Butterfly Serials 1.2

It's Mrs. Joan & Her Stormy Start; Butterfly Serials 1.2

© 2024 by Amber Wright

June 1973.

The night before the Jacobs left for Ireland, Bibi opened the very first diary to see how everything had really started....

Date: Christmas 1914

Place: Bedford, England

There was music and laughter. A Christmas party. And little Miss Joan Walters was finishing getting ready upstairs. She loved parties—they were so full of excitement and colors and noise. And she hated parties—they were so full of nosy people and pesky questions. She about ripped her gloves as she put them on. Her mother was at her elbows making sure she had them on.

“I'll die an old maid!”

“No wonder—the way you chase young men!” her mother retorted back at her, reviewing her critically. “No good man will want you, Joan. That's why your father and I have arranged for you to marry a suitable man.”

“I'm perfectly fine as I am!”

“Your cousin Margaret March is happily married and has four beautiful daughters. I only want what's best for you, Joan. Stop acting like a child!”

Joan fumed, “I won't marry daft old Philemon Hoggs!”

“He's only 24 and son of the richest banker in Bedford,” Mrs. Walters narrowed her eyes. “We're announcing your engagement tonight.”

Mrs. Walters left the bedroom and Joan was left to simmer silently.

Angry enough to rip her cat's eyes out, 15 year-old Joan stared at the shiny black keys of the piano before her. She loved those morbid black notes. It made her think. She felt like dying tonight though. Dashing Elwood Archibald was joining the army and she was getting matched with some fellow she'd only met once. His hands were pinched looking and the color of custard. Yes, she felt like dying indeed.

Joan pinched her pale cheeks and smiled in the mirror, and flounced down the spiraling staircase down to the Christmas party below. It was so magical. Everything decorated in red and all the colors that go with it. She loved Christmas, it was the most wonderful time of the year!

If she couldn't have Elwood Archibald, she wouldn't have Mr. Hoggs. She'd go find someone else to marry—tonight. She glanced around and made a beeline to the most handsome and keen young man she could find. His name was Connor O'Reilly.

“You have the most beautiful green eyes!” Joan felt like a princess the way everyone stared at her and her gorgeous frilly red gown. She fluttered her red silk fan and gave Connor a nod to follow her. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do for fun? Do you have a boat?”

Connor was from Ireland, had a boat and was everything she could wish for. The tales he told were so captivating. She lost track of time. The next thing she knew her parents were announcing her engagement.

“You're getting married?” Connor looked so stricken.

“Yes, to you!” Joan whispered with a huge grin. “Tomorrow! So they can't stop us. They've arranged the whole thing with that horrid man. I can't stand him—he reminds me of curdled milk!”

The next morning, Joan sneaked some clothes off of a maid so she could disguise herself. She slipped out of the kitchen door with a big hooded cape and happily met Connor at the train station.

In London, they went to the register and were married.

• • •

September 1915.

Life was such a mystery and Joan Walters O'Reilley had a lot to learn. As soon as she told her husband that she was expecting a baby, he had run for the hills. She'd taken up odd jobs to survive but eventually the tiny flat had to be given up and she arrived in Bedford, England with nothing but the clothes on her back and a baby ready to be born.

“You're alive?” Mrs. Walters paled and did a thing Joan had never known her to do before. She started crying and gave her a tight hug.

Joan felt odd, especially with the big baby bump and not knowing how to handle all this new affection. It made her feel strange and she felt her back stiffen. She patted her mother's back awkwardly, “I'm back, mother.”

Everything was a blur from then on as the Walters house flew into chaos, a mix of happy and startled preparations. The day of the baby's birth arrived all too soon. It was a painful ordeal, one Joan would never like to experience ever again.

“You're had a beautiful girl,” the nurse told Joan as a squalling infant's cries filled the room.

Sixteen years old, frightened and broken, Joan stared at the tiny red faced baby in her arms and tried to make sense of it all. Would it stop crying?

Brooklyn O'Reilley was the most adorable baby on the planet but Joan was too tired to appreciate her. Her cousin Margaret March came to help out, who already had four daughters of her own.

“I'm glad you're back,” Margaret sat on the edge of the bed. “It was so scary when you went missing. We thought you had died!”

“Can we talk about it later?” Joan fell into a deep depression and her mind felt numb again.

After she was alone with baby Brooklyn, Joan cried herself to sleep—every night—for weeks.

A letter arrived at the Walters' mansion in the spring. It had one line in it and a scratchy signature, addressed from Ireland.

• • •

June 1916.

“I do,” Joan Walters O'Reilley Hoggs said blankly.

Connor was dead and Joan was briskly married off to custard face Philemon Hoggs, youngest and richest banker in Bedford.

They left 9 month old Brooklyn with her parents as they went on their elaborate honeymoon in a castle in the Scottish highlands. Joan very much enjoyed the adventurous treks up the mountains and the food was delicious, too.

All too soon they had to leave Scotland and Joan stayed with her parents while Lieutenant Hoggs went off to war again.

Cousin Margaret March came to visit often with her four daughters. Jo was 11 and the wild one, but a little girl after Joan's own heart. Joan spoiled her with little gifts when she took her to the shops on days when Margaret was particularly stressed.

“Hi, I'm Jo!” Jo kept shouting at everyone as they walked down the streets of Bedford. “Why don't they say something back, Auntie Joan?”

“They're annoying, aren't they? Don't mind them. It's because they're boring.”

“Boring!” Jo shouted at a frilly dressed lady.

The lady exclaimed in horrified tones.

Joan and Jo shared a giggle.

• • •

August 1916.

The sun rose and set on Elwood Archibald, Joan still thought. And to make matters worse, he came home to Bedford on leave as handsome as ever.

“I don't know how Elwood is still single,” Mrs. Walters chatted with the ladies in the parlor.

“I hear he's a catch, too.”

“Think he's a captain now or something.”

“He's definitely a soldier with distinction. Wouldn't be surprised if he goes higher.”

“We should set him up with one of our daughters. Perhaps he's just a bit shy and needs encouraging.”

“A big tea would be the thing!”

The frilly dressed ladies chatted on and on and on about Elwood Archibald that Joan had to leave the room, feigning she needed to check on her child.

Joan found Jo teaching 11 month old Brooklyn how to scribble with a pencil. “How are you two getting along?”

“Famously!” Jo proudly showed Joan the drawing. “She'll be writing in no time!”

“Clever little thing,” Joan sat on the carpet with them and squeezed Brooklyn's chubby little hand.

Brooklyn reached up for her. “Go, go!”

“That's our cue, Jo. Let's see what the weather is like in the garden,” Joan wrapped up her baby in a little coat.

It was a warm late summer day and the air felt wonderful, out here with the birds and children.

“My aunt March lives in New York now, did you know?” Jo rambled on like she usually did. “She's my father's aunt so that makes her my great aunt. You should see the photos she gives us. Her garden is as big as a park! I like this one better, though.”

“Actually, when I have a house of my own I'm going to have the biggest garden. You can help me design it.”

“Oh, could I?” Jo's eyes sparkled.

“We'll put a big fountain in the middle of it.”

“And have butterflies in it, too. I love butterflies!”

“Yes, butterflies, too.” Joan started thinking like she had never thought before.

That night, she scribbled and scribbled on future plans for her dream garden. Of course, Philemon had to come home from the war and they would settle in their own home. But until then, she would design the garden of the whole envy of Bedford!

• • •

“I'm Jill Jackson,” Jill grinned and Joan liked her immediately. “Thank you for hiring me!”

Joan had feigned she needed a new maid so she inquired around town for a girl who loved gardening and who had a mind for learning new things.

“Publicly, you're my new maid but,” Joan lowered her voice, “secretly you're going to be my assistant in my future garden. I want to carve out a life, not simply be an ornament for society. Can you help me?”

“Absolutely!” Jill clasped her hands. “This is my dream come true! Getting paid for being able to be the person I've always wanted to be. When do we begin?”

“Straight away!”

• • •

Sad news reached the Walters estate a couple of weeks later. Lieutenant Hoggs was returning from war. Joan almost cried when she heard the news.

And then a telegram came and she brightened a bit. There would be a funeral. Poor Philemon had caught the influenza on his last week in the trenches and had succumbed to the disease.

Although he had been fearfully ugly, Mr. Hoggs had the most beautiful bank account a girl could wish for. It had been worth the suffering.

Joan had to look woeful to disguise her joy. She took to wearing blacks with every piece of garment. She even dabbed at her eyes in public with black handkerchiefs.

“You're not that sad,” Jill noticed one day.

“I was forced to marry him, that's why. In my state of mind after Connor died, I had little to do with resisting a rich match. After all, I have Brooklyn to think about. She needed a father and we needed the money. It's probably shocking to you, but there it is. I'm now the richest widow in Bedford. I like it.”

“What will you do now?”

“Get my own house. I'd love a cottage with a field nearby. Maybe some animals.”

“Shall I have a look around? I know people who know where land and properties are sold. The best idea is to buy something not too expensive so you can improve it, and eventually sell it to buy a better place.”

“I just want a cottage and some land—plenty of land I'd not want to sell. There's always the option of building a bigger house on the grounds.”

“Perfect!” Jill went off to pen some inquiring letters and Joan took Brooklyn outside to play.

Joan was scribbling in her workbook of garden plans and house plans when she heard Brooklyn squeal loudly. She looked up. Who but Captain Elwood Archibald in the flesh was swinging her baby in the air.

• • •

Philemon Hoggs' funeral was an elaborate affair. Flowers everywhere, big ribbons, plenty of people crowding the church and sniffles all round.

And Joan dutifully cried.

...Bibi watched as certain eyes looked in Mrs. Joan's direction at the funeral. Something sinister was going to happen.

• • •

June 1973.

The plane left Madison Airport and Bibi felt as happy as if it was Christmas morning. She was on her way to Ireland!

Dad had arranged flights for all of them and they had packed at the speed of lightning.

Obviously, Bibi wasn't going to stay in Ireland this time round but would go back in the autumn with the girls to start nursing school. Dinah and Liza had pouted a bit but finally resigned themselves to going to Ireland instead of London.

Bibi felt happy despite the sober occasion. Mrs. Joan was still in intensive care but they would arrive in the Belfast military airport the next day, after a few layovers from Indiana to Ireland.

Bibi didn't sleep a wink, it felt like. Time flew past and they were arriving in Belfast. Her ears popped a bit as they landed and she felt as exhausted as a turtle.

“Sir!” a young man saluted to her dad as Bibi stumbled down the steps from the plane. “Mr. Jacobs, Michael McBride at your service. I'm to take you on to the Archibald estate.”

Michael reached out to assist her but Bibi jerked back because he was staring at her. “I'm not a baby!”

Bibi stumbled the rest of the way down and tripped on the last step, falling flat on her soft brown leather carry-on. Lucky for her it softened the fall but she fumed with embarrassment.

“Apparently not,” Michael smirked and gallantly took her carry-on as well as some of the other bags.

They followed Michael McBride to an army green Land Rover and he tied all the luggage on the racks of the vehicle. They piled into the jeep, and then everything was a blur until her head sank onto a soft fresh white pillow at the Archibald estate.

• • •

Bibi felt her head swim as she stumbled across the room to follow a maid who was beckoning her. They walked into a secret passage behind a thick tapestry and the air suddenly grew cold and dank. She shivered.

Bibi hadn't even thought to bring a robe and her flannel nightgown was freezing. This was strange. She was never cold in her night clothes. They came to a staircase and they stepped down, and down, and down until they reached a locked door which creaked open heavily.

The maid continued to say nothing.

Bibi saw a sliver of a moon atop shimmering waves of the seas beyond the tunnel of rock. Pirate markings etched the walls around her. Where was she?

Bibi jerked awake and found herself still in bed, heart pounding and gasping for air. She forced herself to be calm, and breathe again. Her eyes felt so heavy, like she hadn't slept in weeks.

The maid flashed Bibi a bright smile, opening the curtains. “Morning miss! Breakfast in half an hour and the bath's running for you in the adjoining loo.”

“Thank you,” Bibi gulped down the glass of water from the bedside table.

She felt like a princess with all this waiting on. How much wealth and status did Mrs. Joan and her family own?

After she was bathed and dressed, Bibi was still shivering. She wore a long faded denim skirt and a multi colored striped cardigan she'd crocheted last winter. It didn't help that the halls were drafty as she followed the maid to the dining hall with fresh washed hair dripping down her back.

“There you are!” Mom gave her a quick hug and explained she'd just gotten back from the hospital where Mrs. Joan was in pain but stable condition. “She still has a long road of recovery ahead of her but she's out of intensive care at least. Bibi, I think you need to go back to bed after breakfast. You're burning up with fever.”

Bibi started to argue but realized it was no use. You couldn't argue with a nurse, especially when one happens to be your mother. She did still feel rather woozy.

Bibi managed to eat a toasted bagel with a cup of hot tea, feeling like her ears were under water all the while. Everything seemed like a blur of noise and movement. Hot flashes went on and off, and she was afraid her underarms would start smelling like they usually did when she was sick.

Everyone seemed absorbed in conversations so she whispered to her mom, “I'm going now.”

Bibi rushed out of the room, feeling more miserable by the seconds. Halfway down the hallway, she tore off her thick warm cardigan and wafted her teal blue tshirt against her to cool her. She could really do with another bath now. A cold one!

“You're not going the right way.”

Bibi spun around to find that Michael McBride smirking at her again. She about fell, and steadied herself against the wall.

Michael's smirk turned into a frown. “Your eyes are glazed with fever. Come to the kitchen, I'll sort you out.”

“Nothing medieval, is it?”

Michael laughed and led the way to a very big and elegant looking kitchen with black wooden beams, a full wall of stoves and barbecue pits. He nodded for her to sit on a chair.

Bibi felt like her head was falling off and a puffy pain started behind her eyes. Another sinus headache! She was forever getting those. She leaned her head in her hands on the table and woke up to Michael nudging her.

“Eucalyptus oil on the nose,” Michael said.

Bibi felt like a proper baby as he dipped a rag into a bowl of mixture and applied it to her nose and around her nostrils. Such a thick woodsy smell! But she rather liked it. She already started to feel better, like her sinuses were opening up.

“You a nurse?”

“Mother is,” Michael helped her up and escorted her down the hallways until he pointed to a door. “That's the room you're staying in. Beware, it's haunted!”

• • •

Every creak of the ancient walls and every rattle of wind against the windows made Bibi shiver. Imagine the ghost poisoning her in her sleep. Or had it already done so in the guise of the oh so perfect maid who made her feel like royalty?

They'd put her in a dazzling silver casket decked with plush purple lining and dress her in a purple gown fit for a princess. Probably end up wearing unmatching shoes though, dangling over a fuzzy couch. Dinah and Liza would see to that.

Bibi felt herself drifting off to sleep again. She remembered something about her mom telling her at breakfast about what Mrs. Joan told her. That Mrs. Joan's car accident hadn't been an accident. “But who would want Mrs. Joan dead?”

Bibi sat up sharply.

“I know who did it,” the maid was shaking her shoulder with a blank face.

“Who did what?” was the fever still confusing her head? Was she still asleep or really awake?

The maid disappeared and Bibi was left to think that this was still all part of a feverish nightmare, nothing more. She fell back on her pillows. Mrs. Joan was safely in the hospital, nothing could happen to her now. Could it?

Bibi threw off the covers and her back was drenched. She didn't feel like going back to sleep just yet so she turned a lamp on and took a book off the shelf next to the armchair and little fancy table. She settled into the chair, thinking she was going to lose herself into a Jane Austen novel or something. But it was a handwritten book...

A handwritten journal from long, long ago.

The pages were aged yellow and Bibi sensed a drama about it before she even began, We were the butterfly girls. It took pain to help us find our wings. I am Tiria and I am writing this from Brittania, but our story began a long time ago in the land of Lydia.

• • •

Bibi jerked back to the present with a jar. Had she really just gone back in time and felt inside first century teens heads? She must have, because she had felt every emotion and thought coming from the girl called Junia and Tiria. Demetrius had been a little harder but she could still feel what he was going through. It was like the wildest dream ever come true!

To be in Ireland.

To time travel.

To be in Ireland and time travel at the same time!

Bibi pinched herself and stand up to do a little happy skip. She felt like putting on an ancient robe and merrily skipping through the huge estate with a tambourine covered in multi colored tassels. She suddenly realized her fever was gone and she was maddeningly starving.

Bibi wrapped up in a blanket and sneaked into the kitchen for a snack and milk. She got back in her room just as she heard somebody walking down the hall. Strange. She'd heard nobody in the kitchen. Better not be the estate's ghost taking a liking to her already. I'd rather not, if you please.

• • •

It wasn't an accident, kept echoing in her ears. What Mrs. Joan told her mother the first day they arrived. Mom went to the hospital every day and took care of Mrs. Joan, who was gaining strength every day. But it would take a while for her hip to completely heal.

Dad had said at breakfast they'd be there until the worst was over for Mrs. Joan and then they'd have to go home. She would be coming back in the autumn to start nursing school.

Bibi sneaked the ancient journal out of the house after breakfast and read it in one of those cozy, secluded arbors where no one would find her. There was a little note inside the top of the first entry, Rewritten from the original Greek in 11 century A.D. So it was really real, translated by a distant granddaughter of the writer Tiria. She went on to read the second chapter.

“No!” Bibi came back to the present and saw Michael McBride walking past with a smirk.

She flung her summer highlighted caramel braid back and felt her face burn. How was she to explain that? She closed the book with a thud.

“Is it time to eat yet?” Bibi asked him.

“You're always hungry,” Michael laughed.

“I'm not exactly a bird now, am I?”

“Dinner's not til an hour but I can sneak you in the kitchen if you like.”

Bibi stood up. Smirking or not, Michael was going to be her friend whether she liked it or not. He wasn't someone you could ignore easily. Besides, he'd make a good ally once she moved here this autumn for nursing school.

“Lead the way, Captain!”

“Aye, aye!” Michael played along with her childish drama and crept along the hedges in a secretive sort of way.

Bibi rather enjoyed the game.

They made it to the kitchen without a snitch and Michael managed to sweet talk his way with the middle-aged cook with a huge apron. The cook heated up some sausages from breakfast and put them on large, soft buns.

“Thank you!” Bibi held her sausage sandwich and glass of lemonade with a grin. “This brings me back to my childhood when we'd sneak into the kitchen for midnight snacks!”

“Childhood?” Michael arched a brow.

Bibi tried to stomp on his foot but he pulled it away with a laugh. They ate their sandwiches on a window seat in one of the many hallways of the estate. It was delicious.

“How is Mrs. Joan today?” Bibi asked him.

Michael's dark eyes went a funny color. “Better—she's doing better.”

“I heard it wasn't an accident,” Bibi watched him closely. “What do you think?”

Michael looked as if she'd slapped him.

Apparently she did, with the truth. Did he have something to do with Mrs. Joan's wreck? Bibi froze and her sausage soured in her throat.

“I know a few people who would want revenge on her,” Michael darted his eyes around the hallway as if fearing somebody would hear him. “You heard about what she did for the war? Solved crimes you wouldn't believe.”

Bibi stared. Mom had told her a little bit about how they'd helped Mrs. Joan solve mysteries but she'd never told her that Mrs. Joan was a crime investigator. Had Mom been one, too?

“My mother was with her!”

“So was mine,” Michael twitched his nose.

• • •

Michael seemed in deep thought the next few days and Mrs. Joan came home from the hospital in good spirits but still in a wheelchair. She'd probably be in that thing for quite a while. A broken hip was no easy quick recovery.

“We're leaving?” Bibi almost shouted. No way! They'd only been there...well, almost two full weeks. And she guessed she was coming back as soon as school started.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Bibi joked to Michael with a nervous laugh.

“I'll enjoy the peace til you come back,” Michael laughed back.

Back in the Land Rover they went, and to the airport...and in the air. This time Bibi fell asleep and sleep walked until they reached their farm. And then she slept again for about two days. Dinah and Liza kept coming over to pester her with questions but she just fell asleep on the couch or nodded to their questions.

On the third day of her jet lag recovery, Bibi unpacked her green leather suitcase with dirty clothes and souvenirs. Her clothes went on the floor and the souvenirs went in the top drawer where all her other treasures were. She tucked the suitcase under the bed, where it was stowed until the next adventure.

Bibi opened her green tartan backpack and a slip of paper fell from it. It read: You think you got away, didn't you?