Darkest Hour

  I drank my water and nibbled on my bread and then went to my knees and recited the Fifty-first Psalm. I repeated it until my throat ached. It grew darker so I lay down and tried to sleep, but shortly afterward, the door opened and Papa entered. He turned on my lamps and I looked to the doorway to see he had been followed by an elderly woman from Upland Station I recognized to be Mrs. Coons. She was a midwife who had delivered dozens and dozens of babies in her time and still did so even though some said she was close to ninety.

  She had very thin gray hair, so thin a good part of her scalp was visible. Over her lips, a dark line of gray hair had emerged and looked as distinct as a man's mustache. Her face was thin with a long, narrow nose and sunken cheeks, but her dark eyes remained big, even looking bigger because of the way her cheeks had sunken and the bone of her forehead protruded against her paper-thin, wrinkled and spotted pale skin. Her lips were as slim as pencils, but dull pink.

  She was a small woman, not much taller than a young girl, with very bony arms and bony hands. It was hard to believe she ever had the strength to urge a baby into this world and certainly much harder to believe she could do it now.

  "There she is," Papa said, nodding at me. "Go to it."

  I cowered back in my bed as Mrs. Coons approached, her small, bony shoulders turned down, her head tilted toward me. Her eyes narrowed, but her gaze was piercing. She scrutinized my face and then nodded.

  "Maybe so," she said. "Maybe so."

  "You let Mrs. Coons look you over," Papa ordered. "What do you mean, Papa?"

  "She's gonna tell me what went on here last night," he said. My eyes widened. I shook my head.

  "No, Papa. I didn't do anything bad. Really, I didn't."

  "You don't expect any of us to believe you now, do you, Lillian?" he asked. "Don't make this harder for everyone," he advised. "If I have to, I'll hold you down," he threatened.

  "What are you going to do, Papa?" I looked at Mrs. Coons and my heart began to pound because I knew the answer. "Please, Papa," I moaned. My tears came quickly, hot, burning tears. "Please," I begged.

  "Do as she says," Papa ordered.

  "Pull up your skirt," Mrs. Coons demanded. She was missing most of her teeth and those that remained were dark gray. Her tongue flickered in between them. It looked moist brown, like a piece of rotting wood.

  "Do it!" Papa snapped.

  My shoulders shaking with my sobs, I raised my skirt to my waist.

  "You can look away," Mrs. Coons said to Papa. I felt her fingers, fingers as cold and as hard as spikes, take hold of my panties and her nails scratch my skin as she drew them down over my knees and down my ankles. "Raise your knees up," she said.

  I thought the breath had gone out of me. I gasped and gasped. It made me dizzy. Her hands were on my knees, pulling them up and pulling my legs apart. I looked away, but nothing helped. The indignity was carried out. It was painful and I screamed. I must have fainted for a moment, too, because when I opened my eyes, Mrs. Coons was at the door with Papa, assuring him I had not given away my innocence. After he and she left, I lay there sobbing until my eyes were dry and my throat ached. Then I pulled up my panties and swung my feet over the bed.

  Just as I started to stand, Papa returned, followed by Emily. He was carrying a big chest and she had one of her plain, sackcloth dresses folded in her arms. He put down the chest and gazed at me, his eyes still full of anger.

  "People are coming from every corner of the county to that boy's funeral," he said. "Our name is on everyone's lips, no thanks to you. Maybe I got Satan's child in my house, but I don't have to make her a home." He nodded at Emily who went to my closet and began pulling my nice clothes off the hangers. She piled them without regard at her feet, throwing down my silk blouses, my pretty skirts and dresses, all the things Mamma had taken great care to have made and bought for me.

  "From this day forward, you are to wear only simple things, eat only simple things and spend your time in prayer," Papa dictated. And then he listed the rules. "Keep your body clean but put no sweet-smelling thing on, no creams, no makeup, no perfumed soap. You don't have to cut your hair, but keep it pinned up tightly and let no one, especially no man, set eyes on you with your hair down.

  "Never set foot out of this house or off these grounds without my explicit permission.

  "You must humble yourself in every way that you can. See yourself now as a servant, not a member of the family. Wash your sister's feet, empty her chamberpot and never, never lift your eyes in defiance to her or to me or even to a household servant.

  "When you are truly repentant and free of the evil, then you may return to our family and be like the prodigal son who was lost and then was found.

  "Do you understand me, Lillian?"

  "Yes, Papa," I said.

  His face softened a bit.

  "I feel sorry for you, sorry for what you have to live within your heart now, but it's because I feel sorry for you that I have agreed with Emily and the minister on your steps to redemption."

  While he spoke, Emily energetically pulled all my pretty shoes out of the closet and threw them in the pile. She stuffed everything into the chest and then she went to my dresser drawers and took out my nice underwear and socks and added them. She practically lunged at my jewelry, my trinkets and bracelets. When she had emptied the drawers, she paused and gazed around.

  "The room must be as simple as a room in a monastery," Emily declared. Papa nodded and Emily went to my walls and took down all my pretty pictures and my framed commendations from school. She gathered up my stuffed animals, my mementos, my music box. She even ripped the pretty curtains from the windows. Everything was shoved into that chest. Then she stood before me. "Take off what you have on and put on this dress," she said, indicating the sackcloth she had brought in with her. I looked at Papa. He tugged on the ends of his mustache and nodded.

  I stood up and unbuttoned my light blue dress. I slipped it off my shoulders and dropped it to my feet. Then I stepped out of it and put it on top of the pile Emily bad made of all my things in the chest. I stood there trembling, embracing myself.

  "Put on this," Emily said, handing me the sack-cloth. I slipped it over my head. It was too big and too long, but neither Emily nor Papa cared.

  "You can come down for your meals after tonight," Papa said, "but from this day forward, don't talk unless you're asked a question and you're forbidden from talking to the servants. It pains me to do all this, Lillian, but the shadow of the hand of evil is on this house and it must be taken away."

  "Let us pray together," Emily suggested. Papa nodded. "On your knees, sinner," she snapped at me. I went down and she went down and Papa joined us. "Oh Lord," Emily said. "Give us the strength to help this cursed soul and deny the devil his victory," she said, and then she recited the Lord's Prayer. When it was over, she and Papa carried out the chest that contained all my pretty and treasured worldly possessions and left me with the bare walls and empty drawers.

  But I didn't feel sorry for myself. My thoughts were only on Niles. If I had not been insolent to Papa, I might have gone to the party, and if I had gone to the party, Niles wouldn't have felt it necessary to climb up to my room to see me and he would be alive.

  This belief took even a stronger grip on me two days later when Niles's funeral was held. There was no more denial of what happened, no more wishing it had been a bad dream. Papa forbade me to attend the service and burial. He said it would be a disgrace to have me there.

  "Everyone's eyes would be on us Booths," he declared, then added, "Hatefully. It's enough I have to go and stand beside the Thompsons and beg them to forgive me for having you as a daughter. I'll be relying on Emily." He looked at her with more respect and admiration than I had ever seen in his eyes before. She straightened her shoulders.

  "The Lord will provide us with the strength to bear our adversities boldly, Papa," she said.

  "Thanks only to your religious devotion, Emily," he said. "Thanks only to that."

  Tha
t morning I sat in my room and looked off in the direction of the Thompson plantation where I knew Niles was being lowered into his final resting place. I could hear the sobs and the cries as loudly as I would had I been there. My tears flowed as I recited the Lord's Prayer. Then I rose to embrace the burdens of my new life willingly, ironically finding some relief in self-degradation and pain. The harsher Emily spoke to me and treated me, the better I felt. I no longer resented her. I realized there was a place in this world for the Emilies and I didn't run to Mamma for help or sympathy.

  Anyway, Mamma had only a vague understanding of what had occurred because she had never realized how close Niles and I had become. She heard the details of the terrible accident and heard Emily's version of what led up to it and what followed, but like anything else that she saw as unpleasant, she was quick to ignore or forget it. Mamma was like a vessel that had already been filled with sadness and tragedy to the brim and could take in not a drop more.

  Occasionally she commented about my clothing or my hair, and on her more lucid days wondered why I wasn't going to school, but as soon as I began to explain, she turned herself off or changed the subject.

  Vera and Tottie were always trying to get me to eat more or do some of the nice things I used to do. It saddened them, as well as the other house servants and laborers, that I had accepted my fate so willingly. But when I thought about all the people who loved me and whom I loved and what had happened to them all—from my real mother and father to Eugenia to Niles—I could do nothing but accept my punishments and seek my salvation, just as Emily and Papa had prescribed.

  Every morning, I rose early enough to go to Emily's room and take out her chamberpot. I washed and returned it before she had even stirred. Then she would sit up and I would bring the basin of warm water and a cloth and wash her feet. After I had dried them and after she had put on her dress, I would kneel beside her in the corner of her room and repeat the prayers she dictated. Then we would go down to breakfast and either Emily or I would read the Biblical passages she had chosen. I obeyed Papa and never spoke unless spoken to. Usually that meant a simple yes or no reply.

  On the mornings when Mamma joined us, it was harder to keep to the commandments. Mamma often lost herself in some past experience and described it to me just the way she had years and years ago, expecting me to comment and laugh the same way. I would shift my eyes to Papa to see if he would permit my responses. Sometimes he nodded and I did, and sometimes he scowled and I kept still.

  I was permitted to take my Bible and go out for an hour to walk over the fields and recite prayers. Emily timed me to the minute and called me back when my hour was up. I wasn't given many menial chores. My penance had to be related to burdens that would cleanse my soul. I think Papa and Emily realized that the household servants and the laborers would have done the work for me anyway. I had to tend to my own room, of course, and do things for Emily occasionally, but most of my time was to be spent in religious study.

  One afternoon, weeks after Niles's death, Miss Walker came to The Meadows to see about me. Tottie, who was cleaning just outside the office door, overheard the conversation and came up to my room to tell me.

  "Your schoolteacher lady was here seeing about you," she announced with excitement. She made sure it was safe to come into my room and then entered, closing the door softly behind her. "She wanted to know where you been, Miss Lillian. She told your papa that you were her best student and that you not being in school was a sin.

  "The Captain, he was mad about what she said. I could hear it in his voice. You know how he gets to sounding like a shovel full of gravel, and he told her that you are being schooled at home from now on and your religious education is first and foremost.

  "But Miss Walker, she told him it's not right and that she's gonna complain to the authorities about him. He got real mad then and said he'd have her job if she so much as made a peep. He told her she can't threaten him. 'Don't you know who I am?' he shouted. 'I'm Jed Booth. This plantation is one of the most important ones in the county.'

  "Well, she didn't back down one bit. She repeated that she was gonna complain and he asked her to leave.

  "What do you think of that?" Tottie asked me. I shook my head sadly, sighing. "What's wrong, Miss Lillian? Ain't you happy about it?"

  "Papa will get her fired for sure," I said. "She's just another person who liked me who will be hurt because of it. I wish I could get her to stop trying."

  "But Miss Lillian . . . everybody says you belongs in school and . . ."

  "You'd better go, Tottie, before Emily hears you in here and you get fired too," I said.

  "I don't have to be fired, Miss Lillian," she replied. "I'm gonna leave this dark place and soon, too." Her eyes were full of tears. "I just hate seeing you suffer so and I know Louella and old Henry would just bust their hearts if they heard about it."

  "Well, don't tell them, Tottie. I don't want to bring any more pain to anyone else," I said. "And don't do anything else to make things easier for me, Tottie. Things must be hard for me. I must be punished." She shook her head and left me.

  Poor Miss Walker, I thought. I missed her, missed the schoolroom, missed the excitement of learning, but I also knew how horrible it would be for me to take my seat in that classroom and then look behind myself and see Niles's empty desk. No, Papa was doing me a favor keeping me away from school, I thought, and prayed he wouldn't cause Miss Walker to lose her job.

  But a storm of economic troubles caused Papa to forget everything else, including the threats he made to Miss Walker. A few days later, Papa had to appear in court because he was being sued by one of our creditors for his failure to pay his debt. For the first time ever, there was a real possibility The Meadows might be lost. The crisis was the sole topic of conversation on the grounds and in the house. Everyone was on pins and needles awaiting the outcome. The end result was Papa had to do something he had feared most—he had to sell off a piece of The Meadows and he even had to auction off some of our farm equipment.

  The loss of a part of the plantation, even a small part, was something Papa could hardly face. It changed him dramatically. He no longer walked as tall or as confidently and arrogantly. Instead, he lowered his head when he entered his office as if he was ashamed to face the portraits of his father and grand-father. The Meadows had survived the worst thing any Southern plantation had to confront—the Civil War—but it couldn't survive its economic problems.

  Papa's drinking increased. I almost never saw him without a glass of whiskey in his hand or beside him on his desk. He always reeked of the odor. I would hear his ponderous footsteps at night when he finally came up from his office work. He would plod along the corridor, pause at my door, sometimes for nearly a minute, and then plod on. One night, he walked into a table and knocked over a lamp. I heard it crash to the floor, but I was too afraid to open my door and look out. I heard him curse and then stumble on.

  No one mentioned Papa's whiskey drinking, although everyone knew about it. Even Emily ignored or excused it. One time he returned from a business trip so drunk he had to be escorted up to his room by Charles, and one morning Vera and Tottie found him sprawled on the floor by his desk, sleeping off a drunken stupor, but no one dared criticize him.

  Of course, Mamma never noticed, or if she did, she pretended it wasn't happening. Drinking usually made Papa even meaner. It was as though the bourbon nudged all the monsters sleeping in his mind and caused them to rage. There was the night he went wild and broke things in his office and there was the night we all heard him shouting and thought he was fighting with someone. The someone turned out to be the portrait of his father, who, we heard him say, had accused him of being a bad businessman.

  One dreadful night after Papa had been drinking in his office and going over his papers, he started up the stairway, pulling himself along the balustrade until he reached the upstairs landing, but once there, he released his grip on the banister and teetered until he lost his balance and went rolling hea
d over heels down the stairway, crashing to the floor with such a bang, the house shook. Everyone came rushing out of their rooms, everyone except Mamma that is.

  There was Papa sprawled out below, moaning and groaning. His right leg was twisted so far under him, it looked as if it had snapped off. Charles had to get help to lift Papa from the floor, but the moment they touched his leg, he howled with pain and they left him there until the doctor was sent for.

  Papa had broken his leg just above the knee. It was a bad break and required weeks and weeks of bed rest. The doctor set the cast and Papa was carried up, but because he would require special attention and needed the added room, he was placed in the bedroom beside his and Mamma's rooms.

  I stood by Mamma, who stood there twisting her silk handkerchief and saying over and over, "Oh my, what will we do, what will we do?"

  "He'll be in some pain for a while," the doctor told all of us, "and he needs to be kept quiet. I'll stop by from time to time to look in on him."

  Mamma quickly retreated to her suite and Emily went in to see to Papa.

  I couldn't imagine Papa confined to a bed. Sure enough, when he awoke and realized all that had occurred, he roared with anger. Tottie and Vera were loath to go in with his trays of food. The first time Tottie brought a tray, he threw it at the door and she had to clean up the mess. I was sure he and Emily would find a way to blame the accident on me, so I remained in my room, just trembling in anticipation.

  One afternoon, two days after the accident, Emily came to me. I had eaten my lunch and returned to my room to read my assigned sections of the Bible. Emily hoisted her shoulders sharply, looking like a metal rod had been slipped down her spine. She smirked and pursed her lips, tightening her thin face.

  "Papa wants to see you," she said. "Right now."

  "Papa?" My heart began to thump. What new penance would he impose on me as a result of what had happened to him?

  "March yourself right in there," she ordered.

  I rose slowly and, head down, I walked past her and down the corridor. When I got to the doors of Papa's room, 1 looked back and saw Emily glaring at me. I knocked on his door and waited.