The Mulberry Tree Read online

  “How long did you spend with him that day?” Matt asked.

  “Hours. All afternoon and into the evening.”

  “Didn’t your mother worry about her seventeen-year-old daughter being out alone for all that time?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bailey said. “But then, she and Dolores were busy.”

  “But surely someone would have told her that her daughter and the infamous James Manville were on the rides together.”

  “We didn’t know anyone at that fair. It was in Illinois, and we lived in Kentucky.”

  “Hmmm,” Matt said. “Go on. What happened next?”

  “That’s all. Jimmie and I were going up the side of the roller coaster when he said, ‘You wouldn’t want to marry me, would you?’ and I screamed, ‘Yeeeesssss,’ all the way down.”

  Bailey got off the couch and walked to stand by the fireplace. The memories were making her sad. Where had she and Jimmie gone wrong? When had the bad started?

  “At the bottom of the roller coaster, he took my hand and started pulling me. ‘Where’s your mother?’ he asked.

  “And that’s when I panicked. I stopped in my tracks, because I knew that if we asked my mother’s permission to marry, it wouldn’t happen. He’d probably be turned off by one of them. Or maybe one of them would steal him away, since both of them were beautiful. At best, I knew they’d take months to plan a wedding, and I couldn’t see Jimmie standing still for all the buttering up that would go on. In an instant I could see everything. And, before you ask, no, I wasn’t tempted to lose my one and only chance with a man like James Manville by telling him I was just seventeen years old. And as he often did, Jimmie understood my hesitation completely.”

  Bailey took a deep breath. “ ‘Are you sure?’ Jimmie asked. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I told him. ‘No hesitation?’ he asked me. ‘None.’ ‘I’ll take care of you,’ he said. ‘I know you will,’ I answered, then I put my hand in his and followed him to his car.

  “Three hours later, we were married. And I didn’t see my mother and sister again for three months. By then they’d had time to adjust to the idea of my being married to James Manville.”

  Matt gave her a one-sided smile. “Welcomed you home with open arms, did they?”

  “Open wallets is more like it.”

  “I’m not a lawyer, but to be legal, I think Manville would have had to get your mother’s consent before the marriage. Was there time? Could he have done so? Was there any hint from any of them that they knew that you were to marry Manville before the ceremony?”

  Bailey tried to remember every detail of that first visit. “Jimmie said I had to make it up with my family, so we went back to Kentucky to see them. Maybe some women would have been triumphant, but I was embarrassed. I felt I’d done something wrong by eloping. And I so very much wanted approval from them.”

  “Think back,” Matt said. “Try to remember everything that was said that day.”

  Bailey closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. “I remember that there were a lot of new things in the house, a few pieces of furniture, and a dishwasher had been installed. And some repairs had been made to the house. I think I remember that the roof looked new. I never spoke of it but I knew they’d accepted money from Jimmie, but then he was generous like that.”

  “And how did your mother and sister act toward you?”

  Bailey swallowed. Some hurts never healed. “They were cool and distant, like strangers. I wanted my mother and Dolores to fall on me with great hugs and tell me they were so happy for me. But instead they—”

  Bailey turned away for a moment, then looked back at him. “I don’t like all this dragging up of the past. It’s ugly, and it hurts.”

  “Remember that woman on TV crying because she had lost her job and she had three children to support?” Matt said softly. “I imagine she and a lot of other people are in pain now.”

  Bailey closed her eyes again. “It was as though they didn’t remember me, as though I’d never been part of their lives; I was a stranger to them. Instead of giving me a Coke, like she and my sister were having, my mother had bought a china tea service. She poured me a cup of tea and asked if I wanted one lump or two. I’d never drunk a cup of hot tea in my life, and I’d never even heard of lump sugar. It was all so strange.”

  “Did either of them say anything at all?”

  “Not much. I just remember chitchat. Rainy weather, that sort of thing. Jimmie just sat there, leaning back on a chair, amused some of the time, and sometimes so bored he nearly fell asleep. I so wanted it all to be fun. I wanted my mother to drag out my baby pictures and tell Jimmie all about me when I was a child. Instead, at one point, my mother called me Mrs. Manville. ‘Thanks to you,’ my sister said nastily, then my mother gave her a look to shut her up. I was so jealous of that look. It was so like family. It was—”

  “Back up,” Matt said. “What did your sister mean, ‘Thanks to you’?”

  Bailey shrugged. “I don’t know. Just some family thing, I guess. I wasn’t a part of it.”

  “Tell me again what your mother said.”

  “She said, ‘More tea, Mrs. Manville?’ Then my sister said, ‘Thanks to you.’ ”

  “Did your sister say that to you or to your mother?”

  “I thought she was talking to me, but I was looking at Jimmie, and—” Bailey opened her eyes wide. “Do you think my sister was saying that I was Mrs. Manville thanks to my mother?”

  “Maybe. Think of the timing. When could Manville have obtained your mother’s permission?”

  “He couldn’t have. We went straight from the roller coaster to a waiting preacher. There was no time to—” She looked at Matt.

  “Waiting,” he said. “A waiting preacher. He knew you were underage because you had won in the under-eighteen division. He must have made up his mind to marry you when he gave you the blue ribbons. By the time you met him at the Ferris wheel, he’d already arranged everything, or else she would have come after you. I can’t imagine that a small-town fair wasn’t abuzz with gossip about a celebrity spending the afternoon with a teenager. Some busybody would have made it her duty to find your mother and tell her.”

  “He preplanned the wedding,” Bailey whispered.

  “Was he the type of man to have made the decision, then been so sure you’d agree that he went ahead with the arrangements?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s exactly what Jimmie always did. It was a philosophy of his. He said that most people were indecisive fools, and that even if you worked for years to get them to see reason—meaning, to see his point of view—they could go backward in a second. So he’d have contracts ready before he went into meetings. The second they agreed, he’d present the documents.”

  “I think maybe he saw you, wanted you, and knew you were under eighteen, so he began doing what he had to to get you.”

  “Then you think he did get my mother’s permission?”

  “Yes. And, what’s more, I think Atlanta and Ray may have recently been told that that piece of paper exists, and they know that if it shows up, they’ll lose everything. That’s why they’re liquidating as fast as they can, to get as much money out of the country as they can.”

  “But where is the paper?” Bailey asked.

  “Where’s the permission slip? It didn’t show up when the accountants went through Jimmie’s papers.”

  “There’s someone who knows.”

  “Who?”

  “Your sister. My guess is that she either has it or knows where it is.”

  Bailey gave a little smile. “That’s a good thought. Why don’t I just call her and ask? I’m sure she’d love to tell me. I talked to her just—let’s see—it was a mere three years ago. She was screaming at me that I’d ruined her life. She said it was my fault that her first husband had divorced her. I never knew if Jimmie was the one who arranged for her husband to get a job offer in the Middle East or not, and the truth is that I didn’t want to know. But Dolores was sure that he had. The fact that