I looked at the locked door again before I left. I could not help but be intrigued; it was in contravention of what I’d been told from the day I was hired until the day I left. And now that I was gone, I wondered, what was behind that door? Lovers, perhaps? Servants that went before me that I shall never know? Or perhaps a secret from the past that I will never know? Or was it simply a silly superstitious fear from being told a story so often that now I believed in it?
As I went down the drive, I saw a pair of young boys, just like them whenever I would see them, up on the hill. I had drawn their pictures, read them stories, taught them science. They knew me well. But they were never impressed. They never thought much of me, and barely did they talk to me at all, save for asking me what to say to their father. They had not grown close to me, but instead were cautious of me, for I was a stranger to their eyes.
Time and again, I would look back at the house as I walked farther and farther from it. It was a strange feeling, what I did; I went against the final orders that were insisted to me from the start. And yet, I found that I didn’t mind at all.
When I was closer to the town than even I could properly tell, I turned to the road and walked off it, but still returned to the road over and over. The rights and wrongs of what I was doing did not matter to me; I was not one for rules. What would have been the point of rules in such a situation as this? Rules are made for the wise and the good; but I was neither, and therefore of no use in the world of them.
As I walked I saw a man and a woman far off on the hill getting the same view of me as myself. The woman was making a wide gesture of waving to me, and it was no wonder her husband was waving back to me so feverishly. I wondered how many times they had seen me on this hill, walking in a circle to return back home. It was a strange mishap. It was a thing that I had a strange love in, but not enough to stop it from occurring.
In truth, it was, in its own way, freeing. I had an idea of what I was doing, and this idea changed my state. There are those who would say this was foolish. They would say that freedom is something that is earned after work and effort, but I knew that thought was wrong. It is not true. All thoughts are wrong, and should not be allowed to penetrate your own mind, at least when making important decisions. To be free is everything, and therefore having the freedom to get lost in your own wild joy is something that should be encouraged.
The road is a comfort. You are a comfort. Or rather, I had once been a comfort, for I had been a comfort to them.
As I watched the woman walk down the road, I turned back to the house. I had never seen it since I left, and I wondered why I did not go back to it. The thought of returning to the house that I once called home made me uncomfortable. My home, my regular life, was long gone.
And it was all because I had gone to see the children who lived with the old lord.
I had seen their faces on the hill, and it had felt a strange sense of regret in me. They were children of a man who was sure to leave his home; I had merely been a distraction to them, a new person to peek behind. I missed them, I did, but their hands were full of danger, not for me, but for them.
Just like the road, I had a premonition that I would not see them again.
I decided to get my thoughts together before I got home. The wind was starting to pick up; all that was around me was the breeze going through to my ear and nose. Drinking is pleasant. Drinking is great. Drinking is important to the life of man. But it is not important to our life as a woman.
“It is not important to the widder,” I said to myself, a little drunk. I giggled.
The way I said it, it sounded silly, but in my own head, the tone was just right. It is not important. And I mean not important.
I was not the widder yet. I was a child. I was a child with an imagination, and I didn’t want to lose it.
I listened as the wind brought me back to the house. The wind played upon it like a child that would not tire of a toy and clean it to rust. I felt as if I was not entirely in the world, the way I was when I was children up on the hill playing a game, had perhaps just met a mysterious figure.
I felt that I was part of the thing I saw, but it made me curiously nervous.
The sharp and distant sound of an approaching horse came. I peered around at it nervously. Was the lord coming home? A marvelous thing it was for me to see him, yet it made me feel as if I should be more prepared.
The horse pulled up and I waited to see who was on it. It was the gentleman. He grinned.
“I thought I saw a woman wandering along the road.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I was lost.”
“Well, then perhaps a less lost lady could come back into this house with me and have some tea?”
Be nice, I told myself. The tea is nice! And I am nice!
I was nice. I was at least nice enough to accept a cup of tea.
He kept asking me questions as I had it. Some of them I knew were stupid, but I kept them in my head.
“Where are you from? And what house are you from?”
I didn’t know how to answer the last one. What was I supposed to say? What was I to stumble upon that could not be so easily said? I did not want to lie to him, but I also did not want to tell him the truth that I wanted him not to know.
“Well, I am from a house near the moors still, and I am from the house of the large, green man.” I smiled when I said that, for I remembered a story when I was a child. The child who lived on the moors was trapped and forced to do three tasks as he was there. While the humans were on the top of the hill, the man was only open to the creatures and the trees.
I finished the story for myself as I thought of the lord, finished the story that the man on the moors did not have.
“And then the lord takes the boy back to his house and gives him a job.”
“Yes,” I responded, and I looked up into his eyes. I smiled.
“And the boy does very well and is ever grateful but the boy is not happy at all. He is only miserable and the lord is never impressed.”
“That seems very true,” I responded. I narrowed my eyes as I looked at him. He did not seem so nice at that moment. He was not. He had many flaws.
“Indeed,” he grinned. He seemed to have a type of smile that I found very suspicious.
I was not sure why, but I was inclined to smile back. Perhaps he just irritated me. Had I seen the children? Or perhaps I had just been in a strange mood.
“I do not find it strange that you do not enjoy yourself, but there are many who would find it strange.”
“Everyone finds it strange,” I responded with a sigh. I folded my hands together. I was beginning to border on the point where I may have upset him.
“Well, that is what I am trying to find out,” he responded. He looked at me. I knew he was trying to find out a secret I didn’t have.
Is that what he is looking for? He is not. He’s looking for something he knows is there.
Ah, yes! He is looking for an excuse to be done with me!
How foolish I had been to think of going back into the house!
“I think I should go back now. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you, I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“I don’t think it’s a waste of time to have tea with someone. It’s just a waste of time if you’re planning to tell me a lie. I’d find a new girl to marry before I married a liar. Or would you rather tell me that the soldier that you saw has come back from the war?”
I looked at the wine in my cup that I had not touched.
He could tell.
He rose from his chair, and I noticed his hand was around my wrist. I pushed myself away from him. I began to turn away. I braced myself for the carriage that would take me home.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” I said as I turned to leave. “I should go home.”
“Don’t you love me?” he whispered.
I turned to him, my eyes wide. I was unsure of what I should say next.
“No,” I replied.
I was sorry I said it. I did not really mean it. I didn’t love him, but there was something in him that I had known for a very long time.
