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
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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