Americana Stories—Fiction

The Queen of Cabbage, by Shayna Shanes

I am Queen of the Wallflowers! I am their champion. We are sanguine sisters in blue stockings, armed to the teeth with quills. We prefer a quarto to a quadrille, a counter argument to a contra dance.

This is what I told myself as I passed my ribboned reflection in the foyer’s gilded looking glass and turned the corner to the staircase. My real sister continued into the hall for the dancing. She had dragged me to the assembly so she could flirt with every man in Philadelphia. She knew I would shirk my duty as her chaperone in favor of my own schemes. She was for the dance, her card was full. I was for the library upstairs.

Our family owned four and twenty books, which was no trifle. My friends and I swapped novels when we had the good luck to acquire them. I borrowed books from my neighbors when I could do so without attracting negative attention for being an avid reader. But my appetite knew no satiety.

I stealthily climbed the staircase praying no one would notice. I was not supposed to be here. But books were my bonbons. My nose led me to that particular sweet smell of wood pulp and paste. The door was ajar and the candles were lit as if someone were expecting me. I could not refuse the invitation.

I walked the perimeter of the room and ran one hand along all the book spines within my reach. All the foreign titles sat together on the last shelf. With a smirk I reached for Richardson’s Clarissa, in French. The plot was praised by everyone but me. In fact it was a story that made my blood boil. Clarissa’s family insisted on marrying her to a man she hated for their own financial gain. She ran away but as a lady she did not have any skills to survive on her own. Her end was tragic, all of society and Clarissa herself allowed her to die for her sin of seeking her own happiness.

I turned the book over in my hands and finally opened it to a random page. My French was middling, but I knew this story and sought to challenge myself to make out the words.

Perhaps because my nose was in a book and my ears were tuned to the distant strains of Purcell’s Lilliburto I was taken by surprise by the sight of a pair of immaculately polished buckled shoes not one yard from where I stood. I had not heard anyone enter the room. For all my independence I understood the inappropriateness of finding oneself alone with a strange man. The irony was portent. I would not chaperone my own sister, for I could not chaperone myself. Caught off guard, I hesitated to look up from the page.

I beg your pardon, he said. I did not mean to startle you.

I raised my eyes to survey the interloper. Though I’d never met him before I instantly recognized him as the most famous man in Philadelphia. He relieved any anxiety I might have felt with a most amiable expression. He radiated fatherly interest. Smiling with his eyes he leaned over to see what I was reading. I was not afraid.

Aimez-vous lire des histoires tristes?

I liked that he made no pretense to a French accent. Like his plain but pristine coat, his necessary yet silver rimmed spectacles. For reasons I can’t explain, I wanted to choose all the right words. He had a reputation for wit and erudition. I felt the weight of this auspicious meeting.

Pas necessairement, I replied sheepishly. Pas celui-ci.

I bought that novel for my own daughter, he said. What is your objection to it?

Clarissa should never have died, I told him. Her fate should not have been a spectacle. It was a ridiculous waste of cabbage.

He seemed intrigued. Please explain your meaning?

Suppose a farmer planted a field of cabbage, I explained. Suppose he watered and tended them until they were large and green and ready to be harvested. Suppose he harvested just half his crop then burned what was left of his field.

And why would a man do that? he asked.

With all due respect, why does society summarily discard half the minds that God has planted among us? Do you not think everyone might benefit from giving women the opportunity to test their cabbage brains, just as men do? One may easily observe that not all cabbages
are equal.

He laughed at my sophistry.

I continued. Clarissa isn’t a pawn, she’s a person. Her family destroyed her with their greed and cruelty. She looked to Mr. Lovelace to rescue her. When he didn’t she accepted the lie that her life was over. Though she might have gone to America and started over, do you not think?

Clarissa eschewed her family’s protection and threw herself into the arms of a rake, he corrected me. Her death was the outcome of her disobedience. Perhaps you yourself are disobedient and turn from Clarissa’s example in hope of a better outcome on the strength of
your…cabbage?

He leaned in a bit closer. I blushed, I’m sure, as I misjudged his motive. He showed me the book he’d chosen for himself, Voltaire’s Candide.

Perhaps, he said, Candide may substitute as a healthy compromise between the effort of fulfilling one’s duty and achieving a happy outcome?

Perhaps, I countered, we Americans need a heroine of our own. America needs its own novel.

A curious idea, he said. What do you propose?

Well, this heroine will be brave and beautiful, of course. Her mind is open to new ideas. She is not afraid of hard work or hard times. She is resilient to change and she helps all her neighbors, no matter their creed or kind. Her heart is wide open, she wears it on her sleeve.

And her lover? Every heroine has a lover.

Hmmm. He ought to be her equal in intelligence and ingenuity. He knows they are happier and more prosperous working together than apart.

I was conscious I was babbling.

Once again he took the liberty of leaning in just a bit closer and I froze for fear of the unknown. I lowered my eyes. I could not anticipate his next move.

He placed one hand on my shoulder. When I looked up his expression was austere.

He spoke as a judge issuing a verdict that would change my life forever.

If you write it, he said, I will publish it.

Then he turned and walked away, leaving me alone and deep in thought. My mind was spinning with possibilities. I was queen of all cabbages, in search of my sister, eager to rush home. I had a story to write.

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