Roses

by Leila Meacham

  “Nobody’s prettier than you, Mama,” Mary whispered, choking on her grief.

  “His love gave me life, gave me stature, made me important. But now I feel that it was all a sham, simply something for me to enjoy while he lived. In death, he took it all away, all the things I thought I was to him, and he to me.”

  “But, Mama—” The words failed to come. They failed because deep down in her sixteen-year-old heart, Mary knew her mother spoke the truth. In the end, the preservation of the plantation had meant more to her father than his wife’s pride, feelings, and welfare. He had left her virtually penniless, dependent on her children, and subject to the humiliation of Howbutker society.

  Mary, who already had little tolerance for weakness, could hardly blame her mother for feeling shattered and empty, bereft of even the memories that would have brought her comfort. With tears spilling down her cheeks, she knelt beside the chaise longue. “Papa didn’t mean to hurt you, I know he didn’t.”

  She laid her head on her mother’s bosom, but even as tears soaked the lavender satin, some part of her far below her grief rejoiced that Somerset had come to her, and she vowed that no matter what pain it cost her to keep it, she would never give up the plantation. Not ever. She would make it up to her mother somehow… work hard to make Somerset pay to keep her in the silks and satins of which she was so fond. Somerset would grow so big and powerful, the Toliver name so strong, that no one would dare risk a remark against her mother. And, after a while, everyone would forget Vernon Toliver’s betrayal and realize how right he’d been to dispense the estate as he had. They would all see in what esteem Darla Toliver was held by her children and grandchildren, and the pain would go away.

  “Mama?”

  “I’m here, Mary.”

  But she wasn’t, a deep wrench of her instinct told her. She’d never again be the mother that she and Miles had known. Mary would have given anything in the world to see her on her feet, normal and familiar, beautiful and happy, even in her grief. Anything but Somerset, Mary modified her thought, and was shocked at the amendment, at the line beyond which she could not force her love to go.

  Exactly as her father had not been able to do.

  A sense of loss pierced her to her soul, as great as the moment her father’s hand had slipped from hers forever. “Mama! Mama! Don’t leave us, don’t leave us!” she sobbed, feeling the rise of hysteria as she shook the inert form in the lavender satin.

  That evening, sitting in the twilight gloom of the front parlor, Mary became aware of someone watching her from the black-draped doorway. It was Percy Warwick. He was wearing the still, serious expression that she’d come to interpret as disapproval. By now, Miles would have told him and Ollie about the will, and doubtless they shared her brother’s opinion of it.

  They were a fraternity of three—Miles Toliver and Percy Warwick and Ollie DuMont. They’d been inseparable since they were infants, perpetuating the friendships their grandfathers had begun and their fathers had continued. At the graveside service, her attention had been drawn to the three standing together. How different each was from the other. Ollie, short, pudgy, and jolly, the eternal optimist. Miles, tall, thin, earnest, a crusader desperate for a cause. And Percy, the tallest and most handsome of the three, prudent and reasonable… the Apollo who watched over them all. She’d known a moment’s envy. How comforting it would be to enjoy the kind of friendship they shared. Her father and grandfather had been her only friends.

  “Mind if I come in?” Percy asked, his voice deep and resonant in the close summer dusk.

  “That will depend on what you’ve come to say.”

  That brought the familiar, amused flicker to his lips. She and Percy never conversed. They sparred. It had been that way for the last couple of summers and during holidays when the boys were home from Princeton. Like Miles and Ollie, he had graduated in June, and he had then joined his father’s lumber company.

  He chuckled and moved into the room. “Ever the little firebrand when it comes to me. I’m assuming you don’t want a lamp?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  How handsome he is, she thought grudgingly. The dusk seemed to intensify the sheen of his blond hair and the deep bronze of his skin. He’d worked outdoors all summer with the other lumbermen, and the results showed in his lean, hard form. There had been lots of girls back east, so she understood… Dresden blue-bloods. She had heard Miles and Ollie laughing over his conquests.

  She returned to her original position, head resting on the back of the chair, eyes closed. “Is Miles back?” Her voice was hoarse with grief and fatigue.

  “Yes. He’s gone upstairs with Ollie to see your mother.”

  “I suppose he told you about the will. You disapprove, of course.”

  “Of course. Your father should have left the house and plantation to your mother.”

  Mary lifted her head in anger and surprise. Percy was noted for withholding judgment. He never spoke in terms of should haves when it came to other people’s business. “Who are you to say what my father should have done?” He had come to stand close to her chair, hands in his pockets, and was regarding her solemnly, his face in shadow.

  “Someone who cares for you and your brother and mother very much. That’s who I am.”

  That pricked her outrage like a dart to the throat of a puffed adder. She turned her head away, blinking and swallowing at the lump in her throat, on the brink of tears again. “Well, please care enough for us to withhold your opinion, Percy. My father knew what he was doing, and to say he didn’t only makes everything that much worse at this time.”

  “Are you saying that out of defense of your father or because you feel guilty that you were the one remembered?”

  Mary hesitated, wanting—needing—to trust him with the truth of her feelings, but she feared he’d think even less of her. “What does my brother believe?” she asked, evading his question.

  “He thinks you are overjoyed to have inherited Somerset.”

  There. My brother’s opinion is out in the open, she thought, the knowledge as cutting as a knife. She’d been so careful not to betray her inner exultation, yet she hadn’t fooled Miles or her mother, and they would detest her for it. Tears stinging, she shoved out of the chair in one angry motion to stand before a parlor window. A pale moon had risen. She watched as it dissolved in a silver stream before her eyes.

  “Gypsy…,” she heard him murmur, and before she knew it, he’d come to her and tucked her teary face beneath his chin. Within seconds, she was blubbering against his tie.

  “Miles b-blames me for… for Papa writing the will as he did, doesn’t he? Mama does, t-too. I’ve lost them, Percy, as surely as I’ve lost Papa.”

  “This was all such a shock to them, Mary,” he said, stroking her hair. “Your mother feels betrayed, and Miles is angry on her behalf, not his.”

  “But… but I’m not to blame for Papa leaving everything to me. I can’t help it if I love the plantation, any more than Mama and Miles can help it that they d-don’t.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice warm with understanding. “But you can undo what’s been done.”

  “How?” she asked, lifting her head to hear this wisdom he proposed.

  “Sell Somerset when you’re twenty-one and split the proceeds among you.”

  Mary could not have been more shocked if she’d looked up to find snakes sprouting from his head. She pushed out of his arms. “Sell Somerset?” She stared at him incredulously. “You are suggesting that I sell Somerset in order to pacify Mama’s and Miles’s disappointment?”

  “I’m suggesting you do so in order to salvage your relationship with them.”

  “I have to buy a relationship with them?”

  “You’re distorting the situation, Mary, either to make it easier on your conscience or because you’re so blinded by your obsession for Somerset that you can’t see the real root of your mother’s and brother’s grief.”

  “I see it!” Mary cried. �
�I know how Mama and Miles feel! What none of you can see is that I am honor bound to carry out my father’s wishes.”

  “He said nothing about your not selling the plantation when you’re twenty-one.”

  “Would he have left it to me if he’d thought I would sell it?”

  “What happens when you’re of marriageable age and your husband doesn’t wish to share his wife with a plantation?”

  “I would never marry a man who didn’t understand and support my feelings for Somerset.”

  Percy fell silent at this declaration. Her hair ribbon had slipped to the floor. He reached down and picked it up, folding it in half. He laid it across her shoulder. “How do you know you couldn’t love a man who didn’t feel about Somerset the way you do? You know no world but Howbutker. You’ve never been exposed to any other interest but the plantation. You haven’t experienced anything but being a Toliver. You’ve had a very limited existence, Mary.”

  “I don’t care to know any other existence.”

  “You can’t draw that conclusion unless you have something else with which to compare it.”

  “Yes, I can. Anyway, I’m not likely to have the opportunity to make such a comparison, am I?”

  They could hear Miles and Ollie coming down the stairs. To her surprise, Mary found that she regretted the intrusion, as—she had to admit—she missed the solace of Percy’s arms. It was the closest she’d ever stood to him. She had never known that a small freckle was tucked beneath the ridge under his left eye or noticed the intriguing radius of silver around his pupils. “You’ve always disapproved of me, haven’t you?” she asked, the question popping out unexpectedly.

  Percy’s dark blond brows rose. “ ‘Disapproved’ is not the right word,” he said.

  “Then not liked me.” She held her breath, waiting for his confirmation.

  “That’s not it, either.”

  “Then what is the word?” Her cheeks were burning, but she was determined to learn exactly what he thought of her. Then he could be damned, and she wouldn’t think about his opinion anymore. It would no longer be an issue of curiosity.

  Before he could answer, Miles, with Ollie huffing behind him, entered the room.

  “Here you are!” her brother said, and for a hopeful second Mary thought he’d come in search of her. But it was for Percy he was looking, she realized as he ignored her and addressed his friend. “I didn’t know if you’d left or not. Will you be staying for supper? There’s plenty of food, but Sassie will want to know.”

  “I’m not staying,” Ollie said, looking at Mary as if he wished he were. He smiled fondly at her, and she responded with a warm softening of her lips.

  “I’m afraid I can’t, either,” Percy said. “We’ve got guests coming, and Mother is expecting me to play host.”

  “Who are they?” Miles asked.

  “The daughter of Mother’s roommate when they attended Bellington Hall in Atlanta and her father. The girl’s interested in enrolling there this fall. Her mother is dead, and they’re here to discuss the school.”

  “At least that’s the pretext her papa gave for bringing her for a visit,” Ollie said with a meaningful wink at Miles.

  “Well, the father seems the kind who operates with an ulterior motive up his sleeve, and my mother thinks their visit is a ruse,” Percy admitted, “but then don’t most mothers believe that every girl has designs on their son?”

  Here’s one girl Beatrice doesn’t have to worry about, Mary thought, feeling an irrational nip of jealousy at another girl claiming his attention for supper. Deliberately, she turned to Ollie and placed a hand on his sleeve. “Ollie, are you sure you won’t stay? We could use your cheerful company tonight.”

  “I’d like to, Mary Lamb, but I’m helping my father with the end-of-summer inventory at the store. Maybe tomorrow night, if the invitation’s still open.”

  “It’s always open to you, Ollie.”

  If Percy noticed his exclusion from her sentiment, he didn’t show it. Instead, he flashed her his familiar grin. “We’ll finish our conversation another time, Gypsy. Remember where we left off.”

  “If I don’t forget,” Mary replied, bridling at the use of the nickname he knew she hated.

  “You won’t forget.”

  “This houseguest… what’s her name, and what’s she like?” Miles asked, following his friends from the room.

  “Lucy Gentry, and she’s nice enough. I don’t much care for her father.”

  The rest of the conversation was lost to her as Miles saw them out. From a parlor window, she watched “the boys,” as the families referred to them, walk down the front walk to their spanking new Pierce-Arrows, graduation gifts from their fathers. In June, Miles had been puzzled and disappointed not to find a similar present waiting for him in the stable, yet to be converted into a garage since the Tolivers did not possess one of the new horseless carriages. Now he understood why his gift had been limited to a handsomely bound set of encyclopedias for use in his future position as a history teacher.

  A strange sadness deepened her depression. She wished she and Percy could have finished their talk. She’d certainly never return to the subject, and he was likely to forget about it by the time he’d backed out of the drive. She’d never learn the precise word he would have chosen to describe what he felt for her, but she could guess. It was pity—pity for being a Toliver, for taking her heritage so seriously. She couldn’t understand why Percy took his so lightly. He was the only heir to protect and preserve the legacy of his family. Ollie, as casual and jolly as he was, looked upon his responsibilities as a DuMont far more seriously. What galled her was Percy’s scorn for what he called her obsession with Somerset because he could not feel the same devotion toward the Warwick Lumber Company.

  Well, that was what became of those who disregarded their original roots, if not out-and-out discarded them. The Warwicks and Tolivers had arrived as cotton planters to Texas, but Percy’s family had converted to lumbermen immediately, while the Tolivers remained true to their calling. She understood that fully now. Percy looked upon the Warwick Lumber Company as a way to provide a living. She regarded Somerset as a way of life.

  Satisfied with this distinction, she made her way into the dining room, where the long mahogany table had been set for her and Miles in their usual places. Her brother was already seated. In the hot, yellow glow of the kerosene lamps, they ate their meal in silence, withdrawn and divided, the absence of their parents filling their chairs at the head of the table like dejected ghosts. Who is this Lucy Gentry? Mary wondered as she forced down her meal. And did she have designs on Percy, as his mother suspected?

  Chapter Seven

  Mary, may I see you in the study for a moment?”

  Startled, Mary looked up from shelling black-eyed peas into the lap of her apron. Miles had come to the doorway of the kitchen. “Of course,” she said, apprehensive at his tone. He was so brusque these days, so unlike the gentle, teasing brother she’d always known. Eager to please him, she made a bowl of the apron to transfer the peas to the basket in Sassie’s lap. They raised brows to each other. This past month, the housekeeper had often expressed that it was a “cryin’ shame” the way Mister Miles treated his little sister.

  Dutifully, Mary followed her brother’s slender figure to the room next to the library, from which their father had run the plantation. Miles had begun referring to it as “the study” rather than “Papa’s office.” It was one of the many details in regard to the plantation that concerned her. Miles had been coming and going mysteriously, Somerset’s red ledger books tucked under his arm. Mary wanted to demand that he let her examine them, but she did not dare. Now was not the time to declare rights of ownership—to insist he let her in on how he was managing Somerset. She feared that Miles was implementing his theory that had caused many a dispute at the Toliver dinner table between father and son.

  Vernon Toliver had believed a landowner should be in strict control of everything from how a tenant dealt
with his wife to how he treated his horse. His son disagreed with this approach to dealing with human beings, describing it and the tenancy system itself as evil and despotic. Vernon Toliver maintained there was nothing evil about a landowner renting his acres to a man who could not afford a farm of his own in exchange for a part of the crop. Wickedness resulted only when such men did not receive fair payment in return for their labor and when the owner did not provide the “furnishings” agreed upon in the contract. He was not responsible for the evils of other planters. He could not right the abuses of the tenancy system. Only by example could he show how it was meant to work. Could Miles not see that Somerset’s tenants were the best clothed, fed, and sheltered, the most fairly treated, of all those in East Texas?

  Miles argued that their tenants were still serfs and they the overlords, feared as much as God. There ought to be a law that gave tenants the right to apply their rents against the land they farmed. Once it was free and clear, they could then pay the landowner a royalty for life.

  Mary had seen her father’s face blanch at these dinner table proposals.

  Now she felt a similar drop of her blood at the thought that Miles might be setting out to prove that a laissez-faire treatment of the tenants would result in greater benefits for all. Harvest was less than a month away, and every cent was needed to make the mortgage payments. She longed to talk to Len, the overseer, but Miles took the buggy and Arabians each day, leaving in the stable only an old mare unreliable for the trek to the plantation. She itched to acquaint herself with her father’s bookkeeping methods, but when the ledgers were not in her brother’s possession, they were in a locked drawer in the study. Miles had the only key.

  She loved her brother, but she was beginning to look upon him as an adversary to all her hopes and dreams, and especially to her father’s wishes and memory. Two camps had formed in the Toliver household. Only Sassie was in hers. Everybody else—the rest of the help, her mother, and all their friends except for neutral Ollie—was on Miles’s side. God forbid, but she was even wishing that something would happen to Miles, a mild accident that would force him to turn over the plantation to her. At the very least, she hoped he’d become bored with his new duties and realize that he wasn’t cut out to be a planter.