Roses

by Leila Meacham

  And what was happening now was that Percy was allowing Mary to rob him from the grave of the life he had left. That damn plantation would be the ruin of the Warwicks yet! How dared that woman leave Somerset to Percy and transfer its curse along with it? Because that’s what it was—an evil that destroyed anyone who possessed it. What was Mary thinking to put Percy in such a spot? Hadn’t she realized the split it would cause? That was the grief cratering Percy. He’d hoped to see Matt and Rachel married, picking up where he and Mary had left off, making good on what they had let slip through their fingers. The only way that could happen now was for him to restore Somerset to Rachel, which had as much chance of transpiring as worms sprouting legs.

  And, of course, Mary had counted on him to abide by her trust, God send her soul to hell.

  But Lucy was puzzled. Mary may have been bullheaded, but she was never irrational. Why not sell the plantation along with her other farms? Why burden Percy with it? Why sell her holdings at all and leave the house to the Conservation Society? Why would she disenfranchise the heir she’d primed to carry on the legacy she’d sacrificed so much to preserve?

  Betty placed a snifter of brandy beside her. “Miss Lucy, you starin’ like you seein’ the second comin’,” she said.

  “Almost, Betty… almost,” Lucy whispered, awestruck. An amazing notion had shot into her head, as if straight from the mouth of God, and before she’d had a sip of brandy, too. Why, Mary Toliver, you sly old bitch, you. Now I know why you did it. You saved Rachel from becoming you. You saw where she was headed and deprived her of the means to get there. For once in your life, you loved someone more than that bloodsucking plantation. Well, I’ll be a horse’s patootie.

  But, as usual, Mary had shown up too late with too little, typical of her eleventh-hour timing throughout her life. Matt had said she’d died within hours of delivering the codicil to Amos’s office, apparently before she had an opportunity to clear her skirts with Rachel. Now her good intentions had blown up in everybody’s face like a misdirected bomb. Rachel now loathed her, she and Matt had split, and Percy was slowly expiring from the rock and a hard place where Mary had left him. Once again, she’d stuck it to him, and now her clone—unless somebody shook some sense into her—was sticking it to Matt, too.

  Lucy picked up the snifter, her fury smoldering. Damn if she hadn’t seen this coming, ever since Hannah reported the first summer visit of Mary’s great-niece to Howbutker. Hannah, who had known Mary all her life, described the child as having the same “witch black hair, shade of foreign-looking eyes, gypsy complexion, and hole in the middle of her chin” as her nemesis.

  “In other words, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Lucy had asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Hannah had admitted, “and looking so much like Mary at her age that I had to pinch myself to make sure we weren’t back in elementary school.”

  It was then that Lucy had considered the irony of Matt and Rachel one day enacting the Mary Toliver–Percy Warwick saga all over again. She’d held her breath and crossed her fingers. For how could she be happy for Matt in love with an heir to the throne who suffered the same dysfunctional attachment to it as its present owner? How could she embrace a granddaughter-in-law cast in the same mold as the woman she detested?

  She’d breathed easier when their first reported meeting—at Ollie’s funeral—didn’t take, but when years passed and neither married, she’d had a terrible feeling that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. And it did. Within days of Rachel returning to attend Mary’s funeral, Matt had called to say that he’d met the girl he hoped to marry.

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I’m sure of it, Gabby. I’ve never been as sure of anything in my whole life as I am of her and me. I’ve never been this happy. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever been happy, not if it feels like this. I know you and Mary had your differences, but you’re going to like this Toliver.”

  So she’d sucked in her breath and said, “Well, then, get the ring on her finger, Matt, before your grandfather and I become too old to chase babies.”

  A week later, it was over. As her great-aunt had Percy, Rachel had dumped Matt over that miserable plantation. She’d spared him the sops grandmothers usually give to grandchildren who are casualties of love. She hadn’t told him he’d get over Rachel, that time would heal, and that there were other girls in the chorus line. Like his grandfather, he’d found—and lost—his one and only love.

  But God save the boy from the rebound mistake Percy had made in his marriage.

  The brandy was warming her bloodstream, softening her rage to sadness. Never before had she felt so completely separated from her former home and those she loved. If only she could meet with the girl, she’d set her down and give her an earful of the truth about her great-aunt and that plantation… truth that would set her free to love and marry Matt. But what could she do from her golden cage here in her self-imposed exile?

  Chapter Seventy-one

  You came into our lives when our stories were done… and we were living with their consequences, Mary had said, and Amos now understood her meaning. Percy’s story was over. A heavy silence hung at its conclusion, breached by the mellow tone of the clock on the mantel announcing the time as nine o’clock. Two hours had passed. The ice bucket stood sweating on the bar with the bottle of single-malt Scotch beside it still full except for the two drinks poured earlier, the tray of appetizers, long grown cold, barely touched.

  Percy had related his and Mary’s pasts in the calm, flat voice of a prisoner in the dock, apparently leaving out no event, consequence, or effect resulting from the day that had started it all—the day that Mary, at sixteen, had inherited Somerset. Amos saw Matt’s face reflect the gamut of his own profound feelings during the narration, the greatest drop of his heart coming with the unthinkable implication of Ollie’s war injury. Matt’s appeared to have occurred when he heard of the beating in the woods. If nothing else came of the story, now they knew that Matthew was more than a name on a time-bleached headstone, Lucy more than a harridan who had left her husband in a fit of menopause, Wyatt more than the rebellious son who had turned his back on his father’s hopes and expectations. Now they knew why Mary had bequeathed Somerset to Percy.

  Percy pushed off the tape recorder, its sharp click like the end at the conclusion of a long novel. Amos unkinked his legs. “So that’s the story Mary meant to relate to Rachel?”

  “That’s the story.” Percy glanced across at his grandson, who sat with closed eyes, templed fingers pressed to his lips, a silver streak down each side of his face. “What’s going on in that head—rather, that heart of yours, Matt?” he asked huskily.

  “Too much to express,” he said.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be all right, Granddad. I’m just… sad. My father was quite a man, wasn’t he.”

  “Yes, he was. The best.”

  “Are you going to divorce Gabby?”

  “Of course not.”

  “She still loves you, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Matt cleared his throat, wiped his eyes, and gave his grandfather a little salute—all he could manage for the moment, Amos thought, and Percy turned to him. “And you, old friend, what are your thoughts?”

  He roused himself. He removed his glasses, flapped a handkerchief from his suit pocket, and began to polish them assiduously. “Oh, Lord, where to start?” He’d been thinking of Mary—sensuous, beautiful Mary—and her life after Percy. How had she endured her celibacy? How had she borne her faithfulness to Ollie, exemplary man that he was? How had she lived with the knowledge that Matthew died without ever knowing Percy was his father? “I suppose,” he said, restoring his glasses, “that I’m thinking foremost of the curse Mary mentioned in my office the last day of her life. I thought she’d lost her mind because”—his brief smile mocked himself—“as the absolute authority on the founding families, I had never heard of a Toliver
curse. The answer to the mystery was there all along in Roses—revealed in the genealogy chart. I didn’t connect the paucity of offspring to the inability of the reigning Toliver to procreate.”

  Percy maneuvered out of his chair and collected their glasses. Regardless of his future fate, he seemed reenergized to Amos, like an old fire engine with its pipes cleaned. “Not only to procreate, but to keep the children alive,” Percy said. “Mary pooh-poohed the curse until her own experience made a believer out of her.”

  Amos rubbed a hand over his face at the wonder of it. “And Mary convinced herself that the only way to save Rachel from her childless fate was to sell and give away everything remotely connected with the Toliver legacy.”

  “I’m convinced of it.”

  Matt reached inside his coat pocket. “Well, I’m afraid Mary’s plan may not have succeeded. I believe you know what these are, Granddad.” He handed Rachel’s copies to Percy as he took his drink. “As you guessed, Rachel’s not interested in restitution of her father’s property. She wants to trade it for Somerset. You have a week to give her your decision, then she plans to file suit against you for fraud.”

  “I’m sure Mary never dreamed your letter would come back to haunt you, Percy,” Amos said as kindly as his view of Mary’s foolishness would permit.

  Percy took the letters to his seat and perused them quickly. “I’m afraid she did. That’s why she wanted to destroy it along with the others. How damaging are they, Amos?”

  Amos pulled a sorrowful face. “I’ll have to study the situation more deeply, but for the moment, they appear very damaging.”

  Percy directed his next question to Matt. “And you believe there’s no chance of Rachel sitting down with me and listening to the story I’ve just told?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir. She’s convinced of her version of the story and wants Somerset too badly to hear yours.”

  “Even though she cares for you?”

  “She cares more for Somerset.”

  Percy’s “Ah…” carried a world of understanding. He turned his attention to Amos again. “Cannot the simple truth be the best defense against these?” He tapped the letters. “Records will show that the sale of that land secured William’s financial future.” As Amos made to reply, Percy held up a finger to say he had one more point. “Also… let’s not forget that William elected to run away at an early age from his responsibilities to his family’s business and never returned. As a result of my purchase, he inherited a fortune, as did Rachel. So I ask, Where are the damages? I’d think a court would be hard-pressed to award any to Rachel based on Mary’s disregard of her brother’s wishes.”

  Amos stirred uncomfortably in his seat, wondering if Percy had forgotten the damages done to the Kermit Tolivers resulting from the belief that William’s father was left out of Vernon Toliver’s will. If Rachel’s lawyers brought that up—and they would—that particular argument would be dead in the water. Percy had made some valid points, but they could be challenged.

  “What you’ve said makes for a good defense, Percy,” he said, his tone holding a large “however.” “What strengthens it is that the court could look upon Rachel going after her father’s land as greedy, given the generous dispensation of her great-aunt’s estate….”

  “But?” queried Matt.

  “But her lawyers will argue that at the time of the sale, Mary was acting solely on behalf of her husband, not William. She was ensuring the present, not the future. That William later inherited the fruits your beneficence made possible will be argued as irrelevant to the issue. It will have no bearing on the way they’ll present the sale. Mary knowingly sold property not hers to sell, and you knowingly bought it… a simple case of fraud. They’ll explain away Mary’s generous remembrance of William in her will as compensation for stealing his property. The fact that it came so late in his life—when he and his family were living in extremely modest circumstances and did not live to enjoy it—will not help your case either. That’s the kind of fact trial lawyers like to milk for every drop of emotional appeal.”

  Matt coughed and looked pained. “Let me stick one more pin into your defense, Granddad. Your point that William ran away from his obligations can be offset by the fact that his daughter did return and assume her responsibilities as Mary’s likely heir.”

  Amos nodded his approval of this observation and further pricked Percy’s balloon. “And there would be the question of why you simply didn’t give the money to Mary and Ollie rather than enter into an illicit transaction.”

  “Well, that’s simple,” Percy said with a confident wave of his hand. “I’ll explain the rule the three families lived by. You know it, Amos. Ollie would have let his creditor take the store before he’d take a cent from me.”

  “Which the court will view as no less ignominious than taking money from the illegal sale of a seven-year-old boy’s property.”

  “Ollie didn’t know it was an illegal transaction.”

  “But you and Mary did.”

  Percy’s shoulders sagged slightly. “Are you saying we’re cooked in the squat, Amos?”

  “There is little leavening power in your arguments, I’m sorry to say.” Amos pushed a hand over his bald scalp in frustration. “What are you hoping for, Percy? What do you want?”

  Percy settled back, his fine old chiseled features warmed by the depth of his feeling. “I want to hold on to Somerset without forfeiting the Sabine property. I want Rachel to give up her battle, come home, and marry Matt. I want her to grow trees instead of cotton and be happy doing it. I want her to understand Mary’s intentions and forgive her. That’s what I want, and I believe there’s a chance of getting it.”

  “You’re dreaming, Granddad.”

  “Maybe so,” Percy murmured, sipping his drink.

  Amos peered at Percy over the rim of his spectacles. “Rachel has engaged Taylor Sutherland to represent her. You know him?”

  “By reputation, mainly. A superb attorney.”

  “Rachel will have the best in her corner.”

  “But I’ll have the truth and you in mine, Amos.” When Percy saw his friend’s horror at the expectation of mounting his defense alone, he added, “And whomever else you wish to bring in. That is, if we go to trial.”

  “I hope you won’t even consider it, Percy,” Amos said. “We can present a worthy defense, but it’s not likely to influence the outcome, and the publicity will be horrendous. The media will tear your honored name and all you’ve built to shreds, never mind what they’ll do to Mary’s memory. Do you really think the fight is worth it? Mary wouldn’t want you to finish out your days embroiled in a court battle against Rachel—to bear the brunt of what is admittedly Mary’s fault. She would beg you to give Somerset back, to let the chips fall where they may in regard to Rachel’s future. And think of Matt, the cloud you’ll be leaving him under.”

  Percy glanced across at his grandson. “Is that how you feel, Matt?”

  “I don’t want you hurt, Granddad. You’re my only concern. Forget about the fallout on me. You’ve always said that the only true judge of a man’s integrity is himself. If he believes he’s done nothing wrong, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. But I do care what people think about you, how you’ll be remembered, and I’m afraid of what a court trial would do to you.”

  “Giving Somerset back might do worse to me, son.”

  “How can it?” His tone vibrated with consternation. “Rachel wins the plant and we’re stuck with a plantation. There’s no win for either of us. I agree with Amos. I say give the fucking place back to her and to hell with her. Let it eat her up like all the Tolivers before her.”

  Percy raised his brows. “You’ve lost feeling for her?”

  “I’ve lost hope for her.”

  “What a tragedy.” He pushed down his footrest. “I hear your stomach growling, Amos, and you must be starving, Matt. I’m hungry, too, and that’s a good sign. It’s late, but we’ll all be up most of the night anyway. Let�
�s go downstairs and warm up Savannah’s chicken Florentine and wash it down with a couple of bottles of Pinot Grigio. I have until Monday to give my decision, right, Matt?”

  “Right,” Matt said, exchanging a disconcerted look with Amos that demanded, Why a week? Matt stood but remained at his chair as the others filed to the door.

  “You coming, Matt?” Percy asked.

  “Give me a few minutes.”

  MATT GAZED UP AT THE painting after the door closed. So much now was clear to him. He had the answers to questions he’d asked himself all his life. Why did his grandmother remain in Atlanta when it was clear that she’d prefer to live here with him and his grandfather? Why had they both been unable to move beyond the sadness of his father’s death and recall him in loving, easy terms like the family next door, who had also lost a son in the war? Instead, his grandparents—and even his mother—had talked around his memory as if they might disturb him in the ground. All he’d known of his Marine Corps dad had been learned from the scrapbook of newspaper clippings describing his war exploits and the shadow box of medals and ribbons hanging in the library. Only once had he felt close to him in memory. His grandfather had presented him with a leather photograph holder containing a picture of him as an infant and one of his young and smiling mother. “Your dad was carrying that when he was killed,” he’d said. “He’d want you to have it. And something else, too. His final words the last time your mother and I saw him were, ‘Tell my son I love him.’ Now I want you never to forget those words and keep them here.” And he had touched his heart.

  The lump in his throat mushroomed, cutting off his air, smarting his eyes. My God. All the wasted lives and years, the tragedies and regrets, the unimaginable grief and guilt… all leading back to that stretch of Toliver land. And now Rachel was continuing its legacy of destruction.