The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover Read online

  “I have a real job,” Lizzy protested, but Mr. Flagg pretended not to hear.

  “That feller you used to go around with—the county farm agent. He’s single again now.” He squinted at her over the tops of wire-rimmed glasses. “And so is yer boss. Y’see? You got two choices, which is more than most young girls your age got. You don’t take one of ‘em, you’re gonna end up an old maid. Mark my words. A wrinkled, skinny old maid.”

  Lizzy knew it was pointless to argue with Mr. Flagg. She bundled up the mail, thrust it into her handbag, and said goodbye. “And thank you,” she added, politely.

  “Don’t mention it,” Mr. Flagg said with a dark emphasis. “You just mind what I say, girl. An old maid.”

  Lizzy hurried back to Mr. Moseley’s law office, took off her hat, and plugged in the electric percolator. She put the bundle of mail on her desk, sat down, and reached for the phone.

  It took the girl on the switchboard three tries to put the call through to Montgomery and Mr. Moseley, but finally Lizzy had him on the other end of the line and was reporting on her visit with Mrs. Whitworth. She had taken out her notebook and now went through her notes, pausing when she got to the words bruise, scrape, and husband. She told Mr. Moseley what she thought, then added, “I suggested that she see Dr. Roberts, but she refused. She is very upset, although she tries to hide it. She thinks her husband might have been kidnapped.”

  “I doubt that,” Mr. Moseley said. “No ransom demand, I suppose. No notes, no phone calls.”

  “No. She got a phone call while I was there, but it was from a friend, evidently asking about the bruise on her cheek.” She thought of the car she had glimpsed through the window. “By the way, I’m pretty sure that the Whitworths bought the convertible coupe that was in the show window at Kilgore’s last week. I saw it in their garage—at least, I think I did. I didn’t get a close look.”

  “Oh, too bad,” Mr. Moseley said regretfully. “I had my eye on that car. The only thing that deterred me were the suicide doors. That design is dangerous.”

  “Suicide door?” Lizzy asked. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a door that’s hinged at the rear, rather than the front. If it’s not latched, the airflow can swing the door open, and the driver can fall out. It happened over in Georgia not long ago—the driver was killed when he went around a corner. I understand there may be a lawsuit.” He paused. “But back to the question at hand. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Whitworth probably picked up a bottle of moonshine, took it out somewhere, and is sleeping it off. He’ll show up back home looking hang-dog and guilty.”

  “I suppose so,” Lizzy said, although she wasn’t so sure. “You’re not coming back to Darling, then?”

  She didn’t expect him to. When he was in Montgomery, Benton Moseley spent his evenings (and nights, too, probably) with a wealthy socialite named Daphne, a charming, twice-divorced lady who belonged to the elegant, ultra-fashionable country-club set. So while Mr. Flagg and her friend Ophelia (and sometimes others) might suggest that Lizzy and her boss would make a compatible couple, she understood that this was entirely out of the question. Not that she was disappointed, of course.

  “Doesn’t sound like there’s anything I need to do there,” he replied. “I’ll finish up my depositions here and be back on Wednesday or Thursday. Keep in touch with Mrs. Whitworth, will you? Check on her this afternoon. And call me when Whitworth shows up.” He paused. “Anything interesting in the mail?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet,” Lizzy replied, glancing at the letter on top of the bundle. She said goodbye and hung up.

  The coffee had finished perking, so she poured herself a cup and sat down with Miss Fleming’s letter. Lizzy still couldn’t believe her good luck in finding a literary agent. Of course, the woman had never been terribly encouraging, for the Depression had had a dreadful effect on the publishing business.

  “Even established writers with a long track record are having a hard time,” Miss Fleming had told her when they talked on the phone. “People are finding whatever jobs they can. Ghostwriting, movie scripts, advice to the lovelorn. It’s terribly, terribly difficult. You’re doing excellent work, Miss Lacy, and in a different economic climate, I’m sure you’d be published immediately. These days, I’m afraid not. I’ll do my best of course, but please don’t expect anything.”

  But to Miss Fleming’s surprise and Lizzy’s astonishment, her novel had found a home—and an illustrious home, at that—at Scribner’s. Amazingly, her new editor was Maxwell Perkins, who had published F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe! Mr. Perkins had been remarkably generous with his time, making all sorts of editorial suggestions to tighten Lizzy’s plot and strengthen her characters. She had made all the changes he suggested and sent the manuscript back. Miss Fleming had told her to expect galleys—but now, a letter? Had Scribner’s decided not to publish Sabrina?

  Anxiously, she skimmed the typewritten page and then sat back in her chair, whooshing out a relieved breath. Miss Fleming wrote that Mr. Perkins was quite pleased with her revisions and would be writing to tell her so himself. In the meantime, he had a suggestion for the title.

  “He would like to call it Inherit the Flames,” Miss Fleming wrote. “I think it is most appropriate, for it catches a bit of what you represent so well in the novel: the fiery cataclysm of the Civil War and the passions that swept those years. If you agree, I’ll let him know.”

  Inherit the Flames, Lizzy thought, and then said it aloud. “Inherit the Flames.” She had liked Sabrina, but she liked the sound of this much better. She would write to Miss Fleming and tell her so. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk, took out her handbag, and opened it to put the letter away.

  When she did, she saw the paper sack that DessaRae had given her—for Sally-Lou, the maid had said—when she left the Whitworth house. Curious now, she opened the sack and peeked in. Inside were two of DessaRae’s pecan cookies, which she remembered eating when she was a girl.

  But there was something else in the sack, too. A folded bit of torn paper. On one side was what looked like part of a grocery list: mayonnaise, sugar, coffee, lard. On the other side were three sentences, written in a faint pencil in DessaRae’s tight, careful script.

  Tell Sally-Lou you need to talk to Fremon right away.

  Tell him I told you to ask him what he saw last night.

  And don’t take no for an answer.

  Fremon? Lizzy stared at the note, puzzled. Sally-Lou’s kid brother Fremon Hawkins worked at Jake Pritchard’s Standard station out on the Monroeville Highway. Lizzy knew him well. At least, she had known him, years ago, when she was a girl and Sally-Lou (just fourteen and still a girl herself when she came to work for Liz’s mother) was her nursemaid and friend. Lizzy had often gone with Sally-Lou to her mother’s house on the other side of the L&N tracks. She and Fremon would play with his pet turtle, Myrtle, or climb the catalpa tree with their slingshots and practice knocking cans off the back fence. Or they would take cane fishing poles with red-and-yellow cork bobbers and a lard bucket full of fishing worms and the three of them—Sally-Lou, Fremon, and Lizzy—would walk down the tracks to where Spook Creek flowed deep and dark under the railroad bridge. They spent many lazy summer days in the shade of the cottonwoods and sweet-gums along the banks, fishing for bluegills, bass, and catfish.

  But that was a long time ago, when the freedoms of a small-town childhood—and the inattention of her mother—made such friendships possible. Lizzy had seen Fremon around town, of course, and had heard that he was married and had children. But they hadn’t talked in years. Why was DessaRae telling her to speak to him now? And what had he seen? Was it something to do with Mr. Whitworth?

  Lizzy glanced at the old Seth Thomas clock on the opposite wall. It was almost quarter to eleven. Now that her mother was married and helping to manage her new husband’s Five and Dime, Sally-Lou was working for her again. She did the washing on Mondays, out back in t
he wash house, where she heated the water in a copper boiler on the old wood-fired stove, to keep the heat out of the house. The telephone was inside, of course, in the hallway. She might not hear it, but it was worth a try.

  Lizzy was about to hang up, but the phone was answered on the fifth ring. “Dunlap residence,” Sally-Lou said breathlessly. “Mr. an’ Miz Dunlap ain’t here jes’ now. Would you like to leave a message?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap. Lizzy smiled. Her mother’s recent marriage had been as surprising as Grady’s, but in a much more gratifying way. Mrs. Lacy (now Mrs. Dunlap) believed that it was her job to tell her daughter how to live her life. This had been bad enough when she was a girl, but as Lizzy grew older, her mother’s interference had become almost intolerable. When she announced that she was getting married, Lizzy had been overjoyed. From now on, her mother was Mr. Dunlap’s problem!

  “Hello, Sally-Lou,” Lizzy said. “It’s Liz. Actually, I wanted to talk to you. Is now a good time? You’re not too busy?”

  “Oh, good mawnin’, Miz Lizzy,” Sally-Lou said cheerfully. “Sorry—I was hangin’ sheets on the line and it took me a while to git to the phone. What can I do for you?”

  Lizzy was relieved that her mother had a private line. She couldn’t think of a way to slip easily into the subject, so she took a deep breath and dived in. “I just got back from the Whitworth house. Mr. Moseley asked me to go over there this morning, because Mr. Whitworth has … well, he seems to have disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Sally-Lou repeated, sounding surprised. “That man Aunt Dessy work fo’?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. His wife is worried about him.” Lizzy pressed on. “When I was leaving, your aunt gave me a note.”

  A silence. Then, “What fo’ Aunt Dessy done write you a note?”

  Lizzy understood why Sally-Lou’s tone was suddenly guarded. In the years since Sally-Lou had taken care of her, they had both learned that friendship wasn’t always a safe bridge between the colored folks in Maysville and the white people in Darling. They still felt as warmly toward one another as they did when they had gone fishing under the railroad trestle. At least, Lizzy did, and she thought Sally-Lou did, too. But they were grown up now. As adults, they had to recognize that they lived on separate planets and that it was difficult to bring the two into the same orbit. It could even be dangerous—not so much for Lizzy, but for Sally-Lou. And even more, for Fremon.

  Lizzy swallowed uncomfortably and answered Sally-Lou’s question. “DessaRae wrote the note because she wasn’t sure we’d have a chance to talk where Mrs. Whitworth wouldn’t hear. She gave it to me when I was leaving, in a sack with two pecan cookies. She told me to give the cookies to you tonight, when I go over to my mother’s.”

  “Well, that don’t make no sense a-tall,” Sally-Lou said testily. “I leave here at fo’, and Aunt Dessy knows you don’ never come over here till after supper.” Her voice sharpened. “That woman is a pistol. What she got up her sleeve this time?”

  DessaRae, Sally-Lou’s aunt by marriage, had a reputation for doing outrageous things. Like the time she took the train to New Orleans to be in the Mardi Gras parade and came back with her face painted and wearing a fabulous feathered headdress. On the job, she wore the standard maid’s uniform, but at home in her tiny Maysville house, she wore madras plaid skirts and ruffled blouses and wrapped her head in yellow and red tignons. She kept a parrot she called Pierre LeToot, who could whistle like an old steamboat and had a vocabulary of nearly two hundred words, half of them obscene. DessaRae was also said to practice voodoo, although Lizzy doubted the truth of that rumor.

  “I’ll read you her note.” Lizzy put it on the desk and smoothed it out. “It says, ‘Tell Sally-Lou you got to talk to Fremon right away. Tell him he has to tell you what he saw last night. And don’t take no for an answer.’”

  “Talk to Fremon?” Sally-Lou said, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Why? What that boy see? How does Aunt Dessy know? And how come it matters to you?”

  They were all pertinent questions, but Lizzy had no answers. She cleared her throat. “I think it must have something to do with what’s happened to Mr. Whitworth. Mr. Moseley has asked me to find out whatever I can about it.” She paused. “Does Fremon still work at Pritchard’s Standard station?”

  “Yes,” Sally-Lou said slowly. “But you don’ want to talk to him there, wi’ all them men around.”

  Lizzy agreed. It wasn’t “all them men” that were the problem, however. It was just one man: Jake Pritchard’s cousin Jumbo, a big, burly man with a menacing look who occasionally hung around the station. The Klan had been much more active in Cypress County during the 1920s than it was now—the Depression had taken a bite out of its membership. But Jumbo Pritchard still led the robed and hooded group when it marched in the Confederate Day parade. He would make things tough for a colored man seen talking to a white woman. In fact, any encounters outside of the everyday working relationship could prove to be a problem for Fremon, and Lizzy didn’t want to cause him any trouble.

  “Does your brother still live in Maysville?” Lizzy asked. “Maybe I could go to his house. Or talk to him on the phone.” She might have suggested that he come over and mow her lawn or paint her front porch swing, but she didn’t want to put him in that position. It was dishonest. And demeaning. Fremon had been a proud boy. She hoped the man hadn’t changed.

  “He do. But his wife won’ ‘preciate you comin’ to their house,” Sally-Lou said firmly. “An’ his neighbors might see you an’ be wonderin’ why a white lady be doin’ what she’s doin’. Plus he don’t have no telephone.”

  Lizzy felt embarrassed. Of course, Fremon didn’t have a phone. Most folks in Maysville didn’t.

  Sally-Lou was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “I reckon I could ask him if he’d come over to your house wi’ me after supper tonight—later, after it’s dark. I could sit on the back porch whiles you an’ him talk.”

  “Oh, would you?” Lizzy asked in a grateful rush. “Thank you very much.”

  “Cain’t promise,” Sally-Lou said. “But I can try.” She hesitated. “Not sure I should tell him why, though. You reckon?”

  “I agree.” Lizzy hated to do it that way, but she was afraid he might not come if he knew why he was being asked. Especially if he had seen … Seen what? She couldn’t know the answer to that, though, until she had talked to Fremon.

  “I won’t, then.” Sally-Lou chuckled wryly. “That boy will prob’ly say more if he took by surprise an’ don’t got the time to plan it out ahead.”

  Lizzy agreed with that, too, but she didn’t like to say so. “What time do you want to come?”

  “Let’s say seven-thirty. You at Mr. Moseley’s office today?”

  “Yes. I’ll be here until five.”

  “I’ll phone Fremon over at the Standard and see what he says. If ‘n you don’t hear from me, let’s count on seven-thirty. We’ll come to the back door.”

  “Thank you,” Lizzy said again. “I really appreciate this, Sally-Lou.”

  “Don’ thank me yit,” Sally-Lou warned, and hung up.

  Lizzy sat back in her chair, thinking. She was caught up on her work for Mr. Moseley, and she had gone just about as far as she could—for the moment—with the Whitworth affair. Fremon might be able to add something tonight, or he might not, in which case the whole thing would simply have to wait until Mr. Whitworth turned up.

  In the meantime, she could work on “The Garden Gate,” the weekly column she wrote for the Dispatch. She had already started it, so she reached into the drawer, took out the pages she had done, and set to work.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE GARDEN GATE BY ELIZABETH LACY

  LOOKING FOR LUCK? FIND IT IN YOUR GARDEN!

  At a recent meeting of the Darling Dahlias Garden Club, Miss Rogers (Darling’s librarian and noted plant historian) gave a talk on plants that can bring their owners good fortune. She was speaking in honor of Darling’s own Lucky Four Clovers—our town’
s hands-down favorite to win the Dixie Regional Barbershop Quartet Competition. She has given me permission to use her notes for this column. Thank you, Miss Rogers, and good luck, you Lucky Four Clovers. Your hometown friends are rooting for you!

  The Four-Leaf Clover (Trifolium repens). Miss Rogers reported that she found one of these lucky clovers recently growing beside the path to the library. Following the advice of an old saying, she picked the clover and put it in her shoe, so she could have good luck until the next new moon.

  Another legend has it that when you find a four-leaf clover, you’ll see a fairy. (Unfortunately, that hasn’t worked out so well for Miss Rogers, maybe because Darling’s fairies have moved somewhere else.) In Ireland, a four-leaf clover can protect you from evil spirits. In ancient Rome, it could protect you from poisonous snakes. On the Ivory Coast of Africa, a four-leaf clover is a symbol of power: find one and you can be chief of the tribe.

  The four-leaf clover seems to be a universal symbol of good fortune, perhaps because it is rare everywhere but occurs just often enough to keep us looking. People who count such things tell us that one out of every ten thousand clovers has four leaves. The Latin name of this plant, Trifolium repens, describes its usual three leaves and its habit of creeping across the ground. Miss Rogers suggests that if you find a four-leaf clover, you might call it Quadrifolium repens. She even proposed that the Lucky Four Clovers consider changing the name of their quartet to Quadrifolium repens, but this suggestion was met with great disapproval.

  Jade plant (Crassula ovata). This lucky plant’s common names tell us why people treasure it: money tree, money plant, lucky plant, dollar plant, and prosperity plant. Usually grown as a houseplant, the glossy round leaves of the jade plant resemble valuable jade coins. In Asia, where it is especially prized, jade plant is often given as a gift to a new business, to a new bride and groom, or to an infant. It is also given as a New Year’s gift, to bring wealth and good fortune throughout the year. Carry several of the shiny green “coins” in your pocket and see if they bring you some silver.