She fumbled her way to the alcove. The spot was far enough removed from the kitchen corner to grant her a little privacy. However, Tavish followed her there.
“Are you upset, Cecily?” he asked. “We were only jesting. Finbarr’s not upset.”
“I know.” She didn’t turn back. A few more deep breaths were all she’d need, and she’d be composed enough to face him. “And I’m not upset.”
“But you looked it just now when you walked away.”
She thought quickly. “I was only mourning the loss of my cane. I’m bumping into things left and right without it.”
The smell of hay wafted about as he stepped up next to her. “You were upset before you took a single step. ’Twasn’t anything to do with knocking into that chair.”
“I’m not upset,” she insisted.
His hand rested warm on her arm. “Cecily?”
She turned the tiniest bit toward him. “I really am not. I was actually happy.”
“Do you often cry when you’re happy?” His incredulous tone nearly brought a laugh to the surface. Did men not understand the reality of happy tears?
She had regained much of her composure. Finbarr had remained at the table, distant enough that, if she lowered her voice, he wasn’t likely to overhear.
“I’ve been so worried about him,” she said quietly. “He’s been learning a great deal, but he still seems incredibly unhappy. So hearing him laugh—”
“I know it,” Tavish matched her volume. “I feel like I’m getting my brother back by bits. He’s been so far away for too long.”
She felt in control enough to turn to him more fully. “Finbarr will still have difficult days. A great many of them. But I finally feel hopeful that he’ll pull through his troubles.”
“This family’s been through a great many troubles.” He sighed. “It’d be nice for one of us to emerge happier on the other side.”
That was an unexpected thing to say. “Have you not emerged from your troubles happier, Tavish?”
He didn’t answer for a drawn-out moment. “I’ve ended wiser. That’s good enough.”
Good enough, perhaps, but not at all the same. Here, then, was another piece of the O’Connor family puzzle: Tavish, who teased and jested and laughed his way through most everything, was not happy.
Chapter Nineteen
Tavish came in from shoveling snow in the afternoon to find Cecily sitting at the kitchen table, leaning dangerously close to the lantern. “You’ll burn your face, lass.”
She straightened and tossed a folded piece of paper onto the table. “I can’t read it.”
“What is it?” He crossed to her.
“A letter from a former student.” She rubbed her forehead. “Usually, if I hold a paper close enough to a lantern and lean in, I can make out the words, but I’ve been trying for a couple of weeks now, and I can’t see the letters well enough.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said.
“I’m sorry to say it.”
Though her expression wasn’t pained or angry, it held a sadness that called out for comfort. Tavish leaned against the table. “Are you needing to talk to someone, Cecee?”
She shook her head firmly and without hesitation. “I’ll not burden you with my troubles.”
“’Tisn’t a burden to lend an ear,” he said. “I’m a fine listener.”
“When I finish pouring out all of my miseries, will you promise to make me laugh?”
He pressed his hand to his heart. “My word of honor.”
She stood and paced away, clutching her hands tightly in front of her. “My poor sight is the result of a disease, rather than an injury. This disease causes repeated episodes of vision loss. Usually when my vision begins deteriorating again, I experience pain—heavens, so much pain—but there hasn’t been any lately.”
“Pain in your eyes?” That sounded horrible.
She nodded, pacing back toward him. “Without pain, I’ve assumed my sight wasn’t slipping again. But I can’t read the letter, though I’ve tried over and over in different amounts of light. So it must be my vision after all.” Her next breath was slow and heavy. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “I’m not ready for more darkness yet, Tavish. There are so many things I haven’t seen yet.”
Oh, she needed cheering. She needed it badly. And he had promised to make her laugh. “For example, you’ve not seen my handsome face yet.”
A smile pulled at her lips. “Yes, that is what I am most hoping to see with my last bits of vision.”
“As well it should be.” He took the chair next to the one she’d been using. “Grown women have been known to swoon at the merest glimpse. Grown men have been consumed with envy.”
“What a burden to carry all these years.” Laughter touched her tone, so near the surface. What would it take to pull that laugh from her fully?
“I think I’ve borne it well. I’ve done the family name proud, which is the important thing.” He spoke as solemnly as he could manage. “Though I suppose food on the table and a roof over one’s head would come a very close second.”
“It is good to know you have your priorities straight.” She sat once more. Her smile was firmly in place. “Thank you.”
“For what, Cecee?”
She bumped his shoulder with hers. “For giving me a reason to smile when I felt like crying. That is a fine thing.”
“I’ve always felt that way, myself, though not everyone does.”
Katie, in fact, had found his jesting during difficult moments more frustrating than helpful. He’d been so helpless to see her through her troubles. Nothing he did had ever seemed to be what she’d wanted or needed.
He glanced at Cecily’s discarded letter. “The lettering on this note of yours is a bit faint. That may account for you not being able to make out the words.”
“Do you think so? And, please, say you do even if you don’t. I need a reason other than my inevitable blindness to explain this.”
“I do think so.”
She turned her head in his direction, those green spectacles of hers hiding her eyes as always. “Are you able to read it to me, by chance?”
Good grief. “Try to endure your shock, lass, but there are a few among the Irish who aren’t illiterate.”
She growled low in her throat, a sound he would never have expected to hear. “No one in this town is ever going to give me the benefit of the doubt, not even you.”
“You asked if I was able to read,” he reminded her. “A rather belittling question, you have to admit.”
She shook her head in clear frustration. “I meant, ‘Given all the work you have to accomplish around here, have you the time to read my letter to me, or are you too busy?’ Of course, why should you assume I meant something fair and reasonable when there is any possibility of interpreting my words in the most negative light possible? Where would be the triumph in that?” Her tone was as dry as a desert.
He wanted to insist that she was being unfair, that her people’s treatment of his more than warranted some wariness and assumptions on his part. When it came to being friends with an Irishman, the English . . . need not apply.
Need not apply. A phrase he knew all too well.
Saints, he was doing to her what so many had done to him and his countrymen. How often had he railed against the treatment the Irish endured in this new country? Yet he was treating her no better. He’d heard her manner of speech, learned of her English origins, and had promptly begun treating her as someone less than deserving of consideration.
“I’m sorry, Cecily.” He crossed to where she stood. “I’m letting old hurts color my view of you. ’Tis unfair of me.”
“It most certainly is.”
“I, honestly, am surprised you don’t seem to hold our Irishness against us,” he said. “This age-old animosity goes both ways.”
She shrugged a single shoulder. “I will admit I was not raised to have a favorable view of the Irish. But then I found myself part of a
group of people who had little power over our own destinies and who were too often at the mercy of those who cared not at all what fate awaited us.”
The blind, she meant.
“It opened my eyes, if you’ll pardon the expression. I found I could no longer cling to assumptions about others, many of whom were powerless and oppressed in their own ways.” She held her hands out in a show of acceptance. “I found myself hurting for them rather than blaming them for hurting. Compassion, I discovered, is a great equalizer.”
“And a great humbler,” Tavish added, feeling more than a little meek himself. “Will you forgive me, Cecee? For my comments just now, for the many unkind things I’ve said since you came, for fashionin’ you such an unfeeling nickname?”
“You don’t think ‘Your Majesty’ is fitting?”
“Not in the way I intended it to be.”
Her lips tightened. “I’m not certain that’s a better answer.”
He reached out and grabbed her discarded note. “I’ll read your letter to you if you’d still like me to.”
She kept her head turned in his direction, not so much as glancing at the letter. “You don’t mean to tell me in what way ‘Your Majesty’ is still fitting?”
“I’m determined to maintain my aura of mystery. ’Tis the most interesting thing about me.”
“I thought that was your handsome face,” she said.
He leaned closer and whispered, “It’s both.”
She laid her jaw on her upturned palm, her elbow on the table, almost smiling despite their disagreement. She had her share of worries and troubles, too many of which had been brought on by his family and the other Irish townspeople, yet she maintained a happy outlook. He liked that. He liked it a terrible lot.
“Now”—he turned his attention to the letter—“shall we see what this former student of yours has to say?”
“Yes, please.” Quick as that, she seemed to have forgiven him, at least a little.
“‘Dear Miss Attwater.’” He lowered the letter. “This student knows you’re a ‘miss.’ ’Tis more than we knew, you’ll recall.”
She shook her head, and, he’d wager, behind those spectacles, she rolled her eyes.
He returned to his reading. “‘I am learning to cook on the stove. Mother says I am doing very well. I am not supposed to light the fire, though, as Father says I’m not careful enough yet.’” He lowered the paper once more. He assumed a teasing tone. “Can’t light a fire? Can he tie his own shoes, I’d like to know. Our Finbarr managed that.”
“This student is only eight years old.”
“Excuses, Cecee. Eight years is old enough to be useful. I built the Crystal Palace in New York when I was eight years old.”
She yet rested her head against her hand. “You were a very industrious child.”
“Indeed. I’m no lay about sort of fellow, not like the lazy bones in this letter.”
She laughed. Only a moment earlier, he’d wondered if he could pull a laugh from her. The task had proven easier than he’d imagined. “Thomas is a dear boy. You speak kindly of him, you grumpy old man.”
“Be nice. I’m doing you a favor, you prickly old woman.”
She tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear. “I wish you’d been around the past few years, Tavish. I’ve needed someone to laugh with.”
“So’ve I.” Heavens, he had. Bridget had smiled and jested along with him. Even Katie had on occasion. But they were both gone, and he’d spent a far sight too many hours alone, searching for a reason to be happy again.
“What else does Thomas have to say?” Cecily asked.
He read her the rest of her letter, one filled with recounting lessons the boy had been diligently completing and a troublesome puppy that left hair all over the house. All in all, it was a sweet letter, one that spoke both of fondness and respect for Cecily as well as for the role she’d played in his life.
When Cecily told him that the boy had likely written the letter himself, a new surge of hope sprung up in Tavish. Finbarr could learn to write again as well. Perhaps he’d never read—Cecily herself struggled with that—but there seemed a great many things he could relearn to do if he was willing. And he had a capable teacher. A capable, kind, caring, beautiful . . . teacher.
Finbarr had said very little all afternoon. Cecily was certain he sat slouched in his chair, sulking. Despite his lighthearted moment with Tavish that morning, an afternoon of despondency was not unexpected. Her students fluctuated between hopeful and hopeless while they adjusted to their new lives. She had, herself. Still did on occasion.
“If the snow holds off and we manage to clear out the field beside Ma and Da’s place, we’ll be holding one last céilí.” Tavish said. “You should come, Finbarr.”
No response.
Cecily crossed to the fire. She held out her hands to warm them.
“What about you, Cecee? Would you come to the céilí?”
The laugh she attempted to hold back emerged as a snort. “I may be blind, but I’m not stupid. No one at the party wished me to be there. Returning would only make everyone miserable.”
“I’m certain—”
“Tavish, they sang a song about how terrible I am.” Surely he remembered that.
“Not you in particular.”
Did he truly think it was not intended to be personal? “They sang of the country of which I am considered a symbol. I half expected to discover I was to be burned in effigy.”
“We did have a large bonfire conveniently located nearby,” Tavish said.
As if agreeing, the fire currently located nearby popped.
Cecily turned enough to direct her next words to Finbarr. “I’ve been told you always enjoyed the céilís.”
He made an indecipherable noise.
She tried a different tactic. “What was your favorite part of the gatherings?”
“I don’t know.” He was back to muttering. Not a good sign.
“The storytelling?”
Another wordless noise.
“The music? Do you play an instrument?”
“No,” Finbarr said.
“You do so,” Tavish interjected. “The lad plays the penny whistle.”
“Not anymore,” Finbarr muttered.
Here was another insight in to his struggles. “Do you no longer play because of your eyes? You can still play without clear sight, you know.”
“How?” It was as much a demand as a sincere question.
“The same way you tie your shoes: by feel and sound.” That had not emerged quite right. “The whistle by sound I mean, not the shoes.”
He didn’t respond, and she couldn’t see him well enough to know if he’d shrugged or nodded or brushed her words aside.
“Did you ever dance at the céilís?” she asked Finbarr. “A young man your age must have enjoyed taking a young lady in his arms for the length of a tune.”
Finbarr remained firmly entrenched in his silence.
“In case you’re curious,” Tavish said, “the lad’s blushing like a schoolgirl.”
She’d hit the nail on the head, then. It wasn’t the penny whistle that kept him away. He’d attended the céilís to socialize and woo young ladies. But how did a blind man dance if he couldn’t see the other couples or the boundaries of the dancing floor?
“I’m not sure how to help with that,” she admitted. “As a woman, I don’t have the same trouble. I can rely on my partner’s lead to keep me from wandering too far afield.”
“Do you dance, Cecee?”
“You’ve asked me that before,” she reminded him.
“But you didn’t really answer,” he shot back. “Do you dance?”
“I do, and I’m told I am not terrible at it.”
“Shall we see if she’s as ‘not terrible’ as she claims, Finbarr?” The chair squeaked as Tavish stood. “We’ve a decent amount of open room here. Finbarr’d whistle a tune for us, I’m sure. And I happen to be a very fine dancer.”
“Is he exaggerating, Finbarr?”
“All I will say is the lasses have been lining up for years, and they keep coming back. Dancing with him can’t be too miserable an experience for them.”
She was feeling uncharacteristically cheeky. “I’ve heard about the Catholic adherence to the need for paying penance. Perhaps dancing with him is an act of purifying punishment.”
“Oh, now you’ve set m’ pride on the line, you have.” Tavish was up next to her in an instant. He took her hand. “You’ll be begging my pardon after a single turn about the room.”
“Or begging you to stop,” she suggested.
“Whistle something sweet and slow, Finbarr. Cecee here’s going to be danced with.” He slid his right arm around her waist and took her right hand in his left.
“You haven’t told me yet which dance we’re dancing.”
“The waltz, you loon,” he said in tones of mock scolding. “What other dance lets a fellow hold a woman like this?”
“And that’s why you like it?”
His face filled the space beside hers with warmth and the musky scent of his shaving lotion. “In this moment, I’m liking it very much.”
“You are a tease.”
“And you enjoy it, dear,” he whispered. Then he called out to his brother. “The Beardless Boy. Nice and steady.”
Finbarr obliged. Tavish swept Cecily into the dance without the slightest catch in his step or hesitation in his movements. Sometimes she’d found that trusting her partners to be mindful of her inability to see her surroundings was a difficult thing. In those cases, she spent the length of the song tense and worried, anticipating a painful collision or stumble at any moment.
She waited for that feeling to come with Tavish. It didn’t. After a moment, she simply relaxed and let him lead her about the room. For the first time in a very long while she didn’t constantly evaluate every sound, every smell. She didn’t have to worry about the clues she’d missed or if she was navigating the world safely. She trusted him enough to simply enjoy the dance.
Love Remains Page 15
