By the time I entered the seventh month, I had grown quite large and I began to experience a shortness of breath during physical exertion. Miss Emily, although claiming constantly to be an experienced midwife, didn't reduce my chores. She continued to insist I get down on my hands and knees to scrub floors and move heavy furniture to dust and polish. If anything, she increased my load.
One morning, after I had finished washing the dishes, pots and pans and scrubbed the kitchen floor, she came in to inspect my work. I was so exhausted from the effort that I was still sitting on the floor, holding my stomach and taking deep breaths. She stood towering beside me, gazing down at me and what I had completed.
"Didn't you empty the pail now and then in order to use clean water?" she inquired.
"Yes, Miss Emily," I said. "I did as I usually do, using three pails full."
"Humph," she said, walking slowly over the kitchen floor. "This floor doesn't look as if it's been touched."
"It's a very old and worn floor, Miss Emily," I said.
"Don't try to blame your incompetence on the floor," she shot back. "From here," she said, making an invisible line with her toe, "to the end, it has to be redone."
"Redone? But why?"
"Because you used soiled water and simply ground in more dirt as you went along. How do you expect us to come in here to eat with a floor this filthy?" she said, her mouth twisted, her eyes filled with fire. How furious and ugly she could become, I thought.
"But I have furniture to polish and you told me to wash the windows in the library today and . . ."
"I don't care what else you have to do. What good is your doing anything if you're going to do it poorly. Redo this floor immediately," she insisted.
"Miss Emily," I pleaded, "I'm much further along in my pregnancy. It's getting harder and harder for me. Isn't it dangerous for me to work so hard now?"
"Of course not. It's just like someone like you to think so, someone spoiled and soft. The harder you work, the stronger you will be at the time of delivery," she said.
"But I'm tired. It's more difficult for me to sleep now and . . .”
"Wash this floor immediately!" she cried, pointing down. "Or when the time comes, I'll have Luther put you in the barn to give birth with the pigs."
"I should see a doctor," I mumbled, but kept my eyes down. I wanted to say more, but I was afraid she might just do what she promised and the only thing I would accomplish would be the death of the baby.
I struggled to my feet and went to fill a new pail of water. Then I put in the soap and returned to the spot she had indicated on the floor. She stood in the doorway watching me work.
"Press down harder," she commanded, "and make wider circles when you scrub. I thought you claimed to have worked as a chambermaid in my sister's hotel."
"I did, but we never had to do this!"
"That hotel must be filthy then. So much for what my sister knows. She was always the favorite, the apple of my father's eye and never did her share. She always managed to get me or poor, stupid Charlotte to do her work. She's still managing it," Miss Emily said. "You're here. Harder. Wider circles," she repeated and pivoted out the door.
I did the best I could and when I was finished, I found I couldn't get up quickly. My back was so stiff, I had to sit against the wall to catch my breath and wait for the ache to subside.
As time went by, the list of chores I usually completed by late afternoon now took me into the evening. When I was finished, I had to make my way alone through a dark house holding a candle. Gradually, the climb up the stairs became harder and harder and took longer and longer. I was terrified of passing out and falling down, for I was sure I would lose the baby.
One night toward the end of the seventh month, when I had completed my chores and pulled myself up the stairway to my closet of a room, Miss Emily marched through the door just as I entered. It was as if she had been waiting in the shadows in the corridor outside, for she was right behind me, practically breathing down my neck. She was carrying her kerosene lamp and something in a large paper bag.
"It's time to take stock," she said when I turned with surprise.
"What do you mean?" I cried. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I hoped she didn't mean doing some sort of inventory.
"We have to check you," she said.
"But why now?" I moaned. "I'm tired and it's time to sleep."
"What do you want me to do, adjust my schedule to fit your needs? Take off the dress," she ordered.
Reluctantly, I began to lift the garment over my head, but she was impatient and seized it in her hands and tugged it abruptly, nearly sending me to the floor. I embraced myself, covering my bloated bosom, and glared at her. She placed the palm of her right hand roughly over my abdomen, pressing so hard, I had to cry out.
"Just as I suspected: you're constipated," she declared.
"No I'm not," I said, "I . . ."
"What do you mean, oh, no? Don't you think that after all these years and the dozens and dozens of babies I've delivered, I know when a pregnant woman is constipated and when that constipation is causing undo pressures on the womb and the fetus?"
"But . . ." I shook my head. Was she right? I wondered. Was that why I had such trouble breathing?
"No buts. You want to do what's right for the baby, don't you?"
"Yes," I said. "Of course."
"Good." She reached into the paper bag and brought out a large bottle of castor oil and an enormous glass. She opened the bottle and filled the glass to the top. "Drink this," she said, thrusting it at me. I took it slowly.
"All of it?"
"Of course, all of it. I think I know how much you need. Drink it."
I brought the glass to my lips, closed my eyes, and swallowed and swallowed. The horrible tasting liquid bubbled as it settled in my stomach. To my surprise, she filled another glass.
"Again," she said, thrusting it back at me. She kept the glass in my face. "Drink it!" she snapped.
I took it slowly and emptied the glass as quickly as I could.
"All right. That will clean you out and take the pressure off your womb," she said. In the glow of the lamps, she almost smiled. Maybe now that my time was drawing closer and closer, she would behave more like the midwife she claimed she was, I thought. She put the nearly emptied bottle of castor oil back in the bag along with the glass. "You can put your dress back on," she said and marched out.
It was not long after she left that a cramp, sharp and dreadful, shot across my abdomen. The next time one came, it nearly doubled me over. Then the pains came quickly, one after another. I got out of bed as fast as could and, without pausing to turn on the kerosene lamp, lunged for the bathroom door. I pulled on the knob firmly because the door was always stuck. Only this time, the knob came off in my hands and the thrust sent me reeling backwards. I couldn't stop myself from falling and sitting down hard. The impact caused me to have an immediate accident.
"Oh no!" I cried as my bowels rampaged. All I could do was lie there and wait for it to end. Then, slowly, as carefully as I could to keep myself from getting any dirtier, I slipped out of the soiled dress. I rolled it up quickly and returned to the bathroom door. I put my hand in the hole where the knob used to be and tugged until the door opened. Then I went in to wash myself. Yet the towel and cloth I used to clean myself wasn't enough. I groped about in the darkness and then went out back into the bedroom, deciding I would call for Miss Emily. But before I could open my mouth my stomach in reply began to rumble again. This time I made it to the bathroom. However, my bowels went wild and when it was finally over, I felt so limp and weak, I could barely stand. My abdomen ached. I had trouble catching my breath. My heart pounded so hard I thought it would split open my chest.
"Miss Emily!" I cried out, hoping she might hear me and come to help me. "Miss Emily!" I listened, but there was no response and no sound of footsteps in the corridor outside my room. She could never hear me shouting from here, I thought.
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nbsp; Terrified of what was happening, I pulled myself to my feet and desperately made my way back to my bed. The pains in my stomach spread to my back and became sharper and more intense. I realized I had to make another trip to the bathroom and quickly. I slipped off the bed and crawled on my hands and knees, just reaching the toilet in time, but the end of this ordeal left me as limp as a wet washcloth. I couldn't even crawl back to my bed. I collapsed on the floor, groaning, too weak to cry out. I realized I was in great danger of losing the baby, but I didn't have the strength to do much more.
Thankfully, the pain began to ease. I closed my eyes and held my stomach. In the morning Miss Emily found me still lying there. I had fallen asleep on the bathroom floor.
"This is disgusting!" she shouted. "Look at this room. You're worse than one of my pigs!"
"Miss Emily," I moaned, struggling to get up, "I couldn't get into the bathroom. You gave me too much castor oil," I cried, the tears streaming down my cheeks.
"How dare you accuse me of making an error, just because you're too stupid to take care of yourself."
"I'm not too stupid. I almost lost the baby." She started to smile. "You want me to lose the baby! That's why you did it and why you're making me work so hard."
"Why you ungrateful, spiteful . . . I would never do such a thing." Her eyes narrowed. "Do you think I would punish a baby for the sins of its parents? Get hold of yourself before I do put you in the barn. You're behaving no better than a barn animal anyway." She drew up her shoulders.
"I will send Charlotte up here with another towel and cloth and a fresh dress," she said. "I want you to clean yourself up and spend the morning cleaning this room. Then, and only then, can you come downstairs for something to eat. Do you understand? Disgusting," she added and marched out.
I remained where I was on the floor until Charlotte came with my things. Could I have been so confused as to leave them downstairs? I wondered. The last few days had been so hard, the work so difficult, my fatigue so deep, perhaps I had. But it seemed more likely to me that Miss Emily had done all this to me deliberately.
"Ugh," Charlotte said, squeezing her nose.
"I'm sorry, Charlotte. Thank you," I said, taking my things. "If I had a window in my room, I could open it," I added angrily. She stood outside the doorway looking in at me as I proceeded to wash myself down. I felt like I had been dragged through a war. I was happy to get clean and I was even happy to put on the ugly sack dress because it was at least clean.
"The same thing happened to me," Charlotte admitted, shaking her head sadly as I went about cleaning up the room.
"The same thing?" I paused to look at her. "You mean you've been sick like this?"
"Yes, but Emily said it was because the baby had pointed ears and was a spawn of the devil."
I stared at her. What did all this mean—the baby rattle, the needlework for a baby, the references to her own pregnancy. Was it real or part of her imagination?
"Charlotte, when did you have this baby?" I asked.
"Charlotte!" we heard Miss Emily scream from down the hall. "I told you to give her those things and leave her to clean up."
Charlotte started to turn away and then hesitated and looked back in at me, an impish expression of defiance on her face.
"Yesterday," she said and ran off.
Yesterday? I thought. I nearly laughed myself. Charlotte really didn't have any concept of time. But did that necessarily mean that all she had told me was fantasy? And if she was pregnant out of wedlock, just like me, did Miss Emily do the same sort of things to her? Miss Emily wouldn't tell me. I knew that if I so much as had asked her about Charlotte being pregnant, Miss Emily would have chastised me for listening to her and encouraging her fantasies.
But I had to discover the truth, perhaps before it was too late for both me and my baby, I thought.
As I entered my eighth month of pregnancy, Miss Emily decided that I was too heavy. She decided to cut back on everything I was given to eat. Some days I was so ravishingly hungry, I gobbled anything in sight, even stale bread. I had to sneak food on the sly, for she left nothing out and easy for me to get. I would finish my meager meals and have to sit at the table and watch her and Charlotte continue to eat. I got to the point where I was eating whatever Charlotte left on her plate when she handed me the plate to wash.
Although my food was cut back, my work was not and I was carrying the baby much lower now. I couldn't bend down; I had to kneel to pick things up. One late April morning, Miss Emily decided that it was time to air things out. At first I didn't understand what that meant. Then I realized what she wanted to do.
First, she wanted me to take up every rug in the house and pound the dust out of it outside. Then, she wanted me to carry out every sofa and chair cushion and beat them the same way. When I started to protest, she ordered Charlotte to help and Charlotte was eager to do so. She was happy to be given any significant activity. Together, we began by rolling up the rug in the library. Charlotte did most of that, but carrying it out was a terrible strain. Even sharing the weight, it was too heavy for me to bear. I felt my stomach pulling and tearing. Off to the side, Miss Emily watched us like an eagle. We managed to get the rug out on the portico and draped it over the railing. Then we started to beat out the dust, months and months of it. The clouds of dirt nearly choked me.
"I had to get up early today," Charlotte told me when we paused for a rest. "The baby woke me."
"Charlotte, how can there be a baby if you told me the baby went to hell?" I asked.
"Sometimes, Emily lets him come back to visit. I never know until I hear him crying for his bottle," she said.
"Where is he today, Charlotte?" I pursued when I was sure Miss Emily wasn't listening to us.
"In the nursery. Where else?" she said and then she started to beat the rug, singing a child's tune as she did so.
"You better not go down to the woods today . . ."
I made up my mind. Tonight, I thought, when I was sure Miss Emily was asleep, I would do what I had been forbidden to do: I would go into the west wing and I would explore.
The airing out of things was the hardest work I had to do all month, but it at least permitted me to be outside and enjoy the warm spring day. I had almost forgotten how wonderful and happy the blue sky and soft milk-white clouds could make you feel. The breeze was gentle and delicately played with my loose strands of hair. I couldn't help but recall some of the happier spring days of my life, those unfortunately too rare but marvelous days when Jimmy and I were very young and didn't fully understand how hard and how terrible our lives really were. At least I didn't. I think Jimmy always knew and resented our poverty.
It had been so long since he had heard from me or I had heard from him. I was afraid he thought that I had forgotten him and no longer cared. One of the reasons I was anxious for the baby's birth and my leaving The Meadows was renewing my relationship with Jimmy, if I could. I was afraid that after he had learned all that I had done and all that had happened, he might very well not want to have anything more to do with me.
"Stop that daydreaming!" Miss Emily screamed from a window.
I returned to the sofa cushions and beat out the dust that had made its home in them so long.
Miss Emily was apparently satisfied with how much work we did accomplish, however, for after dinner she decided I could read or go to sleep as early as I wished. I did go into the library to peruse some family pictures I had discovered when I had done the thorough cleaning of the shelves. I turned the pages and gazed at the sepia photographs capturing Grandmother Cutler, Miss Emily, and Charlotte as children.
Grandmother Cutler was by far the prettiest of the three. Even as a child, Miss Emily had that pinched face and those cold, hard eyes. Charlotte was always on the plump side, but she always had that happy, innocent look of a child. There were even some pictures here and there in which Luther could be seen in the background. He was once a tall, strapping and even handsome man. In all of the pictures of Father
and Mother Booth, Mother Booth was standing and Father Booth was sitting with Mother Booth behind him, her hand on his shoulder. Neither of them smiled—perhaps they thought that smiling would bring the devil. The pictures of the grounds were nice, however, and I understood that the plantation was once a bright and rich place. I couldn't help but wonder about the forces and events that had changed everything so dramatically and made this family so horrid.
Thinking about all these mysteries reminded me of my intention to explore the west wing. I went up to my room to get some rest and wait until it was much, much later when I would be certain Miss Emily would be asleep. I didn't anticipate how deep my own fatigue from the day's hard work went, however, and I practically passed out the moment my head hit the pillow. It was nearly morning when I woke up again, but it was still dark enough for me to begin my explorations.
I rose out of bed and lit the kerosene lamp, then I stepped out into the dark corridor and made my way toward the west wing, determined to discover if there was even the slightest shred of truth to Charlotte Booth's fantasies.
When I reached the stairway, I hesitated. It was almost as if there really was an invisible wall, a border that I would have to cross and the moment I did, I would risk bringing the full wrath of Miss Emily down upon me. The west wing corridor was pitch dark, and I had no idea where anything was, but I continued forward, hovering near the wall on the right as I did so.
Just like in my corridor, there were some decorative furnishings and many old paintings. There were two rather large portraits of Father and Mother Booth side by side, and as in all the other pictures, neither smiled, both looked angry and unhappy. These pictures hung on the wall directly across from the first door. I stopped and listened. Was this Miss Emily's or Charlotte's room? I turned the knob slowly and pressed against the door. At first, it didn't budge and then it got unstuck and I practically fell into the room.