What the Heart Keeps (12 page)

“
The picnic is ready,” she announced, sitting back on her heels. “What a spread!”

When
they had eaten, she refused to let him help her pack up the remains, wanting to do it on her own. He lay full length on the grass, well content, and closed his eyes. When everything was tidied away, she looked at him and smiled that he slept.

He
did doze, but only for a minute or two. Lifting his head he saw Lisa sitting on a rock down by the lake. She was peeling down her black stockings, one leg already bare, and when her toes were free she swung both feet into the water and splashed lightly. He raised himself on one elbow. From the shadows where he lay he thought he had never seen a lovelier sight than Lisa there against the diamond sparkles of the lake beyond.

She
was singing softly to herself as she came back up the bank, her stockings trailing from her hand. When she saw he was no longer asleep she coloured shyly, and hesitated for a moment or two before coming to sit down on the grass beside him. Her hat lay nearby and she thrust her stockings out of sight under the crown of it. He smiled to himself. Did she imagine he had never seen a pair of discarded stockings before?

“
The water was colder than I had expected,” she said, as if to explain why she had left her toes bare to the warm sun as she smoothed her skirt hem over her ankles.

“
It’s deep there by the rocks.” He sat up and rested an arm on an updrawn knee. “Lisa.”

“
Yes?” She did not look at him, her lips parting slightly as she drew in a breath at the intimate tone of his voice.

“
Release your hair from its pins.”

“
Why?” A whisper.

“
I want to see you as no other man has seen you.”

Slowly
she put up her hands to begin drawing out the pins and setting them in a little pile on her hat brim where they would not get lost in the grass. The guilelessness of her actions, which he had seen performed in wantonness by other women many times, emphasised the virginal look about her that he longed to dispel in an awakening. Her hair, soft and shining as pale yellow silk, slipped free to swing down around her face and to cover the length of her spine. When he made no move, she turned her head to meet his eyes. She had never thought to see such amorous worship in any man’s looking. She felt herself melt.

He
leaned over and bore her down onto the grass, their limbs alongside. His mouth was on hers in kissing that blotted out the trees and the sun and everything else beyond their embrace of each other, for she clung to him as if to hold forever this last hour before they had to leave the island.

She
did not know how or when he managed to unfasten the buttons down the front of her bodice but when his lips, having covered her face and throat with light and loving kisses, began to move downwards, she saw that her camisole top was also loosened, revealing half curves of her breasts, the aureoles of her nipples just visible.

She
had thought the past completely banished, but it was all she could do not to follow an instinct to cover herself. It made her realise that each stage in love-making must be met anew until all the shadows were gone. Peter’s caressing touch as he cupped one breast and then the other to kiss the nipples with lips and tongue made her catch her breath erotically at such sensual delight. She murmured loving words to him, burying her fingers convulsively in his thick hair and then letting them trail down the back of his neck to reach his shoulders with a sweet restlessness. She was filled with a delicious sensation, all else lost beyond the realm of loving and being loved. When he made a bracelet of his hand about her bare ankle to travel slowly and exploringly upwards, taking her skirt in folds about his wrist, she lay still in utter bliss until his stroking, amorous touch was on her thigh. Then suddenly she was afraid. Involuntarily she gave a great start, jerking herself away from him, and covered her face in the crook of her arm.

It
was a measure of his wish to cherish and care for her that enabled him, against his own highly roused personal desires, to pull her skirt down into place again. Moving up on his elbow, he leaned over to bring his face above hers. Gently he took her arm away and looked down at her with tenderness and reassurance.

“
I’m not hastening you into anything, my darling Lisa,” he said softly. “You’re more beautiful than you could ever realise, and I’m half out of my head with love for you. But don’t be afraid of me.” His fingertips brushed some curling tendrils away from her eyes. “I’d never hurt you or go against your wishes. You’re everything to me.”

She
sat up and put her arms lightly about him, her trembling still of such violence that it passed through her into him. “I’m not frightened of you, truly I’m not,” she insisted, leaning forward to press her cheek briefly against his in emphasis. Then she looked downwards and spoke falteringly. “There are other fears.”

He
thought he understood. “I’m not irresponsible. You can trust me to take precautions against that outcome.”

“
It’s not what you’re thinking. I do trust you. Completely. It is old fears from England that are troubling me and have nothing to do with us.” Her eyes searched his. “I love you. I want to belong to you, but I need more time.”

“
Is that why you shrank from me last night when I came onto the porch to kiss you?”

She
nodded. “I’d never been kissed with love before.”

His
eyes smiled at her. “I did guess that. Then what are these fears? Maybe if we discussed them together, you could put them away and forget them forever.”

She
shook her head quickly, not altogether sure how she had been drawn into this conversation and wishing to end it. “Let’s pretend I never mentioned them.”

He
was not to be brushed aside and became lovingly and endearingly persuasive to her. “If we do, they’ll always be there between us. Come, my sweet, tell me. Let’s set the pattern of our future, always able to talk and open our hearts to each other.”

He
thought he was to hear of ill treatment at the orphanage. She had related enough of events throughout her days there for him to gather that she had had a cheerless childhood, and he knew how difficult it was for those persistently shut out to accept affection spontaneously in later life. Never once did he expect to hear anything of a sexual nature. Encouragingly, he enfolded her in his arms, drawing her to lean against him with her head resting on his shoulder. For a few moments she closed her eyes, savouring his nearness and the feeling of being cosseted and protected against all things. Then she began to recount how she had run away and everything that had been entailed until she came, shudderingly, to the assault upon her, giving minimum details, but enough to convey the horror she had endured. Her heart became marvellously light after all was said. She nestled closer to him, knowing that through his listening he had swept away the last barrier between them.

There
was a silence. Then he spoke harshly. “Payment for your supper, was it?”

She
felt her blood freeze. Drawing back, she looked into his face which had a strained, angry expression. “What do you mean?”

“
It’s obvious. You were hungry and the farmer’s son arranged that you should have food in return for a certain favour in the barn.”

“
No!” She sprang to her feet, clutching her bodice together. He looked up at her in torment. “I’m not blaming you. It must be terrible to be nigh to starving.”

“
But I wasn’t starving. Not then. I had a piece of bread and cheese that I’d bought with some money a gentleman gave me.” She saw his eyes narrow and cried out defensively: “I opened a gate for him, that’s all!”

His
elbows were resting on his updrawn knees and he dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders slumped. “I don’t doubt you,” he said with desolate bitterness. “I’m speaking out of my own jealousy.”

He
was consumed by it. Its effect was all the more devastating because it was something he had never experienced before. The thought of another man laying hands on her nakedness and possessing her was a knife blow he did not know how to survive. Everything about her had led him to believe she was physically innocent, the kind of girl he had always expected to marry. The worldliness and broadmindedness that had come to him through his travels and new environs, fell away from him like a cloak. He had reverted completely to his early prejudices. His background, his upbringing, and his culture had instilled in him the rule that any self-respecting man chose a virgin to be his bride. How else could the steadfastness of his home and the health and well-being of his children be ensured? The conviction was linked to the importance of heirs and the entailing of land over many generations and, although in his case it had no immediate relevance, he was powerless to go against his conditioning in his present, seething state. Logic and reason had been swept away by her shattering disclosure.

She
was watching him in an agony of apprehension. “There’s no need to be jealous,” she cried out, her mouth tremulous, her throat tight. “It was hateful and loathsome. I thought I should never be able to face marriage. You changed everything for me.”

He
believed her. The trouble was that believing her made no difference. He loved her too much, which paradoxically made it impossible for him to remove the blame from her for having allowed the circumstances to come about in the first place. Rising to his feet, he gave vent to retaliation out of his own raging jealousy. “I can’t say I noticed it. You lay shaking on the grass as if inviting rape. How do I know it was not like that before?”

Anger
gushed through her. With a cry of outrage she struck him hard across the face. His head snapped back after the stinging impact and his eyes were flinty in his temper at her action. Her bodice had fallen once more into disarray and the almost unbearable beauty of her breasts was revealed again to him. Stunned by what she had done, she placed her spread fingers lightly over her parted lips and took a step backwards, to stand drained of rage and touchingly forlorn, forgetful of her half-nakedness.

He
reached for his jacket, which earlier he had suspended from a branch, and put it on. “You had better tidy yourself,” he advised without expression, his lips thin and a pulse leaping in his temple. “It’s time to leave.”

She
turned away to fasten her buttons, unable to see them for the tears that had begun to cloud her vision. Her stockings were twisted as she pulled them on, but nothing seemed to matter anymore. When she had pinned up her hair and secured her hat, she turned to see him looking out towards the lake, his back towards her, the empty picnic box under his arm.

They
walked in silence. He tossed the box into a trash-basket before they went on board the ferry. As before they stood at the rails. She saw nothing. Now that they had lapsed into silence, neither of them could find a way out of it. The gulf between them was getting wider and wider.

They
stepped from the ferry back into the noisy bustle of Toronto’s early evening. Originally they had both assumed that she would wait while he took the horses on board and after-wards they would have the last minutes together before he sailed. That was now out of the question. Neither wished to prolong their mutual anguish.

“
Goodbye, Peter,” she managed to say unfalteringly with her chin high, although to add anything else was beyond her.

“
Goodbye, Lisa.” His face had a white look and his cheeks were hollowed.

She
turned quickly and hurried away, her spine and shoulders very straight. He wished he could have called her back, but the fit of choking temper that had immobilised his vocal cords all the way from the glade continued to throttle him and brought a new anger.

One
by one he led the horses aboard the waiting train. Some gave him a little trouble, but he soothed and patted them as he urged them forward and eventually all sixteen were safely in their places in readiness for the journey to Buffalo. He took his watch from his pocket. Five minutes left before departure time.

He
prowled restlessly about the platform. Beyond the railway station Toronto was a city of lights beneath the stars. He lit a cheroot, smoked it for half a minute and then threw it down to crush it underfoot. Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. Her name rang through his brain, his jealousy unabated, but his fury fast subsiding.

“
All aboard!”

He
hesitated. In a flash of enlightenment he knew that to step aboard the train was the last thing he wanted to do. How could he ever have thought of leaving Lisa? Why had he let her go from him in anger and with words that should never have been said. The foolhardiness of what he had done began to sink in with an awful finality, the pain of loss driving him back to reason. Through petty jealousy, the basest of human emotions, he had turned away from the only girl he had loved or ever wanted to love. He must have been mad! His selfish disappointment had been such that he had failed to see how much greater was her anguish. He had encouraged her to disclose her secret and then rejected her through his own crass stupidity.