It took its toll on him, too. He began to show his age, and that once-dapper look, that spring in his gait wilted. It was as if they had both tripped and fallen headlong into the autumn of their lives.
With the coming of a new summer resort season—one promising to be bigger than any we had had before—we all became occupied with our duties. We still made time for Mother, but our visits had to be shorter and fewer. I thought nothing could take my attention away from my demanding work now. I was living and breathing the hotel.
One day, as I was rushing down a corridor to check on something in the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of myself in a wall mirror and stopped dead in my tracks. I backed up and gazed at my reflection.
It's no wonder Mother doesn't recognize me anymore, I thought. I barely recognized myself. Concern, worry and responsibility had deepened the lines in my forehead. I wore my hair brushed back more severely than ever, and I had taken to wearing cotton suits and blouses. Even though I was never one to wear a great deal of makeup, I did use lipstick and some eye shadow, but now I was going for long periods of time without a touch of color on my lips and eyes. This view of myself actually terrified me. It was as if Grandmother Cutler's spirit had begun to enter my body and change me.
But before I could think more about it, Fern came running to tell me there was a funny-talking man on the telephone demanding to speak to Lillian Cutler.
"Lillian Cutler? You know who that was. Did you tell him she's passed away?"
"Yes. I told him you were the boss now, too. Then he demanded to speak to you. He said you would know who he was for sure, for dang sure," she mimicked, and she grimaced.
"Dang sure? What's his name?"
"Luther somebody," she replied.
"Luther?" Luther, I thought. Luther, from The Meadows. But why was he calling?
I gazed once more at myself in the mirror and thought I saw the satisfied smirk of Grandmother Cutler coming back at me. Then I hurried off.
"It's Miss Emily," Luther said after I picked up the receiver, told him who I was and said hello.
"What about Miss Emily, Luther?" I asked.
"She's gone and died," he replied.
"Died?" I didn't think that cruel, hard woman was capable of dying. She was too mean and ugly for even death to touch her.
"Yep. I'm calling you from Nelson's General Store," he declared, as if that were the most important fact of all. Of course, I remembered they had no phone at The Meadows.
"What happened to her, Luther?" I asked.
"Her heart run out, I guess."
Heart? She didn't have a heart, I thought, just some chunk of meanness beating away under her breast.
"Charlotte come out to tell me Miss Emily didn't get up to make breakfast this morning, so I went up to her room and knocked on the door, but she didn't reply. I went in and found her sprawled on her back, her eyes and mouth wide open," Luther continued.
"Did you call a doctor?" I asked.
"Doctor? What for? She's dead as last Christmas. Ain't nothing a doctor gonna do for her now," he replied.
"You still have to call a doctor, Luther. She has to be declared legally dead, and you have to make arrangements for the burial," I said.
"No arrangements necessary. I'll dig a grave in the family plot on the grounds and drop her in," he said.
"You can't do that without first calling a doctor, Luther," I stated, even though I didn't think that hateful woman deserved any better.
"I don't know where she kept her money for such things," he told me.
"Don't worry about money. I'll see to that. How's Charlotte?"
"She's all right. She's singing in the kitchen and making herself some eggs," he said, not hiding the joy in his voice.
I would have laughed, but I recalled the Spartan meals Miss Emily prescribed for all of us: that horrible oatmeal with the vinegar in it so we would taste bitterness and know hardship, that single apple for lunch, and those measured portions for dinner. Even the drinking water was rationed.
"But I guess you people got to come down here to see about things," he said.
"We people?" Yes, I thought. We do have to see about things, especially about poor Charlotte. "All right, Luther. We'll be there right away. But you call that doctor," I ordered.
"I'll do it, but it's good money thrown down a gopher hole," he remarked.
After I hung up I went to tell Jimmy and Philip. We decided that Jimmy and I would go to The Meadows. Philip wanted to remain at the hotel. He hadn't seen Aunt Emily or Aunt Charlotte for years and had little interest.
"Don't worry about Christie or Fern," Mrs. Boston told us. "I'll look after both of them and make sure Miss America behaves herself or else," she promised, winking.
Jimmy and I smiled at each other. It was practically my only smile during this trip, for I couldn't help but recall the nightmare of my incarceration at The Meadows. Grandmother Cutler had sent me there to give birth to Christie in secret. Her sister Emily was a midwife, but more importantly, she was a religious fanatic who was determined to see me suffer for my sins.
I still had nightmares in which I saw her looking down at me with those steel-blue, icy eyes set in a narrow face. She had a pasty and sallow complexion with thin, colorless lips. She would hover over me like a bird of prey, hoisting her shoulders and spouting her threats of hell and damnation.
How could I ever forget that horrible little dark room she made me sleep in; the hard chores she forced me to perform; those weekly baths in water she had already used; and the overdose of laxatives she made me drink, trying to cause a miscarriage.
Grandmother Cutler must have known all this would happen when she sent me there, I thought. After all, she and Emily had conspired behind my back to give away Christie shortly after she was born. If it hadn't been for Jimmy's arriving to save me, I might have withered away there myself.
Now we were on our way back to that old plantation, which was a shadow of what it had once been. We made our travel arrangements as quickly as we could and set out, neither of us eager to make the trip. But I did feel sorry for Charlotte. She wasn't more than a little girl in mind and heart, yet she was a soft and gentle person who had been Emily's whipping post.
We rented a car at the airport when we arrived and drove out to Upland Station. I was surprised at how well I remembered the exact route. I guess that escape was implanted in my mind forever and ever. We bounced over the long and narrow cracked macadam road and turned down the dirt road where the property of The Meadows began, and once again the tips of the brick chimneys and the long, gabled roof of the great plantation house loomed over the treetops.
Nothing had changed. The marble fountains were still dry and broken, some leaning over precariously. The hedges were just as dead and scraggly, and the stone walks were still chipped and battered. In the dark shadows of the late afternoon sun the leafless vines that ran over the columns of the full-facade porch looked like rotting rope. After we got out and approached the porch I looked up at the roof that seemed to touch the clouds. The windows in the gabled dormers resembled dark eyes peering down angrily. This was still a cold, dark house.
Our footsteps echoed on the loose porch floor. We tried the brass knocker and waited. Moments later we heard the scurry of footsteps within, and then the door was thrust open and Charlotte gaped out at us, her blue eyes bright with curiosity. She wore her simple shift and her father's old slippers. Her gray hair was still tied in long braids. Aside from the fact that she looked even plumper, she seemed unchanged from when I had last seen her.
"Hello, Charlotte," I said. "Do you remember me?" She nodded, but I didn't think she did.
"Emily's dead," she announced. "She's died and gone to heaven on a broom, Luther says."
"On a broom?" Jimmy asked. He smiled at me.
"1 know what Luther's saying," I replied. "Has the doctor been here, Charlotte?"
She nodded.
"Where's Luther?" I asked.
"He's at the family plot
digging a grave. He said it's the first time he's enjoyed digging," she added.
Jimmy couldn't help but laugh.
"May we come in?" I asked her.
"Oh, yes. We can have mint tea."
"That will be fine," I said, stepping into what had been a house of horrors.
I couldn't help but shudder. The memories came rushing back the moment I entered that dark, dismal entryway and saw the oak chest, the hardwood benches too uncomfortable-looking to sit upon and the upholstered chairs that were great dust collectors. On the walls were portraits of ancestors—women with pinched faces dressed in dark clothes, their hair pinned back severely, and men, unsmiling and stern. There was no doubt Emily had been a descendant of these horrid people, I thought.
"Emily's still upstairs," Charlotte revealed. "She's still in her bed."
"Luther didn't call an undertaker?" I looked at Jimmy. He shrugged.
"I'll go upstairs and take a look," he said. We had decided on the way that I would spend most of my time going through papers and documents in what had been Emily's office.
"I'll go, too," Charlotte cried. "And then we'll have tea."
"Lead the way, please," Jimmy said. Charlotte shuffled toward the stairway. She still walked like a geisha girl, with her hands clasped to her body, her head down. Jimmy followed, and I went to the office.
The moment I entered, the grandfather clock in the corner bonged as if warning me to stay out. I lit the kerosene lamp on the desk quickly, and the flame threw a sheet of light up and over the giant picture of Mr. Booth. He looked as if he were frowning down at me. I found another kerosene lamp on a table and lit that one as well. In fact, I tried to light every kerosene lamp in sight, recalling how Emily had forced us to live in such darkness, hoarding the fuel and distributing it with a miserly hand.
I went behind the desk and began to sift through papers, most of which were common household bills.
"If you're lookin' for a will, you won't find one," Luther said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. The shadows on his face made him look leaner and older. As he approached I saw that he was otherwise unchanged. It was as if everything and everyone about this place were frozen in time, trapped forever and ever in one of my nightmares. The strands of his dirty brown hair were long and disheveled. As always, he needed a shave badly, his rough, gray-brown stubble growing in ugly patches over his otherwise pale white face.
He wiped his muddy hands on his overalls.
"She told me once that she had no will. She didn't care what happened after she passed," he explained.
"I see," I said, sitting back. "Then it will have to go to probate. Didn't you call an undertaker to provide a coffin, Luther?" I asked.
"Got one made already," he said. Then, with his eyes small, he added, "I had it made and waiting in the barn a long time."
"Sit down, Luther," I said, nodding toward the leather chair by the desk. He looked at it as if it were some sort of trap. "Please, I want to talk to you. Neither of us has anything to fear from the other, especially now that Miss Emily's gone."
That pleased him, and he sat.
"If you hated her so much, why did you stay on and take her mean way??" I asked.
"I told you once," he said. "This place was all I knew, all I had. She thought she owned it, but she didn't. She didn't know nothin' about it. You got to work a place to own it."
"She made you her slave because you made Charlotte pregnant a long time ago," I charged. "Isn't that so? She held it over your head." I remembered Charlotte telling me herself how Luther had done the "wiggles" on her, and how after that she had become pregnant.
"I got nothin' to be ashamed of," he said by way of an answer. He leaned forward. "Emily, she made out like she was God Almighty's personal messenger on earth. All the Booths except Mrs. Booth thought they were better than anyone else. Turned my pappy into a common slave and worked my momma into a hole, but I knew their sins," he added, smiling. "Even when I was just a little boy I knew, and besides, my momma, she told me everything that went on."
"What went on?" I asked. I was surprised he was so talkative now, but I assumed it was because the shadow of Emily Booth had been lifted from him.
"The old man, he was a good farmer, but he liked the ladies and imbibed often," he said.
"Imbibed?"
"Drank his good brandy like other people drank water," he explained. "Mrs. Booth, she was a nice lady; I always liked her. She was always kind to me, give me things whenever none of the others was lookin'. She was always sickly and weak. My momma used to say Mr. Booth drained Mrs. Booth like a rain barrel. Sucked her dry," he added.
"She got sick and died soon after she gave birth to Charlotte, right?" I asked, recalling the little about her I was able to learn when I was here.
He sat back, a strange self-satisfied smile on his face.
"She ain't never gave birth to Charlotte," he said. "Oh, she pretended she did, but my daddy and my momma, they knew the truth. Momma, she had to take care of her, you know, and," he added, leaning toward the desk, "see after Lillian."
"Lillian? Grandmother Cutler? What do you mean?" I asked. Jimmy appeared in the doorway but didn't come forward. He didn't want to interrupt.
"She's the one give birth to Charlotte," he said. "Lived in that little room, just like you did."
"Gave birth to Charlotte? You mean Charlotte wasn't really her and Emily's sister?" I asked. His smile widened.
"Oh, I guess you could say she was, sort of."
"I don't understand," I said, now turning to Jimmy, who had overheard it all. He started toward the desk.
"Her pappy," Luther began, and then he stopped.
"Fathered Charlotte?" I said, finishing the horrible sentence.
"It's what my momma told me," Luther said, and he looked up at Jimmy. "And my momma," he added, turning back to me, "she never told no lies about the rich people. Not never. They were the only ones who told lies about themselves.
"They made Mrs. Booth look and act pregnant to cover the shame, and then, after Charlotte was born, they treated her like some dumb animal," he said, showing anger for the first time. "She used to come to me to show me where they whipped her, and when they starved her, I would get her food," he added with vehemence.
And suddenly I realized that in his way Luther had loved Charlotte and probably still did.
But what a dreadful tale, I thought. This was truly a house of horror. Considering the age difference between Grandmother Cutler and Charlotte, I realized she couldn't have been much more than fourteen when this beastly thing had happened to her. I sat back, dazed. Jimmy and I gazed at each other, both thinking the same thing.
No wonder she had been the way she was.
Neither Jimmy nor I saw any reason to prolong Emily's burial. We knew no other people to inform, and from what I remembered and what Luther told us, she had no real friends. Luther gave me the name of the minister, and I had Jimmy drive me to Upland Station so I could phone him. His name was Carter, and he knew of Emily Booth. I explained our situation, and he said he would come right out to perform a service at the grave site.
When we returned I told Luther the arrangements were complete. He hurried to bring the coffin upstairs and placed Emily's body within it. He pounded it shut, the clank of his hammer reverberating throughout the house as he hit the nails extra hard. Then he and Jimmy carried the coffin downstairs and put it on the back of Luther's truck.
I looked after Charlotte, now feeling sorrier for her than ever. She didn't have anything proper to keep her warm outside, and the sky was dismal gray. There were flurries, too, so I went into Miss Emily's room and found a dark blue wool coat. At first she was afraid to accept it.
"Everything that was Emily's is now yours, Charlotte," I explained. "She left it to you," I lied. Gingerly she took it from me and put it on.
Reverend Carter arrived with his wife, a small, birdlike woman. They were both dressed in black. His wife looked like a professional mourner. She never smiled,
and her eyes were glassy and swollen, as if she had been crying for days.
Luther led us out to the family burial plot where the Booths lay side by side, going back as far as the beginning of the nineteenth century. When I looked at the fresh grave dug for Emily I thought Luther had gone far deeper than necessary. It was as if he wanted to be sure she would have pounds and pounds of dirt over her to keep her securely within.
As the minister read from the Bible Luther and Jimmy lowered the casket into the grave. I stood beside Charlotte and wondered if she really understood what was happening. She had a fine angelic smile on her lips.
The minister said a few words about Emily being happy now that she was where she deserved to be, and then we started away, leaving Luther to fill in the grave. He insisted he would do it all himself. When I turned back and saw how he shoveled the dirt, I thought he looked gleeful. He worked with a youthful vigor that seemed to straighten his back and rejuvenate him as he dropped the soil into the grave and heard it rumble onto Emily Booth's coffin. I was sure a lifetime of pain and suffering was being buried along with Emily.
I paid the minister something for his trouble, and then Jimmy and Charlotte and I did finally have that mint tea. Charlotte actually prepared it for us. As she moved about the kitchen I realized she was more capable than Emily had made her out to be. Free now of the chains and restrictions Emily had put on her, Charlotte seemed to take on more and more responsibility eagerly.
"Where do you want to go now, Charlotte?" I asked her.
"Go?" she said, looking up from her cup. She gazed around the kitchen. "No place. I gotta do some cleaning today," she said, "and work on my needlepoint."
"She does beautiful work," I told Jimmy. We heard the front door open and close.
"I put the marker up," Luther said, coming into the kitchen.
"What about a gravestone?" Jimmy asked.
"Almost got it done," Luther replied, sitting down at the table. "I've been working on it for years," he added. Jimmy flashed a smile at me.