The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (5 page)

She put Clyde on the floor and went to the telephone, aware that at the very same moment, Mrs. Wilson next door on the north, Mrs. Newman next door to Mrs. Wilson, the Ferrells next door to the Newmans, and the Snows at the end of the block were all going to their telephones, too. They would cup their hands over the mouthpieces and stealthily pick up the receivers, trying to conceal the fact that they were listening in.

Which was a pretty silly thing to do, Verna thought, because everybody knew that everybody else always listened in, and monitored what they said accordingly. These days, you could get a private line, which allowed you to say anything you wanted to say without fear of people overhearing. But it was expensive. And anyway, if you weren’t on the party line, you’d have to wait for news until the next time you went to the diner for lunch, or the
Dispatch
came out, or your neighbor came over to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar. Better to be on the party line and get the news straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

Verna picked up the receiver and said hello. But it wasn’t one of the Dahlias calling.

“Hello, Verna.” The voice was male, and uncharacteristically hesitant. “It’s Mr. Scroggins.”

Verna’s heart rose up in her throat, then thudded into the pit of her stomach. Mr. Scroggins had never called her at home, not once in all the years she had worked in the probate clerk’s office.

“H-h-how are you, Mr. Scroggins?” she managed.

“Doin’ real well,” Mr. Scroggins said. “But I got some bad news for you, Verna. I’m real sorry, but I got to ask you not to come in to work on Monday morning. You jes’ take the week off and stay home. A little vacation, like.”

Verna gasped. “Not come in to work? But . . . but why?” She was suddenly aware of four listening ears glued to four receivers along Larkspur, between Robert E. Lee and Rosemont Street. She snapped, “All right, you all, I am asking you to get off this party line right now. You hear?”

There was one quick click, then two, then finally three.

“Anybody else?” she asked. There was silence, but of course she had no way to tell whether the fourth person was still on the line or had never been there in the first place. She turned her attention back to her caller. “All right, Mr. Scroggins. Now, why is it I’m not supposed to come to work? And who’s going to manage the office if I’m not there?”

“Miz Cole is coming back full time,” Mr. Scroggins said. “She can manage the place—not as good as you, but she can do it.” His voice took on an edge. “And if you don’t know why this is happenin’, then I’m sorry for you, Verna. I never in God’s green earth would’ve wanted anything like this, but—”

“Anything like
what
?” Verna demanded. Her knees were shaking and it was hard to get her breath. “Why do I have to stay away from the office? Does it have anything to do with that auditor?”

“I am truly sorry but I can’t tell you a thing, Verna,” Mr. Scroggins said regretfully. “You are now on furlough, you might say, and I need you to give me your key to the office door. You can leave it in an envelope at the Old Alabama desk, and I’ll pick it up. I’ll give it back if this thing is cleared up and you can go back to work. Okay?”

Okay? Of course it wasn’t okay!
“If what thing is cleared up?” Verna asked. She could hardly grasp what he was saying. To give up her key to the office would be like giving up her right to her job. Like giving up her identity!

“Never you mind, Verna,” Mr. Scroggins said, now more sternly. “Jes’ you bring me your key.” He paused, waiting for her reply. “Verna, you hear what I said?” Another, longer pause. “Verna? You answer me, now.”

But Verna didn’t answer. She hung up the receiver and collapsed into a chair.

THREE

Bessie and Miss Rogers

Bessie Bloodworth didn’t have far to go after she left the Dahlias’ clubhouse on Saturday afternoon. All she had to do was duck through the hole in the hedge and she was in the neatly kept backyard of Magnolia Manor, where she couldn’t help but notice that the plants in the fourteen clay pots of thriving Confederate roses had been carefully pruned back. Miss Rogers’ work, Bessie knew.

The previous spring, Miss Rogers had obtained a start from every Dahlia who had a Confederate rose in her garden—and it turned out that they all did, since everyone loved the plant, even those who didn’t know that it wasn’t a rose but an hibiscus. She had rooted the pencil-sized cuttings in buckets of damp sand, then moved the new plants into pots and later, moved the pots into the cellar for the winter, so they wouldn’t freeze. Now, just in time for the Confederate Day celebration at the cemetery, each plant had put out an exuberant green growth. Nicely trimmed, they were ready to leave the Magnolia Manor and go to their new home at the Darling Cemetery, where they would create a beautiful blooming hedge along the fence.

Bessie climbed up the back steps and opened the door to the screened-in back porch. The Magnolia Manor was the only home she had ever known. She had lived in the old two-story house for decades, first with her mother and father and brothers and then with her father, whom she cared for until he died. And now with the Magnolia Ladies, as they called themselves, four of them, bless ’em. Her boarders.

Of course, the house hadn’t had a name back when her father (who owned and operated the town’s mortuary) was still alive. But it hadn’t had a mortgage, either, and after his death, it was Bessie’s only real asset, except for the few dollars she got every month from Mr. Noonan, who had purchased her father’s funeral parlor business.

First, she gave the house a name. Second, she got Beulah Trivette to paint a nice wooden sign for the front yard, featuring the words
MAGNOLIA MANOR
in fancy script, encircled by magnolia blossoms and leaves. Third, she put an ad in the Darling
Dispatch
for “older unmarried and widowed ladies of refinement and good taste, to occupy spacious bedrooms at the Magnolia Manor
.
” She’d been afraid that if the house didn’t have a name of its own, people would start calling it
Bessie Bloodworth’s Home for Old Ladies
to distinguish it from Mrs. Brewster’s Home for Young Ladies, over on West Plum, whose residents were so unruly that Mrs. Brewster had to set strict rules for their behavior. Bessie hoped that her residents would be dignified and refined enough not to require rules, although as time went on, she had learned that older women, even those of refinement and good taste, could be undignified every now and again.

Mrs. Brewster’s wasn’t the only other boardinghouse in town, of course. Mrs. Meeks rented rooms and cooked supper for single men who worked on the railroad and at Ozzie Sherman’s sawmill, and the Old Alabama Hotel offered quite nice rooms and excellent meals for travelers. But ladies were not allowed at Meeks’, where the men slept two and three to a room, and people of ordinary means couldn’t afford to stay at the hotel for more than a night or two. So Bessie had every reason to hope that refined widows and spinster ladies would realize that the Manor would make a lovely home.

She was right, as it turned out. Within a couple of weeks, all four of her empty bedrooms were spoken for and stayed that way. It was such a nice place to live that most of the residents remained as long as they could. But there was a waiting list, and when a vacancy did occur, Bessie scarcely had time to clean the room and wash the bedding before somebody new was moving in.

Unfortunately, Magnolia Manor was not what you’d call a money-making business, since most of Bessie’s boarders were not well fixed. (If they were, they’d likely be living at the hotel or in their own houses, with colored help to cook and clean.) Mrs. Sedalius was better off than the others, for her son was a prominent doctor in Mobile. He sent his mother a monthly check for her room and board and a small allowance so she could buy things she wanted. (His checks, Bessie suspected, were guilt payments: the man rarely darkened his mother’s door.) Leticia Wiggins had a widow’s pension from her husband’s service in the War Between the States—it wasn’t much but it was regular. Miss Rogers earned a few dollars a week as the town librarian. Maxine Bechdel looked to be well off—she owned two rent houses in neighboring Monroeville—but looks were deceiving. Last month, one of her renters had paid her with a bushel of cabbages. The other had paid with a promise. Bessie and Roseanne (the colored lady who cooked and cleaned in return for room and board and spending money) had turned the cabbages into sauerkraut. There wasn’t anything they could do with the promise.

Bessie would have liked to raise the cost of board and room, but if she did, some of the ladies might have to leave—and where would they go? “You can’t get blood out of a turnip,” she often reminded herself with a sigh. “You just have to be satisfied with the turnip.” And cabbage, if that’s all you had. She had read in the
Dispatch
that Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana—a.k.a. The Kingfish—was proposing that everybody over sixty should get a government pension, the way they did in England. Bessie thought this was the best idea she had heard in a long time and had written to Senator Bankhead, one of their Alabama senators, telling him so. But she wasn’t surprised when the senator didn’t write back. Lots of people were afraid of The Kingfish. They said he was a dangerous demagogue who would drive the country to the brink of ruin if he got his way, and maybe they were right, Bessie didn’t know. But he seemed to get a lot of things done for the little people of Louisiana. Bessie just wished he could get a few things done for the little people of Alabama, too.

But while the Magnolia Ladies didn’t pay much rent, their money paid the property taxes and bought coal and electricity and food, which meant that Bessie didn’t need much money. And since they couldn’t pay much, the Magnolia Ladies were glad to share the work. Maxine and Leticia washed the dishes and neatened the kitchen and dining room after every meal. The sweeping and dusting was divided between Miss Rogers (downstairs) and Mrs. Sedalius (upstairs). All four helped to plant and weed and harvest the vegetable garden and tend the half-dozen Rhode Island Reds who lived in a coop beside the back fence and gave them each a fresh-laid egg for breakfast every morning. There was still a lot of cleaning and housework and maintenance left for Bessie and Roseanne.
But what of it?
she asked herself. These days, plenty of people were much worse off, and they had real jobs.

And there was the added bonus of friendship, for this bunch of Magnolia Ladies was an exceptionally congenial one. In the evenings, Maxine and Leticia played canasta or Old Maid while Mrs. Sedalius knitted or crocheted and Miss Rogers read aloud to them. She stopped reading when it was time for their favorite programs on the radio, a fancy Crosley five-tube table model that Mrs. Sedalius’ son had sent her for Christmas three years before. (He didn’t bother to bring it himself, just ordered it from a catalog and had it delivered.) The ladies loved
The A&P Gypsies
,
The Firestone Hour
, and
Lum and Abner
, which starred two Arkansas hillbillies who were always being fleeced by Squire Skimp. They especially liked that one because the fictional folks who lived in Pine Ridge, Arkansas, weren’t all that different from the real folks who lived in Darling, Alabama. The ladies listened and laughed and reminded themselves that people had pretty much the same problems, wherever they lived.

The Magnolia Ladies looked out for each other, too, because they were all fragile in one way or another. Leticia had fallen twice, breaking first the right wrist, then the left, and now walked with a cane. Maxine wouldn’t admit it, but she was having trouble remembering names and dates. Mrs. Sedalius’ eyes were going bad, which made needlework difficult, and Miss Rogers constantly fretted about her lack of money.

But they took comfort in the fact that they had one another, and they understood each other’s frailties and sympathized.
Sisters
would not have been too strong a word to describe their relationship.

Unfortunately, however, their nerves had worn a little thin over the past few weeks, and the ladies were feeling tetchy. It began when a large gray tabby cat showed up on the front porch, skinny, starved, and crawling with fleas. Mrs. Sedalius happened to be sitting in the porch swing that evening, crocheting a doily. Before you could say
Bless Pat
, the enterprising cat had jumped into her lap, presenting himself for adoption. Mrs. Sedalius fell for him like a ton of bricks, according to Maxine, who had been there when it happened.

“Oh, poor, sweet kitty!” Mrs. Sedalius cried. She carried him to the kitchen, where she fed him a mashed boiled egg and bread crumbs in warm milk, then out to the woodshed, where he endured a bath. The next morning at breakfast, she announced his new name: Lucky Lindy, after her favorite flying hero.

“
Lucky
is right,” Maxine muttered, stirring cream into her coffee. “That tomcat knew a good thing when he landed in it.” She scowled at Mrs. Sedalius. “I hate cats. I’ve always hated cats. Why couldn’t you get a canary?”

“I wouldn’t have minded if he’d been a kitten,” Leticia groused. “But this one is on his ninth life. And he’s
ugly.
” She nudged Maxine. “Pass the butter, Maxine.”

“You’ll have to keep the creature away from me,” Miss Rogers said darkly. She dipped her spoon into her soft-boiled egg. “I am allergic to cat fur.”

Bessie knew she should have put her foot down right then and there and told Mrs. Sedalius that Lucky Lindy had to go. But she hesitated. Mrs. Sedalius’ son almost never came to visit, and the old lady had spent her days hoping for a telephone call or waiting for the mailman to bring her a letter from her “dear boy.” Now, she spent her days combing and stroking Lucky Lindy and cooing over him as if he were a cute little kitten.

So Bessie waffled, thinking that the cat might be good company for the lonely old lady and help to get her mind off her neglectful son. But it wasn’t long before she was sorry that she hadn’t said no right off, before Mrs. Sedalius got so attached. Bessie herself wasn’t particularly fond of cats, and this one—once he got his footing—was a holy terror. He—

“Oh, there you are, Miss Bloodworth,” Miss Rogers said, coming into the kitchen just as Bessie was reaching into the icebox for a cool drink. Her tone was heavy with reproof and her brows were knitted in a scowl. “I have been looking all over for you.”

Miss Rogers was the only one of the Magnolia Ladies who addressed Bessie formally. Bessie had tried to coax her onto a first-name footing but had finally given up, feeling that Miss Rogers must have some sort of secret need to keep people at arms’ length.

“Sorry,” Bessie replied. “I was working in the Dahlias’ vegetable garden.” She had intended to ask Miss Rogers (also a Dahlia) if she would like to lend a hand, but the lady had been taking a nap. “Would you like some tea?” she added, taking out the frosty pitcher.

“Thank you, no.” Miss Rogers said stiffly. She was clearly upset about something. “We need to have a talk. Right now. It cannot be delayed.”

It was a hot Saturday afternoon and Bessie was dressed in her gardening clothes. But Miss Rogers, who was so thin she was almost gaunt, wore a dark print rayon crepe dress (nearly to her ankles) with a belt and a prissy lace-trimmed collar that buttoned up to her throat. With her round steel-rimmed glasses and her stiffly waved gray hair, and armored by her self-assured sense of the
proprieties
, she looked—and spoke—exactly like the prim and proper librarian she was.

And she was
very
prim and proper. The other Magnolia Ladies enjoyed sharing the tales of their lives and times and husbands, children, aunts, cousins, nieces, and nephews. Miss Rogers, on the other hand, kept her silence while the others chattered. Bessie knew only the dim outline of her story, but what little she knew was terribly sad. Miss Rogers had been an orphan who had never had a home of her own. She dreamed of having a small house and garden all to herself, and with this goal in mind, she had saved every penny she could lay her hands on. But then, like so many people around the country, she had yielded to the seductions of the rising stock market and had foolishly put all her savings into stocks. She had lost every cent when the market crashed on a black October Tuesday in 1929 and was left with only the pittance she earned as the town’s part-time librarian. And last month, the Darling town council had begun discussing whether it could afford to keep the library open. If it closed, she would be out of a job—and completely out of money.

“A talk,” Miss Rogers repeated. “Now, please.”

“What about?” Bessie asked apprehensively, wondering if Miss Rogers had gotten bad news from the council. But Ophelia’s husband Jed was the mayor. Surely, if the council was planning to close the library, Ophelia would have mentioned it when they were sitting around the Dahlias’ kitchen table a little while ago. On the other hand, Ophelia had seemed uncharacteristically depressed today. Did she know that the library was on the chopping block, and that poor Miss Rogers was to be let go?