Mason & Dixon Page 12

  “Why, Aye. So do I recollect myself, the first time it happen’d to me . . . ?”

  Mason suspicious, sniffing Enthusiasm,— “To you? Do they allow you to talk about that?”

  “I’ve been booted out of Raby Meeting, haven’t I . . . ? I can reveal all the mystick secrets I wish . . . ?”

  “One first must keep one’s Hat on one’s Head, correct?”

  “Aye, the Spirit ever fancies a bonny Hat,— but the fairly principal thing, is to sit quietly . . . ? It took me till well out of my Youth to learn, tho’ now I’m not sure I remember how, any more . . . ?”

  “That’s it? Sit quietly? And Christ . . . will come?”

  “We spoke of it as the Working of the Spirit, within. ’Tis a distinct Change from the ev’ryday . . . tha wouldn’t be able to miss it, should it happen . . . ?”

  “Yet then, you say, it passes. . . .”

  “It abides,— ’tis we who are ever recall’d from it, to tend to our various mortal Requirements . . . ? and so another such Visit soon becomes necessary,— another great Turning, and so forth . . . ? Howbeit, ’tis all Desire,— and Desire, but Embodiment, in the World, of what Quakers have understood as Grace . . . ?”

  Starting about then, rain-bound, whenever he may, Mason contrives to sit in some shutter’d room, as quietly as he knows how, waiting for a direct experience of Christ. But he keeps jumping up, to run and interrupt Dixon, who is trying to do the same, with news of his Progress,—

  “Jere! I think it almost happen’d! D’ye get a kind of rum sensation here,”— touching the center of his Forehead,— “is that it?”

  “Mason, first tha must sit,— not jump up and down like thah’ . . . ? And then, sit quietly. Quietly. . . .” Back they go, till Mason in his Chair, falling asleep, topples with a great Crash, or Dixon decides he’ll step out after all, nip down to The World’s End, and see what the Cape Outlawry may be up to.

  Little by little, as weeks pass, the turn of Spirit Mason and Dixon imagine they have witness’d is reclaim’d by the Colony, and by whatever haunts it. Any fear that things might ever change is abated. Masters and Mistresses resume the abuse of their Slaves, who reply in Bush tongues, to which, soon enough hoarse with Despair, with no hope of being understood, they return, as to childhood homes. . . . Riding in and out of Town now may often be observ’d White Horsemen, carrying long Rifles styl’d “Sterloops,” each with an inverted Silver Star upon the Cheek-Piece.

  When Mason and Dixon encounter Vrooms in the Street they bow, and pass, with each exchange lapsing closer to Silence. By the time the Southeaster has advanc’d to the Circumference of the Day, there remains nothing to say to them, nor to any who have been their Hosts. “I warn’d you all,” Mrs. De Bosch lilts, triumphant, “did I not, ev’ryone. Nor should I be much surpriz’d, if those frightful Instruments they brought, have serv’d quite another Purpose here.”

  When they leave the Cape, no one is there at the Quay to say good-bye but Bonk, the police official who earlier greeted them. “Good luck, Fellows. Tell them at the Desk, I was not such a bad Egg, no?”

  “What Desk is that,” ask Mason and Dixon.

  “What Desk? In London, off some well-kept Street, in a tidy House, there will be someone at a Desk, to whom you’ll tell all you have seen.”

  “Not in England, Sir,” Mason protests.

  For the first and final time they see him laugh, and glimpse an entire Life apart from the Castle, in which he must figure as a jolly Drinking Companion. “You’ll see!” he calls as they depart for the Ship in the Bay. “Good Luck, Good Luck! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Resounding upon the Water ever-widening between them.

  “What made them leave home and set sail upon dangerous seas, determining where upon the Globe they must go, was not,— Pace any Astrologists in the Room,— the Heavenly Event by itself, but rather that unshining Assembly of Human Needs, of which Venus, at the instant of going dark, is the Prime Object,— including certainly the Royal Society’s need for the Solar Parallax,— but what of the Astronomers’ own Desires, which may have been less philosophical?”

  “Love,— I knew it,” Tenebræ all but sighs.” ’Twas Love for the Planet Herself.”

  “Nothing like your own, of course,” beams her Uncle. “I recollect that when you were no more than three, you saw Venus through your Papa’s fine Newtonian for the first time. ’Twas in the crescent Phase, and you said, ‘Look! the Little Moon.’ You told us that you already knew the Moon had a little Moon, which it play’d with.”

  “We would go outdoors, long after bed-time, up to the pasture,” she is pleas’d to recall, “— the Observatory wasn’t built yet. The Ponies would all stand together, quite cross, and watch us as we came up, their eyes flashing in the light from our Lanthorns, and I always thought I could hear them muttering, for it was clear we were disturbing them.”

  “Did they bite you?” inquires Pitt.

  “Hard?” adds Pliny.

  “Rrr!” she raises her Hoop as if to hurl it at them.

  “Do find a way,” advises Aunt Euphrenia, careering into the room, with her Oboe and an armload of sheet-music, “to wrangle with less Noise, or your old Uncle will have to sell you, as a Brace, to the Italians rumor’d to live South of this City, where you shall have to learn to sing their vulgar Airs, and eat Garlick ev’ry day, as shall ev’ryone else,— ”

  “Hooray!” shout Pitt and Pliny. “For Breakfast, too!”

  “Tra-la, say, Food Perversion? nothing to do with the Cherrycoke side of the family,” sniffs Aunt Euphrenia, producing the most wicked-looking of Knives, and beginning very carefully to carve a Reed for her Instrument from a length of Schuylkill-side Cane. “Yes lovely isn’t it?” she nods after a while, as if responding to a Pleasantry.” ’Twas given me by the Sultan. Dear Mustapha, ‘Stuffy’ we call’d him in the Harem chambers, amongst ourselves . . .”

  When Brae, once, and only once, made the mistake of both gasping and blurting, “Oh, Aunt,— were you in a Turkish Harem, really?” ’twas to turn a giant Tap. “Barbary Pirates brought us actually’s far as Aleppo, you recall the difficult years of ’eighty and ’eighty-one,— no, of course you couldn’t,— Levant Company in an uproar, no place to get a Drink, Ramadan all year ’round it seem’d,— howbeit,— ’twas at the worst of those Depredations, that I took Passage from Philadelphia, upon that fateful Tide . . . the Moon reflected in Dock Creek, the songs of the Negroes upon the Shore, disconsolate,—” Most of her Tale, disguis’d artfully as traveler’s Narrative, prov’d quite outside the boundaries of the Girl’s Innocence, as of the Twins’ Attention,— among the Domes and Minarets, the Mountain-peaks rising from the Sea, the venomous Snakes, miracle-mongering Fakeers, intrigues over Harem Precedence and Diamonds as big as a girl’s playfully clench’d fist, ’twas Inconvenience which provided the recurring Motrix of Euphrenia’s adventures among the Turks, usually resolv’d by her charming the By-standers with a few appropriate Notes from her Oboe,— upon which now, in fact, her Reed shap’d and fitted, she has begun to punctuate her brother Wicks’s Tale, with scraps of Ditters von Dittersdorf, transcriptions from Quantz, and the Scamozzetta from I Gluttoni.

  11

  “The St. Helena of old had been as a Paradise,” avers Euphrenia. “The Orange and Lemon-Groves, the Coffee-Fields,— ”

  “Gone before your Time, Euphie.”

  “Does that mean I am forbidden to mourn them? They are mine as much as anyone’s, to mourn.”

  “I’d be last to lay any sort of claim,” says the Revd, “— whilst the Astronomers were sailing there from the Cape, I was journeying on, quite the other way, to India, and then past India. . . . St. Helena was a part of the Tale that I miss’d, and along with it the Reverend Dr. Maskelyne, who has continued, even unto our Day, as Astronomer Royal, publishing his Almanack and doing his bit for global Trade.”

  �
��Something wrong with that, Wicks?” inquires Mr. LeSpark.

  “Only insofar as it is global, and not Celestial,” replies the Revd, with a holy Smirk master’d in his first week of Curacy.

  The Merchant of Purposeful Explosion throws an arm across his Brow. “Your Halo blinds me, Sir. Aye, most Italian,— Joy of it, I’m sure.”

  “More of this Brandy ought to dim it some.” Genial Uncle Lomax, grinning mischievously at his older Brother, pours the Revd another Beaker-ful. From outside, frozen Rain sweeps briefly yet pointedly at the glossy black Window-Panes.

  “Then how are we ever to know what happen’d among the three of ’m upon that little-known Island?” Uncle Ives a bit smug, ev’ryone thinks.

  “Well, let us see. Maskelyne was there the better part of a Year,— aware, from early on, that he could not obtain the Observations he wanted, owing to a defective Plumb-line suspension on his Sector, yet there, enisl’d, remaining,— twenty-nine years old, first time he’s been away from home, and he’s facing months in what proves to be,— those whose bed-time is nigh, stop your Ears,— an infamous Port of Call, quite alone in the mid-Atlantic, a Town left to shift as it may, dedicated to nought but the pleasures of Sailors,— which is to say, ev’ry species of Misbehavior, speakable and not.”

  “Tides and Lunars cannot have provided the Reverend Maskleyne full occupation,— one is understandably curious as to what else may’ve befallen him.”

  “Something must have,” the Revd Cherrycoke agrees, “— else he should have emerg’d mad as all sooner or later go, upon that Island.”

  “An attack of Reason,” suggests Mr. LeSpark.

  “What’s the Mystery?” Ethelmer shrugs. “Didn’t Days take twenty-four Hours to pass, as they do now?”

  Brae peers thro’ the candle-light. “Why Coz, how interesting.”

  The idea, in making Port at St. Helena, is to keep to windward, get South-east of the Island, and let the Trade Winds carry you to the coast,— which you then follow, generally northward, till you come ’round to the lee side, and on into the harbor of James’s Town,— where despite appearances of Shelter, the oceanic Waves continue to beat without ceasing, the Clamor wind-borne, up across the Lines and the Parade, all being reduced to Geometry and optical Illusion, even what is waiting there all around, what is never to be nam’d directly.

  Once ashore, the Astronomers hear the Ocean everywhere, no Wall thick, nor Mind compos’d, nor Valley remote enough to lose it. It shakes the Ground and traverses the Boot-soles of the Watch, high in the ravines. The floorboards of Taverns register its rhythmick Blows, as they have the Years of Thumps from the swinging boots of Seamen whose destinies were sometimes to include Homicide, as if keeping Faith with that same Brutal Pulse, waiting upon a Moment, needing but the single sighting,— sworn to, vanish’d,— the terrible Authorization.

  Tho’ the sun nightly does set below the Island’s stark horizon, what Mason sees, from his first Nightfall there, is Darkness, rising up out of the sea, where all the carelessly bright day it has lain, as in a state of slum ber . . . whilst at dawn, that same Darkness, almost palpably aware of his Regard, appears to withdraw, consciously, to a certain depth below the Atlantick Surface. In the Astrology of this island, the Sun must be reckoned of less importance than Darkness incorporated as some integral, anti-luminary object, with its own motions, positions, and aspects,— Black Sheep of the family of Planets, neither to be sacrificed to Hades nor spoken of by Name. . . .

  Sirius, which Maskelyne remains here to observe, is the Island’s Zenith-Star, as is Gamma Draconis for Greenwich. (Englishmen are born under the Dragon, St. Helenians under the Dog. At Bencoolen Mason and Dixon would have been under inconstant Mira, in the Whale. These signs are the Apocrypha of Astrology.) Ev’ry Midnight the baleful thing is there, crossing directly overhead,— the Yellow Dog. There inverted among the Wires, all but flowing. Treacly, as you’d say,— would even a Portsmouth Poll wear such a vivid, unhealthy shade of Yellow?

  A very small town clings to the edge of an interior that must be reckoned part of the Other World. No change here is gradual,— events arrive suddenly. All distances are vast. The Wind, brutal and pure, is there for its own reasons, and human life, any life, counts for close to nought. The Town has begun to climb into the Ravine behind it, and thus, averaged overall, to tilt toward the sea. After Rain-Storms, the water rushes downhill, in Eagres and Riffles and Cataracts, thro’ the town, rooftop to rooftop, in and out of Windows, leaving behind a shiv’ring Dog from uphill, taking away the Coffee Pot, till leaving it in its turn somewhere else, for a Foot-Stool,— thus bartering its way out to sea. The Horizon has little use for lengthy sunsets. Creatures of the Ocean depths approach the shore-line, as near as the little Coves where the water abruptly becomes Lavender and Aquamarine, remaining to observe, deliberate in their movements, without fear.

  For years, travelers have reported that the further up into the country one climbs, the more the sea appears to lie above the Island,— as if suspended, and kept from falling fatally upon it, thro’ the operations of Mysterion impenetrable on the part of a Guardian. . . . As if in Payments credited against the Deluge, upon no sure Basis of Prediction, the great Sea-Rollers will rise, and come against the Island,— reaching higher than the Town with the Jacobite Name, tho’ perhaps not quite to the ridgeline above it. For anyone deluded enough to remain down at sea-level, there must come a moment when he finds himself looking upward at the Crests approaching. The Public Trees quite small in Outline below them. The Cannon, the Bastions, of no Avail. Did he choose, more prudently, to escape to the Heights, he might, from above, squinting into spray whose odor and taste are the life of the sea, behold a Company of Giant rob’d Beings, risen incalculably far away over the Horizon, bound this way upon matters forever unexplain’d, moving blind and remorseless across the Sea, as if the Island did not exist.

  Not as spectacular, older residents declare, as the Rollers of ’50. Then, it seem’d, ’twas the Triumph of a Sea gone mad, and the Island must be lost. . . . Being part of a general Exodus to high ground, one may not pause for too long to gaze and reflect upon the fastnesses of empty water-plain, the Sun-glare through the salt Mists after the sleepless climb thro’ the Dark,— the only Choices within one’s Control, those between Persistence and Surrender. Within their first week upon the Island, all visitors have this Dream.

  Out upon Munden’s Point stand a pair of Gallows, simplified to Pen-strokes in the glare of this Ocean sky. A Visitor may lounge in the Evening upon the Platform behind the Lines, and, as a Visitor to London might gaze at St. Paul’s, regard these more sinister forms in the failing North Light,— perhaps being led to meditate upon Punishment,— or upon Commerce . . . for Commerce without Slavery is unthinkable, whilst Slavery must ever include, as an essential Term, the Gallows,— Slavery without the Gallows being as hollow and Waste a Proceeding, as a Crusade without the Cross. Down at the end of the great Ravine that runs up-country from the sea, beneath the cliffs, along the Batteries, in the evenings, Islanders looking to catch the breeze will nightly promenade. If one ignores the guns darkly shining and the arm’d Sentries, the Island might be fancied an East Indiaman of uncertain size, and these crepuscular parades to and fro, a Passengers’ turn upon her Weather-decks,— though at closer inspection each Phiz might suggest less a Traveler’s Curiosity, than some long-standing acquaintance with the glum, even among the women who appear, each Sunset.

  Besides those resident here for purposes of Nautickal Amusement, the Birds of passage thro’ St. Helena make up a mix’d flock,— Convicts being transported to the South Seas for unladylike crimes in England, with St. Helena one of the steps in their Purgatory,— young Wives on their way out to India to join husbands in the Army and Navy, a-tremble with tales, haunting the Day like a shadow from just beneath the Horizon ahead, of the Black Hole of Calcutta,— and Company Perpetuals, headed out, headed home, such shuttles upo
n the loom of Trade as Mrs. Rollright, late of Portland, who keeps opium in her patch-box and commutes frequently enough upon the India run to’ve had four duels fought over her already, though she has yet to see her twenties out. Almost to a woman, they confess to strange and inexpressible Feelings when the ship makes landfall,— the desolate line of peaks, the oceanic sunlight,— coming about to fetch the road, losing the Trade-Wind at Sugar-Loaf Point, hugging the shore and playing the eddies, the identickal Routine, ’twas O G-d are we here again,— whilst to First-Timers another Planet, somehow accessible from this.

  “There’s one a-sop with the Dew,” Dixon remarks, “— in the Claret-color’d Velvet there, with the Chinese Shawl, and the Kid Boots . . . ? She seems to recollect thee, for fair.”

  “Tyburn Charlie! well prick me with a Busk-Pin and tell me ’twas all a Dream. ’Tis I,— little Florinda! Yes, you do remember,— but last Year,—” and she sings, in a pleasant Alto,

  ’Twas the Fifth Day of May, in

  The Year of our Lord, Seven-

  -Teen hundred sixty and Zero,

  That the Brave Lord Ferrers

  Ascended the Steps, of

  The Scaffold, as bold as a Hero . . .

  Mason amiably joining in, they continue,

  ‘I am ready,’ said he, ‘If you’ll

  Quote me your Fee,’— to the

  Cruel Hangman’s Eye sprang a Tear-oh,—

  ‘Of your silver-trimm’d Coat,

  I’ll admit I made note,

  But must no longer claim it, oh dear, oh!’

  [Refrain]

  ‘O, my, O Dear O!

  You must think I’ve the morals of Nero!

  Be it dangle ’em high, or strangle ’em low,

  Hangmen have Feelings, or didn’t ye know?’

  The year after Rebekah’s death was treacherous ground for Mason, who was as apt to cross impulsively by Ferry into the Bosom of Wapping, and another night of joyless low debauchery, as to attend Routs in Chelsea, where nothing was available betwixt Eye-Flirtation, and the Pox. In lower-situated imitations of the Hellfire Club, he hurtl’d carelessly along some of Lust’s less-frequented footpaths, ever further, he did not escape noting, from Pleasure,— the moonlight falling upon the lawns, the trees, the walks, claiming the color of desire, as to represent all that Passion, seething within that small corner of Town, the music through the leaves, each washed in moon-white,— to the Fabulators of Grub-Street, a licentious night-world of Rakes and Whores, surviving only in memories of pleasure, small darting winged beings, untrustworthy as remembrancers . . . yet its infected, fragrant, soiled encounters ’neath the Moon were as worthy as any,— an evil-in-innocence. . . .