Roses (33 page)

“Why haven’t you and Gabby divorced?”

“That, too, is a part of the past that does not pertain to you.” He bestowed his smile famous for disarming opposition. “Maybe
you should go down and check on Amos. He’ll be even more upset now that he’s had to break the news of Mary’s death to Rachel.
At least he’ll be consoled by the thought that she’s finally coming to live in Howbutker. He adores that girl.”

Matt acquiesced to his brush-off. He supposed he’d never learn why his grandfather had stayed in an absent marriage when it
had always been obvious to him that he was born for home and family, for a wife’s devoted care. Still, he felt a strange envy.
What it must be like to love a woman as he had… for as long… and never to want another. In that regard, he had been a very
lucky man.

“I’m looking forward to Rachel living here myself,” he said, getting to his feet. “It’s time we got to know each other better.”

Percy gave him a penetrating look. “I wouldn’t be getting any ideas about her, Matt. She’s like a young Mary in more ways
than her looks, and they’re not Warwick-friendly.”

Matt gazed down at his grandfather. “That sounds like one of those empty spaces I mentioned, and if Rachel’s as lovely as
I remember, it would be hard for a man not to get ideas about her.”

Percy’s face grew serious. “Let’s just say that in Rachel’s case, the apple fell directly under the tree, and I wouldn’t want
you to repeat my history.”

Matt punched his shoulder. “Well, until you tell me what I’m to look out for, I’ll just have to take my chances, won’t I?”

P
ERCY LISTENED TO
M
ATT’S FOOTSTEPS
recede down the hall. Confident young pup. He had no idea what he was letting himself in for, if history was indeed so unkind
as to give a repeat performance. Percy wouldn’t be worried about him if he weren’t so much like himself—unable to resist the
allure of a challenge, the thrill of the chase, and then when the trap was sprung…

Slowly he rose and let himself out onto the shaded porch of his sitting room. The afternoon felt as hot as it had in 1914,
and he remembered that cold chocolate soda and Mary’s haughty rejection of it. He remembered everything about Mary, her taste
and feel and smell… even now.

He drew a chaise longue farther under the shade of the roof and stretched out. The only way to prepare Matt for Rachel was
to fill in those spaces he mentioned, and that he would never do. But if he ever were of a mind to relate the tale of how
he’d aborted his happiness, where to begin? He supposed it would have to be the day of his greatest pain, the morning he returned
from Canada and learned that Mary had married Ollie….

H
OWBUTKER
, O
CTOBER
1920

T
he train was late chugging into the station. Percy had slept sporadically during the weeklong trip from Ontario, rising before
dawn to smoke on the platform, staying up past midnight in the lounge car, drinking an ocean of coffee, and cursing himself
for being a fool. He should have let his parents know to expect him, but his mother would alert Mary, and he wasn’t sure what
her reaction would be, considering how they’d parted. He planned to take her by surprise, sweep her into his arms, and kiss
her senseless, tell her he loved her and that he didn’t give a damn about her obsession with Somerset, if only she’d marry
him and live with him forever.

Last night, however, he had slept soundly through the last call to breakfast and almost missed the first sight of the Piney
Woods this side of Texarkana. He had awakened startled and hurriedly pulled on pants and a shirt to make his way through the
berth cars to the rear platform. He had gripped the railing, the wind ballooning out his half-buttoned shirt, and sucked in
the pungent air of East Texas on the verge of autumn. He stood there now, recalling when he and the boys returned from France.
He’d never in all his life forget the vision of Mary standing on the platform, aloof even in the crowd, her clothes outdated,
her expression too tense, but, Jesus, she’d been beautiful… his Mary.
Almost there… almost there… almost there…,
the wheels sang, and he believed the promise of their cadence.

Yes, by God, almost there, almost home, almost back in Mary’s arms, which he never should have left. He’d gone away hurt and
angry and determined to get over her. He’d never played second fiddle to anything or anybody, and he certainly wouldn’t to
his wife’s affections. He would be first or not at all.

The cold of the Canadian Rockies had burned the arrogance out of him. The isolation had cleansed him of his pride. Lying in
camp at night, listening to the men regale one another with tales of women, hearing beneath the braggadocio the wistfulness,
the bitterness, the loneliness, he had felt the reach of an icy wind deep into the part of him that only Mary could warm.
In the day, as he sawed and loaded and climbed trees whose heights touched the clouds, a need for her grew within him, more
gnawing than any hunger, more essential than air or water or food.

At the end of two months, he could stand no more. He was almost twenty-six. He yearned for a wife and home and children… for
Mary. He wanted her no more than a heartbeat away in his bed, a hand across his table, a chair’s distance from him in the
evening. He could learn to play second fiddle. The idea was to be in the band.

He reentered the corridor. The train would be pulling into Howbutker within the next fifteen minutes or so. Once again, he
was glad he’d not told his parents of his arrival. He’d be free to see Mary first. Today was his mother’s day to play bridge
at the country club, and his father would be at his office. He’d take a cab and pick up his car without their being the wiser.
If he didn’t find Mary at home, he’d drive directly to the plantation, and later when he saw his parents, he’d tell them he’d
proposed to her.

In the corridor, he encountered the young Negro porter who hailed from Howbutker and knew his name. “Why, Mister Percy, you
missed your breakfast this morning. Want me to see ’bout rustlin’ you up a bite?”

“No thanks, Titus. We’ll be arriving in a few minutes, and I know where I can get the best breakfast this side of the Sabine.”

“And where might that be, sir?”

“At Sassie’s table in Howbutker.”

Titus nodded. “That be Miss Mary Toliver’s residence, I reckon. Or should I say ‘Mrs. Ollie DuMont’ now.” He smiled happily
in bestowing this information, the glow of the corridor lamp glinting off the wide exposure of his teeth.

The sudden drop of his blood pressure caused Percy to reach for the railing behind him. “I’m sorry, Titus. What did you say?”

“Oh, that’s right. You just now be comin’ home, and they be already gone, but I’da thought you knew ’bout the weddin’. Not
that it was a big one. Miss Mary and Mister Ollie married rather sudden like ’cause he was goin’ over to Paris awhile. The
trip had somethin’ to do with his papa’s store. They goin’ to combine business with pleasure.”

Percy experienced the total lack of sound he’d encountered in the trenches when the blast of a mortar shell landed close by.
For a few paralyzing moments, as the earth blackened before him, he saw Titus’s lips move but heard only silence.

“Mister Percy, you all right?” Titus asked, waving his hand before Percy’s frozen stare.

Percy’s lips moved woodenly. “How do you know all this?”

“Why, ’cause it was all in the paper. There was even a picture of the newly marrieds. Miss Mary, she was all decked out in
a white dress, and Mister Ollie, he was turned out in one of his smart suits. Mister Percy, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so,
you don’t look so good. Sure I can’t get you some breakfast?”

“No, no, Titus. How did they look? In the picture?”

“Well, Mister Ollie, he had that bridegroom look. He got only one leg, you know, but that don’t stop him from lookin’ at Miss
Mary the only way a man can….” He stopped, embarrassed, his color a shade lighter. “I mean… that is, to say—”

“I know what you mean. Go on. What about Miss Mary?”

“Well, now, Miss Mary, she don’t look so chipper. Most womenfolks don’t, I guess, when they get married….” Again the porter
looked uncomfortable. “By that, I mean all the plannin’ Miss Mary had to do for the weddin’ and packin’ for the long trip
to Europe. That’s enough to take the sap outta anybody….” Titus paused. “Mister Percy, you look like you could use a cup of
coffee. Be right back.”

Percy let his full weight fall against the paneled corridor wall. It wasn’t possible. He was dreaming. Mary couldn’t—
wouldn’t
have married anyone but him. They belonged together. They were one. Titus was mistaken. He felt along the railing until he
reached the sanctuary of his Pullman. He plunked down in stunned disbelief until he heard the porter at the door. He heaved
himself to the lavatory and buttoned his shirt. “Come in,” he called in a steady voice. He didn’t recognize himself. His mouth
was thin and bloodless. In five minutes, he’d aged ten years. “Leave the coffee there, Titus. Tip’s on the nightstand.”

“I’ll just help myself to a dime, Mister Percy. Welcome home.”

There has to be a mistake, he told himself again. But his mind forced him to realize what his heart would not accept. There
was no mistake. Mary had married Ollie to rescue Somerset after he’d rejected her and compounded his stupidity by running
off to the Canadian Rockies without a word. But how could she do this to him—to them—marry his best friend, a man she did
not love and never would as she’d loved him… as Ollie deserved to be loved?

He slammed his fist into the wall beside the mirror and then sank to the bed to nurse the pain. The enormity of his rage at
both himself and Mary overwhelmed him. He finished out the ride into Howbutker with his back against the frame of the Pullman
bed, holding his head in his hands, the untouched coffee growing cold on the nightstand.

Before it came to a full stop, he hopped off the train and called to Isaac, one of Howbutker’s two cabbies. “The Toliver place
on Houston Avenue,” he said, throwing his gear into the hansom cab, and he climbed up to sit beside the driver, needing the
sobering October wind on his face. As soon as Isaac drew his horse to a stop before the steps of the Tolivers’ verandah, he
jumped down. “Wait here for me,” he ordered, and dashed up to the front door.

Sassie answered the savage ringing of the bellpull. “You better come in,” she said, reading his face, her drooped mouth confirming
Titus’s report.

“It’s true, then?” Percy stated.

“They married yesterday and left on the five o’clock train. It was all done so sudden like ’cause Mister Ollie, he had to
go to Paris for some clothes show, or so Miss Mary say.”

“What do you mean, ‘or so Miss Mary say’?”

Sassie shrugged and folded her hands over her flowered apron. “That’s just what she say, is all. Mister Ollie, he loves her.
You can be consoled by that, Mister Percy.”

His voice gave way to his grief. “Why did she do it, Sassie?” he sobbed.

Sassie put her arms around him and pulled his head down to her shoulder and stroked it. “She pine for you, Mister Percy. She
grow sick from so much pinin’. She thought you be gone for good. Mister Ollie, he help her out of the jam she be in with Somerset,
and I reckon she figure she owe him. If she wasn’t goin’ marry you, who else good enough?”

Percy sobbed into her shoulder. “What have I done, Sassie?”

“You be young, that’s what you and Miss Mary both done. Love ain’t got no business happenin’ to the young. Only the old be
wise enough to treat it right. I’d offer you a bottle of somethin’, but they ain’t a drop of nothin’ in the house.”

Percy straightened, extracted a handkerchief, and wiped his face. “That’s all right,” he said. “I won’t have any trouble finding
a bottle.”

When he returned to the cab, he said, “How much do you want for that bottle of gin you got stashed under your seat, Isaac?”

“Two bucks. It’s only half-full.”

“There’ll be five more for you if you can pick up another bottle on the way to my destination.”