Roses (7 page)

“Miles could hardly have been privy to your father’s decisions, Mary Lamb, since he’s been away to school for the past four
years.” Darla’s veil fluttered from the mild reproof. “What’s done is done. If we need money, we’ll simply sell off some of
Somerset. If your father had known he was dying, he would never have purchased additional acreage. From his place in heaven,
he will surely understand why I have to undo the damage he never intended to inflict. Isn’t that so, Emmitt? Now if you will
please read the will so that we can get this over with. Mary looks ill. We need to get her home.”

With another one of those peculiar glances at Darla, Emmitt picked up the document with a slow hand and read aloud. When he
had finished, his listeners sat mute, too dumbfounded to utter a word.

“I… don’t believe it,” Darla whispered at last. Behind the veil, her eyes were glassy with shock. “You mean that Vernon left
the entire plantation to… to Mary, except for that narrow strip along the Sabine? That’s all our son is to receive from his
father? And Mary’s to have the house, too? I am to have nothing but whatever money is in the bank? But… there can’t be much,
since Vernon was using every last cent to pay off the mortgage.”

“That appears to be so,” the lawyer concurred, consulting a page in a bank book in his possession. “However, you do understand,
Darla, that you are legally entitled to live in the house and to receive twenty percent of the profits from the land until
your remarriage or demise. Vernon specified that in the will.”

“How… very generous of him,” she said, tight-lipped.

Mary still sat stiffly, her hands tightly clasped, willing her expression to give nothing away of the relief—the utter joy—flooding
the bleakness of her heart. The plantation was hers! Her father—foreseeing that her mother would sell it—had left it in the
hands of the one Toliver who would never let it go. It didn’t matter that the will had given Miles power of attorney over
Somerset until she could legally assume control at twenty-one. For the sake of their mother’s 20 percent, he would take care
not to interfere with its prosperous operation and the priority of paying off the mortgage.

Her brother had risen and was pacing about with the hard strides customary to him when he was agitated. “Are you telling me”—he
turned to the lawyer in exasperation—“that my mother’s livelihood
for the rest of her life
is dependent on the success of the plantation, and that she’s even to be deprived of ownership of her own home?”

Emmitt shuffled some papers and avoided meeting his gaze. “Entrusting the house to Mary will ensure that your mother always
has a home, Miles. Often it is the case, in situations like this, that houses are imprudently sold and money from the sale
soon gone. And let me remind you that twenty percent of the profits is not a pittance. With cotton selling so high now, especially
if war comes to the United States, Somerset should enjoy enormous revenues. Your mother will be able to live quite comfortably
indeed.”

“Less expenses and if the crop does not fail,” Darla whispered.

Emmitt flushed and peered at Miles over the rim of his spectacles. “For your sake, it would behoove your son to see that it
doesn’t.” The lawyer pondered a moment, as if debating whether he should speak his next words. Apparently deciding to do so,
he dropped his pen on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “Actually, Vernon believed he had no choice but to set up his
will the way he did.”

Still standing, his contempt plain, Miles asked, “Oh? And why is that?”

Emmitt gazed directly at Darla. “He feared that you might sell the plantation, my dear—as you proposed to do only a few minutes
ago. This way, you will still be able to enjoy whatever Somerset produces, which would have been the case anyway had Vernon
lived, and the plantation and house stay in the Toliver family.”

“Except that, as before when I was supported by my husband, I will now be dependent upon my daughter for my bread and roof.”
Darla spoke in a voice so drained of power that the veil barely moved.

“Not to mention that he’s disrupted
my
plans for the next five years,” Miles said, his upper lip quivering with anger.

Darla loosened her tight hold of the chair arms and composed her hands in her lap. “So I’m to understand, then, that the circumstances
to which my husband referred in his letter had to do with his fear that I might sell the plantation or, in the event that
I did not, would certainly mismanage it. Are these the reasons which precluded—how did he express it?—‘a more fair and generous
distribution of my property’?”

“I believe you, ah, have understood your husband’s reasons perfectly, Darla.” Emmitt’s countenance softened in an obvious
hope to soothe. “Vernon believed that Mary is the best Toliver suited to eventually run the plantation. She seems to have
inherited an ability for land management as well as a devotion and loyalty to Somerset and the way of life it affords. He
thought it was she who could make the plantation pay, benefiting all of you and preserving it for the next generation, which
will include your children, Miles.”

Miles grimaced in patent disgust and came to stand behind his mother’s chair, laying a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

“I see…” Darla’s voice carried no emotion. Very deliberately, she lifted the veil and calmly tucked it among the black feathers
of her oversize mourning hat. She was an extremely pretty woman, with cool, alabaster skin and large, lustrous eyes. Her son
had inherited their amber shade, her auburn hair, and the shape of her small, saucy nose. Mary, on the other hand, had been
favored with the striking combination of features that had characterized the Tolivers since the days of the first English
Lancasters. Everybody said she could be none other than Vernon Toliver’s daughter.

Mary watched in trepidation as her mother rose from the chair, a cool, distant figure, almost a stranger in her somber black
attire. The lifting of the veil worried her, as did the unfamiliar gleam in her eyes. All vestiges of grief were gone. The
whites were starkly clear. She and Emmitt stood as well.

“I must ask you one further question, Emmitt, being so unfamiliar with these matters….”

“Of course, my dear. Anything.” Emmitt bowed slightly.

“The will’s dispensations… will they be made public?”

Emmitt pursed his lips. “A will is a public document,” he explained with evident reluctance. “Once it is probated, it becomes
a court record which anyone, especially creditors, can peruse. Also…” The lawyer cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable.
“Wills which have been filed for probate are listed in the paper. This is for the benefit of those who may have a claim against
the estate.”

“Family members excluded,” Miles commented, clench-jawed.

“Then anyone curious about the details of the will can learn them?” Darla asked.

Emmitt simply nodded. The strength seemed to drain from Darla’s stiff carriage. “Damn Papa!” Miles said, jerking his mother’s
chair out of the way for their departure.

“Uh… there is one other thing that I promised Vernon I’d do, Darla,” Emmitt said. He opened a cabinet behind him and withdrew
a bud vase containing a single red rose. “Your husband requested that I give this to you after reading the will. By all means,
keep the vase.”

Slowly, Darla took the slender-necked vessel in her gloved hand, her children watching. After a long study, she set it on
Emmitt’s desk and extracted the rose. “Keep the vase,” she said with a smile so foreign that all of them drew back slightly.
“Come, children.”

Sweeping from the room, Darla Toliver dropped the red rose into a trash receptacle by the door.

O
n the way home in the Tolivers’ Arabian-drawn buggy, the family sat in silence, Mary as far in her corner as possible. They
all stared out the isinglass windows in much the same somber way they had ridden to Vernon Toliver’s funeral four days before.
On that day, Mary had felt a palpable void in the carriage, but today it was filled with a frightening, invisible force that
seemed capable of separating her from her mother and brother, and they from the memory of the husband and father they both
had loved.

She glanced at her mother. She knew about the legend of the roses and understood the meaning of the red rose her father had
arranged to be given to her and the terrible significance of her mother dropping it into the wastebasket by Mr. Waithe’s door.
Mary, worriedly observing her mother’s pale, stark profile, believed with a desolate certainty that her father would never
be forgiven for what he had done.

And what had he done? Her father had only ensured that the plantation and family home would stay in Toliver hands. In a financial
pinch or in the event of her remarriage—which may have forced her to live elsewhere—her mother would have sold them. And bequeathing
the land to Miles would have guaranteed the loss of their birthright. By leaving it to her, he would preserve it for his children’s
offspring.

Since this was clearly the case, why was her mother so upset? And Miles, too, for that matter? In time, he could pursue a
teaching career. Five years was not long. During that time, she would not waste a minute in learning everything possible related
to running the plantation. She had Len Deeter to help her. He was an excellent overseer, honest and hardworking, loyal to
the Tolivers, highly thought of by the tenants. What she hadn’t learned from her grandfather and father, she would learn from
him. Miles probably wouldn’t need to hang around until she was twenty-one. Two years should do it, then she’d send him on
his way, mailing him papers that needed his signature. By then, she would have established herself in charge of Somerset.

In the late afternoon, Mary took these arguments to her mother to defend her father’s action. She found Darla lying on a chaise
longue in the room she’d shared with her husband, her rich auburn hair brushed out of its elaborate pompadour and spread around
her shoulders. The late afternoon sun cast a sickly glow through the sheer yellow draperies. Mary wondered disconsolately
if there was some significance in the bright lavender housecoat she wore—a kind of repudiation. The black dress and hat were
out of sight, as were the many flowers of condolence her mother had ordered sent up from the parlor after her husband’s body
was removed for burial. Earlier, meeting Sassie coming downstairs with an armload of the still fresh arrangements, she had
asked with a feeling of dread, “What is this all about?”

“What does it look like?” Gloom darkened their housekeeper’s voice. “I declare, I got a feelin’ nothin’ ain’t never gonna
be the same round here again.”

Mary had the same feeling as she stood anxiously studying her mother lying on the chaise longue. There was a terrifying remoteness
about her white-set features, the rigid length of her body. All warmth and spirit seemed to have been struck out of her. A
cold, unapproachable stranger lay in the lavender satin housecoat.

“You ask me what else he could have done?” Darla repeated Mary’s question. “I will tell you, my dear daughter. He could have
loved me more than he loved his land.
That’s
what he could have done.”

“But, Mama, you would have sold it!”

“Or, that failing,” Darla continued with her eyes closed, as if Mary had not spoken, “he could at least have divided his holdings
equally between our son and daughter. That strip Miles inherited is all but worthless. It floods every spring. Nothing planted
there can mature before or after the rains.”

“It’s still a part of Somerset, Mama, and you know Miles has never cared a whit for the plantation.”

“At the very least,” Darla went on in the same dead tone, “he could have considered my feelings and known how it will look
to all of our friends for him to have left his wife’s welfare in the hands of his daughter.”

“Mama…”

Her eyes still closed, Darla said, “Your father’s love was my greatest treasure, Mary. What an honor it was to be his wife,
to have been picked from all the women he could have married, some prettier than I….”

“Nobody’s prettier than you, Mama,” Mary whispered, choking on her grief.

“His love gave me life, gave me stature, made me important. But now I feel that it was all a sham, simply something for me
to enjoy while he lived. In death, he took it all away, all the things I thought I was to him, and he to me.”

“But, Mama—” The words failed to come. They failed because deep down in her sixteen-year-old heart, Mary knew her mother spoke
the truth. In the end, the preservation of the plantation had meant more to her father than his wife’s pride, feelings, and
welfare. He had left her virtually penniless, dependent on her children, and subject to the humiliation of Howbutker society.

Mary, who already had little tolerance for weakness, could hardly blame her mother for feeling shattered and empty, bereft
of even the memories that would have brought her comfort. With tears spilling down her cheeks, she knelt beside the chaise
longue. “Papa didn’t mean to hurt you, I know he didn’t.”

She laid her head on her mother’s bosom, but even as tears soaked the lavender satin, some part of her far below her grief
rejoiced that Somerset had come to her, and she vowed that no matter what pain it cost her to keep it, she would never give
up the plantation. Not ever. She would make it up to her mother somehow… work hard to make Somerset pay to keep her in the
silks and satins of which she was so fond. Somerset would grow so big and powerful, the Toliver name so strong, that no one
would dare risk a remark against her mother. And, after a while, everyone would forget Vernon Toliver’s betrayal and realize
how right he’d been to dispense the estate as he had. They would all see in what esteem Darla Toliver was held by her children
and grandchildren, and the pain would go away.

“Mama?”

“I’m here, Mary.”

But she wasn’t, a deep wrench of her instinct told her. She’d never again be the mother that she and Miles had known. Mary
would have given anything in the world to see her on her feet, normal and familiar, beautiful and happy, even in her grief.
Anything but Somerset, Mary modified her thought, and was shocked at the amendment, at the line beyond which she could not
force her love to go.