Darkest Hour Read online

  In a world that had taken little Eugenia to an early and undeserved death, nothing too cruel or too unjust seemed impossible.

  8

  MAMMA GETS STRANGER

  During the months that followed Eugenia's passing, the plantation house grew darker and darker for me. For one thing, I no longer heard Mamma up early ordering the chambermaids to open the drapes, nor did I hear her singing out how people, just like flowers, needed sunshine, sunshine . . . sweet, sweet sunshine. I didn't hear her laughter when she said, "You don't fool me, Tottie Fields. None of my maids do. I know you're all afraid of opening the curtains because you're afraid I'll see the particles of dust dancing in the beams of light."

  Before Eugenia's death, Mamma would have all the household help scurrying about, pulling cords to let the daylight in every morning. There was laughter and music and a feeling that the world was really awakening. Of course, there were sections of the house that were too deep or too far from a window to be brightened by either the morning or afternoon sun, or even our chandeliers. But when my little sister was alive, I would walk through the long, wide corridors, oblivious to the shadows, and never feel as cold or as depressed for I knew she was waiting for me to say good morning, her face full of smiles.

  Right after the funeral, Eugenia's room was stripped clean of as many traces of her as possible. Mamma couldn't stand the thought of setting her eyes on Eugenia's things. She ordered Tottie to pack all of Eugenia's clothes in a trunk and then had the trunk carried up to the attic and stuffed away in some corner. Before Eugenia's personal things—her jewelry box, hair brushes and combs, perfumes and other toiletries—were packed away, Mamma asked me if I wanted anything. It was not that I didn't. I couldn't take anything. This time I was like Mamma, at least a little. It would have shattered my heart even more to see Eugenia's things in my room.

  But Emily suddenly showed interest in shampoos and bubble-bath salts. Suddenly, Eugenia's necklaces and bracelets weren't silly trinkets designed to encourage vanity. She descended on Eugenia's room like a vulture and ransacked drawers and closets to claim this or that,- spitefully, I thought. With a crooked smile, she paraded past me and Mamma, her long, thin arms loaded down with Eugenia's books and other things that were once very precious to my little sister. I wanted to peel off Emily's smiles like bark from a tree so she would be revealed for what she was—an evil, hateful creature who feasted on other people's sorrow and pain. But Mamma didn't mind Emily's taking Eugenia's things. Putting them in Emily's room was as good as putting them up in the attic, for Mamma rarely went into Emily's room.

  Soon after Eugenia's bed had been stripped, her closets and drawers emptied and her shelves made bare, the window shades were drawn and the curtains closed. The room was sealed and locked as tight as a tomb. I saw from the way Mamma gazed one last time at Eugenia's door that she would never set foot in that room again. Just like anything else she wanted to ignore or deny, Eugenia's room and its surroundings would no longer exist for her, if she could help it.

  Mamma was desperate to end the sorrow, to wipe away the tragedy and the pain of loss she felt. I knew she wished she could close up her memories of Eugenia, the same way she could close the covers of a novel. She went so far as to take down some of the photographs of Eugenia that were hanging in her reading room. She buried the smaller ones at the bottom of one of her dresser drawers and had the large ones put into the bottoms and backs of closets. If I ever mentioned Eugenia's name, Mamma would close her eyes, pressing them shut so tightly, she looked like she was suffering with a horrible headache. I was sure she shut off her ears as well, for she waited for me to stop talking and then went on doing whatever it was she was doing before I had interrupted.

  Papa certainly didn't mention Eugenia's name, except in an occasional prayer at dinner. He didn't ask about her things, nor as far as I could tell, question Mamma as to why she had taken down most of the pictures and hidden them away. Only Louella and I seemed to think about Eugenia and mention her to each other from time to time.

  From time to time, I visited her grave. For a long while in fact, I ran out there as soon as I returned from school and babbled over the mound and at the stone, tears blurring my vision as I described the day's events just the way I used to describe them when Eugenia was alive and I would hurry to her room. But gradually, the silence that greeted me began to set in and take its toll. It wasn't enough to imagine the way Eugenia would smile or imagine her laugh. With every passing day that smile and that laugh diminished. My little sister was truly passing away. I understood that we don't forget the people we love, but the light of their lives and the warmth we felt in their presence dwindles like a candle in the darkness, the flame growing smaller and smaller as time carries us forward from the last moment we spent together.

  Despite her attempt to ignore and forget the tragedy, Mamma was more deeply affected by it than she thought, even more than I imagined she could be. It did her no good to shut up Eugenia's room and hide any reminder of her; it did her no good to avoid mentioning her. She had lost a child, a child she had nursed and cherished, and gradually, in little ways at first, Mamma began to slip into a reluctant mourning that absorbed her every waking moment.

  Suddenly, she wasn't dressing as nicely, nor was she taking as many pains with her hair and makeup. She would wear the same dress for days as if she didn't notice it was wrinkled or stained. Not only did she lack the strength to brush her hair, but she lacked the interest to ask Louella or I to do it. She didn't attend any gatherings of her women friends and permitted months to pass without hosting one. Soon the invitations stopped altogether and no one called at The Meadows.

  I noticed Mamma's paleness and sad eyes growing darker and darker. I would walk by her reading room and see her lying on her lounge, but instead of reading her books, I would find her staring into space, the book closed on her lap. Most of the time, the music wasn't playing either.

  "Are you all right, Mamma?" I would ask, and she would turn as if she had forgotten who I was and gaze at me for a long moment before responding.

  "What? Oh yes, yes, Lillian. I was just daydreaming. It's nothing." She would flash an empty smile and attempt to read, but when I looked in on her again, I found her the way I had found her before—floundering in despair, the book closed on her lap, her eyes glassy, staring off into space.

  If Papa noticed any of this, he never mentioned it in Emily's or my presence. He didn't comment about her long silences at the dinner table; he said nothing about the way she looked nor did he complain about her sad eyes and occasional outbursts of tears. Shortly after Eugenia's death, for apparently no reason whatsoever, Mamma would suddenly start to cry. If she did so at the dinner table, she would get up and leave the dining room. Papa would blink, watch her go, and then return to his food. One night nearly six months after Eugenia's passing, after Mamma had done this once again at dinner, I spoke up.

  "She's getting worse and worse, Papa," I said, "not better. She doesn't read or listen to her music anymore or care about the house. She won't even see her friends or go to teas anymore."

  Papa cleared his throat and wiped the grease off his lips and mustache before turning to me.

  "To my way of thinking, it's not a bad thing she doesn't lollygag with those busybodies," he replied. "Nothing lost there, believe me . . . And as far as those silly books, I curse the day she brought one into the house. My mother never read novels or sat around all day listening to music on a Victrola, I can tell you that."

  "What did she do with all her time, Papa?" I asked. "What did she do? Why . . . why, she worked," he sputtered.

  "But I thought you had dozens and dozens of slaves."

  "We did! I ain't talking about field work or housework. She worked at seeing after my father or seeing after me. She ran the house, oversaw everything. She was better than a captain of a ship," he said proudly, "and she always looked like the wife of an important landowner."

  "But it's not just her not reading books or seeing h
er women friends, Papa. Mamma's not taking care of herself. She's so sad she won't look after her clothes or her hair or . . ."

  "She was too wrapped up in making herself attractive anyway," Emily quipped. "If she had spent more time reading the Bible and attending church regularly, she wouldn't be so despondent right now. What's done is done. It was the Lord's wish and it's over. We must accept it and give thanks."

  "How can you say such a cruel thing? It was her daughter who died, our sister!"

  "My sister, not yours," Emily retorted hotly.

  "I don't care what you say. Eugenia was my sister, too, and I was more of a sister to her than you ever were," I insisted.

  Emily laughed, hard and mirthless. I looked at Papa, but he simply continued to chew his food and stare ahead.

  "Mamma's so sad," I repeated, shaking my head. I felt the tears burning beneath my eyelids.

  "The reason Mamma's so depressed is you!" Emily accused. "You walk around here with a gray face, with eyes filled with tears. You remind her day in and day out that Eugenia's dead. You don't give her a moment's peace," she charged. Her long arm and bony finger jabbed across the table at me.

  "I do not!"

  "Enough," Papa said. He knitted his dark, thick eyebrows together and glared at me. "Your mother will come to terms with the tragedy on her own and I will not have it made the subject of a discussion at dinner. I don't want to see long faces in your mother's presence either," he warned. "Hear?"

  "Yes, Papa," I said.

  He snapped his newspaper and began complaining about the price of tobacco.

  "They're strangling the little farmer to death. It's just another way to kill the Old South," he growled.

  Why was that more important to him than what was happening to Mamma? Why was everyone but me blind to the terrible time she was having and how it had changed her and dimmed the light in her eyes? I asked Louella and after she was sure neither Emily nor Papa were in earshot, she said, "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

  "But if they love her, Louella, as surely they must, why do they choose to ignore it?"

  Louella just gave me one of her knowing looks, the kind that said everything without saying anything. Papa must love Mamma, I thought, love her in his special way. He married her; he wanted and had children with her; he chose her to be the mistress of his plantation and bear his name. I knew how much all that meant to him.

  And Emily—despite her hateful and mean-spirited ways, her fanatic religious devotion and her hardness —was still Mamma's daughter. This was her mother who was dying in little ways. She had to feel sorry, feel compassion and want to help.

  But alas, Emily's solution was to suggest more prayer sessions, longer Bible readings and more hymns. Whenever she read or prayed in front of Mamma, Mamma stood or sat motionless, her lovely face darkly shadowed, her eyes glassy and still like the eyes of someone hypnotized. When Emily's religious moments were over, Mamma would throw me a quick glance of deepest despair and retire to her room.

  Yet, although she hadn't been eating well since Eugenia's death, I noticed that her face grew plumper and her waist wider. When I mentioned it to Louella, she said, "No wonder."

  "What do you mean, Louella? Why, no wonder?"

  "It's all those mint juleps spiked with Mr. Booth's brandy and those bonbons. She's been eating pounds of them," Louella said, shaking her head, "and she don't listen to me. No ma'am. What I say goes in one ear and out the other so fast, I hear myself echo in that room."

  "Brandy! Does Papa know?"

  "I suspect so," Louella said. "But all he did was order Henry to bring up another case of it." She wagged her head in disgust. "It ain't coming to no good," she said. "It ain't coming to no good."

  What Louella told me put a panic in me. Life at The Meadows was sad without Eugenia, but life at The Meadows without Mamma would be unbearable, for I would have only Papa and Emily as family. I hurried off to see Mamma and found her sitting at her vanity table. She was dressed in one of her silk nightgowns and matching robes, the burgundy ones, and she was brushing her hair, but moving so slowly that each stroke took as long as five or six normally would. For a moment I stood in the doorway, gazing in at her, watching her sit so still, her eyes fixed on her reflection, but clearly not seeing herself.

  "Mamma," I cried, hurrying to sit beside her as I had done so many times before. "Do you want me to do that for you?"

  At first, I thought she hadn't heard me, but then she sighed deeply and turned to me. When she did so, I smelled the brandy on her breath and my heart sank.

  "Hello, Violet," she said, then smiled. "You look so pretty tonight, but then again, you always look pretty."

  "Violet? I'm not Violet, Mamma. I'm Lillian." She looked at me, but I was sure she didn't hear me.

  And then she turned and gazed at herself in the mirror again.

  "You want me to tell you what to do about Aaron, don't you? You want me to tell you if you should do more than hold his hand. Mother tells you nothing. Well," she said, turning back to me, her smile wide, her eyes bright, but with a strange sort of light in them, "I know you've already done more than hold hands, haven't you? I can tell, Violet, so there's no sense in denying it.

  "Don't protest," she said, putting her fingers on my lips. "I won't give away your secrets. What are sisters for if not to keep each other's secrets locked securely in each other's hearts? The truth is," Mamma said, gazing at herself in the mirror again, "I'm jealous. You have someone who loves you, truly loves you; you have someone who doesn't want to marry you only for your name and your place in society. You have someone who doesn't see marriage as just another business dealing. You have someone who sets your heart singing.

  "Oh Violet, I would change places with you in an instant, if I could."

  She spun around to me again.

  "Don't look at me like that. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. I hate my marriage; I've hated it from the very beginning. Those wails you heard coming from my room the night before my wedding were wails of agony. Mother was so upset because Father was furious. She was afraid I would embarrass them. Did you know it was more important for me to please them by marrying Jed Booth than it was to please myself? I feel . . . I feel like someone who was sacrificed for Southern honor. Yes I do," she said firmly.

  "Don't look so shocked, Violet. You should pity me. Pity me because I will never taste the lips of a man who loves me as much as Aaron loves you. Pity me because my body will never sing in my husband's embrace the way your body will sing in your husband's. I will live half a life until I die, for that is what marriage to a man you don't love and who doesn't love you means . . . being half alive," she said, and turned back to the mirror.

  Her arm came up, and slowly, with that same mechanical movement, she began to stroke her hair again.

  "Mamma," I said, touching her shoulder. She didn't hear me; she was lost in her own thoughts, reliving some moment she had spent with my real mother years and years ago.

  Suddenly, she began to hum one of her tunes. She sat there for awhile and then she sighed deeply, her bosom rising and falling as though a shawl of lead had been laid upon her shoulders.

  "I'm so tired tonight, Violet. We'll talk in the morning." She kissed me on the cheek. "Good night, dear sister. Sweet dreams. I know your dreams will be sweeter than mine, but that's all right. You deserve it; you deserve everything wonderful and good."

  "Mamma," I said in a cracked voice when she stood up. My breath caught and held as I choked back my tears. She went to her bed and slowly took off her robe. I watched her get in under the blanket and then I went to her and caressed her hair. Her eyes were closed.

  "Good night, Mamma," I said. She looked like she was already asleep. I turned off the oil lamp on her table and left her in the darkness of her past and the darkness of her present, and what I feared was the dreadful darkness of the future.

  Mamma went in and out of these dark daydreams during the ensuing months. Whenever I c
ame upon her alone in her room or even walking in the hallway, I would never know for sure until I began to speak to her whether or not she was living in the present or the past. Emily's reaction was to ignore it and Papa's reaction was to grow more and more intolerant and spend more and more of his time away from the house. And when he returned, he usually reeked of bourbon or brandy, his eyes bloodshot and so full of rage over something that had displeased him with business that I dared not utter a syllable of complaint.

  Sometimes Mamma came to dinner, and some-times she didn't, when Papa was away. Usually, if it was just Emily and me, I would eat as quickly as I could and leave. When Emily excused me, that is. Papa left very clear and explicit instructions as to how the house was to be run whenever he was not home.

  "Emily," he declared one night at dinner, "is the oldest and the wisest, maybe even wiser than your mother these days," he added. "Whenever I'm away and your mother is not feeling well, Emily is in charge and you are to treat her with the same respect and obedience you treat me. Is that clear, Lillian?"

  "Yes, Papa."

  "The same goes for the servants and they know it. I expect everyone to follow the same rules and the same procedures they would had I been home. Do your work, say your prayers and behave."

  Emily soaked up this added authority and power like a sponge. With Mamma distracted more often than not and Papa away more frequently, she rode herd over everyone, making the chambermaids redo much of their work until it suited her, and piling chore after chore on poor old Henry. One evening before dinner when Papa was away and Mamma was shut up in her room, I pleaded for Emily to be more compassionate.

  "Henry's older, Emily. He can't do as much or do it as quickly as he used to."

  "Then he should resign his position," she declared firmly.

  "And do what? The Meadows is more than a place for him to work; it's his home."

  "This is the Booth home," she reminded me. "It's a home only for the family and those who are not Booths but who live here, live here at our pleasure. And don't forget, Lillian, that applies to you as well."