A Short History of a Small Place (30 page)

“And wasn’t it cookies, Helen?” Momma asked.

“Wasn’t what cookies?” Mrs. Phillip J. King asked her back.

“Wasn’t it cookies instead of Pepsi-Cola?” Momma wanted to know. “Didn’t Mr. Alton’s Daddy make those savannahs with the white cream filling and those little oval shortbread cakes that came in the blue sack?”

And Mrs. Phillip J. King got a little hot on account of the cream-filled savannahs and the shortbread cakes and she said to Momma, “Now Inez, he might have dabbled in cookies later but I can tell you for a fact it was Pepsi-Cola at the first because Momma said it was Mr. Womble at the Nehi and Mr. Foster at the Coca-Cola and Mr. Tod W. Smith at the Sundrop and Mr. Nance at the Pepsi-Cola, and Momma herself told me it was Pepsi-Cola that made him his money but I don’t ever recall a whisper of cookies passing her lips. And even if he went into cookies later, the cola business had already gotten him rich enough not to need to. No, I don’t recall any savannahs or shortbread cakes in a little blue sack and I certainly would remember that seeing as how I simply adore shortbread cakes.”

“So it wasn’t cookies then?” Momma said.

“No ma’m, it was Pepsi-Cola that got them filthy with it, and I mean absolutely and gloriously filthy with it. Don’t you know Mr. Alton’s daddy built his wife a mansion on thirty-seven acres just the Durham side of Burlington, and Momma said it was made out of some kind of brick that had to be sent for from across the ocean. And of course all the fixings were brass you know except for the doorknobs that were made from pure cut crystal and had to be sent for along with the brick. Now the momma and daddy of Mrs. Dupont Nance had thrown in with their daughter a sizeable portion of furniture for dowery, and Momma said it so very nearly filled up the entire house that all Mrs. Dupont Nance had to buy was several wool rugs, which she got directly from the mill there in Burlington, and all Mr. Alton’s daddy had to do was get hold of any number of pictures for the walls which Momma said he got from God knows where and which turned out mostly to be pictures of ducks, some of them flying off to the frame on the left-hand side and some of them flying off to the frame on the right-hand side and some of them taking off from reedy marshes and some of them landing in them and some of them just bobbing on top of them.” Then Mrs. Phillip J. King left off talking and left off legwagging and stared at Momma’s centerpiece in a very earnest way until she could get enough breath to tell me and Momma how it seemed to her that Mr. Nance had possessed a great fondness for ducks. And Momma said that was very possible.

According to Mrs. Phillip J. King the reason Mr. Alton ended up as rich as he ended up and got to be as notable as he got to be was because his sister did not inherit anything of what she was supposed to inherit. Miss Ashley Marian or Marian Ashley Nance married a Wainick before she turned twenty and knowing full well that her momma and daddy did not approve of Wainicks since none of them came from much of anything but other Wainicks who did not come from much of anything themselves. Mrs. Phillip J. King said Miss Ashley Marian Marian Ashley Nance tried to tell her Momma and Daddy that her Wainick, who was Frank Wainick, was a different strain of Wainick, a sort of Wainick with gumption, Mrs. Phillip J. King called it, and Miss Ashley Marian Marian Ashley invited her parents out to Mr. Frank Wainick’s dairy farm so they might see for themselves what a very clean and proper operation it was. But Mrs. Phillip J. King said that Mr. Alton’s daddy and Mrs. Dupont Nance did not take up the invitation and went ahead and disapproved of Frank Wainick along with all the rest of the Wainicks. So when Miss Ashley Marian Marian Ashley got married she did not receive any money and did not receive any furniture, not even a single picture of a duck as far as Mrs. Phillip J. King could tell, and on the day the honeymoon commenced Mr. Alton’s daddy revised his will so as to make his daughter a Wainick entirely. Consequently, Mrs. Phillip J. King said, Mr. Alton Nance ended up gloriously rich instead of just plain rich and ended up notable instead of only heard of.

“Now of course,” Mrs. Phillip J. King said, “he didn’t see much of any money until he turned twenty-one and got a whole load of it, and Momma said he set to racing through that like he might wear out his daddy’s fortune before any one of them could manage to die rich. It mostly went towards girls, you know, I mean dozens and dozens of them which is what Momma said and Momma was hardly ever given to stretching the truth. And you have to remember, Inez, that this was probably ten or twelve or maybe even fifteen years before his cheekbones gave way, so he was just purely dashing and gloriously rich and Momma said he could simply wink at a girl and very nearly make her fall over. And of course with all those girlfriends he absolutely had to have some sort of suitable way to get from one to the other, so Momma said he sent off to London, England, for a touring car which came over to New York City in the bottom of a boat and arrived in Burlington on a train. Momma said Mr. Alton himself drove his new vehicle out from the boxcar and onto the platform and folks collected all around the fenders and tried to figure out how in the world he would guide the thing with the steering wheel being where it was.” Then Mrs. Phillip J. King told me and Momma confidentially that most people in Burlington were about as worldly and refined as houseflies. “But they became accustomed to his foreign made automobile,” Mrs. Phillip J. King said, “and they all got used to seeing some one of his girlfriends or another riding where he should be and him driving where she should be, but Momma said of a sudden it stopped being a whole pack of women that got rode all around town and through the countryside to Graham and Pittsboro. She said of a sudden it was one woman who was really not even a woman yet but was the honorable congressman Mr. Robert L. Dundee’s baby girl, Sissy Dundee, who Momma said might have been seventeen at the time but probably wasn’t. And Momma said Sissy Dundee claimed the seat beside Mr. Alton all for herself and her and him went around Burlington together and sometimes got so far as Raleigh of a Sunday, and Momma said she heard they slipped off to Richmond once for the entire weekend, but Momma imagined that was just a tale since the congressman and Mrs. Dundee were not the sort of people to bring up a hussy. So Miss Sissy decided that he was for her and Mr. Alton decided that she was for him and Momma said it got so you couldn’t have kept the two of them apart with a wall of fire, so of course whenever Congressman Dundee got all’his political friends together for a party Miss Sissy and Mr. Alton usually made an appearance which is most likely when he started meeting all those Republicans.”

“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. ,