“Come sit here with me, Mr. Attwater,” Granny instructed. “Tell me what’s brought you here with this troublesome lad.”
With careful steps, Cecily moved in Granny’s direction. She made out a chair and lowered herself into it. “I am, as Mr. Tavish said, come to be a tutor to Finbarr. Due to a miscommunication, the young man’s family was expecting a man, one who could live at Mr. Tavish’s home without whispers or scandal or discomfort. I, as you have noticed, am a rather odd version of a Mr. Attwater and haven’t that luxury.”
“Ah. The family sent you here, did they?” The runners of a rocking chair squeaked against the wood floor. “But am I to look after you, or do they mean for you to tend to me?”
“You know your family better than I do, ma’am. Which do you think they intended?”
The woman made a sound of pondering. “You’re welcome to stay, though I’d rather not call you ‘mister’ for the rest of forever. What’s your name, lass?”
“Cecily.”
“How long ago did you leave England?”
The second time in less than an hour someone had asked her that. Mrs. Archer had warned her that the Irish in Hope Springs might hold her English origins against her. Thus far, she hadn’t been badly treated, but the length of her residency in America was definitely a point of discussion.
“I left England when I was eleven years old. America has been my home for nearly fifteen years.” She couldn’t see their faces, and neither of them spoke, so she didn’t know whether they approved. “Now it is my turn for questions. What am I to call you?”
“Mrs. Claire’ll do nicely,” was the answer. “And before you ask your next question, I’ll answer it. I’ve lived in this country a long old while. Now, my turn again.” She was sharp witted. “Do you think you can help our Finbarr?”
“Yes,” Cecily said. “I know what it is to be in his place.”
“Oh, do you, now?” Tavish jumped in again.
Cecily turned her head in his direction. “Are you still here? I’d completely forgotten about you.”
Mrs. Claire laughed heartily. “You’ve wounded him, you have. No woman’s ever forgotten about Tavish when he was about. Handsome as they come. Humor to keep a lass smiling for days on end. Personable.”
“Judgmental,” Cecily added. “And entirely too sure of himself.”
“I believe we’ve something of a pot and kettle argument, Miss Attwater,” Tavish said. “I might’ve said much the same about you.”
“Ah, but you didn’t.” She turned her head in Mrs. Claire’s direction once more. “We’d best add ‘slow to enter his opinion in a conversation’ to your list of his attributes.”
Tavish’s feet shuffled as his silhouette paced a bit away. Cecily had encountered people before who’d taken an immediate dislike to her. She understood; having someone come into their lives with the express purpose of changing it often brought out people’s prickliness. She’d found that standing her ground from the beginning and showing them she was not to be intimidated generally set things on the appropriate footing. In time, her clients came to value her at the least, and generally decided to like her.
Mrs. Claire spoke into the somewhat awkward silence. “Off with you, Tavish. I’ll see to it Mr. Attwater settles in.”
Cecily suspected she’d be teased about being Mr. Attwater for the rest of her sojourn in Hope Springs. She looked forward to it; humor had seen her through many difficulties.
“Doesn’t she have any traveling trunks or bags or any such thing?” Mrs. Claire asked.
“They’re still over at my place,” Tavish said. “I’ll fetch them.”
“Leave ’em on the porch, lad. Cecily and I need a chance to become better acquainted, and I’ll not be needing you around jokin’ with me nor snippin’ at her.”
“Snipping at her? Is that what you think this is?” Tavish didn’t sound as though he agreed.
“Off with you.” Mrs. Claire left no room for argument.
A moment later, he was gone. Cecily didn’t know what to think of the Irishman. Not at all.
“Now, Cecily, answer me this: How is it you’ve found your way under Tavish’s skin so quickly?” That was certainly direct.
“My work here will disrupt his life,” she answered. “In my experience, that anticipated upheaval tends to put me on a difficult footing with people when we first meet.”
“I suppose.” The rocker continued to squeak. “Still, I can’t say I’ve ever known him to not take to someone straight off, even to those who didn’t care at all for him.”
“It seems I am destined to be the exception to the rule. He even objected to how closely I followed him on the journey over.” That worried her, truth be told. “If he is so impatient with the adaptations necessary for me to get about, how will he react when his brother is taught to utilize the same techniques?”
“I’d wager he’ll be more understanding with his brother,” Mrs. Claire said.
“Why, because he’s his brother?”
“Because he’s aware that his brother is blind.”
Cecily sat a moment in stunned silence. Surely Mrs. Claire was wrong. “He doesn’t know I am blind?” That seemed unlikely. “I undertook a long, drawn-out discussion with his family, then walked all the way here with him. I never mentioned it specifically, but he had to have realized.”
“You’ve quite a knack for appearing as though you see things and people,” Mrs. Claire said. “I m’self didn’t realize it until you lowered yourself into the chair. M’ dear husband couldn’t hardly see toward the end of his days.” Squeak. Squeak. “He’d reach out for the arms of a chair, then hold fast to them as he slowly turned about then lowered bit by bit, as if half-convinced his backside would miss the chair entirely. You did the same, only not as slowly.”
“My backside has missed a few chairs in its time.” She’d learned the importance of taking care.
“Are you entirely without sight?”
“Not entirely.” Not yet. “I can see shapes and outlines when there’s enough light. At a very close distance and with plenty of light, I can make out a few details.” Not nearly as many as she would have liked. Flowers had become nothing more than generally colorful blobs. Faces were little but the basic parts and, in just the right lighting, perhaps an eye color, if the bearer permitted her a very close inspection. She could read words written in large enough letters. Generally.
“And why do you suppose my dear Tavish thinks you wear those green spectacles?” Mrs. Claire asked.
“I have absolutely no idea.” He must think her mad. She rather liked the possibility.
“I’ve a grand idea, Cecily. A wonderfully, horribly grand idea.” Mrs. Claire’s voice held a note of mischief. “You move about as if you’ve a full view of the world. What a lark we’d have keepin’ Tavish thinking you can see and makin’ him wonder.”
The family at Cecily’s last job hadn’t been very keen on humor and laughter. She’d missed those things. “How long do you believe we could fool him?”
“Long enough for a laugh or two,” Mrs. Claire said. The rocking chair creaks came faster. “I’m looking forward to this.”
“I find I am, as well,” Cecily said. “Laughter is good for the soul.”
Another ponderous sound followed. “That will take some getting used to.”
“What will?” Cecily asked.
“An English voice in my house. The last time that happened, my family was being tossed off the land we’d worked for centuries.” Though accusation touched Mrs. Claire’s tone, it held plenty of wariness. “Our lives were ruined.”
“I haven’t come to ruin anyone’s life,” Cecily assured her.
“But you have come to change our lives. You said as much yourself.”
“And help Finbarr,” Cecily said. “My efforts will change his life for the better—all of the family’s lives for the better.”
The heaviest, tiniest moment passed. “We’ll see.”
Chapter Five
“Miss Attwater said you are to be out and awaiting her by eight o’clock,” Tavish warned his brother. “That’s in a mere five minutes.”
He stood at the opening to the alcove. Finbarr sat on the low bed. They’d already enacted their morning routine—Tavish buttoning the lad up, tying his shoes, combing his hair, and Finbarr standing mute the whole time. Now he wore his usual expression of barely concealed sorrow.
“You need only step out and drop yourself into the chair. You’ve done that every day as it is. You’re simply doing so on a schedule today.”
Finbarr didn’t move.
“At least come have some breakfast. It’ll do you good.”
“Maybe in a bit,” Finbarr answered quietly.
Tavish didn’t like the idea of Finbarr not eating. “I could bring it to you.”
Finbarr only shrugged. The lad was ceaselessly somber, lost in his thoughts. Tavish didn’t know what else to do, but Finbarr depended on him. He couldn’t give up.
A knock sounded from the front door.
“That’ll be the lady herself.” Tavish watched his brother for any change of expression. None. “Could you not at least bid her a good morning? It’s for your sake she’s come.”
“I didn’t send for her.” Finbarr turned away, his empty eyes facing the brick on the back of the fireplace. “I don’t need her; I’m not helpless.”
“Not a soul among us thinks that, lad.”
He shook his head, and in whispered tones muttered, “Everyone thinks that.”
A second knock prevented a response.
Finbarr would come out when he was ready. Miss Attwater would simply have to be patient.
Tavish left his brother in the alcove and crossed the house to the front door. He pulled it open. Miss Attwater stood on the threshold, a cane hooked over her wrist. She wasn’t alone. “Granny? What brings you all this way?”
“All this way, says he. Why, I can see the man’s house from mine. How is that ‘all this way,’ I’d like to know?”
“You know full well ’twasn’t the distance but the state of your bones and the nip in the air I referred to.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then stepped back so the women could come inside.
Granny took small steps across the room. How long must it’ve taken to make the journey from her house? Whenever she wished to go visiting, Tavish always took her in the buggy he shared with Ian. She didn’t walk well, nor fast, nor without pain.
“Were you fearful Miss Attwater couldn’t find her way here on her own?” Tavish offered them both a smile, though he couldn’t say for certain if Miss Attwater was truly looking at him. Her darkened spectacles kept her eyes well hidden. “As you said your own self, Granny, she can see my house from yours.”
“Can she now?” Granny’s answer sounded far too much like laughter. Even the stone-faced Miss Attwater bit back a smile. “You can see this house from ours, Cecily. Is that not a grand thing?”
“I can think of nothing grander.”
Tavish’s gaze moved from one of them to the other. A joke hovered between them as did a fair bit of tension. Beneath her humor, Granny, who never looked anything but entirely comfortable with everyone, dripped with wariness. She sat in the chair nearest the low-burning fire. Miss Attwater took up a position standing at the mantle.
“Now, where’s Finbarr taken himself?” Granny asked. “I’d hoped to see him. He’s not come by to visit me in weeks.”
Finbarr hadn’t “come by” anywhere in months, as Granny knew perfectly well. “The lad’s not ready to join us this morning.”
Miss Attwater turned her bespectacled gaze toward him, her expression no longer light and laughing. “You told him we were beginning at eight o’clock, did you not?”
“I did. He’s just needing a moment to reconcile himself to this.”
Surprise touched her expression. “He has had time and plenty for that.”
“I don’t expect you to comprehend the pain he’s going through, Miss Attwater.” He had, however, assumed she would have at least shown some sympathy; she made her living working with people in Finbarr’s situation. But he’d rather not pick a fight with her when he’d already spent the morning arguing with his brother.
“Rather, how could I possibly comprehend, is what you mean.” So very sure of herself, she was. “I’m merely a teacher for hire, a task master. What do I know of his struggles?”
“Seems you’ve summed things up nicely. Now that we understand one another—”
“Understand?” She stepped closer, moving in the same calculated, deliberate manner she’d employed the night before. So stiff. So haughty. “Believe me, Tavish O’Connor, I understand your brother’s situation far better than you ever will.”
“Do you, now? More than merely a teacher, you’ve the second sight, then?”
She laughed humorlessly. “I don’t even have the first sight.”
What did that mean?
Miss Attwater grasped her wooden cane firmly, the tip resting against the floor at least a foot in front of her. She turned her head back toward Granny. “In which direction is young Finbarr’s hidey hole?”
Hidey hole?
“I will not allow you to make light of his troubles,” Tavish warned.
She turned back to him. “And I will not allow you to coddle him into helplessness.”
“I've done nothing of the sort.”
She closed in. “I’ve witnessed the same situation dozens of times. A family sees a loved one struggling and cannot bear for him to be further injured, so they protect him, cushion him from any possible blow. And in doing so, they turn their loved one into a shell of a person. They destroy him, Mr. O’Connor. It is my job to undo that damage.”
“You’re accusing me of destroying my own brother?”
Granny whistled long and low. “I swear, the two of you are worse than a couple of Kilkenny cats. I don’t know whether to laugh at you or separate you for your own safety.”
Miss Attwater straightened her already ramrod posture. “Quite frankly, Mrs. Claire, I’m not overly concerned about Tavish. Where do I find Finbarr?”
Tavish swallowed back a retort. Though he'd have liked to set her straight on a thing or two, they needed to focus on Finbarr. Until he knew whether his best approach was to try to soften things a bit between himself and Miss Attwater or to meet her stubbornness with an equal measure of his own, he would do his best to keep the peace. “Finbarr’s in the alcove tucked behind the fireplace.”
She let out a puff of breath and turned to face Granny once more. “Would you mind giving me more detailed instructions? I don’t believe he’ll piece together this puzzle any time soon.”
Puzzle? He was missing something, and both women knew what.
“Walk somewhere approaching six feet to your left,” Granny said. “Then turn left and go near about as far again. On your left’ll be the alcove where Finbarr lays his head.”
Miss Attwater nodded. “Left. Left. Left. Thank you.”
She followed Granny’s instructions with precision. She kept the cane a bit in front of her, never placing any weight on it. The cane tip moved back and forth, brushing against a chair leg, then the edge of a rug, then the corner of the wall.
With a dawning as sudden as the firing of a gun, Tavish discovered the piece he’d been missing.
“There it is,” Granny said with a laugh. “The look I’ve been watching for.”
“She’s blind,” he said quietly.
“Very nearly. Though from what I’ve gathered, she hasn’t always been.”
A few paces shy of the alcove, Miss Attwater called back, “I’m blind, not deaf.”
Under his breath, Tavish muttered, “And certainly not mute.”
Miss Attwater didn’t respond as she disappeared around the corner.
“Will you survive having her in your home, then, Granny?”
She looked quite suddenly done in. “’Twas a cruel trick, lad, dropping a stranger at my door.”
&n
bsp; “You adjusted quickly when Katie was left to your keeping.” He was proud of the steadiness of his voice when speaking of his one-time sweetheart.
“’Twasn’t the same at all,” Granny insisted. “Katie wasn’t . . .” She searched about for the right word.
“Blind?” Tavish suggested.
Granny shook her head. “Miss Attwater’s so capable I’ve my doubts I’ll even notice her lack of sight.”
“English, then?”
“That is proving a bit uncomfortable. But it’s more than that. She’s . . . she’s very . . .”
“Top lofty?”
“Intimidating,” Granny said. “I’m not accustomed to being intimidated.”
He didn’t like the worry in her tone. “Is she unkind to you? I'll not countenance anyone mistreating you.”
“She’s not been unkind.”
Yet Granny didn’t look pleased. “If having her there makes you truly unhappy, I’ll make other arrangements.”
She gave a halfhearted nod.
Tavish took her hands in his. “If anything goes wrong, anything at all, I’ll make it right. I promise.”
She gave him a fond look. “You always do. You never could bear for anyone to be unhappy. ’Tis the reason Finbarr weighs so much on your heart.”
“Speaking of the poor, unhappy lad, I’d best go save m’ brother from the hobgoblin.” He made a show of squaring his shoulders. “If I don’t return, tell Ma I was brave to the bitter end. And have someone sing ‘Mo Ghille Mear’ at my wake.”
“Oh, Tavish.” Granny sighed his name. “’Tis a grand thing to hear you teasing again. You’ve not done enough of that these past months.”
“Let us hope my good humor lasts now that I’ve a banshee in my house.” There was a bit too much truth to that. Cecily wasn’t at all the soft-spoken and patient guide he’d expected of his brother’s tutor.
Tavish followed the same path Cecily had trod a moment earlier: left, left, left. Cecily had found the alcove and now stood facing it. Just how much could she see? Strange to think of someone as clearly independent as she was also being blind, or very nearly so.
“I am assuming, Finbarr,” she said, “your parents taught you better manners than to ignore someone who bids you good day. Shall I try again? Or do you mean to sulk in silence?” She certainly didn’t treat the lad with kid gloves, that was for sure and certain.
Love Remains Page 4
