This Freedom

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

“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.