Roses (9 page)

Miles argued that their tenants were still serfs and they the overlords, feared as much as God. There ought to be a law that
gave tenants the right to apply their rents against the land they farmed. Once it was free and clear, they could then pay
the landowner a royalty for life.

Mary had seen her father’s face blanch at these dinner table proposals.

Now she felt a similar drop of her blood at the thought that Miles might be setting out to prove that a laissez-faire treatment
of the tenants would result in greater benefits for all. Harvest was less than a month away, and every cent was needed to
make the mortgage payments. She longed to talk to Len, the overseer, but Miles took the buggy and Arabians each day, leaving
in the stable only an old mare unreliable for the trek to the plantation. She itched to acquaint herself with her father’s
bookkeeping methods, but when the ledgers were not in her brother’s possession, they were in a locked drawer in the study.
Miles had the only key.

She loved her brother, but she was beginning to look upon him as an adversary to all her hopes and dreams, and especially
to her father’s wishes and memory. Two camps had formed in the Toliver household. Only Sassie was in hers. Everybody else—the
rest of the help, her mother, and all their friends except for neutral Ollie—was on Miles’s side. God forbid, but she was
even wishing that something would happen to Miles, a mild accident that would force him to turn over the plantation to her.
At the very least, she hoped he’d become bored with his new duties and realize that he wasn’t cut out to be a planter.

“Is this about Mama?” she asked, taking a chair opposite her father’s big pine desk, a gift from Robert Warwick to James Toliver
in 1865.

“It’s about you,” Miles said in the pedantic tone he’d assumed since becoming man of the house. He seated himself with a professorial
air behind the desk, elbows resting on it, long, aesthetic fingers laced, his French cuffs as starched as his manner. “Mary,
I’m sure you can appreciate that this is a very awkward time for all of us.”

Mary nodded, wanting to cry at the loss of warmth between them.

“Something has happened to our family that goes beyond our grief for Papa. As a matter of fact, our grief should be uniting
us. Instead, the will has left Mama and me with very little feeling for Papa at all. We feel bitter and cheated. Mama feels
humiliated. Neither of us has been fair to you. I realize that. You’ve been made to feel that you’re to blame for what’s happened,
and I regret that, Mary, I really do. However, the truth is, I can hardly look at you without feeling that you were somehow
responsible for the terms of the will.”

“Miles…”

He held up a hand. “Let me finish, and then you may have your say. Lord knows I didn’t want the plantation, but it should
have gone to our mother. She should have had the right to sell or keep it. She should have been first in Papa’s affections,
not Somerset, and not you. That’s how both of us feel, plain and simple. We also sense that you are delighted with Papa’s
decision.”

“Only because I will take care of our birthright,” Mary interrupted. “I will take care of Mama. She will never want for anything—”

“Mary, for God’s sake, Mama doesn’t want your charity. Don’t you understand that? Put yourself in her position. How do you
think you’d feel if your husband favored your daughter over you, if he left
you
at the mercy of
her
charity?”

“I wouldn’t repudiate my daughter for something my husband had done!” she cried, aching from the pain of her mother now turning
her face to the wall whenever she entered her room.

Miles raised his hands, palms up, to concede her point. “I can see that’s how you’ve been made to feel, and I’m truly sorry.”

“I could have used a little maternal and brotherly affection this past month, Miles. I miss Papa terribly….”

“I know you do,” he said, his manner softening briefly, “but all of this is beside the reason I asked you in here. Now, I
want you to hear me out before you jump up and tell me to go to the devil. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Understand?”

Mary understood. Miles’s pointed stare reminded her that he was trustee of Somerset. She and the plantation were at his mercy
for five years.

At Mary’s nod, Miles tipped back in the timeworn chair and assumed his didactic pose. “I think you need to put some distance
between you and Mama. I’m going to send you away to finishing school. There’s a fine one in Atlanta that should suit you splendidly.
I still have some money Granddaddy Thomas left me, and that will pay for a year.”

Mary gazed at him in numb disbelief. He was going to send her away to that place where Beatrice had gone… away from the plantation….

“It’s called Bellington Hall,” Miles went on with an air unperturbed by the sight of his sister’s distress. “Beatrice Warwick
finished there. You may recall Percy mentioning that fact in regard to his houseguest, Lucy Gentry. It would have behooved
you to agree to meet her while she was here, since she’s to be your roommate.”

She was too horrified to speak.

“You’ll leave in three weeks for the fall term. I’ll instruct Sassie to get your clothes ready.”

She finally found her voice. Her insides felt on fire, as if a conflagration had been lit in her stomach. “Miles, please don’t
send me away. I have to stay here and help Len run the plantation. The quicker and the more I learn, the better. I can’t function
outside Howbutker. Mama and I can work out this situation.”

“The only way you and our mother can work out this situation is for you to agree to allow me to sell the plantation.” Miles
wagged a cautionary finger when he saw Mary clasp the arms of her chair with the clear intent to disobey his previous warning.
“Since you’re a minor and cannot own or sell land, as the trustee of your property, I can. Of course, I would never do that
against your wishes, as Papa well knew.”

Mary leaped up, the blood pounding in her ears. “I absolutely refuse to give you my permission!”

“I am profoundly aware of that, little sister. So… you’ll be going to Bellington Hall.”

“You cannot do this to me.”

“I can, and I will.”

Mary stared at him as if he’d suddenly hatched horns. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t possible for her brother to be so cruel.
“Percy planted the idea in your head to sell the plantation, didn’t he? Is Bellington Hall also his suggestion?”

Miles’s lip twisted. “Credit me with doing my own thinking in regard to my family. Percy suggested nothing of the kind in
regard to selling the plantation, and I learned of Bellington Hall through his mother. If it weren’t that school, it would
be another. Now
sit down
!”

Mary backed away to her seat. “You are making a huge mistake….”

“My mind is made up, Mary. My main concern right now is not you, but Mama. You may take comfort in the knowledge that at twenty-one
the land will come to you. Mama has no such solace. So you will go to Bellington Hall and give her a chance to come to terms
with this injustice—and, I might add, her feelings concerning you. Absence could endear you to her. Your constant presence
here will not.”

His words were so cutting, their delivery so sharp, they could have chipped ice. Mary lowered herself onto the chair, her
legs weak. Was he saying that if she stayed, her mother would never love her again? But that was absurd. She was her daughter.
Mothers might have a
change of feeling
for their children for a little while, but they didn’t stop loving them forever—did they? Feeling forsaken, as if she were
single-handedly fending off a pack of wolves, she locked her arms across her chest. “What if I refuse to leave?”

Miles cracked a half smile. “Oh, I don’t think you want to hear the consequences of that.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Her brother drew forward and fastened his gaze on her mutinous face. “I will use the money from Granddaddy Thomas to take
Mama to Boston, where I will have no problem getting a teaching position. I’m acquainted with a number of eligible older gentlemen
there—wealthy businessmen who wouldn’t waste a minute coming to call on our beautiful mother. It’s likely she’d remarry in
no time, putting this”—he waved a hand to indicate the house and all that it represented—“
unpleasant reminder
behind us. I have a right to my own life, and Mama has a right to rebuild hers. If that means I’m out of reach to be of assistance
as trustee, so be it. In addition, I will sell that strip along the Sabine to further fatten my purse. I promise you, Mary,
that if you do not compromise with me in this very tragic situation, I will do exactly as I’ve threatened.”

Very slowly, Mary’s arms came apart as she realized the extent of her brother’s power. This was no idle threat. Miles had
thought of another option for their mother. Only a very slender thread of allegiance to Somerset, their father, and her kept
him from pulling up stakes and taking their mother to Boston. Even without the mortgage to worry about, he knew that to leave
her and Len to run the plantation without the presence of a Toliver male and his available signature would surely be detrimental
to Somerset. Spiriting their mother away would besmirch the family name. It would confirm to the wagging tongues that Vernon
Toliver had indeed done an injustice to his wife by willing his property to his daughter.

Once again Miles reclined in his chair, inserting fingertips into the pockets of his waistcoat. “Well?” he asked with the
smug lift of an eyebrow.

Mary was not yet willing to capitulate. “You could sell that strip along the Sabine anyway. What’s to keep you from it?”

Miles was silent for a moment. “Papa’s wishes that I keep it for my son.”

Tears sprang without warning, blurring her vision. “Miles, what’s happened to us? We used to be so happy together.”

“The plantation’s what happened to us,” her brother said, rising in dismissal. “The plantation is a curse for anyone obsessed
by it, Mary. It always has been, and I’m inclined to think it always will be. Obsession for that land caused a good man like
our father to disavow a loving wife and split a family in two. He knew what he was doing. That’s why he asked Mama to forgive
him.”

Mary came around the desk and gazed up at her brother through watery eyes. “Miles, I love you and Mama so much.”

“I know, Mary Lamb. I miss all of us, too, the way we used to be. I especially miss my little sister. So does Mama, I’m sure.
So do the boys. You were so precious to us.”

The tears overflowed. “
Were?
But… not anymore?”

“Well, it’s just that… you’ve become such… a Toliver.”

“And that is bad?”

Miles sighed. “You know my answer to that. It will be especially bad if you suffer the curse Papa mentioned in his letter.”

“What curse are you talking about? I never heard of any curse.”

“It has to do with the procreation of children. None in possession of Somerset have ever been copious child bearers—or keepers,”
he concluded dryly. He turned to take a leather-bound volume from a shelf behind him. “You can read all about it in here.
This is a picture and genealogy album. I found it among Papa’s papers. I never knew it existed. Did you?”

“No. Papa never mentioned it.” Mary read the title on the ancient cover:
Tolivers: A Family History from 1836
.

“Papa was afraid that in leaving the land to you, he would be condemning you to a childless state or to one in which your
children would not live long lives. Until we came along, there was never more than one surviving Toliver to inherit the plantation,
but who knows? Our youth is not yet spent.” A sardonic gleam lit his eyes. “Granddaddy Thomas was the only heir of his generation
to survive, and Papa of his. After you read what’s in there, you’ll understand Papa’s meaning… and concern.”

An uneasy feeling slid through her. She had never once considered the oddity of her grandfather and father being the single
survivors to perpetuate the legacy of Somerset. They’d each had several siblings, now dead. Where had this album been all
these years? Had her father deliberately kept it from her—she, the appointed repository of family lore?

Miles lifted her chin with cool fingertips. “Now,” he said gently, “will you go to Bellington?”

She felt her answer squeezed from her lungs. “Yes,” she said.

“Good. Then that’s settled.” He adjusted his French cuffs and sat back at his desk to indicate the interview was over.

“Lucy says you’ll like Bellington Hall,” Miles commented when she was at the door.

She paused to look back. “What’s this Lucy like?”

“Not as pretty as you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She blushed hotly. “Of course not!”

“Oh, poppycock. Of course it is. She’s petite in height and figure and round as a ball in all the right spots. Cute, I’d say.
I like her, although I don’t think you will. Why didn’t you see her while she was here?”

“I’m in mourning, Miles, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“That, my sweet, is a cut beneath you. You were simply jealous of her for having so much of Percy’s time.”

“What nonsense,” Mary said, her tone dripping scorn. “If I won’t like her, why am I sharing a room with her?”

Miles dipped his pen into an inkwell. “It was thought best for both of you,” he said, writing.

She knew he was avoiding her eyes. “By whom? You? Percy? His mother?”

“Beatrice and Percy are not involved. It was Lucy who suggested it when I voiced the possibility that I might send you to
Bellington, and it was I who decided you should room together. You can look out for each other. You have a lot in common.
Neither of you has any money. You won’t have to suffer sharing a room with someone who does. You’re both the same age. It’s
a perfect arrangement. I’ve already spoken to the headmistress about it.”

Furious, Mary glared at her brother, his head bent pointedly to his letter. Were all men fools, or was only Miles in that
category?
A lot in common, her foot!
She’d heard through Sassie by way of the Warwicks’ cook that the girl had gone ga-ga over Percy.
He
was the only thing she and Lucy Gentry had in common. The girl perceived her as her connection to Warwick Hall.