The Girl in the Lighthouse (Arrington)

by Roxane Tepfer Sanford

  “Here you are,” he said, watching as I devoured the food, then asked, “Clara, where are you and your father from?”

  I took my last bite of macaroni, wiped my mouth with a napkin, and thought for a moment about the kind of lie I needed to tell. He could obviously see I was a Yankee, so I figured I wouldn’t lie about where I was from, but everything else, from Momma to Daddy’s names and facts would all have to be made up. I didn’t know if it was going to be believable.

  “Daddy, Momma, and I are from a small town up north. Daddy was here on business, though I’m not certain what. I came because Momma was sick in the hospital, and Daddy had to bring me.”

  Warren folded his arms over his chest and carefully scrutinized my story. I was vague, too vague.

  “What is your momma sick from?”

  “The doctors aren’t sure,” I said, which was essentially true for all the years Momma was alive.

  “And your daddy—what kind of business is he in?”

  “He is a fisherman.”

  “What kind of business does a fisherman have in Savannah, and not Charleston?”

  I wasn’t good at telling lies, and my plan was falling apart. My face turned red, and I shifted my eyes to stare vacantly out the small window beside the table where we sat.

  “Clara, look at me.”

  Warren was so much like Daddy. He had an air of fatherly concern about him, but at the same time, he was just as youthful and wise as Heath. I couldn’t face him as the tears of all my fears began to stream down my cheeks. I was so afraid he would figure it all out, see that I belonged to Eugenia Arrington, and take me back. Warren came and knelt in front of me, placed his warm hand on my knee, then said, “Tell me what really happened, Clara.”

  “I can’t,” I said, trying desperately to hold back my sobs. He turned my face, just as Daddy would, and made me look at him. His eyes were soft and revealed genuine affection for me.

  “I am here to help you. You can trust me. Does this all have to do with the Arringtons?”

  He saw from my wide-eyed expression that he was correct. Warren instantly saw my pain and wanted to comfort me. Though he was a stranger, and Daddy had warned me never to trust any man but him, I felt a connection with Warren, and I believed he was going to help me.

  “Why are you running from them, Clara?”

  “My name isn’t Clara; it’s Lillian. Lillian Arrington,” I cried. “That was my grandmother who was looking for me.” My emotions flooded out like a broken dam, I needed someone to talk to desperately. As soon as I started, I couldn’t stop until I had not one more tear to shed, and I fell into his soothing embrace. I told him everything. How we lived on Jasper Island with the Daltons and how Momma went insane and was put away in an asylum and Daddy began to fall apart. I mentioned Heath and Ayden, my two very best friends, though I didn’t tell Warren how I truly felt about Heath.

  I explained why we left the lighthouse station, why we came to Savannah, and that Daddy had left me with a grandmother I never knew existed. And as I exposed Grandmother’s evil plan to keep me locked away until Daddy came for me, Warren’s face filled with shock and disbelief and sadness.

  “All I want to do is go home,” I sobbed onto his shoulder.

  “You poor dear,” he said softly allowing me to cling to him. When I was finished crying, I pulled back and again couldn’t look at him. Now that I had revealed the truth, what would he do? Would he help me get back to Savannah and on a train back north, or would he have no choice but to take me back to Sutton Hall and leave me in the cruel hands of my grandmother?

  Warren took the cloth from the table and wiped my remaining tears away, then said, “You can stay here with me, Lillian, until we figure out what to do.”

  With a warm smile, he turned my face and asked me to give him a smile. I did as he said, and it actually felt good.

  “That’s better. Now I have some chores to do. Why don’t you come sit outside and rest on the porch while I do that? I don’t want you to lift a finger, do you hear?”

  “But your house needs some tidying up. Can’t I do that for you, Mr. Stone? It would be my way of thanking you for helping me in my greatest time of need.”

  “I won’t hear of it. You are tired and weak, and you have a hurt ankle. Come now; I will carry you to the rocking chair outside. Okay?” I reluctantly agreed and allowed him to lift me up into his arms.

  I watched, feeling peaceful, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a while, as he split wood for several hours. My ankle was feeling better, as were my spirits. I was certain that Daddy and I would be reunited before long. I would get to Jasper Island, and Edward would know where Daddy was. I would see Ayden and Heath again. Then my time in Georgia would be behind me, and I would never think of it again, I told myself. I would never think of any of it, with the exception of Warren Stone. I would always be grateful to him. He had quickly wandered into my heart and taken hold of it, just as Heath had. I enjoyed watching him, as I used to watch Heath row Ayden and I to school. My eyes often lingered on his developing muscles and broad chest. I found myself doing that with Warren. His shirt was off, and as he swung the mallet up and over his shoulders, his muscles tensed and bulged.

  The day’s heat left his body glistening with sweat. He occasionally went to the well for a cold drink, then took the bucket and dumped it over himself when the heat became unbearable. I was under the shade of the porch, and although the day was scorching with heat and humidity, I managed to stay comfortable. After the wood was split, he smiled and waved at me, then called out, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I called back.

  “I’ll be done in an hour or so.”

  I nodded, and Warren went on to neatly stack the wood. In one day, one short moment in time I felt like a different person. My need to run had stopped and I had a strong feeling of contentment, and it was all because of Warren. I even imagined, while sitting in his rocking chair on the porch of his cabin, that I was his wife. He looked to me the way Heath would if he were that age. If only until tomorrow, I told myself, I wanted to live a make-believe part. A part of me, my mind, realized how silly and childish it was; after all he was old enough to be my father, but inside me was an excitement I hadn’t felt since Heath put his lips on mine, on that fateful last day on Jasper Island.

  I wasn’t certain Warren saw me blush when he came up on the porch after he was finished with his work.

  “Are you still hungry, Lillian? I know I am famished.”

  “I little, I guess.”

  “You’re too skinny. Let’s have some apple butter. Let me take you inside,” he said, and went to lift me up, but I said, “No, let me walk. You shouldn’t be carrying me around like a child.”

  He was surprised for a moment, then in a more serious tone, asked, “How old are you, Lillian?”

  I hesitated before answering. I feared he would call me a kid, the way Heath did, that he would believe I was a little girl and not a young woman. My figure had rapidly changed in the few weeks I was locked away. My waist was curvier, my bosom more filled out; I fit almost perfectly into Momma’s old dresses that hung in the armoire. There was no way I wanted him to know I was only thirteen, so I lied and said, “I am fifteen—well, almost. By the end of the summer I will be.”

  Warren eyes scanned me, quickly; his eyes lingered on my bosom for a fleeting moment, then he looked away and I watched his face turn bright red. If he didn’t believe me, there was no indication. He changed the subject by leading me inside and offering me supper.

  Warren was gracious and attentive. I told him many stories of my days on Jasper Island. I was happy to have someone hear about my world and the place that made me complete. I mentioned my days at the beach collecting sea shells with Ayden and Heath; I described the summer nights studying the constellations through Heath’s telescope. I told him about some of Daddy’s rescues, how he pulled sailors out of the stormy sea before they drowned, and what a great lighthouse keeper he was. I expl
ained how a lighthouse worked, as Warren didn’t know anything about them. He was amazed at my knowledge and the adventures that Heath, Ayden, and I had shared, and I described everything about Elizabeth—from her curly blond hair and bright blue eyes, to the way Heath and I taught her how to sign.

  Warren was most interested in Momma and Daddy and leaned forward with his full attention when I described how in love they were.

  “Momma’s eyes lit up every time she saw Daddy. She was so beautiful, and every man who ever saw her thought so. Daddy didn’t like other men gazing at her. But she only had eyes for him, and they were deeply in love; even when she went mad, she was still in love with him,” I said, and took a long breath.

  Warren was on the edge of his chair, engrossed in the story then asked in a somber tone, “Your momma—how did she die?”

  “Daddy never told me,” I replied, wiping away a small tear that escaped the corner of my eye.

  “She is buried here, in Savannah?”

  “Yes.”

  He went quiet, deep in thought. His eyes glazed over with a sorrow that I had only seen in Daddy. I suspected maybe he had lost a love once, maybe even a wife, but I was unsure I could ask him something so personal. Then he revealed, of his own accord, what I wanted to know. Warren stared at me intently, earnest in his own memories of a woman who’d claimed his heart, just as Momma had done to Daddy.

  “I had a love once, a love that took hold of my heart and never let go. She was a strikingly beautiful young woman, and I fell madly in love with her from the first moment I set eyes on her.”

  “And what happened to her?” I asked in a soft whisper, both jealous and captivated by his passionate memories of a woman that he obviously never stopped loving.

  “To my dismay, to my sheer wretchedness, she was in love with another man. He took her far away; they married, but not one day has gone by that I haven’t thought about her. Not one day, Lillian,” he said, with such angst, it made my heart pound heavy in my chest. I couldn’t imagine any woman not falling madly in love with Warren. He was handsome and sincere and had an underlying passion that left me longing, just as I had with Heath. Warren brought a sense of Heath to me, so much so it made me frightened of my own feelings. It was everything Momma had described to me. I felt for Warren the way she had for Daddy. Almost as much, if not more, than I had for my childhood crush Heath Dalton. Momma had told me about love at first sight; she said it happened with Daddy. “The moment he stepped into the room, I knew I would love him forever,” she once told me.

  That kind of love was genuine and everlasting, and as much as I thought I could share that emotion with Heath, I knew he didn’t feel the same way for me, though he did kiss me once. But it was a mistake; he told me so. I knew he was thinking of Clara when he placed his soft lips on mine; I remembered. Heath would never love me the way I loved him. He loved me like sister, nothing more, and nothing less.

  The night was sweltering; there was no relief from the imposing heat. Warren gave me one of his long dress shirts to wear and his bed to sleep in. He was a gentleman, in every way.

  “I will sleep outside on the porch,” he said after I was situated in the bed. “Is there anything I can get you before you go to sleep?”

  He was standing at the foot of the bed when he asked me. I sat up and smiled, then said with much sincerity, “You have given me hope, Mr. Stone. Thank you for everything.”

  He had saved me from being returned to imprisonment; he was going to take me to Savannah, the first step in my return to Jasper Island, and for that, I was eternally grateful.

  “Goodnight then,” he said, and I didn’t close my eyes until he was out the door and settled on the porch for the night.

  My eyes were closed, but in my mind, all I could see was Daddy’s face, and I imagined how happy he would be to see me again. At first, he would be taken back by my appearance, but hopefully he would understand and see that he was wrong, that he shouldn’t have sent me away and left me with my evil grandmother. I would tell him how she locked me away and starved me, and that she struck me. Daddy would know that Warren Stone had saved me from the poisonous snake and was the sole reason I was alive and returned to him. I imagined Daddy opening his loving arms and me running into his embrace. He would smother me with kisses and tell me he was sorry, that he’d made a terrible mistake by leaving me in Savannah, and that he would never do such a thing again. We would go on to work the lighthouse together and happiness would find us, even if we were many miles out into the Atlantic, far away from the people of the world.

  The only thing I wanted to do was keep in touch with Warren, exchange occasional letters. Perhaps he could even come and visit us. Daddy would thank him for rescuing me, for saving his daughter, his only child. I could see them becoming friends, and I also saw a chance, an ever-so-slight chance, that maybe in time, Warren could fall in love with me, and love me just as much as he did the woman who gave her heart to another man.

  I spent the entire night thinking about our trip into Savannah, the train ride home, and the long journey to Jasper Island. I hoped Warren would spare me some money, for I had none. He wasn’t as desperate and destitute as Grandmother, though I didn’t know what he did for a living.

  I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned and finally, when the sun rose bright and early, I got into my dress and went out to wake Warren. He slouched in the rocker, in a deep sleep, almost the way Daddy used to be when he drank from his bottles of rum. I placed my hand on his arm and lightly shook him until he slowly came awake. His heavy lids gradually opened, and when his eyes fell onto me, he lifted his hand and tenderly caressed my face, then said, “Are you real, or is it just another dream?”

  My heart raced, and I instinctively stepped back from him. His hand dropped, startling him. Warren abruptly sat up in the chair and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then when he realized it was me, got up, and apologized for his confused state of mind.

  “I fell into a weighty sleep. I’m sorry for not waking right away. I will hurry and hitch the buggy so we can leave.”

  I waited for him in the same rocker where he slept while he went around back for the horse. Suddenly, he ran back, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the chair and into the house, locking the door behind him. I was startled, but he quickly explained.

  “They are out on horseback looking for you!”

  “Who?”

  “Eugenia and Hamilton.”

  I gasped and ran to him. He held me for a moment; I felt his heart beating hard and fast against my bosom. I didn’t want to let go of him, I was so afraid they would find me and take me back. Warren knew I was petrified and saw my terror as I gazed up at him. There was great fortitude in his eyes; he wouldn’t let them take me.

  “Stay here; let me handle this.”

  “Please, Mr. Stone; please don’t let them take me,” I pleaded.

  “I promise I won’t.” He reached for his musket, which was leaning up against the wall, and headed out to confront them. I stayed hidden beside the window and peeked out as Grandmother and Hamilton arrived.

  “What are you doing here, Eugenia?”

  She sat like a stone statue on the horse and demanded to know where I was. “She is my granddaughter. Where is she, Mr. Stone?”

  “I don’t know anything about your granddaughter,” he said, holding the musket at his side.

  “We saw her with you. Now where is she?” Grandmother screeched.

  Warren raised the musket and pointed it at her. “You be on your way, Eugenia. You’re trespassing on my property.”

  “Do you want me to bring the constable out here, Warren? I know she is with you!”

  Warren aimed the musket right at her. “Get off my property before I shoot you, Mrs. Arrington. I mean it.”

  She hastily looked to Hamilton, then back at Warren. “We’ll be back—with the constable next time,” she said, and the two of them rode off.

  My heart was in my throat. I could barely catch my breath. War
ren came in and put the musket down. “They’re gone.”

  “What are we going to do?” I cried, unable to fight back my tears.

  Warren came to me and placed his hands on my arms. “Don’t worry about any of this. I will take care of it.” He was confident; his sea green eyes told me he would fight to the death for me. I didn’t understand why he would risk so much for me. After all, he was a complete stranger.

  So we sat and waited for Grandmother to return. The morning went by painstakingly slow. It was a typical, early summer Georgia day—hot and humid. Warren was subdued, and I sat on the bed as he watched out the window, musket in hand, waiting for them. I felt guilty for his involvement, and went to him, to apologize.

  “I’m so very sorry, Mr. Stone. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. All I wanted was to get to Savannah, to the train, and make my way home to the lighthouse station.”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and took a long breath, then another.

  I wasn’t sure if he was angry or sad, or both. I didn’t want him to point a finger at me, to hold me accountable for all of the unexpected problems he had to deal with, but I wouldn’t blame him for one second if he did. He had every right to send me back to Sutton Hall.

  “You don’t need to be sorry, Lillian. None of this is your fault.” He opened his eyes and continued to stare out the window.

  “But it is,” I cried.

  “Please go back and sit.”

  I lowered my hand and did as he said. I sat against the wall and closed my eyes, tired, emotionally drained, and overcome with the day’s oppressive heat. It wasn’t long before I crept down, placed my head on the pillow, and drifted off into a nap.

  Warren shook me awake. The sounds of crickets were all around. It was night; the only light came from the one oil lamp on the table by the window. I had slept the day away. I flew up, prepared for battle.

  “Relax. They didn’t return.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just as I said. It is late, almost ten o’clock. There was no sign of them all day.”