All this Mary divined while impatiently casting an eye about for Miles, and it was a few seconds before the implication of Mrs. Draper’s running commentary sank in:
“… and we were all so shocked when we found out. Poor thing. If there’s anything any of us can do… Just imagine. Darla Toliver in those… particular straits.”
Mary dragged her attention back to Mrs. Draper. “I beg your pardon? What particular straits? What are you talking about?”
Mrs. Draper’s fingers once again fluttered to the cameo. “Oh, dear me,” she said, her small eyes bright with delighted horror. “You mean you don’t know? You poor girl. I do believe I’ve said too much.” Her expression gladdened further at someone approaching behind Mary.
Miles! Mary thought in desperate relief.
“Why, hello, Percy,” Mrs. Draper crooned. “You caught me welcoming our Mary home!”
Chapter Eleven
So I heard,” Percy said in a tone as pointed as a stiletto. “Hello, Gypsy,” he addressed her in a quality of voice markedly warmer, and drew her into the custody of his arm. “Welcome home.”
Somehow the familiarity of the hated nickname fell on her ears like a beloved song. She lifted her face gratefully to accept his kiss upon her cheek. “I’m so very happy to see you,” she said, meaning it. “You’ve come in place of Miles?” He wore a cream-colored suit and thickly knotted tie, and never had he looked more handsome, more glowing with youth and health and masculine vigor.
“He’s at home making sure everything is fit for your arrival. Didn’t trust anybody but himself to see to it, so I snatched the opportunity to be the first to welcome you home.”
It was all a lie said for the benefit of Mrs. Draper’s pricked ears, Mary knew, but she was as thankful as if his words had been the truth. Something must have happened back at the house. Her mother was behaving badly, having second thoughts about her daughter coming home, and Miles had been forced to stay behind to deal with the situation. He’d probably called Percy at the lumberyard office—he wouldn’t have dressed in such a natty suit simply for her—and he’d dropped everything to rush to the station.
“How nice of you,” Mary said, giving Percy a look that revealed she’d grasped the truth and appreciated the deception.
His arm still around her waist, Percy turned to Mrs. Draper. “If you’ll excuse us now, I’d better get our girl home. Her mother is eagerly awaiting her arrival.”
“Really?” Mrs. Draper purred. “What a nice change. I’m sure Mary will be just what the doctor ordered.”
“Without a doubt. Have a good long trip, Mrs. Draper.”
“Why, thank you, Percy.” Her hand at the cameo again, she batted her eyes in the insipid manner that Mary had noticed he inspired in her sex.
“Thanks for the rescue,” she said when they were out of earshot of Mrs. Draper. “What an abominable woman.”
“The very worst,” Percy agreed. He took her hand and placed it in the crook of her arm. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to prevent her from waylaying you.”
“Well, actually, I’m the one who approached her. She didn’t seem to recognize me.”
“I can see why not.”
“Meaning what?”
Percy halted and said in feigned surprise, “Why, Mary Toliver, don’t tell me you’re fishing for compliments—and from me, no less!”
Her hackles rose. She felt herself slipping into her old defensive position until she glanced into his eyes. She saw amusement there, but no mockery. His expression was admiring, even proud. She laughed lightly. “As curious as I might be to see what I’d snag, you won’t ever catch me casting a line into your pond, Percy Warwick.” They walked on. “So tell me what that dreadful woman was implying when she said my mother was in particular straits. Is Mama the reason you came instead of Miles?”
He folded his hand over hers, holding it firmly as if to prevent her stumbling when he answered. “Your mother has a drinking problem, Mary. She’s… become addicted to alcohol.”
“What?” Mary stopped abruptly, immobilized. “You mean… Mama is an alcoholic?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But how? Where did she get the liquor?”
“Your father kept quite a cache of it in your cellar against the possibility of Prohibition. She found it, and before Miles or Sassie discovered what she was up to, it was too late.”
The horror of it numbed her. Her mother… an alcoholic? She’d heard the word alkie used to describe those addicted to the bottle, a vile, disgusting word depicting individuals lacking self-will. “And everybody knows but me,” she said. “The whole town, apparently.”
Percy’s expression changed. A pointed light appeared in his eye. “Is that your major concern, that the Toliver name will be sullied?”
Of course not! she wanted to cry, stung by his implication. She was concerned for her mother. This last public shame would keep her bound to her room forever. She let go of his arm. Nothing had changed in her absence, certainly not between them. All and everything remained the same. “I should have been told.”
“Miles didn’t want you to know. What good would it have done?”
“I could have come home. What good did my going away do, after all?”
“It was worth a shot, Mary—a small enough sacrifice for you to make, don’t you think?”
What was the use of a rebuttal? He’d made up his mind about her. Feeling sick, she opened her beaded bag and said in her Bellington-trained manner, “Here are the claim tickets for my luggage. There are four pieces if you’d be good enough to collect them. They’re inside the station house.”
Percy gently enclosed the proffered hand. “I’m sorry this is not the homecoming you’d hoped for, Gypsy.”
“I’m learning not to hope for what I can’t control,” she said, lifting her chin, steeling herself against the inclination to cry. He judged no one but her.
He slipped the tickets from her fingers and brought the back of her gloved hand to his lips, his gaze exploring hers. “I certainly hope I’m an exception to that policy.”
Her breath caught sharply, and she withdrew her hand. “The only exception to that policy is the hope that I will not be misjudged by the people I care about. Now, how are we getting home?”
Percy shook his head as if there were no reasoning with her. “I have a Pierce-Arrow, a red-and-yellow job. It’s parked under the trees in the livery yard. Wait for me there in the shade.”
The shining, open-seated, low-slung motorcar stuck out in the parking area like a Thoroughbred among mules. Mary stood disconsolately on the passenger side, barely cognizant of its elegance. The thrill of her homecoming had evaporated, and she dreaded the first glimpse of her mother and the encounter she expected with Miles. What a fool she’d been to look forward to seeing him from her compartment window when the train steamed into the station. She’d imagined riding home with him in the buggy, chatting of local gossip and plantation news. She’d even halfway hoped that her mother would be glad to see her and that they could be a family again before Miles went off to war.
“Has my mother been under a doctor’s care?” she asked as Percy stowed her luggage into the backseat of the two-bodied car. “Has she responded to treatment?”
“Doc Goddard has been seeing her, but his skills are limited in that area. He’s recommended total abstinence, which Miles and Sassie have been enforcing.”
“Dear God,” Mary said, imagining what an ordeal that must have been. “Is she recovering?”
“Not from the need for alcohol, but at least now she’s clean of the stuff. Miles has had to watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn’t get her hands on a bottle. He and Sassie take turns, and my mother spells them when she’s asked. Sometimes, in order for them to get rest or for Miles to go out to the plantation, they’ve had to tie her to her bed. I’m sorry, Mary. I’m telling you this only to prepare you. You need to know what you’re heading into.”
A sickening pressure spread ben
eath her breastbone. “Surely all the liquor has been disposed of.”
“All that she didn’t drink or hide. There are still bottles hidden in and around the house.” He opened the door to the passenger seat. “I have road gear if you want to cover your clothes and hat. Some goggles, too. I wear only the goggles. The road dust is terrible this time of year.”
“It’s too warm. Besides, I want to see the countryside.”
“I’ll try to keep us under thirty miles an hour.”
They climbed in, and Percy started the motor. Mary listened fascinated as the engine coughed to life beneath the long, shiny red hood. She had ridden in only one horseless carriage before—Richard Bentwood’s Rolls-Royce, which he’d imported from England. “I hope to high heaven Miles did not spend good money on one of these,” she remarked with distaste as they took off to the gaping admiration of those waiting on the platform.
Percy chuckled. “No, you know Miles. He thinks motorcars are another example of degeneracy brought on by capitalism.” He turned onto the road leading into Howbutker. “By the way, I meant it when I said welcome home.”
“That’s hardly for you to say, considering that in less than a month, you’ll be gone for God only knows how long.” She didn’t add, Maybe forever, as her heart contracted with the familiar fear. “My brother and his causes! He’s dragged you and Ollie off with him, hasn’t he?”
“Ollie thought that somebody ought to go along to look after him, Gypsy. Otherwise he’ll get his bloody self killed.”
“And where Miles and Ollie go, you go—to look after them both.”
“That’s about it.”
The sadness, the waste, of it were too much. Her anger at Miles rose like the aftertaste of bad fish. How could he do this to his best friends and their families? How could he leave their mother in these new throes, abandon his responsibility to the plantation? But it would never do to confide her disgust to Percy. He would hear no word against Miles.
“What’s to become of this thing when you leave for Europe?” she asked.
“I’ll either sell it or give it to Dad to hold for me until I come back. Mother refuses to ride in it, but Dad’s not above taking it for a spin to keep the joints oiled.”
Her eyes suddenly burned, and she was compelled to watch the countryside more closely. After a short while, she said, “Give it to your father to hold for you.”
She sensed his head turn in surprise. “All right,” he said. “I’ll give it to Dad to keep for me.”
They drove awhile in silence, Mary keeping her attention averted to her side of the road. The dogwood was spent now, but the climbing vines of wisteria were still in splendor, their lavender blooms cascading off fence and trellis and the limbs of trees. Out at Somerset the cotton fields were in bloom, their blossoms the myriad colors of East Texas sunsets in high summer.
Mary concentrated on that image. All her loves were gone, her grandfather and father, her brother and mother. All that remained was Somerset, waiting for her. The land was hers to care for year after year, harvest after harvest, for as long as she lived. As Miles had said, it would never desert her. The boll weevil could come and drought and floods. In the time it took to run for cover, hail could wipe out a crop worth a fortune, yet the land would still be there when the devastation was cleared away. There was always hope with the land. There wasn’t, oftentimes, with people.
Percy said, “I suppose your first order of business will be to ride out to Somerset.”
It was uncanny how he could read her thoughts. “Yes,” she said shortly. He made it sound as if such a prompt visit were the height of impropriety.
“Well, before you come down too hard on Miles for the way he’s run the place, there are a few things you need to know.”
“Oh?” She raised a brow at him. There was nothing Percy could say that would mitigate her brother’s mismanagement of their livelihood.
“Remember that your brother has the final say over the plantation until you’re twenty-one.”
“I don’t need reminding of that.”
“But you do need reminding that if your brother is of a mind, he can change the character of the plantation so that it’s no longer the Somerset you want to preserve. Remember that as well.”
Mary froze in her seat and fixed him with a shocked stare. “What do you mean?”
“There are other ways that land can bring in revenue than producing cotton, Gypsy.”
“Percy, what are you talking about? What has Miles done? What is he proposing to do?” Her words whipped angrily out of her mouth, torn by the wind as the Pierce-Arrow with its open body sped along. They were shouting, she realized. To have a conversation in one of these bloody things, you had to shout.
“Will you listen, you little fool, before you go jumping to conclusions about Miles? I’m telling you what he didn’t do, and all on account of his little sister.”
“Tell me,” she said, drawing a deep breath.
“He could have put the acreage under sugarcane. A grower out of New Orleans came to see him right after you left for school and made him a very handsome offer. He turned him down, as he did my own father. Dad wanted to lease the plantation and put it under a ten-year growth of timber.”
Mary could not speak. She felt her eyes straining from their sockets. Swallowing hard, she said, “The land could never be reclaimed if he did that.”
“Would that be such a tragedy, Mary?” Percy’s hand left the steering wheel and sought hers. “Cotton is dead anyway. Synthetic fibers are on the way. Other countries are beginning to compete for the world markets Texas has had to itself for so long. And as if that’s not enough, the boll weevil has just about wiped out the Cotton Belt in the South.”
“Percy—Percy—” Mary yanked her hand away. “Be quiet, you hear me! Be quiet! You don’t know what you’re saying. My God, what have I come home to?”
Percy said nothing, his eyes on the road. After a moment, he said quietly without looking at her, “I’m sorry, Mary. Believe me, I sincerely am.”
“Well, you should be,” she retorted. “The very idea of your father taking advantage of our situation and offering Miles—gullible, vulnerable Miles—the opportunity to grow timber. I promise you one thing, Percy Warwick, it’ll be a subzero day on the Fourth of July in Howbutker, Texas, before a single Warwick pine ever sinks a root into Toliver soil!” She was so angry, she was quivering.
They had arrived at a point beside the road that allowed for a U-turn. Into this space Percy spun off, raising dust and bringing the Pierce-Arrow to a squealing halt. Startled, Mary instinctively reached for the door handle to seek escape, but Percy grabbed her free wrist at the same time he tore off his goggles. Mary had never seen him angry, and the sight stunned her mute. She remembered Beatrice describing to her mother the rage of which he was capable: It’s not often his temper flares, but when it does, it’s the most frightening thing you’ll ever see. His mouth tightens like a steel trap and his eyes lose color. And he’s so powerful! My goodness, he could break you like a toothpick. Thank God my boy never gets angry without just cause.
Just cause….
“Don’t you dare misconstrue my father’s attempt to come to your family’s aid as a way to serve the Warwicks,” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes like chips of ice in his flushed face. “If you don’t know better than that, you’re more pigheaded than I thought.”
“He should know better than to go behind my back to make such a proposal,” Mary countered, struggling to free herself from the pain of Percy’s grasp. “He knows what cotton meant to my father. That’s why he left Somerset to me and not Miles!”
“Maybe Dad doesn’t take your father’s obsession as yours. Maybe he thinks that since you’re a woman, you’ll want something else besides a weevil-ridden plantation, a system of outdated servitude to devote your life to. Maybe he thinks that since you’re going to marry me, Somerset will be under timber anyway.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Wha—Marry you?” She stared at him, dumbstruck. “Put Somerset under timber? You’re joking, right?”
“Does this seem like a joke?”
He reached for her. She was so shocked by the preposterousness of his assumptions that her mouth was still open when he locked his over it. She struggled and pushed, sputtered and squealed, but to no avail. The woman in her, traitor to the chaste girl who’d withstood Richard’s advances, bloomed full grown under Percy’s assault. Her body flared, her senses blazed. Caution and decorum flew from their restraints in surrender to her need of him, and she welcomed his possession as much as the restrictions of their clothing permitted. Eventually, time and the present returned and she lay spent and hot in his arms, aware that her traveling suit was rumpled, her hair disheveled, her lips smarting, and somewhere her hat lay in the dust of the road.
“Lord have mercy,” she said, too enervated to move her head from the hollow of his shoulder.
“Now after that, try telling yourself we don’t belong together.”
It was not possible to dispute it. She’d felt as tightly bound as a bale of cotton when she’d seated herself in this contraption, and now the wires were cut and she was spilling everywhere, and they both knew it. But this would never do. They would never do. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I can’t—I won’t marry you. I mean it, Percy.”
“Well, we’ll see how you feel when I get back from Europe, after you’ve had the responsibility of overseeing a five-thousand-acre plantation, fighting the boll weevil, caring for a couple of hundred sharecropping families, and keeping your overseer sober. That’s not to mention taking care of your mother and living from hand to mouth. I wish it were fair to you to marry you before I leave, but”—he kissed her forehead, leaving the implication between them—“at least you’ll have Mother and Dad to look after you until I get back.”
Roses Page 10