This Freedom

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

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.