Chapter 9 #2
What a tale she could tell him.
“…and it was then that I realised, the direction we had been going was – Helena?”
Her father’s voice was startled by her suddenly rising and moving towards the house.
“I am sorry, Father,” said Helena hurriedly, “I am still listening, but I have much mending to complete. I thought that I could bring it out here, to work on while I listen.”
His ego restored to the best of health, she sat and listening for another twenty minutes while her deft hands moved smoothly across the shirt that was on her lap. It took her that long to realise that the shirt she was mending was not her father’s.
“My, that is a fancy piece of needlework!” Her Father exclaimed, breaking off from his story. “Not one of mine, I warrant – where did you get it from?”
Helena felt her heart race. Was she willing to lie to her father, the man that had raised her – was it worth hiding the fact that another had been here?
“Ah, no matter. I am going to change, my dear, and I will join you again shortly,” said her Father, his interest waning as it frequently did if he did not receive an immediate response.
For a moment, she felt that she was safe; that the deception, small as it was, had been successful. But as soon as her father returned to her afterwards, she knew that all was lost.
“Helena, has someone been here to stay with you?”
The hurried turn in her seat, the frightened look, and the silent response was all that he needed to confirm his suspicions.
“My best shirt has gone, there is far more food missing than I could imagine you could eat,” and here he laughed as he sat beside his daughter, “without wanting to sound like a bear, there has been someone sleeping in my bed!”
Helena could not help but laugh, but it was a bitter one and her father caught at it immediately. “Helena, you know the truth. Tell me.”
She bit her lip as she looked at her father steadily. “Just a poor shipwrecked sailor, Father. There was a little injury, but you know that I am accustomed to such things. I did nothing but give him shelter for a few days, feed him, and then send him on his way.”
And offer myself entirely to him, she murmured in the quiet of her heart.
And make myself so vulnerable that it physically hurts, sitting here, knowing that he is happily far away from me.
As the memory of him kissing her throat, kissing her neck, his hands moving slowly over her body rose up in her mind, she forced it down.
No, she would not indulge in such bittersweet remembrances.
“Poor man, he must have been quite done for if he arrived after that gale. At least that explains where my rum disappeared to!” mused her Father.
She nodded, but did not trust her voice to speak.
He sighed. “Helena, you were never a good liar, and I thank God for it. But you have to tell me the truth – all of it, or as much as you can, if you please.”
Helena raised her blue eyes to her Father, and wished for a moment that he was not quite so perceptive. But then, would he be her father?
“His name,” she began in a low voice, “is Pierre. When he arrived…”
The story did not take long to tell; the vital parts she omitted, knowing that those would be hidden in her heart until she died.
There was no need to break his heart with her wanton behaviour, and besides, that was something that she wanted to keep between herself and Pierre.
He may not have valued it the way she did, but it was a precious moment to her. It was not to see the light of day.
Helena was almost saddened at how easily his departure was explained, as though it had been easy for him to leave her. When she finished the story, she looked at her father silently.
His face looked grave, but there was a gentle smile on his face. “You cared for this man, I think.”
She swallowed, and not trusting her voice, nodded.
“Hmmm,” said her Father, looking more serious now.
“I will admit that I was concerned at the thought of a gentleman here alone with you, my child – not because I do not trust you, far from it, but because I know you are of a loving soul, and you could easily be worked upon to fancy yourself in love.”
Hot tears threatened to rise up and fall in Helena’s eyes. Worked upon? Had she been worked upon? She had not felt under any pressure from Pierre: if anything the contrary, had he not left her easily enough?
“But now, I am even more concerned,” her Father continued, “that you have lost the opportunity of being with the man that you love.”
Helena blinked as the words started to settle into her mind, and asked hesitantly, “Father?”
The man that she had cherished and cared for over the years moved to kneel at her feet.
“Helena, love is the greatest storm that we ever weather, and yes, sometimes it leaves us shipwrecked on a shore that seemed barren. We feel alone, but what we do not realise is that there is always another person shipwrecked along with us.”
The tears she had managed to keep back for so long now over spilled and fell on her cheeks. “He left,” she managed to say under her voice. “He left me.”
Reaching out and brushing away one of her tears, her Father asked her quietly, “Does that mean that the ship has sunk?”