Roses

by Leila Meacham

  He sat back from her and, after a hard swallow of coffee, directed his answer to the fields. “Our garrison was herding columns of defeated soldiers out of France into Germany. Most of the Jerries were glad the war was over and only wanted to get on with their lives, but a few were still fighting for the motherland. They were the ones we had to be on the lookout for. They’d conceal themselves by the side of the road and try to pick us off when they caught us separated from the columns. It was one of those buggers that lobbed the grenade.” Percy threw the remains of his coffee onto the grass and grimaced as if it had left a bitter taste. “It landed right behind me, but I didn’t see it. Somebody hollered, but by the time I’d have reacted, it would have been too late. Ollie pushed me out of the way and threw himself over it.” He turned his gaze to her, his face bleak with memory. “Greater love hath no man, you know.”

  He doesn’t know, she thought, relief mixing with horror. She had listened with an eye and ear alert for the slightest reference to Ollie’s promise to her but could detect none. It remained Ollie’s secret and hers. As far as Percy knew, Ollie had acted out of love for a friend whose life he had put above his own. Perhaps it was true, and she was under no obligation to marry the man his sacrifice had brought safely home. But a wave of thankfulness for his act washed over her. “I’m so grateful to him,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  “You know I am, Percy.”

  Their gazes had held for a long, unbroken moment when a new light popped into his eyes. “You know what I’d like to do right now?”

  “Dare I guess?”

  “I’d like to take you to the cabin, stick you under the shower, and soap you all over. Then…”

  “Percy, shush—” Dizzy from a rush of desire, Mary pressed a hand over his mouth to prevent his words from carrying across the cotton fields.

  He continued to speak through her fingers. “… I’d dry you off and carry you to bed and make love to you under the sheets for the rest of the day. How does that sound?”

  Breathless, she said, “Impossible,” and got quickly to her feet. “I must get back to work.”

  “Whoa,” Percy said, snaring the top of her boot in his grip. “We haven’t finished our conversation, Gypsy, the one we started before you asked me about Ollie. You haven’t heard what I’d like to propose.”

  “I thought you just stated it,” she said.

  “I have a more serious proposal.”

  “I thought I’d heard that, too.”

  “Not this one.” He scrambled up. “But first, I have a question.”

  She glanced at the tenants who were still sneaking peeks in their direction. “Well, make it fast before we’re a subject for gossip.”

  He brushed a streak of dried dirt from her face. “The plantation might fail anyway, my love, and then what would you do?”

  It was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. It was not about her financial ruin he was asking, but how she’d feel if she lost him and the plantation. It was a question she’d not let herself contemplate. She decided to hedge. “I’d think that my losing Somerset would suit you just fine.”

  His smile turned cool. “I’d be happy to win you by default, in other words? Well, that wouldn’t suit me at all, Gypsy. I’d settle for sharing first base, but not coming in second. I’d want you to come to me not out of necessity, but by choice, realizing you need me as much as Somerset. So, back to the subject of what we owe ourselves…”

  “What are you proposing?” she asked, swallowing quickly.

  “I propose we give ourselves the opportunity to see who’s right—you or me. I propose we give ourselves a chance to see if we can live without each other.”

  “And we do this… how?”

  “Not like you’re thinking—unless it happens. We do it by spending time together. Talking, sharing meals, going for walks…”

  How will I have time? she thought, dismayed.

  He moved closer, his gaze ironic. “You win either way, Gypsy,” he said. “I’m the one who could lose.”

  She felt the blood quicken in her loins, hot and throbbing. Did she dare accept his proposal—risk subjecting herself to his magnetism, her own perfidious needs? Or was this an opportunity to prove to him that they were wrong for each other, settle this madness once and for all? “I’ll agree if you understand that I can’t always be available when you’d like, and if you promise not to rush me or to take advantage of my… inexperience. I’ll be off like a scared rabbit if you do.”

  “I will be the soul of understanding and patience. You won’t even feel my net.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of, she thought, both thrilled and frightened. “And there’s one other thing… one other promise I require from you.”

  “Name it.”

  “Will you not call me ‘Gypsy’ anymore?”

  He laughed, a rich, deep sound that she’d prayed nightly to hear again. “I promise. Now do we have a deal?”

  “We have a deal,” she said, her nerve ends dancing. “Now I must get back to work.”

  She knew his eyes followed her as she started back across the fields. She wouldn’t blame him if he was having second thoughts. How could he find her desirable in her baggy pants and flannel shirt, her hair streaming between her shoulder blades like an Indian squaw’s? She had not gone far when she thought of something. She swung back around. “By the way, what about Lucy?”

  “Lucy?” He frowned as if he had difficulty remembering the name. “Oh, Lucy,” he said. “I told her last night that there was someone else.”

  Mary stood stone still. “Did you tell her who it was?”

  “No. I spared her that. She didn’t seem to want to know. I told her she was someone I’ve loved all her life and plan to marry. She left early this morning. We won’t be seeing her again.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Miles was gone within the week. Mary found a note pinned to his pillow when she went to his room to inquire why he had not come down to breakfast. It read simply: “I’m sorry. I have to go. Explain to Mama. Love, Miles.” Beside it lay a red rose.

  Mary slowly picked up the rose, surprised that he would make use of a symbol so hateful to their mother and inherent in Toliver tradition. Silent tears gathered as she pressed the rose to her lips. Scenes returned from the past when the four of them had been happy and loving. She heard her mother’s laughter again and the deep response of her father’s voice, her own squeal of delight as Miles swung her high in the air and caught her before she fell. Recalling those family times, she stayed on in her brother’s boyhood room a few minutes longer before summoning Toby to run get Mister Percy.

  He was there within minutes. She had caught him as he was dressing for work. Sassie led him into the parlor, where she sat staring vacantly into space, the rose still in her hand. When she discovered him standing quietly by her chair, she experienced a sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t she lived this scene before when the light caught Percy’s blond head and shadowed his face in exactly the same way?

  “He’s gone,” she said. “Miles has gone back to France, to Marietta and the Communist Party.”

  “I know. He called before he left. Ollie knows, too.”

  She frowned up at him, accusation glinting in her eyes. “And you didn’t warn me?”

  He sighed, hitched up his pants, and squatted beside her chair. Again, Mary had the odd sensation of having experienced this moment before. Then she remembered that Percy had come to her and knelt by this very chair the night following the reading of her father’s will. His face wore the same still expression now as then. He touched one of the petals. “He left this?”

  She indicated yes with a barely perceptible movement of her head.

  “Then you must forgive him.”

  Again a slight nod. She said listlessly, “He’ll die in France. He’ll never come home again. And now I have to tell Mama.” Her eyes felt bright with tears. “You promised to talk him out of this.”

  “I promised to try, Gyp—M
ary, but his mind and heart were made up. He was going back to a woman who makes him happy. Forget the Communist rot. With Miles it won’t last until the first snow flies. It won’t last with Marietta, either, I’m betting, now that she can devote her energies to Miles.”

  “He should have stayed here.” A surge of anger made her sit up and swipe at her eyes. “We need him. Now more than ever. He’s always shirked his responsibilities to the family.”

  Percy thumped the arm of her chair and stood up. “That’s not fair, and you know it. Because your brother’s concept of family duty is different from yours doesn’t mean he’s irresponsible.”

  Mary’s frustration with him was mounting. She should not have asked him to come. In the days since their meeting at the plantation, they’d both had a taste of what they were in for if they were to keep their deal. Twice they’d made evening plans, and twice unforeseen difficulties at Somerset had kept her at the plantation. Percy had arrived at the appointed time to find no Mary. The first time she stood him up, she had rushed into the house wet and muddy from the beginning of the October rains and sent a note of apology, only to have one returned that Percy had gone to the office to catch up on paperwork. Miles had sat watching the situation from his chair by the fire, shaking his head as if she were the greatest fool to inhabit the earth. The second time she didn’t appear, Percy and Miles had collected Ollie and the three had gone to the country club to get drunk.

  Other nights, Percy wasn’t available. At the moment, the Warwick Lumber Company was negotiating new labor contracts in meetings that often lasted long into the night. This morning was the first time they’d been together, and they were on the verge of quarreling. She was not up to it. She was tired. She was always tired. She stood and laid aside the rose.

  “All I’m saying,” she said, attempting to mitigate her tone, “is that it would have been considerate of Miles to have stayed at least for a few months to help Sassie care for our mother. Mama would have liked that very much.”

  “Miles believed he hadn’t a few months to spare,” Percy said.

  “All the more reason he should have shared them with Mama.”

  “I see…,” Percy drew out, infuriating her further.

  She gritted her teeth. “What do you see, Percy? What do you see that I don’t?”

  He appeared to be undisturbed by her annoyance. “If your mother allowed you to spell Sassie, would you?”

  “That’s a moot question. You know she won’t have me in her room.”

  “But… what if she did? Who would receive your time—your mother or Somerset?”

  “We’re riding that old horse again, are we?”

  “I’m merely trying to get you to see that Miles has the same right to his choices as you do to yours.”

  Exasperated, she turned away to the fireplace, in need of its comforting warmth. Indian summer was over. A cold autumn had arrived, but feeling as she did, she’d have welcomed a fire on a summer day. Percy was saying that Miles was as entitled to his selfishness as she was to hers. They would never work out their differences. She was more convinced of that each day. She said with her back to him, clasping her elbows, “I regret more than you will ever know what’s happened to my mother, but none of us could have predicted she’d take the dispensations of my father’s will the way she has. If Papa had known she’d feel disgraced, he might have made different arrangements, but he had no idea.”

  “No idea? Then why did he ask Emmitt to give her one of these?”

  She whirled around. He held the rose aloft, a cape before a bull. She snatched it from his fingers. “That’s Toliver business! Please leave, Percy. I’m sorry I asked you to come.”

  “Mary, I—”

  “Get out!”

  “Mary, you’re tired and overwrought. Please… let’s talk this out….”

  “There’s nothing to talk out. Our dissimilarities are too great. I don’t want to be loved in spite of what I am, but because of it—which you seem to find impossible.”

  “I don’t give a damn what it seems.” Color flooded his face. “I love you, and that’s that. These disagreements have nothing to do with love.”

  “They do to me. Our deal is off!” She sailed past him into the hall. “And you’re bleeding,” she cast back. She’d noticed a small trickle of blood on his hand where he’d been pricked by the rose. “Kindly go tend to your wounds, and I’ll tend to mine.”

  He reached out helplessly. “Mary…”

  But she flew up the stairs, her heart aching, and was nearly at her mother’s room when she heard the front door close, its sound echoing the finality of her hope for them.

  A florist’s box containing a long-stemmed red rose arrived from Percy the next day with a note attached: “Forgive me. I’m a dolt for bringing up a touchy subject at such a time. You needed comfort, not criticism. I am sorry that I failed to show the love that I feel for you with all of my heart. Percy.”

  Mary responded with the last white rose in the garden. It was bedraggled from the recent rain, but it would convey her message. She sent it by Toby up the street to Warwick Hall with a note that read: “No need to ask forgiveness for speaking the truth as you see it. It proves the irreconcilable differences between us. Mary.”

  She expected him to roar up to the house or out at the plantation to refute her statement, but the Pierce-Arrow did not appear. She heard from Ollie the next evening that Percy had gone out of town on business.

  “Really?” she said. The news pierced her to the quick. They were chatting on the verandah after he’d spotted her sitting forlornly in the porch swing after everyone had gone to bed, the loneliest time of the day for her. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “No doubt with good reason. He’s heading to Oregon. The company’s bought timberlands there, and the loggers are causing problems. They’re mighty tough customers, but Percy can handle them. He didn’t want to worry you, but I thought you’d like to know.”

  Dear Ollie… ever the peacemaker between her and Percy. He had learned of their rift and must surely think his sacrifice had been for naught. “Thank you,” she said. “I won’t look for him for a while, then.”

  Bereft, she sat on the swing after he’d left. Two losses in one week, and there was no one left in her family to turn to for solace. She recalled when Granddaddy Thomas had died. It was as if a wall of her house had blown away and a cold wind were rushing in. After the funeral, her father had driven her out to the plantation in the late afternoon. It was almost picking time, and the fields were a blinding white. She was eleven years old, and she’d thought she’d burst from her grief. Her father had taken her hand, and together they had walked between the cotton rows, up one and down another, until the sun set. They had talked, as always, of cotton. Never did he mention death or sorrow, but in their clasped hands, their feelings met, flowed one into the other, and her grief was assuaged.

  How she would like in this moment to slip her hand into her father’s.

  The next week, she received a brief note from Lucy.

  I’m thinking of reapplying for that position at Bellington Hall at the end of the school year if old Peabody will have me back. As you may have heard (and predicted), Percy sent me packing the day after he came home. He is in love with someone else, somebody he says he’s loved all her life. Do you know who she is?No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’d be eaten up with jealousy. I imagine she’s all those things you told me he admired in a woman. I’m surprised you never mentioned her to me so that I wouldn’t have misspent my dreams thinking there was a chance for me. You tried your best to dissuade me, though. I’ll let you know my decision. In any event, I’ll probably not be seeing you again unless fate joins our paths. Best of luck, Lucy.

  Mary folded the note with a sense of guilt threaded with relief. Unless they married, it was unlikely now that her roommate would ever learn that she was the girl Percy had loved all her life. Katie bar the door if or when she did. Lucy would believe that she’d deliberately l
ied to her and—knowing Lucy—would live the rest of her life convinced she’d been betrayed.

  Upon Percy’s return three weeks later, he sent a note from his office. Mary read it eagerly, thinking its purpose was to state a time he’d drop by, but the quick scrawl was only to let her know he’d arrived safely and expected to be busy with sundry business obligations in the weeks to come. Disappointed, Mary could not resist an ironic chuckle. Now Percy knew what it was like to keep his nose to the family grindstone.

  A few days later, his duties increased when Jeremy suffered a serious head injury. Percy was forced to take charge of the company, overseeing interests now stretching into Oregon, California, and Canada. Even if they’d been seeing each other, Mary realized ruefully, he would have found it difficult to find space in his days and calendar to coordinate with her unpredictable routine. In a roundabout way, they’d been given the opportunity they owed themselves—the chance to see if they could live without each other. Apparently, they could.

  By the middle of November, things had wound down at Somerset. The fields were lying fallow under a blanket of snow, and the tenants and Mary enjoyed a respite from their labors. She turned down invitations to the DuMonts’ and Warwicks’ for Thanksgiving dinner, hoping her mother could be enticed downstairs to eat Sassie’s stuffed turkey, prepared with all the trimmings. She refused, so Mary and Sassie and Toby shared the holiday meal in the kitchen and sent a tray upstairs.

  Christmas proved as bleak and unfestive. Percy, who’d kept in touch through occasional notes (the Tolivers did not possess a telephone), invited her to attend the Christmas ball at the country club, but she begged off, writing that she had nothing to wear. “It wouldn’t matter if you wore a sack,” he wrote back, his script dark and strident. “You’d still be the most beautiful girl there.”

  In truth, she’d withdrawn entirely from society. She felt the weight of its judgment against her father for disregarding his wife—and against her for not making it right. Descriptions of herself as working in the fields “like a field hand” reached her ears. They angered and isolated her but strengthened her determination to restore the Toliver name to its former glory.