Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

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.