Romancing Olive Page 2

  “If it’s all right with Jacob, we’ll stay here,” Mary said.

  “But he’s not family, Mary,” Olive said and took a step towards her niece.

  Mary moved to within a foot of Jacob Butler and he watched as she did.

  “He come and got John and I and buried Mama. He’ll do.”

  “Came and got,” Olive said.

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “The correct grammar is ‘he came and got John and me,” Olive said as she wiped her forehead. “Never mind.” The sullen state of the children, their tattered clothes and dirty hair were shocking. Their anger and fear, palpable with every word Mary spoke, was horrifying. How could this Jacob Butler, even as a widow, allow these children to fall to such a state.

  “Mary, will you hold Mark for me?” Mr. Butler said as he rose.

  Jacob Butler went out the door without a glance to Olive. She followed his broad back and when he stepped down from the porch, he turned to her.

  “Miss Wilkins, may I make a suggestion?” he asked.

  “Certainly,” Olive replied.

  “Why don’t you stick around here for a while and let John and Mary get to know you?”

  “I could tell the sheriff to have someone come back for me this evening, I suppose,” Olive said and shaded her eyes with her hand.

  “No. Not one day. I mean for a while,” Mr. Butler said.

  Olive brooded a bit, mumbling to herself. “I imagine it would be easier on the children if I did. I can’t imagine staying much longer at the Jenkin’s Hotel, though. Is there a reputable boarding house in Spencer?”

  “There’s nothing reputable in Spencer. And anyway I don’t mean an hour away in town. I mean here.”

  Olive’s face tightened and her mouth flew open in shock. “Mr. Butler, to suggest such a thing!”

  “Look all I’m saying is that you don’t get to know children or anyone for that matter till you’ve lived with them,” Mr. Butler replied.

  “Miss Wilkins!” the sheriff called.

  “Fiddle dee dee! Can’t you see I need a moment?” Olive said and began to pace the narrow porch. “Sheriff?” she said when she looked up.

  “Yes, Miss Wilkins?” he replied.

  “Couldn’t I stay at my brother’s farm? Would anyone object?” Olive asked.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the sheriff replied, shaking his head.

  “That would solve everything,” Olive said. “The children would be back in their own home and we could get to know each other and in time I could convince them to move back to my home in Philadelphia.”

  “Before you talk to John and Mary, I think you should go see you brother’s place,” Mr. Butler said.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I may have to go back to town for supplies. Sheriff, can I trouble you?” Olive asked.

  “Sorry, no, Miss Wilkins. Got to get going,” the sheriff said with a shake of his head.

  Olive looked to Mr. Butler and he turned and went into the house. When he came out, he motioned her to follow and they walked to the barn.

  “What are we doing, Mr. Butler?” Olive asked.

  “Going to your brother’s place,” he said as he began hitching a wagon.

  “Who will stay with the children?” Olive wondered.

  “Mary can handle them for an hour or two. It’s not far and if there’s trouble, I taught her to fire the gun,” he said as he harnessed the horse.

  “Mary is going to defend herself and four children?”

  “No, she’ll fire into the air and I’ll come,” Mr. Butler said and climbed up on to the seat.

  Olive pulled herself into the wagon on her own, scuffing her shoe and nearly putting a hole in her stocking. “Humph,” she said and turned to face this giant beside her.

  The man lifted the reins lightly to the horses’ back. Olive was anxious to see her brother’s home and make it ready for the children. She may be scrubbing floors and beating rugs for days to come but she knew John and Mary were worth the effort. Olive made a mental list of supplies and groaned when she could not remember the name of the soap that Millie, her mother’s housekeeper, had used to make the furniture and floors shine. She felt Mr. Butler’s eyes on hers and she turned to look at this stranger who was so intimately entwined in her life without her permission and without her regard.

  Jacob Butler’s chest was huge and his arms barely fit through the rolled up cuffs of his shirt. The gentlemen of her acquaintance, business associates of her father or patrons of the library, were smallish men who made their way with their heads not their hands. They were gentle men and learned men. Olive caught a whiff of earth and lard soap as she stared and raised her brows in question.

  * * *

  Jacob looked at this spinsterish woman riding beside him. He could hardly believe this frightened, mousy thing was Jimmy Wilkins’ sister. Not a hair was out of place under her dark bonnet. Schoolmarm glasses, a brown cape and a black dress. Was she dressed for mourning? The only hint of color on the otherwise drab woman was a pair of clear blue eyes. Her skin was pale but she obviously enjoyed the feel of the sun on her face

  “What was the grunt for?” he asked.

  “Ladies do not grunt, sir. I did not grunt,” she replied.

  “Yes you did, ma’am,” Jacob said. They rode on silently for a few minutes.

  “I can’t seem to remember the name of the soap our housekeeper used. And I was wondering if it would be available in Spencer,” she said finally.

  “Soap?”

  “Yes, Mr. Butler. I can’t think of the name. But it certainly did work. Mother wouldn’t let our housekeeper use anything but it on our furniture and floors and banisters. I can smell it as I sit here.” She turned and looked at him from under the wide brim of her bonnet. “What, Mr. Butler? Have you never been unable to remember something? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

  Jacob could only tilt his head and shake it in amazement at this woman. She had no idea of what she was going to see when they came to Jimmy’s farm. It might be fun watching this proper know-it-all when she realized there were no floors to polish, just dirt to be swept. He could have revealed a thousand indignities surrounding the home of Jimmy and Sophie, but he decided this woman needed to see it with her own eyes.

  * * *

  Humph, Olive thought. Does he think I’m so old, I’ll forget my name like Mrs. Patterson? That poor soul didn’t know a spoon from a fork and needed round the clock attention from her daughter Theda. Poor Theda. She would never experience anything like this and couldn’t wait for Olive’s return with her niece and nephew. Theda and Olive had discussed at length this mission of mercy that she was now embarked on. Olive was counting on Theda’s help with John and Mary, knowing her lifelong friend would love these children nearly as much as she.

  Mr. Butler turned the wagon onto a rutted lane and Olive was nearly knocked from her seat by the jostling. The holes were filled with dark, slimy water and Olive felt a fine spray of moisture hit her face as the horse trotted down the road. She grunted as the wagon pitched and noticed a spot of dirt on her brown coat and picked away the droplet of mud. Olive saw Jacob Butler didn’t shift at all in his seat. Just braced one long leg on the buckboard as Olive hung onto her glasses.

  “Is there another road we can take to get to James’ home?” Olive asked.

  “We’re on Jimmy’s land now. No other way to get to the house.”

  Olive sat up at his announcement. This was James’ farm. Her head twisted and turned but she saw only barren ground with an occasional boulder here and there. A huge, dead tree lay on its side, partially pulled from the ground, some roots still holding. Grass grew from a hole in the side of the trunk and contrasted the gray of the bark. A fence began on her right only to abruptly stop at a stack of rotting rails near the end, weeds growing up and around them. A rusting saw straddled the wood and the sun caught the edge of the metal, forcing Olive to shield her eyes. James must have been very busy with his home and crops
to leave the entrance in such disrepair. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, she reminded herself.

  Olive sat up straight as they crested a hill. The sun shone brightly and Olive squinted to get her first look. “Where’s the house?”

  “Right there,” Jacob Butler said and nodded ahead.

  “All I see is a shed of sorts, Mr. Butler,” Olive said as she shifted in her seat.

  “That’s the house, Miss Wilkins.”

  Realization dawned on Olive and she turned to the man beside her. “No, I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

  Mr. Butler stared straight ahead. No reply. Olive turned and focused on the grim scene before her. She saw a clothesline strung from a tree to the house. A line of birds sat on it and sang and chirped beautifully. Olive wondered if Sophie could see them from her kitchen window in the morning. But as Olive let her gaze roam she was overcome with despair. The house was big enough for one room, listing a bit, with shingles, tumbling off. The plank siding was brown and weathered. No yard really, just a stretch of mud broken by an overturned bucket.

  Olive stepped down from the wagon and watched Mr. Butler wrestle the door to the house off its hinges. He ducked through the opening and came back outside.

  “Seen enough?” he asked as he approached.

  Olive’s hand was a fist around a wooden slat on the wagon. She glared at him as she marched by. He grabbed her arm, stopping her abruptly.

  “No need to go in the house,” he said.

  She shook off his hand with a huff and turned a determined face his way.

  Mr. Butler looked skyward and dropped his hold.

  Olive walked slowly to the doorway. She heard buzzing from within and stepped into the dark interior, unable to see, but overwhelmed by a powerful stench. When her vision adjusted she found the source of the noise. Thousands of flies and maggots swarmed over a dark blotch on the dirt floor. The sight and smell was so horrid she turned and ran outside.

  “The bugs? Why are there so many bugs in the house, Mr. Butler?” Olive asked through pale lips. He barely met her eye yet Olive could see the pity on his face and felt the blood drain from hers.

  “Miss Wilkins, why don’t we head back to . . .”

  “Tell me Mr. Butler.”

  ”Look, there’s nothing to be done.”

  “Tell me,” Olive screamed.

  “Sophie was cut up pretty bad and by the time I got her buried, she had pretty much bled out all over the dirt,” he said.

  “And?”

  “When I lifted Sophie the bugs and maggots were already nesting in her face,” Mr. Butler said, his voice rising. “That’s what happens when there’s blood spilled.”

  Olive straightened; horrified with the picture he painted yet certain he told the grim truth. She found herself at the side of the house emptying her stomach on the bare earth.

  “It’s clean,” Mr. Butler said.

  “Thank you.” Olive replied as she accepted the folded bandana from his hand.

  “Like I said before, let’s go back to my place and try and sort this out.”

  Olive did not understand any of what she had seen or heard. She desperately needed to know the whole story. She held the hanky to her nose, walked back to the house and inside.

  Piles of rags were heaped in a corner, near an unswept fireplace. The table was piled with filth, its’ chairs over turned. Olive saw scurrying movement under a blanket covering straw. She picked up a pair of glasses from the mantel with a shaking hand. Olive closed her eyes and held her brother’s spectacles to her breast.

  “As if killing their parents wasn’t enough,” she whispered as Jacob Butler came through the doorway.

  “Pardon?” he asked.

  Olive swept her hand around the squalid room. “Wasn’t it enough that this outlaw killed Mary and John’s parents? What possessed him to destroy their home as well?”

  “You think the man that killed Sophie did this to the house?” Mr. Butler asked.

  “So vicious,” Olive hissed, staring wide-eyed around the room.

  Jacob Butler closed the gap between them in two strides. He turned her roughly to face him. “For the love of God, woman. Don’t you get it? Your brother was a cheating, lazy gambler and his wife a drunk.”

  Olive’s mouth opened in shock. “It can not be. James married a woman who drank alcohol?” Mr. Butler’s hands fell away from her shoulders.

  “Drank alcohol? She could drink most men under the table and when she did,” Mr. Butler replied, “she spread her legs for any man in the room.”

  Olive’s hand flew to her mouth and she whispered, “Poor James.”

  “Poor James?” he shouted. “He knew what she was. He didn’t care. He gambled with the money she made and drank the whiskey that was left when she passed out.”

  “She made money? James couldn’t provide for his family?”

  “She was a whore, Miss Wilkins,” Jacob Butler said quietly. “It kept food on the table. Jimmy never could figure out why his crops wouldn’t grow, while he spent his days in the saloon at the poker table.”

  “So you are saying that Sophie and James’s home always looked like this?” Olive asked.

  Jacob Butler nodded his reply.

  Olive’s eyes rounded in horror. “John and Mary lived like this.”

  “Let’s go,” Jacob Butler said and reached to cup her elbow in his hand.

  Olive pulled away and turned to the rough wooden trough overflowing with dishes and dirt and looked out the solitary window to an elm tree. There, standing clean and pure, were two white crosses in the ground. An involuntary gasp escaped her and tears threatened again. Outside, Olive knelt on the hard earth, between the graves and picked up wilted wild flowers.

  “You buried them,” Olive said without turning.

  Jacob Butler knelt down on his haunches, hat in hand. “It gives me comfort to go to my wife Margaret’s grave. I knew the children would want to know where their parents were buried.”

  Oddly, tears would not come as Olive stared at the hard earth. Her shoulders shook, but not a single drop escaped. Sordid visions flew through her head and countless questions begged an answer but she could do nothing but softly ask, “Why?”

  * * *

  Jacob watched the woman’s tall, slight form shake and he regretted his anticipation of seeing her surprise. Her complete and utter shock was so genuine and heartfelt that he could feel nothing but guilt for letting her see her brother’s dismal existence. Jacob knew what it was like when your world began to crumble before your eyes and he knew this woman, right now, was watching all that she believed and held dear, filter through her hand like so much August dirt. Jacob watched her rise, stumble over a root and right herself, before he had time to reach out. She climbed into the wagon and folded her hands in front of her.

  Jacob pulled himself into the wagon and clucked the horse to turn. He regarded Olive Wilkins in a new light. Clearly shaken, but not broken. To this sheltered woman’s credit she had held her head high and demanded to understand the ugliness surrounding her brother’s demise.

  “Thank you, Mr. Butler,” she said.

  “Miss Wilkins, I should have never brought you out here.”

  “No, Mr. Butler, I would have never believed you if you had merely tried to tell me. I needed . . . I needed to see it for myself,” she said.

  He nodded and they bumped along towards the morning sun.

  “My God, Mr. Butler. What did Mary see go on inside those four walls? How will she ever get over it?”

  “Children are stronger than we give them credit for. I don’t think Jimmy ever let one of Sophie’s ah . . . friends near Mary. Not that I’m sure they didn’t try.”

  “Is that why Mary shrinks away from you when you reach to her?”

  Jacob nodded. “I think so. I was pretty surprised she stood as close to me today when you were talking about moving back to Philadelphia. She doesn’t usually get within ten feet of me.”

  “There must not be a soul on this ea
rth she trusts,” Miss Wilkins whispered.

  “No, I don’t think there is.”

  The long ride home was quiet. Jacob stole glances at Olive Wilkins and watched her swallow and purse her lips.

  “Mr. Butler? When you asked me to . . . when you mentioned my staying on . . . were you, are you still . . .?”

  “You’re welcome to stay, Miss Wilkins. I’ll bunk in the barn.”

  * * *

  His quick response brought Olive to tears faster than the horrid sights she had just seen. She buried her face in her hands and wept. The tears poured, unheeded for her brother and his wife and for John and Mary. For herself and her shattered daydreams.

  Mr. Butler’s arm crept around her and she turned and clung to him. His flannel shirt was soft and warm and caught Olive’s tears. She was sobbing uncontrollably on the chest of man she had met that morning but it felt right, was right. As if there were no other humanity left on the earth but this man. Two strangers, stranded in a tragedy they had not written. Olive sniffed, righted herself and focused on the unwilling victims of this play. Convention be damned, she thought. If she must live on Jacob Butler’s farm until John and Mary could be coaxed back to civilization, then so be it.

  “Don’t let the children see your tears, Miss Wilkins,” he said.

  Olive realized they were pulling up in front of the Butler house. She quickly dried her face and stood up in the wagon. This weathered house, with its’ patterns of crops, looked clean and new and righteous. What she had dismissed as shabby, earlier in the day was in a dire need of scrubbing, yes, but held a family, and held it with love. No wonder Mary did not want to leave. This was a castle and this man, Jacob Butler, a prince, compared to what Mary had known.

  Chapter Two

  Olive followed Jacob Butler into the house and children came running from all directions.

  “Daddy,” Peg and Luke screeched as John jumped up and down. Mr. Butler kissed every head but Mary’s. He nodded in her direction and she looked away.