Roses

by Leila Meacham

  “I can’t explain it,” he said, dropping into a club chair before the massive fireplace. “I don’t understand it myself, but I don’t have to. Recognizing it is enough. I feel as if we’ve known each other all our lives and were just waiting for the right moment to come together.”

  Percy handed him his drink. “Are you sure this is not infatuation? You knew she’d be beautiful, and in a way you have known each other all your lives.”

  “Don’t insult my experience, Granddad. I’ve been around the block enough times to know the difference between infatuation and the real thing.”

  “And do you sense she feels the same?”

  “Unless I’ve become rusty at reading signals.”

  He thought back to an hour ago when they were standing on the porch at the Ledbetter house, looking out over the budding fields of Somerset. There were blossoms on the plants—acorn squash blossoms, she said, the flower that had started it all for her. He saw the fatigue and sorrow on her face give way to a quiet radiance, as if she’d moved from the shadows into light… Eve gazing over Eden. He’d moved behind her to share the sight over her head, and for a surreal moment he’d felt like Adam and they the only two people in the world.

  “It’s beautiful,” he’d said. “I can understand why you love it.”

  “You can?” She had turned to him with a flash of delighted surprise in her eyes. They were beautiful eyes, reflecting the green of the land she loved. “I’m happy to hear that,” she’d said.

  Now, seeing his grandfather’s skeptical look, he asked, “Why the reservations, Granddad? Is it because you and Mary didn’t make it happen?”

  Percy lowered himself into a companion chair and said quietly, “Because Rachel’s a Toliver, son.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means she seems to have a tendency to put the land first, before husband, home, and family.”

  “Is that what drove you and Mary apart, what you meant by ‘Somerset happened’? She put Somerset before you?”

  “That’s the sum of it. By the time we realized what fools we’d been, it was too late. Don’t get me wrong. I think the world of the girl. I’d like nothing better than to see you and Rachel finish what Mary and I started, but she seems headed in the same direction Mary chose.”

  “And why is that so bad?”

  “Because she makes life choices based on her commitment to her Toliver calling.”

  “You’re thinking of that pilot she turned down because she wouldn’t give up everything she loved to follow him, aren’t you?” Matt could hear his voice hardening in Rachel’s defense. “Well, she made the right decision, no matter how much she cared for the guy. Rachel knows she couldn’t be happy anywhere else but here in Howbutker where her roots are, doing what she does best, just as Cecile and I both knew.”

  Percy’s look remained doubtful. “And you learned all that about Rachel in one afternoon?”

  “I’ve always known that about Rachel.”

  Percy’s brows lifted over the rim of his glass, but he did not press the issue further. “Well, I’m sure that Mary can rest in peace knowing she’s left Somerset and the farms under Rachel’s supervision. She’ll run them competently for William, then inherit the family business from him when he dies. Mary could not have asked for a more satisfying end to things.”

  “That’s not the way it’s going to work, Granddad.”

  Percy lowered his glass. “What?”

  “No. Rachel will be inheriting the family business, not William.”

  Percy sat upright. “How do you know that?”

  Matt was surprised at his sharp tone. “Because that’s what Mary has been grooming her for—to take over the reins when she dies. If William inherited, he’d sell everything lock, stock, and barrel. His wife would see to that. She must be a piece of work, that woman.” He related the full story that Rachel had told him in the gazebo, growing more exasperated at his grandfather’s lowering brow. “Don’t you see, Granddad? How could Rachel have made any other choice for her life, regardless of what she promised her mother at fifteen? How could she choose to be anyone—or anything—but who she is?”

  “Indeed,” Percy murmured.

  His frustration mounting, he said, “And when Rachel came along and proved to be a chip off the old block, how could Mary leave the family holdings to William, knowing that wife of his would have them immediately on the auction block?”

  “Because that was the deal!” Percy snapped, and immediately looked as if he could have bitten his tongue. Matt could see his mental scrambling to get out of the hole he’d dug. Good Lord. What was he not telling him?

  “What deal?”

  “Simply this. When the people of my generation made a promise, it was considered a deal—binding forever. Mary promised the land to William. I would have expected her to abide by her word.”

  Matt was convinced that was not the real reason behind his agitation. “Well, no matter how you look at the situation, it’s a shame that Rachel’s lost her mother over it. In a way, I suppose I can be somewhat sympathetic to how Alice feels. Her father favored her brother over her and left her with nothing when he died, just like Mary’s father left his property to Mary and zip to William’s dad. Rachel feels that if that hadn’t been the case, Alice wouldn’t have been so resentful of her perpetuating the family heritage. As it is, she believes the Kermit Tolivers owe the Howbutker branch nada. That’s been the crux of their conflict—” He broke off in alarm. His grandfather looked as if a ghost had popped up behind his chair. “Granddad, are you all right? You’re as pale as your shirt.”

  Percy took a quick sip of his Scotch. “I’m all right,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Are you going to sit at Sassie’s table like that? We have twenty minutes before we’re due.”

  Matt eased out of his chair. There was something his grandfather wasn’t telling him. He heard that rattle in the closet again. “I’m going,” he said, “but I’ll tell you this, Granddad. Whatever you’re withholding to warn me off Rachel, you’d better speak while there’s still time or forever hold your peace. You’ll be talking about the girl I hope to marry.”

  Percy lifted his pale face to him. “The way you feel, any warning would be fruitless, but may I advise you to take it slow? You may have known of Rachel all her life, but you don’t know her.”

  Matt placed his glass on the bar. “Well, neither one of us is going anywhere, so there’ll be plenty of time to prove she’s the girl for me. And the way I feel is not as sudden as you think. At five years old I saw Rachel in her crib, too, remember? And I also have an indelible memory of a fourteen-year-old girl in a white dress with a green sash.”

  WHEN MATT HAD BOUNDED UP the stairs, Percy melted back into his chair. Well, that was tit for tat, he thought, limp from his grandson’s revelations. So their old deed had not lain quiet and forgotten all these years. Had Mary known its specter had turned up to haunt the William Toliver household? Had she been aware of the real cause of the dissension between Alice and Rachel? If so, how could she have corrected the misassumption without confessing the crime… and his involvement? All this time—according to Amos, who was deeply disturbed by the discord between Rachel and her mother (Mary never discussed it with him)—he’d believed the rift was based on Alice’s jealousy that Mary had “stolen” her daughter. It had not occurred to him that Alice thought Rachel was usurping William’s inheritance. Had Mary gone back on their agreement? When push came to shove, had she elected to keep the Toliver flag flying? Was William to be cheated once again?

  He inhaled deeply to calm his erratic heartbeat. Well, he held one crumb of comfort. When he was gone, there’d be no evidence remaining of what he and Mary had done, only its unfortunate backwash. That cursed plantation cast its shadow still.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  From the verandah, Rachel, with Matt beside her, waved good-bye to Percy and Amos making their way to the navy blue Cadillac at the conclusion of the small dinner
party. She was worried about Amos. Something was bothering him aside from Aunt Mary’s death. She’d sensed it in Lubbock and at the airport, and tonight she was sure of it when she’d caught him lost in deep reflection, miles away from them, his mouth a mournful U-turn. “What is it, Amos?” she’d asked at one point when they had a moment alone. “What is it besides Aunt Mary’s loss that has you so concerned? You’d tell me if you were ill, wouldn’t you?”

  He’d answered in startled surprise, “Of course. Banish that concern, my dear. I’m as sound as a fiddle. I suppose I’m still in a bit of shock.”

  She hadn’t believed him.

  Matt turned toward her. He’d refused Amos’s offer of a ride, saying he preferred to walk home. “I must be going, too,” he said. “I only wanted to make sure you’re all right before I leave you.”

  “Oh, but I…,” she said in protest, and without thought placed a lightly restraining hand on his chest.

  He closed his hand around it. “But what?”

  “I… thought that since Amos was taking your grandfather home, you’d stay awhile.”

  “You’ve been up most of the night, it’s been a long day, and you have a longer one tomorrow. It would be selfish of me to stay.”

  “May I be the judge of that?”

  “For your own sake, I’m afraid not,” he said, but showed no inclination to release her hand.

  They’d tried all evening to ignore what was happening between them. Every time their eyes met or their bodies inadvertently touched, a current of physical tension passed between them. They’d both been aware of it, but it was more than sexual attraction and they knew that, too. It was more as if they recognized they were two halves of a whole who’d found their missing part. But there would be time to fit the pieces together later. Until then, though, her heart needed an answer to a question. She flushed and asked quietly, “The girl you almost married—do you still… care for her?”

  He drew back in surprise, then laughed, as if the idea that he could still harbor feelings for the belle from San Francisco was absurd. “I remember her fondly, but good Lord, no,” he said.

  Relief coursed through her. “Well, that seems certain,” she said.

  “Trust me, it is. Now, what about your flyboy? Any residue there?”

  She hesitated, leaving her hand swallowed in his. “There was… sadness, but no regrets.”

  “Was?”

  She stared into his eyes. “Until now.”

  He kissed her lightly on her forehead. “Say no more, or I’ll have to stay.”

  She sighed. She was tired, and her body ached for bed. “All right, but I’ll see you in the morning?” He had agreed to stand with her to receive visitors during the first viewing.

  “In the morning,” he assured her, and held on to her hand until he was forced to let it slip from his fingers as he descended the steps. She remained on the verandah until his tall figure was swallowed in the deeper shadows of the trees canopying the boulevard. A feeling of deep peace flowed through her. It was nine o’clock. If she added the ten minutes they’d spoken at Matt’s birthday party to the hour they’d spent in the gazebo to the time they were together today, that would amount to… around twelve hours, she counted. How was it possible to feel she wanted to spend the rest of her life with a man in whose company she’d spent only half a day?

  MATT WALKED SLOWLY, SAVORING HIS newfound feelings. If this wasn’t the beginning of love, it would sure as hell do, he thought. A buddy had once told him, “When a woman who’s not your mother remains on a porch to watch you leave, you can bet she’s got more than a liking for you.” He chuckled. He’d felt her eyes on him as he walked away and didn’t hear the front door close until he’d disappeared around the curve of the sidewalk. He would have liked to stay, explain about Cecile, how it was they didn’t marry. God knew they’d thought themselves right for each other in every way except the one necessary for a lasting and happy marriage. Recognition of the missing element came after they were engaged and almost too late to prevent them from making the biggest mistake of their lives. When they met, he was thirty and working out of San Francisco, enduring the freewheeling singles scene, union battles, clogged traffic, and salty sea air until he could get back home. She was a dyed-in-the-wool San Franciscan, with ties to the first families who had settled the city by the bay. Sun and surf, beach and ocean, were in her blood. He’d known of her deep attachment to the place when he’d asked her to marry him, as she’d been aware that a day would come when he would return to Howbutker to run Warwick Industries. But they could handle their geographic differences, they’d thought. Already she’d met his family. He’d taken her to Atlanta, where spirit and polish met spunk and brass, and then to Howbutker to introduce her to his grandfather and Mary and Amos, Warwick Hall, and the sleepy little East Texas burg she’d eventually call home. The people and place matched her expectations but, unbeknownst to him, not her anticipated acceptance of them.

  As the time approached to mail their wedding invitations, he’d sensed a certain withdrawal. “What’s the matter, Cecile? Having second thoughts?” he’d asked half-seriously on a night when the moon highlighted the sun streaks in her hair.

  “No, Matt,” she’d said, her voice wispy with held-back tears. “Not about you. I could never have second thoughts about you and the man you are.”

  His heart had plunged. “But you’re having second thoughts? What about?”

  “Us… together in Howbutker.” Her face had wrenched in appeal. “Matt, please understand. I mean no disrespect to your home. It’s just that… now that the time is getting closer for me to leave my family, my friends, my home, the place I love more than any place on earth, to—to live in Howbutker… well, it’s so different from here, so provincial! Warwick Hall is so baronial! And our children would have such limited experiences. I’ve been thinking… Couldn’t you move the headquarters of Warwick Industries here—to San Francisco?”

  The proposal had caught him like a punch in the stomach. “No, Cecile,” he’d said, realizing she’d nurtured this hope for some time. “I wouldn’t even consider it.”

  At least they never played the “if you loved me” card when they tried to work out how they’d keep the marriage going with one of them a fish out of water. They both knew love was not the problem. In the end, she’d loved him enough to let him go—“You’d be miserable here, Matt. You might adjust temporarily but never adapt permanently”—and he’d loved her too much to take her away from her doting parents, the brothers and sisters and slew of cousins she adored, the sunny family home overlooking the Pacific, where ocean breezes filled its gauzy curtains like sails at sea.

  So they had parted, and no other woman had piqued more than his passing interest until he saw Rachel again. The minute she’d opened the door and he’d looked into that remembered face, he’d felt an immediate and irrefutable connection, a jolt of recognition, as if he’d come across a keepsake he’d put away and forgotten until now. It was an incredible feeling, deeper, surer than what he’d felt for Cecile, and it had only strengthened as the day went on. He’d felt their kindred roots touch, intertwine. They shared the same interests, culture, love of town and people. There would be no conflict of lifestyles, background, and place. She was the woman his soul had waited for.

  His grandfather could relax. These were the eighties. Men weren’t hung up on their pride like those of his generation. They supported their wives’ careers and shared in the responsibilities of home and child rearing. Nobody had to be first. The idea was to be together. Rachel might be a Toliver, as committed to her legacy as her great-aunt, but so what? As far as he was concerned, if this feeling between them panned out—and he had no doubt it would—Rachel could grow her cotton and acorn squash and he’d mine timber—a perfect blend.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  The next three days broke overcast and oppressive. Friday’s bright sunshine that had sparkled on Somerset and off the white columns of the verandah remained behind mauso
leum gray clouds that Rachel was to remember as apt harbingers of things to come. Throngs attended the two viewings, not many of whom, in true East Texas fashion, did not press their humidity-damp cheek to hers, threaten to wring off her hand, or crush her in rib-breaking hugs. Except for the clear vision of Matt’s strong presence beside her, making the introductions and keeping the line moving, they passed in a mind-numbing blur. By the end of the first viewing, she felt as limp and squeezed out as one of her mother’s hand-wrung sheets.

  “I’m afraid the evening one will be worse,” Matt said on the drive back to Houston Avenue. “This morning’s group was from the county. Tonight’s herd will come from all over the state, staying in motels from here to Dallas. But hang in there. By Monday, this will all be over, and you can get on with what you’re about and… we can get on with us.” He brought his arm around her. “That okay with you?” he asked.

  “Sounds heavenly,” she said.

  Her father’s early-model Dodge, kept in excellent condition by the automotive skills of his son, was parked in front of the verandah when they arrived. Entering the hall, she heard his West Texas drawl, inflected with the slight French accent he’d never quite lost, drifting from the kitchen. She hurried toward it, but at the swinging door, she stopped to gather her internal forces to meet an awkward reception.

  “Will Lucy Warwick be coming to the funeral?” her father was asking. “It’d be nice to see her again. I really liked her as a boy.”

  “Oh, Lawsey, no!” Sassie exclaimed. “They ain’t been no love lost ’tween her and Miss Mary for nigh on forty years. I imagine Miss Lucy feel pretty proud of herself, knowin’ she outlive Miss Mary. First thing she ever put over on her.”