Roses (15 page)

“My intention still stands, Mary,” he’d said that day. “When I come home, I intend to marry you.”

“Never,” she’d vowed, her heart pounding so hard, she was sure he could hear it. “Not if it means giving up Somerset.”

“You’ll have it out of your system by then.”

“Never, Percy. You’ll have to accept that.”

“I accept only that I want us to be married.”

“Why?” She’d thrown the question at him, memorizing how the sun struck his hair, the deep tan of his skin, the clarity of
his eyes. He’d held his billed hat under his arm. “I’ve thought it over and decided it’s… simple lust between us. That’s it,
isn’t it? I don’t think you even like me.”

He had laughed. “What has liking got to do with it? And of course there’s lust, but I want to marry you because I love you.
I’ve loved you all your life, ever since you smiled at me through your cradle bars. I’ve never considered marrying anyone
else.”

She’d heard him in disbelief. Percy… who could have any girl he wanted… in love with her since she was born? How had she missed
it?

She’d relived that moment thousands of times in the twenty-six months of his absence… remembered how he’d placed his hat back
on, slipped his arm around her waist, and pulled her to him and kissed her… how they’d parted numb with desire, drowning in
each other’s eyes. She’d been vaguely aware of the ripple of shock around them, of her brother’s startled gaze, Beatrice’s
raised brows, Abel’s quickly averted glance, and finally… Ollie’s resigned smile when he approached her as Percy left to join
his parents.

“Don’t worry, Mary,” he’d said, his eyes grave, the twinkle extinguished. “I’ll see he gets home in one piece.”

“Ollie, dear…” There had been a catch in her voice as she’d said his name. She’d only then realized what she’d been too blind,
too single-focused, to see. Ollie was in love with her, too. Now he was bowing from the competition, yielding the field to
Percy.

“See that you take care of yourself, too, Ollie,” she’d said, and hugged him hard, his custom-fitted uniform already too snug
from the extra pounds he’d gained while home on leave.

Thinking now of Ollie, she was chilled by a suspicion that had haunted her often since the telegram arrived informing them
of his injury. The few subsequent letters had offered sparse details. The families had learned only that Percy and Ollie were
together on patrol duty when a grenade landed close by. In the still, dark hours of her many sleepless nights, Mary had asked
herself, Could it be—was it possible—that Ollie had sacrificed himself for Percy?

A mauve sleeve pushed in beside her, and Mary turned in exasperation to her friend. “Lucy, do give the Warwicks the first
opportunity to embrace their son.”

Lucy’s blue eyes darkened in offended injury. “Do you think I wouldn’t, Mary Toliver? You, of all people, should understand
how I feel about Percy.”

“I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t understand how you feel about Percy.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.” Lucy spoke in an edgy whisper so the Warwicks would not overhear. “Everybody else might
think that I believe I have a chance with Percy, but you know that I know I can never win him. But what’s to keep me from
loving him, praying for him, being glad he’s home safe until he falls in love with someone else?”

“Your pride, maybe?” Mary suggested. How could any woman lay herself so unabashedly open for pain, like a puppy happily exposing
its underbelly to be kicked?

“Pride?” Lucy chortled. “Horsefeathers! Pride is nothing but a hobble that confines you to a small space with no chance of
ever seeing what’s over the mountain. You’d better take a long look at pride, sweetie. It could be your undoing.”

“Here they come!”

The train was slowing, nearing the station. Every neck craned in the direction of its approach. Abel, tightening his grip
on his cane, solemnly drew himself erect. Lucy forgotten, Mary felt her eyes smart. Already tears were running down Jeremy
Warwick’s cheeks, and Beatrice withdrew a voluminous lace-edged handkerchief from the black sleeve of her dress and held it
to her mouth. The band director raised his baton. The stationmaster took his stand importantly beside the place the train
would stop.

“I see them!” whooped a man who had moved on down the track. Mary recognized him as a farmer who had lost his oldest son at
Belleau Wood. He whipped off his hat and began to wave and shout at the faces peering from the train windows. Mary experienced
a sudden, aching desire for her mother to be standing beside her, but she was lying at home, a wasted figure swallowed by
her bed. Her long battle with alcoholism was finally over, but the end had been bought at what may have been too dear a price.
Only time would tell, and her mother’s willingness to live. Maybe Miles’s homecoming would help. Maybe he was in time to save
her, and they could be a family again.

Lucy squealed in her ear. The train was gradually screeching to a stop, and all on the platform stared at the open windows,
looking for familiar faces smiling back, the sight of uniforms. The stationmaster hopped on board.

“What’s keeping them?” Lucy demanded.

“They’re probably gathered in the corridor, waiting to get off,” Beatrice said.

“Maybe Ben is alerting the boys to the mob that’s waiting,” Jeremy surmised, referring to the stationmaster.

“Or maybe my son needs help,” Abel remarked. “The T and P wires such information ahead, you know.”

“Ben would have said something to us about that,” Beatrice said in her rational tone.

“Well, where the hell
are
they?” Lucy whined as the crowd fidgeted and waited.

The stationmaster reappeared and stepped quickly down from the platform from which the honorees would descend, holding up
his hands to the crowd. “All right, everybody, Captains Toliver and Warwick and DuMont will be out in just a moment. I’ll
ask you all to move back except for the families. Remember that there are other passengers aboard. I’d ask you to allow them
to get through to the station house.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ben,” snapped Beatrice. “Stop talking and get the boys down here!”

The stationmaster bowed and stepped again onto the platform. “Gentlemen!” he called into the car.

The crowd held its collective breath, then let it out in a huge cheer as Percy stepped out. The band struck up, and the Warwicks
and Lucy rushed forward, but he appeared to be searching over their heads for someone else. Mary slowly put up her hand, and
his gaze lit upon her and held for a long, heart-stopping moment before he descended the steps and was lost to her. She caught
only a glimpse of his uniform hat before he was set upon, blocked from sight by Beatrice’s towering hat and his father’s broad-shouldered
figure. Poor Lucy hopped up and down behind them like a bright little fledgling pushed from the nest, unable to break through
the barrier of their embraces.

Mary felt her whole body explode with joy. Relief thundered through her. He was alive… he was well… he was whole. He was home.

After another breath-held minute, Ollie appeared, his smile as beaming as ever. Mary’s gloved fingers flew to her lips. Beside
her, Abel stiffened and uttered a strangled cry. “Oh, my God. They’ve cut off his leg.”

M
iles followed shortly, stepping out onto the platform with the blinking gaze of a man seeing sunlight after a long confinement
underground. Both Mary and Abel stared mutely. Ollie waved at the suddenly quiet crowd with one of his crutches, then adroitly
maneuvered down the steps with his usual jauntiness. The right leg of his army jodhpurs had been brought up and pinned at
the knee, leaving the rest of the pant hanging as flat as an empty bellows.

Shockingly thin, his face ghastly pale, Miles descended behind him laden with luggage, his concentration focused on managing
the steps. With grim composure, Abel offered Mary his arm and together they went to meet son and brother.

“Miles?” Mary said uncertainly, wondering if he’d allow her to embrace him.

He stared at her blankly. “Mary? Is that you? My God, but you’re beautiful. I guess I am, too, huh?” He smiled with a touch
of his old irony, revealing teeth that had begun to decay. “Where’s Mama?”

“At home. She’s so eager to see you, Miles. I… have been, too.” She felt her chin trembling and tears spurt to her eyes.

Miles set down the bags and held out his arms. “Well then, come here and give your big brother a hug.”

She threw her arms around him and held him fiercely, dismayed at his appallingly thin frame. “You’re all bones and hollows,”
she moaned. “Sassie will have a job fattening you up.”

“How is Sassie?”

If she’d answered truthfully, she would have said,
Tired, Miles. Worn out from seeing after our mother, trying to run the house without help, to put food on the table from our
limited larder.
But his battle had been worse than theirs. “The same,” she said. “A bit older. Wearies a little easier.”

“And Mama?”

“The same, too, I’m afraid. I’ll tell you about her away from here.”

She heard a shuffle behind her. “Hello, Mary Lamb.”

It was Ollie, so much the same, so much changed. As with the others, his uniform hung on him, but the twinkle in his eyes
for her had not altered. His father, who’d held up until now, turned to Miles and embraced him with an audible sob.

“Dear Ollie,” she said, her eyes brimming again as she leaned to kiss him lightly upon the lips. “Welcome home.”

A smile broke across his face. “That was worth coming home for, I can tell you. You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.
Don’t you think so, Miles?”

“I said the same,” her brother agreed, his voice choked from Abel’s emotional welcome. “I’d worry about her beauty going to
her head if I didn’t know Mary.”

“Part of her charm,” Ollie said. While Miles showed Abel the luggage belonging to his son, he took her hand and squeezed it
affectionately. “Thanks for the letters.”

“They reached you?”

“Four of them did. Percy was jealous as hell that you sent them to me, but I let him stew. It did him good.”

“They were meant for all of you, as I’m sure he knew. Was it unpatriotic of me not to write to each of you individually?”

“Hell, no! He had plenty of mail from other girls.”

“Did he really?” Over his head, she saw Percy trying to extricate himself from Lucy’s tenacious arms, his tall, much sparer
figure bent to accommodate her diminutive height.

“But it was your letters he kept looking for,” Ollie confided quietly in her ear.

Hearing the drop of his voice, she studied his face for confirmation of her predawn fears. “Ollie? You didn’t do anything
absurdly self-sacrificial out of regard for Percy and me, did you?” But another thought, lightning quick, struck her:
God forbid, what if he had not…?

“How could I ever do anything absurdly self-sacrificial out of regard for Percy and you?” he asked, swiping at the dimple
in her chin.

“My turn, Ollie,” Percy said behind her, and Mary felt her legs turn as limp as boiled noodles.

“All yours,” Ollie said, and hopped back on his crutches with the smiling regret of someone who must return a found treasure.

She’d rehearsed the scene of his homecoming as often as she’d remembered the one in which they’d parted… what she would say,
how she would act. Everyone would be looking at them, expecting some sort of romantic drama, but she would give no tongue
an excuse to wag or Percy a reason to hope—that is, if he still wished to marry her.

But now that they were face-to-face, her carefully prepared speech and practiced demeanor flew from her mind like puff weed
on the wind. Without thinking, she put out her hand, not to be shaken, as she’d rehearsed, but to touch the war-hardened ridge
of his cheekbone. “Hello, Percy,” she said, all that the hot rush of her gratitude and relief would allow her to vocalize.

“Hello, Gypsy.” He stood with his usual ease, his hands in the pockets of his jodhpurs, holding himself from her as if she
were a rare wine that must be sipped rather than gulped down. “Why didn’t you write?”

“I—I—” She was vaguely conscious of the others leaving them—Ollie hobbling off with his father to waylay Lucy from bearing
down upon them and Miles to greet Jeremy and Beatrice. “I was afraid,” she said. It was the first question she knew he’d ask,
and she’d decided to tell him the truth.

“Afraid?”

“I… was unable to write what you wanted to read. You were at war. I was afraid my letters would disappoint you more than if
I’d not written at all.”

“You misjudged the risk.”

“I’m sure,” she agreed, ashamed. Any letter from home in the midst of what they were going through would have been better
than no letter at all. Shyly, she reached up and again touched the tightly drawn flesh of his jaw. “You’ve all lost so much
weight.”

“Would that were all,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, understanding. They had lost an essence of themselves—innocence, she supposed. She could see it in their
old, young faces, both familiar and strange. In her mirror each morning before setting out for another backbreaking day at
the plantation, she could see the loss of it in herself. She removed her hand, seeing that he did not seem moved to take it.
“You had my prayers, if not my letters, Percy. I’m happy more than I can say that they were answered.” It was impossible to
break away from his gaze. He still had not touched her but stood with an awesome containment that unsettled her.

“They were answered, but at the cost of Ollie’s leg.”

She covered her mouth in dismay. “You mean…?”

“That German grenade was meant for me. He saved my life.”

Before she could speak, Miles appeared beside her, frowning. “Mary, when are we leaving? I want to go home to see Mama.”

“And the boys could use some sleep,” Percy said. “Neither one slept on the train.”

“If you noticed, you didn’t either,” Miles said, punching his shoulder.

Dazed by Percy’s revelation, she glanced around in confusion at the crowd milling about for their cue to depart and saw Beatrice
swooping toward them like a large black bird. Lucy followed in her bright plumage and Jeremy loaded with flowers presented
in honor of the boys’ homecoming. “I came with the Warwicks, Miles,” Mary managed to explain, aware that Percy still held
her in his quiet gaze. “Beatrice will have to tell us how we’re to get home.”