The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate
Page 14
And right at that moment, “her” came in, tossing me—the wronged individual, the wounded party—the coolest of glances.
“What are you doing?” she said casually without any trace of guilt. Oh, ice water ran in her veins, all right. She sat in the dresser chair, took off her hat, and smoothed her hair.
And that’s when I charged her and pushed her from the chair. She yelped and sprawled on the floor in a most unbecoming posture, her skirt hiked up to show her petticoat.
“Are you crazy?” she said.
I stood over her, panting, my hands clawed in rage, and although she was four years older and a foot taller, fear flickered in her thieving eyes. She clambered awkwardly to her feet, her clothes and hair in disarray.
“Give it back,” I choked.
“What’s wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?”
I advanced on her, and she backed into the corner.
“Give. It. Back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My money. Give it back.”
“Don’t come any closer.” She held up both hands to stiff-arm me away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Her expression was so wholly incredulous that a glimmer of uncertainty arose within me. It also occurred to me that if she wanted to, she could probably best me in a fight. I stopped advancing on her and said as calmly as I could, “My coin. The five-dollar gold piece you took from me.”
“I took nothing from you. You’re crazy.”
And this time I believed her. She shoved past me and ran downstairs, leaving me to slowly deflate like a sad balloon. Now I was in for it.
Sure enough, one minute later, Mother’s voice rose from the bottom of the stairs, angrier than I’d ever heard her: “Calpurnia! Come down here at once.”
I knew that the loss of my money was nothing compared to the trouble I’d made for myself by assaulting my cousin. Ach. I trudged down the stairs, trying to concoct some kind of defense, but I knew I had none.
I entered the parlor and took the place on the Turkey carpet traditionally reserved for children in trouble. I’d stood there many a time before, head bowed, so I was well familiar with the intricate pattern.
“Well?” demanded Mother. “Is it true? That you attacked Aggie and pushed her to the floor? Tell me it can’t be true.”
This seemed an odd way to put it. Was it an invitation to lie? I peeked at her and quickly looked away. I’d never seen her so furious.
“Sorry, Mother,” I whispered, meek as a mouse.
“What was that? Speak up!”
“Sorry, Mother,” louder this time.
“It’s Aggie you should be apologizing to, not me.”
“Sorry, Aggie.” I ground my toe into the small bare spot in the pattern, the bare spot I’d helped my brothers wear away over the years.
Mother shrilled, “Look her in the eye when you say it!”
“I am sorry, Aggie, truly,” spoken this time in heartfelt tones. “I … I thought you’d stolen my gold coin.”
“Hmpf,” Aggie sneered.
Offering up my excuse did not have the desired effect of calming Mother down. Her voice grew louder and shriller. “The gold your father gave you? You’ve lost it? How could you be so careless?”
“I didn’t lose it. Someone stole it.”
“Nonsense! No one under this roof would do such a thing. Father gives you a ten-dollar gold piece, and what do you do? You lose it of your own carelessness.”
I blinked at her in confusion. “Uh, you mean a five-dollar piece, right?”
She stared at me in equal incomprehension. “Ten dollars, not five. Is this another example of your ingratitude, you wretched girl?”
Incipient hives prickled my neck. “I … I don’t—”
She snapped, “The ten dollars Father gave you. And now you’ve lost it. Out of my sight. Go to your room. No, wait, go outside. Allow Aggie some peace and quiet. You’re to stay out of your room until bedtime, understand?”
“But I—”
“Understand?”
“Yes, Mother. And I truly am sorry, Aggie. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
She said only, “Hmm … well.”
I went out the front door and stood on the porch, scratched at a hive or two, and promptly burst into tears of rage and confusion. What was going on? What could she be talking about? Sam Houston and Travis appeared at the far end of the drive, but rather than allowing them to view my humiliation, I dashed into the scrub and headed for the river.
Arriving at the inlet, I sat down on the bank and cried over the injustice of it all. And my own stupidity. I had violated Granddaddy’s instructions in observation, analysis, and judgment. I had jumped to a conclusion without a proper foundation, and look where it had landed me: in record-setting trouble, probably for the rest of my life. And I was no closer to solving the theft. I dipped my hankie in the cool water and bathed my face, never mind that I was applying untold numbers of Volvox and Paramecia to my skin. As my complexion gradually cooled, so did my temper. Could I have misplaced the money? It didn’t seem possible. Thinking about where it might have gone made my head hurt. Instead, I concentrated on applying my vaunted intellect to the question of five dollars versus ten. Either Mother was mistaken or she was correct. There was no way I’d approach either her or Father to ask, so I’d have to figure it out. Well, the older boys got a dime allowance; the younger boys and I only got a nickel. Father, using the same reasoning, must have given the older children ten dollars and the younger ones five dollars. But I did not know this for a fact. Which of the older boys would tell me? Perhaps Harry would know, even though I didn’t remember him lining up in the hall that day. Approaching Lamar, with his maddening superior ways (for which I could see no justification) would be my last resort. So that left Sam Houston, and he seemed like a pretty good candidate. We mostly got along all right, except for those times when he fell under Lamar’s sway. Sam it would be.
I heard Viola ring her bell on the back porch to signal dinner. I dried my face and hands and headed home with my plan in place.
Dinner was a tense affair. Mother was quiet; Father regarded me with consternation; Harry looked at me as if I were some kind of species he’d never seen before; Aggie’s expression was studiously blank. My brothers, who had obviously heard the news, cut sideways glances at me as they spooned up their soup. I spoke not a word and mostly kept my head down, peeking up every now and then like a turtle in its shell. Travis telegraphed silent sympathy by waggling his eyebrows. Only Granddaddy and the baby seemed oblivious to the stormy atmosphere in the dining room. J.B. filled up the unaccustomed void in conversation by prattling on about his good Confederate toy soldiers and how they’d killed all the bad Yankee soldiers and how he’d fired his pop gun, and how he’d learned how to spell dog: D-O-O-G.
Mother in her distraction murmured, “That’s nice, dear.”
SanJuanna cleared the main course and spooned out bowls of cherry cobbler drizzled with fresh cream. She placed a bowl in front of me, causing Mother to come awake with a sharp, “No dessert for Calpurnia. And none for the next two—no, make it three—weeks.”
There was a sharp intake of breath around the table at this unprecedented punishment, and although draconian in the extreme, I was in no position to protest.
Travis murmured, “You can have some of mine, Callie,” to which Mother posted the immediate addendum: “And no one is to share with her!”
I sat with my hands in my lap while Lamar ostentatiously smacked his lips and said, “Gosh, this is the best cobbler ever.”
So like him.
On the way upstairs to bed, I ran into Travis and Sam Houston on the landing. Good. An older brother and a younger one.
“Sam,” I said, keeping my voice low, “when Father came home from Galveston and he gave us all some money, how much did he give you?”
“Ten dollars in gold. Why?”
“I just wondered.” Then I turned to Travis and sa
id, “He gave you five, right?”
My younger brother looked puzzled and spoke the few words that would break my heart. “No. He gave me ten, but he said not to talk about it. He gave each of us ten.”
“Each of us ten,” I repeated dully. So ten for the older boys and ten for the younger boys. But not for me. I pushed past them and ran to my room, where I flung myself on my pallet and let loose another torrent of bitter tears. I cried over my lost fortune and the unfairness of being blamed for it. I cried over my future. I cried over my prospects, shrinking rather than expanding as the years slipped by, hemmed in on all sides by the dismal expectations of others.
Aggie came in to prepare for bed. She ignored me and lit the lamp and changed into her nightgown. She brushed and braided her hair, continuing to ignore me.
Finally she said, “Oh, stop crying.” She fished a hankie out of the snake drawer and shoved it at me, saying, “Here. I’m not mad at you anymore. Now, get ready for bed so I can turn out the light.”
But I couldn’t stop. And I couldn’t tell her I’d put our fight behind me. I couldn’t tell her that I wept over the hard fact of being a half citizen in my own home.
CHAPTER 15
THANKSGIVING
It has always been a mystery to me on what the albatross, which lives far from the shore, can subsist; I presume that, like the condor, it is able to fast long; and that one good feast on the carcass of a putrid whale lasts for a long time.
THE DREARY WEEKS wore on, and Thanksgiving approached, although I myself could see little to be thankful about. It was my turn to be in charge of raising the turkeys that year. We always raised three: one for the family, one for the help, and one for the poor at the other end of town. Travis had raised them the year before and had, naturally enough, befriended his charges, going so far as to name them Reggie, Tom Turkey, and Lavinia. Disastrous, really, if you considered their ultimate fate, so I discouraged Travis from accompanying me to the turkey pen. For once this was not difficult. He’d learned the hard way that one couldn’t afford to become fond of creatures bound for the dinner table.
I had named my turkeys but I’d called them Small, Medium, and Big, a classification system with nothing personal about it (although perhaps it would have been more appropriate to call them Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest). I fed and watered them twice a day but kept my heart cold and aloof.
Question for the Notebook: What is the point of the male turkey’s wattle? Is it strictly for looks (gah), or temperature control, or what? I’d seen the green anole lizards, Anolis carolinensis, who lived in the lilies along our front walk inflate and deflate their pink neck pouches to entice females and repel males. But the turkey’s appendage struck me as so singularly ugly that I wasn’t convinced that even a lady turkey could find it attractive.
Two days before the holiday, I was pressed into making apple tarts under close supervision; Aggie volunteered to make what she grandly called her “specialty,” a pie of peach preserves in brandy with blackberry compote drizzled on top. The day before the big meal, we were all shooed out to allow Viola and SanJuanna to get down to it. Their preparations were massive, and even Mother joined in, her sleeves rolled up, her hair bound in a kerchief. She fortified herself with periodic headache powders and Lydia Pinkham’s, and looked tired but happy.
Father, concerned about her delicate constitution, cautioned her, “Be careful not to overtax yourself, my dear.”
The Day of Thanks dawned. We all ate a meager breakfast in anticipation of the huge meal that lay ahead. In consequence, by lunchtime I was practically starving, but the kitchen, filled with alluring smells, clouds of steam, and the cacophony of clanging pots, was off-limits.
Nevertheless (and knowing better), I girded my loins and stuck my head around the door. Viola juggled pots and platters madly like a master conjuror, every move a marvel of practiced efficiency, and even though I did not aspire to her talents, I nonetheless had to admire them. Her lower lip, distended by the plug of snuff that she inevitably took under such exhausting conditions, gave her an intimidatingly pugnacious look.
“Viola,” I said in my meekest voice, “do you think I could—”
“Out!”
“But I’m hun—”
“Out!”
What a grouch, but I really couldn’t blame her. I consoled myself with a stale macaroon I’d stashed away in my room for just such emergencies, sparse comfort in light of the enticing smells wafting through the house.
At two o’clock, we lined up for our baths, and at three o’clock, Mother went upstairs to change into her sapphire evening gown and sparkling jet choker. At four o’clock, our honored guest, Dr. Pritzker, arrived as Aggie and I were setting the table with the best china and crystal (always a dodgy idea with the little boys around).
While waiting for dinner, Dr. Pritzker and Granddaddy and Father entered into an animated discussion of the spread of tick fever across the Rio Grande, along with blackleg and foot-and-mouth disease, bovine maladies that were wreaking havoc on the Texas economy. I lurked on the edge of their conversation and was proud of Granddaddy’s fund of microbiology knowledge and the deference paid him by Dr. Pritzker. They debated the merits of dipping cattle in solutions of arsenic and tobacco and sulfur. Dr. Pritzker said, “There’s been talk of using electricity to treat the ticks. One of the students at A&M College rigged up an electrical current to the dipping vats and sent a charge into the water as the cattle went through.”
Granddaddy, a forward-thinking man, responded with enthusiasm. “An intriguing idea. And what were the results?”
“Unfortunately, the cows dropped dead on the spot. The ticks, on the other hand, all lived to swim away in search of a new herd.”
“Fascinating,” said Granddaddy. “I imagine some adjustment in the dosage of electricity is called for.”
Mother, overhearing this engrossing news, shuddered and turned to Aggie with a bright false smile and inquired after the latest news from her parents. Mother did her best to emulate the grand salons in Austin; tick fever was probably not the kind of polite parlor talk they engaged in there.
I pondered the marvels of electricity and longed for its presence in our lives. The thought of doing away with candles and lamps, and flipping a switch for light, was almost beyond belief. I knew it would never happen in our little part of the globe, sad to say.
At the magic hour of five, Viola sounded the gong at the bottom of the stairs, and we took our seats. I had hoped to be seated next to Dr. Pritzker, but instead he was seated between Travis and Aggie. Was I the only one who noticed the slight frown on her face about this?
Father said the blessing and included a special thanks that our kin had survived the tragedy of the Flood. I peeked over my steepled hands to note that Dr. Pritzker, while appearing attentive and polite, did not bow his head. Strange. And Aggie looked sour for no reason that I could tell. Then we tucked into the massive meal, all shoveling forks and discreetly jostling elbows, eating like farmhands who hadn’t seen food in weeks. Dr. Pritzker praised Mother lavishly on the feast, and she glowed under his compliments. There was enough to feed Coxey’s Army.
We opened with turtle soup, followed by an appetizer of creamed mushrooms on toast points. Then the turkey I’d raised was brought in to applause, now roasted crispy brown and dressed with currant jelly. I suspect it was Big (also known as Dumbest) but I couldn’t be sure. Father stood at the head of the table, sharpened his knife on the steel, and proceeded to carve. There was also a brace of ducks caught with Ajax’s help. Although the duck was flavorful, I avoided it; I’d once almost broken a tooth on a hidden shot.
We had roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, lima beans, corn fritters, glazed squash, and creamed spinach. We all had seconds, and some of us had thirds, and just when we thought we couldn’t eat another bite, it was time for dessert. Everyone oohed and aahed over Aggie’s pie, as if it were something really special. Nobody made much of a fuss over my tarts, but did I care? I did not.
Aggie ended up with the coveted wishbone, but I suspect that Mother had craftily orchestrated this with Father’s help. Aggie could have pulled it with Dr. Pritzker, but she turned away from him and pulled it with Travis. She got the long end and looked thoughtful, mulling over her wish for so long that the table grew restive.
“Oh,” she said, snapping out of it and looking around at our expectant faces. “Well, I wish that everything goes well for Momma and Poppa and our new house and all our dear friends in Galveston.” We all applauded politely, but there was something about this that struck me as, well, a little too pat. But how could you possibly object to such a selfless wish? She had come so far and suffered so much.
After dinner the adults retired to the parlor for a glass of fizzy wine, although how they could swallow even one mouthful was beyond me.
We children were strongly encouraged to go outside and play. A few of the boys attempted a halfhearted game of soccer but were too stuffed to do much more than stagger about in slow motion. A couple of the others went upstairs to lie down on their beds; I thought about my pallet with yearning but figured that, once down, it would take a block and tackle to raise me to my feet again.
The thankless task of cleaning up fell to SanJuanna, who’d brought in two of her grown daughters to help, such was the chaos left behind. Mother gave Viola, who had outdone herself, an extra silver dollar for her efforts.
Wisely, I snagged Travis to take a short constitutional walk with me in aid of digestion. It was one of my favorite times of day—the light going purple in the deep autumnal silence, broken only by the faint call of straggling late-migrating geese. We were both too full to make much conversation but we went ahead and made a small wager (three jujubes) on who could spot the first star.
Travis spotted a faint light in the west and chanted, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight—”