Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

I visited the plantation, I spent time at the family graveyard. Just like everything else on the old farm, it needed some tender loving care. I weeded and planted flowers and cleaned it up the best I could, but nature seemed to want to overtake The Meadows and swallow it up with overgrowth and new saplings. Sometimes when I left I'd look back and wish that the house itself would crumble and the wind scatter the pieces far and wide. Better it should disappear, I thought, than linger like Bill's mother had lingered, a neglected, decrepit shell of itself.
    As far as Emily was concerned, none of this made much difference. She had never taken much joy and pleasure in the plantation when it was bright and beautiful. There could be flowers and trimmed hedges, bright magnolias and fresh wisteria or there could not be. It was all the same to her, for she looked out at the world through those gray eyes and saw no color anyway. She lived in a black and white universe in which her religion provided the only light and the devil continually tried to impose the dark.
    If anything, Emily grew taller and thinner, yet never looked stronger and harder to me. And she held on firmly to all her childhood beliefs and fears. Once, after one of my visits, she followed me to the car, that old Bible still clutched in her clawlike fingers.
    "All of our prayers and good work have been rewarded," she told me when I turned to say goodbye. "The devil no longer dwells here."
    "It's probably too cold and dark for him," I quipped. She pulled herself up tight and stretched her lips into that disapproving expression.
    "When the devil sees he has no chance of victory, he moves on quickly to riper pastures. Beware that he doesn't follow you to Cutler's Cove and take up residence in your godforsaken den of debauchery and pleasure. You should institute regular prayer services, build a chapel, put Bibles in every room."
    "Emily," I said, "if I ever need to exorcise evil from my life, I'll call on you."
    "You will," she said, stepping back confidently. "You joke about it now, but someday, you will."
    Her self-assurance gave me the willies. I couldn't wait to get back to Cutler's Cove and, indeed, I didn't return to The Meadows until nearly a year later when a message arrived telling us Papa had died.
    There were very few people at his funeral. Even Bill did not accompany me, claiming he had an important business trip to make, one that couldn't be postponed. Papa had few if any friends left. All of his gambling pals had either died or gone off someplace and most of the other plantation owners had long since succumbed to hard times and sold off their land, a parcel at a time. None of Papa's relatives were interested in making the trip.
    Papa had died a lonely man, still drinking himself to sleep every night. One morning, he simply didn't awaken. Emily didn't shed a tear, at least in my presence. She was satisfied that God had taken him because it was his time. It was a very simple funeral after which Emily provided only tea and some cakes. Even the minister didn't stay.
    I thought about taking Charlotte back with me, but Vera and Charles talked me out of it.
    "She's comfortable here with Luther," Vera said. "It would break both their hearts to separate them."
    I could see that Vera really meant it would break her heart, for she had become a mother to Charlotte and from what I observed, Charlotte felt that way about her, too. Of course, Emily was opposed to my taking Charlotte to that "sinful Sodom and Gomorrah on the beach." In the end, I decided it was best to leave her, even with Emily, for Charlotte seemed unimpressed and certainly undisturbed by Emily's religious fanaticism. Of course, I had never told Bill about the truth of Charlotte's birth and I had no intention of ever telling anyone,. She would remain my sister and not my daughter.
    "Perhaps you and Charles will bring Luther and Charlotte to Cutler's Cove one day," I told Vera, "and visit for a while."
    She nodded, but the idea of such a trip seemed to her as difficult as a trip to the moon.
    "Do you think you'll all be all right here now, Vera?" I asked one final time before leaving.
    "Oh yes," she said. "Mr. Booth had long since stopped making any difference as far as running this place goes. His passing will have no effect on what we have or do. Charles will see to the chores. Charles and Luther, I should say, for he's become a right strong and efficient assistant. Charles will be the first to say