Cutler 3 - Twilight's Child (47 page)

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.

"What do you want to do now, Luther?" I asked him.

"Do now?"

"Are you going to stay here?" I inquired.

"Until someone drags me off," he said. "Got no other place to go, and"—he turned toward Charlotte—"someone's got to look after Miss Charlotte."

I nodded, smiling.

"I think that would be very nice," I said. "When Jimmy and I return to Cutler's Cove I'll have our attorney see about the legal questions involving the property. No matter what happens, I don't see why you and Charlotte can't stay. That is, if you really think you can take care of her, Luther," I added.

He fixed those dark brown eyes on me hard, his face as serious as I had ever seen it.

"I've been taking care of her in one way or another ever since I can remember," he replied.

"I guess you have," I said.

"And here's your cup of mint tea," Charlotte said, placing it before him. Then she stepped back, her eyes glimmering with pride.

"Thank you, Charlotte," he said. She smiled down at him happily. Then she looked at me and clapped her hands together.

"I almost forgot," she said. "Tomorrow's my birthday." I started to laugh, remembering how she would say that every day, but Luther looked up smiling.

"She's right," he said. "It really is!"

AS JIMMY AND I DROVE AWAY FROM THE MEADOWS THAT DAY I thought how right it was that the two people who were made to suffer most there could now live there happily. I had no doubt in my mind that in time some of the more dreary and dismal aspects of that sad house would be buried along with the memory of Miss Emily. The shadows she had kept stored in the deepest corners—shadows she had protected and fed with her insane insistence that the light be rationed —would surely follow her to the grave.

When we returned to Cutler's Cove I had a meeting with Mr. Updike concerning The Meadows, and he said he would see to it that Charlotte and Luther could live there for as long as they wanted. I told Philip about our trip, Emily's burial and what we had decided. He was glad not to have to have anything more to do with it.

"The one or two times I was there," he said, "I was terrified. Aunt Emily made me feel I was the devil's own."

In a way it was good for me to have attended Miss Emily's burial. Seeing Charlotte and Luther happy and knowing that the dour, evil woman was gone from their lives as well as my own put an end to my nightmares about The Meadows. Those days stopped haunting me.

I had much too much to do with my life now anyway. There was Christie's musical education to continue; there were things to do in our home and, of course, there was the hotel. Jimmy and I made plans to take our first vacation together after the summer. We decided to return to Cape Cod to finish our honeymoon.

It was the most romantic week of our marriage. We were able to pledge our love to each other again and again in dozens of little ways: Jimmy just touching my cheek and not saying anything, me resting my head against his shoulder as the sun went down, or the two of us waking up before dawn and rushing out to hold hands and walk on the beach as the sun rose.

When we returned to Cutler's Cove we discovered Bronson had made arrangements for all of us to have Thanksgiving at Beulla Woods. He thought it would do Mother inestimable good to be surrounded by family. We were all there: Philip and Betty Ann, the twins, Fern and Christie, Jimmy and me. Mother sat in bewilderment throughout most of the dinner, it seemed, but afterward, when Christie and I played a duet on the piano, I turned to see her smiling through tears.

At the end of the evening she permitted each of the children to kiss her good night. Bronson beamed. He hadn't looked as happy or as handsome in months.

"Thank you," he whispered in my ear when we embraced. "I think this was one of the happiest Thanksgivings I can recall."

I went to Mother and said my good night, hugging her and kissing her cheek. She seemed to hold on to me for dear life, and when I pulled away her eyes were wide but smiling.

"You've come back," she said.

"Yes, Mother. I've come back."

"Good, good." She appeared to want to hold onto my hand forever. Bronson stepped up beside her and put his arm around her shoulder.

"It's time they put the children to bed, Laura Sue," he said softly.

"Oh, yes. Good night. Good night, everyone," she called. The children ran out laughing, and we all left.

It snowed the next day, one of the heaviest snowfalls ever for Cutler's Cove at this time of the year, but everyone was happy about it because it made them all think of the impending Christmas holidays. There did seem to be a jingle in the air. Never were the seasonal decorations more colorful and wonderful to behold. In the afternoon the children went sleigh riding behind the hotel.

Just before I left the hotel to go home I received a phone call from Trisha.

"I wanted to wish you a happy holiday," she said. "I'm going on vacation with my family. I let Daddy talk me into it," she said, laughing.

She and I had spoken since Michael had come to Cutler's Cove, so she knew about it.

"I heard something about Michael," she told me toward the end of our conversation. "He's giving vocal lessons in Greenwich Village."

"I can't help but feel sorry for him," I said, "even though everything in me tells me not to, and even though Jimmy would be furious if he knew."

"He hasn't changed; he's still trying to have affairs with his prettier students."

I laughed.

"Nothing will change him; he's incorrigible. Have a wonderful holiday, Trish, and call me when you return. I want to know all about your upcoming dance audition."

"I will. Are you all right? Is everything all right?" she asked with concern. "I hear a note in your voice."

"I'm just feeling a little sorry for myself these days."

"Oh, give up that hotel and go back to your singing," Trisha snapped.

"I might just do that one of these days. Wouldn't you be surprised?"

"Yes."

We laughed.

When I went home I sat by the piano and tinkered with notes until Jimmy arrived with Christie, both of them soaked to the skin from sleigh riding. I bawled them both out and sent them up to take hot baths.

Afterward, while I was drying Christie's hair, I felt a terrible wave of nausea come over me. It was so bad I had to sit down. It passed, but that night it woke me out of a deep sleep, and I had to go to the bathroom and vomit. I did it again in the morning, but I kept it from Jimmy. I knew how much it disturbed him when I got sick. When the feeling didn't leave me, I made a quick appointment with the doctor.

As always, though, Jimmy found out. The hotel had a hundred different sets of eyes and ears. It wasn't a good place to keep secrets, at least not for me. After my visit with the doctor I went right home. Jimmy found me in the sitting room at the piano again. Whenever anything happened to me I felt a need to retreat to music. When Jimmy came in I had my head down and my eyes closed.

I didn't even hear him enter, but I looked up when he touched my shoulder.

"What is it, honey? What's wrong?"

"James Gary Longchamp," I said.

"Yes?"

"You're going to be a father."

Jimmy's face exploded with happiness, and he hugged and kissed me, nearly squeezing me to death with excitement. I let him swing me about.

Through the window that faced the ocean I could see the sun slip in between two clouds. They grew farther and farther apart, permitting more and more of the sunlight to caress the ocean, turning the gray into a sparkling blue.

That night we held onto each other more closely and more dearly than ever, neither of us speaking for the longest time. I wondered if Jimmy was thinking about when we were both little, when we had been left alone and something had frightened us. We clung tightly to each other until Momma and Daddy finally arrived and made us feel safe again. Then, and only then, did Jimmy say good night to me, and I to him.

"Don't be afraid, Dawn," Jimmy finally whispered, drawing me out of my reverie. "Everything is going to be all right with the baby this time. You'll see. Be happy," he said.

"I'll try, Jimmy. And I won't be afraid, not as long as you're beside me."

"I always will be."

"Good night, Jimmy," I said, closing my eyes.

"Good night, Dawn."

I fell asleep, dreaming of our younger days. There was music; there was always music, and we were running over some beautiful green lawn, running toward the sun.