“Is this about Mama?” she asked, taking a chair opposite her father’s big pine desk, a gift from Robert Warwick to James Toliver in 1865.
“It’s about you,” Miles said in the pedantic tone he’d assumed since becoming man of the house. He seated himself with a professorial air behind the desk, elbows resting on it, long, aesthetic fingers laced, his French cuffs as starched as his manner. “Mary, I’m sure you can appreciate that this is a very awkward time for all of us.”
Mary nodded, wanting to cry at the loss of warmth between them.
“Something has happened to our family that goes beyond our grief for Papa. As a matter of fact, our grief should be uniting us. Instead, the will has left Mama and me with very little feeling for Papa at all. We feel bitter and cheated. Mama feels humiliated. Neither of us has been fair to you. I realize that. You’ve been made to feel that you’re to blame for what’s happened, and I regret that, Mary, I really do. However, the truth is, I can hardly look at you without feeling that you were somehow responsible for the terms of the will.”
“Miles…”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish, and then you may have your say. Lord knows I didn’t want the plantation, but it should have gone to our mother. She should have had the right to sell or keep it. She should have been first in Papa’s affections, not Somerset, and not you. That’s how both of us feel, plain and simple. We also sense that you are delighted with Papa’s decision.”
“Only because I will take care of our birthright,” Mary interrupted. “I will take care of Mama. She will never want for anything—”
“Mary, for God’s sake, Mama doesn’t want your charity. Don’t you understand that? Put yourself in her position. How do you think you’d feel if your husband favored your daughter over you, if he left you at the mercy of her charity?”
“I wouldn’t repudiate my daughter for something my husband had done!” she cried, aching from the pain of her mother now turning her face to the wall whenever she entered her room.
Miles raised his hands, palms up, to concede her point. “I can see that’s how you’ve been made to feel, and I’m truly sorry.”
“I could have used a little maternal and brotherly affection this past month, Miles. I miss Papa terribly….”
“I know you do,” he said, his manner softening briefly, “but all of this is beside the reason I asked you in here. Now, I want you to hear me out before you jump up and tell me to go to the devil. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Understand?”
Mary understood. Miles’s pointed stare reminded her that he was trustee of Somerset. She and the plantation were at his mercy for five years.
At Mary’s nod, Miles tipped back in the timeworn chair and assumed his didactic pose. “I think you need to put some distance between you and Mama. I’m going to send you away to finishing school. There’s a fine one in Atlanta that should suit you splendidly. I still have some money Granddaddy Thomas left me, and that will pay for a year.”
Mary gazed at him in numb disbelief. He was going to send her away to that place where Beatrice had gone… away from the plantation….
“It’s called Bellington Hall,” Miles went on with an air unperturbed by the sight of his sister’s distress. “Beatrice Warwick finished there. You may recall Percy mentioning that fact in regard to his houseguest, Lucy Gentry. It would have behooved you to agree to meet her while she was here, since she’s to be your roommate.”
She was too horrified to speak.
“You’ll leave in three weeks for the fall term. I’ll instruct Sassie to get your clothes ready.”
She finally found her voice. Her insides felt on fire, as if a conflagration had been lit in her stomach. “Miles, please don’t send me away. I have to stay here and help Len run the plantation. The quicker and the more I learn, the better. I can’t function outside Howbutker. Mama and I can work out this situation.”
“The only way you and our mother can work out this situation is for you to agree to allow me to sell the plantation.” Miles wagged a cautionary finger when he saw Mary clasp the arms of her chair with the clear intent to disobey his previous warning. “Since you’re a minor and cannot own or sell land, as the trustee of your property, I can. Of course, I would never do that against your wishes, as Papa well knew.”
Mary leaped up, the blood pounding in her ears. “I absolutely refuse to give you my permission!”
“I am profoundly aware of that, little sister. So… you’ll be going to Bellington Hall.”
“You cannot do this to me.”
“I can, and I will.”
Mary stared at him as if he’d suddenly hatched horns. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t possible for her brother to be so cruel. “Percy planted the idea in your head to sell the plantation, didn’t he? Is Bellington Hall also his suggestion?”
Miles’s lip twisted. “Credit me with doing my own thinking in regard to my family. Percy suggested nothing of the kind in regard to selling the plantation, and I learned of Bellington Hall through his mother. If it weren’t that school, it would be another. Now sit down!”
Mary backed away to her seat. “You are making a huge mistake….”
“My mind is made up, Mary. My main concern right now is not you, but Mama. You may take comfort in the knowledge that at twenty-one the land will come to you. Mama has no such solace. So you will go to Bellington Hall and give her a chance to come to terms with this injustice—and, I might add, her feelings concerning you. Absence could endear you to her. Your constant presence here will not.”
His words were so cutting, their delivery so sharp, they could have chipped ice. Mary lowered herself onto the chair, her legs weak. Was he saying that if she stayed, her mother would never love her again? But that was absurd. She was her daughter. Mothers might have a change of feeling for their children for a little while, but they didn’t stop loving them forever—did they? Feeling forsaken, as if she were single-handedly fending off a pack of wolves, she locked her arms across her chest. “What if I refuse to leave?”
Miles cracked a half smile. “Oh, I don’t think you want to hear the consequences of that.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Her brother drew forward and fastened his gaze on her mutinous face. “I will use the money from Granddaddy Thomas to take Mama to Boston, where I will have no problem getting a teaching position. I’m acquainted with a number of eligible older gentlemen there—wealthy businessmen who wouldn’t waste a minute coming to call on our beautiful mother. It’s likely she’d remarry in no time, putting this”—he waved a hand to indicate the house and all that it represented—“unpleasant reminder behind us. I have a right to my own life, and Mama has a right to rebuild hers. If that means I’m out of reach to be of assistance as trustee, so be it. In addition, I will sell that strip along the Sabine to further fatten my purse. I promise you, Mary, that if you do not compromise with me in this very tragic situation, I will do exactly as I’ve threatened.”
Very slowly, Mary’s arms came apart as she realized the extent of her brother’s power. This was no idle threat. Miles had thought of another option for their mother. Only a very slender thread of allegiance to Somerset, their father, and her kept him from pulling up stakes and taking their mother to Boston. Even without the mortgage to worry about, he knew that to leave her and Len to run the plantation without the presence of a Toliver male and his available signature would surely be detrimental to Somerset. Spiriting their mother away would besmirch the family name. It would confirm to the wagging tongues that Vernon Toliver had indeed done an injustice to his wife by willing his property to his daughter.
Once again Miles reclined in his chair, inserting fingertips into the pockets of his waistcoat. “Well?” he asked with the smug lift of an eyebrow.
Mary was not yet willing to capitulate. “You could sell that strip along the Sabine anyway. What’s to keep you from it?”
Miles was silent for a moment. “Papa’s wishes that I keep it for my son.
”
Tears sprang without warning, blurring her vision. “Miles, what’s happened to us? We used to be so happy together.”
“The plantation’s what happened to us,” her brother said, rising in dismissal. “The plantation is a curse for anyone obsessed by it, Mary. It always has been, and I’m inclined to think it always will be. Obsession for that land caused a good man like our father to disavow a loving wife and split a family in two. He knew what he was doing. That’s why he asked Mama to forgive him.”
Mary came around the desk and gazed up at her brother through watery eyes. “Miles, I love you and Mama so much.”
“I know, Mary Lamb. I miss all of us, too, the way we used to be. I especially miss my little sister. So does Mama, I’m sure. So do the boys. You were so precious to us.”
The tears overflowed. “Were? But… not anymore?”
“Well, it’s just that… you’ve become such… a Toliver.”
“And that is bad?”
Miles sighed. “You know my answer to that. It will be especially bad if you suffer the curse Papa mentioned in his letter.”
“What curse are you talking about? I never heard of any curse.”
“It has to do with the procreation of children. None in possession of Somerset have ever been copious child bearers—or keepers,” he concluded dryly. He turned to take a leather-bound volume from a shelf behind him. “You can read all about it in here. This is a picture and genealogy album. I found it among Papa’s papers. I never knew it existed. Did you?”
“No. Papa never mentioned it.” Mary read the title on the ancient cover: Tolivers: A Family History from 1836.
“Papa was afraid that in leaving the land to you, he would be condemning you to a childless state or to one in which your children would not live long lives. Until we came along, there was never more than one surviving Toliver to inherit the plantation, but who knows? Our youth is not yet spent.” A sardonic gleam lit his eyes. “Granddaddy Thomas was the only heir of his generation to survive, and Papa of his. After you read what’s in there, you’ll understand Papa’s meaning… and concern.”
An uneasy feeling slid through her. She had never once considered the oddity of her grandfather and father being the single survivors to perpetuate the legacy of Somerset. They’d each had several siblings, now dead. Where had this album been all these years? Had her father deliberately kept it from her—she, the appointed repository of family lore?
Miles lifted her chin with cool fingertips. “Now,” he said gently, “will you go to Bellington?”
She felt her answer squeezed from her lungs. “Yes,” she said.
“Good. Then that’s settled.” He adjusted his French cuffs and sat back at his desk to indicate the interview was over.
“Lucy says you’ll like Bellington Hall,” Miles commented when she was at the door.
She paused to look back. “What’s this Lucy like?”
“Not as pretty as you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She blushed hotly. “Of course not!”
“Oh, poppycock. Of course it is. She’s petite in height and figure and round as a ball in all the right spots. Cute, I’d say. I like her, although I don’t think you will. Why didn’t you see her while she was here?”
“I’m in mourning, Miles, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“That, my sweet, is a cut beneath you. You were simply jealous of her for having so much of Percy’s time.”
“What nonsense,” Mary said, her tone dripping scorn. “If I won’t like her, why am I sharing a room with her?”
Miles dipped his pen into an inkwell. “It was thought best for both of you,” he said, writing.
She knew he was avoiding her eyes. “By whom? You? Percy? His mother?”
“Beatrice and Percy are not involved. It was Lucy who suggested it when I voiced the possibility that I might send you to Bellington, and it was I who decided you should room together. You can look out for each other. You have a lot in common. Neither of you has any money. You won’t have to suffer sharing a room with someone who does. You’re both the same age. It’s a perfect arrangement. I’ve already spoken to the headmistress about it.”
Furious, Mary glared at her brother, his head bent pointedly to his letter. Were all men fools, or was only Miles in that category? A lot in common, her foot! She’d heard through Sassie by way of the Warwicks’ cook that the girl had gone ga-ga over Percy. He was the only thing she and Lucy Gentry had in common. The girl perceived her as her connection to Warwick Hall.
“Was there anything else?” Miles asked, sounding weary of her.
The tender moment of a while ago was now history, ashes in a cold grate. Mary felt nothing but a chilling dislike for her brother. Clutching the book to her chest, she jerked open the door without answering. “Happy reading, little sister, ” Miles called as she slammed it. “I hope you won’t find the book disturbing.”
She stuck her head back in. “I’m sure I won’t, because I don’t believe in curses. I intend to have many children.”
“We’ll see,” Miles said.
Mary carried the volume to her room and sat in a window seat to examine it. The aged leather binding was held together by a leather cord running through two eyes and tied in a fast knot. She straightened against an odd feeling of dread and opened the book to the first page.
Some of the genealogical facts she knew. Others, she did not. Silas Toliver, Mary’s great-grandfather and patriarch of the Texas clan, was born in 1806. He was thirty years old when he came to Texas with his wife and son Joshua. A year later, in 1837, a second son was born, Thomas Toliver, Mary’s beloved grandfather. Joshua died from a fall off a horse at twelve. His surviving brother took possession of Somerset in 1865 after the death of Silas. That same year, Thomas became the proud father of a baby boy, Vernon, Mary’s father. In the following years, he fathered another son and one daughter. Neither child was living at the time Vernon inherited Somerset. His brother had died of a water moccasin bite at fifteen, and his sister had succumbed at twenty to complications from the delivery of her only child, a stillbirth, leaving Vernon the single Toliver heir.
Faded photographs of all the Toliver offspring accompanied the chronicle. Mary studied them. Each of the children looked high-spirited and healthy. Their deaths had been sudden and unexpected. Here today and gone tomorrow. With a wrench of sympathy for their parents and surviving offspring, she snapped the book closed and shut it away in a drawer of the window seat. Then, to raise her low spirits, she stripped off her pinafore and dress and stood before her full-length mirror. She was pleased with what she saw. She might not be petite and cute and “round in all the right spots,” but she knew she was alluring, and her long, supple body was made for childbirth. Her periods were as regular as clockwork. She would have many children—Miles needn’t doubt that. Her father—God rest his soul—should not have worried that he had threatened her prolificacy or shortened her children’s longevity by entrusting her with Somerset. No matter what he’d believed or the book implied, there was no Toliver curse. The fatalities befalling the heirs were normal to the times in which they lived. Percy and Ollie were the only living heirs to their families’ enterprises. Were they under a curse, too? Of course not. She ran her hands over the firm flesh between her full breasts and slender hips. And Percy Warwick, too, could spare himself the trouble of thinking she might fall in love with someone unwilling to share her with a plantation. She wouldn’t look at a man who had such a failing. She would marry no one who would separate her from her destiny. The man she married would support her in procreating the Toliver line and in carrying Somerset into the next century. The idea of a curse was absurd.
Chapter Eight
ATLANTA, JUNE 1917
Her packing completed, Mary latched the last of her suitcases, relishing the finality of the sound. It signaled an end to her incarceration at Bellington Hall, thank God. The year was finally over, and she was going home. In three days’ time she’d s
tep foot onto hometown soil, never to leave it again if she so desired. And she so desired, she thought savagely, yanking the suitcase off the bed. If she’d gained nothing else from this wasted year at Bellington, it had reaffirmed what she’d arrived knowing—that there was nowhere else she wanted to be but Howbutker, nothing else she wanted to be but a planter of cotton.
Where in the world was Lucy? She’d be damned if she’d let that girl delay her departure. The headmistress had probably sent her off on some errand to prevent her from showing up on time. Well, if Miss Peabody thought she’d miss her train in order to say good-bye to her roommate, she was as mistaken about her now as she’d been the day they met.
She lugged the suitcase outside her door and placed it with the others to be picked up by the porter. She was the last in her dormitory to leave. Miss Peabody had seen to that, too—a final thrust to the armor Mary had built up against Bellington Hall and the headmistress in particular.
Up and down the corridor, the doors to all the dormitory rooms stood open, their occupants gone, the silent echoes of their voices lingering in the quiet. Mary stood in the doorway and listened, already recalling with difficulty the faces of the girls who’d shared her wing. Although they were her age, they had seemed intolerably young, their heads filled with the fluff the teaching staff had tried to stuff into hers. Mary had sensed their pleasure in knowing she’d be the last student permitted to leave the premises.
All except Lucy.
She felt a pang of contrition. She should be ashamed for hoping that Lucy wouldn’t make it to her room before she left for the station. It was simply that Lucy would turn their farewell into an awful, sloppy scene, and she’d had enough of those from her roommate.