Roses (29 page)

Once again, she stood on the brink of a now-or-never crisis with him… the final one, an inner voice cautioned her. One step
either way would decide her future.

He spun her around. “Tell me,
dammit
!”

She crossed her arms, hugging herself against the coming cold. “I… would hate you,” she whispered, dropping her head.

An eternity passed before Percy spoke. “That’s what I thought. So you never intended to abide by your promise.”

She lifted her head. The same pain was breaking across his face that she’d felt when dawn washed over her devastated fields.
“I
am
Somerset, Percy,” she said. “I can’t help it. That’s who I am. That’s the woman you love. To separate me from the plantation
is to have half of me. I would not be the same. I’m convinced of that now. Share me, and you will have me whole.”

A flush of disbelief stole beneath the perennial tan of his face. “Are you telling me that I can’t have one without the other?
That if I don’t cosign the loan, I’ll lose you?”

Mary ran her tongue quickly over her dry lips. “Without Somerset, I’m lost to you anyway, Percy.”

“Mary—” Percy clasped her by the shoulders. “Somerset is only
soil and seed.
I am flesh and blood.”

“Percy,” she pleaded, “I love you. Why can’t you fit Somerset into our lives?”

He dropped his hands. “Maybe I could if I knew you loved me as much. You talk of sharing, but Somerset would get the biggest
piece of you. You’ve proved it.” He stepped back, his face contorted with pain. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing? You’re
about to lose me
and
the plantation. Where is your gain?” Suddenly an idea seemed to occur to him, too incredulous to entertain. He did not move,
and his pupils contracted to the gleam of knife points. “But you don’t plan to lose Somerset, do you.”

When once again she bowed her head, he said slowly, “No… don’t tell me you’re going to Ollie….”

Her silence along with her bowed head and folded arms seemed answer enough.

He let out a bellow of rage and disgust. “My God, you’ll stoop to any level to save that wasteland, won’t you?” He grabbed
his suit coat, roughly inserting into his pocket a small box that had lain beneath it. Yanking on his coat, he said, “Before
you leave today, pack your things. You won’t be coming here anymore.”

Mary knew that appeal was useless. Without moving from her position, once again, forever, she watched him leave her. She heard
the door of the Pierce-Arrow slam, then the crunch of tires on the bed of pine needles as he spun away. It was the middle
of August. She realized that what he’d slipped into his pocket was the box containing her engagement ring.

E
arly the next morning, Mary called Ollie and asked for a ten o’clock appointment at the store. She’d spent a miserable night
in the parlor in order to be near the door should Percy pull the bell rope. Countless times, she’d gone out on the verandah
to peer up the street toward Warwick Hall, and once she’d wandered up the sidewalk in her robe, hoping to see the light still
on in his bedroom as proof that he was unable to sleep from thinking of her.

No light shone.

With firm resolution she dressed in her outmoded traveling suit, drew her hair back into a sleek chignon, and hitched up Shawnee
for a trip to the DuMont Department Store. Ollie had apparently been on the lookout for her and was waiting at the top of
the stairs when she reached the upper level. “I am so sorry for your loss, Mary,” he said, taking her hands in his, the crutches
balanced deftly beneath his arms. “Was it as bad as we all feared?”

For a heartrending instant, Mary thought he was referring to Percy, but then she realized his concern was for the damage inflicted
by the storm. Ollie was apparently unaware of their breakup. His face would have shown it. “Worse,” she said briefly. “And
that’s why I’m here, Ollie.”

Seated before his desk, Mary explained her purpose in coming, this time omitting nothing of the terms put forth by the banker.
“I realize that in asking you to cosign the note, I’m going against the code our families have honored since our existence
in Howbutker,” she said.

“Oh, pshaw.” Ollie waved an immaculate hand. “An archaic convention. Of course you can’t put Somerset under anything but cotton.
The very idea. Raymond Withers should know that there will always be a market for natural fibers, despite the ingress of synthetics.
It will be my pleasure and honor to cosign your note, my dear.”

Deeply moved as always by his unstinting generosity, Mary said, “There is one other thing I must tell you, Ollie. I asked
Percy first.”

“Ah,” he said. “And he turned you down?”

“Yes.”

He turned up his hands in a typical Gallic gesture. “Perhaps it’s for the best. You wouldn’t want to start off marriage with…
complications.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “You… know about us?”

Ollie chuckled. “The way you feel about each other is about as easy to miss as an elephant at a tea party. Of course I know.
So does Charles. When’s the wedding?”

Mary dropped her eyes to straighten a pleat of her skirt.

“Oh, no!” Ollie clapped his hands to his cheeks in dismay. “So that’s why Percy took off this morning for the back of hell
and begone. He called me around six, told me that he was catching the train, heading off to one of the Warwicks’ logging camps
in Canada, and didn’t know when he’d be back. You all must have had
some
rift!”

Mary stiffened. Percy gone? To Canada? How typical of him! A clammy fear raised her flesh. It was one thing to be apart in
the same neighborhood, divided by a few houses, but to be separated by a country… “He knew I was going to ask you to cosign
the note,” she said.

“And he did not approve?”

“He thinks I’m taking advantage of your affection for me.”

Ollie sighed and shook his head, dislodging a strand of fine, light brown hair, skillfully trimmed to minimize its sparseness.
“What troubles befall proud men,” he said with mock pontification, and ducked his head to peer at Mary. “Not to mention proud
women. It distresses me to know that I’m the cause of this huff.”

“You’re not,” Mary quickly assured him. “Percy and I are to blame for our huff. We have… fundamental differences that we seem
unable to work out. If you’d rather not pursue this further…”

“Oh, nonsense.” Ollie motioned that she stay in her seat. “He’ll get over it by the time he crosses the state line and will
take the next train back. You two have never gone too long without making up. It’s perfectly natural that you should come
to me when he refused you. Why shouldn’t you? I’ll speak to him when he gets back, make him realize what an ass he’s being.”
He beamed at her. “Now, sit right there while I call Raymond.”

But as he reached for the telephone, Mary laid a hand over his wrist. “I’m in no position to lay conditions, Ollie, but I
must extract a promise from you before we go through with this.”

“Anything,” he said quietly. “It’s safe to say that I would promise anything you asked.”

“Then it is this. If you are ever in financial straits and I’m in a position to help, you must allow me to assist. You must
promise me that, Ollie.”

Ollie patted her hand, his smile indulgent. “All right,
mon amie,
if you insist, I promise,” he said, his manner suggesting doubt that his promise would ever be tested.

She took a handkerchief from her purse and dried her eyes. She was so emotional these days. “Ollie, you are the most wonderful
friend, a treasure to us all. I’m asking only for your signature, mind. Your name will be off the loan next year after the
harvest.”

He lifted the telephone receiver from its hook. “Then let us hope for good weather and fair skies.”

Their business with the bank concluded, Ollie escorted her to the stairs. “Are you sure Percy didn’t say when he would be
back?” she ventured.

His shoulders lifted in the way of his French ancestors. “No, Mary Lamb, but when he realizes how much he misses you, he’ll
hightail it home.”

But Percy did not hightail it home. Throughout the next week as she supervised the cleanup of her fields, she kept an eye
out for his red motorcar throwing up drying mud on one of Somerset’s roads and each evening looked for his message on the
hall table. Every time she turned Shawnee into the drive, she glanced down the street for a glimpse of the Pierce-Arrow and
one evening even directed the faithful animal to the cabin by the lake. She found the windows dark, the door locked, a deserted
air about the place, as if their times together there had never been. Depression like a flu virus set in, robbing her of energy
and spirit.

August gave way to September, and her deepening sense of loss did not abate. Even Ollie was not around to comfort her. He
was attending the fashion shows in New York and would be away until October. After that, he would be leaving for Europe on
another buying trip that included Paris, where he planned to visit Miles and reunite with the French comrades with whom he’d
served during the war. He would be gone for the better part of a year.

Her misery eventually manifested itself in bouts of nausea, suffered mostly in the mornings shortly after waking. Sassie termed
the sickness “water fever,” a strange summer illness afflicting those who drank from creek beds and lakes. Mary did not dispute
her diagnosis, thinking perhaps the germ was a carryover from her swims in the lake with Percy. But one morning, as she bent
over the basin in yet another fit of dry heaves, she debated whether or not her condition warranted an appointment with Doc
Tanner. It was such a busy time, but she’d missed a period—

Her head popped up. In horror, she stared at herself in the mirror over the water stand. Fearfully, she felt her breasts.
They were sore and swollen.
Oh, God!

Down the stairs she flew to the library, where she yanked a heavy tome from a shelf. It addressed family illnesses, symptoms,
and treatments and had been published in 1850, but certain ailments and their diagnoses had remained the same since the world
began. Her head spinning, Mary read the symptoms of her feared infirmity. All applied to her—missed menstrual cycle, swollen
breasts, darkened nipples, nausea, frequent urination, fatigue, loss of appetite…

Sweet Jesus, have mercy—she was pregnant!

She realized it was out of the question to go to Doc Tanner to have her suspicions confirmed. She’d have to consult a doctor
out of the county, and that would require making an appointment by telephone. Her call would raise all kinds of talk on the
party line, even if the operator did not spread the word that Mary Toliver was snubbing Doc Tanner to seek professional services
elsewhere.

She sped immediately to Beatrice, finding her snapping green beans with her cook. “Why, Mary!” she exclaimed when she was
ushered into the kitchen. “What a wonderful surprise. What brings you down the street?”

“Beatrice, I’m looking for Percy,” Mary said in a rush of words. She discovered she was wringing her hands and jammed them
into the pockets of her skirt. “It’s extremely important that I speak with him.”

“Well, I wish I could speak with him, too, dear,” Beatrice said, handing her bowl to the cook. She took Mary’s arm and directed
her out of the kitchen into her morning room. “He’s somewhere in the Canadian Rockies working with one of the company’s logging
crews. He left two weeks ago, and neither his dad nor I can get hold of him. Now, tell me, what’s the matter?”

“I… I need to speak with him, that’s all,” Mary said, struggling to steady her breathing. Beatrice’s abilities of perception
were as sharp as a honed saw, and it would take little for her to discern the cause of her anxiety. “We’ve had a falling-out,”
she explained. “I came down to apologize and to tell him that I… I can’t seem to get through my days without him.”

Beatrice smiled. “I’m happy to hear that, and he will be, too. I rather suspected you all had had a row when he took off to
Canada to work on a logging site. When he calls, I’ll give him your message, and that’ll get him home soon enough.” She cocked
her head fondly. “Don’t you think it’s about time you children tied the knot? Any longer and I’ll be too old to be a grandmother.”

Mary’s smile burst full and glowing, despite the worry twisting her nerves into knots. “We’ll see that doesn’t happen. But
please tell Percy to hurry home as fast as he can. I… need him.”

“I most certainly will, child.” Beatrice held out her arms. “You’ve made me very happy.”

Weeks passed. October arrived. Still no word from Percy. Each morning, Mary examined her abdomen for outward signs of the
life forming inside her and was relieved to find none. But something else was growing within her as well. Like a worm, it
had waited until all her losses were complete before inching from its burrow. She’d become aware of it shortly after the hail.
One morning, tired from worry and lack of sleep, she had looked out over the ruined acres of Somerset and felt the land jeering
at her, reveling in the failure of all her hard work and sacrifices. The feeling continued throughout the arduous weeks of
cleanup, sorting the salvage, and struggling with the tenants’ low morale. It was her condition, she told herself. She had
read that pregnancy affects a woman’s mental and emotional outlook. It could not be true that the land and nature had conspired
against her, turned gloating traitor to all her hopes and dreams. Still, the notion persisted, and often as she rode Shawnee
down the pummeled rows, one arm cradling her womb, it seemed that she could hear Percy’s voice in the sway of the bordering
pines:
Somerset is only soil and seed. I am flesh and blood.

By the middle of October, she had come to accept with certainty that she could live without Somerset, but never, ever without
Percy.

Now at night when she couldn’t sleep, she sat in her window seat facing northward, where Canada lay. Hugging her knees to
her chest, she prayed, “Please, God, have Percy come home. I’ll give up Somerset. I’ll be content to be his wife and the mother
of our child the rest of my life. I know what’s important now. I know that I can never be happy without him. Please, God,
send Percy home.”