Alfonso's Bride

Coming home -24

"Hello Helena." Helena looked up to find Peter nervously fiddling with his fingers. He looked weird doing that especially when considering his cold character and being. "Do you want to talk about Sir Diego. Since you arrived you're different, even your accent. You are a lot quieter now and you do not open up anymore."

Helena shook her head and sat up on her bed. Peter followed suit as he went to sit next to her on the bed. "Do you want to talk?" He asked sweetly and Helena was reminded of the times they used to chat a lot together and generally have a nice time together.

"No, I want to lie here and cry." The two looked at each other and smiled. Helena however did not keep up with the smiley as she was already crumbled down by tears.

"Sir Diego called (means he came) on the morrow of Sunday, he was looking for your father. After they talked Sir Diego looked a lot upset, I had a thought he was going to cry. He asked me to take care of you if he did not survive. I think he will make it though, he needs to be strong for the both of you. He loves you Helena, from the way you talk about him to the way he looked into my eyes when he asked me to take care of you. What I know is that he will be fine, whatever his cancer case be, the tumor would be controlled just fine." Peter explained now leaning closer to Helena who just could not stop crying.

"He gave me this cowrie..." Helena said presenting the cowrie to Peter. The two looked at each other in wonder with Helena smiling through her tears. They looked overly excited to study the antique token.

"From Asia?" Peter asked and Helena laughed shaking her head, "It is from Africa, he got it for me all the way from Africa. I did not even see him go to port Bennyfraw but next minute he had it in a wooden box."

"I don't believe it. Did Camille see this?" Helena shook her head. Camille was now a distant friend and they both knew it. Since she had gotten married she had left home and Helena had seen her once. She knew six months was a short time but with all the events that had happened in Helena's life it sure was a lifetime. Peter might not have been married yet but everyone in the house had changed.

"You better. Maybe you will believe it one of these days when you get married. All your four brothers are married, your older sisters even Caroline your little sister is married."

"It is different." Peter argued weakly. He had no excuse, Helena thought. He was of age and they were now exceedingly mature which made it highly odd considering that they still talked a lot and slept together, well at least before Helena was married.

"And how is that different?" Peter shook his head.

"It does not matter now. I am here for you now, so we shall proceed to talk about you. First, I hope I had not mentioned this before but you talk differently now. You drop all the 'g's in all the verbs in continuous tense. It has lost its deep and the drawl we got in etiquette school. It's kind of funny really. Sentence length has been reduced. You talk in phrases sometimes."

"Alfonso has a rough rural accent he got from St Peter's. So I learnt it. Annie was born in St Peter's and she has a soft tongue and there is Claire who I do not understand most of the time she be like, what'u all doin' here. Ain't it a little too late to be up and about feeding them wild horses."

Peter laughed, or at least snorted at the way she changed her accent. He loved it but he hated the fact that tears were still on the brim of her eyes showing that she still wanted to cry. It was clear that even as they were chatting with Peter her mind was on what possibly could be happening with Alfonso.

Peter decided to break the lie they were in, "You should stop thinking about him, at least when I am here. It wearies me to see you sad." Helena looked at him and that undid her tears forcing her to lie back in bed.