The things which belong—

by Constance Holme

It was a photograph that she held, she felt sure of that, and one for which she had long been waiting. Among the many snapshots arriving year by year there had never been one of Ellen, arm in arm with a husband, or half hidden behind a baby. She had never “taken” well, even in her youth, and, once over the water, had firmly refused to be “taken” at all. Always she had resisted her mother’s demands in that light, laughing way of hers which seemed to bring her so closely to you. No photograph, so Mattie had often felt, could possibly seem more real than the Ellen who came to you with her letters.

She had continued to ask for one, nevertheless, and at long last had come the news that it would shortly be forthcoming. Ellen had written an amusing account of her visit to the photographer’s and of her sufferings during the proceedings. The result, however, it seemed, had been an unexpected success, and should presently be forwarded to her mother. Mattie had watched for that precious packet as a hen waits and watches for a hatching chicken. She could not have been more thrilled, she sometimes thought, if it had been Ellen herself who was coming through the post!

That excitement had paled now beside the vividness of the dream, as well as the greater interest of the new position. She looked at the parcel with indifference, almost with dislike ... certainly with impatience, as at a thing come at the wrong time. She would open it later on, she said to herself, as she laid it down, and returned with a lightened heart to her measuring of the dresser.

Passing from that to other even more entrancing speculations, she was soon wrapped again in the atmosphere which Dick and the packet between them had temporarily dispelled. She forgot them both as she toiled and planned, stopping every now and then to remember Kirkby’s dinner. Strung up though she was, and therefore sensitive to the least touch of trouble, she was still too high on the wave of success to be disheartened for long together.

Even when she had begun her absurd game with the furniture, that childish but charming pretence in the midst of which Machell had come upon her, she had not remembered the photograph. Moving again in the dream, she was able to turn even blocks of wood into the dear ones who had peopled it, so that they could scarcely have been more real to her if they had been present in the flesh. The little stool in her arms had held the warmth of a living child; the grandfather’s clock had been more surely Ellen than the packet she had put away.

The sight of Machell smiling in at the door had no power to disillusion her. Machell did not annoy her, as Dick had done, by over-cocksure assertions that it was now too late to change. On the contrary, he was full of encouragement and congratulation, and anxious to know her plans. You would almost have thought, she said to herself, chuckling, that he was as glad of the move to Canada as she was herself!

Her spirits mounted still further as the sun mounted, and the day grew in clarity and beauty. Like all country-bred folk, she was susceptible to the influence of the weather, even when she was not consciously aware of it. Even when she was most withdrawn in mind from the atmosphere around her, she was still swayed by its many changes. The coming-out of the sun was a trumpet-call to her vitality, even if the note that it sounded was one of clamorous rebellion. A grey day had the power to chill her passion almost to fainting, even if neither it nor any other-coloured day was able to slay it altogether.

In her state of heightened sensibility she could not have failed to notice the conditions about her, but there was a good deal more to it than that. The miraculous way in which the barriers between herself and the place seemed to have broken down continued to surprise her. Now, when she looked out, she had a distinct sensation of pleasure, as well as that warmth of recognition which comes from loved association. It seemed impossible to her now that she could ever have regarded her home with horror and dislike. The garden walls and the paths gave her a sense of satisfaction which seemed to have the satisfaction of many years behind it. The tree-tops against the sky produced a thrill of joy suggesting a long chain of similarly sweet moments.

It was the same with the house, which she had so long thought of as a prison, and which had suddenly become a place of pleasantness and peace. For the first time in forty years she realised it as peculiarly and joyfully her own. She felt an impulse to sing as she saw the sunlight lying across the kitchen floor. Up in her bedroom the flowered wallpaper was printed with memories, like a book.

She did not know whether to be glad or sorry about the change, but it continued to amaze her. She tested it, as she had tested her sudden view of the privet hedge, and found that it stood it, as the privet hedge had stood it. Room after room she found rich and filled with the actual makings of her life. Each time that she went to window or house-door, she saw the view before her shine and smile.