The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Mother didn’t look as if she’d heard me. My courage, watery and irresolute to begin with, ebbed away. I took off my so-called prize and pinned it on J.B., and he dashed away to admire himself in the hall-tree mirror. Mother started up the stairs to take off her hat.

“Ma’am, where’s Harry?” I called.

She stopped on the landing, one hand on the rail, the other reaching for her hatpin. “He’s walking Fern Spitty home,” she said. Her expression was shuttered.

“And . . . ?”

“What do you mean, and? And nothing.”

“I wondered if . . .” I wondered if this was good news or bad, that was all. But I had no intention of meddling.

“Please don’t wonder, Calpurnia. I find it’s dangerous when you wonder.” Mother started up the stairs again. “And kindly don’t meddle.”

There she went, reading my mind again. It was scary. And me, dangerous? That was a laugh. At least I had the answer though: Fern was good news. But if Mother thought Harry courting Fern was a good idea, what did this mean about her ambitions for him to go to the university? I couldn’t figure it out.

A FEW DAYS LATER, Harry went to dinner at the Spittys’ home on the San Marcos Road. He came home long after we were all asleep. I noticed that nobody quizzed him the next morning at the breakfast table. I opened my mouth once or twice but thought better of it. Then Fern and her parents came to Sunday afternoon tea at our house. This was in truth the slimmest of formalities, as our families had been acquainted for years. I wondered why they were coming to tea instead of dinner. Did it have anything to do with the fact that the children were banished from these genteel afternoon entertainments? Or that Granddaddy wouldn’t have stuck around for tea at gunpoint?

I got to see Fern arrive before we were all ordered outside to play (meaning, disappear). Her dress was rose-colored silk. Her hat was an enchanting confection of plumes and gossamer silk, dyed to match her dress. She made an appealing picture, unlike the loathsome Goodacre.

I went out through the kitchen. Viola was bent over an elaborate cake, holding her breath and applying the final decorations of nonpareils, those tiny edible metallic nuggets that crunched thrillingly between the teeth. SanJuanna was arranging crustless finger sandwiches and candied flowers on an enormous silver tray. Neither one of them looked up. The atmosphere was tense. They were both dressed in their good dark clothes and wearing spotless starched white aprons, ruffles standing out at their shoulders like wings. I walked out the back door to the laboratory. Why waste time “playing,” as I’d been ordered, when I could spend some valuable time with Granddaddy? He didn’t find me dangerous when I wondered about something. In fact, he encouraged it.

“Good afternoon, Calpurnia,” he said. “Are you not having afternoon tea today?”

“Mother said we had to go outside while the Spittys are here. She’s probably worried I’ll frighten them off.”

“That may be,” said Granddaddy, “although why Margaret finds you a frightening child, I don’t understand.”

“Thank you, sir. Neither do I.”

“Good, we’re in agreement. Kindly set this beaker up for another run, will you?”

We busied ourselves in the shabby laboratory while the mating dance went on in the parlor.

“It’s funny,” I said, “that girls have to be pretty. It’s the boys that have to be pretty in Nature. Look at the cardinal. Look at the peacock. Why is it so different with us?”

“Because in Nature it is generally the female who chooses,” he said, “so the male must clothe himself in his finest feathers to attract her attention. Whereas your brother gets to choose from the young ladies, so they have to do their best to catch his eye.”

“It’s much too much work,” I said. “All the clothes, the hats. And the hair dressing. When Mother dressed my hair for the piano recital, why, it took ages. And the corsets! Mrs. Parsons faints all the time in the summer from her corset. I don’t know how they stand it.”

“Neither do I. It’s a silly idea. Your grandmother wasn’t one for such nonsense.”

“Granddaddy.”

“Hmm?”

“Tell me about her. Grandmother, I mean.”

“What do you want to know about her?”

“Everything. I’ve never heard any stories about her. She died before I was born.”

“She did? Yes, I suppose she did. She was a woman who grew hard later in life.”

“Was she interested in science?”

“Not particularly. And you must remember, we were struggling to recover from the War. The economy was in shambles. I was trying to build up a business and had no time left over for studying the natural world or anything else for that matter. Hand me that other beaker, will you? She was an excellent needlewoman. And she did enjoy reading novels in the spare time that she had.”

“I got a prize at the fair for tatting.” I grimaced.

“Did you? I didn’t know you were interested in that sort of thing.”

“I’m not. I hate it, and I’m no good at it. I haven’t told Mother that it was third place out of three.”

“Never mind. Tatting was never my strong suit, either.”