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?...