Longing for Home: A Proper Romance

by Eden, Sarah M.

  “Everything will work out in the end, Katie. You’ll see.”

  “How can you know that?” She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding herself against the worry building inside. She had no such surety of a happy ending. Few things in her life had “worked out in the end.”

  She felt him kiss the top of her head. She closed her eyes and pushed out a tense breath, slow and deliberate. This man, who often teased her mercilessly, was showing himself capable of remarkable tenderness.

  She turned enough to lean her head against his shoulder, though she kept her arms around herself. His arms slipped about her, and he pulled her close.

  “I grow so tired of everything falling apart,” she whispered.

  Tavish rubbed her back in slow, gentle circles. “Well, you’ve a great many people who’d happily help you put those pieces back together.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  An odd mingling of hope and desperation drove Katie through the next week. She continued to bake all the day long on Tuesdays and Thursdays, filling every order that came her way. The late hours of night and earliest moments of morning found her scrubbing and cleaning and working at the housekeeping duties that wouldn’t fit between the kneading and rising and baking.

  Come Friday night at the end of her first month of bread deliveries, Katie could hardly piece two thoughts together. She stood at the kitchen sink scrubbing out the pan she’d accidentally burnt the Archers’ dinner in. Her mind cried out for rest, her body aching and complaining right along. She’d not slept more than four hours in any of the nights that week.

  More than her exhaustion weighed on her. Joseph Archer had hardly spoken a word to her since refusing to grant her any extra time to find a different roof to live under. Truth be told, they were both doing a fine job of avoiding each other. She didn’t tell him that Red Road folks were coming by in bigger numbers, taking even more time to watch what she did. She didn’t tell him how much it hurt that he wanted to be rid of her so quickly and so entirely.

  Someone down the Irish Road would take her in. Someone would accept a mere pittance in exchange for giving her a roof and an oven. She worked very hard to convince herself of that. ’Twas her only hope for a future in Hope Springs, something she wanted more and more all the time.

  What am I to do, Eimear? I don’t want to be living in the ditches again. The thought haunted her more with each passing day.

  Katie scrubbed ever harder at the pan. The work made her feel eight years old again, working in the kitchen in Derry, trying so hard to do the work set out for her despite her exhaustion and the pain of the housekeeper’s beatings. In her thoughts she’d pleaded with her father to come back for her, hoping he’d somehow hear her silent begging all the way to Belfast. She’d spent those early nights wrapped in a thin wool blanket under the scullery table, crying in her loneliness. How often Eimear’s tiny, angelic face had entered her thoughts in those quiet, still hours of night.

  “’Tis your fault she’s dead,” Katie had told herself night after night. “No one will weep for you but your own self.”

  In time the tears had dried, but the ache remained. Only when weariness or worry stacked too high before her to see any glimmer of light beyond did she feel the need again to cry.

  She’d reached that point the night before. Overwhelmed by exhaustion and a deep, deep loneliness, she dropped into a chair in the kitchen and wept. But with the morning had come the necessity of pulling herself together again and hiding her pain as she’d learned to do so long ago. Joseph didn’t want her around. Tavish didn’t come to see her. She would have to carry this burden on her own shoulders.

  Katie turned her attention to Emma, reading at the work table as she’d begun doing most evenings.

  “Are you wanting another cookie, Miss Emma?” Katie had trained herself to say cookie instead of biscuit, though the word still sounded odd to her ears.

  Emma shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  The girl was lonely, painfully so. For that reason as much as any other, she welcomed Emma to the kitchen and saw to it Emma knew she liked having her there. She hoped the new housekeeper would see that need in Emma and give her the kindness and attention she needed.

  “You seem to be nearly finished with your book. Have you enjoyed it?”

  “I have.” Her words were often oddly formal and correct for one so young. That likely hadn’t helped her make friends. Children who sounded like adults often didn’t fit in either world. “Papa ordered another book for me in his last telegram to Baltimore. That was almost a month ago. He said it should arrive in a week or so.”

  “It is a fine thing your father taught you to read.” She set Emma’s plate and glass down in the sink beside the soaking pot.

  “Papa said reading is a gift.”

  Katie nodded. She could hear Joseph saying that. He had something of a philosophical bent, a quiet wisdom. She would miss that when she left. He might not have liked the idea of her staying, but she’d come to love working in his house.

  “My father told me music was a gift.” She remembered out loud.

  Emma slipped the ribbon she used to mark her place in her book and closed it. “Do you like to play your violin?”

  “I do.”

  Emma’s face creased in confused concentration. “But you don’t play it anymore.”

  She hadn’t, in fact, played in some weeks. But how did Emma know that?

  As if hearing the question Katie didn’t speak, Emma went on. “You used to sit out by the river and play. I opened my bedroom window, and Ivy and I listened to your music.”

  She’d had an audience and never realized it. “I hope I didn’t keep you awake.”

  Emma shook her head. “The music was pretty.”

  “Thank you, Miss Emma.” Katie took a seat near her, too tired to continue standing.

  “One of the songs you played made me think of my mother.” Emma made the admission in a quiet, hesitant voice, as if unsure how Katie would react to it.

  Katie laid her hand gently on Emma’s where it rested on the table. “Did it, now?”

  Emma nodded. “I listened to it and closed my eyes. I could see her dancing in a beautiful gown. She was very pretty.”

  “I know.” Katie squeezed the girl’s fingers. “I’ve seen her portrait on the mantle and the little photograph you have of her in your bedroom. She was beautiful.”

  Emma lowered her eyes and pulled a bit into herself. “I don’t remember her as much as I used to.”

  “Oh, sweet child.” Katie slipped her other hand beneath their clasped ones, encircling the small hand in both of hers.

  Emma looked at her again, her face filled with pleading. “Would you play that song for me?”

  “Of course I will. Do you remember the tune at all?”

  Emma shook her head. “But I would know it if I heard it.”

  “Come, then.” Katie stood but kept Emma’s hand in hers. “We’ll stumble on it if we put ourselves to the task.”

  They walked into Katie’s room. She motioned for Emma to hop onto her bed while she pulled out her neglected fiddle. The task of tuning would take but a few moments.

  “Was it slow or fast?” she asked as she adjusted the strings.

  “Somewhere in the middle, I think.”

  Katie nodded, though the answer wasn’t very helpful. “Did it have a sad sound to it, like a song that would make a person cry, or was it happy, something to make you cheerful?”

  Emma pulled her legs up in front of her and wrapped her arms around them. “A little bit sad.”

  So likely not a jig or a reel. An air or a waltz, perhaps.

  “What do you say I play some tunes, and you let me know when I’ve hit upon the right one?”

  Emma nodded.

  Katie began with “Achill Air.” But it wasn’t the tune Emma wished for. She played through “Forneth House,” “Irish Lamentation,” “Gaelic Air,” and “The Gentle Maiden.” At the end of each, Emma shook her head.
None was the song she wanted to hear, but she didn’t stop Katie’s playing. Instead, she settled in, snuggling into the corner of the bed. Katie made herself quite comfortable at the head of the bed.

  The plaintive notes of “The Dawning of the Day” brought sadness into Emma’s eyes, but not the recognition that would have accompanied the tune she waited for. Katie had chosen more lamenting songs, as those best fit Emma’s description. But she disliked the way they’d depressed Emma’s spirits.

  She let the tune end early and moved immediately to a quick and vigorous rendition of “The Irish Washerwoman.” Emma sat up straight in her surprise. A smile crept across her lips, growing as Katie played each verse faster than the last. When finally Katie could play no faster and had to end the song, Emma was grinning. ’Twas Ivy, however, who spoke.

  “That was my favorite of all of them.” She sat in the doorway, her legs crossed and her head resting against in the doorframe.

  “How long has Ivy been sitting there?” Katie asked Emma, she having a better view of the door.

  “For a few songs. May she come sit here as well?”

  “Certainly.”

  Emma waved her sister inside. Ivy stopped at the bedside, wide eyes turned up to Katie. “Will you play a song we can dance to?”

  How could Katie help but smile at the girl’s eagerness? “What kind of dancing were you wanting to do?”

  “Spinning and hopping.” She emphasized her words by acting them out. The littlest Archer never seemed to stop moving. So different she was from Eimear, who’d been quiet and still even before illness and hunger laid her low.

  “Spinning and hopping, is it to be? I believe you’re needing a reel, then.”

  Katie herself had danced to “Úna Bean Uí Chuinneagáin” when she was no older than Ivy. ’Twas an old traditional Donegal tune.

  Ivy took to the music in an instant, dancing about Katie’s room with a broad grin on her face. After a moment, Emma slid off the bed and took up the dance as well.

  The girls spun about, hands clasped. Katie smiled to watch them, even as an aching loneliness settled once more in her heart. Might she and Eimear have danced that way had her sister regained her strength?

  “Another! Another!” Ivy clapped her hands together in excitement.

  Emma grinned and giggled. Katie couldn’t say she’d ever heard Emma laugh. The sound alone was worth battling her own exhaustion to keep playing.

  “More spinning?” Katie asked.

  Both girls nodded eagerly. They danced about to “Cailíní Ard a’ Ratha” but began to tire partway through “The Foxhunters Jig.” Katie slowed the tempo again with “Celia O’Gara.” Both girls settled back on the bed, curled up at the foot of it, listening.

  She could hardly countenance how much she’d feared being around the girls. She’d quickly come to treasure them. If only Joseph would let her stay a bit longer.

  Katie’s arms had long since begun to ache. “I’m sorry we didn’t find the song you wished for,” she said to Emma, keeping her voice low. The girls were nearly asleep.

  Emma didn’t open her eyes. “We can try again another time.”

  Katie leaned back against the brass headboard and let her arms and fiddle rest at her side. Though she’d played herself nearly to exhaustion, Katie was grateful to have taken up her instrument again.

  “Will you play one more?” Emma asked.

  “Certainly.”

  There was nothing for it but to play the song she always finished with, the tune her father had played every night as she’d fallen asleep.

  Katie breathed out the tension in her. She set her fiddle once more beneath her chin and closed her eyes. The very first note of “Ar Éirinn” took her back through time as it always did. Brennan, Danny, Mother, Father, and little Eimear all danced in and out of her thoughts. Their faces were not so firm in her memory as they’d once been. She could no longer recall the sound of her brothers’ voices nor the color of their mother’s eyes.

  What things had they forgotten about her? Did they remember her at all?

  The tears she’d fought all day fell hot and wet down her cheeks. Well she understood Emma’s heartache at realizing she’d begun to forget someone so important to her as her mother. If she hadn’t taken so long to earn the money she needed, her family could have been together again, and no one would have been forgotten.

  Joseph stood in Katie’s doorway, watching the tranquil scene. His girls had fallen asleep to the sound of Katie’s music. They were at ease with her, happy and content in her company. Yet, while the girls slumbered peacefully, tears rolled down Katie’s face. He stepped inside, unsure what he could say or do. She likely wouldn’t welcome him, as it was. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms the last time they truly spoke.

  He’d thought back on that conversation several times, wishing he had found a way to explain the situation without hurting her feelings. The moment she’d suggested staying on an extra month or more, his entire frame had tensed. He’d lose his mind trying to stay indifferently friendly. He’d fallen in love with her. But telling her so was entirely out of the question.

  She lowered her fiddle and opened her eyes. A look of dismay crossed her face. Clearly she didn’t want him there. He searched his mind for an appropriate explanation and a parting comment.

  Katie didn’t say anything. She didn’t insist he leave or scold him for coming in the first place. She silently set down her bow and swiped at her cheeks, the movement quick and embarrassed. Perhaps she was more uncomfortable with her tears than with him.

  Joseph crossed to the head of the bed. She looked miserably unhappy. He pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her, but her tears only picked up pace.

  “Please take it,” he said quietly.

  She accepted his square of linen and dabbed at her wet cheeks. They’d hardly spent a moment in the same room over the past week. The air around them radiated their mutual discomfort. Joseph had no idea how to get back what little ease they’d once had with each other. Confessing the entire reason for letting her go would likely only make things worse. He’d seen for himself how naturally she’d turned to Tavish O’Connor in her moment of disappointment.

  He would content himself with doing what he could to help her. He reached for the bow and took it up along with her fiddle. He set the instrument carefully in its case, left open on her dressing table.

  Why was she weeping? He’d seen her upset and frustrated and, at times, noticeably emotional. But he’d not once seen her cry.

  “Did the girls upset you?” He hoped they hadn’t.

  “No. They’re such sweet little angels.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed beside his sleeping daughters. “Am I to assume, then, you’re no longer deathly afraid of these ‘sweet little angels’?”

  She smiled a bit at that. He hadn’t spied so much as a hint of a smile from her in days. Seeing it eased some of the weight he carried.

  “I was never afraid of them,” Katie said, “only afraid I’d break them or misplace them or something.”

  She wiped another tear from her face with his handkerchief. They were falling slower but hadn’t stopped. The girls hadn’t upset her. Then what? He didn’t think she would have hesitated to tell him if he had caused her tears. The only other possibility was the music.

  “Is it the song that makes you sad or is it playing the song?”

  She sat silently thoughtful a moment. “Both, I suppose.”

  She pulled her legs up next to her. The girls yet slept at the foot of the bed. Joseph shifted so he faced her more directly. Did she have any idea how much he worried about her, how much he’d missed talking with her the past week?

  “My father played that song every night.” She blinked hard several times, likely trying to stop the tears that still gathered in her eyes. “I would fall asleep listening to it.”

  “Does the song have words?”

  “Aréir is mé téarnamh um neoin . . .”
The words drifted off, a look of uncertainty on her face as her eyes met his. “The lyrics are Gaelic.” She said it as something of an apology.

  “That wasn’t English?” He knew he didn’t have the O’Connors’ knack for teasing and joking. She did seem to appreciate his attempt, at least. “What do the words mean?”

  “I don’t know that I can translate word for word.” Katie pinched at her lower lip, her brow furrowing.

  Joseph fought back a smile but found doing so hard in the face of how appealing she was when thinking so hard.

  “’Tis the story of a man who falls in love with the woman of his dreams.”

  He doubted she had any idea how fully she’d captured his attention with that brief description.

  “But they can’t be together,” Katie continued. “So he loves her in silence. He won’t even whisper her name in order to spare her the pain of a hopeless love.”

  A hopeless love. He let his gaze drift away from her face. “What keeps them apart? Does she not love him in return?”

  “I believe their circumstances prevented it. Perhaps their families would not have approved, or she was promised to another.”

  “Or perhaps something about their situation made it impossible,” he said. That scenario struck far too close to home. “That is a sad song, Katie.”

  “But it was so beautiful when my father played it.” Her voice filled with longing and the real sound of emotion bubbling again. “I’m sorry to have turned so weepy tonight. I only ever cry when I’m tired.”

  He shook his head. She didn’t need to make excuses for her very understandable tears. She’d made clear her music made her think of her father. “Being separated from family is a difficult thing. Do you ever write to them, or they to you?”

  “On rare occasions. I’ve had word from my mother a few times since we were separated. Their priest in Belfast writes her words down. She even wrote once while I was in Baltimore.”

  He knew she’d lived in Baltimore over two years. Had she truly only heard from her mother once in that time? No wonder she always seemed so lonely.