Chapter Seven
“Uncle Finbarr!”
Family suppers were difficult—too many people and voices and, often, too many questions about his “loneliness” and assumed misery—but the excitement of his littlest nieces and nephews at his arrival was something Finbarr actually looked forward to.
“Guess! Guess!” the same little voice said, tugging at his coat.
This was a well-established game between himself and the youngest O’Connors.
“Claire,” he said, identifying his five-year-old niece without difficulty.
“You always know it’s me,” she said, though the pout in her voice was wholly undermined by the smile he so clearly heard.
“I always know all of you.” He held his hand out, knowing she would take it. Which she did. “Who else am I meant to guess?”
“My turn, Uncle Finbarr.” Another little voice spoke from the other side of Claire. “Guess who I am.”
“Grace.”
“How do you always know?” Grace, two years older than her cousin, sounded just as delighted at the “trick” they undertook every time Finbarr joined the family.
“Your aunt Cecily can identify you by your voices, and she’s even more blind than I am.”
“She thought Michael was Collum,” Grace said. “And she called Anne ‘Mary.’ You don’t ever get our names wrong.”
“I do, sometimes.”
“No, you don’t.” Another voice from his left.
“Hey, there, Rigger.”
That made the children laugh all the harder.
“You see?” Grace said. “You know all of us.”
“I know all of you well enough to guess that, at this very moment, Eoin is hugging Madra.”
“He is!” Claire declared while bouncing with excitement, pulling his hand as she did. “How did you know? You’re magic, Uncle Finbarr.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was absolutely no magic involved.
Madra sitting down before they’d reached their destination usually meant something was in her way.
And when her tail thwacked his leg in an excited rhythm, that usually meant someone was giving her attention.
And Eoin loved Madra almost as much as Finbarr did.
It wasn’t difficult to piece together the clues.
“May I stay with Madra during supper?” Eoin asked.
“Madra will stay close to me,” Finbarr reminded him.
“I like being with you.”
Finbarr suspected his five-year-old nephew tolerated him when compared with Madra. But, as Madra was Finbarr’s very best friend, he could hardly fault Eoin for the preference.
“Granny is standing nearby,” Claire said. “She’s watching you like she’s going to hug you.”
Finbarr never received warning of such things. “Claire, you have given me the very best idea.”
“I did? What is it?”
“You and I will be partners tonight. You will warn me anytime you spy any of our family members looking like they are going to come talk to me or, in the case of your uncles, tease me.”
“My papa likes to tease.” Claire giggled a little.
“He is very good at it.”
Her father was Tavish, the brother Finbarr had lived with for years after the fire. He’d teased Finbarr a lot, yes, but he’d also, in so many ways, saved him.
“I can be your partner, too,” Eoin said. “I will tell you if anyone is coming to hug Madra.”
“That would be the perfect addition to this team,” Finbarr said.
His conspirators were as good as their word, sitting with him at one of the tables .
. . for about thirty minutes. Considering they were five and almost six, Finbarr thought that was actually pretty impressive.
And, for that half-hour, no one was able to sneak up on him.
It was easier than usual to keep track of the people nearby.
A swish of skirts approached not long after Finbarr’s little partners abandoned him. “I’ve brought you a plate of food.”
“Thank you, Eliza.”
She was easy to identify, the only person in Hope Springs who sounded like she’d come directly from a less-than-safe area of London.
A plate clanked on the tabletop in front of him, and a waft of aromas met his nose almost immediately.
“Potatoes, chicken, and snap peas, with a slice of brown bread,” Eliza said.
He nodded. The whole family had learned, thanks to Cecily’s tutelage, that it was helpful to tell him what he was about to eat.
Though he could often sort out some of it by smell alone, it was still a very unnerving experience to take a bite of something that turned out to be very different from what he’d guessed it would be.
The sound of cutlery being placed on either side of his plate told him he had utensils now as well. Finbarr took up his spoon. Eliza sat next to him.
“I hope the family helped you enough tonight.” Finbarr ran a finger around his plate, setting in his mind where it was. “You ought to be off your feet.”
Eliza would be having a baby any day now. She was likely exhausted.
“I was forbidden from making any of the food, even though I told everyone that I could manage something.”
“That sounds like the O’Connors.” They loved and served and cared but they didn’t always listen. “I haven’t heard any of the Archers’ voices tonight.” The Archers sometimes joined in the O’Connor family suppers. “Does that mean Katie had her baby?”
“It’s possible she did. But I’d guess they’re having their own family supper to celebrate Miss Emma being in Hope Springs.”
Finbarr froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Emma’s in Hope Springs?”
“Hadn’t you heard?”
Finbarr shook his head. “No one said she was returning home.”
“No one knew,” Eliza said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Joseph Archer look dumbfounded, but that’s the only way to describe his expression when he caught sight of her.”
Emma was in Hope Springs. He’d always called her “Miss Emma.” Most everyone had. She’d seemed grown up, even as a little girl. Finbarr was just older enough than her and Ivy to have thought of them as his little sisters for a lot of years. That was another thing the fire had taken away.
“Is Joseph’s mother here as well, then?”
“No. Miss Emma made the journey with a friend from Baltimore. If they’d arrived two days earlier, they’d have been on the same stage as the new teacher.”
He set his spoon down. “There’s a new teacher in town?”
“If you’d come to the céilí, you’d know.”
Finbarr turned his head a little in her direction. “Did Ma send you over here to scold me for not being at the céilí?”
“No. She’ll likely do so herself.”
“Likely.”
“Aidan danced with all three of the new arrivals,” Eliza said. “You can ask him all the questions you have.”
“He’s unlikely to turn it into an argument about how I ought to be more sociable.”
“Aidan, come gab with Finbarr.”
The bench shifted. A whoosh of skirts. The bench shifted again. Aidan had, it seemed, switched places with Eliza.
Finbarr took up his spoon again, scooping up some potatoes. “Eliza says you were very popular at the céilí.”
“If you ask Ivy Archer, I was ‘the most horrible person in all the world,’” he said with a laugh.
“Did you refuse to dance with her again?”
“I have never refused to dance with Ivy. She just sometimes demands a dance when it’s not very convenient.”
Ivy always had been dramatic.
“Eliza said Emma Archer’s back in Hope Springs,” Finbarr said.
“Shocked all of us, she did.” Though Aidan, like Finbarr, had hardly even a hint of Irish influence in his voice despite their very Irish family, he did throw out Irish turns of phrase with some regularity. “She and her friend made the journey from Baltimore without even a word of warning.”
“Did she seem . . . happy to be back?”
Emma had been miserable five years earlier. Finbarr’s heart had broken for her and her family that she’d needed to leave home to find some peace. But he understood it. Heavens, he understood it.
“That’s hard to say. She seemed overwhelmed, but she also kept very close to her family.”
“Except when she was dancing with you.” Finbarr smiled. “Eliza made sure to mention how popular you were.”
Aidan laughed. “Sybil—that’s Emma’s Baltimore friend—is hilarious. You’ll like her.”
It sounded like Aidan already did.
“And what about the new school teacher? What’s she like?”
“Miss Groves isn’t as quiet as Emma always was and likely still is. But she also isn’t as bold as Sybil.”
“Emma must be very grown up now. Nineteen years old. Maybe twenty.”
“She still looks like herself; you’d recognize her in an instant.
But, yes, grown up. And—” The bench shifted again.
When Aidan spoke, he was closer and his voice was a little quieter.
“—Finbarr, she’s stunning. Collum couldn’t manage to get out a single word of welcome, but just stared at her. Michael fared only a little better.”
Aidan, Collum, and Michael were, technically, Finbarr’s nephews, but they were near enough in age to him that they felt more like his cousins.
“Emma’s at the Archer place,” Aidan said. “Her friend Sybil is there too. The new schoolteacher’s house is on their property. I predict it’s soon to be the most bustling place in Hope Springs.”
Emma had come back, for a while at least. But she hadn’t come by his house. She hadn’t sent word that she was there. Though Finbarr knew he didn’t truly deserve to be thought of—his history with Emma was a difficult one—it still hurt.
“Aidan, have you convinced him to attend the remaining céilís?” Ma had approached at some point.
“When have you ever known me to act as a sneaky envoy for the women in this family?” Aidan’s dry tone held a laugh.
And it was Aidan’s mother who answered. “What if we promised you an extra slice of pie?”
“I cannot be bribed,” Aidan said solemnly.
“Not even with an extra candle for staying up late and reading your medical books?” That was Finbarr’s sister Ciara.
He was, apparently, surrounded again. How long had they been standing there, listening in, watching him for his reactions to things? It sometimes felt as though he were constantly being spied on. Only in his own home did he have the freedom to not guard every word and every expression.
“Brace yourself, Finbarr,” Aidan said, leaning close again. “Aunt Ciara’s bribe might actually work.”
“I consider myself warned.” Finbarr pushed his plate a little away, his appetite waning. “And I promise to attend a céilí before winter brings the parties to an end for the year.”
“There’s no way of knowing for certain when that will happen,” Ma reminded him.
“And Katie told me at church this morning”—that was his sister-in-law Biddy; he really was surrounded—“that Emma and her friend will only be here for two weeks.”
“You really ought to attend a céilí while they’re in Hope Springs.” Da was even part of this?
If he left now, Finbarr could be home in thirty minutes. And the walk there would be quiet.
“If I promise to attend a céilí this week or next, will everyone stop fretting?” He could hear that he was grumbling a little, but he didn’t think he could help it.
“It’s not fuss.” He was pretty sure he heard Ma sit down. “We’d just hate for you to miss being there. And we miss having you there.”
“I’ve attended more this year than I usually do.”
Someone put their hand on his; he had no idea who. Another unidentified someone put a hand on his shoulder.
Ma, across the table from him, said, “We love having you there, Finbarr. Please don’t ever stop.” There was even a little emotion in her voice.
“I won’t.” No matter that the céilís were even more overwhelming and exhausting and frustrating than family gatherings, no matter that he usually left in something of a panic, he would keep attending because going back to avoiding them entirely would hurt his family.
“I can walk from the turn-off,” Finbarr told Tavish and Cecily.
They’d insisted on driving him home after the family supper.
And, while he would have enjoyed the quiet walk, their sweet Claire had crowed so adorably to her parents about being Finbarr’s “partner” that night that he couldn’t bear to disappoint her by refusing to ride in the wagon with her.
“Are you certain?” Cecily asked. Growing accustomed to her very proper English accent had taken some doing when she’d first arrived a decade ago. “It would be easy as anything to take you right to your door.”
“Madra and I go for a walk every night. This’ll be an easy enough way to get that in.”
Claire gave him a hug. “Can we be partners again?”
“Always.”
She probably smiled at that. He hoped she did.
Finbarr wondered, as he walked away from the main road, the sound of the river next to him, if any of his younger nieces and nephews looked at all the way he imagined them.
He pictured them as more or less miniature versions of their parents, or, in the case of those whose parents had joined the family after the fire, versions of the one parent he’d actually seen.
Those were the kind of thoughts that usually filled his time in the fields or during walks with Madra. And, usually, he reached his destination having covered a few topics in his head without having slowed his pace or lost his focus on his aim.
But he found himself slowing considerably as the road and the river beside it began its slow bend. The Archers’ house would be behind him now. The group of trees where Katie often practiced her fiddle was behind him now as well.
It was right about here that he’d spoken with “The River Lady,” as he’d come to think of her. And he’d thought about her quite a lot since their paths had crossed the day before.
He’d wondered after their conversation if she might have been the new school teacher. That was a better guess than he’d realized at the time. But she might also have been Sybil, Emma’s Baltimore friend. She might have been Emma.
He dismissed that possibility. He would have known Emma. Surely he would have. At the very least, she would have said something. Or she would have stormed off and refused to talk to him at all.
She’d not been as angry at him when she’d left five years earlier than she had been in the years leading up to that.
But she still hadn’t been his friend in the same way.
The closeness that had existed between them before the fire was gone entirely and, he’d finally had to admit to himself, permanently. And it was, he knew, his fault.
If his River Lady was her friend, Sybil, then he likely wouldn’t have any more conversations to look forward to. She would find out from Emma who he was, and she would dislike him too.
His best hope was that he’d stumbled across the new school teacher. She might actually talk to him again. Though, why he wanted her to, he didn’t know. Avoiding people was his usual approach. It simplified things. It was lonely, but it was also easier.
Madra’s tail thumped excitedly against Finbarr’s leg in the moment before a voice broke the silence of the night.
“I appear to be interrupting your solitude again.”
Excitement bubbled inside.
She’d come back to the river.