A Short History of a Small Place
Page 24
“Democrats,” Momma said.
“Democrats too,” Mrs. Phillip J. King said back.
Then Mrs. Phillip J. King told me and Momma how Miss Elizabeth Mercer Dundee and Mr. Alton Daniel Nance were joined together in holy wedlock at four p.m. on the fifth of June in between two ligustrum hedges out back of the congressman and Mrs. Dundee’s house, and she said her momma told her everybody who was anybody went to watch it except for Mrs. Ashley Marian Marian Ashley Nance Wainick who Mrs. Phillip J. King said was a little miffed with her people and so stayed clear of the whole business.
“They went to Paris, don’t you know,” Mrs. Phillip J. King said, “for a full month, and Momma told me they stayed at the Ritz Hotel right there in downtown which put Miss Sissy directly in the middle of a whole block of dress shops and which put Mr. Alton near enough to the big museum to stroll to it. Momma said nobody appreciated a good picture like Mr. Alton, who probably took after his daddy to a degree but was able to stand for something other than ducks. And Momma said whenever Mr. Alton got weary from looking at pictures or studying statuary, he would hunt himself up a bench somewhere along about the Eiffel Tower and spend several hours on it reading a portion of what book he happened to be carrying in his jacket pocket at the time. Momma said nobody appreciated good writing like Mr. Alton. And she said whenever Mr. Alton could talk Miss Sissy into it, her and him would go to the opera house after dinner and hear a performance. Momma said Miss Sissy did not have much feeling for music and so would usually spend the best part of the evening trying to see who was looking at her, but as for Mr. Alton, Momma said nobody appreciated a fine melody like he did. She said he was highly cultivated in most every area.”
Mrs. Phillip J. King told me and Momma they steamed to England when the month was out, and she said Miss Sissy and Mr. Alton visited around the countryside for several weeks and then settled in temporarily in the manorhouse of a viscount and viscountess who Mr. Alton’s daddy’s money had gotten him introduced to previously. According to Mrs. Phillip J. King, Miss Sissy and Mr. Alton slept in the actual bed that Queen Victoria had once sat upon to have her shoes removed and her feet rubbed by a serving woman. Mrs. Phillip J. King said Queen Victoria had not been particularly dainty as queens go and so was ever exhausting her arches, she called it. And Mrs. Phillip J. King told me and Momma how as a momento the vicountess gave to Miss Sissy half of a teacup that the Prince of Wales’s valet had knocked off a serving tray with his elbow and broke on the floor, and for his part the viscount presented Mr. Alton with a silver-tipped walking stick that somebody or another had left in the front coat closet, he could not remember who exactly but was certain it hadn’t been Queen Victoria or the Prince of Wales’s valet. Mrs. Phillip J. King said Mr. Alton and Miss Sissy and their piece of teacup and their walking stick departed for New York in mid-August when the viscount told them the weather would be most favorable, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said it would have been except for the hurricane which was supposed to have drifted off in the other direction but did not and so kept the water stirred up all the way across the ocean. Consequently, there wasn’t much of anything to do but sleep since hardly anybody could hold a fork still enough in front of his mouth to snatch from it whatever might be on it or to even want to, except of course for Mr. Alton who Mrs. Phillip J. King said had the constitution of a walrus, which she intended as a compliment. So Mr. Alton took his meals alone in the dining room and afterwards had brandy and played canasta with two waiters and a bartender which left Miss Sissy to herself below decks where she could go ahead and curl up beside the toilet on a blanket and not be underfoot.
Mrs. Phillip J. King said Mr. Alton and Miss Sissy had not planned to stop over in New York City for more than an evening, but once the boat docked Miss Sissy was so worn out and dried up that Mr. Alton got them a room at the Waldorf Astoria for a week, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said Miss Sissy attempted to regain her regularity with a near steady stream of chocolate parfaits minus the nuts while Mr. Alton lived almost entirely off of medium rare beefsteaks that he would have brought directly to the room along with Miss Sissy’s ice cream. Mrs. Phillip J. King said nobody enjoyed a good beefsteak like Mr. Alton. By the end of the week Miss Sissy was well enough to wander out of the sight of a toilet, and according to Mrs. Phillip J. King Mr. Alton took her out to the parks and the museums and the Bronx zoo and after that to Coney Island where he somehow or another finagled her onto the parachute drop and got her sick all over again. So Miss Sissy went back to her parfaits and Mr. Alton went back to his medium rare beefsteaks only now she took hers upstairs and he took his downstairs since Miss Sissy held it against Mr. Alton that he did not tell her the parachute drop would do what it did. And Mrs. Phillip J. King imagined they would have made it up before they left New York if Mr. Alton had not accidentally knocked Miss Sissy’s overnight bag off the dresser and then stomped on it attempting to catch it, all of which pretty much finished what the Prince of Wales’s valet had started. So Mrs. Phillip J. King said by the time their train pulled into the Burlington station, Mr. Alton and Miss Sissy had already begun to dislike each other a little.
According to Mrs. Phillip J. King they set up house in a bungalow just behind Mr. Alton’s daddy’s mansion and the four of them shared domestics, Mrs. Phillip J. King called them, which simply meant that the maid and the chef and the gardener were ever beating it back and forth from the mansion to the bungalow or from the bungalow to the mansion so as to keep all the Nances from doing much of anything whatsoever themselves. Mrs. Phillip J. King said Miss Sissy gave each of her friends a sliver of the Prince of Wales’s valet’s teacup and told them all that the Prince himself had hurled the cup and the saucer too into the Viscount’s fireplace in a fit of passion. Mrs. Phillip J. King said her own Momma had told her that the Prince of Wales was in fact a highly passionate man, so Miss got by with the teacup story and she kept the biggest piece of the handle for herself and had it strung on a chain and made into a necklace, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said of course whenever Miss Sissy wore her teacup handle necklace everybody who hadn’t heard it firsthand already wanted to know just how the piece of handle came to be separated from the rest of the teacup and Miss Sissy would oblige them with her version, which did not remain one version exactly, Mrs. Phillip J. King said, since she guessed Miss Sissy had the Prince of Wales hurling that teacup against most everything in the Viscount’s house but the Viscount himself and most times it was on account of the Vicountess who Sissy said the Prince of Wales had eyes for. Mrs. Phillip J. King said her momma told her nobody could tramp all around the truth like Miss Sissy Mercer Dundee Nance.
Now according to Mrs. Phillip J. King Mr. Alton Nance went around Burlington with his silver-tipped walking stick near about as regularly as Miss Sissy did with her teacup handle necklace, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said whenever people wanted to know where such a fabulous walking stick could have come from Mr. Alton would tell them that the Viscount fetched it out from a coat closet and gave it to him and he didn’t know anything about it aside from that. Mrs. Phillip J. King called this Mr. Alton’s usual straightforward bearing and she said it was just a part of what people adored in him aside from his natural good looks and sweet disposition. ,
And once Mrs. Phillip J. King broke off long enough to change directions I managed to ask her, “What’s a viscount anyway?”
And Mrs. Phillip J. King told me it was near about the same as a count.
“Like Dracula?” I said, who was the only count I knew of right off.
But Mrs. Phillip J. King said it wasn’t like Dracula at all. She said Dracula was an Italian kind of count and Mr. Alton’s viscount was an English kind of count, so while Dracula didn’t have anything in the world to do but chase folks all over the countryside, Mr. Alton’s was all the time being called upon to represent the royal family at parades and such.
“Sort of like a Duke?” I asked her.
And she said yes, a viscount is like a duke who is like a prince only there are
more viscounts than dukes and more dukes than princes. Then she asked me did I see what she meant.
And I said, “Yes ma’m” so as to let her get on with it.
Mrs. Phillip J. King told me and Momma that Mr. Alton’s father-in-law, Congressman Dundee, threw a welcome home party for Mr. Alton and Miss Sissy right there between the ligustrum hedges where their wedding had been, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said all of Congressman Dundee’s Republican friends were there and some Democrats too, she added, and she said her Momma told her Mr. Alton hobnobbed with the politicians and Miss Sissy hobnobbed with the politicians’ wives and the men talked about campaigns and fund raising while the women talked about the Prince of Wales who was still a fairly fresh topic in Burlington. And Mrs. Phillip J. King said before the week was out Mr. Alton’s Daddy and Mr. Alton’s Momma threw a welcome home sitdown dinner at the Nance mansion, and she said all of the men raved over the roast duckling and the women raved over the sauce on top of it and then left the men by themselves at the table where they talked about finances and profits while the women took coffee on the patio and quizzed Miss Sissy on the Prince of Wales. And Mrs. Phillip J. King said it was the next weekend that Mr. Alton and Miss Sissy threw a party of their own on the lawn outside the bungalow, and she said her momma told her half the guest were friends of Congressman Dundee and half the guests where Mr. Alton’s daddy’s former business associates, and she said the men mostly stood around with their hands in their pockets and talked about baseball while the women continued to dissect the Prince of Wales who they had already very nearly worn out but not entirely.
So Mrs. Phillip J. King said it shaped up that Mr. Alton’s daddy’s friends and Mr. Alton’s daddy-in-law’s friends were Mr. Alton’s friends too which was fine with Mr. Alton but which also meant that Mr. Alton’s momma’s friends and Mr. Alton’s momma-in-law’s friends were Miss Sissy’s friends too, which Mrs. Phillip J. King said was not particularly fine with Miss Sissy since that made all her friends old enough to be her mother while one of them was. According to Mrs. Phillip J. King Miss Sissy desired a little more pizzazz in her life than Mr. Alton seemed inclined to allow for. Mrs. Phillip J. King said Miss Sissy needed pizzazz like she needed food, which Mrs. Phillip J. King said her momma told her was on account of Miss Sissy’s tropical disposition. “Hot, don’t you know,” Mrs. Phillip J. King said.
“Hot?” Momma asked her.
“Yes ma’m. Hot.” And Mrs. Phillip J. King said it turned out that Miss Sissy had a touch of hussy in her after all.
“A Dundee of the Congressman Dundee’s?” Momma said.
And Mrs. Phillip J. King told her, “Yes’ma’m. Flat out loose.”
And Momma shot her eyes at me and said to Mrs. Phillip J. King, “Unprincipled.”
And Mrs. Phillip J. King said, “Yes ma’m. Unprincipled too.”
Of course nobody knew right off that Miss Sissy was loose and unprincipled, probably not even Miss Sissy herself. According to Mrs. Phillip J. King all anybody knew was that Mr. Alton kept on with his Daddy-in-law’s politicians and with his daddy’s former business associates while Miss Sissy did not keep on with their wives. Instead Miss Sissy took up consorting, Mrs. Phillip J. King called it, with several girls she’d known in school all of whom Mrs. Phillip J. King’s momma had told her traveled with a fast crowd which Mrs. Phillip J. King said was the same as loose which Momma said was the same as unprincipled. According to Mrs. Phillip J. King Mr. Alton didn’t object to or interfere with Miss Sissy’s renewed connections because he had a pure and trusting heart and so most likely did not even suppose that Mrs. Sissy could manage anything sinful, and aside from his pure and trusting heart Mr. Alton, along with his daddy, was at the time pretty thoroughly preoccupied with what Mrs. Phillip J. King called a scorching dispute which sounded to me more in the way of a Throckmorton imbroglio than anything else. What had happened was Mr. Alton’s daddy had decided there was really no reason for him to settle for a painted duck dropping into a painted pond when he could have the real feathered kind setting down in legitimate water if he only applied himself to the pursuit of it, so Mrs. Phillip J. King said he did apply himself to the pursuit of it and applied Mr. Alton to the pursuit of it also which gave the both of them something to do since Mr. Alton’s daddy had already retired from his occupation and Mr. Alton himself had yet to embark on one. Of course they started with the pond since the Nance property had not come supplied with one already, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said Mr. Alton and Mr. Alton’s daddy staked it out over a creekbed that ran near the backside of the Nance acreage so as to put a sizeable pine grove between the ducks and the Nance mansion and bungalow. Mrs. Phillip J. King said a duck was a very private sort of creature.
Mr. Alton oversaw the clearing of the land and Mr. Alton’s daddy oversaw the actual digging of the pond and the eventual stocking of it with the sorts of fish Mrs. Phillip J. King said a duck would go tail up over. Then Mr. Alton and Mr. Alton’s daddy together built a number of duck boxes for the animals to breed in and set them out around the pond along with a load of bread crusts and several dozen decoys. And Mrs. Phillip J. King said of course they got all the ducks they wanted almost right off, and Mr. Alton’s daddy made a bench out of a hewn log and put it back a ways in the pine grove so he could sit on it and watch the ducks approach from over the far treetops and drop into the pond with all of the grace and agility of bowling balls which Mrs. Phillip J. King said is natural for a duck. So Mr. Alton’s daddy and Mr. Alton when he chose to would sit on Mr. Alton’s daddy’s hewn log bench in the seclusion of the pine grove and study any number of the creatures as they fell out of the sky or climbed back up into it, and Mrs. Phillip J. King said Mr. Alton’s daddy and Mr. Alton too could not have been more satisfied with the way the ducks took to the pond and took to the duck boxes, so she said the trouble when it started was not ducks exactly; the trouble was almost purely Gottliebs.
Mrs. Phillip J. King said a whole assortment of Gottliebs lived just beyond the back reaches of the Nance property on about an acre and a half of packed dirt. They had started out in two houses with Grandmomma and Granddaddy Gottlieb in the one and their boy Buster Gottlieb and his wife Cynthia June Cuthbert Gottlieb in the other, but Mrs. Phillip J. King said right from the first Buster had a way of keeping Miss Cynthia loaded up with a Gottlieb year round and it didn’t seem that she would hardly drop a new one before another one was already in the breech, so once Buster and Miss Cynthia’s house got packed full with Gottliebs they sent the next few on over to Buster’s momma and daddy’s house, which wasn’t but fifteen or so yards away, and then a few after that and a few after that until both Gottlieb houses were slam full up with Gottliebs. Mrs. Phillip J. King said consequently Buster and his daddy had to do some expanding and they slapped together a room on the end of Buster’s house so as to catch the Gottlieb overflow, but Mrs. Phillip J. King said that was just a temporary solution since what Gottliebs there were already got steadily bigger and what Gottliebs there hadn’t been continued to arrive, so Buster and his daddy set at it again and this time they stuck a room on the end of the other house and several Gottliebs spilled over into it relieving the pressure for a spell. And Mrs. Phillip J. King said just when it looked like Miss Cynthia was all done with Gottliebs she had a set of twin girls followed by a single male Gottlieb all three of which forced Buster and his daddy into the construction business again, and this time they went ahead and put a room between the new one on Buster’s house and the new one on Buster’s daddy’s house and thereby connected the two houses together so that all the Gottliebs could mix and circulate freely. Mrs. Phillip J. King said Buster and his daddy let it out that what they had built was a breezeway, but she said her momma told her it most resembled a mine shaft without the earth on top of it.