Chapter Nine
Emma had only just begun attending sewing circles in the months before she’d left Hope Springs. She had no longer been attending the local school, having completed her studies there. Katie had brought her along to several, but Emma had felt entirely out of place.
She felt a great deal of that again sitting among the O’Connor women, Katie, Sybil, Ivy and her friend Anne Dempsey, and three children all under the age of six, while the women worked on mending and other sewing tasks.
They were regaling Sybil with stories of the town and the people in it.
Many of the things they recounted had happened after Emma’s departure, but the stories weren’t really being shared with her.
Perhaps they’d forgotten she hadn’t been in Hope Springs the past five years.
It felt a little, though, like they were forgetting she was in the house at that moment.
“And only then did Seamus realize”—the matriarch of the O’Connor family grinned as she told her story—“that the pie he had declared to be, without question, the best on offer at the céilí was not, in fact, the one his wife had brought.”
“Oh, no.” Sybil’s laugh led them all. “I suspect he wasn’t permitted to forget that for a very long time.”
“I suspect it is still mentioned by Marykate when they are having disagreements,” Biddy said, smiling broadly.
“Is there a céilí every week?” Sybil asked.
“Until the weather prevents them,” Maura, their hostess, said. “Makes the winter harder to endure.”
“But the return of the céilís makes springtime that much brighter,” Katie said.
“I fear I will forever find our Baltimore parties painfully boring now,” Sybil said. “I had more fun at the céilí than I ever had at a gathering back home.”
“The handsome young men at the céilí seemed quite pleased that the two of you were there,” Biddy said with a poorly hidden grin.
“If you ask me”—Sybil returned to the mischievous smile she’d worn when discussing the céilí on their first night in Hope Springs—“the O’Connor family appears to specialize in particularly handsome young men.”
“You’re welcome,” Mrs. O’Connor said.
The room laughed. Even Ivy and Anne, who hadn’t been paying much heed to the others in the room, joined in the mirth.
Emma sat beside Mary Dempsey, Anne’s mother. It made quietly asking her a question much easier.
“Ivy and Anne have clearly become very good friends.”
Mary nodded. “They’ve been inseparable since they finished school. Ivy has helped our sweet Anne be a little more bold, and I feel Anne has brought a bit more focus when Ivy needs it. They are good for each other.”
“And Ivy is happy?”
“I think she is. Like most fifteen-year-old girls, she has dramatic moments, but she does seem happy.”
Ivy enjoyed being with Anne. Sean and Eimear adored her, a feeling that was clearly mutual. She had proven very popular at the céilí and had been flocked by others near her age after church services on Sunday. She had even spent time gabbing with Sybil.
Ivy happened to look in her direction in the next moment.
“I like the fabric you chose for your dress.” Emma indicated the dress Ivy was working on.
“I’m certain it would be considered dowdy in Baltimore.” She said the name of the city with a theatrical haughtiness.
Anne laughed a little. The other women in the room smiled.
Even Sybil looked entertained. Were it the only comment tinged with disapproval that Ivy had made about Emma or her time in Baltimore, Emma might have smiled as well.
Not only did Ivy seem to be doing perfectly fine—she had friends and interests—but she also didn’t seem to overly want Emma in Hope Springs, let alone need her there.
Whoever had sent the telegram was wrong.
Unless Eimear was, in fact, the sister who “needed” her.
Eimear was, at the moment, quite happily sitting on the floor on a blanket with Eoin O’Connor, playing with a pair of carved horses.
She’d paid Emma very little heed in the days she’d been in Hope Springs.
Perhaps there was something Emma wasn’t seeing.
She moved from her seat and knelt beside the little ones. “Those are very handsome horses.”
Eoin held his up for her inspection, grinning. “My uncle Finbarr gave them to me.”
Sweet Finbarr. He’d been so wonderfully kind to Ivy and Emma when they were all younger.
He’d been thoughtful and caring, making them laugh and bringing them moments of joy when life was difficult.
That part of him hadn’t entirely disappeared.
She’d seen glimpses of it during their brief conversations on the riverbank.
“Do you know my uncle Finbarr?” Eoin asked.
“I do,” she said. “He was my friend.” She managed, somehow, not to stumble over the declaration. He was my friend. He hadn’t been for ten years, really. Ten very difficult years. But he seemed to like talking with her now.
“I thought you were Papa’s friend,” Eimear said, then, to Eoin, added, “My papa knows her.”
My papa knows her.
Emma had heard both Papa and Katie explain to Eimear that Emma was, in fact, her sister—in the Archer family, they didn’t make any distinction between half-siblings and full-blooded siblings—but the little girl either didn’t understand or didn’t believe it.
She seldom spoke to Emma and almost as seldom looked at her.
As near as Emma could tell, her littlest sister was more or less indifferent to her.
Ivy didn’t need her. Eimear most certainly didn’t.
So why am I in Hope Springs?
“Don’t mind us, ladies.” Ryan Callaghan stepped through the front door, Aidan on his heels. “We’ll be in and out fast as pebbles skipping over the water.”
Maura waved Aidan over. “Come give your greetings to your granny and aunts.”
He immediately complied, crossing to his grandmother and kissing her on the cheek.
“What a good lad you are.” The matriarch patted his cheek, the gesture a little too pointed. She then looked at Sybil and at Emma, who had just retaken her seat. “He really is such a thoughtful young man.”
Mary cleared her throat rather comically.
“All my grandsons are,” Aidan’s grandmother quickly added.
Emma glanced at Sybil who was holding back a laugh. The O’Connor women weren’t being subtle.
From the other side of the room, pulling something from a trunk, Aidan’s stepfather tossed back, “This’n of her grandsons is also rather handsome.”
Aidan just laughed, either accustomed to the teasing or not bothered by it. Likely both. He gave his mother a quick hug before sitting by Emma and Sybil. He leaned closer to them, and they leaned closer to him.
His voice lowered, he said, “I think it’s only fair that I warn you the entire family took up this kind of teasing at the O’Connor supper. They’re unlikely to give over any time soon.”
“The entire family?” Emma pressed.
“The little ones didn’t join in,” Aidan acknowledged. “Of the older O’Connors, only Finbarr didn’t, though he was very curious about how the two of you and the new teacher had enjoyed the céilí.”
Then Finbarr did know she was in Hope Springs.
He must have known she was the one he’d been talking to at the riverbank.
She’d wondered a little during their first conversation.
But Finbarr had been quite good at identifying people by their voices when she’d last lived here.
And he had never struggled to recognize hers.
They’d talked, at the river during their second conversation, about family and how she’d been away from hers for so long.
And they’d talked about Madra and whether he’d started to attend the céilís again.
He knew, and still their two encounters by the river had been so friendly and easy.
He hadn’t seemed to want to be rid of her, and he hadn’t been uncomfortable.
He’d been so happy to talk with her. That hadn’t happened in years.
Maybe . . . maybe he’d begun to forgive her for the fire, for all that had been taken from him.
“Any other O’Connor mysteries I can solve?” Aidan asked.
“Actually, yes.” Emma said. “When did Ian and Biddy’s youngest start being called ‘Rigger’?”
“In the last couple of years. His name’s actually Patrick,” Aidan explained to Sybil before addressing them both again.
“When his uncle Patrick arrived, that grew confusing. So the family started calling him ‘Little Patrick.’ When he started at school he decided that was too babyish.” Aidan tossed out one of his handsome smiles.
“So the family chose Pádraig, the Irish form of his name. The final syllable soon broke off. He was ‘Rig’ for a time, then ‘Rigger,’ and that stuck.”
“An impressive derivation,” Emma said, shaking her head at the weaving journey the boy’s name had taken.
“Well, we do our best to entertain the neighbors, even if only between chores.”
“Are you leaving so soon?” Maura pressed. “Stay and gab a spell with the girls.”
Ivy chimed in, a laugh in her tone. “We don’t want to gab with him.”
Aidan gave her a humorously sneering look. “‘Him’ doesn’t want to gab with you, either.”
“You can pretend all you want, Aidan O’Connor. I know you cry yourself to sleep when it’s been too long since you’ve seen me.”
“Sob, Ivy. I sob.” His dry words weren’t spoken with any actual unkindness, but he did, somehow, also sound a little annoyed with her. It was like someone teasing a friend’s younger sibling.
And Ivy didn’t look the least offended. She actually laughed. “Your granny just said you were a ’thoughtful young man.’ Don’t make her a liar, Aidan.”
He looked at Emma. “Your sister is a pest.”
“I think she’s brilliant.”
That earned an annoyed head shake from Ivy, who turned her attention back to Anne.
“I found it, Aidan.” Ryan held up some kind of tool that Emma didn’t recognize.
Aidan stood and crossed the room to his stepfather, walking out of the house with him once more.
“I likely need to be getting back to the inn,” Eliza said, setting her sewing into her basket.