by Owen Wister
II: I Vary My Lunch
Thus it was that I came to sojourn in the most appealing, the mostlovely, the most wistful town in America; whose visible sadness anddistinction seem also to speak audibly, speak in the sound of the quietwaves that ripple round her Southern front, speak in the church-bellson Sunday morning, and breathe not only in the soft salt air, but in theperfume of every gentle, old-fashioned rose that blooms behind thehigh garden walls of falling mellow-tinted plaster: Kings Port theretrospective, Kings Port the belated, who from her pensive porticoeslooks over her two rivers to the marshes and the trees beyond, thelive-oaks, veiled in gray moss, brooding with memories! Were she mycity, how I should love her!
But though my city she cannot be, the enchanting image of her is mine tokeep, to carry with me wheresoever I may go; for who, having seen her,could forget her? Therefore I thank Aunt Carola for this gift, and forwhat must always go with it in my mind, the quiet and strange romancewhich I saw happen, and came finally to share in. Why it is that my Auntno longer wishes to know either the boy or the girl, or even to heartheir names mentioned, you shall learn at the end, when I have finishedwith the wedding; for this happy story of love ends with a wedding,and begins in the Woman's Exchange, which the ladies of Kings Port haveestablished, and (I trust) lucratively conduct, in Royal Street.
Royal Street! There's a relevance in this name, a fitness to my errand;but that is pure accident.
The Woman's Exchange happened to be there, a decorous resort for thosewho became hungry, as I did, at the hour of noon each day. In my verypleasant boarding-house, where, to be sure, there was one dreadfulboarder, a tall lady, whom I soon secretly called Juno--but letunpleasant things wait--in the very pleasant house where I boarded (Ihad left my hotel after one night) our breakfast was at eight, and ourdinner not until three: sacred meal hours in Kings Port, as inviolable,I fancy, as the Declaration of Independence, but a gap quite beyond thestretch of my Northern vitals. Therefore, at twelve, it was my habit toleave my Fanning researches for a while, and lunch at the Exchange uponchocolate and sandwiches most delicate in savor. As, one day, I wasluxuriously biting one of these, I heard his voice and what he wassaying. Both the voice and the interesting order he was giving causedme, at my small table, in the dim back of the room, to stop and watchhim where he stood in the light at the counter to the right of theentrance door. Young he was, very young, twenty-two or three at themost, and as he stood, with hat in hand, speaking to the pretty girlbehind the counter, his head and side-face were of a romantic andhigh-strung look. It was a cake that he desired made, a cake for awedding; and I directly found myself curious to know whose wedding. Evena dull wedding interests me more than other dull events, because itcan arouse so much surmise and so much prophecy; but in this weddingI instantly, because of his strange and winning embarrassment, becamequite absorbed. How came it he was ordering the cake for it? Blushinglike the boy that he was entirely, he spoke in a most engaging voice:"No, not charged; and as you don't know me, I had better pay for itnow."
Self-possession in his speech he almost had; but the blood in his cheeksand forehead was beyond his control.
A reply came from behind the counter: "We don't expect payment untildelivery."
"But--a--but on that morning I shall be rather particularly engaged."His tones sank almost away on these words.
"We should prefer to wait, then. You will leave your address. Inhalf-pound boxes, I suppose?"
"Boxes? Oh, yes--I hadn't thought--no--just a big, round one. Like this,you know!" His arms embraced a circular space of air. "With plenty oficing."
I do not think that there was any smile on the other side of thecounter; there was, at any rate, no hint of one in the voice. "And howmany pounds?"
He was again staggered. "Why--a--I never ordered one before. I wantplenty--and the very best, the very best. Each person would eat a pound,wouldn't they? Or would two be nearer? I think I had better leave itall to you. About like this, you know." Once more his arms embraced acircular space of air.
Before this I had never heard the young lady behind the counter enterinto any conversation with a customer. She would talk at length aboutall sorts of Kings Port affairs with the older ladies connected with theExchange, who were frequently to be found there; but with a customer,never. She always took my orders, and my money, and served me, with asilence and a propriety that have become, with ordinary shopkeepers, alost art. They talk to one indeed! But this slim girl was a lady, andconsequently did the right thing, marking and keeping a distance betweenherself and the public. To-day, however, she evidently felt it herofficial duty to guide the hapless young, man amid his errors. He nowappeared to be committing a grave one.
"Are you quite sure you want that?" the girl was asking.
"Lady Baltimore? Yes, that is what I want."
"Because," she began to explain, then hesitated, and looked at him.Perhaps it was in his face; perhaps it was that she remembered at thispoint the serious difference between the price of Lady Baltimore (bymy small bill-of-fare I was now made acquainted with its price) and thecost of that rich article which convention has prescribed as the cakefor weddings; at any rate, swift, sudden delicacy of feeling preventedher explaining any more to him, for she saw how it was: his means weretoo humble for the approved kind of wedding cake! She was too young, toounskilled yet in the world's ways, to rise above her embarrassment; andso she stood blushing at him behind the counter, while he stood blushingat her in front of it.
At length he succeeded in speaking. "That's all, I believe.Good-morning."
At his hastily departing back she, too, murmured: "Good-morning."
Before I knew it I had screamed out loudly from my table: "But he hasn'ttold you the day he wants it for!"
Before she knew it she had flown to the door--my cry had set her going,as if I had touched a spring--and there he was at the door himself,rushing back. He, too, had remembered. It was almost a collision, andnothing but their good Southern breeding, the way they took it, saved itfrom being like a rowdy farce.
"I know," he said simply and immediately. "I am sorry to be so careless.It's for the twenty-seventh."
She was writing it down in the order-book. "Very well. That is Wednesdayof next week. You have given us more time than we need." She putcomplete, impersonal business into her tone; and this time he marchedoff in good order, leaving peace in the Woman's Exchange.
No, not peace; quiet, merely; the girl at the counter now proceeded togrow indignant with me. We were alone together, we two; no young man,or any other business, occupied her or protected me. But if you supposethat she made war, or expressed rage by speaking, that is not it atall. From her counter in front to my table at the back she made herdispleasure felt; she was inaudibly crushing; she did not do it evenwith her eye, she managed it--well, with her neck, somehow, and by theway she made her nose look in profile. Aunt Carola would have embracedher--and I should have liked to do so myself. She could not stand theidea of my having, after all these days of official reserve that she hadplaced between us, startled her into that rush to the door annihilatedher dignity at a blow. So did I finish my sandwiches beneath herinvisible but eloquent fire. What affair of mine was the cake? Andwhat sort of impertinent, meddlesome person was I, shrieking out mysuggestions to people with whom I had no acquaintance? These were thethings that her nose and her neck said to me the whole length of theExchange. I had nothing but my own weakness to thank; it was my interestin weddings that did it, made me forget my decorum, the public place,myself, everything, and plunge in. And I became more and more delightedover it as the girl continued to crush me. My day had been dull, myresearches had not brought me a whit nearer royal blood; I looked atmy little bill-of-fare, and then I stepped forward to the counter,adventurous, but polite.
"I should like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore," I said withextreme formality.
I thought she was going to burst; but after an interesting second shereplied, "Certainly," in her fit Regular Exchange tone; only
, I thoughtit trembled a little.
I returned to the table and she brought me the cake, and I had my firstfelicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore. Oh, my goodness! Did you evertaste it? It's all soft, and it's in layers, and it has nuts--but Ican't write any more about it; my mouth waters too much.
Delighted surprise caused me once more to speak aloud, and with my mouthfull. "But, dear me, this Is delicious!"
A choking ripple of laughter came from the counter. "It's I who makethem," said the girl. "I thank you for the unintentional compliment."Then she walked straight back to my table. "I can't help it," she said,laughing still, and her delightful, insolent nose well up; "how canI behave myself when a man goes on as you do?" A nice white curly dogfollowed her, and she stroked his ears.
"Your behavior is very agreeable to me," I remarked.
"You'll allow me to say that you're not invited to criticise it. Iwas decidedly put out with you for making me ridiculous. But you haveadmired my cake with such enthusiasm that you are forgiven. And--may Ihope that you are getting on famously with the battle of Cowpens?"
I stared. "I'm frankly very much astonished that you should know aboutthat!"
"Oh, you're just known all about in Kings Port."
I wish that our miserable alphabet could in some way render the softSouthern accent which she gave to her words. But it cannot. I couldeasily misspell, if I chose; but how, even then, could I, for instance,make you hear her way of saying "about"? "Aboot" would magnify it; andbesides, I decline to make ugly to the eye her quite special English,that was so charming to the ear.
"Kings Port just knows all about you," she repeated with a sweet andmocking laugh.
"Do you mind telling me how?"
She explained at once. "This place is death to all incognitos."
The explanation, however, did not, on the instant, enlighten me. "This?The Woman's Exchange, you mean?"
"Why, to be sure! Have you not heard ladies talking together here?"
I blankly repealed her words. "Ladies talking?"
She nodded.
"Oh!" I cried. "How dull of me! Ladies talking! Of course!"
She continued. "It was therefore widely known that you were consultingour South Carolina archives at the library--and then that notebook youbring marked you out the very first day. Why, two hours after your firstlunch we just knew all about you!"
"Dear me!" said I.
"Kings Port is ever ready to discuss strangers," she further explained."The Exchange has been going on five years, and the resident familieshave discussed each other so thoroughly here that everything is known;therefore a stranger is a perfect boon." Her gayety for a momentinterrupted her, before she continued, always mocking and always sweet:"Kings Port cannot boast intelligence offices for servants; but if youwant to know the character and occupation of your friends, come to theExchange!" How I wish I could give you the raciness, the contagion, ofher laughter! Who would have dreamed that behind her primness all thisfrolic lay in ambush? "Why," she said, "I'm only a plantation girl; it'smy first week here, and I know every wicked deed everybody as done since1812!"
She went back to her counter. It had been very merry; and as I wassettling the small debt for my lunch I asked: "Since this is the properplace for information, will you kindly tell me whose wedding that cakeis for?"
She was astonished. "You don't know? And I thought you were quite aclever Ya--I beg your pardon--Northerner.
"Please tell me, since I know you're quite a clever Reb--I beg yourpardon--Southerner."
"Why, it's his own! Couldn't you see that from his bashfulness?"
"Ordering his own wedding cake?" Amazement held me. But the door opened,one of the elderly ladies entered, the girl behind the counter stiffenedto primness in a flash, and I went out into Royal Street as the curlydog's tail wagged his greeting to the newcomer.
