The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

by Susan Wittig Albert

  But she couldn’t help feeling sad for Ophelia, who was always so cheerful and never had a bad word to say about anybody. And for Ralph, who had met Lucy at a church social when she came over from Atlanta to visit her aunt Rachel. He’d been so smitten that he’d proposed to her inside a week, and they were married so fast it made everybody’s head swim. Lizzy wondered whether Lucy had known what she was getting into. The Murphy place was a bit ... well, primitive, especially for a girl who was raised in Atlanta, with all those modern things—electricity and flush toilets and trolley cars. And Ralph’s boys were in their teens and sassy, since they hadn’t had a mother for as long as they could remember. She wouldn’t be surprised if Lucy gave it up and went back to Atlanta.

  Verna took an apple out of her bag. “So,” she said, changing the subject. “Anybody go to the picture show this weekend?”

  She nodded across the street, where the marquee of the Palace Theater announced a double bill. Applause (a talkie starring Helen Morgan), paired with Tarzan the Tiger. Tarzan was a silent film, so Don Greer, who owned the theater, hired Mrs. LeVaughn to play the piano. The younger people like the talkies but the older folks said they liked it better when Mrs. LeVaughn played the piano and the actors and actresses didn’t talk, leaving more to the imagination. In an effort to please both audiences, Mr. Greer usually tried to book one talkie and one silent.

  “Haven’t been yet,” Lizzy replied. “Grady and I are going on Friday night.” Grady Alexander, according to Lizzy’s mother, was her “steady beau” and she couldn’t understand what was keeping them from getting engaged. According to Lizzy, Grady was just a very good friend. According to Grady—well, Lizzy knew he’d been hoping for more since they started seeing each other the year before. But she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

  “I went,” Bunny said enthusiastically. “And let me tell you, Helen Morgan was just so swell—I cried buckets! My hankie was drippin’, it was so wet.” She wrung out an imaginary hankie. “And I always love Jane. She’s kidnapped in this one, and Tarzan loses his memory when he’s hit on the head. But he finally remembers who he is and rescues her, just in time.” She rolled her eyes and heaved a Helen Morgan sigh. “What I need is a Tarzan to come and rescue me, y’know? Take me out of this dull little burg. Nothing excitin’ ever happens here.”

  “What about the prison farm escape?” Lizzy asked. “That’s pretty exciting.”

  “Pretty scary, too,” Verna said. “Myra May says that the switchboard’s been jammed all morning with people calling and wanting to know if the escapee has been caught”

  Bunny shook her blond head disdainfully. “No, I’m talkin’ real excitement. Whoopee, y’know? Music and lights and dancin’ and people having fun.” Another sigh, longing and wistful. “And men. Real men, I mean. Not like the country yokels around this place. They’re just old flat tires.”

  “Maybe you ought to get on the bus and go down to Mobile,” Verna suggested, in a practical tone.

  “Or New York,” Bunny replied. “I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout that a lot, y‘know. This isn’t the first job I’ve had in cosmetics. I worked for a really classy drugstore in Monroeville until they had to cut back and I got laid off.” She fluffed her hair with her fingers. “Why, with my training and experience, not to mention my looks, I bet I’d get a job on Fifth Avenue faster’n you c’n say scat. It would be a whole lot more fun than workin’ for ol’ Lester Lima.” She made a face. “He ain’t always the gentleman he seems to be, y’know.”

  Lizzy was about to ask what she meant by that, but Verna spoke up, in a cautioning tone. “I wouldn’t bank on getting a job in New York, Bunny. Times are pretty tough. Maybe tougher there than here. Lots of people are out of work. Don’t you read the newspaper? Folks are lined up just to get a bowl of soup.”

  Bunny pushed her lipsticked mouth into a pout. “Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket, Verna. A girl’s gotta have a little fun in life, don’t she? An’ there sure as shootin’ ain’t no fun in this burg.”

  “Well, then, do it, Bunny,” Verna said, with a shrug. “Go on. Try your luck in New York. See if you can beat the odds.”

  Bunny sniffed. “Y’know, I might jes’ do that, Miss Smarty-Pants.” Having delivered this telling blow, she scrambled to her feet and flounced off, hips swaying.

  “Silly girl,” Verna said, shaking her head ruefully. “Young and silly.”

  “But you like her anyway,” Lizzy said, and chuckled.

  “Yes, I do,” Verna said candidly. “She has a lot of energy, and she wants more than most people want—or maybe she just wants it harder. Going to New York is probably a mistake, but I guess everybody’s got a lesson to learn.” She grinned. “With her looks, I doubt she’ll starve.”

  Lizzy stood up and brushed the grass clippings off the skirt of her blue print dress. “Speaking of going, I’d better get back to work.”

  “I’ll walk you,” Verna offered, and the two Dahlias went across the street together.

  “This business about Jed Snow and Lucy Murphy,” Lizzy said, going back to the subject that most concerned her. “Do you think we should say anything to Ophelia?” She paused. “The thing is, if people are talking and Ophelia doesn’t know anything, she’ll feel even worse when she finally hears it.” She hesitated, feeling torn. “But maybe she won’t hear anything. Maybe Jed will come to his senses and start behaving himself.”

  Verna chuckled ironically. “You’ve seen Lucy Murphy. Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

  Lizzy thought about it. Lucy had the tiniest waist she had ever seen on a person, plus the most beautiful, naturally curly red hair and the creamiest skin. And she couldn’t be a day over twenty-two. Whereas Ophelia was round and dumpy and...

  She sighed. “So you think we should tell her?”

  “I’m not sure we have to,” Verna said mysteriously. “Myra May called last night, to ask me to go next door and tell Mr. Norris that Buddy’d broken his arm. She happened to mention it was Lucy who telephoned Jed, asking him to come out”

  “So?” Lizzy asked, puzzled.

  “So after Myra May hung up, I stayed on the line and counted. Four clicks. The Snows are on my party line. Somebody at Ophelia’s house was listening.”

  “Ophelia?” Lizzy hazarded.

  “Who knows?” Verna replied. “Jed might’ve been home by that time. But yes, it could have been Ophelia.”

  “So I guess we just wait, then,” Lizzy said. She felt relieved.

  “I guess,” Verna said quietly. She took Lizzy’s arm. “Listen, Lizzy, there’s something else I need to tell you. Beatty Black stone came into the probate office this morning. He wanted to see the plat record for the three hundred block of Camellia.”

  Lizzy felt immediately apprehensive. “Did he say why?”

  “Nope. Just asked for the plat. When he was gone, I had a look for myself. It’s interesting, the way they carved up the old Cartwright property when it was divided into lots and sold, back in 1890. Camellia Street was just a two-rut country road back then, running along the front of the Cartwright grounds. From the old plat, it looks to me like the lane that went to the mansion came right through where Dahlia Blackstone’s house now stands.”

  “That makes sense,” Lizzy said. She frowned. “I wonder what Beatty was after. I don’t trust that man, Verna. He’s ... underhanded.”

  “Underhanded!” Verna hooted. “Lizzy, you’re too kind. He is devious and dishonest, and I’m not at all surprised that Mrs. Blackstone didn’t want him to have her house, especially since he’s not her blood relative. Mrs. Newman—she’s two doors down from me—says that when her husband got Beatty to work on that Nash of theirs, he charged them twice what they would’ve paid in Mobile. What’s more, he only did half the job. They had to get somebody else to finish it.”

  “I just wish I knew why he wanted to see that plat book,” Lizzy said thoughtfully. “I know that Mrs. Blackstone’s house belongs to the Dahlias now, but somehow I keep feeling that
there’s another shoe out there somewhere, waiting to drop.” And as if on cue, the clock in the courthouse struck one, a hollow, ringing bong.

  Back at work, the long afternoon, warm and sleepy and always slower than the mornings, dragged on. Lizzy felt like she wasn’t hitting on all four cylinders, as Grady liked to say. The law office was on the second floor of the Dispatch building, so when the windows were open, there was usually a bit of a breeze, which brought with it sounds and smells from all along the street. From downstairs came the staccato clackclickity-clack of Charlie Dickens’ typewriter. Next door on the west, tied to the rail in front of Hancock’s Groceries, a horse whinnied—many of the farmers still drove horses and wagons when they came into town to trade butter and eggs and cream for sugar, flour, coffee, and tea. And from the direction of the Darling Diner, next door on the east, came the rich, sweet smell of stewing chicken. Euphoria, the diner’s cook, always made chicken and dumplings on Mondays. Meat loaf, too, but meat loaf wasn’t as aromatic as stewed chicken. The aroma of chicken was overlaid with the scent of warm dust stirred up in the street and the floral perfume of blooming magnolias from the trees around the courthouse.

  Lizzy had a small electric fan beside her desk, but the air was heavy and the fan didn’t do much to cool her off There was still some coffee in the percolator on the gas hot plate in the corner, so she poured a cup to wake herself up, then finished the filing and a few other tasks for Mr. Moseley, who was out of the office for the afternoon. With nothing else to be done, she put a sheet of paper into the Underwood typewriter and began to work on Friday’s piece for “The Garden Gate.”

  Lizzy had been writing the column since Mrs. Blackstone started the garden club five years ago, and it had attracted quite an audience. It wasn’t just garden club news, of course, although there was always lots of that, because club members liked to see their names in print. It also included notes about the plants in local gardens, or wild plants from the woods and fields and streams roundabout. After a while, she decided that readers of the Dispatch must be sending clippings to their friends, because she started getting letters from all over—not just from Alabama, but from Florida and Georgia and Mississippi—asking gardening questions or telling her what they knew about the plants she had written about, or correcting her mistakes, of which there were plenty. The subject was complicated and she was no expert, so she always welcomed readers’ additions and corrections. Sometimes they sent her seeds and bulbs, too, which was nice. She would grow them, or try to, and take photographs to send to the donors.

  This week’s column was what she called a “potpourri,” since it was a collection of short items she had been saving. She was not quite half done with her draft when the tall grandfather clock at the top of the stairs cleared its throat and struck the half hour. Four thirty, and time to go home. She put her work away and straightened her desk, covered the typewriter, checked Mr. Moseley’s office to be sure that everything was shipshape and ready for the next morning, and left, locking the door behind her, both at the top of the stairs and at the bottom, on the street.

  Home was only a few blocks away. East on Franklin outside the Dispatch building, past the diner and Musgrove’s Hardware, across Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, and left on Davis. Halfway up the block, heading north, she reached her house. Her very own house.

  She was turning up the path when she heard a shrill, quavering “Eliz’beth!” It was her mother, of course, calling from her front porch on the other side of the dusty, unpaved street. She was sitting in her rocking chair, her knees covered with a crocheted granny afghan. “Eliz’beth, Grady stopped by ‘bout an hour ago. He left somethin’ for you. A glass jar of somethin’. On the porch, right there beside the door.”

  “Thank you, Momma,” Lizzy called, and waved, thinking once again that life would be much easier if she had a sister or two, or at least a brother.

  No such luck. Her mother had been nearly forty when Lizzy was born. Her father had died when she was a baby, and Mrs. Lacy had lavished all her attention on her only child. For the first ten years, this was a privilege Lizzy had enjoyed. Mrs. Lacy loved to sew, so her daughter was always dressed in the prettiest dresses, organdies and sheer cottons, always white, with ribbons and embroidery. Lizzy’s Mary Janes were always spotlessly white and polished. Her brown-gold hair was twisted up in rags every night so she could have bouncy banana curls.

  But as Lizzy got older, her mother’s fussing began to feel oppressive, to the point where it seemed that every action she took, every moment of her life, was watched, evaluated, criticized, and managed. When she was eighteen, fired by the desire to leave her mother’s house, she had said an overeager “yes” to Reggie Morris and accepted the engagement ring he gave her. She began looking forward to having her own home and husband and children to take care of. In the meantime, when Reggie signed up to fight, she got a job at Moseley & Moseley and tried to learn how to wait.

  But Reggie hadn’t come back from France with the rest of the 167th Infantry. It had taken Lizzy a while to get over that, and then she had started carrying a torch for Mr. Moseley. That took a while to burn itself out, and by the time he married Adabelle, Lizzy was well on her way to spinster-hood. To her surprise, she found she didn’t mind that much-maligned state very much at all. What she minded was living at home with her mother and being thoroughly managed. Why, she couldn’t even have a cat, because her mother was allergic. As to a dog, that was out of the question, too. Dogs barked. It was becoming increasingly obvious (as her mother liked to say) that “a son is a son ’til he takes a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter all her life.”

  Which was why, two summers ago, Lizzy did something highly unusual, at least by Darling’s standards. Old Mr. Flagg had lived for many years across the street from her mother. When he died, Lizzy bought his white frame house, with sunflowers and raspberries in the backyard and a profusion of roses on the trellis and a little vegetable plot and a fence covered with butterbean vines. Mr. Moseley was in charge of handling Mr. Flagg’s estate for the old man’s out-of-town heirs. Lizzy was able to purchase the house privately, before Mr. Manning, the local real estate dealer, could get in on the act and add his percentage. She didn’t tell her mother, or anybody else, for that matter.

  Lizzy had been saving five or six dollars a week since she had started working, so she was able to pay cash for the small house. She even had enough money left to get the old place repainted and wired for electricity (Mr. Flagg had liked his coal oil lamps). The work was done under the watchful eye of a local contractor whom Mr. Moseley had privately hired for her. When it was almost finished, Lizzy took the train to Mobile and treated herself to a new Tappan gas range and a GE Monitor-top refrigerator with coils on top, as well as a few items of necessary furniture, and arranged to have them delivered and installed. She didn’t tell her mother about any of this, either.

  All of this repair and refurbishment went on while Lizzy was at work. When she came home every evening, her mother couldn’t wait to tell her in great detail what had been done during the day. The entire neighborhood was buzzing with curiosity, for no one except Verna (who had recorded the deed but was sworn to secrecy) had the slightest idea of who had bought the old Flagg house and was fixing it up. Not even Mr. Manning could provide a clue, which was nearly driving him crazy. It was a huge mystery.

  All through that summer, the house was her mother’s most significant topic of conversation. It had to’ve been bought by somebody from out of town, Mrs. Lacy decided—one of Mr. Flagg’s large family of cousins, or somebody who had visited the house years before and liked it. But why hadn’t the buyer come to see the work that was being done? And why wouldn’t Mr. Moseley say a word—not a single, solitary word—about the purchaser? People had asked him, several times, and he had refused. Why? Why? Why?

  All these questions were answered on the day the work was finally finished. Lizzy came home one evening bringing the key. She invited her mother to go with her across the stree
t to see the house. This was natural enough, since Mr. Moseley had handled the Flagg estate, and Lizzy worked for him. Her mother was delighted to be let in on the process. They walked all through the house and yard, Mrs. Lacy oohing and ahhing over everything and expressing her delight at the renovations and her continuing puzzlement at who in the world could have done all this.

  They were standing in the new kitchen, admiring the Monitor refrigerator, when Lizzy told her mother that it was her house, and that she herself would be moving into it that very week. And yes, that sweet, affectionate orange tabby cat sitting comfortably on the windowsill, beside the pot of African violets, was her cat. Both were gifts from Aunt Hetty Little, who always had cats and African violets to spare. The tabby’s name was Daffodil—Daffy, for short.

  Her mother was so flabbergasted that it took a moment for the news to sink in. But when it did, she was mightily offended. There were tears and surprisingly loud recriminations, given the fact that the kitchen window was open and a Southern lady (Mrs. Lacy was a Southern lady to the core) rarely raised her voice, at least not loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

  But she had a right to raise her voice over this issue, didn’t she? In Mrs. Lacy’s generation, marriage was the only reason a woman ever left her mother’s house, so she had happily embraced the notion that her spinster daughter—now past marriageable age—would never leave her, and would always be available to be managed. And now this! She (Mrs. Lacy) had devoted her whole life to Elizabeth, and how was she to be repaid? Why, by thanklessness and ingratitude, that’s how!

  Well, Elizabeth could just sell the house—that’s what she could do. Now that it was fixed up so nice and furnished and all, and especially with that refrigerator, it would sell in a jiffy, and at a tidy profit. Or maybe it would be better to move the refrigerator across the street. Yes, that’s what they should do. Sell the house, but keep the refrigerator. And the kitchen range, too. And if it didn’t sell, Elizabeth could rent it. Why, just think of the income! They could afford to take a trip—go to Atlanta and see the sights, or add a room to Mrs. Lacy’s house. They could do great things with the income the house would bring in every month!