All she had to do was convince Percy that her request was not going back on her promise—that it was not breaking the rule the families had lived by for nearly a century. To the clip-clop of Shawnee’s hooves, Mary reflected on that rule, examined it for the first time since accepting it without question as part of the strong fabric of the families’ history. She asked herself why they had adopted such a principle in the first place. After consideration, it seemed a cold, even heartless approach to friendship. Who better to ask for aid than a friend? Who better to offer it than a friend? They were all as close as family. Why had they agreed to such a practice?
And then, contrary to all she’d prefer to believe, the answer presented itself as clear as the bright afternoon. The head of each family had known that to borrow from the other was to lose power. Worse, to borrow meant to be beholden, and that would diminish, if not destroy, the friendship. To be in the debt of a friend was to lose equality with him. Even if the debt was repaid, the borrower would always owe the lender. It was a reality of human nature.
Well, that’s as may be, Mary told herself, but a signature backed by collateral was not a loan. She was not breaking their deal.
On Houston Avenue, Mary stopped at a neighbor’s house to put in a call to Percy at his office. Given the probability of the operator listening in, not to mention the party line, on the rare occasions she’d telephone him, they addressed each other as mere neighbors and always veiled their conversations.
“Why, Mary Toliver, this is a surprise,” he said, sounding greatly relieved to hear from her. “I’m so sorry about this morning. Is the damage too great for recovery?”
“Not at all, Percy. The fields are wrecked, but the house was barely touched. That’s why I’m calling. I’m afraid it will need some repair. Could you send a man out to assess what needs to be done?”
“It will be my pleasure. What time would you like him to meet with you?”
“Shall we say five o’clock?”
“He’ll be there.”
Mary hung up thinking that as careful as they had been, it was no wonder their relationship had been discovered. It took only the Warwicks’ cook telling somebody else’s cook about the meals for two she often prepared for Mister Percy to take to Lawsey knew where and on whose account. Since he was not seen with any other belle in town, a good guess was that he was exchanging salt and pepper shakers with Mary Toliver, the girl he’d kissed in front of God and everybody the morning he left for war.
What did it matter, anyway, Mary reflected, if she and Percy were soon to be married? She inhaled sharply, catching herself. What did she mean—if?
He was already at the cabin by the time she arrived. He had not taken time to change out of his suit but had removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. The second she drove up he opened the door and went out to the buggy to help her down.
“Lord, it’s good to have you in my arms again,” he said with a sigh after kissing her long and hard.
She pressed her face into his neck. “It’s wonderful to be in them, too,” she said.
They went inside, and Percy poured two glasses of iced tea. A breeze was blowing from the lake, stirring the ceiling fans, providing some relief from the humidity following the rain. Handing her the tea, he said, “I’m happy as a puppy at his mama’s teat that you wanted to see me, but you must be bone-tired and dead for sleep. Are you sure you shouldn’t be home getting some rest?”
Mary sat in one of the parlor chairs. “I had to see you, Percy.”
“Judging by your tone, this doesn’t sound like the usual reason.”
“It isn’t. I’m in trouble.”
Percy sipped his tea casually, but his brows arched over the rim like two warning flags. He took a seat on the couch, away from her. Mary interpreted that as a bad sign. He had guessed why she’d come. “Well, let’s hear it,” he said.
She swallowed at the gush of raw fear making its way to her throat. She took a cooling draft of the tea and tried to curb the wild thrashing of her heart. “I went today with Emmitt to negotiate a loan at the Howbutker State bank. We spoke with Raymond Withers….” There was no reaction to the name of his former lover’s father, and she hurried to tell him of the niggardly value he attached to the land, deliberately omitting the banker’s condition that she grow another cash crop in order to secure the loan she needed. “The amount he’s willing to lend won’t cover the cost of seeds,” she said, exaggerating, “much less see me through another year.”
“So, what’s your next step?” he asked, his gaze steady.
There was nothing to do but come right out with it. Against the warning shouts in her head, she said, “He’s willing to loan me the amount I need if you will cosign the note.”
In the ensuing silence, the innocent tinkle of ice in Percy’s glass sounded like a gunshot. “And what did you tell him?”
“I… told him I’d let him know.”
“I would have thought you’d have given him his answer right then. Why didn’t you? We made a deal.”
Mary sat forward. “Yes, I know we did,” she said, “but this is not going back on our deal. All I want is your signature, for heaven’s sake. It’s not the same as asking for money. As a matter of fact, you wouldn’t be out a penny, even if I default.”
“How’s that?”
“If we have another bad year, I’ll sell Fair Acres and even part of Somerset if I have to. You’d get your money back in full. I give you my word, Percy.”
Percy unfolded his powerful legs and stood up. She had the frightening impression of a bull pawing the ground with nostrils flaring. “Your word,” he repeated. “You gave your word right here in this room that you’d never ask me to bail Somerset out if it got into trouble. You promised to let it go and be content to be my wife.”
“Percy, this is not the same thing. You’re not bailing Somerset out. All I want is your signature. It’s not the same thing.”
“The hell it isn’t. You’re splitting hairs and you know it. I’m sorry for what’s happened, and that’s the truth, Mary, but I’m holding you to our deal.”
She stood up slowly. Shock whitened her face. “You’re… you’re not going to help me?”
“No, I’m not cosigning your note.”
He had begun rolling down his sleeves. Mary watched in horror. He was leaving! She crossed to him and slipped her hands up his chest, beseeching his understanding with all the power of her great beauty. “Percy, I know this looks as if I’m reneging on our agreement, but try to see it another way. My promise was not to ask you for money to save Somerset. How am I breaking that promise by asking for your signature? You won’t be out a cent.”
She felt his chest contract and knew she’d aroused him, but he continued buttoning his cuffs. “Suppose you get your loan and you have another bad year. What then? With Fair Acres gone, you’ll have nothing else to use as collateral.”
“I’ve told you. I’ll sell part of the plantation. I promise, Percy. You have to believe me.”
“I wish I could.” He removed her hands and tightened the knot of his tie. “This will happen again. You know it will. You’ll expect to have a cash reserve to see you through, just like you did before you bought Fair Acres. But how long do you think that money will stay in the bank when the temptations of new products, machines, irrigation systems, and land come on the market? Mary Toliver Warwick will be the first in line to buy, if I know her, and you’ll be right back in the same pickle you are now when disaster strikes again.”
“We’re not talking about then. We’re talking about now.”
“And I’m saying that things will be no different then than now.” He took a step nearer her, his eyes bleak with dissolving hope. “This isn’t about the money, Mary. You know that. This is about the agreement we made. I promised to support your… obsession for Somerset—God knows that’s what it is—but if it failed, you promised to let it go without it affecting our marriage. Prove to me you meant what you said.?
??
She turned her back to him, clasping her hands tightly. Tears darted to her eyes. “This is so unfair. You’re trying to force my hand when all I want is your name on a piece of paper.”
He came to stand behind her, and she could feel his desperate need that she tell him what he wanted to hear—what he must hear. “What would happen to us if you had to fall back on me again after we’re married and I denied you—forced you to sell Somerset to meet your debts?”
Once again, she stood on the brink of a now-or-never crisis with him… the final one, an inner voice cautioned her. One step either way would decide her future.
He spun her around. “Tell me, dammit!”
She crossed her arms, hugging herself against the coming cold. “I… would hate you,” she whispered, dropping her head.
An eternity passed before Percy spoke. “That’s what I thought. So you never intended to abide by your promise.”
She lifted her head. The same pain was breaking across his face that she’d felt when dawn washed over her devastated fields. “I am Somerset, Percy,” she said. “I can’t help it. That’s who I am. That’s the woman you love. To separate me from the plantation is to have half of me. I would not be the same. I’m convinced of that now. Share me, and you will have me whole.”
A flush of disbelief stole beneath the perennial tan of his face. “Are you telling me that I can’t have one without the other? That if I don’t cosign the loan, I’ll lose you?”
Mary ran her tongue quickly over her dry lips. “Without Somerset, I’m lost to you anyway, Percy.”
“Mary—” Percy clasped her by the shoulders. “Somerset is only soil and seed. I am flesh and blood.”
“Percy,” she pleaded, “I love you. Why can’t you fit Somerset into our lives?”
He dropped his hands. “Maybe I could if I knew you loved me as much. You talk of sharing, but Somerset would get the biggest piece of you. You’ve proved it.” He stepped back, his face contorted with pain. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing? You’re about to lose me and the plantation. Where is your gain?” Suddenly an idea seemed to occur to him, too incredulous to entertain. He did not move, and his pupils contracted to the gleam of knife points. “But you don’t plan to lose Somerset, do you.”
When once again she bowed her head, he said slowly, “No… don’t tell me you’re going to Ollie….”
Her silence along with her bowed head and folded arms seemed answer enough.
He let out a bellow of rage and disgust. “My God, you’ll stoop to any level to save that wasteland, won’t you?” He grabbed his suit coat, roughly inserting into his pocket a small box that had lain beneath it. Yanking on his coat, he said, “Before you leave today, pack your things. You won’t be coming here anymore.”
Mary knew that appeal was useless. Without moving from her position, once again, forever, she watched him leave her. She heard the door of the Pierce-Arrow slam, then the crunch of tires on the bed of pine needles as he spun away. It was the middle of August. She realized that what he’d slipped into his pocket was the box containing her engagement ring.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Early the next morning, Mary called Ollie and asked for a ten o’clock appointment at the store. She’d spent a miserable night in the parlor in order to be near the door should Percy pull the bell rope. Countless times, she’d gone out on the verandah to peer up the street toward Warwick Hall, and once she’d wandered up the sidewalk in her robe, hoping to see the light still on in his bedroom as proof that he was unable to sleep from thinking of her.
No light shone.
With firm resolution she dressed in her outmoded traveling suit, drew her hair back into a sleek chignon, and hitched up Shawnee for a trip to the DuMont Department Store. Ollie had apparently been on the lookout for her and was waiting at the top of the stairs when she reached the upper level. “I am so sorry for your loss, Mary,” he said, taking her hands in his, the crutches balanced deftly beneath his arms. “Was it as bad as we all feared?”
For a heartrending instant, Mary thought he was referring to Percy, but then she realized his concern was for the damage inflicted by the storm. Ollie was apparently unaware of their breakup. His face would have shown it. “Worse,” she said briefly. “And that’s why I’m here, Ollie.”
Seated before his desk, Mary explained her purpose in coming, this time omitting nothing of the terms put forth by the banker. “I realize that in asking you to cosign the note, I’m going against the code our families have honored since our existence in Howbutker,” she said.
“Oh, pshaw.” Ollie waved an immaculate hand. “An archaic convention. Of course you can’t put Somerset under anything but cotton. The very idea. Raymond Withers should know that there will always be a market for natural fibers, despite the ingress of synthetics. It will be my pleasure and honor to cosign your note, my dear.”
Deeply moved as always by his unstinting generosity, Mary said, “There is one other thing I must tell you, Ollie. I asked Percy first.”
“Ah,” he said. “And he turned you down?”
“Yes.”
He turned up his hands in a typical Gallic gesture. “Perhaps it’s for the best. You wouldn’t want to start off marriage with… complications.”
Mary’s eyes widened. “You… know about us?”
Ollie chuckled. “The way you feel about each other is about as easy to miss as an elephant at a tea party. Of course I know. So does Charles. When’s the wedding?”
Mary dropped her eyes to straighten a pleat of her skirt.
“Oh, no!” Ollie clapped his hands to his cheeks in dismay. “So that’s why Percy took off this morning for the back of hell and begone. He called me around six, told me that he was catching the train, heading off to one of the Warwicks’ logging camps in Canada, and didn’t know when he’d be back. You all must have had some rift!”
Mary stiffened. Percy gone? To Canada? How typical of him! A clammy fear raised her flesh. It was one thing to be apart in the same neighborhood, divided by a few houses, but to be separated by a country… “He knew I was going to ask you to cosign the note,” she said.
“And he did not approve?”
“He thinks I’m taking advantage of your affection for me.”
Ollie sighed and shook his head, dislodging a strand of fine, light brown hair, skillfully trimmed to minimize its sparseness. “What troubles befall proud men,” he said with mock pontification, and ducked his head to peer at Mary. “Not to mention proud women. It distresses me to know that I’m the cause of this huff.”
“You’re not,” Mary quickly assured him. “Percy and I are to blame for our huff. We have… fundamental differences that we seem unable to work out. If you’d rather not pursue this further…”
“Oh, nonsense.” Ollie motioned that she stay in her seat. “He’ll get over it by the time he crosses the state line and will take the next train back. You two have never gone too long without making up. It’s perfectly natural that you should come to me when he refused you. Why shouldn’t you? I’ll speak to him when he gets back, make him realize what an ass he’s being.” He beamed at her. “Now, sit right there while I call Raymond.”
But as he reached for the telephone, Mary laid a hand over his wrist. “I’m in no position to lay conditions, Ollie, but I must extract a promise from you before we go through with this.”
“Anything,” he said quietly. “It’s safe to say that I would promise anything you asked.”
“Then it is this. If you are ever in financial straits and I’m in a position to help, you must allow me to assist. You must promise me that, Ollie.”
Ollie patted her hand, his smile indulgent. “All right, mon amie, if you insist, I promise,” he said, his manner suggesting doubt that his promise would ever be tested.
She took a handkerchief from her purse and dried her eyes. She was so emotional these days. “Ollie, you are the most wonderful friend, a treasure to us all. I’m asking only for your
signature, mind. Your name will be off the loan next year after the harvest.”
He lifted the telephone receiver from its hook. “Then let us hope for good weather and fair skies.”
Their business with the bank concluded, Ollie escorted her to the stairs. “Are you sure Percy didn’t say when he would be back?” she ventured.
His shoulders lifted in the way of his French ancestors. “No, Mary Lamb, but when he realizes how much he misses you, he’ll hightail it home.”
But Percy did not hightail it home. Throughout the next week as she supervised the cleanup of her fields, she kept an eye out for his red motorcar throwing up drying mud on one of Somerset’s roads and each evening looked for his message on the hall table. Every time she turned Shawnee into the drive, she glanced down the street for a glimpse of the Pierce-Arrow and one evening even directed the faithful animal to the cabin by the lake. She found the windows dark, the door locked, a deserted air about the place, as if their times together there had never been. Depression like a flu virus set in, robbing her of energy and spirit.
August gave way to September, and her deepening sense of loss did not abate. Even Ollie was not around to comfort her. He was attending the fashion shows in New York and would be away until October. After that, he would be leaving for Europe on another buying trip that included Paris, where he planned to visit Miles and reunite with the French comrades with whom he’d served during the war. He would be gone for the better part of a year.
Her misery eventually manifested itself in bouts of nausea, suffered mostly in the mornings shortly after waking. Sassie termed the sickness “water fever,” a strange summer illness afflicting those who drank from creek beds and lakes. Mary did not dispute her diagnosis, thinking perhaps the germ was a carryover from her swims in the lake with Percy. But one morning, as she bent over the basin in yet another fit of dry heaves, she debated whether or not her condition warranted an appointment with Doc Tanner. It was such a busy time, but she’d missed a period—