This Freedom Part 27

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 a.s.sented, 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 a.s.sured. 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sured, 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."