established order of things; but what of that? Was +not the way bill of her life all departures from things established, +and all successful, and were not all contingencies of this particular +departure fully insured against? She very easily cantered on, on this +rein. That bit of a stop was scarcely a check in the progression of her +thoughts. + +Seated with Harry in Harry's room that night she was about to tell +him her great news when, "I'd an unusual offer made to me today," said +Harry. + +Almost the very words herself had been about to use! + +"Why so had I to me!" she cried. + +They both laughed. "Tell on," said Harry. + +"No, you. Yours first." + +"Toss you," cried Harry; and spun a coin and lost and went ahead: "Well, +mine doesn't exactly shake the foundations of the world with excitement +because I refused it. It was to go out to defend in a big murder case in +Singapore!" + +She exclaimed, "In Singapore!" + +"Yes, Singapore. Why do you say it like that?" + +She did not answer. + +The prisoner, Harry went on, was a wealthy trader, immensely wealthy, +and immensely detested, it appeared, by the European settlement; had +native blood in his veins; was charged with poisoning an Englishman +with whose wife he was supposed to have been carrying on an amour. "A +wretched, unsavoury business," said Harry, and went on to say that, +though the fee offered was extraordinarily handsome, he had declined the +proposal. It was doubtful he would actually make more money over it than +in his normal round at home, more than that it went against the grain to +be defending a man of native origins who had pretty obviously seduced a +white woman if not murdered her husband. "No, no ticket to Singapore for +me, thanks," said Harry. + +Rosalie turned to him with a sudden, direct interest. "Harry, suppose +you had accepted, how long would you have been away?" + +"Not less than six months in all. Certainly not less. That's another +point against--" + +"Yes, against the idea, because in any case you don't want to go. But +suppose the circumstances had been different; suppose it was a case that +for various reasons very much attracted you; would you have gone?" + +Harry said indifferently, "Oh, no doubt, no doubt." + +"Although it would have taken you from home six months--or more? You'd +not have minded that?" + +He laughed delightedly. "Ah, ha! I was beginning to wonder what you were +driving at. You're a regular lawyer, Rosalie; you led me on and then +caught me out properly." + +His amusement was not reflected by her. She said with a certain +insistence, "But you wouldn't have minded?" + +He laughed again. "The judge ruled that the question was admissible and +must be answered. Well, minded--I'd have minded, of course, very much +in a way. I'm a home bird. I'd have hated being away the best part of a +year. But there you are. If the call was strong enough, there you are; +it would have been business." + +She indrew a long breath. "That's it. It would have been business." + +There was then a pause. + +Harry, who had been talking lightly, then said slowly, "Rosalie, is +there something behind this?" + +She turned towards him with a very nice smile. "Harry, I've been doing a +very shocking thing. I've been making you commit yourself." + +"Commit myself?" + +She nodded. "Been taking down your statement without warning you that it +may be used in evidence against you." + +He said gravely, "Somehow I don't like this." + +She told him, "Ah, stupid me! I'm making a small thing seem big. Listen, +Harry. It was curious to me this about you and Singapore--" + +"Yes, I noticed that. Why?" + +"Because there's an idea of my going out to Singapore." + +He was astounded. She might have said to Mars. "You? To Singapore?" + +"To the East generally. To Bombay, to Rangoon, to Singapore. For about a +year." + +He was all aback. "For about a year? Rosalie, I can't--Why on earth--?" + +She did not like this. The great scheme! Her special mission! It +necessitated.... Here was the necessity at which she had checked +but confidently ridden on, and Harry was pulled right up by it. His +astonishment was not comfortable to her. Was there to be a check then? +He said again, "You? A year? But, Rosalie, what on earth--" + +She pronounced a single word, his own word: + +"Business." + +He was standing before her on the hearthrug. He made a turn and at once +turned back. "Are you thinking of this seriously?" + +"Most seriously." + +"Of going?" + +"Of going. It's business." + +"For a year?" + +"Harry, yes." + +He began to fill his pipe with very slow movements of his fingers, his +eyes bent down upon her. "And you called this--just now--a small thing?" + +She said with a sudden eagerness, "Harry, it's a very big thing for me, +for Field's. I meant a small thing in the sense not to be made a fuss +about." + +He made very slowly a negative movement with his head. "I don't see it +like that." + +"Let me tell you, Harry." + +She told him how the great possibilities of the department she had +established in the bank rested on the personal touch established between +herself and the clients. The scheme was that those possibilities should +be developed to their fullest extent. While she was in London that +personal touch could be established with clients by dozens. If she +visited the branches in the East, at Bombay, at Rangoon, at Singapore, +it was by hundreds that the touch could be established. That was it. +Field's customers would talk to her, and when she was returned they +would talk of her, and would tell others of her, as one met, not during +the jolly freedom of leave when the impulse was to feel that, after all, +nothing mattered much, but met out there when they were in the yoke +and the harness of the thing,--met as one fresh out from home in their +particular interests and shortly, charged with their special interests, +returning home. That was it! A novel mission, a valuable mission, her +mission. About a year. To start in about six weeks. "There, Harry, +that's the plan." + +"And you are going?" + +"I have agreed to go." + +He said slowly, "It astonishes me." + +There was then a pause. + +She spoke. "I think I do not like your astonishment, Harry." + +"It is justified." + +"No, no; not justified. When you told me of a possibility of Singapore +for you I was not astonished. I made no difficulty." + +"Different," he said. "Different." + +"Not different, Harry. The same. How different? If you could go, I can +go. The same. Aren't things with us always the same?" + +He shook his head. "Not this. If I had to go--" + +"Yes, yes. It's the point. If you had to go you'd have to go. Well, I +have to go." + +"Rosalie, if I had to go I could go. A man can." + +She cried, "But, Harry, that--This isn't us talking at all. You mean a +man can leave his home because his home can go on without him. But our +home--it's just the same for me in our home. We've made it like that. +It runs itself. The kitchen--I don't know when I last gave an order. +The children--there's never a word. The thing's organised. I'm an +organiser." She laughed, "Dear, that's why they're sending me. Isn't it +organised?" + +He assented, but with an inflexion on the word "It's--organised." + +She did not attend the inflexion. "Well, that's no organisation that +can't, in necessity, run by itself. This can. You know, quite well, this +will. You know, quite well, that you will not be put about a jot." + +"Oh, I know that," he said. + +"Well, then. Astonished--why astonished?" + +He looked at her. "Let's call it," he said, "the principle of the +thing." + +Oh, now astonishment between them. Her voice, astounded, had an echo's +sound--faint, faint, scarcely to be heard, gone. "The prin-ci-ple!" + +This room was lit, then, only by a standard lamp remote from where they +were beside the fire. She was in a deep armchair; its partner, Harry's +chair, close by. He sat himself on the arm, looking towards her. The +firelight made shadows on his face. + +She presently murmured, her voice as though that echo, lost, was +murmuring back, "Oh, it is I that am astonished now. The principle! +It's like a ghost. Harry, how possibly can there come between us the +principle?" + +His voice was deep, "Are we afraid of it, old girl?" + +She put out a hand and touched him and he touched her hand. They were +such lovers still. That was the thing about it. There never had been +an issue between them, not the smallest; the bloom of their first union +never had dissipated, not a rub. But there was in Harry the intention +now to take her, and there was in her the apprehension now of being +taken, to a new dimension of conversation, not previously trod by them. +As they proceeded it was seen not to be light in this place; a place +where touch might be lost. + +She said, "But to bring up the principle in this! It can't be possible +you've changed. It isn't conceivable to me that you have changed. Then +how the principle?" + +"It is the situation that has changed, Rosalie. It never occurred to me; +I never dreamt or imagined that a thing like this could arise." + +She moved in her chair. "Oh, this goes deep...." + +He put a hand on her shoulder. "We're not afraid." + +"But I'm so strong in this. So always certain. In our dear years +together so utterly assured. Nothing within the principle could touch +me. I am steel everywhere upon the principle. I might hurt you, Harry." + +"I'll not be hurt." + +"Well, say it, Harry." + +He was silent a moment. "There isn't really very much to say. To me it's +so clear." + +She murmured, "And to me." + +He said, "We've made this home--eleven years. It's been ideal. You have +combined your work with your--what shall I call it?--with your domestic +arrangements--your business with your domesticity--You've done it +wonderfully. We've never had to discuss the subject since we agreed upon +it." + +She murmured, "That is why--agreed." + +"Agreed in general. But when you take the home as between a man and a +woman, there are bound to be responsibilities which, however much you +share, cannot be divided. The woman's are the--the domesticity." + +"What are the man's?" + +"To maintain the home." + +"I share in that." + +"Well, grant you do. I do not claim to share the other." + +"You are not asked to, Harry." + +"No, but, Rosalie, I've the right to ask you to provide the other." + +Her murmur said, "Oh, do not let us bring up rights. I am so fixed on +rights." + +"Rosalie, let's keep the thing square. A man can leave his home; he +often has to. I think not so a woman; not a mother; not as you wish now +to leave it. It can't, without her, go on--not in the same way." + +"Yes, ours. Ours can." + +"Not in the same way. You can't take out the woman and leave it the +same,--the same for the man, the same for the children. We're married. +The married state. With children. Doesn't the whole fabric of the +married state rest on the domesticity of woman?" + +She murmured, "No, on her resignation, Harry." + +As if he had touched something and been burnt he very sharply drew in +his breath. + +She said, "Ah, you'd be hurt, I told you. Dear, I can't be other than I +am on this. Upon her resignation, Harry. Men call it domesticity. That's +their fair word for their offence. It's woman's resignation is the +fabric of the married state. She lets her home be built upon her back. +She resigns everything to carry it. She has to. If she moves it shakes. +If she stands upright it crashes. Dear, not ours. I've stood upright all +the time. I've proved the fallacy. A woman can stand upright and yet +be wife, be mother, make home. Dear, you are not to ask me now--for +resignation." + +Therein, and through all the passage of this place where the footway +was uneven, the light not good, the quality of her voice was low and +noteless, sometimes difficult to hear. There is to say it was by that +the more assured, as is more purposeful in its suggestion the tide that +enters, not upon the gale, but in the calm and steady flow of its own +strength. + +The quality of Harry's voice was very deep and sometimes halting, as +though it were out of much difficulty that he spoke. He said, deeply, +"That you stand upright does not discharge you from responsibilities." + +She said, "Dear, nor my responsibilities discharge me from my +privileges." + +There was then a silence. + +He spoke, "But I am going to press this, Rosalie. I say, with all +admitted, this thing--this 'I could go but you should not go'--is +different as between us. I am a man." + +She made a movement in her chair. "Ah, let that go. I have a reply to +that." + +"What reply?" + +"I am a woman." + +He began--"It's nothing--." + +She said, "Oh, painful to give you pain. To me--everything." + +He got up from his position beside her and went to his chair and seated +himself. He sat on the edge of the chair, bowed forward, his forearms on +his knees, his hands clasped; not smoking; his pipe between his fingers, +his eyes upon the fire. Once or twice, his hands close to his face, he +slightly raised them and with his pipe-stem softly tapped his teeth. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +He had called it the principle. She watched him. That attitude in which +he sat was of a profundity of meditation not to be looked upon without +that sense of awe, of oppression, of misgiving that is aroused by the +suggestion in man or nature of brooding forces mysteriously engrossed. +There came to her, watching him, a thought that newly disturbed her +thoughts. He had called it the principle. She had been astonished but +she had not been perturbed. Upon the principle as between man and woman, +husband and wife, she was, as she had said, so strong, so confident, +accustomed and assured, that there was nothing could be said could touch +her there. But it was not the principle. This was the knowledge brought +to her by the new thought suddenly appeared in her mind, standing there +like a strange face in a council of friends, unbidden and of a suspect +look. What if she communicated that knowledge to Harry brooding there? +He had called it the principle. What if she put across the shadowed room +the sentence that should inform him it was not the principle but was an +issue flying the flag of ships whose freights are dangerous? What if she +put across the shadowed room the sentence, "Men that marry for a home"? + +Ay, that was it! The thing she had always known and never told. +Those are keepsakes of our secret selves, those observations, vows, +conspiracies with which romantically we plot towards our ideals. This +the sole keepsake of her treasury she never had revealed to Harry. +Significant she had not. Some instinct must have stayed her. Yes, +significant! He had called it the principle. It was not the principle. +He was sincere upon the principle and in the examination of eleven years +had proved his sincerity. It was not the principle. It was that herein, +in her intention to exercise her freedom in a new dimension, she had +touched him, not through the principle, but upon the instinct that led +him, as she believed men to be led, to marry for a home, a settling-in +place, a settling-down place, a cave to enter into and to shut the door +upon. + +Oh, this was dangerous! There were no lengths to which this might not +lead! If at her first essay at that which countered his idea of home she +was to be asked to pause, what, in the increasing convolutions of the +years, might not she be asked to abandon? Let him attempt restriction of +her by appeal to principle and she could stand, and win, unscathed. Let +him oppose her by his wish within his home to shut the door, and that +was to put upon her an injury that only by giving him pain could be +fought. Oh, dangerous! Not less an injury because by sentiment and not +by reason done! Much more an injury because so subtly done! Much more! +Dangerous! Ah, from this the outset to be withstood! + +He spoke and his first words were confirmation of her fears. + +"Rosalie, do you feel quite all right about the children?" + +Yes, she could see where this was set to lead. He could leave her with +the children; but she--men that married for a home--could not leave him +with the children. + +She said gently, "Dear, there'll not be the least difficulty. +Everything's perfectly arranged. Everything will perfectly well go on." + +He had not moved his pose and did not move it. His voice presented in +tone the profound meditation that his pose presented. He said, "I don't +quite mean that. I mean, do you always feel everything's quite all right +with them?" + +How setting now? She answered, "Dear, of course I do." + +His eyes remained upon the fire. "Rosalie, d'you know I sometimes +don't." + +Her motion--a lifting of her face, a questing of her brows--was of a +helmsman's gesture, suspicious to catch before it set a shifting of the +breeze. "Harry, in what way? They're splendid." + +"You feel that?" + +"Dear, you know they are." + +He put his pipe to his mouth and with that meditative tapping tapped his +teeth. "Splendid, yes, in health, in appearance, in development, in all +that kind of thing. I don't mean that." He turned his face towards her +and spoke directly. "Rosalie, have you ever thought they're not quite +like other children?" + +Oh, setting from what quarter this? She said, "They're better--miles and +miles." + +He got up. "Well, that's all right. If you have noticed nothing, that's +all right." + +"But, Harry. I am at a loss, dear. Of course it's all right. But what +have you noticed, think you've noticed?" + +He was standing before her, his back against the mantelpiece, looking +down at her. "Just that--not quite like other children." + +"But in what way?" + +"It's hard to say, old girl. If you've not noticed it, harder still. +Not quite so childish as at their age I seem to remember myself with +my brothers and sisters being childish. A kind of--reserve. A kind +of--self-contained." + +She shook her head, "No, no." + +"You think it's fancy?" + +"I'm sure it is." + +He was silent a moment. "It's rather worried me. And of course now--If +you are going to be away--" + +Stand by! She had the drift of this! + +She said simply, "Harry, this can't be." + +"You can't give up the idea?" + +Her hand upon the helm that steered her life constricted. "It is not to +be asked of me to give it up." She paused. She said softly, "Dear, this +is a forward step for me. You are asking me to make a sacrifice. I would +not ask you." + +He began, "There are sacrifices--" + +"They are not asked of men." + +He said, "Rosalie, you said once, when Benji was born, that, if at any +time need be, you would give up, not a thing like this, but your work +entirely." + +As if to shield or to support her heart she drew her left hand to it. +"Would you give up yours, Harry?" + +He said quickly, "I'm not suggesting such a thing. It is ridiculous. I'm +only showing you--" + +She began to say her say, her voice reflective as his own had been. "But +you have shown me frightful things, shown me how far and oh, how quick, +a thing that starts may go. Oh, my dear, know the answer before it ever +is suggested. Sacrifices! It is sacrifice for the children that you +profess to mean. Well, let us call it that. Have you ever heard of a +father sacrificing himself for his children? There's no such phrase. +There's only the feminine gender for that. 'Sacrificed himself for his +wife and children.' It's a solecism. If grammar means good sense, +it isn't grammar because it's meaningless. It can't be said. +It's grotesque. But 'Sacrificed herself for her husband and her +children,'--why, that the commonest of cliches. It's written on half the +mothers' brows; it should be carved on half the mothers' tombs--upon my +own dear mother's." She stood up and faced him. "Harry, not on mine." +She put a gentle hand on his. "I love you--you know what our love is. I +love the children--with a truer love that they have never been a burden +to me nor I on a single occasion out of mood with them. But, Harry, I +will not sacrifice myself for the children. When I ask that of you, ask +it of me. But I never will ask it of you." + +She was trembling. + +He put an arm about her shoulders. "It's over. It's over. Let's forget +it, Rosalie." + +Of course she did not forget it. Of course she knew that Harry could +not. Men that marry for a home! Already in his mind the thought that +for his home she should give up, not only this present forward step, +but--everything! Oh, man-made world! Oh, man-made men! "It's over. It's +over," he had said. Of course she knew it was not over. Men that marry +for a home! Secret she had kept it and in the same moment that she had +realised the significance of her secrecy it had been enlarged. Now it +stalked abroad. + +But what is to be observed is the quality of the love between them. It +was through the children that he had made this claim that he had sought +to impose upon her. She had told him, as she believed, that what he +thought he saw was fancy. It never occurred to her to imagine so base +a thing as that he, to give himself grounds, had invented or even +exaggerated his fancy; but it had been excusable in her (threatened as +she saw herself) to avoid, in the days that followed, discussion of that +fancy, much less herself to bring it forward. Her love for Harry was +never in that plane. It could admit no guile. It happened that within +the week she was herself a little pained by a matter with the children. +She took her pain straight to her Harry. + +On his last day of the holidays before he returned for his second term +at his preparatory school, Huggo was noisy with excitement at the idea +of returning. It rather pained Rosalie that he showed not the smallest +sign of regret at leaving home. Miss Prescott had done all the necessary +business of getting his clothes ready for school, but Rosalie took from +Field's this last afternoon to do some shopping with her little man (as +she termed it) in Oxford Street; to buy him some little personal things +he wanted,--a purse of pigskin that fastened with a button, a knife with +a thing for taking stones out of horses' hoofs, and a special kind of +football boots. Since there had come to her the "men that marry for +a home" significance, that mirage in her face had much presented that +mutinous and determined boy it often showed. Only the mother was there +when she set out with Huggo. And then the sense of pain. + +Oxford Street appeared to be swarming with small boys and their mothers +similarly engaged. All the small boys wore blue overcoats with velvet +collar and looked to Rosalie most lovably comic in bowler hats that +seemed enormously too big for their small heads. Huggo was dressed to +the same pattern but his hat exactly suited his face which was thin and, +by contrast with these others, old for his years. Rosalie wished somehow +that Huggo's hat didn't suit so well; the imminent extinguisher look of +theirs made them look such darling babies. And what really brought out +the difference was that all these other small boys invariably had a hand +stretched up to hold their mothers' arms and walked with faces turned +up, chattering. Huggo didn't. She asked him to. He said, "Mother, why?" + +"I'd love you to, darling." + +He put up his hand and she pressed it with her arm to her side, but she +noticed that he was looking away into a shop window while he did as he +was asked, and there came in less than a dozen paces a congestion on the +pavement that caused him to slip behind her, removing his hand. He did +not replace it. + +In the shop where the knife was to be bought an immense tray of every +variety of pocketknife was put before them. Huggo opened and shut blades +with a curiously impatient air as though afraid of being interfered with +before he had made his choice. Immediately beside Rosalie was another +mother engaged with another son upon another tray. + +"It's got to have a thing for levering stones out of horses' hoofs," +said Huggo, brushing aside a knife offered by the assistant and +rummaging a little roughly. + +Rosalie said, "Darling, I can't think what you can want such a thing +for." + +The lady beside her caught her eye and laughed. "That's just what I'm +asking my small man," she said. + +Her small man, whose face was merry and whose hat appeared to be +supported by his ears, looked up at Rosalie with an engaging smile and +said in a very frank voice, "It's jolly useful for lugging up tight +things or to hook up toffee that's stuck." + +They all three laughed. Huggo, busily engaged, took no notice. + +He found the knife he wanted. Rosalie showed him another. "Huggo, I'm +sure that one's too heavy and clumsy." + +The voice of the little boy with the hat on his ears came, "Mummie, I'd +rather have this one because you chose it." + +Rosalie said to Huggo, "It will weigh down your pocket so." + +"This one! This one!" cried Huggo and made a vexed movement with a foot. + +Rosalie, sitting with Harry before the fire in Harry's room that night +said, "Harry, tell me some more of what you said the other day about the +children." + +He looked up at her. He clearly was surprised. "You've been thinking +about it?" + +"I've been with Huggo shopping for him this afternoon and been at little +things a little sad. Harry, when you said 'not like other children' did +you mean not--responsive?" + +He said intensely, "Rosalie, it is the word. It's what I meant. I +couldn't get it. I wonder I didn't. It's my meaning exactly--not +responsive. You've noticed it?" + +"Oh, tell me first." + +"Rosalie, it's sometimes that I've gone in to the three of them wanting +to be one with them, to be a child with them and invent things and +imagine things. Somehow they don't seem to want it. They don't--invite +it. Your word, they don't--respond. I want them to open their hearts and +let me right inside. Somehow they don't seem to open their hearts." + +She said, "Harry, they're such mites." + +He shook his head. "They're not mites, old girl. Only Benji. And even +Benji--It was different when they were wee things. It's lately, all +this. They don't seem to understand, Rosalie--to understand what it is I +want. That's the thing that troubles me. It's an extraordinary thing +to say, but it's been to me sometimes as if I were the child longing +to be--what shall I say?--to have arms opened to me, and they were the +grown-ups, holding me off, not understanding what it is I want. Not +understanding. Rosalie, why don't they understand?" + +She had a hand extended to the fire and she was slowly opening and +shutting her fingers at the flames. This, coming upon the feeling she +had had that afternoon with Huggo, was like a book wherein was analysed +that feeling. But, "I am sure they do understand, dear," she said. "I'm +sure it's fancy." + +"I think you're not sure, Rosalie." + +"Oh, yes, I am. If it's anything it's just perhaps their way--all +children have their ways. What I thought about Huggo this afternoon +might perhaps be something what you mean. Harry, if it is, it's just the +little man's way." + +"What was it you thought?" + +She maintained that movement of the fingers of her hand. "Why, only +things I noticed; tiny things; nothings, I'm sure. Out shopping with me, +Harry. Well, it was his last day and I would have expected somehow he +would have been fonder for that. He wasn't and I rather felt it. Things +like that. I would so like him to have held my arm. He didn't want to. +Not very grateful for the things we bought. But there, why should he be, +dear Huggo? But just his way; that's what one ought to think. But I felt +it a little." + +Harry said, "I know. I know. It's that that I have felt--not responsive. +It's what I've thought I've noticed in them all." + +Telling him perhaps enlarged, as telling does, her sensibilities. She +said very quickly, "Not Benji!" + +"Well, Benji's so very young. But even--But in the other two--" + +She said as quickly as before, "Ah, Doda's responsive!" + +"You've seen it, dear, in Huggo." + +"Oh, Harry, nothing, just his way. I'm sorry now I mentioned it." + +He had been watching the flexion of her hand. He said, "I'm glad you +have. When I spoke of it the other day you said you didn't see it. I +think it's generous in you to admit you have." + +She murmured, "Generous?" + +"It brings up--Rosalie, does this affect a little, alter perhaps, your +decision?" + +She shut her fingers sharply. "No." She kept them shut. "There's nothing +at all could alter that, Harry." + +He turned aside and began to fill his pipe, with slow movements. + +It has been warned that it was in this holidays of Huggo's from his +preparatory school that Time, that bravo of the cloak-and-dagger school, +whipped out his-blade and pounced. These, since that warning, were but +the doorways and the lurking posts he prowled along. + +He now was very close to Rosalie. + +Rosalie and Harry both were home to lunch next day. In the afternoon +they were to take Huggo to Charing Cross to see him off in the saloon +specially reserved for his school. All the children were at lunch for +this occasion. Benji in a high chair just like the high chair that had +been Rosalie's years back--what years and years!--at the rectory. Huggo +was in boisterous spirits. You would think, you couldn't help thinking, +it was his first day, not his last day home. Rosalie observed him as +she had not before observed him. How he talked! Well, that was good. How +could Harry have thought him reserved? But he talked a shade loudly and +with an air curiously self-opinionated. But he was such a child, and +opinions were delightful in a child. Yes, but something not childish +in his way of expressing his opinions, something a shade superior, +self-satisfied; and she particularly noticed that when anything in +the way of information was given him by Harry or by herself he never +accepted it but always argued. She grew very silent. She felt she would +have given anything to hear him, in the long topic of railways with his +father, and then of Tidborough School, say, "Do they, father?" or, "Does +it, father?" He never did. He always knew it before or knew different. +Once on a subject connected with the famous school Harry said, a shade +of rebuke in his voice, "My dear old chap, I was at Tidborough. I ought +to know." Rosalie felt she would have given anything in the world for +Huggo to reply, "Sorry, father, of course you ought." Instead he bent +upon his plate a look injured and resentful at being injured. But in a +minute she was reproaching herself for such ideas. Her Huggo! and she +was sitting here criticising him. Different from other children! Why, if +so, only in the way she had affirmed to Harry--miles and miles better. +Opinionated? Why, famously advanced for his years. Superior? Why, +bright, clever, not a nursery boy. She had been wronging him, she had +been criticising him, she had been looking for faults in him, her Huggo! +Unkind! Unnatural! + +Listen to him! The meal was ended. His father was bantering him about +what he learnt, or didn't learn, at school; was offering him an extra +five shillings to his school tip if he could answer three questions. +The darling was deliciously excited over it. How his voice rang! He was +putting his father off the various subjects suggested. Not Latin--he +hadn't done much Latin; not geography--he simply hated geography. Listen +to him! + +"Well, scripture," Harry was saying. "Come, they give you plenty of +scripture?" + +"Oh, don't they just! Tons and tons!" Listen to him! How merry he +was now! "Tons and tons. First lesson every morning. But don't ask +scripture, father. Father, what's the use of learning all that stuff, +about the Flood, about the Ark, about the Israelites, about Samuel, +about Daniel, about crossing the Red Sea, about all that stuff: what's +the use?" + +Time closed his fingers on his haft and took a stride to Rosalie. + +She sat upright. She stared across the table at the boy. + +Harry said, "Here, steady, old man. 'What's the use of Scripture?'" + +"Well, what is the use? It's all rot. You know it isn't true." + +Time flashed his blade and struck her terribly. + +She called out dreadfully, "Huggo!" + +"Mother, you know it's all made up!" + +She cried out in a girl's voice and with a girl's impulsive gesture of +her arm across the table towards him, "It isn't! It isn't!" + +Her voice, her gesture, the look upon her face could not but startle +him. He was red, rather frightened. He said mumblingly, "Well, mother, +you've never taught me any different." + +She was seen by Harry to let fall her extended arm upon the table and +draw it very slowly to her and draw her hand then to her heart and +slowly lean herself against her chair-back, staring at Huggo. No one +spoke. She then said to Huggo, her voice very low, "Darling, run now to +see everything is in your playbox. Doda, help him. Take Benji, darlings. +Benji, go and see the lovely playbox things." + +When they had gone she was seen by Harry to be working with her fingers +at her key-ring. In one hand she held the ring, in the other a key that +she seemed to be trying to remove. It was obstinate. She wrestled at it. +She looked up at Harry. "I want to get this"--the key came away in her +hand--"off." + +He recognised it for her office pass-key. + +Caused by that cry of hers to Huggo and by that ges-ture with her cry, +and since intensifying, there had been a constraint that he was very +glad to break. He remembered how childishly proud she had been of that +key on the day it was cut for her. They had had a little dinner to +celebrate it, and she had dipped it in her champagne glass. + +He said, "Your pass-key? Why?" + +She said, "I'm coming home, Harry." + +"Coming home?" + +She was sitting back in her chair. She tossed, with a negligent movement +of her hand, the key upon the table. "I have done with all that. I am +coming home." + +He got up very quickly and came around the table to her. + + + + +PART FOUR--HOUSE OF CARDS + +CHAPTER I + + +There is a state wherein the mind, normally the court of pleas where +reason receives and administers the supplications of the senses, is +not in session. Reason is sick, suspends his office, abrogates his +authority, withdraws to some deep fastness of the brain, and suffers the +hall of judgment to be the house of license or of dreams: of dreams, as +sleep, as vanity of reverie; of license when there is tumult in the body +politic, as fever, as excesses of the passions, as great shock. Reason +is sick, withdraws, and there is strange business in that place. + +If that is just the way one writes, not susceptible of easy +comprehension, and not enough explanatory of Rosalie's condition, it +goes like this in Rosalie's own words. Drooped back there in her chair +before that littered disarray of lunch, and that key lying there, and +Harry stooping over her and holding both her hands, she said, "Oh, +Harry! Oh, Harry! I feel deathly sick." + +She said it had been a most frightful shock to her, what Huggo had +declared. She said, "Oh, Harry, I feel all undone." + +Undone! We'll try to feel her mind with that; to let that explain her +when she said this else, and when she wrote some things that shall be +given. + +She said she had suffered, in that moment of crying out to Huggo and +of stretching out her arm to him, the most extraordinary--what was the +word?--the most extraordinary hallucination. "Harry, when Huggo said +that frightful thing! Oh, Harry, like an extraordinary dream, I was a +child again. It wasn't here; it was happening; it was the rectory; and +not you and the children but all us children that used to be around the +table there. No, not quite that. More extraordinary than that. Robert +was there; Robert, I think, in Huggo's place; and all the rest were +me--me as I used to be when I was ten; small, grave, wondering, staring. +And yet myself me too as I was then--oh, horrified as I'd have then been +horrified to hear the Bible stories called untrue; jumped up and crying +out, 'It isn't! It isn't!' as I would then have jumped up and cried out; +and all the other Rosalies staring in wonder as I'd have stared. Oh, +extraordinary, extraordinary! Within this minute, I have been a child +again. The strangest thing, the strangest thing! + +"I was a child again, Harry, in a blue frock I used to wear and in a +pinafore that had a hole in it; and all those other Rosalies the same. +Those other Rosalies! To see them! Harry, I've not seen that Rosalie +I used to be--not years and years. That tiny innocent! It is upon me +still. I feel that small child still. Oh, I feel it! I remember--dear, +did I ever tell you?--when my father once... had been talking about +Cambridge... and suddenly cried out, it was at breakfast, 'Cambridge! My +youth! My God, my God, my youth!' There was coffee from a cup that he'd +knocked over came oozing, and I just sat there huge-eyed, staring, a +small, grave wondering child.... + +"Oh, Harry, my youth, my childhood--and now the children's! The +difference! The difference!" + +Harry talked to her. He ended, "The teaching, all the ideas, dear girl, +you mustn't worry, it's all different nowadays." + +"Harry, to hear it from a child like that!" + +"It's startled you. It needn't. We'll talk it out. We'll fix it. It's +just what he's been taught, old girl." + +She said, "Oh, it is what he's not been taught!" + +Then there were things that, while was still upon her this shock, this +sense of being again the small, grave child in the blue frock and in +the pinafore with the hole in it, she wrote down. She dismissed Miss +Prescott. She thought, when the interview of dismissal opened, that she +would end by upbraiding Miss Prescott, but she was abated all the time +in any anger that she might have felt by Huggo's other frightful words, +"Well, mother, you never taught me any different." She did not want to +hear Miss Prescott tell her that. She told Miss Prescott simply that +she was giving up her business and coming now to devote herself to the +children. She thought, she said, their education had in some respects +been faulty, and told Miss Prescott how. Miss Prescott, speaking like +a book, told her it had not been faulty and told her why. "Truth, +knowledge, reason," said Miss Prescott. "Could it conceivably be +contested that these should not be the sole food and the guiding +principle of the child mind?" + +It was after that interview that Rosalie, sitting long into the night, +wrote down some things. She is to be imagined as wrenched back, as by a +violent hand, across the years, and in the blue frock and the pinafore +with a hole in it again, and awfully frightened, terribly unhappy, at +the thing she'd heard from Huggo. That was the form her shock took. +Beneath it she had at a blow abandoned all her ambitions as when a child +she would instantly have dropped her most immersing game and run to a +frightening cry from her mother; as once, in fact (and the incident and +the parallel came back to her), she had been building a house of cards, +holding her breath not to shake it, and her mother had scalded her hand +and had cried out to her, frighteningly. "Oh, mummie, mummie!" she had +cried, running to her; and flap! the house of cards had gone. Her inward +cry was now, "The children! The children!" and what amiss the leaving of +her work? Her work! Oh, house of cards! + +Her state of mind, the imaginings in which that shock came to her, is +better seen by what she wrote down privately, to relieve herself, +than by the talk about it all that she had with her Harry. She wrote +immediately after Miss Prescott had stood up for "truth, knowledge, +reason," and by combating truth, knowledge, and reason more clearly +expressed herself than in her talk with Harry. It was in her diary she +wrote--well, it wasn't exactly a diary, it was a desultory journal +in which sometimes she wrote things. As she wrote, her brow, in the +intensity of her thought, was all puckered up. She still felt "deathly +sick; all undone." She wrote: + +"Of course it's as she says (Miss Prescott). That is the kind of thing +to-day. Knowledge, stark truth--children must have in stark truth all +the knowledge there is on all the things that come about them. It's +strange; yes, it is strange. No parent would be such a fool as to trust +a child with all the money she has nor with anything superlatively +precious that she possesses; but knowledge, which is above all wealth +and above all treasure, the child is to have to play with as it likes. +Oh, it is strange. Where is it going to stop? If you bring up a child on +the fact that all the Old Testament stories are untrue, a bundle, where +they are miraculous, of obviously impossible fairy tales, what's +going to happen to the New Testament? The Immaculate Conception, the +Resurrection, the Ascension--what's your child-mind that knows the +old stories for inventions going to say to those? Are they easier to +believe? The Creation or the Conception? The Flood or the Resurrection? +God speaking out of a burning bush or the Ascension to Heaven? The +pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire or the Three in One of the +Trinity? Oh, I wonder if Modern Thought has any thought to spare for +that side of the business--or for its results in a generation or two?" + +Then she wrote: + +"I've never taught them any different." + +Then she wrote: + +"Mother, I am a child again to-night. Darling, in that blue frock I used +to wear. Darling, all that I to-night am thinking is what you taught +me. Oh, look down, beloved! I've been so wrong. I thought everything was +infinitely better for them than you made it, beloved mother, for me. I +didn't realise." + +Then she wrote: + +"It just means losing everything in God that's human. It must mean that. +All our intelligence, if materialism may be called intelligence; all +modern teaching, if this new stuff that they pontificate may be called +teaching, offers us God the Spirit but, as it seems to me to-night, +denies us God the Father and God the Son. It may be--reasonable. But +things spiritual demand for their recognition emotions spiritual, and +there's a pass that thousands reach when the spirit is a dead thing. +If they are to believe in God only as a Spirit, a Force, a Power; an +Essence to be felt but not seen; an Element to be absorbed into but not +to be visualised--if this, if these, there needs in them some spirit, +some force, some power of themselves to lift themselves to meet it. +They must be of themselves responsive as hath the sea within itself +that which respondeth to the sublimation of the sun. Well, there are +thousands (am I not one?) that have it not. It once was theirs. Now it +is not theirs. If there is for them only God the Spirit then is there +for them only that to which they have no more power to reach than has +one bedridden power to rise and find a mile away what may restore him. +They have only that, their breaking heart, which would cast itself, ah, +with what bliss of utter abandonment, before God the Father, a human and +a personal Father, quick to succor, and before God the Son, a human and +a personal Son, ardent to intercede. And that is denied them. That God +that existed and that was taught to exist for my mother and for her day +to this day may not exist. It may be--reasonable. Oh, it is offering a +stone where bread was sought." + +She also wrote: + +"Oh, mother, if you could have been here, how you would have loved my +darlings, and how you would have given them all that you gave to me! +I will now, mother. Mother, I've come back home to them, in the blue +frock, and in the pinafore with a hole in it." + +That was the spirit in which she came back home to the children, that +and all that went with it and that arose out of it. It was nothing at +all to her when she did it, the frightful break with Field's. Harry +was distressed for her, but there was no need at all for him to be +distressed, she told him. There wasn't a sigh in her voice, nor in her +inmost thoughts a sigh, when, telling him of the interview with Mr. +Field and with Mr. Sturgiss at her resignation of her post, she said +with a smile, "Carry on? Of course the department can perfectly well +carry on. Dear, it's just the words I said to you a fortnight back on +the matter so very different. 'The thing's organised. It runs itself. +That is why it is the success it is, because it's organised. That's +why I can come away and leave it, because I'm an organiser. Aren't I an +organiser?" + +He held her immensely long in his arms. "You are my Rosalie," he said. + +Immensely long he held her, immensely close; oh, men that marry for a +home! Until, come home, she saw Harry's tremendous happiness in the home +that now she gave him, she never had realised the longing that must have +been his for the home for which he had married, and never till now had +had. It was poignant to her, the sight of his tremendous happiness. +"Always to find you here!" he would cry, in the first weeks of the new +life, coming home to tea and coming in to her in the drawing-room where +she would be, all ready for him, with Doda and with Benji. "Always to +leave you here!" he would say, taking leave of her in the morning, and +she and Doda and Benji coming with him to the hall door to see him off. +"Mice and Mumps," he used to add in codicil, "Mice and Mumps, I'm a +happy chap!" and was for ever bringing home trifles for her and for the +children, or plans and passes for how and where the Saturday and the +weekend should be spent, all four together. "Mice and Mumps, I'm gorged +with happiness! And you, Rosalie?" + +"Oh, happy!" she used to say. + +And was. It was poignant to her, his tremendous happiness, and it +brimmed up the cup of her own happiness. She was doing virtuously and +she had of her virtue that happiness which, as the pious old maxims tell +us, comes of being good. + +That should have been well; but virtue is a placid condition and the +happiness arising out of it placid. It brims no cups, flushes no cheeks, +sparkles no eyes. It is of the quality of happiness that one, loving a +garden, has from his garden, the happiness of tranquillity, not of stir; +of peace, not of thrills; of the country, not of the town. There was +more heady stuff than this that Rosalie had out of her new condition, +and that was dangerous. She was doing virtuously and she had out of her +virtue an intoxication of joy that, in so far as it is at all concerned +with virtue, arises, not from virtue's self, but from the consciousness +of virtue. That was dangerous. The danger point in stimulants is when +they are resorted to, not as concomitant of the pleasures of the table, +but be-cause they stimulate. Rosalie, come to her children and her Harry +and her home, to the thought of her renunciation and of her happiness +constantly was turning for the enormous exhilaration of happiness that +there she found. "How glad I am I gave it up! How glad! How glad! +How right I'm doing now! How right! How right! How happy I am in this +happiness! How happy! How happy!" + +Is it not perceived that thus it was not well assured, this great joy +that she had, this cup of hers that brimmed? She started from that +danger point at which the drug is drunk for stimulant. On the very first +day of her new life she was saying, "How glad I am! How glad I am!" and +going on radiant from her gladness. But she, in her resort to this her +stimulant, suffered this grave disparity with the drinker's case: he +must increase his doses--and he can. She, living upon her stimulant, +equally was compelled--but could not. The renunciation that brimmed her +happiness on the first day was available to her in no bigger dose on the +succeeding days, the hundredth day and the three hundredth and the five +hundredth. It never could increase. It had no capacity of increase. Is +it not perceivable that it had, on the contrary, a staling quality? + +It would have been all right if it had been all right. It would have +been all right if it had not been all wrong. If these absurd premises +can be understood, her case can be understood. She used them herself in +after years. "It would have been all right," she used to say to herself, +twisting her hands together, "if it had been all right." "It would have +been all right," she used to say to herself, "if it had not been all +wrong." What she meant, and what here is meant, requires it to be +recalled that it was in that spirit of that glimpse of herself back a +child again in the blue frock and in the pinafore with a hole in it that +she came back to the children, came back home to them. Shocked by +the thing that had come to pass, penitential by influence of the old +childhood influences that had stirred within her, most strangely and +most strongly transported back into that childhood vision of herself, it +was in the guise of that child and with that child's guise as her ideal +for them that passionately she desired to take up her children's lives. +Her Huggo, her man child, her first one! Her Doda, her self's own self, +her woman-bud, her daughter! Her Benji, her littlest one, her darling! +She longed, as it were, to throw open the door, and in that blue frock +and in the spirit of that blue frock most ardently to run in to them +and hug them, blue frocked, to her breast, and be one with them and tell +them the things and the things and the things that were the blue frock's +mysteries and joys, and hear from them the things and the things and the +things that were the blue frock's all-enchanted world again. + +That was what most terribly she wanted and with most brimming gladness +set about to do--and there was borne, in upon her, hinted in weeks, +published in months, in seasons sealed and delivered to her, that there +was among her children no place for that spirit. They did not welcome +the blue frock; they did not understand the blue frock; they were not +children as she had been a child. It was what Harry had said of them, +they somehow were not quite like other children; it was what she herself +had noticed in Huggo; they did not respond. They'd gone, those children, +too long as they'd been left to go. She came to them ardently. They +greeted her--not very responsively. They didn't understand. + +What happened was that, coming to them great with intention, she was, +by what she did not find in them, much dispirited in her intention. +What followed from that was that she turned the more frequently to the +stimulation of the thought of her renunciation, to the sensation of +happiness that arose in her by consciousness that she was doing what she +ought to be doing. She would be puzzled, she would be a little pained, +she would be a little tired at the effort, fruitless, to call up in the +children those lovely childish things that as a child had been hers. +She then would feel dispirited. She then would think, "But how glad I am +that I gave it all up; but how right I am to be at home with them; but +how happy I am that I am now doing that which is right." That stimulated +her. That made her tell herself (as before she had told Harry) that +it was just fancy, this apparent difference, this indifference, in the +children. + +But the more she found necessary that stimulus, the less that stimulus +availed; and she began to feel, then, the first faint gnawings after +that which had been stimulus indeed, her work, her career. + +Of course this is making a case for her, this is special pleading for +her, but who so abandoned that in the ultimate judgment a case will +not for him be prepared? Try to consider how it went with her. First +intoxication of happiness; and must not intoxication in time wear +off? Then immense intention and then dispirited in her intention. Then +frequent resource to the stimulus of her realisation of virtue and then +the natural diminution of that cup's effect. Is she not presented prey +for her life's habit's longings? Is she not shown dejected and caused by +that dejection (as caused by depression the reclaimed victim of a drug) +to desire again that which had been to her the breath of life? + +That was how it went with her. + +Doda was nine when she began; Huggo, when he was home for his holidays, +eleven, rising twelve; Benji only seven. They seemed to her, all +of them, wonderfully old for their years and, no getting over that, +different. She tried to read them the stories she used to love. They +didn't like them. Doda didn't like "The Wide Wide World" and didn't like +"Little Women." Huggo thought "The Swiss Family Robinson" awful rot, +and argued learnedly with her how grotesque it was to imagine all that +variety of animals and all that variety of plants in one same climate. +"But, Huggo, you needn't worry whether it was possible. It was just +written as a means of telling a family of children natural history +things. They didn't have to believe it. They only enjoyed it. I and +your uncle Robert never worried about whether it was possible; we simply +loved the adventure of it." + +"Well, I can't, mother," said Huggo. "It's not possible, and if it isn't +possible, I think it's stupid." + +And Doda thought Ellen in the "Wide Wide World" silly, and Beth and Jo +and the others in "Little Women" dull. + +She read them Dickens, but it was always, "Oh, leave out that part, +mother. It's dull." And so was Scott Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare" +never had a chance at all. They had heard from Miss Prescott, or Huggo +had heard at school, that Shakespeare was a lesson. "Oh, not a thing +out of lessons, mother." What they liked were what seemed to Rosalie +the crudely written stories, and the grotesque and usually rather vulgar +comic drawings, in the host of cheap periodicals for children that +seemed to have sprung up since her day. They called these exciting or +funny and they revelled in them. They were different. Benji was no more +than a baby, but he was extraordinarily devoted to Doda, liked only the +things that Doda liked, and did not like the things that Doda didn't +like, or, in the language sometimes a little unpleasantly emphatic that +always was Doda's and Huggo's, that Doda "simply loathed." Rosalie had +some old bound numbers of treasured juvenile periodicals of the rectory +days. Even Benji didn't like them. They were markedly different from the +books the children did like. Their illustrations were mainly of children +in domestic scenes. "Don't they look stupid?" was Doda's comment; and +Benji, copying, thought they were stupid too. + +All this was a very small thing and of itself negligible; even, +as Rosalie told herself, natural--naturally children of succeeding +generations changed in their tastes. It only is introduced as +conveniently showing in an obscure aspect what was noticeable to +Rosalie, and felt by her, in many aspects, whose effect was +cumulative. "A kind of reserve," Harry had said of them: "a kind +of--self-contained." It was what she found. She wanted to be a child +with the children; they didn't seem to understand. She wanted to open +her heart to them and have their hearts opened to her; they didn't seem +to understand. She was always seeing that vision of Rosalie in the blue +frock among them, rather like Alice, the real Alice, Tenniel's Alice. +She was always feeling that Rosalie, thus guised, was held off from +their circle, not welcomed, not understood, as certainly they did not +care for the demure, quaint Alice of Tenniel. + +She began to have sometimes when she was with the children an +extraordinary feeling (just what Harry had said) that she was younger +than the children, that it was she who was the child, they that were the +grown-ups. + +When the step of her renunciation was first taken, ardent to devote +herself to them in every moment of the day, she began to give their +lessons to Doda and to Benji. It was not a success. The methods of +teaching, as the text-books, had changed since she was a child. The +Prescott methods were here and to her own methods the children did not +respond. There it was again--did not respond. There was obtained a Miss +Dormer who came in daily and who confined herself, Rosalie saw to that, +solely to lessons; the walks and all the other hours of the day were +Rosalie's. + +That's all for that. The picture has been overdrawn if has been given +the suggestion that Rosalie was unhappy with the children or the +children openly indifferent to her. All of that nature that in fact +arose was that, whereas Rosalie had expected an immense and absorbing +occupation with the children, she found instead an occupation very +loving and very happy but not relieving her of all the interest and all +the affection she had desired to pour into it. It was rather like to a +hungry person a strange dish that had looked substantial but that, when +finished, was found not to have been substantial; still hungry. She +had thought the children would have been entirely dependent on her. She +found them in many ways independent and wishing to be independent. It +would have been all right if it had been all right. That was it. It +would have been all right if it had not been all wrong. That was it. + +She began to think of Field's. + +When first she began to think of Field's, which was when she had been +nine months away from Field's, she would let her mind run upon it +freely, as it would. One day, thus thinking upon it, she brought up her +thoughts as it were with a round turn. She must not think so much about +Field's--not like that. She sighed, and with the same abruptness of +mental action checked her sigh; she must not regret Field's--not like +that. + +It was a fateful prohibition. It was the discovery to herself, as to +Eve of the tree by the serpent, of a temptation seductive and forbidden. +Thereafter "like that" her mind, missing no day nor no night, was often +found by her to be there. The quality that made "like that" not seemly +to her, increased, at each return, its potency. + +It became very difficult to drag her mind away. It became impossible to +drag her mind away. + +Her governance of her mind became infected and it became not necessary +to think it necessary to drag her mind away. + +She had not visited Field's since she had left. Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. +Field had written to her reproaching her for carrying to such lengths +of neglect her desertion of them, and she had responded banteringly but +without a call. One day (she had lain much awake on the previous night) +she at breakfast told Harry she had the idea of going that afternoon to +see how Field's was getting on. + +She was surprised at his supplement to his reply. The children had left +the room. He first agreed with her that the idea was good. "Yes, rather; +why not?" was the expression he used. He then said, surprising her, +"Rosalie, you've never, have you, regretted?" + +Her surprise framed for her her reply. "Why ever should you ask that?" + +"I've thought you've not been looking very well lately." + +"But what's the connection, Harry?" + +"Fretting?" + +She smiled. "I'm not the fretting sort." + +He was perfectly satisfied. "I knew you'd tell me if you were. +Everything going well?" + +"Fine." + +He shot out his arms with a luxurious stretching gesture. "Mice and +Mumps, it's been fine for me, I can tell you. Fine, fine!" + +How happy he looked! How handsome he looked! Her thought was "Dear +Harry!" + +He got up and began to set about his departure. She went with him into +the hall and she called up the stairs, "Children, father's going." They +came bounding down. He joked and played with them. He loved this custom, +now long established. She brushed his hat, also a rite she knew he +loved. He kissed her with particular affection. "Yes, you go up to +Field's and give old Sturgiss and old Field my love. You'll almost have +forgotten the way there. I say, it's funny, isn't it, how time changes +things and how it goes? We couldn't have imaged this once, and here it +is the most established thing in the world. Do you know, it's almost +exactly a year since you chucked it?" + +"Chucked it!" The light expression smote her. O manlike man that thus +could phrase divorce that from her heart's engrossment had cut her life +asunder! + +In the afternoon she set out upon her intention. It meant nothing, her +visit, she assured herself. It had no purpose beyond the exchange of +courtesies. But when she was leaving the house she paused. Should she +go? She went down the steps and through the gate, then paused again. She +returned to the house. She had an idea. She would take the children with +her. She called them, and while they gleefully dressed for the outing +she repeated to herself the word in which the idea of taking them with +her had come to her. + +"A bodyguard!" she said. + +The note of laughter she gave at the word had a tremulous sound. + +Tremulous would well have described her manner when they were at +Field's. She was asking herself as they went towards the City what it +was that she wanted to hear--that Field's was doing very well without +her? That her department was not doing very well without her? Which? + +She would not let her mind affirm which it was that she desired. + +It appeared, when they arrived, that it was neither, nor anything at +all to do with the Bank. Her first words to the partners were of +smiling apology at bringing to precincts sacred to business, "a herd of +children." That was a natural introduction of herself; it was an unusual +thing to do. But not natural the way in which she maintained the subject +of the children. It seemed that she had come to talk of nothing +else. Tremulous she was; talking, of the children, with the incessant +eagerness, and with the nervous eagerness, of one either clamant to +establish a case or frightened of a break in the conversation lest +a break should cause appearance of a subject most desperately to be +avoided. + +Her bodyguard! + +Mr. Field and Mr. Sturgiss were delighted to see her and expressed +themselves delighted to see the children. There was plenty in the bank, +coffers and strong-rooms and all sorts of exciting things, said Mr. +Field, that would amuse the small people, and when tea was done they +should be taken around to see them. In an inner holy of holies, behind +the partners' parlour, a very exciting tea was made. A clerk was sent +out for a parcel of pastries and returned with an enormous bag, and +there was no tablecloth, nor no proper tea-table, and the children, much +excited, were immensely entertained. + +Easy, while they were there, to make them the conversation's centre. +But the meal ended and then became most evident her anxiety to keep the +chatter on the children. They became impatient to be off on the promised +exploration. She delayed it. Twice the clerk who was to conduct the tour +was about to be summoned. By a new gathering of general attention, she +stopped his coming. When at last he came she said she would be of the +party. The partners did not want that. The children did not want it. +"Mother, it will be much more exciting by ourselves." She insisted. +She was aware for the first and only time in her life of a feeling +of nerves, of not being quite in control of herself, of making of her +insistence rather more than should be made. + +"Well, stay," said Mr. Sturgiss, "at least for a minute's chat before +you join them." + +That was not possible, unless she was going to become hysterical, to +resist. The children trooped away. Her bodyguard! + +She turned aside and it is to be remembered for her that, her face +concealed from the partners, she gave the tiniest despairing gesture +with her hands. + +When, with the children, she was returning home, she was trying to +determine whether, while it was in suspense, she had or had not desired +to hear of the partners that which she had heard from them. They had +talked with her generally of the business. They had talked particularly +of the work of her department of the business. There was approaching all +the time the thing that sooner or later they must say. She was trembling +all the time to know how she would receive it. In whichever of its two +ways it came would she be glad or would she be sorry? She simply did not +know. She suddenly herself projected the point. She could not endure +any longer its delay. "And Miss Farmer," she said. "How's Miss Farmer +doing?" Miss Farmer, formerly one of her assistants, had on her +resignation taken her place. + +Miss Farmer, replied Mr. Sturgiss, was estimable but--he opened his +hands and made with them a deprecatory gesture. "She's not you. How +could she be you, or any one be you? We could replace Miss Farmer. +What's the good? It's you we've got to replace. We can't replace you." + +Her heart had bounded. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That happened in the Christmas holidays, in January. In February was +Doda's eleventh birthday. The child had friends rather older than +herself, neighbours, who for a year had been boarders at a school +in Surrey. She was desperately eager to join them there and it was a +promise from Rosalie that she should go when she was twelve, earlier if +she were good. On this eleventh birthday, which brought birthday letters +from the neighbours at the school and thus again brought up the subject, +"Oh, haven't I been good?" cried Doda at the birthday breakfast. "Oh, +do let me go next term, mother. Father, do say I may." Her eagerness for +school had been much fostered by Huggo's holiday stories of school life; +and Huggo, as Doda now adduced, was leaving his preparatory and starting +at Tidborough next term; couldn't she, oh, couldn't she make also her +start then? + +Harry said, "O grown-up woman of enormous years, think of your sorrowing +parents. How will you like to leave your weeping mother, Doda? How will +you like to leave your heart-broken old father?" + +"Oh, I'd love to!" cried Doda. + +The ingenuousness of it made her parents laugh. + +"She'll have her way, won't she?" said Harry, when Doda, conscious, by +that laugh, of tolerance, had danced out of the room. + +"I think she'd better," said Rosalie. + +The school was very well known to Rosalie. It was exclusive and +expensive; was limited to seventy girls, of whom twenty, under the age +of thirteen, were received in the adapted Dower House of the ancient +estate which was its home; and the last word in modernity was, in every +point of administration, its first word. It had been established only +eight years. The motto of its founders and of its lady principal was +"Not traditions--precedents!" + +The subject came up again between Rosalie and Harry that evening and it +was decided that Doda should be placed there after the next holidays, at +the opening of the summer term. Harry declared himself, "in my bones" as +he expressed it, against boarding schools for girls, "But that's my old +fogeyism," said he. "It's the modern idea that girls should have the +same training and the same chances in life as their brothers, and +there's no getting away from the right of it." + +Rosalie said in a low voice, "To what end?" + +He did not hear her. She had got out from the accumulation of papers +of her business life prospectuses and booklets of the school and he was +amusedly browsing over the refinements and advantages therein, not by +traditions but by precedents, set forth. "Mice and Mumps, Rosalie," +said he, "they not only do riding as a regular thing but 'parents are +permitted, if they wish, to stable a pupil's own pony (see page 26).' +Oh, thanks, thanks! 'Mr. Harry Occleve, barrister-at-law, availing +himself of your gracious permission on page twenty-six, is sending down +for his daughter a coach and four with 'ostlers, grooms, coachmen, and +outriders complete.' Ha!" + +She was just watching him. + +He said after an interval: "Yes, there's a lot of sound stuff here, +Rosalie. It's convincing. Not that any one needs convincing on the point +less than you and I." He quoted again. "'And advance them towards an +independent and a womanly womanhood.' And it talks further back about +how 'Idle women' will soon be recognised as great a term of reproach +as 'an idle man.' It's sound. I like this booklet here that each +girl's given, 'To the Girl of the Future.' It tells them all about an +independent career, makes no fancy picture of it, tells 'em everything. +Did you read that?" + +"A long time ago. It probably doesn't tell them one thing." + +"What?" + +"That they can always--chuck it." + +He looked up quickly. "Hull-o!" + +She gave him no response to his expressed surprise and he laughed and +said, "D'you know, Rosalie, I don't believe I've ever before heard you +use slang." + +"You taught me that bit, Harry." + +"Oh, I sling it about. When did I?" + +"One day last holidays when it was just on a year since I'd left +Field's. Just a year, you said, since I'd--chucked it. O Harry--" + +There was a quality in her voice that might, from what she saw upon his +face, have been a tocsin's roll. His face was as a place of assembly +into which, as it might be a people alarmed, there came crowding in +emotions. + +He said, "What's up?" + +She said, "O Harry, you look out for yourself!" + +There was much movement in his face. "Look out for myself?" + +She said, "That came out of me. I didn't know I was going to say it. +It's a warning. It shows the fear I have." + +"Rosalie, of what, of what?" + +"Harry, for you." + +"You're going to say something you think will hurt me?" + +"No, something you'll have to fight--if you want to fight it. Harry, +perhaps I can't go on like this. I want to go back to my work." + +He expired a breath he had been holding. "I was guessing it." + +"Before just now?" + +"No, while you've been speaking. Only now. I asked you weeks ago if you +ever felt you regretted--" + +She leant forward from the couch whereon she sat, and with an extended +hand interrupted him. She said intensely, "Look here, Harry, if it was +just regret I'd not mind and I would tell you No a hundred times, just +not to disturb you, dear. But when you asked me that you spoke, a minute +afterwards, of my having--chucked it, as if it was giving up sugar +or stopping bridge. Well, that's why I'm warning you to look out for +yourself. Because, Harry, I don't regret it. I'm craving to go back to +it, craving, craving, craving!" She stopped. She said, "Do you want me +not to go back, Harry?" + +He looked steadily at her. "Rosalie, it would be a blow to me." + +She said, "Well, then!" and she leaned back in the couch as though all +now was explained. + +He very gravely asked her, "Are you going back, Rosalie?" + +"Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?" + +He said to her, "I believe in my soul it would be a disaster." + +She got up. "Come over here to me, Harry." + +He went to her and took the hands that she extended to him. "If you +think that, a disaster, and if to you it would be what you said, a blow; +then that's what I mean by saying, Harry, you look out for yourself. I +don't know if I'm going back. I want to go terribly, oh, terribly. There +was a woman I once knew told me that if a woman once gives herself to +a thing, abandons all else and gives herself to it, she never never can +come back from it. 'They don't issue return tickets to women,' she said +to me. 'If you give yourself,' she said, 'you're its. You may think you +can get away but you never will get away. You're its.' She was right, +Harry. I believe I've got to go back. If you don't want me to, well, +you look out for yourself." She drew herself towards him by her hands. +"Harry, when I went down to Field's with the children that day last +holidays I took them to be a bodyguard to me, to prevent me from being +captured. When they left me there alone for a few minutes, I turned away +and wrung my hands because I knew I was going to be terribly tempted. I +am terribly tempted. I'm being dragged." She went into his arms. "Harry, +hold me terribly tight and say you don't want me to go back." + +He most tenderly embraced her. "Don't go back, Rosalie." + +She disengaged herself, and made a sound, "Ah!" as if, while he had held +her body, herself had held the fort of her solicitude for his desires +against the horde of her own cravings that swarmed about its walls. + +How long? + +There was a mirage in her face. While Easter came and Doda, in huge +spirits, made her start at school, and Huggo, boisterously elated, his +start at Tidborough, and Benji, much dejected at Doda's going, his start +at Huggo's former day school; and while the long summer term and the +holidays passed on, there was never again seen nor heard by Harry the +tenderness that had been in her face and in her voice when she had +warned him, "Well, Harry, you look out for yourself," and when she had +asked him, "Harry, hold me terribly tight in your arms and say you do +not want me to go back." There thenceforward did fill up her countenance +the boy, mutinous and defiant, that was her other self. It was almost +upon the morrow of that passage with him (whose poignancy the written +word has failed to show) that she had a revulsion from the attitude +she had then exposed to him. Avid now to go back to the life she had +abandoned, she was ferocious to herself when she remembered she had +asked him, "Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?" A crime! "Horrible +traitor to myself that I was" (her thoughts would go) "to question it a +crime just to take up my life again! A crime! Horrible fool that I was +to be able, with no sense of humour, to give to so natural a desire an +epithet so ludicrous as crime! A crime! A right, a right!" + +Worst of all, she had invited, she had implored, Harry when her longings +were manifest to reason with her. Her longings now always were manifest; +but when he reasoned with her it was out of the scorpions of her +revulsion that she answered him. + +He once said, "It appears to me that your attitude is changed from the +night you first mentioned this." + +She said, "Harry, what's disturbing me when we talk about it is not my +own case, it's the general case. Here's a woman--never mind that it's +me--here's a woman that has made a success in life, that has abandoned +it and that wants to go back to it. You argue she mustn't. I could say +it's monstrous. I don't say that. I choose to say it's pitiful. If it +was a man, he'd go. He wouldn't think twice about it. And if he did +think twice about it, every opinion and every custom that he +consulted would tell him he was right to go. It happens to be a woman, +therefore--well, that's the reason! It's a woman--therefore, No. +That's the beginning of the reason and the end of the reason. A +woman--therefore, No. Oh, it's pitiful--for women." + +Harry questioned: "Every opinion and every custom would tell a man to +go? No, no. You're taking too much for granted, Rosalie. He wouldn't +go, necessarily, and he wouldn't be advised to go, if he had duties that +pulled him the other way." + +She gave a note of amusement. "But that's the point. He never would have +such duties. It's notable that a man always makes his duties and his +ambitions go hand in hand. Yes, it's notable, that." + +"Well, put it another way. Suppose it wasn't necessary for him to go.... +Suppose nothing depended on his going, much on his staying. That makes +the parallel, Rosalie." + +She said to him, "Ah, I'll agree to that. Let that make the parallel. +They'd tell a man in such a case, 'Man, take up your ambitions. You are +a man. You have yourself to think of.' That's what they'd say. Well, +that's what I'm saying. 'I am a woman. I have myself to think of.'" + +He asked, "And shall you, Rosalie?" + +She said, "I'm thinking--every day." + +The more she thought, the more she stiffened. This was the thought +against whose goad she always came--Why should she be hesitant? What a +position! What a light upon the case and upon the status of woman +that, just because she was a woman, she must not consider her own, her +personal interests! For no other reason; just that; because she was a +woman! + +"I've shut a gate behind me," she on another day said to Harry. "That's +what I've done. I've come out of a place and shut the gate behind me +and because I am a woman I mustn't open it and go back. That's what a +woman's life is--always shutting gates behind her. There aren't gates +for a man. There're just turnstiles. As he came out so he can always go +back--even to his youth. When he's fifty he still can go back and have +the society of twenty and play the fool as he did at twenty. Can a +woman?" + +"That's physical," said Harry. "A man much longer keeps his youth." + +She said then the first aggressively bitter thing he ever had heard her +say. "Ah, keeps his youth!" she said. "So does a dog that's run free. +It's the chain and kennel sort that age." + +She hardened her heart. + +She looked back upon the days when she had discovered for herself the +difference between sentiment and sense, between sentimentality and +sensibility. She then had made her life, and therefore then her +happiness, by putting away sentiment and using sense for spectacles. She +told herself she now was ruining her life, and certainly letting go her +happiness, by suffering herself to bear the sentimental handicap. + +The summer holidays came. It had been her obvious argument to Harry +that, now the elder children were at school, and Benji soon to be the +same, that reason for her constant presence in the home no longer was +advanceable. It had been Harry's argument to her that there were the +holidays to remember. The holidays came. Huggo wrote that he wanted to +go straight from school to a topping time in Scotland to which he had +been invited by a chum; when that was over he had promised, and he was +sure he would be allowed, to have the last three weeks with another +friend whose people had a ripping place in Yorkshire. Doda came home and +Doda's first excitement was that nothing arranged might interfere with +an invitation from mid-August to a schoolfellow whose family were going +to Brittany. So much for her holiday necessity! Rosalie thought. So much +for Harry's idea of how the children would naturally long to spend the +vacation all together! Doda did not seem to have a thought for Huggo, +nor Huggo a thought for when he should see Doda. Neither of them, she +could not help noticing, had the faintest concern to be with Benji. She +and Harry with Benji went down to a furnished house in Devonshire, and +the other two, their plans in part curtailed, were brought to join them. +It was jolly enough. It would have been more truly jolly, she used +to think, if Doda had not largely divided her time between writing to +apparently innumerable school friends and counting the days to when she +might be released for the Brittany expedition; and if Huggo had not +for the first few days openly sulked at the veto on the Yorkshire +invitation. How independent they were, how absorbed in their friends, +how--different! + +She hardened her heart. + +The reopening of the schools drew on and return was made to London. +Huggo and Doda were made ready for school and returned to school. The +Law Courts reopened and Harry took up again his work. October! You +could not take up a paper without reading of the inauguration of the new +Sessions at all the universities and seats of education. October! The +newspapers that for months had been padding out vapid nothings became +intense with the activities of a nation back to the collar. October! The +first brisk breath of winter in the air! She could not stand this! Could +not, could not! + +She said suddenly one evening: "Harry, I was down at Field's to-day. +They want me." + +Ever since, by that simile of hers of the dog chained and kenneled, +she had put a bitter note into this matter between them, he had by this +means or by that contributed no share to it when she had presented it. +He once had referred to the dog incident. "I can't talk to you when you +talk like that, old girl," he had said. "That's not us. We don't talk +like that. You know how I feel about this matter. Talking only vexes +it." + +"Harry, I was down at Field's to-day. They want me." It was now to be +faced. + +He put down the paper he had been reading and began to fill his pipe. +"This wants a smoke," he said and smiled at her; and he then told her +that which the level quality of her voice, a note from end to end of +purpose, had informed him. "I think we're getting to the end of this +business," he said. + +Her voice maintained its quality. "Yes, near the end, Harry." + +"Field's want you. What are you going to do?" + +"Going back." + +"I want you." + +"I'm not leaving you. I am with you, as I came to you!" + +"The children want you." + +"I am not leaving the children." + +"It's a question of home, Rosalie. It's the home wants you." + +She shook her head. + +"What are you going to do? + +"Going back." + +"You've thought of everything?" + +"Everything." + +"The children?" + +"Harry, the children don't want me in the way that children used to want +their mothers when I was a child. They don't display the same affection, +not in the same way, that we used to. I wish they did. I came back +for it. It wasn't there. They're darlings, but they're self-reliant +darlings, self-assured, self-interested." + +"They've a right to a home, Rosalie." He paused. "And, Rosalie, I have a +right to a home." + +She said, "Have I no rights?" + +"There are certain things--" he slowly said and paused +again--"established." + +She said quickly, "Yes, men think that. They always have. Well, I +believe that nothing is." + +He looked steadily before him. "If it's not established that woman's +part is the home part; if that is going to change, I wonder what's going +to happen to the world?" + +She said, "Men always do. They always have--wondered, and the future +always has changed right out of their wondering. I believe that the +future is with woman. I believe that as empires have passed, Rome, +Greece, Carthage, that seemed to their rulers the pillars of the world, +so will pass man's dominion. Woman's revolt--it's no use talking of it +as that, as a revolt. Women aren't and never will be banded. They're +like the Jews. They're everywhere but nowhere. But the Jews have had +their day; woman--not yet. They work, not banded, but in single spies. +In every generation more single spies and more single spies. In +time.... In every generation man's dominion, by like degree, decreased, +decreased. In time.... I'm one of this day's single spies, Harry." + +He said with a sudden animation, "Look here, let's take it on that +level, Rosalie. In your case what's the need? Call it dominion. I've +never exercised nor thought to exercise dominion over you." + +"But you've not understood, Harry. I gave up what was my life to me. +To you I'd only--chucked it. Oh, but that hurt! That man's supreme +indifference, that is dominion." + +He said, "I'll know it, dearest, for your sacrifice." + +She put out a hand as if to hold that word away. "Oh, trust not that. +They talk of the ennoblement of sacrifice. Ah, do not believe it. It can +go too long, too far, and then like wine too long matured... just acid, +Harry. I never said a bitter thing to you until--thus sacrificing. It is +the kennel dog again. If I went on I'd grow more bitter yet, more bitter +and more bitter. It's why women are so much more bitter than men. It's +what they've sacrificed. I'm going back, Harry. I've got to. You ask +me if I've thought of everything. I have; but even if I had not this +outrides it all. I have gone too far. She was right, that woman I told +you of, who said that for a woman, once she has given herself to a +thing, there is no comeback from it. I have tried. It is not to be +done." + +There was a very long silence. She said, "It's settled, Harry." + +He said, "Nothing's been said, Rosalie, that gets over what I have said. +There's no home here while both of us are working. I have a right to a +home. The children have a right to a home. Nothing gets over that." + +She answered, "Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a +home." + +He said, "I am a man." + +She answered, "I am a woman." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The thing goes now at a most frightful pace for Rosalie. One hates the +slow, laborious written word that tries to show it. There needs a +pen with wings or that by leaping violence of script, by characters +blotched, huge and run together, would symbolise the pace at which the +thing now goes. There's no procession of the days. Immersed in work or +lost in pleasure, there never is procession of the days, so hurtling +fast goes life. They crowd. They're driven past like snow across a +window pane. The calendar astounds. It is the first of the month, +and lo, it is the tenth. It's the sixteenth--half gone!--while yet it +scarcely had begun; a day after the twentieth is the date; it's next +the twenty-fifth; it's next--the month has gone.... The month! It is a +season that has flown. Here's Summer where only yesterday the buds of +Spring; here's Winter, coming--gone!--while yet the leaves seem falling. + +It was like that the thing now went with Rosalie. + +They call it a race. It isn't a race, living like that. It's a pursuit. +Engaged in it, you're not in rivalry, you are in flight. You're fleeing +all the time the reckoning; and he's a sulky savage, forced to halt to +gather up what you have shed, ordered to pause to note the things that +you have missed, and at each duty cutting notches in a stick. + +That is his tally which, come up, he will present to you. + +Well, best perhaps to take that tally stick to try by it to show the +pace at which the thing now went. Rosalie, when all was done, could run +the tally over (you have to) in thought, that lightning vehicle that +makes to crawl the swiftest agency of man's invention: runs through a +lifetime while the electric telegraph is stammering a line; reads memory +in twenty volumes between the whiff and passing of some remembered scent +that's opened them; travels a life again, cradle to grave, between the +vision's lighting on and lifting from some token of the past. + +All's done; some years rush on; she sits in retrospection, that tally +stick in hand; and thought, first hovering, would always start for her +from when, returned to her career, the thing at frightful pace began to +go; and then, from there, away! from scene to scene (the notches cut by +reckoning in his stick) rending the womb of memory in dread delivery, +as it were flash on flash of lightning bursting the vault of night from +east to west across the world. + +Her thoughts first hovering: There's Huggo and there's Doda and there's +Benji! Her children! Her darling ones! Her lovely ones! Love's crown; +and, what was more, worn in the persons of those darling joys of hers +in signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of precedent to the contrary, +that woman might be mother and yet live freely and unfettered by her +home, precisely as man is father but follows a career. Ah.... + +Away! The womb of memory is rent, and rent, delivers. + +Look, there they are! She's down with one or other at some gala at their +schools. It's Founders' Day at Tidborough, or it's at Doda's school on +Prize Day. Aren't they just proud to be with her and show her off, +their lovely, brilliant mother so different from the other rather fussy +mothers that come crowding down! All the masters and all the mistresses +know the uncommon woman that she is. The children, growing older, know +it. "You must be very proud of your mother." It has been said (the +self-same words) to each of them by their respective principals. Nice! +Nice to have your children proud of you! + +Look, there's Huggo telling her how the headmaster had said the thing +to him (she's just walking with her Huggo across the cricket ground on +Founders' Day). "And a sloppy young ass that heard him," says Huggo, +"oh, an awful ass, asked me why the Head had said I must be proud +of you, and I told him, and I said, 'I bet you're not proud of your +mother.' And he said, 'Of my father, I am. He got the V. C. in South +Africa.' So I said, 'Yes, but proud of your mother?' So this frightful +ass said--what do you think he said? 'No, I'm not proud of my mother. I +don't think I'd want to be. I only love her.'" + +Huggo mimicked the voice in which the frightful ass had said this; and +Rosalie, at the words and at his tone, had across her body a sudden +chill, as it were physical. She wanted to say something. But it was the +kind of thing you couldn't, somehow, say to Huggo, at fifteen. But she +said it. "Huggo, you do love me, don't you?" + +He turned to her a face curiously thin-lipped. "Oh, I say, mother, do +look out, some one might hear you!" + +Her Huggo! (She wants to stop the passing scenes and to stretch out to +him across the years her arms.) Her Huggo! The one that first along her +arm had laid; the scrap that first within her eyes adoring tears had +brimmed; her baby boy, her tiny manling, her tiny hugging one, her first +born! It is in retrospection that she sits and there's expelled for ever +from her face that aspect mutinous, intolerant, defiant, that used to +visit there. That, when she housed it, was the aspect of the young man +Ishmael whose hand was against every man. She is like Hagar now to be +imagined, sitting over against these things a good way off, as it were a +bowshot. + +Strike on! + +Her Huggo! Look, that's the day they got that bad report of him from +school. She had questioned Harry about a letter in his post and, naming +the headmaster of Tidborough, "Yes, it's from Hammond," he had answered +her. + +"About Huggo?" + +"Yes, it's about Huggo." + +Nothing more. They were beginning to have exchanges terse as that. + +She said presently, "I suppose it would interest me, wouldn't it?" + +His face was very hard. "Do you want to know the answer I feel like +giving to that?" + +"I've asked for it, haven't I, Harry?" + +"You shall have it. The answer is that I think what the letter says +implicates you." + +She preserved her composure. She by now had had practice in preserving +her composure. "What's the matter, Harry?" + +"Hammond says--as good as says--that Huggo will have to be withdrawn +from Tidborough." + +She knew perfectly well that this was only leading up to something. "May +I hear?" + +"You may." He took up the letter and read from it. "'Apart from that, +and it would of course be the reason given--the other, I am confident, +is susceptible of change--apart from that, the boy has now twice failed +to keep his place in the school. If he does not get his remove in the +coming term I shall be compelled to ask you to remove him.'" He put down +the letter and looked at her. "That'll be nice, won't it?" + +She made an appeal. "Harry, don't. I mean, don't talk like that. It +won't happen." + +He softened in no degree. He said sternly: "It will happen." + +She persevered. "I'm quite sure it won't. You've only got to talk +seriously to Huggo. This coming holidays you can get him some coaching. +He's got brains." + +There was a steely note in Harry's voice: "Oh, he's got brains. He can +have coaching. It's what he hasn't got and what he can't get that's +going to get Huggo withdrawn." + +"What is it you mean?" + +"A home." + +She slightly raised the fingers of her hands and dropped them. This +subject! + +Harry said: "Hammond says more than I've told you." + +"I supposed he did. 'Apart from that.' Apart from what?" + +"It's Huggo's character he's writing to me about. This is what he says. +'The boy, though young, has not a good influence in his house. If I may +suggest it, he does not, during the holidays, see enough of his home.'" + +He folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. "Does it strike +you that is going to be easy for me to answer?" + +"It might be easier, Harry, if your tone made it possible for us to +discuss it." + +He gave a sound that was glint, as it were, of the blade in his voice: +"Our discussions! I am a little tired of that blind alley, Rosalie." + +She said sombrely, "And I." + +"Will you suggest how the letter is to be answered?" + +She said: "It's plain. If you agree with Mr. Hammond, it's plain. You +can say you will stop Huggo's invitations. Harry, we're not by any means +the only family that doesn't spend the whole of its holidays together. +It's rather the practice nowadays, young people visiting their friends. +If you think Huggo shouldn't--you can say so." + +"Yes, I can say that. Tell me this. Is it going to give him a home?" + +Her voice sprung from a sudden higher note. "Oh, you insist, you +insist!" she cried. "You speak of blind alleys, but you insist." + +He touched the letter. "This gives me ground for my insistence. This is +an outsider, a stranger, appreciating how we live. This is my son, at my +old school, condemned by how we live." + +She interjected, "A schoolmaster's primeval animosity--blame the +parent." + +"Rosalie, a parent's primeval duty. We are responsible for the children. +We have a duty towards them." + +She softly struck her hands together. "Ah, how often, how often, and +always worse! You said just now that I am implicated. It's always I. You +say we have a responsibility towards the children. But you don't mean +us, you mean me. Why I more than you? Why am I the accused?" + +He began, "Because you--" + +"Ah, don't, don't!" + +But he concluded. "Because you are a woman." + +Her voice that had gone high went numb. She made a gesture, as to the +same reason and with the same words she'd made before, of weariness with +this thing, "Ah, my God, that reason!" + +Strike on! + +Look, there's Huggo, failing again to get his remove, superannuated, +withdrawn. There's Harry having a scene with the boy. There ought to be +tears. There are tears. But they're in Harry's voice and twice he wipes +his eyes. They're not in Huggo's. + +Harry says to Huggo: "I say, I'm not going to be harsh; but, I say, +can't you understand the disgrace; can't you understand the shame, +old man? You've been at the finest school in England and you've had +to leave. You're sixteen. Old man, when I was sixteen I got my footer +colours. I was the youngest chap in the team. You're sixteen and you've +never even got a house cap and you've had to leave. Huggo, I've never +missed going down to a Founders' Day since I went to Oxford. It's always +been the day of the year for me. I don't say I've ever done much in +life, but every time I've been down to Founders' Day I've thought over, +in the train, any little thing I may have pulled out in the year and +I've felt, I've felt awfully proud to be taking it down to the old +school, so to speak. Old chap, the proudest, far the proudest of all, +was the year I went down when first you were there. I was proud. I'd +given a son to the place. I'd got a boy there. Another Occleve was going +to write the name up on the shields and rolls and things. It was the +year Garnett first came down as a Cabinet Minister. Huggo, I looked old +Garnett in the face with a grin. Whatever he'd done I'd got this much up +on him--he hadn't given a son to the place. He hadn't got a boy there. +That's how I always felt. Well, old man, it's all over. I can't go +down to Founders' Day ever again. I've never missed. Now--I've had to +withdraw my boy. I can't go again. I couldn't face it." + +He wiped his eyes. No tears in Huggo's eyes. On Huggo's face only a +look sullen and aggrieved; and sullen and aggrieved his mutter, "Well, +perhaps it was different for you. I couldn't stick the place." + +She gasped out, "Huggo!" but Harry had heard, and Harry, perhaps in +offset to the emotion he had displayed, smashed his hand down on the +table before him and cried out, "Well, keep your mouth shut about it +then! Couldn't stick it! What can you be? What can be the matter with +you? Couldn't stick it! Tidborough! The finest school in the world! +Couldn't stick it!" + +She interposed, "Harry, dear! Huggo; Huggo, tell your father you didn't +mean that." + +Huggo's mumble: "I'm sorry, father." + +Harry's deep, kind voice: "I'm sorry too, old man. It rather jarred. +Look here, this is all over. It's just been a side-slip. I've forgotten +it. So has your mother. You just think over sometimes what I've said, +my boy. We're fixing up this tutor's for you. You start in fresh and go +like steam. Finest thing in the world a fresh start. Makes a side-slip +worth while. I'm going to be--I am--prouder of you than anything on +earth. My eldest boy! Like steam from now, old chap, eh?" + +Strike on! + +After that interview and when the boy had left the room--shambled out +of the room in that sullen, aggrieved air he would always assume under +correction--after that she and Harry had talked, most fondly. It was +all, the talk, that poignantly affecting "fresh start" business that +he'd begun with Huggo. Poignantly affecting because Harry, piling upon +his love for Huggo and his pride in Huggo, which she shared, his love +for his old school and his pride in it, which she could understand but +could not share, had been so bravely, cheerfully earnest and assured +about the future. "One who never turned his back but marched breast +forward." The boy would be all right. Mice and Mumps, old lady, he'd be +all right! It was just a mistake, just a side-slip. He'd got the right +stuff in him, Huggo had, eh, old lady? They must just pull together to +help the boy, eh? + +He paused the tiniest space at that and pressed her hand and looked at +her. She knew his meaning. If only.... + +He went on: This was a good place, this tutor's down in Norfolk they +were sending him to, Harry was sure it was. It was a pity, of course, +he couldn't go to another public school; but of course he couldn't; they +wouldn't take him; no use worrying about that. This tutor, this man they +were sending him to, was a first-class chap. Only took six pupils. Was +a clergyman. Understood boys and youths who hadn't quite held their own +and wanted special coaching and attention. Huggo was keen on the idea. +After all, why shouldn't he have disliked Tidborough? There were such +boys who didn't like public-school life. There, there! Perhaps it was +the best thing that could have happened. Bet your life this was going +to be the making of old Huggo, this change. This tutor and the quiet, +self-reliant life there, each chap with his own jolly little bed-sitting +room, would prop him up and get him into Oxford when the time came and +make him no end happy and splendid. + +"There, there, old lady," said Harry, and patted her and kissed her +(she'd been affected). "There, there, it's going to be fine. The rest is +just up to us, eh? We know the boy's weaknesses. We know what Hammond's +told us about him--home life and home influences and all that stuff, and +that's easy; we'll see the boy gets that, won't we?" + +She used to wring her hands at that, and crying "If only!" cry again +in desperation of excuse: "If only the war hadn't come! If only the war +hadn't come!" + +The war was on then. It was 1915. "You see," she used to appeal to the +arbitrament before which, watching these pictures, she found herself, +"you see, the war made everything so difficult, so impossible, so +frightful, so confused, so blinding. Sturgiss had left the Bank to do +war service in the Treasury. More than half the clerks had gone. We were +understaffed and badly staffed at every turn. How could I give it up +then? I don't say I would have. I'm on my knees. I've thrown in my hand. +I'm not pretending anything or anyway trying to delude myself. I don't +say I would have given it up and come home to make home life for the boy +and for them all. I don't say I would. I'm only saying how infinitely +harder, how impossibly harder, the war conditions made it. There was the +understaffing--that alone. There was the cry about releasing a man for +the front--that alone. I was releasing half a dozen men. Field said I +was. I knew I was. How could I go back and be one of the women sitting +at home? That alone! How could I? And there was more than that. It +wasn't only the understaffing. It was Sturgiss going. I'd been absorbing +the banking business for years. It was meat and drink to me. I'd had a +bent for it ever since the Bagehot 'Lombard Street' days. I'd nourished +my bent. I'd been encouraged to nourish my bent. The work was just a +passion with me. Sturgiss went. I went practically into his place. I'd +a position in banking that no woman had ever held, nor no banker ever +imagined a woman ever holding, before. It was Sturgiss, a partner, I'd +released for war service. It was Sturgiss's, a partner's, place I'd +got. How could I give that up? How could I? How could I? If only the war +hadn't come. If only...." Strike on! + +It isn't all going as it should with the boy at the tutor's. But wasn't +it impossible to observe, at the time, that it wasn't all going as it +should? Of course (her thoughts would go) it was her fault; but was +not the world, spiritual and material, in conspiracy against her, and +against Huggo, and against her other darlings, to make easy her fault? +Ah, that war, that war! Didn't it unsettle everybody and everything? +Naturally it unsettled the boy down at the tutor's. Naturally one did +not notice or foresee the trend of his unsettlement. Naturally it made +plausible the excuses that he made. + +There he is, down there at the tutor's. He wanted to do war work, not +sitting there grinding lessons. All the tutor's pupils did. Naturally +they did. The boy couldn't go in the army. He was too young. He was in a +rural district. He got doing land-work. They all did. It was supposed to +be done in leisure hours. Naturally it encroached on, and unfitted for, +work hours. "After all," as the tutor wrote, "how can you blame the +boys? After all, it's very hard to seem to try to check this patriotic +spirit." After all! Oh, why do people say "after all" when they mean +quite the contrary? This was before all, this seductive escape +from uncongenial duties, precedent of all, influencing to all that +happened--after all. Naturally it interfered with scholastic work. That +was condoned. As naturally it interfered with discipline. That was +not mentioned by the tutor. If he was cognisant of it was not domestic +discipline everywhere relaxed "on account of the war"? + +There Huggo is. These are his holidays. After the setback at Tidborough +he was to have spent all his holidays at home. He was not, for the +future, to go away on invitations. That war! He never spent any of his +holidays at home. How could the boy be tied down in London with this war +on? He made his land-work his excuse, most plausible. He spent all his +holidays with friends whose homes were in rural districts. + +Then it turned out that he had not, as he had given out, been always +at the house of friends. He was found in cottage lodgings living with a +friend, a fellow-pupil at the tutor's; on land-work truly, but in gross +deception, and in worse. + +It came out quite by chance and in a way very horrible. Harry discovered +it. Harry, early in 1915, had been absorbed into the Home Office. His +work was very largely in connection with a special secret service body +dealing with spies. He examined in private arrested suspects. He advised +and he directed on criminal matters therewith connected. He was working, +under immense pressure, terrible hours. He was hardly ever in to dinner. +He often was away all night. He frequently was away travelling for days +together. When he was seen he showed signs of strain to Rosalie. + +He came in one evening about nine o'clock. It was early in 1916. Huggo +was then seventeen. Rosalie heard him in the hall and heard that some +one was with him. She heard him, by the dining-room door, say, "You'd +better go in there and get something to eat. I'll attend to you +presently." + +His voice was iron hard. Who was with him? What was the matter? + +He came in to her. His face was iron hard. He shut the door. "Do you +know who I've got here with me? Do you know where I've been? Do you know +what's happened?" + +His manner was extraordinary. His voice was like heavy axes, thudding. +His face was dark and passionate, menacing. Happened? Things were always +happening in these appalling days. She said, "Oh, what is it, Harry?" + +"It's Huggo." + +"Huggo?" + +"Huggo!" + +Like axes! It seemed that, of his passion (and she never before had seen +passion in his face), he scarcely could speak. He fought for words. When +they came out they thudded out. + +"Do you know where Huggo's been this past month?" + +"With the Thorntons, his friends." + +"He's not. He's lied. He's been living with some blackguard friend in +rooms in Turnhampton, in Buckinghamshire." + +"Harry! Doing what? Land-work?" + +"Land-work! Loafing! Drinking!" + +"Drinking? Huggo?" + +"Listen to me. This is what I've come to. This is what that boy's +come to. I had to go down to this place Turnhampton about a spy they'd +arrested. He was to come up in the police court there this morning. They +took the other cases first. Court going to be cleared for my man. I sat +there, waiting. The second case--this is what I've come to--was my son, +my boy, Huggo, brought up from the cells where he'd spent the night. +My son! Drunk and disorderly. He didn't see me. The police gave him a +character. I sat there and listened to it. My son! A visitor, the police +described him. Supposed to be working on some farm. Not a desirable +character in the village. My son! Always loafing about. Always in the +inn. Last night drunk. Assaulted the landlady. My son! Arrested. My +son!" + +He turned away. + +She cried, "Harry! What happened?" + +He turned on her in a violence renewed. "I declare to you that if he had +gone to prison I would not have raised a hand to stop him. He'd had +the grace--or he'd all the time had the guile--to give an assumed name. +Would I have confessed, to save him, that he was my son? I believe I +couldn't. He got off with a fine. I got hold of him. I've brought him +back. He's here." + +She went to the bell. "I must get you some food." + +He stayed her. "Food! I'll tell you what to get me. I'll tell you what +to get that boy. Get me a home. Get him a home. That's what's caused +this. Do you know what he said to me coming up in the train? I said to +him, 'Why are you always away like this? Why, in the holidays, are you +never at home?' He said, 'What home is there for me to come to? Who's +ever there?' He's right. Who is? Are you?" + +She said quietly, "Harry, not now. Dear, you are not yourself." + +He was not and continued not to be. "Well, answer my question. Are you +ever in the home?" + +She implored, "Oh, my dear!" + +He was not to be placated. "Where is the home?" + +"Harry!" + +"Where's Doda?" + +She began in her spirit to move. "Staying with friends." + +"Where's Benji?" + +"You perfectly well know. Staying with friends." + +"Where are you?" + +She put her hand to her bosom. "Oh, beware me, Harry. Here." + +"For the night. Are you ever in the children's home?" + +"Are you?" + +"That sophistry! I have my work!" + +"I've mine." + +He smote his hand upon the mantelshelf by which he stood and turned and +left the room. + +Strike on! + +Of course it healed and was obliterated and all passed over. Of course +Harry forgave the boy. Of course he was handsome to the boy's excuses. +Drunk! Of course it was just a slightly tipsy ebullition. Had been in +the hot sun in the fields all day and was affected by a too long slake +of beer. Assaulted the landlady! She'd been rough mannered and objected +to his noise and got in the way and he had pushed her. "The boy's all +right," Harry said to Rosalie after, the boy forgiven, he sat and talked +with her. "He's got no vice. How could he have? It was wrong, it was +deceitful, going off like that to that place without telling us. But he +meant no harm. He's explained. He's genuinely sorry. He's just got out +of hand a bit. They all have, the young people, in this war time. The +boy's all right. He's eighteen in a few months. I'll see if I can speed +it up a bit getting him into the army. He's magnificently keen. He'll +do fine, God bless him. Think no more about it, old lady. In the whole +business I'm only sick with myself that I lost my temper with him as I +did--and with you, my dear, and with you." And he put out his hand to +her. + +"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward." + +"And with you." Of course he was distressed he had been violent with +her. Of course that painful outbreak was healed, obliterated, put away. +He had expressed his utter regret. He'd been badly rattled with this +infernal war all that week; this business on the top of it had been +a most frightful shock to him. What had he said? Forgive, Rosalie, +forgive! Of course she had nothing to forgive. Forgiveness also was for +her to ask. As to the point thus violently raised, he saw, didn't he, +the clear impossibility of her giving up her work, war work as much as +his own, at such a time? Not to say the unnecessity of it--the children +were growing up... it clearly could be done now. The position she +held... + +He said, "I know, old lady." He said, "I know, I know," and sighed. + +Ah, from that vision of him saying, "I know," and sighing, and from the +mute appeal that then was in his eyes, from that--strike on! + +Most retentive to her, as it had passed, of Huggo's share in all that +episode had been that she from her expostulation with Huggo had not come +away with the same satisfaction as seemingly had Harry. She put before +the boy how terribly his father had felt the shame of it, how almost +broken-hearted he had been. "He idolises you, Huggo. You're always his +eldest son. He thinks the world of you." + +Huggo took it all with that familiar air of his of being the party that +was aggrieved. He listened with impatience that was not concealed and he +had no contrition to display. "Well, mother, it's all over. What is the +good of going on and on about it? I've had it by the hour from father. +He's understood. What is the good?" + +She very lovingly talked to him. He all the time had an argument. +He kept up his own case. He presently said, "And I do wish, mother, +especially now I'm going into the army soon, I do wish you'd drop that +'Huggo.' You can't tell how I hate it. You might just as well call me +Baby. It's a baby's name." + +"Oh, Huggo, it was the name we loved you by." + +"Well, I can't stick it. My name's Hugh." + +Strike on! + +There he is. He's in the army. He's utterly splendid in his uniform. How +proud of him she is! They no longer gave commissions direct from civil +life; but he'd been in the cadet corps at Tidborough and Harry was able +to get him direct into an officer cadet battalion. He's off to France +in what seems next to no time. He's home on leave and there's nothing +that's too good for him and her purse at his disposal when he's run +through Harry's generous allowance. He seems to get through an immense +amount of money on leave. He's never at home. He's often out all +night. Well, he's on leave. He's fighting for his country. You can't be +anything but utterly lenient with a boy that's fighting for his country. +He went back. Three days after he was supposed to have gone back Rosalie +came face to face with him in Piccadilly. He was with some flapper +type of girl, in the detestable phrase (as she thought it) by which the +detestable products of the war (as she thought them) were called. He was +just getting into a cab. She called out to him, astounded. She heard him +swear and he jumped into the cab and was driven away. She didn't tell +Harry. Harry found out. It came out that the boy for overstaying his +leave was to be court-martialled. She did not know what Harry did. She +noticed in those days what a beaten look Harry's face was getting. It +was, of course, the war strain; but it only was first evident to her in +that time of the court-martial. He scarcely spoke to her. She did not +know what he did, but she knew he had much influence and exerted it at +no sparing of himself. The boy got off with a severe reprimand and was +returned to France. And to be in France, out there, in that ever-present +shadow of death, was to be excused everything and to be forgiven +everything. + +Miraculously the war ended. The boy had had rather more than two years +of it. He applied for immediate demobilisation as being a student, and +he was one of the batch that got away immediately on that ground. He +was nearly twenty then. Now what was he going to do? Oxford, of course, +Harry said, and then the Bar, as always intended. Huggo, larking about +in uniform long after he ought to have been out of it, was in immense +feather with himself. He didn't say No and he didn't say Yes to the +Oxford idea. All he said was that he voted all that wasn't discussed the +very day he got back (it was more than six weeks since he had got back). +He surely, he said, was entitled to a bit of a holiday first, after +all he had been through. London seemed to be swarming with thousands +of young men who claimed they were entitled to a bit of a holiday first +after all they had been through. Huggo was never in the house. He had +picked up with a man, Telfer, whom he had met in France, a big business +man, Huggo described him as, and he seemed to spend all his time with +this man. Telfer was a much older man than Huggo. Huggo brought him to +dinner one night. It was rather a shock to Rosalie, meeting the man of +whom she had heard so much. Huggo had never said anything about his age. +He must have been quite forty. He had dull, cloudy eyes and a bad mouth. +He called Huggo "Kid," using the word in every sentence, and it was easy +to see from Harry's manner that Telfer was repellent to him. Easy, also, +and not nice, to see Telfer's dominion over Huggo. Not nice to hear +Huggo's loud, delighted laughter at everything addressed to him by +Telfer. Harry spoke less and less as the meal advanced. The two left +early; they were going to a music hall. When they had gone Rosalie and +Harry looked at one another across the table and by their look exchanged +a great deal. + +"That's a detestable companion for Huggo," Harry said. "Rosalie, there's +been enough of this. The boy must get to work." + +It appeared, in interviews following that evening, that Huggo was not a +bit keen on the Oxford idea. He wanted to go into business. He was not +clear as to precisely what kind of business, but he wanted the freedom +and the excitement of earning his own living, not to be cooped up at +the "Varsity" like back at school again. Harry took a firm line. The +boy resented the firm line. Well, anyway, he argued, he couldn't go till +October, it was only June now; all right, he'd go in October--if he +had to. Harry made arrangements for some reading through the summer +preparatory to Oxford. It upset plans made by Huggo. He thought +it "uncommonly hard" that he should have to spend the whole summer +"swotting." Oh, well, if he had to, he had to. He had an invitation for +a month for that immediate time to Scotland. The reading was arranged +to start a month ahead. He didn't in the least want to be out of London +just when there was so much going on and all his pals here; but anything +was better than sticking this kind of life at home, father always at +him; so he'd go to Scotland; he supposed he was entitled to a bit of +country holiday before they cooped him up? He went to Scotland. + +Twice during that month Rosalie thought she saw Huggo in the West End. +But London was full of young men of the Huggo type. It wasn't likely. + +It turned out to have been very likely. It turned out that Huggo had +never been in Scotland at all but in London all the time. And much worse +than that. One evening, towards the end of the so-called Scotland month, +Huggo unexpectedly walked into the house. Rosalie was sitting with Harry +in the dining-room over the end of dinner. Doda was upstairs putting +last touches to herself before going out to a dance. Doda was eighteen +then (it was 1919), had left school, and, with a large circle of +friends, was going out a great deal. Benji was still at school, at +Milchester. Harry had never resumed relations with beloved Tidborough. + +The door opened and Huggo walked in. His face was very flushed and his +articulation a little odd. When, after greetings, he sat down, he sat +down with a curiously unsteady thud and gave a little laugh and said, +"Whoa, mare, steady!" + +It appeared, after explanations, that he had come to talk about "this +Oxford business." "I really can't very well go to Oxford now, father. I +really ought to start in some money-making business now, and I've got a +jolly good opening promised me. I really ought to take it." + +The decanters were on the table. He had already taken a glass of port. +He filled another and drank it. + +"The fact is, I'm--married." + +There were some hard and bitter things said between his father and the +boy. The boy fumbled--he obviously had been drinking--between would not +or could not say very much as to who it was that he had married. + +Harry said, "Who are her people? That's a plain question, isn't it?" + +Huggo, very red, increasingly difficult to understand, said, "It's a +plain enough question. It's a plain enough question. I've come here to +be perfectly frank and plain and plain enough question. The fact is I +don't know very much about her plain enough people." + +Rosalie broke out of the frozen stupefaction that had numbed her. +"Huggo, you must know. You must know who her people are." + +Huggo turned a very slow gaze around from his father to his mother. He +looked at her. He said with astonishing violence, "Well, I tell you I +don't. People! What have her people got to do with it? I haven't married +her people. She's my little girl and I've married her, not her people. +Isn't that enough for you?" + +Harry got up and went over to him. "Look here, you'd better run along. +You're not in a fit state to talk to your mother. I'm not sure you're +in a fit state to talk to any-body or to know what you're saying. You'd +better go, my boy. We'll go into this in the morning. Come round early +in the morning. We'll settle it then." + +He was passing with Huggo through the door when Doda, equipped for her +dance, came running down the stairs. "Hull-o, Huggo! Why, I haven't seen +you for weeks. Where have you been?" + +Huggo, standing unsteadily, unsteadily regarded her. "Point is, where +are you going? All dressed up and somewhere to go! I'll bet you have! +I've seen you jazzing about the place when you haven't seen me, Dods. +And heard about you! There was a chap with me watching you at the Riddle +Club the other night told me some pretty fierce--" + +"Oh, dash, I've left my fan," cried Doda, and turned and ran back up the +stairs. + +Huggo called, "I say, Dods. I'm in a row. So'll you be one day, if you +don't look out for yourself." + +Doda's voice: "Oh, dry up--you fool!" + +Strike on! + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Her Doda! The one that was her baby girl, that was her tiny daughter! +The one that was to be her woman treasury in which she'd pour her woman +love; that was to be her self's own self, her heart's own heart, her +tiny woman-bud to be a woman with her in the house of Harry and of +Huggo! Her Doda! + +Look, there she is! There's lovely Doda! She's fourteen. It's early in +1915, in the first twelve months of the war. (That war!) She's at that +splendid school. She's been there nearly three years. She loves it. +She's never so happy as when she's there, except, judging by her +chatter, when she's away in the holidays at the house of one of her +friends. It's at home--when she is at home--that she's never really +happy. She's so dull, she always says, at home. She always wants to be +doing something, to be seeing something, to be playing with somebody. +She can't bear being in the house. She can't bear being, of an evening, +just alone with Rosalie. "Oh, dear!" she's always saying. "Oh, dear, I +do wish it would hurry up and be term time again." + +"Darling, you are a restless person," Rosalie says. + +"Well, mother, it is dull just sticking here." + +"You know how Benji loves to have you home, Doda. Benji simply lives for +you. I've never known a brother so devoted. You ought to think of Benji +sometimes, Doda." + +"Well, I can't be always thinking of Benji. I'm surely entitled to be +with my own friends sometimes. I don't ask Benji to be devoted to me." + +She's strangely given to expressions like that: "I didn't ask +for"--whatever circumstance or obligation it might be that was irksome +to her. "Not traditions--precedents!" The watchword of the school was +strangely to be traced in her attitude, still in her childish years, +towards a hundred commonplaces of the daily life. She was always +curiously older than her years. She seemed to have a natural bent +away from traditionally childish things and towards attractions not +associated with childhood. She did excellently well at the school. She +was, her reports said, uncommonly quick and vivid at her lessons. +She was always in a form above her years. Her friends, while she was +smallish, were always the elder girls, and the elder girls gave her +welcome place among them. "Perhaps a shade precocious," wrote the lady +principal in one of the laconic, penetrating sentences with which, above +her signature, each girl's report was terminated: and, in a later term, +"Has 'Forward!' for her banner, but should remember 'not too fast'." + +"Gripes! I know what she's referring to," said Doda, seeing it, and +laughed, obviously flattered. + +"Your expressions, Doda!" + +"Huggo uses it." + +"They're wretched even in Huggo. But Huggo's a boy. You're a girl." + +"Well, mother, I didn't ask to be a girl." + +"Doda, that's merely silly." + +"A lot of us say it, that's all I know." + +"Then, darling, a lot of you are silly." + +"Oh, I shall be glad when next week I go to the Fergussons. It is dull." + +Look, there she is. She's sixteen. She's beautiful. She's pretty as +a picture, and she knows she is. She's grown out of the rather early +fullness of figure that had been hers. She's slim and tall and straight +and supple and slender as a willow wand. If she had her hair up and her +skirts lengthened (skirts then were only starting on their diminution +to the knees), she'd pass for twenty anywhere, and a twenty singularly +attractive, curiously self-possessed, strikingly suggestive in her pale +and beautiful countenance, and in an alternating sleepiness and glinting +in her eyes; strikingly suggestive of, well, strikingly suggestive +according to the predilictions and the principles of the beholder. + +This was in 1917. She was beginning rather to hate school now. She +wanted to be out and doing some war work of some kind. Oh, those +sickening scarves and things they were eternally knitting, that wasn't +war work. It was fun at first. They were fed to death with doing them +now. She didn't much want to go into a hospital or into any of these +women's corps. They were a jolly sight too cooped up in those things +from what she'd heard. She wanted to go into one of the Government +offices and do clerical work. Several of the school Old Girls who had +been there with her were doing that and it was the most ripping rag. Of +course you had to work, and of course it was jolly good patriotic work, +but you had a topping time in many ways. That was what she wanted to do. +Oh, mother, do let her chuck school now and get to it! Not till she was +seventeen? Well, it was sickening. Well, it was only another term, thank +goodness. + +It was in the holidays--in her brief days at home of the holidays--in +which these wishes were expressed, that Rosalie found Doda was +corresponding with officers at the front. + +Doda was appallingly untidy in her habits. She was out one evening to a +party--she managed to get a considerable number of parties into her dull +days at home. Rosalie, come in from Field's, peeped into her bedroom to +find her. She had not known that Doda was going out. The bedroom cried +aloud that Doda had gone out. Drawers were open and articles of dress +hanging out of them. One drawer, no doubt stubborn in its yieldings, was +bodily out in the middle of the room. Clothes were on the floor. +Clothes strewed the bed. Powder was all over the mirror. It was as if a +whirlwind had passed through the room. + +"Powder!" murmured Rosalie. + +The state of the room dismayed her. The intense orderliness of her own +character forbade her ringing for a maid. She simply could not look at +untidiness like that without tidying it. She started to tidy. Doda's box +was open. Its contents looked as if a dog had burrowed in it, throwing +up the things as he worked down. If anything was to go in, everything +must first come out. Rosalie lifted out an initial clearance. + +There lay scattered beneath it quite half a dozen photographs of +officers in khaki. + +There were all inscribed. "To the school kid." "Wishing you were here." +"With kisses." "Till we meet." And with slangy nicknames of the writers. +There lay with them a number of letters, all in their envelopes. There +lay also a sheet of paper covered in Doda's bold handwriting. It began +"Wonderful Old Thing." + +Rosalie had not touched these evidences of an unknown interest in Doda's +life. She stooped, staring upon them, the lifted bundle of clothes in +her hand. The stare that took in "Wonderful Old Thing" took in also the +first few lines. They were not nice. But she oughtn't to read it. One +didn't do that kind of thing. She replaced the bundle and closed the +box. Then she tidied the room and wiped the mirror. + +Early next morning, immediately on coming out of her bath, she went in +to Doda. She opened the door softly and she distinctly saw the lids of +Doda's eyes flash up and close again. + +"Doda!" + +Doda pretended to be asleep. Rosalie had sat up for Doda the previous +night but had said nothing to her either of her discovery or of going +to an invitation without having told her. Doda wasn't pretending to be +asleep because she feared trouble. She was pretending to be asleep just +because she had no wish for an early talk with her mother. + +There was a little pang at the heart of Rosalie. + +But it was just that the child wasn't demonstrative of her affections. +None of them were. Even Benji not really what you would call +demonstrative. How beautiful the child was! Her Doda! How little she +ever saw of her! + +She called her again. + +Doda opened her eyes. "Hullo, mother." + +Just that. No more. They were different, the children. + +She sat down on Doda's bed and began to talk to her. Tidiness! "Doda, +your room as you left it last night when you went out was simply +terrible. How can you?" + +"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 assumed 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 snatched 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, flashing, 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 +impassioned 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 multitudes 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 titillation of it. The titillation 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 titillation 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 titillation of watching the clock +for tea, and of tea, and then, most sharpest titillation 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. + +Until she found her feet--not in her office, but at home at first +emergence from her school--until she found her feet she often used to be +kept uncommonly late at office. In a very short while she found her +feet and that excuse no longer was put forward. Every girl of Doda's +association was on her feet in 1919; and for Doda very much easier, at +that, than for the generality, to establish her position in the house. +By 1920, when she was nineteen, she was conducting her life as she +pleased, as nineteen manifestly should. In 1921, when she was twenty, +the war work was over and she was "getting through the day" much as she +lived the night. It was pretty easy to get through the day in 1921. That +which the curmudgeons called license, and liberty the free, was in 1921 +held by charter and by right prescriptive. + +Look at her. There she is. She's lovelier yet, if that which was +her budding loveliness could bear a lovelier hue. She's always out +somewhere, or she's always off somewhere, or she's always coming in from +somewhere. Her eyes, in presentation more pronounced, have always got +that sleepy look or got that glinting look. She never talks much at +home. She seems to keep her talking for her friends and she never +brings her friends home. She's on good terms with Rosalie. That's the +expression for it. She was to have been a woman treasury into which was +to be poured by Rosalie all her woman love. She was to have been a woman +with her mother in the house of Harry and of Huggo. But that's all done. +She's not a daughter to her mother. She never asked to be born to her +mother, as once she told her mother, and though that never now again is +said it is the basis of her stand. She owes no obligations. They just +meet. They get on very pleasantly. She's on good terms with Rosalie. + +It is odd--or else it isn't odd but only natural--that in all the +pictures seen by Rosalie there scarcely is a picture that ever shows +the children all together. They hardly ever, within the compass of +her pictures, were together. As in their schoolhood, so much more in +adolescence, they never showed a least desire for one another's company. +They had their friends, each one, and much preferred their friends. +You'd not, it's true, say that of Benji; but Benji in fraternal wish had +to take what was offered him and there was nothing offered him by Doda; +by Huggo less than nothing. + +Benji! + +Look, here's the Benji one; the good, the quiet, gentle one; the one +that never gave a thought of trouble, Benji. + +Her Benji! The one that came after disfavour, after remorse; that came +with tears, with thank God, charged-with-meaning tears. The littlest +one. The one that was so tiny wee beside the big and sturdy others. Her +last one! Her Benji! + +Look, there he is. Always so quiet, gentle, good. Always, though +snubbed, so passionately fond of Doda. Look, there he is. He's at +Milchester, in his spectacles, the darling! He's always in his books. He +isn't good at games. He does so well at school. Oh, isn't Harry proud of +him and fond of him! Oh, doesn't Harry often sigh and wish he could +have gone to Tidborough to win those prizes and those honours there. But +Tidborough's closed to Harry, Harry says. Look, there goes Benji! It's +1919. He's sixteen. It's Speech Day at Milchester. He's in the Sixth. +He's won all those prizes. She's holding two and Harry's holding three, +and there he goes to take the Heriot Gold Medal. All the great hall is +simply cheering Benji! The Head is saying that he's the youngest boy +that's ever won the Heriot. Look, there's the Bishop handing it, and +shaking Benji by the hand, and patting Benji on the back, and saying +something to him. You can't possibly hear what it is, every one is +cheering so. Look, here he comes with the medal, in his spectacles, the +darling! She can scarcely see, her eyes are brimming so. Harry's quite +shameless. Harry's got tears standing on his cheeks and he's set down +the prizes and is stretching both his hands out to the boy. Feel, that's +his hand--her Benji's hand--snuggled a moment in hers, and then he turns +to his father and is eagerly whispering to his father, his spectacles +rubbing his father's head, the darling! He's more demonstrative to his +father than he is to her. She feels it rather sometimes. He's awfully +sweet to her, but, you can't help noticing it, it's more his gracious +manner than the outpouring she'd give anything to have. It's funny how +he always seems the tiniest atom strange with her as if he didn't +know her very well or hadn't known her very long. It sometimes pains a +little. He's different with his father. He loves being with his father. +And doesn't Harry love having the boy with him! Harry idolises the boy. +Of course Huggo is Harry's eldest, and whatever Huggo's disappointments, +these men--at least these perfect Harry type of men--have for their +eldest boy within their hearts a place no other child can quite exactly +fill. There's some especial yearning that the eldest seems to call. +There's some incorporation of the father's self, there's some reflection +that he sees, there's some communion that he seems to find, that makes +"My eldest son" a thing apart. But, with that reservation, and that's +ingrained in men, it's Benji that's the world to Harry. He's going to +Ox-ford. He's going to have the Bar career that Huggo wouldn't take. But +Harry thinks there's some especial wonders going to come to Benji. He +says the boy's a dreamer. He says the boy's a thinker. "Benji's got +something rare about him, Rosalie," he says. "That boy's got a mark on +him that genius has. You wait and see, old lady. It's Benji's going to +make the old name shine!" Strike on! + +It is odd, sad, significant, that there is scarcely a picture that shows +together those three children, or even two of them. It's 1921 now and +drawing very close to Finis; but always the old detachment, the seeming +want of mutual love, appears to hold the three apart. Doda is sometimes +glimpsed, no more, with Benji, always putting off or chilling off her +brother for her friends; sometimes she's seen with Huggo, meeting him +and he her, more like an acquaintance of their sets than like fruit +of the same parents; familiar, apparently, with one another's lives: +referring to places of amusement by both frequented, as had been done, +in instance, on that night of Huggo's announcement of his marriage when +with a note that rung sinister he had bantered Doda and she had turned +and run upstairs. But no more than that. The children seem to have no +mutual love. They're different. + +It's 1921. Huggo was scarcely ever seen now. He had married in haste and +had in haste repented. He also had played a trick, involving a sum of +money, on his father. His wife, as it appeared, had been met at some +dancing club and the brief courtship had continued anywhere but at her +home. Of her home Huggo knew only what she told him; and what she +told him was only what she could invent. She was then, at their first +meeting, in the uniform of a war service corps to which she belonged. +She said her father was a clergyman. + +"A clergyman's daughter!" cried Huggo bitterly, acquainting Rosalie +only three months after his marriage of his marriage's failure. "A +clergyman's daughter! That's what they all say--those! Wasn't I a fool +to be caught out by that! Oh, wasn't I a fool! If you want to know what +she really was, she was a teashop waitress, in the city somewhere. If +you want to know what her reverend father in the country was, is, he +doesn't live in the country; he lives in Holloway, and he doesn't live +in a rectory in Holloway, he lives in a baker's shop. That's what he is, +a baker! That's what I've done for myself, married a waitress! Yes, and +then you, you and father, when she comes whining here and complains I +ill-treat her and keep her without money, you two take her part and send +her back to me with your championship and get me here to pijaw me about +my duty to my pretty young wife! Well, now you know, now you know, and +you can tell father what my pretty young wife is--how she deceived me. +Deceived me! Now you know." + +Rosalie said, "Huggo, you deceived her." + +Huggo had been leaving and now very violently went. "That's your tone, +is it? I might have known! That's all you can say, is it? To see me ruin +my life and then reproach me! Ruin my life! It's not I that's ruined +my life. It's you. There, now I've told you! I can see things now. What +sort of a chance have I ever had? What sort of a home have I ever had? +Have I ever had a mother? When I was a kid did I ever have a mother like +other kids have? I can see things now. A mother! I can't ever remember a +time when I wasn't in the charge of some servant or governess or other. +You said this afternoon before father that I didn't love you. Did +you ever teach me to love you? By God, I can't remember it. By God, I +can't." + +Strike on! + +Also that trick, touching a sum of money, upon his father. When he first +made known his marriage, and it was obvious he must have his way and be +set up to start in life, he had also, as he had said, the chance of a +lucrative business. It was the kind of thing he liked. It was the kind +of thing he was keen on. It was a motor-car business. There was a little +syndicate that was putting a new car on the market. They'd got works, +just outside London somewhere. They'd got show-rooms in the West End. +And they'd got an absolutely first-class article. That chap Telfer was +one of the directors; a first-class chap called Turner was another; +they'd let him in for eight thousand pounds and he'd be absolutely set +up for life and be pulling in an immense fortune in no time. You will, +won't you, father? + +Of course Harry forgave the boy, his eldest son. The marriage was done, +what was the use of being unkind or stupid about it? Of course Rosalie +welcomed the wife, Lucy, the prettiest creature, a tiny shade common, +perhaps, but a sweet little soul with always about her a pathetic air of +being afraid of something (of when it should come out precisely what she +was, as the event proved). Of course Harry paid over the eight thousand +pounds. Huggo took, "to start with," as he said, a tiny furnished flat +in Bayswater. Rosalie installed him and his bride therein and left him, +on their first night there, ever so gay, so confident, so happy. Her +Huggo! + +In two months it all came out. Lawyers are notoriously lax in making +their own wills. Harry, who could master a case quicker than any man at +the Bar, and could see to the soul and beyond it of a hostile witness a +minute after getting on his feet to cross-examine, was fooled blind by +the syndicate that was going to put the absolutely first-class article +on the market. Whether it was that there never had been a business, and +that Harry's inspection of works, visits to show-rooms, and examination +of books, was all part of an elaborate swindle carried out with the aid +of some one who possessed these accessories; or whether it was that the +whole thing was bought up cheap merely to sell at a profit, was never +clearly known to Harry and to Rosalie. Harry was too grieved to pursue +the shock. "I'll take not a step further in the matter, Rosalie," Harry +said. "I can't bear to find the boy out deeper. It's done. There's no +sense in being stupid or unkind about it." + +What happened was that the car enterprise never was an enterprise at all +except an enterprise to get eight thousand pounds into the possession +of the syndicate. Nothing ever was properly announced by Huggo. It just +"came out." It "came out" that the syndicate was not established in the +West End show-rooms but in three rather dingy offices in the city. It +"came out" that the syndicate was not running a motor-car business but +a business cryptically described as "Agents." Huggo said disaster had +overtaken the car enterprise and that the syndicate, rescuing what +remained of the smash, had pluckily set up on another line. He thought +he could scrape along. It was a knockout of course, but he thought he +could scrape along. + +"But what I can't make out, old man," said Harry, when Huggo had +stumbled through an entirely non-explanatory explanation of the +syndicate's business in its new capacity as agents, "What I can't +make out, old man, is why you should trade under another name. Why, +'So-and-So, and So-and-So, and So-and-So, Agents'--I can't ever remember +the names? Why not 'Telfer, Occleve and Turner'?" + +"Well, as a matter of fact, father--I want you to know everything +without any concealment--" + +"I know you do, old man. I know you do." + +"Well, as a matter of fact, that's just a bit of useful swank. The names +we're trading under are swagger names and we think it sounds better." + +"Occleve sounds pretty good to me, Huggo. We've been a good long way on +Occleve, the Occleves." + +"Well, that's what they think, father, and of course, as I've told you, +they know infinitely more about business than I do. They'll explain the +whole thing to you any time you like. It's all absolutely above-board, +father." + +"My dearest old boy, don't talk like that. Of course it is. We're only +so grieved, your mother and I, that you should have had such a setback +so early. But remember, old man, the great thing is not to let your wife +suffer. No pinching or screwing for her, Huggo. Always your wife first, +Huggo. We'll give you at the rate of three hundred a year just until +all's going swimmingly, and that's to keep Lucy merry and bright, see?" + +It was shortly after that it all came out that the thing was a ramp, the +motor-car business never in existence; shortly after that it came out +Huggo was neglecting his wife; shortly after that the high words to +Rosalie, telling her how his wife had deceived him; shortly after that +that the syndicate, amazingly prosperous, moved into offices better +situated and handsomely appointed; shortly after that it came out that +the business of the syndicate was in some way connected with company +promotion. + +Harry, seen among these developments, was not the man he used to be. +He was at the crest of his career at the Bar, working enormously and +earning richly, but the old bright, cheery way had gone from Harry. +There was permanently upon his face, and there was intensified, the +beaten look that Rosalie first had seen on that night, in the war, when +there had been the Huggo drinking business and when for the first and +only time he had spoken passionately to Rosalie. When he now was at +home he used to sit for long periods doing nothing, just thinking. When +sometimes, home earlier than he, Rosalie saw him coming up the street +towards the gamboge door she noticed, terribly, the bowed shoulders, +the weary gait, the set, careworn face. She used to run down then to the +famous gamboge door and open it and greet him and his face used to light +up in the old way, but it was not the same face, and the effect of its +radiation therefore not the same. It was not that the face was older. It +was that its aspect was changed. + +He used to look up from that chair where he sat just thinking, when +Doda, butterflied for the evening, butterflied across the room, and used +to say, "Out again, Doda?" He then would relapse back into his thoughts. +He had a habit of getting up suddenly and rather strangely wandering +about from room to room of all the principal rooms of the house, just +standing at the door of each, and looking in (they were all empty of +inhabitants), and then coming back and sitting again in the chair and +just sit, thinking. + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +She said more than once when he returned from such a tour, "Dear Harry, +looking for anything?" + +He'd say rather heavily, "No; no, dear. Just having a look around." + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +But he used to be enormously brightened up when Benji came home. Benji +was just at Oxford then, eighteen. He was a different man when Benji was +at home. He used to say, "Rosalie, that boy's going to make a name for +himself in the world. My heart's wrapped round that boy, Rosalie. Ay, +me! I wish he'd been our eldest, Rosalie." + +That was because he couldn't tear away the wrappings of his heart from +about his eldest. Men can't. + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +Of course, with everything now known, Huggo was forgiven. Huggo was +prosperous now, almost aggressively prosperous. He kept a car. The +syndicate, whatever it actually did, was obviously doing enormously +well. What was the good of being stupid and unkind to the boy now that, +at last, he had found his feet? But Huggo scarcely ever came to the +house. He had virtually left Lucy. Lucy lived on in the originally-taken +furnished flat in Bayswater. Huggo had rooms somewhere, no one quite +knew where, and lived there. Rosalie used to get Lucy to the house +sometimes, but Lucy was never at her ease on these visits, and Doda, who +sympathized entirely with Huggo in the matter, very much disliked her +and would not meet her. Lucy was in bad health and she was going to have +a baby. Her health and her condition made her look much more common than +she used to look. + +Then the baby was born; a little girl. Poor, grateful Lucy called it +Rosalie. She told Rosalie that Huggo said he didn't care what the baby +was called. He was very angry about the baby. "He was worse than usual +when he was here last week," said Lucy. "I think he's got something on +his mind. I think he's worrying about something. Oh, he was sharp." + +Lucy was very ill with the birth of her baby. She didn't seem able to +pick up again from her confinement. She kept her bed. Then, suddenly, +she developed pneumonia. The maternity nurse, paid by Rosalie, was still +in attendance. Rosalie sent in another nurse, and on that same night, +going straight to the sick bed from Field's, and then coming home very +late, told Harry, who was waiting up for her, that the worst was feared +for Lucy. She then said, "Harry, if anything happens, I think we'll have +that baby here. It will practically be a case of adopting the child." + +Harry agreed. + +"I'd get in a nurse for her, the new little Rosalie." She sighed. + +"Yes, yes," said Harry. + +She said after a little, "Harry, the nurseries in use again!" + +He sat there as he was always sitting, thinking. + +She went over to him. "Dear, won't you like the nurseries to be in use +again?" + +He said slowly, "I will, very much, Rosalie. It's lonely, these empty +rooms. I will very much--in some ways." + +Rosalie knew what Harry meant. She touched his hand. "Dear, I think it +can be made different." + +Harry knew what Rosalie meant. He pressed the hand that touched his own. +"That's all right, Rosalie. That's all right, dearest." + +Rosalie was down early next morning. She desired an early breakfast and +to go on to see Lucy before Field's. It might be necessary to stay the +day with Lucy. There was also Huggo. What was Huggo doing? Overnight +Rosalie had seen Doda, come in late from an evening with a very intimate +friend of hers always known, through some private joke of Doda's, as +"the foreign friend." The foreign friend, not in the least foreign but +English, was a young married woman living apart from her husband. Doda +had brought her to the house once. She was very pretty and a cheery +soul. She would have been called fast when Rosalie was a girl. In 1921 +she would almost, in the manner she presented to Rosalie, have been +called slow. Doda and she were greatly attached. + +Doda, overnight, going straight upstairs to bed, had said, "Have you +seen Huggo to-day? He's in a scrape of some sort." + +"Oh, Doda, what kind of a scrape?" + +"He didn't tell me. I ran into him quite by chance coming away from a +theatre with the foreign friend. We both thought he was rather badly +rattled." + +"Was he going on to Lucy? Did he know Lucy was very ill indeed?" + +Doda said, "I don't know. He didn't tell me. Is she?" and indifferently +passed upstairs. + +Rosalie at her early breakfast was thinking what news the day would +give of Lucy and of Huggo. She was suddenly, by Huggo in person, brought +intelligence of both. She heard the door bell ring and in a minute Huggo +surprisingly broke into the room. He had kept his hat on. He looked +white, drawn and very agitated. He shut the door behind him. "Lucy's +dead." + +Tears sprang into the eyes of Rosalie, "Oh, my poor Huggo!" + +He made a gesture. "Oh, that's no good! Look here, mother, will you look +after things over there for me? That's all I've come in to say. Will you +see to everything and will you take the kid? I can't stop." + +He made to go. + +"Huggo, of course I will. But you'll be there? Are you going there now?" + +"I'm not. I'm going away." + +"Going away?" + +His hand was on the door. "Yes, going away. Look here, there's another +thing. If any one comes here for me will you say you haven't seen me? +It's important. It's vital." + +"Huggo, what is the matter?" + +"You'll jolly soon know. You may as well know now. Then you'll realise. +If you want to know--the police are after me." + +He was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +In the Book of Job it all happened, to Job, in the apparent compass +of one piece of time not broken by diurnal intervals, not mitigated by +recuperative cessations between blow and blow. It seemed to Rosalie that +it was like that it happened also to her. There seemed no interval. It +seemed to her wrath on wrath, visitation upon visitation, judgment upon +judgment. + +It seemed to her that she was no sooner come down out of the Old +Bailey--her hand touching at things for support, her vision vertiginous, +causing the solid ground to be in motion, her ears resonant, crying +through her brain the words she saw in Huggo's look as they removed him; +it seemed to her she was no sooner out from there than she was at the +telephone and summoned by the foreign friend and was there with Doda and +was in process of "Oh, Doda!"--"Oh, mother!"; it seemed to her she was +no sooner out from that than she was with that burly messenger, going +with him, returning from him. There were days and nights walled up in +weeks and months between these things, but that is how they seemed to +Rosalie. + +The syndicate was laid by the heels, one here, one there, Huggo in +France, very shortly after the warning that had put Huggo in flight. +The syndicate went through the police court where was unfolded a story +sensational with surprising sums of money, captivating with ingenuity of +fraud covered up by fraud to help new fraud again. The syndicate stood +in the dock at the Old Bailey. Those two of the syndicate described by +the prosecution and by the judge as the principals were sentenced to +three years' penal servitude. "You," said the judge, addressing with +a new note in his voice the third prisoner, "You, Occleve, stand in a +different--" + +Rosalie began to pray. + +Harry would not attend the trial. He had done all that could be done, +and of his position there was very much that he was able to do, and had +attended the police court during the initial proceedings. He would not +go to the Old Bailey. He would not go out. He would not read the papers. +He used to sit about the house. "My son a felon.... My boy a felon. My +son.... My eldest son...." + +Rosalie was given a seat in the floor of the court on the first days of +the hearing. On the day when the verdict was to be given and sentence +passed she could not bear that. An usher, much pitying, obtained her a +place in the gallery. She looked down immediately upon her Huggo. Her +hands, upon the ledge before her, were all the time clasped. Her eyes +alternately were in her hands and on her Huggo. Her heart moved between +her Huggo and her God. + +"You, Occleve, stand in a different position. . . ." + +She began to pray. All of her being, all of her soul, all of her life, +with a spiritual and a physical intensity transcending all that her body +and her mind had ever known, was in apotheosis of supplication. "O God +the Father! O God the Father! O God the Father!" + +Her Huggo! Those words that only in snatches she heard were being +addressed to her Huggo. + +"... Your counsel has most eloquently pleaded for you.... You bear an +honoured name.... You bear a name held in these precincts in honour, in +esteem, in love, in admiration.... You have had a good home, a great and +a noble father, a distinguished and devoted mother...." + +That suppliant crouched lower in her supplication. + +"... You have been the dupe, you have been the tool, you have been +in large part, as your counsel has pleaded, and as I believe, the +unsuspecting agent.... Nevertheless, the least sentence I can pass on +you--" + +"O God the Father, the Father!" + +"... is six months' imprisonment." + +That boy, whose head had been hung and eyes downcast, lifted his head +and raised his eyes and gave one look into the eyes of that suppliant +for him that sat above him. There was recalled by that suppliant a look +that had passed from the place of accusation to the place of assembly in +the place called the Sanhedrin. + +Her Huggo! + +They took him away. + +Doda didn't stop going out. She seemed to go out more. The pain within +that house, brought there by Huggo, seemed to make that house more than +before unbearable to Doda. She often spent the night, or the week end +away, staying with the foreign friend, she generally said. She would +have nothing whatever to do with the baby now installed in the house. +She never would go near it. Once she passed it in the hall in its +perambulator. She stopped and stooped over the face of lovely innocence +that lay there and gazed upon it with an extraordinary intensity. She +drew back with a sharp catch at her breath and sharply stepped away and +turned and ran very quickly upstairs. After that when she chanced to +pass the child, she turned aside and would not look upon the child. She +began not to look well, Rosalie thought. There often was upon her +lovely face a pinched and drawn expression, disfiguring it. On the rare +occasions when she was in to dinner she sat strangely moody. There only +was a moodiness about that table then; but the moodiness of Doda was +noticeable to Rosalie. She ate hardly at all. She sometimes would get up +suddenly before a meal was ended and go away, generally to her own room. +Very many times Rosalie would seek anxiously to question her, but apart +from the independence which commonly she maintained towards Rosalie, +Doda seemed very much to resent solicitude upon her health. "What should +be the matter? I look perfectly well, don't I?" + +"Doda, you don't. I've noticed it a long time." + +"Well, I am perfectly well. If I wasn't I'd say so." + +Strike on! + +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 God, 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 gods, of self, of what +is vain, of liberty undisciplined, of restless itch for pleasure, and of +the gods 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 mass on mass of fierce, submerging clouds as it might be a +soul that rose through infinite calamity to God. 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 sexless 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 space was mute. The moon, its duress passed, stood +high, serene, alone. The doctor breathed, "She's passing." 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 +passed 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. Sacrifice is +atonement. It now is not possible for me to atone." + +She was on her knees beside his chair. He stroked her hair. + +There was an inquest. Harry went. She stayed at home and Benji stayed +with her to be with her. Benji was not to be consoled. His mood was very +dreadful. A report was printed in the evening paper before Harry came +home. Benji read it and told Rosalie a witness, a man, had been arrested +on the coroner's warrant. Benji said, "I think I'll go out now, mother, +for a little." + +Later in the afternoon when Rosalie was with Harry a maid came into the +room and looked at Harry and saw how sunk he was in his chair and so +went to Rosalie and whispered to her. Rosalie went out. There was a man +wished to see the master. Rosalie spoke to him. He was a large, burly +man with a strong face. He looked like, and was, a police officer in +plain clothes. Rosalie heard what he began to say and said she would go +with him. In the cab, the man told her about it. All his sentences began +with or contained "The young gentleman." + +"The young gentleman... the prisoner, when the young gentleman +came rushing in, happened to be in the charge-room writing out a +statement.... The young gentleman, before any one could stop him, rushed +at this prisoner and caught him by the throat and threw him and the +table over and banged the man's head against the floor, fair trying to +kill him. They got the young gentleman off. They ought to have arrested +the young gentleman, and they did most earnestly wish they had of +arrested him, and blamed themselves properly that they didn't arrest +him. But they felt cruelly sorry for the young gentleman and they got +him outside and let him go and no more said. Of course, as madam +knew, the police office wasn't very far from Gower Street station, the +underground station with them steep stairs leading straight down from +the street to the platform, as madam might be aware.... The young +gentleman was seen by witnesses, whose names were took, to come rushing +down these stairs on to the platform as if some one was after him.... +The young gentleman come rushing down and there was a train just coming +in, and whether he couldn't stop or whether he.... There's some say +one thing and some say the other.... Whichever way it was the young +gentleman...." + +Rosalie did her errand with the man and then came back to Harry. She had +to tell Harry. + +He was sitting in his chair. He had an open book on his knees. She saw, +as one notices these things, it was a Shakespeare. She stood up there at +the door before him and she said, "Harry--Benji!" + +He saw it in her face. + +He groaned. + +He took the book off his knees and fumbled it, and with a groaning +mutter dropped it: "'Unarm, Eros, the long day's work is done.'" + +She came to him and saw, as one sees things, above his head the picture +he had hung when raven was his hair and radiant his face, and had hit +his thumb, and jumped, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and had laughed +and wrung his hands, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and laughed again. +She came to him and saw him wilt and crumple in his chair, and could +have sworn she saw the iron of his head, that had been raven, go grey +anew and greyer yet. She came to him and she said, "Harry--Benji--an +accident--not an accident--on the railway--killed." + +His voice went, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one agrope, +in sudden darkness, befogged, betrayed. "My God, my God, my God, my God, +my God!" + +She fell on her knees; and on her arms and on his lap she buried then +her face. + +He suddenly stooped to her, and caught his arms about her, and raised +her to him, and pressed his face to hers, and held her there; and his +cry was as once before, passionately holding her, his cry had been; then +from his heart to her heart, now from the abysses of his soul to her +soul's depths, "Rosalie! Rosalie!" + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + + +There was to have been some more of it; but there, they're in each +other's arms, and one has suffered so with them one cannot any more go +on. One's suffered so! One has looked backward with her. The heart must +break but for a forward glimpse:-- + +They're all right now. Huggo's in Canada. He writes every week. They're +all right now. That other Rosalie that they brought in is looking after +them. She's looking after them, that elf, that sprite, that tricksy +scrap, that sunshine thing. She calls Harry father and Rosalie she +calls mother. She has all her meals with them. There's no nurse. +It's breakfast she loves best. She's on the itch all breakfast. When +breakfast's done she's off her chair and hopping. She trumpets in +her tiny voice, "Lessons! Lessons!" She trumpets in her tiny voice, +"Lessons, lessons! On mother's knee! On mother's knee!" + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 6415.txt or 6415.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/6415/ + +Produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/6415.zip b/6415.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0696365 --- /dev/null +++ b/6415.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8b1472 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #6415 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6415) diff --git a/old/tfrdm10.txt b/old/tfrdm10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fda0815 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tfrdm10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12523 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson +#2 in our series by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: This Freedom + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + +Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6415] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 8, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + + + + +THIS FREEDOM + +BY + +A. S. M. HUTCHINSON + +"With a great sum obtained I this freedom."--ACTS xxii, 28. + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + + +PART ONE--HOUSE OF MEN + +PART TWO--HOUSE OF WOMEN + +PART THREE--HOUSE OF CHILDREN + +PART FOUR--HOUSE OF CARDS + + + + + + +PART ONE--HOUSE OF MEN + +CHAPTER I + + + + + +Rosalie's earliest apprehension of the world was of a mysterious +and extraordinary world that revolved entirely about her father +and that entirely and completely belonged to her father. Under her +father, all males had proprietory rights in the world and dominion +over it; no females owned any part of the world or could do anything +with it. All the males in this world--her father, and Robert and +Harold her brothers, and all the other boys and men one sometimes +saw--did mysterious and extraordinary things; and all the females +in this world--her mother, and Anna and Flora and Hilda her sisters, +and Ellen the cook and Gertrude the maid--did ordinary and unexciting +and generally rather tiresome things. All the males were like story +books to Rosalie: you never knew what they were going to do next; +and all the females were like lesson books: they just went on and +on and on. + +Rosalie always stared at men when she saw them. Extraordinary and +wonderful creatures who could do what they liked and were always +doing mysterious and wonderful things, especially and above all +her father. + +Being with her father was like being with a magician or like watching +a conjuror on the stage. You never knew what he was going to do +next. Whatever he suddenly did was never surprising in the sense of +being startling, for (this cannot be emphasised too much) nothing +her father did was ever surprising to Rosalie; but it was surprising +in the sense of being absorbingly wonderful and enthralling. Even +better than reading when she first began to read, and far better +than anything in the world before the mysteries in books were +discoverable, Rosalie liked to sit and stare at her father and +think how wonderful he was and wonder what extraordinary thing he +would do next. Everything belonged to him. The whole of life was +ordered with a view to what he would think about it. The whole +of life was continually thrown off its balance and whirled into +the most entrancing convulsions by sudden activities of this most +wonderful man. + +Entrancing convulsions! Wonderful, wonderful father with a bull +after him! Why, that was her very earliest recollection of him! +That showed you how wonderful he was! Father, seen for the first +time (as it were) flying before a bull! Bounding wildly across a +field towards her with a bull after him! Wonderful father! Did her +mother ever rush along in front of a bull? Never. Was it possible +to imagine any of the women she knew rushing before a bull? It +was not possible. To see a woman rushing before a bull would have +alarmed Rosalie for she would have felt it was unnatural; but for +her father to be bounding wildly along in front of a bull seemed +to her perfectly natural and ordinary and she was not in the least +alarmed; only, as always, enthralled. + +Her father, while Rosalie watched him, was not in great danger. He +came ballooning along towards Rosalie, not running as ordinarily +fit and efficient men run, but progressing by a series of enormous +leaps and bounds, arms and legs spread-eagling, and at each leap +and bound always seeming to Rosalie to spring as high in the air +as he sprung forward over the ground. It would not have surprised +Rosalie, who was then about four, to see one of these stupendous +leaps continue in a whirling flight through mid-air and her father +come hurtling over the gate and drop with an enormous plunk at +her feet like a huge dead bird, as a partridge once had come plunk +over the hedge and out of the sky when she was in a lane adjacent +to a shooting party. It would not have surprised her in the least. +Nothing her father did ever surprised Rosalie. The world was his +and the fulness thereof, and he did what he liked with it. + +Arrived, however, from the bull, not as a ballooning bird out of the +sky, but as a headlong avalanche over the gate, Rosalie's father +tottered to a felled tree trunk, and sat there heaving, and groaned +aloud, "Infernal parish; hateful parish; forsaken parish!" + +Rosalie, wonderingly regarding him, said, "Mother says dinner is +waiting for you, father." + +Her mother and her sisters and the servants and the entire female +establishment of the universe seemed to Rosalie always to be +waiting for something from her father, or for her father himself, +or waiting for or upon some male other than her father. That was +another of the leading principles that Rosalie first came to know +in her world. Not only were the males, paramountly her father, able +to do what they liked and always doing wonderful and mysterious +things, but everything that the females did either had some relation +to a male or was directly for, about, or on behalf of a male. + +Getting Robert off to school in the morning, for instance. That +was another early picture. + +There would be Robert, eating; and there was the entire female +population of the rectory feverishly attending upon Robert while +he ate. Six females, intensely and as if their lives depended upon +it, occupied with one male. Three girls--Anna about sixteen, Flora +fourteen, Hilda twelve--and three grown women, all exhaustingly +occupied in pushing out of the house one heavy and obstinate male +aged about ten! Rosalie used to stand and watch entranced. How +wonderful he was! Where did he go to when at last he was pushed +off? What happened to him? What did he do? + +There he is, eating; there they are, ministering. Entrancing and +mysterious spectacle! + +Robert, very solid and heavy and very heated and agitated, would +be seated at the table shoving porridge into himself against the +clock. One of his legs, unnaturally flexed backward and outward, is +in the possession of Rosalie's mother who is on her knees mending +a hole in his stocking. The other leg, similarly contorted, is on +the lap of Ellen the cook, who with very violent tugs, as if she +were lashing a box, is lacing a boot on to it. Behind Robert is +Anna, who is pressing his head down with one hand and washing the +back of his neck with the other. In front of him across the table +is Hilda, staring before her with bemused eyes and moving lips and +rapidly counting on drumming fingers. Hilda is doing his sums for +him. Beside him on his right side, apparently engaged in throttling +him, is Gertrude the maid. Gertrude the maid is trying to tear off +him a grimed collar and put on him a clean collar. Facing Gertrude +on his other side is Flora. Flora is bawling his history in his +ear. + +Everybody is working for Robert; everybody is working at top speed +for him, and everybody is loudly soliciting his attention. + +"Oh, do give over wriggling, master Robert!" (The boot-fastener.) + +"'Simon de Montford, Hubert de Burgh, and Peter de Roche.' Well, +say it then, you dreadful little idiot!" (The history crammer.) + +"Oh, master Robert, do please keep up!" (The collar fastener.) + +"Keep down, will you!" (The neck washer.) + +"Four sixes are twenty-four and six you carried thirty!" (The +arithmetician.) + +"Robert, you must turn your foot further round!" (The stocking-darner.) + +"'The Barons were now incensed. The Barons were now incensed. The +Barons were now incensed.' Say it, you ghastly little stupid!" + +"Do they make you do these by fractions or by decimals?... Well, +what do you know, then?" + +Entrancing spectacle! + +Now the discovery is by everybody simultaneously made and +simultaneously announced that Robert is already later in starting +than he has ever been (he always was) and immediately Rosalie +would become witness of the last and most violent skirmish in this +devoted attendance. Everybody rushes around hunting for things and +pushing them on to Robert and pushing Robert, festooned with them, +towards the door. Where was his cap? Where was his satchel? Where +was his lunch? Where were his books? Who had seen his atlas? Who +had seen his pencil box? Who had seen his gymnasium belt? Was his +bicycle ready? Was his coat on his bicycle? Was that button on his +coat? + +With these alarums at their height and the excursions attendant on +them at their busiest, another splendid male would enter the room +and immediately there was, as Rosalie always saw, a transference +of attendance to him and a violent altercation between him and +the first splendid male. This new splendid male is Rosalie's other +brother, Harold. Harold was eighteen and him also the entire female +population of the rectory combined to push out of the rectory every +morning. Harold was due to be pushed off half an hour later than +Robert, and as he was a greater and more splendid male than Robert +(though infinitely lesser than her father) so the place to which +he was pushed off was far more mysterious and enthralling than the +place to which Robert was pushed off. A school Rosalie could dimly +understand. But a bank! Why Harold should go to sit on a bank all +day, and why he should ride on a bicycle to Ashborough to find a +bank when there were banks all around the rectory, and even in the +garden itself, Rosalie never could imagine. Mysterious Harold! Anna +had told her that men kept money in banks; but Rosalie had never +found money in a bank though she had looked; yet banks--of all +extraordinary places--were where men chose to put their money! +Mysterious men! And Harold could find these banks and find this money +though he never took a trowel or a spade and was always shiningly +clean with a very high collar and very long cuffs. Wonderful, +wonderful Harold! + +Robert was due to be pushed off half an hour before Harold was +due to be pushed off, but he never was; the two splendid creatures +always clashed and there was always between them, because they +clashed, a violent scene which Rosalie would not have missed for +worlds. A meeting of two males, so utterly unlike a meeting of two +females, was invariably of the most entrancingly noisy or violent +description. When ladies came to the rectory to see her mother they +sat in the drawing-room and sipped tea and spoke in thin voices; +but when men came to see her father and went into the study, there +was very loud talking and often a row. Yes, and once in the village +street, Rosalie had seen two men stand up and thump one another +with their fists and fall down and get up and thump again. When +two women, her sisters or others, quarrelled, they only shrilled, +and went on and on shrilling. It was impossible to imagine the +collision of two women producing anything so exciting and splendid +as invariably was produced by the collision of two males. + +As now---- + +In comes Harold in great heat and hurry (as men always were) with +his splendid button boots in one hand and an immense pair of shining +cuffs in the other hand. + +"Haven't you gone yet, you lazy young brute?" + +"No, I haven't, you lazy old brute!" + +Agitated feminine cries of "Robert! Robert! You are not to speak +to Harold like that." + +"Well, he spoke to me like that." + +"Yes, and I'll do a jolly sight more than speak to you in a minute +if you don't get out of it. Get out of it, do you hear?" + +"Shan't!" + +"Robert! Robert! Harold! Harold!" + +"Well, get him out of it, or he'll be sorry for it. Why is he always +here when I'm supposed to be having my breakfast? Not a thing ready, +as usual. Look here, where I'm supposed to sit--flannel and soap! +That's washing his filthy neck, I suppose. Filthy young brute! Why +don't you wash your neck, pig?" + +"Why do you wear girl's boots with buttons, pig?" + +Commotion. Enthralling commotion. Half the female assemblage hustle +the splendid creature Robert out of the door and down the hall and +on to his bicycle; half the female assemblage cover his retreat +and block the dash after him of the still more splendid Harold; +all the female assemblage, battle having been prevented and one +splendid male despatched, combine to minister to the requirements +of the second splendid male now demanding attention. + +Busy scene. Enthralling spectacle. There he is, eating; shoving +sausages into himself against the clock just as Robert had shovelled +porridge into himself against the clock. One ministrant is sewing +a button on to his boot, another with blotting paper and hot iron +is removing a stain from his coat, divested for the purpose; one +is pouring out his coffee, another is cutting his bread, a third is +watching for his newspaper by the postman. And suddenly he whirls +everything into a whirlpool just as men, if Rosalie watches them +long enough, always whirl everything into a whirlpool. + +"Oh, my goodness, the pump!" + +Chorus, "The pump?" + +"The bicycle pump! Has that young brute taken the bicycle pump?" + +"Yes, he took it. I saw it." + +Commotion. + +"Catch him across the field! Catch him across the field! Where +are my boots? Where the devil are my boots? Well, never mind the +infernal button. How am I going to get to the bank with a flat tyre? +Can't some one catch him across the field instead of all standing +there staring?" + +Away they go! Rosalie, seeking a good place for the glorious +spectacle, is knocked over in the stampede for the door. Nobody +minds Rosalie. Rosalie doesn't mind--anything to see this entrancing +sight! Away they go, flying over the meadow, shouting, scrambling, +falling. Out after them plunges Harold, shirt-sleeved, one boot half +on, hobbling, leaping, bawling. Glorious to watch him! He outruns +them all; he outbellows them all. Of course he does. He is a man. +He is one of those splendid, wonderful, mysterious creatures to +whom, subject only to Rosalie's father, the entire world belongs. +Look at him, bounding, bawling! Wonderful, wonderful Harold! + +But Robert is wonderful too. If it had been Anna or Flora or Hilda +gone off with the pump, she would have been easily caught. Not +Robert. Wonderful and mysterious Robert, wonderfully and mysteriously +pedalling at incredible speed, is not caught. The hunt dejectedly +trails back. The business of pushing Harold out of the house is +devotedly resumed. + +And again--enthralling spectacle--just as the reign of Robert was +terminated by the accession of Harold, so the dominion of Harold +is overthrown by the accession of father. Harold is crowded about +with ministrants. Nobody can leave him for a minute. Rosalie's +father appears. Everybody leaves Harold simultaneously, abruptly, +and as if by magic. Rosalie's father appears. Everybody disappears. +Wonderful father! Everybody melts away: but Harold does not melt +away. Courageous Harold! Everybody melts; only Harold is left, +and Rosalie watching; and immediately, as always, the magnificent +males clash with sound and fury. + +Rosalie's father scowls upon Harold and delivers his morning +greeting. No "Good morning, dear," as her mother would have said. +"Aren't you gone yet?" like a bark from a kennel. + +"Just going." + +Wonderful father! A moment before there had been not the remotest +sign of Harold ever going. Now Harold is very anxious to go. He is +very anxious to go but, like Robert, he will not abandon the field +without defiance of the authority next above his own. While he +collects his things he whistles. Rosalie shudders (but deliciously +as one in old Rome watching the gladiators). + +"Do you see the clock, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, quicken yourself, sir. Quicken yourself." + +"The clock's fast." + +"It is not fast, sir. And let me add that the clock with which you +could keep time of a morning, or of any hour in the day, would have +to be an uncommonly slow clock." + +Harold with elaborate unconcern adjusts his trouser clips. "I should +have thought that was more a matter for the Bank to complain of, +if necessary. I may be wrong, of course----" + +"You may be wrong, sir, because in my experience you almost invariably +are wrong and never more so than when you lad-di-dah that you are +right. You may be wrong, but let me tell you what you may not be. +You may not be impertinent to me, sir. You may not lad-di-dah me, +sir." + +"Father, I really do not see why at my age I should be hounded out +of the house like this every morning." + +"You are hounded out, as you elegantly express it, because morning +after morning, owing to your disgustingly slothful habits, you +clash with me, sir. My breakfast is delayed because you clash with +me, and the house is delayed because you clash with me, and the +whole parish is delayed because you clash with me." + +"Perhaps you're not aware that Robert clashes with me." + +"Dash Robert! Are you going or are you not going?" + +He goes. + +"Bring back the paper." + +He brings it back. + +Wonderful father! + +Rosalie's father gives a tug at the bell cord that would have +dislocated the neck of a horse. The cord comes away in his hand. +He hurls it across the room. + +Glorious father! + +There was a most frightful storm one night and Rosalie, in Anna's +bed with Flora crowded in also and Hilda shivering in her nightgown +beside them, too young to be frightened but with her sister's +fright beginning to communicate itself to her, said, "Ask father +to go and stop it." + +"Fool!" cried Flora. "How could father stop the storm?" + +Why not? + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + + + +Flora's sharp and astounding reply to that question of Rosalie's +was recalled by Rosalie, with hurt surprise at Flora's sharpness +and ignorance, when, shortly afterwards, she found in a book a man +who could, and actually did, stop a storm. This was a man called +Prospero in a book called "The Tempest." + +She was never--that Rosalie--the conventional wonder-child of +fiction who reads before ten all that its author probably never +read before thirty; but she could read when she was six and she +read widely and curiously, choosing her entertainment, from her +father's bookshelves, solely by the method of reading every book +that had pictures. + +There was but one picture to "The Tempest," a frontispiece, but it +sufficed, and at the period when Rosalie believed the ownership of +the world to be vested in her father and under him in all males, +"The Tempest," because it reflected that condition, was the greatest +joy of all the joys the bookshelves discovered to her. She read it +over and over again. It presented life exactly as life presented +itself to the round eyes of Rosalie: all males doing always noisy +and violent and important and enthralling things, with Prospero, +her father, by far the most important of all; and women scarcely +appearing and doing only what the men told them to do. Miranda's +appearances in the story were indifferently skipped by Rosalie; +the noisy action and language in the wreck, and the noisy action +and language of the drunkards in the wood were what she liked, and +all the magic arts of Prospero were what she thoroughly appreciated +and understood. That was life as she knew it. + +Rosalie's father, when Rosalie thought the world belonged to him +and revolved about him, was tall and cleanshaven and of complexion +a dark and burning red. When he was excited or angry his face used +to burn as the embers in the study fire burned when Rosalie pressed +the bellows against them. He had thick black eyebrows and a most +powerful nose. His nose jutted from his face like a projection +from a cliff beneath a clump of bushes. He had been at Cambridge +and he was most ferociously fond of Cambridge. One of the most +fearful scenes Rosalie ever witnessed was on one boat-race day when +Harold appeared with a piece of Oxford ribbon in his buttonhole. It +was at breakfast, the family for some reason or other most unusually +all taking breakfast together. Rosalie's father first jocularly +bantered Harold on his choice of colour, and everybody--anxious as +always to please and placate the owner of the world--laughed with +father against Harold. But Harold did not laugh. Harold smouldered +resentment and defiance, and out of his smouldering began to maintain +"from what chaps had said" that Oxford was altogether and in every +way a much better place than Cambridge. In every branch of athletics +there were better athletes, growled Harold, at Oxford. + +Rosalie has been watching the embers in her father's face glowing +to dark-red heat. Everybody had been watching them except Harold +who, though addressing his father, had been mumbling "what chaps +had said" to his plate. + +"Athletes!" cried Rosalie's father suddenly in a very terrible +voice. "Athletes! And what about scholars, sir?" + +Harold informed his plate that he wasn't talking about scholars. + +Rosalie's father raised a marmalade jar and thumped it down upon +the table so that it cracked. "Then what the dickens right have +you to talk at all, sir? How dare you try to compare Oxford with +Cambridge when you know no more about either than you know of +Jupiter or Mars? Athletes!" He went off into record of University +contests, cricket scores, running times, football scores, as if +his whole life had been devoted to collecting them. They all showed +Cambridge first and Oxford beaten and he hurled each one at Harold's +head with a thundering, "What about that, sir?" after it. He leapt +to scholarship and reeled off scholarships and scholars and schools, +and professors and endowments and prize men, as if he had been an +educational year-book gifted with speech and with particularly loud +and violent speech. He spoke of the colleges of Cambridge, and with +every college and every particular glory of every college demanded +of the unfortunate Harold, "What have you got in Oxford against +that, sir?" + +It was awful. It was far more frightening than the night of the +storm. Nobody ate. Nobody drank. Everybody shuddered and tried +by every means to avoid catching father's rolling eye and thereby +attracting the direct blast of the tempest. Rosalie, who of course, +being a completely negligible quantity in the rectory, is not +included in the everybody, simply stared, more awed and enthralled +than ever before. And with much reason. As he declaimed of the glories +of the colleges of Cambridge there was perceptible in her father's +voice a most curious crack or break. It became more noticeable +and more frequent. He suddenly and most astoundingly cried out, +"Cambridge! Cambridge!" and threw his arms out before him on the +table, and buried his head on them, and sobbed out, "Cambridge! My +youth! My youth! My God, my God, my youth!" + +Somehow or other they all slipped out of the room and left him +there,--all except Rosalie who remained in her high chair staring +upon her father, and upon his shoulders that heaved up and down, +and upon the coffee from an overturned cup that oozed slowly along +the tablecloth. + +Extraordinary father! + +Rosalie's father had been a wrangler and one of the brilliant men +of his year at Cambridge. All manner of brilliance was expected +for him and of him. He unexpectedly went into the Church and as +unexpectedly married. + +His bride was the daughter of a clergyman, a widower, who kept a +small private school in Devonshire. She helped her father to run +the school (an impoverished business which, begun exclusively for +the "sons of gentlemen," had slid down into paying court to tradesmen +in order to get the sons of tradesmen) and she maintained him in +the very indifferent health he suffered. Harold Aubyn, the brilliant +wrangler with the brilliant future, who had begun his brilliance by +unexpectedly entering the Church, and continued it by unexpectedly +marrying while on a holiday in the little Devonshire town where he had +gone to ponder his future (a little unbalanced by the unpremeditated +plunge into Holy Orders) further continued his brilliance by +unexpectedly finding himself the assistant master in his father-in-law's +second-rate and failing school. The daughter would not leave her +father; the suitor would not leave his darling; the brilliant young +wrangler who at Cambridge used to dream of waking to find himself +famous awoke instead to find himself six years buried in a now +third-rate and moribund school in a moribund Devonshire town. He +had a father-in-law now permanent invalid, bedridden. He had four +children and another, Robert, on the way. + +It was his father-in-law's death that awoke him; and he awoke +characteristically. The old man dead! Come, that was one burden +lifted, one shackle removed! The school finally went smash at the +same time. Never mind! Another burden gone! Another shackle lifted! +Dash the school! How he hated the school! How he loathed and +detested the lumping boys! How he loathed and abominated teaching +them simple arithmetic (he the wrangler!) and history that was +a string of dates, and geography that was a string of capes and +bays, and Latin as far as the conjugations (he the wrangler!) how +he loathed and abominated it! Now a fresh start! Hurrah! + +That was like Rosalie's father--in those days. That way blew the +cold fit and the hot fit--then. + +The magnificent fresh start after the magnificent escape from the +morass of the moribund father-in-law and the moribund school and +the moribund Devonshire town proved to be but a stagger down into +morass heavier and more devastating of ambition. He always jumped +blindly and wildly into things. Blindly and wildly into the +Church, blindly and wildly into marriage, blindly and wildly into +the school, blindly and wildly, one might say, into fatherhood on +a lavish scale. Blindly and wildly--the magnificent fresh start--into +the rectory in which Rosalie was born. + +It was "a bit in the wilds" (of Suffolk); "a bit of a tight +fit" (L200 a year) and a bit or two or three other drawbacks; but +it was thousands of miles from Devonshire and from the school and +schooling, that was the great thing; and it was a jolly big rectory +with a ripping big garden; and above all and beyond everything it +was just going to be a jumping-off place while he looked around for +something suitable to his talents and while he got in touch again +with his old friends of the brilliant years. + +It was just going to be a jumping-off place, but he never jumped off +from it; a place from which to look around for something suitable, +but instead he sunk in it up to his chin; a place from which to +get in touch again with his friends of the brilliant years, but +his friends were all doing brilliant things and much too busy at +their brilliance to open up with one who had missed fire. + +The parish of St. Mary's, Ibbotsfield, had an enormous rectory, +falling to pieces; an enormous church, crumbling away; an enormous +area, purely agricultural; and a cure of a very few hundred +agricultural souls, enormously-scattered. Years and years before, +prior to railways, prior to mechanical reapers and thrashers, and +prior to everything that took men to cities or whirled them and +their produce farther in an hour than they ever could have gone in +a week, Ibbotsfield and its surrounding villages and hamlets were +a reproach to the moral conditions of the day in that they had no +sufficiently enormous church. Well-intentioned persons removed this +reproach, adding in their zeal an enormous rectory; and the time +they chose for their beneficent and lavish action was precisely +the time when Ibbotsfield, through its principal land-owners, was +stoutly rejecting the monstrous idea of encouraging a stinking, +roaring, dangerous railway in their direction, and combining together +by all means in their power to keep the roaring, dangerous atrocity +as far away from them as possible. + +It thus, and by like influences, happened that, whereas +one generation of the devoutly intentioned sat stolidly under the +reproach of an enormous and thickly populated area without a church, +later generations with the same stolidity sat under the reproach +of an enormous church, an enormous rectory and an infinitesimal +stipend, in an area which a man might walk all day without meeting +any other man. + +But the devout of the day, not having to live in this rectory or +preach in this church or laboriously trudge about this area, did +not unduly worry themselves with this reproach. + +That was (in his turn) the lookout of the Rev. Harold Aubyn--also +his outlook. + +He is to be imagined, in those days when Rosalie first came to know +him and to think of him as Prospero, as a terribly lonely man. He +stalked fatiguingly about the countryside in search of his parishioners, +and his parishioners were suspicious of him and disliked his fierce, +thrusting nose, and he returned from them embittered with them and +hating them. He genuinely longed to be friendly with them and on +terms of Hail, fellow, well met, with them; but they exasperated him +because they could not meet him either on his own quick intellectual +level or upon his own quick and very sensitive emotional level. +They could not respond to his humour and they could not respond, +in the way he thought they ought to respond, to his sympathy. + +He once found a man--a farm labourer--who in conversation disclosed +a surprising interest in the traces of early and mediaeval habitation +of the country. The discovery delighted him. In the catalogue of +a secondhand bookseller of Ipswich he noticed the "Excursions in +the County of Suffolk," two volumes for three shillings, and he +wrote and had them posted to the man. For days he eagerly looked +in the post for the grateful and delighted letter that in similar +circumstances he himself would have written. He composed in his mind +the phrases of the letter and warmed in spirit over anticipation +of reading them. No letter arrived. + +When he came into the rectory from visiting he was always asking, +"Has that man Bolas from Hailsham called?" Bolas never called. He +furiously began to loathe Bolas. He was furious with himself for +having "lowered himself" to Bolas. Bolas in his ignorance no doubt +thought the books were a cheap charity of cast-off lumber. Uncouth +clod! Stupid clod! Uncouth parish! Hateful, loathsome parish! +For weeks he kept away from Hailsham and the possible vicinity of +Bolas. One day he met him. Bolas passed with no more than a "Good +day, Mr. Aubyn." He could have killed the man. He swung round and +pushed his dark face and jutty nose into the face of Bolas. "Did +you ever get some books I sent you?" + +"Ou, ay, to be sure, they books----" + +He rushed with savage strides away from the man. All the way home +he savagely said to himself, aloud, keeping time to it with his +feet, "Uncouth clod, ill-mannered clod, horrible, hateful place! +Uncouth clods, hateful clods, horrible, hateful place!" + +That was his attitude to his parishioners. They could not come up +to the level of his sensibilities; he could not get down to the +level of theirs. + +With the few gentle families that composed the society of Ibbotsfield +he was little better accommodated. They led contented, well-ordered +lives, busy about their gardens, busy about their duties, busy +about their amusements. His life was ill-ordered and he was never +busy about anything: he was always either neglecting what had to +be done or doing it, late, with a ferocious and exhausting energy +that caused him to groan over it and detest it while he did it. +In the general level of his life he was below the standard of his +neighbours and knew that he was below it; in the sudden bounds and +flights of his intellect and of his imagination he was immeasurably +above the intel-lects of his neighbours and knew that he was +immeasurably above them. Therefore, and in both moods, he commonly +hated and despised them. "Fools, fools! Unread, pompous, petty!" + +At the rectory, among his family, he seemed to himself to be +surrounded by incompetent women and herds of children. + +He was a terribly lonely man when Rosalie first came to know him +and thought of him as Prospero. He is to be imagined in those days +as a fierce, flying, futile figure scudding about on the face of +the parish and in the vast gaunt spaces of the rectory, with his +burning face and his jutting nose, trying to get away from people, +hungering to meet sympathetic people; trying to get way from +himself, hungering after the things that his self had lost. In his +young manhood he was known for moods of intense reserve alternated +by fits of tremendous gaiety and boisterous high spirits. ("A +fresh start! Hurrah!" when release from the school came. "What does +anything matter? Now we're really off at last! Hurrah! Hurrah!") +In his set manhood, when Rosalie knew him, there were substituted +for the fits of boisterous spirits, paroxysms of violent outburst +against his lot. "Infernal parish! Hateful parish! Forsaken parish!" +after the ignominy of flight before the bull. "Blow the dinner! +Dash the dinner! Blow the dinner!" after wrestling a soggy steak +from his pocket and hurling it half a mile through the air. These +and that single but terrible occasion of "Cambridge! Cambridge! My +youth! My God, my God, my youth!" + +A terribly lonely man. + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + + + +The Aubyn family occupied only a portion of the enormous rectory. +There was a whole floor upstairs, and there were several rooms on +the ground and first floors, that were never used, were unfurnished +except for odds and ends of lumber left behind by the previous +vicar, and were never entered. Rosalie once explored them all, +systematically though very fearfully, and also very excitedly. She +was searching for some one, for two people. + +In the household she knew her father and her mother, her brothers +and sisters and the servants; but there were two mysterious +inhabitants of whom she often heard but whom she never saw and +never could find. It used to frighten her sometimes, lying awake at +night, or creeping about the house of an evening, to think of those +two mysterious people hidden away somewhere and perhaps likely to +pounce on her out of the dark. What did they eat? Where did they +live? What did they do? What were they? + +One of these two eerie and invisible people was heard of from +her father. Several times Rosalie had heard him, when talking to +persons not of the family, speak of "my wife." The other eerie and +invisible creature was heard of from her mother: "My husband." + +Where were they? Of all the mysterious things which Rosalie used to +wonder over in those days, this undiscoverable "wife" and "husband" +were the most mysterious of all, and more mysterious than ever after +that day on which, walking on tiptoe for fear of coming upon them +suddenly, holding her breath and pausing in fearful apprehension +before entering the untenanted rooms upstairs, she explored the +whole house in search of them. She got to know all sorts of little +odds and ends about them; that the wife felt the cold very much, +for instance, for she had heard her father say so; and that the +husband did not like mutton, for her mother told that to Mr. Grant +the butcher: and she was often hot on their tracks for she had heard +her father say, "My wife is upstairs" and had rushed upstairs and +searched; and her mother say, "My husband is in the garden," and had +run into the garden and hunted. But all these clues only deepened +the mystery. They were never to be found. + +It was mysterious. + +Then one day the wife (she heard) fell ill, and through her great +concern about that--for she was profoundly interested in these +people and used to feel awfully sorry for them, hidden away like +that perhaps with no fire and nothing to eat but mutton--the mystery +was explained. + +With the family she was going towards church one Sunday morning and +she heard her father tell a lady that "my wife" was not very well +that morning and couldn't come. Rosalie during the service prayed +very earnestly for the wife's recovery and took the opportunity of +praying also that she might be permitted to see the wife "if she +is not very frightening, O Lord, and the husband too, if possible, +for Jesus Christ's sake, amen." + +And at lunch, having thought of nothing else all the morning, there +was suddenly shot out of her the question, "Father, is your wife +any better now?" + +Rosalie commonly never spoke at all at meals; and as to speaking +to her father, though it is obvious she must have had some sort +of intercourse with him, this famous question (a standing joke in +the house for years) was the single direct speech of those early +years she ever could remember. She spoke to her father when she +was bidden to speak in the form of messages, generally about meals +being ready, or relative to shopping commissions he had been asked +to execute; but he was far too wonderful, powerful and mysterious +for conversation with him on her own initiative. "Father, is your +wife any better now?" stood out in her later recollection, alone +and lonelily startling. + +There was from all the company an astounded stare and astounded +gasp; all the table sitting with astounded eyes, forks suspended +in mid-air, mouths half open in astonishment, and Rosalie sitting +in her high chair wonderingly regarding their wonderment. What were +they staring at? + +There was then an enormous howl of laughter, led by Rosalie's +father, and repeated, and louder than before, because it was so +very unusual for the family to be laughing in accord with father. +Gertrude, the maid, fled hysterically from the room and laughter +howled back from the kitchen. + +Rosalie's father said, "You'd better go and ask your mother." Her +mother had stayed in bed that day with a chill. + +Robert "undid" Rosalie--a wooden rod with a fixed knob at one +end went through the arms of her high chair and was fastened by a +removable knob at the other end--and Rosalie slid down very gravely, +and with their laughter still echoing trod upstairs to her mother's +bedside and related what she had been told to ask, and, on inquiry, +why she had asked it. "I only said 'Father, is your wife any better +now?'" and on further inquiry explained her long searching after +the undiscoverable pair. + +Rosalie's mother laughed also then, but had a sudden wetness in her +eyes. She put her arms about Rosalie and pressed her to her bosom +and cried, "Oh, my poor darling!" and explained the tremendous +mystery. Wife and husband, Rosalie's mother explained, were the +names used by other people for her father and her mother. A man +and a woman loved one another very, very dearly ("as I loved your +dear father") and then they lived together in a dear house of their +own and then God gave them dear little children of their own to +live with them, said Rosalie's mother. + +This thoroughly satisfied Rosalie and completely entranced her, +especially about the presentation of the dear little children. She +would have supposed that naturally it thoroughly satisfied Anna and +Harold and Flora and the others; and the point of interest rests +here, that Rosalie's mother also believed that this explanation +of marriage and procreation completely satisfied Anna at sixteen +and Harold in the Bank at eighteen. She never gave them any other +explanation of the phenomenon of birth; and it is to be supposed +that, just as she instructed them that God sent the dear little +children, so she believed that God, at the right time, in some +mysterious way, communicated the matter to them in greater detail. +Years and years afterwards, Flora told Rosalie that when Rosalie +was born all the children were sent away to stay with a neighbour +and not allowed to return till Rosalie's mother, downstairs, was +able to show them the dear little sister that God had surprisingly +delivered at the house, as it were in a parcel. + +One is given pain by a state of affairs so monstrous; but one suffers +that pain proudly because one belongs, proudly, to a day in which +nothing but stark truth may go from mother to child, not even fairy +stories, not even Bible stories. Rosalie's mother is gone and her +kind is no more, and in the graces and the manners of this day's +generation one perceives, proudly, the inestimable benefits of +the passing of her kind. Lamentable specimen of her kind, she had +no interests other than her home and her husband and her children +and the pleasures and the treasures and the friends of her husband +and her children. She belonged to that dark age when duty towards +others was the guiding principle of moral life; she came only to +the threshold of this enlightened age in which duty to oneself is +known to be the paramount and first and last consideration of life +as it should be lived. + +Rosalie's mother, whose name had been Anna Escott, kept at the +bottom of a drawer five most exquisite little miniatures. They were +in a case of faded blue plush, and they had been in that case and +at the bottom of one drawer or another ever since the girl Anna +Escott, aged twenty, had placed them in the case, then exquisitely +blue and new and soft, and given up painting miniatures forever, in +order to devote her whole time to looking after her invalid father +and the failing preparatory school that was his livelihood. + +Rosalie was herself nearly thirty when she first saw the miniatures. She +was come back to the rectory from the pursuits that then occupied +her to visit, rather impatiently and rather vexedly, her mother +on what proved to be her death bed. She was tidying her mother's +drawers, impatient with the amazing collection of rubbish they +contained and hating herself for being impatient, while her mother, +on the bed, patiently watched her; and she came upon the case and +opened it and stared in astonishment and admiration at the beauty +of the five miniatures. + +She asked her mother and her mother told her she had painted them. +"I used to do that when I was a girl," said Rosalie's mother. + +All Rosalie's impatience was drowned and utterly engulfed in a +most dreadful flood of emotion. She set down the case on the bed +and flung herself on her knees beside her mother and clasped her +arms about her. + +"Oh, mother, mother! Oh, beloved little mother!" But that is out +of its place. + +Yes, that girl Anna Escott, who had an exquisite talent, and all +sorts of fond dreams of its development, gave it up wholly and +entirely and forever when her mother died and her father said, "I +would like you, Anna dear, to give up your painting and come and +look after me and the school now." + +Anna said, "Of course I will, Papa. It's my duty. Of course I will." + +Girls did that, and parents and husbands asked them to do that, in +the days when Rosalie's mother was a girl. + +Rosalie's mother gave away everything, first to her father, then +to her husband, then to her children. She believed the whole of the +Bible, literally, as it is written, from the first word of Genesis +to the last word of Revelations. She taught it as literal, final +and initial truth to all her children, and one knows how wickedly +wrong it is now considered to teach children that the Bible-stories +are true. She taught them the whole of the Bible from books called +"Line Upon Line," and "The Child's Bible," and in stories of her +own making, and from the Bible itself. Regrettably, the ignorantly +imposed-upon children loved it! Till each child was eight she +taught them everything at her knee. All the nursery rhymes, and +all the Bible, and reading out of "Step by Step," and then "Reading +Without Tears," and then, in advancing series, the "Royal Readers," +and writing, first holding their hands, and then--first in pencil +and afterwards with pens having three huge blobs to teach you how +to place your fingers properly--in copybooks graded from enormous +lines which had brick-red covers to astoundingly narrow little lines +enclosing pious and moral maxims which had severe grey covers; and +the multiplication tables and then simple arithmetic; and General +Knowledge out of "The Child's Guide to Knowledge," which asked +you "What is sago?" and required you to reply by heart, "Sago is +a dried, granulated substance prepared from the pith of several +different palms." "Where are these palms found?" "These palms are +found in the East Indies." + +Likewise history out of Mrs. Markham and "Little Arthur"; also, +at a ridiculously early age, how to tell the time and how to know +the coinage of the realm and its values; also, whether girl or boy, +the making of kettle-holders by threading brightly coloured wools +through little squares of canvas; also very many pieces of poetry: +"Oft had I heard of Lucy Grey," and "It was the Schooner Hesperus" +and hymns--also learnt by heart and sung while Rosalie's mother +played the piano--"We are but little children weak," and "Gentle +Jesus, meek and mild." + +All these things were taught at her knee to each child in turn by +Rosalie's mother, and each was taught out of the self-same books, +miraculously preserved by Rosalie's mother; the backs of most of +them carefully stitched and re-stitched, and marked all through +by the dates of each child's daily lesson, written in pencil by +Rosalie's mother. The dates ranged from 1869 when Harold was being +taught and when the books were fresh and clean, and Rosalie's +mother fresh and ardent with her first-born, to 1884, when Rosalie +was being taught, and the books very old and thumbed and most +terribly crowded with pencil marks, and Rosalie's mother no longer +fresh but rather worn, but teaching as fondly and earnestly as +ever, because it was her duty. Literally at the knee of Rosalie's +mother these things were taught. On her knee with one of her arms +about you for the Bible teaching; and standing at her knee, hands +behind you, for the teaching of most of the rest. Yes, that was +the early education, and the manner of the education, of Rosalie +and of her brothers and sisters, and one perceives with indignation +the spectacle of a mother wasting her time like that and wasting +her children's time like that. + +Rosalie's mother did everything in the house and she was always +doing something in the house--for somebody else. She never rested +and she was always worried. Her brows were always wrinkled with +the feverish concentration of one anxiously doing one thing while +anxiously thinking of another thing waiting to be done. She had a +driven and a hunted look. + +Now Rosalie's father had a driving and a hunting look. + +Rosalie's father in his youth threw away everything. Rosalie's mother +throughout the whole of her life gave away everything. Rosalie's +father was a tragic figure dwelling in a house of bondage; but he +was at least a tragic king, ruling his house and venting his griefs +upon his house. Rosalie's mother was a tragic figure and she was a +tragic slave in the house of bondage. The life of Rosalie's father +was a tragedy, but a tragedy in some measure relieved because he +knew it was a tragedy and could wave his arms and shout and smash +things and hurl beefsteaks through the air because of the tragedy +of it. But the life of Rosalie's mother was an infinitely deeper +tragedy because she never knew or suspected that it was a tragedy. + +Still, that is so often the difference between the tragedy of a +woman and the tragedy of a man. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + + + +The very great difference between her father and her mother +maintained in Rosalie that early perception of the wondrousness of +her father. She loved her mother, but in the atmosphere surrounding +her mother there was often flurry and worry and there was nothing +whatever in her mother to mystify and entrance by sudden and violent +eruptions of the miraculous. She did not love her father for he +was entirely too remote and awe-ful for love, but he entranced her +with his marvellousness. This maintained in her also her perception +of the altogether greater superiority of all males over all females. + +Rosalie came into her family rather like a new little girl first +entering a boarding school. When she was about four, and first +beginning to realise herself, the next in age to her was Robert, +who not only was at the immense distance of ten, but was of the +male sex and therefore had a controlling interest in the world. Then +was Hilda who was twelve, then Flora fourteen, then Anna towering +away in sixteen, and then Harold utterly removed in the enormous +heights of eighteen, second only to Rosalie's father in ownership +of the world and often awfully disputing that supreme ownership. + +So they were all immeasurably older than Rosalie; and they were +not only immeasurably older but, which counted for much more, they +all had their fixed and recognised places in their world just as +girls of several terms' experience have their recognised places in +their school, and for Rosalie there seemed to be no place at all, +just as for new girls there is no place. Her brothers and sisters +all had their fixed and recognised places, their interests, their +occupations, their friendships: they all knew their own places and +each other's places; they had learnt to respect and admit each +other's places; they knew the weight of one another's hand in +those places; they were accustomed to one another; they tolerated +one another. + +It was all very strange and wonderful and mysterious to Rosalie. + +She was, as it were, pitchforked into this established and regulated +order and to find a place for her was like trying to fit a new +spoke into a revolving wheel. It cannot be done; and with Rosalie +it could not be done. The established wheel went on revolving in +its established orbit and the new spoke, which was Rosalie, lay +outside and watched it revolve. Intrusions within the circumference +of the wheel commonly resulted in a sharp knock from one of the +spokes. No one was in any degree unkind to Rosalie, but there was +no proper place for her and everybody's will was in authority over +her will. She rather got in the way. To be with her was not to +enjoy her company or to enjoy battle with her and the putting of +her company to flight. To be with her was to have to look after +her, and in the community of the rectory, every member, when Rosalie +came, was fully occupied in look-ing after itself and defending +itself from the predatory excursions of any other member. + +What happened was that in time, just as a slight and negligible +body cannot be in the sphere of a powerful motion without being +affected by it, so Rosalie began to move sympathetically to the +wheel but on her own axis. She moved round with the wheel but she +was not of the wheel and she never became really incorporated with +the wheel. The spokes were revolving with incredible rapidity when +she first, began to notice them and they always remained relatively +faster. There she was, sitting and watching and wondering; and the +twig grows as it is bent or as it is left to bend. She looked on +and absorbed things; and the first and by far the deepest of her +settled perceptions was that, though she was subject to all powers, +all girls and women were themselves subject to the power of all +boys and men. + +Up to the age of eighteen, six years represents an enormous gulf in +the relative ages of brothers and sisters. You have only to figure +it out in the case of Rosalie to realise how far behind she was +always left, and why, though one of a family of six, she occupied +a position outside the group and was a watcher of them rather than +a sharer with them. She was four when Robert the next above her +was ten, which is a baby against a sturdy and well-developed giant; +when she was eight Robert was fourteen, which is a greater gulf +than the first; when she was twelve Robert was eighteen which, +from eighteen's point of view, is as the difference between an aged +man and an infant; and when she was sixteen Robert was twenty-two, +which is a schoolgirl against one of the oldest and most experienced +periods of life. She came in as a new little girl in a big school; +when she had been there eight years--counting from four, when first +she was conscious of arrival--she was still relatively the same: +there she was, twelve, with Robert eighteen and the others twenty, +twenty-two, twenty-four and twenty-six. + +But there she is at eight when she had had four years' experience +from the day of first seeing her father leaping before the bull +and thinking it was perfectly natural that he should leap before +the bull. She had learnt a tremendous lot in that second four years. +She knew at eight that the world did not belong to her father and +that on that night of the storm Flora was right to call her a fool +for believing that he could stop the storm. She knew he was not +nearly so wonderful as she used to think he was; but he was still +enormously wonderful and, which she thought rather curious, she +began to see that he rather liked showing her how wonderful he was. +He could sharpen a pencil wonderfully, and he could eat a herring +wonderfully. The thing discovered was that he was very proud of +how wonderfully he could sharpen a pencil or eat a herring. Strange +father! + +"Who sharpened that pencil? Your mother? H'nf! I should think so! +No woman can sharpen a pencil. Now look at me. Watch. I hold it +in my left hand, see? Arm supported against my body. Now look how +I cut at it. Bold, strong strokes, see? No niggling at it as if +a mouse was nibbling it; long, bold sweeps, slashes. See! Look at +that. Ah, drat! That's because I was holding it down for you to +see. Watch again. There! There, that's the way to sharpen a pencil. +Look at that. Do you see that long, firm point? See how clean and +long those strokes are? That's the way to sharpen a pencil. Show +that to your mother." + +He was as pleased with himself and as proud as if he had turned +the pencil into gold. + +Funny father! + +Or how to eat a herring. + +"Herrings! Well, a herring is one of the most delicious fish, +if it's eaten properly. There's a right way to eat a herring and +a wrong way. Now watch me and I'll show you how to eat a herring. +Rosalie, watch." + +"Rosalie, dear," (from her mother) "watch while your father shows +you how to eat a herring." + +All eyes on father demonstrating how to eat a herring! + +And Rosalie used to notice this about the watching eyes. Her +mother's eyes--most anxiously and nervously upon the operation, as +if watching a thing she would soon be called upon to perform and +would not be able to perform; the eyes of Robert (14) sulkily; +of Flora (18) admiringly (it was getting to be a complaint in the +family circle that Flora "sucked up" to father); the eyes of Anna +(20) wearily; the eyes of Harold (22) contemptuously. + +The herrings (a very frequent dish at the rectory, so much cheaper +than meat) came headless to the table. First father nipped off the +tail with a firm, neat stroke. Then he deftly slit the herring down +the stomach. It fell into two exact perfectly divided halves. Then +he lifted out the backbone, not one scrap of flesh adhering to it, +and laid it on the side of his plate. Then four firm pressures of +his knife and the little lateral bones were exactly removed and +exactly laid on the backbone. Next a precise insertion of his fork +and out came the silvery strip known to Rosalie as "the swimming +thing" and was laid in its turn upon the bones, exactly, neatly, +as if it were a game of spillikins. "Now pepper. Plenty of pepper +for the roe, you see. There. Now." + +And in about six mouthfuls father's plate would be as clean as when +it was brought in, decorated rather than marred by the exquisitely +neat pile of the backbone, the tail, the little bones, and the +silvery swimming thing. "There! Delicious! That's the way to eat +a herring"; and he would direct a glance at the plate of Rosalie's +mother. Rosalie's mother made a herring into the most frightful +mess it was possible to imagine. She spent the whole of her time in +removing bones from her mouth; and her plate, when she was half-way +though, looked to contain the mangled remains of about two dozen +herrings. "Very few women know how to eat a herring," Rosalie's +father would say. + +Wonderful father! How to sharpen a pencil, how to eat a herring, +how to do up a parcel, how to undo a parcel, how to cut your finger +nails, how to sit with regard to the light when you wrote or read, +how to tie a knot, how to untie a knot. Clever father, natty father! + +Yes, still enormously wonderful father; but also rather strangely +proud of being wonderful father. Rosalie now was constantly being +struck by that. It began to give her rather a funny sensation. +She couldn't describe the sensation or interpret it, but it was a +feeling, when father was glowing with pride over one of these things +he did so wonderfully well--a feeling of being rather uncomfortable, +shy, ashamed--something like that. She contracted the habit when +father beamed and glowed and looked around for applause of giving +a sudden little blink. + +And it was the same in regard to Robert and the same in regard to +Harold. Robert at the height of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness +caused the funny feeling and the blink in her; and Harold at the +height of his exhibitions of his wonderfulness caused the funny +feeling and the blink in her. And the wonderfulness of Robert was +always being shown off by Robert, and the wonderfulness of Harold +was always being shown off by Harold. Men liked showing off how +wonderful they were.... + +When Rosalie was about nine, she one day was permitted to have +Lily Waters in to tea with her. Lily Waters was the Doctor's little +girl, also nine. For a great treat they had tea together out of +Rosalie's doll's tea service in the room called the schoolroom. +Robert came home unusually early from school and came into the +schoolroom and began to do wonderful things before the two little +girls. He spoke in a very loud voice while he did them. He stood on +a footstool on his head and clapped his boots together. He held his +breath for seventy-five seconds by the clock. He took off his coat +and made Lily and Rosalie tie a piece of string around his biceps +and then he jerked up his arm and snapped the string. Wonderful +Robert! Lily screamed with delight and clapped her hands, and the +more she screamed and clapped, the louder Robert talked. He did +still more wonderful things. He held a cork to the flame of a match +and then blacked his nose and blacked a moustache with the cork. +He did a most frightfully daring and dangerous thing. He produced +the stump of a cigarette from his pocket and lit it and blew +smoke through his nose. Wonderful Robert! Lily went into ecstasies +of delight. Rosalie also went into ecstasies but also strongly +experienced that funny feeling. While Robert held his breath till +his eyes bulged and till his face was crimson, and while he danced +about with his nose blacked, and while he held the cigarette in +his fingers and puffed smoke through his nose--while he did these +things Rosalie glanced at Lily (squealing) and felt that funny +feeling of being rather shy, uncomfortable, ashamed; something like +that; and blinked. Wonderful though Robert was, she felt somehow +rather glad when at last he went. + +And just the same with Harold. At supper one night, Rosalie's father +not being present, Harold talked and talked and talked about a call +he had paid at the house of some ladies in Ashborough. Wonderful +Harold, to pay a call all by himself! It appeared that he had been +the only man there, and when Rosalie's mother said, "I wonder you +didn't feel shy, Harold," he said with a funny sort of "Haw" sound +in his voice, "Not in the least. Haw! Why on earth should I feel +shy? Haw." He had evidently very much entertained the party. The +more he talked about it the more Rosalie noticed the funny "Haw." +"They must have been very glad you came," Rosalie's mother said. + +Harold put the first and second fingers of his right hand on his +collar and gave it a pull up. "I rather--haw--think they were," +Harold said. "Haw." + +Rosalie gave that blink. + +Years afterwards, when she was grown up, a grown man boastfully +said something in her presence, and in a flash were recalled father +dissecting a herring, Robert holding his breath till he nearly burst, +Harold hitching up his collar and with the "haw" sound saying, "I +rather think they were." In a flash those childhood scenes, and +instantly with them interpretation of the funny feeling and the +blink that they had caused: they had been the rooting in her of a +new perception added to the impregnably rooted impression of the +wonder and power of men,--the perception that men knew they were +wonderful and powerful and liked to show off how wonderful and +powerful they were. + +They were superior creatures but they were apt to be rather +make-you-blinky creatures; that was the new perception. + +On the day after her eighth birthday, the birthday itself being a +treat and a holiday, Rosalie began to do lessons with Hilda. Hilda, +at sixteen, had "finished her education" as had Anna and Flora at +the same age. Harold, who had been a boarder at a Grammar School, +had stayed there till he was eighteen; and Robert, ultimately, +continued at Helmsbury Grammar School till he was eighteen. It was +apparent--and it was another manifestation of the greater importance +of males--that boys had more education to finish, or were permitted +longer to finish it, than girls. + +The school at which Anna, Flora and Hilda thus in the eight years +between leaving their mother's knee at eight and completing their +education at sixteen, learnt everything it was possible to know, +was kept by two very thin ladies called (ungrammatically) the +Miss Pockets. The Miss Pockets were daughters of the former vicar +of St. Mary's and inhabitant of the rectory, and on their father +dying and Mr. Aubyn coming, they established themselves in a prim +villa near-by and did what they called "took in pupils." They were +very thin, they had very long thin noses, they were always very +cold, and from the sharp end of the long thin nose of the elder Miss +Pocket there always depended, much fascinating Rosalie, a shining +bead of moisture. + +Rosalie's chief recollection of the Miss Pockets was of being +constantly met by them as she approached the age of eight, and of +them always, on these occasions, fondling icy hands about her neck +and saying to her father or her mother, "And when will our new +little pupil be coming to us?" + +But no direct reply was ever given to this question, either by +Rosalie's mother, who was always made to look uncomfortable when +it was asked by the Miss Pockets, or by Rosalie's father who always +seemed to jut out his nose at it and make the Miss Pockets look +thinner and colder than ever. + +On the morning of her eighth birthday, Rosalie received from the +Miss Pockets by post an illuminated text provided with a piece of +red cord for hanging on the wall and inquiring, rather abruptly, + +"Who Hath Believed Our Report?" + +Rosalie thought at first this was a plaintive question directly +from the Miss Pockets in their capacity as school-teachers and +therefore as licensed makers of reports; but immediately afterwards +saw "Isaiah" printed under it in discreet characters-- + +"Who Hath Believed our Report? + +--Isaiah." + +and concluded that it was Isaiah who had believed it. On the back +was written in the tall, thin handwriting of the Miss Pockets, "To +our dear little pupil Rosalie, on her eighth birthday, from Agnes +and Lydia Pocket." + +In the afternoon, the Miss Pockets called at the rectory and there +was evidently some high mystery about their visit. Rosalie was in +the study looking for a drawing pin wherewith to affix her illuminated +card to the wall. Hilda ran in. "The Miss Pockets. Where's father? +Come out," and Rosalie was hurriedly run out and shut into the +dining-room, leaving the vindication of Isaiah in the matter of +the report on the table. Opening the door to a chink, Rosalie saw +the Miss Pockets, shivering, the permanent decoration on the nose +of the elder Miss Pocket very conspicuous and agitatedly swinging, +ushered into the study, and presently her father follow his jutty +nose into the study after them, and very shortly after that the +Miss Pockets driven out as it were by the jutty nose and looking +thinner and colder than ever before. Miss Lydia Pocket, who had +lost the appendage to her nose and looked curiously undressed and +indelicate without it, was saying feebly, "But it was understood. +We always thought it was understood." + +They shuddered away; and when Rosalie went into the study immediately +afterwards to recover her card, there was upon the word Isaiah, as +though somebody had literally thrown doubt upon his belief of the +report, a large damp spot. + +On the following day, Rosalie began lessons with Hilda. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + + + +The lessons with Hilda period lasted till Rosalie was twelve. "Take +her off your mother's hands. That's what you've left school for," +was her father's instruction to Hilda; and so there was Rosalie, +put out from her mother's knee to the schoolroom like a small new +ship out from the haven to the bay; and there was that small mind +of hers come in to the company of Hilda and of Flora and of Anna +with the obsession that men were infinitely more important and +much more wonderful than women. She knew now that the world did +not belong to men in the literal sense, but belonged, as her mother +had instructed her, to God; but she knew with the abundant evidence +of all that went on about her that everything in the world was done +for men and that women were largely occupied in doing it; and she +knew, from the same testimony, that men were much more interesting +to watch than women, rather in the way that dogs were much more +interesting than cats. Men, like dogs, were much more satisfactory: +that was it. Her mind was throwing out feelers towards the wonders +of the world and this was the feeler that was most developed. She +came to her sisters very highly sensitive to the difference between +men and women. And her sisters showed her the difference. + +Anna was twenty then. Anna had "finished her education" four years +ago. She had left school "to help your mother in the house"; and +when Flora, two years later, finished her education and left school +for the same purpose, she found Anna grooved in the business of +helping her mother in the house and she was not in the least anxious +to help Anna out of the grooves and herself become imbedded in +them. + +This annoyed Anna. + +Rosalie used to hear Anna say to Flora a dozen times a day, "I +really don't see why you should be the one to do nothing but amuse +yourself all day long. I really don't." + +Flora used to say, "Well, you've always done it"--whatever the duty +in dispute might be--"so why on earth should I?" + +Then either Anna's face would give a twitch and she would walk out +of the room, or her face would get very red and there would be a +row. + +Or sometimes Flora to Anna's "I really don't see why--" would say +enticingly, "Don't you?" + +"No, I don't." + +"Then ask the Pope," and Flora would give a mocking laugh and run +away out of the reach of Anna's fury. + +The sting in this was that Anna was suspected of having Roman +Catholic tendencies. + +Flora was very pretty and had a gay, bold way. Anna was not +pretty. She had a great habit of compressing her lips, especially +in encounters with Flora, and somehow her face gave the impression +that her lips always were compressed. That was the expression it +normally had; it was only when Rosalie saw Anna actually compress +her lips that she realised they had not been compressed before. +It was as though she was always annoyed about something and then, +when she compressed her lips, a little more annoyed than usual. She +had also a permanent affliction which much puzzled Rosalie. Young +men friends of Harold's frequently called at the rectory, and one +afternoon, when two of them called, Anna was the only one at home +to entertain them (except Rosalie). Flora and Hilda rushed into +the drawing-room, directly they came in, and shortly afterwards +Rosalie saw Anna come out. Anna stood in the hall quite a long +time with her lips compressed, and then went into the dining-room +and sat down, but almost at once got up again and went back into +the drawing-room, and Rosalie heard Flora call out, "You can't join +in now, Anna. You can't join in now. We're in the middle of it." +Shrieks of laughter were going on. When the young men went, Flora +and Hilda, who had their hats on, walked away with them. Anna was +left at the door. When the girls came back Anna said to Flora, "I +do think you might have told me you'd arranged to go with them to +see it." + +Flora said, "Oh, darling, I thought the Pope had told you." + +They had the worst row Rosalie had ever heard them have. Anna did +not come down to supper. After supper, when Rosalie was in the +room with only Harold and her father and mother, her mother spoke +of the scene there had been between Anna and Flora and it was +then that Rosalie heard for the first time of Anna's most strange +affliction. Harold said, "Of course, the fact of the matter is that +ever since Flora left school, Anna's had her nose put out of joint." + +Rosalie felt most awfully sorry for Anna. Often after that she used +to stare at Anna's nose and the more so because there was nothing +visible the matter with it. Anna's nose was a singularly long +and straight nose; now if it had been Flora's nose that was out +of joint!--for Flora's nose turned up in a very odd way. Rosalie +slept in Anna's room and that same night, Anna's disjointed nose +and every other part of her face and head being covered with the +clothes when Rosalie went up to bed, Rosalie, unable to sleep for +curiosity and sympathy, got out of bed and lit the candle and went +across to look at Anna's nose, and very gently felt it with her +finger. Absolutely nothing amiss to be seen or felt! But the lashes +of Anna's eyes were wet and there were stains of tears upon the +upper side of the mysterious nose. It was true, then, for obviously +it hurt. And yet no sign! + +Rosalie got back into bed feeling of her own nose rather anxiously. + +Rosalie used formerly to sleep in Hilda's room and Flora with Anna, +but she was changed one day by her sisters (without being consulted +or given any reason) and the new arrangement was continued. Anna +was very devotional. She used to say enormously long prayers night +and morning. She prayed in the middle of the night also, Rosalie +used to think at first, awakened and hearing her voice, but later +found out that Anna was talking in her sleep, a thing that was +mysterious to Rosalie and frightening. The room of Flora and Hilda, +adjoined Anna's and often at night, when Rosalie was awakened by +Anna undressing and lay watching her at her immense prayers, the +chattering voices of Flora and Hilda could be heard through the +wall and shrieks of high laughter. At that, Anna's shoulders used +to shudder beneath her nightgown and she used to twist herself lower +on her knees. For some reason this also used rather to frighten +Rosalie. + +Sometimes, but very seldom, Flora and Hilda used to quarrel; +sometimes, and more often, Hilda and Anna; nearly every day, as it +seemed to Rosalie, Anna and Flora. Rosalie got to dislike these +quarrels very much. They went on and on and on; that was the +disturbing unpleasantness of them. The parties to them would sit +in a room and simply keep it up forever, not arguing all the time, +but between long pauses suddenly coming out with things at one +another; or they wouldn't speak to one another sometimes for days +together, and all sorts of small enterprises of Rosalie's were +interfered with by these ruptures of relations. Innumerable things +in Rosalie's life seemed to her to depend on the mutual good will +of two quarrellers; many books, some old toys, walks, combined games +with Carlo who was Anna's and Rover who was Flora's; innumerable +delights with such seemed to be unexpectedly stopped because of +"Oh, no, if you prefer to be with Anna you can stay with Anna"; +or, "Oh, no. If you like Flora's paints so much you can use Flora's +brushes; these are my brushes." A quarrel would in any case produce +a strained atmosphere in which everything became unnatural and this +strained atmosphere went on and on and on. + +And the thing that Rosalie noticed was the complete difference between +these quarrels of her sisters and the quarrels between Harold and +Robert. Robert was rising between the years of fourteen and eighteen +in those days and Harold between twenty-two and twenty-six. Most +violent quarrels sometimes sprung up between them but they were +physically violent, that was the point, and after swift and appalling +fury, and terrible kicks from Robert and horrifying thumps from Harold +they were astonishingly soon over and done with and forgotten. On +one awful day, Rosalie saw Robert and Harold rolling on the floor +together. Robert bumped Harold's head three most frightful bumps +on the floor and said between his teeth, "There! There! There!" +Harold twisted himself up and hurled Robert half across the room +and then rushed at him and punched him with punches that made Robert +go, "Ur! Ur! Ur!" + +Rosalie, at her age, ought to have cried with grief and dismay or +to have run away screaming; but instead she only watched with awe. +With terrified awe, as with the terrified awe that an encounter of +tigers or of elephants at the Zoo might arouse; but with awe and +no sort of grief as her sole emotion. Men were different. There it +was again! They did these fearful things, and these fearful things +were much more satisfactory to behold, not nearly so disturbing +and aggravating to watch, as the interminable bickerings of the +quarrels of her sisters. + +Her brothers' quarrels were entirely different in all their aspects. +In the quarrels of her sisters, one or the other invariably cried +if the bickering went far enough. These two men, though Robert +especially might have been excused for bellowing, just solidly and +only, with fearful gasps, thumped and clutched and strove. Not a +tear! Her sisters' quarrels were always carried by one or the other +to her mother or her father. How extraordinarily different Robert +and Harold! Their sole anxiety was that neither father nor mother +should be told! If any one threatened to tell, the two, sinking +their private heat, would immediately band together against +the talebearer. Extraordinary men! To that particularly ferocious +struggle that has been described, Anna and Hilda had been attracted +by the din, when Robert, overpowered, was receiving terrible +chastisement, and with cries and prayers had somehow separated +them. Behold, the very first coherent thing these two men did was, +while they still panted and glared upon one another, to unite in +a mutual threat. + +"And look out you don't go telling father or mother," panted Harold +to the girls. + +"Yes, mind you jolly well don't," panted Robert. + +Anna said she certainly would. + +Both the extraordinary creatures unitedly rounded on Anna. It might +have been thought that the battle had been, not between them, but +between them and the sisters who had saved them one from another. +Astounding men! + +And most astounding of all to Rosalie was that at supper, little +more than an hour later, Harold and Robert presented themselves as +on exceptionally good terms of friendship. They talked and laughed +together. They had a long exchange of views about some football teams. +Harold laid down the law about the principle of four three-quarters +in Rugby football instead of three and Robert listened as to an +oracle. They had not been so friendly for weeks. And an hour before-! +Yes, men were different. + +And Rosalie found that her sisters, too, knew how different and how +superior men were. Flora and Hilda seemed to Rosalie always to be +talking about men. Flora used to come into the schoolroom while +Rosalie was at her lessons and talk to Hilda. Rosalie was very fond +of her lessons and Hilda was an uncommonly good teacher and took a +great interest in leading Rosalie along the paths she had herself +so recently followed. But directly Flora came in, Hilda's interest +was entirely diverted to what Flora had to say and to what she had +to say to Flora, and it was always about men,--boys or men. Rosalie +would at once be put to learning passages or working out exercises +and Flora and Hilda would go over to the window and talk. They +talked mostly in whispers with their heads close together; they +laughed a good deal; they showed one another letters. Often they +came over to the table and wrote letters. And they used to look up +from their whisperings and say, "Go on with your lessons, Rosalie." + +But it was very difficult to go on while they whispered and laughed +and it was also very troublesome to have Hilda's most interesting +explanations suddenly cut short by the entrance of Flora. Rosalie +began to have the habit of saying "Oh, dear!" and going "Tchk!" with +her tongue when Flora came in. Also restlessly to say "Oh, dear!" +and go "Tchk!" when the whisperings and the laughing about men went +on and distracted her attention while she tried to do her exercises. + +A new aspect of men began to grow out of this. Rosalie began to +feel rather aggrieved against boys and ten. They interfered. + +And this went further. Just as boys and men spoilt lessons so they +began to spoil walks. While Hilda attended the Miss Pockets' school +and Rosalie was taught by her mother, it was always her mother with +whom Rosalie took walks. Anna "never cared to go out" and Flora, +whose position in the house was more like that of Harold and Robert, +did much as she liked, and "dragging Rosalie about for walks" +as she expressed it, was not one of the things she liked. Rosalie +therefore went out with her mother until Hilda took her off her +mother's hands, when the taking off included not only education but +exercise. At the beginning, Hilda showed herself as enthusiastic +and as entertaining a walker as she was teacher. She was ready +for jolly scrambles through woods and over fields, she was as keen +as Rosalie on damming little watercourses, and exploring woodland +tracts, and other similar delights, and she had a most splendid +knowledge of the names of plants and flowers and birds and insects +and delighted to tell them to Rosalie. Rosalie had loved the walks +with her mother, always holding her dear hand, but she loved much +more, though in a different way, the walks with Hilda. + +Then men began, in Rosalie's private phrase, to "ruin" the walks. + +First Flora took to joining the walks and she and Hilda talked and +talked together and always, as it seemed, about men, and Rosalie +just trailed along with them, their heads miles above hers and their +conversation equally out of her reach. But even that was not so bad +as it became. At least there were only her sisters and sometimes +they did talk to her, or sometimes one or other would break off +from their chatter and cry "Oh, poor Rosalie! We've not been taking +the least notice of you, have we? Now, what would you like to do?" +And perhaps they would run races, or perhaps explore, or perhaps +tell her a story, and Rosalie's spirits would come bursting out +from their dulness and all would be splendid. + +Not so when on the walks men, from being talked of, began to be +met. + +There were at Robert's Grammar School certain young men who were +in no way connected with the school but were the "private pupils" +of the headmaster and were reading for the universities. One day +Hilda started for the walk in her church hat and Flora also in her +church hat and her church gloves. They walked very fast; Rosalie +could hardly keep up. And then at a corner of a lane they suddenly +started to walk very slowly indeed, and suddenly again at a stile, +two of these young men were met. + +The young men raised their hats much farther than Rosalie had ever +seen a man raise his hat and one of them said, "Well, you have come +then?" + +Flora said, "Well, we just happened to be strolling along this +way." Then she said, "You needn't imagine we came to see you!" +which Rosalie thought very rude; but the young men seemed to like +it and all of them laughed a great deal. + +Presently they all started to walk together, Hilda and Flora in +the middle and one of the young men on either side. The walk lasted +much later than the walks usually lasted and the whole way Rosalie +trailed along behind; and on the whole afternoon the only words +addressed to Rosalie by her sisters came just as, the young men +hav-ing taken their leave a mile away, they were turning in at the +rectory gate. Flora then said, "Rosalie, darling, don't tell mother +or father or any one that we met any one." And Hilda said, "Yes, +remember, Rosalie, you're not to say anything about that." + +After that, the young men were met, and the four walked, and Rosalie +trailed, nearly every day. + +One of these young men was called Mr. Chalton and the other Mr. Ricks. +Like all men, and even more so, they were splendid and wonderful. +They had silver cigarette cases and smoked a lot, and they wore +most handsome waistcoats and ties, and some of their conversation +that came back to Rosalie, trailing behind, was of very wonderful +and exciting things they had done or were going to do. Mr. Holland, +the headmaster of the Grammar School, was the terror of Robert's +life, but it appeared that Mr. Chalton and Mr. Ricks were not in +the least afraid of Mr. Holland, and they talked a great deal of +what they would do to him if he ever tried to interfere with them +and a great deal of what they did do in the way of utterly disregarding +him. They were undeniably splendid and wonderful, but they utterly +ruined Rosalie's walks and they greatly intensified Rosalie's new +feelings towards men and boys,--that men and boys were a great +nuisance and spoilt things. + +Time went along. Other young men were met. In the holidays, quite +a number of young men came for their vacations to their homes in +Ibbotsfield and the surrounding district. Certain of these, unlike +the Grammar School private pupils, called openly at the rectory on +one pretext or another, but they were nevertheless also met secretly +by Flora and Hilda, ruined the walks precisely as Messrs. Chalton +and Ricks had first ruined them, and were on no account to be +mentioned by Rosalie to her father or mother. + +The reason for this secrecy was never explained to Rosalie and +the secrecy oppressed Rosalie. It took not only the form of being +a thing she was not able to tell to her mother, and Rosalie was in +the habit of telling everything she did to her mother, but it took +also the form of mysterious and vaguely alarming perils during the +walks. An immense watchfulness was kept up against chance encounters +with people. One of the party would often cry, "Look! Who's this?" +and the young men would separate from the girls and appear as if +they were walking by themselves. Sometimes they would break right +away and run off and not be met again. Very often Rosalie would be +sent on ahead to a turning and told to come back at once if anybody +was to be seen and then would be examined as to who the person +was. Sometimes she was posted to keep watch while the girls and +the young men slipped off somewhere, over a gate or into a barn. +She got to know by sometimes rushing in with warnings that Flora +and Hilda on these occasions smoked the young men's cigarettes. +Then when they got home, they would rush up to their room and wash +their teeth and put scent on themselves. And invariably when the +young men took their leave at the end of a walk there would be long +and close whisperings in which were always to be heard the words, +"Well, say you were--" or "Look here, we'll say we were--" and +generally, "Go away, Rosalie. There's nothing for you to listen +to." + +It all had the effect of making Rosalie feel unhappy and rather +frightened. She sometimes asked, "Why mustn't I say anything to +mother?" She was always told, and only told, "Because father doesn't +like us meeting men." + +No reason why father should not like them meeting men was ever +given, and Rosalie, ceaselessly disturbed by the concealment, could +never imagine what the reason could be. There could be no reason +that she could imagine; and she was thus immensely taken aback when +one evening at supper her father made a most surprising statement: +"The girls have no chance of ever meeting men in this infernal +place." + +Amazing! + +Rosalie's father had been abusing Ibbotsfield and everything that +pertained to Ibbotsfield. Some question of expenses had started him. +He was storming in his wild way, addressing himself to Rosalie's +mother but haranguing at large to all, everybody sitting in +silence and with oppressed faces, avoiding looking at one another +and avoiding especially the eyes of father. They were literally +ground down with poverty, Rosalie's father was saying. He didn't +know what was going to happen to them all. "It's all this place, +this infernal, buried-alive place. The girls ought to be moving +about and seeing people. How can they? Very well. My mind's made up. +There's my brother Tom in India. He could have one of the girls. +There's your sister Mrs. Pounce in London. She's Rosalie's godmother. +What's she ever done for Rosalie? Very well. My mind's made up. +I shall write to Tom and I shall write to Belle. I shall tell them +how we are situated. It's humiliating to have to tell them but +what's humiliation? I'm accustomed to humiliation. Ever since we +came here, I have eaten the bread and drunk the water of humiliation. +Now the children are growing up to share it. What can they do in +this loathsome and forsaken and miserable place? What chance have +the girls got? Can you tell me that?" + +He glared at Rosalie's mother. It was clear that he regarded her +as to blame. Rosalie thought that her dear mother must be to blame. +Her mother looked so beaten and frightened. There was glistening in +her eyes. Rosalie's heart felt utterly desolated for her mother. +She wished like anything she could say something for her dear +mother. Then most amazingly the chance to say something came. + +"Can you tell me that?" cried Rosalie's father. "What chance have +the girls of ever meeting men in this infernal place?" + +Rosalie burst out, "Oh, but father, nearly every day--" + +"Rosalie, don't interrupt!" cried Flora very sharply. + +"Rosalie, be quiet!" cried Hilda. + +Father glared and then went on and on. + +It was the beginning of a chain of most startling upheavals. It was +also, and the upheavals were also, a new manifestation to Rosalie +of the all-importance of men. After supper, in the first place, Flora +and Hilda, taking Rosalie very severely to task for her perilous +outburst, explained to her that the men they met were not the kind +of men that father meant they ought to meet. It was necessary, +it was essential, they explained, for every girl to meet men she +could marry. That was what every girl had to do. Men--surely you +understand that, Rosalie--had all the money and everything and met +girls and asked them to marry. Those men sometimes met on walks, +you little stupid, were too young and had no money yet. "There, +that's enough," they explained. "Anyhow, we shan't be meeting them +much more. One of us is probably going to India; you heard what +father said, didn't you?... Well, of course you can't understand +properly. You will when you're grown up. Surely that's quite enough +for you to understand at present.... How can a woman live if she +doesn't marry, stupid? She must have money to live and it is men +who have the money.... Well, of course they do because they earn +it; look at Harold; and Robert will have money when he's a little +older.... Well, how can women? Now, I said that's enough and it is +enough." + +It was enough and most satisfactorily enough for one purpose. It +was the first explanation of men as a race apart from women that +Rosalie had ever received and it precisely bore out all that she +had conceived about them. It affirmed her perception of the wonder +and greatness of men as compared with women. It intensified that +perception. + +Wonderful men! Marvellous and most fortunate men! + +And then the chain of most startling upheavals began. Father wrote +to Uncle Tom in India. Father wrote to Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, +in London. What he wrote was not to be known by Rosalie, outside +the rectory wheel. The others knew, for father, with enormous +pride at his wonderful epistolatory style in his voice, was heard +reading the letter to them. But the others, of course, knew also +what Rosalie never realised, the grinding poverty of the rectory. +She knew no other life than the herrings, the makeshifts, and the +general shabbiness of the rectory. It was not till long afterwards +that, looking back, she realised the pinching and the screwing that +served--almost--to make ends meet. + +So father wrote. India was far, London was near. Aunt Belle's reply +came while the letter to Uncle Tom was still upon the sea. Such a +reply! Wonderful father to win such a reply from Aunt Belle! "You +see what it is to be able to write a telling and forceful letter!" +cried father. Such an exciting reply! Aunt Belle was coming on a +visit "to talk it over and see what she could do." + +Aunt Belle came. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + + + +Oh, a red carpet, a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, +to come into the story! And if at the end of the red carpet there +could be an "At Home" in the splendid drawing-room of Aunt Belle, +Mrs. Pyke Pounce, at Pilchester Square, Notting Hill, an At Home +with about sixty-five ladies crammed into it, all of them wives of +most successful and well-off men, mostly retired from the Indian +Army and the Indian Civil Service, and all of them chattering +ecstatically, and nibbling, and pluming themselves, and tinkling +their teacups, and Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, enthroned in their +midst, and owning everything and seeming to own her five and sixty +guests, and chattering and nibbling and pluming and tinkling more +ecstatically than any; and then if there could come into them +beautiful cousin Laetitia (when about fifteen) with sleek black +hair beautifully ribboned behind, and with pale, fine brow, and +wearing the sweetest white frock, and if she could move delightfully +about among her mother's guests, and then play the sweetest little +trifle on the pianoforte to the delighted murmurs of the five and +sixty guests of her mother ("She's under Pflunk. The great Pflunk!"); +and then if there could come in from the City Uncle Pyke, Colonel +Pyke Pounce, R.E., (retired) now director of several highly +important companies, and if Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., +could stand on the hearthrug with his massy jowl and his determined +stomach, and grunt, and rattle the money in his pockets, and grunt +again; and if then there could come in the new parlour maid of +Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, with her tallness and her deftness +and her slight, very slight, insolence of air, and all the five +and sixty gazing upon her as haughty but envious patricians gazing +upon a slave, and when she had gone swishing out if Aunt Belle, +Mrs. Pyke Pounce, could tell all the sixty and five of her tallness, +her deftness and her slight, very slight, insolence of manner---- + +Oh, if there could be this and these and a fine red carpet, how +exactly and how fittingly would Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, step +upon the scene! + +"Dear thing!" That was Rosalie's portrait and thought of her in long +after years. Dear thing! The drawing-room of her crowded triumphs +is now the shabby drawing-room of a second-rate boarding house; +the jolly horse bus she used so commandingly to stop in the Holland +Park Avenue and so regally to enter (whip-waving driver, cap-touching +conductor) long has given place to a thundering motor saloon that +stops wheresoever it listeth and wherein Aunt Belles and old-clothes +women fight to hang by a strap. + +Dear thing! Her ownership of five and sixty guests is exchanged +for ownership of not more than seven and fifty inches of cold earth +in Brompton Cemetery. She is passed and Uncle Pyke, Colonel Pyke +Pounce, R.E., is grunted past to lay himself beside her. They are +passed. Up-reared upon her and upon him is a stupendous granite +chunk (in a way not unlike Uncle Pyke on his hearthrug) erected by +their sorrowing daughter. She is passed; she came into Rosalie's +life and Rosalie crossed her life and she never forgave Rosalie. + +Dear thing! Lie lightly on her, stones! + +She came to the rectory "to talk it over and see what can be done" +for a week's visit, and she stepped out of the cab, all the family +assembled to greet her, a new and most surprising figure such as +Rosalie had never seen before. She was dressed in startling fashions +of a most wonderful richness, and she had immense plumes in her +hat that nodded when she moved and trembled when she stood still, +and she was herself either always nodding with glittering animation +or straightening her back and quivering as if straining at a leash +and just about to burst it and go off. She was like Rosalie's +mother and yet not a bit like her. She was older and yet terribly +brisker and stronger. Those were the days when frosted Christmas +cards were of the artistic marvels of the age, and Aunt Belle +beside Rosalie's mother somehow made Rosalie think of a frosted +card beside one of the plain cards. When Rosalie's mother was in +a room you often might not know she was there; but when Aunt Belle +was in a room there seemed to be no one there except Aunt Belle. +She began to talk, in a voice as high as the house, while she was +still descending from the cab on her arrival, and the only time +Rosalie ever saw her not talking was during service in Church on +Sunday, when she was alternately glittering or whispering or else +bending down so extraordinarily low that Rosalie thought she was +going to lie prone upon the floor. + +Dear thing! She was so kind to Rosalie and so kind to them all, and +yet----And yet they all, except Rosalie who was too small (then) +to appreciate the resented quality in Aunt Belle's kindness, and +Rosalie's mother who was too gentle to resent anything, and yet +they all, save Rosalie and her mother, loathed and abominated Aunt +Belle. It was her way of doing things. She gave kind gifts, but +it was the way she gave them. She admired everything and everybody +in the rectory, but it was the way she admired. She said most kind +and affectionate things, but it was her way of saying them. + +"Why, how very nice indeed!" That was her insistent comment +upon everything in the rectory. But the tone was, "How very nice +indeed--for you." + +That was the trouble. That was what made Harold (who at twenty-six +was getting very like his father) hurl about a thousand miles over +the garden wall the three apples Aunt Belle gave him as his share +of the "very best apples from the Army and Navy Stores" which she +brought down with other "goodies" for "the dear children"; and +made, him grit his teeth after she had been in the house two days +and cry, "Dash her! Poor relations; that's how she treats us! I'm +dashed if I'm a poor relation. I'm earning three pound ten a week +at the Bank and I bet that appalling old Uncle Pyke didn't get it +or anything like it at my age!" + +Dear thing! "She meant it kindly." That was the sweet apologetic +excuse with which Rosalie's mother followed the track of the storms +Aunt Belle aroused and with which she sought to abate them. "She +means it kindly. She means it kindly, dear." + +It should be Aunt Belle's epitaph. It ought to be graven upon that +granite chunk in Brompton Cemetery. "She meant it kindly!" + +Issuing from the cab, Aunt Belle began by kissing Rosalie's mother +in a most astonishing series of kisses that whizzed from cheek to +cheek so that it was a miracle to Rosalie that the two noses did +not collide and her dear mother's be knocked right off; and then +most enthusiastically kissed all the family, applying to each +the phrase with which she began on Harold "Well, well, so this is +Harold!" (As if it were the most astounding and unexpected thing +in the world that it was Harold.) "So this is Harold! Why, what a +great big clever fellow, and what a comfort to your dear mother, +I am sure!" And then gazed rapturously upon the house and said to +Rosalie's mother and to them all, "Well, well, what a very, very +nice house, to be sure!" + +("For you!") + +She meant it kindly. Her manner of talking about herself and +about her possessions was not that of bragging or of conscious +superiority; it was, to the whole rectory family, and to all +poorer than herself wherever she met them, that of one entertaining +a party of children--of a kind lady telling stories to a group of +round-eyed infants. When she first had tea on the afternoon of her +arrival, she gazed upon the silver teapot as it was carried in +and exclaimed, "Well, well, what a very, very handsome teapot! And +hot-water jug to match! How very, very nice! Now how ever do you +think I keep my water hot at tea? I have a very nice service all +in silver gilt! It looks just like gold! And there's a kettle to +match with a spirit flame under it. The maid brings in the kettle +boiling and we just light the spirit with a match and there it is +gently boiling all the time!" + +Dusk drew in and the lamps were lit. "Lamps!" ecstatically exclaimed +Aunt Belle! "How nice! And Hilda keeps the lamps clean, does she? +What a dear, helpful girl and how very, very bright and nice they +are! Now what do you think? In my house, everywhere, even in the +kitchen, we've got this new electric light! Your kind uncle Pyke +had it put in for me. Installed, as they call it. Now, just fancy, +all you have is a little brass knob by each door, and you just touch +a little switch, and there's your light! No matches, no trouble, +just click! and there you are. Of course it was very expensive, but +your Uncle Pyke insisted upon my having it. He always will insist +upon my having everything of the best." + +Dear thing! The echo of her ceaseless tongue brings her exactly to +life again--glittering, chattering, pluming, presenting, praising--her +servants! her house! her parties! her friends! her daughter! her +husband!--Oh, yes, a red carpet! a red carpet for Aunt Belle, Mrs. +Pyke Pounce, to come into the story, and so (at the end of her +visit) into Rosalie's life like this: + +"And Rosalie is going away to school! To a boarding school in +London where there will be ever so many very nice playmates of her +own age, and such romps, and such good wholesome food, and such +nice, kind, clever mistresses! Why, what a lucky, lucky girl! There, +Rosalie, what do you think of that? You are my godchild, and I and +your kind uncle Pyke are going to send you to school and pay for +your education because of course we are well off and can afford +it and your dear mother and father can't. There! Now isn't that +delightful? Come and give me a nice kiss then. The dear child!" + +Tremendous moment! Supernal upheaval! First and greatest upheaval +of the chain of upheavals! Rosalie was to go away to school! + +That was at the rectory breakfast table on the last morning of +the visit, and that was Aunt Belle, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, coming into +Rosalie's life. "Come and give me a kiss then"; that was kind, +kind Aunt Belle, inviting acknowledgment of her kindness and the +kindness of Uncle Pyke (with a cheque) and the kindness of Cousin +Laetitia (with a box of beautiful cast-off clothes that would do +beautifully for Rosalie's school outfit). "The dear child!" That +was Aunt Belle's acknowledgment of Rosalie's most dutiful and most +affectionate and most delighted kiss. (Most amazed and excited and +rather fearful Rosalie! Going to school! Going away to a boarding +school in London!) + +"The dear child!" Such a warm and loving kiss from Rosalie! And +time was to prove it the kiss of Judas! Yes, in a few years, "I've +done everything for you!" Aunt Belle was to cry. "Everything! And +this is the return I get!" + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + + + +Next, in its turn, and exactly a fortnight before the beginning +of the term at which Rosalie was to join the boarding school in +London, came the letter from Uncle Tom in India, and with it the +beginning of the second upheaval in the chain of upheavals. + +All of this upheaval was very bewildering to Rosalie. She never +understood it properly. At the beginning it had nothing at all to +do with Anna, and yet Anna from the very first reading of Uncle +Tom's letter--All that Rosalie understood of it was this. + +First the letter came. Tremendous excitement! Father in wild +excitement, Flora and Hilda in frantic excitement, everyone in +highest excitement. Father read the letter aloud at breakfast to +Rosalie's mother and to the girls. Such a splendid letter, said +father. Really, Tom was a splendid fellow, said father. He had +wronged Tom. He had thought Tom selfish in his wealthy indifference. +By Jove, Tom wasn't. "By Jove, the way Tom wrote almost brought +tears to your eyes. Listen to this. Listen, mother. Listen, you +girls." + +Uncle Tom, said the letter, would by all means, old man, have one +of the girls. He'd no idea that things were so bad with you. Poor +old man! Why didn't you tell us before? He was sending home a small +draft to Field and Company, his bankers, to help towards the girl's +outfit and her passage money. "'Which girl shall you send?' you +ask. Well, it's no good asking us, old man. You must decide that +for yourselves. She'll be abundantly welcome, whichever it is, and +we can promise her a jolly good time. We are at Simla most of the +year. If you want my advice which girl to send, send the pretti--" + +Father stopped reading. + +Rosalie was staring at Anna. Anna's face, which had been pale, +suddenly went crimson. The suddenness and the violence of it was +extraordinary. One moment she had been pale. In the next, she was +burning red. It was exactly as if a crimson paint had suddenly been +dashed over the whole of her face. It was extraordinary. Whatever +was it? That nose of hers, perhaps? a sudden frightful twinge like +Rosalie once had had a sudden most awful jump in a tooth? But Anna +didn't say anything and no one but Rosalie seemed to notice it. They +were all intent upon father. So intent! Flora's eyes were simply +shining! + +And Flora's eyes soon after that were shining more than ever. She +was wild with excitement. Rosalie heard the news just before tea. +Flora was going to India to Uncle Tom! + +"Oh," cried Flora, "I'm so excited I simply don't know what to +do with myself!" It was all arranged. Father had settled it. She +was to go in about six weeks' time. Very shortly she was to go up +to London with father and buy heaps of clothes and all sorts of +things. They were going to stay at a hotel. "Not with Aunt Belle, +thank goodness!" said Flora. "At a hotel! Fancy that!" Mother +wasn't going and Flora was glad mother wasn't going. She would have +a much better time with father. Father had decided everything. He +had decided that mother couldn't leave him in the rectory with all +the housekeeping to look after, and the change would do him good, +and Aunt Belle would be able to help with the shopping. They were +going to see some theatres and all kinds of things and were going +to have a most splendid time and then, soon afterwards--India! "Oh +I shall go mad with excitement in a minute!" cried Flora. + +The next thing was in the evening. Rosalie, searching for her +mother to ask her something, could not find her. She went into her +mother's bedroom and there was the most surprising thing. There +was Anna on her knees by her mother and her head on her mother's +lap and Anna was sobbing; and she was crying in her sobs, "But it's +my right! I'm the eldest. It's my right!" + +Rosalie stood there, unnoticed, amazed. Whatever was it? + +Rosalie's mother stroked Anna's head and spoke very softly, "My +darling! My darling!" She said, "My darling, your father has decided. +Your father knows best. Men always know best, my darling." + +"It's my right, mother. It's my right. It's always Flora. Oh, why +should it always be Flora?" + +"Dear Anna. Poor Anna. You must be reasonable, dear Anna. We women +must always be reasonable. Don't you see that your father thinks +of me? He thinks my eldest girl--my dear eldest girl--ought to stay +at home to look after her mother. It's on my account, dear Anna. +He thinks of me." + +"Oh, mother, what's the good of telling me that? A lot he thinks +of you or ever has! Why is he going up to London with Flora when +it's your place to go? A lot he thinks of you! You say we must +be reasonable. You can be. You've been unselfish all your life. I +can't be. Not in this. I've never had a pleasure in my life; I've +never had a chance; I've never had anything done for me. Ever since +I can remember it's always been Flora, Flora, Flora. Now there's +this. I'm getting on, mother. I'm nearly twenty-four. What have I +got to look forward to? Flora's younger, Flora's different. She'll +have lots of chances of enjoying herself. This is my right. It's +my right, mother." + +"My dear Anna. My eldest girl. My first dear, sweet girlie. How +could I do without you? How happy we've been. How happy we will +be." + +Rosalie crept away. + +After a time, Flora and her father went away on the great visit +to London. They were to be away over two Sundays. A clergyman was +coming from Ashborough to take service at the church. Rosalie's +father went off in spirits as high and youthful as the spirits +of Flora. For days before he was quite a different man. Everybody +was asked to choose a present which he would bring back. Everybody +chose with much excitement and chaffing except Anna, who said she +could not think of anything. At meals, father kept on saying how +he wished he could regularly make a point of getting up to town +for a bit, it made all the difference being able to get away from +this infernal place for a bit. When herrings were on the table, +he actually came round and did her herring for Rosalie's mother +and Rosalie's mother was able to eat the whole of it and said how +delicious it was and how clever father was. + +It was all splendid. Rosalie had never known such a jolly spirit in +the house. The only thing that spoilt Rosalie's happiness in the new +jolly spirit was the nights in Anna's room. Anna was most frightening +to Rosalie. She prayed now longer than ever, her shoulders moving +beneath her nightgown as if she was shuddering all the time she +prayed. And at night she talked more than ever in her sleep; also +she used to get out of bed at night and walk about the room and +talk aloud to herself. It was frightening. + +Then Flora and father were in London and tremendous long letters +came from Flora to her mother and to all: they were buying heaps +of dresses and underclothes and white drill coats and skirts and +a riding habit and goodness knows what all. "A regular trousseau!" +wrote Flora with about seventeen marks of exclamation after the +word. And all they were seeing--they had been to the Lyceum Theatre +and seen Mr. Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry and to the Savoy and +seen "The Mikado." Every moment of the day was taken up and half +the night. Oh, this was a change from Ibbotsfield! + +Anna would never listen to the letters. When they were read out, +she either would put her fingers in her ears or go out of the +room. And yet, curiously, she often later in the day would say in +a funny constricted voice, "Let me see Flora's letter. Give it to +me, will you please?" And would take it away and read it by herself. + +Anna was stranger and stranger in her manner and in her behaviour +at night. Rosalie came quite to dread the nights. Anna began to +pray out loud. She used to pray over and over again the same thing: +"It's not that I'm jealous, O Lord. O purge my heart of jealousy. +It is that I see what could be and what ought to be for me and what +never will be for me. I've nothing to look forward to, nothing, +nothing, nothing, nothing. It is hard for women. O God, thou knowest +how hard it is for women." + +It was frightening. + +Then came the second Sunday of the absence in London. In the night +of Saturday, Rosalie was again awakened by the sounds of Anna and +again heard her praying and again heard "It is hard for women. O +God, thou knowest how hard it is for women." + +She had heard it so often! Anna seemed to have stopped praying. +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 God 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 shirt 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 pass 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 shine 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 Godhood. They walk near God. + +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 God, 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 God 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 class 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 assured 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, +hush! 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 God knew it was hard for them--"O God, +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 nobody 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 +advertisement to appear on the front page of the Morning Post. + +"High-class Ladies' School for the Daughters of Gentlemen of the +Professions has UNEXPECTED VACANCY for ONE ONLY pupil at reduced +terms--Mrs. Impact, Oakwood House School, St. John's Wood, London." + +ONE ONLY pupil! That was the magic touch. + +The very first words addressed to Rosalie by a fellow boarder at +Oakwood House were from a short, sharp-featured girl of her own +age, which then was twelve, who said to her sharply, "You're a One +Only. I can see you are. Aren't you a One Only?" + +"Well, I'm by myself," said Rosalie, not understanding but most +anxious to say the right thing. + +"Stupid, you're not," said the sharp girl, "because I'm with you. +Did your mother see the advertisement in the Morning Post? The +advertisement of this school?" + +It happened that Rosalie knew her mother had seen it for Aunt +Belle had shown it to her and to them all. "One of the very best +schools," Aunt Belle had said. "You see, it's only quite by chance +there was a vacancy." + +"Yes, she did," said Rosalie. + +"She's the cat's grandmother," said the sharp girl. "Never say +'she' for a person's name. Well, if your mother saw the advertisement +then you are a One Only at reduced terms, and I knew you were +directly I saw you. Now, tell me. Don't blink--unless of course +you're an idiot; all idiots blink. Tell me. Was that dress made +for you or was it cut down?" + +"It was my cousin Laetitia's," said Rosalie. + +"Of course it was," returned the sharp girl very triumphantly. +"Every One Only's clothes are cut down for her. Poopers! Do you +know what a pooper is? A pooper is half a poop and half a pauper. +Every One Only's a pooper. Well, now you know what you are. You +see that girl over there. Do you know what she is?" + +Rosalie said she did not. + +"She's a Red Indian." + +"Is she?" said Rosalie, much surprised, for the girl did not look +in the least like a Red Indian. + +"Ask her," said the sharp girl. "Do you know what I am?" + +Rosalie shook her head. + +"Answer," said the sharp girl. + +"No, I don't," said Rosalie. + +"I'm a Sultan," said the sharp girl. "All the nice girls are Sultans +and the school belongs to them. Do I look nice?" + +"Very," said Rosalie, though she did not think so. + +"Then why didn't you know I was a Sultan? The school belongs to +the Sultans. The One Onlys and the Red Indians are interlopers, +especially the One Onlys. Always shudder when you see a Sultan. +Shudder now." + +Rosalie wriggled her shoulders. + +"Again, poop." + +Rosalie repeated the wriggle. + +"Vanish, poop," said the sharp girl, and herself sprung away with +mysterious crouching bounds, her head thrust forward, looking very +like Gagool, the witch, in King Solomon's Mines; and was seen by +Rosalie to pounce upon another small girl who was probably a One +Only and, from her forlorn aspect, certainly a sad and desolated +new. + +One Onlys, Red Indians, Sultans. They were the three castes into +which the girls divided themselves: One Onlys the poopers brought +by the advertisement; Red Indians the daughters of parents resident +in India; Sultans the proud creatures who paid full fees and took +their title from the nickname of the headmistress--the Sultana. +This Oakwood House School in which Rosalie now found herself was +one of those very big old houses with a spacious, walled-in garden +that probably was occupied in the Fifties somewhere, when St. +John's Wood was out in the country, by a wealthy old City merchant +who rode in to business two or three times a week, never dreaming +that one day London was going to stretch miles beyond St. John's +Wood, and his imposing residence go dropping down the scale of +fashion eventually to become a school for young ladies who on their +crocodile walks would huddle, giggling, along the kerbstone while +the dangerous traffic roared up and down the Maida Vale highway. + +Those crocodiles! There was a news agent's shop just opposite +where the crocodile used to cross when it went out every morning, +and one of the great excitements of the walk was to get around the +corner and see what the newspaper bills had to tell. There were +about forty girls at the school--a crocodile twenty files long--and +on the days of sensational events the news from the placards used +to come flashing back in emotional little screams from the head +of the crocodile, gazing with goggling eyes, to the tail of the +crocodile pressing deliriously up behind. "The Maybrick Case"; +"Jack the Ripper Again"; "Death of the Duke of Clarence"; "Loss of +H.M.S. Victoria"; Rosalie never afterwards could hear those terrific +things referred to without recalling instantly the convulsions of +the crocodile and experiencing within her own bosom the tumults +that contributed their share to the convulsions. She was in the +writhing tail of the crocodile when "Jack the Ripper Again" caused +it almost to swoon, and she was in its weeping head when "Death +of the Duke of Clarence" and "Loss of H.M.S. Victoria" struck its +orderly coils into a tangled and hysterical knot. + +Mrs. Impact, who kept this school, was a massive and frightening +figure of doom who wore always upon her head, and was suspected of +sleeping in, a strange erection having the appearance of a straw +beehive. She was called the Sultana and her appearance and her +habits seemed to Rosalie precisely the appearance and habits that +would belong to a sultana. The Sultana appeared virtually never +among the girls. The direction of the discipline and education of +the pupils was in the hands of the chief of the Sultana's staff of +badly paid and much intimidated mistresses. This chief of staff, by +name Miss Ough, but called the Vizier, appeared from and disappeared +into the quarters occupied by the Sultana, and was popularly supposed +to be kept there in a dungeon. If you were near the door through +which the Vizier passed from public gaze there was unquestionably to +be heard shortly afterwards a metallic clank. This was the portal +of the Vizier's dungeon being closed upon her and was very shuddering +to hear. The Vizier, moreover, like one long incarcerated, was +skeletonized of form, cadaverous and sallow of countenance, and +grew upon her face, as all right prisoners in royal custody grow, +a thick covering of greyish down. + +A second known inhabitant of the Sultana's quarters was Mr. Ponders, +her butler, who sometimes slid into the classrooms in a very eerie +way with messages and whom Rosalie came to know strangely well; a +third, but he did not exactly live in the awful regions, was the +Sultana's husband. The Sultana's husband lived in two rooms over +the stable. From the front classroom windows he was to be seen +every morning disappearing through the front gates at about eleven +o'clock; very shiny top hat; very tight tail coat; very tight grey +trousers; very tight yellow gloves; very tight grey-yellow moustache; +very tight pasty face; curiously constricted, jerky gait as though +his boots, too, were very tight. Precisely the sort of chronic, +half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see in billiard rooms or eating +cloves in West End bars. By association of ideas with the orientalism +of Sultana he was called by the girls the Bashibazook. + +Junior to Miss Ough, the vizier, were four or five other mistresses, +all known by nicknames. Children are exactly like savages in their +horrible sharpness at picking out physical peculiarities and +labelling by them. One would imagine these governesses, judged +by their nicknames, a deplorable collection of oddities. Actually +they must have been a presentable enough and a capable enough set +of spinsters, though sicklied o'er by the pale cast of indifferent +personalities, indifferently housed, indifferently fed, indifferently +paid; all anaemic, all without any prospects whatsoever, all dominated +by and domineered over by the masterful personality of the Sultana. + +Only one of them contributed to the life of Rosalie and this was +"Keggo," Miss Keggs, who taught mathematics. This Keggo was rather +like Anna in appearance, Rosalie thought, and was most popular of +all the mistresses with the girls, partly because of her bright +moments in which she was a human creature and an entertaining +creature; partly because of her curiously supine periods in which +she would be utterly listless, allow her class to do anything they +liked provided they kept perfectly quiet, and would make no attempt +whatsoever to correct idleness or to impart the lesson of the hour. +Miss Keggs had been known to knock over the inkpot on her desk and +sit and watch the ink dripping in a pool on to the floor without +making the least attempt even to upstand the vessel. No one knew +why Keggo had these moods. But it was known that for her to come +into class looking rather flushed was a sign foreshadowing them. + +She appeared to take a fancy to Rosalie from the first, and Rosalie +to her, probably by reason of the fancied resemblance to Anna. She +invited Rosalie to her room and Rosalie loved to go there because +the One Onlys were in a very weak and humble minority in Rosalie's +first term and were rather hunted by the Sultans who were then +particularly strong in numbers and rich in apparel, in pocket money, +and in friends. The poor little One Onlys led rather abashed lives +and they had no chance at all around the playroom fire where the +Sultans stretched their elegant legs and warmed their shapely toes. + +One evening in her first few weeks Rosalie had to take an exercise +up to Miss Keggs, and Miss Keggs's room was warm, and Miss Keggs +like Anna, and Rosalie lingered and was invited to linger; after +that Rosalie sought and invented reasons for going up to Miss Keggs's +room and Miss Keggs would nearly always say, "Well, you may stay +a little, Rosalie, as you're here." + +Miss Keggs's room was right at the top of the house where were also +the servants' room and the room shared by Miss Downer and Miss +Frost. It was a long, narrow room with sloping ceiling and the +window high up in the ceiling. In the winter it was warmed with +a small oil stove which smelt terribly when you first went in but +to the smell of which you almost at once got accustomed. It was +curious to Rosalie that even in summer when there was no oil stove +there was nearly always a very strong smell in Miss Keggs's room. +Miss Keggs used eau de Cologne for bathing her forehead and temples +on account of the very bad headaches from which she said she suffered +and the smell was like eau de Cologne but with an unpleasantly +harsh strong tang in it, like bad eau de Cologne, Rosalie used to +think. However, you almost at once got accustomed to that also. These +headaches of Miss Keggs were a symptom of the very bad health from +which she suffered, and on the occasions of Rosalie's visits to +her room Miss Keggs was very communicative about her ill health. It +was the reason, she told Rosalie, why, alone of all the mistresses, +she had a room to herself instead of sharing one. The Sultana had +granted her that privilege, provided she would use this remote and +rather poky attic, because it was so essential she should be quiet +and undisturbed. + +"Don't you have any medicine, Miss Keggs?" said the small Rosalie, +in one part genuinely sympathetic and in the other eager to discuss +anything that would prolong her stay by the warm oil stove. + +"Nothing does me any good," said Miss Keggs wearily. After a minute +she added, "But I really am feeling very bad to-night. Mr. Ponders +very kindly gives me some medicine that relieves my bad attacks. +I wonder, Rosalie, if you could find your way down to Mr. Ponders +and give him this medicine bottle and ask him if he could very +kindly oblige me with a little of my medicine?" + +"Oh, I'm sure I could, Miss Keggs," cried Rosalie, delighted at +the opportunity of doing a service. + +Miss Keggs became extraordinarily animated with the feverish +animation of one who, having made up her mind after hesitation, +furiously tramples hesitation under foot. + +"Go right downstairs," directed Miss Keggs, "right down below the +hall into the basement. You know the basement stairs?" She proceeded +with her directions, detailing them most exactly. She accompanied +Rosalie to the door and when Rosalie was a little down the passage +sharply called her back. "And, Rosalie! If you should meet any +one--if you should meet any one, on no account say where you are +going or where you have been. On no account. If it should be known +how ill I continue to be, I might be sent away. They might think +I am not strong enough to continue my work here. Say you have lost +your way if you should be met. You are a new little girl and it is +easy to lose your way in this big, rambling house. Keep the bottle +in your pocket and remember, Rosalie, on no account to tell. On no +account." And so dismissed her. + +A creepy business, going down to interview Mr. Ponders! The Sultana's +butler was only seen by the girls on momentous and thrilling +occasions. He opened the hall door when new little girls arrived +with their mothers, and he would sometimes appear in a classroom +and walk thrillingly to the mistress and thrillingly whisper. This +always meant that for some fortunate girl a parent or an aunt had +arrived and that the presence of the fortunate girl was desired +by the Sultana. He was a shortish, dingy man with a considerable +moustache. As he walked between the desks to deliver his message, +his eyes were always glancing from side to side as though furtively +in search of something, and always as he left the room he would +stand a moment with his hand on the door as though meditating some +statement and then suddenly de-termining to disappear without making +it. A rather mysterious and thrilling man. + +Come into the basement, Rosalie walked as bid along the passage, +then to the right and then past two doors to the third, whereon +she tapped gently, and when a man's voice said "Come in," quaked +rather, and went in. The walls of Mr. Ponders' room were completely +surrounded by narrow shelves. Beneath the shelves were the closed +doors of low cupboards and on the shelves were ranged many glasses, +china and silverware. At one end beneath the window was a sink with +two taps, both dripping. On the right-hand side was a fire before +which in a wicker armchair sat Mr. Ponders smoking a pipe and +reading a newspaper. + +"What do you want?" inquired Mr. Ponders. + +Rosalie said, "If you please, Mr. Ponders, Miss Keggs is not feeling +at all well and would you be so very kind as to give her some of +her medicine, please?" + +Mr. Ponders rose and regarded Rosalie from the hearthrug. "So it's +going to be you coming for the medicine now, is it?" he said. He +looked rather a mean little man, standing there; not thrilling as +when he appeared in the schoolrooms for there was an unpleasing +familiarity in his air, but still decidedly mysterious, for though +he smiled and looked snakily at Rosalie, he still glanced from side +to side as though furtively looking for something and he still, +before committing himself to an action, paused as though meditating +a statement and then suddenly performed the action as though he +had made up his mind not to speak--yet. + +"You're Rosalie, aren't you?" inquired Ponders, putting his hands +in his pockets and stretching out his stomach like one much at his +ease. "Rosalie Aubyn. You come with your Auntie. What's your Pa?" + +"A clergyman, Mr. Ponders." + +"Oh, he's a clergyman, is he?" Mr. Ponders's eyes slid from side to +side, rather as if he had somewhere in the room some confirmation +or some refutation of Rosalie's statement that he could produce if +he could catch sight of it, and continued thus to slide with the +same suggestion while he playfully put Rosalie through a further +examination relative to her "Auntie," her "Ma" and her brothers +and sisters. He appeared then to be meditating a question of some +other order but instead suddenly straightened himself, withdrew +his hands from his pockets and said, "Well, you'd better be running +along with the medicine." + +He took from Rosalie the bottle Miss Keggs had given her and from +his pockets a bunch of keys. In the lock of one of his cupboards +he fitted a key, paused a meditative moment, then with a decisive +action opened the cupboard and from a tall black bottle very +carefully and steadily filled the medicine bottle. The medicine was +dark red. It first ran in a fine dark red cloud around the inner +shoulders and sides of the bottle and then plunged in a steady +stream direct from the larger receptacle to the smaller. + +Rosalie, watching, was moved to say, "How well you pour it, Mr. +Ponders." + +"I've poured a tidy drop in my time," said Mr. Ponders, completing +the operation and corking the medicine bottle. He held it towards +Rosalie, paused in his mysteriously deliberative way, and then +suddenly handed it to her. "And a tidy fair drop for Miss Keggs +at that," he added. He went to the door, again paused as though +uncertain whether to open it, then opened it for Rosalie to pass +out. "Good night," said Mr. Ponders. + +Lucky Mr. Ponders to have for his own a cosy room like that--men, +always for some reason, with the best of everything again! Unpleasing +Mr. Ponders to look at you like that and to speak to you like +that--men, always horrible again! Rosalie, thus thinking, made +a swift and unobserved climb to the attics. Miss Keggs must have +heard her coming. The door was pulled sharply from Rosalie's hand +and there was Miss Keggs and the bottle almost snatched away from +Rosalie. "How long you've been! But you've got it! And no one saw +you?" Miss Keggs went very swiftly to the washstand and took up a +small tumbler. Clear that she wanted her medicine very badly. She +toppled in the contents of the bottle, its neck clinking against +the glass, the dark red medicine splashing and some spilling, so +differently from Mr. Ponders's performance of a far more difficult +operation, and with the bottle still in her hand held the glass to +her lips and drank deeply. + +Yet there was a funny thing about the draught. It seemed to Rosalie +that Miss Keggs with that eager draught yet did not swallow at once +but only filled her mouth to its capacity. She then swallowed very +slowly and with movements of her cheeks as though she was sucking +down the medicine and tasting it in every portion of her mouth. +Colour came into her cheeks. The medicine certainly appeared to do +her immense good. + +Miss Keggs's friendliness towards Rosalie was settled and +established from that night. Thereafter it became a very regular +thing for Rosalie to visit the room of Miss Keggs of an evening; +and at intervals, sometimes twice a week, sometimes not three times +in a month, to descend to the den of Mr. Ponders for the dark-red +medicine which did Miss Keggs so much good and which she always +took in that peculiar sucking way from a full mouth, one would be +so long sometimes in swallowing a mouthful, beginning a sentence +and then drinking and then all that time in swallowing before she +completed the sentence, that she several times, by way of apology, +ex-plained the reason to Rosalie. "I have to swallow it very slowly +like that," explained Miss Keggs, "because that's the way for it +to do me good. It's my doctor's orders." + +"It seems a business," was Rosalie's comment. + +"Yes, it is a business," Miss Keggs agreed. + +Rosalie added, "How very lucky it is, Miss Keggs, that Mr. Ponders +keeps your medicine." + +"Yes, it's certainly very lucky," Miss Keggs agreed. + +The effect of her medicine was always to make her very complaisant. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + + + +One seeks to give only the things in Rosalie's life that contributed +to her record, as time judges a record. Of her years at Oakwood House, +so far as Oakwood House itself is concerned, only that friendship +with Miss Keggs thus contributed. The rest does not matter and +may be passed. Rosalie was happy there. It naturally was all very +strange at first but she soon shook down and found her place and +formed friendships. The thing to notice is this--that even in the +strangeness of her first few weeks the place was actively felt by +her to be a haven. There is to be recalled that aching desire of +hers, when poor Anna lay dead, to get right away from men: men who +(though still pre-eminently wonderful) caused her by their showing +off to blink and have a, funny feeling; and by their distasteful +presence spoilt her walks and her lessons; and by the frightening +things they did had brought that frightening death to Anna. Thus +had accumulated that aching desire to get right away from men and +be only amongst girls; and the feeling remained most lively in +Rosalie at the Sultana's, and intensified. Those men! She used to +see the Bashibazook and shudder at him; and Mr. Ponders and shudder +at him; and sometimes Uncle Pyke, and because of ways he had, feel +quite sick to be near him. Men still were wonderful. The Bashibazook, +Mr. Ponders, Uncle Pyke, Uncle Pyke's friends--all were infinitely +superior and did what they pleased; but, oh, not nice, frightening. +It was safe and nice to be only with girls. Girls were in heaps +of ways extraordinarily silly and unsatisfactory. Men though not +nice, unquestionably did everything better and could do things. +Unquestionably theirs was the best time in life. Unquestionably +they were to be envied. But--not nice, frightening. + +It was like that that her ideas at Oakwood House were shaping. + +And all this time, most important and much contributory to the life +of Rosalie--Aunt Belle. Tremendous occasions in those years were +the visits to the Sultana's of Aunt Belle. Frequently on a Saturday, +kind Aunt Belle used to call at Oakwood House for Rosalie and take +her to a tea shop for tea. Beautiful cousin Laetitia would accompany +her, and kind Aunt Belle would always invite Rosalie to bring with +her another little One Only. Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Aunt Belle +used to sit by in the tea shop, affectionate and loquacious as +ever, while the two schoolgirls stuffed themselves with cakes (not +beautiful Laetitia who just nicely sipped a cup of tea and nicely +smiled at the two gross appetites) and always kind Aunt Belle +brought a small hamper of sweets and cake and apples--"The very best +goodies from the Army and Navy Stores, dear child. They know us so +well at the Army and Navy Stores. Your Uncle Pyke has a standing +deposit account there. We can go in without a penny in our pockets +and buy anything we please. Fancy that, dear child!" And always +half a crown for Rosalie, as kind Aunt Belle was leaving. + +Once in every term, also, Rosalie spent a week-end at the magnificent +house in Pilchester Square. Such luxuries! Fire in her bedroom and +palatial late dinner! Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning ("Just +to let you lie as a little change from school, dear child.") and +Laetitia's maid to do her hair! Rosalie immensely im-pressed and +Aunt Belle immensely gratified at Rosalie's awe and appreciation +and gratitude. + +A curious manifestation there was of Aunt Belle's attitude in this +regard. On that famous visit to the rectory she had treated every +one like children. Here, in her own house, while Rosalie was still +a child, twelve, thirteen and fourteen, she was treated by Aunt +Belle and shown off to by her much as if she were a grown-up woman. +About her servants, and about prices, and about dress, and about +her dinner parties, Aunt Belle chattered to Rosalie; and about +Uncle Pyke, what he liked, and what he didn't like, and what he +did in the City, and what he did at his club, and about her hosts +of friends and their matrimonial experiences, Aunt Belle chattered +to her, confiding in her and telling her all kinds of things she but +dimly understood precisely as if she were a grown-up young woman. + +Then as Rosalie grew older, sixteen, seventeen and getting on for +eighteen, was reversion by Aunt Belle to the rectory manner. The +child had been treated as a young woman; the budding maiden was +treated precisely as if she were a small child or a small savage +to be entertained by mere sight of the wonders all about her in +Pilchester Square and by having them explained to her in words of +one syllable. + +"There, Rosalie," (Rosalie at seventeen) "do you know you're eating +with a solid silver spoon! Feel the weight of it! Balance it in your +hand, dear child. We usually only use this service for our dinner +parties and your uncle Pyke keeps it locked up and carries the key +about with him. Show Rosalie the key, Pyke. But I got it out for +you to-day because I knew you would like to see real solid silver +plate. Dear child!" + +Dear thing! Lightly on her, you Brompton Cemetery stones! + +Uncle Pyke never would produce the key or whatever he might be +asked to show. Uncle Pyke would grunt and go on with his soup with +enormous noise as though having a bath in it. Uncle Pyke never spoke +at all to Rosalie on these week-end visits except, always, to put +her through examination on what she was learning at school. Rosalie, +though horribly frightened of Uncle Pyke, always had pretty ready +answers to the examination--she did uncommonly well at school--but +there never was from Uncle Pyke any other mark of appreciation +than a grunt. A grunt! Those Pyke-ish, piggish men! The outstanding +characteristic Rosalie came to see in Uncle Pyke and in the other +husbands (his cronies) of Aunt Belle's friends was that they thought +about nothing else but their food, their wine and their cigars. +They disliked having about them anybody who interfered with their +enjoyment of their food, their wine and their cigars. They were +affectionately regarded by their wives as tame, necessary bears +to be fed and warmed and used to sit at the head of the table and +awe the servants. That was what Rosalie saw in them--and shuddered +at in them. Hogs! + +Cousin Laetitia all this time was living at home, attending a very +exclusive and expensive day school. Only twelve girls at beautiful +Laetitia's school and more masters and mistresses than pupils--mostly +"visiting" masters--Italian, French, painting, singing, music, +dancing. Laetitia was about two years older than Rosalie. Very +pretty in an elegant, delicate fashion, and growing up decidedly +beautiful in a sheltered, hothouse, Rossetti type of beauty. Always +very affectionate to Rosalie and glad to see her; not patronising +in the way she might have been patronising and yet, as the two grew +older, patronising in a conscious effort to dissemble a conscious +superiority. + +Rosalie never could remember how early in their acquaintance it +was she first understood that the great aim of Laetitia's life, +and the great aim of Aunt Belle's life for Laetitia, was to "make +a good match"; but she seemed to have known it ever since she first +heard of Laetitia, certainly at a point of her childhood when too +young exactly to understand what "good match" meant. Later on, +when Laetitia had left school and was within sight of putting up +her hair, "good match" was openly spoken of by Aunt Belle in her +crowded drawing-room or alone in company of the two girls and Uncle +Pyke. + +"And soon dear Laetitia will be making a good match, a splendid +match"; and beautiful Laetitia would faintly colour and faintly +smile. + +There began to come to Rosalie, growing older, an acute and an odd +feeling of the physical and mental difference between herself and +beautiful Laetitia--a feeling in Laetitia's company that she was a +boy, a young man, in the company of one most pronouncedly a young +woman. Rosalie was always very plainly dressed by comparison with +Laetitia; her voice was much clearer and sharper, her air very +vigorous against an air very langorous. Her hands used to feel +extraordinarily big when she sat with Laetitia and her wrists +extraordinarily bare. She would glance down at her lap sometimes +and could have felt a sense of surprise not to see trousers on her +legs. + +That was how, as they grew older, Rosalie often felt with Laetitia. + +Her last term came. She was nearly eighteen. She was going to earn +her own living. That was decided. Exactly how was not decided; but +Rosalie had decided it. There was an idea that she should remain +at the Sultana's as a junior teacher, but that was not Rosalie's +idea. + +"Oh, don't be a schoolmistress, Rosalie," Keggo had said when +Rosalie told of the suggestion (propounded, through the Sultana, +by Miss Ough and warmly endorsed by Aunt Belle and grunted upon by +Uncle Pyke). "Oh, Rosalie, don't be one of us. Don't you see how +we are just drifting, drifting? Don't do anything where you'll just +drift, Rosalie." + +"No, I'm not going to drift, Keggo," said Rosalie. (Miss Keggs, +in the little room, had been "Keggo" a long time then.) "I'm not +going to drift. I'm going to have a man's career. I'm going into +business! Keggo, that's the mystery of that book I'm always reading +that you're always asking me about: 'Lombard Street'--Bagehot's +'Lombard Street.' Oh, Keggo, thrilling." + +She began to tell Keggo her stupendous enterprise.... + +There is in the study of man nothing more curious or more interesting +than the natural bent of an individual mind. An arrow shot to the +north and another from the same bow to the south spring not apart +more swiftly or more opposedly than the minds of two children +brought up from one mother in the same nursery. The natural bent +of each impels it. Art this one, science that; to Joe adventure, +to Tom a bookish habit. Rosalie's natural bent declared itself in +"figures"; in the operations, as she discovered them, of commerce; +in the mysterious powers, as they appealed to her, developed +in countinghouses and exerted by countinghouses. The romance of +commerce! A mind double-edged, with inquisitiveness the one edge +and acquisitiveness the other (as certainly Rosalie's) is a sword +double-edged that will cut through the tough shell and into the +lively heart of anything. No more is required than to give the +young mind a glimpse of the lively heart that is there. Rosalie's +young mind was already beating with half-fledged wings against the +shell about that side of life wherein, in her experience, (of her +brothers, of Uncle Pyke, of Uncle Pyke's friends) men did the things +that earned them livelihood and gave them independence. Along, by +happy chance, buried in dust in the rectory study and found one +holiday, came "Lombard Street" and Bagehot, and that was the book +and Bagehot was the man to give pinions to those fledgling wings. +She saw romance, and thrusted for it, in the business of countinghouses. +It was fascinating to her beyond anything the discovery that money +was not, as she had always supposed, a thing that you took with +one hand and paid away, and lost, with the other. Not at all! It +was a thing that, properly handled, you never lost. Enthralling! +Thrilling! You invested it and it returned to you; you expended +it and propped it up with fascinating things called sinking funds, +and, although you had spent it, there it was coming back to you +again! It was the most mysterious and wonderful commodity in the +world. She got hold of that and she went on from that. + +The romance of business! That ships should go out across the seas with +one cargo and sell it, not, in effect, for money, but for another +and an entirely different cargo; that cheques passing between +countries, and cheques circulating about the United Kingdom, should +be traded off one against the other in magic conjuring palaces +called Clearing Houses with the result that thousands of little +streams merged into few great rivers and only differences need be +paid; that money (heart and driving-force of all the mysteries) +should have within itself the mysterious and astounding quality of +ceaselessly reduplicating itself--"the only thing in the world," +as Rosalie quaintly put it to Miss Keggs--"the only thing m the +world that people, business people, will take care of for you without +charging you for storage or for trouble"--that these mysterious and +extraordinary things should be thrilled Rosalie as the mysterious +and extraordinary things of science or of nature or the mysterious +and beautiful things of art or of literature or of music will thrill +another. + +That natural bent of her mind! That Bagehot that ministered to +her natural bent! Fascinated by Banks, fascinated by the Exchange, +fascinated by the Pool of London, where, obedient to the behests +of the counting-houses, floated the wealth that the countinghouses +made, fascinated by these was Rosalie as maidens of her years +commonly are fascinated by palaces, by the Tower and by the Abbey. +Remember, it is not what their eyes see that fascinates these +romantic young misses. A dolt can see the Tower walls and see no +more than crumbling bricks and stone. It is what their minds see +that fascinates the ardent creatures. Well, Rosalie's mind saw +strange romance in countinghouses. + +That Bagehot! + +And then must be picked up--and were with time picked up--others +of the magic man's enchantments. "Literary Studies," but she passed +over that, the burning subject was not there. "Economic Studies"; +it much was there. "International Coinage." She read that! It approached +the subject of a Universal Money and her thought was, "Why, what +a splendid idea to have one coinage that would go everywhere!" And +then, opening a new field, and yet a connected field and a field +profoundly engrossing to her, "The English Constitution." How laws +came; how laws worked; the mysteriousness (her word) within the +Council chambers that produced governance as the mysteriousness +within the countinghouses produced wealth! The mysterious quality +within precedent and necessity and change that reproduced itself +in laws as the mysterious quality within money caused money to +reproduce itself in wealth; the romance of governance. + +It was like that that her interests were shaping. + +It was very easy, it was utterly delightful, to tell all this to +Keggo. It was not at all easy, it was very terrible, to tell it +before Uncle Pyke. It was appalling, it was terrific, to break to +the house in Notting Hill that she desired to earn her living, not +as a teacher, but in business--like men. + +It was at dinner at the glittering table in the splendid dining-room +of the magnificent house in Notting Hill, Rosalie there on the +half-term week-end of her last term, that the frightful thing was +done. At dinner: Uncle Pyke Pounce bathing in his soup; beautiful +Laetitia elegantly toying with hers; Aunt Belle beaming over her +solid silver spoon at Rosalie. "Try that soup, dear child. It's +delicious. My cook makes such delicious soups. Lady Houldsworth +Hopper--Sir Humbo Houldsworth Hopper, you know he's in the India +Office, you must have heard of him--was dining with us last week +and said she had never tasted such delicious soup. It was the same +as this. I asked cook specially to make it for you. Now next term, +when you are one of the mistresses at Oakwood House and living at +their table and you have soup, you'll be able to say--for you must +speak up when you are with them, dear child, and not be shy--you'll +be able to tell them what delicious soup you always get at your +Uncle Colonel Pyke Pounce's. Be sure to mention your Uncle by name, +Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., not just 'my uncle,' and that he was a +great deal in India where he was entirely responsible for the laying +of the Puttapong Railway and received an illuminated address from +the Rajah of Puttapongpoo, such a fine old fellow, not being allowed +of course to take a present, which you have seen many times hanging +in his study in his fine house in Pilchester Square, Notting Hill +(some of them are sure to have heard of Pilchester Square, though +never visited there, of course); your uncle will show you the address +again after dinner; that will be nice, won't it, dear? Won't you, +Pyke?" + +(F-r-r-r-r-r-rup! from the splendid holder of the illuminated +address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo, bathing in his soup.) + +"Be sure to speak up for yourself like that, dear child, and let +them know who you are and that though you are poor and have to +earn your living, you have wealthy relations (though of course we +are only comfortably off and do not pretend to be rich) and are +not at all like ordinary governesses. Be sure to, dear. There; now +you've finished that soup and wasn't it delicious, just? You will +have another helping, I know you will. A second helping of soup +is not usual, dear, and Laetitia or any one at any of our parties +would never take it, but it's quite different for you, and I do +love to see you enjoy the nice food I get for you. More soup for +Miss Aubyn, Parker." + +Now for it! + +"Aunt, I won't have any more soup. I won't really. It was delicious. +Delicious, but really no more. Really. Aunt.... About the governesses +there and being one of them. I wanted to say... Aunt, I don't want +to be a pupil-teacher. Aunt..." + +Fr-r-r-r-rup! Frr-r-roosh! Woosh! Fr-r-r-roosh! + +It is the holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of +Puttapongpoo most terribly and fear-strikingly struggling up out +of his soup. "Don't want to be a pupil teacher? Wat d'ye mean? Wat +d'ye mean?" + +"Why, Rosalie, darling!" It is the exquisitely beautiful daughter of +the holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo. + +"Never mind them, Rosalie. The dear child! Why, how crimson she +is. Let the dear child speak. What is it, dear child?" It is kind +Aunt Belle. + +"Aunt Belle. Aunt Belle, I don't want to earn my living like that. +I want to earn it like--like a man. I want to--well, it's hard to +explain--to go to an office like a man--and have my pay every week, +like a man--and have a chance to get on like men, like a man. I +want to go into the City if I possibly could, or start in some way +like going into the City. I know it sounds awful--telling it to +you--but girls are doing it, a few. They're just secretaries and +clerks, of course. They're just nothing, of course. But, oh, it's +something, and I do want it so. To have office hours and a--a +desk--and a--an employer and be--be like men. I don't mean, I +don't mean a bit, imitate men like all that talk there is now about +imitating men. I hate women in stiff collars and shirts and ties +and mannishness like that; and indeed I hate--I dislike men--I +can't stand them, not in that way, if you understand what I mean--" + +".Rosalie!" (Laetitia.) + +"Oh, Laetitia, oh, Aunt Belle, I'm only saying that to show I don't +mean I want to be--. It is so fearfully difficult to explain, this. +But Aunt, you do see what I am trying to mean. It's just a man's +work that I mean because I'd love it and because I don't see why--. +And it's just that particular kind of work--in the City. Because +I believe, I do believe, I would be sharp and good at that work. +Figures and things. I love that. I'm quick at that, very quick. +And I've read heaps about it--about business I mean--about--" + +Uncle Pyke Pounce. Uncle Pyke Pounce, holding his breath because he +is holding his exasperation as one holds one's breath in performance +of a delicate task. Uncle Pyke Pounce crimson, purply blotched, +infuriated, kept from his food, blowing up at last at the parlour-maid: +"Bring in the next course! Bring in the next course! Watyer staring +at? Watyer waiting for? Watyer listening to? Rubbish. Pack of +rubbish." + +The parlour-maid flies out on the gust of the explosion. Rosalie +finishes her sentence while the gust inflates again. + +"Read heaps about it--about business--about trade and finance and +that. It fascinates me." + +The gust explodes at her. + +"Wat d'yer mean read about it? Read about what?" + +"Uncle, about money, about finance and things. I know it's +extraordinary I should like such things. But I do. I can't tell +why. It's like--like a romance to me, all about money and how it +is made and managed. There's a book I found in father's study at +home. 'Lombard Street' by Bagehot. That's all about it, isn't it? +I can't tell you how I have read it and reread it." + +"Never heard of it. 'Lombard Street?' Bagehot? Who's Bagehot?" + +"I think he was a banker, Uncle." + +"I think he was a fool!" + +It comes out of the red and swollen face of the holder of the +illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo like a plum-stone +spat at her across the table. Rosalie blinked. These beastly men! +Violent, vulgar, fat, rude beasts! Uncle Pyke the worst of them! +But she came back bravely from her flinch. "If he wasn't a banker, +he knew all about banking. Oh, that's what I would be more than +anything--that's what I do want to be--a banker--in a bank!" + +The holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo +as if, having expectorated the plum-stone, he desired to expectorate +also the taste thereof, spat out an obscene sound of contempt and +disgust. "Fah! I say the man, whoever he was, was a fool. And I +say this, Miss. I don't often speak sharply, but I say that I think +I know another fool--a little fool--at this table. Pah! Enough of +it! What's this? Trout?" + +Aunt Belle to the rescue! If Uncle Pyke and Aunt Belle had kept +house in Seven Dials instead of Notting Hill, Uncle Pyke would +have beaten Aunt Belle and Aunt Belle would have taken the blows +without flinching and then have wheedled Uncle Pyke with drops of +gin. As it was, Uncle Pyke was merely boorish or torpidly savage +towards Aunt Belle and Aunt Belle's way with him--as with all +combative men--was to rally him with a kind of boisterous chaff +and to discharge it at him as an urchin with an armful of snowballs +fearfully discharges them at an old gentleman in a silk hat: backing +away, that is to say, before an advance and advancing before a +retreat. Uncle Pyke usually retreated, either to eat or sleep. + +Aunt Belle had blinked, as Rosalie had blinked, at that horrible +epithet "Little fool!" across the table. The lips that uttered +it were immediately stuffed with trout and Aunt Belle immediately +rushed in in her rallying way to the rescue. "Why, you great, big +stupid Uncle Pyke!" cried Aunt Belle vivaciously. "It's you who +don't know what you're talking about, you unkind old thing, you. +Why, many, many girls, quite nice girls, are going into business +now and being secretaries and things and doing very, very well +indeed. Why, I declare it would do you good to have a lady secretary +yourself in that big, dusty office of yours in the City, never +dusted from one year's end to another, I'm sure! Laetitia, wouldn't +it do your father good, the cross, grumpy old thing? Give your +master some more of the sauce, Parker. Isn't that trout delicate +and nice, Pyke? Trout for a pike! And I'm sure very like a nasty, +savage old pike the way you tried to gobble up poor Rosalie, the +dear child. Now, Rosalie, dear child, I think that's a very, very +good idea of yours to go into business. I think it's a splendid +idea, and more and more quite nice girls will soon be doing it. Now +we'll just see what we can do and we'll make that cross old uncle +help and ask all his cross old friends in the City, just to punish +him. A young Lady Clerk, or a young Lady Secretary! Now I think +that's the very, very thing for you. Just the thing, and a dear, +clever child to think of it. Yes!" + +Kind, kind Aunt Belle! Victory through Aunt Belle! Accomplishment! +A career like a man! Aunt Belle had said it and Aunt Belle would +do it! A career like a man! Oh, ecstatic joy! "Lombard Street" had +been brought with her in her week-end suitcase. Directly she could +get to bed she rushed up to it and took it out and read, and read. +It was all underlined. She underlined it more that happy, happy +night! + +Ah, never underline a book till you are forty. Never memorialise +what you were, your lovely innocence, your generous heart, your +ardent hopes, lest the memorial be found one day by what you have +become. Rosalie, finding that "Lombard Street," unearthed from +lumber, in long after years, turned over the pages and from the +pages ghosts rushed up and filled the room, and filled the air, +and filled her heart, and filled her eyes; and she rent the book +across its perished binding and pushed it from her with both her +hands on to the fire and on to the flames in the fire. + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + + + +Incredibly soon, so stealthy swift is time, came this last term of +Rosalie's at the Sultana's. Time does not play an open game. It's +of the cloak and dagger sort. It stalks and pounces. Rosalie was +astonished to think she was leaving; and now the time had come she +was sorry to be going. Not very sorry; very excited; but having +just enough regret to realise, on looking back, that she had been +very happy at school and to realise, actively, happiness in this +last term. One knows what it is. It's always like that. One always +was happy; one so seldom is. Happiness to be realised needs faint +perception of sadness as needs the egg the touch of salt to manifest +its flavour. Flashes of entertainment may enliven the most wretched +of us; but that's pleasure; that's not happiness. One comes to +know the only true and ideal happiness is happiness tinctured with +faintest, vaguest hint of tears. It is peace; and who knows peace +that has not come to it through storm, or knoweth storm ahead, or +in storm past hath not lost one that would have shared this peace? + +So that girl's last term was (in her words) "tremendously jolly." +She was just eighteen, and she was leaving, and responsive to this +the harness of the school was drawn off her as at the paddock gate +the headstall from a colt. She was out of lessons. She did some +teaching of the younger girls. She was on terms with the mistresses. +She had the run of Keggo's room. + +Such talks in Keggo's room.... She was out from the cove of +childhood; she was into the bay of youth; breasting towards the +sea of womanhood (that sea that's sailed by stars and by no chart); +and she was encountering tides that come to young mariners to perplex +them and Keggo could talk about such things with the experience +that so enraptures young mariners and of which young mariners are +at the same time so confidently contemptuous, so superiorly sceptical. +Nearer to press the simile, youth at the feet of experience is as +one, experienced, climbing a mountain with the young thing panting +behind. "Go on! Go on!" pants the growing young thing. "This is +ripping. Go on. Show the way. But I don't want your hand. I can +do it easily by myself--better." And one evening while Rosalie +stumblingly explained, and eagerly received, and sceptically doubted, +"But look here, Keggo," she cried, and stopped and blushed, abashed +at her use of the nickname. + +Miss Keggs laughed. "Don't mind, Rosalie. Call me Keggo. I like +it. It's much more friendly. I'm very fond of you, Rosalie." + +They were by the oil stove, Miss Keggs in her wicker armchair, +Rosalie on the floor, her back propped against Miss Keggs's knees. +One of Miss Keggs's hands was on Rosalie's shoulder and she moved +it to touch the girl's face. "Are you fond of me, Rosalie?" + +Rosalie turned towards her and spoke impulsively. "Oh, awfully--Keggo." + +The woman stooped and kissed the growing young thing, hugging her +strongly, pressing her lips upon the lips of Rosalie with a great +intensity. "Oh, I shall be sorry when you go, Rosalie." + +"We can still be friends, Keggo dear." + +Miss Keggs shook her head. "Ships that pass in the night." + +"O Keggo!" + +Miss Keggs smiled, a wintry smile. "O Rosalie!" she mimicked. She +sighed. "Oh, my dear, it's true--true! Don't you remember how the +lines go-- + + + 'Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; + Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.' + + +Just remember that in a few years. You'll hail again perhaps. +'O Keggo!' Or I--it is more likely--wilt hail 'O Rosalie!' Just +remember it then." Her hand came down to Rosalie and Rosalie took +it. It was so cold; and on her face a strained and beaten look as +though hand and face belonged to one that stood most chilled and +storm-beat upon the bridge, peering through the storm. Her fingers +made no motion responsive to Rosalie's warm touch. She said strangely, +as though it was to herself she spoke, "Does it mean anything to +you, Rosalie, a vision like that? Can you see a black and violent +night and a ship going by full speed, and one labouring, and through +the wind and the blackness a hail.--and gone, and the wreck left +foundering?" + +Ah, that most generous and quickly moved and loving-Rosalie--then! +How she twisted to her knees and stretched her arms about that +poor Keggo, sitting there--so drooped! How readily into her eyes +her young and warm and ardent sympathies pressed the tears, their +flowers! How warm her words? How warmly spoken! "O Keggo! Keggo, +dear! Keggo, why do you talk like that? How can you? After all +the kindness you've shown me, accusing me that I'll forget and not +mind. Keggo, you shan't. You mustn't." + +Then Keggo responded, catching her arms about Rosalie and straining +Rosalie to her as though here was some cable to hold against the +driving sea. "O Rosalie!" + +And after a little Rosalie said, "You won't again say I ever shall +forget, or hail and pass by. Oh, that was cruel, Keggo!" + +Keggo was gently crying. "Natural. Natural." + +"Unnatural. Horrible. And you? Why do you say such things about +yourself? You didn't mean it? It's nothing? How can you ever be a +wreck, foundering?" + +Keggo dried her eyes and by her voice seemed to put those things right +away. "No, nothing. Of course not. Darling girl, only this--you're +young--young and so of course you are going by full sail as young +things do. Full sail! O happy ship! Rosalie, go on telling. Go on +asking. I love it, Rosalie." + +She was always "Keggo" after that; and the things that Rosalie told +and asked! + +Such things! It is to be seen that now there were bursting into +blossom out of bud within that Rosalie those seeds planted in +her by the extraordinary ideas of her childhood. About men. First +and always predominating, about men as compared with women--their +wonder, their power, their importance, their infinite superiority; +then about men in their relations with women--their rather grand +and noisy ways that made Rosalie blink; their interfering presence +that spoilt lessons and spoilt walks; those sinister attributes of +theirs, arising somehow out of their freedom to do as they liked +in the world, that somehow left the world very hard for women. +Grotesque ideas, but masterful ideas, masterfully shaping the child +mind wherein they germinated; burrowing in clutchy roots; pressing +up in strong young saplings. Agreed the child is father of the man, +but much more the girl is mother of the woman. It is the man's part +to sow and ride away; conception is the woman's office and that +which she receives she tends to cherish and incorporate within +her. Of her body that function is her glory; of her mind it is her +millstone. Man always rides away, a tent dweller and an Arab, with +a horse and with the plains about him; woman is a dweller in a city +with a wall, a house dweller, storing her possessions about her in +her house, abiding with them, not to be sundered from them. + +So with that Rosalie. Those childhood ideas of hers were grotesque +ideas but she had received them into her house and they remained +with her, shorn of their grotesqueness, as garish furniture may +be upholstered in a new pattern, but tincturing her life as the +appointments of a room will influence the mood of one that sits +therein. Father owned the world--all males had proprietorship in the +world under father--all men were worshipful and giants and genii. +That was the established perception and those its earliest images. The +perception remained, deepening, changing only in hue, as a viscid +liquid solidifies and darkens in a vessel over the fire. It remained, +persisted. Time but steadied the focus as the wise oculist, seeking +for his patient the perfect image, drops lenses in the frame through +which the vision chart is viewed. In a little the perfect image is +found. There was that Rosalie, come to maidenhood, come to the dizzy +edge of leaving school, with the perfect image of her persistent +obsession; with the belief no longer that men were magicians +having the world for their washpot and women for their footstool, +but unquestionably that they "had a better time" than women and +that they secured this "better time" by virtue of their independence. + +"And, Keggo," (she is explaining it) "I'm going to be like that. +I'm going to be what a man can be. Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't +a woman?" She paused and then went on. "Why, that's the thing that's +been with me all my life, ever since I can remember. I've always +known that men were the creatures. Always. Since I was so high. Oh, +I used to have the most ridiculous ideas about them. You'd scream, +Keggo. And I've always had the same attitude towards them--towards +them as contrasted with women, I mean. First awe, then envy, then, +since I've been growing up here, just as having a desirable position +in life, as having the desirable position in life, independence, +a career, work, freedom, a goal--yes, and a goal that's always +and always a little bit in front of you, always something better. +That's the thing. That's the thing, Keggo. Just look at the other +side. Take a case in point. Take my painful cousin, Laetitia, sweet +but in lots of ways very painful. What's her goal? A good match! +A good match! Did you ever hear anything so futile and sickening? +Sickening in itself, but I'll tell you what's really sickening +about it--why, that she'll get it--get her goal and then it's done, +over, finished, won. Settle down then and get fat. Oh, I don't want +a goal I can win. I want a goal I can't win. One that's always just +in front." + +She suddenly realised the intensity of her voice and laughed and +shook her head sideways and back. She had just recently put her hair +up and it still felt funny and tight and the laugh and the shake +eased away the tightness of voice and of hair. She said thoughtfully, +"You know, I believe I'm rather like a man in many ways, in points +of view. It's through always thinking them better, I daresay. The +ideas I've had about them!" and she laughed again. She said slowly, +"Though mind you, Keggo, they are better in many ways. They can get +away from things. They don't stick about on one thing. And they're +violent, not fussing. When they're angry they bawl and hit and it's +over and they forget it. They don't just nag on and on. Oh, yes, +they're better." + +She extended her palms to the oil flame, and watching the +X-ray-like effects of the light and shadow upon her fingers, she +added indifferently, as one idly letting drop a remark requiring +no comment, negligently with the voice of one saying "Tomorrow is +Tuesday," or "It's mutton today,"--"Of course they're beasts," she +added. + +"Of course they're beasts." It was the adjusted image to which she +had brought that other perception of men which, running parallel +with the perception of their superior position, had permeated her +childhood years. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + + + +She's left the school! She's living in the splendid house in +Pilchester Square looking for a post! + +She's found a post! She's private secretary to Mr. Simcox! + +She's left the splendid house in Pilchester Square! She's living an +independent life! She's going to Mr. Simcox's office, her office, +every day, just like a man! She's living on her own salary in a +boarding house in Bayswater! + +What jumps! One clutches, as at flying papers in a whirlwind, at +a stable moment in which to pin her down and describe her as she +jumps. One can't. The thing's too breathless. It's a maelstrom. +It's an earthquake. It's a deluge. It's a boiling pot. It's youth. +What it must be to live it! One thing pouring on to another so that +it's impossible anywhere to pick hold of a bit that isn't changing +into something else even as it is examined. That's youth all over. +Always and all the time all change. What it must be to live it! + +What it must be! Why, when youth comes bursting out of tutelage +there's not a stable thing beneath its feet nor above its head +a sky that stays the same for two hours together! Every stride's +a stepping-stone that tilts and throws you; every dawn a sudden +midnight even while it breaks, and every night a blinding brilliance +when it's darkest. New faces, new places, new dresses, new dishes; +new foes, new friends; new tasks, new triumphs; never a pause, +never a platform; every day a year and every year a day--not life +on a firm round world but life in the heart of a whirling avalanche. +How youth can live it! And all the time, all the time while poor, +dear youth is hurtling through it, there's age, instead of streaming +sympathy like oil upon those boiling waters, standing in slippered +safety, in buttoned dignity, in obese repose, bawling at tumbling +youth, "Why can't you settle down! Why can't you settle down! Why +do you behave like that? Why can't you do as I do? Why can't you be +like your wise and sober Uncle Forty? Or like your good and earnest +Auntie Fifty? Why can't you behave like your pious grandmother? +Why can't you imitate your noble grandfather? Oh, grrrr-r, why +can't you, you impious, unnatural, ill-mannered, irresponsive, +irresponsible exasperating young nuisance, you!" Is it any wonder +poor youth bawls back, or feels and behaves like bawling back, "How +to goodness can I behave like my infernal uncle or my maddening +aunt when I'm whirling along head over heels in the middle of a +roaring avalanche?" + +Oh, poor youth, that all have lived but none remembers! + +One clings, faut au mieux, to the intention to tell of her life only +the things in her life that contributed to her record, as records +are judged. There shall be enormous omissions. They shall be excused +by vital insertions. + +She shall be glimpsed, first, in the splendid house in Pilchester +Square, in the desperate business that getting a place for a woman +in a business house was when women were in business houses far +more rare than are silk hats in the City in 1922. It was desperate. +Uncle Pyke and Uncle Pyke's friends were the only channel of +opportunity; and Uncle Pyke and Uncle Pyke's friends refused to +be a channel of opportunity. They had never heard of such a thing +and they desired to bathe in their soup and smack over their wine +and not be troubled with such a thing. + +Aunt Belle rallied them and baited them and told them they were "great +big grumpy things"; and Aunt Belle, in her crowded drawing-room, +loved talking about the search for work and did talk about it. "Has +to earn her own living," Aunt Belle would chatter, "and is going +into business! Oh, yes, ever so many girls who have to earn their +own living are going into business now. She'll wear a nice tailormade +coat and skirt and carry a little satchel and flick about on the +tops of buses, in the City at nine and out again at six and a nice +plain wholesome lunch with a glass of milk in a tea shop. Oh, it's +wonderful what girls who have to earn their own living do nowadays. +Quite right, you know. Quite right, (for them). Come over here, +Rosalie. Come over here, dear child, and tell Mrs. Roodle-Hoops +what you are going to do. The dear child!" + +But nothing done. + +Just that glimpse and then comes Mr. Simcox. + +Mr. Simcox was first met by Rosalie while walking with Aunt Belle +and beautiful cousin Laetitia in the Cromwell Road. He came along +carrying a letter in his hand with the obvious air of one who will +forget to post it if he puts it in his pocket and probably will +forget to do so in any case. He was as obviously "a man of about +fifty-six" that curiously precise figure, neither a ten nor a +five, always used for men who look as Mr. Simcox looked and always +continued to look while Rosalie knew him, and probably always had +looked. Men of "about fifty-six"--one never says "about thirty-six" +or "about sixty-six"; it would be "about thirty-five" or "about +seventy"--men of "about fifty-six" are almost certainly born at +that age and with that appearance and they seem to continue in it +to their graves. + +Mr. Simcox was like that, and was short and had two little bunchy +grey whiskers, and wore always a pepper and salt jacket suit, +unbuttoned, the pockets of which always bulged and the skirts of +which, containing the pockets, always swayed and flapped. When he +talked he was always talking--if that is understood--and when he +was busy he was always frantically busy and looking at the clock +or at his watch as if it were going to explode at a certain rapidly +approaching hour and he must at all costs be through with what he +was doing before it did explode. He talked in very rapid jerks, +always seeming to be about to come to rest and then instantaneously +bounding off again, rather like a man bounding along stepping-stones, +red-hot stepping-stones that each time burnt his feet and set him +flying off again. + +He had been in the Bombay house of a firm of indigo merchants +and there had known Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke. He had retired and +settled in London and he now came very briskly up to Aunt Belle, +to Rosalie and to beautiful Laetitia, greeting them and bursting +into full stream of chatter while he was yet some distance away; +and, having been introduced to Rosalie and snatched at her hand +precisely as if doing so while shooting in midair between one red-hot +stepping-stone and the next, whizzed presently to "I really came +out to post a letter" and flapped the letter in the air as if it +were a bothersome thing stuck to his fingers and refusing absolutely +to be stuffed into a post-box. + +"Why, there's a pillar-box just there; you've just passed it," +cried Rosalie. + +"Why, so there is!" exclaimed Mr. Simcox, jumping round to stare +at the pillar-box as if it had stretched out an arm and given him +a sudden punch in the back, and then spinning towards Rosalie and +staring at her rather as if he suspected her of having put the +pillar-box there while he was not looking; and while Mr. Simcox +was so exclaiming and so doing Rosalie had said, "Do let me just +post it for you. Do let me," and had snapped the obstinate letter +from his fingers, and posted it and was back again smiling at Mr. +Simcox, whom she rather liked and who reminded her very much of a +jack-in-the-box. + +Indeed with his quick ways, his shortness, his bushy little grey +whiskers and his pepper and salt suit with its flapping pockets, +Mr. Simcox was very like one of those funny little jack-in-the-boxes +they used to sell. He said to her, regarding her with very apparent +pleasure and esteem, "Well, that's very nice of you. That really +is very nice of you. And it's most wonderful. It is indeed. Do you +know, I must have walked more than a mile looking for a letter-box +and I daresay I should have walked another mile and then forgotten +it and taken the letter home again." He addressed Aunt Belle: "It's +a most astonishing thing, Mrs. Pyke Pounce, but I cannot post a +letter. I positively cannot post a single letter. When I say single, +I do not mean I can post no letter at all. No, no. Far from it. +I mean I can post no letter singly, by itself, solus. My daily +correspondence, my office batch, I take out in a bundle, perhaps in +a table basket. That is simple. But a single letter--as you see, a +clever young lady like this has to find a box for me or I might carry +the thing for days together. Astonishing that, you know. Astonishing, +annoying, and mind you, sometimes serious and embarrassing." + +"Why, you busy, busy person, you!" cried Aunt Belle with her +customary air towards a man of shaking her finger at him. "You +very busy person! Fancy a basket full of correspondence! Why what +a heap you must have!" + +Mr. Simcox said he had indeed a heap. "Sometimes I think more than +I can manage." + +"Indeed," agreed Aunt Belle, "you don't seem to have much time to +spare. Why, I haven't seen you in my drawing-room for quite a month +("You busy little creature, you," expressed without being stated). +I expect you're getting very rich and disagreeable." ("You rich +little rascal, you!") + +Mr. Simcox declared that as to that his business wasn't one to get +rich at. "In no sense. Oh, no, in no sense. It keeps me occupied. +It gives me an interest. That's all. No more than that." As to Mrs. +Pyke Pounce's delightful drawing-room, most certainly he had been +there less than a month ago and most certainly he would present +himself again on the very next opportunity. To-morrow, was it? He +would without fail present himself there tomorrow, "and I hope," +said Mr. Simcox, taking his leave, "I hope I may have the pleasure +of seeing my postmistress there again." He smiled very cordially at +Rosalie and went flapping away up the street at the pace and with +the air, not of one who had come out to post a letter and had posted +it, but of one who had come out to post a letter, had dropped it, +and was flying back to look for it. + +"Oh, isn't he an ugly little monster!" cried Aunt Belle, resuming +the walk. + +"But I think he's nice," said Rosalie. "What is his business, Aunt +Belle?" + +Aunt Belle hadn't an idea. "He's an agent," said Aunt Belle, "but +an agent for what I'm sure I don't know. He's a very mysterious, +fussy, funny little person. We knew him in Bombay where he had a +very good position, but he retired and what he does now I'm sure +I can't say. But he's very busy. You heard him say how busy he is. +Rosalie, he might know of something for you. We'll ask him, dear +child. The funny, ugly little monster! We'll ask him. He might +help." + +He did help. A very short while afterwards, Rosalie received the +appointment of Private Secretary to Mr. Simcox; twenty-five shillings +a week; one pound five shillings a week! Office hours ten to five! +Saturdays ten to one! Holiday a fortnight a year! A man's work! A +man's weekly salary! A man's office hours! The ecstasy of it! The +ecstasy! + +The matter with Mr. Simcox was that, in India a man of affairs, +in England he found himself a man of no affairs and a man who had +"lost touch." On a leave from the Bombay house of the indigo firm +he had been prevailed upon by his mother and his maiden sister +to remain at home and look after them and he had done it and gone +on doing it, and they had died and he had never married, and he +had now no relatives, and by this and by that (as he told Rosalie +early in her installation) he had dropped out of friendships and, +as he expressed it "lost touch." He owned and occupied one of those +enormous houses in Bayswater. It had been his mother's and he lived +on in it after her death and the death of his sister, alone with a +housekeeper. The housekeeper resided in the vast catacombs of the +basement of the enormous house; Mr. Simcox resided in the immense +reception rooms, miles above, of the first floor; the three suites +above him, scowling gloomily across a square at the twin mausoleums +opposite, were unoccupied and un-visited; on the first floor Mr. +Simcox had his office. The business done in this office, which +Rosalie was now to assist, and why it was done, was in this wise +and was thus explained to Rosalie. + +Mr. Simcox, more than ever dropped out and more than ever having +lost touch after the deaths of his sister and mother, found himself +irked more than anything else by the absence of correspondence. +He had been accustomed in India to a big receipt of letters--a big +dhak, as he called it, using the Hindustani word--now he received +no letters at all; and he told Rosalie that when you are in the +habit of getting a regular daily post, its gradual falling off and +then its complete cessation is one of the most melancholy things +that can befall a man. A nice bunch of letters in the morning, he +said, is like a cold bath to a young man, a stimulant and an appetiser; +and a similar packet by the night delivery is an entertainment to +look forward to from sunset till it arrives and the finest possible +digestive upon which to go to bed. Mr. Simcox found himself cut off +from both these necessities of a congenial life and it depressed +him beyond conception. Dressing in the morning he would hear the +postman come splendidly rat tatting along the square and would +hold his breath for that glorious thunder to come echoing up from +his own front door--and it never did. Only the sound of the footsteps +came, hurrying past--always. + +Set to his solitary dinner in the evening, again would come along +that glorious, reverberating music, and again Mr. Simcox would +hold his breath as it approached and again--! Oh, particularly in +the winter, it was awful, Mr. Simcox told Rosalie. Awful; she wouldn't +believe how awful it was. In the winter, in the dark nights, there +is, Mr. Simcox said, about the sound of the postman banging along +the doors something that is the sheer essence of all the mystery, +and all the poetry, and all the life, and all the comfort, and all +the light and all the warmth in the world. Often on winter nights +Mr. Simcox would get up quickly from the table (He couldn't help +it) and go tiptoe (Why tiptoe? He didn't know. You had to. It was +the mystery and the aching atmosphere of the thing) tiptoe across +the room to the window, and draw an inch of the heavy curtain and +peer out into the darkness and towards the music. There would be +the little round gleam of the postman's lantern, bobbing along as +he hurried. And flick! it was gone into a doorway, and rat-tat, +flick, and there it was again--coming! Flick, rat-tat! Flick, +flick, rat-tat! Coming, coming! Growing larger, growing brighter, +growing louder! Next door now. They always get it next door. Flick, +rat-tat! What a crasher! You can feel it echo! Flick! Now then! +Now then! How it gleams! He's stopped! He's looking at his letters! +He's coming in! He is--ah, he's passed; he's gone; it's over; +nothing... nothing for here.... Rat-tat! That's next door. The party +wall shakes. The lustres on the mantelpiece shake. Mr. Simcox's +hands shake. He sits down, pushes his plate away.... + +It is absurd; it is ridiculous, of course it is; but it was pathetic, +it was moving, as it was received from Mr. Simcox by that young +and most warm-hearted Rosalie. Her eyes positively were caused to +blink as she listened. She had an exact vision of that funny little +jack-in-the-box figure up from the table and tiptoeing across the +enormous dining room in his little pepper and salt suit with the +pockets swaying, not flapping, as he trod along, and opening that +inch of the heavy curtain and pressing out his gaze through the +black window pane, and watching the gleam and the flick and then +the crash and the gleam again, and then holding his breath and +hearing his heart go thump, and then dropping the curtain, and +back again, with his hands shaking a little and hearing the lustres +tinkle.... + +Yes, very moving to that Rosalie in her youth and warmth. She had +actually to touch her nose (high up, between her eyes) with her +handkerchief and she said, "Oh, Mr. Simcox.... Yes, and then what?" + +"Then what? Ah! 'Then what' is this." They were seated in Mr. +Simcox's great office on the ground floor. The office of a man +of many affairs. A very large writing table furnished with every +conceivable facility for writing, not only note papers and envelopes +racked up in half a dozen sizes, but sealing waxes in several +hues, labels, string, "In" basket, "Out" basket, "Pending Decision" +basket, all sorts of pens, all sorts of pencils, wafers, clips, +scales, letter weights, rulers--the table obviously of a man to +whom correspondence was a devotional, an engrossing, an exact art, +and an art practised on an expansive, an impressive, and a lordly +scale. There were also in the office a very large plain table on +which were spread newspapers, a basket containing clippings from +newspapers, an immense blue chalk for marking newspapers and a very +long, also a very short, pair of scissors for cutting out clippings +from newspapers. A range of filing cabinets stood against one wall; +a library of directories and catalogues occupied shelves against +another wall. + +"'Then what' is this," said Mr. Simcox, indicating these impressive +appointments of the room with a wave of his hand. "You ask me 'then +what?' 'Then what' is all this. 'Then what' has grown now to be +you. I'll tell you." + +It was this--the oddest, most eccentric notion (not that Rosalie +it thought so). Mr. Simcox, cut off from letters, had determined +that he must get letters. He would get letters. If the postman +would not come of himself (so to speak) then he must be forced to +come. And Mr. Simcox set about forcing him to come by answering +advertisements. Not employment advertisements; no; the advertisements +to which Mr. Simcox re-plied were the advertisements that offered +to send you something for nothing--that implored you to permit them +to send you something for nothing. They are common objects of the +periodical press. Every paper is stuffed with them. "Write for free +samples." "Catalogues." "Trial packet sent post free on application." +"Write for our beautifully illustrated art brochure." "Descriptive +booklet by return." "Write for full particulars." "Free sample bottle +sufficient for seven days' trial." "Approval gladly. Postpaid." +"Plans and particulars of the sole agents." "Superbly printed art +volume on receipt of postcard." + +The advertisement columns of every paper are stuffed with them +and soon the letter-box of Mr. Simcox was stuffed with them. The +postman who never stopped at Mr. Simcox's house now never missed +Mr. Simcox's house. He went on a lighter and a brisker man after +having dealt with Mr. Simcox's house. The agitation with which his +approach was heard was now exchanged for a superb confidence as his +approach was heard. The deliveries that for Mr. Simcox had never +been deliveries were now, not deliveries, but avalanches. They +roared into the letter-box of Mr. Simcox. They cascaded upon the +floor of the hall of Mr. Simcox. + +A mail thus composed does not perhaps sound interesting. Mr. Simcox, +once he had got into the full swing of the thing, discovered it to +be profoundly and exhaustively interesting. It possessed in the highest +degree the two primary essentials of a really good mail,--surprise +and variety. There would always be two or three fascinating little +parcels, there would always be two or three handsome packets, there +would always be two or three imposing looking letters. No common +correspondence could possibly have had the number of attractively +boxed gifts, the amount of handsomely printed literary and il-lustrated +matter, and certainly not the unfailing persistency of flow, that +constituted the correspondence of Mr. Simcox. + +The mine once discovered proved to be a mine inexhaustible and +containing lodes or galleries of new and unsuspected wealth. Mr. +Simcox took in but two daily papers, and two penny weekly papers, +and they might well have sufficed. But an appetite whetted and an +eye opened they did not suffice. There thundered from the Bayswater +free library a positive babel of cries from advertisers in the score +of journals there displayed, howling for Mr. Simcox graciously to +permit them to contribute their toll to his letter-box; and there +were at the news agents periodicals catering for every specialised +class of the community and falling over themselves to put before +Mr. Simcox the full range of the mysteries, the luxuries and +the necessities of every trade and profession and pursuit, from +shipbuilding to cycling and from ironmongery to the ownership of +castles, moors, steam yachts and salmon fisheries. + +Mr. Simcox, entirely happy, one of the busiest men that might be found +in the metropolis, struck out new lines. Hitherto he had received +his correspondence interestedly and pleasurably but passively. He +began to take it up actively and sharply. He began to write back, +either graciously approving or very sharply criticising his samples, +his specimens and his free trials; and the advertisers responded +voluminously, either abjectly with regret and enclosing further +samples for Mr. Simcox's esteemed trial, or abjectly with delight +and soliciting the very great favour of utilising Mr. Simcox's +esteemed letter for publicity purposes. This, however, Mr. Simcox, +courteously but firmly, invariably refused to permit. + +The engagement of Rosalie was a development of Mr. Simcox's hobby as +natural as the development of any other hobby from rabbit breeding +to china collecting. The craze intensifies, the scope is enlarged. To +have a secretary made Mr. Simcox's mail and the work that produced +his mail even more real than already it had become to him. Following +up the personal touch that had been discovered by the criticism of +samples, Mr. Simcox had opened up a line that produced the personal +touch in most intimate degree: personal touch with schools and +with insurance companies. He created for himself sons, daughters, +nephews, nieces, wards. He endowed them, severally, with ages, +with backwardness, with brilliancy, with robustness, with delicacy, +with qualities that were immature and required development, with +absence of qualities that were desirable and required implanting, +with unfortunate tendency to qualities that were undesirable and +needed repression and nipping in the bud. He placed these children, +thus handicapped or endowed, before the principals of selected +schools; he desired that terms and full particulars might be placed +before him to assist him in the anxious task of right selection. +They were placed before him. "Your backward nephew Robin" (to take +a single example) engaged the personal attention of preparatory +schoolmasters from Devonshire to Cumberland and from Norfolk to +Carnarvon. Similarly with insurance companies. Again dependents and +friends were created, by the dozen, by Mr. Simcox. Male and female +created he them, cumbered with all imaginable risks, and darkly +brooding upon all manner of contingencies; and male and female, +cumbered and perplexed, they were studied and advised upon by +insurance companies earnest beyond measure to show Mr. Simcox what +astounding and unparalleled benefits could be obtained for them. + +At the time when Rosalie joined him, Mr. Simcox's attention was in +much greatest proportion devoted to this development of his pursuit. +Under the instruction of a friend, long since dropped out and +lost, who had held a considerable position in a leading assurance +company, he had acquired a sound working knowledge of the principles +and mysteries of insurance. The subject had greatly interested +him. In the phrase he used to Rosalie he had "taken it up"; and in +the phrase that so often sequels and rounds off a thing suddenly +"taken up" he had suddenly "dropped it." He now, by way of the new +development of his correspondence, approached it again. It received +him as a former habitation receives a returned native. Mr. Simcox +(if the metaphor may be pursued) roamed all about the familiar +rooms and corridors of the house of the principles and mysteries +of insurance. His knowledge of its possibilities enabled him to +develop an astonishing ingenuity in creating cases ripe and yearning +for the benefits of provision against contingencies, and as he very +easily was able to prove to Rosalie, and found immense delight in +proving, he had under his finger, that is to say in his exquisitely +arranged filing cabinets, also in his head, a range of insurance +companies' literature which enabled him to work out for any conceivable +case the most suitable office or offices and the finest possible +cover for his risks. "Different companies specialize," said Mr. +Simcox, "in different classes of risk. A man should no more walk +into one of the leading offices just because it happens to be one +of the leading offices and there take out his policy or policies +than he should walk into and take for occupation the first vacant +house he sees, merely because it is, as a house, a good house. It +may be a most excellent house but it may not be in the least the +house most suitable to his requirements." + +Rosalie nodded intelligently. "But how is a man to find out, Mr. +Simcox?" + +"Why, I suppose only by going round to every company and choosing the +best, just as I make out and send around these cases of mine. But +of course no one does that--the trouble for one thing, and ignorance +for another, and inability to realise their real requirements and +to state them clearly if they do realise them for a third. That's +what it is." + +Rosalie's intelligent nodding had not ceased. She had a trick, when +Mr. Simcox was explaining things to her, of maintaining, with eyes +fixed widely upon him, a slow, affirmative movement of her head +rather as though she were some engine, and her head the dial, +absorbing power from a flow of energy. The dial never indicated +repletion. Mr. Simcox delighted to talk to Rosalie, to watch +that grave movement of her head, and to hear the short occasional +"Why's?" and comments that came like little spurts or quivers as +of the engine in initial throbbings pulsing the power it stored. + +She was absorbing power. The months were going on. The earlier +initiation into Mr. Simcox's business might have had a tinge of +disappointment were it not that, whatever the nature of her work, +manifestly work it was, paid for, with regular hours, with an office +to attend, such as a man might do. The tinge of disappointment, if +she had suffered it, would have stung out of the thought: Where, +in this manufactured correspondence, in this pretence at a business +which was in fact no business at all, where in all this was Lombard +Street? Where the romance and mystery of finance? Where the touch +with the power that was made in countinghouses and with the exercise +of the power exerted from those countinghouses? + +But it happened for Rosalie, first, that this thought could not +come because she was too busy with the glorious novelty of being +in an office and learning office ways; then, when the novelty +had worn, that it could not come because a new and a real element +arrived to nullify it. In the early days there was no realisation +of sham because there was the real business, to herself, of learning +business methods and the whole theory and practice of office +routine. She could have had no better instructor than Mr. Simcox, +she could have had no better training than the handling, the sorting +and the filing of his curious and various correspondence. She had +become an efficient and a singularly apt and keen office clerk +when, more leisured because she had mastered her duties, she might +first have had time for realisation that Lombard Street was not +here nor all the romance and mystery with which she had invested +the power of countinghouses within a thousand miles of this house +of most elaborate pretence. And then, at once to prevent that +realisation and to dissipate its cause, came Lombard Street to her +in Mr. Simcox's new absorption in (to her) the mysteries and the +romance and the astounding possibilities of the business of insurance. +How the mammoth companies, whose names soon were as household words +to Rosalie, accumulated their enormous funds and invested them; +how, while provisioning for to-day, they must calculate against +liabilities falling due in a to-morrow generations ahead; how they +would put their money into property the leases of which would fall +in and the estate become marketable again perhaps a hundred years +hence, when officers of the company yet unborn would be looking to +the prudence of those now reigning to maintain the inflowing tide; +how risks were calculated and vital statistics and chances and +averages studied--all this, delightedly and delightfully narrated +by Mr. Simcox (watching that gravely nodding head and those wide +intelligent eyes) was sheer fascination to the mind that had found +romance and mystery in "Lombard Street" as commonly romance and +mystery are found in poetry and music. + +Then one day she took a step towards applying the fascination that +she found. + +It was the day of the conversation that has been recorded. How, +Rosalie had asked, was the seeker after insurance to find the +policies best suited to his case? Rosalie had asked; and had been +told--he must go round but he never does; he must know what there +is to be had but he never does know; he must realise exactly what +he really wants but he never does realise it; and if he does realise +it he must be able to state it clearly but he never can state it +clearly. + +Mr. Simcox, detailing this, permitted himself an amused contempt. +The public were ignoramuses, mere children; they knew nothing +whatever about insurance. + +Rosalie said in a voice consonant with the grave measure of her +nods: "Of course, if it was a man, as you said, looking for a house, +he'd go to an agent. A house agent would tell him of houses best +suited to his needs that he could choose between. Well, there are +insurance agents. You've told me about them." + +"Ah, but not the same thing, not the same thing," corrected Mr. +Simcox. "An insurance agent, the ordinary insurance agent, is agent +for a particular company. He only knows what his own company can +do and he only wants his own company to do it. That's no good to +the kind of man in the position we're speaking of. He wants some +one who can tell him what all the companies will do for him. Some +one who can hear his case, analyse it, put it before him in the +right light and advise him the best way of placing it. That's what +he wants. Exactly the same as these letters I send out--as you and +I send out, I should say. Why, I've had practical examples of it. +There was a young fellow I met at your aunt's house. There've been +three or four cases of it for that matter but this happens to be +some one you know--" + +He proceeded to tell her of a visitor at Aunt Belle's, a young man +home on leave from the Indian army and recently married, with whom +he had got into conversation on the subject of insurance and had +most ably helped. The young man had a certain policy in view. Mr. +Sim-cox had put an infinitely better before him. "If he had come +to me before his marriage when he was first taking out a policy in +his wife's favour, I could have saved him and gained her hundreds, +literally hundreds," said Mr. Simcox. "He'd made a most awful mess +of the business. As it was I helped him very considerably. He was +very grateful, devilish grateful. He went straight to an agent of +the office I recommended and did it." + +"There must be hundreds like him that would be grateful," said +Rosalie. + +"Thousands," said Mr. Simcox. "Tens of thousands. Every single soul +who insures, you may say." + +"Who got the commission?" said Rosalie. + +"The agent, of course," said Mr. Simcox. + +"Oh," said Rosalie. + +"Why?" said Mr. Simcox. + +"Nothing," said Rosalie. "Only 'oh '." + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + + + +There's much virtue in an If, says Touchstone; and there's much +virtue in an "Oh"--a wise, a thoughtful, a speculative, a discerning +"Oh" such as that "Oh" pronounced by Rosalie to Mr. Simcox's +information that agents, and not he, drew the commissions for the +insurance policies which, out of his knowledge and experience, he +had advised. There followed from that "Oh" its plain outcome: her +suggestion to Mr. Simcox of why not make a business, a real business, +of expert advice upon insurance, and (out of the make-believe +intercourse with schools) a business, a real business, of expert +advice upon schools? And there shall follow also from that "Oh" a +sweeping use of the intention that has been mentioned to tell only +of her life that which contributed to her life. We'll fix her stage +from first to last, then see her walk upon it. + +This was her stage: Her suggestion was adopted. It has, astonishingly +soon, astonishing success. Advice upon insurance, advice upon +schools, commissions from each, are found wonderfully to work in +together, each bringing clients to the other. Aunt Belle's swarms +of friends, their swarms of friends, the swarms of friends of +those swarms of friends, and so on, snowball fashion, are the first +nucleus of the thing. It succeeds. It grows. Real offices are taken. +"Simcox's." Advertisements, clerks, banking-accounts. Appearance of +Mr. Sturgiss, partner in Field and Company--"Field's"--the bankers +and agents. Field's is a private bank. Its business is principally +with persons resident in the East, soldiers, civil servants, +tea planters, East India merchants. Field's is in Lombard Street. +(Lombard Street!) Later Field's opens a West End office. Field's +is frequently asked to advise its clients and their wives on all +manner of domestic matters,--schools for their children, holiday +homes, homes for clients over on leave, insurance, investment, +whatnot, a hundred things. Comes to this Sturgiss, partner in +Field's, an idea of great possibilities in this advisory business +if developed as might be developed and run as might be run. +Tremendously attracted by Rosalie as the person for the job. Makes +her an offer. She declines it. Mr. Simcox's death. Sturgiss comes +along again. Ends in Rosalie going to Field's. Lombard Street! Room +of her own in the big offices. Glass partitioned. Huge mahogany +table. Huge mahogany desk. Field's open the West End office, in +Pall Mall. More convenient for wives of clients. Rosalie is moved +there. Manager of her own side of the business. The war comes. +Sturgiss goes out. Other important officers of the bank go out. +Her importance increases very much in other sides of the bank's +business than her own. Press scents her out and writes her up. +"The only woman banker." "Brilliant woman financier." Contributes +articles to the reviews. Very much a leading woman of her day. Very +much a most remarkable woman. + +That's her stage. Thus she walked upon it: + +The beginning part--that tumult of youth, those dizzy jumps that we +have seen her in--was frightfully exciting, frightfully absorbing. +She was so tremendously absorbed, so terrifically intent, so +tremendously eager, that the transition from the Sultana's to Aunt +Belle's, and the start with Mr. Simcox, and the transition from +Aunt Belle's to independence in the boarding house, was done with +scarcely a visit--and then a rather grudged and rather impatient +visit--to the rectory home. + +No, the absorption was too profound for much of that: indeed, for +much of home in any form. Letters came from Rosalie's mother three +and four times a week. In the beginning, when fresh left school +and at Aunt Belle's, Rosalie always kissed the dear handwriting on +the envelope, and kissed the dear signature before returning the +letters to their envelopes; and she would sit up late at night +writing enormously long and passionately devoted letters in reply. +But she wasn't going back; she wasn't going down; no, not even for +a week-end, "my own darling and beloved little mother," until she +had found an employment and was established on her own feet, "just +like one of the boys." Then she would come, oh, wouldn't she just! +She would have an annual holiday, "just as men have," and she would +come down to the dear, beloved old rectory and she would give her +own sweet, adored little mother the most wonderful time she ever +could imagine! + +Rosalie would sit up late at night writing these most loving letters, +pages and pages long; and her mother's letters (which always arrived +by the first post) she would carry about with her all day and read +again before answering. + +And yet.... + +The fond intention in thus carrying them on her person instead of +bestowing them in her writing case was to read them a dozen times +in the opportunities the day would afford. And yet... Somehow it +was not done. The day of the receipt of the very first letter was +generous of such opportunities and at each of them the letter was +remembered... but not drawn forth. Rosalie did not attempt to analyse +why not. Her repression, each time, of the suggestion that the +letter should now be taken out and read again was not a deliberate +repression. She merely had a negative impulse towards the action and +accepted it; and so negligible was the transaction in her record +of her thoughts, so mere a cypher in the petty cash of the day's +ledger, that in the evening when, gone up to bed, the letter was +at last drawn out and kissed and read and answered, and then kissed +and read again, no smallest feeling of remorse was suffered by her +to reflect that the intended reading in the dozen opportunities of +the day had not been done. + +And yet... Was it, perhaps, this mere acceptance of a negative +impulse, a cloud no bigger than the size of a man's hand upon the +horizon of her generous impulses? There is this to be admitted--that +the letters, accumulating, began to bulk inconveniently in her +writing case. What a lot dear mother wrote! Room might be made for +them by removing or destroying the letters from friends who had +left the Sultana's with her, but about those letters there was +a peculiar attraction; they were from other emancipated One Onlys +who watched with admiration the progress in her wonderful adventure +of brilliant, unconventional Rosalie, and it was nice thus to be +watched. Or room for her mother's letters might be made by removing +or destroying letters that began to amass directly touching her +desire for employment--from city friends of Uncle Pyke, from Mr. +Simcox. But, no, unutterably precious those! Unutterably precious, +too, of course, those accumulating bundles of letters from her +dear mother; but precious on a different plane: they belonged to +her heart; it was to her head, to the voice in her that cried "Live +your life--your life--yours!" that these others belonged. + +She was tingling to that voice one night, turning over the employment +letters; and, tingling, put her mother's letters from her case to +her box. + +Yes, upon the horizon of her generous impulses perhaps the tiniest +possible cloud. And then perhaps enlarging. You see, she was so very +full of her intentions, of her prospects. She had read somewhere +that the perfect letter to one absent from home was a letter stuffed +with home gossip,--who had been seen and who was doing what, and +what had been had for dinner yesterday and whence obtained. But she +did not subscribe to that view. She was from home and her mother's +letters were minutest record of the home life; but she began to +skip those portions to read "afterwards." One day the usual letter +was there at breakfast and she put it away unopened so as to have +"a really good, jolly read" of it "afterwards." In a little after +that she got the habit of always, and for the same reason (she told +herself) keeping the letters till the evening. One day she gave the +slightest possible twitch of her brows at seeing the very, very +familiar handwriting. She had had a letter only the previous day +and two running was not expected: more than that, this previous +letter had slightly vexed her by its iteration of the longing to +see her and by very many closely written lines of various little +troubles. She was a little impatient at the idea of a further edition +of it so soon. She forgot to open it that night. She remembered +it when she was in bed; but she was in bed then... When, next day, +she read the letter it was, again, an iteration of the longing to +see her and, again, more, much more, of the little troubles: the +residue was of the gossipy gossip that Rosalie already had formed +the habit of skipping till "afterwards." Altogether a vexatious +letter. + +After that, when the letters were frequent, it was frequent for +Rosalie to greet the sight of them with just the swiftest, tiniest +little contraction of her brows. Nothing at all really. Meaning +virtually nothing and of itself absolutely nothing. Possessing +a significance only by contrast, as a fine shade in silk or wool +will not disclose a pronounced hue until contrasted with another. +The contrast here, to give the thing significance, was between +that swiftest, tiniest contraction of the brows at the sight of her +mother's letters and the eager spring to them, the quick snatching +up, and the impulsive pressing to her lips when first those letters +began to come. Likewise answering them, that had been an impulsive +outpouring and brimming over, now was a very slightly laboured +squeezing. The pen, before, had flooded love upon the page. Now +the pen halted, paused, and had to think of expressions that would +give pleasure. + +The change did not happen at a blow. If it had, Rosalie would have +noticed it. It slipped imperceptibly from stage to stage and she +did not notice it. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + + + +There was a thing she said about men once (in the boarding house +now) and often repeated. "They're very fond of saying women are +cats," she once said. "Fools! It's men that are the cat tribe: +tame cats, tabby cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray +cats! Aren't they just? And look at them--tame cats are miserable +creatures, tabby cats the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious +creatures, Cheshire cats fool creatures, tomcats disgusting +creatures, stray cats--on the whole the stray cats are the least +objectionable, they are bearable: at the right time and for a short +time." + +This characterisation of men as Rosalie, in sequent development of +her attitude towards men, had come to regard them was delivered to +the girl with whom (for cheapness) her room in the boarding house +was shared. Rosalie went from Aunt Belle's to this boarding house +to assert and to achieve her greater independence. A man, Rosalie +debated, would have gone into bachelor rooms; but young women did +not go into bachelor rooms in those days and the singularity of +Rosalie's attitude towards life is rather well presented in the +fact that she never set herself against conventions inhibitory of +her sex merely because they were inhibitory of her sex. When the +years brought those violent scenes and emotions of what has been +called the suffragette campaign, Rosalie, who might have been +expected to be a militant of the militants, took no part nor even +interest in it whatever. She did not desire the privileges of men +merely because they were the privileges of men; she desired a status +which happened to be in the right of men and she went towards it +without seeking to change the established order of things, just as, +from one field desiring a flower in another field, she would have +gone to fetch it without changing her dress. + +A man, anxious for full independence, would have gone into bachelor +rooms; but young women did not go into bachelor rooms. They achieved +their independence perfectly well, and far more cheaply, by going +into a boarding house. She therefore, very excitedly, went into a +boarding house. + +There was no difficulty about leaving Aunt Belle's. Once Rosalie was +established in business with Mr. Simcox, tied to business hours, +and earning a weekly salary, she no longer occupied in Aunt Belle's +house the position of dependence which was in Aunt Belle's house +the first, and indeed the only, qualification for all who occupied +her house. Aunt Belle's guests had to be guests: wealthy guests who +could be entertained from early morning tea (beautifully served) +to bedtime and made graciously to admire; or if poor guests, +and particularly poor relations, guests who could be even more +impressed and were naturally much more enthusiastically delighted +and profoundly admiring. Rosalie, in business, could not be entertained +and did not sufficiently admire. She had to have a special early +breakfast; she disappeared; she was not in to lunch or tea; she +was not sufficiently impressed by what cook had prepared but had +rather too much to say about what she had been doing, at dinner; +and she excused herself away to early bed on the ground of fatigue +or of having certain books to study. Rosalie, in business, was not +a guest at all in Aunt Belle's sense of the word: indeed there came +an occasion--Rosalie twice in one week late for dinner--when Aunt +Belle said awfully, "My house is not a hotel, Rosalie. I cannot +have my nice house turned into a hotel." + +It was the nearest thing to an unkind word ever spoken by Aunt +Belle to Rosalie, and it was so near that it brought Aunt Belle +up to Rosalie's bed that night--solicitude in a terrific dressing +gown of crimson silk--to express the hope that Rosalie was not +crying (she was not; she had been sound asleep) at anything Aunt +Belle "might have said." "But you see, dear child, there are the +servants to consider, all that delicious soup and all that most +tasty turbot au gratin to be kept warm for you, and there is your +kind Uncle Pyke to consider; men do not like their meals to be..." + +The boarding house, which Rosalie, with qualms as to its reception +by Aunt Belle, had for some time been secretly meditating, came +easily after that. The boarding house had moreover for Aunt Belle +a double attraction. It not only removed Rosalie in her capacity +of one threatening to turn Aunt Belle's nice house into a hotel; +it also restored Rosalie in her capacity of overwhelmed, grateful +and admiring poor relation. Rosalie was now invited from the boarding +house just as previously she had been invited from the Sultana's; +the table and the appointments of Aunt Belle's house were now +lavishly displayed in contrast to the display and the table endured +by Rosalie at the boarding house; Aunt Belle was again supremely +happy in Rosalie and abundantly kind; dinner each Saturday night +was a standing invitation and frequently for these dinners Aunt +Belle arranged "a little dinner party for you, dear child, just +one or two really nice people that it is nice for you to meet and +that you can tell your friends at the boarding house about, dear +child." + +Aunt Belle helped Rosalie to choose the boarding house and saw that +it was "nice." Nice people went there and the proprietress, Miss +Kentish, was nice. Miss Kentish had a grey, detachable fringe which +became, and re-mained, semi-detached immediately after breakfast, +and a mobile front tooth which came out surprisingly far when she +talked and went in with a sharp click when she stopped. She had for +newcomers a single conversational sentence--"My name is Kentish, +though funnily enough we come from Sussex"--and, for all purposes, +a single business principle, that of willingness "to come to an +arrangement." "I am afraid I cannot remedy your water not being hot +at eight o'clock," she would say to a boarder, "but I will gladly +come to an arrangement with you. Ten minutes to eight or ten minutes +past eight" (click). She would come to an arrangement on anything. +She became very fond of Rosalie in course of time and once told +her that though her duties never permitted her to attend church +she had "come to an arrangement" with the vicar and felt that she +had "come to an arrangement with Our Lord" (click). She came to +an arrangement with Rosalie in the matter of tariff, receiving her +and a Miss Salmon, who also sought arrangement, as "two friends +as one." This was two persons sharing a room at the tariff of a +person and a half. Living was very cheap in those days. Rosalie, +at the beginning, with Miss Salmon, paid 18/6 a week, and out of +the twenty-five shillings paid her, at first, every Friday by Mr. +Simcox there remained what seemed to Rosalie great wealth. + +She set herself to save on it and her first purpose in thus saving +was to accumulate money on which she could draw so as to be able +to pay for a room private to herself. That would have taken some +time. Her successive increases in her earnings, as Mr. Simcox's +hobby developed into a business, brought privacy, and in time what +amounted to luxury, by much swifter process. Rosalie was a very +long time at the boarding house. From being two friends as one she +passed to a small remote room of her own, then to a larger and more +accessible room, then to a bed-sitting-room, finally to a very +delightful arrangement. There was on the second floor a fine roomy +apartment having a dressing-room opening out of it. Rosalie, by +then in much favour with Miss Kentish, not only secured the suite +but "came to an arrangement" with Miss Kentish by which the furniture +and fittings were removed from the rooms and Rosalie permitted to +fit, decorate and furnish them herself. Rosalie never knew happier +hours than in the furnishing of those two rooms into a little +kingdom of her own: she never in all her life knew days as happy +as the days there spent. + +But at the beginning, two friends as one with Miss Salmon and first +contact with life from the angle presented by some twenty various +individuals met at meals and in the public rooms. Miss Salmon was +a pale, fussy creature with pince-nez in some mysterious way set +so far from her eyes that she always appeared to be running after +them as if to keep them balanced. Whenever anything of which she +did not approve was being said to Miss Salmon or was being done +before Miss Salmon, she maintained throughout it, moving about in +pursuit of her pince-nez, a rather loud, constant, tuneless humming. +When her moment came she would always begin "Well, now" and then +swallow forcibly as though the swallowing gave her pain. "Well, +now" (gulp). This introduction was always precedent to speech by +Miss Salmon, whether after humming or not. Rosalie frequently went +to Sunday church service with her and there was an occasion in +the Litany on which Miss Salmon, who either had been wandering or +sleeping, suddenly came to herself at the correct moment and said: +"Well, now"--(gulp)--"We beseech thee to hear us, O Lord." + +Miss Salmon was employed as a daily nursery governess by a family +resident across the park who, not hav-ing room for her, had "come +to an arrangement" with Miss Kentish for her accommodation at +the boarding house; and with her fussiness, her nose pursuit, her +humming and her general ineptitude of habit and of thought, she +was as it were a fated companion for Rosalie; and it was the case +that all the other inmates of the boarding house were, in regard +to Rosalie, equally and in the same sense fated. Miss Salmon and +they were fated, or fatal, to Rosalie, in the sense that it would +have been well then for Rosalie, as always well for any developing +young thing, to have been among companions who drew upon her +sympathies and called for her consideration. The contrary was here +presented to her. She was ripe to be intolerant for she was very +full of purpose and purpose is a motive power of much impatience. +Miss Salmon, who would have made a saint impatient, made Rosalie, +who was not a saint, very impatient and the virus of this impatience +was that very soon Rosalie made no attempt to conceal it. It seemed +to Rosalie that whenever she projected any plan to Miss Salmon--as +to "do" a pit at a theatre--or any theory--as that men and not women +were manifestly the cat tribe--it seemed to her that Miss Salmon +always hummed with the maddening humming denotive of disapproval, +and always prefaced stupendously stubborn idiocy with the "Well, +now" and the gulp that alone were sufficient to drive enthusiasm +crazy. + +"Mmmmm--mm. Mmm--mmmm--mm--mm," would go Miss Salmon, following her +pince-nez up and down the little bedroom. And then, the pince-nez +poised, "Well, now" (gulp). + +And Rosalie came to cry, "Oh, never mind. Never mind, for goodness' +sake. I know exactly what you're going to say so what is the good +of saying it?" Miss Salmon nevertheless would say it, in full +measure, pressed down at intervals in solid lumps with reiterated +"Well, now" (gulp). And then Rosalie would hum to show she was not +listening and thus in time to the position that Rosalie, beyond the +ordinary changes of everyday conversation, took not the slightest +notice of Miss Salmon but busied herself in their room, or came +into it or went out of it, precisely as if Miss Salmon, who with +her gulps, her fussiness and her balancing was very much there, +was in fact not there at all. When Rosalie for the weekly dinner +at Aunt Belle's used to dress in the evening frock of Laetitia's +given her for the purpose by Aunt Belle, she used, at first, to say +to Miss Salmon, "There, how do I look, Gertrude? Can you see that +mend in the lace?" + +"Well, now--" (gulp). + +Very soon she was dressing (at the common dressing table) with no +more regard for Miss Salmon or for the continuous humming of Miss +Salmon (signification of Miss Salmon's disapproval of the monopolisation +of the dressing table) than if Miss Salmon had been an automaton +wound up to balance a pince-nez around the room, to hum, and at +intervals to gulp. + +This was a small thing, but it was an important small thing. Rosalie +was entirely insensible to the opinions and the existence of Miss +Salmon, and it followed that she became entirely insensible to the +feelings of Miss Salmon. To begin by ignoring a person with whom +you are in daily contact is certainly to end by not caring at all +what happens to that person. It was the misfortune of Miss Salmon +to suffer periodically and acutely from biliousness (which she +called neuralgia). In an attack, she took instantly to her bed and +lay there flat on her back, absurdly and unnecessarily poising her +pince-nez, and looking, unquestionably, very unpleasant. Rosalie,--who +believed that Miss Salmon on these occasions had overeaten herself, +the attacks invariably coinciding with pork in winter and with a +fruit trifle known in the boarding house as "Kentish Delight" in +the summer, of both of which Miss Salmon was avowedly fond, was +at first warmly sympathetic and attentive on their occurrence, +anointing the fevered brows with eau-de-Cologne, nipping the +unnecessary pince-nez off the pallid nose, darkening the room, and +stealing about on tiptoe. In time her attitude came to be expressed +by her reception of the sight of Miss Salmon prone, stricken, +yellow, pince-nez, poising. "What, again?" + +"Well, now----" (Gulp). + +But Rosalie would be gone. + +And it came to be the same with all the other fellow inmates +of the boarding house, alike the men and the women. Rosalie, in +a colloquialism of to-day not then coined, "had no use for them." +There was in none of them anything that aroused her esteem; there +was in each of them, in degree greater or less, much that provoked +her scorn. The result was as resulted from Miss Salmon--she did +not bother about them; and not bothering about them she suffered +an inhibition of her sympathies. To repeat the thing said, her +environment here was, as it were, fated or fatal. In her eagerness +for her career, her generous emotions were likely to be laid aside +and to wither; and the environment of the boarding house in no way +drew upon her sympathies. + +This was not good for Rosalie. + +Moreover, the community of the boarding house served Rosalie ill +on another point. She came there with all those grotesque ideas +of her childhood on the respective positions of men and women +precipitated through her older years to the perception given +to Keggo: women were this, women were that; in their commonest +characteristics they contrasted very badly with men; men did things +better than women; they had by far the better lot in life than women; +unquestionably men were the creatures; of course--off-handedly--they +were beasts. She came to the boarding house with these ideas and +the boarding house presented these ideas to her in living fact and +assured her in her ideas. She came there very susceptible to the +qualities she believed to be rooted with their sex in men and women +and she saw those qualities there at once. The boarding house might +have been all her ideas of women and of men taken away by an artist +and put into an exact picture. It was her words to Keggo in terms of +actual life. Its population, little varying, was always round about +twenty; the proportion in sex always in the region of fifteen women +to five men. The figures were always constant and the characters, +when they changed, seemed always to Rosalie to be constant; the +names changed, the personalities did not change. Even the faces did +not change: there are certain types of faces that either are produced +by permanent residence in boarding houses or that go instinctively +to boarding houses for their permanent residence. There is a +boarding-house mould. There would always be two husbands with wives +and three men without wives. The men were never spoken to by any +of the women but with a certain archness which Rosalie detested; +and they never spoke to the women but with a certain boisterousness, +a kind of rubbing together of the hands and a "Ha! What miserable +weather, Mrs. Keeley. How does it suit you? Ha!" which Rosalie +equally detested. It was as though the women, leading boarding-house +lives, knew that the men (who were never in to lunch and sometimes +absent from dinner) did not lead boarding-house lives but secret, +dashing and mysterious lives; and as though the men knew that they +lived secret, dashing and mysterious lives but condescended to the +women who lived only boarding-house lives; and the archness on the +one side and the boisterousness on the other implied tribute and +worthiness of tribute. This implication Rosalie also detested. + +Men--as she now saw men and women--she dismissed; generally as "of +course they're beasts," severally and in the groups to which they +belonged, as cats--of the cat tribe--tame cats, wild cats, Cheshire +cats, tomcats and stray cats. But she dismissed them. That was +her attitude, as it developed, towards men. They had been, in her +regard, owners of the earth, possessing and having dominion over +the round world and all that therein is, as a stage magician owns +and dominates his stage; they had next been wonderful things but +apt to be troublesome and braggart things whose braggadocio caused +you to blink and have a funny feeling; they had then been sinister +and frightening things that caused poor Anna to say it was hard for +women; they became, at last, creatures that had the best of life, +that is to say the better time in life, not because they merited it, +but because it was theirs by tradition and they stepped into it, or +were put into it, as naturally as a man child is put into trousers; +and they had, when all was reckoned up, the better qualities--largeness, +tolerance, directness, explosiveness (as opposed to smouldering-ness)--not, +Rosalie thought, because they were males, but because they had the +position that males have, just as by the habit of command is given +to small boys in the Navy and very young men in the Army the air +and the poise of command. + +Yes, certainly men were, as they had always been, the creatures; +but the eyes that formerly saw them as magicians, as by a savage +is seen only the mystery of the moving hands, the tick, and the +strike of a clock, now looked inside the case and saw the works. +No mystery. No exclusiveness of natural power. Nothing abnormal. +Men, on their estimable qualities and position, were what they were +merely because, as the works of a watch, thus and thus the wheels +were made to go round. Easy. Nothing in it. On the contrary. On +the contrary, men were the more despicable in that, dowered as by +tradition they were dowered, they yet were--what they were! The +eyes that had been caused to blink by Robert blowing smoke through +his nose and by Harold pulling up his collar and speaking with a +"haw!" sound, blinked from a contempt yet more profound (because +now known for contempt) at the exhibition, seen all about her, of +men's unlovely side. And she dismissed them. They did not attract +her in the smallest degree. All that they had in them to esteem, +whether of qualities or of position, they had--here was the parallel--in +common with drones in a hive. They had the best of everything; they +were blundering, blustering, noisy, careless, buccaneering owners +of the world, and to her--as all the roystering swarm to any +individual worker bee--to her, negligible. She was a worker bee, +busy, purposeful. + +There is a special function belonging to drones in a hive. That +special function of men in regard to women was repellant to Rosalie. +All that pertained to it was repulsive to her. She loathed to think +of men in that capacity and she loathed to see women ensnared in +that regard by men. Beautiful cousin Laetitia and the "good match" +that obviously had been found for her: she detested seeing those +two together: it made her feel sick. + +Men! By this and by that in passage of time she was in contact with +a good number and a good variety of men. There was the frequently +changing male contribution to the boarding-house community; there +were clients met in the development of her work at Simcox's; +there were the men of the circle of Uncle Pyke Pounce; there were +the men of the circle of cousin Laetitia, brought to the little +Saturday-dinner parties. A very fair average, a rather wider than +the normal average of contact with men; and she dismissed them. +They had not any attraction for her at all. If, rarely, she met +one whose superficial points were superficially attractive, his +contribution to her attitude to men was to make her blink (inwardly) +the more, albeit on a different note. That one so exceptionally +dowered should find pleasure in, for instance, dalliance of sex! +Contemptible! Oh, sickening and contemptible! One Harry Occleve, of +Laetitia's circle, so obviously "the good match," was outstandingly +such a case. It was thought upon him, scornful and disgusted +thought, that made her, walking back from one of the Saturday-evening +parties--he was always there--arrange her experiences with men +in that analogy between men and cats which, as related, had been +delivered to Miss Salmon. + +Like a tame cat! She never had met a man she despised so much. +You'd think a man like that couldn't help but be above such things +as Cousin Laetitia and Aunt Belle made of him. "Occleve." The very +name that he owned had a nice sound; and he was brilliantly clever +and looked brilliantly clever. He was a barrister and Aunt Belle, +who was forever talking about him, had said that evening, just +before his arrival, that some famous counsel had declared of him +that he was unquestionably the most brilliant of the young men of +the day at the Bar. So he was talented, had a great future before +him, had a strong, most taking presence, a commanding air, a voice +of uncommon charm--and was in bonds to Laetitia! Looked sickly at +her! Mouthed fatuous nothings with her! Was obviously marked down +to be that "good match" that Laetitia was to make, and was content, +was eager, to be the tame cat of her languishing glances and of +Aunt Belle's excessive gushings! Was to be seen in a future not +distant mated with Laetitia and sharing with her an atmosphere of +milk and silk and babies and kisses! Tame cat! What an end to which +to bring such qualities! What a desecration of such qualities to +set them to win such an end! Tame cat! + +But they all were cats of one kind or another. Yes, men are of the +cat tribe! Tabby cats--the soft, fattish kind, without any manlike +qualities, that seemed to be by far the greater proportion of all +the men one saw about in buses and in the streets and met in business; +tabby cats--sloppy, old-womanish creatures. Cheshire cats--the kind +that grinned out of vacuous minds and that never could speak to a +woman without grinning; the unattached men at the boarding house +invariably were of the Cheshire-cat cats. Tomcats--the beastly ones +with lecherous eyes that looked at you. "Of course they're beasts." +It had been a large experience of the tomcat cats that had made +her add that final summary of men to Keggo. The Bashibazook, once +or twice encountered in her last terms at the Sultana's, though never +spoken with, had looked at her in a horrible way, not understood, +but felt to be frightening and horrible; Mr. Ponders, on a dreadful +occasion after handing over the medicine for Miss Keggs, had horribly +said, "Well, now, wouldn't a kiss be nice? I think a nice kiss would +be very nice." She had managed to get away without being touched; +the nausea in her eyes perhaps had frightened him. It was nausea +she felt, not fear, a horrible physical sickness; and finally to +round off the "of course they're beasts" of men as then experienced +and now to fill up the schedule of tomcat cats the friends of +Uncle Pyke Pounce's circle and Uncle Pyke Pounce himself and the +men like the men of his circle--tomcats something past their prime +as lechers (but at a hint only more lecherous for that) but in the +full prime of their beastliness as guzzlers, who with guzzle eyes +eyed their food. She had come across a word in Carlyle's "French +Revolution" that instantly brought Uncle Pyke Pounce and his friends +to her mind and that always thereafter she applied to the elderly +tomcat encountered or passed in the street--"atrabilious." Atrabilious! +The very word! She looked it up in the dictionary, was disappointed +to find it did not mean exactly what she thought it meant, but gave +it her own meaning, and applied it to them. It sounded like them. +They had small beady eyes, set in yellow; no apparent eyelids either +above or below, just an unblinking eye set in a puffy face like a +currant in a slab of cold pudding that gloated or glared at everything +and everybody as if it was a thing to be devoured; guzzlers who +gloated upon their food and wallowed in their soup, always with little +streaks of red veins and blue veins in their faces. Atrabilious! +Tomcats! + +Wild cats--the roamers, the untamed ones, the ones with cruel and +with wicked faces that made you not sick, but frightened; mostly +they were dressed in rough clothes, men hanging about the streets +who patently were thieves or worse, who looked at you and at once +looked all around as if to see if any were about that might protect +you; but often dressed in gentle dress and then with the cruel and +wicked look more cruel and more wicked, to make your shudder to +think of a woman having to belong to that. + +Stray cats--on the whole the only really bearable ones; the lonely +ones that seemed to have lost something or to be lost, that seemed +to need looking after, that made you have a funny tender feeling +towards them, a wanting as it were to pick them up and carry them +home and be sharp with them because they couldn't take care of +themselves, and to be kind to them also because they couldn't take +care of themselves; yes, the only bearable ones: Mr. Simcox was +precisely one. + +All cats, of the cat tribe. There wasn't one you couldn't place. +There wasn't one, save dear little Mr. Simcox and the stray cat +ones you sometimes saw, that was not in some trait contemptible. +The only thing to be said for them was that it was their nature. +They were created like that. You just shrugged your shoulders at +them and let them go at that, negligible entities. Active disgust +was only felt of them when one of their traits was manifested +directly towards you; or, much more, when the sight was given +of such a one as this Harry Occleve making such an exhibition of +himself and enjoying it, delighting in it, asking nothing better +than to be philandering with Laetitia, or escorting Laetitia, or +gazing at Laetitia. That did make you angry enough with a man to +hate a man. It was like seeing a good book--as it might be "Lombard +Street"--used to prop a table leg; or a jolly dog--as the dearest +Scotch terrier once brought to the boarding house--led for a walk +on a leash by an old maiden mistress and wearing a lapdog's flannel +coat with ribbon bows at the corner. Her aversion to Harry Occleve +was such that, in their rare passages together, she was almost +openly rude to him. It seemed there was even no physical quality +he had but he used it to abase himself or to make an exhibition +of himself. He had noticeably long, strong-looking arms, but the +sickening thing to see him once using those arms to hold silk for +Laetitia while she wound it! He had a striking face that she named, +from a line in Browning, a "marching" face--"one who never turned +his back but marched breast forward"--but to see that face bent +fatuously towards Laetitia! There radiated from the corners of +his eyes towards his temples those little lines that sailors often +have, "horizon tracks," she called them; but to see them deeply +marked while he mouthed earnest nothings with Laetitia! There was +an odd, nice smell about him, of peat, of tobacco, of soap, of +heather with the wind across it, of things like that most agreeably +mixed, and actually she had heard Laetitia say to him in the babyish +way she spoke to him, "You smoke too much. You do." And he, like +a moon calf: "Oh, you're not going to ask me to give up smoking, +are you?" And she with a trailing eye and hint of a blush, "Perhaps +I shall--some day." And he--a sigh! Positively a love-sick sigh +straight out of a novel! Ah, positively she could detest the man! +She came to discover it as an odd thing that, while commonly she +was entirely indifferent to men, always after a Saturday meeting +with Laetitia's Harry she had for quite a day or two an active +detestation of them. + +But it was the women at the boarding house--to instance the boarding +house--the fifteen women, the immense, straggling army of women +as they looked to be, when they came trooping in to dinner or went +trailing out again, that had Rosalie's sharpest observation and +that best pointed her youthful estimates. Unlike men who had fallen +woefully from her childhood estimate of them, the women maintained +and intensified her early estimate of women. The women in the boarding +house showed Rosalie what women come to. A few were emphatically +old; the rest, with the single exception of Miss Salmon, were +emphatically not old; on the other hand they were emphatically not +young. They were at pains to let you see they were not old and the +pains they were at rather dreadfully (to Rosalie) emphasised the +fact that they were not young. The thing about them, the warning, +the proof that they exhibited of all Rosalie's ideas about the inferiority +of women, was that they were, in her phrase, derelicts--not wanted; +abandoned; homeless; or they would not be here. Yes, derelict; and +what was worse, derelict not in the sense of desuetude of powers +or of powers outworn, but with the suggestion of never having had +any powers, of having been always the mere vessels of another's +powers--some man's; and now, with that power withdrawn--the man, +whether father, brother, lover or husband, gone--derelict as a +ship, abandoned of crew, rudderless and dismasted, is derelict; as +an obscure habitation, cold of hearth, crazy of walls, abandoned +to decay, is derelict. She summed them all up as having arrived at +what they were precisely because in their earlier years they had +been what in her childhood she had supposed women to be: inferior +creatures at the disposal and for the benefit and service of men. +What a warning never to be that! There they were--manless. And +therefore derelict. And because derelict for such a reason, therefore +testimony to a social condition that was abominable, and because +seen to be abominable never, never herself should enfold. Never! +Manless. Husbandless. There they were, the straggling mob of +them,--deserted by husbands, semi-detached from husbands, relict +of husbands fallen out with a stitch in the side in the race for +husbands. Urh! + +She was very young, Rosalie. + +"Despised and rejected of men," she said to Miss Salmon, holding +forth in their bedroom on her subject. "That's what I call them. +Despised and rejected of men. Oh, don't hum louder than ever. It's +not irreverent to say that. It describes a condition, that's all, +and I'm using it because it describes this condition, their condition, +exactly. It does. You can hum; but it does. They've never done +anything, they've never meant to do anything, they've never tried +to do anything except hang round after some man. That's all. They've +either caught him and now lost him; or they've missed him and now +go on missing him. That's their lives. That's nearly any woman's +life. It's not going to be mine. If anything were wanted to make +the whole idea of marriage and all that repulsive to me--and nothing +is wanted--that would. Despised and rejected of men! I used to think +and to say I intended to be like a man and to do a man's work and +have a man's share. I tell you that even getting so close to a +man as that--I mean as close as intentional emulation of him--even +getting as close as that makes me feel sick now. It's my own life +I'm going to have, my own place, my own share; not modelled on any +one else's. If it were conceivable that I ever met a man I cared +tuppence about--but it isn't conceivable; that's a quality that's +been left clean out of me, thank goodness--but if it were conceivable, +what I'd offer would be just to share; to go on living my own way +and he his--Oh, your humming! I mean after marriage, of course; I +think this free-love business they talk about is even more detestable +than the lawful kind--just animalism. That's all I'd do. Me my +life; he his life; meeting, as equals, when it was convenient to +meet. I'd like to bring all these poets and people who write about +love into our dining-room to see those people. That'd teach them! + + Man's love is of his life a thing apart; + 'Tis woman's whole existence. + +What an existence!" + +"Well, now--" (gulp). + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + + + +"You have pretended to dislike and to despise men, but it was a +pretence to deceive me and you are a liar." + +This was the astounding opening of an astounding letter, pages and +pages, to Rosalie from Miss Salmon. Pages and pages, having the +appearance, each one, of a battlefield or of a riot: a welter of +thick, black underscores strewn about like coffins or like corpses, +and a bristling pin-cushionful (black pins) of notes of exclamation +leaping about like war-dancing Zulus or staggering about like drunken +or like wounded men. A welter you had to pick your way through with +epithets rushing against you at every step like units of a surging +mob hounding and charging against an unfortunate pedestrian caught +in the trouble. + +Miss Salmon had two months before introduced "a gentleman friend" +to the boarding house. He was a clerk in some big business firm. +His name was Upsmith and he bore upon a fattish face a troubled, +beseeching look, rather as though something internal and not to +be mentioned was severely incommoding him and might at any moment +become acute. Miss Salmon called him Boo, which Rosalie considered +grotesque but not unsuitable, and it was communicated to the boarding +house that the twain were at a mysterious point of affinity called, +not an engagement, but an understanding. + +Rosalie had by this time taken the second step in her upward +progression of comfort in the boarding house. She had moved into +a separate room, leaving Miss Salmon to become half of another two +friends as one, and she and Miss Salmon therefore saw much less of +each other. But Rosalie still sat at the same table as Miss Salmon +at dinner and there Mr. Upsmith joined them. + +The thing may be hurried along to its astounding conclusion in +the astounding letter. It was not in itself an event of any sort +of moment to Rosalie. She was in no way outraged by being called +a liar. There is no hurt at all in being called a liar when you +know you are not a liar. The accusation has sting only if you are +a liar; and indeed it is comforting evidence of some inner self +within us that only when we have ourselves debased that inner self +become we open to wounds from without. That citadel is never taken +by storm; only by treachery. No, the significance of the astounding +letter reposed in the fact that her reception of it opened to Rosalie +a glimpse of a quality rising beneath her to carry her forward as +a wave beneath a swimmer. It has been perceived in her but Rosalie +had not perceived it. + +A great triumph and a great happiness swelled within Miss Salmon +with the arrival of Mr. Upsmith and with the circulation about the +boarding house that there was an understanding between herself and +Mr. Upsmith. Her humming took on a loud, defiant quality, as of +triumph; she pursued her pince-nez with a certain eagerness, as of +confidence of balance and certitude of capture. Her note and her +air seemed to say that she was Boo's and Boo hers and she gloried +in it with that exalted and yet something fearful glory that is to +be seen, pathetically, on the faces of very plain young women, or +of distinctly ageing young women, who have got a Boo but for whom +the Boos of this world are elusive to capture and slippery to hold. +The look is to be seen a dozen times on any Sunday afternoon when +the young couples are out. + +At dinner time Miss Salmon would talk much to Boo in whispers and +then would look up and hum across at Rosalie in triumph, as of one +that knew things that Rosalie could not know and that had a thing +that Rosalie did not possess. Mr. Upsmith looked also much at Rosalie, +in no triumph, but in an apparent great excess of his unfortunate +complaint. He stared, troubled and beseeching, at her at meals, +and he stared, troubled and beseeching, at her when he encountered +her away from meals. The longer he sojourned in the boarding house +the more troubled and beseeching, when Rosalie happened to notice +him, did his fattish countenance appear to become. That was all. +There scarcely ever was exchanged between them even the courtesies +customary between dwellers beneath the same roof; they never, that +Rosalie could remember, were a minute alone together and yet on a +day in an August, Miss Salmon a week away on a month at the seaside +with the family to which she was nursery governess, Rosalie was +being told in the violent opening sentence of one letter that she +had pretended to despise and dislike men but had only done it to +deceive Miss Salmon and was a liar; and in the impassioned sentences +of another which had been enclosed and had fallen and to which +bewildered she stooped and then read, that the heart of Boo was +at her feet ("your proud, sweet little feet that I would kiss in +my adorance") that he had adored her ever since he had first set +eyes on her, that he treasured "like pearls before swine" every +encouragement she had given him from her divine eyes and from her +proud little lips, that he had had no sleep for a fortnight and +felt he would go mad unless he wrote these few lines (nine pages), +that he earned "good money," and that he was, in conclusion, to +which Rosalie amazedly skipped, "ever and ever and imperishably +always her imperishably adoring Boo." + +Two days previously Rosalie had received, but not read, another +slightly mysterious letter. It had been in her receptacle in the +letter rack in the hall, addressed to her in an unfamiliar writing +and deposited by hand, not through the post. It had begun "Dear +Miss Salmon, re our friendship I have to inform you--" Rosalie +had turned to the end, "B. Upsmith." She had replaced it in its +envelope, written upon the envelope, "This is evidently for you, +but addressed to me, as you see--R." and had placed it in another +stamped wrapper to be forwarded by Miss Kentish. She had only thought +of it as in funny style for a love letter, proper no doubt to the +niceties of an "understanding." And what had happened was that +the vile, egregious, and infamous Boo, writing to break off one +understanding and establish another, had placed them in the wrong +envelopes. The outpourings of his bursting heart to Rosalie had +been received by Miss Salmon; the information "re our friendship" +had gone to Rosalie. + +Of itself, as has been said, the whole incident was nothing at all +in the life of Rosalie. It came with the crash, but only startling +and quite harmless crash, of an unexpected clap of thunder, and it +passed as completely and as passively, doing no damage, leaving no +mark. Miss Salmon never returned to the boarding house; the vile, +egregious and infamous Boo haply incisively informed by Miss Salmon +of what he had done, incontinently, and without speech to Rosalie, +fled from the boarding house. They were gone, they were nothing to +Rosalie; the correspondence was destroyed, it was nothing to Rosalie. + +But the significance of the matter was here. There was in Miss +Salmon's letter to Rosalie one paragraph that Rosalie read a second +time. She had received the letter when coming in just before dinner. +Not at all injured nor in any way discommoded by the hurtling +epithets, the terrific underscores intended to be as bludgeons, +or the leaping exclamatory notes set there for stabs, she had put +the thing away in a drawer and gone down to her meal. The passage +alluded to came more than once into her mind. When she was about +to get into bed that night she destroyed the letter, first reading +that paragraph, and only that, again. Sole in the violent welter +of those sheets it had no underscores nor any exclamations. It was +added as a postscript. It said: + +"Well, now; Boo and I met the first time in a crowd watching a +horse that had fallen down. It kicked and I stepped back quickly +and trod on his foot. It made him put his hands on my arms and I +looked around to apologise and there was his dear face smiling at +me, although in great pain, for I had trodden on a corn he has; +and I knew at once it was the face I had looked for and longed for +all my life and had found at last; and I loved him from the first +and we went out of the crowd and talked. Well, now; I clung to him +in all our happy, happy months together, in a way you can never +understand, because I loved him, and because I am not the sort that +men like because I am only plain, and I knew that if ever he left +me I could never get another. Well, now; you have taken him away +from me. You could get dozens and dozens of men to love you, but +you have taken mine, and I never, never can get another." + +The thoughts of Rosalie, not sequent, but going about and amounting +thusly, were thus: "That is very pathetic. That is horribly sad +and pathetic. Coming at the end like that and without any strokes +and flourishes, it is as if she was exhausted of her hate and +rage and just put out an utterly tired hand and set this here like +a sigh. That's pathetic, the mere look of it and that thought of +it. And then what she says. The dreadfully simple naivete of the +beginning of it. Staring at a fallen horse in the street. It's just +where they would be, both of them. They'd stand there for hours +and just stare and stare. And then she steps back on his foot and +there's 'his dear face' smiling at her; ah, it's pathetic, it's +poignant! I can see it absolutely. Yes, I can. As if I were in the +crowd around the horse, watching them. There they are, the horse +between us, and all the doltish, staring faces round about; and +their two dull and stupid faces; and as their eyes meet that sudden +look upon their foolish faces, as of irradiation out of heaven, that +would make a clown's face beautiful and cause the hardest heart to +twist. But it doesn't cause mine to twist. That's the odd thing. +I remember perfectly when a thing like that would have given me a +little blinky kind of feeling. I've always been awfully quick to +notice things like that. I've often seen them. Quite recently, so +little, I believe, as a year ago, things like that, things like +this, would have moved me a lot. They somehow do not now. That +frightful ending of hers: 'You could get dozens and dozens of men +to love you, but you have taken mine and I can never, never get +another.' That is most terribly pathetic. I think that is the most +poignant thing I have ever heard. Well, I can realise its utter +pathos; I can realise it but I cannot feel it. It does not move +me. 'And I never, never can get another.' It's frightful. I could +cry. But I do not a bit want to cry. I must have somehow changed. I +am not a bit sorry if I have changed. I would be sorry to go back +and be as, if I have changed, I must have been--sentimental. I have +changed. I believe I can look back and see it. About the time I +left the Sultana's, mother's letters, and keeping them and answering +them, began to be--yes they did begin to be a little, tiny bit of +a nuisance to me. Yes, it was beginning then, this. And I expect +earlier, if I worked it out. There's nothing in it to regret. It's +just a growing out of a thing. It's not, when I see a thing that's +pathetic, that I've grown blunt or blind and can't see it for +pathetic. It's just--I know what it is--it's just that it doesn't +appeal to me in the same way. It's like seeing a dish of most tempting +food in front of you, not that I ever remember my mouth, as they +say, watering at anything; but say strawberries and cream--I'm fond +of strawberries and cream--it's like seeing a dish of strawberries +and cream in front of you, and knowing it's good and knowing it's +delicious, and knowing you're awfully fond of it--and just not +being hungry; turning away and leaving it there, not because it's +not everything that it ought to be, but just because--you don't +want it. I should say that's how it is with me about these--these +pathetic things. I know they're pathetic. I don't want them." + +That is how it was, how it had become, with Rosalie. That was just +her first recognition of it, as the swimmer, intent on his own +making of his progression, recognises not, till he has been borne +some distance by it, the current that also is carrying him along. + +Visits home to the Rectory were further manifestations to her of +this arising symptom. + +There were appeals that should have arisen to her out of her home; +and they did arise; and she recognised them; but they did not +appeal to her--not in the old way. She went home very rarely for +occasional week-ends, always for her annual holidays, always for +Christmas; and the discovery she made was that she liked her home +very much better when she was away from it than when she was in +it. When a visit was in prospect she desired her home, that is to +say her mother, most frightfully. But when the visit was in being +the joy she had promised herself she would spread somehow was not +at her command; the love she had yearned to show somehow was chilled +within her and not forthcoming. It was the tempting dish in a new +illustration--rushing eagerly to it, avid of its delights; coming +to it and finding, after all, one was not hungry. + +Strange! + +Her mother was ageing rapidly. She could have wept to see the +ageing signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not moved; +received the impression but was not sensitive to it; felt the tug +but did not respond to the pull. Rather, indeed, was apt to be +a little impatient. Returned to London and to her engrossing work +and longed to be back with her mother; came back to her mother--and +was not hungry. + +Strange! + +Then she began to analyse the strangeness of it and found it +was not, after all, so strange; at least it was not a thing to be +distressed about, nor bearing conviction of unnatural qualities, +of hardness, of unkindness. There was a line she knew that came in +a verse: + + There was a time when meadow, grove and stream, + The earth, and every common thing + To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream. + It is not now as it hath been of yore. + Turn wheresoe'er I may + By night or day, + The things which I have seen I now can see no more. + +"The things which I have seen I now can see no more." That was the +line. "The things which used to appeal to me now appeal no more--or +rather not quite in the same way. I think I used to be very sentimental. +It is stupid and useless to be sentimental. People must grow old. +There's nothing sad in that. It is natural. It is life. It is life +and one must accept life. The unnatural thing, the foolish and wrong +thing, is to remain a sentimental child for ever, with a child's +ready foolish tears at what are common, necessary facts of life. +I can be much kinder, much more really kind, by seeing things +clearly--and in their right perspective than by occluding them +with false compassions. I am always my dear, my darling mother's +devoted daughter, ever at her disposal, and she knows it and loves +me for it. When I am to her or to any friend but as ships that pass +in the night--Keggo's phrase--then let me take myself to task." + +Keggo's phrase! Keggo was being intermittently seen at this time +and these thoughts of Rosalie's were very close to the occasion when +finally she lost sight of Keggo. It could be said like this--that +Keggo here made a contribution to Rosalie's life that passed Rosalie +on her way. + +They had kept touch for quite a time after their separation as +governess and pupil. They then lost touch. + +"Why, it must be more than a year!" cried Rosalie, suddenly encountering +Miss Keggs near the Marble Arch one evening and delightedly greeting +her. It was in the summer and Rosalie had gone out from the boarding +house after dinner for some fresh air in the park. She was enormously +glad to see Keggo again and carried her greeting straight on into +excuses for her share in their long sundering. "More than a year! +You know, the fact is, Keggo, that when I first left the Sultana's, +and for quite a time afterwards, I used to gush. I did! I was so +frightfully full of all I was doing and it was all so new and so +wonderful and I was so excited about it that it was sheer letting +off steam--gush--to write you reams and reams of letters about it +as I used to do. Then it got normal and the--the tumultuousness of +it wore off and I was just--I am, you know--just absolutely absorbed +in it and there was no more steam to let off; all the energy went +into the work, I suppose. So gradually, I suppose, without quite +realising it, I gave up writing. But, oh, if you knew how glad I +am to see you now!" + +Miss Keggs to all this presented only a fixed smile. A smile +belongs much more to the eyes than to the lips. The lips, but not +the eyes, can counterfeit a smile. False coin is "uttered" as they +say in law; and the lips utter. Not so the eyes. All metal that the +mouth issues is to be tested there. The expression in Miss Keggs's +eyes was not at all in consonance with that of her mouth. The +expression of her eyes was rather oddly vacant as you may see on +the face of a person who is apparently attending to what you are +saying but really is listening to another conversation in the same +room. "Not listening" as it is called. "An absent look" as they +say. + +Nevertheless she joined dove-tailed response to Rosalie's words. +"To tell you the truth," said Miss Keggs, speaking very slowly +and repeating the preamble. "To tell you the truth I wouldn't have +received your letters if you had written them." + +"You wouldn't? Why not?" + +"To tell you the truth--" there had been a pause before she first +spoke; a pause again before this reply and then again a beginning +with this phrase about which there was nothing odd in itself but +something odd in the manner of its use by Miss Keggs. "To tell you +the truth, I've left the school." + +"Left the Sultana's!" + +Miss Keggs nodded with slow inclinations, like grave bows, of her +head. + +"Whatever for? Keggo, when, why?" And then Rosalie, impelled by some +apprehension that suddenly pressed her, put a quick hand on Keggo's +arm and cried sharply, "Keggo! There is something very strange +about you. What has happened to you? Something has happened. You +can't keep it from me." + +But Keggo could. At that quick gesture of suspicion of Rosalie's, +animation sprung to meet it as a cat, at a sudden start, will leap +from profound slumber to a place of safety and to arched defence. +Miss Keggs, in their first exchanges, might have been as one +drowsily answering questions from a bed. She was suddenly, in her +instant casting away of her absent air, as that one flinging away +the bedclothes and leaping upright to the floor. What had she +been saying? She had been quite lost in something she was thinking +of when Rosalie came up. She scarcely had recollected her. She +had been very, very ill with "this influenza" and still was only +convalescent. Why, how very, very glad she was to see her dear +Rosalie again! And how Rosalie had developed! + +"Why, Rosalie, you are beautiful! You are! And you don't blush or +simper to hear it! Yes, you are beautiful." + +There was a little room in a street somewhere off the Harrow Road +that Miss Keggs now occupied. It was a forbidding street. It was one +of those derelict streets frequent in certain quarters of London, +in Holloway, in Kentish Town, in Kilburn and all over South London, +all about which life teems and roars but where, along their own +pavements, no life is. They are most characteristic of themselves, +these streets, when, as often to be seen, there is no soul along +them but a sad drab that is an itinerant singer that drifts along +wailing, at every few paces shuffling her body in complete turns to +scan the windows she has passed and the immediate windows on either +hand. She has no home and these are not homes to which she wails. +There is no flicker of life at any window. She's a sad drab, repulsive +within; and they are sad drabs, not nice within. At night, but not +before dusk, forlorn things flicker in and out of them like drab +ghosts had on the strings of a puppet show. By day there sometimes is +an old man crawling in or crawling out; sometimes a woman, always +with a parcel or a net bag, fleeting along, expressionless. The +high houses, all of one pattern, appear to have no pattern. They +are like dead walls and the place they enclose like a vault, and +the itinerant drab like a thing in drab cerements (they trail the +dust) that ought to be dead wailing for entrance to things, tombed +in those walls, that are dead. There is no life at all in these +streets. There is nothing active or positive. There is just passivity +and negation. There is just nothingness. They are not habitations, +which connote life; they are repositories, which connote desuetude. +They are the repositories of creatures, not that have done with +life, for the sheer fact of living acknowledges service to life, +but with whom life has done. + +These came to be Rosalie's thoughts of this street--Limpen Street--but +they could not have been hers when she was first going there to +spend evenings with Miss Keggs, for it was in her earlier visits +there to Keggo that she cried there. When she could cry for pure +compassion for another she was still too--too ardent for Limpen +Street to be seen as it has been presented. From the first it +affected her disagreeably but she would have felt, then, a sympathy +for its state, and a belief that it could be aroused out of its +state, and a wish so to arouse it; and in her earlier visits she had +ardently this sympathy, but it was raised to a profound compassion; +this belief, but it was a conviction; and this wish, but it was a +resolution, in regard to Keggo. + +For Keggo was drinking. + +Keggo had been drinking for years and years and now Keggo had walled +herself away in Limpen Street to drink and drink, still secretly +with the sharp cunning of the secret drinker, but now with cunning +only necessary when of her own wish she met the world. At the +Sultana's, (only Mr. Ponders in her secret, and in her pay; "that +vile man" as, after the revelation, she always spoke of him to +Rosalie) at the Sultana's and in all her life of that period she +was, as it were, as one whose life is threatened, dwelling among +spies; that breastplate of her cunning never could be laid off then; +now, as one threatened, but secure in a castle, the breastplate +only was needed when sallies forth were made. There was at the +Sultana's the need of constant care to inhibit her cravings; there +now was none to save her--unless Rosalie did. + +There is no need at all to tell all this and all that by which +Rosalie was led to this most terrible discovery and Keggo impelled +to her most painful revelation. There was deceit and its exposure; +lies and their crumpling in the hand; mystifications and their +sinister interpretations; contingencies and their ugly dissolutions. +These would be all beastly to tell. Beastly is a vile word but this +is a vile thing. There was about it all, all the time, a tainted +and unwholesome atmosphere. There was always in the little room in +Limpen Street that strange disagreeable smell of bad eau-de-Cologne +that always had hung about the little room at the Sultana's. + +Beastly things.... + +But they were not felt to be beastly by Rosalie, then. They are +said here to be beastly, for they were beastly, only in excuse for +Rosalie afterwards. They only were to her, then, intensely sad, +most deeply pitiful, intensely increasing of her love for Keggo as +pure love is increased by seeing its object in tortures that may +not be helped because they will not be confessed. If only Keggo +would tell her! Once or twice she said to Keggo, speaking with an +entreaty that must have made obvious to Keggo her knowledge, "Keggo, +haven't you something to tell me; something that you'd like to tell +me?" The occasion was always when she was leaving after a visit +that had found Keggo very unwell, very dejected of spirits, and +that Keggo had at last terminated by saying, "I think perhaps you +had better go, Rosalie. I think perhaps I'd be better lying down." +But Keggo's answer always was, "Something to tell you? No, nothing +at all! What should I have to tell you?" + +And then one day something said brought them very near to the matter +between them. Miss Keggs came nearer yet. She said, "The fact is, +Rosalie, I sometimes get so I simply cannot make an effort, the +smallest effort. I believe when I'm like that if a thousand pounds +were offered me for the going out and asking of it, and God knows +I want it badly enough, I simply could not make the effort to do +it. I'd simply let it pass and know that I was letting it pass and +not care. That's how it's got with me, how it is sometimes with +me, Rosalie." + +Rosalie said with extraordinary emphasis, leaning forward on the +chair in which she sat facing Keggo. "Why is it, Keggo?" + +If Keggo had answered, the thing would not have happened. Keggo did +not answer. She was sitting with her hands crossed, one palm upon +the other, and resting on her lap, her eyes to the ground. Quite +a long time passed. Rosalie said, "You're drinking, aren't you, +Keggo?" + +"Yes, drinking, Rosalie." + +"Oh, Keggo!" + +It was then that Rosalie cried. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + + + +Sne cried. Her sympathies, though drying and slower now to be +aroused, still then were such that she could weep for pity. It is +a glimpse of her not to be seen again. There was she on her knees +by Keggo, and with her arms about Keggo's waist, and with her head +on Keggo's lap, crying for Keggo; and in the pauses of Keggo's +unfolding of her story entreating her, as one that cried responses +to a litany, "Don't mind, Keggo! Keggo, don't mind now! Dear Keggo, +poor Keggo, it's all right now." + +And presently all the tale told: what Mr. Ponders' medicine was; +and all the humiliation suffered in keeping in with "that vile +man"; and that vile man's betrayal of her to the Sultana, and her +dismissal; and all the earlier dreadfulness of her first steps +down into her dreadful malady; and all the dreadful secrecy of all +those years; and all the horrible humiliation secretly to get her +poison; and all the horrible humiliations when her poison got. All +the dark tale of that presently told; and her head bowed down to +Rosalie's, and Rosalie's wet face against her face, and her face +also wet; and just her murmurs, murmured at intervals, as though +her heart that had discharged its grievous load ran slowly now, +slowly to rise and then to well with, "God bless you, Rosalie; +oh, Rosalie, God bless you"; and for a long time just seated thus, +cheek to cheek, hand to hand, heart to heart; weakness bound about +with strength, sorrow in pity's arms, travail in sanctuary.... + +It is desired that one should try to see that picture. Its +counterpart was not again in the life of Rosalie, hardening. + +There were, after that, such happy evenings in Keggo's room. Keggo, +with one to help her, fighting for herself; Rosalie, with one to +help, elevated upon that high happiness that comes with fighting for +another. For a short time there seemed to be no lapses in Keggo's +struggle. When they came (as Rosalie knew afterwards) the practised +cunning of years of secrecy had no difficulty in concealing them +from the unsuspecting eyes of Rosalie. Ill that it was so! Rosalie +was harder when came the lapse that cunning could not hide. She did +not cry. Her eyes were hard. She said with thin lips, "Why, even +all this time you have been deceiving me!" the which egged on, in +that vile way in which exchanges of a quarrel are as knives sharpening +one against the other, Keggo's enflamed retort, "The more fool you! +Little fool!" + +But at first, while the lapses were few and the cunning was equal +to them, only a closer friendship was set afoot between the woman +that was grown and the woman that was burgeoning, and there were +such very happy evenings in the room in Limpen Street. Such jolly +talks. + +There was one talk that, forgotten with the very evening of its +passage, afterwards very strongly returned to Rosalie and abode +with her. It had in it rather vital things for Rosalie. + +She loved to talk about her work with intelligent and sympathetic +Keggo, and she had been on this occasion expounding to her the +mysteries and interest of life insurance: in particular explaining +the "romance" of vital statistics; in particular, again, the curious +fact that, though women in the United Kingdom largely outnumbered +men, many more male children were born than female. The disproportion +"the other way about" in maturity, said Rosalie, was because the death +rate among men was much higher--due to risks of their occupations. +"A certain number of house painters," said Rosalie sagely, "fall +off ladders every year and are killed; women don't paint houses, so +they don't fall off ladders and get killed. Similarly on railways, +Keggo. The death rate among railway men is much higher in proportion, +over an average, than the rate in any other occupation. Porters +doing shunting, for instance, are always getting killed. Well, +women don't shunt trains so they don't get killed while shunting +trains, so there you are again, so to speak. The thing in a nutshell, +Keggo, is that, by contrast, men lead dangerous lives." + +Keggo, who always was very alert in response, was here very long in +responding. Then she responded an extraordinary thing that Rosalie +afterwards remembered. She said slowly, "Oh, but Rosalie, it's very +dangerous to be a woman." + +Rosalie questioned her. + +Keggo said, "Rosalie, you've great ideas, and I think very shrewd +and very striking ideas, about the difference between men and women, +but there's this difference I think you haven't thought of--the +danger that women carry in themselves; right in them, here"--she +had a hand against her breast and she pressed it there--"born in +them, inerradicable, and that men have not. Men go into dangers but +they come out of them and go home to tea. That's what it is with +men, Rosalie. They can always get out. They can always come back. +They never belong to a thing, body and soul and heart and mind. +Rosalie, women do. That's their danger. That's why it is so very, +very dangerous being a woman. Women can't come back. They can't, +Rosalie. Look at me. They take to a thing and it becomes a craze, +it becomes an obsession, it becomes a drug. Look at me. They take +to a thing--anything; a poison like mine, or a pursuit like some +one else's, or an idea like some other's, or a--a career in life +like, like yours, Rosalie,--they take to it and go deep enough, and +they're its; they never will get away from it, they never, never +will be able to come out of it. Never." + +She was extraordinarily vehement. It was embarrassing for Rosalie. +Rosalie desired to contest, as vehemently, these theories. She did +not believe them a bit. They were founded, she felt, on the tragedy +of Keggo's own case. Keggo was unfairly, though very naturally, +arguing from the particular to the general, from the personal to +the abstract. But how could she reply to Keggo, "Of course you say +that?" + +She was silent; but she betrayed perhaps her thoughts in a gesture, +her difficulty in some expression of her face. + +Keggo said very intensely, "But, Rosalie, if you only knew! With +me it's drink and you'll say--. But I say to you, Rosalie, never, +never let anything get the mastery of you. With me it's drink +and you'll say that is a matter altogether different, with which +parallels are not to be drawn. Oh, do not believe it, Rosalie. A +woman should in all things be desperately temperate--watchfully, +desperately temperate. A man--nearly every man--seems somehow +to have his life and all his interests in compartments. He can be +immersed in one while he is in it, and can get out of it and distribute +himself over his others and close it and forget it. Rosalie, a +woman can't. Men have hobbies. They don't have attachments; they +have detachments. They detach themselves and turn to a thing and +they detach themselves from it and turn back again. Rosalie, women +don't turn to a thing; they go to it. They don't have hobbies, they +have obsessions. They don't trifle, they plunge. They cannot sip, +they drain. It's in their bone. They never would have occupied the +place they do occupy if it were not that from the beginning they +have given themselves over, or they were given over, to mastery. +They are the weaker vessel. Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman +gives herself, forgets moderation and gives herself to anything, +she is its captive for ever. She may think she can come back, but +she can't come back. For a woman there is no comeback. They don't +issue return tickets to women. For women there is only departure; +there is no return." + +Rosalie said, "Keggo, I think I could argue, but I won't. But what +I can't imagine is the application of it in hundreds of cases--in +by far the great majority of cases. Take mine. You're not warning +me, are you? I don't see the possibility--" + +Keggo said, "Darling, I'm not warning you and yet I am. I am warning +you because you are a woman; and because you are a woman you are +susceptible to danger. It's what I've said; it's what I would have +you remember for a day perhaps to come, that it is dangerous being +a woman. I'm not warning you, because there's nothing to--well, +but isn't there? You've got a theory of life and you are bent upon +a career in life. There's--" + +Rosalie cried, "Well, but there you are, Keggo. No comeback, no +return tickets--well, I don't want to come back; I don't want a +return ticket." + +"You might. You never know. Suppose you ever did?" + +"But you can't suppose it. Why ever should I?" + +"Suppose you wanted to marry?" + +Rosalie laughed. The thing immediately lost reality. "Well, suppose +the incredible. Suppose I did. There'd be no comeback wanted there. +I could perfectly well marry and still keep my theory of life; I +could perfectly well marry and still keep on in my career--and most +certainly I would still keep on. Why, that is my theory of life, +as you call it, or a very outstanding principle of it. There's +nothing to me more detestable in the whole business than the idea +that because a woman marries she therefore must give up her work. +That's what is the reason the boarding house and every boarding +house and every home and street and city swarms with derelicts--with +derelict women--just because their lives are all planned as blind +alley occupations, marriage at the end of the alley, no need to do +anything, no need to be anything because it's only a blind alley +you're in. When you reach the end--you reach the end! That's it, +Keggo. You reach the end. You're a woman, therefore for you--the +end!" + +She laughed again. She was returning Keggo's vehemence without +embarrassment upon the subject that had made return difficult. She +cried, "I've got you now, Keggo. I really have. You say they don't +issue return tickets to women. No. Perhaps they don't; but I'll +tell you where they book them all to--from the cradle to a terminus." + +Keggo smiled and would have spoken. But Rosalie was pleased with +her adroit turning of metaphors. She repeated "To a terminus. Well, +I've booked beyond, Keggo." She laughed again. "And then the idea +of marriage for me! I've granted the preposterous just for the sake +of the argument and just to floor the argument. But you know, you +know perfectly well from all our talks, even so far back as at +the Sultana's, that it's simply too grotesque! Marriage, for me! +Why, if a million men came to me on their bended knees, each with +a million pounds on their backs you know perfectly well that I'd +just feel sick. Tame cats, tabby cats, tomcats, Cheshire cats, wild +cats, stray cats,--I'm not going to set up a cats' home. No thanks." + +So Rosalie had the laugh of that evening. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + + + +But this was not to continue. Keggo began to lapse; Rosalie began to +weary of helping Keggo. She had herself to think of. Those who go +down in life, whether by age or by misfortune, are prone, engulfed, +to cry to those ascending, "You could help me!" There is a correct +answer to this. It is, "I have done (or I do) a great deal for you. +I cannot do more. It is not fair to ask me to do more. I have a +duty to myself. I have myself to think of." Our generation endorses +this. + +Rosalie had herself to think of. By stages that need not be +detailed, they are the common facts of life, the thing passes from +that picture of those two with Rosalie's strong young arms about +the other to a new picture, the last, between them. + +The stages show Rosalie's enormous, ardent plans for the rescue +and rehabilitation of Keggo, and they show the projection and +the failure of the plans. They show work found for Keggo (through +Simcox's scholastic side) and lost and found again and again lost +and still again. They show Keggo's remorse and they show Rosalie's +forgiveness. They show it repeated and repeated. They show by +degrees the gradual, and then the rapid, staling of Rosalie's fond +sympathies. They show her finally, immersed in her own purposeful +interests, discovering to herself feelings in regard to Keggo on a +plane with feelings discovered to herself in regard to her mother. +It has been written: "Her mother was ageing rapidly. Rosalie could +have wept to see the ageing signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not +weep; was not moved; received the impression but was not sensitive +to it; felt the tug but did not respond to the pull. Rather, indeed, +was apt to be a little impatient." It is not necessary to expand. +Keggo was fast going downhill. Rosalie could have wept to see the +downhill signs; but somehow, seeing them, did not weep; was not +moved... rather, indeed... impatient. She had herself to think of. + +Youth's an excuse for youth as childhood's an excuse for childishness. +Youth, still, like childhood, but unlike maturity, can be lost +in its emotions, absorbed in them to the exclusion of all else, +abandoned to them with all else pitched away as a swimmer discards +his every stitch and joyously plunges in the stream. Youth is not +accountable for its actions then: it is too happy or it is too sad. +One oughtn't to blame youth, immersed. + +There was outstandingly one such day of absorption in delight, of +abandonment to ecstasy for Rosalie, and it was the day on which +she made her third advance in the social grade of Miss Kentish's +boarding house and moved into the two rooms en suite, furnished +and decorated by herself to her own taste. She awoke to this great +day, long anticipated; and with the vigorous action of throwing +off the clothes and jumping out of bed, she plunged into it and +was lost in it. The excitement and the elation of taking possession +of that enchanting, that significant apartment of her own! She was +excited; she was elated. Moving in was the cumulative excitement +of all the long-drawn, anxious excitements of peering round the +antique dealers and picking up the bits of furniture and of placing +them and moving them a shade to this side and then a shade to that +till was found the one and only exact position that suited them +and that they suited; and the terrible excitements of watching +the decorators at work, her scheme developing beneath their hands, +and the awful knowledge that now it was being done it was done for +good or bad--no altering it now!--and the agonizing excitements of +putting down the carpets--how can you tell exactly how a carpet is +going to look until you see it actually down upon its floor and +between its walls?--and the increasing excitement all the time +of the knowledge that everything was harmonising and was looking +just as in dreams of the ideal it had been made to look; and now +all ready! The bed-sitting-room slept in last night for the last +time; the two utterly perfect rooms and all that their possession +connoted, to be occupied that evening for the first time! Yes, +in all the tumultuous pride and engrossment of that, there was +no place--how could there be place?--for tiresome things of other +people's worlds, if such should offer. + +And in this tremendous day there was stuff more tremendous yet. This +also was the day on whose evening was made the tremendous tribute +to her work and to her talent, the evening of the dazzling offer +that, like a door swung open on a treasure house, disclosed to her +new fields to which her career had brought her, new triumphs that +her career, in its stride, might make her own--the evening when +Mr. Sturgiss of Field's Bank leant across the dinner table in his +house (at his request only she and himself left in the room) and +said in his quiet voice, "Well, look here--to come to the point--the +reason I've got you up here to-night--it's this: we want you, +Field and Company, the Bank, we want you to join us. We want you +in Lombard Street." + +Lombard Street! + +Cumulative also was this thrill, for it had begun some few +days previously when Mr. Sturgiss, calling at Simcox's for a chat +with Mr. Simcox, an old friend, had come into her room and after +mysteriously fidgetting with business and conversational trifles, +had issued the invitation to dinner at his house at Cricklewood +in language mysteriously couched. "My wife would like to meet you," +said Mr. Sturgiss. "She's heard a lot from me, and from Field, of what +an astonishingly clever young person we think you and she'd--she'd +like to meet you. And more than that." Mr. Sturgiss's halting +speech suddenly became direct and definitive like a flag that had +been fluttering suddenly streaming upon the breeze. "And more than +that. The fact is, there's a proposition I want to put up to you. +A proposition. We could go into it quietly and discuss it. I rather +think it would interest you. I'm sure it will. You'll come? Good. +I'm very glad. Very glad." + +A proposition! From Mr. Sturgiss! Of Field and Company! What could +it be? + +But Rosalie was not of the sort to tread the succeeding days on the +enchanted air of fond surmises. She told herself that the mysterious +proposition might be everything or might be nothing: the fact that +outstood was that she had brought her aspirations to this--that +a partner in a London bank recognised in her stuff sufficient to +invite her to a confidential meeting, there to go into something +with her "quietly together," to meet together over something +and "discuss it." She had determined to establish herself and she +was establishing herself. And was it not an omen propitious and +significant that this recognition of her parts was to fall on the +very day on which the exercise of those parts brought her into the +dignity and comfort of that delicious, that significant apartment +of her own? + +This solid stuff, and no mere daydreams, was the delight absorbing +her and the ecstasy to which she was abandoned when that great +day came. In the morning she put the last of her possessions, the +equipment of her dressing table, into the new apartment; after the +day spent at Simcox's, she returned to dress for the first time +before the noble cheval glass purchased for the bedroom. She decided +to go up in a hat; it could be removed or not for dinner as Mrs. +Sturgiss might seem to indicate. She put on an evening bodice of +black silk and net with a simple skirt in keeping. She gave last +approving glances about the delightful rooms and set out, immersed +in eager happiness, for Cricklewood. + +One of those old red buses that vied with the white Putney buses +as being the best horsed on the London routes took her there. Up +the Edgware Road; past the junction with the Harrow Road that led +to Keggo's street--she only had for it the thought that it was +weeks since she had seen Keggo, almost months; along broad Maida +Vale and past the turning that led to the Sultana's with the corner +where often the crocodile had huddled--and she was so engrossed +in her happy achievements that she passed it without thinking of +it. The bus terminated its journey at the foot of Shoot Up Hill. +Rosalie, called upon to alight, came out of her thoughts into her +surroundings. She realised that she must have passed Crocodile +Corner without noticing and the realisation caused her to give a +little note of amused indifference. The indifference was not directed +precisely at the Sultana's; it was at the idea, which came to her, +that, normally to human predilections, she ought to have given--ought +now to give--a sentimental thought to memories of the Sultana +years. Well, she did not. Funny! Yes, it was funny. As she sometimes +thought of her mother and of all her home ties; of Miss Salmon +and that cry of hers of never being able to find another lover; of +Keggo now so seldom seen and known to be going from bad to worse,--so +with memories of Crocodile Corner and the Sultana's, she could +see and appreciate the call of all these attachments, but somehow, +seeing and appreciating, did not respond to them. What a very +curious attitude! It was not unfeeling for she could feel. It was +not insensibility for she was sensitive to such things. Sensitive! +No, a better word than that. She was in such matters sensible. She +saw, as one should see, these things in their right perspective. +They were touching (as of her mother) or they were sad (as of Keggo) +or they were appealing (as the happy schoolgirl memories) but they +must not touch or sadden or appeal too closely. They must be estimated +in their degree and in their place; they must not be assumed, be +shouldered, be permitted to cumber. No good could be done to them +by encumbrance with them. That was the point. What good could it +do them? No good. Yes, that was sensible. + +She abated, in these thoughts, nothing of the eagerness with which +she was living this great day--the day whose points of suspension +(on which it tumultuously revolved) were the taking over of the +significant apartment from which she had just come and the entering +upon the significant invitation to which now her feet were taking +her. These thoughts, this analysis of her attitude to sentimental +appeals, she tossed upon her eager happiness that was her being as +an airball tossed upon laughing breath that yet is used, breathing, to +support life. And she was aware that this was so. And she enjoyed +a flash of approval of herself that it could be so; it was admirable, +it was sensible, thus to be able to detach and look upon a portion +of her mind while her main mind deflected not a shade from its +occupation with the main chance. That faculty was perhaps the secret +of her success, the quality, that, in exercise, had brought her to +the significant apartment and to the significant invitation. + +She was at the gate of Mr. Sturgiss's house and she most happily +passed up the short drive, ascended the steps and rang the bell. + +Mr. Sturgiss's house was almost on the summit of Shoot Up Hill. +It was one of those houses standing a few miles along the main +thoroughfares out of London that, now in decay or displaced by busy +shops, packed villas, or monstrous flats, were then the distinctly +impressive residences of distinctly well-to-do business people. Mr. +Sturgiss was a distinctly well-to-do business person. The house, +double-fronted, had that third sitting-room which confers such an +immense superiority over houses of but two sitting-rooms--"Such a +convenience in so many ways" as those newly promoted from two to +three nowadays remark with languid triumph to visitors still immured +in two. Houses--new, two sitting-roomed houses--extended beyond +it and around it, and now stretch miles beyond and about, but Mrs. +Sturgiss told Rosalie that when they first came there they actually +had cows grazing and horses ploughing in fields adjoining their +garden. + +Mrs. Sturgiss told Rosalie this while personally attending Rosalie's +removal of her hat (it was "no hat"; Rosalie felt so glad she +had come dressed for either indication) and Mrs. Sturgiss sighed +pleasantly as she said it. "Things are going ahead at such a pace +now!" said Mrs. Sturgiss. "It's all very different from what it used +to be. Why, the very fact of your coming here, not as my guest but +as my husband's, 'on business!' The idea of women being in business, +or even knowing anything about business, when I was a girl, why, +I can't tell you how, how positively shocking it would have been +considered." + +Rosalie laughed. She liked Mrs. Sturgiss, who was motherly and +seemed to have her own dear mother's gentle ways--this personally +attending her in her bedroom, for instance. "Oh, there are getting +to be heaps of women in business now, Mrs. Sturgiss," she smiled. + +Mrs. Sturgiss returned brightly, "Oh, I know it. I know it well." +She paused and her voice had a thoughtful note. "But even then.... +Use the long mirror, my dear; the light is better. Even then, there +can be few as,--as much in it as you. You know, my husband has an +immense idea of your abilities. He has spoken of you so much. Do +you know, you are a great surprise to me, now I see you. I could +only imagine from all John's idea of you a rather terrible looking +blue-stocking, as we used to call the clever women." She came and +stood by Rosalie, regarding the image in the glass that Rosalie +regarded. She said simply, "But you are beautiful." + +A very odd feeling, akin to tears--but for what on earth +tears?--quickened in Rosalie. She turned sharply from the mirror. +"I am quite ready now." She pretended she had not heard. + +Mrs. Sturgiss said, "My dear, do you like it, being what you are?" + +It was a great rescue for Rosalie to be able to spring away from +that odd feeling (in her bosom and in her throat) by swift animation. +"Oh, I love it. I simply love it. It is everything to me, everything +in the world!" + +Mrs. Sturgiss opened the door. "No, you go first, my dear. But if +I had had a dear girl, such as you, I would have wished her to stay +with me at home." + +She had made with her hand the gesture of her wish that Rosalie +should precede her from the room. Rosalie impulsively touched the +extended fingers. "But, Mrs. Sturgiss, don't you see, that's just +it, the idea there is now. If you had had a daughter and she had +stayed at home--well, let that go, while you were with her. But +when you died and left her, what would there be--don't you see +it?--what would there be for her then?" + +Mrs. Sturgiss pressed the warm young hand. "But I would have left +her married, a dear wife and a dear mother." + +"Oh, that!" cried Rosalie and her stronger personality carried off +the exchanges in a laugh. Mrs. Sturgiss thought the expression and +the tone meant, happily, that marriage might happen to any one, +in the market as much as in the home. Rosalie, with all the fierce +contempt that her "Oh, that!" conveyed to her secret self, was +ridden strongly away from emotionalism in the conversation. Her +thought as they went downstairs was, "If I were to instruct her in +the cat-men! Her horror!" + +There was downstairs a surprise that was very annoying, but that +was made to produce compensations. An unexpected fourth person, +presuming--so Rosalie was given to understand--on a long standing, +indefinite invitation, had dropped in to dinner. She recognised him +directly they entered the drawing-room and could not stop the emblem +of a swift vexation about her mouth and in her eyes. He caught it, +she was sure; and she hoped he did. It was Harry Occleve--Laetitia's +futile slave! He had already informed his host that he knew her. +She greeted him with a mere touch of her hand, a touch made cold by +intent, and with "With a free evening off one would have expected +you would spend it with Laetitia," said disdainfully. It was a rude +and inept thing to say (in the tone she said it) for the feeble +creature, as she stigmatised him, had not yet screwed his fatuous +idolatry to the point of proposal of marriage. But she intended +it to be rude and to discomfort him and she was glad to see some +twinge at the flick pass across his face. She hated his presence +there. The presence of any man, in the capacity of a monkey to +entertain and to be entertained, was always, not to put too fine a +point upon it, repulsive to her. This man was of all men obnoxious to +her. When he approached her for their brief greeting (she turned +instantly away at its conclusion) she savoured immediately that odd, +nice smell there was about him, of mingled soap and peat and fresh +tobacco smoke and tweed; and that annoyed her. It was a reminder, +emanated from him and therefore not to be escaped, of a distinction +he had different from, and above common men. She always granted +him his distinction of looks, of air, of talent. It was why she +so much disdained him. To be dowered so well and so fatuously to +betray his dowry! Tame cat! + +But she made him, through the meal, pay compensations for +his presence. At the table of Aunt Belle, in his presence she was +accustomed to sit largely silent. Beautiful Laetitia was there +the star; and while he mouthed and languished in that star's rays +Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke, (stealing about him to capture him as a +farmer and his wife with mincing steps and tempting morsel towards +a fatted calf) fawned, flattered and deferred to him, he returning +it. There was no place for her, and she would have shuddered to +have held a place, in that society for mutual admiration. She sat +apart. She was very much the poor relation (Aunt Belle could not +comprehend her business success and Uncle Pyke would not admit it) +and especially odious to her was the Occleve's polite interest in +her direction when Aunt Belle, poor-relationing her, would turn +to her from coquettish raillery of him with, "Dear child, you're +eating nothing." He would smile towards her and, fatuously anxious +to please, offer some remark that might draw her into the conversation. +She never would be so drawn. She scarcely ever exchanged words +with him. She made herself to be unconscious of his presence. He +was so occupied with his adoration of Laetitia that to be insensible +of his presence was easy. When sometimes she glanced towards him +it was with the thought, "Fancy being one of the rising young men +at the Bar, being the rising young man--the Bar, with silk and +ermine and, why not? the Woolsack before you--and being that, doing +that! Fatted calf; dilly, dilly, come and be killed, goose; tame +cat!" + +Here, at the table of Mr. Sturgiss, it was very different. Intolerable +that he should be here, but she was able to make him provide her +compensation for his presumption. For the first time in her life, +she found herself with sufficient interest in a man to enjoy, nay, +to seek, a triumph over him. And she had that triumph. She was +as certain as that she sat there that Mr. Sturgiss, in the period +before her arrival in the drawing-room, had been telling him of +her abilities and of his high regard for her. There was an interest +in his look at her across the table that assured her he had been +informed. There was, much more, a conviction within her, from +Mr. Sturgiss's manner and from his choice of subjects--confined +almost entirely and to the absolute exclusion of Mrs. Sturgiss to +the political situation and to markets, exchanges and the general +tendency in the City--and particularly from the openings in these +subjects with which continuously he presented her--a conviction arising +out of these that Mr. Sturgiss, proud of her, of his discovery of +her, was bent upon showing her off to his second guest, bent upon +proving to his second guest what unquestionably he had said to him +about her. + +She most admirably responded. If she were indeed the subject of a +challenge she most admirably flattered her backer. She is not to +be imagined as a pundit excavating from within herself slabs of +profound wisdom, nor yet as a pupil astoundingly instructing her +masters, nor even as one of Mrs. Sturgiss's blue stockings, packed +with surprising lore. Rosalie was nothing so foolishly impossible, +but she displayed herself knowledgeable. She was profoundly interested +in the matters under notice and therefore (for it follows) she was +interesting in her contributions to them; she was fascinated--the +old fascination of "Lombard Street" and of "The English Constitution" now +intensified as desire intensifies by gratification--and therefore +she fascinated; she was never silly--Rosalie could not be silly--but +she was frequently in her remarks ingenuous, but her ingenuousness, +causing Mr. Sturgiss more than once to laugh delightedly (Occleve, +curiously grave, no doubt because surprised, did not laugh) was +born out of a shrewd touch towards the heart of the matter, as the +best schoolboy howlers are never the work of the dullard but of +him that has perceptions. Of her in her childhood it has been said +that she was never the wonder-child of fiction who at ten has read +all that its author probably had not read at thirty. So now of her +budding maturity she was not the wonder-woman of fiction, causing +by her brilliance her hearers, like Cortez's men, to stare at each +other with a wild surmise. No, nothing so unlikely. But she was +intelligent and she was ardent; and there are not boundaries to the +distance one may go with that equipment. She was admirable and she +felt that she was effective. She had a consciousness of confidence +amounting almost to a feeling of being tuned up and now let go; to +a feeling of power, as of inspiration. And this strange animation +that she had, came, she knew, from the triumph over that man, from +the feeling, stated grimly, that she was giving him one. + +It is much more important, all that, than, when it came, the great +reason of the great invitation that had brought Rosalie to take part +in it. The great reason already has been disclosed--Mr. Sturgiss, +bending across the tablecloth, they two left alone, "Well, look +here--to come to the point--the reason why I've got you up here +tonight--it's this: we want you--Field and Company, the Bank,--we +want you to come to us--we want you in Lombard Street." + +She was beautiful to see in her proud happiness at that. Startled +and tremulous, she was; like some lovely fawn burst from thicket +and at breathless poise upon the crest of unsuspected pastures; +within her eyes the cloud of dreams passing like veils upon the +gleam of her first ecstasy; upon her face, shadowed as she sinks +somewhat back, the tide of colour (her rosy joy) flooding above +her sudden pallor; her lips slightly parted; her hand that had been +plucking at the cloth caught to her bosom where her heart had leapt. + +It may be left at that. It is enough; too much. What, in the +reconstruction of a life, are, in retrospect, its triumphs but +empty shards, drained and discarded, the litter of a picnic party +that has fed and passed along? + +Mr. Sturgiss bent farther across the tablecloth, expanding his +proposal: She knew, said he, what he represented, what the firm +was. Field and Company. A private bank. Well, the days of private +banks were drawing in. These huge joint-stock leviathans swallowing +them up like pike among the troutlings. But not swallowing up Field +and Company! Not much! If the old private houses were tumbling into +the joint-stock maw, the greater the chances for those that stood +out and remained. The private banks were tumbling in because they +stood rooted in the old, solid, stolid banking business and the +leviathans came along and pounced while they dozed. There was no +dozing at Field's. They were very much awake. They were enterprising. + +"Look at this very matter between us. The idea of bringing a woman +into a bank! Even old Field himself was startled at first. Why? +In America, women are entering banking seriously and successfully. +They're going to in England. At Field's. You." He wasn't proposing +to bring her in for fun or for a chance that might turn up, like +the man who picked up a dog biscuit from the road on the chance +that some one would give him a dog before it got mildewed; no, he +was bringing her in to develop an enterprise that should be the +parent of other and greater enterprises. Her knowledge of insurance, +her knowledge of schools, these, with her sex, on the one side of +the counter and all their clients--the Anglo-Indian crowd who were +the backbone of the business--on the other side of the counter. +Field's, for cash, and, while it was drawing, for advice, was +always the first port of call of the wives and the mothers home +from India, to say nothing of the husbands and the fathers,--"well, +Field's, you, shall be the fount of all that domestic advice that +is just what all those people, cut off from home, are constantly +and distractingly in need of." She didn't suppose, as it was, that +Field's did no more, for them than bank their money? Field's were +their agents. Field's saw that they booked their passages, and that +their baggage got aboard; and when they arrived this end or the +other, or when they broke their journeys coming or going, Field's +representatives were there to meet them and take over all their +baggage troubles for them. "Very well. Now Field's--you--are going +to look after their domestic troubles for them--find them rooms, +find them houses, find them schools for their children. When people +know what we can do for them, people will come to us to bank with +us because we can do it. When people come to us to bank with us--we +go ahead." + +Mr. Sturgiss ended and drew back and looked at her. He lit a cigarette +and took a sip at his coffee. "We thought of offering you three--" +he set down his cup and looked at her again--"four hundred a year." + +She declined the post. She was girlish, and delighted him, in her +expression of her enormous sense of the compliment he paid her; she +was a woman of uncommon purposefulness, and increased his admiration +for her by the directness and decision with which uncompromisingly +she said him no. She owed a loyalty which she could never fully pay +to Simcox's, to Mr. Simcox; that was the beginning and the end of +her refusal. Simcox's was her own, her idea, her child that daily +she saw growing and that daily absorbed her more: that was the +material that filled in and stiffened out the joints of her refusal. +"But if you knew how proud I am, Mr. Sturgiss! You don't mind my +refusing?" + +He laughed and rose to take her to the drawing-room. "I don't mind +a bit. This is only what they call preliminary overtures. I shall +ask you again. We mean to have you." + +Between the two rooms he said, "Yes, mean to. It's a big thing. I'm +certain of it. We shall keep it open for you. We shan't fill it." +He put his hand on the drawing-room door and opened it. "We can't." + +She went in radiant. + +She was on the red bus again, going home. She had stayed but the +briefest time after dinner. She was too elevated, too buoyant, too +possessed possibly to remain in company; excitedly desirous to be +alone with her excited thoughts,--especially to be alone with them +in that significant apartment of hers. Significant! Why upon the +very day of entering it had come this most triumphant sign of its +significance! Significant!... + +She had a front seat on the outside of the omnibus. She gazed +before her along a path of night that the lamps jewelled in chains +of gold, and streamed along it her tumultuous thoughts, terrible +as an army with banners. It was very strange, and it vexed her, +robbing her of her proud consciousness of them, that there obtruded +among them, as one plucking at her skirt--as captain of them she +rode before them--the figure of Laetitia's Harry. Similarly he had +obtruded and been like to spoil the pleasure of her visit; but he +had been made to provide compensations and he obtruded now only in +rebirth of a passage with him that, rehearsed again, much pleased +her even while, annoyed, she cut him down. + +Taking her leave, she had been seen from the threshold by Mr. +Sturgiss and by Laetitia's Harry. It was pitchy dark, emerging +from the brightness of the interior, and he had stepped with her +to conduct her to the gate. "It was an extraordinary coincidence, +meeting you here," he had said. + +She did not reply. His voice was most strangely grave for an observation +so trite; he might have been speaking some deeply meditated thing, +profound, heavy with meaning, charged with fate. Fatuous! It was +extraordinary that there was not an action of his but aroused her +animosity. This vibrant gravity of tone--an organ used for a jig, +just as his gifts were used for his Laetitia moon-calfings--caused +newly a disturbance within her against him. She would have liked to +whistle or in some equal way to express indifference to his presence. + +They were at the gate and he stooped to the latch and appeared to +have some trouble with it. "Sturgiss has been telling me what a +wonderful person you are." + +Again that immense gravity of tone. She was astonished at the sudden +surge of her animosity that it caused within her. She had desired +to express indifference. She desired now to assail. She made a sneer +of her voice. "I should have thought you had ears for the wonder +of no one but Laetitia." + +"Why do you say that?" + +She felt her lip curl with her malevolence. "To see you raise your +eyes and hear you breathe 'Ah, Laetitia!'" + +He opened the gate and she passed out, tingling. + +It astounded her to find herself a hundred yards gone from the house, +nay, now upon the bus a mile and more away, recalling it, trembling +and with her breath quickened. It was as if she had been engaged +in a contest of wills, very fierce; nay, in a contest physical, +a wrestling. She had not known, she told herself, that it was +possible to hate so. That man! These men! She put her eye upon the +bus driver, strapped on his perch so near to her that she could +have touched him, and absurdly in her repugnance of his sex hated +him and shrank farther away from him. + +It was enormously, sickeningly real to her, her repugnance. Even +on detached consideration of her ridiculous shrinking from the +bus driver she could not have laughed at it. People who had an +uncontrollable antipathy to cats did not laugh at the grotesque +puerilities to which it carried them. Nor she at her antipathy. "Of +course they're beasts." Yes, the right word! It was the beastliness +of sex that bottomed her loathing. + +She could not have laughed; but she could and did with a conscious +intention of her will put that intruder on her animation finally +out of her mind. This very joyous uplifting of her spirit, was it +not because, in this world dominated by men, based for its fundamental +principle upon play of sex as commerce is based upon the principle +of barter, she was assured of position, of privilege, and of power +that raised her independent of such conventions and such laws? + +She was her own! All her proud joys, her glad imaginings, her +delighted hopes, arose amain and anew, tuned to this cumulative +paean as a nourish of trumpets at the climax of a proclamation. +She was intoxicated on her happiness. + +They were come to the lighted shops and the crowded pavements. The +bus drew up at the thronged corner adjacent to the divigation of +the Harrow Road and she leaned over and watched the scene, smilingly +(for sheer happiness) looking down upon it, as smilingly (for her +triumphant altitude) she felt that she looked down upon the world. +She would not have changed place with any life living or that could +be lived; she was so much abandoned to her happiness that she made +the intention she would sit up in her significant apartment all +that night, not to lose a moment of it. She grudged that even sleep +upon her happiness should intrude. + +There came one in the traffic beneath her that caught her attention: +a woman whom people stood aside to let pass and turned to look upon +with grins; two or three urchins danced about the woman, pointing +at her and calling at her. Her dress was disordered, muddy all +up one side as if she had fallen; her face flushed; her hat awry; +her hair escaped and wisped about her eyes and on her shoulders. +She was drunk. An obscene and horrible spectacle, the mock of her +beholders. A horrible woman. + +It was Keggo. + +Rosalie caught her breath. She made to rise but did not rise. Keggo +stopped and lifted all around a vacant gaze. Her eyes met Rosalie's +straight above her. She lurched a step and stopped and swayed and +looked again, battling perhaps with hints within her fumy brain +of recognition. Rosalie made again to rise to go to her and again +did not rise. The bus moved forward. That wretched woman, making +as if to pursue her aroused be-fuddlement, turned about to follow +and came a few steps, lurching like a ship that foundered. The light +blazed down upon her upturned face. She lurched into some shadow +and, as wreckage swallowed up in the trough of the sea, her face +was gone. + +Lurching... as a ship... that foundered. There was in Rosalie's +mind some dim memory struggling. Lurching... as a ship... in the +darkness... in the night. And her face... seen and gone... as a +ship... labouring... as a ship... + +Ah! + +Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing; Only +a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness. + +It came to Rosalie complete and word for word; and with perfect +clearness, as though she saw and sensed them, all its attendant +circumstances: the attic room at the Sultana's, the strange smell +mingled with the smell of the oil lamp, Keggo in the wicker chair, +she beside her, her head against Keggo's knee; and Keggo's voice +reciting the lines and her young, protesting, loving cry, "O Keggo!" + +She saw it, sensed it, heard it--and stonily regarded it. A thing +to weep at, she knew it; but did not weep. A thing to stab her, +it ought to; but did not stab. What good could she do? Suppose she +had got up and gone down; suppose she now got up and went down and +went back? What good? All sentimentality that. Be sensible! If a +thousand pounds would do Keggo any good, and if she had a thousand +pounds, freely and gladly she would give the last penny of it. But +to get down, to have got down, what could she have done? Why should +she worry about her? Keggo had had her chance. Everybody had their +chance. She now had hers. Why should she... + +She never saw Keggo again. + + + + + + +CHAPTER X + + + + + +She had not good health in the week immediately following that +great day. She did not feel well. She did not look very well. Mr. +Simcox, profoundly sympathetic to every mood of her who was at +once his protege and his support, told her he thought she had been +overdoing it. She seized upon that excuse and tried to persuade +herself that perhaps she had; or, which amounted to the same thing, +that she was suffering from the revulsion of those huge excitements. +But she did not persuade herself. Her malaise, whatever it was, +was not of that kind. Its manifestations were not in lassitude or +sense of disability. They were in a curious dis-ease whose occasion +was not to be defined; in a consuming restlessness beneath whose +goad even the significant apartment had not power to charm and hold +her; in a certain feverishness whose exsiccative heat, leaving her +palms and temples cool (she sometimes felt them and had surprise) +caused inwardly a dry burning that made her long for quiet places. + +She could not settle to anything. Her limbs, and they had their +way, desired not to rest; her mind, and it deposed her captaincy, +would cast no anchor. + +Mr. Simcox, as the week drew on, suggested a weekend at home. It had +occurred to her, very attractively, but she had negatived it. Aunt +Belle (before the idea had come to her) had written an invitation +to one of the Saturday dinners in which she had "most particularly, +my dear child" desired her presence. Something most delightful was +going to happen and she must be there. She had accepted and she +later told herself she did not like to refuse. She knew, instantly +as she read, what was the identity of this delightful thing that +was to happen and she decided, with a sharp turn within her of some +emotion, that certainly she would be there. To whet her scorn! She +was thereafter much aggravated that her drifting mind, against her +wish, swayed constantly towards it sometimes with that same sharp +turn of that same emotion (nameless to her and without meaning) +always with aggravation of her restlessness, of her fever, of her +dis-ease. When came Mr. Simcox's suggestion of the week-end at +home she decided, as swiftly as she had first accepted, to revoke +her acceptance. She would not be there! She would not--waste her +scorn! + +Impatient for movement, she that evening went to the splendid house +in Pilchester Square to tell her withdrawal. This most exasperating +dis-ease of hers! Now that she was come to change her mind she +did not want to change her mind. It was like going to the dentist +with an aching tooth. On his doorstep the tooth does not ache. Her +governance of herself was by her malaise so shaken that positively, +as she came into Aunt Belle's presence, she did not know whether she +was going to withdraw or to confirm her acceptance of the invitation. + +Most comfortingly, Aunt Belle saved her the decision. "My dear +child! How unexpected! How opportune! I was just writing to you. +Our little dinner is put off! Sit here while I tell you. Now would +you like anything, dear child? A piece of cake? Some nice fruit? To +please me. Really, no? Well, now; our dinner that I so especially +wanted you for--did you guess?" + +She began to tell. + +She told what Rosalie had perfectly well known. The delightful +thing expected to happen was Harry Occleve's proposal of marriage +to darling Laetitia. There had been certain signs and portents. +They had come at last. Their meaning was perfectly clear. There +was not the least doubt that at the next meeting Harry would ask +Laetitia's hand. Not the shadow of a doubt! Aunt Belle knew all +the signs! Every woman of Aunt Belle's experience knew them, dear +child. So Harry had been asked for this dinner; a meaningly written +letter, dear child, to encourage him, the dear, poor fellow! And +had accepted, in terms so meaning too, the dear, devoted fellow. +Then-- + +"But, Aunt Belle--" + +"Listen, dear child. Then he suddenly wrote saying he found he had +made a mistake--" + +"Made a mistake!" The words went out from Rosalie in a small cry. + +"Dear child, it is nothing. How sweet to be so concerned! It +is nothing, it is the best of signs. Made a mistake that he was +disengaged for Saturday. The dear, devoted fellow was so absurdly +vague about it. Unavoidable circumstances prevented him; that was +all; his writing and all the appearance of his letter so delightfully +distracted! How amused we were, your Uncle Pyke and I! How amused, +and how we felt for the dear, devoted fellow! Screwing up his +courage! How we remembered our own courtship! You should hear your +Uncle Pyke tell how he had to screw up his courage to propose to me +and how many times it failed him and he fled. Dear, child, you've +no idea how ridiculous these poor men are in their love! How +timorous! How they suffer! The dear, poor fellows. Your Uncle Pyke +wrote him at once a most kind and meaning letter--accepting his +unforeseen circumstances (he had to, of course) and positively +fixing him for Monday instead. 'Laetitia is expecting you,' your +Uncle Pyke wrote. The dear fellow! How happy it will make him! So +it is Monday, dear child. Monday, instead. We do so want you to +be there. I do so want you, and so does my darling, to be the first +to congratulate her. And you shall be a bridesmaid! Won't that be +nice? Kiss me, dear child. I shall never forget your sweet concern +before I told you his excuse meant nothing. Dear child, you look +startled yet." + +There was only a faint voice that came to Rosalie's lips. "Really +nothing, Aunt Belle?" + +"Dear child, nothing at all." + +She went down to the Rectory on Saturday and found herself more +glad to be there and to be with her mother than she had ever been. +When she greeted her mother, "Kiss me again, dear, small mother," +she cried and put her cheek against her mother's and held it there +some moments, rather fiercely and with her eyes closed, as though +there were in that contact some febrifuge that abated her inward +fever, some mooring whereto, adrift, her mind made fast. + +What beset her? What was the matter with her? What worked within +her? Feverishly she inquired of herself, seeking to analyse her +case; but she could by no means inform herself; her case was not +within what diagnosis she could summon. What? Near as she could +get she had the feeling, nay, the wild longing, to get out: out +of what? She did not know. To get away: away from what? She could +not say. + +She found in herself a great and an unusual tenderness towards the +home life. Only her mother and her father were now at home. Harold +was at a branch of his bank in Shanghai. Robert was in Canada. +Flora was in India, married, with two small children. Hilda was in +Devonshire, married to a doctor. These things had happened, these +flights been winged, and she had taken but the smallest interest +in them. She had had her own af-fairs. She had had herself to think +of. She had lost touch with her brothers and sisters. She scarcely +ever thought about them. Now she wanted very much to hear about +them. What news of them was there? How were they getting on? She +did want--she could fix that much of her state, or it presented +a relief for her state--she did want to feel that she belonged to +them and they to her. She noticed with a large whelming of pity how +very small her mother seemed to have grown She was always small, +but now--much smaller, fallen in, very fragile. She noticed with +a quick pang how all her father's violent blackness of hair, and +violent red of colouring, and violent glint of eye and violent +energy of gesture were faded, greyed, dimmed, devitalized to a hue +and to an air that was all one and lustreless, as if he had gone +in a pond covered, not with duckweed but with lichen, and had come +out, not dripping, but limp and shrouded head to foot in scaly +grey. Was it possible that all this had been so when she was last +here? She had not noticed it. She noticed that both her dear mother +and her father walked on the flat soles of their feet, and touched +articles of furniture as they trod, heavily, across the room. A +most frightful tenderness towards them possessed her. She wanted +like anything to show them devotion and, most frightfully, to +receive from them signs of devotion to her--to be able to feel she +was theirs, and they hers. She wanted it terribly. + +But what else did she want? What? They gave her, all the home talk, +but soon it flagged and whatever in her desired satisfaction still +gnawed within her and was unsatisfied; she ministered to them and +they were pleased but they seemed very quickly tired; they had +their accustomed hours and habits, and whatever it was in her that +found relief in solicitude still tossed within her and was not +relieved. What beset her? What? + +Monday came. She was at this dinner, this festival for the consummation +and celebration of the betrothal of beautiful Laetitia and Laetitia's +darling Harry. That sick dis-ease of hers had wonderfully vanished +when she came into the house, when she was hugged fit to crack her +to Aunt Belle's bosom with "Dear child! Dear child! He's just arrived! +He's with your uncle downstairs. Look at Laetitia! Lovely! Isn't +she lovely? Kiss me again, again, dear child!" When she was floated +to by Laetitia, exquisitely arrayed, pink and white, doll-faced, +doll-headed, squeaking with coquettish glee, "Rosalie! Darling! +Isn't this awful? Imagine it for me, Rosalie! It oughtn't to have +been planned like this, ought it? Do tell darling mamma it ought +not to have been! I'm trembling. Wouldn't you be?" + +Yes, gone that sick dis-ease. How at this spectacle suffer dis-ease, +or any other disturbance of the emotions save only disgust, contempt +at such a horrid preparation for such a horrid rite. Excited +responsiveness to their most friendly excitation was not needed in +her for it was not expected. "The shy, quiet thing you always are, +dear child," Aunt Belle often used to say to her and said now. (And +within the week was to beat her breast in that same drawing-room +and cry with an exceeding bitter cry, "Shy! We thought her shy! +Sly! Sly! Sly to the tips of her fingers, the wicked girl!") + +So she need respond with no more than her normal quiet smile, her +normal tone, in their presence, of poor-relation deference and +awe. So behind that mask could curl her lip and shudder in the +refinements of her views at this most horrid preparation for this +most horrid rite. And did. That dis-ease strangely fled, there came +to her the swift belief that here, and she had not known it!--was +that dis-ease's cause. It was the anticipation of this exhibition +of all the things she hated most, of the most glaring presentiment +of outrage of all her strongest principles. This Laetitia, embodiment +of useless woman-hood, launching herself on that disgusting dependence +on a man that soon would strand her among the derelicts; and that +Laetitia's Harry, that might have been a man among men, coming to +the apotheosis of his languishing to--oh, wreathed, fatted calf +with gilded horns! + +Yes, it was this had vexed her so; and suddenly informed of the +seat of her injury she turned upon it disgust and scorn such as +never before had she felt (and she, had felt it always) for the +whole order of things for which it stood. She felt her very blood +run acid, causing her to twist, in her acid contempt for the subservience +of women, and most of all for that Laetitia's subservience, floated +on that ghastly coquetry like a shifting cargo that in the first +gale will capsize the ship; she felt her very temples throb, and +almost thought they must be heard, in her fierce detestation of +all the masculinity of men and most of all--yes, with a flash of +eye she could not stay and hoped that he could see--that fatuous +Harry's masculinity. + +He came into the room--looked pale--poor calf!--and went, with a +nervous halt in his walk--sick fool!--to his Laetitia; and looked +across at Rosalie and made a half-step to her; and she thought with +all her force, to send it to him, her last words to him: that most +malevolent, "to see you raise your eyes and hear you breathe, 'Ah, +Laetitia'"; and surely sent it, for on that half-step towards her +he stopped, hesitated, and turned and engaged Laetitia again. + +She had told herself, leaving the Sturgiss's house that night a +week ago, that she had not believed it possible to hate a man so. +Now! Why that was not hate; that, compared with the inimity that +now consumed her, was a mere chill indifference. And it had made +her tremble! She was rigid now. Stiff with hate! He personified +for her all in life against which she was in rebellion, all in life +that her soul abhorred; and while, in the moments before dinner, +grunting Uncle Pyke and rallying Aunt Belle and coquetting Laetitia +crowded about him, leaving her alone and far apart, she, for the +reason that it gave to her hate, and for the example that stood +before her eyes, reviewed again her theories of life and again +pledged herself in their support.... + +"Dinner is served." That group went laughing to the door, she +followed. "No, no, my boy. Don't stand on ceremony. Pass along as +we come. Why, hang it, man, we regard you as one of the family! +Ha! ha! haw!" Down the stairs in a body, she following. There is, +from their conversation, something the wreathed calf is to get from +his coat to bring to show them, a letter or a token or something. +The dining-room is to the front on the ground floor. The coats +hang in the hall, a narrow passage there, that runs back to Uncle +Pyke's study. They are down. "Shall I get it now?" "Yes, bring it +along; bring it along, my boy." "And Rosalie" (Aunt Belle), "my +fan, dear child. Dear child, I left it on the table in Uncle Pyke's +den. You will? Dear child!" + +They pass in. The gilded calf turns from them for what it is he is +to fetch from his coat; she slips by him to the study and takes up +the fan and comes with it again. + +It is dim in the passage. A condition on which generous Uncle Pyke +years before installed this wonderful electric light that you flick +on and flick off as you require it was that it should always be +flicked off when you did not require it. Now as Rosalie came from +the study the passage was lit only by the shaft of light that +gleamed from the dining-room door; its only sound Aunt Belle's +noisy chatter from the waiting table. + +He was fumbling at the coats, standing there sharply outlined against +the stream of light, his face cut on it in a perfect silhouette. +She had to pass him. That hateful he. She was seized with a fit of +that same trembling that had shaken her after the passage between +them at the gate on Shoot Up Hill. It shook her now, dreadfully. +Her knees trembled. She felt faint. Awful to hate so! She was +quite close, almost touching him. It was necessary he should move, +forward or back, to give her room. But he did not move. His hands, +outstretched before him on the coats, and sharp against the light, +appeared to her to be shaking; but that was the hallucination of +this frightful trembling that possessed her. She tried to say, "If +you please--," but, dreadfully, had no voice; but made some sound; +and he, most slowly, drew back. It was before him that she had to +pass. + +She advanced; and felt, as if she saw it, the intensity of the gaze +of his eyes upon her; and saw, as if the place were light and her +look not averted, his "marching" face and those lines radiating +to his temples (horizon tracks) where the faint touch of greyness +was; and suddenly had upon her senses, with an extraordinary pungency, +causing them to swim, that odd, nice smell there was about him of +mingled peat and soap and fresh tobacco, of tweed and heather and +the sea. + +She caught her breath... + +The thing's too poignant for the words a man has. + +She was caught in his arms, terribly enfolding her. He was crying +in her ears, passionately, triumphantly, "Rosalie! Rosalie!" She +was in his arms. Those long, strong arms of his were round her; +and she was caught against his heart, her face upturned to his, +his face against her own; and she was swooning, falling through +incredible spaces, drowning in incredible seas, sinking through +incredible blackness; and in her ears his voice, coming to her in +her extremity like the beat of a wing in the night, like the first +pulsing roll of music enormously remote, "Rosalie! Rosalie!" + +The thing's too poignant for the words one has. This girl's extremity +was very great, not to be set in words. Words cannot bring to earth +that which, ethereal, defies our comprehension as life and death +defy it and, like life and death, to our comprehension only sublimely +IS. Words only can say her spirit, bursting from bondage, streamed +up to cleave to his; how tell the anguish, how the ecstasy? Words +only can say her spirit, like a live part of her drawn out of her, +seemed to be rushing upwards from her body to her lips; words cannot +tell the anguish that was bliss, the rapture that was pain. Only +can say that she was in his arms, her heart to his, his lips against +her own, and cannot tell-- + +But also it is to be accounted to her for her extremity that herein +all her life's habit was delivered over by her to betrayal. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + + + +He was saying, "We must go in. Can you go in?" She breathed, "I +can." + +That dinner! That after-dinner in the drawing-room upstairs! It is +a nightmare to be imagined, not to be described. Imagine walking +from the darkness and the frightful secret of the passage into the +blazing dazzle and the glittering eyes of the resplendent dinner +party! They, in Harry's absence, have been exchanging the last +private nods and flashes. "Soon! Soon!" they have been nodding to +one another. Uncle Pyke, licking his chops anticipatorily of his +bath in his soup, has been licking them also in relish of working +off his daughter in this excellent match; Aunt Belle, kind, kind +Aunt Belle, with a last satisfied eye about the appointments of the +table, has patted her Laetitia's hand and conveyed to her, "Soon, +soon, darling; soon, soon!" Beautiful Laetitia has given a gentle, +glad squeeze to the patting hand and smiled a lovely, happy, +certain smile. "Soon! Soon!" has gone the jolly signal--and it is +not going to be soon, nor late; it is never, never going to happen; +and worse than never happen! + +Worse than never happen! That's it. That is the awful knowledge +of awful guilt with which Rosalie sits there and freezes in guilty +agony at every pause in the conversation and could scream to +notice how the pauses grow longer and longer, more frequent and +more frequent yet. There's a frightful constraint, a chilly, creepy +dreadfulness steals about the party. They go upstairs--Aunt Belle +and Rosalie and beautiful Laetitia--and the constraint goes with +them. They sit and stare and hardly a word said. Something's up! +What's up? What's the matter with everything? Why is everything +hanging like this! What's up? And the men come in--Uncle Pyke +swollen with food, swollen with indigestion, swollen with baffled +perplexity and ferocious irritation; and Harry--she dare not look +at Harry--and the thing is worse, the awfulness more awful. Glances +go shooting round the awful silences--Uncle Pyke's atrabilious eye +in the burning fiery furnace of his swollen face is a stupendous +note of interrogation directed upon Aunt Belle; Aunt Belle's +eyebrows arch to scalp and appear likely to disappear into her +scalp and remain there in the effort to express, "I don't know! I +can't imagine!"; Laetitia--Laetitia's eyes upon her mother are as +a spaniel's upon one devouring meat at table. + +Frightfulness more frightful, awfulness more awful; in Rosalie +almost now beyond control the desire to scream, or to burst into +tears or wildly into laughter. Then she knows herself upon her feet +and hears her voice: "Aunt Belle. I must go, I think. I think I am +very tired to-night." + +They suffer her to go. + +That's all a nightmare; but, when the door is closed upon them, +like a nightmare gone. She was alone upon the staircase and then +down in the hall--by those coats!--and, as though no ghastly interval +had been, the amazing and beloved moment was returned to her. Out +of a nightmare into a dream! She stood in her dream a moment--two +moments--three--by the hall door. Who till that evening never had +thought of love, astonishingly was invested with all love's darling +cunning. She felt somehow he would see her again before she left; +and love's dear cunning told her right. He came swiftly down the +stairs. She never knew on what pretext he had left the room. He +came to her. Love loves these snatched moments and always makes +them snatched to breathlessness. She opened the door and must be +gone. She said to him, speaking first, "Oh, we were vile in there! +How vile we were!" + +It was, the intimacy and the abruptness of it, the perfect +comprehension that their thoughts were shared, as if they had known +and loved for years. + +He caught her hand. "My conspirator! My secret-sharer!" + +She gave him her heart in her eyes. + +He said, "To-morrow, I will come to you." + +She disengaged her hand. + +He gave a swift look all about and caught her in his arms. "You +must tell me, my Rosalie. Tell me." + +She breathed, "You knew, before I knew, that I loved you." + +When she was home and got to her room she undressed, suffering her +clothes to lie as they slipped from her. She got into bed, moving +there and then lying there as one in trance. + +Cataclysm! All she had been, all she had determined--all, all gone; +all nothing, surrendered all. At a touch, in a moment, without a +cry, without a shot, without a stroke, all her life's habit swept +away. All she had been, all she'd designed, all she had built +within herself and walled about herself, all she had scorned, all +that with a violent antipathy she had shuddered from or with curled +lip spurned away,--all, all betrayed, breached, mined, calamitously +riven, tumultously sundered, burst away. + +She turned her face to the pillow and began to cry--most frightfully. + +It was very terrible for Rosalie. + + + + + + +PART THREE--HOUSE OF CHILDREN + +CHAPTER I + + + + + +There's none so sick as, brought to bed, that robust he that ever +has scorned sickness; nor any sinner like a saint suddenly gone +from saintliness to sin; and there can be no love like love suddenly +leapt from repression into being. + +Rosalie, that had abhorred the very name of love, now finding love +was quite consumed by love. She loved him so! Even to herself she +never could express how tremendous a thing to her their love was. +She used deliberately to call it to her mind (as the new, rapt +possessor of a jewel going specially to the case to peep and gloat +again) and when she called it up like that, or when, in the midst +of occupation, her mind secretly opened a door and she turned and +saw it there, a surge, physically felt, passed through her, and +she would nearly gasp, her breath taken by this new, this rapturous +element, as the bather's at his first plunge in the cold, the +splendid sea. + +She loved him so! She looked at him with eyes, not of an inexperienced +girl blinded by love, but of one cynically familiar with the traits +of common men, intolerantly prejudiced, sharply susceptible to +every note or motion of displeasing quality; and her eyes told her +heart, and what is much more told her mind, that nothing but sheer +perfection was here. Harry was brilliantly talented, Harry was in +face and form one that took the eye among a hundred men. But she +had known all that and freely granted him all that before. What she +found as she came to know him, and when they were married what she +continued to find, was simply, that he was perfect. He was perfect +in every way and there was no way in which, inclining neither to +the too much nor the too little, he was not perfect. + +The labour of a catalogue of her Harry's virtues is thus discounted. +Name a virtue in a man and it was Harry's. Declare too much perfection +is as ill to live with as too much fault, and it is precisely just +before too much is reached that Harry's dowry stopped. Suggest she +was blind to defects, and it is to be answered that there was no +man who knew him that ever had a thought against him (except Uncle +Pyke, Colonel Pyke Pounce, R.E., who, justifiably, was warned by +his physician never to think upon the monster lest apoplexy should +supervene) nor any fellow man in his profession (and that is +the supreme test) that ever grudged him his success. Disgruntled +barristers, morosely brooding upon the fall of plums into other +mouths than theirs, always said, when it was Harry's mouth: "Ah, +Occleve; yes, but he's different. No one grudges Harry Occleve what +he gets." + +Different! In Rosalie's fond, fondest love for him she often used +to hug her love by making that catalogue of all his parts that has +been shown not to be necessary. And it was the little, tiny things +wherein he differed from common men that especially she cherished. +By the deepest part of her nature terribly susceptible to the +grosser manifestations of the male habit, it was extraordinarily +wonderful and delicious to her that Harry of these had none. In an age +much given to easy freedom of language it will not be appreciated, +it perhaps will cause the pair of them to be sneered at, but +it demands mention as illuminating a characteristic of hers (and +of his), that she had, for instance, especial delight in the fact +that Harry never even swore. The impossible test in the matter of +self-command is when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. What does +a bishop say when he does that? But she saw Harry catch his thumb +a proper crack hanging a picture in the house they took, and, "Mice +and Mumps!" cried Harry, and dropped the hammer and the picture, +and jumped off the stepladder, and did a hop, and wrung his hand, +and laughed at her and wrung his hand and laughed again. "Mice and +Mumps!" + +"Mice and Mumps!" It always seemed to her to characterise and to +epitomise him, that grotesque expression. It always made her laugh; +and the more serious the accident or the dilemma that brought it +to Harry's lips, the more, by pathos, one was forced to laugh and +the seriousness thereby dissipated into an affair not serious at +all. Yes, that was the point of it and the reason it epitomised him. +There was none of life's dilemmas--little dilemmas that irritate +ordinary people or in which ordinary people display themselves +pusillanimous; or tragic dilemmas that find ordinary people wanting +and leave them in vacillation and despair--there was none of any +sort that Harry, receiving with his comic, "Mice and Mumps! Mice +and Mumps, old girl!" did not receive with the assurance to her +that, though this was a nuisance, he had metal and to spare to settle +such; that, though this was a catastrophe, a facer, he'd too much +courage, too much high, brave spirit for it to discommode him; +there was no fight in such, he was captain of such, trust him! + +"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward." + +That was Harry! + +"Mice and Mumps!" On the evening of the day following that astounding +betrothal of theirs, affianced as it were at a blow--a day spent +together in the park complete, without a break for food or thought +of occupation--on the evening of that day he must go, he de-clared, +to the horrific castle in Pilchester Square and break the awful +news, proclaim his villainy. + +She was terrified. "They'll kill you, Harry. Write." + +"No, no. I've been a howling cad. It's true, a howling cad, not +of guile, but of these astounding things that have happened to us +outside ourselves, but nevertheless a howling cad as such conduct +is judged, and will be judged. So I must go through it. I must. +That's certain. I couldn't hide behind a letter. They are entitled +to tell me to my face what they think of me. They must have their +right. Oh, yes, I've got to give them that. To-night. Now." + +A howling cad, but of forces outside themselves ("Too quick for +me," he had explained), not of guile. + +He had explained, in those enchanted hours in the park, that it was +really by resolve to do the right thing, and not to do the caddish +thing, that he had presented himself the howling cad that they would +hold him. That night at the Sturgiss's at Cricklewood had charged +him ("Oh, Rosalie, like bursting awake to breathe from suffocation +in a dream.") what for many days, only looking at her, never speaking +to her, suffering her not veiled contempt, he had felt as one feels +a premonition that is insistent but that cannot be defined--that +night had charged him that he loved her. He was no way definitely +committed to poor Laetitia. Was he more wrong if, now knowing his +heart was otherwhere, he maintained and carried to its consummation +the intimacy between Laetitia and himself, or if he stopped while +yet he had not gone too far? He had decided to break while yet it +might, be broken. There was an invitation from Mrs. Pyke Pounce +he had accepted. He wrote, endeavouring to give a meaning to his +words, excusing himself from it. + +She murmured, "I remember." ("Nothing in it, dear child; nothing +in it!") + +There came back a letter from Colonel Pyke Pounce in which Colonel +Pyke Pounce also had endeavoured to give a meaning to his words, +and had succeeded. Now Harry knew his problem of moral conduct in +a fiercer form; now, resolving to do what he told himself was the +right thing and not the caddish thing, he took the step that made +him be the howling cad that they would think him. ("But, Rosalie, +gave me you!") + +He had resolved that he must accept the invitation, present himself +at the house--and let the hour decide. As the situation revealed +itself so he would accept it. If it was made clear to him, as the +Pyke Pounce letter much gave him to believe, that proposal for +Laetitia's hand was expected of him, he would "do the right thing" +and stand by what his behaviour apparently had led them to expect; +if the way still seemed open, the door not shut behind him, he would +very frankly explain to Laetitia's grisly father that he thought +it best his visits to the house from now should cease. The hour +should decide! But there was in the hour, when it came, one terrible, +one lovely element that he never had expected to be there. In all +his visits to the house Rosalie never had been met on any other +day than Saturday. This dinner was on the Monday, and arriving to +face and carry through his ordeal, he was startled, he was utterly +shaken to see her there. ("To see my darling there.") + +O forces outside themselves! "When you had to pass me in the passage +nothing mattered then--except I could not let you pass." + +So it was that now, the right thing not having been done on that +night, the right thing in this new position must be done to-day. +They were entitled to tell him to his face what they thought of +him and they must have their right. That was his view and he would +not abate it. + +"They'll kill you, Harry." + +They had come by this to the corner of Pilchester Square and there +he bade her wait. She said again, part laughing, most in fear, +"They'll kill you." + +"I've got to give them the chance to do their best." + +And off he went, strongly, erect. One who never... but marched +breast forward. + +Waiting for him, she really was terrified for him. Ferocious Uncle +Pyke! Terrific Aunt Belle! Swollen and infuriated Uncle Pyke! Bitter +and outraged Aunt Belle! + +In twenty minutes came the crash of a slammed front door that clearly +and terribly was Uncle Pyke Pounce slamming it as if he would hurl +it through its portals and crash it on to Harry down the steps. + +Harry reappeared, uncommonly grave. + +She put out a hand to him, dreadfully anxious. + +"Mice and Mumps!" said Harry. "Mice and Mumps!" + +You couldn't help laughing! But also, squeezing the strong arm +beneath which he tucked her hand, you felt, with such a thrill, +from that grotesque expression, and from his face as he said it, +that this, like every forward thing, had in it nothing that could +discommode that high, brave spirit: no fight in such; he was captain +of such, trust him! + +Thus also her delight in another form, and yet in the same form, +in that grotesque expression, when it was ejaculated as his sole +expletive when he caught his thumb that frightful crack while hanging +a picture in what was to be his study in their newly taken house. + +Any other man in the world, even a bishop, would have sworn; would +have sworn no doubt harmlessly and with an honest heartiness to +which the most pious prude could not have taken exception. Agreed! +But the point was--that Harry didn't! + +She loved him so! She insisted she must bind up the thumb with +her pocket handkerchief, and did, Harry protesting; and for years, +still loving him with the old, first love, she often would be +reminded by the picture of the incident and of her joy in it. + +Yes, the only expletive she ever heard him use; and, lo, in that +very room, years on, he seated beneath that very picture, she was +to come to him with news (and hers the guilt of it) that for the +first time was to strike him between the joints of his harness, +visibly ageing him as she spoke, and for the first time cause him +to groan his pain. She was to glance at the picture as she spoke +and very terribly its merry association to be recalled to her. +She was to recall him young, gay, tremendously splendid, wringing +his damaged hand, laughing, "Mice and Mumps!" She was to see him, +grey ascendant upon the raven of his hair, shrinking down in his +seat, wilting as one slowly collapsing after a stunning blow, and +at her news (and hers the guilt of it) to hear his voice go, not +exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one dazed, bewildered, in +a fog, "My God, my God, my God, my God!" + +How could one ever have foreseen that? + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + + + +She loved him so! On that first day together in the park she told +him everything about herself, about all her ideas and theories and +principles, particularly where these touched his sex, even about +that terrible fit of crying of hers in bed an hour after she had +left him. And Harry understood everything and agreed with her in +everything. O rapturous affinity! + +They met early when business London was rushing to business. They +stayed late, with no thought of food or of their occupations, till +business London was returning, and night, in lamps below and stars +above, was setting out its sentinels. + +She told him everything; and even if she had wished not to open +all her heart, there would have been the immense selection of +everything--every single thing about herself--from which to choose +to tell him. For there never had been such a betrothal as theirs; +done at a blow with no single intimate thing ever before passed between +them! Her very first words to him as they met, her greeting of him +as they came together, showed how preposterous and never-before-imagined +was their affiancement. "You know, it's incredible," she greeted +him. "It's incredible, it's grotesque, it's flatly impossible--I've +never before seen you except in your dress clothes or at afternoon +tea!" + +Harry took both her hands in his. "But I think I've wanted you," +said Harry, "ever since I was in long clothes. I know I've wanted +you ever since first I saw you." + +One knows another, in her place, would have bantered this off in +that modern attitude towards love which is a horror, boisterously +expressed, of admitting love as an emotion. Rosalie, that had +scorned the very name of love, and that, because betrayed by love, +had turned her face to her pillow and cried most frightfully, +received it with a sound that was between a sigh and a catching of +her breath. She loved him so! + +And then they talked; and the thing between them, that had come so +wonderfully, was so wonderful that they were as it were transfigured by +it, as awe and spirituality and mysticism would fill the dwellers +in a house visited by a miracle of God. So wonderful, that +conversation, they would have felt, was not possibly a word for +all that occupied them in those rapturous hours: not conversation, +no,--a sublime engagement of their spirits wherein (possessing the +keys of all the wonders), seas, continents and worlds of thoughts +were traversed by them, in every clime most exquisite affinity +discovered. + +As at a blow they had become affianced, so, with no stage between, +but in immediate sequence perfectly natural to them both, the natural +repercussion of the blow, they talked immediately of betrothal's +consummation, of marriage, of their marriage. + +About marriage Rosalie had immensely much to tell Harry. It was +what she had principally to say, and this is how and why and what +she told him. + +When from her first terrible dismay--that frightful crying, her +face turned to the pillow--she had recovered; when to the lovely +ardour of her love--stealing about her, soothing her, in the night; +bursting upon her, ravishing her, in the morning--she had passed +on; she remembered her second line of her defences and she fell +back upon it. "If ever I fell in love," she had often said, alike +to Keggo and to Miss Salmon, "if such an impossible thing ever +were to happen to me, I'd marry as marriage should be. I'd enter a +partnership. I would live my life; he would live his life; together, +when we wanted to, when we were off duty, so to speak, we would live +our life. A partnership, a mutually free and independent partnership." + +The second line of her defences! Oh, strong and reassuring thought! +Of course, of course the first line, breached and swept away, had +never really mattered. Foolish to have wept for it! It was built +against love and she knew now, by her darling and her terrible +experience, that against love----! Nay, in that whelming admission's +very tide, sweeping upon her from envisagement of Harry and bearing +her deliciously upon its flood, there had come a thought as strong +with wine as that was sweet with honey. Built against love! Why, +in seeking to build against love, to shut away love from her life, +was she not perpetrating against herself the very act--denial +of anything a free life might have--that it was her life's first +principle to oppose? A man's place, a man's part, everything that +a man by conventional dowry is given, hers should be as freely +as a man's it is! That was her aim; that at once the basis of her +standpoint and the target of her shaft; and lo, at the very outset +of her independence, she had sought to deny herself that which (as +now she knew) was life's most lovely gift. She was steadfast, and +she was caparisoned, to obtain and to possess the things that, +of her sex, commonly a woman might not have, and she was shutting +herself from that which, if it offers, not all the man-owned world +can deny the woman lowliest in office, heaviest in chains, deepest +in servitude! + +O senselessness! She could see, as looking upon an individuality +not her own, that foolish girl that for such had turned her face +to her pillow and cried out her heart; and at that very moment, +and no other, of smiling pity for that mistaken grief, there came +to Rosalie a sudden sense of womanhood attained; of much increase +of years and wisdom; of growth of stature; of transportation, as +from one world to another, from the character and the presence that +had been hers to a personality and a body that looked down upon +that other as, tenderly, a mother upon the innocence of her small +child. + +That poor, brave, foolish Rosalie that was! Did she protest, that +foolish girl, that she was right in what had been her attitude +to love? Did she with would-be bitterness recall those views laid +down upon the women in the boarding house--that they were derelicts +precisely through this love business, abandoned of men, relict of +men, footsore and fallen in pursuit of men? + +Ah, small, misguided creature! The principles were right but all +askew the application. Love! Consider other attributes of life. +Consider learning; consider food. Learning and food--were they not +bounties of life's treasure, to be absorbed and used for sustenance +in order, by their nourishment, to give to live this life more fully? +Why, so with love! Derelicts, those women, because receiving love +(that loveliest gift of all!) not as a means but as an end--the end +of all: that attained, everything attained; that won, all finished. +That was it! That the misapplication! Learning, or food, or love--the +same with all! How dead the life that only lived in scholarship; +how gross the life that only lived to eat; how derelict that she +that only lived to love, to marry--then ceased to live! + +And equally, O small, misguided girl, how starved the life that +has no books; how weak the frame that has no food; ah, dear (thus +smiled she to herself), how dead the life that knows not love! + +The second line of her defences! Nay, as now through this mature +and happy cogitation she saw it, the first and last and only line! +In her aloneness, in that girl's single life, there had been nothing +against which to defend. She had fought phantoms, that girl; resisted +shadows. Now was the necessity, now the test; and now, because with +Harry, because she loved him so, because he was every way and in +all things perfect, now should be the triumphant exposition. + +And she told Harry: marriage that should be a partnership--not an +absorption by the greater of the less; not one part active and the +other passive; one giving, the other receiving; one maintaining, the +other maintained; none of these, but instead a perfect partnering, +a perfect equality that should be equality of place, equality of +privilege, equality of duty, equality of freedom. "Harry, each with +work and with a career. Harry, each living an own life as every man, +away from home, shutting his front door upon that home and off to +work, leads an own and separate life. Harry--" + +Oh, wonderful beneath this imperturbable sky, amongst these +common, passive things--these paths, those trees, that grass, this +bench--within this seclusion of that murmurous investment of this +city, the ceaseless roar of London, standing like patient walls, +eternal and indifferent, about her quietudes. Oh, wonderful in these +accustomed and insensible surroundings thus to be calling "Harry," +as he were brother, him that a day and night away virtually was +unmet; to be exposing, as to a gracious patron, all her mind's +treasury of thought; to be revealing, as in confessional, her inmost +places of her heart; to be receiving, as by transfusion, the glow +of affirmation on her way and in her trust. Oh, wonderful! + +Wonderful, because remember for her that she was still beneath the +shock of her dismay at her betrayal of herself; still breathless at +that rout from her prepared positions; not yet assured her banners +were unsullied in their withdrawal to her second line; not yet +convinced it was no rout but a withdrawal, wise and strategical, +ranks unbroken, to the true point of her defence. + +Do try to imagine her, tremulous in this her vital enterprise, +tremulous in this wonder that her armies found. It is very desirable +to remember what can be remembered for that girl. + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + + + +Harry assured her! Harry convinced her! Harry was here upon +the battlements, come with her in her retirement, joined with her +as her ally. All her ideas were his ideas. He, too, had these new +views of marriage. He said they always had been his. He hated, as +she hated, that old dependence notion: all the privileges the man's, +the woman's all the duties. That was detestable to him, said Harry. +Marriage in his view-- + +"I'll tell you this," was one thing Harry said. "I'll show it to +you this way, Rosalie. I don't exactly know what a reciprocating +machine is, but I know what it sounds like, and what it sounds +like is what a marriage ought to be,--a perfect fitting together, +a perfect harmonising, a perfect joining of two perfect halves that +everywhere reciprocate." + +The word delighted her. A reciprocating machine! Yes, yes! Each an +own part; each with own and separate interests; and their parts, +and the production arising out of their interests--their individual +selves--approached together, by free will, to join towards a mutual +benefit, a shared endeavour, a common advancement, a single end. + +She was desperately in earnest and so was he. There was a mill near +his people's home in Sussex, a water mill, and his illustration by +it of the design they had showed her how earnestly her own ideas +were his. There were two wheels to this mill, Harry told her, +one on either side. Each ran in its own stream, each was entirely +independent of the other; they worked alone, but each helped the +other's work; the mill joined them and they joined to make the +mill. + +That was it! + +And she was not talking any generalities, and Harry was not, either. +They weren't, either of them, playing with this idea of mutual +independence. There would "of course" be a business basis to it, +Rosalie said. She was earning her own income and she would pay her +half of the upkeep of their home together. It was a stipulation that +she advanced with a definite fear that here, at last, she might be +taking Harry from his depth; that by natural instinct of generosity, +or by instinct of immemorial custom to endow the wife with all the +husband's worldly goods, he would here reveal a flaw in his till +now flawless duplication of the views that were her own. + +But Harry (the never failing rapture of it!) was every way without +spot or blemish. He was looking straight and close into her eyes +while she put forward this, and there moved not the least dissentient +shade across his own while he received it. She need have had no +fear. He said, "I agree absolutely with that, Rosalie. There's only +one point--" and his expansion of this point wholly entranced her +because it established conditions even more matter-of-fact and +businesslike than her own broad principle. + +"There's only one point," Harry said. "It can't be half and half in +terms of actual bisection. Look, Rosalie, in this matter of running +the home we're making a contract between two parties and--don't +forget I'm a lawyer--it has to be an equable and just contract, +and to be that it has to be based for each party's liability--Do +you like me to use the law jargon?" + +She nodded. "I do, I do!" This was frightfully, entrancingly serious +for her. This was a survey of the fortifications of her second line +of her defences. "I do, I do!" + +"Well, has to be based for each party's liability on each party's +interest, on the extent to which each party is involved. I'm making +more--an uncommon good bit more--than you are, Rosalie. My interest, +therefore my liability, that is, my share, has to be allowed to be +proportionately the more. Put it in another way. We're going to run +an establishment as an establishment might be run by two or more +people of different incomes who wish to join forces for mutual +pleasure, two or three relatives, two or three friends. Well, there's +a regular principle governing that kind of arrangement. You don't +all pay the same. If you did, you'd reduce the scale of living to +the level of what the poorest can afford, and half the idea of the +combination is to enjoy a very much better scale. No, you run the +show on the level the wealthiest is willing to go to, and to the +total charge each one contributes in the proportion of his income. +If one party has a thousand a year and the other five hundred, +and the thousand-pounder wants to live at the rate of nine hundred +a year, he pays six hundred and the other three hundred. Each is +paying his just share--that's the point. That's how we'd arrange +it, Rosalie." + +She loved him so! If that were said a thousand times (as already +perhaps too often for the robust) it still would not approach +the volume of its swelling in the heart of Rosalie, for that was +ceaseless. His attitude in this matter now between them, as in +every matter, might have been the perfect agreement with her own +view that it was and yet might so have been presented as to be +much antipathetic to her. His attitude might have made her feel she +ought to say, "Thank you, Harry, for agreeing to that"; it might +have had the note, "I know exactly how you feel about marriage; I +want to make every-thing just as you wish." Quicksands! Principles +to be received as grants, bases of her defences to be accepted as +concessions! Quicksands! At either attitude, as at a foreign flavour +in a cup, she would have drawn back, suspicious; at either sense +within herself, of winning a favour, of accepting a hazard, she +would have taken alarm, dismayed. But it was why she loved him so +that here, as everywhere, his standpoint was her standpoint's own +reflection. She was, as she would have said, deadly in earnest; +deadly in earnest to a depth that she could let go to absurdity +and never know it for absurdity; and so was he. + +Approving this plan of computation of the share that each would +pay, "It would have to be done strictly," she said, "as though it +were strictly business. And--you don't know, perhaps--I'm making, +or soon shall be, just on five hundred a year." + +He smiled the nice smile of his she loved, more with his eyes +than with his lips. "I'm afraid mine's a good bit more than that. +Money's rather pushed at you at the Bar once it starts. You'd have +to put up with that." + +Her fondness in her eyes reflected him. "I know how famous you are +getting. I'd not be stupid about that, Harry. It would be the just +share, each according to our means; that's understood. Only, for +me, it would have to be the just share, that's what I'm saying; +not a matter of form, a strict proportion." + +"If you liked," said Harry, "we'd give the figures to the costs +clerk at my chambers and let him work the contributions out." + +"Absurd!" she might have laughed; and as an absurdity he might, +with a laugh, have presented it. But quite gravely he made the +suggestion, and quite gravely, after a moment's grave thought, "I +don't think that would be necessary," she returned. + +His earnestness in this thing so vital to her matched her own, +and therefore she loved him; and he yet could bring to it lightly +a touch which, though light, yet was profoundly based; and therefore, +newly, she loved him. She knew she talked with immense profligacy +of words in her endeavour to make clear the principles this second +line of her defences must maintain. "Each with work and with +a career, each with an own and separate life." She kept repeating +that. "Equal in work and in responsibility, Harry, and therefore +equal in place, in privilege, in freedom." + +And Harry, with a light touch but a grave air, a happy setting for +a profound meaning, put it in a sentence. "Things which are equal +to the same thing are equal to one another," said Harry. + +She loved him so! + +But there ought here to be explained for her what, loving him so +and he so loving her, she could not have known for herself. This +plan of maintaining their establishment by contribution of share +and share was maintained by Rosalie from the beginning--to the end. +She never had cause to doubt that in all the earnestness of that +close conversation Harry was utterly sincere. She often recalled +that steady gaze with no dissentient shade across it with which his +eyes received her statement of her case and knew that only truth +was in that gaze. He did believe what she believed. It only was +afterwards she discovered that also he believed that, both for her +and him, the thing would mellow down as mellows down the year, her +heady Aprils burnt in June, her burning Junes assuaging to September; +that it would pass; that time-- + +Yes, it must be explained. It was not active in his mind, this +reservation. It was passive, underlying, subconscious, as beneath +vigour's incredulity of death lies passively admission of death's +final certitude. He believed what she believed; but he believed it +as are believed infinity and eternity: wherein mankind, believing, +reposes upon that limitation of the human mind which cannot conceive +infinity but sees ultimately an end, and can pretend eternity through +myriad years but feels ultimately a termination. Harry believed +what she believed but only by stabilisation of a man's inherent +articles of faith. He was of the male kind; and observe, by an +incident, what inherent processes of thought the male kind has: + +When they were looking over the house which ultimately they +took--an all ways most desirable house in Montpelier Crescent, +Knightsbridge--Rosalie had only a single objection: it was far too +big. + +"Miles too big," cried Rosalie, coming up to the second floor where +Harry had preceded her. "What are you doing there, Harry? Miles +too big, I was saying. It really is. Of course I realise you must +have a house suitable to your fame but--What are you doing, Harry?" + +"Fame, yes," breathed Harry, desperately occupied. "I've turned +on this tap and I can't turn it off again. Eternal fame. After me +the deluge!" + +She was looking around. "But, Harry, really! Look at this floor. +Two more huge rooms. What can we--" + +"Mice and Mumps!" groaned Harry, straining at the tap. "Mice and +Mumps!" + +He came to her wiping his hands on his handkerchief. "Too big! Look +here, supposing this house isn't washed away by that tap. Suppose +it's still standing here tomorrow. Take a broad, courageous view +of the thing. Suppose this isn't the beginning of the Great Flood +of London, and that we're going to live in a house and not an ark. +Well, what you've got to remember is that we're not coming in here +for a week. We've got to look ahead. Take these two rooms. Why, +you can see what they're for, what they've been. Opening into one +another, and those little bars on the windows, and that protected +fireplace. Nurseries. Day nursery and night nursery." + +Rosalie laughed. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + + + +That's all done. The thing traverses the waters of the years, as +across seas a ship, and makes presently a new shore, a new clime, +wherein are met occasions new and strange, not anticipated by +Rosalie. + +Here is one. + +Habitant in the new continent across these years, she is wife and, +though she had laughed, is mother, and on a day is with her Harry, +and Harry is saying, not at all with any hardness in his voice, +but very gravely: + +"I have a right to a home." + +She replies, as grave as he, as one debating a matter that is +weighty but that is before the arbitrament, not of feeling, but of +reason, "Harry, you have a home." + +A gesture of his head, much comprehensive, is made by him: "Is this +a home?" + +"It's where we live." + +"Ah, where we live, Rosalie!" + +She did not reply to this. Himself, and not she, spoke next; but +his note was as though she had answered and he were speaking in +his turn. "I have a right to a home. The children have a right to +a home." + +She said, "Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children a +home." + +He said, "Rosalie, I am a man." + +She answered, "Harry, I am a woman." + +Harry was smoking and he indrew an inhalation from his pipe with +a long sibilant sound: her answer was very well understood by him. + +No, she never had anticipated this. + +Yet might not she have seen? Astounding how in life one's suddenly +engulfed in depths and never has perceived the shoals from which +they led; suddenly entombed in night and never has perceived the +gradual declination of the day! Why, when she looked back, so far +away as in those days of choosing their house had been in seed this +thing that now was come to fruit. And she had watched it grow from +seed to seedling, and on to bud and blossom, and never had suspected. + +But had she not? Then it was curious, she knew, that, alone of all +her thoughts, all her beliefs, all her theories, her observations +and her deductions from her observations, curious that of them all +only a certain observation, made when choosing their house, she +never had told to Harry. + +Choosing their house! She had gone back to her rooms from the +third day of their house-hunting gently amused at an addition to +her compendium of lore on the male habit. It was in a way like the +cat idea; at least it was, like that, reversal of a common opinion +on distinguishing traits as between men and women. It went in her +mind like this and, because it arose out of Harry, she laughed +softly to herself as like this she shaped it: + +"They say a woman marries for a home. Wrong, wrong! It's man that +marries for a home--a home that, having got it, superficially he +cares little enough about, and superficially uses as a good place +to get away from; but that's just how he uses his business, how he +uses everything. Oh, he wants it, he wants it, and he marries for +it far more than a woman wants it or marries for it. How plain +it is! A man marries to settle down, a woman for just precisely +the opposite: to break up; to get away from the constraints of +daughterhood and of Miss-hood, as a schoolgirl, holiday-bound, from +the constraints of school; to enlarge her life, not to restrict +it; to aerate her life, not to compose it. Why, it's inherent in a +man, the desire for a home; it's in his bones. Look at little boys +playing--it's caves and tents and wigwams they delight to play at; +a place they can in part discover and in part construct, and then +arrange their things in, and then go off exploring and then, all +the time, be coming back to the delicious cave and creep in and +block up the door! Girls don't play at that; they play at shops and +being grown up, at nursing dolls and not themselves being nursed. +But that's your man--a hunter with a cave, and the return to the +cave the best part of the hunting. That's what he marries for--a +home; a pitch of his own; a place to bring his things to and wherein +to keep his things; an establishment; a solid, anchored base; a +place where he can have his wife and his children and his dogs and +his books and his servants and his treasures and his slippers and +his ease, and can feel, comfortably, that she and they and it are +his,--his mysterious cave with the door blocked up, his base, his +moorings, his settled and abiding centre. Dear Harry!" + +"Dear Harry" because all this had come to her while with secret, +fond amusement she had watched Harry delightedly and entrancedly +fussing about the houses they explored. The boy with a cave! The +man with a home! She liked the idea of a new home, and a home with +Harry, but, given outstanding features obviously essential, almost +any home would have satisfied her. She was animated and interested +in the choosing, but not with Harry's interest and animation. Hers +were the feelings with which she had established herself in the +two-room suite at the boarding house. There any two rooms would +have done; here any pleasant house would do. It was not the rooms; +it was the significance of her entry into their possession. It +was not the house; it was the significance of all connoted by the +house. The rooms had been a stepping-off place to independence +larger and to triumphs new; the house was a stepping-off place to +independence, to triumphs, to battle of life and to joy of life, +lifted upon a plane high above her old world as the stars, as bright +and keen as they. + +But for Harry it was a stepping-in place. + +It was Harry that fussed and examined and measured and opened and +shut and tested and tried and must have this and must have that. +It was Harry who saw everything with the eye that was going to see +it and live with it permanently and for all time. It was Harry who +invested every square yard of every interior with the attributes +that should be there when they therein were domiciled. Harry who +said, "This front door! Rosalie, we're going to have a front door +that will hit you in the eye and make you say 'Mice and Mumps, +there's a distinguished couple that live behind a door like that!' +None of your wretched browns and greens and blacks and reds for our +door, Rosalie! We'll have a yellow front door, gamboge. I've seen +it on a house in Westminster. I'll take you there. You wait till +you see it. Imagine it, Rosalie, beneath that lovely old fanlight +overhead. And then yellow window boxes tinted to match in every +window and crammed with flowers. It'll be a house you'll run to +get into directly you catch sight of it. Then inside here, in the +hall, there'll be the thickest rugs money can buy and the brightest +light and the warmest stove. You'll step in and shut the yellow +door and, 'Mice and Mumps,' you'll say, 'this is home!' Now, look +here; here'll be my study; I'll have bookshelves built in all +round there and there and there. Pictures there. This nook--I'll +fix a little cupboard there and keep my tools in. I'll spend half +my time our first weeks pottering about with a hammer and a pair of +pliers. This place just here on the landing. Looks like a dungeon. +We'll knock out a window there and fit it up with hot and cold +water as a cloak room. Now here's your room, your--" + +"My study," she had interpolated, a little apprehensive lest for +her private room he should use another word. + +"Yes, your study, rather. Each of us with our own study! A lark, +eh? And Rosalie, in mine there'll be a special chair for you and +in yours a special chair for me. We'll stroll in on each other's +work--" + +She loved him for that. "Like two men in chambers," she said. + +His reply was, "We'll rip out this fireplace and put you in one in +oak; the walls something between gold and brown, eh? Now come into +the drawing-room. This'll be the room. Let's start with the hearth +and imagine it's winter. This is where we'll have tea the days when +I get back in time--" + +"And when I get back in time." + +"Of course, I'd forgotten that. Why, then whichever of us is back +first will be all ready with the tea and waiting to welcome the +other. Can't you see the room? Warm, shadowed, glowing here and +there, here and there gleaming, and the tea table shining? Won't +it be a place to rush back to? I say, Rosalie, it's going to be +rather wonderful, isn't it?" + +Dear Harry! Yes, men that married for a home. + +So she had known that from the start; and, the significant thing +(as later perceived) she never had mentioned it to Harry. There +was not a line of her life, as lived before she knew him, that she +had not revealed to him; there was not a passage of her life, when +joined to his, that was not handed to him to write upon; but this, +that she knew he'd married for a home, was never revealed, never +inscribed upon the tablets submitted daily for his annotation. + +Yes, significant! + +But how could its significance have been perceived? Look here, there +had been a night--a thousand years ago!--when a girl had turned her +face to her pillow and cried, most frightfully. Significant! Why, +that girl's world had lain in atoms at the significance of that +girl's grief. And she that now looked back had been born out of +those tears, as the first woman drawn from the side of the first +man, and fondly had chid that child that no significance was there +at all. There was none. There was nothing to fear. A natural joy +of life that had been stifled had been embraced, a shattered world +had been remoulded on foundings firmer and, ah, nearer to the +heart's desire. Significant! It had been so disproved that not more +possibly could fears arise from those, her lovely dissipations of +those fears, than from its watchful mother's reassuring candle and +her soothing words new terrors to a frightened child at night. + +Then how, she used to ask herself, could significance have been +perceived in not admitting Harry to her smiling thought on men and +home? Significance--then? Nay, memory bear witness, much, much the +contrary! Bear witness, memory, it was that very thought of Harry as +boy with cave, as man with home, had suddenly suffused her with... + +"Dear Harry!" she had thought, and with the thought... + +Anna! That cry of Anna's upon that frightening night, striking her +hands against her bosom, "I have a longing--here!" Never till then +its meaning nor even thought upon its meaning. + +Then! Upon that thought--"Dear Harry!"--had come, with a catch at +the breath as at an obscure twinge of pain, a tremor of the sense +that was its meaning: thereafter flooding all her being as floods +a flood a pasture. A longing to be mother, Anna's longing was! A +longing to be mother, to hold a tiny scrap against her breast; to +have her heart, bursting for such release, torn out by baby fingers; +to have her design of God, insufferably overpacked within her by the +remorseless pressure of instinct through a million ages, relieved, +discharged, fulfilled by motherhood. Poor Anna! Ah, piteous! "Oh, +God, thou knowest how hard it is to be a woman." Poor, piteous Anna, +and poor, piteous every woman that, made vessel of this yearning, +must have it unfulfilled. + +Not she! + +The coronet of love, denied poor Anna, was hers. He'd said "These +rooms--the nurseries"; the crown of love; and she had laughed! + +Oh, stubborn still! Oh, still not cognisant of nature's dower to +her sex. To wear the coronet and to refuse the crown! To be wife +and not to be mother! To think of baby fingers and to think to put +away the offer of their baby clutch! + +That girl that turned her face to her pillow and began to cry, most +frightfully, cried next again when she again lay abed and had a tiny +scrap, an ugly, exquisite, grotesque, miraculous scrap, a baby boy, +a baby man, along her arm and watched it there. Those had been +passionate and rending tears; these did not even flow. Those burned +her eyes; these stood within her eyes a lovely welling up of pride +and adoration, drawn from her by this newly risen wonder as by the +sun at his arising moisture in lovely mists is drawn from earth. + +Motherhood! When later he was christened, she and Harry named him +Hugh; but it was a caressing diminutive she made out of his name +by which he was always known. Her tiny son! His tiny arms hugged +you as never tiny arms possibly could have hugged before and so +she called him "Huggo." + +"Harry, if you could feel how he's hugging me! It's absurd he can +have such strength! It's ridiculous he can love me so! And how +can he possibly know that hugging's a sign of love? Harry, how can +he? Take him and hold him up like that and see if he hugs you the +same. He is! He is! Isn't he?" + +"Mice and Mumps," said Harry, "he is; he's throttling me, the +tiger." + +"Ah, give him back, I'm jealous. There's never, never been a hugger +like him since the world began. He's Huggo. That's his name. Creature +straight out of heaven, you're Huggo." + +Her love for infant Huggo so maternal; her unity with Harry so +exquisitely one; how could she have known were to be met across +the waters of the years occasions new and strange, as that already +shown, or, onward yet a further voyage, as this? + +The matter between them touched the same as when, "I have a right +to a home; the children have a right to a home," Harry had said. +But their tones not the same; in Harry's voice a quality of dulness +as of one reciting a lesson too often conned yet never understood; +in hers a certain weariness as with instruction too often given. + +They had been talking a very long time. Harry hadn't any arguments. +He just kept coming back and coming back to the one thing. He said +again, the twentieth time, in that dull voice, "We are responsible +for the children. We have a duty towards them." + +The twentieth time! She made a gesture, not impatient, just tired, +that was of repletion with this thing. "Ah, you say 'we' have a +duty. You say 'we'; but, Harry, you mean me. Why I a duty more than +you? Why am I the accused?" + +Harry's dull note: "Because you are a woman." Ineffable weariness +was in the murmur that was her reply. "Ah, my God, that reason!" +No, she had never anticipated this. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + + + +How did it happen? Within her face abode the explanation of how it +happened. + +There was a mirage in her face. + +If she were taken (for a moment) when she had been married ten years, +her age thirty-two, and then taken again when she was forty-six, +when she had done, when, in 1922, she said, "I have done," and her +story ceases, it is material to a portrait of her that in those +fourteen years her appearance did not greatly change. Events inscribed +it; but these writings were in two scripts, rendered in the two +natures that were hers, and, as it were, a balance was maintained +between them; there remained constant the aspect that her face +presented to the world; constant, that is to say, the spirit that +looked out of her face. + +That girl that at the door of the great house in Pilchester Square +had breathed, "You knew, before I knew, that I loved you," had been +called beautiful. This woman that now was wife and now was mother +was beautiful with that girl's beauty and with her own, matured of +years, set upon it. That girl, shaded in her colouring, commonly +was sombre in her hue, but with a quick, impetuous spirit beneath +her flesh that, flashing, somehow lightened all her tints; this +woman, albeit dark, had somehow about her a deep golden hue as of +dusk in a deep wood beheld against a sunset. Her face had always had +a boyish look and still, with years, was boyish. There was a mirage +in her face. The stranger glanced and saw a mother--extraordinarily +shielding and maternal and benignant things; and looked again and +saw a boy--astonishingly reckless and impetuous and rather boyish, +hard and mutinous things. Or glanced and saw a boy, perhaps laughing +and eager, perhaps obstinate and petulant; and looked again and +only much tenderness was there. + +There was a mirage in her face; and with its changes her voice +changed. When she was a boy her voice was April; when she was a +mother September was her voice. + +There were two natures in her and those were their reflections; +two lodestars set above her that by turns brightened and drew her +gaze; two lodestones set within her that claimed her banners as +claim the moon and earth the inconstant sea; one of head, one of +heart; one of choice, one of dower; one of will, one of nature. + +In that tenth year her married life there stood for the mother in +her face three children: Huggo who then was nine; Dora, whom she +called Doda because in her first prattle this heart's delight of +hers-"A baby girl! A beloved one, Harry, to be daughter to me, and +to be a tiny woman with me as little girls always are, and then +budding up beside me and being myself to me again, my baby girl, my +daughter, my woman-bud, my heart's own heart!"--had thus pronounced +her name, who then was seven; and last Benjamin, then five, whom +she named Benjamin because, come third, come after cognizance of +confliction within herself, come after resentment of his coming--called +Benjamin because, come out of such, there were such happy tears, +such tender, thank-God, charged with meaning tears to greet him, +the one the last of three, the little tiny one, so wee beside the +lusty, toddling others. Benjamin she told Harry he must be named; +Benji she always called him. + +Huggo and Doda and Benji! Her children! Her darling ones, her +lovely ones! Love's crown; and, what was more, worn in the persons +of these darling joys of hers (when they were growing up to nine +and seven and five years old) in signal, almost arrogant in her +disdain of precedent to the contrary, that woman might be mother +and yet work freely in the markets of the world precisely as man +is father but follows a career. + +Children! There had been a time when, speaking from the boy that +would stand mutinous and reckless in her face, and with her April +voice, she had expressed her view on parentage in terms of the old +resentment at the old disability, encountered, bedrocked, wherever +into life she struck a new trail; in terms of the old invertion of +an old conceit wherever with her principles she touched conventional +opinion. The catlike attributes, the marriage for a home, here the +familiar saw on parenthood-- + +"They talk about hostages to fortune," she had expressed her idea, +"they talk about a man with young children as having given hostages +to fortune. You know, it's quite absurd. He doesn't. I don't say a +man to whom the support of children is a financial anxiety hasn't, +by begetting them, placed himself in a position of captivity to +fortune, or to the future, or whatever you like to call it. He very +much has. He's backed a bill that any day may fall due and find +him without means to meet it; he's let himself in for blackmail, +always over him a threat. But I'm talking about men above the +struggle line. They don't, in their children, give hostages. It's +the woman does that. Men don't give nor forfeit anything. It's the +woman gives and forfeits. Why, when his friends meet a man who was +last met a bachelor a couple or three years ago, what change do +they see in him? They don't see any change at all. There isn't any +change to see. He has to tell them; and he always tells them rather +sheepishly or rather boisterously. 'I'm married, you know,' he +says. 'Yes, rather. Man alive, I've got two kids!' The other says, +'My aunt!'--more probably he says 'My God!'--'My God, fancy you!' +And they both laugh--laugh! + +"Hostages to fortune! To a man and amongst men it's just a joke. +It's no joke to a woman. Do you suppose a married girl, meeting old +friends, has to tell them she's a mother, or, if she had to tell +them, would tell them like that? Can't they see it at a glance? +Isn't she changed? Isn't she, subtly perhaps, but unmistakably, +altogether different from the unfettered thing she used to be? Of +course she is. How otherwise? She's given hostages to fortune and +she's paying; she's being bled. She's giving up things, she's not +going out so much, she's not reading so much, she's not playing so +much, she's not interested so much in what used to interest her. How +can she? There's the children. How can she? She's given hostages to +fortune. Oh, happy is the man that hath children for they are as +arrows in the quiver of a giant. But it's the woman is the arrowbearer! +It's the woman pays." + +Lo, there had come to this intolerance the longing--"Here!"--that +Anna's bosom had, the urge to hold a tiny scrap against her breast, +to have her heart, bursting for such release, torn out by baby +fingers. It had o'erborne the other. She had thrown herself upon +its flood; not yielded to it as one drawn in by rising waters, but +tempestuously engulfed by it and borne away upon it as swallowed +up and borne away in Harry's arms when "Rosalie! Rosalie!" he had +cried to her. + +That which the subsidence revealed, adoringly she called her Huggo. + +There was a mirage in her face. When, turned again towards the star +to which she showed her boyish and impetuous look, and, following, +she felt again the call that set the mother in her face, she this +time reasoned. That idea that, having children, it was the woman +who gave hostages to fortune! Deadly and cruelly true it was, but +only by convention. Why should it be so? Why should motherhood +that was the crown of love, of woman's life, be paid for in coin +that no man was called upon to pay? Unjust; and need not be! She +perfectly well had carried on her work with Huggo. Sleeping was +the adored creature's chief lot in life. If she had ever thought +(which she never had) of giving up her work and staying at home +on his account, what could she have done but twirl her thumbs and +watch him sleep and in his lovely lively hours superintend the +nurse who required no superintendence? As it was she was about him +in the delicious exercises of transporting him from cot through +toilet and refreshment to readiness to take the air. His lordship was +off in his lordship's perambulator by nine o'clock every morning. +She did not herself leave, with Harry, till shortly before ten. There, +in instance, was an hour at home with not the smallest benefit to +Huggo. It would have been the same, had she remained at home, with +three in four of all the other hours. Ridiculous to lay down that +a mother, having a good nurse and a well-ordered house and a husband +out all day, must tie herself there, abandoning her own life, to +attend her children! Children! Darlings of her own! Ease for this +yearning in her heart, assumption of this lovely glory that was +her natural right! Yes, she had proved love not to be incompatible +with her freedom; she would show motherhood as beautifully could +be joined. + +It seemed to her a blessing upon, and an assurance in, her purpose +that in the precious person of a little daughter came the embodiment +of this reasoning and of this design. A baby girl! A tiny woman-bud +to be a woman with her in the house of Harry and of Huggo! A woman +treasury into which she could pour her woman love! Her self's own +self, whose earliest speech chose for herself her name--her Doda! + +It all worked splendidly. Winged on the eager pinions of their +individual lives these two nested their joined life in a home that +for every inmate was a perfect home; perfect for a husband, perfect +for a wife, perfect for the babies, perfect for the servants. The +peace of every home in civilized society rests ultimately on the +kitchen, and the peace of half the homes known to Harry and to +Rosalie was in constant rupture by upheavals thence. Not so behind +the gamboge door. Rosalie always granted it to men that, as was +commonly said, servants worked better for men. Men kept out of the +irrational creatures' way; that was about it. The conduct of her +life gave her the like advantage. Giving her orders before she left +the house, she was out all day and never unexpectedly in. Positively +the servants welcomed her on her return at five o'clock! + +The babies, to whom then she flew, were with a perfect nurse. Harry +had helped in her appointment. She had come one evening, early in +the life of Huggo, when a change had to be made from the nurse who +specialised only up to the point then reached by Huggo, and she +had presented herself to them, seated together in Harry's study, a +short body, one shape and a solid shape from her shoulders to her +shoes, who announced her name as Muffett. + +"Miss Muffett, I hope," said Harry gravely. + +"Unmarried, sir," said Muffett with equal gravity and with a sudden +drop and then recovery of her stature as though some one had knocked +her behind the knees. + +"There's nothing to do," said Harry when she had gone, "but to buy +her a turret and engage her"; and there was nothing to do, when she +was installed, but enjoy the babies and delight in them just as a +man enjoys and delights in his tiny ones,--in the early mornings +before Rosalie left for her work, in the evenings when she returned +home. + +It all worked splendidly. In those early years, when two were in +the nursery and as yet no third, there wasn't a sign that Harry who +had married for a home ever could say, "I have a right to a home." +He had, and he was often saying so, the most perfect home. He came +not home of a night to a wife peevish with domestic frets and solitary +confinement and avid he should hear the tale of them, nor yet to +one that butterflied the day long between idleness and pleasures +and gave him what was left. He came nightly to a home that his +wife sought as eagerly as he sought, a place of rest well-earned +and peace well-earned. That was it! "Things which are equal to the +same thing are equal to each other." They had discovered and had +removed the worm of disparity that eats away the heart of countless +marriages. They not infrequently had friends in to dinner, not +infrequently dined at the tables of friends, made a point of not +infrequently attending a theatre or a concert; but however the +evening had been passed--and the evenings alone were always agreed +to be the best evenings of all--there was none but they ended +sitting together, not in the drawing-room, but in Harry's study +or in hers, just talking happiness. Equal in endeavour, they were +thereby made equal on every plane and in every taste. A reciprocating +machine. That was it! + +At least that was how, profoundly satisfied with it, she thought +it was. + +Then Benji came. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + + + +There were attendant upon the expectation and the coming of Benji +certain processes of mind that had not been with Huggo or with +Doda. When it was in prospect she had vexation, sometimes a sense +of injury, that again her work was to be interrupted. It would make +no difference to Harry. It happened that the days of her trial were +timed to fall on the date when a criminal prosecution of sensational +public interest was due for hearing at the Old Bailey. Harry, for +the defence, had added immensely to his brilliant reputation when +seeing it through the preliminary stages before the magistrate. +The Old Bailey proceedings were to be the greatest event, thus far, +in his career. He had told her--how proud and delighted to hear it +she had been!--that if he pulled it off (and he had set his heart +on pulling it off) he would really begin to think about "taking +silk." + +Well, but she also had her heart, in no single or sensational climax +of her work, but in its every phase and every hour. It absorbed her. +Two years earlier Mr. Simcox had begun disturbing signs of health +that, begun, developed rapidly. His brisk activity went out of him. +His walk had the odd suggestion of one carrying a load. His perky +air went dull. His mind was like a flagging watch, run down. He +could not concentrate, he suffered passages of aphasia, he began +more and more to "give up the office," more and more to leave things +to her. The agency in both its branches, scholastic and insurance, +developed well. She was its head and it absorbed her. She had a sense, +that was like wine to her, of increasing swiftness of decision, of +power, of judgment, of vision, of resource. She used to hurry to +her office of a morning as an artist urgent with inspiration will +hurry to his colours, or a poet to his pen,--avid to exercise that +which was within her. + +Well, it was to be stopped. Childbed. For a month at least, for two +months more likely, all was to be set aside, to go into abeyance, +to drift. Whereas Harry's work.... Yes, vexatious! These laws that +gave men the desirable place in life were not laws but conventions +and she had proved them such; but with all proved there yet remained +to the man privileges, to the woman restraints, that were ordinances +fundamental and not to be escaped. Yes, injurious! + +Thus in those weeks of the coming of him that was to be Benji, +solely the boy of aspect mutinous and impetuous was in her face; +and when within a month stood her appointed time came an event that +stiffened there that aspect, turned it, indeed, actively upon the +child within her waiting deliverance. This event in its momentous +incidence on her career placed its occasion on parity with Harry's +anticipations of the Old Bailey trial. Mr. Simcox died. + +There's no use labouring why the emotions that at this loss should +have been hers were not hers. That girl whose eyes had gathered +tears at the picture of the little figure with flapping jacket +peering through the curtains at the postman's "rat-tat-flick" was +not present in the woman whose first thought at the sudden news, +brought to her seated in her office, was, "At such a time! Just +when--Now what is to be done?" True for her that there followed +gentle feelings, and gentler yet in her attendance on her patron's +obsequies, in the discovery that all of which he died possessed +he'd left to her, but it is the duller surfaces that are slowest +to give refraction, the least used springs that are least pliant. +She was come a long road from her first signs of hardening. She was +past, now, the stage where, when grieving for the little old man, +she would have felt contrition that her first thought at his death +had been, not of him, but of his death's effect upon her work. + +And there supervened, immediately, interests that caused the passing +of Mr. Simcox merely--to have passed. + +Mr. Sturgiss, of Field and Company, attending the funeral with her, +said to her as he was taking his leave, "One would say this isn't +a moment to be talking of other things, business things, but after +all--In a way it is the moment. You'll be making new arrangements +and rearrangements now. Before you start settling anything I want +you to have in mind the old proposition. You've been loyal to poor +Simcox to the end. This business is your own now. We want it. We +want you. We want you in Lombard Street." + +This, cut and dried, glowingly enlarged in long interviews with Mr. +Sturgiss and Mr. Field, succinctly reduced to writing by the firm +that it might be fairly studied, was before her, not demanding, +but eagerly absorbing, her most earnest attention when she was +a fortnight from her trial. This was the event whose momentous +incidence on her career placed the days then in process and +immediately in prospect on parity of importance with their meaning +to Harry, absorbed in preparation for his case. There was so much +to weigh; and like a threat, a doom, banked her impending banishment +from affairs, distracting her, haunting her, hurrying her. There +was so much to do, to settle, to wind up (for she found herself +arranging for the change even while she debated it); and in the +midst of it she was to be cut off as by term of imprisonment! There +was so much to scheme, to plan, to dream (her mind already elevated +among the high places of her new outlook); and between now and +action she was to go--out of action. + +Whereas Harry.... Whose child it was also to be.... + +Yes, injurious! + +Not injurious as between dear Harry and herself; but injurious as +between his sex and hers. There were moments of thinking upon the +difference when she could have conceived a grudge against the child +she was to bear. + +And Harry could not perceive the difference! Immersed in his +preparations and, when the case opened, lost to all else in his +case, he presented precisely that faculty (and that permission by +convention) of complete detachment from his home that long she had +known to be man's most outstanding and most enviable quality. He +had no attention to spare for the consideration of her own problem +and ambition, and she was too honourable to his interests, and too +devoted to him in his interests, to bother him with hers. But, more +significantly to her feelings than that, he was also too immersed +to offer her, in her ordeal of childbirth, the sympathy and +the anxiety that, unengrossed, he would have shown. It was there, +profound and loving, beneath the surface; but his work came first. +He was a man, capable of detachment, permitted by convention to +practise detachment, by gift of, nature not inhibited from detachment. +A man, he could put it beneath the surface. A woman, in conflict +of her instincts and her ambitions, it was her ambitions that she +must sink. That was it! Yes, injurious. + +And he did not even understand. + +On what proved to be the evening before her delivery, and was the +third day of Harry's case, she was lying, as she had lain some days, +on the Chesterfield in the drawing-room, loosely robed. Harry had +thought he could get back to tea, and got back. He came to her with +tenderest concern, and with immense tenderness at once was talking +to her. But she could see! The apparent deepening of all the lines +of his dear, striking face, as of one who for hours has been under +enormous concentration; the slight huskiness of his voice, from +hard service; the repressed excitation in his air; the frequent +glint behind the soft regard of his eyes, as of one that has been +hunting high and hunting well--she could see; she could tell where +was his spirit! + +Her own went lovingly to meet it where it was. "Ah, never mind all +that, Harry. Tell me all that's been happening to you. How is it +going, Harry?" + +Dear Harry! Most mannish man! She laughed (and he laughed too, knowing +perfectly well why she laughed) to note the delight, like a dog +from chain, with which he bounded off into his mind's absorption. He +sat upright. He grabbed for a cigarette and inhaled it tremendously. +"It's going like cutting butter with a hot knife. I started +cross-examining today. I gave him three and a half hours of it, +straight off the ice, and I'm not through with him yet. Not half. +If he had as many legs as a centipede he'd still not have one left to +stand on when I'm through with him. I doubt he'll have his marrow +bones to crawl out on, the way he's crumpling up. Even old Hounslow +at his worst can't possibly misdirect the jury, the way I've gummed +their noses on the trail. I'll tell you--" + +He told her. + +She had put out both her hands and taken one of his. "It's splendid, +Harry. It's too splendid. How delighted I am, and proud, proud! +No one would have imagined it at the beginning. What a triumph it +will be for you!" + +His grasp squeezed hers in fond response. "Why, it won't do me +any harm," he agreed. His tone was light. He released his hand and +took up a cup of tea, and his tone went deep. "Mind you, I'm glad +about it," he said, and stirred the spoon thoughtfully within the +cup. He had come into the room declaring he was dying for some +tea, but he had touched none, and he now replaced the cup untasted +on the table and she saw on his face the deep "inward" look that +she knew (and loved) for the sign of intense concentration of his +mind. "Yes, glad," he spoke; his voice, as was its habit when he +was "inward," sounding as though it was the involuntary, and not +the intentional, utterance of his thoughts. "I've gone all out over +this case. I saw, the minute they briefed me, that one tiny flaw, +his neglect to take up that option--you remember, I told you--right +down at the bottom of the whole tangle, and I went plumb down for +it and hung on to it and fought it up like, like a diver coming up +from fathoms down." + +She had a quickness of imagery. It constantly delighted him. "Yes, +that's good," she declared. "Up like a diver, Harry. Not with +goggles and a helmet and all that, but shot up like a flash, all +shining and glistening and triumphant with the jewel aloft. What +a shout there'd be! Dear Harry! You're splendid!" + +He smiled most lovingly. "As a matter of fact, I feel I ought to +make a mess of it. It'll be the first big case since we've been +together that, while it's been on, we haven't had talks about. +You couldn't, of course, with this so near to you. It would be +significant, and proper, if I drowned in it." + +She shook her head. "Absurd! Why, the thing I'm most glad about, +Harry, is that all this"--she indicated with a gesture her pose, +her dress, her condition--"that all this hasn't in the least upset +your work. It might have. It hasn't--and when it happens, it won't, +will it?" + +Harry said, "I'm rather ashamed to say it hasn't, in the least. +I've thought of you, often, but I've simply put the thought away. +And when it happens, I shall think of you--terribly--going through +it; and of the small thing--But we shall be in the crisis of the +case and I shall have to forget you. I'll have to, Rosalie, as I +have had to. The work must go on." + +She agreed emphatically. "Of course it must." She then said, "Whereas +mine--" + +He did not attend her. The "inward" look was deep upon his face. +There was the suggestion of a grimmish smile about his mouth. One +could have guessed that he was rehearsing, with satisfaction, his +enormous application while the work was going on. + +She gave a sound of laughter, and that aroused him. "What's the +joke?" + +"Why, just how this does rather illuminate the point--" + +"The point...?" + +"Your work and mine--a man's and a woman's." + +"Yes, tell me, dear." + +"Why, Harry, I do think of it sometimes. We've planned it and +arranged it and settled it so nicely, these years, and you see the +big thing in marriage comes along and shatters it to bits. Your +work goes on precisely as if nothing at all were happening; mine +has to stand by." + +"Ah, but this," Harry said, and in his turn indicated her condition. +"This--this is different. We agreed, before Huggo, that if we had +children it need make no difference to you, to your work, in a way. +And it hasn't, and needn't now--when it's over. But this time, this +period, why, that's bound to interfere." + +"But it doesn't interfere with you. It shows the difference." + +"Oh, it shows the difference," he assented. + +His tone was conspicuously careless, conceding the difference but +attaching to it no importance at all; and with it he rose--she had +instantly the impression of him as it were brushing the difference +like a crumb from his lap--and announced, "I'm going to my study +now for a couple of hours before dinner. I must. Our solicitor's +coming in." He bent over her and kissed her lovingly. "You understand, +I know." + +And he went. + +Yes, it showed the difference! And was not seen by him! Yes, +injurious. Yes, could conceive a grudge.... + +There was a mirage in her face. Her face, that had been boy's and +mutinous these weeks, was Mary's and was lovely in maternal love +when it was turned towards the scrap that on a morning lay against +her breast; her thoughts, that had been stubborn, hard, resentful +while her days approached, welled in remorse, compassion, yearning, +joy, when they were past and this was come. She'd grudged him, +this littlest one! Grudged his right, put her own right against +it, this tiny, helpless one! When, added to these thoughts, Huggo +and Doda, those lovely darlings, were permitted to see him, asleep +beside her, he was so wee, so almost nothing against their sturdy +limbs, and had come so unwanted--yes, unwanted, this cherishable +one of all!--that she knew instantly what name he must be given. +Her Benjamin! + +Lying much alone in the succeeding days, contrite, adoring; with +frequent happy tears (she was left weak): with tender, thank-God, +charged with meaning tears, she found a vindication of her +self-reproach that immensely bound her up, forgave her, gave her +comfort. She could give up her work! She could leave all and be +with her darlings! Of course she could! At any time! She had grudged +the right to come of this defenceless scrap. She had set against +his right her own right. Ah, dangerous! A long road lay that way! +In conflict of his coming, with her own rights she had been much +engaged. Here, on the sheet beside her, and in the nursery, overhead, +were other rights. Well, when they claimed.... Of course she could! +She had not thought enough about these things.... + +There is to be said for her that she thought not very widely nor +very deeply upon them now. Her resolution that she could, when it +was necessary, give up her work, scattered them. It came to her +as comes to a man, beset by poverty, scheming by this way and by +that to abate it, news of a legacy. He ceases, in his relief, his +present schemes; he has "no need to worry now." Or came to her as +comes a sail to one shipwrecked and adrift, painfully calculating +out his final dregs of food and water. He ceases, at that emblem, +his desperate plans to stretch his days. He's all right now. + +It was like that with Rosalie. + +While only she had realised her resentment of this baby's claims, +and only now her contrite yielding to them; before she had conjectured +deeply on all the problem thus revealed; there came to her, like +way of escape to one imprisoned, like instantaneous lifting of a +fog to one therein occluded, the thought, "I can give up the work." + +Of course she could! At any moment; by a word; by the mere formulation +of the step within her mind, she could abandon her career. Not now. +It was not necessary now. But if or when--she used that phrase, in +set terms propounding her resolution to herself--if or when the +call of her children, of her home, came and was paramount, she +could give up everything and respond to it. Oh, happy! Oh, glad +discharge of her remorse! When the children wanted her she could +just--come back. Field and Company, her career, her successes--what +of them? She had done well in her career, she still would do well. +Let the claim of home and children once come into the scale against +the claim of those ambitions and--she would just come back! + +Oh, happy! + +"Come back"? Who was it had said something about that, something +about "come back" for a woman, making the expression thus dimly +familiar in her mind? Who? Laetitia? No, Laetitia was always +associated with another phrase: striking because in terms identical +with accusation previously delivered against her. Well she remembered +it! On the day following Harry's visit to the house to take his +deserts from poor Aunt Belle and Uncle Pyke, she also had gone +there, following his high idea of what was right. She had been +refused admittance. There had come for her as the last voice out +of that house a quivering letter from Aunt Belle, seeming to quiver +in the hand with the passionate upbraiding that had indited it, +and a forlorn sentence from Laetitia. "I have done everything for +you, everything, everything, and this is how you have rewarded me," +had pulsed the pages of Aunt Belle; Laetitia only had written: + +"Oh, Rosalie! You could have had any one you liked to love you, +but you took my Harry and I shall never, never have another." + +Miss Salmon's cry again! Twice identically accused. Once grotesquely +accused; once, on the surface, rightly accused. Both times aware +how poignant and pathetic was the cry; not moved the first time, +not moved the second. Recurring to her now, she knew again how +broken-hearted sad it was, and knew again it ought to move, but +did not. Well, not strange now. She was a long way out of those too +soft compassions. No, not Laetitia had made "come back" familiar +to her. The phrase, as she seemed to recollect its context, was +too profoundly practical for the Laetitia sort; and that was why, +of course, it moved her nothing. She had learnt, jostling off corners +in the market place, what formerly she had only conjectured,--that +there was in life no room for sentiment, it clogged; it hampered; +it brought sticky unreality into that which was sharply real. +"Come back?" No, not Laetitia. Who? Keggo? Yes, it was Keggo; and +immediately with the name's recovery was recovered the phrase's +context. This very matter! "Rosalie, a woman can't--come back." + +Absurd! But, yes, how she remembered it now! "Very dangerous being +a woman," Keggo had said. "Men go into dangers but they come out +of them and go home to tea. That's what it is with men, Rosalie. +They can always get out. They can always come back. They never +belong to a thing, heart and soul, body and mind. Rosalie, women +do. That's why it is so very, very dangerous being a woman. Women +can't come back. They take to a thing, anything, and go deep +enough, and they're its; they never, never will get away from it; +they never, never will be able to come back out of it. Rosalie, I +tell you this, when a woman gives herself, forgets moderation and +gives herself to anything, she is its captive for ever. She may +think she can come back but she can't come back. For a woman there +is no comeback. They don't issue return tickets to women. For women +there is only departure; there is no return." + +Poor Keggo! + +Poor Keggo had of course founded her theory upon her own bitter +plight. How she had given her case away when she had said, "Look +at me!" It applied to her, of course, or to any woman--or man for +that matter--who drank or drugged. It applied not in the least to +such a case as this of her own. Keggo had tried to apply it. She +had said, "You have a theory of life. You are bent upon a career +in life. Suppose you ever wanted to come back?" + +She had laughed and declared she never would want to come back. +Well, look how absurd all poor Keggo's idea was now being proved! +It had suddenly occurred to her that it might at some future time +be required of her to come back; and all she had to do was just--to +come back. No difficulty about it whatsoever! No struggle! Indeed, +and fondly she touched that by her side which had called up these +thoughts, she would come back joyously. Of course she would! Field +and Company, ambition, that for if and when her darlings called +her! Yes, wrong every way, that poor Keggo. Dangerous being a woman, +she had said, and it was not dangerous. It could be, and she had +proved it, a state that could be lived full in every aspect,--full +in freedom, full in endeavour, full in love, full in motherhood. +Dangerous! A week ago, inimical to this advent, injurious; now, in +this advent's presence, and with this resolution gladly dedicated +to it, only and wholly glorious. + +This one! Come after connection, come in contrition, come to call +her back when she should need to be called, the little tiny one, +the belovedest one, the Benjamin one--her Benji! + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + + + +Those children were brought up with every modern advantage. Wisdom +is judged by the age in which it flourishes, and everything that +the day accounts wise for children those children had. Their father +was of considerable and always increasing means; their mother was +of great and untrammelled intelligence: anything that money could +provide for children, and that intelligent principles of upbringing +said ought to be provided for children, those children enjoyed. When +they were out of the care of Muffet, who was everything that a nurse +ought to be, they passed into the care of a resident governess, +Miss Prescott, who was a children's governess, not for the old +and fatuous reason that she "loved children," but for the new and +intelligent reason that she was attracted by the child-mind as a +study and was certificated and diplomaed in the study of children +as an exact science,--Child Welfare as she called it. Miss Prescott +had complete charge of the children while they were tiny and while +they were growing up to eleven and nine and Benji to seven years +old. She taught them their lessons (on her own, the new, principles) +and on the same principles their habits and the formation of their +characters. It might roundly be said that everything troublesome +in regard to the children was left to Miss Prescott, and, left to +her, came never between the children and their mother. Their mother +only enjoyed her children, presented to her fresh, clean and happy +for the purpose of her enjoyment; and the children only enjoyed +their mother, visiting them smiling, devoted, unworried, for the +purpose of their happiness. + +It was a perfect, and a mutually beneficial arrangement. As there +had been, before the children came, two independent lives behind +the gamboge door, so, with the occupation of the nurseries, there +were, as it might be, three independent households, mingling, at +selected times, only for purposes of happiness. + +It was perfect. In the summer a house was taken at Cromer by the sea +and there, all through the fine weather, Miss Prescott was installed +with her charges. Their mother had three weeks from Field's in the +summer and she and their father would spend the whole of it, and +often week-ends, at Cromer idling and playing with their darlings. +That was jolly. The children associated nothing whatever but +happiness with their parents. + +In the other months of the year their mother was immensely occupied +with her work at Field's, developing beyond expectation; and their +father early and late with his work in the Temple, his esteem +by solicitors and by litigants almost beyond his time to satisfy. +Their father was much paragraphed in the social journals, and their +mother also. The paragraphs said their father was making a "princely +fortune" at the Bar and never told of him without telling also of +his wife. They described her as "of Field's Bank" and always drove +the word "unique" hand in hand with every mention of her parts. +"Unique personality"; "unique position"; "unique among professional +women"; "unique," said one, "in combining notable beauty and rare +business acumen; an office which she attends daily and a charming +home; a profession, three beautiful children, and a brilliant +husband." + +The syntax is weak, but the truth is in it and those children were +to be envied in their mother. + +Miss Prescott, when she came, did not displace the Muffet. She +was installed additional to the Muffet; and as touching the modern +principles relating to children she very soon told Muffet a thing +or two not previously dreamt of in the Muffet philosophy but having, +thence forward, occasional place in the Muffet nightmares. + +The Muffet, however, was of lymphatic character, with, as her most +constant desire, the desire not to be "plagued." She was one of +those people who are for ever declaring that they never eat anything, +who at meals, indeed, appear to eat very little, but who between +meals, are eating all day long. At all hours of the day the Muffet +jaws, like the jaws of a ruminant, were steadily munching, munching. +When Benji was three Muffet was getting distinctly fat. On a corner +of the night nursery mantelpiece she had a photographic group of +her parents and of an uncle and aunt who lived with her parents. +These four were very fat and one evening the children's father made +a remark about this portrait that made their mother laugh delightedly. + +Benji was in his cot. Huggo had just come from his bath and was +having his toes wiped by his mother because he declared Muffet had +not dried them properly. He said Muffet groaned when she stooped. + +His mother said, "You know, Harry, Muffet is getting fat. Have you +noticed it?" + +Their father was bent almost double swinging Doda between his legs, +the stomach of Doda reposing on the palms of his joined hands and +Doda squealing ecstatically. + +Their father said, "I have. Go and look at that photograph, Rosalie, +and you'll see why. Look at what her people are. Muffet's broadening +down from precedent to precedent." + +It made their mother laugh. The children didn't know why it made +her laugh, but they laughed with her. They always did, or with +their father when he laughed. And there was always lots of jolly +laughter when their father and mother came up to the nurseries. + +Those children, as they passed through early childhood, never saw +their parents but happy and good-spirited. They never saw them +worried nor ever saw them sad. That was, as one might say, Rosalie's +chief offering to her darlings. It was splendid to Rosalie that +her way of life, far from causing her (as prejudice would have +prophesied) to neglect her children, enabled her to consider them +in their relations with herself as, by their mothers, children in +her childhood never were considered. That they should associate +nothing--nothing at all--but happiness with her was the basis of +it. Children, she held, ought not to see their parents bad-tempered +or distressed or in any way out of sorts or out of control. For +a child to do so has in two ways a bad effect on the child mind. +In the first place, it is harmful for children to come in contact +with the unpleasant things of life; in the second, parents should +always be to their children models of conduct and of disposition. +They should in themselves present ideals to their children. A man +should be a hero to his son; a woman an ideal to her daughter. +Why is no man a hero to his valet? It is simply because his valet +sees him, as do not those whose esteem he desires to win, in his +off moments. Children should never see their parents in their off +moments. + +This principle was not Rosalie's alone. It is the modern principle. +The point, to Rosalie, was that, by her way of life, she was able +to apply it. Children were too much with their parents. That was +the fault; in her childhood the universal fault, even now the fault +among the unenlightened. Parents, being human, must have off moments; +are not off moments, indeed, in the total of the day, of greater +sum than moments of circumspection? It follows that if children are +always with their parents, the more unlovely side cannot fail to be +perceived, and, arising out of it, must follow injury by example, +harm by environment, smirching of idealism, loss of respect. In +those homes where the mother (in Rosalie's phrase) is the children's +slave, why has the father the children's greater respect? Why is +it fine to do what father does? Why jolly and exciting to be with +father? It is only because the father commonly is away all day, +only seen by them when, shedding other affairs, he comes to see +them specially. + +Her life--oddly how well for everything and every one her attitude +to life fell out!--obtained for her and for them the same wise and +happy restriction from too free familiarity. She was able to come +to her children only when all her undivided attention and whole +hearted love could be given to them. They never saw her vexed, +they never saw her angry, they never saw her sad. It was not a +commonplace to them to see their mother. It was an event. A morning +event and an evening event--and unfailingly a completely happy +event. She looked back upon her own childhood with her own mother +and reflected, fondly but clearly, affectionately but not blinded +by affection, how very different was that. She was always with +her mother. Her mother was often sad, often worried, often, in +distraction of her worries, irritable in speech. Often sad! Why, +she could remember time and again when her dear mother, hunted by +her cares, was broken down and crying. She would go to her mother +then and cry to see her crying, and her mother would put her arms +around her and hug her to her breast and declare she was her "little +comfort." Was it good for a child to suffer scenes like that? She +used to be with her mother all day long, from early morning till +last thing at night. With what result? That she saw and suffered +with her, or suffered of her, all that her mother suffered; that +she was sometimes desolated to feeling that her heart was broken +for her mother. Could that be good for a child? Her Huggo, her Doda +and her Benji never saw her anything but radiant; and because that +was so (as she told herself) she never saw them cry, either on her +account or on their own. + +Therein--grief in her presence on their own account--another point +arose. With as her ideal that only happiness should be associated +with her, she found her way of life beneficial to the preservation +of that ideal in that it prevented her from being the vessel that +should convey the restrictions, the reproofs and the instruction +that are troublesome to small minds. All that was left to Miss +Prescott. She remembered lessons with her mother; she remembered +the irksome learning of a hundred "don'ts" from her mother; and +though they were tender and pathetic memories she remembered also +the reverse of the picture,--being glad to escape from her mother, +resentful against her mother when stood in the corner by her +mother, when stopped doing this that and the other by her mother, +when made to learn terribly hard lessons by her mother and to go on +learning them till she had learnt them. Only childish resentment, +of course, swept up and forgotten as by the sun emerging out of +clouds the shadow from a landscape. But why should children ever +have the tiniest frown against their mother? There must be frowns, +there must be tears. Let others bear the passing grudge of those. +Let Miss Prescott. + +Miss Prescott was willing and able to bear anything like that. She +delighted in such. She told Rosalie, when Rosalie engaged her, and +after she had seen the children, that her only hesitation in accepting +the post was that the children were too normal. "By normal," said +Miss Prescott, speaking, as she always spoke, as if she were a +passage out of a book given utterance, "By normal, Mrs. Occleve, I +do not, of course, mean commonplace. Any one can see how attractive +they are, how gifted; any one can know how distinguished, with, +if I may say so, such talented parents, their inherited qualities +must be. No, when I say normal, I mean showing no disquieting +signs, constitutionally tractable, not refractory. In that sense of +normality it is much more the abnormal child to whom I would have +liked to devote myself. I have specialised in children. The harder +the case the more I should be interested in it. That's what I mean. +But I never could have hoped to find a household where, though +there can be no difficulties, I should have such opportunities of +helping children to be perfect men and women; nor a mother to whose +children I would more gladly, proudly, devote myself; nor a place +with which I should feel myself so entirely in sympathy. If you feel, +on reflection, that I should suit you, it will be, I am sure--why +should I not say so--an auspicious day for those little ones." + +How happy was Rosalie thus by provision to destiny her darlings! + +Miss Prescott was thirty when engaged by Rosalie. She had a way +of looking at people which, if described, can best describe her +appearance. She was once in an omnibus in London and the conductor, +standing against her, and about to serve a ticket to a passenger +seated next her, had some trouble with his bell-punch. It would not +work and he fumbled with it, angry. Everybody in the bus watched him. +It is not nice to be watched when baffled and heated in bafflement +but the only gaze to which attention was given by the conductor was +the gaze of Miss Prescott. He glanced constantly from the obdurate +machine to the face of Miss Prescott. Suddenly he said: "'Ere, +suppose you do it, then," and pushed the bell-punch at her. Miss +Prescott took it, did it, astoundingly and instantaneously, and +handed it back with no word. The conductor seemed more angry than +before. + +It was like that that Miss Prescott looked at people. + +There is right way of doing everything. Miss Prescott had an uncanny +instinct for finding it; and, applying this faculty to her training +of the child-mind, she presented herself as a notable exponent of +the system in which, as has been said, she was certificated and +diplomaed. She taught children how to play in the right way, how +to learn in the right way, and above all how, in every way and +at every turn, to reason. By the old, ignorant plan children were +instructed, speaking broadly, by love or by fear. It was by pure +reason that Miss Prescott instructed them. The child was treated as +an earnest physician treats a case. Ill temper or wrong behaviour +in a child was neither vexing nor sad. It was profoundly interesting. +There was a right and scientific way to treat it and that right and +scientific way was thought out and administered. The child was "a +case." + +It was taught nothing but truths and facts. Its mind was not +permitted to be befogged with fairy stories, with superstitions, +with Father Christmases and the like, nor yet with religious +half-truths and misty fables. These entailed not only befogging +at the time, but disillusionment thereafter. Disillusionment was +wicked for a child. It further was taught nothing at all (in the +matter of lessons) at the grotesquely early age at which children +used to be taught. It was taught first to reason. + +In general the whole system lay in developing the child's +reasoning powers and then, at every turn and particularly at every +manifestation of indiscipline, appealing to its reason. "I am here +to be happy"--that was the first, and surely the kindest and easiest, +knowledge to fix in the child. From that foundation everything +was worked. It never was necessary to punish a child. It only was +necessary to reason with it. In the old phraseology a child meet +to be punished was a naughty child. In the terminology of Miss +Prescott such a child was a sick child or an unreasoning child: +a case presenting an adverse symptom. But take the older term,--a +naughty child. A naughty child was an unhappy child. The treatment +went like this, "I am here to be happy. I am not happy. Why am I +not happy? Because I have done so and so and so and so...." + +Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. Rosalie in her childish +misdemeanours would have been prevailed upon by the unhappiness her +conduct caused her mother. All wrong! A faulty process of reasoning; +indeed not a process of reasoning at all: a crude appeal to the +emotions. Those three children who on the one part never saw their +mother sad and were constrained to comfort her, on the other never +were bribed to good behaviour by the thought of grieving her. They +only associated happiness with her and they enjoyed happiness simply +by reasoning away unhappiness. + +Kind, wise, simple, effective, easy. + +Happy Huggo, happy Doda, happy Benji, happy Rosalie! + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + + + +It has been said of Time, earlier in these pages, the cloak-and-dagger +sort he is, that stalks and pounces. One seeks only to record him +when he thus assails, and there is this result; that it is necessary +to pare away so much. In instance, there's to be inserted now a note +on Rosalie's advance in her career. It's cut to nothing. This is +because all that career ultimately was known to her never to have +really mattered. And so with other things. That girl, all through, +pressing so strong ahead, rises to the eye not cumbered with other +importance than her own. There might be asked for (by a reader) +presentation of Harry's parents; of what was doing all this time +to her own parents in the rectory, to Harold, Robert, Flora, Hilda; +of friends that Rosalie and Harry had. That girl's passage is not +traced in such. Whose is? The chart where such are marked is just +a common public print, stamped for the public eye. They're not set +down upon that secret chart all carry in the cabin of their soul, +and there, in that so hidden and inviolable stateroom, poring over +it by the uncertain swinging lamp of conscience, prick out their +way. + +Her installation in the bank had been a notable success. She dealt +with all the insurance advice and with income-tax advice and business; +and it was remarkable to her, at first, how many of Field's clients +were as children in the mysteries of income tax, and as children +alike in their ignorance of the possibilities of life insurance +and in their pleasure at the discoveries she set before them. But +further than this (and more important, said Mr. Sturgiss and Mr. +Field) was the quick response of the clients to the various domestic +advice that it was Rosalie's business to give. Husbands and wives +from the East, or returned thither from London and writing from the +East, consulted her on innumerable matters. When, in instance, an +army officer wrote to her from India, very diffidently wondering +if she could help him in the matter of some Christmas presents for +his wife and children at home, Mr. Sturgiss was uncommonly pleased. + +"I knew it!" said Mr. Sturgiss. "That's the kind of thing. You watch +how side-lines like that will develop. That's what these people +want--some one at home they can rely on. I tell you, Mrs. Occleve, +you, that is to say your department of Field's, is what the +Anglo-Eastern has been wanting ever since Clive and Warren Hastings +went out--a link with home. You see." + +She did see. Mr. Field saw. The clients saw. The friends of the +clients saw--and became clients. + +All of her position reposed, and was developed by her, on the +cruel disabilities of those who earn their bread in the East. For +all such, married, comes, in time, the sad and the costly business +of the divided home,--the two establishments, the sundering of +children and parents, of husband and wife. By the age of seven at +latest, the children have to be sent home for health and education. +Then the sundering, the losing of touch, the compulsion upon the +man, that those at home may be promptly supported, to deny himself +year after year the longed-for visit home. The losing of touch.... +Invaluable to them to have in Field's, in "that Mrs. Occleve" a link, +known personally or by reputation, that was useable as relations +(capricious, "touchy," interfering) often are not useable; and +dependable as relations, unpractical, certainly are not always +dependable. Invaluable to the clients; declared by Mr. Field and by +Mr. Sturgiss to be invaluable to the bank; absorbing and splendid +to Rosalie. "And still," Mr. Sturgiss was always saying, "still +capable of much bigger development." + +He sketched one day a development that would be a stride indeed. +It began to be discussed by the three. It connoted so absolute +a recognition of Rosalie's worth that she decided--lest it should +fall through--she would not mention it to Harry till either it was +fallen through or was afoot. Then! + +It made her busy. She told Harry once, when they'd been talking +of how much at office she was kept, of her work, and of the place +she was making for herself, "Well, it's not bad, Harry," she told +him. "It's not bad. I'll admit that. What pleases me is that it's +only a beginning; well as it's going, and long as I've now been at +it, only a beginning. I can't, as I've often said to you, be doing +all this without getting a long insight into the actual banking +business. Oh, don't you remember my telling you about that appalling +evening when I told poor Uncle Pyke that I wanted to be a banker? +How outraged he was! Poor person, how rightly outraged! The ridiculous +notion that I ever could be a banker! A grotesque dream!" She gave +a small laugh as if tenderly smiling at image before her of that +innocent, eager girl at the Pyke Pounce table. She said softly, "A +grotesque dream. Now, with patent limitations--not a dream." + +It was like that that Time (disguised as triumph) kept out of the +way; and similarly disguised, showed no sign either on the children's +side. All splendid there! Growing up! Huggo set to school! + +Huggo learnt with Miss Prescott till he was nine, then attended +daily a first-rate school for little boys in Kensington, at eleven +started as a boarder at a preparatory school for Tidborough. Next +he was to go to the great public school itself, afterwards to Oxford +and the Bar. All's well! Time had nothing at all to say during the +first two stages of the programme. It was in Huggo's first holidays +from the preparatory school that Time whipped out his blade and +pounced. + +On a day that was a week before the end of that holidays the great +new scheme for Rosalie at Field's rose to its feet and walked. It +was a special mission on behalf of the bank. + +It necessitated.. . . + +She came once or twice to a bit of a stop like that while waiting +their evening talk together in which she should tell Harry. It +necessitated a departure from the established order of things; but +what of that? Was not the way bill of her life all departures from +things established, and all successful, and were not all contingencies +of this particular departure fully insured against? She very easily +cantered on, on this rein. That bit of a stop was scarcely a check +in the progression of her thoughts. + +Seated with Harry in Harry's room that night she was about to tell +him her great news when, "I'd an unusual offer made to me today," +said Harry. + +Almost the very words herself had been about to use! + +"Why so had I to me!" she cried. + +They both laughed. "Tell on," said Harry. + +"No, you. Yours first." + +"Toss you," cried Harry; and spun a coin and lost and went ahead: +"Well, mine doesn't exactly shake the foundations of the world with +excitement because I refused it. It was to go out to defend in a +big murder case in Singapore!" + +She exclaimed, "In Singapore!" + +"Yes, Singapore. Why do you say it like that?" + +She did not answer. + +The prisoner, Harry went on, was a wealthy trader, immensely wealthy, +and immensely detested, it appeared, by the European settlement; had +native blood in his veins; was charged with poisoning an Englishman +with whose wife he was supposed to have been carrying on an amour. +"A wretched, unsavoury business," said Harry, and went on to say +that, though the fee offered was extraordinarily handsome, he had +declined the proposal. It was doubtful he would actually make more +money over it than in his normal round at home, more than that +it went against the grain to be defending a man of native origins +who had pretty obviously seduced a white woman if not murdered her +husband. "No, no ticket to Singapore for me, thanks," said Harry. + +Rosalie turned to him with a sudden, direct interest. "Harry, +suppose you had accepted, how long would you have been away?" + +"Not less than six months in all. Certainly not less. That's another +point against--" + +"Yes, against the idea, because in any case you don't want to go. +But suppose the circumstances had been different; suppose it was +a case that for various reasons very much attracted you; would you +have gone?" + +Harry said indifferently, "Oh, no doubt, no doubt." + +"Although it would have taken you from home six months--or more? +You'd not have minded that?" + +He laughed delightedly. "Ah, ha! I was beginning to wonder what +you were driving at. You're a regular lawyer, Rosalie; you led me +on and then caught me out properly." + +His amusement was not reflected by her. She said with a certain +insistence, "But you wouldn't have minded?" + +He laughed again. "The judge ruled that the question was admissible +and must be answered. Well, minded--I'd have minded, of course, very +much in a way. I'm a home bird. I'd have hated being away the best +part of a year. But there you are. If the call was strong enough, +there you are; it would have been business." + +She indrew a long breath. "That's it. It would have been business." + +There was then a pause. + +Harry, who had been talking lightly, then said slowly, "Rosalie, +is there something behind this?" + +She turned towards him with a very nice smile. "Harry, I've been +doing a very shocking thing. I've been making you commit yourself." + +"Commit myself?" + +She nodded. "Been taking down your statement without warning you +that it may be used in evidence against you." + +He said gravely, "Somehow I don't like this." + +She told him, "Ah, stupid me! I'm making a small thing seem big. +Listen, Harry. It was curious to me this about you and Singapore--" + +"Yes, I noticed that. Why?" + +"Because there's an idea of my going out to Singapore." + +He was astounded. She might have said to Mars. "You? To Singapore?" + +"To the East generally. To Bombay, to Rangoon, to Singapore. For +about a year." + +He was all aback. "For about a year? Rosalie, I can't--Why on +earth--?" + +She did not like this. The great scheme! Her special mission! It +necessitated.... Here was the necessity at which she had checked +but confidently ridden on, and Harry was pulled right up by it. His +astonishment was not comfortable to her. Was there to be a check +then? He said again, "You? A year? But, Rosalie, what on earth--" + +She pronounced a single word, his own word: + +"Business." + +He was standing before her on the hearthrug. He made a turn and at +once turned back. "Are you thinking of this seriously?" + +"Most seriously." + +"Of going?" + +"Of going. It's business." + +"For a year?" + +"Harry, yes." + +He began to fill his pipe with very slow movements of his fingers, +his eyes bent down upon her. "And you called this--just now--a +small thing?" + +She said with a sudden eagerness, "Harry, it's a very big thing +for me, for Field's. I meant a small thing in the sense not to be +made a fuss about." + +He made very slowly a negative movement with his head. "I don't +see it like that." + +"Let me tell you, Harry." + +She told him how the great possibilities of the department she had +established in the bank rested on the personal touch established +between herself and the clients. The scheme was that those +possibilities should be developed to their fullest extent. While +she was in London that personal touch could be established with +clients by dozens. If she visited the branches in the East, at +Bombay, at Rangoon, at Singapore, it was by hundreds that the touch +could be established. That was it. Field's customers would talk to +her, and when she was returned they would talk of her, and would +tell others of her, as one met, not during the jolly freedom of +leave when the impulse was to feel that, after all, nothing mattered +much, but met out there when they were in the yoke and the harness +of the thing,--met as one fresh out from home in their particular +interests and shortly, charged with their special interests, +returning home. That was it! A novel mission, a valuable mission, +her mission. About a year. To start in about six weeks. "There, +Harry, that's the plan." + +"And you are going?" + +"I have agreed to go." + +He said slowly, "It astonishes me." + +There was then a pause. + +She spoke. "I think I do not like your astonishment, Harry." + +"It is justified." + +"No, no; not justified. When you told me of a possibility of +Singapore for you I was not astonished. I made no difficulty." + +"Different," he said. "Different." + +"Not different, Harry. The same. How different? If you could go, +I can go. The same. Aren't things with us always the same?" + +He shook his head. "Not this. If I had to go--" + +"Yes, yes. It's the point. If you had to go you'd have to go. Well, +I have to go." + +"Rosalie, if I had to go I could go. A man can." + +She cried, "But, Harry, that--This isn't us talking at all. You +mean a man can leave his home because his home can go on without +him. But our home--it's just the same for me in our home. We've +made it like that. It runs itself. The kitchen--I don't know when +I last gave an order. The children--there's never a word. The +thing's organised. I'm an organiser." She laughed, "Dear, that's +why they're sending me. Isn't it organised?" + +He assented, but with an inflexion on the word "It's--organised." + +She did not attend the inflexion. "Well, that's no organisation +that can't, in necessity, run by itself. This can. You know, quite +well, this will. You know, quite well, that you will not be put +about a jot." + +"Oh, I know that," he said. + +"Well, then. Astonished--why astonished?" + +He looked at her. "Let's call it," he said, "the principle of the +thing." + +Oh, now astonishment between them. Her voice, astounded, had an echo's +sound--faint, faint, scarcely to be heard, gone. "The prin-ci-ple!" + +This room was lit, then, only by a standard lamp remote from where +they were beside the fire. She was in a deep armchair; its partner, +Harry's chair, close by. He sat himself on the arm, looking towards +her. The firelight made shadows on his face. + +She presently murmured, her voice as though that echo, lost, was +murmuring back, "Oh, it is I that am astonished now. The principle! +It's like a ghost. Harry, how possibly can there come between us +the principle?" + +His voice was deep, "Are we afraid of it, old girl?" + +She put out a hand and touched him and he touched her hand. They +were such lovers still. That was the thing about it. There never +had been an issue between them, not the smallest; the bloom of +their first union never had dissipated, not a rub. But there was +in Harry the intention now to take her, and there was in her the +apprehension now of being taken, to a new dimension of conversation, +not previously trod by them. As they proceeded it was seen not to +be light in this place; a place where touch might be lost. + +She said, "But to bring up the principle in this! It can't be +possible you've changed. It isn't conceivable to me that you have +changed. Then how the principle?" + +"It is the situation that has changed, Rosalie. It never occurred +to me; I never dreamt or imagined that a thing like this could +arise." + +She moved in her chair. "Oh, this goes deep...." + +He put a hand on her shoulder. "We're not afraid." + +"But I'm so strong in this. So always certain. In our dear years +together so utterly assured. Nothing within the principle could +touch me. I am steel everywhere upon the principle. I might hurt +you, Harry." + +"I'll not be hurt." + +"Well, say it, Harry." + +He was silent a moment. "There isn't really very much to say. To +me it's so clear." + +She murmured, "And to me." + +He said, "We've made this home--eleven years. It's been ideal. You +have combined your work with your--what shall I call it?--with your +domestic arrangements--your business with your domesticity--You've +done it wonderfully. We've never had to discuss the subject since +we agreed upon it." + +She murmured, "That is why--agreed." + +"Agreed in general. But when you take the home as between a man and +a woman, there are bound to be responsibilities which, however much +you share, cannot be divided. The woman's are the--the domesticity." + +"What are the man's?" + +"To maintain the home." + +"I share in that." + +"Well, grant you do. I do not claim to share the other." + +"You are not asked to, Harry." + +"No, but, Rosalie, I've the right to ask you to provide the other." + +Her murmur said, "Oh, do not let us bring up rights. I am so fixed +on rights." + +"Rosalie, let's keep the thing square. A man can leave his home; +he often has to. I think not so a woman; not a mother; not as you +wish now to leave it. It can't, without her, go on--not in the same +way." + +"Yes, ours. Ours can." + +"Not in the same way. You can't take out the woman and leave it +the same,--the same for the man, the same for the children. We're +married. The married state. With children. Doesn't the whole fabric +of the married state rest on the domesticity of woman?" + +She murmured, "No, on her resignation, Harry." + +As if he had touched something and been burnt he very sharply drew +in his breath. + +She said, "Ah, you'd be hurt, I told you. Dear, I can't be other than +I am on this. Upon her resignation, Harry. Men call it domesticity. +That's their fair word for their offence. It's woman's resignation +is the fabric of the married state. She lets her home be built +upon her back. She resigns everything to carry it. She has to. If +she moves it shakes. If she stands upright it crashes. Dear, not +ours. I've stood upright all the time. I've proved the fallacy. +A woman can stand upright and yet be wife, be mother, make home. +Dear, you are not to ask me now--for resignation." + +Therein, and through all the passage of this place where the footway +was uneven, the light not good, the quality of her voice was low +and noteless, sometimes difficult to hear. There is to say it was +by that the more assured, as is more purposeful in its suggestion +the tide that enters, not upon the gale, but in the calm and steady +flow of its own strength. + +The quality of Harry's voice was very deep and sometimes halting, +as though it were out of much difficulty that he spoke. He +said, deeply, "That you stand upright does not discharge you from +responsibilities." + +She said, "Dear, nor my responsibilities discharge me from my +privileges." + +There was then a silence. + +He spoke, "But I am going to press this, Rosalie. I say, with all +admitted, this thing--this 'I could go but you should not go'--is +different as between us. I am a man." + +She made a movement in her chair. "Ah, let that go. I have a reply +to that." + +"What reply?" + +"I am a woman." + +He began--"It's nothing--." + +She said, "Oh, painful to give you pain. To me--everything." + +He got up from his position beside her and went to his chair and +seated himself. He sat on the edge of the chair, bowed forward, his +forearms on his knees, his hands clasped; not smoking; his pipe +between his fingers, his eyes upon the fire. Once or twice, his hands +close to his face, he slightly raised them and with his pipe-stem +softly tapped his teeth. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + + + +He had called it the principle. She watched him. That attitude in +which he sat was of a profundity of meditation not to be looked +upon without that sense of awe, of oppression, of misgiving that +is aroused by the suggestion in man or nature of brooding forces +mysteriously engrossed. There came to her, watching him, a thought +that newly disturbed her thoughts. He had called it the principle. +She had been astonished but she had not been perturbed. Upon the +principle as between man and woman, husband and wife, she was, as +she had said, so strong, so confident, accustomed and assured, that +there was nothing could be said could touch her there. But it was +not the principle. This was the knowledge brought to her by the +new thought suddenly appeared in her mind, standing there like +a strange face in a council of friends, unbidden and of a suspect +look. What if she communicated that knowledge to Harry brooding +there? He had called it the principle. What if she put across the +shadowed room the sentence that should inform him it was not the +principle but was an issue flying the flag of ships whose freights +are dangerous? What if she put across the shadowed room the sentence, +"Men that marry for a home"? + +Ay, that was it! The thing she had always known and never told. +Those are keepsakes of our secret selves, those observations, vows, +conspiracies with which romantically we plot towards our ideals. +This the sole keepsake of her treasury she never had revealed to +Harry. Significant she had not. Some instinct must have stayed her. +Yes, significant! He had called it the principle. It was not the +principle. He was sincere upon the principle and in the examination +of eleven years had proved his sincerity. It was not the principle. +It was that herein, in her intention to exercise her freedom in a +new dimension, she had touched him, not through the principle, but +upon the instinct that led him, as she believed men to be led, to +marry for a home, a settling-in place, a settling-down place, a +cave to enter into and to shut the door upon. + +Oh, this was dangerous! There were no lengths to which this might +not lead! If at her first essay at that which countered his idea +of home she was to be asked to pause, what, in the increasing +convolutions of the years, might not she be asked to abandon? Let +him attempt restriction of her by appeal to principle and she could +stand, and win, unscathed. Let him oppose her by his wish within +his home to shut the door, and that was to put upon her an injury +that only by giving him pain could be fought. Oh, dangerous! Not +less an injury because by sentiment and not by reason done! Much +more an injury because so subtly done! Much more! Dangerous! Ah, +from this the outset to be withstood! + +He spoke and his first words were confirmation of her fears. + +"Rosalie, do you feel quite all right about the children?" + +Yes, she could see where this was set to lead. He could leave her +with the children; but she--men that married for a home--could not +leave him with the children. + +She said gently, "Dear, there'll not be the least difficulty. +Everything's perfectly arranged. Everything will perfectly well go +on." + +He had not moved his pose and did not move it. His voice presented +in tone the profound meditation that his pose presented. He said, +"I don't quite mean that. I mean, do you always feel everything's +quite all right with them?" + +How setting now? She answered, "Dear, of course I do." + +His eyes remained upon the fire. "Rosalie, d'you know I sometimes +don't." + +Her motion--a lifting of her face, a questing of her brows--was of +a helmsman's gesture, suspicious to catch before it set a shifting +of the breeze. "Harry, in what way? They're splendid." + +"You feel that?" + +"Dear, you know they are." + +He put his pipe to his mouth and with that meditative tapping tapped +his teeth. "Splendid, yes, in health, in appearance, in development, +in all that kind of thing. I don't mean that." He turned his face +towards her and spoke directly. "Rosalie, have you ever thought +they're not quite like other children?" + +Oh, setting from what quarter this? She said, "They're better--miles +and miles." + +He got up. "Well, that's all right. If you have noticed nothing, +that's all right." + +"But, Harry. I am at a loss, dear. Of course it's all right. But +what have you noticed, think you've noticed?" + +He was standing before her, his back against the mantelpiece, +looking down at her. "Just that--not quite like other children." + +"But in what way?" + +"It's hard to say, old girl. If you've not noticed it, harder still. +Not quite so childish as at their age I seem to remember myself +with my brothers and sisters being childish. A kind of--reserve. +A kind of--self-contained." + +She shook her head, "No, no." + +"You think it's fancy?" + +"I'm sure it is." + +He was silent a moment. "It's rather worried me. And of course +now--If you are going to be away--" + +Stand by! She had the drift of this! + +She said simply, "Harry, this can't be." + +"You can't give up the idea?" + +Her hand upon the helm that steered her life constricted. "It is +not to be asked of me to give it up." She paused. She said softly, +"Dear, this is a forward step for me. You are asking me to make a +sacrifice. I would not ask you." + +He began, "There are sacrifices--" + +"They are not asked of men." + +He said, "Rosalie, you said once, when Benji was born, that, if +at any time need be, you would give up, not a thing like this, but +your work entirely." + +As if to shield or to support her heart she drew her left hand to +it. "Would you give up yours, Harry?" + +He said quickly, "I'm not suggesting such a thing. It is ridiculous. +I'm only showing you--" + +She began to say her say, her voice reflective as his own had been. +"But you have shown me frightful things, shown me how far and oh, +how quick, a thing that starts may go. Oh, my dear, know the answer +before it ever is suggested. Sacrifices! It is sacrifice for the +children that you profess to mean. Well, let us call it that. Have +you ever heard of a father sacrificing himself for his children? +There's no such phrase. There's only the feminine gender for that. +'Sacrificed himself for his wife and children.' It's a solecism. If +grammar means good sense, it isn't grammar because it's meaningless. +It can't be said. It's grotesque. But 'Sacrificed herself for her +husband and her children,'--why, that the commonest of cliches. +It's written on half the mothers' brows; it should be carved on +half the mothers' tombs--upon my own dear mother's." She stood up +and faced him. "Harry, not on mine." She put a gentle hand on his. +"I love you--you know what our love is. I love the children--with +a truer love that they have never been a burden to me nor I on +a single occasion out of mood with them. But, Harry, I will not +sacrifice myself for the children. When I ask that of you, ask it +of me. But I never will ask it of you." + +She was trembling. + +He put an arm about her shoulders. "It's over. It's over. Let's +forget it, Rosalie." + +Of course she did not forget it. Of course she knew that Harry could +not. Men that marry for a home! Already in his mind the thought +that for his home she should give up, not only this present forward +step, but--everything! Oh, man-made world! Oh, man-made men! "It's +over. It's over," he had said. Of course she knew it was not over. +Men that marry for a home! Secret she had kept it and in the same +moment that she had realised the significance of her secrecy it +had been enlarged. Now it stalked abroad. + +But what is to be observed is the quality of the love between them. +It was through the children that he had made this claim that he +had sought to impose upon her. She had told him, as she believed, +that what he thought he saw was fancy. It never occurred to her to +imagine so base a thing as that he, to give himself grounds, had +invented or even exaggerated his fancy; but it had been excusable +in her (threatened as she saw herself) to avoid, in the days that +followed, discussion of that fancy, much less herself to bring it +forward. Her love for Harry was never in that plane. It could admit +no guile. It happened that within the week she was herself a little +pained by a matter with the children. She took her pain straight +to her Harry. + +On his last day of the holidays before he returned for his second +term at his preparatory school, Huggo was noisy with excitement +at the idea of returning. It rather pained Rosalie that he showed +not the smallest sign of regret at leaving home. Miss Prescott had +done all the necessary business of getting his clothes ready for +school, but Rosalie took from Field's this last afternoon to do some +shopping with her little man (as she termed it) in Oxford Street; +to buy him some little personal things he wanted,--a purse of pigskin +that fastened with a button, a knife with a thing for taking stones +out of horses' hoofs, and a special kind of football boots. Since +there had come to her the "men that marry for a home" significance, +that mirage in her face had much presented that mutinous and +determined boy it often showed. Only the mother was there when she +set out with Huggo. And then the sense of pain. + +Oxford Street appeared to be swarming with small boys and their +mothers similarly engaged. All the small boys wore blue overcoats +with velvet collar and looked to Rosalie most lovably comic in +bowler hats that seemed enormously too big for their small heads. +Huggo was dressed to the same pattern but his hat exactly suited +his face which was thin and, by contrast with these others, old for +his years. Rosalie wished somehow that Huggo's hat didn't suit so +well; the imminent extinguisher look of theirs made them look such +darling babies. And what really brought out the difference was that +all these other small boys invariably had a hand stretched up to +hold their mothers' arms and walked with faces turned up, chattering. +Huggo didn't. She asked him to. He said, "Mother, why?" + +"I'd love you to, darling." + +He put up his hand and she pressed it with her arm to her side, +but she noticed that he was looking away into a shop window while +he did as he was asked, and there came in less than a dozen paces +a congestion on the pavement that caused him to slip behind her, +removing his hand. He did not replace it. + +In the shop where the knife was to be bought an immense tray of every +variety of pocketknife was put before them. Huggo opened and shut +blades with a curiously impatient air as though afraid of being +interfered with before he had made his choice. Immediately beside +Rosalie was another mother engaged with another son upon another +tray. + +"It's got to have a thing for levering stones out of horses' hoofs," +said Huggo, brushing aside a knife offered by the assistant and +rummaging a little roughly. + +Rosalie said, "Darling, I can't think what you can want such a +thing for." + +The lady beside her caught her eye and laughed. "That's just what +I'm asking my small man," she said. + +Her small man, whose face was merry and whose hat appeared to be +supported by his ears, looked up at Rosalie with an engaging smile +and said in a very frank voice, "It's jolly useful for lugging up +tight things or to hook up toffee that's stuck." + +They all three laughed. Huggo, busily engaged, took no notice. + +He found the knife he wanted. Rosalie showed him another. "Huggo, +I'm sure that one's too heavy and clumsy." + +The voice of the little boy with the hat on his ears came, "Mummie, +I'd rather have this one because you chose it." + +Rosalie said to Huggo, "It will weigh down your pocket so." + +"This one! This one!" cried Huggo and made a vexed movement with +a foot. + +Rosalie, sitting with Harry before the fire in Harry's room that +night said, "Harry, tell me some more of what you said the other +day about the children." + +He looked up at her. He clearly was surprised. "You've been thinking +about it?" + +"I've been with Huggo shopping for him this afternoon and been at +little things a little sad. Harry, when you said 'not like other +children' did you mean not--responsive?" + +He said intensely, "Rosalie, it is the word. It's what I meant. I +couldn't get it. I wonder I didn't. It's my meaning exactly--not +responsive. You've noticed it?" + +"Oh, tell me first." + +"Rosalie, it's sometimes that I've gone in to the three of them +wanting to be one with them, to be a child with them and invent +things and imagine things. Somehow they don't seem to want it. They +don't--invite it. Your word, they don't--respond. I want them to +open their hearts and let me right inside. Somehow they don't seem +to open their hearts." + +She said, "Harry, they're such mites." + +He shook his head. "They're not mites, old girl. Only Benji. And +even Benji--It was different when they were wee things. It's lately, +all this. They don't seem to understand, Rosalie--to understand +what it is I want. That's the thing that troubles me. It's an +extraordinary thing to say, but it's been to me sometimes as if +I were the child longing to be--what shall I say?--to have arms +opened to me, and they were the grown-ups, holding me off, not +understanding what it is I want. Not understanding. Rosalie, why +don't they understand?" + +She had a hand extended to the fire and she was slowly opening and +shutting her fingers at the flames. This, coming upon the feeling +she had had that afternoon with Huggo, was like a book wherein was +analysed that feeling. But, "I am sure they do understand, dear," +she said. "I'm sure it's fancy." + +"I think you're not sure, Rosalie." + +"Oh, yes, I am. If it's anything it's just perhaps their way--all +children have their ways. What I thought about Huggo this afternoon +might perhaps be something what you mean. Harry, if it is, it's +just the little man's way." + +"What was it you thought?" + +She maintained that movement of the fingers of her hand. "Why, only +things I noticed; tiny things; nothings, I'm sure. Out shopping +with me, Harry. Well, it was his last day and I would have expected +somehow he would have been fonder for that. He wasn't and I rather +felt it. Things like that. I would so like him to have held my arm. +He didn't want to. Not very grateful for the things we bought. But +there, why should he be, dear Huggo? But just his way; that's what +one ought to think. But I felt it a little." + +Harry said, "I know. I know. It's that that I have felt--not +responsive. It's what I've thought I've noticed in them all." + +Telling him perhaps enlarged, as telling does, her sensibilities. +She said very quickly, "Not Benji!" + +"Well, Benji's so very young. But even--But in the other two--" + +She said as quickly as before, "Ah, Doda's responsive!" + +"You've seen it, dear, in Huggo." + +"Oh, Harry, nothing, just his way. I'm sorry now I mentioned it." + +He had been watching the flexion of her hand. He said, "I'm glad +you have. When I spoke of it the other day you said you didn't see +it. I think it's generous in you to admit you have." + +She murmured, "Generous?" + +"It brings up--Rosalie, does this affect a little, alter perhaps, +your decision?" + +She shut her fingers sharply. "No." She kept them shut. "There's +nothing at all could alter that, Harry." + +He turned aside and began to fill his pipe, with slow movements. + +It has been warned that it was in this holidays of Huggo's from his +preparatory school that Time, that bravo of the cloak-and-dagger +school, whipped out his-blade and pounced. These, since that warning, +were but the doorways and the lurking posts he prowled along. + +He now was very close to Rosalie. + +Rosalie and Harry both were home to lunch next day. In the afternoon +they were to take Huggo to Charing Cross to see him off in the +saloon specially reserved for his school. All the children were at +lunch for this occasion. Benji in a high chair just like the high +chair that had been Rosalie's years back--what years and years!--at +the rectory. Huggo was in boisterous spirits. You would think, +you couldn't help thinking, it was his first day, not his last day +home. Rosalie observed him as she had not before observed him. How +he talked! Well, that was good. How could Harry have thought him +reserved? But he talked a shade loudly and with an air curiously +self-opinionated. But he was such a child, and opinions were +delightful in a child. Yes, but something not childish in his way +of expressing his opinions, something a shade superior, self-satisfied; +and she particularly noticed that when anything in the way of +information was given him by Harry or by herself he never accepted +it but always argued. She grew very silent. She felt she would have +given anything to hear him, in the long topic of railways with his +father, and then of Tidborough School, say, "Do they, father?" or, +"Does it, father?" He never did. He always knew it before or knew +different. Once on a subject connected with the famous school Harry +said, a shade of rebuke in his voice, "My dear old chap, I was at +Tidborough. I ought to know." Rosalie felt she would have given +anything in the world for Huggo to reply, "Sorry, father, of +course you ought." Instead he bent upon his plate a look injured +and resentful at being injured. But in a minute she was reproaching +herself for such ideas. Her Huggo! and she was sitting here +criticising him. Different from other children! Why, if so, only +in the way she had affirmed to Harry--miles and miles better. +Opinionated? Why, famously advanced for his years. Superior? Why, +bright, clever, not a nursery boy. She had been wronging him, she +had been criticising him, she had been looking for faults in him, +her Huggo! Unkind! Unnatural! + +Listen to him! The meal was ended. His father was bantering him +about what he learnt, or didn't learn, at school; was offering him +an extra five shillings to his school tip if he could answer three +questions. The darling was deliciously excited over it. How his +voice rang! He was putting his father off the various subjects +suggested. Not Latin--he hadn't done much Latin; not geography--he +simply hated geography. Listen to him! + +"Well, scripture," Harry was saying. "Come, they give you plenty +of scripture?" + +"Oh, don't they just! Tons and tons!" Listen to him! How merry +he was now! "Tons and tons. First lesson every morning. But don't +ask scripture, father. Father, what's the use of learning all that +stuff, about the Flood, about the Ark, about the Israelites, about +Samuel, about Daniel, about crossing the Red Sea, about all that +stuff: what's the use?" + +Time closed his fingers on his haft and took a stride to Rosalie. + +She sat upright. She stared across the table at the boy. + +Harry said, "Here, steady, old man. 'What's the use of Scripture?'" + +"Well, what is the use? It's all rot. You know it isn't true." + +Time flashed his blade and struck her terribly. + +She called out dreadfully, "Huggo!" + +"Mother, you know it's all made up!" + +She cried out in a girl's voice and with a girl's impulsive gesture +of her arm across the table towards him, "It isn't! It isn't!" + +Her voice, her gesture, the look upon her face could not but startle +him. He was red, rather frightened. He said mumblingly, "Well, +mother, you've never taught me any different." + +She was seen by Harry to let fall her extended arm upon the table +and draw it very slowly to her and draw her hand then to her heart +and slowly lean herself against her chair-back, staring at Huggo. +No one spoke. She then said to Huggo, her voice very low, "Darling, +run now to see everything is in your playbox. Doda, help him. Take +Benji, darlings. Benji, go and see the lovely playbox things." + +When they had gone she was seen by Harry to be working with her +fingers at her key-ring. In one hand she held the ring, in the other +a key that she seemed to be trying to remove. It was obstinate. She +wrestled at it. She looked up at Harry. "I want to get this"--the +key came away in her hand--"off." + +He recognised it for her office pass-key. + +Caused by that cry of hers to Huggo and by that ges-ture with her +cry, and since intensifying, there had been a constraint that he +was very glad to break. He remembered how childishly proud she had +been of that key on the day it was cut for her. They had had a +little dinner to celebrate it, and she had dipped it in her champagne +glass. + +He said, "Your pass-key? Why?" + +She said, "I'm coming home, Harry." + +"Coming home?" + +She was sitting back in her chair. She tossed, with a negligent +movement of her hand, the key upon the table. "I have done with +all that. I am coming home." + +He got up very quickly and came around the table to her. + + + + + + +PART FOUR--HOUSE OF CARDS + +CHAPTER I + + + + + +There is a state wherein the mind, normally the court of pleas where +reason receives and administers the supplications of the senses, +is not in session. Reason is sick, suspends his office, abrogates +his authority, withdraws to some deep fastness of the brain, +and suffers the hall of judgment to be the house of license or of +dreams: of dreams, as sleep, as vanity of reverie; of license when +there is tumult in the body politic, as fever, as excesses of the +passions, as great shock. Reason is sick, withdraws, and there is +strange business in that place. + +If that is just the way one writes, not susceptible of easy +comprehension, and not enough explanatory of Rosalie's condition, +it goes like this in Rosalie's own words. Drooped back there in her +chair before that littered disarray of lunch, and that key lying +there, and Harry stooping over her and holding both her hands, she +said, "Oh, Harry! Oh, Harry! I feel deathly sick." + +She said it had been a most frightful shock to her, what Huggo had +declared. She said, "Oh, Harry, I feel all undone." + +Undone! We'll try to feel her mind with that; to let that explain +her when she said this else, and when she wrote some things that +shall be given. + +She said she had suffered, in that moment of crying out to Huggo +and of stretching out her arm to him, the most extraordinary--what +was the word?--the most extraordinary hallucination. "Harry, when +Huggo said that frightful thing! Oh, Harry, like an extraordinary +dream, I was a child again. It wasn't here; it was happening; it +was the rectory; and not you and the children but all us children +that used to be around the table there. No, not quite that. More +extraordinary than that. Robert was there; Robert, I think, in +Huggo's place; and all the rest were me--me as I used to be when +I was ten; small, grave, wondering, staring. And yet myself me too +as I was then--oh, horrified as I'd have then been horrified to +hear the Bible stories called untrue; jumped up and crying out, +'It isn't! It isn't!' as I would then have jumped up and cried out; +and all the other Rosalies staring in wonder as I'd have stared. +Oh, extraordinary, extraordinary! Within this minute, I have been +a child again. The strangest thing, the strangest thing! + +"I was a child again, Harry, in a blue frock I used to wear and +in a pinafore that had a hole in it; and all those other Rosalies +the same. Those other Rosalies! To see them! Harry, I've not seen +that Rosalie I used to be--not years and years. That tiny innocent! +It is upon me still. I feel that small child still. Oh, I feel it! +I remember--dear, did I ever tell you?--when my father once... had +been talking about Cambridge... and suddenly cried out, it was at +breakfast, 'Cambridge! My youth! My God, my God, my youth!' There +was coffee from a cup that he'd knocked over came oozing, and I +just sat there huge-eyed, staring, a small, grave wondering child.... + +"Oh, Harry, my youth, my childhood--and now the children's! The +difference! The difference!" + +Harry talked to her. He ended, "The teaching, all the ideas, dear +girl, you mustn't worry, it's all different nowadays." + +"Harry, to hear it from a child like that!" + +"It's startled you. It needn't. We'll talk it out. We'll fix it. +It's just what he's been taught, old girl." + +She said, "Oh, it is what he's not been taught!" + +Then there were things that, while was still upon her this shock, +this sense of being again the small, grave child in the blue frock +and in the pinafore with the hole in it, she wrote down. She dismissed +Miss Prescott. She thought, when the interview of dismissal opened, +that she would end by upbraiding Miss Prescott, but she was abated +all the time in any anger that she might have felt by Huggo's other +frightful words, "Well, mother, you never taught me any different." +She did not want to hear Miss Prescott tell her that. She told Miss +Prescott simply that she was giving up her business and coming now +to devote herself to the children. She thought, she said, their +education had in some respects been faulty, and told Miss Prescott +how. Miss Prescott, speaking like a book, told her it had not been +faulty and told her why. "Truth, knowledge, reason," said Miss +Prescott. "Could it conceivably be contested that these should not +be the sole food and the guiding principle of the child mind?" + +It was after that interview that Rosalie, sitting long into the +night, wrote down some things. She is to be imagined as wrenched +back, as by a violent hand, across the years, and in the blue frock +and the pinafore with a hole in it again, and awfully frightened, +terribly unhappy, at the thing she'd heard from Huggo. That was +the form her shock took. Beneath it she had at a blow abandoned +all her ambitions as when a child she would instantly have dropped +her most immersing game and run to a frightening cry from her +mother; as once, in fact (and the incident and the parallel came +back to her), she had been building a house of cards, holding her +breath not to shake it, and her mother had scalded her hand and +had cried out to her, frighteningly. "Oh, mummie, mummie!" she had +cried, running to her; and flap! the house of cards had gone. Her +inward cry was now, "The children! The children!" and what amiss +the leaving of her work? Her work! Oh, house of cards! + +Her state of mind, the imaginings in which that shock came to her, +is better seen by what she wrote down privately, to relieve herself, +than by the talk about it all that she had with her Harry. She wrote +immediately after Miss Prescott had stood up for "truth, knowledge, +reason," and by combating truth, knowledge, and reason more clearly +expressed herself than in her talk with Harry. It was in her diary +she wrote--well, it wasn't exactly a diary, it was a desultory +journal in which sometimes she wrote things. As she wrote, her +brow, in the intensity of her thought, was all puckered up. She +still felt "deathly sick; all undone." She wrote: + +"Of course it's as she says (Miss Prescott). That is the kind of +thing to-day. Knowledge, stark truth--children must have in stark +truth all the knowledge there is on all the things that come about +them. It's strange; yes, it is strange. No parent would be such +a fool as to trust a child with all the money she has nor with +anything superlatively precious that she possesses; but knowledge, +which is above all wealth and above all treasure, the child is +to have to play with as it likes. Oh, it is strange. Where is it +going to stop? If you bring up a child on the fact that all the Old +Testament stories are untrue, a bundle, where they are miraculous, +of obviously impossible fairy tales, what's going to happen to the +New Testament? The Immaculate Conception, the Resurrection, the +Ascension--what's your child-mind that knows the old stories for +inventions going to say to those? Are they easier to believe? The +Creation or the Conception? The Flood or the Resurrection? God +speaking out of a burning bush or the Ascension to Heaven? The +pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire or the Three in One of the +Trinity? Oh, I wonder if Modern Thought has any thought to spare +for that side of the business--or for its results in a generation +or two?" + +Then she wrote: + +"I've never taught them any different." + +Then she wrote: + +"Mother, I am a child again to-night. Darling, in that blue frock +I used to wear. Darling, all that I to-night am thinking is what +you taught me. Oh, look down, beloved! I've been so wrong. I thought +everything was infinitely better for them than you made it, beloved +mother, for me. I didn't realise." + +Then she wrote: + +"It just means losing everything in God that's human. It must mean +that. All our intelligence, if materialism may be called intelligence; +all modern teaching, if this new stuff that they pontificate +may be called teaching, offers us God the Spirit but, as it seems +to me to-night, denies us God the Father and God the Son. It may +be--reasonable. But things spiritual demand for their recognition +emotions spiritual, and there's a pass that thousands reach when +the spirit is a dead thing. If they are to believe in God only as +a Spirit, a Force, a Power; an Essence to be felt but not seen; an +Element to be absorbed into but not to be visualised--if this, if +these, there needs in them some spirit, some force, some power of +themselves to lift themselves to meet it. They must be of themselves +responsive as hath the sea within itself that which respondeth to +the sublimation of the sun. Well, there are thousands (am I not +one?) that have it not. It once was theirs. Now it is not theirs. +If there is for them only God the Spirit then is there for them +only that to which they have no more power to reach than has one +bedridden power to rise and find a mile away what may restore him. +They have only that, their breaking heart, which would cast itself, +ah, with what bliss of utter abandonment, before God the Father, +a human and a personal Father, quick to succor, and before God the +Son, a human and a personal Son, ardent to intercede. And that is +denied them. That God that existed and that was taught to exist +for my mother and for her day to this day may not exist. It may +be--reasonable. Oh, it is offering a stone where bread was sought." + +She also wrote: + +"Oh, mother, if you could have been here, how you would have loved +my darlings, and how you would have given them all that you gave +to me! I will now, mother. Mother, I've come back home to them, in +the blue frock, and in the pinafore with a hole in it." + +That was the spirit in which she came back home to the children, +that and all that went with it and that arose out of it. It was +nothing at all to her when she did it, the frightful break with +Field's. Harry was distressed for her, but there was no need at +all for him to be distressed, she told him. There wasn't a sigh in +her voice, nor in her inmost thoughts a sigh, when, telling him of +the interview with Mr. Field and with Mr. Sturgiss at her resignation +of her post, she said with a smile, "Carry on? Of course the +department can perfectly well carry on. Dear, it's just the words +I said to you a fortnight back on the matter so very different. 'The +thing's organised. It runs itself. That is why it is the success +it is, because it's organised. That's why I can come away and leave +it, because I'm an organiser. Aren't I an organiser?" + +He held her immensely long in his arms. "You are my Rosalie," he +said. + +Immensely long he held her, immensely close; oh, men that marry for +a home! Until, come home, she saw Harry's tremendous happiness in +the home that now she gave him, she never had realised the longing +that must have been his for the home for which he had married, and +never till now had had. It was poignant to her, the sight of his +tremendous happiness. "Always to find you here!" he would cry, in +the first weeks of the new life, coming home to tea and coming in +to her in the drawing-room where she would be, all ready for him, +with Doda and with Benji. "Always to leave you here!" he would +say, taking leave of her in the morning, and she and Doda and Benji +coming with him to the hall door to see him off. "Mice and Mumps," +he used to add in codicil, "Mice and Mumps, I'm a happy chap!" and +was for ever bringing home trifles for her and for the children, +or plans and passes for how and where the Saturday and the weekend +should be spent, all four together. "Mice and Mumps, I'm gorged +with happiness! And you, Rosalie?" + +"Oh, happy!" she used to say. + +And was. It was poignant to her, his tremendous happiness, and it +brimmed up the cup of her own happiness. She was doing virtuously +and she had of her virtue that happiness which, as the pious old +maxims tell us, comes of being good. + +That should have been well; but virtue is a placid condition and +the happiness arising out of it placid. It brims no cups, flushes +no cheeks, sparkles no eyes. It is of the quality of happiness +that one, loving a garden, has from his garden, the happiness of +tranquillity, not of stir; of peace, not of thrills; of the country, +not of the town. There was more heady stuff than this that Rosalie +had out of her new condition, and that was dangerous. She was +doing virtuously and she had out of her virtue an intoxication of +joy that, in so far as it is at all concerned with virtue, arises, +not from virtue's self, but from the consciousness of virtue. That +was dangerous. The danger point in stimulants is when they are +resorted to, not as concomitant of the pleasures of the table, +but be-cause they stimulate. Rosalie, come to her children and her +Harry and her home, to the thought of her renunciation and of her +happiness constantly was turning for the enormous exhilaration of +happiness that there she found. "How glad I am I gave it up! How +glad! How glad! How right I'm doing now! How right! How right! How +happy I am in this happiness! How happy! How happy!" + +Is it not perceived that thus it was not well assured, this great +joy that she had, this cup of hers that brimmed? She started from +that danger point at which the drug is drunk for stimulant. On the +very first day of her new life she was saying, "How glad I am! How +glad I am!" and going on radiant from her gladness. But she, in her +resort to this her stimulant, suffered this grave disparity with +the drinker's case: he must increase his doses--and he can. She, +living upon her stimulant, equally was compelled--but could not. +The renunciation that brimmed her happiness on the first day was +available to her in no bigger dose on the succeeding days, the +hundredth day and the three hundredth and the five hundredth. It +never could increase. It had no capacity of increase. Is it not +perceivable that it had, on the contrary, a staling quality? + +It would have been all right if it had been all right. It would +have been all right if it had not been all wrong. If these absurd +premises can be understood, her case can be understood. She used +them herself in after years. "It would have been all right," she +used to say to herself, twisting her hands together, "if it had +been all right." "It would have been all right," she used to say to +herself, "if it had not been all wrong." What she meant, and what +here is meant, requires it to be recalled that it was in that +spirit of that glimpse of herself back a child again in the blue +frock and in the pinafore with a hole in it that she came back to +the children, came back home to them. Shocked by the thing that +had come to pass, penitential by influence of the old childhood +influences that had stirred within her, most strangely and most +strongly transported back into that childhood vision of herself, +it was in the guise of that child and with that child's guise as +her ideal for them that passionately she desired to take up her +children's lives. Her Huggo, her man child, her first one! Her +Doda, her self's own self, her woman-bud, her daughter! Her Benji, +her littlest one, her darling! She longed, as it were, to throw +open the door, and in that blue frock and in the spirit of that blue +frock most ardently to run in to them and hug them, blue frocked, +to her breast, and be one with them and tell them the things and +the things and the things that were the blue frock's mysteries and +joys, and hear from them the things and the things and the things +that were the blue frock's all-enchanted world again. + +That was what most terribly she wanted and with most brimming +gladness set about to do--and there was borne, in upon her, hinted +in weeks, published in months, in seasons sealed and delivered to +her, that there was among her children no place for that spirit. +They did not welcome the blue frock; they did not understand the +blue frock; they were not children as she had been a child. It +was what Harry had said of them, they somehow were not quite like +other children; it was what she herself had noticed in Huggo; they +did not respond. They'd gone, those children, too long as they'd +been left to go. She came to them ardently. They greeted her--not +very responsively. They didn't understand. + +What happened was that, coming to them great with intention, +she was, by what she did not find in them, much dispirited in her +intention. What followed from that was that she turned the more +frequently to the stimulation of the thought of her renunciation, +to the sensation of happiness that arose in her by consciousness +that she was doing what she ought to be doing. She would be puzzled, +she would be a little pained, she would be a little tired at the +effort, fruitless, to call up in the children those lovely childish +things that as a child had been hers. She then would feel dispirited. +She then would think, "But how glad I am that I gave it all up; but +how right I am to be at home with them; but how happy I am that I +am now doing that which is right." That stimulated her. That made +her tell herself (as before she had told Harry) that it was just +fancy, this apparent difference, this indifference, in the children. + +But the more she found necessary that stimulus, the less that +stimulus availed; and she began to feel, then, the first faint +gnawings after that which had been stimulus indeed, her work, her +career. + +Of course this is making a case for her, this is special pleading +for her, but who so abandoned that in the ultimate judgment a case +will not for him be prepared? Try to consider how it went with +her. First intoxication of happiness; and must not intoxication in +time wear off? Then immense intention and then dispirited in her +intention. Then frequent resource to the stimulus of her realisation +of virtue and then the natural diminution of that cup's effect. Is +she not presented prey for her life's habit's longings? Is she not +shown dejected and caused by that dejection (as caused by depression +the reclaimed victim of a drug) to desire again that which had been +to her the breath of life? + +That was how it went with her. + +Doda was nine when she began; Huggo, when he was home for his +holidays, eleven, rising twelve; Benji only seven. They seemed to +her, all of them, wonderfully old for their years and, no getting +over that, different. She tried to read them the stories she used +to love. They didn't like them. Doda didn't like "The Wide Wide +World" and didn't like "Little Women." Huggo thought "The Swiss +Family Robinson" awful rot, and argued learnedly with her how +grotesque it was to imagine all that variety of animals and all +that variety of plants in one same climate. "But, Huggo, you needn't +worry whether it was possible. It was just written as a means of +telling a family of children natural history things. They didn't +have to believe it. They only enjoyed it. I and your uncle Robert +never worried about whether it was possible; we simply loved the +adventure of it." + +"Well, I can't, mother," said Huggo. "It's not possible, and if it +isn't possible, I think it's stupid." + +And Doda thought Ellen in the "Wide Wide World" silly, and Beth +and Jo and the others in "Little Women" dull. + +She read them Dickens, but it was always, "Oh, leave out that part, +mother. It's dull." And so was Scott Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare" +never had a chance at all. They had heard from Miss Prescott, or +Huggo had heard at school, that Shakespeare was a lesson. "Oh, not +a thing out of lessons, mother." What they liked were what seemed +to Rosalie the crudely written stories, and the grotesque and usually +rather vulgar comic drawings, in the host of cheap periodicals for +children that seemed to have sprung up since her day. They called +these exciting or funny and they revelled in them. They were different. +Benji was no more than a baby, but he was extraordinarily devoted +to Doda, liked only the things that Doda liked, and did not like +the things that Doda didn't like, or, in the language sometimes a +little unpleasantly emphatic that always was Doda's and Huggo's, +that Doda "simply loathed." Rosalie had some old bound numbers +of treasured juvenile periodicals of the rectory days. Even Benji +didn't like them. They were markedly different from the books the +children did like. Their illustrations were mainly of children in +domestic scenes. "Don't they look stupid?" was Doda's comment; and +Benji, copying, thought they were stupid too. + +All this was a very small thing and of itself negligible; even, +as Rosalie told herself, natural--naturally children of succeeding +generations changed in their tastes. It only is introduced +as conveniently showing in an obscure aspect what was noticeable +to Rosalie, and felt by her, in many aspects, whose effect was +cumulative. "A kind of reserve," Harry had said of them: "a kind +of--self-contained." It was what she found. She wanted to be a child +with the children; they didn't seem to understand. She wanted to +open her heart to them and have their hearts opened to her; they +didn't seem to understand. She was always seeing that vision of +Rosalie in the blue frock among them, rather like Alice, the real +Alice, Tenniel's Alice. She was always feeling that Rosalie, thus +guised, was held off from their circle, not welcomed, not understood, +as certainly they did not care for the demure, quaint Alice of +Tenniel. + +She began to have sometimes when she was with the children +an extraordinary feeling (just what Harry had said) that she was +younger than the children, that it was she who was the child, they +that were the grown-ups. + +When the step of her renunciation was first taken, ardent to devote +herself to them in every moment of the day, she began to give their +lessons to Doda and to Benji. It was not a success. The methods +of teaching, as the text-books, had changed since she was a child. +The Prescott methods were here and to her own methods the children +did not respond. There it was again--did not respond. There was +obtained a Miss Dormer who came in daily and who confined herself, +Rosalie saw to that, solely to lessons; the walks and all the other +hours of the day were Rosalie's. + +That's all for that. The picture has been overdrawn if has been +given the suggestion that Rosalie was unhappy with the children +or the children openly indifferent to her. All of that nature that +in fact arose was that, whereas Rosalie had expected an immense +and absorbing occupation with the children, she found instead an +occupation very loving and very happy but not relieving her of all +the interest and all the affection she had desired to pour into +it. It was rather like to a hungry person a strange dish that had +looked substantial but that, when finished, was found not to have +been substantial; still hungry. She had thought the children would +have been entirely dependent on her. She found them in many ways +independent and wishing to be independent. It would have been all +right if it had been all right. That was it. It would have been +all right if it had not been all wrong. That was it. + +She began to think of Field's. + +When first she began to think of Field's, which was when she had +been nine months away from Field's, she would let her mind run +upon it freely, as it would. One day, thus thinking upon it, she +brought up her thoughts as it were with a round turn. She must not +think so much about Field's--not like that. She sighed, and with +the same abruptness of mental action checked her sigh; she must +not regret Field's--not like that. + +It was a fateful prohibition. It was the discovery to herself, as +to Eve of the tree by the serpent, of a temptation seductive and +forbidden. Thereafter "like that" her mind, missing no day nor no +night, was often found by her to be there. The quality that made +"like that" not seemly to her, increased, at each return, its +potency. + +It became very difficult to drag her mind away. It became impossible +to drag her mind away. + +Her governance of her mind became infected and it became not +necessary to think it necessary to drag her mind away. + +She had not visited Field's since she had left. Mr. Sturgiss and +Mr. Field had written to her reproaching her for carrying to such +lengths of neglect her desertion of them, and she had responded +banteringly but without a call. One day (she had lain much awake +on the previous night) she at breakfast told Harry she had the idea +of going that afternoon to see how Field's was getting on. + +She was surprised at his supplement to his reply. The children had +left the room. He first agreed with her that the idea was good. +"Yes, rather; why not?" was the expression he used. He then said, +surprising her, "Rosalie, you've never, have you, regretted?" + +Her surprise framed for her her reply. "Why ever should you ask +that?" + +"I've thought you've not been looking very well lately." + +"But what's the connection, Harry?" + +"Fretting?" + +She smiled. "I'm not the fretting sort." + +He was perfectly satisfied. "I knew you'd tell me if you were. +Everything going well?" + +"Fine." + +He shot out his arms with a luxurious stretching gesture. "Mice +and Mumps, it's been fine for me, I can tell you. Fine, fine!" + +How happy he looked! How handsome he looked! Her thought was "Dear +Harry!" + +He got up and began to set about his departure. She went with him +into the hall and she called up the stairs, "Children, father's +going." They came bounding down. He joked and played with them. He +loved this custom, now long established. She brushed his hat, also +a rite she knew he loved. He kissed her with particular affection. +"Yes, you go up to Field's and give old Sturgiss and old Field my +love. You'll almost have forgotten the way there. I say, it's funny, +isn't it, how time changes things and how it goes? We couldn't have +imaged this once, and here it is the most established thing in the +world. Do you know, it's almost exactly a year since you chucked +it?" + +"Chucked it!" The light expression smote her. O manlike man that +thus could phrase divorce that from her heart's engrossment had +cut her life asunder! + +In the afternoon she set out upon her intention. It meant nothing, +her visit, she assured herself. It had no purpose beyond the exchange +of courtesies. But when she was leaving the house she paused. Should +she go? She went down the steps and through the gate, then paused +again. She returned to the house. She had an idea. She would take +the children with her. She called them, and while they gleefully +dressed for the outing she repeated to herself the word in which +the idea of taking them with her had come to her. + +"A bodyguard!" she said. + +The note of laughter she gave at the word had a tremulous sound. + +Tremulous would well have described her manner when they were at +Field's. She was asking herself as they went towards the City what +it was that she wanted to hear--that Field's was doing very well +without her? That her department was not doing very well without +her? Which? + +She would not let her mind affirm which it was that she desired. + +It appeared, when they arrived, that it was neither, nor anything +at all to do with the Bank. Her first words to the partners were +of smiling apology at bringing to precincts sacred to business, "a +herd of children." That was a natural introduction of herself; it +was an unusual thing to do. But not natural the way in which she +maintained the subject of the children. It seemed that she had come +to talk of nothing else. Tremulous she was; talking, of the children, +with the incessant eagerness, and with the nervous eagerness, of +one either clamant to establish a case or frightened of a break in +the conversation lest a break should cause appearance of a subject +most desperately to be avoided. + +Her bodyguard! + +Mr. Field and Mr. Sturgiss were delighted to see her and expressed +themselves delighted to see the children. There was plenty in the +bank, coffers and strong-rooms and all sorts of exciting things, +said Mr. Field, that would amuse the small people, and when tea was +done they should be taken around to see them. In an inner holy of +holies, behind the partners' parlour, a very exciting tea was made. +A clerk was sent out for a parcel of pastries and returned with an +enormous bag, and there was no tablecloth, nor no proper tea-table, +and the children, much excited, were immensely entertained. + +Easy, while they were there, to make them the conversation's centre. +But the meal ended and then became most evident her anxiety to +keep the chatter on the children. They became impatient to be off +on the promised exploration. She delayed it. Twice the clerk who +was to conduct the tour was about to be summoned. By a new gathering +of general attention, she stopped his coming. When at last he +came she said she would be of the party. The partners did not want +that. The children did not want it. "Mother, it will be much more +exciting by ourselves." She insisted. She was aware for the first +and only time in her life of a feeling of nerves, of not being +quite in control of herself, of making of her insistence rather +more than should be made. + +"Well, stay," said Mr. Sturgiss, "at least for a minute's chat +before you join them." + +That was not possible, unless she was going to become hysterical, +to resist. The children trooped away. Her bodyguard! + +She turned aside and it is to be remembered for her that, her +face concealed from the partners, she gave the tiniest despairing +gesture with her hands. + +When, with the children, she was returning home, she was trying to +determine whether, while it was in suspense, she had or had not +desired to hear of the partners that which she had heard from them. +They had talked with her generally of the business. They had talked +particularly of the work of her department of the business. There +was approaching all the time the thing that sooner or later they +must say. She was trembling all the time to know how she would +receive it. In whichever of its two ways it came would she be +glad or would she be sorry? She simply did not know. She suddenly +herself projected the point. She could not endure any longer its +delay. "And Miss Farmer," she said. "How's Miss Farmer doing?" +Miss Farmer, formerly one of her assistants, had on her resignation +taken her place. + +Miss Farmer, replied Mr. Sturgiss, was estimable but--he opened his +hands and made with them a deprecatory gesture. "She's not you. How +could she be you, or any one be you? We could replace Miss Farmer. +What's the good? It's you we've got to replace. We can't replace +you." + +Her heart had bounded. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + + + +That happened in the Christmas holidays, in January. In February was +Doda's eleventh birthday. The child had friends rather older than +herself, neighbours, who for a year had been boarders at a school +in Surrey. She was desperately eager to join them there and it +was a promise from Rosalie that she should go when she was twelve, +earlier if she were good. On this eleventh birthday, which brought +birthday letters from the neighbours at the school and thus again +brought up the subject, "Oh, haven't I been good?" cried Doda at +the birthday breakfast. "Oh, do let me go next term, mother. Father, +do say I may." Her eagerness for school had been much fostered +by Huggo's holiday stories of school life; and Huggo, as Doda now +adduced, was leaving his preparatory and starting at Tidborough +next term; couldn't she, oh, couldn't she make also her start then? + +Harry said, "O grown-up woman of enormous years, think of your +sorrowing parents. How will you like to leave your weeping mother, +Doda? How will you like to leave your heart-broken old father?" + +"Oh, I'd love to!" cried Doda. + +The ingenuousness of it made her parents laugh. + +"She'll have her way, won't she?" said Harry, when Doda, conscious, +by that laugh, of tolerance, had danced out of the room. + +"I think she'd better," said Rosalie. + +The school was very well known to Rosalie. It was exclusive and +expensive; was limited to seventy girls, of whom twenty, under the +age of thirteen, were received in the adapted Dower House of the +ancient estate which was its home; and the last word in modernity +was, in every point of administration, its first word. It had been +established only eight years. The motto of its founders and of its +lady principal was "Not traditions--precedents!" + +The subject came up again between Rosalie and Harry that evening +and it was decided that Doda should be placed there after the next +holidays, at the opening of the summer term. Harry declared himself, +"in my bones" as he expressed it, against boarding schools for girls, +"But that's my old fogeyism," said he. "It's the modern idea that +girls should have the same training and the same chances in life +as their brothers, and there's no getting away from the right of +it." + +Rosalie said in a low voice, "To what end?" + +He did not hear her. She had got out from the accumulation of papers +of her business life prospectuses and booklets of the school and he +was amusedly browsing over the refinements and advantages therein, +not by traditions but by precedents, set forth. "Mice and Mumps, +Rosalie," said he, "they not only do riding as a regular thing +but 'parents are permitted, if they wish, to stable a pupil's +own pony (see page 26).' Oh, thanks, thanks! 'Mr. Harry Occleve, +barrister-at-law, availing himself of your gracious permission on +page twenty-six, is sending down for his daughter a coach and four +with 'ostlers, grooms, coachmen, and outriders complete.' Ha!" + +She was just watching him. + +He said after an interval: "Yes, there's a lot of sound stuff here, +Rosalie. It's convincing. Not that any one needs convincing on the +point less than you and I." He quoted again. "'And advance them +towards an independent and a womanly womanhood.' And it talks +further back about how 'Idle women' will soon be recognised as +great a term of reproach as 'an idle man.' It's sound. I like this +booklet here that each girl's given, 'To the Girl of the Future.' +It tells them all about an independent career, makes no fancy +picture of it, tells 'em everything. Did you read that?" + +"A long time ago. It probably doesn't tell them one thing." + +"What?" + +"That they can always--chuck it." + +He looked up quickly. "Hull-o!" + +She gave him no response to his expressed surprise and he laughed +and said, "D'you know, Rosalie, I don't believe I've ever before +heard you use slang." + +"You taught me that bit, Harry." + +"Oh, I sling it about. When did I?" + +"One day last holidays when it was just on a year since I'd left +Field's. Just a year, you said, since I'd--chucked it. O Harry--" + +There was a quality in her voice that might, from what she saw +upon his face, have been a tocsin's roll. His face was as a place +of assembly into which, as it might be a people alarmed, there came +crowding in emotions. + +He said, "What's up?" + +She said, "O Harry, you look out for yourself!" + +There was much movement in his face. "Look out for myself?" + +She said, "That came out of me. I didn't know I was going to say +it. It's a warning. It shows the fear I have." + +"Rosalie, of what, of what?" + +"Harry, for you." + +"You're going to say something you think will hurt me?" + +"No, something you'll have to fight--if you want to fight it. Harry, +perhaps I can't go on like this. I want to go back to my work." + +He expired a breath he had been holding. "I was guessing it." + +"Before just now?" + +"No, while you've been speaking. Only now. I asked you weeks ago +if you ever felt you regretted--" + +She leant forward from the couch whereon she sat, and with +an extended hand interrupted him. She said intensely, "Look here, +Harry, if it was just regret I'd not mind and I would tell you No +a hundred times, just not to disturb you, dear. But when you asked +me that you spoke, a minute afterwards, of my having--chucked it, +as if it was giving up sugar or stopping bridge. Well, that's why +I'm warning you to look out for yourself. Because, Harry, I don't +regret it. I'm craving to go back to it, craving, craving, craving!" +She stopped. She said, "Do you want me not to go back, Harry?" + +He looked steadily at her. "Rosalie, it would be a blow to me." + +She said, "Well, then!" and she leaned back in the couch as though +all now was explained. + +He very gravely asked her, "Are you going back, Rosalie?" + +"Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?" + +He said to her, "I believe in my soul it would be a disaster." + +She got up. "Come over here to me, Harry." + +He went to her and took the hands that she extended to him. "If you +think that, a disaster, and if to you it would be what you said, +a blow; then that's what I mean by saying, Harry, you look out for +yourself. I don't know if I'm going back. I want to go terribly, +oh, terribly. There was a woman I once knew told me that if a woman +once gives herself to a thing, abandons all else and gives herself +to it, she never never can come back from it. 'They don't issue +return tickets to women,' she said to me. 'If you give yourself,' +she said, 'you're its. You may think you can get away but you never +will get away. You're its.' She was right, Harry. I believe I've +got to go back. If you don't want me to, well, you look out for +yourself." She drew herself towards him by her hands. "Harry, when +I went down to Field's with the children that day last holidays I +took them to be a bodyguard to me, to prevent me from being captured. +When they left me there alone for a few minutes, I turned away and +wrung my hands because I knew I was going to be terribly tempted. +I am terribly tempted. I'm being dragged." She went into his arms. +"Harry, hold me terribly tight and say you don't want me to go +back." + +He most tenderly embraced her. "Don't go back, Rosalie." + +She disengaged herself, and made a sound, "Ah!" as if, while he had +held her body, herself had held the fort of her solicitude for his +desires against the horde of her own cravings that swarmed about +its walls. + +How long? + +There was a mirage in her face. While Easter came and Doda, in huge +spirits, made her start at school, and Huggo, boisterously elated, +his start at Tidborough, and Benji, much dejected at Doda's going, +his start at Huggo's former day school; and while the long summer +term and the holidays passed on, there was never again seen nor +heard by Harry the tenderness that had been in her face and in +her voice when she had warned him, "Well, Harry, you look out for +yourself," and when she had asked him, "Harry, hold me terribly +tight in your arms and say you do not want me to go back." There +thenceforward did fill up her countenance the boy, mutinous and +defiant, that was her other self. It was almost upon the morrow of +that passage with him (whose poignancy the written word has failed +to show) that she had a revulsion from the attitude she had then +exposed to him. Avid now to go back to the life she had abandoned, +she was ferocious to herself when she remembered she had asked +him, "Would it be a crime, Harry, to go back?" A crime! "Horrible +traitor to myself that I was" (her thoughts would go) "to question +it a crime just to take up my life again! A crime! Horrible fool that +I was to be able, with no sense of humour, to give to so natural a +desire an epithet so ludicrous as crime! A crime! A right, a right!" + +Worst of all, she had invited, she had implored, Harry when her +longings were manifest to reason with her. Her longings now always +were manifest; but when he reasoned with her it was out of the +scorpions of her revulsion that she answered him. + +He once said, "It appears to me that your attitude is changed from +the night you first mentioned this." + +She said, "Harry, what's disturbing me when we talk about it is +not my own case, it's the general case. Here's a woman--never mind +that it's me--here's a woman that has made a success in life, that +has abandoned it and that wants to go back to it. You argue she +mustn't. I could say it's monstrous. I don't say that. I choose +to say it's pitiful. If it was a man, he'd go. He wouldn't think +twice about it. And if he did think twice about it, every opinion +and every custom that he consulted would tell him he was right to +go. It happens to be a woman, therefore--well, that's the reason! +It's a woman--therefore, No. That's the beginning of the reason and +the end of the reason. A woman--therefore, No. Oh, it's pitiful--for +women." + +Harry questioned: "Every opinion and every custom would tell a +man to go? No, no. You're taking too much for granted, Rosalie. He +wouldn't go, necessarily, and he wouldn't be advised to go, if he +had duties that pulled him the other way." + +She gave a note of amusement. "But that's the point. He never would +have such duties. It's notable that a man always makes his duties +and his ambitions go hand in hand. Yes, it's notable, that." + +"Well, put it another way. Suppose it wasn't necessary for him to +go.... Suppose nothing depended on his going, much on his staying. +That makes the parallel, Rosalie." + +She said to him, "Ah, I'll agree to that. Let that make the parallel. +They'd tell a man in such a case, 'Man, take up your ambitions. +You are a man. You have yourself to think of.' That's what they'd +say. Well, that's what I'm saying. 'I am a woman. I have myself to +think of.'" + +He asked, "And shall you, Rosalie?" + +She said, "I'm thinking--every day." + +The more she thought, the more she stiffened. This was the thought +against whose goad she always came--Why should she be hesitant? +What a position! What a light upon the case and upon the status +of woman that, just because she was a woman, she must not consider +her own, her personal interests! For no other reason; just that; +because she was a woman! + +"I've shut a gate behind me," she on another day said to Harry. +"That's what I've done. I've come out of a place and shut the gate +behind me and because I am a woman I mustn't open it and go back. +That's what a woman's life is--always shutting gates behind her. +There aren't gates for a man. There're just turnstiles. As he came +out so he can always go back--even to his youth. When he's fifty +he still can go back and have the society of twenty and play the +fool as he did at twenty. Can a woman?" + +"That's physical," said Harry. "A man much longer keeps his youth." + +She said then the first aggressively bitter thing he ever had heard +her say. "Ah, keeps his youth!" she said. "So does a dog that's +run free. It's the chain and kennel sort that age." + +She hardened her heart. + +She looked back upon the days when she had discovered for herself +the difference between sentiment and sense, between sentimentality +and sensibility. She then had made her life, and therefore then her +happiness, by putting away sentiment and using sense for spectacles. +She told herself she now was ruining her life, and certainly letting +go her happiness, by suffering herself to bear the sentimental +handicap. + +The summer holidays came. It had been her obvious argument to +Harry that, now the elder children were at school, and Benji soon +to be the same, that reason for her constant presence in the home +no longer was advanceable. It had been Harry's argument to her +that there were the holidays to remember. The holidays came. Huggo +wrote that he wanted to go straight from school to a topping time +in Scotland to which he had been invited by a chum; when that was +over he had promised, and he was sure he would be allowed, to have +the last three weeks with another friend whose people had a ripping +place in Yorkshire. Doda came home and Doda's first excitement +was that nothing arranged might interfere with an invitation from +mid-August to a schoolfellow whose family were going to Brittany. +So much for her holiday necessity! Rosalie thought. So much for +Harry's idea of how the children would naturally long to spend +the vacation all together! Doda did not seem to have a thought for +Huggo, nor Huggo a thought for when he should see Doda. Neither of +them, she could not help noticing, had the faintest concern to be +with Benji. She and Harry with Benji went down to a furnished house +in Devonshire, and the other two, their plans in part curtailed, +were brought to join them. It was jolly enough. It would have +been more truly jolly, she used to think, if Doda had not largely +divided her time between writing to apparently innumerable school +friends and counting the days to when she might be released for the +Brittany expedition; and if Huggo had not for the first few days +openly sulked at the veto on the Yorkshire invitation. How independent +they were, how absorbed in their friends, how--different! + +She hardened her heart. + +The reopening of the schools drew on and return was made to London. +Huggo and Doda were made ready for school and returned to school. +The Law Courts reopened and Harry took up again his work. October! +You could not take up a paper without reading of the inauguration +of the new Sessions at all the universities and seats of education. +October! The newspapers that for months had been padding out vapid +nothings became intense with the activities of a nation back to +the collar. October! The first brisk breath of winter in the air! +She could not stand this! Could not, could not! + +She said suddenly one evening: "Harry, I was down at Field's to-day. +They want me." + +Ever since, by that simile of hers of the dog chained and kenneled, +she had put a bitter note into this matter between them, he had +by this means or by that contributed no share to it when she had +presented it. He once had referred to the dog incident. "I can't +talk to you when you talk like that, old girl," he had said. "That's +not us. We don't talk like that. You know how I feel about this +matter. Talking only vexes it." + +"Harry, I was down at Field's to-day. They want me." It was now to +be faced. + +He put down the paper he had been reading and began to fill his +pipe. "This wants a smoke," he said and smiled at her; and he then +told her that which the level quality of her voice, a note from +end to end of purpose, had informed him. "I think we're getting to +the end of this business," he said. + +Her voice maintained its quality. "Yes, near the end, Harry." + +"Field's want you. What are you going to do?" + +"Going back." + +"I want you." + +"I'm not leaving you. I am with you, as I came to you!" + +"The children want you." + +"I am not leaving the children." + +"It's a question of home, Rosalie. It's the home wants you." + +She shook her head. + +"What are you going to do? + +"Going back." + +"You've thought of everything?" + +"Everything." + +"The children?" + +"Harry, the children don't want me in the way that children used +to want their mothers when I was a child. They don't display the +same affection, not in the same way, that we used to. I wish they +did. I came back for it. It wasn't there. They're darlings, but +they're self-reliant darlings, self-assured, self-interested." + +"They've a right to a home, Rosalie." He paused. "And, Rosalie, I +have a right to a home." + +She said, "Have I no rights?" + +"There are certain things--" he slowly said and paused +again--"established." + +She said quickly, "Yes, men think that. They always have. Well, I +believe that nothing is." + +He looked steadily before him. "If it's not established that woman's +part is the home part; if that is going to change, I wonder what's +going to happen to the world?" + +She said, "Men always do. They always have--wondered, and the +future always has changed right out of their wondering. I believe +that the future is with woman. I believe that as empires have passed, +Rome, Greece, Carthage, that seemed to their rulers the pillars of +the world, so will pass man's dominion. Woman's revolt--it's no +use talking of it as that, as a revolt. Women aren't and never will +be banded. They're like the Jews. They're everywhere but nowhere. +But the Jews have had their day; woman--not yet. They work, +not banded, but in single spies. In every generation more single +spies and more single spies. In time.... In every generation man's +dominion, by like degree, decreased, decreased. In time.... I'm +one of this day's single spies, Harry." + +He said with a sudden animation, "Look here, let's take it on that +level, Rosalie. In your case what's the need? Call it dominion. +I've never exercised nor thought to exercise dominion over you." + +"But you've not understood, Harry. I gave up what was my life +to me. To you I'd only--chucked it. Oh, but that hurt! That man's +supreme indifference, that is dominion." + +He said, "I'll know it, dearest, for your sacrifice." + +She put out a hand as if to hold that word away. "Oh, trust not +that. They talk of the ennoblement of sacrifice. Ah, do not believe +it. It can go too long, too far, and then like wine too long +matured... just acid, Harry. I never said a bitter thing to you +until--thus sacrificing. It is the kennel dog again. If I went on +I'd grow more bitter yet, more bitter and more bitter. It's why +women are so much more bitter than men. It's what they've sacrificed. +I'm going back, Harry. I've got to. You ask me if I've thought of +everything. I have; but even if I had not this outrides it all. +I have gone too far. She was right, that woman I told you of, who +said that for a woman, once she has given herself to a thing, there +is no comeback from it. I have tried. It is not to be done." + +There was a very long silence. She said, "It's settled, Harry." + +He said, "Nothing's been said, Rosalie, that gets over what I have +said. There's no home here while both of us are working. I have a +right to a home. The children have a right to a home. Nothing gets +over that." + +She answered, "Then, Harry, give yourself a home. Give the children +a home." + +He said, "I am a man." + +She answered, "I am a woman." + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + + + +The thing goes now at a most frightful pace for Rosalie. One hates +the slow, laborious written word that tries to show it. There +needs a pen with wings or that by leaping violence of script, by +characters blotched, huge and run together, would symbolise the +pace at which the thing now goes. There's no procession of the days. +Immersed in work or lost in pleasure, there never is procession of +the days, so hurtling fast goes life. They crowd. They're driven +past like snow across a window pane. The calendar astounds. It is +the first of the month, and lo, it is the tenth. It's the sixteenth--half +gone!--while yet it scarcely had begun; a day after the twentieth +is the date; it's next the twenty-fifth; it's next--the month has +gone.... The month! It is a season that has flown. Here's Summer where +only yesterday the buds of Spring; here's Winter, coming--gone!--while +yet the leaves seem falling. + +It was like that the thing now went with Rosalie. + +They call it a race. It isn't a race, living like that. It's a +pursuit. Engaged in it, you're not in rivalry, you are in flight. +You're fleeing all the time the reckoning; and he's a sulky savage, +forced to halt to gather up what you have shed, ordered to pause +to note the things that you have missed, and at each duty cutting +notches in a stick. + +That is his tally which, come up, he will present to you. + +Well, best perhaps to take that tally stick to try by it to show +the pace at which the thing now went. Rosalie, when all was done, +could run the tally over (you have to) in thought, that lightning +vehicle that makes to crawl the swiftest agency of man's invention: +runs through a lifetime while the electric telegraph is stammering +a line; reads memory in twenty volumes between the whiff and passing +of some remembered scent that's opened them; travels a life again, +cradle to grave, between the vision's lighting on and lifting from +some token of the past. + +All's done; some years rush on; she sits in retrospection, that +tally stick in hand; and thought, first hovering, would always start +for her from when, returned to her career, the thing at frightful +pace began to go; and then, from there, away! from scene to scene +(the notches cut by reckoning in his stick) rending the womb of +memory in dread delivery, as it were flash on flash of lightning +bursting the vault of night from east to west across the world. + +Her thoughts first hovering: There's Huggo and there's Doda and +there's Benji! Her children! Her darling ones! Her lovely ones! +Love's crown; and, what was more, worn in the persons of those +darling joys of hers in signal, almost arrogant in her disdain of +precedent to the contrary, that woman might be mother and yet live +freely and unfettered by her home, precisely as man is father but +follows a career. Ah.... + +Away! The womb of memory is rent, and rent, delivers. + +Look, there they are! She's down with one or other at some gala at +their schools. It's Founders' Day at Tidborough, or it's at Doda's +school on Prize Day. Aren't they just proud to be with her and +show her off, their lovely, brilliant mother so different from the +other rather fussy mothers that come crowding down! All the masters +and all the mistresses know the uncommon woman that she is. The +children, growing older, know it. "You must be very proud of your +mother." It has been said (the self-same words) to each of them +by their respective principals. Nice! Nice to have your children +proud of you! + +Look, there's Huggo telling her how the headmaster had said the +thing to him (she's just walking with her Huggo across the cricket +ground on Founders' Day). "And a sloppy young ass that heard him," +says Huggo, "oh, an awful ass, asked me why the Head had said +I must be proud of you, and I told him, and I said, 'I bet you're +not proud of your mother.' And he said, 'Of my father, I am. He +got the V. C. in South Africa.' So I said, 'Yes, but proud of your +mother?' So this frightful ass said--what do you think he said? +'No, I'm not proud of my mother. I don't think I'd want to be. I +only love her.'" + +Huggo mimicked the voice in which the frightful ass had said this; +and Rosalie, at the words and at his tone, had across her body +a sudden chill, as it were physical. She wanted to say something. +But it was the kind of thing you couldn't, somehow, say to Huggo, +at fifteen. But she said it. "Huggo, you do love me, don't you?" + +He turned to her a face curiously thin-lipped. "Oh, I say, mother, +do look out, some one might hear you!" + +Her Huggo! (She wants to stop the passing scenes and to stretch out +to him across the years her arms.) Her Huggo! The one that first +along her arm had laid; the scrap that first within her eyes +adoring tears had brimmed; her baby boy, her tiny manling, her tiny +hugging one, her first born! It is in retrospection that she sits +and there's expelled for ever from her face that aspect mutinous, +intolerant, defiant, that used to visit there. That, when she +housed it, was the aspect of the young man Ishmael whose hand was +against every man. She is like Hagar now to be imagined, sitting +over against these things a good way off, as it were a bowshot. + +Strike on! + +Her Huggo! Look, that's the day they got that bad report of him +from school. She had questioned Harry about a letter in his post +and, naming the headmaster of Tidborough, "Yes, it's from Hammond," +he had answered her. + +"About Huggo?" + +"Yes, it's about Huggo." + +Nothing more. They were beginning to have exchanges terse as that. + +She said presently, "I suppose it would interest me, wouldn't it?" + +His face was very hard. "Do you want to know the answer I feel like +giving to that?" + +"I've asked for it, haven't I, Harry?" + +"You shall have it. The answer is that I think what the letter says +implicates you." + +She preserved her composure. She by now had had practice in preserving +her composure. "What's the matter, Harry?" + +"Hammond says--as good as says--that Huggo will have to be withdrawn +from Tidborough." + +She knew perfectly well that this was only leading up to something. +"May I hear?" + +"You may." He took up the letter and read from it. "'Apart from +that, and it would of course be the reason given--the other, I am +confident, is susceptible of change--apart from that, the boy has +now twice failed to keep his place in the school. If he does not +get his remove in the coming term I shall be compelled to ask you +to remove him.'" He put down the letter and looked at her. "That'll +be nice, won't it?" + +She made an appeal. "Harry, don't. I mean, don't talk like that. +It won't happen." + +He softened in no degree. He said sternly: "It will happen." + +She persevered. "I'm quite sure it won't. You've only got to talk +seriously to Huggo. This coming holidays you can get him some +coaching. He's got brains." + +There was a steely note in Harry's voice: "Oh, he's got brains. He +can have coaching. It's what he hasn't got and what he can't get +that's going to get Huggo withdrawn." + +"What is it you mean?" + +"A home." + +She slightly raised the fingers of her hands and dropped them. This +subject! + +Harry said: "Hammond says more than I've told you." + +"I supposed he did. 'Apart from that.' Apart from what?" + +"It's Huggo's character he's writing to me about. This is what he +says. 'The boy, though young, has not a good influence in his house. +If I may suggest it, he does not, during the holidays, see enough +of his home.'" + +He folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. "Does it +strike you that is going to be easy for me to answer?" + +"It might be easier, Harry, if your tone made it possible for us +to discuss it." + +He gave a sound that was glint, as it were, of the blade in his +voice: "Our discussions! I am a little tired of that blind alley, +Rosalie." + +She said sombrely, "And I." + +"Will you suggest how the letter is to be answered?" + +She said: "It's plain. If you agree with Mr. Hammond, it's plain. +You can say you will stop Huggo's invitations. Harry, we're not +by any means the only family that doesn't spend the whole of its +holidays together. It's rather the practice nowadays, young people +visiting their friends. If you think Huggo shouldn't--you can say +so." + +"Yes, I can say that. Tell me this. Is it going to give him a home?" + +Her voice sprung from a sudden higher note. "Oh, you insist, you +insist!" she cried. "You speak of blind alleys, but you insist." + +He touched the letter. "This gives me ground for my insistence. +This is an outsider, a stranger, appreciating how we live. This is +my son, at my old school, condemned by how we live." + +She interjected, "A schoolmaster's primeval animosity--blame the +parent." + +"Rosalie, a parent's primeval duty. We are responsible for the +children. We have a duty towards them." + +She softly struck her hands together. "Ah, how often, how often, and +always worse! You said just now that I am implicated. It's always +I. You say we have a responsibility towards the children. But +you don't mean us, you mean me. Why I more than you? Why am I the +accused?" + +He began, "Because you--" + +"Ah, don't, don't!" + +But he concluded. "Because you are a woman." + +Her voice that had gone high went numb. She made a gesture, as +to the same reason and with the same words she'd made before, of +weariness with this thing, "Ah, my God, that reason!" + +Strike on! + +Look, there's Huggo, failing again to get his remove, superannuated, +withdrawn. There's Harry having a scene with the boy. There ought +to be tears. There are tears. But they're in Harry's voice and +twice he wipes his eyes. They're not in Huggo's. + +Harry says to Huggo: "I say, I'm not going to be harsh; but, I say, +can't you understand the disgrace; can't you understand the shame, +old man? You've been at the finest school in England and you've +had to leave. You're sixteen. Old man, when I was sixteen I got my +footer colours. I was the youngest chap in the team. You're sixteen +and you've never even got a house cap and you've had to leave. +Huggo, I've never missed going down to a Founders' Day since I went +to Oxford. It's always been the day of the year for me. I don't +say I've ever done much in life, but every time I've been down to +Founders' Day I've thought over, in the train, any little thing I +may have pulled out in the year and I've felt, I've felt awfully +proud to be taking it down to the old school, so to speak. Old +chap, the proudest, far the proudest of all, was the year I went +down when first you were there. I was proud. I'd given a son to +the place. I'd got a boy there. Another Occleve was going to write +the name up on the shields and rolls and things. It was the year +Garnett first came down as a Cabinet Minister. Huggo, I looked old +Garnett in the face with a grin. Whatever he'd done I'd got this +much up on him--he hadn't given a son to the place. He hadn't got +a boy there. That's how I always felt. Well, old man, it's all over. +I can't go down to Founders' Day ever again. I've never missed. +Now--I've had to withdraw my boy. I can't go again. I couldn't face +it." + +He wiped his eyes. No tears in Huggo's eyes. On Huggo's face only +a look sullen and aggrieved; and sullen and aggrieved his mutter, +"Well, perhaps it was different for you. I couldn't stick the +place." + +She gasped out, "Huggo!" but Harry had heard, and Harry, perhaps +in offset to the emotion he had displayed, smashed his hand down +on the table before him and cried out, "Well, keep your mouth shut +about it then! Couldn't stick it! What can you be? What can be the +matter with you? Couldn't stick it! Tidborough! The finest school +in the world! Couldn't stick it!" + +She interposed, "Harry, dear! Huggo; Huggo, tell your father you +didn't mean that." + +Huggo's mumble: "I'm sorry, father." + +Harry's deep, kind voice: "I'm sorry too, old man. It rather +jarred. Look here, this is all over. It's just been a side-slip. +I've forgotten it. So has your mother. You just think over sometimes +what I've said, my boy. We're fixing up this tutor's for you. You +start in fresh and go like steam. Finest thing in the world a fresh +start. Makes a side-slip worth while. I'm going to be--I am--prouder +of you than anything on earth. My eldest boy! Like steam from now, +old chap, eh?" + +Strike on! + +After that interview and when the boy had left the room--shambled +out of the room in that sullen, aggrieved air he would always +assume under correction--after that she and Harry had talked, most +fondly. It was all, the talk, that poignantly affecting "fresh +start" business that he'd begun with Huggo. Poignantly affecting +because Harry, piling upon his love for Huggo and his pride in +Huggo, which she shared, his love for his old school and his pride +in it, which she could understand but could not share, had been +so bravely, cheerfully earnest and assured about the future. "One +who never turned his back but marched breast forward." The boy would +be all right. Mice and Mumps, old lady, he'd be all right! It was +just a mistake, just a side-slip. He'd got the right stuff in him, +Huggo had, eh, old lady? They must just pull together to help the +boy, eh? + +He paused the tiniest space at that and pressed her hand and looked +at her. She knew his meaning. If only.... + +He went on: This was a good place, this tutor's down in Norfolk +they were sending him to, Harry was sure it was. It was a pity, of +course, he couldn't go to another public school; but of course he +couldn't; they wouldn't take him; no use worrying about that. This +tutor, this man they were sending him to, was a first-class chap. +Only took six pupils. Was a clergyman. Understood boys and youths +who hadn't quite held their own and wanted special coaching and +attention. Huggo was keen on the idea. After all, why shouldn't +he have disliked Tidborough? There were such boys who didn't like +public-school life. There, there! Perhaps it was the best thing that +could have happened. Bet your life this was going to be the making +of old Huggo, this change. This tutor and the quiet, self-reliant +life there, each chap with his own jolly little bed-sitting room, +would prop him up and get him into Oxford when the time came and +make him no end happy and splendid. + +"There, there, old lady," said Harry, and patted her and kissed +her (she'd been affected). "There, there, it's going to be fine. +The rest is just up to us, eh? We know the boy's weaknesses. We +know what Hammond's told us about him--home life and home influences +and all that stuff, and that's easy; we'll see the boy gets that, +won't we?" + +She used to wring her hands at that, and crying "If only!" cry +again in desperation of excuse: "If only the war hadn't come! If +only the war hadn't come!" + +The war was on then. It was 1915. "You see," she used to appeal +to the arbitrament before which, watching these pictures, she +found herself, "you see, the war made everything so difficult, so +impossible, so frightful, so confused, so blinding. Sturgiss had +left the Bank to do war service in the Treasury. More than half the +clerks had gone. We were understaffed and badly staffed at every +turn. How could I give it up then? I don't say I would have. I'm +on my knees. I've thrown in my hand. I'm not pretending anything +or anyway trying to delude myself. I don't say I would have given +it up and come home to make home life for the boy and for them +all. I don't say I would. I'm only saying how infinitely harder, +how impossibly harder, the war conditions made it. There was the +understaffing--that alone. There was the cry about releasing a man +for the front--that alone. I was releasing half a dozen men. Field +said I was. I knew I was. How could I go back and be one of the +women sitting at home? That alone! How could I? And there was more +than that. It wasn't only the understaffing. It was Sturgiss going. +I'd been absorbing the banking business for years. It was meat and +drink to me. I'd had a bent for it ever since the Bagehot 'Lombard +Street' days. I'd nourished my bent. I'd been encouraged to nourish +my bent. The work was just a passion with me. Sturgiss went. I went +practically into his place. I'd a position in banking that no woman +had ever held, nor no banker ever imagined a woman ever holding, +before. It was Sturgiss, a partner, I'd released for war service. +It was Sturgiss's, a partner's, place I'd got. How could I give +that up? How could I? How could I? If only the war hadn't come. If +only...." Strike on! + +It isn't all going as it should with the boy at the tutor's. But +wasn't it impossible to observe, at the time, that it wasn't all +going as it should? Of course (her thoughts would go) it was her +fault; but was not the world, spiritual and material, in conspiracy +against her, and against Huggo, and against her other darlings, +to make easy her fault? Ah, that war, that war! Didn't it unsettle +everybody and everything? Naturally it unsettled the boy down at +the tutor's. Naturally one did not notice or foresee the trend of +his unsettlement. Naturally it made plausible the excuses that he +made. + +There he is, down there at the tutor's. He wanted to do war work, +not sitting there grinding lessons. All the tutor's pupils did. +Naturally they did. The boy couldn't go in the army. He was too +young. He was in a rural district. He got doing land-work. They +all did. It was supposed to be done in leisure hours. Naturally it +encroached on, and unfitted for, work hours. "After all," as the +tutor wrote, "how can you blame the boys? After all, it's very hard +to seem to try to check this patriotic spirit." After all! Oh, why +do people say "after all" when they mean quite the contrary? This +was before all, this seductive escape from uncongenial duties, +precedent of all, influencing to all that happened--after all. +Naturally it interfered with scholastic work. That was condoned. +As naturally it interfered with discipline. That was not mentioned +by the tutor. If he was cognisant of it was not domestic discipline +everywhere relaxed "on account of the war"? + +There Huggo is. These are his holidays. After the setback at +Tidborough he was to have spent all his holidays at home. He was +not, for the future, to go away on invitations. That war! He never +spent any of his holidays at home. How could the boy be tied down +in London with this war on? He made his land-work his excuse, most +plausible. He spent all his holidays with friends whose homes were +in rural districts. + +Then it turned out that he had not, as he had given out, been always +at the house of friends. He was found in cottage lodgings living +with a friend, a fellow-pupil at the tutor's; on land-work truly, +but in gross deception, and in worse. + +It came out quite by chance and in a way very horrible. Harry +discovered it. Harry, early in 1915, had been absorbed into the +Home Office. His work was very largely in connection with a special +secret service body dealing with spies. He examined in private +arrested suspects. He advised and he directed on criminal matters +therewith connected. He was working, under immense pressure, +terrible hours. He was hardly ever in to dinner. He often was away +all night. He frequently was away travelling for days together. +When he was seen he showed signs of strain to Rosalie. + +He came in one evening about nine o'clock. It was early in 1916. +Huggo was then seventeen. Rosalie heard him in the hall and heard +that some one was with him. She heard him, by the dining-room door, +say, "You'd better go in there and get something to eat. I'll attend +to you presently." + +His voice was iron hard. Who was with him? What was the matter? + +He came in to her. His face was iron hard. He shut the door. "Do +you know who I've got here with me? Do you know where I've been? +Do you know what's happened?" + +His manner was extraordinary. His voice was like heavy axes, thudding. +His face was dark and passionate, menacing. Happened? Things were +always happening in these appalling days. She said, "Oh, what is +it, Harry?" + +"It's Huggo." + +"Huggo?" + +"Huggo!" + +Like axes! It seemed that, of his passion (and she never before +had seen passion in his face), he scarcely could speak. He fought +for words. When they came out they thudded out. + +"Do you know where Huggo's been this past month?" + +"With the Thorntons, his friends." + +"He's not. He's lied. He's been living with some blackguard friend +in rooms in Turnhampton, in Buckinghamshire." + +"Harry! Doing what? Land-work?" + +"Land-work! Loafing! Drinking!" + +"Drinking? Huggo?" + +"Listen to me. This is what I've come to. This is what that boy's +come to. I had to go down to this place Turnhampton about a spy +they'd arrested. He was to come up in the police court there this +morning. They took the other cases first. Court going to be cleared +for my man. I sat there, waiting. The second case--this is what +I've come to--was my son, my boy, Huggo, brought up from the cells +where he'd spent the night. My son! Drunk and disorderly. He didn't +see me. The police gave him a character. I sat there and listened +to it. My son! A visitor, the police described him. Supposed to +be working on some farm. Not a desirable character in the village. +My son! Always loafing about. Always in the inn. Last night drunk. +Assaulted the landlady. My son! Arrested. My son!" + +He turned away. + +She cried, "Harry! What happened?" + +He turned on her in a violence renewed. "I declare to you that if +he had gone to prison I would not have raised a hand to stop him. +He'd had the grace--or he'd all the time had the guile--to give an +assumed name. Would I have confessed, to save him, that he was my +son? I believe I couldn't. He got off with a fine. I got hold of +him. I've brought him back. He's here." + +She went to the bell. "I must get you some food." + +He stayed her. "Food! I'll tell you what to get me. I'll tell you +what to get that boy. Get me a home. Get him a home. That's what's +caused this. Do you know what he said to me coming up in the +train? I said to him, 'Why are you always away like this? Why, in +the holidays, are you never at home?' He said, 'What home is there +for me to come to? Who's ever there?' He's right. Who is? Are you?" + +She said quietly, "Harry, not now. Dear, you are not yourself." + +He was not and continued not to be. "Well, answer my question. Are +you ever in the home?" + +She implored, "Oh, my dear!" + +He was not to be placated. "Where is the home?" + +"Harry!" + +"Where's Doda?" + +She began in her spirit to move. "Staying with friends." + +"Where's Benji?" + +"You perfectly well know. Staying with friends." + +"Where are you?" + +She put her hand to her bosom. "Oh, beware me, Harry. Here." + +"For the night. Are you ever in the children's home?" + +"Are you?" + +"That sophistry! I have my work!" + +"I've mine." + +He smote his hand upon the mantelshelf by which he stood and turned +and left the room. + +Strike on! + +Of course it healed and was obliterated and all passed over. Of +course Harry forgave the boy. Of course he was handsome to the boy's +excuses. Drunk! Of course it was just a slightly tipsy ebullition. +Had been in the hot sun in the fields all day and was affected by +a too long slake of beer. Assaulted the landlady! She'd been rough +mannered and objected to his noise and got in the way and he had +pushed her. "The boy's all right," Harry said to Rosalie after, +the boy forgiven, he sat and talked with her. "He's got no vice. +How could he have? It was wrong, it was deceitful, going off like +that to that place without telling us. But he meant no harm. He's +explained. He's genuinely sorry. He's just got out of hand a bit. +They all have, the young people, in this war time. The boy's all +right. He's eighteen in a few months. I'll see if I can speed it +up a bit getting him into the army. He's magnificently keen. He'll +do fine, God bless him. Think no more about it, old lady. In the +whole business I'm only sick with myself that I lost my temper with +him as I did--and with you, my dear, and with you." And he put out +his hand to her. + +"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward." + +"And with you." Of course he was distressed he had been violent +with her. Of course that painful outbreak was healed, obliterated, +put away. He had expressed his utter regret. He'd been badly +rattled with this infernal war all that week; this business on the +top of it had been a most frightful shock to him. What had he said? +Forgive, Rosalie, forgive! Of course she had nothing to forgive. +Forgiveness also was for her to ask. As to the point thus violently +raised, he saw, didn't he, the clear impossibility of her giving up +her work, war work as much as his own, at such a time? Not to say +the unnecessity of it--the children were growing up... it clearly +could be done now. The position she held... + +He said, "I know, old lady." He said, "I know, I know," and sighed. + +Ah, from that vision of him saying, "I know," and sighing, and from +the mute appeal that then was in his eyes, from that--strike on! + +Most retentive to her, as it had passed, of Huggo's share in all +that episode had been that she from her expostulation with Huggo +had not come away with the same satisfaction as seemingly had Harry. +She put before the boy how terribly his father had felt the shame +of it, how almost broken-hearted he had been. "He idolises you, +Huggo. You're always his eldest son. He thinks the world of you." + +Huggo took it all with that familiar air of his of being the +party that was aggrieved. He listened with impatience that was not +concealed and he had no contrition to display. "Well, mother, it's +all over. What is the good of going on and on about it? I've had +it by the hour from father. He's understood. What is the good?" + +She very lovingly talked to him. He all the time had an argument. +He kept up his own case. He presently said, "And I do wish, mother, +especially now I'm going into the army soon, I do wish you'd drop +that 'Huggo.' You can't tell how I hate it. You might just as well +call me Baby. It's a baby's name." + +"Oh, Huggo, it was the name we loved you by." + +"Well, I can't stick it. My name's Hugh." + +Strike on! + +There he is. He's in the army. He's utterly splendid in his uniform. +How proud of him she is! They no longer gave commissions direct +from civil life; but he'd been in the cadet corps at Tidborough and +Harry was able to get him direct into an officer cadet battalion. +He's off to France in what seems next to no time. He's home on leave +and there's nothing that's too good for him and her purse at his +disposal when he's run through Harry's generous allowance. He seems +to get through an immense amount of money on leave. He's never at +home. He's often out all night. Well, he's on leave. He's fighting +for his country. You can't be anything but utterly lenient with +a boy that's fighting for his country. He went back. Three days +after he was supposed to have gone back Rosalie came face to face +with him in Piccadilly. He was with some flapper type of girl, in +the detestable phrase (as she thought it) by which the detestable +products of the war (as she thought them) were called. He was just +getting into a cab. She called out to him, astounded. She heard him +swear and he jumped into the cab and was driven away. She didn't +tell Harry. Harry found out. It came out that the boy for overstaying +his leave was to be court-martialled. She did not know what Harry +did. She noticed in those days what a beaten look Harry's face was +getting. It was, of course, the war strain; but it only was first +evident to her in that time of the court-martial. He scarcely spoke +to her. She did not know what he did, but she knew he had much +influence and exerted it at no sparing of himself. The boy got off +with a severe reprimand and was returned to France. And to be in +France, out there, in that ever-present shadow of death, was to be +excused everything and to be forgiven everything. + +Miraculously the war ended. The boy had had rather more than +two years of it. He applied for immediate demobilisation as being +a student, and he was one of the batch that got away immediately +on that ground. He was nearly twenty then. Now what was he going +to do? Oxford, of course, Harry said, and then the Bar, as always +intended. Huggo, larking about in uniform long after he ought to +have been out of it, was in immense feather with himself. He didn't +say No and he didn't say Yes to the Oxford idea. All he said was +that he voted all that wasn't discussed the very day he got back +(it was more than six weeks since he had got back). He surely, he +said, was entitled to a bit of a holiday first, after all he had +been through. London seemed to be swarming with thousands of young +men who claimed they were entitled to a bit of a holiday first +after all they had been through. Huggo was never in the house. He +had picked up with a man, Telfer, whom he had met in France, a big +business man, Huggo described him as, and he seemed to spend all +his time with this man. Telfer was a much older man than Huggo. +Huggo brought him to dinner one night. It was rather a shock to +Rosalie, meeting the man of whom she had heard so much. Huggo had +never said anything about his age. He must have been quite forty. +He had dull, cloudy eyes and a bad mouth. He called Huggo "Kid," +using the word in every sentence, and it was easy to see from +Harry's manner that Telfer was repellent to him. Easy, also, and +not nice, to see Telfer's dominion over Huggo. Not nice to hear +Huggo's loud, delighted laughter at everything addressed to him +by Telfer. Harry spoke less and less as the meal advanced. The two +left early; they were going to a music hall. When they had gone +Rosalie and Harry looked at one another across the table and by +their look exchanged a great deal. + +"That's a detestable companion for Huggo," Harry said. "Rosalie, +there's been enough of this. The boy must get to work." + +It appeared, in interviews following that evening, that Huggo was +not a bit keen on the Oxford idea. He wanted to go into business. +He was not clear as to precisely what kind of business, but he +wanted the freedom and the excitement of earning his own living, +not to be cooped up at the "Varsity" like back at school again. +Harry took a firm line. The boy resented the firm line. Well, anyway, +he argued, he couldn't go till October, it was only June now; all +right, he'd go in October--if he had to. Harry made arrangements +for some reading through the summer preparatory to Oxford. It upset +plans made by Huggo. He thought it "uncommonly hard" that he should +have to spend the whole summer "swotting." Oh, well, if he had to, +he had to. He had an invitation for a month for that immediate time +to Scotland. The reading was arranged to start a month ahead. He +didn't in the least want to be out of London just when there was so +much going on and all his pals here; but anything was better than +sticking this kind of life at home, father always at him; so he'd +go to Scotland; he supposed he was entitled to a bit of country +holiday before they cooped him up? He went to Scotland. + +Twice during that month Rosalie thought she saw Huggo in the West +End. But London was full of young men of the Huggo type. It wasn't +likely. + +It turned out to have been very likely. It turned out that Huggo +had never been in Scotland at all but in London all the time. And +much worse than that. One evening, towards the end of the so-called +Scotland month, Huggo unexpectedly walked into the house. Rosalie +was sitting with Harry in the dining-room over the end of dinner. +Doda was upstairs putting last touches to herself before going out +to a dance. Doda was eighteen then (it was 1919), had left school, +and, with a large circle of friends, was going out a great deal. +Benji was still at school, at Milchester. Harry had never resumed +relations with beloved Tidborough. + +The door opened and Huggo walked in. His face was very flushed and +his articulation a little odd. When, after greetings, he sat down, +he sat down with a curiously unsteady thud and gave a little laugh +and said, "Whoa, mare, steady!" + +It appeared, after explanations, that he had come to talk about +"this Oxford business." "I really can't very well go to Oxford now, +father. I really ought to start in some money-making business now, +and I've got a jolly good opening promised me. I really ought to +take it." + +The decanters were on the table. He had already taken a glass of +port. He filled another and drank it. + +"The fact is, I'm--married." + +There were some hard and bitter things said between his father and +the boy. The boy fumbled--he obviously had been drinking--between +would not or could not say very much as to who it was that he had +married. + +Harry said, "Who are her people? That's a plain question, isn't +it?" + +Huggo, very red, increasingly difficult to understand, said, "It's +a plain enough question. It's a plain enough question. I've come +here to be perfectly frank and plain and plain enough question. +The fact is I don't know very much about her plain enough people." + +Rosalie broke out of the frozen stupefaction that had numbed her. +"Huggo, you must know. You must know who her people are." + +Huggo turned a very slow gaze around from his father to his mother. +He looked at her. He said with astonishing violence, "Well, I +tell you I don't. People! What have her people got to do with it? +I haven't married her people. She's my little girl and I've married +her, not her people. Isn't that enough for you?" + +Harry got up and went over to him. "Look here, you'd better run +along. You're not in a fit state to talk to your mother. I'm not +sure you're in a fit state to talk to any-body or to know what +you're saying. You'd better go, my boy. We'll go into this in the +morning. Come round early in the morning. We'll settle it then." + +He was passing with Huggo through the door when Doda, equipped +for her dance, came running down the stairs. "Hull-o, Huggo! Why, +I haven't seen you for weeks. Where have you been?" + +Huggo, standing unsteadily, unsteadily regarded her. "Point is, +where are you going? All dressed up and somewhere to go! I'll bet +you have! I've seen you jazzing about the place when you haven't +seen me, Dods. And heard about you! There was a chap with me watching +you at the Riddle Club the other night told me some pretty fierce--" + +"Oh, dash, I've left my fan," cried Doda, and turned and ran back +up the stairs. + +Huggo called, "I say, Dods. I'm in a row. So'll you be one day, if +you don't look out for yourself." + +Doda's voice: "Oh, dry up--you fool!" + +Strike on! + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + + + +Her Doda! The one that was her baby girl, that was her tiny daughter! +The one that was to be her woman treasury in which she'd pour her +woman love; that was to be her self's own self, her heart's own +heart, her tiny woman-bud to be a woman with her in the house of +Harry and of Huggo! Her Doda! + +Look, there she is! There's lovely Doda! She's fourteen. It's early +in 1915, in the first twelve months of the war. (That war!) She's +at that splendid school. She's been there nearly three years. She +loves it. She's never so happy as when she's there, except, judging +by her chatter, when she's away in the holidays at the house of +one of her friends. It's at home--when she is at home--that she's +never really happy. She's so dull, she always says, at home. She +always wants to be doing something, to be seeing something, to be +playing with somebody. She can't bear being in the house. She can't +bear being, of an evening, just alone with Rosalie. "Oh, dear!" +she's always saying. "Oh, dear, I do wish it would hurry up and be +term time again." + +"Darling, you are a restless person," Rosalie says. + +"Well, mother, it is dull just sticking here." + +"You know how Benji loves to have you home, Doda. Benji simply +lives for you. I've never known a brother so devoted. You ought to +think of Benji sometimes, Doda." + +"Well, I can't be always thinking of Benji. I'm surely entitled to +be with my own friends sometimes. I don't ask Benji to be devoted +to me." + +She's strangely given to expressions like that: "I didn't ask +for"--whatever circumstance or obligation it might be that was +irksome to her. "Not traditions--precedents!" The watchword of the +school was strangely to be traced in her attitude, still in her +childish years, towards a hundred commonplaces of the daily life. +She was always curiously older than her years. She seemed to have +a natural bent away from traditionally childish things and towards +attractions not associated with childhood. She did excellently +well at the school. She was, her reports said, uncommonly quick +and vivid at her lessons. She was always in a form above her years. +Her friends, while she was smallish, were always the elder girls, +and the elder girls gave her welcome place among them. "Perhaps a +shade precocious," wrote the lady principal in one of the laconic, +penetrating sentences with which, above her signature, each girl's +report was terminated: and, in a later term, "Has 'Forward!' for +her banner, but should remember 'not too fast'." + +"Gripes! I know what she's referring to," said Doda, seeing it, +and laughed, obviously flattered. + +"Your expressions, Doda!" + +"Huggo uses it." + +"They're wretched even in Huggo. But Huggo's a boy. You're a girl." + +"Well, mother, I didn't ask to be a girl." + +"Doda, that's merely silly." + +"A lot of us say it, that's all I know." + +"Then, darling, a lot of you are silly." + +"Oh, I shall be glad when next week I go to the Fergussons. It is +dull." + +Look, there she is. She's sixteen. She's beautiful. She's pretty +as a picture, and she knows she is. She's grown out of the rather +early fullness of figure that had been hers. She's slim and tall +and straight and supple and slender as a willow wand. If she had her +hair up and her skirts lengthened (skirts then were only starting +on their diminution to the knees), she'd pass for twenty anywhere, +and a twenty singularly attractive, curiously self-possessed, +strikingly suggestive in her pale and beautiful countenance, and +in an alternating sleepiness and glinting in her eyes; strikingly +suggestive of, well, strikingly suggestive according to the +predilictions and the principles of the beholder. + +This was in 1917. She was beginning rather to hate school now. She +wanted to be out and doing some war work of some kind. Oh, those +sickening scarves and things they were eternally knitting, that +wasn't war work. It was fun at first. They were fed to death with +doing them now. She didn't much want to go into a hospital or into +any of these women's corps. They were a jolly sight too cooped up +in those things from what she'd heard. She wanted to go into one of +the Government offices and do clerical work. Several of the school +Old Girls who had been there with her were doing that and it was +the most ripping rag. Of course you had to work, and of course it +was jolly good patriotic work, but you had a topping time in many +ways. That was what she wanted to do. Oh, mother, do let her chuck +school now and get to it! Not till she was seventeen? Well, it was +sickening. Well, it was only another term, thank goodness. + +It was in the holidays--in her brief days at home of the holidays--in +which these wishes were expressed, that Rosalie found Doda was +corresponding with officers at the front. + +Doda was appallingly untidy in her habits. She was out one evening +to a party--she managed to get a considerable number of parties +into her dull days at home. Rosalie, come in from Field's, peeped +into her bedroom to find her. She had not known that Doda was going +out. The bedroom cried aloud that Doda had gone out. Drawers were +open and articles of dress hanging out of them. One drawer, no +doubt stubborn in its yieldings, was bodily out in the middle of the +room. Clothes were on the floor. Clothes strewed the bed. Powder +was all over the mirror. It was as if a whirlwind had passed through +the room. + +"Powder!" murmured Rosalie. + +The state of the room dismayed her. The intense orderliness of +her own character forbade her ringing for a maid. She simply could +not look at untidiness like that without tidying it. She started +to tidy. Doda's box was open. Its contents looked as if a dog had +burrowed in it, throwing up the things as he worked down. If anything +was to go in, everything must first come out. Rosalie lifted out +an initial clearance. + +There lay scattered beneath it quite half a dozen photographs of +officers in khaki. + +There were all inscribed. "To the school kid." "Wishing you were +here." "With kisses." "Till we meet." And with slangy nicknames of +the writers. There lay with them a number of letters, all in their +envelopes. There lay also a sheet of paper covered in Doda's bold +handwriting. It began "Wonderful Old Thing." + +Rosalie had not touched these evidences of an unknown interest in +Doda's life. She stooped, staring upon them, the lifted bundle of +clothes in her hand. The stare that took in "Wonderful Old Thing" +took in also the first few lines. They were not nice. But she +oughtn't to read it. One didn't do that kind of thing. She replaced +the bundle and closed the box. Then she tidied the room and wiped +the mirror. + +Early next morning, immediately on coming out of her bath, she went +in to Doda. She opened the door softly and she distinctly saw the +lids of Doda's eyes flash up and close again. + +"Doda!" + +Doda pretended to be asleep. Rosalie had sat up for Doda the +previous night but had said nothing to her either of her discovery +or of going to an invitation without having told her. Doda wasn't +pretending to be asleep because she feared trouble. She was +pretending to be asleep just because she had no wish for an early +talk with her mother. + +There was a little pang at the heart of Rosalie. + +But it was just that the child wasn't demonstrative of her affections. +None of them were. Even Benji not really what you would call +demonstrative. How beautiful the child was! Her Doda! How little +she ever saw of her! + +She called her again. + +Doda opened her eyes. "Hullo, mother." + +Just that. No more. They were different, the children. + +She sat down on Doda's bed and began to talk to her. Tidiness! +"Doda, your room as you left it last night when you went out was +simply terrible. How can you?" + +"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 assumed 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 snatched 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, flashing, 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 +impassioned 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 multitudes 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 titillation of it. The titillation 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 titillation +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 +titillation of watching the clock for tea, and of tea, and then, +most sharpest titillation 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. + +Until she found her feet--not in her office, but at home at first +emergence from her school--until she found her feet she often used +to be kept uncommonly late at office. In a very short while she +found her feet and that excuse no longer was put forward. Every +girl of Doda's association was on her feet in 1919; and for Doda +very much easier, at that, than for the generality, to establish +her position in the house. By 1920, when she was nineteen, she was +conducting her life as she pleased, as nineteen manifestly should. +In 1921, when she was twenty, the war work was over and she was +"getting through the day" much as she lived the night. It was pretty +easy to get through the day in 1921. That which the curmudgeons +called license, and liberty the free, was in 1921 held by charter +and by right prescriptive. + +Look at her. There she is. She's lovelier yet, if that which was +her budding loveliness could bear a lovelier hue. She's always out +somewhere, or she's always off somewhere, or she's always coming +in from somewhere. Her eyes, in presentation more pronounced, have +always got that sleepy look or got that glinting look. She never +talks much at home. She seems to keep her talking for her friends +and she never brings her friends home. She's on good terms with +Rosalie. That's the expression for it. She was to have been a woman +treasury into which was to be poured by Rosalie all her woman love. +She was to have been a woman with her mother in the house of Harry +and of Huggo. But that's all done. She's not a daughter to her +mother. She never asked to be born to her mother, as once she told +her mother, and though that never now again is said it is the basis +of her stand. She owes no obligations. They just meet. They get on +very pleasantly. She's on good terms with Rosalie. + +It is odd--or else it isn't odd but only natural--that in all the +pictures seen by Rosalie there scarcely is a picture that ever shows +the children all together. They hardly ever, within the compass of +her pictures, were together. As in their schoolhood, so much more +in adolescence, they never showed a least desire for one another's +company. They had their friends, each one, and much preferred +their friends. You'd not, it's true, say that of Benji; but Benji +in fraternal wish had to take what was offered him and there was +nothing offered him by Doda; by Huggo less than nothing. + +Benji! + +Look, here's the Benji one; the good, the quiet, gentle one; the +one that never gave a thought of trouble, Benji. + +Her Benji! The one that came after disfavour, after remorse; that +came with tears, with thank God, charged-with-meaning tears. The +littlest one. The one that was so tiny wee beside the big and sturdy +others. Her last one! Her Benji! + +Look, there he is. Always so quiet, gentle, good. Always, though +snubbed, so passionately fond of Doda. Look, there he is. He's +at Milchester, in his spectacles, the darling! He's always in his +books. He isn't good at games. He does so well at school. Oh, isn't +Harry proud of him and fond of him! Oh, doesn't Harry often sigh +and wish he could have gone to Tidborough to win those prizes and +those honours there. But Tidborough's closed to Harry, Harry says. +Look, there goes Benji! It's 1919. He's sixteen. It's Speech Day +at Milchester. He's in the Sixth. He's won all those prizes. She's +holding two and Harry's holding three, and there he goes to take +the Heriot Gold Medal. All the great hall is simply cheering Benji! +The Head is saying that he's the youngest boy that's ever won the +Heriot. Look, there's the Bishop handing it, and shaking Benji by +the hand, and patting Benji on the back, and saying something to +him. You can't possibly hear what it is, every one is cheering so. +Look, here he comes with the medal, in his spectacles, the darling! +She can scarcely see, her eyes are brimming so. Harry's quite +shameless. Harry's got tears standing on his cheeks and he's set +down the prizes and is stretching both his hands out to the boy. +Feel, that's his hand--her Benji's hand--snuggled a moment in hers, +and then he turns to his father and is eagerly whispering to his +father, his spectacles rubbing his father's head, the darling! He's +more demonstrative to his father than he is to her. She feels it +rather sometimes. He's awfully sweet to her, but, you can't help +noticing it, it's more his gracious manner than the outpouring she'd +give anything to have. It's funny how he always seems the tiniest +atom strange with her as if he didn't know her very well or hadn't +known her very long. It sometimes pains a little. He's different +with his father. He loves being with his father. And doesn't Harry +love having the boy with him! Harry idolises the boy. Of course +Huggo is Harry's eldest, and whatever Huggo's disappointments, +these men--at least these perfect Harry type of men--have for their +eldest boy within their hearts a place no other child can quite +exactly fill. There's some especial yearning that the eldest seems +to call. There's some incorporation of the father's self, there's +some reflection that he sees, there's some communion that he seems +to find, that makes "My eldest son" a thing apart. But, with that +reservation, and that's ingrained in men, it's Benji that's the world +to Harry. He's going to Ox-ford. He's going to have the Bar career +that Huggo wouldn't take. But Harry thinks there's some especial +wonders going to come to Benji. He says the boy's a dreamer. He +says the boy's a thinker. "Benji's got something rare about him, +Rosalie," he says. "That boy's got a mark on him that genius has. +You wait and see, old lady. It's Benji's going to make the old name +shine!" Strike on! + +It is odd, sad, significant, that there is scarcely a picture that +shows together those three children, or even two of them. It's 1921 +now and drawing very close to Finis; but always the old detachment, +the seeming want of mutual love, appears to hold the three apart. +Doda is sometimes glimpsed, no more, with Benji, always putting off +or chilling off her brother for her friends; sometimes she's seen +with Huggo, meeting him and he her, more like an acquaintance of +their sets than like fruit of the same parents; familiar, apparently, +with one another's lives: referring to places of amusement by both +frequented, as had been done, in instance, on that night of Huggo's +announcement of his marriage when with a note that rung sinister +he had bantered Doda and she had turned and run upstairs. But no +more than that. The children seem to have no mutual love. They're +different. + +It's 1921. Huggo was scarcely ever seen now. He had married in haste +and had in haste repented. He also had played a trick, involving +a sum of money, on his father. His wife, as it appeared, had been +met at some dancing club and the brief courtship had continued +anywhere but at her home. Of her home Huggo knew only what she +told him; and what she told him was only what she could invent. She +was then, at their first meeting, in the uniform of a war service +corps to which she belonged. She said her father was a clergyman. + +"A clergyman's daughter!" cried Huggo bitterly, acquainting Rosalie +only three months after his marriage of his marriage's failure. "A +clergyman's daughter! That's what they all say--those! Wasn't I a +fool to be caught out by that! Oh, wasn't I a fool! If you want to +know what she really was, she was a teashop waitress, in the city +somewhere. If you want to know what her reverend father in the country +was, is, he doesn't live in the country; he lives in Holloway, and +he doesn't live in a rectory in Holloway, he lives in a baker's +shop. That's what he is, a baker! That's what I've done for +myself, married a waitress! Yes, and then you, you and father, when +she comes whining here and complains I ill-treat her and keep her +without money, you two take her part and send her back to me with +your championship and get me here to pijaw me about my duty to my +pretty young wife! Well, now you know, now you know, and you can +tell father what my pretty young wife is--how she deceived me. +Deceived me! Now you know." + +Rosalie said, "Huggo, you deceived her." + +Huggo had been leaving and now very violently went. "That's your +tone, is it? I might have known! That's all you can say, is it? To +see me ruin my life and then reproach me! Ruin my life! It's not +I that's ruined my life. It's you. There, now I've told you! I can +see things now. What sort of a chance have I ever had? What sort +of a home have I ever had? Have I ever had a mother? When I was a +kid did I ever have a mother like other kids have? I can see things +now. A mother! I can't ever remember a time when I wasn't in the +charge of some servant or governess or other. You said this afternoon +before father that I didn't love you. Did you ever teach me to love +you? By God, I can't remember it. By God, I can't." + +Strike on! + +Also that trick, touching a sum of money, upon his father. When +he first made known his marriage, and it was obvious he must have +his way and be set up to start in life, he had also, as he had said, +the chance of a lucrative business. It was the kind of thing he +liked. It was the kind of thing he was keen on. It was a motor-car +business. There was a little syndicate that was putting a new car +on the market. They'd got works, just outside London somewhere. +They'd got show-rooms in the West End. And they'd got an absolutely +first-class article. That chap Telfer was one of the directors; a +first-class chap called Turner was another; they'd let him in for +eight thousand pounds and he'd be absolutely set up for life and +be pulling in an immense fortune in no time. You will, won't you, +father? + +Of course Harry forgave the boy, his eldest son. The marriage was +done, what was the use of being unkind or stupid about it? Of course +Rosalie welcomed the wife, Lucy, the prettiest creature, a tiny +shade common, perhaps, but a sweet little soul with always about +her a pathetic air of being afraid of something (of when it should +come out precisely what she was, as the event proved). Of course +Harry paid over the eight thousand pounds. Huggo took, "to start +with," as he said, a tiny furnished flat in Bayswater. Rosalie +installed him and his bride therein and left him, on their first +night there, ever so gay, so confident, so happy. Her Huggo! + +In two months it all came out. Lawyers are notoriously lax in making +their own wills. Harry, who could master a case quicker than any +man at the Bar, and could see to the soul and beyond it of a hostile +witness a minute after getting on his feet to cross-examine, was +fooled blind by the syndicate that was going to put the absolutely +first-class article on the market. Whether it was that there never +had been a business, and that Harry's inspection of works, visits +to show-rooms, and examination of books, was all part of an elaborate +swindle carried out with the aid of some one who possessed these +accessories; or whether it was that the whole thing was bought up +cheap merely to sell at a profit, was never clearly known to Harry +and to Rosalie. Harry was too grieved to pursue the shock. "I'll +take not a step further in the matter, Rosalie," Harry said. "I +can't bear to find the boy out deeper. It's done. There's no sense +in being stupid or unkind about it." + +What happened was that the car enterprise never was an enterprise +at all except an enterprise to get eight thousand pounds into the +possession of the syndicate. Nothing ever was properly announced +by Huggo. It just "came out." It "came out" that the syndicate +was not established in the West End show-rooms but in three rather +dingy offices in the city. It "came out" that the syndicate was not +running a motor-car business but a business cryptically described +as "Agents." Huggo said disaster had overtaken the car enterprise +and that the syndicate, rescuing what remained of the smash, had +pluckily set up on another line. He thought he could scrape along. +It was a knockout of course, but he thought he could scrape along. + +"But what I can't make out, old man," said Harry, when Huggo had +stumbled through an entirely non-explanatory explanation of the +syndicate's business in its new capacity as agents, "What I can't +make out, old man, is why you should trade under another name. Why, +'So-and-So, and So-and-So, and So-and-So, Agents'--I can't ever +remember the names? Why not 'Telfer, Occleve and Turner'?" + +"Well, as a matter of fact, father--I want you to know everything +without any concealment--" + +"I know you do, old man. I know you do." + +"Well, as a matter of fact, that's just a bit of useful swank. The +names we're trading under are swagger names and we think it sounds +better." + +"Occleve sounds pretty good to me, Huggo. We've been a good long +way on Occleve, the Occleves." + +"Well, that's what they think, father, and of course, as I've told +you, they know infinitely more about business than I do. They'll +explain the whole thing to you any time you like. It's all absolutely +above-board, father." + +"My dearest old boy, don't talk like that. Of course it is. We're +only so grieved, your mother and I, that you should have had such +a setback so early. But remember, old man, the great thing is not +to let your wife suffer. No pinching or screwing for her, Huggo. +Always your wife first, Huggo. We'll give you at the rate of three +hundred a year just until all's going swimmingly, and that's to +keep Lucy merry and bright, see?" + +It was shortly after that it all came out that the thing was a +ramp, the motor-car business never in existence; shortly after that +it came out Huggo was neglecting his wife; shortly after that the +high words to Rosalie, telling her how his wife had deceived him; +shortly after that that the syndicate, amazingly prosperous, moved +into offices better situated and handsomely appointed; shortly +after that it came out that the business of the syndicate was in +some way connected with company promotion. + +Harry, seen among these developments, was not the man he used to +be. He was at the crest of his career at the Bar, working enormously +and earning richly, but the old bright, cheery way had gone from +Harry. There was permanently upon his face, and there was intensified, +the beaten look that Rosalie first had seen on that night, in the +war, when there had been the Huggo drinking business and when for +the first and only time he had spoken passionately to Rosalie. When +he now was at home he used to sit for long periods doing nothing, +just thinking. When sometimes, home earlier than he, Rosalie saw +him coming up the street towards the gamboge door she noticed, +terribly, the bowed shoulders, the weary gait, the set, careworn +face. She used to run down then to the famous gamboge door and open +it and greet him and his face used to light up in the old way, but +it was not the same face, and the effect of its radiation therefore +not the same. It was not that the face was older. It was that its +aspect was changed. + +He used to look up from that chair where he sat just thinking, when +Doda, butterflied for the evening, butterflied across the room, and +used to say, "Out again, Doda?" He then would relapse back into +his thoughts. He had a habit of getting up suddenly and rather +strangely wandering about from room to room of all the principal +rooms of the house, just standing at the door of each, and looking +in (they were all empty of inhabitants), and then coming back and +sitting again in the chair and just sit, thinking. + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +She said more than once when he returned from such a tour, "Dear +Harry, looking for anything?" + +He'd say rather heavily, "No; no, dear. Just having a look around." + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +But he used to be enormously brightened up when Benji came home. +Benji was just at Oxford then, eighteen. He was a different man +when Benji was at home. He used to say, "Rosalie, that boy's going +to make a name for himself in the world. My heart's wrapped round +that boy, Rosalie. Ay, me! I wish he'd been our eldest, Rosalie." + +That was because he couldn't tear away the wrappings of his heart +from about his eldest. Men can't. + +It used to pain the heart of Rosalie. + +Of course, with everything now known, Huggo was forgiven. Huggo was +prosperous now, almost aggressively prosperous. He kept a car. The +syndicate, whatever it actually did, was obviously doing enormously +well. What was the good of being stupid and unkind to the boy +now that, at last, he had found his feet? But Huggo scarcely ever +came to the house. He had virtually left Lucy. Lucy lived on in +the originally-taken furnished flat in Bayswater. Huggo had rooms +somewhere, no one quite knew where, and lived there. Rosalie used +to get Lucy to the house sometimes, but Lucy was never at her ease +on these visits, and Doda, who sympathized entirely with Huggo in +the matter, very much disliked her and would not meet her. Lucy +was in bad health and she was going to have a baby. Her health and +her condition made her look much more common than she used to look. + +Then the baby was born; a little girl. Poor, grateful Lucy called +it Rosalie. She told Rosalie that Huggo said he didn't care what +the baby was called. He was very angry about the baby. "He was +worse than usual when he was here last week," said Lucy. "I think +he's got something on his mind. I think he's worrying about something. +Oh, he was sharp." + +Lucy was very ill with the birth of her baby. She didn't seem able +to pick up again from her confinement. She kept her bed. Then, +suddenly, she developed pneumonia. The maternity nurse, paid by +Rosalie, was still in attendance. Rosalie sent in another nurse, +and on that same night, going straight to the sick bed from Field's, +and then coming home very late, told Harry, who was waiting up for +her, that the worst was feared for Lucy. She then said, "Harry, +if anything happens, I think we'll have that baby here. It will +practically be a case of adopting the child." + +Harry agreed. + +"I'd get in a nurse for her, the new little Rosalie." She sighed. + +"Yes, yes," said Harry. + +She said after a little, "Harry, the nurseries in use again!" + +He sat there as he was always sitting, thinking. + +She went over to him. "Dear, won't you like the nurseries to be in +use again?" + +He said slowly, "I will, very much, Rosalie. It's lonely, these +empty rooms. I will very much--in some ways." + +Rosalie knew what Harry meant. She touched his hand. "Dear, I think +it can be made different." + +Harry knew what Rosalie meant. He pressed the hand that touched +his own. "That's all right, Rosalie. That's all right, dearest." + +Rosalie was down early next morning. She desired an early breakfast +and to go on to see Lucy before Field's. It might be necessary to +stay the day with Lucy. There was also Huggo. What was Huggo doing? +Overnight Rosalie had seen Doda, come in late from an evening with +a very intimate friend of hers always known, through some private +joke of Doda's, as "the foreign friend." The foreign friend, not +in the least foreign but English, was a young married woman living +apart from her husband. Doda had brought her to the house once. +She was very pretty and a cheery soul. She would have been called +fast when Rosalie was a girl. In 1921 she would almost, in the +manner she presented to Rosalie, have been called slow. Doda and +she were greatly attached. + +Doda, overnight, going straight upstairs to bed, had said, "Have +you seen Huggo to-day? He's in a scrape of some sort." + +"Oh, Doda, what kind of a scrape?" + +"He didn't tell me. I ran into him quite by chance coming away from +a theatre with the foreign friend. We both thought he was rather +badly rattled." + +"Was he going on to Lucy? Did he know Lucy was very ill indeed?" + +Doda said, "I don't know. He didn't tell me. Is she?" and indifferently +passed upstairs. + +Rosalie at her early breakfast was thinking what news the day would +give of Lucy and of Huggo. She was suddenly, by Huggo in person, +brought intelligence of both. She heard the door bell ring and in +a minute Huggo surprisingly broke into the room. He had kept his +hat on. He looked white, drawn and very agitated. He shut the door +behind him. "Lucy's dead." + +Tears sprang into the eyes of Rosalie, "Oh, my poor Huggo!" + +He made a gesture. "Oh, that's no good! Look here, mother, will +you look after things over there for me? That's all I've come in +to say. Will you see to everything and will you take the kid? I +can't stop." + +He made to go. + +"Huggo, of course I will. But you'll be there? Are you going there +now?" + +"I'm not. I'm going away." + +"Going away?" + +His hand was on the door. "Yes, going away. Look here, there's another +thing. If any one comes here for me will you say you haven't seen +me? It's important. It's vital." + +"Huggo, what is the matter?" + +"You'll jolly soon know. You may as well know now. Then you'll +realise. If you want to know--the police are after me." + +He was gone. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + + + +In the Book of Job it all happened, to Job, in the apparent compass +of one piece of time not broken by diurnal intervals, not mitigated +by recuperative cessations between blow and blow. It seemed to +Rosalie that it was like that it happened also to her. There seemed +no interval. It seemed to her wrath on wrath, visitation upon +visitation, judgment upon judgment. + +It seemed to her that she was no sooner come down out of the +Old Bailey--her hand touching at things for support, her vision +vertiginous, causing the solid ground to be in motion, her ears +resonant, crying through her brain the words she saw in Huggo's look +as they removed him; it seemed to her she was no sooner out from +there than she was at the telephone and summoned by the foreign +friend and was there with Doda and was in process of "Oh, Doda!"--"Oh, +mother!"; it seemed to her she was no sooner out from that than +she was with that burly messenger, going with him, returning from +him. There were days and nights walled up in weeks and months +between these things, but that is how they seemed to Rosalie. + +The syndicate was laid by the heels, one here, one there, Huggo +in France, very shortly after the warning that had put Huggo in +flight. The syndicate went through the police court where was unfolded +a story sensational with surprising sums of money, captivating with +ingenuity of fraud covered up by fraud to help new fraud again. +The syndicate stood in the dock at the Old Bailey. Those two of +the syndicate described by the prosecution and by the judge as the +principals were sentenced to three years' penal servitude. "You," +said the judge, addressing with a new note in his voice the third +prisoner, "You, Occleve, stand in a different--" + +Rosalie began to pray. + +Harry would not attend the trial. He had done all that could be +done, and of his position there was very much that he was able to +do, and had attended the police court during the initial proceedings. +He would not go to the Old Bailey. He would not go out. He would +not read the papers. He used to sit about the house. "My son a +felon.... My boy a felon. My son.... My eldest son...." + +Rosalie was given a seat in the floor of the court on the first +days of the hearing. On the day when the verdict was to be given +and sentence passed she could not bear that. An usher, much pitying, +obtained her a place in the gallery. She looked down immediately +upon her Huggo. Her hands, upon the ledge before her, were all the +time clasped. Her eyes alternately were in her hands and on her +Huggo. Her heart moved between her Huggo and her God. + +"You, Occleve, stand in a different position. . . ." + +She began to pray. All of her being, all of her soul, all of her +life, with a spiritual and a physical intensity transcending all +that her body and her mind had ever known, was in apotheosis of +supplication. "O God the Father! O God the Father! O God the Father!" + +Her Huggo! Those words that only in snatches she heard were being +addressed to her Huggo. + +"... Your counsel has most eloquently pleaded for you.... You bear +an honoured name.... You bear a name held in these precincts in +honour, in esteem, in love, in admiration.... You have had a good +home, a great and a noble father, a distinguished and devoted +mother...." + +That suppliant crouched lower in her supplication. + +"... You have been the dupe, you have been the tool, you have been +in large part, as your counsel has pleaded, and as I believe, the +unsuspecting agent.... Nevertheless, the least sentence I can pass +on you--" + +"O God the Father, the Father!" + +"... is six months' imprisonment." + +That boy, whose head had been hung and eyes downcast, lifted his +head and raised his eyes and gave one look into the eyes of that +suppliant for him that sat above him. There was recalled by that +suppliant a look that had passed from the place of accusation to +the place of assembly in the place called the Sanhedrin. + +Her Huggo! + +They took him away. + +Doda didn't stop going out. She seemed to go out more. The pain +within that house, brought there by Huggo, seemed to make that house +more than before unbearable to Doda. She often spent the night, or +the week end away, staying with the foreign friend, she generally +said. She would have nothing whatever to do with the baby now +installed in the house. She never would go near it. Once she passed +it in the hall in its perambulator. She stopped and stooped over +the face of lovely innocence that lay there and gazed upon it with +an extraordinary intensity. She drew back with a sharp catch at her +breath and sharply stepped away and turned and ran very quickly +upstairs. After that. when she chanced to pass the child, she +turned aside and would not look upon the child. She began not to +look well, Rosalie thought. There often was upon her lovely face a +pinched and drawn expression, disfiguring it. On the rare occasions +when she was in to dinner she sat strangely moody. There only was +a moodiness about that table then; but the moodiness of Doda was +noticeable to Rosalie. She ate hardly at all. She sometimes would +get up suddenly before a meal was ended and go away, generally +to her own room. Very many times Rosalie would seek anxiously to +question her, but apart from the independence which commonly she +maintained towards Rosalie, Doda seemed very much to resent solicitude +upon her health. "What should be the matter? I look perfectly well, +don't I?" + +"Doda, you don't. I've noticed it a long time." + +"Well, I am perfectly well. If I wasn't I'd say so." + +Strike on! + +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 God, 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 gods, of self, +of what is vain, of liberty undisciplined, of restless itch for +pleasure, and of the gods 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 mass on mass of fierce, submerging clouds +as it might be a soul that rose through infinite calamity to God. +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 sexless +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 space was mute. The moon, its duress passed, +stood high, serene, alone. The doctor breathed, "She's passing." +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 passed 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. +Sacrifice is atonement. It now is not possible for me to atone." + +She was on her knees beside his chair. He stroked her hair. + +There was an inquest. Harry went. She stayed at home and Benji +stayed with her to be with her. Benji was not to be consoled. His +mood was very dreadful. A report was printed in the evening paper +before Harry came home. Benji read it and told Rosalie a witness, +a man, had been arrested on the coroner's warrant. Benji said, "I +think I'll go out now, mother, for a little." + +Later in the afternoon when Rosalie was with Harry a maid came into +the room and looked at Harry and saw how sunk he was in his chair +and so went to Rosalie and whispered to her. Rosalie went out. There +was a man wished to see the master. Rosalie spoke to him. He was +a large, burly man with a strong face. He looked like, and was, +a police officer in plain clothes. Rosalie heard what he began to +say and said she would go with him. In the cab, the man told her +about it. All his sentences began with or contained "The young +gentleman." + +"The young gentleman... the prisoner, when the young gentleman +came rushing in, happened to be in the charge-room writing out a +statement.... The young gentleman, before any one could stop him, +rushed at this prisoner and caught him by the throat and threw him +and the table over and banged the man's head against the floor, fair +trying to kill him. They got the young gentleman off. They ought +to have arrested the young gentleman, and they did most earnestly +wish they had of arrested him, and blamed themselves properly that +they didn't arrest him. But they felt cruelly sorry for the young +gentleman and they got him outside and let him go and no more said. +Of course, as madam knew, the police office wasn't very far from +Gower Street station, the underground station with them steep +stairs leading straight down from the street to the platform, as +madam might be aware.... The young gentleman was seen by witnesses, +whose names were took, to come rushing down these stairs on to the +platform as if some one was after him.... The young gentleman come +rushing down and there was a train just coming in, and whether he +couldn't stop or whether he.... There's some say one thing and some +say the other.... Whichever way it was the young gentleman...." + +Rosalie did her errand with the man and then came back to Harry. +She had to tell Harry. + +He was sitting in his chair. He had an open book on his knees. She +saw, as one notices these things, it was a Shakespeare. She stood +up there at the door before him and she said, "Harry--Benji!" + +He saw it in her face. + +He groaned. + +He took the book off his knees and fumbled it, and with a groaning +mutter dropped it: "'Unarm, Eros, the long day's work is done.'" + +She came to him and saw, as one sees things, above his head the picture +he had hung when raven was his hair and radiant his face, and had +hit his thumb, and jumped, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" and +had laughed and wrung his hands, and cried out, "Mice and Mumps!" +and laughed again. She came to him and saw him wilt and crumple +in his chair, and could have sworn she saw the iron of his head, +that had been raven, go grey anew and greyer yet. She came to him +and she said, "Harry--Benji--an accident--not an accident--on the +railway--killed." + +His voice went, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one +agrope, in sudden darkness, befogged, betrayed. "My God, my God, +my God, my God, my God!" + +She fell on her knees; and on her arms and on his lap she buried +then her face. + +He suddenly stooped to her, and caught his arms about her, and raised +her to him, and pressed his face to hers, and held her there; and +his cry was as once before, passionately holding her, his cry had +been; then from his heart to her heart, now from the abysses of +his soul to her soul's depths, "Rosalie! Rosalie!" + + + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + + + + + +There was to have been some more of it; but there, they're in each +other's arms, and one has suffered so with them one cannot any +more go on. One's suffered so! One has looked backward with her. +The heart must break but for a forward glimpse:-- + +They're all right now. Huggo's in Canada. He writes every week. +They're all right now. That other Rosalie that they brought in is +looking after them. She's looking after them, that elf, that sprite, +that tricksy scrap, that sunshine thing. She calls Harry father and +Rosalie she calls mother. She has all her meals with them. There's +no nurse. It's breakfast she loves best. She's on the itch all +breakfast. When breakfast's done she's off her chair and hopping. +She trumpets in her tiny voice, "Lessons! Lessons!" She trumpets +in her tiny voice, "Lessons, lessons! On mother's knee! On mother's +knee!" + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of This Freedom, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS FREEDOM *** + +This file should be named tfrdm10.txt or tfrdm10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, tfrdm11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tfrdm10a.txt + +Produced by Carrie Fellman and Charles Aldarondo + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/tfrdm10.zip b/old/tfrdm10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..63b0a20 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tfrdm10.zip |