Down right, just behind the building, was a cauldron hanging over a robust fire built in a circle of rocks. The water in the cauldron bubbled, but I could clearly make out my clothing. I dropped the pail and rushed down the squeaky wooden steps. My clothing looked like it had been cooking ever since she had taken it from me the night before. I searched about desperately for something to use to pluck out my garments, but with the steam rising out of the large black pot and the fire burning briskly, there was no way for me to get close enough to rescue any of it.
"What are you doing back here?" Miss Emily demanded from the back door.
"What have you done to my things?" I screamed back. "You're ruining everything."
"I told you," she said, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach, "I'm purifying it. Now get back to your chores," she snapped.
"I want my things!" I cried.
"It's not for you to make demands on me," she snapped. "When and if they are purified, they will be returned. Now get back to work," she said and pivoted to go back into the house. I stared after her and then looked helplessly at my clothes. My purse wasn't even visible.
What a mean thing to do, I thought. I returned to the porch and got the pail of dirty water. Then I threw it over the fire. The dampened embers smoldered and hissed and sent steam everywhere. I stepped back and waited. The water continued to bubble. It would be a while before it cooled down, I thought, but as soon as it had, I would pluck out my things.
I went back to the kitchen floor and scrubbed the rest of it. I knew I had been working for hours in the kitchen because when I stepped out again, the sun was nearly directly above. I dumped the dirty water and turned to get my boiled things.
But the cauldron was gone! All that was left were the smoldering embers of the dying fire. I hurried down the steps and looked everywhere for signs of it, but all I saw was Luther coming around the far corner of the barn carrying a shovel over his shoulder as if he were a soldier carrying a rifle. I called to him, but he went into the barn and pulled the door closed firmly behind him.
Furious now, I went back inside and charged through the kitchen and the dining room, but I saw or heard no one.
"Miss Emily!" I called at the foot of the stairway. I listened. She didn't reply. I called again and then peered into the library which was just across the hall.
The drapes over the tall windows were open so I could see the shelves of books, the large desk and wooden file cabinets, a long table and chairs. There were paintings on the walls, one over the rear of the desk. It was a portrait of Emily, Charlotte, and Grandmother Cutler's father. I saw clear resemblances in the eyes and forehead. He stared down with the same arrogant air, his shoulders firm and his head high and slightly tilted in a condescending manner. He looked violently angry to me. I embraced myself and backed out of the doorway and right into the silently waiting Miss Emily. I jumped and cried out before I realized it was she.
"What are you doing? Why are you shouting? You should be starting on your wing of the house, not wandering about like this," she admonished.
"What did you do with my clothes?" I demanded. "That pot is gone."
"Do I have to keep repeating myself? I told you it was all being purified. Now, it has been taken to the second step."
"Second step? What does that mean?"
"It has been buried," she replied coolly.
"Buried!" So that was why Luther was carrying a shovel, I thought. "You buried my things? Where? Why? This is insane!"
"How dare you?" she snapped, her shoulders rising. Despite her slim torso, she looked formidable, as vicious as a buzzard. I had to step back. "You stand there critical of me," she said, lifting her long arm and pointing her witchlike crooked finger in my face. "You dare to reprimand and reproach me. You who stand in such disgrace with your stomach loudly announcing your sin. Don't you know that only he without sin can cast the first stone?"
"I'm not saying I'm pure and good," I cried through my emerging tears, "but that doesn't mean you have a right to torment me."
"Torment you?" She looked like she was going to break into laughter. "It is you who are tormenting me and the other members of the family. I have been willing to help you through this iniquitous time. I have opened my home to you and have assured my sister I will provide for your needs and you accuse me of tormenting you."
"You're not providing for my needs," I bawled. "I want my things back," I cried. I couldn't stop my sobbing.
"You don't know how ridiculous you look," she said. "All right," she added after a long pause. "After the earth has absorbed the taint of evil, I will see to it that Luther brings you those garments. Now get back to work. You need to work, to build your resolve; your castle of righteousness must be fortified against any more incursions by the devil."
She started to turn away.
"But my other things . . . I've got to call to see what's happened to them. I don't even have a comb for my hair now," I said, holding up the knotted strands.
"There is no sense in calling," she replied with an alarming calmness in her voice.
"Why not?"
"Because I have instructed that those things are not to be sent here until after you have given birth and you will leave. It was enough I had to deal with what you brought on your back."
"But . . . how could you lie to me? Everyone's lied to me," I added, realizing the truth.
"Everyone's lied to you?" She started to laugh. "What do you call what you've been doing? Now stop whining and do what has to be done. You must show some forbearance. Surely, you possess some grit. From what my sister has told me, the Cutlers all come from a strong stock."
"I don't have any Cutler stock," I muttered, but as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Her eyes widened.
"What? What did you say?" she demanded, stepping toward me again.
I felt myself begin to shiver. I had never seen a face so filled with both fire and ice. Her eyes flared, but her expression was so cold. Who knew what other horrors she would design for me if she knew the truth of my birth? I thought.
"Nothing," I said quickly.
She fixed her eyes on me, her gaze so intensely penetrating, I had to turn away. Each second ticked by with the boom of thunder. My heart pounded against my chest.
"Just finish your chores," she finally spit and pivoted again to march away. My thumping heart slowed, yet my skin felt clammy and the hair on my neck still bristled. I thought about turning around and running out. But penniless, with nothing but this ugly hospital gown on, where would I go? There wasn't anything to do but wait for an opportunity to leave, I thought. As soon as she did return my things, I would find a way to Upland Station and try to call Daddy Longchamp. Surely, he would find a way to help me.
Despondent and defeated, I returned to the kitchen to get the pail of water and soap and the brush and then climbed the stairs to begin work on the filthy and dusty wing of the great house.
As I dusted and cleaned the pieces of furniture near the stairway, I couldn't help but feel as though all the sullen looking ancestors with their harsh and severe expressions were gazing down at me hatefully. Miss Emily's portrait would easily take its rightful place along these walls, I thought. What an unhappy family, distrustful and afraid of the devil's presence in anyone and everything. It was easy now to understand why Grandmother Cutler was the way she was, I thought. In fact, one of the sour looking women looked just like her.
Every fifteen minutes or so, I had to carry the dirtied pail of water to my bathroom to empty it and fill it up again. It began to weigh heavier and heavier and the pain that had begun in a tiny spot on my lower back grew larger and larger like an expanding circle of fire. I had to rest more often and take deep breaths. The work was making my stomach feel like a heavy weight tied around my waist.
I was in the middle of wiping down one of the benches when I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Charlotte holding an apple.
"You forgot to eat your lun
ch," she said, thrusting the apple toward me. I paused and sat back against the wall, exhausted.
"Thank you," I said, taking the apple. She stood there with a wide smile on her face, watching me bite into it.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away, Emily always says," she sang.
"I'm sure no doctor would want to come here anyway," I mumbled. "Charlotte," I said, suddenly thinking of a possibility, "do you ever go to Upland Station?"
"Sometimes Emily takes me to the general store and buys me some sour balls," she replied.
"Then you don't go away from the house very much, do you?" I asked.
"I go to the gazebo when it's nice out and feed the birds. Do you want to feed the birds?"
"First day off," I said dryly, but she didn't understand. She smiled happily. I took another bite of my apple and started to stand, but the pain shot through my lower back so sharply and quickly, I couldn't breathe and had to sit back a moment.
"You got a baby in you," Charlotte said, "and it might have pointed ears."
"It doesn't have pointed ears," I snapped between gasps. "What a horrible thing to say. Did Emily tell you that it did?"
"Emily knows," Charlotte insisted, nodding. "She can see into your stomach with her fingers and she knows."
"That's silly, Charlotte. No one can see into anyone's stomach with her fingers. Don't believe it."
"She saw into mine," she said. "And saw the pointed ears."
"What?"
A door slammed down the west corridor and Miss Emily's click-clack footsteps reverberated through the house like one gunshot after another. The sound put a look of terror into Charlotte's face.
"Emily says I shouldn't bother you while you're working," she explained, backing up.
"Charlotte, wait . . ." I pulled myself up on the bench.
"I've got to finish a pattern," she said and turned to shuffle quickly away.
A few moments later, Miss Emily appeared. She glared down the hallway in my direction. Then she inspected some of the furniture and some of the portraits I had cleaned and dusted. Apparently, she was satisfied.
"I have put a clock in your room," she said. "Make sure you keep it wound up so it doesn't stop in the middle of the night and you don't know what time it is in the morning.
"Dinner will be at five promptly," she added. "I expect you to come to the table looking clean."
"But where do I wash? All I can get is cold water in my bathroom and there is no place to take a shower or a bath," I complained.
"We don't take showers," she said. "Once a week we take a bath in the pantry. Luther will bring in the tub and fill it with water he heats over the fire."
"Once a week? In the pantry? People don't live like this anymore," I protested. "They have hot and cold running water and they have nice-smelling soaps and they bathe far more often than once a week."
"Oh, I know how people live today," she said with that cold smile on her lips, "especially women with their fancy smelling perfumes and seductive clothing. Don't you know that the devil won Eve's trust by appealing to her vanity and that ever since that hateful day, our vanity has been the devil's doorway to our souls? Lipstick and makeup and pretty combs, lace dresses and jewelry . . . all devices to fan temptation and drive men to the promontory of lust. They fall," she chanted, "oh how they fall and they take us down with them, down into the fires of hell and damnation. You have been singed by the devil. I smell the odor of the black smoke. The faster you come to this realization yourself, the faster you will find redemption."
"That's not true," I cried. "I don't smell like something evil, and my baby won't have pointed ears!"
She stared down at me a moment and nodded.
"Pray to God that it doesn't," she said. "Pray that God won't take his vengeance on an innocent baby, but you have made Him angry and that anger is so great it rolls on and on through the heavens."
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her hands against her small bosom.
"Work," she said, "pray, and be obedient and, hopefully, you will find Him forgiving."
She turned and walked away. At the top of the stairway she paused and looked back.
"Don't forget, promptly at five and be as clean as you can," she added and descended, her head high, her back so straight she looked like a statue being slowly lowered.
I pressed my hands against my stomach and swallowed back the lumps in my throat. My baby was only something good, I told myself. No matter how Michael had deceived me, my baby was inside me and felt the power of my love. That power was something precious and heavenly and not the devil's work. Miss Emily never knew the power of love. At this moment I thought she was someone more to be pitied than to be despised. She lived in a cold, dark world peopled by demons and devils and saw evil and danger in every nook and cranny of her home and life. I imagined she rarely laughed, even rarely smiled.
She didn't know it, I thought, but the devil had already defeated her.
I washed my hands and arms and face the best I could. Without a mirror, I could only imagine how dirty and dingy my hair appeared, but Miss Emily didn't care about appearances. In fact the less attractive I was, the more she liked it. I had to replace the soiled gown with the second one in the drawer. Those two articles of clothing were all there was. She re-minded me of that when I came down for dinner.
"Remember what I said about clothing—we wash it once a week, so if you dirty both your dresses, you will have to wear a filthy one until we wash."
"Why don't we wash clothing more than once a week?" I asked.
"We don't need to be extravagant about it. Take care of what you have and you need do it only once a week," she emphasized.
"But I don't have anything—just two ugly dresses," I replied.
"Simple things are not ugly things," she snapped. "Just because you are used to fancy clothing doesn't mean everything else is ugly."
"I'm not used to fancy clothing. But I need things that fit and I need my underwear and socks and . . ."
"I need, I need, I need. Are those the only words young people your age know these days?" she said. She uncovered the pot of potatoes and mixed vegetables. That, plus a glass of water and another piece of bread, was to be our meal. I had eaten better when I was living with Momma and Daddy Longchamp and we were scrounging to feed ourselves because Daddy had no work. But Miss Emily thought simple foods were good for the soul and things like chicken and eggs were to be eaten only on Sundays.
After saying grace, she didn't speak a word and Charlotte looked different, frightened. I imagined Miss Emily had castigated her harshly for the things she had said before and had probably forbidden her to speak. Every once in a while she lifted her eyes from her plate and glanced at me like a co-conspirator. It was curious, but I didn't find out what it was all about until dinner was finished and I had cleaned all the dishes, silverware and pots. I found her waiting for me in the shadows of the hallway just outside the dining room. Apparently she had been hiding there all that time, just waiting for me to appear.
She practically jumped out at me when I stepped through the doorway. I didn't think I would want to go to sleep so early, but I was so exhausted from my work and so full of aches and pains, even the dark, dingy room loomed promising. I had my hot water bottle wrapped in a dish towel under my arm.
"Charlotte!" I exclaimed, stepping back. "What is it?" I looked about, but Miss Emily was nowhere in sight.
"I gave you a present," she whispered. "It's on your bed," she added and then turned again and shuffled quickly away before I could reply.
I didn't know what to make of it. What could she have given me? Probably one of her needlework things, I thought. Or maybe she felt sorry for me and gave me one of her things to wear. I climbed the stairway slowly, each step an effort now, and walked down the dark corridor to my horrid room. I went to the kerosene lamp and lit it quickly. The light drove away the blanket of shadows and revealed something on my bed.
Slowly I picked it up and turne
d it about in my hand. It was a baby's toy rattle and from the looks of it, practically new. Miss Emily had ridiculed me when I had asked her about it being Charlotte's birthday and she had reminded me that Charlotte was not to be believed. So I didn't ask her why Charlotte had inquired if the baby had kept me awake or what Charlotte had meant by Miss Emily being able to see into her stomach and see a baby with pointed ears.
But why would she have a baby's rattle and one that looked just bought? Charlotte was certainly too old to have had a baby recently.
Miss Emily had forbidden me to go into their wing of the house, I thought, but maybe that was the only way I could eventually find out what all this meant.
For now, I was too tired and confused to care. I pulled back the blanket and crawled under it, placing the hot water bottle snugly against my stomach, thinking I was keeping my baby warm, too.
It didn't seem as cold tonight, and for that, I was grateful. One of the few things Miss Emily had said at dinner was the warm air meant a change in weather and probably a snowfall would come.
A snowfall, I thought. What was the date? I added the days I had been in the hospital to the last day I remembered and the two days I had already been here. The realization of what day and what night it was made me sit up in sorrow and horror.
It was Christmas Eve! And no one had even mentioned it or had even cared. I thought about Jimmy in Europe, probably celebrating and singing Christmas carols with his army buddies; I thought about Trisha home with her family in their warm house around their tree; I even thought about Daddy Longchamp with his new wife and the promise of his new child.
The tears streamed down my cheeks as Michael's loving promises returned. We had planned such a wonderful and romantic Christmas Eve together. We were to sit by a warm fire and unwrap our Christmas presents to each other, while beautiful holiday music played. Afterward, we would lie together in each other's arms and fall asleep with soft kisses on our lips.
I remembered the day he brought the beautiful little tree.
Was it still there and did it feel as completely deserted and alone as I did?