Love Remains

by Sarah M. Eden

  “Will he refuse to make an appearance because he’s embarrassed, or as a show of willfulness?”

  She made terribly light of the situation. “He’ll refuse because he’s a seventeen-year-old boy whose entire world has gone dark.”

  “He’s not the first to find himself in that situation, nor will he be the last.”

  If that wasn’t the coldest response he’d heard since Finbarr’d lost his sight, Tavish didn’t know what was. “For one who’s made her life’s work teaching the blind, you’re not very quick with sympathy.”

  “Sympathy?” she asked. “Is that the approach you’ve taken thus far?”

  “Of course.” Finbarr needed their kindness.

  Her chin inched up a notch. “And how has that been working, Mr. O’Connor?”

  When he didn’t manage to find an answer immediately, she pushed past him with a deliberate and determined stride, stepping into the house with the same triumphant tilt to her chin. Why was it he constantly found himself in company with stubborn women?

  “This could be disastrous,” Tavish muttered.

  “That was Katie’s feeling as well.” He’d all but forgotten about Joseph on the porch.

  “Was Miss Attwater this difficult all the way from the train station?”

  Joseph seemed to think over it a moment. “She showed herself very independent and very determined. She’ll either be the best thing for Finbarr, or an absolute nightmare for him.”

  “Care to place a bit of money on that wager?”

  Joseph didn’t take up the jest. “What I would really like is to see Finbarr. How is he? Truly?”

  Tavish pushed out a heavy breath. “In all honesty, he’s not well. He still hardly speaks, doesn’t leave the house. He’s not the same lad he was before the fire. Not at all.”

  “Would it help if I reminded him that his job is still waiting for him at my place?”

  Tavish didn’t have to ponder the question. “I can’t say if he doesn’t feel equal to the task, or if he simply doesn’t care to try. Amounts to the same thing in the end.”

  “The boy’s lost.” Joseph finished the thought.

  “That he is, but can Miss Attwater bring him back again?”

  She’d not struck Tavish as the gentle, nurturing type that a frightened and wandering lad needed to guide him back to himself. She’d be more likely to push him farther away. If that happened, the tenuous thread holding the O’Connor family together—their fragile hopes for Finbarr—would snap.

  “I don’t intend to volunteer to drive her back to the train station, so I think you’re stuck with her for the time being.”

  Tavish could appreciate the dry tone. “Shall we go see if the family has filleted Miss Attwater yet?”

  “Or vice versa,” Joseph said.

  “You think she’s managed to bring the entire O’Connor clan to its knees in only two minutes?”

  When Joseph didn’t appear the least bit amused, Tavish’s humor faded. Either Miss Attwater had done something to convince Joseph of her fearsomeness, or Tavish hadn’t hidden his family’s fragile state as well as he’d thought.

  Little Emma Archer stepped back out onto the front porch. Her eager expression had turned to disappointment.

  “What has happened, Emma?” Joseph asked.

  “He still won’t talk to me,” she said quietly.

  No need asking who “he” was. Emma had visited Finbarr several days a week, every week, from the day of the fire until her family had left for their journey. While Finbarr had at first accepted her company, he’d started pushing her away more each visit.

  “He’s feeling nervous, sweetie,” Tavish told her, hoping to ease the sting.

  Her nod was too automatic to indicate she fully believed him.

  “Let’s go inside,” Joseph told his daughter.

  They stepped inside Tavish’s house to find Miss Attwater seated, facing the O’Connor family with the regal bearing of a monarch. Her gaze didn’t quite settle on any of them but hovered somewhere just above their heads. They looked noticeably puzzled. Joseph took position at Katie’s side, leaving Tavish, alone, standing in front of them all.

  “Perhaps you’ve a solution to this difficulty, Tavish,” Da said.

  “And which difficulty would that be?” There’d been any number of late.

  “Miss Attwater,” Da answered.

  Tavish let his eyes dart to her. She didn’t so much as flinch at being discussed; neither did she seem to mind the many pairs of eyes trained on her. Quite sure of herself, wasn’t she?

  “She objects to the housing arrangements.” Ma spoke with great concern.

  “You were hoping for finer accommodations?” he asked their royal visitor. “I’ll warn you, you’re not likely to find any. We’ve simple lives around here.”

  The English were forever looking down their noses at the poverty and simplicity of the Irish way of life, conveniently ignoring the role they themselves had played over the centuries in creating the disparity.

  “Her objection, is to you in particular, son,” Da corrected.

  “Is it, now?” Tavish let his question sound like a challenge. “Am I not a fine enough fellow for you? Not possessing lofty manners and such?”

  Miss Attwater shook her head in much the way one would when rolling one’s eyes. The darkened spectacles made it impossible to see if she’d matched the impression. “You’ve done a remarkable job of twisting my words about,” she said. “My objection is not personal but, rather, the very understandable unease an unmarried woman would feel at being housed under the same roof as two bachelors.”

  What a dunderhead he was to not think of that. “I suppose I can understand your worries. ’Twould be a hard thing resisting m’ charms.”

  “I will do my utmost to be strong under their influence.” Her tone was the driest he’d ever heard.

  He thought he detected a bit of humor in her response. He never could resist a chance for a fine bit of banter. “And what of you?” He allowed a bit of flirtation to touch his words. “Thinking I might fall under your spell?”

  “I simply asked if there were any other options, something that would be more proper and comfortable for all of us.” Her reply didn’t match his tone at all. “I am certain you will agree with the necessity of a different arrangement.”

  There, once again, was that very English talent of instant superiority. Though they were employing her, she was already issuing dictates and expecting obedience.

  Still, he had to admit she was right. She couldn’t live in his house as the man they’d been expecting could have. Tavish refused to pawn her off on his mother or sisters, who had trouble enough of their own.

  A bolt of inspiration shot down from the very heavens. Granny. Few people in the world were a match for Tavish’s granny in terms of headstrong tendencies, determination, and gumption. The woman was in her eighties and a touch frail, yet she could still match anyone wit for wit and emerge not even the slightest bit worse for wear. Under Granny’s influence, their newly arrived queen would find herself without a throne.

  “Across the road and back a pace lives a sweet, older woman with an empty room.” He didn’t look over at his family, knowing they’d likely all be holding back smirks. Sweet and older Granny certainly was, but she was also a force to be reckoned with.

  “If I ask her,” he said, “I imagine she’d be willing to take you in, though she’s not able-bodied enough to cook for nor clean up after you.”

  That much actually was true. Tavish saw to the upkeep of her house. Half of the Irish in town saw that she was fed. Katie came ’round and cleaned regularly.

  “I do not believe she will find me a burden.”

  The lass certainly didn’t lack confidence.

  “Does Finbarr intend to come out and meet me?” Miss Attwater asked.

  “I warned you he might not.”

  “You did.” She gave a decisive nod. “But I expect him to be here to greet me at eight o’clock in
the morning. Not a moment later.” Miss Attwater rose, not seeming to care at all that the many eyes in the room had pulled wide with surprise. “Mr. O’Connor, I would be grateful if you would show me to my new quarters.”

  “Very well, Miss Attwater.” Tavish offered an exaggerated bow. “’Tis quite happy I am to escort you down the road.”

  She neither smiled nor shook her head nor gave any acknowledgement of his antics. He wasn’t at all accustomed to a woman who didn’t respond in any way to his teasing. Perhaps the English didn’t have a sense of humor. They certainly had odd taste in spectacles.

  Tavish met his parents’ worried gazes. “All will be well,” he assured them quietly.

  “What if it’s not?” Ian, Tavish’s older brother, voiced the very question Tavish saw in all their eyes.

  “I’ll make it right,” he promised. “Don’t you worry.”

  How many times had he said those very words to this very group of people in the past year? Too many to count.

  What have I actually made right? Nothing.

  “She’s at the door already.” Ian motioned across the room.

  Miss Attwater’s posture put him firmly in mind of a fence post. He didn’t know whether her stiffness was more amusing or vexing. As always, he chose to lean more heavily toward being entertained. Life was unbearable otherwise.

  Tavish crossed to her. “Shall we, Miss Attwater?”

  “I will follow your lead,” she said.

  They stepped onto the porch.

  “How long have you been in this country, Miss Attwater?” It seemed a good enough way to break the silence between them as they walked.

  “I have resided in America nearly fourteen years.” She spoke so formally, even for an Englishwoman. “How long ago did you leave Ireland?”

  “Ireland?” He laid the accent on as thick as he could manage. “What is it that’s making you suspect me of bein’ Irish?”

  “Certainly not your Christian name,” she said. “‘Tavish’ is Scottish, I believe.”

  He stopped in his tracks. Never in his life had anyone outside his own family known the origins of his name without being told.

  She stopped as he did. “Have I offended you?”

  “How’d you know where my name hails from?”

  “My childhood home was in the north of England,” she said, “not far from the Scottish border. The butcher in town was named Tavish MacIntosh. He and his family were as Scottish as anyone I’ve ever known.”

  He continued walking, slower now. She matched his pace precisely. “This Tavish fellow sounds like a grand person, if you ask me.”

  “And your evaluation is based on nothing more than his name?”

  He veered the tiniest bit as they crossed the road. She did as well. Exactly as much as he did, in exactly the same spot on the road. Exactly.

  “Anyone named Tavish is bound to be a fine fellow,” he said. “I believe there’s a law.”

  Katie hadn’t laughed at his teasing at first, either, but at least she’d looked as though she’d wanted to. Miss Attwater couldn’t have appeared less amused if she’d been watching the grass grow. And she kept matching him movement for movement, down to the tiny wanderings that weren’t the least bit important.

  He stopped. So did she. “Just what is it you’re doing?”

  She watched him from behind her darkened spectacles. “I am following you to call upon an apparently frail, helpless, elderly woman, though I take leave to doubt she is either frail or helpless.” She was quick; he’d allow that.

  “You’re doing more than merely following me. You’re insisting on remaining a pace behind, taking every step I do, exactly as I do. You’re full-on mimicking me, and, I suspect, mocking me as well, though I can’t sort out why.”

  Miss Attwater stepped slowly and deliberately off the road then moved beside him and turned to face him once more. “How is following you across an unfamiliar road in an unfamiliar place whilst the setting sun renders the landscape dimmer by the moment ‘mocking’ you? I would rather not trip and fall on my face, though I will apologize if my desire to remain upright has offended you.”

  “Now who’s the one twisting words?” He shot her another of his famous smiles. Again, it fell short of the mark; she didn’t even seem to notice. “I’m of the impression, Miss Attwater, that you’ve already decided to hate me.”

  She shook her head in firm denial. “I hardly know you. If you wish for my opinion, good or otherwise, you’ll have to earn it. At the moment, my feelings toward you are entirely neutral.”

  As was her expression. The woman didn’t seem the least concerned about anything. Was she really so unshakingly confident, or was this all an act?

  She motioned toward Granny Claire’s house ahead. “Is this our destination?”

  “It is that.”

  “Shall we?” With that, she continued up the path with the same measured step as always, her chin held high, shoulders back.

  Rather a cold fish, this one. ’Twas a good thing for his sanity that he’d given up on women. Otherwise, he might’ve been tempted to find out if she had a heart underneath all that ice.

  Chapter Four

  Cecily had heard many a tale of Irish stubbornness, but witnessing it firsthand had convinced her of its enormity. Did Tavish—thinking of him as simply “Tavish” was too familiar, considering they’d only met, but she’d been introduced to two other Mr. O’Connors that night alone and needed to be able to distinguish them from one another—truly think she’d mimicked his movements to mock him rather than as her only safe means of crossing the dim, uneven road? What did the man expect from one who was nearly blind?

  The windows, discernible by the light coming through them, sat high enough above the level where Cecily walked to tell her that the house she approached had a few steps leading to the front door. She slowed as she approached and raised her foot. The toe of her boot bumped the edge of something flat and wide—the front step, she guessed.

  She raised her foot to the level of most stairs and found precisely what she was looking for. One step. Two. Three. Then no more. She committed that to memory. If she was to live in this house, she’d do well to know exactly how to navigate in and out.

  Three more paces brought her to the edge of the house. Light spilled through a window not far to her right. Another window sat equally far to her left. The door likely sat centered between the two. She pressed her palm to the wall directly in front of her. The door. In the second before she knocked, Tavish’s footsteps sounded behind her.

  A silhouette appeared in the window to her right. “Well, then, Tavish, have you decided to finally offer a ‘good day’ to your old granny? You’ve neglected me something terrible these last days.”

  “I’ve not neglected you at all, y’ old fibber.” Tavish moved to the window as well, blocking most of the light Cecily could see. “I’ve brought you someone new to torture and question.”

  “Torture, is it?” the woman said. “I’ve not tortured anyone in years, though I’ve a mind to start up again.”

  Cecily heard something very tender in their teasing banter. Tavish clearly loved his grandmother, and she loved him in return. Cecily never could witness a caring family without being touched by it. And she never could entirely squelch her envy. She’d made the acquaintance of dozens upon dozens of people over the past years as she’d traveled about, tutoring, yet she was every bit as alone as she had been before taking up her profession.

  “Might we wander on inside, then, Granny?” Tavish suggested.

  “The door’s not locked.”

  Cecily was adept at knowing instinctively where to find a doorknob. She grasped it, turned it, and pushed the door open, all without having to feel around. The house smelled of cabbage and tea. A taste of dust hung in the air; perhaps Granny lacked the fortitude for regular dusting. Tavish’s house had smelled of something sweet—fruit or berries, or something of that nature. The scent had been so wholly unexpected that she’d noti
ced it even in its subtlety.

  Granny’s house was lighter inside than the dimly lit porch but not light enough for Cecily to make out much of her surroundings. It seemed her soon-to-be landlady was not one to light many candles or lanterns. Cecily would have to either offer to pay for the kerosene or candles she needed, or she’d need to memorize the house with enough precision to move about in the dark.

  Tavish came in behind her; one couldn’t help but sense his presence in a room, blind or not. Some people were simply that way. They filled a space without words, without movement, simply by being.

  Cecily could see enough to make out a person—“Granny,” no doubt—seated near the front door. Tavish moved toward the older woman and bent low.

  “Granny.” It was a greeting, one accompanied by either an embrace or a kiss on the cheek. Tavish straightened. “This here is Finbarr’s tutor, newly arrived in town.”

  “Mr. Attwater is sporting an unusual figure, I must say. And he’s in sore need of a haircut.”

  Cecily liked Granny already. “And I’m further afraid that my whiskers haven’t come in yet.” She shook her head as if it were a great shame. “What a disgrace I am to men everywhere.”

  “‘Disgrace’ is not quite the word I’d use,” Tavish muttered.

  “Quite frankly, Mr. Tavish, I am not overly concerned about which word you would use.” She kept her gaze directed toward Granny’s outline. “Your grandson has not furnished me with a name for you, other than ‘Granny.’ Neither has he taken a moment to explain to you why I am here, so I suppose that task has fallen to me.”

  Tavish objected immediately. “Are all Englishwomen as impatient as you are?”

  “Are all Irishmen as slow to come to the point as you are?” Cecily addressed Granny once more. “You seem far less frail and helpless than Mr. Tavish told me you’d be.”

  “I said nothing of the sort.” A smile hung behind the words—a promising sign. She far preferred pleasant to prickly.