21.
~ Olivia hadn't realized night had stolen the day when she parted from Maura. How strange time became at Blue Rivers. In this house, the nights were endless and stretched out like the ocean that never really ended. During the day, time seemed to speed up and before she even knew it, it was evening again.
"I'm sorry, sir, but have you seen Harold?" she asked one of the older footmen.
"I believe I saw him retire for the evening, miss." the older man said. "May I bring you anything?"
"No, thank you." Olivia whispered and looked at he stylish wrist watch her father had given her for her birthday. The same year he had forced her to register to vote. Saying that it was what her mother would have wanted.
But what kind of woman was her mother? An adulteress? A silly socialite who has affairs? She hardly remembered her mother; her poor father had suffered being a widower for years because she had chosen another man over him.
"Is Mr. Eames in the conservatory?" she asked the footman.
"Of course." the attendant said dryly.
"It's this way?" she asked as she stormed past him and to a pair of handsome stained glass windows.
"Miss, miss you can't go in there!" the footman said as he tried to take hold of her slender arm and pull her back. "Mr. Eames values his privacy!"
"I just bet he does!" Olivia scoffed as the doors gave away easily to her pushing them open.
She wasn't readily prepared for the conservatory. She expected a magical place, full of exotic blooms that needed the protection of a warmer environment and the sun shinning down on them all the time. She wasn't ready to see a decaying anarchy of dead plants, dirty, grimy floors and window panes so covered with filth, barley any light filtered in at all.
"You can not be in here!" the footman growled and pulled her harshly by the arm.
"It's alright, Mills." came an irritated voice from the shrouded gloom of the conservatory.
Olivia looked for the ghost who's voice had made the footman stop trying to force her to leave. The gloomy conservatory didn't reveal any secrets as the footman begrudgingly left her and closed the stained glass doors after him, leaving her alone with the wretched inhabitant.
"Olivia?" came the voice from the darkness and she could hear movement. The slow, steady walking of a man who was forced to ambulate with a cane because of a war wound.
She gasped slightly as she saw Mr. Eames come into view at last.
"What are you doing here, child? It's late." he said and Olivia had forgotten the entire reason she had come.
"Um... I wanted to talk to you." she said weakly as she instinctively backed away from Eames. A figure that now looked nothing like the photographs Maura had shown her. He wasn't the handsome, dashing writer he once was. He looked like the horrible phantom that haunted the heart of this house.
"Surely it can wait till morning." Eames said and looked down at his feet. "Where's Harold?"
"He's retired early." Olivia explained.
Eames scowled at this, but said nothing.
"I wanted to ask about mother." Olivia said with a trembling voice. "About how you seduced a married woman away from a husband who loved her."
His eyes flashed with a spark of danger and she backed away from him again. A strong fear gripping her that Mr. Eames might not be as harmless as Harold made him out to be. After all, she hardly knew these people who dwelled in this strange house.
"Is that what Arthur told you? That I had to seduce her to get her to love me?" he growled.
"My mother and father were happily married till you came along." she accused and allowed her anger to rise up like a rouge wave. She was reared never to be impolite or controversial, but those days were over now.
Eames let out a manic laugh.
"Married. Happily married when I first met Ariadne?" he laughed. "And they were already expecting you, and were so delighted that they would be such a picture perfect family. Is that the fairy tale Arthur wove for you? That he came to Blue Rivers with his charming, radiant wife. That he was excited to be a new father. That his selfish, playboy cousin came along and stole her away from him and Arthur, being blameless, let her go?"
"Isn't that what happened?" Olivia accused.
"Child, I was there the day you were born. I was the one who comforted your mother the most when your father vanished, and trust me, there were many times he wasn't there for her. I can tell you things about your father," he said the word father with a spit in his voice. "that would shatter your perfect, sheltered life."
"What things?" she spat back. "By all means, redeem yourself, sir."
Eames looked as if he wanted to say something, but his attention was suddenly diverted away from the girl in front of him. He looked behind him, as if expecting to see someone there. As though he heard a voice in the stillness of the dead conservatory that Olivia could not hear.
She peered into the darkness behind him and saw a large oil painting of a regal looking lady in a blue dress. A dress that was fashionable almost twenty years ago.
She hardly recognized the portrait to be of her mother. The old photographs capturing the real Ariadne, and the painting making her seem almost mythical.
"I..." Eames breathed and had to sit down on one of the battered sofas.
"Mr. Eames?" Olivia asked worriedly.
"Ariadne." he wept in his hands. "I'm so sorry, darling. I won't, I won't say it."
"Mr. Eames?" Olivia asked as she knelt beside him and saw that the famed war hero and writer, was really no more than a broken man.
She lit an oil lamp, the electricity not working in the conservatory anymore, and shone it's feeble light around the large, frighting room.
Eames' hideaway was clearly where he had been living these past few years, Harold had not been exaggerating when he said that Eames never left. There were books, papers, two desks and a small twin sized bed kept in the center of the room. The Conservatory gained it's heat source from an old wooden stove and Eames had centered his world to surround it like a cave man. Across his bed, leaning against the wall, was Ariadne's portrait.
Olivia felt her heart break for the suffering man slightly. Clearly Harold and Felicity had given up on him. His failure to them in their formative years had left a bitterness that could not easily be forgiven. For the first time in a long time, she was grateful for Arthur. Grateful he was the kind of man who set rules for her. Who demanded she be at home with him each evening and who cared about her. He was hardly perfect, but at least he never hid from the world like a hermit in a broken and decrepit room of a grand house.
"Mr. Eames?" she whispered. "You can't stay here any more. Mother wouldn't want you to live like this."
"You hardly know what your mother wanted." Eames snarled and tried to dry his eyes the way a child would. His hands clumsily wiping his face.
"I know she wouldn't want to live like this. This place is filthy and it's going to be cold tonight. Let's get you in a real bed." she said gently and offered her hand.
Eames looked at her then and, for a moment, she saw a flash of the handsome charming gentleman he once was.
Wordlessly, he took her hand and Olivia braced herself as she helped him to stand.
~ He weakly guided her to the rooms that the staff always sat up for him, but obviously never used. A rather shocked older maid gaped at the pair of them as Olivia helped him up the stairs and down the hall.
"Would you please run a bath for Mr. Eames?" she asked and the maid nodded.
Olivia wasn't at all used to this kind of labor, but her schooling had taught her the efficient running of a modern household. She was capable of commanding the staff to help her charge get cleaned up. An older maid coming to help him clean up, shave and re-dress. Olivia made sure he had clean sheets and that a good breakfast would be brought to him in the morning.
"He normally doesn't eat breakfast, miss." the younger maid said worriedly as they made up the bed.
"Nonsense." Olivia scoffed. "He does now. I want that conservatory locked up tonight. Harold will recover his work papers in the morning. Eames will do his writing in the library, eat his meals in the breakfast room and sleep in a real bed as night. I will also be taking him on a walk to improve his health and his leg"
"Yes, miss." the maids said as Eames was guided to the large bed and he was asleep as soon as the covers were laid on him.
She felt slightly sorry for him as she shoed the maids away and went to work tidying up the room. A place that looked as if it hadn't really been used in years. She didn't bother to hang up his ratty old sweater or pants that were dirty and worn thin. Instead she balled them up to be burned and went searching in his closets for something decent to wear.
His closet was large and housed an impressive aery of men's clothing. None of them looking as if they would still fit the fatter Mr. Eames. She looked over handsome tuxedos and tried to find something for him to wear in the morning when her hands stopped on beaded dresses and finely made coats with fur.
A fashionable blue dress caught her eye and she realized this was the closet Eames had also shared with her mother. Ariadne's clothing still hung in the closet; awaiting her return.
We have a new family member. Yesterday, I got a kitten we have named Sybil. She and our little dog get along which is good. Sorry my postings are so off lately. I've been busy being a dog/cat mom.