Cutler 5 - Darkest Hour

by V. C. Andrews

"What . . . what," he said, pulling me down to him in an effort to pull himself up.

  "Papa," I pleaded, but he held me down against him, my body twisted so awkwardly, I could barely turn or twist myself free. I thought of yelling for Emily, but feared what she would say if she saw me entwined in Papa's arms like this. Instead, I pleaded with him to let me go. He mumbled and groaned and finally turned enough for me to break free. Once again, I tried to get him to help himself. This time, he took hold of the bedpost and pulled enough to get his upper body back on the bed. I lifted and pushed until I had him on the bed again. Exhausted, I stood by panting.

  But suddenly Papa laughed and thrust out his hand to seize my wrist. He pulled me down to him. "Papa, no," I cried. "Let me go. Please."

  "Bed warmer," he muttered. He took hold of my nightgown and yanked it up as he rolled me over and under him. Pinned down by his weight, I could only try to slither out, but my movements only pleased him and encouraged him even more. He laughed and muttered names I had never heard, apparently confusing me with women he had known on his business trips. I started to scream, but he clamped his big hand over my mouth.

  "Shh," he said. "Or you'll wake the house."

  "Papa, please, don't do this again. Please," I pleaded.

  "You gotta learn," he said. "You gotta know what to expect. I'll teach you. . I'll teach you. Better me than some stranger, some dirty stranger. Yes, yes . . . just let me show you . . ."

  In moments he was in me again. I turned my head away as he grunted and heaved his body over me. I tried closing my eyes and pretending I was somewhere else, but his smelly hot breath invaded my thoughts and his lips moved quickly over my hair and forehead, sucking, licking, kissing. I felt his hot explosion inside me and then felt his body grow limp. He groaned and slowly turned over.

  "Bad luck," he said. "Just a streak of bad luck. Gotta break out of it."

  I didn't move. I could hear my heart pounding so hard, I thought it would shatter in my chest. Slowly, I sat up and got off the bed. Papa didn't move, didn't speak. From the sound of his breathing, I was sure he had fallen asleep again. My body shuddered with sobs that began in my heart and remained in my chest. I went to my things, gathered them together and retreated from the room. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I wanted to die in my own bed.

  Emily shook me awake the next morning. I had fallen asleep clutching my pillow to me. When I opened my eyes, I saw her glaring down at me.

  "Papa's calling for you," she said. "Can't you hear him screaming in the corridor? I have to wake you up? Get out of that bed this instant," she ordered.

  I looked at the pillow and for a moment, I felt Papa's hot, sweaty body over me again. I heard him muttering his promises and calling me by other names. I felt his fingers squeezing my breasts and his mouth pressing down over mine and I screamed.

  I screamed so loud and so unexpectedly that Emily fell back, her mouth agape. Then, I began to pound the pillow. I struck it with my fists over and over, sometimes missing it altogether and striking myself, but I didn't stop. I pulled at my hair and then pressed my palms against my temples and screamed again and again, bouncing on the bed and striking myself in the thighs, in the stomach and in the head.

  Emily pulled her Bible from her housecoat pocket and began reading, raising her voice to cover my screams. The louder she read, the louder I screamed. Finally, my throat was too hoarse and dry and I collapsed on the bed where I shuddered and shivered, my lips trembling, my teeth clicking. Emily continued to read her Biblical passages over me and then she crossed herself again and began to retreat, singing a hymn as she did so.

  She brought Papa to my bedroom door. He stood on his crutches and looked in at me.

  "The devil entered her body last night," she told him. "I've started the process of driving him out."

  "Hmm," Papa said. "Good," he said, and quickly returned to his own bedroom. He didn't demand I come back. Vera and Tottie came to see me and brought me something hot to eat and drink, but I wouldn't take anything, not a crumb. All I did was sip some water in the evening and in the morning. I remained in bed all that day and the next. Periodically, Emily stopped by to recite some prayers and sing a hymn.

  Finally, on the morning of the third day, I rose, took a hot bath and went downstairs. Vera and Tottie were happy to see me up and about. They fawned all over me, treating me like the lady of the house. I said very little. I went in to see Mamma and sat with her most of the day, listening to her fantasies and her stories, watching her sleep, reading one of her romance novels to her. She lived in strange spurts of energy, sometimes rising to fix her hair and then retreating to bed. Sometimes she got up and dressed herself, and then she would quickly undress and get into a nightgown and robe. Her erratic behavior, her insanity, seemed soothing to me. I felt so lost and confused myself.

  The days passed. Papa began to do more and more for himself. Soon he was navigating the stairway on his crutches and going to his office. Whenever he saw me, he would shift his eyes away quickly and busy himself with something. I tried not to see him; I tried to look through him. Finally, he muttered a hello or a good morning and I muttered one back.

  For whatever reasons she had, Emily began to leave me alone, too. She recited her prayers and asked me to read something from the Bible from time to time, but she didn't hover over me and haunt me with her religious demands the way she had since Niles's death.

  I spent a good deal of my time reading. Vera taught me how to do needlepoint and I began to do some of that. I took my walks and ate my meals in relative silence. I felt strangely outside myself; I felt like a spirit hovering above, watching my body go through its daily activities with dreary monotony.

  One day I managed to get Mamma outside, but she had more headaches and stomachaches than usual and spent most of her time in bed. The only long conversation I had with Papa was about her. I asked him to send for the doctor.

  "She's not imagining or pretending, Papa," I told him. "She's really in pain."

  He grunted, avoided my eyes as usual, and promised to do something after he finished with his paperwork. But weeks passed without him doing anything until finally, one night, Mamma was in such pain, she was literally howling. Papa was frightened himself and sent Charles for the doctor. After he examined her, he wanted to take her to the hospital, but Papa wouldn't permit it.

  "None of us Booths have gone to any hospital, not even Eugenia. Give her some tonic and she'll be just fine," he insisted.

  "I think it's more serious, Jed. I need some other doctors looking at her and some tests done on her."

  "Just give her some tonic," Papa repeated. Reluctantly, the doctor gave Mamma something for the pain and left. Papa told her to take the tonic every time she was in pain. He promised to get her a case of it if she liked. I told Emily he was wrong and she should convince him to listen to the doctor.

  "God will look after Mamma," Emily retorted, "not a bunch of atheistic doctors."

  More time passed. Mamma didn't get any better, but she didn't seem to get any worse. The tonic had a sedative effect and she slept most of the time. I was sorry for her because autumn had slipped in upon us with brighter yellows and crisper browns than I could recall. I wanted to take her for walks.

  One morning, as soon as I awoke, I made up my mind I would get Mamma dressed and out of bed, but when I started to rise myself, a wave of nausea came over me and sent me scurrying to the bathroom where I vomited until my stomach ached. I couldn't imagine what had done it and done it so suddenly. I sat on the floor, my head spinning, and closed my eyes.

  Then it came to me. It washed over me like a pail of ice water, but it left my face hot and my heart pounding. It had been nearly two months and I hadn't had my period. I got up quickly, dressed and hurried downstairs to, go directly to Papa's office and his medical books. I opened the one that I knew discussed pregnancy and read the shocking news I knew in my heart.

  I was still sitting on the floor, the book opened in my lap, when Papa entered hi
s office. He stopped with surprise.

  "What are you doing here this hour?" he demanded. "What's that you're reading?"

  "It's one of your medical books, Papa. I wanted to be sure first," I said. My voice was so full of defiance, Papa was taken aback.

  "What do you mean? Sure of what?"

  "Sure I was pregnant," I declared. The words fell like thunder. His eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped. He shook his head. "Yes, Papa, it's true. I'm pregnant," I said. "And you know why and how it happened."

  Suddenly, he brought his shoulders up and pointed his finger at me.

  "Don't you go making wild accusations, Lillian. Don't you go saying anything outrageous, hear, or . . ."

  "Or what, Papa?"

  "Or I'll have you horsewhipped. I know how you got yourself in a woman's way. It was that boy that night. That's what it was; that's when it happened," he decided, nodding after he spoke.

  "That's a lie, Papa, and you know it. You had Mrs. Coons here. You heard what she said."

  "She said she wasn't sure," Papa lied. "That's right, that's right, that's what she said. And now we know why she wasn't sure. You're a disgrace, a shame on the Booth household and name and I won't permit anyone to shame this family! No one's going to know. That's right," he said, nodding again.

  "What is it? What's wrong, Papa?" Emily said, coming up behind him. "Why are you shouting at Lillian now?"

  "Why am I shouting? She's pregnant with that dead boy's baby. That's why," he said quickly.

  "It's not true, Emily. It wasn't Niles," I said.

  "Shut up," Emily said. "Of course it was Niles. You had him in your room and you did a sinful thing. Now you're going to suffer for it."

  "There's no reason to let anyone else know," Papa said. "We'll keep her hidden until afterward."

  "And then what will you do, Papa? What about the baby?"

  "The baby . . . the baby . . ."

  "It'll be Mamma's baby," Emily said quickly.

  "Yes," Papa said, quickly agreeing. "Of course. No one sees Georgia these days. Everyone will believe it. That's good, Emily. At least we'll save the Booths' good name."

  "That's a horrid lie to tell," I said.

  "Quiet," Papa said. "March yourself upstairs. You'll not come down again until . . . until it's born. Go on."

  "Do what Papa says," Emily ordered.

  "Move!" Papa shouted. He stepped toward me. "Or I'll beat you like I promised."

  I closed the book and hurried out of the office. Papa didn't have to whip me. I wanted to hide the shame and the sin; I wanted to crawl into a dark corner and die. Now, that didn't seem so terrible. I would rather be with my lost little sister Eugenia and the love of my life Niles than live in this horrid world anyway, I thought, and prayed my heart would simply stop.

  12

  MY CONFINEMENT

  While I lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling, Papa and Emily were downstairs in his office planning out the great deception. At the moment I didn't care what they did or what they said. I no longer believed that I had any control over my destiny anyway. I probably never had. When I was younger and I sat around planning all the wonderful things I would do with my life, I was simply dreaming, fooling myself, I thought. I now realized that poor souls like me were put on this earth to serve as illustrations of what terrible things could happen if God's commandments were disobeyed. It mattered not who in the line of your ancestry disobeyed the commandments. The sins of the fathers were, as Emily often quoted, visited on the heads of the children. Surely I was living proof of that.

  Yet why God had listened to someone as cruel and horrid as Emily and turned a deaf ear to someone as soft and gentle as Eugenia or Mamma or as sincere as me was confusing and frightening. I had prayed for Eugenia, I had prayed for Mamma, and I had prayed for myself, but none of those prayers were answered.

  Somehow, for some mysterious reason, Emily was put on this earth to judge us and lord it over all of us. So far, it seemed to me, all her prophecies, all her threats, all her predictions came true. The devil had seized hold of my soul even before I was born and he had tainted me with evil so effectively that I had brought about my mother's death. Just as Emily had said many times, I was a Jonah. As I lay on my bed with my hand on my stomach and realized that inside me an unwanted child was forming, I did feel as if I had been swallowed by a whale and hovered now within the dark walls of another prison.

  That's what my room was to become as far as Papa and Emily were concerned, a prison. They marched into it together, armed with their Biblical words of justification, and pronounced sentence on me like the judges of Salem, Massachusetts glaring down hatefully at a woman suspected of being a witch. Before they spoke, Emily offered a prayer and read a psalm. Papa stood beside her, his head bowed. When she was finished, he raised his head and his dark eyes hardened to rivet on me.

  "Lillian," he declared in a booming voice, "you will remain in this room under lock and key until the baby is born. Until then, Emily and only Emily will be your contact with the outside world. She will bring you your food and see to your needs, bodily and spiritually."

  He stepped closer, expecting me to object, but my tongue stayed glued to the roof of my mouth.

  "I don't want to hear any complaints, no whining and crying, no pounding on the door, no screaming from the windows, hear? If you do, I'll have you taken up to the attic and chained to the wall until it's time for the baby to be born. I mean it," he said with firmness behind his threat. "Understand?"

  "But what about Mamma," I asked. "I want to see her every day and she will want to see me."

  Papa knitted his dark, thick brows together and thought a moment. He looked at Emily before he decided and turned back to me.

  "Once a day, when Emily says it's all right, she will come to fetch you and take you to Georgia's room. You will stay a half hour and then return to your room. When Emily tells you time's up, you listen, otherwise . . . she won't come to take you anymore," he declared, a hard edge to his voice.

  "Am I not to go out and get some sunlight on my face and breathe fresh air?" I asked. Even a weed needs some sunlight and fresh air, I thought, but dared not say it, or Emily was sure to reply that a weed does not sin.

  "No, damn it," he retorted, his face red. "Don't you understand what we're trying to do here? We're trying to save the family's good name? If someone sees you with your stomach swollen, there'll be talk and chatter and before you know it, everyone in the county will know our disgrace. Just sit over by your window there and that will be enough sunlight and air, hear?"

  "What about Vera and Tottie?" I asked softly. "Can't I see them?"

  "No," he said firmly.

  "They'll wonder why not," I muttered, daring his scorn.

  "I'll take care of them. Don't you concern yourself about it." He pointed his thick right forefinger at me. "You obey your sister; you listen to her commands and you do what I've just told you to do and when this is over, you can be one of us again." He hesitated, softening a bit. "You can even return to school. But," he added quickly, "only if you prove yourself worthy.

  "Just so you won't go daft," he said, "I'll bring you some of my book work to do from time to time, and you can have books to read and do that needlework you do. I'll look in on you whenever I get a chance," he concluded and turned to leave. Emily lingered in the doorway.

  "I'll bring you some breakfast now," she said in her most arrogant, haughty voice and followed Papa out. I heard Emily insert a key in the door and turn it until the lock snapped shut.

  But as soon as their footsteps trailed off and they were gone, I started to laugh. I couldn't help it. I realized that suddenly Emily was going to be my servant. She would be bringing me my meals, marching up and down the stairs with my tray as if I were someone to be pampered. Of course, she didn't see it that way; she saw herself as my jailer, my master.

  Perhaps I wasn't really laughing; perhaps it was my way of crying, for I was out of tears, drained of sobs. I could fill a river with
my sorrow and I was barely fourteen years old. Even laughter was painful. It wrenched at my heart and made my ribs ache. I sucked in my breath to get control of myself and went to the window.

  How pretty the world outside looked now that it was forbidden. The forest was a landscape of autumn colors with ribbons of orange and shades of brown and yellow painted through it. The uncultivated fields were studded with tiny pines and brown and gray underbrush. Small puffs of clouds never looked as white nor the sky as blue, and the birds . . . the birds were everywhere demonstrating their freedom, their love of flight. It was tormenting to see them in the distance and not hear their songs.

  I sighed and retreated from the window. Because my room was being turned into a prison cell, it seemed smaller. The walls looked thicker, the corners darker. Even the ceiling appeared to lower itself toward me. I feared it would close in on me a little every day until I was crushed in my solitude. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it. Soon after, Emily brought up my breakfast. She placed the tray on my night table and stood back with her shoulders hoisted, her eyes narrow, her lips pursed. Her pasty pallor sickened me. Being confined within these four wails, I feared I would soon have the same ashen complexion.

  "I'm not hungry," I declared after looking at the food, especially the bland hot cereal and dry toast.

  "I had Vera make this special for you," she declared, pointing at the hot cereal. "You'll eat and you'll eat all of it. Despite the sin of your being with child, there is the child to think of and protect. What you do with your body afterward is not of any importance but what you do with it now is, and as long as I'm in charge, you will eat well. Eat," she commanded, as if I were her puppet.

  But what Emily said made sense to me. Why punish the child inside me? I would be doing the same sort of thing that had been done to me—weighing the child down with the sins of its parents. I ate mechanically while Emily watched, waiting to be sure I swallowed every mouthful.

  "I know you know," I said, pausing, "that Niles is not the father of my baby. I'm sure you know how much more terrible this really is."