The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Carrying the coffeepot, cups, and sticky buns on a tray, Ophelia paused in the parlor door. It was a pretty room with crisscross curtains of ivory French marquisette, a piano (Ophelia’s daughter Sarah was taking lessons), and a cozy pairing of davenport and chair upholstered in a rich Jacquard velour, with taupe and rose-print cushions. Ophelia was very proud of these two pieces of furniture. She had bought them, and a stylish walnut coffee table, on the easy time-payment plan from the Fall and Winter 1929 Sears catalog, where they were pictured in full color on page 926. Actually, it was the color that had seduced her—that, and the first sentence in the catalog description. Tastes trained to discriminate will quickly recognize the superlative quality, which gives this splendid set distinction. Ophelia felt that tastes trained to discriminate exactly described her.

But even though Jed had agreed that their splendid new furniture truly did have distinction, Ophelia was painfully aware that the purchase had not been a good idea. For one thing, she had lied to Jed about how much it had cost and how much she’d have to pay every month. The davenport had been nearly seventy dollars, the chair thirty, and the coffee table eight, plus an additional eleven dollars in “time payment terms.” Ophelia had put twelve fifty down and promised to pay ten dollars a month for eighteen months.

Ten dollars a month! It hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but now her insides shriveled with cold fear whenever Ophelia thought of the debt she’d incurred. Jed gave her an allowance and pretty much left the running of the house to her and—like most men—had no idea of the prices of furniture and rugs and curtains. When he’d asked how much the furniture cost, she’d been afraid to tell him the whole truth, especially when she figured out that she’d be paying eighty-five dollars more than the price of the furniture for the privilege of making those eighteen monthly payments! So she had cut the price in half when she told him. He’d thought that was too much. Ophelia knew he’d be furious if he ever learned how much she was really paying.

The furniture had arrived six months ago, and she was already two months behind in her payments. No matter how many corners she tried to cut in her household budget, there just wasn’t enough money to go around. She had gotten to the point where the only other way she could think of to make those awful monthly payments was to let Florabelle go. But that was almost unthinkable. Florabelle kept the house spotless and did the laundry and the heavy work and had raised both of Ophelia’s children from the time they were born. And anyway, Florabelle needed the money. Her husband was out of work and she was trying to keep her girls in school.

But yesterday, in one of Ophelia’s despairing moments, another possibility had occurred to her. It said in the time-payment contract that if she didn’t send the money, Sears would come and repossess the furniture, as long as it was in good condition. (They didn’t say what would happen if it wasn’t.) Well, she thought, maybe that was the smart thing to do. Stop making the payments altogether, and eventually Sears would wise up and come and get the furniture. Since the family hardly spent any time at all in the parlor, everything looked like new, so there was no question about Sears taking it back. Or maybe they would have second thoughts about sending a truck all the way from Mobile just to pick up three measly pieces of used furniture. Maybe they would forget about the payments and decide to just let her keep everything.

Yesterday, she had pushed this idea to the back of her mind, but now here it was again, presenting itself as an option that would not only relieve her of a mountain of worry but allow her to face her husband with a clear conscience. Now, as she looked around the room, Ophelia decided that—once the Sears suite was gone—she could salvage the wicker settee that was in Mother Snow’s attic and make new cushions for it, and repaint the old rocking chair out in the shed. She hated the thought, since regardless of its cost and all the problems it posed, the living room furniture was beautiful, much nicer than that of any of her friends (except for Mrs. George E. Pickett Johnson, whose husband owned the Darling Savings and Trust Bank, and Mildred Kilgore, who was married to the owner of Kilgore Motors and lived near the ninth green of the Cypress County Club golf course). Since Jed was the mayor of Darling and owned the only feed store in town, Ophelia had felt that, by rights, she ought to have a very nice parlor where she could entertain her friends.