The things which belong—

by Constance Holme

There was a centralising power about the mansion of a big estate of which those who had never been connected with one could have no knowledge. It was like a huge buoy to which you were attached,—so safely attached that, no matter what came or went on the ocean outside, you, at least, could never slip away. Those outside must often feel a little lost, he had sometimes thought, shrinking from that possible isolation even in his mind. But, anchored to a place like the Hall, you had no fear of getting lost. Although you could not see it because you knew it so well, it was at all events a background against which you could see yourself,—as small, indeed, and comparatively unimportant, but still more or less plainly. Once broken away from that background, however, and out in the open,—in Canada, for instance,—it seemed highly probable that you would not be able to see yourself at all.

He spoke to one or two of his men who were busy about the grounds, rolling the gravel or trimming the turf, but always with the same anxiety and suspicion which had afflicted him all the morning. They were not Machell, it was true, but each one of them seemed to him to represent Machell, and, when he left them, he felt that they followed him with Machell’s searching eyes.... It seemed an incredible thing that he, who had always taken his fellow-beings so simply and so kindly, should now be unable to meet them with an open mind. It made him ashamed and angry, so that his glance refused to meet theirs, and his voice sharpened when he spoke to them, as it had done with Mattie during the scene in the cottage. Even the Hall servants he would have regarded doubtfully if he had chanced to come across them, feeling sure that they, too, knew what was about to happen to him, and would spring their knowledge upon him before he was ready to meet it.

But he saw nobody as he passed in front of the house, walking with what he felt to be a furtive step which he was yet unable to alter, and pausing only to inspect the rose-bushes fronting the long line of the low terrace. Nobody opened the door and came to him, or hailed him from the stone verandah. He glanced nervously at the windows over his shoulder, but nobody looked out. The whole place, indeed, had a strangely hushed appearance, almost as if it had veiled its eyes while this its servant went on his last round.

Hurrying in the same almost slinking fashion along the central walk, he came to the cliff-side, and stood looking across the beautiful, dangerous stream to the mountain-wall beyond. He could scarcely remember a time when, passing through the grounds, he had not paused just there, with the great trees around and above him, and the rocky river below. The wide view, passing over the wooded cliff across, and rising by green and russet slopes to that last long line of loveliness above, sometimes many-coloured and strong, and sometimes faint and phantasmal as a cloud, had been all that he had ever wanted by way of “escape.” It seemed impossible now that, yesterday, when he had needed it so much, he should never even have thought of it. One look at the open fells, at the swift river running black between its carved banks, at the endless crossing and re-crossing of fine bough-traceries against the colourless sky, and his sudden revolt against his environment would have been as suddenly stilled. Just that one look, and things would have found their proper balance again; one look, and he would never have dreamed of writing the letter....

He swung round on his heel when he remembered the letter, and stood staring towards the Hall as if through its solid structure he

could see Mattie waving to him from the hill beyond. Mattie would think that he had forgotten the letter on purpose, and he did not want her to think that. He could hardly believe that, having spoken of it just as he was on the point of leaving the house, he could yet have managed to come away without it. He even searched his pockets, as if feeling that, by sheer determination, he could persuade it to materialise; stared at his hands, as if thinking that they might contain it without his knowledge. But it was obvious that he had not got it, and with a curious inconsistency he felt furious and frustrated. He said to himself that he wanted the matter over and done with,—that he could not bear to have it hanging on like this. He even retraced his steps for a short distance, as if meaning to climb the hill again in order to fetch the letter. If he had discovered it in his possession at that particular moment, he would have thrust it in at the Hall not only with relief but with actual triumph.

But almost at once he turned again as though somebody had tugged at his jacket. He was tired, this afternoon, and knew that he would regret the extra effort before he was half-way up the hill. Time was getting on, too, and if he lingered much longer it would be dusk before he was back from across the river. And Machell could take the letter.... He smiled a wry little smile as he reflected with what keen delight Machell would take the letter!...

He cast another glance at his view as he came back, remembering how often he had tried to persuade Mattie to find in it the release which he found in it himself, and how dismally he had failed. Mattie had had no use for it either as a view or as an outlet. She had liked the space and the height, but she had disliked the hills. For her they had merely been other and greater walls, which she could not push away. And she had hated the river.... Besides, nearly the whole of the view was to the north and east, and Mattie had spent the greater part of her life with her heart turned towards the west....

Also she had not cared much for being seen about the Hall grounds, even at those times when the owners happened to be away. It was only with difficulty that he had induced her to attend any of the Hall functions,—the cottage-garden show, the tenants’ garden-party, or the servants’ ball,—and then she had only appeared under protest. His employers had sensed the protest, he felt sure. In as close and delicately-dovetailed a corporation as that of an estate, it was always easy to detect the person who deliberately stood outside.

Nor had she ever attempted to make intimate friends of any of the people in the district. They would have accepted her all right, for she was both amusing and clever, as well as a hard worker. But right from the first she had either rejected her neighbours’ overtures, or accepted them against her will, and gradually they had come to acknowledge the situation, and to realise that they could get no further.