Olivia, Mourning (38 page)

“Why don’t you come back here to the kitchen?” Mrs. Place called. “Might as well have us a little bite to eat.”

Olivia put Angel down, hung her cloak on the rack, and walked toward Mrs. Place’s voice. The kitchen was large and square, with a heavy wooden table in its center. It was the kind of table you would expect a large noisy family to gather around, not two lonely women. A lantern in the middle of it cast a pleasant glow and the fire in the cook stove had taken the chill off the room. There was a pot of beef soup next to the coffeepot. It smelled wonderful.

“That soup is still warm and won’t take but a minute to get nice and hot. Meantime, warm yourself up with this.” She set a cup of coffee in front of Olivia and took the chair next to her. “I see you been earning your daily bread.” She nodded at Olivia’s hands.

“I was farming. Out in Michigan.”

What did you need to tell her that for?
Olivia scolded herself. But she was too exhausted to concoct a lie.

“Yes. Your brother Tobey said something like that. Warn’t speaking to me, of course. I heard him telling Mrs. Burton that might be where you was at. Said he was thinking of going out there himself, try and bring you back, but I wouldn’t suppose he did, did he? Not out of lack of concern, mind you, but, we all know how that brother of yours is. Sweet soul, but not exactly … So, you come home for a visit?”

“No. Not a visit. I mean … I don’t know.”

Mrs. Place rose, ladled out a bowl of soup, and sliced some bread. “Don’t be shy.” She shoved it closer to Olivia. “Go ahead and eat. If you don’t, the cats will.”

Olivia did, hungrily, amazed at the way Mrs. Place managed to keep the air between them filled with idle chatter about Angel. For someone with no social life that Olivia knew of, she sure was good at chitchatting. When Olivia finished, Mrs. Place cleared the bowl away, sat back down, and placed her hand over Olivia’s.

“Honey, you can tell me, or you can not tell me. But if you came here ’cause you got something to say, or something to ask, you’d best spit it out.”

Olivia opened her mouth, but no words formed in her brain.

“I gotta guess you’re in some kind of trouble. And there’s only one kind a trouble I can imagine a girl like you choosing a woman like me to tell about. Is that the kind of trouble you’re in?”

Olivia answered Mrs. Place’s question in a tiny voice. “I don’t know.”

“Well, at least you’re consistent.” Mrs. Place smiled. “You don’t seem to know much of anything.”

Olivia took no offense; she knew the teasing was intended to lighten the mood rather than be hurtful. Still, she seemed unable to reply.

Mrs. Place waited a long moment before asking, “When’d you last get the curse?”

“My monthly visitor should have come two days ago. Maybe three,” Olivia said, looking away.

“Oh, Honey, three days ain’t nothing to fret about.” Mrs. Place leaned back. “Sometimes it can be weeks late for no good reason. No good reason at all. Tell you one thing – worrying about not getting it is the best way to make sure you don’t. You been to see a doctor?”

“No.”

“Just as well. Takes time for them to tell. So you left the might-be-a-father out there in Michigan?”

Olivia opened her mouth to say, “I don’t know,” but switched to “Yes.”

“You didn’t think he’d do right by you?” Mrs. Place asked.

“It wasn’t anything like that,” Olivia whispered.

Mrs. Place waited a long moment before asking, “You feeling inclined to tell me what it
was
like?”

“It wasn’t a romance. It was … you see we had these neighbors …”

“We?”

“Me and Mourning. You know, Mourning Free?”

“Well, sure I know him. I live in Five Rocks, don’t I? Heard he found himself some relatives, went to stay with ’em. You don’t look much like no long-lost cousin of his.”

Olivia shook her head. “He made that up. Truth is, I talked him into going to Michigan with me, as a hired hand to work the farm I inherited from my Uncle Scruggs. But we wanted to keep that a secret.”

“You don’t mean that you . . . with Mourning Free . . .” Mrs. Place’s eyes opened wide.

“No,” Olivia exclaimed. “No, not Mourning. Mourning would never do anything like that. It wasn’t him. But, see, that’s the reason we didn’t want to tell anyone he was going with me, so they wouldn’t get the wrong idea, like you just did.”

“So there warn’t nothing between the two of you?”

“No. No. No.” Olivia shook her head. “Of course not. He stayed on the farm and I took a room in the little town nearby. But there was this couple, lived on the next farm …” Olivia stopped and stared at her hostess.

Mrs. Place had so easily plucked her from the street and was now sitting patiently, occasionally offering the comfort of a nod or the stroke of a warm hand, behaving exactly the way Olivia imagined a mother or older sister would. Olivia’s resolution never, ever to tell anyone what the Stubblefields had done to her crumbled. She couldn’t hold it inside any longer. Once she began speaking, her slow trickle of words became a flood she couldn’t stop. She was soon pouring out all the horrible details she had sworn to lock away. At first Mrs. Place’s interjections were murmured softly; as Olivia’s story progressed her voice gained the volume of outrage.

“You poor dear, my Lord, oh sweet Jesus, those monsters, absolute monsters, so wicked, and a child like you …”

Olivia did not tell Mrs. Place about her one night with Mourning. Neither did she tell her about planning to kill the Stubblefields, finding them already dead, and suspecting that Mourning may have been responsible for that.

She had begun her story dry-eyed, but quickly dissolved into shaking shoulders and sobs. Mrs. Place fetched a handkerchief and a glass of water and pulled her chair closer, rubbing Olivia’s back with one hand. When Olivia looked up, she found in Mrs. Place’s eyes the one thing she most needed to see – belief. The woman didn’t doubt a single word Olivia had told her.

“Poor child,” Mrs. Place said at last, leaning forward and gathering Olivia into her embrace. “Poor, poor child. How long did those devils keep you there like that?” She sat back and looked into Olivia’s face.

“A whole week. He came in every day for a whole week. Sometimes twice. Drunk most of the time.”

“And now you’re afeared you got this monster’s child inside you.” Mrs. Place shook her head.

Olivia nodded and wiped her eyes.

“And you ran back here to feel safe, but can’t bring yourself to tell your family.”

Olivia nodded again.

“Well,” Mrs. Place said, “you maybe don’t got nothing to tell them. No point in saying a word before you know. That’s one cart you want to keep way back behind the horse.” She took both of Olivia’s hands as she locked eyes with her. “There’s one thing you don’t understand – that you got to keep this secret to yourself. Truth is, you shudna told me.”

“I didn’t mean to. I don’t know why I came here, but it wasn’t because I was planning to tell you,” Olivia said. “I swore to myself I’d never tell anyone. But you’re being so nice. It just came out. There’s no one else I could tell something like that to.”

“What got you thinking you could tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Olivia shrugged, miserable. “I just thought I could.”

“Well, you warn’t wrong. I won’t be giving you away. But you took a big chance and you shudna. A woman can’t trust no one with a secret like that, no matter how big a hole it’s burning in her. Most especially not another woman. That’s something you got to learn. For all you know, I could be right glad to have something to lord over Seborn Killion’s snotty daughter, up on her high horse, thinking she’s better than me. I could rush out tomorrow, tell it all over town.”

“I don’t think I’m better –”

“I know.” Mrs. Place squeezed her hands. “I know you don’t. You were real sweet to me. I’m just saying, you didn’t
know
that warn’t the way I felt. You don’t know one stitch about me, but you came straight in here, trusting me with a secret that could ruin your life. And believe me it could, even though it warn’t none of your fault. That’s the sorry truth. So you best not be telling anyone else. I mean anyone. Including that brother of yours. I know you think the world of him, but he wouldn’t be the least bit of comfort to you and you never know what harm he might do. Oh, he wouldn’t mean to, but weak people with good intentions can be the worst.” She released Olivia’s hands and placed her palms on both sides of Olivia’s face. “Now you listen to me good. Day might come you have some special close friend and you feel you want to tell her. But you can’t. Not a word of it. And when you meet some nice young fellow wants to marry you, you might feel obliged to bare your heart. Don’t you so much as think about it. I don’t care how much he swears nothing could ever make him stop loving you, or how much you trust him, or how much you hate keeping a secret from him. Not a single word. You got to keep this inside you for the rest of your life.”

“I know…”

“Do you? You shudna told me, but you already done that, and you can’t take it back. Just don’t go telling anyone else. Not ever. You understand me? Never.”

Olivia nodded.

“It’s the type of thing will always make people surprise you for the worst. You think they’d understand, feel nothing but sorry for you, seeing as it was forced on you. There’s no way they can blame you. That’s what you’d think. But that ain’t what happens. You can count on them to find a way.”

“I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Anyone see you get off that stage?”

“It wasn’t a stage. It was a delivery wagon. I was the only passenger.”

“And no one saw you get off it? No one else knows you’re here?”

“No.” Olivia picked up the handkerchief and blew her nose.

“Well, I think we could both use a night to sleep on this. You can spend it here. No point in making any hasty decisions. You get a good rest and we can talk at noon tomorrow, when I come in for my dinner. After that, you go home if you want. No reason your folks wouldn’t believe you just got off some other delivery wagon. But first we’ll think it through together, see what’s best. Where’d you leave your cases?”

“In the bushes behind that big sign in front of the Episcopal Church.”

“All right, I’ll wait till it gets a bit later and go get them.”

Olivia shook her head. “There are two wicker baskets. Big ones. You won’t be able to carry them.”

“I got a wagon I use to bring sacks of flour and sugar from your brother’s store.”

Olivia started. It was strange to hear it called “your brother’s store” instead of “your father’s store.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Well I suppose that’d be all right. You put that monk get-up back on, no one will ever guess it’s you. And anyone asks, I got a long-lost cousin come to stay with me.” Mrs. Place pushed her chair back and stood up. “Let’s say we go out to the parlor, talk about something else for a while. Come on, Angel.”

The kitten followed her like a dog. Mrs. Place sank into a stuffed wing back chair. A basket of needlework stood on the floor next to it and she tossed the kitten a ball of bright red yarn. Olivia took the uncomfortable ladder back chair and watched Angel tangle herself up in the yarn.

“You don’t much favor your mother.” Mrs. Place glanced over at her.

“No. No one ever said I did.”

“You can thank the good Lord you don’t look much like your father neither. And even more for not giving you his personality, cantankerous old goat that he was.”

“Did you hate him?” Olivia asked timidly.

“Hate him? Course not. I guess I loved him in my own pitiful way. But it warn’t nothing like what a young girl like you thinks of when she thinks of love. I seen too much and gotten too hard for that. But I cared for him and I loved having someone to care for, even that little. And I think he might a cared for me in his own stingy way. It just didn’t come natural to him. Either that or he used it all up on your mother.” She shook her head and then smiled. “I think he maybe worked at keeping himself mean, so I wouldn’t have any expectations of him making me Mrs. Killion number two. Well, he didn’t need to worry none on that account. Never thought he would. Don’t know if I woulda wanted him to. There
are
advantages to an arrangement like the one we had. When they’re your husband, they never go home.”

Olivia stared at the toes of her shoes, hands in her lap. Her hostess seemed oblivious to her embarrassment. Mrs. Place yawned and glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I think maybe it’s late enough for us to go get your things.”

Olivia rose for her cloak and then followed Mrs. Place out to the barn where she kept the wagon. It was larger than a child’s toy, but rode low to the ground like one. They walked to the church in silence, without a lantern, Mrs. Place dragging the wagon behind her. The town looked deserted and they saw no one outside, but the clatter of the wagon’s wheels sounded deafening to Olivia.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Place said. “There’s sure to be one of them women God put in charge of the town looking out their window, but they’ll think you’re one of my outcast friends come to visit. Just don’t take that cloak home with you when you go.”

The baskets were where Olivia had left them. The two women balanced them on the wagon, one on top of the other, and Olivia held them steady as they walked back. Mrs. Place helped Olivia get them up the porch steps, one at a time, and inside the front door.

“You’re on your own getting whatever you need upstairs,” Mrs. Place said, out of breath. “With my knees, I’m doing well to drag myself up them steps. Just leave everything here for now. Take out whatever you need for tonight and I’ll show you up to the extra room. You can worry about the rest later, if you decide to stay here for a while.”

Olivia’s eyes opened wider at this round-about invitation, but she said nothing. While Olivia searched for her nightgown and hairbrush, Mrs. Place lit another lantern. She carried both it and the one that was still burning by the window as she led Olivia up the stairs to the guest room.

It was small and done up simply – a nightstand between two single beds covered with patchwork quilts. A chest of drawers stood against the opposite wall, next to the window. All the furniture was of the same dark wood. If not for the peeling wallpaper – a pleasant blue and white floral pattern – it looked the way Olivia would have imagined a room in a nunnery, not one in the home of a woman of ill repute. Mrs. Place set one lantern on the chest of drawers and went out carrying the other. She soon thumped back up the stairs and knocked on Olivia’s door to hand her a pitcher of water and a towel. When she turned to leave, Olivia’s voice stopped her.

“Mrs. Place?”

“Yes?”

Olivia hadn’t intended to ask so soon, but couldn’t wait. “I was just wondering, do you happen to know when Mourning Free got back to town?”

“Didn’t know that he did. Ain’t heard or seen nothing of him since he left.”