Roses (20 page)

“Mary, I know you’re skeptical,” Darla said, ducking her chin to give her daughter a fond look. “You think I want to get out
of here only so that I can run down a drink somewhere, but frankly, I’m out of ideas as to how to go about that. I… simply
want to feel human again, darling.”

At the foot of the bed, Mary squeezed her eyes shut to stanch the sudden rush of tears.
Darling.
She was stunned at how starving her heart was for that word of affection.

“Oh, my darling, I know….” Darla threw back the covers and swung her frail, ghostly pale legs to the floor. “I know… I know,”
she crooned, tottering unsteadily in the diaphanous gown toward Mary. “Come to Mama, precious child.” She held out her arms,
and Mary went into them, allowing herself to be stroked and petted as if she’d come in from play with a scraped knee. She
submitted with a desperate hunger even while a long-embedded wariness warned this could be another game whose objective only
her mother knew.

Nonetheless, she held her hands when they were seated on the chaise longue and asked, “What do you want, Mother? What would
you like to do that would make you happy?”

“Well, first, I’d like to take a stroll about the house to regain some strength in my legs. Then I was wondering if I might
help Toby do a little tilling of the garden. Sassie tells me he’s got some potatoes ready to go into the ground.”

Mary had been studying her mother as she spoke. She saw none of her former craftiness, the quick shift of her eyes that betrayed
another motive behind her requests. Had she forgotten that the vegetable garden had yielded its last bottle of bourbon years
ago, turned over by Toby’s hoe?

Darla read her concern and squeezed her hands. “Don’t worry, darling. I know there’s nothing left to dig up. I just want to
feel the earth again, plant some things. I’m sure Toby can use the help.”

“You know someone will always have to be with you,” Mary reminded her gently.

“Yes, I realize that. Well, Toby can watch me in the garden in the mornings, then I’ll take a nap after dinner and be locked
in as usual. Sassie can stand guard over me in the parlor in the afternoons. I’d like to sit in there and read. Do we still
take the
Woman’s Home Companion
?”

Mary winced at the cruel-sounding words, but Darla spoke without rancor, using the matter-of-fact tone with which she once
apprised her family of their schedules at the breakfast table.

“I’m sorry, we don’t,” Mary said, “but we still have the copies from a few years ago. There seemed no point in continuing
the subscription….”

Mary drew in her breath, expecting to see Darla’s golden eyes smolder with offense at her reasoning, but she said, “That was
wise since I was the only one in the house to read the magazine. I know we’re poor. No use spending money on things we don’t
need.” She withdrew her hands. “I won’t ask how things are going out at Somerset. As well as anyone could hope, I imagine,
with you in charge. You are spending most of your days there?”

Mary looked for signs of her old wounded anger, but Darla had put the question mildly, as a matter of curiosity. Perhaps she
had finally emerged from the dungeon of her bitter resentment after all. “Yes, ma’am. We’re getting the fields ready for the
spring.”

“Well, no need to feel bad about having to spend time at the plantation. When you and Sassie are tied up, maybe Beatrice can
sit with me. I know she’s offered countless times. How does she look, by the way?”

“Much better now that Percy’s home and she’s no longer wearing black.”

“I always thought that was a mere affectation, a way to gain sympathy and be noticed. We all had sons in the war. But I’d
love to see her. Will you arrange it for tomorrow? I have something I want her to do for me.” She cocked her head in the saucy
way Mary thought of as singularly her mother’s, opening a bank of memories and a well of despair.

“Is it something that I can do for you instead?” Mary asked, suspecting the worst. Everybody in town, including the Warwicks,
had stored up liquor before the passage of the National Prohibition Act, which forbade the buying and selling of alcohol for
consumption after midnight, January 16.

Darla clearly perceived the reason for her question. She waved a clawlike hand. “Silly girl, I’m not going to ask her to part
with a bottle, if that’s what’s worrying you. No, I want her to help me to plan a party.”

“A party?”

“Yes, my lamb. You know what’s coming up at the beginning of next month?” Darla giggled at Mary’s astonished expression. “Yes,
darling, your birthday! Did you think I’d forgotten? We’ll have something elegant but simple and invite the Warwicks and Abel
and Ollie, and even the Waithes, if you’d prefer. I haven’t seen the boys in a long while, have I?”

“No, Mother,” Mary said quietly. “Not for a few years.” Of course she hadn’t forgotten the date of her birthday. She would
become twenty, one year removed from the time she would take full control of Somerset. She was simply surprised that her mother
had remembered. There was the thump of Sassie’s footsteps on the stairs and the rattle of china cups. “Sassie is bringing
us coffee and cinnamon rolls,” she said. “Shall we have a tea party like the old days and discuss what you have in mind?”

“Oh, let’s!” Darla patted her hands together. “But I can’t discuss everything I have in mind, Mary Lamb. I want to surprise
you so there will be no doubt of the love I bear you.”

Later, returning the coffee tray to the kitchen, Mary asked, “Well, what do you think, Sassie?”

“She puttin’ on, Miss Mary. I know your mama, and just as sure as my rheumatism tell me when we in for rain, I know she be
up to somethin’.”

Mary wasn’t so sure. The house and garden and grounds, the gazebo, carriage house, and tool shed, had been thoroughly searched
for contraband liquor. Of course, her mother might believe they’d missed a bottle or two, but if that was the case, she’d
have tried to get out of bed earlier. Escape was out of the question. She had no money, no way of getting any, and no place
to go even if she had the strength to get there. She had seemed genuinely, pathetically contrite for her behavior these past
years and determined to make up for it.

“Did you notice that all the family pictures are gone on the mantel ’cept the one of Mister Miles in his army uniform?” Sassie
asked.

“I noticed. She took them down after Papa died.”

“Well, your mama can have a little fire in her fireplace like she done have me lay this mornin’, and she can have me open
the drapes, and she can get herself all fixed up, but until I see them pictures of you and your papa and the whole family
back out, I ain’t gonna believe nothin’ she say.”

Mary nodded thoughtfully. “That would be a sign of her sincerity,” she agreed, doubtful that she and Sassie would ever see
photographs of her family smiling from their silver frames on her mother’s mantel again.

D
riving out to the Ledbetter plantation later that morning in the only horse-and-buggy conveyance still used among Howbutker’s
elite, Mary ruminated alternately between the latest caprice of her mother’s and Jarvis Ledbetter’s reason for sending around
an invitation asking her to “luncheon.” It was common knowledge that a big eastern bank, like other distant investors seeking
to buy up ever more of the rich farmlands of the Cotton Belt, had approached the old gentleman with an offer for his plantation.
His only children, twin daughters, had married disappointingly, and he had often hinted that he would rather sell his plantation,
Fair Acres, and live in grand style off its proceeds than leave it to his daughters for their husbands to do likewise. Mary
believed the invitation was for the purpose of offering her the first chance to buy Fair Acres.

Fair Acres was a long, narrow stretch of cotton land situated between Somerset and the strip along the Sabine that Miles had
inherited. On it sat a handsome plantation home that would be included in the land sale. Mary had been up since dawn calculating
the financial feasibility of purchasing the acres that would unite the Sabine strip to Somerset and provide a convenient home
away from home on Toliver acres.

It had always been her father’s dream to acquire the two sections that severed Somerset. He envisioned a sea of Toliver cotton
stretching from one unbroken boundary to another, but no matter how Mary manipulated the figures, the ledger showed that the
dream was not to be. The only extra money constituted no real surplus at all, but funds held in reserve as a hedge against
disaster. Even if this coming harvest was wiped out, there would be money to pay those bloodsuckers in Boston who waited each
year for her to go under. They’d never get the satisfaction. She had scrimped and saved, sacrificed and endured, to make sure
of that. Within two years, the Tolivers would be in sole possession of Somerset once again.

Mary lived for the day the deed would arrive. She would have a party, a huge bash to show Howbutker that her father had been
wise in leaving her Somerset. Everyone would see that under her hand it had become a mighty plantation again. Quietly, the
household would emerge from its penury. She’d hire help for Sassie, install modern bathrooms to replace the privy in the far
corner of the backyard and the honey pots under the beds. She might even buy a motorcar and retire old Shawnee, their faithful
Arabian who’d outlived his buggy mate. Her mother would want for nothing. She could hold her head up again, under the finest
hat money could buy. Knowing Darla, once she was dressed in the latest fashion and the house was restored to its former grandeur,
she would not care whose hand provided her the best. She would take as much pride in the fact that it was her daughter’s as
she had when it was her husband’s.

But if Jarvis Ledbetter wanted his money before the last boll was picked, she’d have to turn him down. She couldn’t risk their
cash reserve for any reason. Nonetheless, it was worth putting work aside for a while to hear what he had to say.

Two hours later, having heard it, Mary sat staring at the plantation owner, shocked beyond speech in her chair. They were
seated in the study of the small plantation home, having after-luncheon coffee. “The First Bank of Boston, you said?” Mary
repeated. “The
First Bank of Boston
wants to buy Fair Acres?”

“That’s what I said, Mary. Every square inch of it. However…” The master of Fair Acres, still a reputed womanizer at seventy,
tapped his fingertips together playfully. “I haven’t said yes yet. I’m giving you first chance to buy it and unite your acreage.”

Mary resisted the urge to wail aloud. The First Bank of Boston was the lending institution that held the mortgage to Somerset.
Like an undertaker waiting close at hand for a dying man’s last breath, they expected her to default on the mortgage. By buying
Fair Acres, if Somerset failed, they would be in possession of a plantation on a major waterway, making it the most valuable
plantation in East Texas, worth triple their investment. Why else would they be interested in buying that particular stretch
when there were other cotton farms vulnerable for the snatching? Mary thought she would choke on the insult.

She had come to look upon the financial body as a personal enemy bent on destroying families such as hers and the system that
went with them. One by one, all across the Cotton Belt, planters like Jarvis Ledbetter were selling out to eastern bidders,
selling out the tenants who depended upon them for their livelihoods, selling out the land to be diverted to other, more profitable
crops than the cultivation of cotton. She couldn’t blame them, she supposed. It was getting harder and harder to maintain
the plantation way of life. Inclement weather, maintenance costs, diminishing markets, pests, and the disinclination of heirs
to carry on in the rural tradition—they all represented reasons for getting out from under the constant struggle to survive.

Still, Mary felt a surge of resentment toward the toadlike man whose pale blue eyes observed her with rheumy delight over
his fingertips. She made up her mind at once. “If you’re willing to wait until after the harvest, I will certainly buy it,”
she said.

The silver-haired old planter shook his head. “I’m sorry, my dear. I can’t wait until after the harvest, which may or may
not come in, as we are all too painfully aware. I’m selling everything—lock, stock, and barrel—and moving to Europe. Plan
to live in Paris for a while. I’ve always wanted to go there, see a little of the world before I die, and I can’t think of
a better place to start than the Moulin Rouge. Miles still in Paris?”

“He was the last we heard. Mr. Ledbetter…” Mary’s mouth went dry as she heard herself ask, “Exactly what are you asking for
Fair Acres?”

When he quoted the sum, she sucked in her breath. It was far less than she had expected. “But that—that’s most reasonable,”
she stammered, her mind working, going over the figures in her ledger back home.

“Far more reasonable than I intend to be with the bunch back in Boston,” Jarvis said, his pale eyes glittering.

“Why are you making me such a generous offer?” Mary was suddenly wary. All through the meal, she’d half expected the old man
to make an inappropriate advance toward her.

Her host sighed and reached inside his black wool jacket for a cigar. After biting off the tip, he studied the end of it.
“To ease my conscience a bit, perhaps. If I sell to them, I’m opening the back door in this part of Texas for the jackals
to move in. I know it, and I’m sorry about it, but if I don’t, my girls and those worthless husbands of theirs will. I figure
that by offering you the chance to buy Fair Acres, I’ll have done something to save the old way of life. I figure if anybody
can last out here, you will. They don’t make offspring—heirs—of your kind anymore, Mary. You’re the last of the breed. I can
take a little less and still be happy. Besides…” The old planter lit up. “I figure it’s all you can afford.”

“You’re right,” Mary said. She was more relaxed with him now. He offered an opportunity she’d be a fool to pass up. Never
again would she be able to buy that land as cheaply, and certainly not if the First Bank of Boston purchased it. She said
quickly, “Mr. Ledbetter, I do believe I see a way to buy those sections. When do you have to know?”