Black Rose (21 page)

“People who can and have loved like that are fortunate.”

“Yes, we are. At one time I was lonely. My boys were going their own way, and the house just seemed so empty, so quiet. I was sad, under the pride of seeing the young men I’d help create, I was so damn sad.”

She walked back into the bathroom to hang the damp towel, then opened her daily moisturizer to smooth it over her face.

“I needed something to take that away, or thought I did. I wanted someone to share the rest of my life with. I picked someone who, on the surface, seemed right. That mistake cost me a great deal. Emotionally and financially.”

“And because of that, you’ll be very careful about another marriage.”

“I will. But I’m in love with you, Mitchell.” She saw the emotion rush into his eyes, and what a thrill it was to see it, to know it was there because of her.

She saw him start to step forward. And stop himself, because he knew she wanted him to wait. Another thrill, she thought, to be so well understood.

“I never expected to love again, not with the whole of my heart. That was the mistake I made with Bryce, you see. The basic mistake, in marrying someone I didn’t love with the whole of my heart. Still, marriage is an enormous step. I hope you won’t mind if I let you know when and if I’m ready to take it.”

“I can work with that, because I love you, Rosalind. Mistakes I made before hurt people I loved. I won’t make them again.”

She walked to him. “We’re bound to make new ones.”

He leaned down, brushed his lips over hers. “That’ll be all right.”

“Yes, I think it might be all right. Why don’t we go downstairs, see what David’s got cooked up? Then you can tell me about your day instead of listening to me carry on about mine.”

A
S IT WAS
late, the children had already eaten and their parents were busy with bedtime rituals.

“Sometimes you can forget this house is full of people.” Roz dug into spaghetti and meatballs. “Other times it’s like being at the monkey house at the zoo.”

“And you like it both ways.”

“I do. I’m a contradictory soul. I need my solitude or I get mean. I get too much solitude, I get broody. I’m a pain in the ass to live with, you may want to factor that into the equation.”

“I already have.”

She paused, fork halfway to her mouth, then set it down as a long, rolling laugh spilled out of her. “Serves me right.”

“I’m messy, often careless with details that don’t interest me at that particular moment—and I don’t have any intention of reforming. You can factor those in.”

“Done. Now what did you want to talk over with me?”

“I never seem to run out of things I want to talk over with you.”

“Men, in the first few weeks of love, talk more than they do or will for the following twenty years.”

“See?” He gestured with his fork, then wound pasta around it. “Another advantage for finding each other a little later in life. We both know how it works. But what I wanted to discuss, primarily, was Clarise Harper.”

“You’re going to spoil my appetite, bringing her name up, and I do love meatballs and spaghetti.”

“I paid another call on her this morning while, I assume, you were off digging gardens.”

“Would you say you visited the third or fourth level of Hell?”

“Not that bad. She likes me, to a point. Finds me interesting, at least, and I’d say is amusing herself by feeding me what she likes and holding back what she doesn’t want me to know.”

He shoveled in spaghetti, then broke a hunk of garlic bread in half to split with her. “I have a tape, if you’re interested. She told an entertaining story, she claimed her mother told her, about your grandfather when he was a boy—going off to sleep in a closet with a puppy he’d taken
from a litter in the stables. He’d wanted it for a pet, and his mother had vetoed. No dogs in the house sort of thing. So he’d hidden it in his room for a week or so, keeping it in his closet, pilfering food out of the kitchen.”

“How old was he?”

“About ten, she thinks. At least from what her mother told her. He was found out when he crawled into the closet with it, and fell asleep. Nobody could find him, turned the house upside down. Then one of the servants heard this whimpering and found the two of them in the back of his bedroom closet.”

“Did he get to keep the dog?”

“He did. His father overruled his mother and let him keep it, though it was a mutt and apparently never learned any manners. He had it nearly eighteen years, so she remembers it herself, vaguely. He buried it behind the stables, put a little tree over the grave.”

“Spot. My grandmother showed me the grave. There’s even a little marker. She said he’d buried his beloved dog there, but must not have known the story about how he acquired it. She’d have told me.”

“My impression is Clarise told me to illustrate that her mother’s little brother was spoiled by his father.”

“She would,” Roz replied.

“I learned something else. Jane has every other Wednesday off. Or Wednesday afternoons. She likes to go to Davis-Kidd, have lunch in their café, then browse the stacks.”

“Is that so?”

“Anyone who wanted to talk to her privately could run into her there. Tomorrow, in fact, as it’s her Wednesday afternoon off.”

“I haven’t made time, recently, to go to the bookstore.”

“Then I’d say you’re due.”

W
ITHOUT
M
ITCH
’
S DESCRIPTION
, Roz doubted she’d have recognized Jane Paulson. She saw the young woman—mouse-colored hair, drab clothes, solemn expression—come into the café and go straight to the counter.

She ordered quickly, like someone whose habits varied little, then took a table in a corner. She pulled a paperback book out of her purse.

Roz waited sixty seconds, then wandered over.

“Jane? Jane Paulson?” She said it brightly, with just a hint of puzzlement, and watched Jane jolt before her gaze flew up. “Well, isn’t this something?”

Without waiting for an invitation, Roz took the second chair at the table. “It’s been . . . well, I can’t remember how long. It’s Cousin Rosalind. Rosalind Harper.”

“Yes, I . . . I know. Hello.”

“Hello right back.” Roz gave her hand a pat, then sat back to sip at her coffee. “How are you, how long are you in town? Just tell me every little thing.”

“I . . . I’m fine. I live here now.”

“No! Right here in Memphis? Isn’t that something. Your family’s well, I hope.”

“Everyone’s fine. Yes, everyone’s just fine.”

“That’s good to hear. You give your mama and daddy my best when you talk to them next. What are you doing here in Memphis?”

“I, um . . .” She broke off as her cup of soup and half sandwich were served. “Thank you. Um, Cousin Rosalind, would you like something?”

“No, coffee’s just fine.” And she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t look at that miserable, distressed face any longer and lie.

“Jane, I’m going to be honest with you. I came here today to see you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you’re living with Cousin Rissy, working for her.”

“Yes. Yes, I . . . and I just remembered. I have errands to run for her. I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten. I really should go and—”

“Honey.” Roz laid a hand on hers, to hold her still, and hopefully to reassure. “I know just what she thinks of me, so you don’t need to worry. I won’t tell her we spoke. I don’t want to do anything to get you in trouble with her. I promise you.”

“What do you want?”

“First let me tell you that nothing you say will get back to her. You know how much she dislikes me, and the feeling couldn’t be more mutual. We won’t be talking about this, Clarise and I. So I’ll ask you first, are you happy staying with her?”

“I needed a job. She gave me a job. I really should—”

“Mmm-hmm. And if you could get another job?”

“I . . . I can’t afford a place of my own, right now.” Jane stared into her soup as if it held the world, and the world wasn’t a very friendly place. “And I don’t have any skills. Any job skills.”

“I find that hard to believe, but that can wait. If I could help you find a job you’d like, and an apartment you could afford, would you prefer that to working for and living with Clarise?”

Her face was very pale when she lifted her head. “Why would you do that?”

“Partially to spite her, and partially because I don’t like to see family unhappy if the solution is a simple one. And one more partially. I’m hoping you can help me.”

“What could I possibly do for you?”

“She has things from my home, from Harper House.” Roz nodded as she saw the fear and knowledge flicker over Jane’s face. “You know it, and I know it. I don’t care—or have decided not to care—about the statuary, the things, we’ll say. But I want the papers. The books, the letters, the
journals. To be frank, Jane, I intended to bribe you to get them for me. I’d help you get yourself employed and established, give you a little seed money if you needed it, in exchange. But I’m going to do that for you anyway.”

“Why?”

Roz leaned forward. “She would have beat me down, if she could. She’d have manipulated me, run my life, crushed my spirit. If she could. I didn’t let her. I don’t see why I should let her do the same to you.”

“She didn’t. I did it myself. I can’t talk about it.”

“Then we won’t. I’m not going to browbeat you.” She could, Roz knew, all too easily. And that’s why she couldn’t. “What I’m going to do is give you my numbers. Here’s my home number, and my cell phone number, and my work number. You put these somewhere she won’t find them. You must know she goes through your things when you’re not there.”

Jane nodded. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have anything.”

“Keep that attitude up, you’ll never have anything. You think about what you want, and if you want me to help you get it. Then you call me.”

“You’d help me even if I don’t help you?”

“Yes. And I can help myself if and when I need to. She has what belongs to me, and I need it back. I’ll get it. You want to get away from her, I’ll help you. No strings.”

Jane opened her mouth, closed it, then got quickly to her feet. “Cousin Rosalind. Could we . . . could we go somewhere else? She knows I come here, and she might . . .”

“Get reports? Yes, she might. All right, let’s go somewhere else. My car’s right out front.”

S
HE DROVE THEM
to a little diner, off the beaten path, where no one who knew them, or Clarise, was likely to dine. The place smelled of barbecue and good strong coffee.

She ordered both, for each of them, to give Jane time to settle her nerves.

“Did you have a job back home?”

“I, um, did some office work, at my father’s company? You know he’s got the flooring company.”

“Do you like office work?”

“No. I don’t like it, and I don’t think I’m much good at it anyway.”

“What do you like?”

“I thought I’d like to work in a bookstore, or a gallery? I like books and I like art. I even know a little about them.”

“That’s a good start.” To encourage the girl to eat, instead of picking at the sesame seeds on her roll with restless fingers, Roz picked up half the enormous sandwich she’d already cut in two, and bit in. “Do you have any money of your own?”

“I’ve saved about two thousand.”

“Another good start.”

“I got pregnant,” Jane blurted out.

“Oh, honey.” Roz set the sandwich down, reached for Jane’s hand. “You’re pregnant.”

“Not anymore.” Tears began to slide down her cheeks. “Last year. It was last year. I . . . he was married. He said he loved me, and he was going to leave his wife. I’m such an idiot. I’m such a fool.”

“Stop that.” Voice brisk, Roz passed Jane a paper napkin. “You’re no such thing.”

“He was a married man, and I knew it. I just got swept away. It was so wonderful to have somebody want me, and it was so exciting to keep it all a secret. I believed everything he said, Cousin Rosalind.”

“Just Roz. Of course you did. You were in love with him.”

“But he didn’t love me.” Shaking her head, she began to tear the napkin into shreds. “I found out I was pregnant,
and I told him. He was so cool, so, well not really angry, just annoyed. Like it was, I don’t know, an inconvenience. He wanted me to have an abortion. I was so shocked. He’d said we were going to be married one day, and now he wanted me to have an abortion.”

“That’s very hard, Jane. I’m sorry.”

“I said I would. I was awful sad about it, but I was going to. I didn’t know what else I could do. But I kept putting it off, because I was afraid. Then one day I was with my mother, and I started bleeding, and cramping, right there in the restaurant where we were having dinner.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. Roz pulled a napkin from the metal dispenser and offered it.

“I had a miscarriage. I hadn’t told her I was pregnant, and I had a miscarriage practically in front of her. She and Daddy were so upset. I was all dopey and feeling so strange, I told them who the father was. He was one of Daddy’s golf partners.”

This time she buried her face in the napkin and sobbed. When the waitress started over, Roz just shook her head, rose, and moved around the booth to slip in beside Jane, drape an arm over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“Nothing of the kind. You go ahead and cry.”

“It was an awful scene, an awful time. I embarrassed them, and disappointed them.”

“I would think, under the circumstances, their minds and hearts should have been with you.”

“I shamed them.” She hiccupped, and mopped at her tears. “And all for a man who never loved me. I lost that baby, maybe because I wanted it not to be. I wished it would all just go away, and it did.”

“You can’t wish a baby away, honey. You can blame yourself some for conceiving it, ’cause that takes two. But you can’t blame yourself for losing it.”

“I never did anything in my life except what I’ve been told. But I did this, and that’s what happened.”

“I’m sorry it happened. We all make mistakes, Jane, and sometimes we pay a very stiff price for them. But you don’t have to keep paying it.”

She gave Jane’s shoulders a last squeeze, then went back to her own side, so they’d be face-to-face. “Look at me now. Listen to me. The man who used you, he’s out of your life?”