Mason & Dixon Read online

  “Whah’ . . . !”

  “The Sisson instrument,— someone’s put the Plumb-line on wrong. The change he’s looking for in the position of Sirius, would span but a few seconds of Arc,— yet the Error owing to the Plumb-line is much greater,— enough to submerge utterly the Result he seeks. Yet he continues here under Royal Society orders,— as now, apparently, do we.”

  “Tha talk like a sober man.”

  “Who can get drunk in this terrible place?”

  “Cock Ale Tomorrow! Cock Ale Tomorrow!” screams a Malay running into the Room, holding by the Feet a dead Fighting-Cock trailing its last Blood in splashes like Characters Death would know how to read.

  “Why, then ’tis damn’d Bencoolen all over again.”

  “With as little freedom to demur. Yet I might find a way to fix his Plumb-line for him.”

  “Would thee at least let me have a look at it? Before I leave, thah’ is . . . ?”

  “Pray you, do not even bring up the Topick of Instruments with him. The one he’s oblig’d to go on with, will he nill he, has far more than money invested in it.”

  “Nonetheless, ’tis the Friendly thing to do,— I’m John Bird’s Field Rep, aren’t I,— certainly know my way ’round a Sector,— tricks with Beeswax and Breath that few have even heard of,— ”

  Back comes Maskelyne, fussing with his Queue. “Think about it!” Mason whispers in some panick, as the other Astronomer locates his Seat, sits, and peers at them suspiciously.

  Dixon with a beefy grimace meant to convey righteousness, “Nah,— I’m going to ask him.”

  “Fine! fine, go ahead,— I withdraw from this in advance, it’s between you two.”

  Dixon’s eyebrows shoot Hatward, signaling Mischief. “Eeh, well thah’s too bahd, Meeaahson,— my Question to Mr. Maskelyne was to’ve been, Pray thee Sir, might I buy the next Round out of my own Pocket, blessèd be thy own’ Generosity for fair, of course,— ”

  “Ahhrrhh!” Mason brings his Head to the Table-top in a controll’d thump, as Mr. Blackner immediately appears with three gigantic Pots of today’s Cock Ale. “Rum Suck, Gents, and if Mr. Mas-son, can resist it, why then you Gents may divide this third Pot betwixt ye, Compliments of the House.” Mr. Blackner’s Receipt for Cock Ale is esteem’d up and down the India Route, and when these Malays stop in Town with their traveling Cock-Fights, the Main Ingredient being suddenly plentiful, Cock Ale, as some might say, is in Season. Mr. Blackner prefers to soak the necessary dried Fruit Bits in Mountain, or Malaga Wine, instead of Canary, and to squeeze the Carcass dry with a cunning Chinese Duck-Press, won at Euchre from a fugitive aristocrat of that Land, in which Force may be multiplied to unprecedented Values, extracting mystick Humors not obtain’d in other Receipts.

  Maskelyne looks from one Astronomer to the other. “Excuse me for asking,— and as a Curate only,— lies there between you, some lack of complete Trust?”

  “More like a Lapse of Attention,” mutters Mason, reaching for one of the Ale-Cans.

  “It seem’d a perfectly friendly Request,” Maskelyne keeps at it. “Is he often on at you like this, Mr. Dixon? Shall I have to guard my own Tongue?”

  “Doesn’t work. Whatever you say, from ‘Good Morning’ on, he’ll find somethin’ in it . . . ?”

  “Yet if you could refrain from ‘Good Morning,’” Mason advises Maskelyne, “the rest of the Day would fall into place effortlessly.”

  “I shall miss your good advice, Mr. Dixon.”

  When inform’d that he must return to the Cape directly, Dixon remains strangely calm.” ’Tis said of the French Astronomers, that they never turn their Instruments, be it out of Pride or Insouciance or some French Sentiment we don’t possess, whilst what seems to distinguish us out here, is that we do. We reverse our Sectors, we measure ev’rything in both Directions. It follows, if we’ve two clocks, that we must find out all we may of their separate Goings, and then, exchanging their positions in the World, be it thousands of Leagues’ removal, note the results. ’Tis the British Way, to take the extra step that may one day give us an Edge when we need one, probably against the French. Small Investment, large Reward. I regard myself as a practitioner of British Science now.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass the Word along to London,” Maskelyne gentle as Lye.

  When Mason and Dixon arriv’d in St. Helena, the observers’ Teams exchang’d Clocks,— Dixon, barely ashore, turning about and taking the Shelton Clock back to the Cape by the next ship out, and Mason setting up the Ellicott Clock in Maskelyne’s Rooms in James’s Town. For a short while, the two Clocks stood side by side, set upon a level Shelf, as just outside, unceasingly, the Ocean beat. . . . However well sprung the Bracket arrangements, these Walls were fix’d ultimately to the Sea, whose Rhythm must have affected the Pendula of both clocks in ways we do not fully appreciate,— the Pendulum, as is well known, being a Clock’s most sensitive Organ of communication,— here allowing the two to chat, in the Interval between the one’s being taken from its Shipping-Case and the other’s being nail’d up in its own, to go with Dixon to the Cape. Both are veterans of the Transit of Venus, as well as having been employ’d, Hour upon dark Hour, in Astronomers’ work, from Equal-Altitude Duty to the Timing of Jupiter’s Moons, which back and forth like restless Ducklings keep vanishing behind their Maternal Planet, only quickly to reappear. “You’ll be on Duty twenty-four hours, is what it comes to,” the Ellicott Clock advises. “Along with the usual fixation upon one’s rate of Going. . . .”

  “So, what’s it like in Cape Town?” the other wishes to know.

  “The air is ever moist, as you’d say,” replies the Ellicott Clock,— whose only knowledge of the Cape has been gather’d in the Rainy Season,— before going on then to recite a list of Horologick Ailments it currently suffers from, from Sluggish Main-spring to Breguet’s Palsy, the other’s Bob swinging along in Sympathy.

  “Then I collect, all there’s not Water-proof’d.”

  “They do take advantage of ev’ry Break in the Weather to make it more so.”

  “Alas, and what else, then? The Dutch Clocks, what are they like?”

  “Hmm . . . of course much will depend upon you. Some get along with Dutch Clocks quite well. . . . Haven’t Dutchmen, for Generations, been living with Dutch Clocks in the House, after all,— even whilst they sleep? Indeed, ’tis exactly that Dutch Stolidity of Character that’s requir’d, for their Clocks strike each Quarter-hour, and without warning,— BONGGbing! sort of effect. Takes a certain Personality, ’s what I’m saying.”

  The Ellicott Clock is referring to the absence of a striking-train, which in British Clocks can usually be heard in Motion a bit before the Hammer begins hitting the bell. But in those Cape Clocks that happen, like the Vrooms’ and Zeemanns’ to’ve been made in Holland, ’tis rather Cams upon a separate Wheel, gear’d to the Minute Hand, that cause the striking,— so there is never warning.

  “Um,” says the other. “And how’d your British Observers react to that?”

  “Mason, being the more phlegmatick of the two, kept silent longer, his rage however rising bit by bit at each unannounc’d Striking, till at last it must brim over. Dixon,— in whose Care you’ll be,— preferr’d to express himself otherwise, choosing, each time he was caught unawares, to . . . well, scream,— and most vexedly too, aye sets a Time-piece’s Rods to humming, damme ’f it don’t.”

  “I must hope that my own remain less resonant with his Cries, then. Mustn’t I.”

  “Ah, he soon relents, and vows never again to be assaulted so rudely,— yet sure as time, fifteen minutes later, ’twill happen again. He could never, not even upon his last day there, remember that that Dutch Clock was going to strike.” They share a Tremolo of amusement.

  “Wonderful chatting with you like this. Well! let’s just tick these off once more,— there’re the Rains, the Rudeness of
the native Clocks, the Mental Instability of the Astronomer ’pon whom I shall be depending utterly . . . any thing we’ve left out?”

  “The Gunfire at the Curfew, which has never once been on time,— and might easily lead, in the uncaution’d, to a loss of Sanity.”

  “In that case, allow me to thank you for your part in preserving mine,— tho’ I do so in advance, for who knows when next we’ll meet?”

  “Next Transit of Venus, I suppose.”

  “Eight years hence! Do hope it’s not that long.”

  “Time will tell. . . .”

  “Anything you’d like to know about St. Helena? or Maskelyne?”

  “I hear Steps coming.”

  “Quickly then,— Maskelyne is insane, but not as insane as some, among whom you must particularly watch out for— ”

  Too late. ’Tis Dixon and a Ship’s Carpenter, and before either Clock can bid the other Adieu, the Shelton Clock is taken, crated up, and stow’d aboard the taut and lacquer’d Indiaman straining at her Anchor-Cables to be out in the Trades again. And indeed, what they wanted to talk about all along, was the Ocean. Somehow they could not get to the Topick. Neither Clock really knows what it is,— beyond an undeniably rhythmick Being of some sort,— tho’ they’ve spent most of their lives in Range of it, sometimes no more than a Barrel-Stave and a Hull-Plank away. Its Wave-beats have ever been with them, yet can neither quite say, where upon it they may lie. What they feel is an Attraction, more and less resistible, to beat in Synchrony with it, regardless of their Pendulum-lengths, or even the divisions of the Day. The closest they come to talking of it is when the Shelton Clock confides, “I really don’t like Ships much.”

  “Ha! Try being below the water-line in one that’s under attack sometime.”

  “Not sure I want to hear about that.”

  “Thank you. There’s never much to tell, so I have to embellish. ’Tis a task I am happy to avoid.”

  When Dixon and the Shelton Clock are alone at last, “Well! Here we are, sailing back to Cape Town, and all for thee! Eeh! So! Thoo’re a Clock! Interesting Work, I’ll bet . . . ?” The Clock cannot compensate for a fine quivering in its Pendulum, which Dixon notices. “Tha’ve probably been hearing Tales about me. Setting a-jangle all the sensitive Clockwork about with m’ Screaming. Yet, think of these episodes as regular Tonicks, without which tha might succumb to the Weather, which can get unusual, or the ways of the Dutch . . . ?”

  “Watch out for the Pox,” Dixon in turn advises his Co-adjutor, just before stepping into the Boat. “You thought the Cape was something,— this place . . . it’s . . .” shaking his head, “risky. A Fair of damn’d Souls, if tha like.” Clouds loom, Ocean rains approach.

  “As if there’d ever be any time.— Now, what of Maskelyne?”

  “Oh . . . he should watch out for it, too . . . ?”

  “Ahr . . .”

  “I am resolv’d upon no further criticism of any Brother Lens,” Dixon with eyes rais’d sanctimoniously. “Even one to whom Right Ascension may require a Wrong or two.— Howbeit, thoo know him better than I . . . ?”

  “You seem to be saying, that I should look out for myself.”

  “Did Ah say thah’? Ah didn’t say thah’ . . . ?” as he sees Mason’s head begin its slow lateral Reciprocation, “thoo said thah’.”

  “Thankee, Dixon. Always useful, talking these things over. Well. Convey my warm sentiments to any there who may yet feel such for me.”

  “Thah’ won’t take long.”

  “Mind y’self, Jere. Mind the Clock.”

  “See thee at Christmastide, Charlie.”

  13

  Intent upon picking his way back over the wet Rocks to the Sea-Steps, ascending with the same care, Mason doesn’t notice Maskelyne till he’s ashore and nearly upon him. It seems an odd place to find him, unless he’s here for the departure of a ship,— and upon this Tide, only Dixon’s is bound away. Withal, Mason doubts that he wishes to be seen,— his Eyes, on detecting Mason, performing a swift Passado.

  “My Early Stroll,” he greets Mason. “Up most of the Night, anyway, Stargazer’s Curse. Mr. Dixon and the Clock successfully embark’d, I trust.”

  Mason nods, gazing past the little Harbor, out to Sea. None of his business where Maskelyne goes, or comes,— God let it remain so. The Stars wheel into the blackness of the broken steep Hills guarding the Mouth of the Valley. Fog begins to stir against the Day swelling near. Among the whiten’d Rock Walls of the Houses seethes a great Whisper of living Voice.

  “Shall we enter again the Atlantick Whore-House, find Breakfast, and get to work?”

  At this hour, Lanthorns through Window-Glass beckon ev’rywhere. “It certainly isn’t Cape Town,” Mason marvels. Sailors a-stagger, Nymphs going on and off Shift, novice Company Writers too perplex’d to sleep, Fish-Mongers in Tandem with giant Tunas slung betwixt ’em consid’rately as Chair riders, Slaves singing in the local patois, Torches a-twinkle ev’rywhere,— and no Curfew. John Company, unlike its Dutch counterpart, recognizes here the primacy of Tide Tables, and, beyond them, of the Moon,— ceding to her de facto rule over all arrivals and departures, including Life and Death, upon this broken Island, so long ill us’d.

  They cross the Bridge, go along the Main Parade, the Waves ever beating, and past the Company Castle, pausing at the bottom of the principal Street. “Tho’ small in secular Dimensions,” Maskelyne gesturing in at the Town, “yet entering, ye discover its true Extent,— which proves Mazy as an European City . . . no end of corners yet to be turn’d. ’Tis Loaves and Fishes, here in James’s Town, and Philosophy has no answer.” He appears lucid and sincere.

  “Then” (Mason, as he reviews it later, should likely not have blurted) “if someone wish’d to disappear for a while, yet remain upon the Island,—”

  The bright eyes begin to blink, as if in some Code. “Of course, forever would be easier,— because of the Sea, that is.”

  Mason isn’t sure he wants to know what this means. “Of course, but, say for a Se’nnight?”

  “ ’Twould depend who’s in Pursuit.”

  “Say, Honorable John.”

  “Hum. The first two or three days’d be easy,— assuming one had a perfect knowledge of the Town and the Island,— for the initial Search-Parties would be of younger Writers and ’Prentices, too new here to know even the Castle in its true Extension, disruptive lads, intimidating, alerting ev’ry Soul to the Imminence of a Search Island-wide,— that is, thro’ this entire World,— ”

  “You’ve, ehm, certainly thought this out. . . .”

  “You were inquiring upon your own Behalf, I’d assum’d. . . . No need for me to disappear. Oh, Dear, the Royal Soc’s quite forgotten all about old N.M., Esq. Lounging his life away waiting at the King’s Expense for the Home Planet to move along. But now at the very Instant there is work to be done at last, the Heav’ns have provided me— ”

  “Yes?” inquires Mason, pleasantly enough.

  “— a veteran Astronomer, with a brilliant Success to his Credit, to share in my simpler, meaner Duties.”

  “Mr. Waddington, I collect, being . . . somehow unavailable for the Honor.”

  Maskelyne shrugs. “No sooner did the Planet detach from the Sun’s further limb than ’twas D.I.O. for Mr. Waddington.”

  Waddington left, in fact, three weeks after the Transit. “I don’t do Parallaxes of Sirius, I don’t do Tides,” he mutter’d as they made their Farewells, “I don’t do Satellites of Jupiter, all it says in my Contract is one Transit of Venus,— and that’s what I did. If you wish me to observe the next, there’ll have to be a new Contract.”

  “Easy Passage to ye, Robert,” replied Maskelyne equably, “moonlit Nights and successful Lunars all the way,” as he turn’d, toward the Town, and the Whores’ Quarter again by the little Bridge, and the somber Cle
ft of the Valley ascending in back of it all, to go and re-engage with his Tasks.

  “This Island,” Maskelyne sighs, “— not ev’ryone’s Brochette of Curried Albacore, is it?” Waddington express’d his displeasure upon their Indiaman’s first sight of Lot and Lot’s Wife, and the grim Company Fort at Sandy Bay,— not a Day of his Engagement was to pass, without the Island providing new ways to disappoint him. Too few Streets, too many Stares, the Coffee seeming to him adulterated with inferior Javas, obviously broken from Company Cargoes by enterprizing Pursers. . . .

  “Surely not,” Mason alarm’d.

  “Be easy. ’Twas his Phantasy. Afterward, appearing before the Royal Society, he prais’d St. Helena, and its Governor, very extravagantly and generously, having withal, on the way Home, got his Lunars beautifully,— the Captain forgave him the cost of his Passage, they came that near,— tho’ the Weather grew so thick at the end that they were all the way in to Portland Bill before anyone saw Land, Waddington being heard to let out a heart-felt cry of Joy, that at least he’d liv’d to see England again.”

  “I must try to honor his precedent,” Mason supposes, “mustn’t I.”

  “You mean you won’t help me with the Tidal data either? A couple of Sticks to be set in the Water, where’s the Hardship?”

  “I meant, rather, that I must obtain Lunars in quantity and of a Quality to match. If I weren’t intending to help, I should have sail’d with Dixon, away from this,— that is,— ”

  “Pray you. There is no Comment upon the Island so unfavorable, that I’ve not heard already from Waddington, or utter’d myself. For a while I firmly believ’d this Place a conscious Creature, animated by power drawn from beneath the Earth, assembl’d in secret, by the Company,— entirely theirs,— no Action, no Thought nor Dream, that had not the Co. for its Author. Ha-ha, yes imagine, fanciful me. I tried to walk lightly. I did not want It feeling my Foot-Steps. If I trod too hard, I would feel It flinch. So I try not to do that. So might you. All, even the large population here of Insane, go about most softly. What Authority enforces the Practice? Governor Hutchinson? The Company Troops? I suggest that more than either, ’tis the awareness of living upon a Slumbering Creature, compar’d to whose Size, we figure not quite as Lice,— that keeps us uniquely attentive to Life so precarious, and what Civility is truly necessary, to carry it on. Hence, no Curfew. To live, we must be up at all hours. Every moment of our Waking, pass’d in fear, with the possibility ceaseless of sliding into licentiousness and squalor,— ”