Darkest Hour (35 page)

"All right, all right," he said, holding up his hands. He tried to joke about it, but after that, he did behave and treat me with respect in front of the other employees. I met some of the guests, too, and then spoke with the head waiter in the dining room.

In the weeks and months that followed, I found my own niche, created my own responsibilities, still clinging to the belief that I should go with the wind and bend instead of break. I told myself that if I had to live here and be a hotel man's wife, I would be the best hotel man's wife on the Virginia coast. I devoted myself to it.

I discovered that the guests appeared to like it more when Bill and I ate with them and greeted them personally. Sometimes, Bill wasn't there in time; he was still off doing some chore or another in Virginia Beach or Richmond. But the guests appreciated being greeted at dinner. I began to do it at breakfast as well, and most were both surprised and pleased to see me there in the doorway waiting for them, remembering their names. I made it a point to recall their special occasions, too: their birthdays, christenings, and anniversaries. I marked them down in my calendar and made sure to send them cards. I also sent our guests little notes of thanks for their visits.

In time, I noticed many little things that needed improvement: things that could be done to make service faster and more efficient. I was also unhappy with the way the hotel was cleaned and quickly made some changes, the most important one being appointing someone to oversee the maintenance of the building.

My life at Cutler's Cove proved more enjoyable, more exciting and more interesting than I had ever imagined it could be. It seemed I had truly found a place to be, a reason to be. Vera's words of advice just before my wedding to Bill Cutler also proved prophetic. I was able to make enough changes in Bill to make our marriage tolerable. He didn't abuse me or ridicule me. He was satisfied with what I was doing to make the hotel more successful. I knew he was off seeing other women from time to time, but I didn't care. Keeping myself from becoming unhappy meant compromises on my part, but they were compromises I was willing to make, for in time, I did fall in love—not with Bill, but with Cutler's Cove.

Bill didn't oppose anything I suggested, even when some of the suggestions meant spending more money. As the months went by and I assumed more and more of what had been his duties and responsibilities, he seemed more and more pleased. It didn't take a genius to realize his interest in the hotel wasn't as intense as he pretended. Whenever he could find an excuse for one of his so-called business trips, he was off, sometimes not returning for days and days. Gradually, the staff of the hotel began to depend on me more and more to make decisions and solve problems. Before the end of my first year as the new mistress of Cutler's Cove, the first words out of a member of the staff who had a question that needed an answer were, "Ask Mrs. Cutler."

A little more than a year after my arrival, I had an office made for myself. Bill was both amused and impressed by all this, but six months later, when I suggested we think about expanding the hotel and building an additional wing, he put up an argument.

"Making sure the linen is kept clean and the dishes are washed properly is one thing, Lillian. I can even understand making someone responsible for all that and giving him a little more money a week, but adding on another twenty-five rooms, expanding the dining room and building a swimming pool? No way. I don't know what sort of impression I gave you when we first got married, but I don't have that kind of money, even with my success gambling."

"We don't need to have that kind of money immediately, Bill. I've been talking to the banks here. There's one that's eager to give us a mortgage."

"A mortgage?" He started to laugh. "What do you know about mortgages?"

"I was always a good math student. You've seen the way I've handled our accounts. It was something I did for Papa. Business work just comes naturally to me, I guess," I said. "Although, pretty soon, we're going to need a business manager on staff, too."

"A business manager?" He shook his head.

"But first things first. We need that mortgage," I said.

"I don't know. Mortgaging the hotel to expand it . . . I don't know."

"Look at these letters from former guests and prospective new guests, all asking for reservations," I said, lifting a dozen or so of my desk. "We can't accommodate half of them. Don't you see how much business we're turning away now?" I asked. He widened his eyes and looked through some of the letters.

"Hmm," he said. "I don't know."

"I thought you prided yourself on being a good gambler. This isn't so risky a gamble, is it?"

He laughed.

"You amaze me, Lillian. I brought a little girl here, or at least someone I thought was a little girl, but you very quickly took hold. I know the staff already respects you more than they do me," he complained.

"It's your own fault. You're not here when they need you. I am," I said sharply.

He nodded. He didn't have as much interest in the hotel as I had developed, but he knew enough not to pass up a potentially good opportunity.

"Okay. Set up a meeting with the bankers and let's see what this is all about," he concluded. "I swear," he said, standing up and gazing down at me behind my desk. "I don't know whether to be proud of you these days or afraid of you. Some of my friends are teasing me already and telling me you're the one who wears the pants in our family. I'm not sure I like it," he added, perturbed.

"You know you wear the pants, Bill," I said a little coquettishly. He smiled. I had learned quickly how easy it was to flatter him and get my way.

"Yeah, just as long as you know it, too," he said.

I looked sufficiently submissive for him to feel less threatened and he left. As soon as he did, I contacted a young lawyer named Updike who had been recommended to me by one of the businessmen in Cutler's Cove. I was very impressed with him and I hired him to represent us in all our business dealings. He helped get us our mortgage quickly and we began an expansion that would continue on and off for the next ten years.

My work and responsibilities at the hotel made it hard for me to travel back to The Meadows more than twice a year. Bill accompanied me only on the first visit. Each time I arrived, I found the old plantation sinking deeper and deeper into disuse and neglect.

Charles had long since given up on most of it and simply tried to keep enough going to provide the basic necessities. Papa complained about his taxes and his overhead, just as always, but Vera told me he was leaving the plantation less and less and hardly gambling anymore.

"Probably because he has little left to lose," I said, and Vera agreed.

Most of the time, Papa hardly paid any attention to me nor I to him. I knew that he was curious about my new life and impressed with my clothing and my new car. On more than one occasion, I even thought he might ask me for money. But his Southern pride and arrogance prevented him from making such a request—not that I would have given him any. It would have only gone into other hands over a card table or been spent on bourbon. But I always tried to bring nice things for Luther and Charlotte.

With every passing year, Charlotte began to take on more and more of Papa's physical characteristics. She grew tall and wide and had long fingers and large hands for a girl. My long periods of separation from her had taken their toll over the years. By the time she was five, she seemed only to vaguely remember me each time I reappeared. When I spoke with her and played with her, I noticed that she took longer to understand things than she should and had a short attention span. She could become fascinated with something shiny or something simple and spend hours turning it over and over in her hands, but she had no patience when it came to reciting her numbers and learning her letters. As soon as Charlotte was old enough, Luther took her to school with him as often as he could, but she quickly fell years behind where she should be.

"You should see how Luther looks after her," Vera told me during one of my infrequent trips back. "He won't let her go out without a wrap on if it's too cold and he chases her right back into the house as soon as the first raindrop falls."

"He's a very serious and mature little boy for his age," I said. He was. I had never seen a young boy focus so intently on things and smile or laugh so infrequently. He carried himself like a little gentleman and according to Charles, he was already a significant helper on the plantation.

“I swear that boy knows almost as much as I do about engines and things already," Charles told me.

Whenever 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 so."

"And my sister . . . Emily?"

"We've grown accustomed to her. Matter of fact, we wouldn't know what we'd do without her hymns and prayers. Charles says it's better than those picture shows we've heard about. You never know when you'll look out and find her floating through the mansion, candle in hand, waving some cross at a shadow. And who knows, maybe she does keep the devil out."

I laughed.

"Things have gone all right for you, Miss Lillian, haven't they?" Vera asked, her eyes smaller. She had gotten gray and her crow's feet had gone deeper and longer.

"I've made my nest and found my reasons to keep going, Vera, if that's what you mean," I told her.

She nodded.

"I thought you would. Well, I'd better see to supper. I'll say my good-bye now."

We hugged and then I went to say good-bye to Charlotte. She was sprawled on the floor in what had once been Mamma's reading room, looking through an old album of family photographs. Luther sat on the chaise looking down at the pictures with her. They both looked up when I appeared in the doorway.

"I'm leaving now, children," I said. "Looking at the family pictures?"

"Yes ma'am," Luther said, nodding.

"Here's one of you and me and Emily," Charlotte said, pointing down. I looked at it and recalled when Papa had had that picture taken.

"Yes," I said.

"We know most people in the book," Luther said, "but not this one." He turned the pages back and stopped to point at a small photograph. I took the book into my hands and gazed at it. It was my real mother. For a moment I couldn't speak.

"It's . . . Mamma's younger sister Violet," I said.

"She was very pretty," Charlotte said. "Right, Luther?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"Wasn't she, Lil?" Charlotte asked.

I smiled at her. "Very pretty."

"Did you know her?" Luther asked.

"No. She died before . . . just after I was born."