Eric nodded, lifted his hands and gestured for them to calm down.
“She looks really nice, Eric.” His youngest sister smiled at him, approaching slowly to sit on the floor next to him. She ran her fingers through the carpeting, looking up at him with large brown eyes. “Did you meet her in town?”
Eric touched her nose before answering. “I did, yes. But not the way you are all thinking. It seems our eldest brother was up to something before his accident today.”
His statement was met with widespread frowns of confusion. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized how much he and his siblings looked alike. They all looked like they were frowning with the same mouth. The thought amused him, and he smiled wide.
“I know that smile, Eric!” Helen said, sternly. “You are playing with us. What are you hiding?”
Eric shook his head. “No, no, Helen. You are mistaken. It isn’t me who was hiding. It was Henry.”
“I don’t understand.” Jane spoke up for the first time from her seat on the couch. She had been wrapped in her thoughts of Henry and just realized that she had been introduced to a strange woman in her mother’s home. “What’s going on?”
Her siblings glanced at her before turning their eyes back to Eric. She was just being her typical self. There was no need to inform her what the conversation was about because she would be back into her own world within moments anyway and they would have to explain it all again later.
“Eric, you need to come forth with the truth. What are you saying?”
“Our brother sent for a bride from the East.”
He was met with silent stares from his brother and sisters. He had even succeeded in making his youngest sister’s face register shock and bewilderment.
“Pardon me?” William took a step closer to him, and Eric lifted his hand in a stop motion.
“I’m telling you, that’s where Olive is from. She is from a small town in Virginia. Henry sent for her.”
“What could possibly make any woman want to do that?” Helen sounded belligerent. “I can’t imagine! Leaving your family and your home and traveling all the way…”
“That’s just the thing.” Eric interrupted her. It was uncommon for him to do such a thing so Helen’s mouth snapped shut and she stared at him with wide eyes. “She is escaping an unhappy home life, and I think you should give her a chance. She is not some wild woman who was looking for a man with money, and she has not shown herself to be loose or impudent in any way. I would appreciate it if you would give her the chance to show you who she is.”
“You don’t even know who she is, Eric,” William said. “Yet you defend her as if you are the one who called for her.”
Eric shook his head. “No, my brother. I didn’t call for her. It was Henry.”
“How do you know?”
“She showed me the letter he had sent most recently. She has others. They are in his handwriting. I would recognize it anywhere.”
“I… I don’t believe it.” Helen finally looked away and took a step back from him, her aggressiveness dissolved. She moved to the couch and let herself drop on it next to Jane.
Jane looked at her.
“What’s happening, Helen? What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later, Jane.” Helen patted her sister’s hand softly. “Don’t you worry about it.”
Chapter Four
The house was extremely long. It was obvious that Mr. Lewis, who built it in the first place, continued to add rooms as he saw fit. He never expanded the upper level, leaving the house looking very odd from the outside. The rooms he built on were comfortable, solid and very nicely decorated. He’d felt the need to add another room when his daughters married, in case they and their husbands wanted to visit at the same time. Then he had added two more rooms for the children he knew they would eventually have.
He was an extremely boisterous and fun man in his late 60’s. He was fit and trim, ready to take on the world. Olive enjoyed being around him whenever he was there.
Over the course of a week, she learned many things about the new life she was living and the people she was living it with. She learned that Helen and Matthew were daily visitors, that William and his wife were rarely seen and that Henry had not been a visitor more often than holidays. She couldn’t understand that, considering the kind of family he’d had. Eric was also there more often than not.