A few weeks after I started working at the ranch, Adam’s mother arrived home. She had been traveling around Europe for a couple of months with a friend. I found out about her right after I started working there. Oliver, the head cook, was a terrible gossip. He yapped about everyone non-stop every single day while we were in the kitchen. I enjoyed it immensely and knew quite a bit about Violet before I ever laid eyes on her.
Violet Tyler was a striking woman. Even now in her 60s, I could see that she was once very beautiful and would still turn heads. I am talking movie star good looks. She was tall and very poised, exactly what you would expect from someone of such wealth and prestige. She had the most beautiful violet eyes I had ever seen. I guess that’s where her name came from.
I knew that Violet Tyler owned the championship horse farm, and Adam was in charge of running it. The staff around the ranch could be very gossipy, which, I hate to admit it, was a lot of fun. Their son and daughter-in-law, Sarah, lived there, but weren’t technically the owners. Not yet, anyway. Sarah fancied herself the lady of the house though. Violet let some of it go, just to make Adam happy, I’m sure. Though I doubt it was in Violet’s nature to worry about getting along with anyone.
Violet doted on Adam. I could tell that he was the one person in the world that she loved the most. He was her only child and she indulged him in anything he wanted. He was an adult and was married, but Violet sometimes treated him like he was her 10 year old son. She often bought him gifts and talked about him frequently. He was the same way with her, and almost acted like a little boy whenever she was around. Their relationship was near the top of the creepy scale. No, there was nothing sordid going on between them, they just had an odd relationship from what I could see. He was the definition of a mama’s boy.
Henry, Adam’s father, died a couple of years before I arrived, so I never had the chance to meet him. Oliver told me that he was the life of the party and everyone loved him. Everyone except Violet. I heard that Violet detested Henry and only stayed with him for his money. That is very sad, when you think about it. No amount of money could ever get me to stay with someone for 30 or 40 years, if I didn’t truly love him. What kind of life Violet and Henry must have had together, I wondered.
Apparently Henry and Violet met when they were in college and were together ever since. Oliver told me that Henry adored Violet and how much he doted on her. None of it mattered to Violet though. She had a long string of affairs during their marriage, and many people speculated that Adam was not even Henry’s son. I heard that Henry knew nothing about any of it. It seems unlikely that Violet could pull that off for so many years without him knowing anything. Perhaps he did know and just didn’t care? No way to tell at this point.
Since she was so unhappy with Henry, that might explain her strange relationship with her son. He may have been some sort of surrogate. Adam did appear to be the only person she cared anything about. It seemed to me as if she treated everyone else as replaceable. How sad for her.
Henry’s death was suspicious, but that’s really all that was said about it. He suddenly became sick and died within a few days. The doctors blamed it on liver disease, from years of hard drinking. I heard that there was no autopsy, because the family didn’t want one. I guess when you are rich it’s easy to get people to go along with things. I definitely didn’t know much about it. Maybe the coroner honestly didn’t think it was necessary to do an autopsy. Even though I enjoyed the gossip, I tried to filter out the things that just didn’t add up. Henry probably just died from liver disease and that was the end of it. The truth was probably not really all that juicy.
For some reason that I can’t explain, Violet hated me, and I had no idea why. It seemed to start the second she arrived home. I don’t think I was imagining it. I tried to be nice to her, always smiling and being friendly, but it didn’t seem to matter. I did my best not to take it personally, because she was that way with everyone that I could see. She rarely spoke to me, usually just when she wanted me to fetch her things. I hated it, but I did it anyway. I don’t think she realized that I was the cook’s assistant, not the butler. She spent a lot of time sitting in the parlor drinking tea alone. It seemed that she didn’t do much else.
One day, she was sitting in the library, which was odd, because that was where Adam worked. He was usually in there and it was the first time I had ever seen her there without him. She rang the stupid little gold bell that she had to summon the servants and called me in to bring her some tea. When I walked back in with the tea a few minutes later, she was just sitting there staring out the window, and hadn’t even noticed me walk in.
She was wearing comfortable cream colored slacks, a nice white blouse, and heels. No matter what, I never saw the woman in anything but nice clothes and shoes, with her hair done impeccably. She had a hair dresser that came to the house every single morning at 7 a.m. sharp to do her hair. I couldn’t even imagine her in a pair of sweats, tennis shoes, and a pony tail. The thought made me smile. I quickly looked her way to make sure she didn’t see me smile. I wouldn’t want to try to explain that.
I continued to stand a few feet away from her waiting for her to notice me. I didn’t want to startle her, so I waited patiently for several minutes. She didn’t like anyone approaching her without an invitation, she was kind of skittish like that, which is why I didn’t walk right up to her with the tea she had asked for. After a few more minutes, it seemed like she was just going to completely ignore me while I stood there forever. Since she still hadn’t acknowledged my presence, I decided to speak up.
“Are you all right?” I finally asked her.
She seemed to snap out of it then and barely glanced my way. “Oh yes, I’m fine.” Then she turned away from me again.
I sat the tea and some cookies down on the table next to her and turned to leave.
“Abigail.”
She always called me that even though I asked her many times to call me Abbey. She seemed to not care, so I gave up and just went with it. She did tell me that she liked the proper name that I was given, and didn’t like the ‘cute little nickname’ people gave me. She said it was silly and frivolous, and that people should always use their proper names. It was the mature thing to do. Regardless, I still liked to be called Abbey.
“Yes ma’am?” I responded.
“Why don’t you come and sit down? I would like to talk to you.” She gestured to the empty chair near her.
“Okay.” I was very confused at that. Other than ordering me around, she never spoke to me. I promptly sat down in the chair on the other side of the table and turned a bit, so I would be facing her.
Before she said anything to me, I watched her take a small bottle of rum out of her purse, I think it was rum anyway, and pour a bit into her tea. She put it back into her purse and turned to me as if nothing had just happened. It wasn’t my place to even think anything of what I just witnessed, so I ignored it. It certainly wasn’t the first time I had observed her pouring alcohol into her tea, and probably wouldn’t be the last time.
“Have you seen Sarah today?” she asked me.
“Yes, just this morning at breakfast, before she went out. I haven’t seen her since. Do you want me to see if I can find her for you?” I asked.
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
That was all she said for a few minutes, staring out the window again. It made me a little uneasy, just sitting there with no one talking.
“Well, if you don’t need anything else, I have a few things I need to get done,” and I started to get up.
“Abigail, sit down.”
I sat.
“Abigail, you know that when I’m gone, Adam will inherit this entire estate.”
“Okay.” It was the only response I could think of.
“My problem is that he and Sarah have not been able to have any children,” she blurted out.
“I didn’t know that,” I responded.
Oliver had said that he was surprised that there were no little ones running around, as much as Sarah wanted kids. She apparently talked about them all the time. But I don’t think Oliver had any idea that they were having trouble making those children. I wasn’t about to tell him though. That’s all I needed was for the story to circle around and get back to this conversation I was having with Violet. Even though I liked listening to the gossip, I tried my best not to get involved by repeating the things I heard.
“I need an heir.” For the first time, Violet turned her head away from the window and looked directly at me.
I immediately felt really uncomfortable with the conversation and no longer wanted to be there. I didn’t know where she was going with that, and I didn’t want to know. It was the strangest thing for her to say to me. I was the cook’s assistant, not a family member. Why in the world would she ever say something like that to me? I needed to get out of there before this very odd conversation went any further.
“I really have to get back to work.” I got up and started walking toward the door.
“Abigail!” She didn’t quite yell, but it was definitely stern.
I stopped, turned around and walked back to the chair. I promptly sat down. When the lady of the house yells, I knew I’d better listen.
“Adam’s father, Henry, made him marry Sarah. Adam is still so young, and our only son, but Henry wanted him to settle down, start a family, and take over the business. I was against it, of course, but he had a point, so I relented. We put Sarah through medical school, you know. She is a brilliant woman, I have to give her that. She got through in half the time it takes most to get through. She is certainly not one of my favorite people, low class for sure.” She very quickly paused at that and looked me up and down. I could tell she was comparing me to Sarah and it made me feel like cattle. Such a strange feeling. “But, I knew that as a doctor she would make a suitable wife for our son.”
I did know that Sarah had finished medical school, but was still working on her license, which was why she was gone so much.
At that moment, as if right on queue, Sarah walked in. She looked from from Violet to me and back to Violet again, clearly perplexed. I’m sure we were the last two people she ever imagined would be sitting down having a chat. I jumped up immediately, grateful for the diversion, and almost ran out of the room. Neither one said a word to me. I think I actually felt Sarah’s eyes boring a hole into my back as I ran out the door.