Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

about the house. She won't even see her friends or go to teas anymore."
    Papa cleared his throat and wiped the grease off his lips and mustache before turning to me.
    "To my way of thinking, it's not a bad thing she doesn't lollygag with those busybodies," he replied. "Nothing lost there, believe me . . . And as far as those silly books, I curse the day she brought one into the house. My mother never read novels or sat around all day listening to music on a Victrola, I can tell you that."
    "What did she do with all her time, Papa?" I asked. "What did she do? Why . . . why, she worked," he sputtered.
    "But I thought you had dozens and dozens of slaves."
    "We did! I ain't talking about field work or housework. She worked at seeing after my father or seeing after me. She ran the house, oversaw everything. She was better than a captain of a ship," he said proudly, "and she always looked like the wife of an important landowner."
    "But it's not just her not reading books or seeing her women friends, Papa. Mamma's not taking care of herself. She's so sad she won't look after her clothes or her hair or . . ."
    "She was too wrapped up in making herself attractive anyway," Emily quipped. "If she had spent more time reading the Bible and attending church regularly, she wouldn't be so despondent right now. What's done is done. It was the Lord's wish and it's over. We must accept it and give thanks."
    "How can you say such a cruel thing? It was her daughter who died, our sister!"
    "My sister, not yours," Emily retorted hotly.
    "I don't care what you say. Eugenia was my sister, too, and I was more of a sister to her than you ever were," I insisted.
    Emily laughed, hard and mirthless. I looked at Papa, but he simply continued to chew his food and stare ahead.
    "Mamma's so sad," I repeated, shaking my head. I felt the tears burning beneath my eyelids.
    "The reason Mamma's so depressed is you!" Emily accused. "You walk around here with a gray face, with eyes filled with tears. You remind her day in and day out that Eugenia's dead. You don't give her a moment's peace," she charged. Her long arm and bony finger jabbed across the table at me.
    "I do not!"
    "Enough," Papa said. He knitted his dark, thick eyebrows together and glared at me. "Your mother will come to terms with the tragedy on her own and I will not have it made the subject of a discussion at dinner. I don't want to see long faces in your mother's presence either," he warned. "Hear?"
    "Yes, Papa," I said.
    He snapped his newspaper and began complaining about the price of tobacco.
    "They're strangling the little farmer to death. It's just another way to kill the Old South," he growled.
    Why was that more important to him than what was happening to Mamma? Why was everyone but me blind to the terrible time she was having and how it had changed her and dimmed the light in her eyes? I asked Louella and after she was sure neither Emily nor Papa were in earshot, she said, "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
    "But if they love her, Louella, as surely they must, why do they choose to ignore it?"
    Louella just gave me one of her knowing looks, the kind that said everything without saying anything. Papa must love Mamma, I thought, love her in his special way. He married her; he wanted and had children with her; he chose her to be the mistress of his plantation and bear his name. I knew how much all that meant to him.
    And Emily—despite her hateful and mean-spirited ways, her fanatic religious devotion and her hardness —was still Mamma's daughter. This was her mother who was dying in little ways. She had to feel sorry, feel compassion and want to help.
    But alas, Emily's solution was to suggest more prayer sessions, longer Bible readings and more hymns. Whenever she read or prayed in front of Mamma, Mamma stood or sat motionless, her lovely face darkly shadowed, her eyes glassy and still like the eyes of someone hypnotized. When Emily's religious moments were over, Mamma would throw me a quick glance of deepest despair and retire to her room.
    Yet, although she hadn't been eating well since Eugenia's death, I noticed that her face grew plumper and her waist wider. When I mentioned it to Louella, she said, "No wonder."
    "What do you mean, Louella? Why, no wonder?"
    "It's all those mint juleps spiked with Mr. Booth's brandy and those bonbons. She's been eating pounds of them," Louella said, shaking her head, "and she don't listen to me. No ma'am. What I say goes in