Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

"Good-bye, Vera."

"God bless," Vera said, swallowing her tears quickly. I brushed Luther's hair and kissed him on the forehead, and then I followed my new husband out the door of The Meadows. Charles had everything packed in the car and Bill's rowdy friends were cheering behind us in the doorway.

"Good-bye, Miss Lillian. Good luck," Charles said.

"She don't need luck no more," Bill said. "She got me."

"We all need some luck," Charles insisted. He helped me into the car and closed the door as Bill got in and behind the steering wheel. As soon as the car was started, Bill shifted and began to drive over the bumpy driveway.

I looked back. Vera was in the doorway now, still holding Charlotte, with Luther at her side, clinging to her skirt. She waved.

Good-bye, I mouthed. I said my good-byes to a different home, a different Meadows, the one I remembered and cherished dearly. The Meadows I said farewell to was a plantation full of light and life.

My farewell was to the sound of song birds, the flutter of chimney swallows, the chatter of blue jays and mockingbirds, the joy of seeing them flit from one branch to another. My farewell was to a clean, bright plantation house with windows that glittered and columns that stood tall and proud in the Southern sunlight, a house with a heritage and a history, whose walls still reverberated with the voices of dozens of servants. My farewell was to white-starred young magnolia trees, to wisteria tumbling over the verandas, to whitewashed brick and pink crepe myrtle bushes, to rolling green lawns with sparkling fountains in which birds bathed and dipped their feathers. My farewell trailed down a drive lined with full, thick oak trees. My farewell was to Henry singing as he worked, to Louella hanging out the sweet smelling wash, to Eugenia waving from her window, to Mamma looking up from one of her romance novels, her face still flushed because of something she had read.

And my farewell was to a little girl running excitedly up the drive, her hand clutching a school paper covered with gold stars, her voice crying out with such joy and excitement she thought she would burst

"What are you crying about?" Bill demanded.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"This should be the happiest day of your life, Lillian. You're married to a handsome, young Southern gentleman on the rise. I'm rescuing you. That's what I'm doing," he bragged.

I wiped my cheeks and turned as we continued to bounce down the driveway.

"Why did you want to marry me anyway?" I asked.

"Why? Lillian," he said, "you're the first woman I met I wanted but couldn't get to want me. I knew right off you was something special and Bill Cutler ain't one to pass over something special. And besides, everyone's been telling me it's time I took a wife. Cutler's Cove caters to a family clientele. You will soon be part of it."

"You know I don't love you," I said. "You know why I married you."

He shrugged.

"That's fine. You'll start loving me once I start making love to you," he promised. "Then you'll realize just how lucky you are.

"In fact," he said, as we started the turn away from The Meadows, "I've decided we should stop along the way and not put off your good fortune any longer than we have to. Instead of spending our honeymoon night at Cutler's Cove, we'll spend it at a bed and breakfast I know just an hour and a half from here. How's that sound?"

"Horrible," I muttered.

He roared. "Just like breaking a wild stallion," he declared. "I'm going to enjoy this."

We rolled on and I looked back only once more when we came to the path that used to take me and Niles to the magic pond. How I wished I could have paused and dipped my hands into the wonderful water and wished myself someplace else.

But magic only happens when you're with people you love, I thought. It would be a long time before I would ever see or feel it again, and that, more than anything else, made me feel lost and alone.

Had I married a man I loved and who I was sure loved me, the Dew Drop Inn—the quaint hotel Bill had found for our wedding night—would have been delightful and romantic to me. It was a two-story building with periwinkle blue shutters and milk-white clapboard siding, nestled just off the highway in a pocket of oak and hickory trees. The building had bay windows and spindle porch supports. Our upstairs room opened to a second-story landing that provided a wide view of the countryside across the way. Down-stairs there was a large parlor with well-preserved colonial furnishings and scenic oil paintings above the fieldstone fireplace and on the walls in the hallway and large dining room as well.

The Dobbs, the owners, were an elderly couple who Bill had obviously gotten to know on his way to The Meadows when he planned out our itinerary. They knew he would be returning with his new bride. Mr. Dobbs was a tall, lean man with two patches of gray, steel-wool-like hair on the sides of his shiny bald head which was peppered with dark age spots. He had small light-brown eyes, and a long, narrow nose that dipped over his thin mouth. Because of his height and thinness, as well as his facial features, he reminded me of a scarecrow. He had large hands with long fingers and continually washed his palms against each other nervously as he spoke. His wife, also tall, but much stouter with shoulders like a lumber jack and a heavy hard-looking bosom, stood aside, nodding after everything her husband said.

"We hope you'll be cozy and warm and have a most delightful stay with us," Mr. Dobbs said. "And Marion here is going to make you two the best breakfast, ain't you, Marion?"

"I make a good breakfast every day," she said firmly, and then smiled. "But tomorrow's will be extra special, seeing the occasion and all."

"And I expect you two will be hungry," Mr. Dobbs added, winking and smiling at Bill, who pulled his shoulders up and smiled back.

"I expect we will," he replied.

"Everything's ready just as you wanted it to be," Mr. Dobbs said. "You want me to show you around again?"