The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

by Susan Wittig Albert

  The town had come a long way since it was established (more or less accidentally) by Joseph P. Darling. Some 125 years before, he was on his way from Virginia with his wife, five children, two slaves, two milk cows, three old hens and a rooster, a team of oxen, and a horse. He was aiming to start a plantation somewhere along the Mississippi River and make a lot of money growing cotton.

  But Mrs. Darling had had enough. She put her foot down. “I am not ridin’ another mile in this blessed wagon, Mr. Darling,” she declared resolutely. “If you want your cookin’ and your washin’ done reg’lar, this is where you’ll find it. You can go on if you want, but the lit’le uns and me are not stirrin’ another step.” She is said to have added, “And we are keepin’ the chickens and the red cow—you can take the old black cow. She’s dry, anyway.”

  Mr. Darling looked around and saw that the gently rolling hills were covered with longleaf and loblolly pines, and that there were sweet gum and tulip trees growing in the creek and river bottoms, along with sycamore and magnolia and sassafras and pecan. There was wild game on the land and fish in the nearby Alabama River, and Andrew Jackson had already evicted the Creek Nation (which Lizzy had always thought was very cruel and unjust) so there was nobody to tell him that the land already belonged to somebody else. All told, Mr. Darling figured, this was a pretty good place—as good as he was likely to find anywhere. And anyway, he liked to eat every day and wear a clean shirt on Sundays and was mightily fond of Mrs. Darling and their little Darlings.

  So he built a big log cabin for his family and a very little log cabin for his slaves and a fair-sized log barn for the milk cows. Then he built a log hut and nailed a painted sign over the door: Darling General Store. Mr. Darling’s cousin followed him out from Virginia and built the Darling saw mill on Pine Creek. Another Darling cousin built the Darling grist mill just upstream, so that people could get their corn ground for corn pone. Then they planted cotton, and when their cotton fields began producing, they built a cotton gin and a cottonseed oil mill. Traffic on the nearby Alabama River began to build, with steamboats plying a weekly route between Montgomery and Mobile, stopping at plantations along the way to drop off supplies and pick up bales of cotton and other produce.

  But things began to change. The War (always spoken of in Darling with a capital W) put an end to slavery, thereby putting an end to the plantation system and substituting sharecropping instead. The Louisville & Nashville railroad, which by the 1800s ran from Kentucky all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, put an end to the steamboats, since trains were cheaper to operate than paddle wheelers, ran on time, and almost never blew up or hit a snag. Then the boll weevil came along and put a crimp in cotton.

  But by that time, the Darling city fathers had built a twenty-mile railroad spur connecting Darling to Monroeville and the L&N, and farmers and timber merchants could get their beef, poultry, and lumber to markets around the state, which made them—some of them, anyway—wealthy. The wealthier farmers and merchants got together and bought a large piece of land from the Little family. On it, they built the Cypress Country Club and Championship Golf Course, and then they bought property and built houses as close to the golf course as they could get. It was exclusive, and they liked that.

  Lizzy was thinking about all this as she swung off Country Club Drive and into the Kilgores’ circular driveway. Mildred and Roger lived with their young daughter, Melody, in a large plantation-style white house a short walk from the ninth green. As Lizzy rode up, she saw that Mildred’s car—a snazzy-looking 1932 blue Dodge Roadster with chrome wheels—was parked in front of the house. She gave it an envious glance. Mildred’s father’s money had set Roger up in the Dodge dealership, and Roger thought that letting his wife drive the latest model was good advertising.

  Lizzy leaned her bike against the wrought-iron fence, went up on the impressive plantation-style portico, and rang the brass doorbell. The door was opened by Mildred’s colored maid, Ollie Rose, dressed in a black uniform, spotless white apron, and perky white cap. Mildred had kitchen help, as well. The Kilgores were among the few Darlingians who could still afford to keep full-time servants.

  Lizzy followed Ollie Rose through the big house to the back veranda. There, Mildred was stretched out on a cushioned chaise longue, a pitcher of cold lemonade and two glasses on the glass-topped table, beside a large crystal bowl filled with plump, pillowy purple and blue hydrangeas.

  From the veranda, Lizzy could look out across Mildred’s camellia garden. It was planted around a rustic pergola and a native stone fountain, with a greenhouse off to one side. Lizzy knew that Mildred had spent a lot of money on her garden, and if there was a camellia anywhere in the world that she didn’t have, she would pay any price to get it. What’s more, she had a gardener who worked three days a week—full time during the annual December Home and Garden Tour. Many of her camellias were in bloom then, and people came from as far away as Montgomery to admire their spectacular beauty.

  Lizzy’s own garden was filled with pass-along plants that hadn’t cost her a red cent. But she could not really begrudge Mildred her garden or her gardener—or, for that matter, her stylish clothes or her big house and servants. Mildred had inherited a sizeable fortune from her father (one of those who had grown wealthy planting cotton) and Roger was a respectable Darling businessman. How the Kilgores chose to spend their money, Lizzy always told herself, was no business of hers.

  But her friendship with Mildred (which went all the way back to elementary school) was sometimes complicated by a few uncomfortable feelings of . . . well, envy. Lizzy wasn’t jealous of Mildred’s money and easy life, exactly. But she had to admit that every so often she felt a few sharp prickles of resentment. It usually happened when Mildred went out of her way to tell her about a Mediterranean cruise that she and Roger were planning or some extravagant trip they had taken to New York or Chicago or San Francisco.

  There hadn’t been much of that kind of talk lately, however. Mildred and Roger didn’t seem to travel together as much as they had in the past. But Mildred’s splendid camellias were a sight to behold, and Lizzy could never in the world bring herself to criticize somebody who spent her money on flowers.

  As Lizzy came up behind Mildred, she saw that her friend was reading a letter. Mildred glanced up, saw Lizzy, and hastily slipped the letter between the pages of a book that was open on her lap, her cheeks flushing a dull red. A plump, rather plain-looking woman, she had a too-high forehead, a too-long nose, and a receding chin. But she made up for her plainness by choosing expensive, smart-looking clothes and wearing them with panache. This evening, she was dressed in a yellow-and-red flowered cotton sundress with a flared skirt and perky bunny-ear straps that tied over her bare shoulders.

  “My gracious, Elizabeth Lacy,” she said in her usual Southern drawl. She closed her book with a solid thump. “Just look at you. You are sweatin’ like a field hand and your face is as red as a firecracker. You walked all the way here?”

  “Rode my bike,” Liz said, wiping the sweat off her cheeks with her forearm.

  “Serves you right, then,” Mildred said in a scolding tone. “All you had to do was ask and I would’ve driven over and picked you up. It is just too hot to go riding that bicycle of yours all over creation.” She looked down at her book as if to make sure that the letter wasn’t visible. Then she reached over and picked up the pitcher of lemonade. “You need to sit down and cool yourself off.”

  Mildred was sometimes sharp and critical, but it was just her way. Lizzy knew she didn’t mean it. She accepted the frosty glass of tart-sweet lemonade and settled back gratefully into a comfortable chair, wondering how to work her way around to the subject she had come to discuss.

  But Mildred took charge of the conversation. “Are you all set for the party? I suppose you’ll be coming with Grady, but you can tell that man from me that he has to wear a dinner jacket, or he will be turned away at the door. And what are you wearin’?
” She was talking faster and more nervously than usual.

  Without waiting for an answer to her question, she added, “I swear, Liz, I have just about worked my fingers to the bone getting ready for this party. I sent Melody off to stay with her aunt for the entire week. I just could not bear to have her underfoot. And of course Roger has not been one bit of help.” She spread out her fingers to indicate how bony they had become, and her diamond wedding and engagement rings glittered. “I am goin’ to be a complete wreck by Friday night. I have told myself that this will be the biggest and best party of the season. I will allow nothing to go wrong. Not one little-bitty thing.”

  If Mildred’s fingers were worked to the bone, Lizzy thought, they didn’t show it. But of course she didn’t say so. Stalling for time (she still hadn’t decided the best way to get around to the reason for her visit), she countered with her own question. “What are you going to wear, Mildred?”

  Mildred brightened. “Oh, thank you for askin’, Liz. I have the most marvelous new dress! It is emerald green silk, with a beaded bodice and shoes to match. I bought it at Bergdorf Goodman, on Fifth Avenue, especially for the party.” Her voice sounded tinny and she swallowed. “What did you say you’re wearing, Liz? Don’t forget—you’ll be in the spotlight. As the Dahlias’ president, you are presentin’ the Texas Star to Miss Dare.”

  Lizzy thought that Mildred spoke the last two words as if they were distasteful, but she only said, “It’s not a Texas Star. It’s a Hibiscus coccineus.” They both laughed. “I’m wearing my gray silk,” she added, and sighed, feeling briefly envious of Mildred’s Bergdorf Goodman dress. “It’s the only halfway decent thing I own.”

  Actually, the dress was rather pretty, the soft fabric cut on the bias and draped across the bodice and hip to show her slim figure to advantage. With it, she usually wore her grandmother’s antique silver earrings and the silver bracelet Grady had given her, back when he could afford things like that. She wore the dress often, but since she wasn’t usually invited to country club parties, it ought to do for this one.

  “To answer your other question,” she went on, “no, I’m not coming with Grady.”

  “You’re not?” Mildred raised both eyebrows. “Well, then, who are you comin’ with, Liz?”

  “Nobody,” Lizzy said with a sigh. “I’m coming by myself. I’m afraid it’s my own fault,” she added ruefully.

  “There’s got to be a story behind this,” Mildred said.

  There was a story—and it was indeed Lizzy’s fault, for two men had asked to take her to the party.

  One was Grady, of course, her more-or-less-steady boyfriend for the past three years, who fully expected her to marry him. Both her mother and Grady’s mother expected it, too. In fact, the last time Lizzy and Grady had gone to his mother’s house for Sunday dinner, Mrs. Alexander had casually commented that now that Mr. Alexander was gone, she was just rattling around in the big old place and that after the wedding, there was not a reason in the world they couldn’t come and live with her. Grady had said he thought this was a good idea—until Lizzy said she definitely didn’t.

  The other was Mr. Moseley.

  “Mr. Moseley asked to take you to the party!” Mildred sat forward, her eyes widening in surprise. “Mr. Benton Moseley, your boss? I must say, Liz, he’s quite a prize! Why in the world aren’t you comin’ with him, then? You couldn’t have been fool enough to turn him down. Could you?”

  “Not exactly,” Lizzy said.

  She sighed and went on with her tale. The problem was that over the past year, Grady had begun to take her pretty much for granted. He more or less assumed that they would go to the party together in the same way he assumed they’d get married and have three children and that Lizzy would give up her job and stay home to take care of them, just as his mother had done. So he hadn’t bothered to invite her. In fact, he hadn’t even mentioned the party, which led Lizzy to wonder whether he had been invited. For all she knew, Mildred was inviting (besides the Kilgores’ country club friends) only the Dahlias, and inviting them only because of the plant they were presenting to Miss Dare.

  “Well, of course Grady was invited,” Mildred put in crossly. “I wrote the invitation myself.”

  “I wish I’d known that,” Lizzy said. It was truly awkward, because she had been invited and because a properly brought up Southern girl did not ask a man to take her out, even a man whose mother was expecting to be her mother-in-law. Lizzy was very modern in some ways. She loved earning her own paycheck and living in her own house, she smoked occasionally, she drank when she felt like it (no matter that booze was illegal), and she didn’t mind necking in the front seat of Grady’s blue Ford, even going a little farther than necking when they were both in the mood.

  But she was old-fashioned in other ways, and not wanting to ask a man—even Grady Alexander—to go to a party with her was one of them. Even more, she was irritated by the fact that Grady was taking her for granted, not just as his date for the Kilgores’ party but as his soon-to-be spouse—although she had not agreed to be either one.

  And then, while she was mulling over these admittedly contradictory feelings, she found an entirely unexpected note on her desk the morning after Mr. Moseley had left for the Democratic convention in Chicago. The note, written in Mr. Moseley’s strong, sprawling hand, asked if Lizzy would go with him to the Kilgores’ party. He had been invited, of course, since he belonged to the country club.

  Mildred blinked. “My goodness gracious, Liz. You must have been surprised.”

  “Could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Lizzy confessed. She had been so stunned that she had sat at her desk for a full five minutes, looking down at Mr. Moseley’s invitation and wondering what to do.

  Not many of her friends knew it (certainly not Grady), but Benton Moseley held a special place in Lizzy’s heart. He was sweet and very good-looking, and when she had first gone to work for him and his father, she was smitten. He was just out of law school, bright and full of Southern charm. He had never been more than courteous and polite, but Lizzy (who had read too many dime-novel romances in which beautiful but penniless young women married wealthy and handsome young gentlemen and lived happily ever after) managed to conjure up endless fantasies about him. It was a serious crush and—unfortunately—a durable one. In fact, she continued to carry her secret torch right up to the point where Mr. Moseley had gotten himself married to a beautiful blond debutante from a wealthy Birmingham family.

  The marriage had not lasted long: just long enough to allow Lizzy to outgrow her adolescent crush and feel only a quiet, respectful warmth for Mr. Moseley and a genuine regret for the failure of his marriage. But as it happened, on the morning she found his invitation, she was feeling deeply annoyed at Grady. So when Mr. Moseley telephoned a little later to pick up his messages, she had told him she would be delighted to go to the Kilgores’ party with him.

  “That’s swell, Liz,” he had said, and she heard the pleasure in his deep, resonant voice. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “So am I,” she said, and found to her dismay that it was true. She really was looking forward to going to Mildred’s party with Mr. Moseley. And he had never seen her in that lovely gray dress.

  “Then why aren’t you coming with him?” Mildred demanded. “Did he change his mind? Did you?”

  “Well . . .” Lizzy said. Not twenty minutes after she had happily accepted Mr. Moseley’s invitation, Grady had stopped by the office to tell her that he had just learned that the Kilgores’ party was “black tie” and wanted to know what that meant. When she told him, he was pained.

  “A dinner jacket!” he growled. “Good grief, Liz. I haven’t worn a dinner jacket since college.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” Lizzy glanced at his working clothes: a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled high on tanned, strong arms, twill wash pants, a sweat-stained felt fedora pushed to the back
of his head, boots caked with barnyard mud. If it weren’t for that rakish fedora, he might have been a cowboy in one of Tom Mix’s Western movies. “You’re not exactly the black tie type, Grady.”

  “Damn right. I don’t even know if my old jacket will fit.” He sighed, a heavy, put-upon sigh. “I suppose you’ll be all dolled up. Do I need to buy you a corsage or something?” He paused, considering. “Say, how about if I pick you some lilies of the valley? My mother has some blooming beside her front porch. They’d look kinda nice on that gray dress of yours.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Grady,” Lizzy had said in her sweetest voice. “Mr. Moseley will take care of it.”

  “Mr. Moseley?” Grady scowled. He pulled down the corners of his mouth. “What the devil has Bent Moseley got to do with your flowers?”

  “Why, he’s taking me to the party,” Lizzy replied lightly. “You didn’t say a word about it. So when Mr. Moseley asked, I said I’d be glad to go with—”

  Grady stood up so fast that he knocked the chair over. “You are going to the Kilgores’ party with Benton Moseley?” he roared. When Lizzy said yes, she was, he said, well, that beat all he’d ever heard. He stomped out of the office, slamming the door so hard that Mr. Moseley’s great-grandfather tilted to one side on the wall.