Twilight's Child

  "Don't talk like that. Soon you will believe it yourself," he said.

  "But why is it, Jimmy, that evil things linger longer than good things, that the stench of something rotten lasts longer than the aroma of something sweet?" I asked.

  "That's not true, Dawn. It just seems so, but it's not," he insisted. "Our good memories live with us, don't they?"

  I shook my head. "Yes, but the bad ones cut into us and scar us, and those scars stay with us forever and ever. Somehow I've got to find a way to shut that dreadful old woman out of our lives," I said, my eyes narrowed in determination.

  "When you talk like that," Jimmy said, "you scare me. Your whole face changes, and I don't know who you are, for the Dawn I knew wouldn't be worried about revenge," he said.

  "It's not revenge I'm worried about, Jimmy. It's survival," I replied.

  He swung his eyes away sadly.

  I was sorry to have said those things, but I couldn't help believing that somehow Grandmother Cutler was reaching back from the dead and finding ways to ruin everyone's happiness, especially mine.

  The motel manager helped us make emergency travel arrangements. In order to leave immediately we had to take a small airplane to Boston, and in Boston catch a bigger airplane to Virginia Beach. The hotel car was waiting for us when we arrived a little after nine in the evening. Julius Barker, the driver, stood at the doorway to the baggage area, his hat in his hands, his eyes drooping with sorrow.

  Most everyone at the hotel had been fond of Randolph. Despite his ineffectiveness as a hotel administrator and his drifting into madness after his mother's death, he was a gentle, kind soul, the epitome of Southern geniality and grace. Before his depression he always wore a smile and had a nice word for anyone he met, be it a chambermaid or a rich hotel guest. The staff, as well as frequent guests, had been saddened by his physical and mental degeneration. It seemed that only the people who were supposed to care the most for him were not upset and concerned.

  Julius rushed forward to get our bags.

  "I'm sorry you had to come right back, Mrs. Longchamp," he said.

  "It's very sad, Julius."

  "Yes, ma'am. Everyone's just moping about the hotel, talking low and sniffling back tears. Mr. Dorfman made us cut back most of the lights," he added, and when we drove up we saw why he had mentioned it.

  There was a funereal pall over the building and grounds. An overcast sky had begun to drop a cold rain through the darkness, making the air gray and chilly. The hotel loomed like a big, deserted house, its windows vacant and dark. The great porch looked as if a black shroud had been draped over it. It was very strange to enter the big lobby and find it empty and dim. Only one receptionist, Mrs. Bradly, was behind the counter to cover the telephones. Robert Garwood, one of the older bellhops, rushed forward to take our luggage and carry it up to our suite.

  "I'll go see what's been shut down and what hasn't," Jimmy said. He went off with Julius, and I followed Robert to the family section. My mother's door was shut tight as usual, but as I started down the corridor Philip opened the door to his room and stepped out to greet me.

  "I didn't think you would come back," he said. He was dressed in a blue velvet robe with the Cutler insignia, a large gold C, on the breast pocket, but his hair was brushed neatly, and he looked quite rested and relaxed. He smiled and then stepped forward close enough to kiss my cheek. His hand lingered on my shoulder.

  "Of course I had to come back. Why wouldn't I come back?" I said, not hiding my indignation and shaking his hand off my shoulder.

  "Well, he's not really your father, and you were on your honeymoon," Philip said. "Weren't you enjoying yourself?" he asked, his grin small and tight, amused. How could he be so lighthearted only a short time after his father had died so sadly? I wondered. I couldn't help feeling disgust for that otherwise handsome and beguiling smile.

  "Really, Philip, don't you have respect for anything, even your own father's memory?" I snapped. My sharpness wiped the leer from his face as quickly as my slapping him would.

  "I'm upset. Of course I'm upset," he said defensively. "I had to rush back from college, didn't I?" he pointed out.

  "You're still thinking only of yourself, Philip," I replied, shaking my head. "What about Randolph?"

  I didn't wait for his reply. I left him standing there with his mouth gaped open, and I walked on to Christie's nursery to see how she was doing. Sissy greeted me at the door. Christie was fast asleep.

  "It was so terrible," Sissy said, wiping her eyes. I pulled her out of the room so we wouldn't waken Christie. "Clarence told me he heard Mr. Cutler's clothing was ripped and torn like he had been running through barbed wire. He died with his hands clutching Mrs. Cutler's tombstone, his face pressed into the dirt." She shook her body to shake out the chill. "That poor man."

  "I know," I said. "How's Christie been?"

  "She knows something bad's happened. She's seen and heard all the people cryin' and snifflin' and lookin' downhearted, but Mrs. Boston and me tried to keep her in her room most of the time. 'Course, she's always askin' after you."

  I nodded and entered the nursery quietly. I looked down at her asleep in her crib, a curl of her golden hair spun over her forehead. Her perfect little face looked like the face on a porcelain doll. I fixed her blanket and left to put away Jimmy's and my things. But Mrs. Boston, who had heard about our arrival, was already there, doing just that.

  "I'm just looking for ways to keep busy," she said, shaking her head, her eyes drowning in tears. We hugged.

  "How's my mother?" I asked suspiciously. Mrs. Boston sucked in some air and pulled back her shoulders.

  "She shut herself up in the suite and hasn't come out ever since. All she will do is call down for things. I don't think she's gotten out of her bed."

  "Who's seen about the funeral arrangements?" I asked.

  "I imagine Mr. Updike," she said.

  "Well, I guess I've got to go in there sooner or later," I said, and I went to my mother's suite. She had the door to her bedroom closed. I knocked on it softly.

  "Mother? Are you awake?" I called. There was no reply for so long a moment, I was about to turn away. But then I heard her small cry.

  "Dawn . . . is that you?" she asked.

  I opened the door and entered. Mother had never looked tinier in the king-size bed with her head sunk into her oversized satin pillows and the comforter drawn over her. There was only a small table lamp lit, casting a weak, pale glow over everything. Despite her period of mourning, she looked as if she had been brushing her hair for hours and hours. She wore lipstick and some rouge and pearl earrings with a matching pearl necklace.

  She sat up slightly and held her arms out for me to run into them and comfort her. I walked slowly to her bed and let her embrace me.

  "Dawn, I'm so happy you've come back. It was horrible, just horrible. Have you heard all of it?" she asked, falling back on her pillows as if hugging me had drained her of all her available energy. "How he wandered God knows where, through back alleys, under docks, spoke to complete strangers, babbling about his mother? Can you just die?" she said, throwing her eyes back. "People in Cutler's Cove will be talking about this for generations."

  "I don't think Randolph was worried about that, Mother," I said caustically.

  "No, of course he wasn't. He's gone. None of this will matter to him anymore," she flared. Then she used her small fists to grind away her thick tears and pulled herself into a sitting position. "Mr. Updike keeps calling me to ask dreadful questions concerning the funeral," she moaned. "I don't want to hear another word about it. You will have to take charge."

  "What about Philip or Clara Sue?" I asked.

  "Clara Sue won't come out of her room," she said, "and Philip is getting to be more and more like his father. He says whatever I want. Well, I don't want," she said flatly, without emotion. "What I do want is for all this ugly business to end," she concluded firmly.

  "I feel so sorry for him," I said, "but I told you how
serious it was getting. I told Philip, too. No one seemed to care," I said, a bit more sharply than I had intended. But I was getting tired of how Randolph's death was inconveniencing all his loved ones.

  "Don't you start blaming me for this, Dawn," Mother said, pointing her forefinger accusingly. "There was nothing I could do for him. He was obsessed with his mother and her memory. He was always in awe of her, worshiping her as if she were some goddess and not just his mother. He never saw her for what she was; he never saw her meanness or her viciousness. Everything she did was all right, according to him. All she had to do was nod in a direction, and he would rush off to do her bidding. He wanted to be with her, so he's with her," she asserted, nodding.

  "I'm sure he didn't want to die on her grave like that, Mother. He wasn't well," I said softly.

  "Believe me, Dawn. He wanted to die that way," she said, waving away my protest. "He was crazy, yes, but he knew what he was doing. Well, it's over," she said, taking a deep breath and sighing. "At least that part is. Now there is this unpleasantness to face. Well, I'm not well either, so I can't be pressured with dreadful details. I want it all to go as quickly as possible. Will you see that it does? Will you?" she begged.

  "We'll do what is proper and what shows respect, Mother," I said, pulling my shoulders back. I couldn't help it. I knew I must look like I was mimicking the one woman despised the most. The way Mother's eyes widened with surprise confirmed it. "And you will find the strength to perform as a loving wife should at her husband's funeral. You can expect it will be heavily attended, and many of the people you admire so much will be watching you."

  "Oh dear, dear," she moaned, closing her eyes. "How will I have the strength?"

  "Somehow you will find it, I'm sure," I said sharply. "I will phone Mr. Updike immediately and see what's left to be done, and then tell you what you are to do," I said, and I turned to leave.

  "Dawn," she cried.

  "What is it, Mother?"

  "I'm so happy you're here . . . to lean upon," she said, smiling through her crystal tears.

  "Well, you can thank the security guard who recognized Daddy Longchamp and told the police so they could come and get me," I replied. Her smile wilted.

  "How can you be so cruel to me at a time like this?" she cried.

  Jimmy's words returned: ". . . for the Dawn I knew wouldn't be worried about revenge." Was he right? Was I changing? Was I permitting Grandmother Cutler to make me into someone like her and, in effect, destroy me?

  I softened.

  "I'm sorry, Mother," I said. She looked pleased. "I'll do what I can to make things easier for you."

  "Thank you, Dawn. Dawn," she called again as I reached the doorway. "I did love him . . . once," she said in a small, sad voice.

  "Then when you mourn him, Mother, mourn the man he was and not the man he became," I advised, and I left her sobbing into her lace handkerchief.

  Both Mr. Updike and Mr. Dorfman thought that just like Grandmother Cutler's funeral procession, Randolph's should stop at the front of the hotel for a last good-bye. The minister would say a few words from the front entrance. Mother moaned as if in dire pain when I told her.

  "Not that again. Oh, what dramatics," she cried. But she went along with it. In fact, once the funeral arrangements were all confirmed, she suddenly had a burst of new energy. She decided that the dress she had worn to Grandmother Cutler's funeral was not good enough for Randolph's.

  "I didn't care what I looked like then," she explained. "But this is different."

  One of the dress designers she favored was summoned to the hotel with an emergency air and was put to work creating a fashionable black dress. Mother wanted a tight waist and fluffy sleeves with a rather low-cut bodice. The designer was surprised but did what she asked. When I saw the way she was dressed on the morning of the funeral, I thought she had prepared herself for some sort of costume ball. All that was needed was a black mask. She had had her nails manicured and polished, her hair washed and styled, and had even called the beautician to give her a facial because she claimed hours and hours of crying had made her look like an old woman.

  Not once during the entire time between Jimmy's and my return from our aborted honeymoon did Clara Sue show herself. Like her mother, she insisted on all her food being brought to her room. I was told she was on the telephone constantly, speaking with her school friends, however. When I did see her on the morning of the funeral, she turned away.

  The family was supposed to ride together in the hotel limousine, but some of Clara Sue's local friends were there, and she decided she would ride with them. I was surprised Mother didn't protest.

  "I don't have the strength for that sort of thing this morning, Dawn," she told me when I pointed out how insensitive it was for Clara Sue not to be at her side. "Let's just get underway and get it over with as quickly as we can."

  The sky was mostly overcast and gray, but fortunately the clouds held back their rain. The crowd of mourners was so great it overflowed out the door of the church. People stood on the steps and around the lawn listening to the minister's eulogy. Clara Sue at least joined us in the family pew, standing beside Philip. Directly behind us sat Mr. and Mrs. Updike, Mr. and Mrs. Dorfman and, at Mother's request, Bronson Alcott. From time to time I caught him patting her sympathetically on her arm. Once she reached back to squeeze his hand.

  I had to admit that she looked elegantly beautiful, like a dazzling bright pearl encased in a black shell. Periodically, almost as if she had it timed, she would dab her eyes with her lace handkerchief and take a small breath, closing her eyes. Then she would open them and gaze at someone to smile gratefully at his or her look of condolence.

  After the eulogy, during which the minister stressed the great contribution the Cutler family had made and was making to the community, the mourners streamed out to get into their cars and follow the hearse to the hotel. The entire hotel staff gathered around. There the minister spoke about the great traditions the Cutler family had created and how the hotel had been more than a business for Randolph; it had been a home. There was barely a dry eye in the crowd when the minister said, "And so we bid you a final farewell, Randolph Boyse Cutler, and now take you to your place of eternal rest. Your work here has ended."

  Some of the staff members cried openly and had to be comforted by others. When we passed through the arch of the cemetery I closed my eyes, for the memory of that day when I had discovered the small tombstone, placed there to symbolically indicate my own death, returned sharply.

  Randolph was to be buried right beside his mother and father. My mother gazed at me as the coffin was brought to the grave. I could see her thoughts. Once again she was telling me Randolph was where he wanted to be. But no matter how much he loved and admired his mother, I didn't think he wanted this sort of end for himself. He was a troubled, lost soul, wandering through a maze of memories, searching for some meaning to his life after the light of it had been dimmed.

  The minister offered his final prayers, and the crowd of mourners began to disperse. As Jimmy and I turned to go, Clara Sue, who had been standing just a little ways down from us with her friends, spun on her heels and glared at me. Her face wasn't filled with sorrow so much as it was filled with anger and jealousy at the way people were shaking my hand, embracing me and offering their expressions of sympathy. It was her own fault for not standing with her family, I thought.

  Surprisingly, she stepped right in my path as I began to leave the cemetery. She seemed to pull in her breath and straighten her spine.

  "Are you satisfied?" she cried. Her face flamed furiously.

  "What?" Stunned, I looked from her to Jimmy and back to her. A small crowd of mourners had heard her outburst and stopped to listen.

  "Ever since they brought you back, this family's been falling apart piece by piece. Then they gave you control of our hotel, and my father became nothing . . . nothing!" she screamed, her eyes blazing and wide.

  "That's not true, Clara Sue," I began. "Randolp
h was suffering long before—"

  She shoved her face closer to mine and narrowed her eyes to sinister slots as she continued to lash out.

  "Don't you tell me about my father. You have everyone else fooled, but not me," she spat. "You caused trouble for all of us and made my grandmother sick to death. Now you've done the same thing to my father."

  "That's not fair, Clara Sue, and this is not the time or the place to—"

  "Clara Sue, you're behaving like a fool," Jimmy said. "He's right, Clara Sue," Philip added. "You're acting like a spoiled brat."

  Clara Sue laughed, a wild, thin, hysterical laugh that carried over the heads of the nearby mourners, who widened their eyes in shock and surprise.

  "Of course you two would take her side. You're both in love with her," she accused. The crowd of onlookers drew closer, their murmuring growing louder.

  Philip's face reddened, and he drew his shoulders up as if he had been sharply slapped in the face.

  "Shut your mouth," he commanded, and he stepped toward her threateningly, his hands clenched. Clara Sue stood firmly in place, not budging an inch, challenging him with her wry smile. I felt certain he was about to strike her, and all this at the foot of their father's freshly dug grave.

  "Oh, Clara Sue," I heard Mother cry. I turned to see her swoon and faint into Bronson Alcott's waiting arms. Philip turned to go to her, too, and Clara Sue stepped forward toward me.

  "Now look what you've done," she sneered.

  "I've done?"

  "Well, I won't rest until I've driven you out of here," Clara Sue continued, not in the least concerned about Mother. Those who had remained behind were gathered around as Bronson fanned her with his handkerchief.

  "I'll hire lawyers; I'll find a way to get rid of you," Clara Sue promised hatefully.

  "Do what you want," I said. "You have no respect for anything or anyone but yourself, and you are a disgrace to your father's memory," I added, turning to join the others around Mother. She still had not regained consciousness.