Mason & Dixon Read online

  (“Uncle, Uncle!”

  “Hum, hum, howbeit,— ”

  “Another Cup, Sir?”)

  ’Twas then that Mason began his Practice, each Friday, of going out to the hangings at Tyburn, expressly to chat up women, upon a number of assumptions, many of which would not widely be regarded as sane.

  Rol-ling out the Edge-ware Ro-o-oad,—

  To where they climb a Ladder-to-go, to sleep,—

  The crowd is all a-tiptoe and the skies are bright, ’tis

  A lovely day to come and have a Peep.—

  He’ll drop right thro’ the Floor [tick-tock]

  He’ll dance upon the Air [knock-knock]

  Whilst ’neath the Deadly Never-Green

  ’Tis merry as a Fair,— and

  If you’re luc-ky to be short enough,

  With no-place much to stare,

  Why, you might not even know, you’re, there . . .

  Turn’d thirty-two but days before, Mason, as a gift of Festivity to himself, attends the much-heralded Hanging of Lord Ferrers for the murder of Johnson, his Steward. What seems the entire world of Fashion has assembl’d, with each trying to outdress ev’ry other. Nonce-Hats, never before seen, many never to be seen again. Wigs as elaborately detail’d as Gowns. Coats especially commission’d for the occasion, with a classic Thirteen-Turn Noose Motif to the Braiding, and the Smoking Pistol depicted in Gold Brocade. As Mason, feeling shabby, curses himself for not having worn a more stylish outfit, he notes a young Woman observing him,— when he meets her Gaze, she immediately switches it away with a look of annoyance, not with Mason, it pleases him to fancy, so much as with herself, for happening to be the one caught staring,— there being scores of good reasons why no further degree of Fascination will develop from this. Judging by her escort, she’s some rising Beauty of the Town, whose Looks more than excuse an absolute lack of taste in any matter of Costume, whilst at the same time she finds herself mysteriously drawn to snuff-color’d and, frankly, murkier Statements, such as Mason’s, here.

  “Hallo, d’you think he’ll get much of a hard-on, then?” is her Greeting. “They say that agents of Lady F. are about, betting heavily against it.”

  Mason gapes in despair. He’ll be days late thinking up any reply to speech as sophisticated as this. “In my experience,” he might say,” ’tis usually the Innocent who get them, and the Guilty who fail to.”

  “How very curious.” She will not blink, tho’ her nostrils may flare. Her escorts will titter,— and her little Dog Biscuit, alone scenting her onset of interest, will begin to act up. “Could Remorse ever really unman any of you?”

  “Why no.— ’Tis rather that Surprize invigorates us.”

  Flirtatiously, she scowls, as Mason goes rattling on morosely,— “Take the noted Highwayman Fepp, but last week, most likely not insane, being mov’d by the Mathematicks of his wealth, or rather lack of it, more than by any criminal Passion,— the Membrum Virile was remarkably flaccid, at least according to the Jobbers who cut him down,— ”

  “And subsequently up,” chirps the Maiden.

  “— for consider that the Murderer cannot, in the Moment, know the ecstatic surprise of the Innocent, having borne within him, from Life’s beginning, an acquaintance with the sudden Drop and Snap of its End. He dreams about it, sometimes when awake. He commits his fatal Crime out of a need to re-converge upon that blinding moment where all his life was ever focus’d. . . .”

  Her eyes have grown enormous and moist,— the Bodice of her Gown squeaks gently at its Seams, her Modesty-Piece flutters as if itself perplex’d. The Fops accompanying her having been freed to resume their chief interest, the Exchange of Gossip, even Custodial Eyes are elsewhere. “Sir,” she murmurs, “I have ever sought a man such as yourself—” There is a sudden roar from the crowd, half for and half against, as His Lordship’s carriage arrives, and the fourth Earl steps out. Seamen throw unchewable Sausages and half-eaten scones, brightly dress’d Women throw Roses. “Hideous suit,” remarks one of the Fops, “— what’s that Shade, some kind of Fawn? altogether too light for the occasion.” “I do like the Silver bits, though,” comments his Friend, Seymour. All manner of retainers in black livery bustle about, the one attracting the most Notice being the Rope-bearer,— for ’tis rumor’d that Lord Ferrers is to be hang’d, at his request, with a Rope of Silk. The bearer is a slight figure in black velvet, whose skin in the high sunlight appears paper-white. All the way from the Tower, atop the bright jinglings of the Carriage,— expensively encrusted and plated by highly-paid Italians,— like a Miniature propell’d, in its strange slow Progress, by some invisible Child,— is the fatal Rope held aloft, perfectly white upon a black Silk Cushion, for the inspection of all the straining Eyes. “Well it’s still ’emp for me,” someone remarks, “— all things being equal, if not all Men.”

  “Aye, Silk’s what they fancy out in India, with their Thuggee,— over the wall, in your Window, kkkk! Job’s done, another tasty Bite for old Kalee,— that’s their Goddess, as you’d say. Silk,— it’s scarcely there, and yet . . .”

  “Kkkk!”

  “Precisely my point.”

  Orange-girls and beggars, ale-pots, gaming in the Dirt, purses wafted away, glances intercepted, dogs bravely a-prowl for Scraps, as hungry Blademen for Dogs, Buskers wandering and standing still, with a Wind from the Gallows bringing ev’ry sigh, groan, and Ejaculation over the heads of the crowd to settle upon their hearing like Ash upon the Hats of spectators at a Fire, the Day wraps and fondles them as Mason and the temporarily heedless beauty move together thro’ the crowd, till they reach a Barrow with Awnings rigg’d against the Sun. “Wine!” cries she, “oh let’s do!”

  “This Château Gorce looks interesting,” says Mason, “although, as the day is mild, perhaps a chill’d Hock would be more . . . apropos.”

  “If not de Rigueur,” she replies.

  “But of course, Chérie.” They laugh at the Piquance of these Mots, and sip Wine as the imbecile Peer goes along toward his Doom,— till some kind of problem arises with the new Trap-door Arrangement, today’s being its first Use at any publick Proceeding.

  “These frightful Machines!” she pretends to lament, “— shall our Deaths now, as well as our Lives, be rul’d by the Philosophers, and their Army of Mechanicks?”

  “That Trap’s probably over-constructed,” Mason has already blurted, “hence too heavy, and bearing sidewise upon the Lever and Catch,—” He notes a sudden drop in the local Temperature.

  “You are . . . a man of Science, then?” looking about, tho’ not yet with Panick.

  “I am an Astronomer,” Mason replies.

  “Ah . . . existing upon some sort of Stipend, I imagine. How . . . wonderful . . . I’d taken you for one of the better sort of Kiddy, the way you were turn’d out, quiet self-possession, I mean, one usually is able to tell,— alas, ’tis just as Mr. Bubb Dodington warn’d me,— ‘Florinda,’ said he, ‘you are too young to appreciate men either in their wide diversity, or for the pitiable simplicity of what they really want. Can you guess what that is, my Wren?’ His Wren. Well,— it might’ve been one thing, mightn’t it,— and then again— ”

  “Excuse me, did I hear you, I’m sure inadvertently, mention that you receive . . . Assessments of Character, from Bubb Dodington? the ancient Fitch of legend? That relick from a signally squalid Era in our Nation’s Politickal History,— that Bubb Dodington?”

  “Georgie is a particular Friend,” she flares, in a way that suggests Experience upon the Stage. “If he may advise the Princess of Wales as to matters constitutional, he may advise me, whatever he wishes. He grows older, and a life of super-human excess is at last presenting its Bills,— whose demands turn ever harsher with the days,— even at the Interest, yet a Bargain. Will you have as much to say, Star-Gazer, when it is your time?”

  Mason
lets his Head drop, abjectly. “There’s one, says Pearse, as he fell in the Well. . . . The truth is, Madam, that I have envied your Friend the honesty of his Life. Tho’ being an Earl help’d, of course,— ”

  “If you mean that you envy his openness as to his Desires,— I collect there are things you yourself may wish to do, that you haven’t quite the Words for?” And gazing at him quite steadily, too.

  “I?” Mason’s Soles beginning to ache, his Brain unable to muster a thought. What he does not, consequently, understand, is that, having reckon’d him harmless, she has decided to get in a bit of exercise, in that endless Refining which the Crafts of Coquetry demand, using Mason as a sort of Practice-Dummy.

  “You did have me going, Florinda.”

  “Well I hope so, I’m sure. Tell me, then,— are you still gazing at the Stars for Simpleton-Silver?”

  “You remember that?”

  “Why, you’re not saying, Charlie, that there are too many Men in my Life for me to remember? Surely ’tis not the aggregate Total of all Men, but how many kinds of Men, that matters?— and that Figure is manageable, thankee.”

  James’s Town, snug in its ravine, the watchfires high above keeping the nights from invasion, settles into the darkness. Smells of Eastern cooking pour out the kitchen vents of the boarding-houses, and mix with that of the Ocean. The town is for a Moment an unlit riot of spices, pastry, fish and shellfish, Penguin Stuffatas and Sea-Bird Fricasées. Upon the swiftly darkening sea-prospect, in outline now appears a Figure that lacks but a Scythe in its Grasp, to turn all thoughts upon the Brevity of Life. “Daddums!” she cries. “Over here! Charlie, my fiancé, Mr. Mournival.”

  “I meet so many of Florrie’s old Troupe,” the tall cadaverous Personage, whose Eyes cannot be clearly seen, hisses in the Twilight. “Charlie, Charlie . . . You must have been one of the Zanies?”

  “Your Theatrical sense,— uncanny Sir,” murmurs Mason. “Allow me to present my co-adjutor, whose repertoire of Jest is second only to what resides in the Vatican Library,— Mr. Dixon.”

  “A Chinaman, a Jesuit, and a Corsican are riding up to Bath . . .”

  12

  Mason, Dixon, and Maskelyne are in a punch house on Cock Hill called “The Moon,” sitting like an allegorickal Sculpture titl’d, Awkwardness. It is not easy to say which of them is contributing more to sustaining the Tableau. Mason is suspicious of Maskelyne, Maskelyne struggles not to offend Mason, and Dixon and Maskelyne have been estrang’d from the instant Dixon, learning of Maskelyne’s Residence at Pembroke College, Cambridge, brought up the name of Christopher Smart.

  “Durham Lad . . . ? He became a Fellow at Pembroke . . . ?”

  A Gust of Panic crosses Maskelyne’s face briefly, then his Curatickal Blank returns. “Mr. Smart was our perennial Seaton Prize-winner.— He left two years after I arriv’d,— our Intimacy being limited to Meal-times, when I brought his Food to the Fellows’ Table, and fetch’d away his soil’d Napery and his gnaw’d Bones. Sometimes, after they’d all gone, we of the Scullery would eat their Leavings,— his may have been among ’em, I did not distinguish closely,— I was a Lad, and not all aware of how uncomfortable a Life it must have been. To live at Cambridge, to step where Newton stepp’d? I would have become a servant’s servant.”

  “Newton is my Deity,” Dixon rather blurts, ignoring Maskelyne’s efforts to show polite astonishment by raising one eyebrow without also raising the other, “and Mr. Smart, why I knew him when I was small, a rather older Lad, who came to Raby on his School Vacations, his Father being Steward of the Vane Estates down in Kent, You see, as was mah Great-Uncle George of Raby.” Maskelyne now has his Eye-balls roll’d to Heaven, as if praying for Wing’d Escape. “So both of us quickly learn’d our way ’round the Larders, the trysting places, the passageways inside the Walls, where our Errands often took us, Mr. Kit’s being usually to or from the Chapel. I can recall no-one marking in him any unkind moment,— tho’ he did seem, each time he return’d to Raby, a bit more preoccupied.”

  “In ’fifty-six, I believe, he was confin’d in a Hospital for the Insane,” says Maskelyne, his Field-Creature’s Eyes a-sparkle. “And releas’d, I have heard, the Year before last, mad as when he went in.”

  “Why aye,” Dixon grimly beams, “it must have been thah’ Raby Castle, that did it to him . . . ?”

  “Well it certainly wasn’t Pembroke,” Maskelyne sniffs. “Indeed, ’twas only when poor Smart gave up Cambridge, that his mind began to leave him.”

  “Away from those healthy Surroundings . . . ?” Dixon replies, with clench’d Amiability.

  There is Commotion as the Landlord, Mr. Blackner, and several Regulars, leaning to hear, lose all idea of their centers of Gravity, and staggering in the puddles of Ale that commonly decorate the Floor of The Moon, go crashing among the furniture.

  Mason, as if newly arriv’d, speaks at last. “Forget not London itself, as a pre-eminent author of Madness,— Greenwich to Grub-Street, the Place is not for ev’ryone,— drawn tho’ we be to the grandeur, the hundred Villages strewn all up and down the great Inlet from the Sea, and the wide World beyond,— yet for many, the Cost, how great.”

  Maskelyne, choosing to hear in this a rebuke, snaps, “Perhaps too many damn’d Gothickal Scribblers about, far too many’s what did for Mr. Smart,” seeming in his turn to allude to Mason’s earlier-announc’d preferences in Entertainment.

  As Mason considers some reply, Dixon gallantly fills in. “Why, Grub-Street Pub-Street, Sir. The Ghastly Fop? Vampyrs of Covent Garden? Come, come. Worth a dozen of any Tom Jones, Sir.”

  This receives Maskelyne’s careful Smirk. He fancies it a Smile, but ’tis an Attitude of the Mouth only,— the eyes do not engage in it, being off upon business of their own. The impression is of unrelenting wariness. “I’d expected such to lie up Mr. Mason’s Lane,— hadn’t suppos’d your own tastes to run there as well. Excellent way to pass those Obless Nights, I’d imagine, reading each to the other?”

  Mr. Blackner has appear’d. “I always fancied the one about the Italian with no Head, that’d be, now, Count Senzacapo, do any of you know that one?”

  “Excellent choice, Sir,” Dixon as it seems cheerily, “— that Episode with the three peasant girls,— ”

  “— and those Illustrations!” The Lads lewdly chuckling.

  “Yet surely,” Maskelyne all but whining, “there’s far too much of it about? Encouraging,” his Voice dropping, “all these melancholick people.” He gestures ’round the Room with his head. “This Island, especially, . . . is full of them. Six months I’ve been here,— too many idle Minutes to be fill’d, soon pile up, topple, and overwhelm the healthiest Mind,— ”

  “Sirius Business,” cackles the Proprietor, sliding away to other Mischief.

  “Damn the fellow,” Maskelyne clutching his Head.

  “Something else coming, here,” Dixon advises.

  Mason looks up. “Aahhrr! the Natives from the Kitchen,— Maskelyne! what is it, a Cannibal Sacrifice?— ”

  “No!” Maskelyne screams, “Worse!”

  “Worse?” Dixon murmurs, by which time all can see the Candles upon the great iced Cake, being borne out to them as its Escort burst into “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  Mr. Blackner brandishes an invisible Spoon. “Assembl’d it myself, Sir, tho’ my Apprentice here did the Icing.”

  “They found out!” whispers Maskelyne, “— but how? Do I talk in my sleep, whilst they listen at the Door? Why would I mention my birthday in my sleep? ’Twas last week, anyway.”

  “Congratulations, much Joy,” wish Mason and Dixon.

  “Twenty-nine’s Fell Shadow! O, inhospitably final year of any Pretense to Youth, its Dreams now, how wither’d away . . . tho’ styl’d a Prime, yet bid’st thou Adieu to the Prime of Life! . . . There,— there, in the Stygian Mists of Futurity, loome
th the dread Thirty,— Transition unspeakable! Prime so soon fallen, thy Virtue so easily broken, into a Number divisible,— penetrable!— by six others!” At each of Maskelyne’s dismal Apostrophes, the Merriment in the Room takes another step up in Loudness, tho’ muffl’d in Cake. The Ale at The Moon, brew’d with the runoff from up-country, into whose further ingredients no one has ever inquir’d closely, keeps arriving, thanks to Maskelyne, now fully a-bawl,— “Fourth Decade of Life! thy Gates but a brief Year ahead,— tho’ in this place, a Year can seem a Century,— what hold’st thou for the superannuated?”

  “Marriage!” shouts a Sailor.

  “Death!”

  “The Morn!” All the Pewter rings with dour Amusement.

  “Ye’re a cheery lot for being so melancholick,” Maskelyne raising his Tankard. “When are you leaving? I’ll miss you.”

  Mason and Dixon have been looking over at each other in some Agitation. When Maskelyne at last takes himself outdoors, Dixon sits up briskly,— “Just reviewing this,— I am to leave you for at least three months in the company of this Gentleman? Is thah’ more or less,— ”

  “Dixon.— The Sector . . . doesn’t . . . work.”