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"The truth is," he said with the closest thing to a smile on his face, "The Meadows owns me. I don't know nothin' else."
I wanted to get him to tell me more about Miss Emily and the family, but most of the time whenever I brought up anything remotely close to the subject, he would act as if he didn't hear anything I said. I didn't think he respected Miss Emily or even liked her much, but there was something about her that kept him obedient. Whenever I asked him to take me to Upland Station, he always had an excuse why he couldn't do it. Most of the time, he just went without saying anything.
By mid-January, I had concluded that Miss Emily must have forbidden him to take me along, so I waited until we were alone and I begged him to mail a letter to Trisha for me. He didn't say he would do it and he didn't say he wouldn't, but he wouldn't take it from my hands.
"I'll leave it on the counter here in the kitchen and next time you go, would you please take it along?" I asked. He watched where I put it, but he didn't respond. The next day the letter was gone. I waited for weeks for a reply from Trisha. I knew as soon as she received my letter she would write back, but whenever Luther did bring back mail none came for me.
One morning when Luther brought in the wood, I asked him about it.
"What letter?" he said.
"The one I left on the counter. You saw me leave it that day," I insisted.
"I saw it," he said, "but when I looked for it later, it wasn't there."
"It wasn't there?" He didn't add anything, but then he didn't have to. I knew where my letter had gone. It was with Miss Emily. A flame of anger traveled up my spine and whatever pride I had left came back in full dress parade. I spun on my heels and marched out to confront her.
Miss Emily spent most of her day reading the Bible, cooking our miserly meals, supervising Luther's work and keeping her account books to the penny. She worked on her bookkeeping in the office library at the big, dark oak desk with the enormous picture of her father's above her, his face in a frown as he looked down over her shoulder. I had the feeling she was haunted by him and believed that if she didn't do things the way he would have wanted her to, he would take some punitive action.
She sat there crouched over the bills making her calculations and small marks on paper. Her bony shoulders looked like iron framework with her head dangling in between. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the corner. She had a single kerosene lamp burning because it was heavily overcast outside and there was little sunlight. The lamp cast a pool of yellow illumination over her face and hands. When she heard me enter, she raised her head and sat back so that her forehead and eyes were in dark shadows. The thin line of her mouth spread in a smirk. Her lips barely opened when she spoke.
"What do you want? Don't you see I'm busy?" she snapped.
"I just want to know why you took my letter to my friend Trisha," I said boldly.
"What letter?" she asked, her head unmoving. I thought I was facing a mannequin because she sat so stiffly. My eyes shifted for a moment to the eyes of her father in the portrait. He scowled down at me.
"The letter I left on the counter in the kitchen about a month ago. Luther was going to take it to mail for me," I replied, not backing away an inch. I thought she wasn't going to answer. Finally, she leaned forward, her eyes just entering the rim of light, which made them glow like the eyes of an alley cat.
"Anything left on the counter is garbage," she said, "and that's what a letter of yours to one of your city friends, who I am sure is just as wicked as you were, would be anyway."
For a moment my breath caught in my throat and seemed to stay. How could she admit what she had done so boldly? And what right had she to say such a terrible thing about Trisha, someone she had never met? Did Emily think she was the only good person on earth?
"How dare you say that? You don't know my friends. You had no right to throw away my letter," I cried.
"I didn't have any right?" she said, following it with her shrill laugh. "Of course, I did and do," she said sternly. "I have every right to keep any evil from entering this house. And I will not have Luther wasting his time on your correspondences," she insisted.
"But it was only one letter!"
"It takes only a word to bring the devil into your heart. Haven't you paid attention to any of the things I have been telling you? Now leave me. I have important work to do and you have your chores."
"You're treating me like a prisoner, a common criminal," I cried.
"That's because you are a common criminal," she said calmly. "You committed the most common crime of lust and now you are paying for it." She folded her hands and leaned farther forward on the desk so that her entire face was in the light now. "And why were you sent here for me to take care of you, eh? You have nowhere else to go; no one wants you. You're an embarrassment, a burden.
"My sister made that quite clear and also asked that you be treated as the sinner and the disgrace you are, not that she had to tell me," she said icily. And then she sat back so that her face was completely in shadows.
"As long as you're living under my roof, eating my food, and depending on my care, you will do as I say," she roared in a voice that was so deep and loud, I thought it might very well have come from the face in the portrait above her. That terrifying thought took the wind from the sails of my rebellion. I felt my blood drain down into my feet; a stinging sensation began behind my ears and my strength grew small. I clasped my hands over my protruding stomach and backed out of the doorway. Immediately, she lowered her head and went back to her calculations, making sure that every single penny was spent wisely and accounted for.
I paused near the doorway of one of the sitting rooms. Even though I had been here for months, I had been restricted to a small part of the house and hadn't seen most of it, especially the forbidden west wing where Miss Emily and Charlotte had their rooms. But I knew that in this particular sitting room, there was an oval mirror. It was the only room downstairs that had a mirror. Miss Emily thought that mirrors encouraged vanity and vanity, after all, was what brought Eve's downfall and man's sin.
"It's not necessary to look at yourself," she had said when I asked for a mirror in my room. "Just keep yourself reasonably clean."
It had been so long since I had cared, but Miss Emily's treatment of me in the library had made me feel so diminished and horrible, I couldn't help but be curious about myself. Was this the way she saw me? What did I really look like? All this time had passed and I had been without a brush, without a comb, without skin creams or makeup. Having no place to go and not seeing anyone had kept me from thinking about it, but I so wanted to feel like a young lady again and not feel like some house drudge.
Slowly, anticipating in my heart what I feared was true, I entered the sitting room. The curtains were open, but the light was as dim as it was in the library. I found the kerosene lamp on a small table and lit it. Holding it before me, I approached the mirror. My silhouette appeared first and then I lifted the lamp and gazed upon myself.
My once beautiful hair was a dirty, tangled mop of split ends and mangled strains. Streaks of grime scarred my forehead and cheeks. My blue eyes looked dim and dull, as if all the light and life behind them was drained. I was pale, almost as pale and sickly looking as Miss Emily. My decrepit reflection turned my own stomach. It was as if I were gazing into the face of a stranger.
