The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

by Susan Wittig Albert

  In another way, the expansion had been difficult, for the treasurer’s office had responsibility for all of the county’s money, which seemed to be held in a scattering of different accounts. And to make things even more confusing, Verna quickly discovered that the county’s money was on deposit not just in the Darling Savings and Trust but in all three of the banks over at Monroeville, the nearest big town, which wasn’t even in Cypress County. When she got things under control, Verna planned to recommend that the Monroeville bank accounts be moved back to Darling where they belonged. But she didn’t think it was wise to do that until she had everything figured out and knew what was what.

  Normally, of course, Verna would have turned for help to the two longtime employees in the treasurer’s office, Melba Jean Manners, a rather stout, double-chinned lady in her mid-fifties, and Ruthie Brant, twenty years younger than Melba Jean and as skinny as Melba Jean was stout. But Melba Jean and Ruthie didn’t seem to know very much about the way the treasurer’s accounts were organized. According to them, all they did was deposit the money where Mr. DeYancy told them to put it and pay it out to whomever he told them to pay it to, recording the transactions in the big leather-bound account books that were kept on wooden shelves in the storage room. Mr. DeYancy, it seems, had been the kind of boss who liked to keep all the office business under his hat. He apparently hadn’t shared it with the county commissioners, either, because when Verna inquired of them, all she got were blank stares.

  As far as Verna was concerned, why Mr. DeYancy did this, whether it was because he was secretive by nature or had certain secrets he wanted to keep, didn’t much matter. What mattered were the accounts. And although Melba Jean and Ruth knew perfectly well how to do their jobs, they couldn’t tell Verna a blessed thing about why those accounts were organized the way they were, which was what she needed to know in order to decide whether to change the process or keep on doing it the way it had been done. Since Mr. DeYancy was dead, she couldn’t ask him. And since Mr. Scroggins didn’t know anything more than she did (and seemed to care a whole lot less), she couldn’t ask him, either. The whole thing was, to put it simply, a tangled mess.

  Verna was the soul of neatness, and this snarl of accounts had been harassing her since she had inherited it, to the point where she was having nightmares. Sometimes she dreamed that she was trying to balance a dozen different checkbooks drawn on a dozen different accounts, and every time she thought she’d just about got it all figured out, somebody came and dumped a bushel basket of tens and twenties in front of her and told her to put the money where it was supposed to go. If she didn’t put it into the right accounts, she’d be fired.

  Or she dreamed that she had just got all the checkbooks balanced when the banks started telephoning to say that a mysterious person dressed all in black had come in and withdrawn all the money. Every account was down to zero and all the county employees would have to go without their paychecks until she figured out where to get the money to cover the loss. If she didn’t find out who had it and put it back, she’d be fired.

  Poor Verna had begun to feel as if she were lost in a dark and treacherous swamp, much darker and more treacherous than Briar’s Swamp, over by the river, where panthers and black bears were said to prowl amid clouds of ravenous mosquitoes. And beneath every cypress tree, there was nothing but snakes and occasional alligators and bottomless pools of black water and the smell of something rotten. The smell of trouble.

  But even in her worst nightmares, Verna never dreamed that the State of Alabama would send somebody to audit the Cypress County treasurer’s accounts—and not just one somebody, but two.

  The first auditor had appeared on a Wednesday morning, unannounced. He flashed a wallet card with his identification and asked Verna to bring him the county books. He spent the day going over them quickly, making cryptic notes. When the clock struck five, he put his suit coat back on, tipped his bowler hat, and disappeared, muttering that somebody from the main office would be in touch if there were further questions. Further questions? Until the auditor appeared, Verna had not known that there were any questions at all—except for her own, of course, which were legion.

  Melba Jean and Ruthie had spent the whole day nervously watching the fellow. The minute their visitor left, they collapsed into their chairs with huge sighs of relief. Verna felt like doing the very same thing, but she didn’t like to appear concerned in front of the employees.

  “What in the world do you think that man was looking for?” Melba Jean cried, all her chins rippling.

  Ruthie laughed, twisting her mouth. “Maybe he thought we’ve been stealing money and he was trying to catch us.” Her laugh was grating, like the sound that chalk makes when you squeak it on a blackboard. “Maybe he thought we’d get on an ocean liner and sail off to Paris for a long vacation. Or Rome.” Her eyes glinted. “I’ve got me a hankerin’ to see those fountains.”

  Verna winced. “Don’t talk like that, Ruthie,” she said sternly. “I am sure the man wasn’t thinking anything of the sort. It’s nothing but a routine audit. They do it all the time. Now that it’s over, we can get back to work.”

  She didn’t know whether the audit was routine or not. She did, however, know that Melba Jean had a tendency to gossip about office business. In Verna’s opinion, this was a very dangerous thing, especially when the gossip had anything to do with money. People could get the wrong idea all too easily, and no telling where that would lead.

  “And I don’t want you two talking about this visit outside the office,” she added emphatically. “There is no point in getting folks all excited when there’s nothing to get excited about. This was just a routine bit of business, that’s all. Happens every so often, in every county in this state. You hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the two women chorused dutifully.

  But from the glances they exchanged, Verna suspected that they had already spread the word when they went to lunch, which they always ate with a couple of women who worked in the Cypress County Title Company office across the street. The news would probably be all over Darling by the time for church on Sunday.

  But if that happened, Verna didn’t get wind of it. The auditor’s office didn’t get back in touch, either, and she was so busy doing her work that the episode slipped into the back of her mind. She was still troubled about those tangled accounts, of course, but her nervousness over the audit eventually died down.

  Until, that is, the second auditor showed up, also unannounced. Where the first fellow had been polite and laconic, the second was a fussy little man barely five feet high. He had a bald head, gold-rimmed glasses, a habit of walking on the tips of his toes, and the manner of a bossy banty rooster. He arrived early one morning with a brown leather briefcase in his hand, introduced himself as Mr. Daniel Beecham, Senior State Auditor, and appropriated Mr. Scroggins’ desk (which didn’t much matter because Mr. Scroggins rarely used it). He hung his brown felt bowler hat on a peg, draped his suit coat over the back of Mr. Scroggins’ chair, and fastened red elastic garters above his elbows, like a bank teller. Then he opened his briefcase and took out a pen, a bottle of ink, and a yellow tablet and ordered Verna to bring out the records, one large volume after another.

  Mr. Beecham sat at Mr. Scroggins’ desk for a full week, which of course was a week of pure hell for Verna. For the first several days, he methodically worked his way through the records of the money that the county had collected in the past four years: sales taxes, property taxes, licenses and fees, and all funds received from the state. He examined every ledger entry, dipping his pen into his ink bottle and jotting columns of figures on his tablet. He went through the records of the various checking accounts and spent a full day examining the county expenditures. Verna, whose desk was next to his, could hear the sound of the pages turning, the irritating scritch-scratch of his pen, and an occasional sigh, whether of weariness or impatience, she couldn’t tell. It was a
ll terribly unsettling.

  Mr. Beecham was nothing if not punctual. He came in promptly at eight every morning and left with his briefcase at five every afternoon. He ate lunch at the desk, a sandwich and an apple packed for him by the cook at the Old Alabama Hotel, where he was staying. As he worked, he hummed tunelessly to himself, but he never said a word, except to ask for this or that ledger—and on the last day, to request that the office mechanical adding machine (a genuine Dalton that Verna had recently purchased for seventy-three dollars and ninety-five cents) be placed on his desk. He sometimes stopped to blow his nose into a white handkerchief, or sip coffee poured into a cup from a Thermos bottle. But otherwise, the little man did nothing but read and write for hours on end. Until the last day, that is, when he operated the Dalton nonstop, all day long, adding the columns of figures on his tablet.

  Verna prided herself on being able to size people up, and she watched Mr. Beecham’s face carefully, trying to read his reactions. But she had no luck whatsoever. The little man was as stone-faced as the Sphinx. And when he left for the last time, at four fifty-nine p.m. on Friday afternoon, he said not a word of good-bye. He folded up the adding machine tape, put his tablet, pen, and ink bottle into his briefcase, put on his coat, slapped his hat on his head, and briskly left the office.

  “What do you suppose will happen next?” Melba Jean asked fearfully.

  “We’ll all three be lynched,” Ruthie said, with her grim gallows humor. “Or tarred and feathered.”

  “Nothing at all will happen,” Verna said stoutly, summoning all her confidence. “I will see you both on Monday morning. I hope you have a very good weekend.”

  She had been right, at least for a short while. Things went on just as usual, with Mr. Earl Scroggins popping in only once, to pick up the quarterly treasurer’s report that Verna had prepared for him to take to the county commissioners’ meeting. Verna had continued as usual, too, shopping for groceries, doing her laundry, borrowing S. S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case from Miss Rogers at the library, mowing her grass, and helping the Dahlias with their new vegetable garden.

  But all through the first few days after Mr. Beecham’s visit, Verna held her breath, especially when Ruthie handed her the mail from the post office. She went through the stack carefully, not wanting to see an envelope from the state of Alabama but at the same time wanting to see it. The suspense was killing her.

  And to make things worse, she couldn’t talk to anybody about her worries. Definitely not to Melba Jean and Ruthie, for she felt she couldn’t trust either of them not to spill the beans all over Darling. And not even to her best friend, Liz Lacy. A long time ago, she had pledged to herself that she wouldn’t whine about her job, no matter how bad it got. A job was a job was a job and you did it, come hell or high water. Complaining was a sign of weakness. Verna had never broken that rule, and she wasn’t going to start now.

  Anyway, as the days went by and no letter arrived, she had more or less convinced herself that things were more or less hunky-dory and she began to feel a little easier—at least as far as the audit was concerned. But she still couldn’t decide how to deal with the bewildering multiplicity of bank accounts. And those awful nightmares just kept coming.

  Now, Clyde lifted his head and licked Verna’s chin as if to reassure her that whatever happened, she could count on him. He would always be around to take care of her and make sure that nothing bad ever happened. She was hugging him gratefully when the telephone on the wall startled her with a brassy brriingg-brriingg-bring. Two longs and a short. Her ring. Probably one of the Dahlias calling.

  She put Clyde on the floor and went to the telephone, aware that at the very same moment, Mrs. Wilson next door on the north, Mrs. Newman next door to Mrs. Wilson, the Ferrells next door to the Newmans, and the Snows at the end of the block were all going to their telephones, too. They would cup their hands over the mouthpieces and stealthily pick up the receivers, trying to conceal the fact that they were listening in.

  Which was a pretty silly thing to do, Verna thought, because everybody knew that everybody else always listened in, and monitored what they said accordingly. These days, you could get a private line, which allowed you to say anything you wanted to say without fear of people overhearing. But it was expensive. And anyway, if you weren’t on the party line, you’d have to wait for news until the next time you went to the diner for lunch, or the Dispatch came out, or your neighbor came over to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar. Better to be on the party line and get the news straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

  Verna picked up the receiver and said hello. But it wasn’t one of the Dahlias calling.

  “Hello, Verna.” The voice was male, and uncharacteristically hesitant. “It’s Mr. Scroggins.”

  Verna’s heart rose up in her throat, then thudded into the pit of her stomach. Mr. Scroggins had never called her at home, not once in all the years she had worked in the probate clerk’s office.

  “H-h-how are you, Mr. Scroggins?” she managed.

  “Doin’ real well,” Mr. Scroggins said. “But I got some bad news for you, Verna. I’m real sorry, but I got to ask you not to come in to work on Monday morning. You jes’ take the week off and stay home. A little vacation, like.”

  Verna gasped. “Not come in to work? But . . . but why?” She was suddenly aware of four listening ears glued to four receivers along Larkspur, between Robert E. Lee and Rosemont Street. She snapped, “All right, you all, I am asking you to get off this party line right now. You hear?”

  There was one quick click, then two, then finally three.

  “Anybody else?” she asked. There was silence, but of course she had no way to tell whether the fourth person was still on the line or had never been there in the first place. She turned her attention back to her caller. “All right, Mr. Scroggins. Now, why is it I’m not supposed to come to work? And who’s going to manage the office if I’m not there?”

  “Miz Cole is coming back full time,” Mr. Scroggins said. “She can manage the place—not as good as you, but she can do it.” His voice took on an edge. “And if you don’t know why this is happenin’, then I’m sorry for you, Verna. I never in God’s green earth would’ve wanted anything like this, but—”

  “Anything like what?” Verna demanded. Her knees were shaking and it was hard to get her breath. “Why do I have to stay away from the office? Does it have anything to do with that auditor?”

  “I am truly sorry but I can’t tell you a thing, Verna,” Mr. Scroggins said regretfully. “You are now on furlough, you might say, and I need you to give me your key to the office door. You can leave it in an envelope at the Old Alabama desk, and I’ll pick it up. I’ll give it back if this thing is cleared up and you can go back to work. Okay?”

  Okay? Of course it wasn’t okay! “If what thing is cleared up?” Verna asked. She could hardly grasp what he was saying. To give up her key to the office would be like giving up her right to her job. Like giving up her identity!

  “Never you mind, Verna,” Mr. Scroggins said, now more sternly. “Jes’ you bring me your key.” He paused, waiting for her reply. “Verna, you hear what I said?” Another, longer pause. “Verna? You answer me, now.”

  But Verna didn’t answer. She hung up the receiver and collapsed into a chair.

  THREE

  Bessie and Miss Rogers

  Bessie Bloodworth didn’t have far to go after she left the Dahlias’ clubhouse on Saturday afternoon. All she had to do was duck through the hole in the hedge and she was in the neatly kept backyard of Magnolia Manor, where she couldn’t help but notice that the plants in the fourteen clay pots of thriving Confederate roses had been carefully pruned back. Miss Rogers’ work, Bessie knew.

  The previous spring, Miss Rogers had obtained a start from every Dahlia who had a Confederate rose in her garden—and it turned out that they all did, s
ince everyone loved the plant, even those who didn’t know that it wasn’t a rose but an hibiscus. She had rooted the pencil-sized cuttings in buckets of damp sand, then moved the new plants into pots and later, moved the pots into the cellar for the winter, so they wouldn’t freeze. Now, just in time for the Confederate Day celebration at the cemetery, each plant had put out an exuberant green growth. Nicely trimmed, they were ready to leave the Magnolia Manor and go to their new home at the Darling Cemetery, where they would create a beautiful blooming hedge along the fence.

  Bessie climbed up the back steps and opened the door to the screened-in back porch. The Magnolia Manor was the only home she had ever known. She had lived in the old two-story house for decades, first with her mother and father and brothers and then with her father, whom she cared for until he died. And now with the Magnolia Ladies, as they called themselves, four of them, bless ’em. Her boarders.

  Of course, the house hadn’t had a name back when her father (who owned and operated the town’s mortuary) was still alive. But it hadn’t had a mortgage, either, and after his death, it was Bessie’s only real asset, except for the few dollars she got every month from Mr. Noonan, who had purchased her father’s funeral parlor business.

  First, she gave the house a name. Second, she got Beulah Trivette to paint a nice wooden sign for the front yard, featuring the words MAGNOLIA MANOR in fancy script, encircled by magnolia blossoms and leaves. Third, she put an ad in the Darling Dispatch for “older unmarried and widowed ladies of refinement and good taste, to occupy spacious bedrooms at the Magnolia Manor.” She’d been afraid that if the house didn’t have a name of its own, people would start calling it Bessie Bloodworth’s Home for Old Ladies to distinguish it from Mrs. Brewster’s Home for Young Ladies, over on West Plum, whose residents were so unruly that Mrs. Brewster had to set strict rules for their behavior. Bessie hoped that her residents would be dignified and refined enough not to require rules, although as time went on, she had learned that older women, even those of refinement and good taste, could be undignified every now and again.