"She told you you would have to give me up and you agreed," I concluded, as if I were a lawyer cross-examining a witness in a trial, but I did feel like it was a trial of sorts, with me acting as attorney for Ormand and Sally Jean Longchamp, as well as myself.
"I had to agree. What else could I do?"
"You could have said no. You could have fought for me and told her I was your child. You could have told her no, no, no!" I shouted wildly, but it was like trying to tell a four-year-old how to behave like an adult. My mother smiled through her tears, nodding.
"You're right. You're right. I was bad. So very bad! But everything's all right now. You're back. Everything's all right. Let's not talk about it anymore. Let's talk about good things, happy things. Please."
She patted me on the hand and took a deep breath, her expression changing as if all that we had been discussing was instantly forgotten and not very important anyway.
"I was thinking that you should have something done with your hair, and maybe we could go shopping for some nice new clothes for you. And new shoes and some jewelry. You don't have to wear all of Clara Sue's hand-me-downs. You can have your own things now.
"Would you like that?" she asked.
I shook my head. She really was a child. Perhaps she had always been like this and that was why my grandmother had her way with her easily.
"But I'm so tired right now," she said. "I'm sure it's this new medicine. I just want to close my eyes for a while." She dropped her head back to the pillow. "And rest and rest." She opened her eyes and looked up at me. "If you see your father, please tell him to call the doctor, I have to change my medicine."
I stared down at her. She did have the face of a little girl, a face to be pitied and pampered.
"Thank you, honey," she said and closed her eyes again.
I turned away. There was no point in screaming at her anymore or making any demands on her. In a way she was an invalid, not as sick as Mrs. Dalton, but just as shut away from reality. I started for the door.
"Dawn?" she called.
"Yes, Mother."
"I'm sorry," she said and then closed her eyes again.
"So am I, Mother," I replied. "So am I."
All my life, I thought as I descended the stairway, I have been carried along by events beyond my control.
As an infant, as a child, and as a young girl, I was dependent upon adults and had to do whatever they wanted me to do or, as I had just learned, go along with whatever they wanted done with me. Their decisions, their actions, and their sins were the winds that blew me from one place to the next. Even those who really loved me could turn and go only to certain places. The same was true for Jimmy and certainly for Fern. Events that had been begun even before our births had already determined what and who we would be.
But now all the tragedy of the last few months rushed down over and around me: Momma's death, Daddy's being arrested, having what I thought was my family broken up, being spirited off in the night to this new family, Clara's continuous attempts to hurt me, Philip's raping me, Jimmy's escape and capture, and my learning the truth. I was like someone caught in the middle of a tornado and spun about. Now, like a flag that had suddenly snapped in a violent gust and pulled free of the hinges that held it, I spun on my heels and soared toward the hotel lobby, my head high, my eyes fixed ahead of me, not gazing left or right, not seeing anyone else, not hearing any voices.
My grandmother was still sitting on a settee in the lobby, the small audience of guests surrounding her and listening attentively to whatever she had to say. Their faces were filled with smiles of admiration. Whomever my grandmother singled out for a special word, a touch, beamed like someone blessed by a clergyman.
Something in my face drew the audience back in a wave, made them part and step away as I approached. Slowly, with her soft, angelic smile still firmly settled on her face, my grandmother turned to see what had stolen their attention from the glow of her eyes and the warmth of her voice. The instant she saw me, her shoulders stiffened and her smile retreated, bringing dark shadows to her face, which suddenly seemed more like a hard shell.
I stopped before her, my arms folded under my breasts. My heart was pounding, but I did not want her to see how nervous and frightened I was.
"I want to talk to you," I declared.
"It's impolite to interrupt people like this," she replied and started to turn back to her guests.
"I don't care what's impolite or polite. I want to talk to you right now," I insisted, filling my voice with as much firmness as I could. I did not shift my eyes from her, so she would see just how determined I was.
Suddenly she smiled.
"Well," she said to her admiring circle of guests, "I see we have a little family matter to tend to. Will everyone please excuse me for a few minutes?"
One of the gentlemen at her side moved quickly to help her get up.
"Thank you, Thomas." She glared at me. "Go to my office," she commanded. I glared back and then headed that way while she continued to make excuses for my behavior.
When I entered her office, I looked up at the portrait of my grandfather. He had such a warm, gentle smile. I wondered what it would have been like to know him. How had he put up with Grandmother Cutler?
The door burst open behind me as my grandmother came in like a storm. Her shoes snapped against the wooden floor as she pounded past me and then whipped herself around, her eyes burning in rage, her lips pencil-line thin.
"How dare you? How dare you behave in that manner while I was speaking with my guests? Not even my poorest workers, people who come from the most depressing and lowly backgrounds, act like that. Is there not even a shred of decency in your insolent body?" she ranted. It was as if I had stepped before a coal stove just when the door was open and confronted the raging fire and all its uncovered red heat. I closed my eyes and retreated a few steps, but then I opened them and spit my words back at her.
"You can't speak to me of decency anymore. You're a hypocrite!"
"How dare you? I'll have you shut up in your room; I'll—"
"You won't do anything, Grandmother, but tell the truth . . . finally," I ordered firmly. Her eyes widened in confusion. With a bit of glee I announced my surprise. "I went to see Mrs. Dalton this morning. She's very sick and was happy to finally lift the burden of guilt from her conscience. She told me what really happened after I was born and before."
"This is ridiculous. I won't stand here and—"
"Then I went to see my mother," I added, "and she confessed as well."
Grandmother stared at me a moment, her rage lowering slowly like the flame on a stove, and then she turned and went to her desk.
"Sit down," she ordered and took her own seat. I moved to the chair in front of her desk. For a long moment she and I simply stared at each other.
"What is it you have learned?" she asked in a far calmer tone of voice.
"What do you think? The truth. I found out about my mother's lover and how you forced her to eventually give me up. How you arranged for Ormand and Sally Jean Longchamp to take me and then pretended they had abducted me. How you paid people and got people to go along with your scheme. How you offered a reward just to cover up your actions," I said, all in one breath.
"Who is going to believe such a story?" she replied with such cold control it sent a chill of fear down my spine. She shook her head. "I know how sick Mrs. Dalton is. Did you know that her son-in-law works for the Cutler's Cove Sanitation Company and that I own the Cutler's Cover Sanitation Company? I could have him fired tomorrow just like that," she said, snapping her fingers.
"And if you and I go upstairs together, right now, and confront Laura Sue with this story, she will simply break down and cry and babble so incoherently no one would understand a word. Most likely with me standing beside you, she would not be able to remember anything she had told you." She gave me a look of triumph.
"But it's all true, isn't it?" I cried. I was losing that firmness, that confidenc
e that had put a steel rod in my spine. She was so strong and so sure of herself, she could stand her ground and turn back a herd of wild horses, I thought.
She turned away from me and was quiet for a long moment. Then she looked back.
"You seem to be someone who thrives on controversy . . . harboring that boy here while the police were after him." She shook her head. "All right, I'll tell you. Yes, it's true. My son is not your real father. I begged Randolph not to marry that little tramp. I knew what she was and what she would become, but like all men, he was hypnotized by surface beauty and by her sweet-sounding, syrupy voice. Even my husband was charmed. I watched how she turned her shoulders and dazzled them with her silly little laugh and desperate helplessness," she said, twisting the side of her mouth up in disgust. "Men just love helpless women, only she wasn't as helpless as she pretended to be," she added with a cold smile on her lips. "Especially when it came to satisfying her desires.
"She always knew what she wanted. I didn't want that kind of a woman as part of my family, part of this . . . this hotel," she said, holding her arms out. "But arguing with men who are under a woman's spell is like trying to hold back a waterfall. If you remain under it too long, it will drown you.
"So I retreated, warned them, and then retreated." She nodded, the cold smile returning. "Oh, she pretended to want to be responsible and respectable, but whenever I gave her anything substantial to do, she would complain about the work and the effort, and Randolph would plead for her to be relieved of this or that.
" 'We have enough ornaments to hang on our walls and ceilings,' I told him. 'We don't need another.' But I might as well have directed all my words to the walls in this office.
"It wasn't long that she began to show her true nature—flirting with everything that wore pants. There was no stopping her! It was disgusting! I tried to tell my son, but he was as blind to that as to anything else. When a man is as dazzled by a woman as he was, it's the same as if he had looked directly at the sun. After that, he sees nothing.
"So I gave up and sure enough, as you have undoubtedly learned, she had an affair and got herself into trouble. I could have thrown the little tramp out then. I should have," she added bitterly, "but. . . I wanted to protect Randolph and the family and the hotel's reputation.
"What I did I did for the good of everyone and for the hotel and family, for they are one in the same."
"But Daddy . . . Ormand Longchamp . . ."
"He agreed to the arrangements," she said. "He knew what he was doing."
"But you told him everyone wanted it that way, didn't you? He thought he was doing what my mother and Randolph wanted, right? Isn't that true?" I pursued when she didn't respond.
"Randolph doesn't know what he wants; he never did. I always made the right decisions for him. Marrying her," she said, leaning over the desk, "is the only time he has ever gone against my wishes, and look how it turned out."
"But Ormand believed—"
"Yes, yes, so I thought; but I paid him handsomely and kept the police from finding him. It was his own fault he got caught. He should have stayed farther north and never come to Richmond."
"He doesn't belong in prison," I insisted. "It's not fair."
She turned away again, as though what I had to say was unimportant. But it wasn't!
"I don't care if you can force Mrs. Dalton to recant her story and if you can make my mother look so stupid no one will believe her; they'll believe me or at least it will create enough of a scandal to bring embarrassment. And I'll tell Randolph. Just think how hurt he will be to learn it. You let him go off chasing the hope he would recapture me. You offered that reward."
She studied me a moment. I held my gaze as firmly as I could, but it was like looking directly into the center of a campfire. Finally she softened, seeing my resolution.
"What is it you want? You want to embarrass me, rain down disgrace on the Cutlers?"
"I want you to get Daddy out of jail and stop treating me like dirt. Stop calling my mother a tramp, and stop demanding I be renamed Eugenia," I said determinedly.
I wanted a lot more, but I was afraid to make too many demands. In time I hoped I could get her to do something for Jimmy and for Fern.
She nodded slowly.
"All right." She sighed. "I'll do something about Ormand Longchamp. I'll make some calls to people I know in high places and see about getting him an early parole. I was thinking about doing that anyway. And if you insist on being called Dawn, you can be called Dawn.
"But," she added quickly when I began to smile, "you will have to do something for me."
"What? Do you want me to go back to living with him?"
"Of course not. You're here now and you're a Cutler whether you or I like it or not, but," she purred contentedly, quite pleased with herself, sitting back and contemplating me for a moment, "you don't have to be here all the time. I think it would be much better for all of us . . . Clara Sue, Philip, Randolph, even your . . . your mother, if you were away."
"Away? Where would I go?"
She nodded, a curious smile on her face. Obviously, she had thought of something very clever, something that pleased her very much.
"You have a very pretty singing voice. I think you should be permitted to develop your talent."
"What do you mean?" Why was she suddenly so eager to help me?
"I happen to be an honorary member of the board of trustees of a prestigious school for the performing arts in New York City."
"New York City!"
"Yes. I want you to go there instead of returning to Emerson Peabody. I will make the arrangements today, and you can leave shortly. They have summer sessions, too.
"Of course, it goes without saying that all this and all you have learned will remain here in this office. No one need know anything more than I decided you are too talented to waste your time cleaning rooms in a hotel."
I could see she liked the idea that everyone would consider her as being magnanimous. She would look like a wonderful grandmother doing great things for her new granddaughter, and I would have to pretend to be grateful.
But I didn't want to return to Emerson Peabody, and I did want to become a singer. She would get her way and rid herself of me, but I would have an opportunity I could only dream of before. New York City! A school for performing arts!
And Daddy would be helped, too.
"All right," I agreed. "As long as you do everything you promised to do."
"I always live up to my word," she said angrily. "Your reputation, your name, your family's honor, are all important things. You come from a world where all those things were insignificant, but in my world—"
"Honor and honesty were always important to us," I snapped back. "We might have been poor, but we were decent people. And Ormand and Sally Jean Longchamp didn't betray each other and lie to each other," I retorted. My eyes burned with tears of indignation.
She gazed at me for a long moment again, only this time I thought I saw a look of approval in her eyes.
"It will be interesting," she finally said, speaking slowly, "very interesting to see what kind of a woman Laura Sue's liaison spawned. I don't like your manners, but you have shown some independence and some spunk, and those are qualities I do admire."
"I'm not sure, Grandmother," I replied, "if what you admire is ever going to be important to me."
She pulled herself back as if I had splashed her with ice-cold water, her eyes turning distant and hard again instantly.
"If that's all, I think you had better go. Thanks to you and your meddling, I have a lot to do. You'll be informed as to when you will be leaving," she added.
I stood up slowly.
"You think you can determine everyone's lives so easily, don't you?" I said bitterly, shaking my head.
"I do what I have to do. Responsibility for significant things requires me to make hard' choices sometimes, but I do what is best for the family and the hotel. Someday, when you have something important to take care of and
it requires you to make either unpleasant or unpopular choices, you will remember me and not judge me as harshly," she said, as if it were important to her that I have a better opinion of her.
Then she smiled.
"Believe me, when you need something or you get into trouble for one reason or another, you won't call on your mother or even my son. You'll call on me, and you will be happy that you can," she predicted.
What arrogance, I thought, and yet it was true—even from my short stay here I could see that she was responsible for Cutler's Cove being what it was.
I spun around quickly and walked out, unsure as to whether I had won or lost.
Later that afternoon Randolph came to see me. It had become more and more difficult to think of him as my father now, and this just when I had begun to adjust to the idea. From the look on his face I could see that my grandmother had told him of her decision to send me to a school for performing arts.
"Mother just told me about your decision to go to New York. How wonderful, although I must say, I will be sad to see you go off when you've really only just arrived," he complained. He did look somewhat upset by the idea, and I thought how sad it was that he didn't know the truth, that I as well as my mother and Grandmother Cutler kept him fooled. Was that fair? How fragile the happiness and peace was in this family, I thought. His devotion to my mother would surely dwindle to nothing if he knew she had been so unfaithful. In a sense everything was built on a lie, and I had to keep that lie alive.
"I've always wanted to go to New York and be a singer," I said.
"Of course you should go. I'm just teasing you. I'll miss you, but I'll come visit you often, and you'll be back for all the holidays. How exciting it's going to be for you. I've already told your mother, and she thinks it's a wonderful idea that you get formal training in the arts.
"She wants to take you shopping for new clothes, of course. I've already arranged for the hotel car to be at your disposal tomorrow morning so the two of you can go from shopping center to shopping center."
Dawn Page 32
