The Curious World Of Calpurnia Tate Part 20

AS I BRUSHED MY HAIR one hundred strokes at bedtime, I asked, "What is the sea like, Aggie? And the beach, what is that like? What about seash.e.l.ls? Is it true that you can just walk along and pick them up for free, or do you have to pay for them?"

"Pay? Don't be silly-who would you pay?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

"You pick up whatever you want, although why you'd bother, I don't know."

"For a sh.e.l.l collection, of course." One of my resolutions last New Year's Eve had been to set eyes on the ocean-any ocean-before I died, and since there was considerable doubt that this would ever happen, a sh.e.l.l collection would be a valuable thing to get my mitts on.

Aggie said, "I can't imagine why anyone would want a bunch of dirty old sh.e.l.ls."

I found this conversation discouraging but persevered with, "Have you ever seen a dolphin? I've read all about them. They're mammals, you know, warm-blooded. Not fish at all."

"How can they not be fish?" she said. "They live in the water. They have to be fish."

I stared at her in disbelief. For a girl who was privileged enough to live by the sea, she was dismally stupid about it.

I sighed and said, "Does the sun not sparkle on the dancing waves?"

She cast me a look. "Where'd you get that from?"

"Um, I read it somewhere."

"Right. Okay, well, I suppose you could say that's true when the weather's nice."

I said, "Tell me about the waves."

She looked perplexed. "The waves wash stuff up on the sand."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Oh, rotten fish, dead seagulls, driftwood, old seaweed, junk like that. And pee-yoo, it really does stink sometimes. Although once I found a gla.s.s fisherman's float, and once I found an empty bottle of rum that had floated all the way from Jamaica."

"Gosh! Was there a note in it?"

"No." She yawned.

"But did you keep it anyway? I'd love to have something like that."

"Whatever for? It's only a bunch of old junk."

The conversation was definitely not going as I'd hoped, but I pushed on. "Tell me about the tides."

"What's to tell? The tide comes in for a while and then it goes out again. Sometimes you can hear it."

"It has a sound? What does it sound like?"

"Well, when it's quiet, it makes a noise like this: shoosh-shoosh. Sometimes it's loud, when the waves crash on the rocks and make a big racket. It just depends."

"What does it depend on?"

She looked at me as if I were speaking Chinese. "How would I know?"

Her att.i.tude struck me as very unsatisfying. How could she not know, how could she not find out, how could she not care? I wondered if something else had gone wrong with her in addition to her anemia and neurasthenia. Maybe she'd been injured in the Flood in some other way that didn't show. Maybe she'd been hit on the head and had all the curiosity knocked out of her. Question for the Notebook: What causes the waves? And the tides? Discuss further with Granddaddy.

The next day, a small package arrived for her and, casually loitering over the mail, I noted that the return address was one "L. Lumpkin, 2400 Church Street, Galveston." Who, or what, was an L. Lumpkin? I was about to carry it up to her when she dashed in from outside and fell on the parcel like a stooping falcon, clutching it to herself, face alight. Then she wheeled without a word and pelted up the stairs at full speed.

Goodness. How terribly rude. And how very interesting.

I found her in our room wrestling with the hairy twine holding the package together. In exasperation, she screeched, "Scissors! Get me scissors!"

I ran downstairs to retrieve the pair in my knitting bag in the parlor, but by the time I got back, she had managed to pull the package apart. Inside was a box that she placed on the desk and opened reverently. Inside this box was a smaller box and a letter. Hands clasped to her bosom, she paused to savor the moment, whatever it was.

I made the mistake of murmuring, "What is it?"

She turned on me. "What does it take to get some privacy in this house? Get out!"

Offended, I said, "There's no need to yell. I can certainly tell when I'm not wanted." I left in a state of wounded pique, my feelings lacerated but my head held high. Here I'd been thinking we were friends of a sort.

I went downstairs and made the mistake of pacing the hallway, where Mother managed to snag me for piano practice.

As Aggie and I got ready for bed that night, she said, "Callie, where's the hairbrush?"

I plunked it down in front of her. A few minutes later, "Callie, have you seen the pumice stone?"

I plunked that down too, and was treated to the sound of her rasping her heels for five minutes.

"Callie, what have you done with the-"

"Nothing! Whatever it is! Find it yourself-I'm not your maid."

A frosty silence prevailed. I could tell she was bursting to tell me something but we studiously ignored each other until it was almost time to blow out the lamp. Finally she said, "All right. Can you keep a secret?"

Offended, I retorted, "Of course I can. I'm not a child, you know."

"Do you swear not to tell? Hold up your right hand and swear."

I did so, but even this seemed not to satisfy her and she said, "Wait, where's my Bible?"

"Really, Aggie."

She pulled her Bible from the wardrobe and made me place my right hand on it. Oh, serious business indeed. If you broke this kind of promise, didn't that mean you would go to H_ll? But what if you were tortured with hot pokers and flogged with the nine-tailed cat until you told? Would you be excused in that case? My knees trembled a little, as did my voice.

"I swear not to tell."

"And never to tell at any time, now and forevermore."

"Never to tell, now and forever. Amen."

Her whole face relaxed, and she smiled in a way I'd never seen before. Why, she wasn't bad-looking at all, a fact obscured by her habitual ill temper and all the worry and woe she carried about on her shoulders.

Mother had given her a carpetbag to replace the gunnysack she'd first arrived with, and she retrieved from it the small box I'd seen earlier. She bade me sit at the desk and handed it to me with great care.

I opened the box to find a cased photograph of a young man of twenty or so, trussed like a turkey in a tight suit and stiff collar, his hair plastered flat for the grand occasion of having his portrait made.

"There he is," she whispered, her expression going all soppy the way Harry's had when he'd wooed his first girlfriend.

I studied the pale moonish face, the skimpy mustache, the slightly buck teeth, the struggling beard.

"Isn't he marvelous," she breathed in a voice clotted with deep emotion.

Well ... no. He looked rather like a smelt. To be charitable, some of this was probably due to having to hold his breath and freeze in place for the photograph, but some of it looked like an actual deficit in personality. I'd heard Granddaddy say there was no accounting for other people's taste, and here was living proof.

"Who is he, Aggie?"

"Why, that's Lafayette Lumpkin, of course. He's my beau. But n.o.body knows, and you mustn't tell." She squeezed my shoulder with an iron grip.

"Ow, that hurts. I won't. I promised. How'd you meet him?"

"He used to work as a bookkeeper in Poppa's store. But then he asked to walk me home, and Poppa fired him the very next day on some trumped-up charge. But he didn't do anything wrong. Poppa just wanted him out of the way."

"Why?"

"Poppa says his family comes from the wrong side of the tracks, and maybe they do, but I don't care a whit. Lafayette is a self-made man," she said proudly. "He learned accounting through a correspondence course, you see, and has made every effort to better himself, but it's not enough for Poppa, who's forgotten that he pulled his own self up by his bootstraps. He thinks I should marry a Sealy or a Moody or one of the other first families of Galveston. They're all rich as Croesus, but I spurn their advances."

She picked up the photo and hugged it to herself tenderly. Her gaze softened, and her voice went all dreamy. "My heart belongs to Lafayette."

Now, this was all very romantic, but exchanging secret letters with a man without her parents' approval was a dangerous game, one that could only end in trouble and tears. No wonder she swooped on the mail every day before anyone else could get a look at it.

"He's asked for my photograph-isn't that sweet? But I lost the only one I had in the Flood."

"There's a photographer in Lockhart, Hofacket's Portrait Parlor. Granddaddy and I went there and had our photograph made with the Vicia tateii."

She gave me an odd look. "You had your photograph made with that plant?"

"Of course. They say it's important to memorialize special occasions."

"They're referring to weddings and christenings and suchlike. Not plants."

"I'll have you know that finding a new species is a very important occasion. Look," I said, opening the desk drawer and pulling out the portrait of Granddaddy, myself, and our discovery. "Look there," I said, pointing proudly.

"That's it?" she said with a touch of scorn, and tossed the photo aside as if it were nothing. Nothing. Most of the goodwill she'd been banking with me evaporated, and I sank into a snit. My photo of the vetch was every bit as important to me as Lafayette Lumpkin's was to her. And though I'll admit that the plant looked bedraggled and unprepossessing, suffering as it was that day from heat stress, still, it was a brand-new species and deserving of respect. There was just no interesting some people in the most important things.

"Wait a moment," she said, picking up the photograph and examining it keenly; I watched her absorb its significance as both a scientific and historic doc.u.ment. The light dawned within her. How gratifying. Up until this moment, she'd viewed me at best as a somewhat strange companion, at worst, an annoyance. Now she would take me seriously. Now we would have stimulating discussions on other subjects besides money. Now we could be explorers together. She tapped the embossed gold seal in the lower left corner that read Hofacket's Fine Portraiture.

"You said this place is in Lockhart?"

"It's kitty-corner to the courthouse. Why?"

"Why do you think?" she said, looking at me as if I were slow. "I can get my picture made for Lafayette. What does it cost, and when is the next trip to town?"

Gah. So much for exploring Nature and Science together.

"It costs a dollar, and I think Alberto's taking the wagon on Sat.u.r.day."

"Good. I'll go then."

"I'm going too." I rapidly counted up the number making the trip, and realized that the addition of Aggie meant I would lose my spot on the spring seat up front, and I'd have to sit in the wagon bed. Still, a trip to the big city (population 2,306), with its many attractions, including electricity, was always worth it, with the library, the mercantile, the tearoom, and the bustling traffic. The library meant dealing with the elderly lady librarian, one Mrs. Whipple by name, a terrifying old bat who kept a close watch on the books, deciding whether children should be allowed them or not. She'd once humiliated me by refusing me a copy of Mr. Darwin's book The Origin of Species; fortunately, Granddaddy had remedied the situation by giving me his own copy, but still I trembled under Mrs. Whipple's sour gaze.

I asked Aggie, "How are you going to explain a portrait?"

"I'll say it's for Momma and Poppa, of course, to replace the one they lost in the Flood."

Gosh, here I was thinking I could be devious as all get-out when the situation demanded it, but Aggie had me beat all hollow. That girl could really think on her feet.

SAt.u.r.dAY, MY FAVORITE DAY of the week, rolled around. I knocked on our own library door and heard the usual response of "Enter if you must."

"Granddaddy, we're going to Lockhart. Do you want me to return your library books?"

"That would be most kind. Also, let me give you this list of books I'd like to check out."

I took his list and ran for the wagon. Sitting up front were Alberto, Harry, and Aggie. Sul Ross and I sat on an old quilt in the back. I'd brought my copy of The Voyage of the Beagle, and kept him entertained by reading aloud from the exciting parts. He especially liked the parts about cannibalism, but I had to keep my voice low so that the adults in front did not overhear.

When we got to town, the others all piled into Sutherland's Emporium ("Everything Under One Roof") on the square, a ma.s.sive department store all of three stories high and filled with enticements both practical and frivolous. I headed for the library.

The library was dim and smelled of paper, ink, leather, and dust. Ahh, the enchanting smell of books. Really, what could be better? Well, one thing that could be better would be the absence of Mrs. Whipple, the resident harpy.

I placed the books I was returning on the counter. Fortunately she was nowhere in sight, but I heard the swish of the threadbare black bombazine dress she wore in all weather, along with the faint creaking of her whalebone corset, and caught a whiff of mothb.a.l.l.s, which meant she lurked nearby. Strange. Then she suddenly popped up from behind the counter like a jack-in-the-box, right in my face. I jumped about a mile and squeaked like a baby mouse, but even while jumping had to marvel at how her stout elderly form could be so springy and quick.

"Well," she said grimly, "if it isn't Calpurnia Virginia Tate, skulking about as usual."

How bitterly unfair! I knew how to skulk, and this was not skulking. Why did she have it in for me, this horrible custodian of the books? We were both book lovers, were we not? Logically, we should have been kindred spirits, and yet for some reason, we managed to perpetually enrage each other, seemingly without effort. Maybe it was time to make peace, bury the hatchet, extend the olive branch, make sincere apologies for our mutual wrongs.

Or maybe not quite yet.

Anger rose like bile in my throat. I bit it back and said in the most syrupy voice I could dredge up, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Whipple. I'm so sorry you thought I was 'skulking.' It's just that you startled me. Gosh, you're really agile for such a heavyset, uh..."

She flushed such an alarming beetroot color that I worried I'd gone too far and would be blamed for her death by apoplexy.

"I think," she said, "it's best that you leave. I'm too busy to deal with an impertinent chit such as you." She turned her back on me and headed for the Texas History section.

Evicted from the library! A new low! How on earth would I explain it to Mother? But speaking of chits, I remembered the note I carried from Granddaddy. In certain circles, the mere invocation of his name worked as a golden key to magically open doors that otherwise would have remained firmly closed to me; in other circles, composed mainly of the ignorant, the unwashed, and the unread, he was treated derisively as a loon, the "mad perfessor," espousing heretical ideas, likely unstable, possibly dangerous.

Mrs. Whipple knew Granddaddy to be a founding member of the National Geographic Society; she knew him to be in correspondence with the Smithsonian Museum, and whatever her own feelings about the theory of evolution, she had to grant that he was the most learned man from Austin to San Antonio, and likely beyond.

"Before I go, Mrs. Whipple, my grandfather wants me to check out these books." I extracted the note and smoothed it carefully on the counter. "They're for him, you see. For his research. His personal research."