The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online Page A

you, but she can do it.” His voice took on an edge. “And if you don’t know why this is happenin’, then I’m sorry for you, Verna. I never in God’s green earth would’ve wanted anything like this, but—”
    “Anything like
what
?” Verna demanded. Her knees were shaking and it was hard to get her breath. “Why do I have to stay away from the office? Does it have anything to do with that auditor?”
    “I am truly sorry but I can’t tell you a thing, Verna,” Mr. Scroggins said regretfully. “You are now on furlough, you might say, and I need you to give me your key to the office door. You can leave it in an envelope at the Old Alabama desk, and I’ll pick it up. I’ll give it back if this thing is cleared up and you can go back to work. Okay?”
    Okay? Of course it wasn’t okay!
“If what thing is cleared up?” Verna asked. She could hardly grasp what he was saying. To give up her key to the office would be like giving up her right to her job. Like giving up her identity!
    “Never you mind, Verna,” Mr. Scroggins said, now more sternly. “Jes’ you bring me your key.” He paused, waiting for her reply. “Verna, you hear what I said?” Another, longer pause. “Verna? You answer me, now.”
    But Verna didn’t answer. She hung up the receiver and collapsed into a chair.

THREE
    Bessie and Miss Rogers

    Bessie Bloodworth didn’t have far to go after she left the Dahlias’ clubhouse on Saturday afternoon. All she had to do was duck through the hole in the hedge and she was in the neatly kept backyard of Magnolia Manor, where she couldn’t help but notice that the plants in the fourteen clay pots of thriving Confederate roses had been carefully pruned back. Miss Rogers’ work, Bessie knew.
    The previous spring, Miss Rogers had obtained a start from every Dahlia who had a Confederate rose in her garden—and it turned out that they all did, since everyone loved the plant, even those who didn’t know that it wasn’t a rose but an hibiscus. She had rooted the pencil-sized cuttings in buckets of damp sand, then moved the new plants into pots and later, moved the pots into the cellar for the winter, so they wouldn’t freeze. Now, just in time for the Confederate Day celebration at the cemetery, each plant had put out an exuberant green growth. Nicely trimmed, they were ready to leave the Magnolia Manor and go to their new home at the Darling Cemetery, where they would create a beautiful blooming hedge along the fence.
    Bessie climbed up the back steps and opened the door to the screened-in back porch. The Magnolia Manor was the only home she had ever known. She had lived in the old two-story house for decades, first with her mother and father and brothers and then with her father, whom she cared for until he died. And now with the Magnolia Ladies, as they called themselves, four of them, bless ’em. Her boarders.
    Of course, the house hadn’t had a name back when her father (who owned and operated the town’s mortuary) was still alive. But it hadn’t had a mortgage, either, and after his death, it was Bessie’s only real asset, except for the few dollars she got every month from Mr. Noonan, who had purchased her father’s funeral parlor business.
    First, she gave the house a name. Second, she got Beulah Trivette to paint a nice wooden sign for the front yard, featuring the words MAGNOLIA MANOR in fancy script, encircled by magnolia blossoms and leaves. Third, she put an ad in the Darling
Dispatch
for “older unmarried and widowed ladies of refinement and good taste, to occupy spacious bedrooms at the Magnolia Manor
.
” She’d been afraid that if the house didn’t have a name of its own, people would start calling it
Bessie Bloodworth’s Home for Old Ladies
to distinguish it from Mrs. Brewster’s Home for Young Ladies, over on West Plum, whose residents were so unruly that Mrs. Brewster had to set strict rules for their behavior. Bessie hoped that her residents would be dignified and