‘Don’t you just want to spread your wings and get away?’
‘Out of Ballymore?’
‘Further. Out of Ireland.’
‘Oh. Maybe. I remember you saying that you want to go to London.’
Con took a moment to look deeply into Helen’s eyes. ‘Oh yes. I’d say I want that just about more than anything.’
A pregnant pause hung in the air, as if Con was expecting Helen to talk. She obliged. ‘Well...why don’t you?’
‘Why don’t I what?’
‘Go to London.’
Con sighed and stood, slowly crossing the hut to stare out of the solitary window. ‘I would if I could, Helen.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But it’s impossible.’
‘Why?’
‘My heart would break if I left.’
Helen was unsure of what to say and took a moment to formulate her response. ‘Well...’ she offered, ‘Ballymore certainly is a beautiful place.’
Con chuckled. ‘Ah, ’tis not Ballymore I’d be missing.’
She understood. ‘Oh. You mean Sorcha O’Donovan.’
Con nodded morosely. ‘Yes. I’m in love with her. But she won’t come with me.’
Helen was hardly thrilled to be counselling Con on the subject. ‘I’m sure you could convince her,’ she managed.
He shook his head. ‘I wish I could, Helen. But she spoke to her daddy the other night and sounded him out. She says he wouldn’t accept it. So she’s going to stay put.’ Con took a gulp from his mug. ‘Don’t you have some business with Seamus?’
Helen nodded. ‘Yes, he manages my estate for me.’
‘What’s he like?’
She inhaled deeply as she considered her response. ‘Efficient.’
‘No, I mean as a man, like. Is he a fierce old dragon like Sorcha tells me?’
‘I...don’t really know. He’s my solicitor, so I pay him. He has to be nice to me.’ Con looked a little disappointed at the answer. ‘But I can see how it wouldn’t be good to get on the wrong side of him.’
Con swallowed the remainder of his tea and returned to the sofa. He sat cross-legged and faced Helen, his face a little more intense now. ‘Sorcha said that if she told her daddy about me and London, he’d throw her out of the family. Do you think that sounds about right?’
Helen considered it. Whenever she had called around for dinner, it was true to say that Sorcha and Mary appeared apprehensive around the family patriarch. ‘Yes, I reckon so.’
Con bowed his head. ‘’Tis a terrible thing, that. Sorcha’s only crime is falling in love with me.’ Even though Con was openly discussing his feelings for Sorcha, Helen’s heart still panged at the sadness she perceived in his eyes. ‘Ah, Helen. We’ve been alone our whole lives, haven’t we?’
‘Yes,’ she muttered.
‘And now, I discover the one person who made me feel better about everything can’t come with me when I leave Ballymore. Only you can know how sad that makes me. Imagine having someone in your life who took the pain away, and you had to consider losing them...’
Helen did not have to imagine. ‘Have you thought about staying?’
Con slapped the side of the sofa. ‘I can’t. Sorcha doesn’t realise it, but we could never be together here. Not properly.Her daddy wouldn’t let us. You know the whole town is after thinking I’m a tinker.’
‘Yes. And they think I’m strange.’
