Roses (27 page)

It was the stillness that woke her a few hours after midnight. Bolting upright in bed, she listened, sniffing the air. She
threw back the covers and unlatched the French doors to the verandah off her room.
“Oh, no!”
she cried in mouth-drying horror. Far off to the east where Somerset lay, jagged lances of lightning split the night sky.
There was the smell of rain, the distant crack of thunder. And something else. Mary sniffed. Dust hung in the still air.
Oh, God, no! Don’t do this to me. Please, God. Don’t do this to me. Papa, Thomas—help me!

Her heart was threatening to leap from her body as she tore back inside, taking time only to lace on her boots and grab a
robe before running downstairs.

She bridled Shawnee and leaped onto his back in her nightclothes, spurring the gelding with her boot heels out of the stable
and down the sleeping boulevard to the back road that led toward the plantation. “Go, boy!” Mary urged the aging horse, bending
low over his flowing mane to aid his speed. Her mind cleared as they raced through the night. The tenants knew what to do.
Only this week she’d given each family their instructions in case of rain.
Yes’m, Miss Mary, we all goin’ to get out in them fields with our sacks and start pickin’ fast as we can. When them raindrops
start fallin’, we goin’ run get our sacks under the tarps in the wagons.

Hoagy was up and had marshaled his family. Thank God both his grown sons were home, one on furlough from the army and the
other looking for a job, cotton sacks already slung over their shoulders. “Mornin’, Miss Mary,” they said, pretending not
to notice that she was still in her nightgown and robe.

“How bad, Hoagy?”

Hoagy shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Miss Mary.”

“Give me a sack.”

The night was still pitch black when the Carter family, seven in all, and Mary, each taking a row, began picking cotton. Not
a drop of rain had fallen, but lightning still lit up the sky and dust clung in the air. She prayed for wind. It was the stillness
that terrified her. Far across and down the long, stretching fields, she saw the wink of kerosene lamps and kerchiefed heads
bobbing low and steady over the sea of white bolls, hands plucking swiftly and expertly while the night sky urged,
Hurry, hurry, hurry
.

The hail came thirty minutes later, followed by the rain. Mary and the seven Carters were way down their rows, too far to
make it to the wagons. “Get under your sacks!” somebody called out. “The hail’s as hard as river rocks.” But even as the hail
pelted, Mary kept picking until finally she knew it was useless. She drew her half-filled sack under her, covering it with
her body and using her arms to protect her head. After a while she felt nothing of the pounding, only the sound of her heart
slamming against the sack.

The rain was falling in sheets when she was finally pried away. “Miss Mary,” Hoagy said, “there’s nothing more we can do.
Let’s get our sacks back to the house.”

Her nightclothes plastered to her, hems dragging in the mud, and the mire sucking at her soaked boots, Mary grasped her own
sack and struggled toward her overseer’s cabin.

“You’ll catch your death, Miss Mary,” Hoagy’s wife said.

I wish, Mary thought.

Under the porch roof where they’d all gathered with their sacks, Mary peered through her streaming locks at the circle of
faces around her. They seemed to be waiting for her to say something… do something. Their lives were in her hands, and she
must find a way to repair the devastation of this night, make it go away. Hoagy, especially, was regarding her with an expectant
eye. Unable to pay him outright for his overseer’s services, she had promised him a greater percentage of the profits from
the ginned crop. She squinted up into the bleak, sodden night, as if she might hear the voices of her father and grandfather
advising her what to do, but all she heard was the mockery of the subsiding rain and the shattering of her dreams.

“Damn!” the overseer swore, wiping his face with a towel. “Another year gone for nothing.”

“Wha’ we goin’ do, Pa?” one of the little girls asked tearfully, her face smeared with mud.

“Right now we’re going to shake out this cotton to dry and see what we have,” Mary said. “Mattie”—she turned to Hoagy’s wife—“get
the fire going in the front room to dry the sacks as best as they can be. In the morning we’ll stuff the cotton back in them.”

Through the black hour before dawn they worked, sorting the salvaged cotton into heaps in the three-room cabin to determine
its value. “Bad. It looks bad, Miss Mary,” Hoagy pronounced.

The rain had stopped and the night was clearing when Mary finally accepted a cup of coffee and stepped out onto the back porch
to view her acreage. Dawn was spreading over the fields, slowly revealing the pummeled rows that yesterday had been stalwart
stands of top-heavy cotton. Their stalks stood stripped, broken, beaten to mush, the decapitated cotton bolls mingling with
hailstones as far as she could see. Not a plant had been spared.

“It looks like a mess of cooked greens and turnips,” one of the Carter boys said in awe.

“Hush, son,” admonished his mother, cutting a glance at Mary.

Mary heard the front screen door open and close. The Carters were suddenly quiet, and the silence fell like the kind in a
classroom when the principal unexpectedly walks in. Before her numbed mind could register the cause, a jacket was draped around
her shoulders and a familiar voice spoke in her ear. “I’ve come to take you home, Mary,” Percy said. “There’s nothing else
you can do here now.”

Mary glanced at the Carters. They were all staring tongue-tied at the all-important Percy Warwick with his arm around Miss
Mary. If there had been any doubt about the nature of their relationship before, there was none now. Ignoring Percy, she said,
“Hoagy, when you finish up here, do your best to make the rounds of Fair Acres and have everybody take their cotton to the
Ledbetter weighing station. Sam and I will assess the situation at Somerset and we’ll weigh ours there. Meet me at the house
at ten in the morning.”

“Yes, Miss Mary.”

“Good morning to you all,” Mary said, wriggling her shoulders imperceptibly as a hint to Percy to remove his arm. “I appreciate
your hard efforts tonight. Mattie, thanks for the coffee, and I’m sorry about the mess.”

Percy dropped his arm and, nodding to the family, followed Mary out through the rooms full of soggy cotton to the Pierce-Arrow.
She stopped short of scolding him for his needless and embarrassing appearance when she saw the hail-dented fenders and mud-caked
wheels. After drawing a deep breath, she asked, “Why did you come, Percy?”

He adjusted the coat around her shoulders. “I came to make sure you were all right and to take you home.”

“What makes you think I should go home? I’m needed here. Besides, I came on Shawnee.”

The animal was still standing patiently where Mary had left him tied to the hitching post, rain still streaming off his flanks.
He turned his head at the sound of his name and cast her a mournful glance.

“I’ll get one of the Carters to ride him home,” Percy said.

“No, you don’t understand. All the Carter boys are needed here, and I need Shawnee to ride over to Somerset. When I finish
there, I have to go into town to see Emmitt Waithe.”

“Mary, for God’s sake, I’ll take you to Emmitt’s.”

“No!” Her tone brooked no argument. “I must go alone.”

The Carters had gathered at the screen door, staring openly.

“Like that?” Percy asked, casting a wry glance over her wet, mud-soaked clothes. “At least let me take you home to get into
some dry clothes before you catch cold.”

Mary thought quickly. Percy was right. Appearing in a nightgown and robe to her tenants would not inspire confidence right
now, and she was feeling chilled. The last thing she needed was to become sick. “All right,” she agreed grudgingly.

They tied the gelding to the bumper, and she and Percy sat without speaking as he concentrated on keeping the Pierce-Arrow
and Shawnee from bogging down in the mud. Motorcar and horse were forced to take the recently paved road into Howbutker rather
than the muddy track that would have offered a less visible entry into Houston Avenue. The town was just opening up, and driver
and bedraggled passenger were both thankful that only a few shopkeepers were about to gape at the odd procession making its
slow way around Courthouse Circle.

“Okay, how bad is it?” Percy asked when he stopped in front of the verandah. “Are you wiped out?”

Mary sat stiffly, her profile to him. “I still have a few cards to play.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and said quietly, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but a deal’s a deal.”

“Did I say it wasn’t?” She shrugged off the jacket and threw open the door. “Just don’t… look so happy about it.”

“I’m not happy about it. Mary, for God’s sake…” Percy slid out of the car as she hurried around to untie Shawnee. “How could
you think that? Honey, I know how you must feel—”

“The blazes you do! How could you possibly know how I feel? Seeing Somerset wasted is like seeing your child dead. There is
no describing the… the desolation I feel.”

“But, honey, you knew the risk going in….”

Mary could feel her face flame. “Do
not
lecture me, Percy! The last thing I desire from you right now is a dose of Warwick logic. Go to work or something, and let
me handle
my
business.”

With that, boots squishing and her garments weighted with mud, Mary pulled at Shawnee’s bridle and stalked off to the stable
to dry and feed him, leaving Percy to watch the woman he loved abandon him in her hour of need.

I
n late morning, bright with sunshine and birdsong as if the night’s devastation had never been, Mary and Shawnee arrived at
Emmitt Waithe’s office.

The lawyer moaned when she entered and waved her to a chair, falling wearily into his. He appeared more stooped than usual,
as if his part in the disaster were a weight carted on his shoulders.

“Somerset is not done yet, Mr. Waithe,” Mary began, ready to present a rehearsed line of arguments. “We talked about this
contingency, and I still have one ace to play. Fair Acres. I want to borrow against Fair Acres.” She realized she was talking
too fast, but she must erase that look of “if only I hadn’t listened to you” regret from the face of her father’s trusting
friend. “In order to protect the assets of the trust, I’m sure you’ll see it as your fiduciary responsibility to help me obtain
a loan. It is the only way—”

Emmitt slammed his hand upon the desk, cutting her short. “
Don’t
tell me my fiduciary responsibility now, young lady! Not when you were so eager to set it aside earlier! If I had stuck by
my
fiduciary
responsibility, you wouldn’t be sitting here this morning and I wouldn’t have been up all night cursing myself. Vernon Toliver
must be squirming in his grave.”

“No, he isn’t,” Mary argued, determined to keep her tone reasonable. “Papa would have understood the risk. He would have understood
your allowing me to take it. So, all right, I took it and I lost. Now I have to salvage what I can. The only way is to mortgage
Fair Acres. I should be able to get a large enough loan to meet my monetary obligations. Then next year, with a good harvest—”
At the look Emmitt fired over his spectacles she stopped and shrugged. “What other choice do I have?”

“Dare I mention the obvious?”

“No, sir. I will not sell Somerset.”

Emmitt removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “So what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to set up an appointment at the bank today and help me negotiate a loan.”

“Why so soon? Go home, get some rest. I’m sure you were up half the night. When you’re rested, you’ll have a better idea of
what you need. What’s the hurry to get to the bank today?”

“After last night, I won’t be the only one heading for the bank, hat in hand. Howbutker State has a limit it will lend to
farmers. I want to be among the first in line. I hope your appointment book is clear.”

“Would it make any difference if it weren’t?” With a heavy sigh, Emmitt replaced his glasses and pulled the telephone toward
him. Within a few moments, he had explained the purpose of his call to the president of the Howbutker State Bank, who agreed
to meet with him and Mary later that afternoon.

Mary had come from the plantation dressed in a well-worn riding skirt and blouse, both bearing traces of the mud caked on
her boots. Entering the bank, much to her chagrin, she came face-to-face with the fashionably turned out Isabelle Withers,
her displaced rival for Percy’s affections. Isabelle’s father was president of the Howbutker State Bank. “Well, my goodness,
if it isn’t Mary Toliver,” the young woman purred, her amused gaze traveling the length of Mary’s shabby work attire.

“It is indeed,” Mary returned, her manner equally haughty.

“So sorry about the hail, and coming right at harvest, too. I’m sure Somerset was badly damaged.”

“A bit, but we’ll be fine.”

“Really?” Isabelle twirled the long rope of pearls that set off the dropped waist of her voile dress. “Then this must be merely
a social call on Father. He’ll be so delighted. I’m sure to hear all about it this evening. How nice to see you again, Mr.
Waithe. Here to pay a social call as well, I imagine.” She smiled lushly, her bright red lips painted in the Hollywood fashion
of Theda Bara, and stepped around them, leaving a light floral scent in her wake.

Emmitt, blinking rapidly in clear confusion at the tense exchange, muttered, “Dear me.”

In Raymond Withers’s office, the lawyer let Mary do the talking, sitting in neutral silence as she laid out her case from
a sheet of figures she’d hurriedly compiled on the kitchen table in the Ledbetter house. “I have the deed to Fair Acres, and
I’m willing to turn it over as collateral right now if we can come to terms,” she said, finishing her spiel.

Raymond Withers had listened attentively, drumming the plump pads of his soft, businessman hands only occasionally upon his
desk. From a bookshelf behind him, his pride and joy—in sundry poses at various ages—grinned insipidly at Mary from ornate
frames. For a few mellow ticks of a fine ormolu clock on his mantel, he remained silent, and Mary could read nothing of his
thoughts behind his smooth face, a pose she was sure he assumed to keep his supplicants in suspense. When finally he spoke,
a frown appeared. “We can help you to some extent,” he said, “but I’m sure it will not meet your full financial requirements.”