The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush (20 page)

Charlie frowned. “I missed that one.”

“That happened Monday night. He didn’t report it. He didn’t want his wife to know.”

“I put a story in the paper that says she’s visiting her sister.”

Bent crossed one leg over the other. “Right. He sent her to Montgomery. He knew it was going to get ugly and wanted her out of the way. I think you can understand that.”

“There’s a lot I don’t understand about this situation,” Charlie said flatly. He lifted an eyebrow. “Not complaining, just ignorant. Uninformed. Happens all the time.”

“Happens to me, too.” Bent pulled on his pipe. “And ‘uninformed’ is exactly the problem. George is under attack because folks here in Darling don’t understand the situation. Duffy and his bosses in New Orleans haven’t released any announcements about the sale of the bank, which allows people to think whatever they want to think about George’s role in the closure. They can—”

“They can make him out to be the villain of the piece,” Charlie put in. “Which is exactly what they are doing. They want a scapegoat, and he’s within easy reach—and logical. Show me a banker anywhere, and I’ll show you a man who will never win any popularity contests with the hoi polloi.” He paused. “Got an idea who’s behind the vandalism?”

“No, and I’m not sure that makes any difference, at least not right at this moment. What happened was small potatoes—except for the death threat, of course. George has a gun, although I’m not sure he knows what to do with it. But that’s beside the point. We need to stop this from escalating, the way it did over in Harkinville.”

That had been big news the month before. The Harkinville bank had failed, bringing down several local businesses. The banker had been hanged in effigy. Then his house was torched, and a colored maid had died in the fire. A day or so later, the banker had taken his pistol out to the barn and shot himself. The panic had spread to several neighboring towns and counties, with people rushing to withdraw their money as fast as they could. Before the alarm ended, five banks—and five towns—were in deep trouble.

“So what do you want me to do?” Charlie asked.

“We have to change the way people see this situation. Change the emotional climate. Lower the temperature. And you’re the only one who can do that. That’s the story.”

“Well, somebody’s going to have to come clean with a few more factual details,” Charlie said testily. “I’m as much in the dark as the next guy. If I’m going to shed any light, I need to be enlightened first. And I assume that you can assure me that George Johnson isn’t guilty of anything that people suspect him of. Embezzlement, for example. Misappropriation of funds. Malfeasance. All of the above.”

With a bland expression Bent pulled on his pipe. “My clients are innocent. George is no exception.”

“Yeah.” Charlie’s chuckle was sarcastic. “Tell me another.”

“If he’s guilty of anything, it’s making unwise loans—not to his friends or family, he’s clean there. Or at least he’s straightened all that out. But he’s made loans to ordinary people—working stiffs, farmers, stockmen, merchants—who weren’t creditworthy, which is why the bank is in trouble with its buyer.” Bent puffed out a cloud of blue smoke. “George may not be the best bank manager on record, but it’s because he had a heart, not because he’s a crook or a thief. That’s the story I hope you’ll write. A human interest story about a guy who’s made a few mistakes. Who hasn’t? But he’s no more a crook than you or I.”

“I should’ve figured you’d say that.” Charlie drummed his fingers on the desk. “Well, in the interest of Darling peace and harmony, I’m willing to write the story. But I’m up against a deadline, and I’ve got a big print job to do tomorrow. If you want it in Friday’s
Dispatch,
I need to interview Johnson this afternoon. And Duffy, too.”

“Not Duffy,” Bent said firmly, shaking his head. “He’s not a part of this story.”

“But he’s the new president of the bank. Why isn’t he part of the story?”

Bent’s face was stubborn. “Trust me, Charlie. He isn’t.”

Charlie had a feeling that there was more here than Bent was letting on. But it wasn’t his nut to crack and if Bent had decided not to tell him, he wasn’t going to find out. So he only shrugged and said, “Have it your way. When can I talk to Johnson?”

“Are you free this afternoon?”

“The sooner the better.” Charlie paused. “Is this a solo gig, or are you planning to be there, too?”

“Might be good if I tagged along,” Bent said casually. “Make sure that you don’t ask any questions that’ll get George into trouble.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s just past noon. How about if I meet you at the Johnson house, say, in an hour or so?”

“I’ll be there,” Charlie said, and then decided it was worth one more try. “This guy Duffy. If he’s not part of the story, is it because he’s not going to be around much longer? Here in Darling, that is. If you ask me, this town would be better off without him. He’s—”

Bent stood up. “Charlie, did anybody ever tell you that you don’t know when to stop?”

“Sure,” Charlie said. “People say that all the time about me. I’m a newsman, remember? I go where the story goes. And if you ask me, Duffy is the story. I’m going to find out why.”

Bent grinned. “Not from me, you’re not. Not from George, either. Oh, by the way, Liz wanted me to give you this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out two folded sheets of paper. “Her garden club column for Friday’s paper.” He laid it on Charlie’s desk.

“Thanks,” Charlie said. He scanned the pages, decided they didn’t need any serious editing, and slid them into Ophelia’s basket on the corner of his desk. “Liz does good work.”

“She does.” Bent puffed on his pipe, looking thoughtful. “I guess you know that Grady Alexander is getting married on Saturday.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. Mrs. Mann brought in a wedding announcement. Obviously, big doings in the Mann family. Thought I would lose it at the bottom of page seven, under the market reports.” Charlie paused. “Liz doing okay, is she?” She had been going with Grady Alexander for as long as he’d known her, and everybody expected them to get married one of these days. His wedding would have come as a huge shock.

“She’s deeply distressed, of course, but she’s holding up pretty well.” Bent’s jaw tightened. “I just can’t figure it out, Charlie. Alexander always struck me as an okay guy, but now I’m convinced he has rocks in his head. Liz is . . . well, she doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment. She’s special.”

Charlie looked at him, the glimmer of an idea forming. “You’re not—”

He stopped. No, surely not. Bent had been divorced for a couple of years now, and Charlie had heard that he was seeing a woman up in Montgomery, a very pretty socialite, rich as goose grease and also divorced. Rumor had it that they might be getting close to an engagement.

Bent appeared not to have heard him. “From what Liz told me, Alexander dumped the news on her on Monday night, when she thought they were going to the movies. There was no warning at all, not a single word. It came like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. She had no idea he’d even been seeing anybody else, much less—” His voice was flat and hard as a board. “I reckon you know why they’re getting married.”

“I can guess,” Charlie said. “And so can everybody else in town.”

“Which makes it that much worse for her. Fellow that does something like that—lets a good woman down that way—is the worst kind of rat.” Bent lowered his head and shook it savagely, like a bull about to wheel on a matador. “Oughta be taken out and horsewhipped.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. The thought of Fannie Champaign stabbed through him and he closed his eyes against the piercing pain. “Horsewhipped.”

THE GARDEN GATE

BY
E
LIZABETH
L
ACY

Last Saturday, a group of Darling Dahlias met in the clubhouse to put up rhubarb and rhubarb sauce. (Thanks to Mildred Kilgore, who brought it all the way from Tennessee.) Aunt Hetty Little, Verna Tidwell, Earlynne Biddle, Bessie Bloodworth, and your correspondent used the two new 23-quart pressure canners the Dahlias bought with the proceeds from their vegetable sales, and canning jars donated by fellow club members. The Darling Diner is buying a dozen jars so Raylene Riggs can bake some strawberry-rhubarb pies, so Violet Sims says to watch the menu board. We gave the rest of canned rhubarb to the Darling Ladies Guild, which will distribute it. But we’d like our jars back, so we can use them again. If you are a rhubarb recipient, please drop off your jar (washed, please!) on the front porch at the clubhouse, at 302 Camellia Street. You can keep the lid.

At our recent club meeting, Bessie Bloodworth took all the Dahlias out in the garden and gave us a demonstration of proper pruning. She showed us how to pinch the shoot tips of petunias, zinnias, and marigolds to get a nice bushy growth, and how to shear the alyssum and lobelia after they’ve flowered, to trick them into flowering again. She reminded us that we should prune all our spring-flowering shrubs as the flowers fade, for better flowering next spring, and then put us to work on the azaleas, which needed quite a bit of attention. Did you know there are some “self-cleaning” flowers that will drop their dead blooms all by themselves? These accommodating plants include ageratum, cleome, and impatiens. Alice Ann Walker says she doesn’t have a lot of time for deadheading, so maybe she’ll plant her entire garden with them.

Miss Rogers, Darling’s devoted librarian and noted plant historian, gave a lecture at the Ladies Guild last month on the uncommon names of some of the common plants we grow in our gardens. For example, Miss Rogers says that the name of
Lunaria annua
comes from the Latin
luna,
or moon, which refers to the round, silvery seed pods. In olden times, this plant was thought to have magical properties, such as being able to unshoe horses that stepped on it. Some old-timers thought it brought bad luck and wouldn’t have it in their gardens, while others thought it brought abundance and good luck and planted lots of it.
Lunaria
(which belongs to the cabbage family) is also called moonwort, moonshine, silver plate, silver pennies, silver dollars, money-in-both-pockets, and pennies-in-a-purse. People who think it’s bad luck call it the Devil’s halfpence and the Judas coin (referring to the thirty pieces of silver Judas was given to betray Jesus). Most of us, though, call it honesty. Miss Rogers says nobody knows exactly why, but maybe it’s because the seed pods are so transparent that you can see through them to the seeds inside, which makes as much sense as any other explanation.

Aunt Hetty Little took a group of Darling children out to harvest spring greens. She reports that they found plenty of watercress, poke, lamb’s quarters, sheep sorrel, dock, and dandelion. She says she likes to do this every year so the next generation will know that the Creator has planted a garden for us and we need to learn how to harvest it. She gave all the children a handwritten copy of her recipe for spring greens, so they could go home and teach their mothers how to cook what they gathered.

Earlynne Biddle reports that she went out to the cemetery to put flowers on her in-laws’ plot and noticed that the Confederate roses our club planted along the fence are doing very well. (Miss Rogers says to remind you that, whatever people may tell you, the Confederate rose is
not
a rose. It is a hibiscus. In fact, it is
Hibiscus mutabilis,
so called
because the blossom changes color during the day, from white to pink to red.) Earlynne says she’ll be glad to pull up the weeds around the plants and put down some mulch. If you would like to help, phone her at 355, evenings and weekends only. Daytimes, she’s helping her husband, Henry, out at the Coca-Cola bottling plant.

Mildred Kilgore is also working these days, at Kilgore Motors. But she and her Make Darling Beautiful committee have made time to plan the new quilt garden that the Dahlias will be installing on the courthouse lawn. Mildred says they decided to start with something simple and geometric, so they chose a log cabin design. As you quilters know, log cabin patterns usually begin with a square in the middle, with rectangles arranged on each side of the square, varying light and dark fabrics. The garden will have the same design, with red, yellow, blue, and white. Members of the committee have already started growing the plants, which will be ready to move to the garden in just about three weeks. Mildred is growing red celosia, Raylene Riggs (who is coincidentally living out at Marigold Court) has yellow marigolds, Beulah Trivette has planted white begonias, and Lucy Murphy is responsible for blue ageratum. Extra plants will be put around the flagpoles.

Bessie Bloodworth is in charge of this year’s vegetable garden, in the big empty lot next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse at the corner of Rosemont and Camellia. Mr. Norris and Racer plowed the garden last month and peas, beans, and salad greens are already planted. Next weekend, we’ll be planting corn, cucumbers, and southern peas. Call Bessie at the Magnolia Manor if you have a few hours to share and she will put you to work. You do NOT have to be a Dahlia to volunteer! This is a community project. All the food will be given away to those who can use it. So thank you for being generous with your time.

The Dahlia Blackstone Garden (named for our club’s illustrious founder) will be open during the Darling Dahlias Garden Tour the second week of June. Fannie Champaign (recently returned from a stay in Atlanta) and Verna Tidwell are coordinating this year’s tour. If you’d like to add your garden to the list, just call the county clerk’s office and ask for Verna, or drop in at Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux on the courthouse square. Verna says that if your garden is in the tour and you don’t want folks to pick your pretty flowers, be sure to put up some signs. We’ve had complaints about flower-pickers in the past, so forewarned is forearmed.