What the Heart Keeps (24 page)

“
It’s going to be tough on your wife,” George said sympathetically, clapping him on the shoulder. “Do you want me to do the burying while you go up to the house and tell her?”

Alan
’s first thought had been of Harriet and the shock it would be. He had bought Leo for her in the first months of their marriage, almost six years ago. He shook his head at the offer that had been made to him. “I’m burying Leo.” He would let no one else do that. “But I ask that all here keep word of what has happened to themselves until I can get home.”

The
men nodded, parting to let him through. Lisa, well wrapped up against the cold November day, halted on her way to the store at the sight of him and the burden he carried. With an exclamation of concern she came darting forward and cried out again, whipping off her shawl to cover the dog with it.

“
What happened, Alan?” As he told her she wept, cradling one of the limp paws between her gloved hands. Her voice was husky when she spoke again. “I’ll come with you. We’ll find a place for Leo in the forest.”

“
No,” he said more gently than he had ever spoken to her before. “Go back to the house and make sure Harriet hears of this from nobody but me.”

She
set off at a run, but the bad news had travelled faster. A man who had been driving through the sawmill when the accient had happened, overtook Dolly almost at the Fernleys’ front door. He shouted out to her what he had seen. To Lisa’s dismay she met Harriet rushing along the road without hat or coat, her face ashen, one arm across her swollen figure in support.

Deaf
to the pleas of Dolly on the porch imploring her to come back, Harriet called out frantically upon seeing Lisa ahead. “Is it true about Leo?”

Lisa
’s stricken face gave the silent answer. With a groan of grief that turned to a shuddering gasp of pain, Harriet collapsed into Lisa’s arms. Dolly came running to help get her into the house.

Bertha
moved in and took charge with Lisa to assist her. For the rest of the day and all through the night Harriet was in excruciating labour. She pulled on the length of sheet that Bertha had tied to the foot of the bed until the pain defeated her and she thrashed about helplessly, her screams harrowing. But shortly after dawn she was safely delivered of a son. His lusty yell brought his father bounding up the stairs in relief combined with anxiety for his wife, but Harriet had come through her ordeal and lay smiling in exhaustion against the rumpled pillows.

She
received her first visitors later that day. Dolly came with Mary to exclaim over the new arrival and present her with clothes they had sewn for him. Harriet was more touched by totally unexpected offerings that came to the house in the shape of a wooden boat, a Noah’s ark with animals, and a number of other toys made for her by men at the sawmill far from their own wives and families. She thought of the hours spent in the making of the gifts by the poor light of the coal lamps in the bunkhouses.

“
My first outing shall be to thank each of these kind men personally,” she declared to Alan who had brought the latest offering to her bedside, a rattle with a ball inside it carved out of a single piece of wood.

“
I’ll escort you myself,” he promised, smiling at her.

It
was the morning of the third day that she awoke feeling less well. By evening she was bathed in sweat and desperately ill. Alan had word telegraphed down the line for a doctor to come to a dire emergency. Before the high fever from her infected bloodstream took complete hold and she was still lucid, she managed to say what she wanted to Lisa and her husband when each was alone with her. She never knew that the doctor managed to get there by the fifth day after a difficult journey. He saw at once that there was nothing to be done and that had he come sooner it would have been the same. Alan and Lisa took turns at her bedside so that she was never alone. When she died in the early hours of a cold December morning, they were both with her. The baby was just ten days old.

Alan
was stunned with grief. Harriet was laid to rest in a plot near the sawmill beside loggers and lumbermen who had suffered fatal accidents, wooden crosses bearing their names. Everybody attended the burial service there, and the great crowd of men stood bareheaded in the first few flakes of snow. One of them, a Pole with a magnificent voice, sang the Twenty-third Psalm. Afterwards the house was a bleak and empty place. Alan never went in or out of it without going first to his son, always picking him up if he was awake and sometimes when he was not, which made it difficult for Lisa to keep him to a routine. But she never made comment. Alan needed comfort in his bereavement, and he could only find it in his son.

When
one of the travelling preachers came some weeks later to hold a service at the sawmill, Alan had the baby baptised Harry. Since Harriet herself had made no firm choice, he thought that their child should be named after her.

Lisa
devoted herself to Harry, a robust, thriving infant with every sign of being as black-haired as his father when new growth replaced the birthhair on his well-shaped head. He was a handsome baby, and a contented one, giving her almost no trouble. Alan never questioned her care of his son or the running of the house. He left all domestic decisions to her. In their individual grief they were polite to each other and almost formal in their conversation in a way that each found strained and uncomfortable. The lively sparks no longer flew between them. It was as if Harriet’s passing had changed them both irrevocably.

There
were other changes, too, although at first Lisa was not aware of them. It was only gradually that she realised that Dolly and Mary no longer called at the house as they had done in the past. Since they had always been more friendly with Harriet than with her, she did not give the matter much thought. Bertha was still a regular visitor, eager to take little Harry into her arms and give advice on teething troubles and weaning that were quite unnecessary. Lisa had looked after enough babies in her orphanage days to know how to handle one healthy baby boy Sometimes Bertha took charge of him for a few hours to give her a break to do other things that demanded her time.

He
was six months old when Lisa began to be aware of an ominous shift of attitude towards her among some of the men at the sawmill. There were those who still grinned or whistled their appreciation at the sight of her or tried to exchange a little flirtatious banter, but the less likeable among them made their leers more open and their remarks in her hearing became ribald and offensive. She ignored the unpleasantness as if she were deaf, but it was not hard to guess that these men were putting their own interpretation on her living alone with Alan now that his wife had gone. She had been in the West long enough to know that in pioneering circles women were considered to be either good or bad, and to be suspected of living in sin meant a complete destruction of character.

She
understood why Dolly and Mary had stopped calling on her, for in their eyes she was no longer respectable company. She fumed at such stupidity. How did anyone suppose that a widower could have his child cared for without a woman in the house? Moreover, Alan worked longer hours and stayed away for longer periods than he had done when his wife was alive, which should have been a sure indication that his home had lost all attraction for him. At least kind-hearted Bertha had shown no sign of withdrawing her friendship. In any case she was frequently in the house when Alan was there and was able to observe for herself that there was nothing between the two of them, for he was always abstracted and coldly restrained, his personal grief unabated.

For
the first time Lisa began to be nervous during Alan’s absences. Men had started to hang around the house at times, but as yet nobody had broken his rule about calling there. Then one evening when Alan was away there came a knock at the door. When she opened it she found a man she knew only by sight standing on the doorstep.

“
Hi, there, ma’am,” he said softly, a look in his eyes that was all too familiar. “I figured you might be lonely and would like to talk a while.”

“
I’m never lonely,” she replied sharply. “Go away. You know better than to break the rules regarding this house.”

He
rammed his heavy boot in the door as she was about to close it and he leaned an arm against the jamb. “Don’t be hasty. You’re not scared of me, are you?”

“
No, I’m not,” she replied icily, “but I want you gone. Get your foot out of this door.”

From
the parlour, Bertha called out: “Is that my George come for me?”

The
man at the door stepped back with a wry grimace. “My mistake. I thought you were on your own.” He disappeared into the darkness quickly.

“
Who was that?” Bertha inquired as Lisa returned to take up her half of the patchwork quilt they were making together. “An unwanted caller,” Lisa replied uneasily.

Bertha
looked thoughtful. “Has it happened before?”

“
No, but I’ve been half expecting something like that to occur. I wouldn’t have opened the door if I’d been here on my own.

Bertha
paused in her sewing, her needle at rest. “Why don’t you leave here, Lisa? This is no life for you, buried in the forest with somebody else’s baby to look after night and day. It’s different for Dolly and Mary and myself. Our menfolk are here and we want to be with them, but you have no such ties.”

Lisa
did not look up from her stitching. “I can’t leave little Harry. I wouldn’t want to anyway.”

“
I would willingly take over your duties, if that’s what is worrying you. With our own children grown and gone from the nest, it would be wonderful for George and me to have a baby in the home again. Alan would be able to see Harry whenever he liked and have a room with us instead of this place, which he wouldn’t need any more. He’s hardly ever at home these days as it is.”

“
No.” Lisa shook her head firmly. “You mean well, I know, but it’s out of the question.”

“
Tell me why.”

Lisa
looked up for the first time. “I love Harry as if he were my own. More than that, when Harriet was dying she entrusted him to my care. I intend to look after him until such time as Alan tells me to leave or some other circumstance arises over which I have no control. Even then, I’ll continue to do whatever lies in my power for the child.”

Bertha
’s expression crumpled into sadness. “Oh my! It’s not right for such a burden to be laid on young shoulders.”

“
I don’t look on it in that light. And I’m twenty years old. I know what I’m doing. There’s no need to worry about me, Bertha. I’ve lots to be thankful for.”

However,
the next morning Lisa called in the sawmill’s old handyman to put extra locks on the doors and windows. She also took one of Alan’s double-barrelled shotguns down from its rack on the wall and left it readily at hand in case of an emergency, thankful that he had taught her how to use one as a precautionary measure during her early days at Quadra Island. At night she kept the gun by the bedhead.

There
were incidents. She ignored knocking at the door that came in the dark hours. The rapping on the window panes while she held her breath behind the drawn blinds was even more alarming. At times a concertina or a fiddle or a steel guitar was played a great deal nearer than the bunkhouses, making her wonder how many men had left their card-playing or exchanging of yarns to wander along outside with the musicians among them and lounge about within range of her. By day it was no better. When she went to the store bold approaches were made to her. More than once she tried not to hear the lewd invitations shouted down to her by men on the drying sheds, their guffaws following her.

Then
the night came when she woke with a start, knowing that someone was trying to get into the house. In the darkness she sprang out of bed and snatched up the gun. She cocked it in readiness and on bare feet crept to the head of the stairs, a pale figure in her white nightgown, her fair hair swirling, her heart pounding against her ribs. The intruder was forcing the front door with a silent determination that would brook no failure. He must have snapped the original locks and was putting a shoulder to the door against the padlocked chain that still held it. But not for long. Any second the wood would splinter and give way. Quickly she decided that the safest place for defence was on the stairs at the place she was standing. With a sudden crash the door burst open and the intruder half fell into the house.

“
Stand still!” she cried out, aiming the gun at him. “I’ll shoot if you move a step!”

“
Lisa! What’s going on here?” It was Alan.

She
swayed against the banisters, lowering the gun, and her voice shook. “I thought you were an attacker.”

“
What!” He lit a lamp and stood looking up at her. “When I used my key in the door and it still didn’t open, I supposed that the recent rain had swollen the wood and wedged it. Now it appears you’ve had extra locks put on whilst I was away.” His expression hardened. “Who’s been frightening you? Tell me the bastard’s name.” He sounded more than ready to mete out rough justice to the culprit without further delay.