The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “I guess it would be easy enough to do,” Ophelia said slowly. “But she wouldn’t take the same amount every week, would she? That would be a dead giveaway.”

  “There’s more,” Lizzy said. “Tell them, Verna.”

  “There was a jewelry box in the drawer of her dressing table,” Verna said. “Really pretty, with little bits of colored mosaics and mother-of-pearl.” The box was in her purse at this very moment, but she didn’t want to show it to them. She had told Lizzy about the earrings, but she hadn’t confessed to taking them. That was too much like theft. And now that she had them, she couldn’t think how to put them back.

  “Tell them what was in the box,” Lizzy urged.

  “Pearl earrings,” Verna said. “Large pearls. From Ettlinger’s.”

  “Oh, my!” Ophelia breathed, wide-eyed. “I love pearls. Do you suppose they’re real?”

  Myra May laughed. “Honey chile, if she bought them at Ettlinger’s, they’re real. That’s the fanciest jewelry store in Mobile.”

  “Who says she bought them?” Lizzy asked wryly.

  “Lizzy’s right,” Verna said. “Girls as pretty as Bunny don’t buy jewelry for themselves.”

  “Well, then, who?” Myra May was puzzled. “None of the single guys in this town have that kind of money.” She shook her head. “I mean, think about it, girls. Do you know any men in Darling who could give Bunny something like that?”

  “Hardly,” Verna said.

  “Maybe they’re from her pen pal,” Ophelia said. “The one she was thinking of marrying.”

  Verna laughed. “Maybe that’s why she was thinking of marrying him. Because he could afford to buy her pearls.”

  “Or maybe the man who gave them to her isn’t single,” Lizzy said uncomfortably. She was remembering something Bunny had said about Lester Lima not being quite the gentleman he looked to be. Which made her remember something she’d heard about a girl who had worked there the year before. Nadine, wasn’t that her name? Yes, Nadine.

  “Not single!” Ophelia exclaimed, and colored. “What makes you say a thing like that, Lizzy?”

  “Well, I just think we ought to keep all the options open,” Lizzy said. “I mean, if we’re going to solve this mystery—”

  “What mystery?” Ophelia asked. “The poor little thing got so desperate to get out of town and meet up with the man she wanted to marry that she stole a car. Not much mystery there.”

  “Anyway, that’s what we pay the sheriff for,” Myra May retorted. “It’s his mystery. Let him solve it.”

  “He already has,” Lizzy replied. “He says she stole the car. Bunny and an unidentified man. But I don’t think so.” She looked around the table. “Well, I’m sorry. I just don’t.”

  “But she was in the car,” Myra May repeated emphatically. “For heaven’s sake, Lizzy, you said that yourself. And there was booze. You told us that, too.”

  Lizzy couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe it either,” Verna put in. “It just doesn’t seem right to me.”

  “Well, then, what are you going to do about it?” Ophelia asked.

  Lizzy and Verna exchanged looks. Then Lizzy nodded, and Verna spoke.

  “Lizzy and I are going to investigate. The sheriff obviously thinks he knows everything there is to know about this case, and we don’t agree. So we’ve decided to conduct our own investigation.”

  “An investigation,” Ophelia said admiringly. “You girls are brave.”

  Verna nodded, accepting the compliment. “We thought we’d talk to Don Greer at the picture show first. Bunny was there on Saturday night. He might be able to tell us who she was with.”

  “We thought we’d talk to Mr. Lima, too,” Lizzy said. “Maybe he can tell us who she was seeing.” She looked around the group. “If you hear of anything that might help, please let us know.”

  The clock on the wall cleared its throat importantly. Ophelia glanced up at it, startled. “My gracious, look how late it is! We’d better get our game started. Oh, and Lizzy, before I forget, I drove past the Dahlias’ house this morning, and saw that our sign is still leaning against the cucumber tree out front. I thought Zeke was going to plant it.”

  Lizzy sighed. “He will, when he gets around to it. Or maybe I’ll do it myself, if I get tired of waiting. It’s not a huge job.”

  “Let me know and I’ll come help,” Ophelia offered. She picked up a small glass bowl and dropped a handful of jelly beans into it. “Who wants to be the bank?”

  “I will,” Myra May said.

  The hostess always dealt first, so Ophelia picked up the deck and began dealing, cards facedown.

  Lizzy picked up her cards and frowned at them. “Speaking of banks, I wonder—have any of you heard anything about the Savings and Trust?” Mr. Moseley had ordered her not to tell anybody that he had told her to take her money out. He hadn’t said she shouldn’t ask about the bank.

  Ophelia looked up from her hand. “Is there something wrong? If anybody knows anything, tell me. Jed was dropping mysterious hints tonight, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying, except that I’m not supposed to worry.” She made a face. “Which is what he always says when he’s worrying.”

  Verna shrugged. “Haven’t heard a word. But the bank is right across the street from my office window, and I noticed a fair amount of traffic in and out of there today.” She glanced at Myra May. “Did I see you go in there this morning? Looked like you from a distance, anyway.”

  Myra May kept her eyes fixed on her cards. After a moment, she said, “Voleen Johnson canceled her hair appointment at Beulah’s this morning.”

  “She did?” they all chorused, wide-eyed, immediately seeing the significance of this surprising event.

  “Oh, golly,” Verna said, in an awed tone. “Whatever is going on, it must be serious. Really.” She took three cards out of her hand and passed them to Myra May, who was sitting on her left.

  Ophelia looked around the group. “All right. I want to know what’s happening. Does anybody know? Please tell me!”

  “It’s a mystery to me,” Verna replied.

  “Me too,” Lizzy said.

  Myra May put her cards down. The time had come to tell her friends what she knew. Which wasn’t much, but just enough.

  “Have you ever heard of a bank examiner?” she asked.

  ELEVEN

  Ophelia Learns Some Surprising Facts

  Tuesday, May 20, 1930

  Bright and early on Tuesday morning, as soon as she had got Jed off to the Farm Supply and the kids off to school, Ophelia put on her gardening clothes (green twill pants, a long-sleeved blouse, and old shoes), took her floppy straw hat and a basket of garden implements, and walked to the Dahlias’ clubhouse, up Rosemont and around the corner on Camellia Street. She and Mildred Kilgore had volunteered to help Bessie Bloodworth in the overgrown back garden, pulling weeds and clearing underbrush. It was a beautiful morning, with the bluest of blue skies and a mild breeze, a perfect morning for working outside, as long as you were out there early, before eight o’clock, before the sun climbed high into the sky.

  Mrs. Blackstone’s gardens had been a paradise of flowers, fruits, and vegetables for many years. Even in her mother’s day, back in the 1840s and ’50s, the gardens around the Cartwright mansion had been a sight to behold, according to all reports. Bessie, who was Darling’s unofficial town historian, had once shown the Dahlias several old photographs of the mansion’s gardens—every flower bed managed and maintained by slaves, of course.

  Those days were gone, thank goodness, and everybody was free and equal. (At least, that’s how Ophelia liked to think of it.) But there was no money, and even if the Dahlias could find a few dollars, it would have to go to repair the roof. If they wanted to resurrect their part of what had once been that lovely garden, they were going to have to roll up their sleeves and do the work themselves.

  When Ophelia came around the corner of the vacant lot,
Bessie Bloodworth was standing out in front of the clubhouse, her hands on her hips. In her early fifties, Bessie was a tall, energetic-looking woman with thick, dark eyebrows, silvery-gray hair, cut short, and square, capable hands. She was wearing bib overalls and a hat and she had a rake in one hand.

  “Looks to me like we don’t have a lot of work to do out here in front at the moment,” Bessie said, surveying the wisteria and the weigelas. “That snowball bush seriously needs cutting back, but most of the pruning here in front can wait until late fall or early spring. I think we ought to concentrate on the back garden. You agree?”

  “Beulah’s sign still isn’t up,” Ophelia said, pointing to the painted sign that was leaning against the cucumber tree.

  “That’s Zeke for you.” Bessie chuckled. “Lizzy asked him to dig a hole for it, but he does things on his own calendar. I suppose he’ll get around to it sooner or later.”

  “Maybe we should do it ourselves,” Ophelia suggested. “Wouldn’t take long.”

  A horn tootled and they turned to see a blue 1929 Dodge four-door sedan slow to a stop. It was Mildred Kilgore, an avid camellia collector. If there was a camellia anywhere that she didn’t have, she’d move heaven and earth to get it, even if she had to pay good money for it. She could do that, though. Her husband, Roger, owned Kilgore Motors, just off the courthouse square. It was a Dodge dealership, and Mildred always drove the latest model.

  “Sorry to be late,” Mildred said, getting her gardening implements out of the car. She was dressed in a neat khaki skirt and plaid blouse, and looked so natty that Ophelia immediately felt grubby—but then, Mildred always had that effect on her. “Today’s ironing day, and I had to get Jubilee started on Mr. Kilgore’s shirts. Have I missed anything important?”

  “We were just discussing what to do about the sign,” Ophelia told her.

  Mildred frowned at it. “We should install it. Leave it leaning against the tree like that, somebody might come along and steal it”

  “Let’s take it around to the back,” Bessie said. “That way, if we don’t get around to it today, it won’t be out in plain sight”

  With Bessie carrying the sign, they went around to the back garden and stood for a moment, surveying the scene. The iris and lilies and roses were blooming in sweet profusion, and so were the weeds, which almost smothered the flowers. The honeysuckle was about to completely overwhelm the cardinal climber, and the foot of the garden, a boggy area, was a sea of green ferns.

  “Whew. Just look at this mess.” Ophelia shook her head. “There’s certainly plenty to do back here.”

  And there was. The grass had been recently mowed, but the borders needed to be cleaned out, the dead vines pulled off the fences, the low-hanging tree branches cut back, and the shrubs pruned. Some of the work—pruning the roses and dividing the lilies and other bulbs—would have to wait for the proper season. But the clearing-out could be done now, or at least started.

  “Where do you want us to begin, Bessie?” Ophelia asked.

  “Anywhere,” Bessie said, waving her arm. “Just choose a spot, any spot. Let’s pile all the weeds and debris in the middle of the yard for now. There’s a compost pile behind the vegetable garden—when we’re finished for the morning, we can carry everything over there. Mrs. Horner, over on Mimosa, promised Lizzy that we could clean out her hen-house in return for the chicken manure. It makes a really nice hot compost”

  “Sounds good to me,” Mildred said. “That’s what we like. Plenty of hot compost.” She pulled on her garden gloves and headed for the fence to take control of the rampaging honeysuckle, while Bessie started for the perennial border. Ophelia went to work beside her, and they began yanking weeds—Johnson grass, dog fennel, henbit, and ground ivy—throwing them onto a large pile on the grass.

  After they had been working for a few minutes, Ophelia said, “What’s this I hear about the Cartwright ghost, Bessie?”

  “Ghost?” Mildred turned, her clippers poised for attack. “Somebody’s seen the Cartwright ghost?”

  “My goodness,” Bessie said, sitting back on her heels. “Where’d you hear that, Ophelia?”

  “Mrs. Adcock,” Ophelia said. “She got the news from Mrs. Sedalius at church on Sunday. She told me about it yesterday.”

  “Word gets around, doesn’t it?” Bessie chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell you, Ophelia. I’ve lived in this neighborhood since I was a girl, and I keep hearing tales about folks seeing the Cartwright ghost. Over the years, dozens have told me they’ve seen her. But I’ve never seen her myself, and I didn’t believe Mrs. Sedalius when she said she’d seen her—black cloak, spade, and all. I figured she’d had too many nips of that bootleg rum she hides under her bed.”

  Ophelia laughed. Since Mrs. Adcock only knew Mrs. Sedalius as a fellow churchgoer, she probably didn’t know about the bootleg rum. “But you changed your mind?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Bessie said. “I still don’t believe in ghosts. That’s not my style. However, I will admit to a shiver or two when I heard that spade clinking.”

  “Spade?” Mildred asked.

  Which meant that Bessie had to tell the whole story, from beginning to end. When she had finished, Mildred asked slyly, “So when you heard the ghost digging, did you jump right out of bed and come down here to see what was going on?”

  “Not in the dark, you silly goose,” Bessie replied, and they all laughed. “I waited until it was bright daylight, before church. Then I came back here and looked all around. I didn’t see a thing.”

  “No holes?” Ophelia asked. “But if you heard the sound of digging—”

  “Nary a hole,” Bessie said firmly. She glanced toward the back of the garden. “Although I didn’t go poking around down there, where Miss Rogers thinks we ought to put the bog garden. It’s damp and overgrown, and I was wearing my Sunday shoes.”

  “I’ve never been back there,” Ophelia said. “There’s a creek, Lizzy said.”

  “Well, sort of.” Bessie got to her feet. “Actually, it’s more like a seep spring, which is why Miss Rogers thinks it will be a good place for a bog garden. But it’s going to take a lot of work. Most of those ferns will have to come out, and there’s sedge grass and burdock. Come on back and let’s have a look.”

  “I’m ready for a break,” Mildred replied, stripping off her gloves. They walked toward the rear of the garden, past a fragrant gardenia bush and a pretty clump of flowering agapanthus. “I enjoyed seeing the pictures you showed us of what the garden looked like in the days when the Cartwrights were living in the mansion,” she added.

  “It was beautiful,” Ophelia agreed. “Acres of lawn, and all those azaleas and weeping willows and oaks hung with Spanish moss.”

  “They had plenty of slaves to keep it that way,” Bessie said, matter-of-factly. “You can’t have a garden like that now—not unless you have more money than you know what to do with, or a dozen friends who will work for nothing.”

  “Or a dozen garden club members,” Mildred put in dryly, “who work for the love of gardening—and the chance to take home a few passalong plants for their own garden. Like those spider lilies over there. They really need to be dug and divided.” She paused. “Didn’t you tell us that it was Dahlia Blackstone’s mother who designed the original garden?”

  “I didn’t know that,” Ophelia said. “Must’ve been a long time ago. Mrs. Blackstone was in her eighties when she died, wasn’t she?”

  “Eighty-two,” Bessie replied. “Dahlia’s mother—Cornelia, her name was—came here as a young bride in the 1840s, back when the place was new-built. She put in the gardens before the War, Dahlia told me, before Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves. Which was long before the mansion burned.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the real truth of that story,” Ophelia said. “Just a lot of rumors. Did the Union troops torch the house?” After the fighting was over, soldiers had looted and nearly destroyed the town of Claiborne, not far away on the Alabama River, then had made their way to
Darling, wreaking havoc as they went.

  “Nobody seems to know just what happened,” Bessie said. “Dahlia’s father, Colonel Cartwright, was away in Virginia, where he had been fighting alongside General Lee. He didn’t get home until several months after the War ended, and by that time, his wife was dead and the house was gone.”

  “Such a sad thing,” Mildred said mournfully. “To fight all that time, and come home and find nothing left”

  “I’m afraid there were plenty of other situations just like this one,” Bessie said. “The Cartwright place was the largest house in the area, and Dahlia—who was only thirteen or fourteen when the War broke out—said that her mother was terrified that the place would be ransacked and they would all be murdered. Mrs. Cartwright had her jewelry and the family’s valuables hidden, in an effort to keep them from being stolen.”

  “The same thing happened in my family,” Ophelia put in reminiscently. “My grandmother was living in Atlanta. When she heard that Sherman and his Yankee rabble were coming, she pulled a brick out of the fireplace and put her jewelry behind it. The soldiers searched the house, but they didn’t find a thing.”

  Bessie was rueful. “I’m afraid it didn’t turn out that well in this case. Dahlia never liked to talk about it, or about the ghost, either. In fact, she thought the ghost was a lot of nonsense. But she did tell me once that the man who was responsible for hiding the family treasure had been killed. Her mother—she had consumption—was dead as well. They searched and searched, but the family’s valuables never turned up. Whether they were lost or stolen—nobody knows. Whatever the truth, it’s hidden in the mists of time.”

  “And the mansion?” Ophelia asked. “How did it burn?”

  “When Cornelia got sick, Dahlia was sent to Mobile to stay with her grandmother. She didn’t come back until her father returned from Virginia. By that time, the place had burned to the ground. Could’ve been Union looters, although they didn’t burn anything else in Darling. Maybe it was an accident. Or—” Bessie shrugged. “Dahlia said she never knew for sure and never really wanted to find out. She didn’t like to think back on those days. She had lost too much. It was too painful to remember.”