“Maybe you’ve got too many experts,” he said. “Come on in and have a drink. I know it’s too early in the morning but this is Christmas.”
So they all went into the house and Father telephoned Mr Connors to bring Jabbo. Jabbo was Uncle Noon Gatewood’s son. He was going to be a blacksmith too until Mr de Spain brought that first red automobile to town and, as Uncle Noon said, ‘ruint him’.
Though Gowan said that never made much sense to him because Jabbo used to get drunk and wind up in jail three or four times a year while he was still only a blacksmith, while now, since automobiles had come to Jefferson, Jabbo was the best mechanic in the county and although he still got drunk and into jail as much as ever, he never stayed longer than just overnight anymore because somebody with an automobile always needed him enough to pay his fine by morning.
Then they went into the dining room, where Mother already had the decanter and glasses set out. “Wait,” Father said. “I’ll call Gavin.”
“He’s already gone,” Mother said right quick. “Sit down now and have your toddy.”
“Maybe he hasn’t,” Father said, going out anyway.
“Please dont wait on them,” Mother said to Mr de Spain.
“I dont mind waiting,” Mr de Spain said. “It’s too early in the morning to start drinking for the next few minutes.” Then Father came back.
“Gavin says to please excuse him,” Father said. “He seems to have heart-burn these days.”
“Tell him salt is good for heart-burn,” Mr de Spain said.
“What?” Father said.
“Tell him to come on,” Mr de Spain said. “Tell him Maggie will set a salt-cellar between us.” And that was all then. Mr Connors came with a shotgun and Jabbo in handcuffs and they all went out to the car while Mr Connors handed the shotgun to Jabbo to hold while he got out the key and unlocked the handcuffs and took the shotgun back. Then Jabbo picked up the tire tool and had the tire off in no time.
“Why dont you,” Father said, “if you could just kind of embalm Jabbo a little — you know: so he wouldn’t get cold or hungry — tie him on the back of the car like he was an extra wheel or engine, then every time you had a puncture or it wouldn’t start, all you’d have to do would be to untie Jabbo and stand him up and unbalm him — is that the word? unbalm?”
“When you get it patched,” Mr de Spain said to Jabbo, “bring it on to my office.”
“Yessir,” Jabbo said. “Mr Buck can bring the fining paper along with us.”
“Thank your aunt for the coffee,” Mr de Spain said to Gowan.
“She’s my cousin,” Gowan said. “And the toddy.”
“I’ll walk to town with you,” Father said to Mr de Spain. That was Saturday. The Cotillion Ball would be Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday Jefferson had the biggest run on flowers the town ever had, even when old General Compson died, who had not only been a Confederate brigadier, but for two days he had been Governor of Mississippi too.
It wasn’t through any of us that Mr de Spain found out what Uncle Gavin was planning to do, and decided that he — Mr de Spain — had better do it too. And it would be nice to think that the same notion occurred to Uncle Gavin and Mr de Spain at the same time. But that was too much to expect either.
So it was Mrs Rouncewell. She ran the flower shop; not, Uncle Gavin said, because she loved flowers nor even because she loved money but because she loved funerals; she had buried two husbands herself and took the second one’s insurance and opened the flower shop and furnished the flowers for every funeral in Jefferson since; she would be the one that told Mr de Spain how Uncle Gavin had wanted to send Mrs Snopes a corsage to wear to the ball until Mother told him that Mrs Snopes already had a husband and he couldn’t send one to her alone and Uncle Gavin said All right, did Mother want him to send one to Mr Snopes too? and Mother said he knew what she meant and Uncle Gavin said All right, he would send one to each one of the Cotillion ladies. Until Mr de Spain had to do the same thing, so that not just Mrs Snopes but all the ladies of the Cotillion Club were going to get two corsages apiece.
Not to mention the rest of the town: not just the husbands and beaus of the ladies in the Club, but the husbands and beaus of all the other ladies who were invited; especially the husbands who were already married because they wouldn’t have had to send their wives a corsage at all because their wives wouldn’t have expected one except for Uncle Gavin and Mr de Spain.
But mainly Uncle Gavin since he started the whole thing; to listen to them around the barbershop getting their hair cut for the dance, and in Mr Kneeland’s tailor shop renting the dress suits, you would have thought they were going to lynch Uncle Gavin.
And one was more than just cussing Uncle Gavin: Mr Grenier Weddel and Mrs Maurice Priest. But all that came out later; we didn’t hear about that until the day after the Ball. All we knew about now was the corsage-run on Mrs Rouncewell, what Father called the Rouncewell panic. (“I had to make that one myself,” Father said. “It was Gavin’s by right; he should have done it but right now he aint even as faintly close to humor as that one was.”
Because he was cussing Uncle Gavin too since now he would have to send Mother a corsage that he hadn’t figured on doing since Uncle Gavin was, which would make three she would get — that is, if the rest of the men aiming to attend the Ball didn’t panic too and decide they would all have to send the members a separate corsage.) Because by Monday night Mrs Rouncewell had run clean out of flowers; by the time the north-bound train ran Tuesday afternoon all the towns up and down the road from Jefferson had been milked dry too; and early Wednesday morning a special hired automobile made a night emergency run from Memphis with enough flowers to make out so Mrs Rouncewell could begin to deliver the corsages, using her own delivery boy and Lucius Hogganbeck’s jitney and even renting Miss Eunice Habersham’s home-made truck that she peddled vegetables from to finish the deliveries in time, delivering five of them at our house which they all thought were for Mother until she read the names on the boxes and said:
“This one’s not for me.
It’s for Gavin.” And they all stood watching Uncle Gavin while he stood right still looking down at the box, his hand already raised toward the box and then his hand stopped too in midair. Until at last he broke the string and lifted the lid and moved the tissue paper aside and then — Gowan said it was all of a sudden yet it wasn’t fast either — moved the tissue paper back and put the lid back on and picked up the box. “Aren’t you going to let us see it?” Mother said.
“No,” Uncle Gavin said. But Gowan had already seen. It was the rake-head, with two flowers like a bouquet, all bound together with a band or strip of something that Gowan knew was thin rubber but it was another year or two until he was a good deal bigger and older that he knew what the thing was; and at the same time he realised what it was, he said he knew it had already been used; and at the same time he knew at least how Uncle Gavin was supposed to believe it had been used, which was the reason Mr de Spain sent it to him: that whether Uncle Gavin was right or not about how it had been used, he would never be sure and so forever afterward would have no peace about it.
And Gowan was just thirteen then; until that one, he wouldn’t have thought that anybody could have paid him or even dragged him to a Cotillion Ball. But he said he had already had to see too much by now; he had to be there if there was going to be anything else, any more to it, even if he couldn’t imagine what else there could be after this, what more could happen at just a dance.
So he put on his blue Sunday suit and watched Mother with her hair all primped and Grandmother’s diamond ear-rings trying to make Father say which one of her four corsages to carry: the one he gave her or to agree with the one of the other three that she thought went best with her dress; then he went across to Uncle Gavin’s room where Uncle Gavin got out another white bow tie like his and put it on Gowan and a flower for his buttonhole too and they all went downstairs, the hack was waiting
