"Absolutely, Miss Lillian. You won't have to ask old Henry twice. Well now," he said, holding out his hand. "You take good care of yourself and from time to time, think of old Henry."
I looked at his hand and then I stepped forward and hugged him. It took him by surprise and he just stood there for a moment while I clung to him, clung to what was good and loving at The Meadows, clung to the memories of my youth, clung to warm summer days and nights, to the sound of a harmonica in the night, to the words of wisdom Henry had spun around me, to the vision of him rushing over to help me with Eugenia, or the vision of him sitting beside me in the carriage when he would take me to school. I clung to the songs and the words and the smiles and the hope.
"I've got to go, Miss Lillian," he whispered through a voice that cracked with emotion. His eyes shone brilliantly with unspent tears. He picked up his tattered suitcase and continued down the drive. I ran along.
"Will you write to me, Henry? And let me know where you are?"
"Oh sure, Miss Lillian. I'll scribble a note or two."
"Papa should have had Charles drive you someplace," I cried, still keeping up with him.
"No, Charles got his chores. I ain't no stranger to long walks, Miss Lillian. When I was a boy, I thought nothing of walking from one horizon to the other."
"You're not a boy anymore, Henry."
"No ma'am." He pulled his shoulders up the best he could and increased his stride, each long step taking him farther and farther away from me.
"Good-bye, Henry," I cried when I stopped running alongside him. For a few moments, he just walked and then, at the end of the driveway, he turned. For one last time, I saw Henry's bright smile. Maybe it was magic; maybe it was my desperate imagination at work, but he looked younger to me; he looked like he hadn't aged a day since the time he carried me on his shoulders, singing and laughing. In my mind his voice was as much a part of The Meadows as the songs of the birds.
A moment later he made the turn at the end of the drive and was gone. I lowered my head and with a heart so heavy it made my steps ponderous, I headed toward the house. When I looked up, I saw that a long, heavy cloud had slipped over the sun and dropped a veil of gray over the great building, making all the windows look dark and empty, all except one window, the window of Emily's room. In it she stood gazing down at me, her long white face casting a look of displeasure. Perhaps she had seen me hugging Henry, I thought. She was sure to distort my expression of love and make it seem dirty and sinful. I glared up at her defiantly. She smiled her cold, wry smile, lifted her hands which held her Bible and turned away to be swallowed up in the darkness of her room.
Life went on at The Meadows, at times smooth and at times bumpy. Mamma had her good days and her bad, and I would have to remember that what I told her one day she could easily forget the next. In her Swiss-cheese memory, events of her youth were often confused with events of the present. She appeared more comfortable with the older memories and clung to them tenaciously, choosing to selectively remember her good times as a little girl growing up on her own family plantation more than anything else.
She began to read again, but often reread the same pages and the same book. The most painful thing for me was to hear her talk about Eugenia or refer to my little sister as if she were still alive in her room. She was always going to "bring Eugenia this" or "tell Eugenia that." I didn't have the heart to remind her that Eugenia had passed away, but Emily never hesitated. She, like Papa, had little tolerance for Mamma's lapses of memory and daydreaming. I tried to get her to have more compassion, but she disagreed.
"If we feed the stupidity," she said, choosing Papa's word, "it will only continue."
"It's not stupidity. The memory is just too painful for Mamma to bear," I explained. "In time . . ."
"In time she will get worse," Emily declared with her superior, prophetic tone. "Unless we bring her to her senses. Pampering her won't help."
I choked back my words and left her. As Henry might say, I thought, it would be easier to convince a fly he was a bee and have him make honey than change Emily's way of thinking. The only one who understood my sorrow and expressed any sympathy was Niles. He would listen to my tales
of woe with sympathetic eyes and nod, his heart breaking for me and for Mamma.
Niles had grown tall and lean. When he was only thirteen, he began shaving. His beard was coming in thick and dark. Now that he was older, he had his regular chores on his family's farm. Just like us, the Thompsons were having a hard time meeting their financial obligations, and just like us, they, too, had to let go of some of their servants. Niles filled in and was soon doing a grown man's work. He was proud of it and it did change him, harden him, make him more mature.
But we didn't stop going to our magic pond or believing in the fantasy. From time to time, we would sneak off together and take a walk that brought us to the pond. At first it was painful to return to the place where we had brought Eugenia and where wishes had been made, but it felt good to have something that was secretly ours. We kissed and petted and revealed more and more of our treasured thoughts, thoughts ordinarily kept under lock and key in the safe of our hearts.
Niles was the first to say he dreamt of our marriage, and once he admitted to such a wish, I confessed to having the same dream. Eventually, he would inherit his father's farm and we would live on it and raise our family. I would always be close to Mamma and after we had gotten started, I would immediately contact Henry and bring him back. At least he would be near The Meadows.
Niles and I would sit in the soft afternoon sunlight near the edge of the pond and weave our plans with such confidence no one eavesdropping could do anything but believe it was all inevitable. We had great faith in the power of love. Because of it we would always be happy. It would be like a fortress built around us, protecting us from the rain and the cold and the tragedies that befell others. We would be the dream couple my real mother and father were supposed to have been.
After Louella and Henry left The Meadows, and during the hard economic times we were all facing, there was little to look forward to, little to get excited over, except my rendezvous with Niles and my schooling. But toward the end of May, there was a great deal of excitement building around the upcoming Sweet Sixteen party for Niles's sisters, the Thompson twins.
A Sweet Sixteen party was exciting enough, but one to be held in the honor of a pair of twins was exceptionally so. Everyone was talking about it. Invi-tations were as precious as gold. At school, all the boys and all the girls who wanted to be invited began buttering up the twins.
Plans were being made to turn the Thompsons' great entryway into a grand ballroom. A professional decorator was hired to drape crepe paper streamers and balls, as well as lights and tinsel. Every day Mrs. Thompson added something new to the fabulous menu, but besides being the best feast of the year, there would be a real orchestra: professional musicians to play dance music. There were sure to be games and contests with the evening capped by the cutting of what promised to be the biggest birthday cake ever made in Virginia. After all, it was a cake for two Sweet Sixteen girls, not one.
For a while I thought Mamma would actually attend. Every day after school, I rushed to tell her new details I'd heard about the party, elaborating on the things Niles told me, and most days she grew excited. One day she even looked through her wardrobe and then decided she needed something new, something more fashionable to wear and began planning a shopping trip.
That afternoon I had gotten her so enthusiastic, she went to her vanity table and actually began working on her hair and her makeup. She was very concerned about the new styles, so I walked to Upland Station and got a copy of one of the latest fashion magazines, but when I brought it back and showed it to her, she seemed distracted. I had to remind her why we were concerned about our clothes and hair.
"Oh, yes," she said, the memory revived. "We'll go shopping for new dresses and new shoes," she promised, but whenever I reminded her in the days that followed, she would simply smile and say, "Tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow."
Tomorrow never came. She would either forget or fall into one of her melancholy states. And then, she became horribly confused and whenever I mentioned the Thompsons' Sweet Sixteen party, she began to talk about a similar party for Violet.
Two days before the party, I went to see Papa in his office and told him how Mamma was behaving. I practically begged him to do something.