Secrets of the Morning

  14

  A LETTER TO TRISHA

  Despite the difficulty and the tediousness of the work I had to do at The Meadows, I found I welcomed it, for it was only when I was scrubbing and dusting, washing and polishing that I could ignore the length of the day and the slow movement of time. It was truly like a prison sentence and Miss Emily didn't hesitate to treat me like a criminal. Incarcerated by my chores within the great house ruled by this horrible, sick ogre, every day ran into the next for me, each morning, afternoon and evening unchanged and unremarkable from the one preceding it. Like simple Charlotte, I began to lose my sense of time and couldn't remember whether it was a Monday or a Tuesday. Just like her, I used Sunday as my touching stone.

  The Booth sisters didn't really attend a chapel for Sunday worship. I had hoped that would have provided a way for me to get to a phone or mail a letter, but Miss Emily said that the churches had become sanctuaries for the devil.

  "People don't go there to pray and confess; they go there to socialize and be seen. Imagine, getting dressed up to say your prayers. As if the good Lord could be taken in by expensive clothing, the latest styles and rich jewelry. The way some churchgoing women paint their faces with makeup, too. Why it's sacrilegious is what it is. It's the devil in them and he's laughing all the way for he has successfully invaded the house of God.

  "That's why we pray at home on Sundays," she concluded.

  For the Booth sisters, the chapel was an anteroom off the library. Miss Emily had even had one long and very uncomfortable bench put in there, the back of it tilted forward so we had to lean because if you were too content and relaxed, you would forget the purpose for your being there.

  The bench faced a large wooden cross. There was nothing else on any of the walls. She had long candles burning on a table before us and a kerosene lamp on each of the small tables around us. The moment the service ended, she would rush around to snuff out the candles in order to conserve the wax.

  Naturally, I was required to attend the service which consisted of Miss Emily reading aloud from the Bible and then all of us reciting the Lord's Prayer together. Even Luther appeared, only he stood in the back by the door, his hands folded. Miss Emily's reading took more than an hour. Charlotte would get restless and fidget, but all Miss Emily had to do was stop and glare at her for a moment and she would freeze up and look remorseful. Then Miss Emily would throw a frosty look my way to be sure I understood. It was like someone tossing a pail of ice cubes at me; it stung that much and felt that cold.

  Our reward for proper behavior was a special breakfast: eggs any way we wanted them, grits and butter, and blueberry muffins. The muffins were the only food in which Miss Emily permitted sugar and very little at that. To her sugar was the same as alcohol or drugs, something that could tempt us and make us vulnerable to evil. Self-denial made us strong and kept us properly fortified.

  Another Sunday event was our baths. Just as Miss Emily had described, Luther carried in a large wooden tub and set it in the center of the pantry floor. We used the pantry because it was the closest to the rear door which led to the cauldron and the hot water. Luther started heating water right after the Sunday service and after breakfast brought in pail after pail of it. Cold water was added to the hot in just the right proportion to make it tepid.

  Miss Emily was the first to bathe. Charlotte and I had to wait outside the pantry until she was finished. Then Luther was instructed to bring in another half dozen pails of hot water. Charlotte was next. What I found horrendous was that we had to bathe in the same water, Miss Emily being the only one who bathed in totally clean water. She claimed she was the cleanest of the three of us and therefore would leave the least amount of dirt behind.

  By the time my turn arrived, Luther had to scoop out some water and replace it with another half dozen pails of hot. The first time I took a bath like this, Miss Emily burst in on me and dipped her fingers in the water to check the water temperature. She decided it wasn't hot enough and ordered Luther to bring in an additional pail or two of the hot.

  "It's hot enough," I protested.

  "Nonsense," she replied. "If the water isn't warm enough, you can't get the dirt that's deep down in your skin out," she insisted.

  I had to sit naked in the tub while Luther entered with the water and dumped it around me. I covered my nudity the best I could, but I saw Luther's eyes travel with interest even though his face didn't show it.

  I suspected that Luther had a nip or two of something from time to time, especially during the colder days in January and February. Sometimes, when I was finishing in the kitchen, he would come in carrying wood or bringing some hot water and I could smell the scent of whiskey. If Miss Emily smelled it, she didn't say. She wasn't afraid of Luther, for she didn't hesitate to snap at him or demand things from him in a sharp tone of voice, but she seemed to sense just how far she could push him.

  Why Luther worked so hard for her and Charlotte was a mystery to me; I was sure he didn't get much more than his room and board. He slept somewhere downstairs in the rear of the house, another place that was off limits to me, but I couldn't help wondering about him and asked him questions every chance I got. That meant only when he and I were alone, for if Miss Emily was present, he wouldn't so much as glance at me.

  "When did The Meadows get this run-down?" I asked him one morning after he had brought in the wood. I sensed that the plantation was his favorite subject and he would talk about it more willingly than he would talk about anything else.

  "Not long after Mr. Booth died," he said.

  "There were some debts and most of the livestock and some equipment had to be sold off."

  "What about Mrs. Booth?"

  "She died years before him . . . a stomach ailment," he said.

  "You work very hard, Luther. I'm sure you tried the best you could to keep it up," I said. I saw from the glint in his eyes that my words pleased him.

  "I told her; I explained to her what had to be done to keep it looking nice, but appearances ain't important to her. Pretty things invite the devil is all she says. I wanted to buy some paint, but she says no to that. So it looks the way it does. I keep the machinery working as best I can and the house is still a sturdy structure."

  "You're doing wonders with the little you have," I said. He grunted his appreciation.

  One day I was bold enough to ask him why he remained working there.

  "There's all kinds of ownership," he said. "Ownership that comes from a piece of legal paper and ownership that comes from years of workin' and livin' someplace. I'm as much part of The Meadows as anyone is," he added proudly.

  "The truth is," he said with the closest thing to a smile on his face, "The Meadows owns me. I don't know nothin' else."

  I wanted to get him to tell me more about Miss Emily and the family, but most of the time whenever I brought up anything remotely close to the subject, he would act as if he didn't hear anything I said. I didn't think he respected Miss Emily or even liked her much, but there was something about her that kept him obedient. Whenever I asked him to take me to Upland Station, he always had an excuse why he couldn't do it. Most of the time, he just went without saying anything.

  By mid-January, I had concluded that Miss Emily must have forbidden him to take me along, so I waited until we were alone and I begged him to mail a letter to Trisha for me. He didn't say he would do it and he didn't say he wouldn't, but he wouldn't take it from my hands.

  "I'll leave it on the counter here in the kitchen and next time you go, would you please take it along?" I asked. He watched where I put it, but he didn't respond. The next day the letter was gone. I waited for weeks for a reply from Trisha. I knew as soon as she received my letter she would write back, but whenever Luther did bring back mail none came for me.

  One morning when Luther brought in the wood, I asked him about it.

  "What letter?" he said.

  "The one I left on the counter. You saw me leave it that day," I insisted.

 
"I saw it," he said, "but when I looked for it later, it wasn't there."

  "It wasn't there?" He didn't add anything, but then he didn't have to. I knew where my letter had gone. It was with Miss Emily. A flame of anger traveled up my spine and whatever pride I had left came back in full dress parade. I spun on my heels and marched out to confront her.

  Miss Emily spent most of her day reading the Bible, cooking our miserly meals, supervising Luther's work and keeping her account books to the penny. She worked on her bookkeeping in the office library at the big, dark oak desk with the enormous picture of her father's above her, his face in a frown as he looked down over her shoulder. I had the feeling she was haunted by him and believed that if she didn't do things the way he would have wanted her to, he would take some punitive action.

  She sat there crouched over the bills making her calculations and small marks on paper. Her bony shoulders looked like iron framework with her head dangling in between. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner. She had a single kerosene lamp burning because it was heavily overcast outside and there was little sunlight. The lamp cast a pool of yellow illumination over her face and hands. When she heard me enter, she raised her head and sat back so that her forehead and eyes were in dark shadows. The thin line of her mouth spread in a smirk. Her lips barely opened when she spoke.

  "What do you want? Don't you see I'm busy?" she snapped.

  "I just want to know why you took my letter to my friend Trisha," I said boldly.

  "What letter?" she asked, her head unmoving. I thought I was facing a mannequin because she sat so stiffly. My eyes shifted for a moment to the eyes of her father in the portrait. He scowled down at me.

  "The letter I left on the counter in the kitchen about a month ago. Luther was going to take it to mail for me," I replied, not backing away an inch. I thought she wasn't going to answer. Finally, she leaned forward, her eyes just entering the rim of light, which made them glow like the eyes of an alley cat.

  "Anything left on the counter is garbage," she said, "and that's what a letter of yours to one of your city friends, who I am sure is just as wicked as you were, would be anyway."

  For a moment my breath caught in my throat and seemed to stay. How could she admit what she had done so boldly? And what right had she to say such a terrible thing about Trisha, someone she had never met? Did Emily think she was the only good person on earth?

  "How dare you say that? You don't know my friends. You had no right to throw away my letter," I cried.

  "I didn't have any right?" she said, following it with her shrill laugh. "Of course, I did and do," she said sternly. "I have every right to keep any evil from entering this house. And I will not have Luther wasting his time on your correspondences," she insisted.

  "But it was only one letter!"

  "It takes only a word to bring the devil into your heart. Haven't you paid attention to any of the things I have been telling you? Now leave me. I have important work to do and you have your chores."

  "You're treating me like a prisoner, a common criminal," I cried.

  "That's because you are a common criminal," she said calmly. "You committed the most common crime of lust and now you are paying for it." She folded her hands and leaned farther forward on the desk so that her entire face was in the light now. "And why were you sent here for me to take care of you, eh? You have nowhere else to go; no one wants you. You're an embarrassment, a burden.

  "My sister made that quite clear and also asked that you be treated as the sinner and the disgrace you are, not that she had to tell me," she said icily. And then she sat back so that her face was completely in shadows.

  "As long as you're living under my roof, eating my food, and depending on my care, you will do as I say," she roared in a voice that was so deep and loud, I thought it might very well have come from the face in the portrait above her. That terrifying thought took the wind from the sails of my rebellion. I felt my blood drain down into my feet; a stinging sensation began behind my ears and my strength grew small. I clasped my hands over my protruding stomach and backed out of the doorway. Immediately, she lowered her head and went back to her calculations, making sure that every single penny was spent wisely and accounted for.

  I paused near the doorway of one of the sitting rooms. Even though I had been here for months, I had been restricted to a small part of the house and hadn't seen most of it, especially the forbidden west wing where Miss Emily and Charlotte had their rooms. But I knew that in this particular sitting room, there was an oval mirror. It was the only room downstairs that had a mirror. Miss Emily thought that mirrors encouraged vanity and vanity, after all, was what brought Eve's downfall and man's sin.

  "It's not necessary to look at yourself," she had said when I asked for a mirror in my room. "Just keep yourself reasonably clean."

  It had been so long since I had cared, but Miss Emily's treatment of me in the library had made me feel so diminished and horrible, I couldn't help but be curious about myself. Was this the way she saw me? What did I really look like? All this time had passed and I had been without a brush, without a comb, without skin creams or makeup. Having no place to go and not seeing anyone had kept me from thinking about it, but I so wanted to feel like a young lady again and not feel like some house drudge.

  Slowly, anticipating in my heart what I feared was true, I entered the sitting room. The curtains were open, but the light was as dim as it was in the library. I found the kerosene lamp on a small table and lit it. Holding it before me, I approached the mirror. My silhouette appeared first and then I lifted the lamp and gazed upon myself.

  My once beautiful hair was a dirty, tangled mop of split ends and mangled strains. Streaks of grime scarred my forehead and cheeks. My blue eyes looked dim and dull, as if all the light and life behind them was drained. I was pale, almost as pale and sickly looking as Miss Emily. My decrepit reflection turned my own stomach. It was as if I were gazing into the face of a stranger.

  I couldn't recall when I had last put on lipstick or brushed my hair. I couldn't remember when I had last sprayed perfume on myself. And all my pretty clothes . . . my earrings and bracelets, even the locket Michael had given me . . . all of it was somewhere else. Perhaps Agnes Morris had sent it to the hotel and Grandmother Cutler had already disposed of most of it, just as she was disposing of me.

  Look at me! I thought. Look at what Grandmother Cutler and Miss Emily have done to me. My face appeared bloated, even distorted. I stood there in this ugly shift which hung of my shoulders like a sack. I couldn't look at myself any longer and quickly turned off the kerosene lamp. I was grateful for the dark shadows that fell over my face immediately. As long as I was here, I wouldn't gaze into a mirror again, I vowed.

  I rushed out of the sitting room and went up the stairs as quickly as I could, each high step an effort, for I was well into my fifth month and carrying heavy. Out of breath, I collapsed on my bed in the dark room and sobbed. I really was a prisoner here, I thought, a tormented prisoner.

  "What's wrong?" I heard Charlotte ask and I stopped crying. I sat up and ground the tears out of my eyes. She was standing in my doorway with one of her needlework projects in her hands. She looked to her right down the corridor and then leaned in to speak in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

  "Did Emily tell you your baby has pointed ears?" she asked.

  "I don't care what Emily thinks," I said. "Least of all what she thinks about my baby." Charlotte stared at me a moment, the concept of defying Emily apparently too much for her, and then she smiled and approached me.

  "Look at what I have made," she said proudly. I took a deep breath and leaned over to light my kerosene lamp. Then I looked at her work.

  It was a very pretty piece done with pink and blue thread. She was filling in a picture of what clearly looked like a baby in a cradle swinging under a tree.

  "Where did you get this pattern?" I asked.

  "Pattern?" She turned the material toward her as if the answer were writte
n on it.

  "The picture? Did Miss Emily buy this for you someplace?"

  "Oh no, I drew the picture," she said, smiling proudly. "I draw all my pictures."

  "That's very, very good, Charlotte. You have a talent. You should show your work to more people," I said.

  "More people? I just show it to Emily. She wants me to keep doing it so I don't get in her way." Charlotte began to recite, "She says idle hands . . ."

  "I know, I know. Make mischief. Well, what about the mischief she makes?" I retorted. Charlotte's smile widened. I could see the whole idea of Miss Emily being evil was so farfetched to her she couldn't even imagine it. Her sister had her brainwashed. "Emily's not an angel, you know. Not everything she does and says is right and good. She's unnecessarily mean, especially to you," I continued. "She speaks to you like you were some sort of lower animal and she keeps you locked up here, just as she's keeping me."

  "Oh, no," she said. "Emily's only trying to help me. I'm the devil’s spawn and I've spawned the devil's child," she recited in a way that made me understand she had been forced to repeat it and repeat it until it was almost second nature for her to say it.

  "That's a horrible lie. Wait, what do you mean, you've spawned the devil's child? What child?" I asked.

  "I'm not supposed to talk about it," she said, backing up a step.

  "She won't know," I coaxed. "I won't tell her. Can't we share a secret?"

  She considered and then stepped toward me again.

  "I made this for the baby," she confessed, holding up the needlework, "because sometimes, the baby comes back."

  "Comes back? Comes back from where?"

  "From hell," she said, "where it was sent to live because that's where it belongs."

  "No one belongs in hell, Charlotte."

  "The devil does," she replied quickly, nodding.

  "Maybe just him . . . and Miss Emily," I mumbled. "Tell me about the baby," I asked, raising my head. "Was there a real baby?" She stared at me without replying. "Charlotte," I said, reaching under the bed to pull out the baby's rattle she had left for me one day. "Whose was this? Where did you get it?"