What the Heart Keeps (27 page)

Beside
her the young woman uttered a low moan akin to pain as the image vanished and thunderous applause broke out again; a moment later she had dashed from the room. Mae followed after in concern. She found Lisa outside the hotel, leaning against the wall with her face hidden from the light of the S-necked lamp above the door.

“
Tell me what’s wrong,” Mae urged sympathetically. Many men and women, drunk and sober, had poured their troubles out to her over the years. Her compassion for her fellow man was boundless, and it was her hope that she had never failed anyone in real despair.

“
Nothing’s wrong,” came the choked answer. “I felt faint. That’s all.”

“
Come back inside. There’ll be nobody at the ladies’ tables in the saloon at this hour. They’ll all be watching the show. I’ll give you a dram to clear your head.”

“
No. That’s kind of you, but I’m all right now.” Lisa turned to face her. She was pale but composed. “Stupid of me, wasn’t it? I’ll go home now. Good night, Mae.”

In
spite of her protestations, Lisa was in a daze as she collected Harry from the Saanio home. He was sleeping soundly and did not wake as she put him into his own little bed. Her feet seemed to be dragging as she went downstairs to rattle the firebox of the stove in the kitchen and put on the kettle. She had never lost the English habit of making a cup of tea in a crisis, but when it was made she sat with her arms resting before her on the kitchen table and left it untasted. To think that Peter had been within yards of her on the site of this very sawmill and she had not known. He had breathed the same air and walked the same ground and she had been totally unaware.

Common
sense told her it was as well. It would have been a calamity to have met him again. Just seeing the lantern slides of him had been poignant enough. There was no telling how she might have reacted if they had come face to face. Or would it have been such a traumatic experience? His feelings for her had been wiped out long since by that quarrel on Toronto Island. His eyes would have held only disinterest, perhaps even a complete lack of recognition. That would have been good for her because it would have put completely in proportion what had been nothing more after all than a youthful bout of first love.

On
this sensible thought she threw away the tea that had turned cold and made herself a fresh pot. This she drank, recovering herself and deciding firmly to resist the temptation to ask Alan when he had taken the photographs of the children with the horses. As far as she could judge by their outdoor clothing it was probably only about a month ago. Since it was highly unlikely that another team of new horses would be needed at the site for a long time to come, she could put her mind at rest about any chance of Peter coming back in the near future. There was every chance that she and Alan would be established in Seattle before he returned, if ever, to the sawmill again.

She
was in bed when Alan came home. For the first time in their marriage she feigned sleep, not wanting to be drawn into talk that night. He moved about quietly in the bedroom in order not to disturb her. When he lay down beside her, putting an arm about her as he always did, she barely stopped herself from crying out in anguish that he was not the man whom she still loved.

As
the days went past, Lisa busied herself getting ready for Minnie’s arrival. Alan was away in the forests somewhere, giving her plenty of time to redecorate a room for Minnie while managing to keep Harry’s fingers out of the paint. She hung the new drapes she had sewn and finally made up the bed with the patchwork quilt with the Blazing Star pattern she had begun before her marriage and recently finished. She liked to be kept busy, but more and more the overwhelming domesticity that prevailed during Alan’s absences was becoming increasingly tedious, if not irksome. Little Harry, whose dark eyes and hair made his resemblance to his father quite remarkable, was bright and intelligent and affectionate, a continuous source of joy to her; she thought of him entirely as her own child, devoting most of her time to him, but she had come to need the outlet of the cinema evenings and the performance arrangements entrusted to her. Admittedly, when Alan was away, there was always a certain amount of business correspondence connected with renting the reels, but it was not every day that there were letters for her to write. A call at the house by a film-distributing agent was always a welcome diversion, for she had become authoritative in dealing with them. Those who had not met her before promptly imagined they could push any dud movies on to her, simply because she was a woman, and it caused them considerable surprise when they discovered their mistake. They never tried their tricks a second time.

Alan
came home on the eve of Minnie’s arrival. “I must leave to catch the late evening train for Seattle right after dinner,” he told Lisa. “I have a great deal of business there to get through in the morning before I meet the steamship.”

Lisa
went out of the house with him when the hour came for him to depart. He wound the starting handle of his automobile and they kissed before he took his place behind the wheel and switched on the head-lamps.

“
I almost forgot,” he said on the point of driving away. “I’ll have to be off to the forests again the day after tomorrow, for six or seven weeks. That means cancelling the three evening shows I intended to put on at the end of the week. Will you see that the usual postponement notices are displayed? ‘Bye, Lisa.”

He
had not waited for her answer, knowing she was familiar with the process. They had had to have these notices printed some while ago. Cancellations always caused disappointment, but everybody understood that his work for the lumber company came before all else.

It
was her full intention to carry out the task. When morning came she began stacking the cancellation notices into a basket and was interrupted briefly by the Saanio daughters. They had come to ask if they might take Harry on a picnic, which meant keeping him for the rest of the day as they had done on previous occasions. With their round Finnish faces and sweet smiles, they were already as maternal as their mother towards younger children and were destined to be the bearers of large families themselves when they grew up. She contributed some cake for the picnic, and the girls promised to bring him home before his bedtime.

After
seeing off the little procession, Harry beaming with delight at his friends, she went back to finish getting the notices ready. Her task was just completed when a knock came at the front door. She had been half expecting that a movie distributor’s agent might call that day, and a list of the films she wished to order lay on the parlour table. Briskly she went to open the door. The man standing there was Peter. He swept off his hat and the sunshine went leaping into his fair hair.

“
How are you, Lisa?”

For
a few suspended moments the sight of him seemed to fill her whole being. His height and breadth and his well-remembered smile eliminated all else. The greatest impact of all came from his fjord-blue eyes holding that tender, penetrating look that had once been there all the time before the painful quarrel had dashed it away.

“
Peter!” She could only say his name. Maybe it was enough. Her voice had made mellifluous song of it on the overwhelming gush of love from the depths of her heart.

“
It’s been a long time,” he said, not taking his eyes from hers. “I searched half of Canada for you after returning to Toronto a week after our parting to find you gone.”

“
I never knew.” Again an involuntary inflexion revealed her emotions all too nakedly.

“
That’s what I assumed, when no reply ever came to the letter I left at Sherbourne Street.” He crossed the threshold, for she had drawn back in silent invitation that he should enter, holding the door still wider. “I was sure that however much I deserved it, you would never have ignored the request I had penned.”

She
had closed the door and taken his hat to hang it on a peg. They faced each other there, in the white-walled hallway of the quiet house. Outside, the everyday din of the sawmill seemed remote and far away. The years that had passed might have been as many minutes. There was no strangeness between them.

“
What was that request?” she asked almost inaudibly.

“
I wanted your forgiveness.”

Her
long-lashed hazel eyes gleamed sadly in the paleness of her face. “You always had it.”

His
voice was low and heavy with regret. “It was the greatest mistake of my life not to have let that train leave Toronto without me.”

“
I waited in case you came back to look for me.”

His
face tightened painfully. “If only I’d known.”

She
clasped her hands together, leading the way through to the parlour. “How did you discover I was here?”

“
Business kept me at Dekova’s Place overnight. I stayed at the hotel. This morning when I was paying my bill, Mrs. Remotti mentioned seeing me with my horses on the lantern slides. Almost in the next breath she asked if I knew an English woman by the name of Lisa Fernley. Although the surname was not the same, I was certain it would be you.”

“
Then you know I’m married.”

“
Yes.”

“
Still you came?” She sat down on the sofa and he took a seat beside her.

“
I had to see you. Nothing could have kept me away. God knows how many miles I’ve travelled, or how many questions I’ve asked while looking for you. It’s only a couple of months since I came back from Canada again. I never imagined I’d find you in the States.”

At
her request he outlined the route of his long search for her. When she realised they had both been in Calgary at the same time, she exclaimed with surprise. “I was working there then. Where did you stay?” She gave a nod when he told her, knowing the place well, for she had walked past it many times. “To think we might have met nearby, outside the Imperial Bank or by Doll’s Jewellery Store, or any of the emporia in that street. I went that way almost every day.” Her fingers laced themselves together restlessly. “So near and yet so far.”

“
I put inserts in the local newspapers wherever I went.”

She
gave a regretful shake of her head. “I rarely saw a newspaper. I couldn’t afford to buy them and where I worked nobody was interested in reading.”

“
What happened to make you leave Toronto as you did?”

She
told him everything as it had occurred. When it came to her marriage to Alan she made no secret of how it had come about for reasons of companionship and protection. “Alan is good to me,” she concluded. “I could not wish for a better husband, and I think of his child as mine.”

He
leaned forward from the waist with some abruptness. “Do you love him?”

“
You have no right to question me about my feelings.” Her face was half turned away from him as if she were afraid of what he might read there.

“
I have every right, because I love you.” His passionate declaration sent her rising hastily to her feet, still turned from him.

He
stood up and moved close to her. “Lisa. Listen to me. I have to know.”

She
closed her eyes almost with despair as he took her by the shoulder and gently brought her around to him again. To say what she wanted to say would release a situation that must be kept at bay at all costs. But when she did raise her eyes again to look up into his face all was said between them without a word being spoken.

Spontaneously
he reached for her and she fell against him with a soft cry of home-coming. Their kissing was wild, adoring, and insatiable. His crushing embrace absorbed her into him and all else was obliterated except the miracle of his mouth on hers. She felt split asunder by the wonder and marvel of his kisses and clung to him frantically, only wanting their passionate contact to last forever. When eventually he did draw back to gaze at her again, he continued to hold her pressed against him, his hands spread across her back, strong and caressing.

“
I’m never letting you go now that I’ve found you again,” he said with such worship in his expression that she was dazzled, still held in thrall by the spell of their reunion. “You’re in my blood. You have been since that day in Liverpool. I love you more than ever.”

“
I love you, too.”

They
kissed again. She felt as if she was slipping down into a well of desire for him from which there was no escape now or ever, all the restraints of their past meetings lost to her. She had waited for him without knowing she waited. She had continued to love him more than she had ever realised. Her heart had kept watch for his return while she had made herself believe that it could never be.

“
Leave this house with me now,” he urged. “Just as you are. Bring nothing with you. I want to get you away from here.”

She
almost said yes. The affirmative reply trembled on her tongue and how she did not utter it was a mystery to her. But his passing mention of the house had been a lever back to reality. He saw and felt the change that came over her. She leaned back against his supporting hands and pressed her own onto his arms to bring some small distance between his body and hers.