Roses

by Leila Meacham

  “Pink roses?” Henri scoffed. “What a pithless color for such a noble flower. No, gentlemen, I would suggest white and red only. The presence of any other implies the possibility of the unthinkable. Among men of honest intentions and goodwill, there is no mistake, no error of human judgment, no faux pas, that cannot be forgiven. Come now, what do you say?”

  For answer, Jeremy lifted his champagne glass, and Silas followed suit. “Hear! Hear!” they chorused. “Here’s to the red and white. May they grow in our gardens forever!”

  Amos let out a sigh and closed the book. Fascinating reading, but no use continuing. The volume ended with an optimistic listing of the progeny expected to carry on in the illustrious tradition of its patriarchs and descendants, namely Percy Warwick, Ollie DuMont, and Miles and Mary Toliver. Since the book was published in 1901, Mary would have been one year old, the boys only five. The answers he sought lay in their later lives. Roses would contain nothing of Mary’s hint of a tragedy the families had shared that would account for her actions. But what?

  It was a well-known fact that while they lived in one another’s pockets socially, they worked and prospered separately. It was a rule established at the beginning that each man’s enterprise must rise and fall by his own merits—without financial aid or assistance from the others. Amos thought “Neither a lender nor a borrower be” an unneighborly maxim among friends, but as far as he knew, the policy had never been breached. The Tolivers grew cotton, the Warwicks mined timber, the DuMonts sold luxury dry goods, and never—even when Mary Toliver had married Ollie DuMont—had they mingled their entities or relied on one another’s resources.

  Then why would Mary leave Somerset to Percy?

  You came into our lives when our stories were done, Mary had said, and he was now willing to believe that he had. Only one man could supply the missing chapters. He longed to storm to Warwick Hall, pound on the door, and demand that Percy tell him what had led Mary to sell Toliver Farms, bequeath him her family’s 160-year-old plantation, and disenfranchise the great-niece she loved from her heritage. What in the name of all that was holy had driven her to draw up this unthinkable, irrevocable codicil in the last weeks of her life?

  But as Mary’s attorney, he had no choice but to choke on his silence and hope the fallout from this unexpected turn of events would not be as explosive as he feared. He wished Mary luck tomorrow when she dropped her bomb on her great-niece. It broke his heart to think it, but he would not be one bit surprised if Rachel ordered pink roses for her grave. What a sad mantle to Mary’s memory. What a tragic ending to the special relationship they had shared.

  Wagging his head and a little drunk, Amos heaved himself up from his chair and slipped the codicil and letter back into their envelopes. For a second he considered the wastebasket, then shrugged and weaved to the documents cabinet, where he filed away in its proper place the last regards of Mary DuMont.

  Chapter Three

  Relying heavily on her cane, Mary paused on the sidewalk outside Amos’s office to draw breath. Her throat and eyes burned. Her lungs felt squeezed. It had been almost too much, that. Dear, faithful, devoted Amos. They hadn’t deserved him. Forty years… Had it really been that long since she’d come down the stairs in the department store—worried out of her mind over William’s disappearance—to find a young captain of the 101st Airborne Division gawping up at her?

  That moment was as fresh to her recollection as if it had happened a few turns of the calendar back. God must have a Machiavellian turn of mind to devise the cruelties inherent with growing old. At the very least, the elderly ought to be allowed an accurate perception of time… to see the years as the stretch they really were, not be made to feel they had all gone in a flash and the beginning was no more than a short distance back. At the end, the old and dying ought to be spared the feeling that life had just begun.

  Oh, well, people in hell would like a cold glass of water, too, she thought, shrugging, and reflected again on Amos. She was a dreadful ingrate to leave him with such a task, but he was brave and scrupulous. He would not flinch from his professional duty. Some family lawyers, believing they knew best, would throw the codicil into the wastebasket with no one being the wiser, but not Amos. He would carry out her instructions to the letter, thank God.

  Her breathing coming easier, she put on her sunglasses and looked down the sidewalk for a glimpse of Henry returning to drive her home. She’d sent her chauffeur to have a cup of coffee at the Courthouse Café while she visited with Amos, but he was probably still flirting with Ruby, a waitress of his age. Good enough, she thought. It had been her plan to complete one more task at home before lunch, and then all her affairs would be in order. But that could wait, she decided, drawing herself erect. She felt well enough to take a stroll first, her last in the town her family had helped to found.

  It had been a long while since she had walked all the way around Courthouse Circle, gazing in shop windows and visiting with proprietors, most of them longtime friends of hers. She was not as visible as she had once been. For years, she had made a point of keeping in touch with the folks who made their East Texas community the pleasant town it was—hardworking storekeepers and clerks, bank tellers, and secretaries, as well as those who ran the place… the City Hall gang, as she referred to them fondly. She was a Toliver, and it was her duty to be seen occasionally, one of the reasons she always dressed to the nines when she came to town, the other being in honor of Ollie’s memory.

  And she’d have done him proud today, she thought, glancing down at her Albert Nipon suit and reptile pumps and handbag. She felt slightly undressed without the pearls—vulnerable somehow—but that was her imagination, and she hadn’t long to miss them anyway.

  As expected, she found Henry, her chauffeur of twenty years and the nephew of her housekeeper, at the counter of the Courthouse Café, chatting with Ruby. There was a bit of a flurry when she entered. Her appearance was always cause for notice. A farmer in overalls scooted out of his booth to hold the door open for her, and she had to wave several businessmen back to their lunch specials when she passed their tables.

  “How do, Miss Mary,” Ruby greeted her. “You come to get this here rascal off my hands?”

  “Not for a while, Ruby.” Mary indicated that Henry remain on his stool. “Hope you can put up with him a little longer. I want to walk a bit, see some folks. Order yourself another cup, Henry. I won’t be long.”

  Henry’s face showed dismay. It was time for Sassie’s noonday meal. “You goin’ for a walk in this heat, Miss Mary? Sure that’s wise?”

  “No, but at my age, I’m entitled to a little foolishness.”

  Outside on the sidewalk, Mary paused to consider her destination, her gaze drifting around the circle to note the number of new businesses that had gone up in the last few years. She eyed them with mixed emotions. Howbutker had become a tourist attraction. Discovered by such magazines as Southern Living and Texas Monthly that extolled its Greek Revivalist charm, regional cuisine, and clean restrooms, it had become a favorite of the yuppie crowd seeking a weekend retreat from urban hordes and noise. There was a constant clamor from outside interests for permits to renovate period homes into bed-and-breakfasts and to build the commercial eyesores that would detract from its antebellum character. The city council on which Amos served and Percy and Mary sat as members emeriti had managed to restrict all motels, fast-food chains, and discount stores to the city limits.

  That won’t last long, Mary thought with regret, glancing across the circle at a recently erected boutique owned and run by a stylish New Yorker. The woman’s brash manner and accent stuck out like a nose wart, but Mary realized that the town would inevitably draw more like her. Once the old guard disappeared, the preservation of Howbutker would be left to the likes of Gilda Castoni and Max Warner, the rather likable Chicagoan who owned the new and very popular sing-along bar up the street.

  Her lips twisted ruefully. She ought to be thankful that these invaders who had fled polluti
on, crime, and traffic would guard Howbutker’s way of life more zealously than the descendants of the original inhabitants. Matt Warwick was one of the remaining few of those. As was Rachel….

  There now, no point in harping on that.

  She redirected her thoughts. She’d said a final good-bye to Rene Taylor, the postmistress, when she’d dropped off a package at the post office earlier, though her old friend hadn’t known it, but it would also be pleasant to visit one last time with Annie Castor, the florist, and James Wilson, president of the First State Bank. Unfortunately, the florist shop and bank were on opposite turns of the circle, and she wasn’t strong enough to walk to both. She still had to climb to the attic when she got home and dig to the bottom of Ollie’s army trunk. The bank, she decided, tapping forward. Once there, she might as well look through her safe-deposit box. Nothing much was in it, but she may have forgotten something best removed.

  She passed the barbershop and nodded through the glass to Bubba Speer, the proprietor. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw her, and he left his draped customer to hurry to the door and call after her, “Well, hello there, Miss Mary! Good to see you. What brings you to town?”

  Mary stopped to acknowledge him. Bubba wore a short-sleeved white barber’s smock, and she noticed a faded blue tattoo on his arm. A memento of the war, she’d guess. Was it Korea or Vietnam? How old was Bubba, anyway? She blinked rapidly in a moment of helpless confusion. She had known Bubba Speer all his life and had never noticed a tattoo. Her powers of observation had sharpened lately. She saw things she’d missed, but recently she’d also had trouble with the chronological placement of events and people. “A few legal matters to discuss with Amos,” she answered. “How’re you, Bubba? Family all right?”

  “That boy of mine’s been accepted at Texas University. Thanks for remembering his graduation. He can sure use that check you sent. It’s going to buy books come September.”

  “So he said in his thank-you note. He writes a fine hand, that boy of yours. We’re proud of him.” Vietnam, Mary decided. It had to be Vietnam.

  “Well… he’s got a lot of folks round here to live up to, Miss Mary,” the barber said.

  She smiled. “Take care of yourself, Bubba. Tell the family… bye for me.” She continued down the street, feeling Bubba’s puzzled stare. Now that was a bit melodramatic, but Bubba would feel a sense of importance later when he repeated what she’d said. She knew, he’d say. Miss Mary knew she was dying. Otherwise, why did she say what she did? It would add to her legend, which would eventually die out as Ollie’s had with him, and once the generation of Bubba’s children was gone, there would be no one to remember the Tolivers and who they were.

  Well, so be it! Mary thought, pressing her lips together firmly. Only Percy would be leaving a descendant to carry on in the family tradition. And what a chip off his grandfather’s block he was! Matt Warwick reminded her of her Matthew in so many ways, though her son had inherited her Toliver features, and Matt, his grandfather’s. Even so, sometimes looking at Matt as a man, she saw her own son grown.

  She stepped down from the sidewalk onto the street. Motorists wishing to turn right were momentarily held up, but Mary did not hurry, and no one honked. This was Howbutker. People had manners here.

  Safely across, she stopped and stared in startled interest at a gigantic elm whose branches shaded an entire side of the courthouse common. She could remember when the tree had been a sapling. In July 1914, that was, the year the courthouse was finished, seventy-one years ago. A tall statue of Saint Francis stood under its branches, the saint’s famous prayer chiseled around its stone base.

  Mary put a halting step forward, staring at the bench where she’d sat in the elm’s patchy shade, listening to her father deliver the dedication speech. It was happening once more, this sense of being young again, new blood running through her veins. It was not “In life we are dying” that she minded so much. It was that in dying, she should feel so alive, so new, so fresh, the whole future before her. She remembered—felt!—being fourteen again, coming down the stairs that morning in her white eyelet dress with its green satin trim, a ribbon of the same satin holding back her hair, its ends as long as the black curls that bounced off her shoulders. Below, her father had looked up at her with paternal pride and pronounced that she was “heartbreakingly fetching!” while her mother had pulled on her gloves and reminded her in her crisp manner, “Pretty is as pretty does!”

  She had drawn everyone’s eye at the dedication… everyone’s but Percy’s. Her brother’s other friends had teased her fondly, Ollie remarking at how grown up she was becoming and how the green satin set off the color of her irises.

  Mary closed her eyes. She remembered the heat and humidity of that day, how she’d thought she’d die of thirst, when suddenly out of nowhere, Percy had appeared and handed her an ice-cream soda from the drugstore across the street.

  Percy…

  Her heart began to race as it had then to find him suddenly standing there, tall, blond, and at nineteen so handsome that one could hardly bear to look at him. She had once thought him awfully gallant, the hero of all her secret dreams, but when she became “a young lady,” she’d felt a change in his affection. It was as if he saw in her some private cause for amusement. Many times she’d stood before her mirror puzzling over his new attitude, hurt by the mockery she saw in his eyes. She was pretty enough, though there was nothing of the pink-and-white Dresden doll daintiness about her. She was too tall for a girl and too long in the arms and legs. Her olive complexion was a constant bone of contention between her and her mother, who hardly allowed her out of the house without gloves and a bonnet. What was worse, while others lovingly called her “Mary Lamb,” Percy had nicknamed her “Gypsy,” which she took as an insult to her Toliver coloring.

  Still, she knew there was something striking about the combination of her black hair and green eyes and oval-shaped face with its marked Toliver features. Her manners, too, were lovely, as befitting a Toliver, and she made good marks in school. No cause for mockery there.

  And so, because she could not pin down a justifiable cause for Percy’s recent disdain, a sort of antipathy grew between them, at least on her part. Percy seemed as unaware of her dislike as he had been of her admiration.

  On this day, she had looked at the soda with an outward scorn but an inner acute longing. (It was chocolate, her favorite.) All through the long July morning, she had managed to strike a pose impervious to the heat and cloying humidity, keeping her arms a discreet distance from her body to allow a negligible breeze up her sleeves. And now without warning, Percy’s grin and soda were implying that he saw through her crisp outer appearance and knew that inside the eyelet dress she was dissolving into her underwear.

  “Here,” he said. “Take this. You look about to melt.”

  She perceived it as a deliberate affront. Toliver ladies never looked about to melt. Throwing up her chin, she rose from the park bench and said in her best haughty manner, “Too bad you’re not gentleman enough not to notice.”

  Percy had laughed. “Gentleman be damned. I’m your friend. Drink up. You don’t have to thank me.”

  “You are quite right about that, Percy Warwick,” she said, sidestepping the proffered soda. “However, I would thank you to give it to someone whose thirst requires refreshment.”

  She stalked off to congratulate her father, who had finished his speech, but halfway to the courthouse steps she glanced back. Percy was watching her as she’d left him, grin still in place and the soda sweating in his hand. A sensation unknown to her fourteen-year-old body flushed through her, dizzying in its intensity as their gazes locked in a kind of recognition across the shimmering distance. A cry of surprise and protest rose and died in her throat, but somehow Percy heard it. He grinned wider in response and raised the glass to her, then drank, and she could taste the cold chocolate in her mouth.

  Mary could taste the cold sweetness now. She could feel the sweat collecting under her
arms and between her breasts and the same sensation tightening her stomach and thighs. “Percy…,” she murmured.

  “Mary?”

  She turned at the sound of the familiar voice, as agile as a girl of fourteen, but she was confused. How had Percy gotten behind her? She had just seen him standing beneath the elm on the courthouse common.

  “Percy, my love…,” she greeted him in surprise, hampered by the cane and handbag from holding out her arms. “Did you have to drink all my soda? I wanted it that day, you know, as much as I wanted you, but I didn’t know it. I was too young and silly and too much of a Toliver. If only I hadn’t been such a fool—”

  She felt herself shaken. “Miss Mary… it’s Matt.”

  Chapter Four

  Matt?” Mary repeated, blinking into the concerned face of Percy’s grandson.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Matt said.

  Oh, Lord, Mary thought as her confusion cleared and she read Matt’s expression. She’d let a very old cat out of a very old bag. How could she explain her way out of this? But she was loath to let go of the memories of that day while the feelings still lingered. How great it had been to go back for those few throbbing minutes when the juices still flowed and her blood had thrilled. To see Percy again at nineteen….

  Senility did have its rewards.

  She smiled at Matt and patted the starched front of his shirt. Like his grandfather, he dressed in coat and tie, even in summer. “Hello, dear. Did you catch me talking to myself?”

  “I can’t think of a better person to have a conversation with than yourself, Miss Mary,” Matt said, his eyes, bright blue like his grandmother’s, alight with curiosity and surprise. “It’s good to see you. We’ve all missed you this past month, Granddad especially. Were you headed somewhere special? Let me walk you there.”