What the Heart Keeps (33 page)

“
I’ve had plenty of time to consider every detail of this move as I’ve travelled on my own between the lumber camps. It’s been in my mind for a long time. You must have noticed how I’ve shelved several options that have come my way. More and more I’ve become convinced that it would be advantageous in every respect to make London my centre.”

“
Why couldn’t you have forewarned me?” she cried out.

“
I did talk to you about it months ago. You seemed to favour the idea.”

Her
head dropped in a weary nod. “That was last year. A lot has happened since then. I haven’t given it another thought since. You were considering California after that.”

“
I had to weigh everything up. Now I’ve made the decision for the well-being of you and Harry and myself. It’s the right one. I know it.”

“
When do you plan to return to England?”

“
I daresay we could get a passage from New York within three weeks.”

“
So soon!” She was stricken. “That only leaves a matter of nine or ten days before leaving here.”

“
It’s putting pressure on you, I know, but you’ll have Minnie to help you pack. I feel the sooner we depart after my contract expires at the end of the week the better it will be.”

“
What about Minnie? I can’t leave her homeless.”

“
Of course not. I fully realise you feel responsible for her and naturally she comes with us.”

“
What does she have to say about going back to England?” “I haven’t told her yet. I wanted to talk it over with you first.” She was outraged. “You haven’t talked over anything! You’ve given me an ultimatum.”

His
eyes narrowed curiously at her. “That’s an odd expression to use. You speak as if I’ve threatened you somehow. When you said you would marry me, I told you I would do everything I could for you, and that means loving and caring for you throughout my whole life.”

She
had not wanted him to speak of love, but unashamedly she used it in a desperate attempt to sway him. “You would have stayed in the States for Harriet’s sake.” Her voice rose in a frenzy of appeal. “Why not do the same for me?”

He
came and took her by the shoulders with gentleness. “If it was in your best interests, I would remain. But the situation is entirely different. Harriet was American and I simply kept a promise that one day I would bring her back to live in her own country. You are as English as I am. There is nothing to keep either of us here.”

She
wanted to scream out that there was everything to keep her in this alien land. Scream and scream and beat her fists against his chest in fury that he should be instrumental in this trick of fate that was reversing all her hopes and smashing her dreams. Only one plea was left to her. She knew it to be doomed and yet she had to utter it in all its futility.

“
Let me stay on here and keep Harry with me.”

He
misunderstood her reason. “Until I’m established, I suppose. No, darling, I need you with me. As for Harry, I don’t want to miss another day of his childhood. I’ve had to be away from both of you far too often. There’ll be no more separations.” He drew her, tense and unwilling, closer to him. “It’s natural that you should have misgivings about going back to England. Most of your years there were spent in a dismal orphanage. Things will be different when you’re with me. To date, I’ve had little chance to give you the good things of life, but those days will come.”

She
found herself beyond speech, her distress too great, her despair too overwhelming. He had made up his mind where his future lay and there was no turning him from it. Whatever she said or did, Alan would be taking his son to England with him. She knew that once he had learned of Peter he would not be vengeful, but however willing he might be to share the boy’s time with her, the sheer distance factor of the span of the Atlantic Ocean would keep her from ever seeing the child again. If she was lucky, she might just see Harry when he was grown to manhood. In the meantime she would be deprived of all the years that she felt belonged as much to her as to his father. The original bond created by a dying woman had been overtaken and surpassed by her own devotion to the child. On an agonised moan she pulled herself from Alan to grip the bedpost with both hands as if for support and press her forehead to it. Again she moaned involuntarily.

He
half reached for her as if to draw her to him again for comfort, but the tenseness of her whole frame was a warning in itself and he let his hands fall to his sides. His tone was compassionate and caring. “You need a change of air and scene more than you realise. You’ve been working hard with the cinema and running the house and looking after Harry and coping with Minnie. I’ll drive down to the hotel soon and organise everything for the movie show this evening. You give it a miss this time and take a good rest.”

She
raised her distraught face and looked over her shoulder at him, forcing herself to speak of more mundane matters. “What about the musical accompaniment?”

“
Minnie can play the piano. It will be experience for her.” “She’s quite good. You’ll be pleased.”

He
reached out and stroked her hair. “Do you want to tell Minnie the news of our going to England, or shall I?”

“I will,” she replied in a choked tone. “But not until tomorrow. I must be composed myself. It’s going to upset her dreadfully to be parted from Risto.” She gave a start as a sound came from the neighbouring room, her own troubles momentarily forgotten. “There’s Harry. He’s woken up. I’ll go to him.”

He
restrained her gently when she would have moved to-wards the door. “You are having a few hours to yourself. Remember?” Taking her face between his hands, he tilted her lips to meet his. His mouth was strong and loving, her own soft and unresponsive. She supposed he blamed her present distress for the absence of a swift return to his kisses, never suspecting that so much more was involved. She withdrew from him as quickly as was possible. He paused in the doorway. “Everything will go well as long as we’re together, I know it.”

The
door closed and she was left alone. Wearily she passed a hand across her forehead. She could hear Alan talking to his son, and then the child’s merriment when borne downstairs in his arms. Minnie’s voice greeted them in the hall before the three of them moved outside the house for a game of ball. Not long afterwards it became apparent from the increased noise that Tuula had arrived and was being drawn into the play. The carefree sounds did little to ease Lisa’s anguish as she paced the floor, trying to think of some solution to the dilemma that faced her. If only there was a way to solve that ocean-wide distance of separation! Then gradually, and at first almost imperceptibly, a faint glimmer of hope began to dawn.

She
went quickly to the window as the sound of the automobile starting up alerted her, and was in time to see Alan driving off on his own to the hotel. It was not yet mid afternoon, but he would be checking the apparatus after his absence, running reels through and being generally busy and fully occupied until the show was over and the packing done. That meant the automobile would be parked in its customary place at the side of the hotel stables. It would not be missed if she took it for three or four hours.

On
this conclusion she became purposeful in her movements. She stripped off her clothes, bathed her face in the cool water she had poured from the ewer into the rose-rimmed basin, and refreshed herself completely. In a complete change of under-garments and wearing her coolest dress of cream sprigged muslin, her hair brushed and repinned into its knot, she skewered a lacy straw hat on with a hat-pin and hastened downstairs. Harry, having lemonade and cake with the two girls in the shade of a tree, spotted that she was dressed for an outing and ran to her.

“
I’ll come, Mama!”

She
stooped down and gave him a hug. “Not this time, Harry, dear. I’m going visiting.”

He
did not like visiting. It meant best clothes and sitting still. He was easily persuaded to run back to the girls. Minnie called to her: “Shall you be back before I leave extra early for the movie show?” Happy pride filled her voice. “I’m playing, you know.”

“
You’ll be a success, I’m sure. No, I’ll not be back, but Tuula can take charge.”

Tuula
nodded her fair braided head. “We’ll be just fine, Mrs. Fernley.”

Minnie,
wishing to ask something out of Tuula’s hearing, rose to her feet and came across to walk a few steps at Lisa’s side. “Will you speak to Alan about Risto for me? I don’t think he took me seriously when I said that Risto wants to work for him when he gets his Seattle cinema.”

“
He took you seriously,” Lisa replied, “but the cinema isn’t going to be in Seattle.”

“
Then where is it to be? Risto won’t mind its location. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Dekova’s Place.” “I can’t stop to talk now, Minnie.”

The
girl frowned, peering closer at her. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? What is it? How can I help?”

“
I’ve a problem to work out, that’s all. Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything to you tomorrow.”

Lisa
hastened away. She walked quickly along the dusty road into the settlement and soon arrived at the hotel. She went to the automobile, wound the starting handle vigorously, and, when the engine throbbed into life, climbed in behind the wheel and drove away. The stable-hand waved to her and she waved back. The sight of her driving the vehicle had become a familiar one. Nobody but Alan would think to question her presence in it at that hour of the afternoon, although it would be registered by every woman sighting her from store or house or in the street that Alan Fernley’s wife was driving out of Dekova’s Place to some destination as yet unknown to them. To a farm to buy eggs? To the railroad depot? To visit a neighbour with a new baby? The possibilities were endless. Lisa felt satisfaction in the knowledge that on this occasion none would discover whither she was bound or whom she was shortly to meet.

She
had known in the first instant of Alan’s disclosure of the return to England that she could never bring herself to leave Harry. Even if her maternal feelings had not been as strong as they were, she could not have abandoned him. Her own experience of growing up motherless had taught her the sadness of that situation, and she had seen too many children bereft of loving care to let Harry go from her into the all-powerful control of an English nanny, not all of whom were filled with the milk of human kindness. Alan would be a good father, but Harry would need her as much. She had two alternatives to put to Peter. One was that he should also move to England where they could marry after the divorce and have Harry to stay with them for lengthy periods as she had originally hoped; the other possibility would be so hard on both of them that she hoped she would not have to voice it.

The
forest closed about her as she drove along. The only person she saw was an old logger, long since retired from camp life, who sat on a boulder at the side of the road cutting off a quid of chewing tobacco from a tin. He lived in a shack in the forest and made wooden buckets and spoons and other domestic items for sale in the settlement. She was one of his customers.

“
Good afternoon, Mr. Mcpherson,” she greeted him. It was highly unlikely that any word of his sighting of her would drift elsewhere. He was a close-mouthed individual who preferred his own company and took no interest in other people’s affairs.

“
Hi, ma’am,” he replied dourly, glancing askance at the automobile. He did not consider anything but a horse suitable for transport. Not that he owned one. God had given him two good feet and he used them.

She
reached the deserted spot where all vehicles, horse-drawn or otherwise, had to be left for reasons of terrain, and continued on foot. It was much cooler by the lake, where a breeze of increasing strength passed across the expanse of cerulean blue water and rustled away fiercely through the tree-tops. She took off her hat as she walked along and swung it in her hand, following the trail that kept close to the lakeside, the old hoof-prints of passing horses hard-baked into the ground. As she progressed, her pace increased and if anything she was stimulated and not tired by the exercise. It was as if she was being borne along by love and when at last she broke away from the lake to go deeper amongst the trees again, she began to run. She ran until she came to the great rocks and boulders that hid the cabin from anyone passing along the trail. Then she stopped, for Peter was sitting high on one of them where he had been watching for her.

“
You’re here!”

He
clambered down swiftly, lightly clad in dungaree trousers and a blue cotton shirt open at his sun-browned throat. She rushed forward again and reached him as he jumped the last stretch and landed in front of her. Then she was in his arms and they were lost in a madness of kissing as he sought her mouth again and again. He hurried her, still locked in kisses, between the rocks into the clearing where the cabin stood. When it seemed to him that she would have halted, even drawn back from the threshold in spite of being held fast in his embrace, he simply swept her up in his arms, kicked open the door and bore her into the shadowed interior where he set her on her feet.