The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate (27 page)

“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 Saturday.”

“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.

*   *   *

S
ATURDAY, 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 massive 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 mothballs, 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.”

She turned, and I could tell by the look on her face that she did see. Torn, tight-lipped, she nevertheless snatched up the list, ran her narrowed eyes over it, and then, without looking at me, wheeled into the stacks, barking, “Twenty minutes.”

Good. There was time to browse the Emporium and maybe catch up with Aggie getting her portrait made. With a light heart and a light step, I headed for the square. We were lucky to have such a fine library when the majority of counties across Texas had none at all. Dr. Eugene Clark, a physician dying young, had bequeathed ten thousand dollars for its construction so that the young woman who had declined his proposal of marriage would have a proper library and lyceum in which to study literature and music. It had been built for love. And those of us in Caldwell County who could read were the beneficiaries.

I told myself,
Calpurnia, you're a lucky girl, even if you do have to deal with such a gorgon to check out books.
Actually, that was the tiniest bit unkind, was it not? Apparently it was more unkind than that, because by the time I'd made it to the square on this clear, fine day, a small black cloud of guilt had gathered on my internal horizon.

I wondered why Mrs. Whipple disliked me so much. I realized that if she'd had no particularly good reason before, she had a plenty big reason now, and I had handed it to her on a plate. I inspected my behavior, trying to shine at least a neutral light on it, but could not. At best I had been rude. At worst I had been cruel. I tried to put myself in her shoes (or rather, her creaking corset): a widow, elderly, eking out a scanty existence, having to put up with impertinent children like, well, me. She was the Keeper of the Books, and deserving of respect. No matter that she treated the books as if they were her own, reluctant to hand them over to careless strangers who might not accord them the respect they deserved, who might have grubby hands, who might commit the sin of underlining or writing in the margins, who might even commit the ultimate evil of losing one of the precious volumes! Unthinkable!

Ack, Calpurnia, you wicked girl. I'd have to make it up to her somehow. I would make a sincere apology to her to clear my conscience. Let her dislike me if she would; I would refuse to dislike her. She could not make me.

At Sutherland's I examined the scents and soaps and powders, far more plentiful and elegant than the selection at the Fentress General Store. A bar of fancy lavender soap in a decorative tin caught my eye, and I thought it a suitable gift for an old lady. I allowed myself the briefest of sighs before telling myself to buck up and then forking over a whole quarter. I didn't have enough left over for a root beer float, but never mind. Now that I had my own income, I figured there'd be plenty of floats in my future.

I wandered up to the mezzanine tearoom, where ladies sat in delicate gilt chairs among the potted palms and drank from bone china cups and ate teeny-tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off (don't ask me why). I admired the pressed-tin ceiling, the slow turning of the two-bladed electric fans, the whooshing of the overhead pneumatic tubes carrying money and receipts back and forth across the store at a dizzying speed.

I went downstairs and found Harry buying cigars for Father. He said, “What have you got there, pet?”

“It's for Mrs. Whipple, the librarian. Do you think she'll like it?”

“Very suitable. But why are you buying her a gift?”

“I was mean to her.” I explained the situation but did not tell him I had spent all my money, I swear. He commiserated and said, “Very commendable, pet. Come on, I'll buy you a float or a sundae, whichever you like.”

“Gosh, really?” Life was looking up.

We sat side by side on swiveling stools at the fountain. Harry ordered a brand-new treat made from a split banana, an exotic imported fruit we'd never seen before. Of course, I had to order the root beer float. I admired the practiced ease with which the soda jerk assembled it, scooping the vanilla ice cream, adding the aromatic root beer, nicely calibrating just how high it would foam up in the tall tulip-shaped glass, almost but not quite overflowing, then topping it off with a dollop of glossy whipped cream and a shiny red cherry before sliding it to me on a frilly paper napkin with both a spoon
and
a straw.

I spooned up the whipped cream and pushed the ice cream to the bottom, discreetly slurping the fizzing slurry through my straw. Harry was kind enough to give me two bites of his banana split (there were definite advantages to being his pet), and it was such a marvelous treat that I resolved to have one of my own next time, even though they cost thirty cents!

Then I wandered through the various departments and admired the goods for sale. For some reason, they didn't carry books in stock. Maybe the store owner wasn't much of a reader, or maybe he figured the library was enough.

We went out to the street, where Harry and Alberto began to load up supplies. I wandered over to Hofacket's Portrait Parlor (“Fine Photographs for Fine Occasions”) and was about to go in and look for Aggie when something in the window caught my eye. There, wedged between a photograph of a naked baby on a bearskin rug and an awkward countrified bride and groom in clothes rented for the occasion, was a familiar sight: Granddaddy and me and the Plant, on display for all the world—or at least all of Lockhart—to see. Goodness, we were locally famous. I wondered, could this be why Mrs. Whipple had it in for me? But no, she'd disliked me long before we'd discovered the Plant.

I went in, the tinkling bell overhead signaling my arrival.

“Take a seat!” hollered Mr. Hofacket. “I'm in the middle of a portrait here.”

Then Aggie called, “Calpurnia, is that you? Come back here if that's you.”

I pushed through the curtains into the studio where Aggie sat posed on an ornate wicker chair like a throne. In her lap she held a large spray of artificial roses and trailing greenery. She frowned at the flowers and said, “What d'you think? With the flowers or without?”

Mr. Hofacket looked up and said, “Why, hello, Miss Calpurnia. So nice to see you again.” Mr. Hofacket had been much taken with our discovery and, if left to his own devices, would rattle on at length about the Plant's importance and the critical part he'd played in establishing the existence of a new species on the planet and how his close-up of
Vicia tateii
now resided at the Smithsonian, with his—Hofacket's—own embossed seal on the reverse, for anyone to see, forever and ever, and so forth and so on.

He inquired in respectful tones after Granddaddy's health and mine before I headed him off at the pass and asked him why he had our picture in the window.

“Well, missy, that's a good question. It's such a good question that half a dozen people come in here and ask it every single day, and then a lot of them stay to get their portraits done. It's what you might call a curiosity piece, a real conversation starter. Why, I remember one day—”

“With the flowers or without?” Aggie interrupted. “Sorry, Mr. Hofacket, but I don't have all day, you know.”

“Right, right.”

“So with or without?” Aggie stared at me with more than a flicker of impatience.

The flowers were fine approximations of the real thing, clearly made by someone who had studied the originals in Nature. “With, I think. They're very pretty. It's a shame that the colors won't show.”

This sent Mr. Hofacket into gales of laughter at the thought of capturing color on a photographic plate. Aggie arranged the flowers while Mr. Hofacket loaded his magnesium flare and burrowed under his black cloth. “Hold real still,” he commanded. “Three, two, one.” The magnesium lit the room with a brilliant white light, leaving us momentarily stunned and blinded.

“Right,” he said, “that should do 'er. You say you want two copies?”

“Yes, sir,” said Aggie. “That's two dollars, right?”

“Right. Give me half an hour or so. They should be dry by then.”

Aggie and I headed back to the Emporium but not before I pointed out the Plant in Hofacket's window. To my great satisfaction, she did look somewhat impressed, albeit grudgingly.

I left her fingering the fabrics and lace at the store and, screwing up my courage, headed back to the library to make my apology, present my gift, and perform whatever penance was expected of me.

I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and went in. To my simultaneous consternation and relief, Mrs. Whipple was nowhere to be seen. A small stack of books sat on the counter, tied with twine and bearing the briefest note:
Books requested by Captain Walter Tate, Fentress.
I tucked the books under my arm and carefully centered the pretty little tin of soap in the exact same spot. The brave part of me wanted to track her down in the stacks and follow through with my plan. The coward in me was highly relieved and thought, “Next time.” This latter part seized the upper hand and whispered, “Hurry up, the wagon's waiting for you.” Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't, but I chose to believe it and skedaddled out the door, congratulating myself on both my bravery and my cowardice.