Roses (23 page)

Starting down the stairs, she caught sight of Percy’s hatless blond head through the fanlight above the front door. He was
coming up the walk, early and alone. The panic that had been lying at low ebb all these past weeks surged through her like
a tidal wave, and she descended at a breathless run, yanking open the door before he reached for the bell pull.

She knew at once what he’d come to say. His eyes were colorless as glass and his jaw hard as rock. “I know I’m early, Mary,
but I have a few things I want to say before the others get here. Mother and Dad are coming in their car later. I walked to
get some air into my lungs.”

Her smile flickered. “You must have a lot to say.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“On my birthday?”

“It can’t be helped.”

“Well, then, do come in. Mother’s not down yet.”

“Mother?” He frowned at the unfamiliar reference.

“I… suppose I’ve taken to calling Mama that sometimes….” She flushed under his measured squint. “Here, let me take your coat.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m not staying.”

His words struck like a blow. “Percy, you can’t mean that. It’s my birthday.”

“You don’t care a fig that it’s your birthday, other than it brings you one year closer to taking possession of Somerset.”

“This is about my buying Fair Acres, isn’t it.” Pressure was mounting in her solar plexus, threatening to close off her breath.
“You view it as sealing my commitment to Somerset.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Percy…” Mary searched her mind wildly for a convincing explanation. “Buying Fair Acres wasn’t a choice between you and Somerset.
It was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass up. My decision had nothing to do with you. I… I had so little time to consider.
I didn’t even think of you at the time, how buying it might affect us… how
you’d
think it would affect us.”

“If you had, would it have made a difference? Would you have gone ahead and bought it anyway?”

She felt trapped. How could she make him understand that she’d had no choice? She stared at him wordlessly, anguish burning
in her chest.

“Answer me!”
he thundered.

“Yes,” she blurted.

“That’s what I thought.” His nostrils flared. “I wonder what that cost you—besides me. God, Mary—” He raked his gaze down
the length of her, and she cringed inwardly, imagining how overblown she must look in her outmoded taffeta with its nipped-in
waist and her breasts pushing for attention above the lace trim of her bodice. Loose waistlines and flattened chests were
the fashion of the day, the likes of which he must be accustomed to admiring on Isabelle Withers.

“You’re halfway through your youth, and you haven’t known a day of it,” Percy said, his mouth twisting contemptuously. “You
ought to be going to parties and dances, wearing pretty clothes and flirting with the boys, but look at you. You’re drawn,
worn out, putting in eighteen hours a day working like a field hand, and for what? To live in poverty, with continuous worry
about where you’ll get the next loaf of bread? To wear clothes that went out with high-button shoes? To relieve yourself in
a bucket and read by the light of a kerosene lamp? You’ve lost a brother and a mother, and now you’re about to lose a man
who loves you, who could give you everything, and all for the sake of a backbreaking, heart-shattering plantation that will
never,
ever
make your sacrifices worth it.”

“It won’t always be this way.” Mary held out her hands to him. “In a few years—”

“Of
course
it will always be this way! Who are you kidding? You made sure of that when you bought Fair Acres. I don’t have a few years!”

“Wha-what are you telling me?”

He turned away, his handsome face crumpling. She had never seen him cry before. She stepped toward him, but he held up a hand
to stop her, while the other snapped out a handkerchief from inside his coat. “I’m telling you what you’ve tried to tell me
all along. I thought I could lure you away from Somerset, but I see now that I can’t. Your buying Fair Acres proved that.
I kept away from you to give you time to realize how much you need and want me, but you simply filled it up with more land,
more work… like you’ll always do to handle days when we’re divided. They’ll tear the guts out of me, but, hell, you’ll simply
plant another row of cotton.”

He wiped his eyes and faced her. “Well, that’s not for me. You were right about me, Mary. I need a woman who will love me
and our children above all and everyone else. I cannot share her with any endeavor that will wear her to the bone and leave
nothing for me and our family at the end of the day. I know that now, and I won’t settle for anything less. If you can’t give
me that…”

He looked at her with desperate hope, his face full of appeal, and Mary knew this was a now-or-never moment. If she let him
go, he was gone forever.

“I thought you loved me….”

“I do. That’s what’s so damn tragic. Well, what’s it to be—me or Somerset?”

She wrung her hands. “Percy, don’t make me choose….”

“You have to. What’s it to be?”

She stared at him in a long, resigned silence.

“I see…,” he said.

The slam of motorcar doors and voices drifted up the walk. Sassie swung out of the kitchen at the end of the hall, a stiffly
starched white apron over a black dress she wore to funerals. “They all comin’,” she announced. “Mister Percy—why you still
in your overcoat?”

“I was just leaving,” he said. “Give my best to your mother, Mary, and… happy birthday.”

With a puzzled frown, Sassie watched him spin on his heels and stride to the door, closing it behind him without a backward
glance. “Mister Percy is leavin’? He ain’t comin’ back?”

“No,” Mary answered in a voice as empty as a rain barrel in drought. “Mister Percy is not coming back.”

M
ary was still standing numbly in the hall when the guests streamed into the house. They all arrived at once, everyone looking
elegant, prosperous, and delighted at the prospect of seeing Darla again, the house opened up, and the Tolivers back on course.
Abel’s expression showed the barest trace of horror when he saw Mary in the red taffeta—it had, after all, come from his store—but
Charles Waithe, who had recently joined his father’s law firm, beamed in admiration. He bent over her hand with great gallantry
and said, “What a stunning dress, Mary. The color becomes you. Happy birthday.”

Mary greeted them with a smile stiffened by the overwhelming awareness of her loss. No one but Ollie seemed to notice. He
hung behind when Sassie ushered the others into the parlor, where refreshments were laid out.

“What’s wrong with Percy? Why isn’t he staying?”

“We’ve had… a falling-out.”

“
Another
one? What happened?”

“Fair Acres.”

“Ah,” he said as if no further explanation were necessary. “I feared as much. Percy was very, very angry when he heard you’d
taken on another plantation, Mary Lamb. Unappeasable. He read it as your making a choice between him and Somerset.”

“It was a decision, not a choice.”

“Then we must get him to understand that.”

Mary looked into his kind face, moved, as always, by his love for them. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Ollie, you’ve sacrificed
enough for Percy and me. Don’t spend another minute on two people so bent on mishandling it.”

Ollie took her hand and fondled it against the velvet lapel of his dinner jacket. “I’ve no idea what you mean, but no sacrifice
is too great for two people who mean the world to me.”

A movement came from the top of the stairs. Mary and Ollie glanced up at her mother, her hand on the balustrade, striking
an imperious pose like the Darla of old. In the parlor, Beatrice caught sight of their arrested, uplifted faces and beckoned
to the others. “Darla is coming down,” she announced excitedly, and within seconds they had gathered to watch Darla descend
the grand staircase.

The dress had been an excellent choice. Its amber color and straight, curveless silhouette softened her wasted figure. The
textured velvet added weight to her frame, and the long chiffon sleeves disguised arms grown flabby from years of lying in
bed. Her lip and cheek rouge and the extra attention to her pompadour did little to boost her gaunt face, but her smile and
poise, the tilt of her head, were the same as in years past when Mary had stood rooted in this same spot to watch her mother
glide down the stairs to her guests.

“Hello, everyone,” she greeted them in her lilting voice. “How good of you to come.”

Eyes misted as applause filled the hall and everyone expressed their delight at seeing her again. “You chose the perfect gown,”
Abel whispered in Mary’s ear.

“Well done,” Ollie said.

Darla made her laughing way around the circle of old friends, stroking Mary’s cheek to remind everyone of the reason for the
party before it was forgotten in the celebration of having her among them again. Mary was relieved. The attention on her mother
diverted it from her and her obviously distracted air. Ollie took charge of the conversation when they were settled in the
parlor, and she was able to fade further into the background. There were plenty of national happenings for spirited discussion—Prohibition,
the presidential campaign, the Nineteenth Amendment.

“I hope never to see the day,” declared Jeremy Warwick, “when women will get the right to vote.”

His wife gave his arm a smack. “Not only will you live to see that day, my dear, but you will live to see your wife cancel
out your ballot. I’m voting for Warren G. in the November election, if the amendment passes.”

“Which proves my point that women have no place in the ballot box,” her husband rejoined to the general laughter of all.

A hush fell when time came for Mary to open Darla’s gift. It was packaged in the same gilded box in which her dress had been
delivered and sat on a table among the flowers the guests had sent to circumvent the invitation’s request that no gifts be
brought. Everyone watched attentively as Mary removed the lid, and a chorus of oohs and ahs greeted the cream-colored, beribboned
confection that Mary drew out of the box.

“Why, it’s… the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!” Beatrice declared.

“Darla, my dear!” Abel gawped at the huge afghan Mary held up. “I would be most happy to buy as many of these as you can make.
I assure you they’ll sell as fast as ice cream in July.”

A wan smile, as if the very thought of his offer tired her, parted Darla’s lips. “Thank you, Abel, but I knitted this specially
for my daughter as a memento of her twentieth birthday. I’ll not knit another.”

She remained silent while everyone fingered and complimented the meticulous detail, workmanship, and pattern of the voluminous
bedcovering. The lengths of knitted cream strips had been joined with pink satin ribbons tied in perky bows that formed a
pattern of exquisite design.

“Mama, I… am without words,” Mary said in awe and pleasure, reverently tracing the intricate handiwork. “You did this for
me?” She still could not quite believe the generosity of her mother’s labor; it seemed so beyond the bounds of her demonstrations
of affection in the past.

“Only for you, darling,” her mother said, her eyes glowing tenderly. “It is the only gift I could contrive that would express
what you mean to me now.”

Remembering her promise, Mary left the guests to their cake and coffee and hurried to the kitchen to show her gift to Sassie
and Toby. The housekeeper was not impressed. “Now, why you suppose she go and choose pink ribbons when your room done in blue
and green? It won’t go with nothin’ in there. I tell you, they is no understandin’ that woman.”

“You know she’s always tried to push pastels on me, Sassie. Her choice is a subtle way to let me know she’s back at it, and
that’s another healthy sign. When the harvest comes in, I’ll have my room redecorated in pink and cream.”

“Pink’n cream! Them ain’t your colors. They too weak and puny. They your mama’s colors!”

When she returned to the parlor with the afghan, her mother said, “Here, let me have that. I’ll refold it and take it up with
me when I go.”

The guests traded amused looks. Beatrice remarked, “Your mother’s worked so long and hard on your gift, Mary, who can blame
her for not wanting to let it go?”

Strain marked the rest of the evening. The life had drained from Darla. She sat in her rocker tired and distant, her pallor
more pronounced. Mary, too, could no longer hold the smile she’d forced all evening. Despair was overtaking her. The certainty
that Percy was lost to her for good was worse than her worst imaginings during the war.

Without preamble, Darla rose from the rocker, clutching the gilded box to her bosom. “I’m afraid I must call it a day, dear
friends and daughter,” she said. “But please don’t leave because of me. Stay and enjoy the party as long as you can. I do
insist.” Immediately, everyone gathered around, offering endearments, hugs, pecks on her cheek. Mary stood aside until the
flurry was over, then carefully embraced her mother’s fragile frame.

“Thank you, Mama,” she said, gratitude overwhelming her voice.

Her mother pressed her cheek to hers. “It pleases me that I’ve provided my dear girl a birthday she’ll always remember.”

“I could never forget, Mama. Your gift will guarantee it.”

“That was my purpose.” Darla disengaged herself. “Stay down and help Sassie clean up when everyone’s gone. She’s getting old,
and I don’t want her up half the night tidying the kitchen.” Clasping the box, she turned with a smile to the group and twiddled
her fingers in farewell. “Good-bye, everyone.”

It was Ollie who ended the evening. “I’m sorry, folks,” he said, “but I feel like a bottle of champagne with its cork popped
and the fizz gone. Dad and I ought to be pushing home.” In the hall, as everyone donned overcoats and hats and gloves, he
asked in an undertone of concern, “Want me to stay?”

Mary was tempted to say yes. He knew she had not enjoyed her party and understood why. She’d have appreciated his company
while she cleaned up, but Abel would have had to return for him in the Packard, and it was already late. “Thank you, Ollie,
but I’ll be fine. Please don’t concern yourself with Percy and me. We were… never meant to be.”