CHAPTER EIGHT

Mid 1700s |Town of Oakwood

 

“Papa, je peux avoir la chambre la plus haute de la maison?” Olivette smiled sweetly at her father as the carriage rounded the corner and the grand house came into view.

Olivette had wanted to claim the largest room in the house for herself. She loved the lush trees, the big beautiful flowers in the yard, and the grass, all the grass. The journey from France had been long, and grueling. Olivette hoped that a brand-new beginning in the new world would give her father a chance to be home and enjoy spending countless hours with her.

Her mother had died several years earlier. Olivette hardly remembered her at all. She had caught a horrible chill one day after swimming in the river, and she never recovered. Her father was saddened so deeply, he spent all his time away from home, working. Olivette had wondered often if he couldn’t look at her, for she resembled her mother to an uncanny degree.

Now her father was to be the Mayor of Oakwood, and Olivette was going to get to grow up in the Americas. Her entire world was changing. Her nanny, Jeanette, came along too with her son Jacob. He was just a little older than Olivette.

Jeanette promised Olivette that her papa would be home much more often with his new posting, and that had made Olivette smile. She was a beautiful young girl, long flowing blonde hair that looked as though it lacked color almost completely. She donned bright blue eyes and a small button nose. Her face was covered in small freckles, which she hated with a passion. Her small body was gangly, and she was all skin and bones. But at six years old, she still had many more years of growing to do.

“Mon Armoire papa aller dans ma chambre et tous mes dollies peuvent dormir avec moi!” She stated bravely and with such vigor that her papa proudly patted her head.

She simply asked, well, stated, that she would be keeping all her dolls in her room with her.

“Oui ma chere, tes dollies peuvent dormir avec toi,” her papa agreed as the carriage came to a stop in the carriage house near the side entrance.

Assuring her that she could keep the dolls with her, and that she could pick any room she wanted, they exited the carriage.

The staff waited to greet the new master of the house and his beautiful daughter. It had been a few years since a child had visited Oakley house. The staff members were excited to be able to see the joy in a child’s eyes and hear the giggles as she ran through the halls. Oliver had stayed there on multiple occasions since having it built, and there had been countless important visitors. Of course, the staff had children that would tag along for their duties throughout the past days, but most of their children were long gone now.

The days moved along and Olivette began her schooling. Her papa worked from his office most days, and the house was always moving with staff cleaning, cooks making delicious meals that reminded Olivette of her home in France, and they even hung a portrait of her mother up in her room just above her bed so she could watch over her while she slept and played.

It was sometime later, maybe a year or so that Olivette’s Papa brought home a new woman.

Madam Sophia was beautiful, with long hair that flowed elegantly down her back, piercing blue eyes, and a smile that lit up the room. She looked so much like Olivette that it was hard to know that she hadn’t been Olivette’s real mother. Olivette loved her. She even spoke French and Dutch and began teaching Olivette Dutch which was so much fun. Olivette thought it sounded funny, but not nearly as funny as English sounded to her.

Sophia spent many days and nights at the estate, working beside papa, and even playing dollies with Olivette on occasion after a lesson in Dutch. She always had beautiful things to say about Olivette’s dollies, with their pretty porcelain faces and hands, their fine silk hair, and their beautiful dresses. Her momma had given them to her when she was just two years old, and she imagined she would keep them for her own children one day.

After many months, Papa asked Madam Sophia to marry him. The wedding was grand. The whole township came, and everyone danced and danced until their feet gave out. Olivette watched from the stairs as her papa smiled and talked to everyone. She was so happy to have a new mamma and she hoped she would soon have a baby brother to play with her in the big house.

Not much changed over the next weeks or months. Papa worked, Sophia right along with him. Olivette played and her nanny Jeanette was needed less and less as Sophia took over most of Olivette’s care. Olivette begged her papa and new mamma to let Jeanette stay with them at least until she turned sixteen. Jeanette had taken care of her since she was little and was like a mother to her. She wanted Jeanette to be with her for her debut to society when she became a woman. Of course, they agreed.

On her fifteenth Birthday, Olivette was still an only child, one infant had come but died two days later. The doctors said it had come too early. Sophia was so upset that she became spiteful of Olivette in return. On her Birthday, Sophia told Olivette that she was now much too old for dollies and said that young ladies should be occupying their time with sewing and learning to be a wife. Sophia took all of Olivette’s dolls and locked them in the cabinet. She had the cabinet moved to another room in the house and locked it away.

Jeanette held Olivette as she cried and mourned the loss of her dollies, her only real friends since childhood. Papa agreed with Sophia that she should be doing more grown-up things and he did nothing to change what had happened. He carved an O on the cabinet so Olivette would always know that was her cabinet, and she could one day give it to her own children; however, the cabinet stayed locked away.

As promised, after her sixteenth birthday, Jeanette had been sent away. She retired to a small hut on the property with her son, and many others from the staff. Olivette saw her from time to time, her heart aching with the pain of losing her.

One night, Olivette decided to sneak into the locked room with the cabinet. Once in the room, Olivette shimmied the lock on the cabinet of dolls, she wanted to look at them and make sure they were okay. She opened her cabinet and found her dolls were all there, on their stands just as she had placed them a year ago. She held each one and cried for their captivity. She also mourned her mother. After all, the dolls were given to her by her late mother, and they meant so much to her that it pained her to see them locked away.

Olivette was too busy fretting over the dolls to realize that Sophia had come up the steps behind her. She was furious that Olivette had broken into the room and the cabinet. She slapped Olivette across the face, leaving a deep scratch across the young girls’ cheek with a fingernail. Olivette had never been hit before. She sat there, shocked and hurt that someone could be so cruel.

Olivette ran out of the room, leaving behind her dolls. She went straight to papa’s office, where she found he was gone. She cried out for him, but he was not there. Sophia arrived by the door shortly after and told Olivette in a hateful tone that papa had business in one of the lower colonies. He would be gone for a week or two. This came as no surprise. He often had business and would leave on trips, but he had always said goodbye to her. She cried because she felt forgotten, that and she was alone with Sophia, whom she hated more now than the day her dollies were locked away. She would now bear a scar on her face as proof of Sophia’s hatred.

Running her fingers over the scratch, Olivette let out a blood curdling scream, and promised Sophia that she would regret hitting her one day. Then the now teenage girl ran out the door and into the woods by the house.