Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

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.