Love Remains

by Sarah M. Eden

  “Don’t be surprised if I tell your family about your mischief.”

  “Traitor,” he muttered in unison with her, and then she joined in as he laughed.

  Granny’s rattling cough pulled his attention. He watched her frail shoulders shake with effort.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” he whispered.

  Cecily, her hand still in his, whispered, “She has begun coughing at night. I bring her water, but it doesn’t seem to help.”

  Not for the first time, Tavish wished Hope Springs had a doctor. “I don’t know how to help her either. I’ve not the slightest bit of medical training.”

  Cecily wrapped her arm around his. “I’ve been bemoaning the same gap in my education.”

  “At times, Cecee, I can’t understand a word you say.”

  She bumped him with her shoulder. “Says the man who doesn’t always speak entirely in English.”

  “Tavish,” Ma’s voice snapped.

  On instinct, Tavish dropped Cecily’s hand. She must have felt the same moment of panic; she hastily unwrapped her arm from his.

  “What can I do for you, Ma?”

  She stopped directly in front of them both. “I’m needing to speak with Miss Attwater.”

  Then why was he being scolded? The answer, of course, was that he was being friendly with the enemy. The O’Connors might be helping with Finbarr’s dilemma, but that didn’t mean they felt any different about her as a person. He’d generally seen the family’s stubbornness as a strength, but seeing them hold fast to their notions about Cecily made him wonder if perhaps stubbornness wasn’t their greatest weakness after all.

  Cecily remained as unruffled as ever. “What can I do for you, Mrs. O’Connor?”

  “Granny says you’re teaching Finbarr to read and write.”

  Cecily clutched and unclutched her fingers. She took what sounded like a fortifying breath and pushed onward. “In a manner of speaking, yes. He already knows how to read and write; I am simply teaching him how to ‘see’ words with his fingers.”

  “This book”—Ma held up a thick volume—“is made with the special printing that you are teaching him?”

  “It likely is. I left one of my books on the table this afternoon.”

  “Would you show me how it works?”

  Cecily’s brows shot upward. For a moment, she neither spoke nor moved. Then, slowly, she turned her head in Tavish’s direction. “I’ll need you to hold the book for me, as I require both hands to read. Open to any page you’d like.”

  Tavish took the book, opened it up, and held it out flat for her. The pages were covered in dots, but not dots made of ink. They were made of paper, paper pressed upward. She found the book, and then her fingers slid lightly over the pages to the left-hand side. Then, ever so carefully, she ran the pads of her fingers over the paper.

  She read aloud.

  “What though on homely fare we dine,

  Wear hoddin grey and all that,

  Give fools their silks and knaves their wine,

  A man’s a man for all that.”

  “Robert Burns.” Amazement touched Ma’s words.

  Cecily nodded. “My childhood home sat very near the Scottish border. I was raised with a love of Burns.”

  If her kind words for a Scotsman softened Ma’s opinion of her, it didn’t show. “And those dots are words? You can read them?”

  “Yes. I can read four different systems of raised type. This one, I think, is the most useful and efficient.”

  Ma’s gaze became intent on Cecily’s face. “And Finbarr could learn to read it?”

  “He is learning it—both how to read and write it,” she answered. “He isn’t proficient yet, but that will come.”

  “Do you think—?” Ma took a breath, apparently uncertain of what she meant to ask. “Do you think . . . I could learn it?”

  Ma? Asking Cecily to teach her? Volunteering to spend time with her enemy? Tavish could’ve been knocked down with a feather, so great was his shock.

  Cecily simply answered, “Yes.”

  “Learning to write it would mean I could write a letter or a note to him, and he could read it.” Ma hadn’t looked away from Cecily.

  “I am teaching him to write in ink as well, so he could write to you that way. But if you learn to decode the dots, he could write to you in this method, which I have found is easier for those with poor vision.”

  “Life has been hard enough for the lad,” Ma said. “I want to be part of making it better.”

  Cecily showed not a hint of begrudging Ma the suspicions and unkindnesses she’d been shown. How she’d endured his family without turning bitter, Tavish couldn’t say.

  “This will help,” Cecily said. “The blind so often feel a barrier between themselves and the sighted world. He ought not feel that with his own family.”

  Was that part of the chasm Tavish had felt over the last year? Finbarr sat in a world apart from them, one they didn’t fully understand. Perhaps they weren’t the only ones unsure how to bridge that gap. Perhaps Finbarr felt as helpless as they did.

  “I want to learn,” Ma said earnestly. “We are not wealthy people; we haven’t the means of paying for additional lessons. But I could knit you a scarf—I notice the one you use is not very thick. I can’t imagine it’s warm enough. Or I could bake your favorite sweet or cook a meal. Or do all of those things. Whatever you deem fair.”

  “Mrs. O’Connor.” Cecily reached out and somehow managed to set her hand on Ma’s arm with her first attempt. More miraculous still, Ma didn’t pull away. “I consider myself more than a teacher of skills. My goal is always to give back what blindness has taken from the people I teach. Their freedom, their futures, their families. Giving you this connection to him, and him this connection to you, is part of why I am here.”

  Ma’s eyes turned a telling shade of red. Her lips, pressed tightly together, quivered noticeably. She nodded her silent understanding and acceptance of Cecily’s words of reassurance and compassion.

  “She’s nodding,” Tavish whispered, knowing Cecily wouldn’t see it.

  Cecily gave a quick nod of her own. “Would you like to learn along with Finbarr—attend his lessons—or separately, on your own?”

  A hint of excitement touched Ma’s features, something Tavish hadn’t seen in over a year. “I’d like to surprise him. Simply write him a letter one day.”

  “I think that is a lovely idea.” Cecily’s enthusiasm dampened, however. “To write in Braille—that is the name of this system—one must have a special stylus and stencil. I have mine and the set I gave to Finbarr, but I don’t have another.”

  “Perhaps if I were to show m’ husband the contraption, he could manage to think of something to take its place.”

  “Certainly.” Cecily turned to Tavish. “I’ll need help navigating the room with so many people here.”

  “I’m fairly reliable,” he said. “Leave it to me, dear. I’ll see you safely over the passage.”

  “You stay here, Tavish.” Ma left no room for disagreement. Recognizing Cecily was a good teacher didn’t make her any less English. “I’ll go with Miss Attwater.”

  The two women left and had only been gone a fraction of a moment when Katie, who had apparently been nearby the entire time, spoke up. “Do you suppose Cecily would teach Joseph this writing method? ’Twould likely help the two of them in their work.”

  “I’m certain she would.”

  Ian stepped closer as well. “Would she teach me?”

  “Aye.” The eyes of many in the family were on him, all asking the same question. “I’ve no doubt she’ll teach anyone who cares to learn. We need only help her fashion the needed equipment.”

  Excitement, curiosity, and determination all flitted across the faces around him. They were eager and unified and facing a problem directly.

  Tavish met Granny’s eye. She gave him a nod of approval. He felt, as she so clearly did, that though far from whole, his stubborn, worried, fearful
family was finally beginning to heal.

  Chapter Thirty

  Tavish felt like quite the rebel slipping over to Granny’s while Finbarr was at Joseph Archer’s. He’d done so the past two days with Finbarr’s Braille stencil and stylus in hand, having nipped them after Finbarr had left for the day. He and Cecee had work to do.

  She opened the door and motioned him inside. “Has he noticed yet?” Cecily didn’t need to say who.

  “I’ve been careful to leave the contraption just as I found it. I must be doing a fine job, because Finbarr’s not said a word.”

  She pushed out a relieved breath, turning back to the table where she’d laid out all the needed supplies. With her back turned, he pulled from behind his back the item he’d hidden there. He meant it to be a surprise.

  “I can appreciate your family’s desire to make this a pleasant surprise for Finbarr,” she said, moving to the table. “But attempting to teach—how many are we up to now, an even dozen?—to read and write Braille without him being the wiser, and when my stencil and stylus are not available, is proving a bit tricky.”

  “Ah, but ’tis a fine excuse for me to come over and banter a bit with you. Surely that’s worth a bit of bother.”

  “And a fair bit of bother it is, to be sure.” Heavens, but she could manage an Irish manner of speaking when she decided to. She pulled her chair away from the table. “Shall we set to work?”

  “But first, I’ve brought something for you.”

  “You have?”

  Tavish set Finbarr’s Braille slate on the table near her stack of thick parchment. He held out a long, rough-hewn walking stick. “’Tis nothing fancy. I hadn’t a spare broomstick, so I made it from a tree limb. It’s a bit crooked, but I’m hoping it’ll prove a usable substitute until Jeremiah Johnson can order you a proper one.”

  Her gaze was fully on the stick, though he felt certain she couldn’t truly see it. Nothing in her expression told him whether she was pleased or put out.

  “You’ve said your stick is important to your independence, and I’ve noticed you don’t leave the house as often as you once did.”

  She reached out and touched the stick. Perhaps she could see it after all. She ran her fingers down the length of the branch he’d meticulously sanded. How he hoped he hadn’t missed any spots. His offering would be far less welcome if it left splinters in her hands.

  “It’s not perfectly straight,” he said again when her silence pulled long. “I hope it’ll still work.”

  Cecily looked up at him once more. “You’ve given me back my freedom.” Her voice broke a little on the words.

  “I’m a rather wonderful fellow, aren’t I?”

  She set her hand tenderly to the side of his face then raised up on her toes and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. “You are a very ‘wonderful fellow,’ Tavish O’Connor.”

  He cleared his throat of a sudden thickness. He could do nothing to stop the pounding that had taken hold of his pulse. Cecily had stood close before. He’d held her as they’d danced. But this moment held more affection than any previous one had.

  Either she particularly liked her cane, or she particularly liked him. For his part, he hoped both were true.

  Cecily stepped away and set her cane ahead of her as he’d seen her do with her old one. “Once the Johnsons have finished Finbarr’s cane, I can begin teaching him to use it. That will open up possibilities for him.”

  How quickly she returned to the tasks before her. What would it take to convince her to set aside her responsibilities, even for a few minutes, and simply talk, as they’d once done? He’d missed their conversations, her endearing way of jumping from earnest to jesting, from topics of importance to amusing anecdotes.

  Cecily felt along the tabletop until she found the slate and stylus he’d placed there. She took her seat and leaned her stick against the table. She ran her finger along the edges of the wooden slate, finding the screws holding the long metal stencil in place and, with a precision a sighted person would be hard-pressed to possess, slid the stencil to the top of the slate and screwed it in place once more. She pulled a sheet of paper from the stack and slid it between the metal stencil and the slate beneath.

  She took up the stylus and made quick work of her first line of pressed printing. Her efforts moved from right to left, something Tavish imagined would take some getting used to. She unscrewed and moved the stencil down a bit, then quickly pressed out the second line. He watched the graceful movement of her hands, the confidence of her speed, the determination in her posture. She was something of a marvel, truth be told.

  As she worked, Tavish sat next to her and prepared his pen, ready for the task she’d given him the day before as well. She freed the paper from the slate and flipped it over, the dots raised on that side. She laid the sheet between them on the tabletop. Her fingers found the uppermost set on the left.

  “A,” she confirmed.

  He leaned over and carefully wrote the letter in the space just above the dots that represented it.

  “B.”

  This was their method. She made the alphabet in Braille. He wrote it out in longhand after she confirmed it was in the right place and that she hadn’t made an error. They’d completed several sets the day before and meant to finish today. These were keys to be used by the sighted members of the family while they learned the coded language. She insisted they make extras should anything happen to the originals, or should others decide they wanted to learn.

  “You enjoy this,” he said as they finished up the first sheet. “You’ve seldom been so close to giddy as you have been the past days while we’ve worked on these.”

  “This writing system, and others like it, give the blind back a bit of their lives. Bringing these miracles to them is my passion. Too many are lost in darkness with no one to show them the light.”

  He set aside the completed paper and took her hand in his, raising it to his lips and pressing a kiss to her fingers. She blushed so red ’twould’ve put his raspberries to shame, were they yet on the vine.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  He couldn’t help a jesting reply, not only because that’s what came most natural to him, but also because he knew she’d appreciate it. “I thought that was the proper way to finish making one of these keys. Dots. Ink. Kiss.”

  She laughed unabashedly. “If that’s the case, I may be able to convince more sighted people to learn Braille.”

  “Perhaps schools for the blind could use that to advertise and increase their enrollment. ‘Come get an education—and a kiss now and then.’”

  “Oh, good heavens.” She shook her head as she often did when he was teasing her, with her lovely smile firmly in place. “That would cause quite the scandal, seeing as most students are very young. I was only eleven.”

  “You were away from your family at eleven?” He couldn’t imagine having been separated from his at so young an age.

  “I’d already lost my mother, and the family never felt whole after that. I suppose my time at school didn’t feel much lonelier than I had been surrounded by the silence of my father’s breaking heart.”

  A heaviness settled over him. “Losing a loved one leaves a vast void in a person’s soul.”

  She held more tightly to his hand. “You, a chara, have lost more than your share of loved ones.”

  “But you are giving me back Finbarr,” he said. “And for that, I cannot thank you enough.”

  She rotated on her chair and faced him more fully, though he knew her eyes, hidden behind her colored spectacles, could not actually see him. “Has Finbarr spoken of the fire or the little girl who died? He is progressing in many respects, but I worry a great deal about that. He hasn’t mourned what happened that day, and that burden takes a terrible toll.”

  “I don’t know that he has. The O’Connors are good at many things, but grieving isn’t one of them.”

  “Granny doesn’t often speak of Bridget,” Cecily said. Hearing that name agai
n didn’t pierce him the way it usually did. “I think she is afraid to; she doesn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Thinking about Bridget is painful,” he admitted, rising from his chair and slipping his hand from hers. “I don’t often allow myself the memories, let alone speak of her.”

  “I’m a very good listener,” Cecily said. “If you’d like to try.”

  Try speaking of Bridget? Could he manage such a thing? To his surprise, he found himself wanting to make the attempt.

  “She was two years younger than I. So very sweet and happy. She was . . . it was as if someone had captured pure sunshine in a jar, and she carried it about with her. A person simply couldn’t be unhappy in her company.”

  “That is a rare and beautiful quality,” Cecily said.

  “’Twas, indeed.” He forced himself to breathe, to push ahead. Talking about Bridget didn’t break him the way he’d expected it to, but neither was it proving easy. “I don’t know that we ever disagreed about anything. Looking back, I can’t say if that was because we shared the same opinions or because we were both young and relatively unacquainted with the world. Perhaps neither of us had the heart to risk undoing the almost magical quality of our connection.”

  Cecily offered no insights or guesses. She simply remained in her chair, facing him, listening.

  “Six years ago, at the last céilí of the season, she agreed to marry me.” He paced a bit away. “Not a month later, she was gone, dead of a fever, buried alongside all her family except Granny.” He swallowed the emotion that quickly rose at the spoken memory of one of the worst times in his life. “My homeland had been taken from me, as had my grandparents and two older brothers. Half this town died of that fever, and the woman I loved had as well. I was more than sad, more than brokenhearted. I was . . . lost.”

  “You were lost or you are?” Cecee asked.

  He rubbed at the back of his neck, where tension was building. “I’m not so broken as I was those first months and years. But I don’t know that I’ve ever truly found myself again. There was no time for mourning; the first victims were buried within a week of the fever’s arrival.” Those had been dark days. “All through it, Bridget kept sewing the dress she meant to wear on our wedding day. She’d chosen the fabric herself: pink flowers—she liked pink—on a cream background. A bit of Irish lace at each wrist.” He could still picture that dress. She’d shown him her progress every day, so proud of it, so pleased.