by Pamela Morsi
"Listen to me," he insisted. "I admit that my motives were impure at the start. I admit that, Cessy. I was thinking of bettering myself, improving my life. I was thinking . . . well, I was thinking all wrong. But as time went on I realized that I genuinely cared for you. That I could be happy with you and that I could make you happy."
"You think that you could make me happy? What an incredible conceit! A liar. A cheat. A seducer. A fortune hunter! You think that kind of man would make me happy?"
"Cessy, we were happy," he said. "Think about this last week, we were intensely happy and we can be again."
"I think you've made fool enough of me, Tom Walker,” she said. "I cannot, I will not, listen to another word. Please leave."
"Cessy, please, I . . ."
"Do nqt persist in calling me by that ridiculous name. My name is Princess, but you will call me Miss Calhoun."
"Your name is not Calhoun, it is Walker," he said. "Mrs. Walker."
"Not for long," she snapped. "I am going to divorce you."
"Please don't . . ."
"Now get out of my sight."
"Cessy . . ."
"Must I have someone to throw you out? Do you want to make an uncouth scene on the day of your big triumph?"
"I don't give a damn about that. I only care about you."
"If you care about me as you claim," she said. "Then you will walk out of this room, out of this house, and out of my life forevermore."
Cessy turned her eyes from him. Unwilling to look at him once more. There was a long hesitation and then she heard him quietly close the door as he left her.
The evening meal did not go at all as well as many would have hoped. Without Cessy to tell everyone what to do and how to do it, chaos reigned, feelings were hurt, and the last to eat complained of cold food in insufficient quantities.
Cessy was much needed and much missed. But gossip burned faster than oil fires and everyone knew exactly why Miss Princess Calhoun was not there. Her new from-back-east husband, it had been revealed, was actually no other than their own Toolie Tom. It was more intriguing than a two-cent serial.
Cessy wanted only to be alone. To collect her thoughts and salve her wounds. She had only left the sun parlor after it became occupied by Mrs. Deadum and her injured son Lyst.
She couldn't go up to her bedroom, which was now occupied by Mr. Earlie and his family, and she was afraid to sit in the kitchen where the group of cooking women were intent upon quiet, speculative gossip, or upon the porch where it seemed everybody was watching.
She thought about seeking out Ma and Cedarleg, only to worry that perhaps he was staying in their tent.
With no place safe to sit or stay, Cessy grabbed up her parasol and left the house. It seemed the only solution when one's home was overrun with well-meaning people who love you.
He had lied to her. He had betrayed her trust. He had made a fool of her. And she had let it happen.
How could he have fooled her so easily? Only because she wanted to be fooled. Only because she wanted to believe that she had found the man of her dreams at last.
As she walked alone down the empty afternoon sidewalk, she recalled in painful, humiliated memory how she had thrown herself at him, right from the beginning. How she had worn her heart so fully upon her sleeve. How she had fallen in so eagerly with her own ruin.
She was certain that it was love at first sight, destined love, perfect love, and that he felt exactly as she had. It was pathetic. She was pathetic. And the worse place to be pathetic was in front of the person whom you care about most.
He must have laughed at her. He must have laughed and laughed at how gullible and malleable she was.
Plain, bossy Princess, she always tells everybody what to do. But if you spark her a little bit, give her a few kisses, you can make her dance to your own tune.
She might have lived with the humiliation, the public embarrassment, even the scandal. But how could she live with the knowledge of what it felt to love him and then never to love again?
Tears sprang to her eyes. How could she stand it? How would she stand it?
The horn on the Packard honked loudly, startling her as it pulled up beside the curb. She almost screamed in frustration. Why couldn't she have time for herself? Surely she had earned a good cry.
"You need a ride, Princess?" her father asked. "Get on in here."
"I'd rather walk," she told him.
He nodded. "And I'd rather just keep on driving and come back when all your troubles have settled themselves out on their own. But I'm your father and you're my daughter, and I guess we're going to have to figure this thing out as best that we can."
With a sigh of resignation, Cessy agreed and took a seat in the Packard.
"How's the fire?" she asked him.
"It's out, pretty much. We got a small crew up there watching for flare-ups, but the oil has been drained out considerably. Once we let the dang thing cool off, we'll be storing in there again, I suppose."
She nodded.
They drove in silence a bit further. At the far edge of town he pulled to a stop under the shade of a huge oak at the side of the road. They sat silently together for a few moments merely listening to the drone of bees and the wind rustling through the trees.
"I know you just found out about this, Cessy," King said. "And it's sure hard to think about at first."
"How long have you known?" she asked him.
"Since the middle of last night, I guess," he said. "You know, he could have kept his secret."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he could have stayed home, like he did the day the ’P’ came in. Or even when he got there, he could have held himself back, blended into the background. There were so many people there and so much going on. Nobody would have noticed him too much. I even told him myself to go back and help you. He could have done that and kept the secret."
"Maybe so," she said.
"But he didn't," King said. "He knew he had something to offer. He knew that he could help and he was willing to do so. If he had not helped, at best all that oil would be flowing down the river right now, or at worst it would still be burning and maybe another sump on fire by now. Bad for us, but for him . . . well, no one would know that Gerald Crane was really Tom Walker."
"Tom Walker." Cessy repeated the name.
In memory she could hear his voice in their bedroom, so soft and dear. I was named for Francis Amasa Walker.
"He was going to tell me anyway," Cessy said. "He'd already tried at least once."
Her father raised an eyebrow at that and nodded appreciably.
"That's in his favor then, Princess," he said. "That's much in his favor."
"He believed I wouldn't notice an ordinary man like Tom Walker," she said. "He thought that it would take a fancy man like Gerald Crane to attract my attention."
"Guess he didn't know you too well in the beginning," her father admitted.
"I suppose I really didn't give him a chance to," she admitted. "It was love at first sight for me. I knew that he was the one the minute I saw him. I . . . oh, that was just such foolishness."
"Foolishness?" Her father tutted in disagreement. "Princess, I've always known you to be as levelheaded and strong-minded a woman as I've ever met. You are a lot like me. And I have to admit I've always been proud of that. But in this you are like me, too. And I can't help but speak against it."
"What are you talking about?"
"Love, Princess," he said. "The kind of love that hits you from clear across a room and knocks you for a loop. That's so rare, it's so very rare. This fellow is not at all what you thought he was and your marriage is not at all what you thought it was going to be. But Princess when you meet someone and violins start playing in the back of your head, I don't think a reasonable person should ignore that."
"Oh, Daddy," she said. "What if he is simply not the right man? What if he is a liar, a cheat, a seducer, and a fortune hunter?"
King looked thoughtful
and shook his head.
"I'm not sure if I can tell you for certain," he said. "I was in love once, like that. And she was the wrong woman. She'd lived a hard life and had a shady reputation. She made no secret of her past and I knew it as well as anybody. Marriage to her would have done nothing to enhance the image of King Calhoun and in fact, she might have even tarnished it a little. She was not at all the kind of woman I'd have chosen for a wife. But when I was with her, Princess, I was happy. And when I looked at her and knew that she was mine, I was proud."
"But you walked away from her?"
"I did," he said. "And I would be remiss as a father if I didn't tell you honestly that I regret it."
"Oh, Daddy, maybe it's not too late," she said.
"It may well be," he answered. "Things were said, words meant to wound that can't never be taken back. I don't know if it's ever possible to get the milk back in the bottle. But yours ain't spilt yet, Princess. It's teetering for certain. But it ain't seeping along the floor. I'd hate for you to be so hasty like your father that next week or next month or next year you'll be sitting around regretting the way that I am."
"I don't know, Daddy," she said. "I trusted him so. I believed in him so. And now I think I might never be willing to trust him again."
"Trust is important," he agreed. "Trust is very important, maybe as important as love. But trust can be gained and trust can be earned. Love is either there or it's not. And when it's not, all the trust in the world is empty without it."
"I do love him," she said. "I can't seem to help that. But I can't just placidly agree to still be his wife."
"In honesty, Princess, I'm having a hard time being angry with him about this," her father admitted. "Oh, I don't like him lying to you none. But in truth I think that Tom Walker is a man much more suited to your nature than some fancy eastern blueblood."
"He married me for my money, Daddy," she said angrily.
King Calhoun chuckled. "Then the joke's on him, ain't it. 'Cause without a refinery we are flat busted, and that's a fact."
Cessy turned to look at him. Her eyes widening in appreciation.
"You're right Daddy, that is a fact. It is really indisputably a fact," she said.
She was quiet, thoughtful, and staring sightlessly into space.
"Lord, Princess," her father complained. "I can hear the gears clanking in your brain clear over this way."
"Daddy, I have to talk to him," she said. "You'd better take me home. No, no there is no place at home where we can talk. Take me someplace where we can talk."
"Where?"
"I don't know, but turn the car around. We've got to go back and get him."
"He ain't at the house," King said.
"He's not there?"
"You told him to go away, so he did."
"But where did he go?"
"Out to that Indian School, that's where he said he was going, though I doubt he's had time to walk all the way out there."
"Get out, Daddy, I'm taking the car," she ordered.
Her father did as he was bid but looked at her askance. "Princess, you don't know how to drive an automobile."
"Oh, Daddy, you know me, when I set my mind to it, I can do anything."
Chapter 21
Tom had not had time to make it all the way to the school. Cessy, who had lurched and sputtered all the way down the river road, came to an abrupt halt beside him, not a half mile from the Shemmy Creek turn off.
His eyes alighted with hope at the sight of her in the Packard, but she wasn't ready to give him hope yet.
"Get in," she ordered.
Without question he followed her instruction.
"I didn't know you are an auto driver," he said.
"There's a lot of things you don't know about me," she said as she took her foot off the clutch, causing the car to jerk forward, nearly knocking Tom dramatically into the windshield.
He put his hands upon the door and the dash to brace himself as several more lurches ensued, but then the annoying Packard sort of got its footing and went barreling down the road once more.
Cessy glanced over at him. He looked handsome, dashing, as desirable as ever. He looked strong, forceful, masculine. She marveled that she had ever believed him to be the delicate gentleman that was Gerald Crane.
He also looked tired. She was tired, too. They'd been awake for nearly thirty-six hours. The best decisions were probably not made under those conditions. Deliberately she kept that in mind.
She careened the Packard to a stop at the special place, thfc picnic place. She got out and began walking into the cool glade without so much as a word or glance back.
Cessy heard him hurrying after her, but she refused to wait on him. She refused to take any notice.
This was their place. It was a place so dear to her. It was where he had asked her to wed him. He had claimed to be in love with her, but it was the love of money that had fueled their rush to the altar. Now it was to be the lack of money that would save their marriage.
It took her a few moments to find the rock, but she did and she knelt down to put her hand upon it.
"Still cold?" he asked as he came up beside her.
Slowly she looked up at him.
"Someone told me that there is an underground spring here," she said. "A small river of cold water just below the surface."
"Someone told you?" His gaze was questioning.
"Gerald told me," she said, more specifically.
He shook his head.
"No, not Gerald," he said. "Gerald couldn't have told you that. Because he wouldn't have known. He's lived all his life inside, warm and protected. It was Tom who was with you at this place before. It was Tom who got you Queen Anne's lace and cattails. This is Tom's place."
"And who am I here with this evening?" she asked.
He smiled at her. "With your husband, of course."
She nodded.
"My husband, who married me for my money."
He did not reply. He sat down on the grass across from her and took her hand in his own. It was warm, so very warm. A stark contrast to the coldness of the rock.
She broke from his grasp and lay her hand on the cool surface of the stone once more.
"Do you know that wealth can be like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like your underground creek," she said. "Wealth can be hidden from view. Sometimes the people that you would never believe have money have it in cartloads. And the people that you think are rich as Croesus turn out to be surprisingly insolvent."
"Yes, I suppose that's true."
"And that's what has happened," she said.
Tom nodded. "Yes, I guess so. As Gerald, I appeared to be quite wealthy and in fact I had nothing."
"Oh I wasn't thinking of you, or of Gerald," she said. "I was thinking of myself," she said.
He was sitting cross-legged in the grass, a sprig of broomsedge extending from the corner of his lips.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, you see, you seem to think that you married a very wealthy woman and that you will get to live in luxury all your life. You see those big oil wells coming in and you think they are money in the bank. But they are not at all."
"I don't understand what you're saying."
"King Calhoun looks very prosperous, very wealthy. It's how an oil man must look if he ever expects to have backers. Backers are one of the most key elements to success in the oil business. Even Sinclair or Rockefeller cannot amass enough money for a project like this on their own."
"I suppose not," Tom agreed.
"Certainly it is a good thing to strike oil. And we do have all of that flowing into those sump tanks. But without a way to process it, it's worthless."
"Worthless?''
Cessy looked at him and shook her head. "You may be Toolie Tom, the hero of the day," she said. "But I'm afraid that you still have a lot to learn about the oil business."
"I'm sure I do," he agreed.
"Cr
ude oil, the so-called black gold that we get out of the ground, has no value in itself," she said. "It has to be refined into products. Mostly we use it to make lamp and heating oil, although if those contraptions like my father's Packard really catch on like he thinks they will, it can be used to make gasoline."
"I agree with your father," Tom said. "It's clear that the internal combustion engine is the future and it runs on gasoline."
"Perhaps so," Cessy agreed. "But that is the future and this is the present. Did you ever wonder why no other oil company has come to Topknot?"
Tom's brow furrowed thoughtfully.
"I guess I never thought about it," he admitted.
"It looks very strange here, you know, if you've been to Jackson or Corsicana or Spindletop," she said. "At all the other major fields, and I truly do believe this one is going to be major, there are a half-dozen oil companies cramped up against each other, trying to drill out of the same zone."
"This is my first oil field," Tom told her. "How would I know that? But it's better, isn't it, if your father controls all the oil here?"
She nodded.
"Yes," she agreed. "It's theoretically better. But the reason that no one else is here is not because no one but my father thinks that there is oil here. It's because there is no refinery in this area and no pipeline to one at all."
Tom began to twirl the sprig of broomsedge in the corner of his mouth as if pondering deeply.
"Unfortunately for Topknot and Burford Corners, there is no way to get the crude oil from the well to anyplace that can make it into something usable and marketable."
"Then why did your father drill here?" he asked.
"Because he believed that there was oil here and he believed that he would get the financing to build his own refinery. That is what he wanted. To be first and to own the refinery and therefore to control the field."
Tom nodded with appreciation. "It sounds like a good strategy," he said.
"Yes, I think it was a good strategy," she said. "But it was a risk. And a risk that has not paid off. Daddy has not been able to get the financing. He has gone to virtually every oil-friendly bank in the country and been turned down again and again. The banks believe that there is more than enough oil in production already. The supply of it currently exceeds the demand. And that bringing new fields into production will only drive down the value of the fields that they are already invested in."
