“Miles, dear…”
He held up a desisting hand. “I’m not being maudlin. You know me better than that. I’m only being frank. What time I have left, I want to spend with Marietta. There’s something else. I’ve… become a Communist.”
“Miles!” Mary leaped up. “You can’t be!” She was surprised at the depth of her dismay. This was nothing unusual. Her brother tried on every new political affiliation to come along, only to discard it when the next faction appeared waving its flags. But a Toliver… a Communist!
“I knew you’d react this way,” Miles said, “and I know you think this is just another cause I’ve leaped onto, but you’re wrong. The Bolshevik rebellion is the greatest revolution in the history of mankind. It will do more for the world than—”
“Oh, stop! Stop!” Mary covered her ears. “I will not hear another word in this house in defense of a political system more bloodthirsty than the one it replaced. Communist indeed!” She could not tone down her disgust. “What about this Marietta? Does she share the same political delusions?”
“She’s a sworn member of the Communist Party.”
“Oh, good Lord!” Mary turned away wearily. “So what are you saying—that you want to go back to France to become a Communist?”
“I want to go back to France to marry Marietta. I already am a Communist.”
“Bring her over here.”
“No. The political climate for a Communist is easier over there.”
“Oh, I see….” Mary let the innuendo hang, her lip curling. “What about Mama? I’d counted on you to help out with her, to give Sassie some relief. She and Toby and Beatrice are the only ones she’ll allow into her room. She can’t abide me.”
“In the state she’s in, dreaming of nothing but deliverance by the bottle, she doesn’t need me, Mary. You don’t, either. I’m betting that Somerset hasn’t been in as good a shape since Papa died. You’ve probably got every poor sod out there picking a bale a day. I’d think you’d want to get rid of me so that I won’t muck everything up.”
She wasn’t concerned that he’d interfere with her efficient management. She and Emmitt would make sure he didn’t. “It’s not the plantation that needs you. Mama and I do. We need to become a family again.”
“I’m going, Mary.” Her brother faced her, his jaw set. “I’ve got Marietta to think of and myself, too. I only came home because I wanted to make sure the boys arrived okay and to see you and Mama one last time.”
Tears of disappointment filled Mary’s eyes. Where did Miles get this fascination for political causes so far removed from his upbringing and heritage? His family and friends would have taken his convictions seriously, if he hadn’t forever been changing them, but when he acted upon them this time, he’d be lost to them forever. He wouldn’t have the strength for a return ocean crossing. Somehow, she must get him to stay until this new fervor abated and Percy and Ollie could prevail upon him to change his mind.
She drew her fingers down his unshaven face. “At least stay until you are stronger. Give us a little more time with you.”
Miles captured her hand and, after bringing up the other, turned them over for his inspection. “What toil these hands have seen at such a young age. Mary… Mary…” His voice softened with a concern she’d not heard in years. “If you’re smart, you’ll marry Percy. He’s the best catch in Texas, and he’s insane for you. But I don’t think you are smart, not in the way of a woman. A smart woman knows what’s important at the end of the day. What benefit is a bountiful harvest if you can’t go home to the one you love? No, you’ll listen to your planter’s heart, which says you can have both Percy and Somerset. You can’t, Mary. His pride won’t permit it.”
She pulled her hands away, raw, red things that she stuffed into the pockets of her skirt. Her face burned. “Why do I have to be the one to sacrifice? Why can’t Percy give up what is so dear to him?”
Miles’s mouth twisted. “Because he’s dumb, too. But I’m not. That’s why I’m going home to Marietta.” He turned his back to her and walked away, as he’d done after every one of their arguments since the will was read. At the doorway, he tossed over his shoulder, “Tell everybody when you meet them at the Warwicks’ that I won’t be joining them. I don’t want to be a part of all that patriotic folderol the mayor has planned.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mary remained in the parlor long after Miles had left. Heaven help her, she was weary to the marrow of her bones, sad to the core of her being. She wondered what her father would say if he could see his family now, divided, each member lost to the others with no hope of reuniting… and all because his wife and son couldn’t appreciate the importance of Somerset to the preservation of their heritage.
Miles had volunteered no information concerning Ollie’s injury. Mary admitted to herself that she hadn’t asked for details because she didn’t want to know. She wanted never to know… the reason she’d decided not to see Percy alone tonight. Right now, she longed for nothing more than to dissolve in his arms and have him prove to her that he was home at last. But Miles was right. Percy’s pride would never allow him to marry a woman who served two masters. She couldn’t be sure of his attitude until they talked. But not tonight. She was too tired, too lonely, too susceptible to her need of him, to risk facing him tonight. She might agree to anything. She’d wait until nearly time to meet at the Warwicks’ to send word that Miles was not up to the celebration and they’d all be retiring early. Lucy would be delighted at her absence. Of Percy’s reactions, it didn’t bear thinking.
Later that evening, lying awake in her bedroom, she could hear the muted sounds of revelry—band music, blaring horns, and fireworks—coming from the town circle. Not long afterward, she padded down to the front parlor in her nightgown to await the sounds of motorcars returning from the festivities. There would be three, if Percy drove the Pierce-Arrow his father had removed from storage. At eleven o’clock, she heard first one and then another make its way up Houston Avenue. A peek through the sheers revealed Abel’s Cadillac and a minute later the Packard. When the street was silent again, a third swung into the Toliver driveway and stopped before the verandah. Her heart began to pound.
She stood beside the front windows in the darkened room, listening and watching. The simple sound of the motorcar door shutting carried a sexual implication, quiet but firm, suggesting a man determined but in no hurry. She heard the faint jingle of keys, the soft crunch of footsteps on fallen leaves, and thought she would die from the sheer anticipation of seeing Percy step from the shadows into the light of the October moon. The moment was as devastating as she’d feared. The moonlight illuminated the full glory of him. It fell on his tall blond head and the breadth of his shoulders, smartly tailored in a new dark suit; the shine of gold cuff links and the latest in men’s timepieces, a wristwatch; the gloss of handmade shoes… a prince come to call on a pauper.
Almost to the verandah, he stopped, dumbstruck. “What?” she heard him cry, and peeked out to see him scale the steps two at a time. She heard the rip of her note down from the door and watched as he moved to read it under the porch lamp she’d left burning. He took a step back and stared aghast at the window where she stood, pressing a fist to her mouth. “Damn you, Mary! How could you do this?” he demanded, speaking to the draped glass in a voice hoarse with outrage and disappointment. “You know how much I want to see you—how I’ve waited for nothing more than to see you. You said you wouldn’t deny me, damn you!” He crushed the note in his hand and marched to the window he’d singled out. “Mary, come out here. I know you’re in there, goddammit!” He braced an arm to the window frame and bent forward to listen for a reply.
Mary did not dare move and wondered how he could not hear the pounding of her heart inches separated from his golden head. She closed her eyes at the beloved sight of it, grinding her fist into her mouth to resist the overpowering urge to throw open the door and fling herself into his arms.
“Okay,” he said, st
raightening, and she could see the hard shine of determination in his eyes. “So maybe tonight’s not a good time for us, but tomorrow will be. I’ll see you then. Expect me.”
Mary remained stock-still until she saw the beam of the Pierce-Arrow’s headlights swerve up the street, then released her cooped-up breath. Good. Tomorrow would be a better day all around. They’d both be less emotional, less on tenterhooks. She’d have Sassie invite him for coffee in the afternoon, and she’d come in early from the plantation and make herself presentable, do something to her unseemly hands. She’d be ready to see him by then.
She rose early and was in the fields with the other tenants by seven o’clock. They were making a final pass over the rows, extracting the last of the bolls before the autumn rains began. Mary was emptying cotton sacks into the wagon that would transport the day’s picking to the weighing station when one of the Negro tenants tapped her on the shoulder. “Miss Mary, they’s somebody here to see you.”
She made a sun shield of her hand and gazed in the direction of his pointing finger. Her heart nearly flew out of her mouth. “Oh, good Lord, no—” Percy, suit coat flapping open, strode toward her between the rows of picked cotton. She blew out her cheeks. There was no hope for it now: He had caught her looking her worst, which put Somerset at its worst. Resigned, she whipped off her wide-brimmed hat, wiped the sweat from her brow on her sleeve, and went to meet him.
He stopped and waited. Typical of a man, she thought in annoyance, expecting him to put his hands on his hips and frown in disapproval at her appearance. He did neither. He slipped his hands into his pockets, and his face remained as bare of expression as a blackboard before the start of a school day.
But how could he not be thinking what any man would? She was wearing an old flannel shirt of her father’s with the sleeves rolled up and baggy, stained pants tucked into weather-beaten workmen’s boots. The hat was a recent addition, decided upon when she realized her skin was turning as brown as a walnut and the boys would soon be home. Gloves were a nuisance when picking cotton, and hers, threadbare besides, had been discarded long ago. Her hair was tied back with a rawhide string, and her face and forearms were grimy with dirt. In his eyes, she must look no better than the itinerant women who often came begging at their back doors.
She stopped a few yards short of where he stood in his immaculate business attire, conscious that her tenants had stopped picking and were watching them, their rapt expressions clearly wondering what Mister Percy of the Warwick Lumber Company was doing way out here. Percy spoke first. “Hail, Mary, full of grace.”
Her chin went up. “I didn’t think mockery was part of your verbal arsenal.”
“There’s quite a bit about me you don’t know.” His hooded eyes bristled with anger. “Why didn’t you open the door to me last night?”
“I thought my note explained that.”
“It said that all of you had gone to bed early, but you were up, behind the parlor window watching me, weren’t you?”
Mary thought a moment, then admitted, “Yes.”
“Is that any way to treat a soldier returning from war?”
“No, it isn’t, but you and I both know what would have happened if I’d opened that door, Percy.”
He took a step toward her, his face anguished. “Well, hell’s bells, Mary! Would that have been so bad? My God, we’re both adults.”
Mary looked around, feeling a fluttering beneath her breastbone and a weakness in her knees. The tenants had gone back to work but were casting curious glances over their shoulders. She wondered if their voices had carried in the thin October air. “Let’s continue this conversation over there,” she said, pointing toward the Pierce-Arrow parked under a tree.
“Let’s,” Percy said, and gripped her arm as if she might bolt in the opposite direction.
He had brought cups and a vacuum bottle designed to keep beverages hot, a new product on the American market called a Thermos. The Warwicks were always the first with the newest gadgets. He poured out coffee, but Mary refused to drink her steaming cup in the Pierce-Arrow, remembering what had happened the last time she’d sat in it. She helped him spread a car robe in the shadow of the tree, and they sat down, blocked from view by the large trunk and the Pierce-Arrow. Mary saw that he’d noticed her chapped, burr-pricked hands.
“Well,” she said, “you see how it is with me. Every pair of hands are needed out here, including mine, and it will be that way until the mortgage is paid.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Mary, look at me.” He set down his cup and firmly imprisoned her chin between his fingers. “Do you love me?”
The flutter increased to a wild beating. She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Are you going to marry me?”
She did not answer at once. “I want to,” she said at last, returning the intensity she saw in his eyes. “Now let me ask you a question. Would you take me and Somerset?”
His gaze did not falter. “The way I feel now, yes. Mary, I thought of no one else but you all the time I was away. I want you now more than ever. I can’t imagine my life without you. I don’t want a life without you. So, yes, right now I’ll agree to anything, if you’ll only marry me.”
He had given her the answer she’d prayed for, but she heard it with a sadness that almost made her weep. He was five years older than she, better educated, wiser in the ways of the world, more experienced with human nature, and yet for all her naïveté, she was the one who could see the future as it would unfold if they married. In the two years he’d been away, her thoughts, too, had been constantly occupied with him and their life together, and last night before dawn she’d reached a conclusion.
“Percy,” she said, removing his hand from her chin and holding it against her heart, “you say the way you feel now. But what about after what we feel for each other now is spent? What then?” She silenced his immediate answer with her fingers over his lips. “I’ll tell you how it would be. You’d come to resent sharing my love with a plantation. You’d be jealous of Somerset and furious with me for allowing it to take time away from you and the children, from our home, our social obligations, from the life you envisioned with a wife. You’d come to despise Somerset, and you’d come to despise me. Now tell me how that wouldn’t be so.”
Her voice was firm but gentle, carrying the soulful regret he must surely know she felt. She waited for his reaction, asking herself for the thousandth time how she could bear letting this man go. But in all fairness to them both, how could she not? Percy was studying her in that all-seeing way he had, and she hoped he saw in her grimy face and pricked hands the future as it might be for Somerset, always a bad harvest away from debt, a constant drain on her energy, a never-ending source of worry. She saw Somerset someday prosperous and herself groomed and dressed in the finest that befitted a planter, but two years of dealing with lazy tenants, the boll weevil, the vagaries of nature, and unpredictable cotton markets had put a more realistic frame around that rosy picture. Still, she was and always would be a planter, a Toliver planter, and no matter what the future threw at her, these past years had taught her she could handle it.
Finally Percy said, “Now would you like me to describe the picture I have of us married?”
She released his hand. “If you must,” she said with the resigned air of someone forced to listen to a pipe dream.
He anchored a strand of hair that had escaped its rawhide bond behind her ear. “Call it male conceit or arrogance or the power of love, but I believe I can make you want to give up Somerset. I believe I can make the woman renounce the farmer, and you won’t want to spend your time and energy fighting your tenants and the boll weevil and the weather. When you experience what I have to offer, you’ll want to be with me always, making a home for me and our children. You’ll want to be there, looking fresh and beautiful, when I come home in the evening. You’ll prefer to spend Sunday mornings in bed making love, rather
than getting up at dawn to work on the books. Your Toliver blood won’t be nearly as important to you when you see it combined with mine in our children. And in time…”
Smoothly, before Mary realized what was happening, he pulled her to him and kissed her in the way she’d never forgotten. “And in time,” he repeated, releasing her with a smile, his eyes aglow, “you’ll wonder how you ever thought a backbreaking plantation could take the place of a husband and children who adore you.”
Mary stared at him, her lips feeling plump and mellow as ripe fruit. He was dreaming! He was spinning a fairy tale! Renounce the farmer for the woman? They were one and the same!
In exasperation, she brushed away the strand that had again slipped free, ignoring her carnal stirrings. “Percy, how is it that you’ve missed what I am all these years?”
“I haven’t missed it,” he said, looking ready to kiss her again. “You’re simply not aware of what I’ve seen plainly. And I mean to show it to you, Mary.” The light in his eyes turned serious. “You owe it to yourself. We owe it to ourselves.”
We owe it to ourselves. That made Mary think of Ollie and the crucial question that had haunted her throughout the night… that she’d believed she hadn’t the courage to ask. But now she must. “And to Ollie? What do we owe Ollie?”
His forehead knotted. “Ollie? I know what I owe him, but we?”
Mary examined his face for evidence that he knew what she was talking about, but his expression showed only perplexity. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “Tell me about that day.”