The hail came thirty minutes later, followed by the rain. Mary and the seven Carters were way down their rows, too far to make it to the wagons. “Get under your sacks!” somebody called out. “The hail’s as hard as river rocks.” But even as the hail pelted, Mary kept picking until finally she knew it was useless. She drew her half-filled sack under her, covering it with her body and using her arms to protect her head. After a while she felt nothing of the pounding, only the sound of her heart slamming against the sack.
The rain was falling in sheets when she was finally pried away. “Miss Mary,” Hoagy said, “there’s nothing more we can do. Let’s get our sacks back to the house.”
Her nightclothes plastered to her, hems dragging in the mud, and the mire sucking at her soaked boots, Mary grasped her own sack and struggled toward her overseer’s cabin.
“You’ll catch your death, Miss Mary,” Hoagy’s wife said.
I wish, Mary thought.
Under the porch roof where they’d all gathered with their sacks, Mary peered through her streaming locks at the circle of faces around her. They seemed to be waiting for her to say something… do something. Their lives were in her hands, and she must find a way to repair the devastation of this night, make it go away. Hoagy, especially, was regarding her with an expectant eye. Unable to pay him outright for his overseer’s services, she had promised him a greater percentage of the profits from the ginned crop. She squinted up into the bleak, sodden night, as if she might hear the voices of her father and grandfather advising her what to do, but all she heard was the mockery of the subsiding rain and the shattering of her dreams.
“Damn!” the overseer swore, wiping his face with a towel. “Another year gone for nothing.”
“Wha’ we goin’ do, Pa?” one of the little girls asked tearfully, her face smeared with mud.
“Right now we’re going to shake out this cotton to dry and see what we have,” Mary said. “Mattie”—she turned to Hoagy’s wife—“get the fire going in the front room to dry the sacks as best as they can be. In the morning we’ll stuff the cotton back in them.”
Through the black hour before dawn they worked, sorting the salvaged cotton into heaps in the three-room cabin to determine its value. “Bad. It looks bad, Miss Mary,” Hoagy pronounced.
The rain had stopped and the night was clearing when Mary finally accepted a cup of coffee and stepped out onto the back porch to view her acreage. Dawn was spreading over the fields, slowly revealing the pummeled rows that yesterday had been stalwart stands of top-heavy cotton. Their stalks stood stripped, broken, beaten to mush, the decapitated cotton bolls mingling with hailstones as far as she could see. Not a plant had been spared.
“It looks like a mess of cooked greens and turnips,” one of the Carter boys said in awe.
“Hush, son,” admonished his mother, cutting a glance at Mary.
Mary heard the front screen door open and close. The Carters were suddenly quiet, and the silence fell like the kind in a classroom when the principal unexpectedly walks in. Before her numbed mind could register the cause, a jacket was draped around her shoulders and a familiar voice spoke in her ear. “I’ve come to take you home, Mary,” Percy said. “There’s nothing else you can do here now.”
Mary glanced at the Carters. They were all staring tongue-tied at the all-important Percy Warwick with his arm around Miss Mary. If there had been any doubt about the nature of their relationship before, there was none now. Ignoring Percy, she said, “Hoagy, when you finish up here, do your best to make the rounds of Fair Acres and have everybody take their cotton to the Ledbetter weighing station. Sam and I will assess the situation at Somerset and we’ll weigh ours there. Meet me at the house at ten in the morning.”
“Yes, Miss Mary.”
“Good morning to you all,” Mary said, wriggling her shoulders imperceptibly as a hint to Percy to remove his arm. “I appreciate your hard efforts tonight. Mattie, thanks for the coffee, and I’m sorry about the mess.”
Percy dropped his arm and, nodding to the family, followed Mary out through the rooms full of soggy cotton to the Pierce-Arrow. She stopped short of scolding him for his needless and embarrassing appearance when she saw the hail-dented fenders and mud-caked wheels. After drawing a deep breath, she asked, “Why did you come, Percy?”
He adjusted the coat around her shoulders. “I came to make sure you were all right and to take you home.”
“What makes you think I should go home? I’m needed here. Besides, I came on Shawnee.”
The animal was still standing patiently where Mary had left him tied to the hitching post, rain still streaming off his flanks. He turned his head at the sound of his name and cast her a mournful glance.
“I’ll get one of the Carters to ride him home,” Percy said.
“No, you don’t understand. All the Carter boys are needed here, and I need Shawnee to ride over to Somerset. When I finish there, I have to go into town to see Emmitt Waithe.”
“Mary, for God’s sake, I’ll take you to Emmitt’s.”
“No!” Her tone brooked no argument. “I must go alone.”
The Carters had gathered at the screen door, staring openly.
“Like that?” Percy asked, casting a wry glance over her wet, mud-soaked clothes. “At least let me take you home to get into some dry clothes before you catch cold.”
Mary thought quickly. Percy was right. Appearing in a nightgown and robe to her tenants would not inspire confidence right now, and she was feeling chilled. The last thing she needed was to become sick. “All right,” she agreed grudgingly.
They tied the gelding to the bumper, and she and Percy sat without speaking as he concentrated on keeping the Pierce-Arrow and Shawnee from bogging down in the mud. Motorcar and horse were forced to take the recently paved road into Howbutker rather than the muddy track that would have offered a less visible entry into Houston Avenue. The town was just opening up, and driver and bedraggled passenger were both thankful that only a few shopkeepers were about to gape at the odd procession making its slow way around Courthouse Circle.
“Okay, how bad is it?” Percy asked when he stopped in front of the verandah. “Are you wiped out?”
Mary sat stiffly, her profile to him. “I still have a few cards to play.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and said quietly, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but a deal’s a deal.”
“Did I say it wasn’t?” She shrugged off the jacket and threw open the door. “Just don’t… look so happy about it.”
“I’m not happy about it. Mary, for God’s sake…” Percy slid out of the car as she hurried around to untie Shawnee. “How could you think that? Honey, I know how you must feel—”
“The blazes you do! How could you possibly know how I feel? Seeing Somerset wasted is like seeing your child dead. There is no describing the… the desolation I feel.”
“But, honey, you knew the risk going in….”
Mary could feel her face flame. “Do not lecture me, Percy! The last thing I desire from you right now is a dose of Warwick logic. Go to work or something, and let me handle my business.”
With that, boots squishing and her garments weighted with mud, Mary pulled at Shawnee’s bridle and stalked off to the stable to dry and feed him, leaving Percy to watch the woman he loved abandon him in her hour of need.
Chapter Twenty-six
In late morning, bright with sunshine and birdsong as if the night’s devastation had never been, Mary and Shawnee arrived at Emmitt Waithe’s office.
The lawyer moaned when she entered and waved her to a chair, falling wearily into his. He appeared more stooped than usual, as if his part in the disaster were a weight carted on his shoulders.
“Somerset is not done yet, Mr. Waithe,” Mary began, ready to present a rehearsed line of arguments. “We talked about this contingency, and I still have one ace to play. Fair Acres. I want to borrow against Fair Acres.” She realized she was talking too fast, but she must erase that look of “
if only I hadn’t listened to you” regret from the face of her father’s trusting friend. “In order to protect the assets of the trust, I’m sure you’ll see it as your fiduciary responsibility to help me obtain a loan. It is the only way—”
Emmitt slammed his hand upon the desk, cutting her short. “Don’t tell me my fiduciary responsibility now, young lady! Not when you were so eager to set it aside earlier! If I had stuck by my fiduciary responsibility, you wouldn’t be sitting here this morning and I wouldn’t have been up all night cursing myself. Vernon Toliver must be squirming in his grave.”
“No, he isn’t,” Mary argued, determined to keep her tone reasonable. “Papa would have understood the risk. He would have understood your allowing me to take it. So, all right, I took it and I lost. Now I have to salvage what I can. The only way is to mortgage Fair Acres. I should be able to get a large enough loan to meet my monetary obligations. Then next year, with a good harvest—” At the look Emmitt fired over his spectacles she stopped and shrugged. “What other choice do I have?”
“Dare I mention the obvious?”
“No, sir. I will not sell Somerset.”
Emmitt removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to set up an appointment at the bank today and help me negotiate a loan.”
“Why so soon? Go home, get some rest. I’m sure you were up half the night. When you’re rested, you’ll have a better idea of what you need. What’s the hurry to get to the bank today?”
“After last night, I won’t be the only one heading for the bank, hat in hand. Howbutker State has a limit it will lend to farmers. I want to be among the first in line. I hope your appointment book is clear.”
“Would it make any difference if it weren’t?” With a heavy sigh, Emmitt replaced his glasses and pulled the telephone toward him. Within a few moments, he had explained the purpose of his call to the president of the Howbutker State Bank, who agreed to meet with him and Mary later that afternoon.
Mary had come from the plantation dressed in a well-worn riding skirt and blouse, both bearing traces of the mud caked on her boots. Entering the bank, much to her chagrin, she came face-to-face with the fashionably turned out Isabelle Withers, her displaced rival for Percy’s affections. Isabelle’s father was president of the Howbutker State Bank. “Well, my goodness, if it isn’t Mary Toliver,” the young woman purred, her amused gaze traveling the length of Mary’s shabby work attire.
“It is indeed,” Mary returned, her manner equally haughty.
“So sorry about the hail, and coming right at harvest, too. I’m sure Somerset was badly damaged.”
“A bit, but we’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Isabelle twirled the long rope of pearls that set off the dropped waist of her voile dress. “Then this must be merely a social call on Father. He’ll be so delighted. I’m sure to hear all about it this evening. How nice to see you again, Mr. Waithe. Here to pay a social call as well, I imagine.” She smiled lushly, her bright red lips painted in the Hollywood fashion of Theda Bara, and stepped around them, leaving a light floral scent in her wake.
Emmitt, blinking rapidly in clear confusion at the tense exchange, muttered, “Dear me.”
In Raymond Withers’s office, the lawyer let Mary do the talking, sitting in neutral silence as she laid out her case from a sheet of figures she’d hurriedly compiled on the kitchen table in the Ledbetter house. “I have the deed to Fair Acres, and I’m willing to turn it over as collateral right now if we can come to terms,” she said, finishing her spiel.
Raymond Withers had listened attentively, drumming the plump pads of his soft, businessman hands only occasionally upon his desk. From a bookshelf behind him, his pride and joy—in sundry poses at various ages—grinned insipidly at Mary from ornate frames. For a few mellow ticks of a fine ormolu clock on his mantel, he remained silent, and Mary could read nothing of his thoughts behind his smooth face, a pose she was sure he assumed to keep his supplicants in suspense. When finally he spoke, a frown appeared. “We can help you to some extent,” he said, “but I’m sure it will not meet your full financial requirements.”
“What do you mean?” Mary asked, her heart lurching. Emmitt grunted shortly and sat a few inches straighter.
“The bank can loan you only forty percent of the value of your collateral, which, since the war and cotton prices having dropped so drastically, is considerably less than what it was. Let’s see…” The banker consulted the deed. “We’re talking two sections. Their value today, what with the house, buildings, and equipment, would be…” As if he could not bear to say the sum aloud, he wrote a figure on a sheet of paper and passed it across the desk.
Mary snatched it up. “But Fair Acres is worth twice that!” she cried, mentally calculating that a loan based on the bank’s appraisal would not begin to cover the cost of her expenses. She handed the slip to Emmitt.
“It is to you, but not to the board of directors, I’m afraid,” the banker said.
Emmitt cleared his throat. “Oh, come on, Raymond. Surely there’s something you can do. You control the board of directors. If Mary defaults—even if you lend her fifty percent of the true value of Fair Acres—you can sell it and still make a profit.”
Raymond Withers considered a moment. “Well, there is one condition that might sway the board if Miss Toliver agrees to it.”
Mary’s hopes rose. “And what is that?”
“That you do not replant your acreage in cotton. It’s too risky a cash crop. Peanuts, sorghum, sugarcane, corn, rice—there are any number of crops, even cattle, that land would support. We might see our way to lending you what you ask if you’d agree to put all of your plantation under another, more favorable form of production, but not cotton. That way, the bank would have a better assurance of having its money returned.”
“I can’t possibly agree to that,” Mary said, appalled that the man would even suggest such a thing to a Toliver. “Somerset is a cotton plantation—”
“Was a cotton plantation,” the banker corrected, his patience clearly growing thin. “You would be wise to accept that point of view, Miss Toliver. The day of cotton is past in East Texas. Its sun is setting. Other countries are producing as much as and a better quality of cotton than the whole Cotton Belt put together and selling it cheaper. Are you aware of a new fabric, a synthetic to replace silk, that is being produced in France?” he asked. “It’s only a matter of time that it will replace cotton in garments and be manufactured over here. Synthetic material is lighter in weight, inexpensive to manufacture, and more durable than cotton. That’s a mighty lot of competition for a crop that can hardly withstand the devastation of the boll weevil, let alone—as you’ve now witnessed—the destruction of nature.”
The banker leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his suit vest. “Now, if you’re willing to replant with any revenue source but cotton, I believe I can persuade the board to increase the loan by ten percent of its original value. Otherwise, forty at the appraisal price.”
Mary was too numb to speak. Again Emmitt cleared his throat. “What would it take to get what she’s asking, Raymond?”
“Well…” The banker unlaced his hands and addressed Emmitt as if Mary were not there. “If she were able to get someone of whom the bank approves to cosign the note, we might be able to lend her the money. That person would have to understand that he’s on the hook to the bank if Miss Toliver defaults. Because she’s under twenty-one, she cannot legally be forced to pay him back since, as you know, the law does not hold minors responsible for loans.” He returned his attention to Mary. “Do you know of anyone who would be willing to cosign your note under those conditions, Miss Toliver?”
The trace of innuendo in the question sent a shock through her. He knows about Percy and me, she thought in alarm. He thinks I dashed his and Isabelle’s hopes that she would become Mrs. Percy Warwick. Did the whole town know about her and Percy, and if so, how much? “Do you ha
ve someone in mind?” she asked, keeping her gaze level.
The banker’s smile slid into a smirk. “Why, the bank would highly approve of Percy Warwick’s signature, which should not be too difficult for you to obtain, Miss Toliver, your… families being so close and all.”
Mary gathered up the papers she had brought. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Withers. Mr. Waithe and I will give this some thought and get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Don’t wait too long, Miss Toliver,” the banker said, rising. “We have only so much cash to lend to farmers, and already there are others submitting applications.”
Following Mary out of the bank, Emmitt appeared shaken. “Mary, my dear, what are you going to do? What do you have in mind?”
Mary drew in a deep breath. “Something I expect to spend the rest of my life regretting.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
On the way back to Houston Avenue, Mary wrestled with the risk she was about to undertake, but what other choice did she have? She would not put Somerset under another cash crop. That was out of the question. She knew what she was jeopardizing by going to Percy for his signature. A deal is a deal, he’d reminded her, and he would expect her to honor it. Indeed, she was no Toliver at all if she did not. It was she who had brought up the no-lend policy, but it was not a loan she was seeking, merely a signature. No money need exchange hands. Yes, he would be on the hook for the loan if the harvest failed next year, but he wouldn’t lose a penny. Fair Acres was hers outright. If disaster struck, she would sell it and pay Percy back with the proceeds. It knotted every muscle in her body to think it, but she would be forced to sell part of Somerset as well to pay off her remaining debt to the bankers in Boston. The risk, however, was worth it.