This FreedomHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
General
This Freedom
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Marriage -- Fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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