The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Out of the blue, Granddaddy said, “About damned time, too. That boy was starting to worry me. What’s for dessert?” One of the interesting things about Granddaddy was that you couldn’t always tell if he was present or not.

Dinner dragged on forever. Whatever we had for dessert, it was ashes in my mouth. When SanJuanna came in to clear the table, Mother said, “You are all excused. Except for Calpurnia.”

The others trooped out while I hunkered down at my place. Father lit a cigar and poured himself a larger-than-usual glass of port. Mother looked like she badly wanted one and rubbed her temples.

“Now, Calpurnia,” she said, “what is it you know about this . . . this . . . young lady?”

I thought of the way that Harry had glared at me. “Nothing, ma’am,” I said, sounding the retreat and recalling my battalions as fast as I could.

“Come, come. Surely he must have told you something about her.”

“I don’t know anything,” I said.

“Stop this, Calpurnia. How did you find out about her? And what is happening to your face? You look all blotchy.”

“Harry showed me her visiting card, that’s all,” I said.

“Her card?” My mother’s voice rose. “She has a card? How old is she?”

“I don’t know anything,” I said.

Mother looked at Father and said, “Alfred, she has a card.” My father looked interested but not alarmed. Clearly the significance of this fact escaped him.

My mother got up and started pacing. “She is of an age to have a card, and my son has been calling on her without telling us. He has been courting her, and we’ve never even met her. She’s a Leap—she’s an Independent, Alfred.”

Mother wheeled on me. “She is an Independent, isn’t she? Tell me, Calpurnia.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Ack, you useless child! Go to your room and don’t say a word of this to anyone. Are you breaking out in hives? Did you fall in the nettles again? Get some baking soda and make a compress.”

I slipped from my chair and hurried to the kitchen. Viola sat at her table, taking a short rest while SanJuanna pumped water in preparation to start on the mountain of dishes on the counter.

“Mother sent me for baking soda,” I mumbled.

“Good Lord,” said Viola when she saw my complexion. “How’d you get like that?”

“Nettles,” I lied. “I just need a compress.”

Viola squinted at me and opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. She got up and sprinkled soda on a damp rag and handed it to me without saying a word. SanJuanna eyed me as if I might be contagious.

As I went up the stairs, I could hear my parents’ voices in the dining room, my mother’s raised in outrage, my father’s rumbling in placation.

Sul Ross and Lamar were lying in wait for me on the landing and followed me to my room.

“What’s going on? What happened to Harry? What’s wrong with your face? Tell us.”

I ran past them to my room and slapped the cooling rag on my tingling cheek. What had I set in motion? Something I could no longer control. I was a novice commander, shocked by the destruction my troops had wrought.

I lay awake in bed that night waiting for Harry to come home. The half-moon was up before I heard the creaking of the harness and the crunching of the gig on the gravel drive. I held my breath and listened. The house was suspiciously silent. I imagined Mother and Father lying in their big mahogany bed with its heavy carvings of cherubs and fruit. They would be wide awake, or at least Mother would be.

I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and slid around the perimeter of the room, careful to avoid the floorboard in the middle that cracked like a pistol shot. The stairs were also notoriously loud, so I pleated up my white cotton nightgown and slid down the banister as I’d done my whole life. It was fast and quiet transportation, but I misjudged in the dark and braked late and hit the square newel post hard enough to earn myself a nice blue bruise on my behind, a two-weeker, at least.

The moon lit my way to the stable. I crept to the door and looked inside. Harry curried Ulysses in the lantern light and hummed a song that I recognized with a lurch as “I Love You Truly.” He looked so happy, happy in a way I’d never seen him look before.

“Harry,” I whispered.

He turned and his face grew hard. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Go away. Go to bed.” He went on brushing the horse.

Oh, that look.

There had been times in the past when I’d been in some kind of mild trouble with him and, uncomfortable as those times had been, they had always passed. I had basked safe in the knowledge that I was forever his favorite; I took his love on faith and wrapped it around me like a blanket. But this was different. I had fundamentally injured him while trying to protect us, to protect him. No. If I were being honest, to protect myself. And I felt the first icy grip of grief around my heart.