Roses (11 page)

To her relief, Mary heard the porter pick up her luggage in the hall, but the headmistress was not yet through with her. As
Mary pulled on her gloves, she continued. “I understand that the lusty heirs of your ruling families will be going to war.
Let us hope that fate will be kind and spare them to perpetuate their lines. However, from what I have read of the trench
warfare in Europe, there is reason to doubt its beneficence. Should the young men be lost”—the headmistress touched her cheek
in feigned horror—“there will not be much of a pool from which to make a choice, will there?”

Mary felt herself grow pale. The images that had haunted her since hearing of the boys’ enlistment flashed through her mind.
She saw their bodies lying in pools of blood on some godforsaken battlefield, Miles sprawled like a scarecrow, Percy’s blond
head forever still, the light eternally snuffed from Ollie’s twinkling eyes.

She opened her handbag, a small beaded affair with a tortoiseshell frame, one of her last purchases from the DuMont Department
Store. “Here is the key to my room,” Mary said without a trace of regret. “That should do it, Miss Peabody. I have a train
to catch.”

Mary expected to be called back as she sailed from the room. It would be so like the witch to conjure up some reason to detain
her—a fee not paid, a trumped-up damage charge, a lost book. Apparently, the headmistress was as happy to be rid of her as
she of Bellington Hall, and she fled unassailed down the hall to the stairwell and freedom.

At the bottom of the stairs, she found Samuel, the porter, waiting for her. He greeted her with a gold-toothed grin. “I knowed
you be anxious to leave, Miss Mary. A cab, it be on the way. How long it be since you been home?”

“Too long, Samuel.” She handed him a nickel tip with a grateful smile. “Have you seen Miss Lucy?”

“She be up the Hill. Went that way ’bout twenty minutes ago.”

“The Hill?” Mary cried. “Why would she go now, of all times?” The Hill was the campus post office, so called because it sat
on a rise of land a good trek away. Lucy never received mail of her own but insisted on accompanying Mary when she checked
her box in case there should be news of Percy.

A horse-drawn cab rattled through the wide wrought-iron gates. “Here be your ride, Miss Mary,” Samuel announced, and thoughts
of Lucy blew away like the dust beneath the coach’s wheels.

“Thank goodness!” Mary exclaimed.

Samuel had loaded her luggage and was about to help her into the two-seater cab when a familiar voice called, “Mary! Mary!
Samuel, stop that cab!”

“It’s Miss Lucy,” Samuel said unnecessarily.

Mary sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

She watched the petite figure run toward her, holding up the full skirt of her outmoded dress, and felt the nick of annoyance
followed by the flash of guilt often associated with Lucy Gentry—annoyance because the girl had attached herself like a leech
since the first day she’d arrived at Bellington Hall, and guilt because she was the only schoolmate besides Amanda who had
been friendly toward her. Aggravated, she faced the girl. “Why did you choose to go to the post office when you know I have
a train to catch?”

“To get this.” Lucy waved an envelope before Mary’s face. “Go ahead and get in. I’m coming with you. Samuel, call Mr. Jacobson
and have the milk truck swing by the station to pick me up, will you?”

“Miss Peabody goin’ to have yo’ hide,” Samuel warned.

“Who gives a damn,” Lucy said, pushing Mary into the coach and gathering her skirts to clamber in behind her.

With ill grace, Mary made space for her voluminous-skirted roommate. “What is that?” she asked, indicating the envelope.

Dramatically, Lucy withdrew a folded letter. “What you have here is my acceptance for employment. You are looking at the new
freshman French teacher at Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas.”

Mary caught her inner lip between her teeth to keep from betraying her chagrin. Secretly, she’d hoped Lucy would not get the
position. Belton was only a half day’s train ride from Howbutker, and she would become a nuisance. Weekends, while Mary was
busy restoring order to Somerset and seeing after her mother, Lucy would expect to be put up at Houston Avenue. Mary would
feel differently if her roommate visited out of fondness for her, but they both knew that was not the case. Lucy suffered
from a ridiculous, insane crush on Percy, inspired by the one time they had met. Mary was her link to Percy, and Mary Hardin-Baylor
was a means to Warwick Hall.

“I don’t understand,” Mary said. “Why do you want the job now that Percy will be leaving for the army? Hasn’t Miss Peabody
offered you a better-paying position here?”

“What more convenient place to wait out Percy’s return?” Excitement lit Lucy’s summer blue eyes. “This way, I’ll be close
to Houston Avenue. I’ll get to see him when the army lets him come home for a few days between the fighting. You
will
have me down, won’t you… when he comes home on leave?” She batted her stiff, straight lashes that followed the circular line
of her lids like a doll’s.

The presumption of the girl! Mary thought, struggling to hide her annoyance. What made her think Percy would want to see her?
“Lucy, the boys are going to France. I doubt very seriously if any of them will be sent home, over the ocean, for a few days’
leave. They may be gone until the war ends.”

Lucy thrust out her lower lip and stuffed the letter back into its envelope. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I can still come for
visits and walk down the street to his house and blow kisses that will find their way into his room, his bed…”

“Oh, Lucy…”

“Don’t take that moaning tone to me, Mary Toliver. Those are the kinds of things that will bring him back. I
know
they will!” Lucy’s small, dimpled hands clenched, and the porcelain purity of her complexion became mottled with the heat
of her intensity. “I’m going to confession every day and light a candle for his safe return as well. I will say fifty Hail
Marys every night and give a tenth of my salary to the church so that the priest will say a special mass for Percy—and for
your brother and Ollie DuMont, too, of course.”

Mary coughed delicately into her handkerchief. Lucy was a Catholic, another strike against her hopes to win Percy. The Warwicks
were staunch Methodists and Jeremy a thirty-third-degree Mason. Mary doubted whether the family’s well-known tolerance toward
all creeds, races, and religions stretched to their only son marrying a Catholic.

“As soon as I finish up here,” Lucy went on, “I’ll make a trip to Belton to find a place to live. Then from there…” She arched
a brow at Mary. “Perhaps my dear friend will invite me to spend a week or so for the purpose of seeing you-know-who.”

Mary shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I don’t mean to thwart your plans, Lucy, but I have no idea what Mother is like now,
and what with Miles leaving, and the harvest to get in…”

Lucy’s pleased expression became that of a rebellious child. “Harvest isn’t until August.”

“Which will give me barely enough time as it is to do the thousand and one things that have to be done—and undone, if I know
Miles.” Inwardly, Mary sighed. Lucy was well aware of her distress over the mismanagement of Somerset. “There simply will
be no time to entertain you.”

“Then how am I to see Percy before he leaves?” she demanded. “I certainly wouldn’t expect Mrs. Warwick to invite me. The family
will be busy getting him ready for war duty and spending as much time with him as possible.”

Why can’t you have the same consideration for my family?
Mary felt like shouting. It was an example of Lucy’s insensitivity, a basic disregard for the delicacy of a situation, that
added to the many reasons Percy would never be interested in her.

“I won’t be a bother to you, Mary, honest.” Lucy’s blue eyes flooded with appeal. “You won’t have to go the itsy-bitsiest
step out of the way for me.”

“Because you’ll be busy throwing kisses at Warwick Hall, is that it?” Mary grinned, relenting as always. On reconsideration,
maybe more contact with Percy would be a good thing. Percy was nothing if not honest. When he saw Lucy’s infatuation (and
who could miss it?), he’d snip it at its root. He’d never go off to war leaving her to think he returned her affections.

Feeling better, Mary patted her roommate’s hand. “I’ll probably be glad of your company. Let us know when you’re coming, and
I’ll have someone meet you at the station.” Reading her friend’s hopeful expression, she added, “No, Lucy, I cannot promise
it will be Percy.”

S
ettled on the train at last, Mary waved good-bye to Lucy waiting on the platform for the milk truck, her face fixed forlornly
on Mary’s window until the train curved and cut her from view. Mary removed her hat and tiredly expelled her breath. Lucy
Gentry wore her out.

She had still not recovered from the shocking scene two nights before when Lucy learned of Percy joining the army. That evening
when she asked if there had been a letter “from home,” a presumption that never failed to grate, Mary had handed over Miles’s
letter and waited for the roof to fall in. It might as well have. As anticipated, Lucy wept and railed, screamed and cursed
at the top of her lungs, sending books flying, clothes scattering, and her little stuffed bear out a window. Mary had never
witnessed such grief and rage or heard such language. Every girl on the floor had come running, as had the housemother, who
kept repeating, “I declare!” as they all watched Lucy shadowboxing the demons that possessed her, fighting off any who tried
to calm her.

Mary had stayed out of her way, and at long last, Lucy had slipped to the floor in a corner of their room and buried her tear-streaked
face in her arms. The girls who had gathered began to leave, and Mary quietly assured the housemother that she, too, should
go back to bed. Lucy would be fine. She’d received some devastating news, and this was simply her way of handling it.

Mary then went to Lucy huddled in the corner and put her arms around her as if she were a child. Through the flannel of her
robe, her sturdy little body felt unnaturally moist and warm. It gave off a faint, offensive odor, as if the bitterness of
her rage were seeping out through her pores. Still, Mary held her until she felt the last shuddering sobs leave her body.

“Wh-why didn’t he ta-take a deferment?” Lucy hiccuped between snatches of breath. “H-he’s entitled to—to a deferment.”

“Why didn’t any of them?” Mary answered, smoothing Lucy’s damp bangs away from her forehead. “It’s not their way.”

Lucy clutched Mary’s hand. “He won’t be killed!” she cried, her blue eyes bright and feverish. “I know he’ll come home. I
know
it! I’ll make a pact with God. I’ll promise to be good. I
know
I can be good. I’ll give up—”

“Cursing?” Mary suggested with a grin, and was relieved to see a sheepish smile crawl across her roommate’s face.

“That, too, by God, if I have to.”

The next morning, Mary awakened to find Lucy gone, her bed unmade. She had left a note: “Gone to mass. Lucy.”

Still awed by the depth of the emotion she had witnessed, frightened by its sincerity, Mary made the bed and exchanged fresh
pillowcases for those sodden with the tears Lucy had continued to shed through the night. She was deeply disturbed for her
roommate. How was it possible to have such feelings for a man she barely knew and to cling to hope that he might care for
her?

Lucy Gentry hadn’t a chance with Percy Warwick. The woman he chose would be beautiful, intelligent, and cultured, a lady through
and through. He would never settle for less, and Lucy, as captivating as she was in her unexpected way, struck Mary as definitely
very much less. There was a coarseness about her in speech and manner that Percy would find offensive. She made good marks
and was considered an adroit student, but what others perceived as intelligence, Mary pegged as sheer craft. It was her observation
that Lucy had perfected the impression of being lettered. She was a book skimmer, a headline reader who had an amazing ability
to suggest, with a few crumbs of information, that she possessed the whole loaf. Also, Mary suspected that Lucy’s high academic
rating was a result of cheating. As a staff aide, she had access to examinations and test schedules that Mary believed accounted
for her uncanny ability to know what and when to study for exams.

Even her impoverishment was a sham. True, Lucy was a “scholarship girl,” a student who had the credentials, but not the means,
to attend Bellington Hall. However, she had a small trust fund left by her mother that would have updated the hopelessly outmoded
clothes that hung in sparse number in her dormitory closet. The clothes were a banner of some sort. If Lucy could not flaunt
the finest, she would the shabbiest. Mary could not quite understand the point of the statement or believe in its sincerity.
It was a ridiculous rebellion, more of a pose than a stand, although Lucy’s Victorian wardrobe endeared her to the girls and
staff alike.

Mary shrugged off these small imperfections as minor blights on an apple. She could eat around them, but not Percy. Percy
would pick the finest from the barrel.

One day, in exasperation, Mary had informed Lucy that she was aware of her futile infatuation with Percy and that she was
a nitwit to allow it to influence a decision about her future. It was then that Lucy had reacted with her absurd claim: “You
want him for yourself!”

Mary had been so taken aback that she could hardly speak. “What?” she’d squeaked.

“You heard me,” Lucy said, sulking. “Don’t try to deny it. You’ve had your eye on him all your life.”

Mary heard her roommate’s voice as if it had come from a deep well. She—set her cap for Percy Warwick? Why, Lucy would have
better luck with him. “That’s ridiculous,” she disputed. “In the first place, I’m not interested in Percy, but even if I were”—she
held up a hand to check Lucy’s immediate contradiction—“he isn’t the least interested in me. He doesn’t even
like
me.”