Shortly after he’d gone, Percy had unwrapped an object he’d put away after Wyatt’s return from World War II. He unrolled the red-bordered square of white silk before little Matt, awake and gurgling in his crib. “What’s this, you ask?” Percy said. “This, my little lad, is called a service flag. I’m hanging it in the front window. The blue star represents a member of the family serving his country in the military in times of war. In this case, it stands for your dad.”
In late September 1951, nearly a year and a half after Wyatt had gone, Percy received a telephone call from Claudia at the Courthouse Café as he was having coffee with members of the OBC—Old Boys’ Club—asking that he return home. He did not question why. Quietly, he laid money on the counter, and without a word he walked out into the kind of blue-and-gold morning that had dawned the last day of his older son’s life. Upon arriving home, he saw an official U.S. Marine Corps staff car parked under the portico. They had sent a team from Houston—a chaplain and two officers—to inform the family that Wyatt Trenton Warwick had been killed in action on a bleak and forbidding battleground known as the “Punch Bowl.” Days later, his body was sent home draped with an American flag that was later folded and presented on behalf of a grateful nation to his widow at the grave site. Percy had chosen the burial spot over the mild disapproval of the funeral director, who would have interred Wyatt in the Warwick plot at the feet of Matthew DuMont.
“Not at his feet, by his side,” Percy had ordered.
“If you insist,” said the funeral director. “After all, they were best friends.”
“Not just friends,” Percy had said, his voice shaking with emotion. “They were brothers.”
“That’s how everybody remembers them,” the undertaker had said pacifically. “Close as brothers.”
The mill hands with whom he’d worked, his former classmates and girlfriends, his old football chums and coaches, all came to attend the memorial service from wherever the news of his death had reached them. Lucy arrived, clad in black, her face pale and drawn behind her veil, and stayed with the family at Warwick Hall. Percy longed to weep with her, to touch in some way the mother of his son, but her cold eyes forced him to keep his distance. In choosing the family flowers that would lie upon the grave, she said, “Please, Percy, no roses….”
Therefore, it was a blanket of red poppies that fluttered in the breeze next to the resting place of Matthew DuMont as an honor guard raised their guns to fire a farewell salute. The roar of the volley filled Percy’s ears and made little Matthew cry in the refuge of his grandfather’s arms.
“So,” Lucy said later that evening, “Claudia and Matt will be staying here in Howbutker with you, she tells me.”
“Yes, Lucy.”
“It’s what Wyatt wanted, she tells me.”
“Yes, Lucy.”
“There is no justice in this world, Percy Warwick.”
“No, Lucy.”
Wyatt’s personal effects finally made it home. Percy was at the station to take possession of the medium-size box that he lifted himself and placed on the bed of a company pickup. Claudia, apparently sensing his pain, insisted they go through the items together.
“What is this?” she asked, holding up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
It was the item Percy had hoped to find. “Matthew gave that book to Wyatt for his birthday when they were boys,” he said. “Wyatt took it with him hoping… it would bring him luck.”
He took the book from her and rifled the pages, looking for the red rose, but he found nothing. Had Wyatt ever found it? Had he thrown it away without realizing its special significance? Had it fallen out when the buddy put this box together? He would never know. He’d have to live with the knowledge that his boy had died without knowing that his father had loved him and solicited his forgiveness.
Despite the constant ache that now joined his other sorrows, his life entered a period of domestic tranquillity he’d not known since his mother had overseen Warwick Hall. Matt and Claudia became the center of his universe. His house took on a new glow and order thanks to his daughter-in-law’s capable management. Satisfying meals appeared on his table, enjoyed as a family in the dining room and sometimes shared with the DuMonts and Amos Hines and the Charles Waithes, who did not mind a toddler playing in his peas.
He entertained again, feeling free to bring home at a moment’s notice the out-of-town visitors who toured the model facilities of the pulp mill and paper-processing plant that sprawled along the Sabine. Amelia, seeing that she was no longer essential to mitigate his lonely hours and hopelessly in love with a man who would never be free, drifted quietly from his life. From time to time, Percy wished that Lucy could share in the daily delight of their grandson. Claudia sent her pictures, and there were exchanges of telephone calls in which Matt, at his mother’s direction, prattled greetings to his grandmother in Atlanta, calling her “Gabby.” Percy wondered how she spent her days as a woman alone and if she’d taken lovers to fill the empty spaces in her life.
The Korean War ended and, heartsick, Percy read that the nation for which his son and over fifty thousand American servicemen and women had died was still divided, no political issues settled, no human rights improved. He ordered a popular poster to be hung in the reception room of his office, the caption reading: “Someday, someone will give a war and nobody will come.” He hugged his grandson close and prayed for that day to arrive before Matt grew up.
It was two years after Wyatt’s body was brought home that Sally entered his office and announced with barely concealed curiosity, “Mr. Warwick, there’s a U.S. Marine officer at my desk who’s asked to see you. Should I send him in?”
“By all means,” Percy said, rising and buttoning his suit coat, his pulse pumping.
A Marine Corps major was shown through the door, his uniform hat under one arm, a cumbersome, rectangular package under the other. “Mr. Warwick, I’m Daniel Powel,” he introduced himself, propping the package against Percy’s desk to shake his hand. “I knew your son in Korea. We were both company commanders in the First Marine Division.”
“Is that so?” Percy said, his heartbeat locking, his mind turning questions like a kaleidoscope. Why had this man come so long after Wyatt’s death? Was he here to tell him how and where his son had died? Wyatt would never have approved such a visit. Was he mustering out of the marines and coming for a job? He gestured toward a visitor’s chair. “Well, then, take a seat, Major, and tell me what I can do for you.”
“Not for me, sir—for you. Wyatt said to look you up if anything happened to him. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get here. I was sent to Japan after the war and have just been reassigned stateside.”
“How long have you been home?”
The officer glanced at his watch. “Less than forty-eight hours. I came here directly after landing in San Diego.”
Percy blinked. “You mean this is your first stop since coming home?”
“Yes, sir. I promised Wyatt I’d get this to you first chance I had.” The marine stood and lifted the thickly wrapped parcel. “I’ve taken care of this ever since Wyatt was killed. We were together when he bought it in Seoul. He said I was to see you got it if he didn’t make it home. I wasn’t to mail it to you. I was to deliver it personally, no matter how long it took.”
Percy inspected the rectangular shape. “Is it for his wife?”
“No, sir. It’s for you. He said you’d understand what it meant.”
Slowly, his saliva tasting like paste, Percy carried the package to a table beneath a skylight. It was tightly bound, the bands of tape dirty, the paper smeared from wherever the marine had found a place to store it the past two years. He ripped away the tape and tore at the brown wrapping until the contents were revealed. It was a painting, an impressionist’s not very good rendering of a smiling boy in knee breeches running toward a picket gate in the foreground. At first Percy could not make out what he held in his arms or what the indistinct expanse surrounding the boy represe
nted. Then, as both became clear, he lifted his head and bellowed a cry toward the skylight and the blue sky beyond. The boy was running through a garden cradling an armful of white roses.
A SOFT ACHE IN HIS chest forced Percy to open his eyes. He brushed at his face and his fingers came away wet, but not because of the heat, he knew. What time was it? His sitting room porch was now in full shadow, and a slight breeze blew that was customary to late afternoon. He swung his feet to the floor and shook his head to clear it. How long had he been out here, calling up old ghosts? Good heavens—it was after five o’clock, he saw by his watch. Mary had been gone four hours… his Mary. He stood up and tried his legs. They were a little shaky and wet along their undersides where he had perspired. Stiffly, feeling the ghosts clamoring behind him, he let himself in through the terrace doors, his eyes going at once to the painting over the mantel. Instantly, the pain in his chest subsided. Memory could be a terrible thing, he thought, an instrument of torture that persists in its work long after a man has suffered his time upon the rack. He poured a glass of water to quench his bone-dry thirst and lifted it to the painting. “In the end, Gypsy, I suppose the best we can hope for is an armful of white roses.”
Chapter Forty-eight
In Atlanta, with the aid of her cane, Lucy Gentry Warwick carefully made her way onto the flagstoned walk of her garden. It hadn’t much to recommend it during the day, but on a soft summer night it was something to see. The small walled backyard had been planted entirely with white perennials—Shasta daises, lantana, windflowers, vinca minor, snow-in-summer—and in the moonlight their masses of snowy heads glowed with an unearthly, magical beauty. Lucy took a seat on one of the stone benches, unmindful of her garden’s charms. Her thoughts were on Mary Toliver DuMont.
The call from her old neighbor and spy, Hannah Barweise, had interrupted her afternoon nap. Hannah still lived next to the Toliver mansion, and she’d called to report that around noon she’d seen an ambulance arrive and the scurrying around of Sassie and Henry and guessed that Mary had come to some kind of grief. Then she’d seen Percy and Matt slam out of a company truck, and within the hour the whole neighborhood was buzzing with the news that Mary had died. Even before putting the obvious questions to Hannah, Lucy had asked, “How did he look?”
“How did who look?”
“Percy.”
“Why…’bout the same, Lucy. Aged, not as spry, but… Percy Warwick, if you know what I mean.”
She had replied with a shortness of breath, “Yes, I know what you mean. Go on. What was the cause of death?”
The particulars conveyed as Hannah knew them, Lucy had hung up, her whole body trembling. The day she’d anticipated for forty years had finally arrived: Mary Toliver DuMont dead and Percy alone, grieving for her. It was a pain she’d wanted him to suffer and live with until the end of his days, as she’d lived with hers.
Then why didn’t she feel the elation she’d expected? Why this sickening pressure building in her diaphragm at the mental picture of Mary lying dead, those green eyes stilled, that face like marble in a sarcophagus? As usual, even from the grave, Mary had managed to rob her of the satisfaction she’d looked forward to and deserved. As God was her witness, she’d had little enough of it in her lifetime.
She shrugged off the feeling. Her disconcertment came merely from knowing that she, too, was eighty-five and susceptible to the shadow that had overtaken Mary… Mary Toliver DuMont, that old warhorse, caught unaware on a summer day, taking the sun on her verandah. Before that time arrived, however, Lucy would have her little moment of long-awaited triumph and then afterward… let the shadow come.
“Miss Lucy, what you doin’ out here this time of the afternoon?”
It was the voice of Betty, her longtime maid. She held open the door to the patio and frowned out into the hot sunshine. Lucy viewed her in irritation. Mother of God! She thought she’d stolen out while she was watching the five o’clock news. Betty was a good girl, but she carried tales. It wouldn’t do for her to be within hearing distance when she initiated her planned victory. “Thinking,” Lucy answered. “Go back to your news.”
“Thinkin’? Out there in this heat? What about? That woman who just died?”
“Never you mind. Now go back to your program.”
“How can I, knowin’ you sittin’ out here in danger of gettin’ a heatstroke?”
“I’m too old to get a heatstroke. I’ll be in shortly. For the moment I want to enjoy my garden. It’s why I planted it.”
Betty sighed. “Whatever swells your balloon, Miss Lucy, but I declare, sometimes you do beat all. Do you need anything?”
Lucy considered asking for a glass of brandy to bolster her courage, but Betty would hover by the door until she finished it, then hang around to make sure she was sober enough to let herself back in. “Just peace and quiet, if you please, Betty.”
With a shake of her head, Betty pulled the door closed, and Lucy gave her time to return to the TV before making her move. Earlier—to explain why Hannah had insisted she get her up from her nap—she’d told Betty that an old school classmate and neighbor in Howbutker had died. If her maid was to eavesdrop on her short, pointed message in a little while, she might put two and two together and discover the real reason she and Percy had stayed married all these years.
When she’d first come to Atlanta, everyone had thought her the tragic victim of a powerful, despotic husband who refused to release her, a romantic misconception she did nothing to correct. Her new acquaintances were impressed that even though she was separated from him, he continued to house, clothe, and maintain her in the best style money could buy, indulging her every need, whim, and diversion with no questions asked or restrictions imposed. It added an aura of mystery to her social suitability and gained her immediate entrance into the inner circle of Atlanta society. Otherwise, as the cast-off wife of a rich, prominent man whom she refused to divorce, she’d have been restricted to its fringes.
Satisfied that Betty was once again engrossed, she opened the door to a small stone cabinet next to the bench and removed a telephone. The number she was about to call had not been changed since it was assigned, and she knew it by heart. It was the private line to her old sitting room. If anybody answered besides Percy, she’d hang up and try again, but she was betting he was sitting right by the phone in a stupor of grief. She hoped Matt wasn’t with him. The boy loved her, but his first loyalty and deepest devotion lay with Percy, as their son, Wyatt, had intended, and he would not take kindly to her adding to his grandfather’s pain.
Once again, she felt the dredge of her old resentment. She’d forgiven Wyatt for leaving Matt and his wife in Percy’s care when he went to Korea, obviously preferring his custody to hers. But entrusting his son and wife to his father didn’t mean that he forgave him for rejecting him as a boy. That gave her some comfort. Percy needn’t think Matt was Wyatt’s form of a white rose.
But the wisdom of time had caused her to retract her grievances against Percy for the early breakup of their marriage. She’d married him believing the words she’d said to Mary at Bellington Hall: My love for him will blind him…. I will be the woman he deserves. Her love for him had done nothing of the kind. Rather, it had worked the opposite, and to her disbelief and horror—no more able to prevent it than she could stop a roaring train—in the marriage she became more of the woman Mary had believed not right for Percy. She’d told herself many times that if only she’d played it smarter—been able to rise above her bawdy nature—but, no, their marriage could not have been saved, not when she learned of his feelings for Mary. She could have forgiven him his rejection of her—and even of their son, since he came to regret it—but not his love for that marble statue of a woman who would have married him only to rescue her hallowed Toliver name from scandal. Never that.
Her ancient pain now fully revived, she recalled the lines of an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem memorized long ago at Bellington Hall and recited many times since:
Love
in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
“Look what I have!—And these are all for you.”
Those lines had perfectly described her love for Percy, but he’d slapped the apples from her skirt and set his heart on a woman capable of loving only a cotton farm. That was her great quarrel with Mary. Let Percy and those who remembered think she’d despised her because of her great beauty and style. She’d hated Mary for the simple reason that she’d been undeserving of winning and holding the heart of the man Lucy loved.
She brought the receiver to her ear, mentally practicing her last chance at the script she’d rehearsed thousands of times for the arrival of this day. “Percy,” she’d say clearly and crisply, and after allowing a pin dot of silence for him to digest his surprise, she’d hit him with the line she’d waited five decades to deliver: “Now you may have your divorce.”
Before another minute passed and her nerve failed, she drew up her prodigious breasts, pulled in a chest full of air, and dialed the number. Now that the act was under way, she rather hoped he wouldn’t pick up immediately—that she’d have breathing space to prepare for the voice she hadn’t heard since the day they buried their son.