I wasn't sure what to do after the first hour ticked by. People scurried about rushing to other gates and departing planes, but no one appeared to be looking for me. I folded my arms under my bosom and sat back with my eyes closed. I was still very tired. Traveling so soon after my release from the hospital was exhausting, especially with all this waiting. I pulled my legs up under me and curled up on the chair and before I knew it, I had drifted off again. I dreamt I was in the back of Daddy Longchamp's car asleep, my head resting against Jimmy's shoulders. I felt comfortable and safe and was upset when I felt someone poke my shoulder sharply.
My eyes fluttered open and I gazed up at a tall, lean man with dirty brown hair, the strands going this way and that over his head and deeply creased forehead. He had a long, drooping nose and deep-set, dull brown eyes with a small web of wrinkles at each corner. He needed a shave badly. His rough, gray-brown stubble grew in ugly patches over his pale white face. Hair grew everywhere—on his neck around his Adam's apple and strands even poked out from the inside of his ears. I noticed how his lower lip hung open revealing teeth stained by chewing tobacco. There was a dry brown line from the corner of his mouth down his chin where some tobacco juice had drooled. He was dressed in faded blue overalls and wore a torn flannel shirt beneath. His boots were muddy and even smelly. I hated to think what he might have been stepping in before he arrived.
"You the girl?" he asked.
"Pardon me?"
"You the girl?" he repeated gruffly. It sounded like his throat was filled with sand.
"My name's Dawn," I replied. "Are you here to take me to The Meadows?"
"Come on," he said and turned abruptly. He started away before I rose, and I had to hurry to catch up.
"I've been waiting a long time," I said when I stepped beside him. He didn't look at me. He took long strides and glared ahead, his thumbs hooked in his overalls. I saw that his hands were covered with dirt and his fingernails were long and grimy.
"Got me butcherin' hogs all mornin' and then they expect me to drive all the way to the airport," he muttered.
"Do you know if my things arrived yet?" I asked as we turned toward the exit. "All my clothes were shipped from New York City," I added. I didn't think he was going to reply. He continued to walk and mutter and then reached for the door handle.
"Don't know," he finally said. I followed him out, practically running to keep up as he crossed the street and headed toward the parking lot. He didn't pay any attention to the traffic and cars had to stop short, the drivers shouting at us. But that didn't bother him. He kept his eyes forward, his head slightly lowered and continued his long, quick strides.
When we reached the parking lot, he turned abruptly and led me to a battered and rusted black pickup truck. Even before we reached it, I could smell it and the stench was enough to make my stomach gurgle and turn. I covered my mouth with my hand and looked away for a moment. He stopped after he opened his door, and looked back at me.
"Git in," he commanded. "I gotta git back and shovel out some cow manure and repair a flat tire on the tractor."
I held my breath and approached the truck. When I opened the door, I looked in at a torn seat, the springs showing everywhere. Where was Ito sit? He got in and looked at me. Then he realized why I was hesitating and reached back behind the seat to produce a dingy and dirty looking brown blanket. He dropped it over the seat for me to sit on it. I got in slowly and lowered myself to the seat, making myself as comfortable as possible. Instantly, he started the engine. The truck sputtered and spit and then he ground it into reverse and backed us out of the parking spot.
I tried rolling the dirty window down so I could get some ventilation, but the handle just turned and turned without doing anything.
"That don't work no more," he said, not taking his eyes off the road. "Ain't got a chance to fix it. Not with the way that Emily's after me to do this and do that."
"How far do we have to go?" I asked, not relishing a long trip in this stuffy and smelly vehicle. It seemed to hit every bump in the road and announce it loudly. I was getting more and more nauseated every moment and had to swallow hard to keep whatever was in my stomach down.
"Close to fifty odd miles," he said. "Ain't no Sunday ride," he added. He shifted so the truck would go faster and we finally turned down a smooth high-way.
"Who are you?" I finally asked since he never volunteered to tell me.
"Name's Luther."
"Have you been working at The Meadows long?" I asked. I thought if I kept talking, I could keep my mind off the horrible ride.
"Long as I could lift a bale of hay and heave it on a truck," he replied. "Never worked nowhere else." He finally turned to look at me. "You one of Lillian's kin, ain'tcha?"
"Yes," I said reluctantly.
"Ain't seen her for years and years. She don't never come back, but I heard she's a fancy rich lady now. She was always the smartest. Of course, it don't take much to be smarter than Charlotte. Hell, I got hound dogs know more than she does," he said and looked like he was smiling for the first time.
"What is The Meadows like?" I asked.
"Like most old plantations. It ain't what it was; that's for dang sure. But," he said, turning to me, "nothin' is—not the people, not the government, not the land, not the buildings, nothin'."
"What are my aunts like?" I asked.
He looked at me for the longest moment and then turned back to the road.
"You don't know?" he replied.
"No," I said.
"Well, it's best you find out for yourself. Yeah," he said, nodding, "it's best you do."
He was quiet most of the remaining time, muttering to himself about another driver or something he saw that annoyed him for reasons I didn't understand. I tried looking out at the scenery, but the window was so streaked, it made everything look gray and dismal, even though the sun was out most of the time. A little over a half an hour after we had left the airport, the sky grew more overcast and what had been cloudy and misty became murky, especially under the spreading magnolia trees. Fields and houses were draped in dim, purplish shadows everywhere.
Soon the nice, small farmhouses and tiny villages became few and far between. We passed long, dry, drab brown empty fields and when we did come to a house, it was usually sick looking with bleached clapboard siding and porches that leaned, their railings cracked or missing. I saw poor black children playing in front of many of these houses, the lawns covered with parts of automobiles or broken wooden chairs. The children stopped their make-believe and stared at us with empty eyes only vaguely curious.
Finally, I saw a road sign announcing our arrival in Upland Station. I recalled Grandmother Cutler telling me this was the closest town to the plantation. As we entered it, I realized it wasn't much—a general store which also served as the post office, a gas station, a small restaurant that looked like part of the gas station, a barber shop, and a large stone and wood house with a sign in front describing it as a mortuary. At the far end there was a railroad station that looked like it had been closed for ages. All the windows were boarded and there were NO TRESPASSING signs posted all over it. There were no sidewalks in Upland Station, and there was no one in the street, just a couple of hound dogs lying in the mud. It was one of the most depressing places I had ever seen and I had been in many rundown villages and towns when Daddy and Momma Longchamp took us from one place to another.
Luther turned as soon as we passed the old railroad station and started down a more narrow road that had only an occasional house here and there, all of them looking like poor farms on which people barely scratched out a living. The road began to look rougher and older, its macadam cracked and broken. The truck rocked from side to side as Luther tried to navigate it over the most solid pieces. He slowed down and turned right on what was nothing more than a dirt road with a mound of yellow grass running down its center. He drove slowly, but that didn't stop the truck from swaying so much it made me nauseous again.
"All thi
s land still belongs to The Meadows," he said when we reached a broken wooden fence. I saw sections of it running far off to the right and far off to the left on both sides of the road. The fields were overgrown with bushes and dry grass, but it looked like acres and acres of it.
"They own all this?" I said, impressed. Luther grunted.
"Lotta good that does them now," he replied.
But how could it not do them good to own so much land? I wondered. They must be very, very rich people. I sat back, looking forward to setting my eyes on a wealthy southern plantation. I knew how some of these places could be, how some old southern families had held on to their wealth as well as their heritage. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad here, I thought. After all I would rest, eat good food, and be in fresh, country air. It would be good for the baby.
Luther began to slow down even more. I leaned forward. Over the tops of the trees I could see the tips of the brick chimneys and the long, gabled roof of the plantation house. It looked enormous. At the entrance to the driveway were two stone pillars, each crowned with a ball of granite, but the driveway itself was nothing more than crushed rocks and dirt. As Luther turned into it, I gazed ahead and saw what was better described as a corpse, the remains of what must have once been a blossoming flower of the South, but what was now a phantom of itself.
I saw the dry and broken marble fountains, some leaning over precipitously. I saw the dead and scraggly hedges, the pockmarked flower beds with their gaping empty spaces, the chipped and battered stone walks, and the large, but ugly lawn only spotted here and there with patches of yellow grass. The shadows that had fallen with the twilight looked permanently glued on the immense two-story wood structure.
Over the great round columns of the full-facade porch ran thin leafless vines that looked more like rotting rope. Some of the multipane front windows had black shutters and decorative crowns; some had lost their shutters and looked naked. There was only the dim glow of light behind the lower ones.
Luther drove toward the right side of the house and I could see that behind the house was the barn and stables, all the buildings tottering and in need of paint. There was rusted and broken farm equipment everywhere and chickens ran freely over the driveway. Some even paraded arrogantly over the portico. I thought I saw a sow waddle just around the corner of the main house.
Luther stopped short.
"You might as well git out here," he said. "I gotta go on back to the barn."
I opened the door and slowly stepped out. When he pulled away, a cloud of dust rose from the driveway and nearly choked me. I fanned the air and when it cleared, I looked up at the tall plantation house. The windows in the gabled dormers were like mirrors reflecting the quickly blackening night sky overcast with brooding clouds. For the moment they looked like dark eyes peering down angrily at me. Above them, the peak of the roof seemed to touch the dark sky. I embraced myself. The wind that whistled past me was chilly and quickly turned my cheeks red.
I hurried up the shattered front steps to the enormous entrance. My boots clacked over the loose slats of the porch floor and blackbirds that had been hovering out of the wind just inside the columns rose in an ebony splash and flew into the night, complaining loudly of my intrusion.
I found the brass knocker on the tall panel door and let it tap on the metal plate behind it. A deep, hollow echo reverberated on the other side. I waited, but nothing happened, so I let the knocker rap again and again. Suddenly the door was jerked open, its rusted hinges rattling. At first I saw no one. There was barely any light on within the long entryway that led down a dark corridor to a circular stairway. Then, a tall, dark figure looking more like a silhouette stepped before me from the side, holding a kerosene lamp in her hands. Her appearance was so abrupt and silent, I felt like I had been greeted by a ghost in this dying house. I couldn't help but gasp and step back.
"Don't you have any patience?" she snapped. When she moved closer to me, I was able to see her face in the dim light of the lamp. It cast an amber glow over her long, ashen visage, turning her eyes into deep, dark sockets. Her mouth was a pencil-thin crooked line drawn across her narrow face. She had her long, thin gray hair knitted in a big knot behind her head.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't think anyone had heard me."
"Step in so I can close the door," she commanded. I did so quickly. Then she held out the lamp and ran the light over me. "Humph," she said, confirming some expectation. When she brought the light closer to herself again, I was able to see more of her face.
There were resemblances to Grandmother Cutler, especially in the steel-gray eyes that gazed back at me with a similar iciness. Grandmother Cutler's face was just as thin now, the cheekbones just as prominent. Perhaps this woman was a little taller and had broader shoulders. She certainly stood as firmly with the same arrogant pride as she threw her shoulders back to gaze down at me.
"My name is Miss Emily," she said. "You are always to call me Miss Emily, is that clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
"Not ma'am, Miss Emily," she retorted.
"Yes, Miss Emily."
"You're too late for anything to eat," she said. "We eat dinner early and those who miss the dinner bell go without."
"I'm not very hungry anyway," I said. The ride in the smelly truck had taken care of any appetite.
"Good. Now march yourself up those stairs and I'll show you where you will stay." She started ahead of me, holding the kerosene lamp up to light our way. The entryway walls were bare except for a portrait of a dour-looking southern gentleman, his hair as white as milk. I had only a glimpse of him as the light washed away the shadows, but I thought I saw resemblances to Grandmother Cutler and Miss Emily, especially in the forehead and eyes. I imagined it was a portrait of their father or perhaps their grandfather. Lighter spaces along both sides of the walls indicated that there had once been other pictures displayed.
"Have my things arrived yet from New York, Miss Emily?" I asked.
"No," she said sharply without turning around. Her voice reverberated down the long, empty corridor and sounded like a chorus of "no's."
"No? But why not? What will I do? What I am wearing is all I have," I cried. She stopped to turn back.
"So?" she said. "What does it matter? You're not here to entertain yourself. You're here to give birth and then leave immediately after."
"But . . ."
"Don't worry, I have something for you to put on. You will have clean bedding and clean towels. If you keep them clean," she added.
"But maybe we should phone and find out what's happened to my things," I insisted.
"Phone? We don't have a phone," she said calmly.
"No phone?" So far away from anywhere in such a large house, with no phone? I thought. "But . . . how do you get important messages?"
"Anyone who wants us calls down at the general store in Upland and when Mr. Nelson has a free moment or is heading out in this direction, he brings us the message. We don't have any need to call anyone ourselves. There's no one left to call," she said dryly.
"But I have people who want to call me and . . ."
"Now listen to me," she said, stepping a few steps toward me. "This isn't supposed to be a holiday, young lady. You're here because you've disgraced yourself and my sister wants you here. Fortunately for you I've had experience as a midwife," she said and started toward the stairway again.
"Midwife? You mean I won't have a doctor?" asked.
"Doctors cost money and are unnecessary when it comes to delivering a baby," she said. "Now would you please come along. I have many other things to do beside settle you in for the night."
I looked back at the doorway. With the kerosene lamp in her hands ahead of me, there was only a deep dark shadow to look at. I felt as if I had just entered a tunnel and the entryway had been shut up. I wanted to turn and run out, but where would I run to? We were miles and miles from anyplace and it was growing darker and darker by the minute.
Maybe in the daytime thin
gs would look better, I thought. I could probably get Luther to drive me to the general store when I wanted to call Trisha. And there was always the mail.
"You do get mail here, don't you?"
"We get mail," she said. "But not much."
"Well I'll be getting some," I replied.
"Humph," she said again and lifted the lamp so the light fell over the steps of the circular stairway.
"Isn't there electricity in this house?" I asked, walking behind her and embracing myself. There was a terrible chill . . . no fires burning, no scent of wood or coal, nothing but the musty odor of dampness.
"We use it sparingly," she said. "It's too expensive."
"Too expensive?" How curious, I thought, especially with all of Grandmother Cutler's enormous personal wealth. Why couldn't she send some money to these sisters to help them out? Where was the other sister? I wondered. I was about to ask when I heard a strange peal of laughter from above. It sounded more like a little girl than an elderly lady.
"Quiet, you fool," Miss Emily snapped. When the light reached the second-story landing, I saw a much shorter and much plumper little old lady leaning over the banister. Her gray hair was tied with yellow ribbons into two thick pigtails. That plus the faded pink shift with the yellow ribbon belt tied loosely about her waist made her look like an adult masquerading as a child. She clapped her hands together and then ran her palms quickly over her abundant bosom to smooth out her shift.
"Hello," she said when we reached the landing.
"Hello," I said and looked to Miss Emily for an introduction. She was reluctant to give it, but tightened her mouth in the corners and did so.
"This is my sister Charlotte," she said. "You can call her simply Charlotte. I told you to stay in your room, didn't I, Charlotte?" Miss Emily chastised.
"But I've come to meet our niece," Charlotte whined. As she drew closer, I saw she had a much softer face and bluer eyes. Although there were wrinkles along her forehead and some lines at the corners of her eyes, she looked considerably younger than Miss Emily and Grandmother Cutler. Her smile was far friendlier and simple, the smile of an excited schoolgirl.
Secrets of the Morning Page 24
