Mason & Dixon Read online

  “You are back? When did you arrive?”

  “Your Shop didn’t know about it?”

  “I am done with that. I am a Farmer now. This is my last night in Cape Town, tho’ I might have remain’d here, as a Free Burgher. Tomorrow I put my Family in an Ox-waggon, and start North. Perhaps over the Mountains. Out of the reach of the Company, who desire total Control over ev’ry moment of ev’ry Life here. I could not for them longer work. The Mountains beckon’d, the vast Hottentot Land beyond. . . . And at last, do you know, a curious thing happen’d. The more the Company exerted itself,— Searches in the middle of the Night, property impounded,— the more Farmers up-country felt press’d to move North, away from the Castle. They styl’d it ‘Trekking,’ and themselves ‘Trekkers.’ The demands of my job,— the amount of Surveillance alone they wish’d,— were overwhelming. The Supervisors each week coming up with newer and less realistick Quotas. No time for anything. Out there are green rolling Leagues of farmland and Range, Bushmen for the most part docile, I am assur’d, wild Game ev’rywhere, and best of all no more Company orders to obey.”

  “ ’Tis a brave Venture . . . ?— much Success.”

  “I’m confident about most of it,— the one thing causing me some Apprehension,— do you mind if we,— that is, you’re not in the middle of anything,— ”

  “Ev’ryone else’s Fun, it seems.”

  “I can fire a Rifle when I’m standing still, you see,— it is the Shooting and Loading whilst on Horseback, that worries me. I don’t know how to do it,— and ’tis said there’s no use going out there if you don’t. Now, I was leaning toward an Oortman, then I heard, no, they’re too heavy, too much Powder to carry, you’re better off with a Bobbejaanboud, you put the butt on the ground and muzzle-load from the Saddle, and if you’re press’d for time, why simply hit the Ground with the Butt, and the powder comes out this over-siz’d Priming Hole and into the Pan,— but then I thought, Well, suppose I got the Oortman anyway, then enlarg’d the Hole myself. . . .”

  Dixon returns to the Vroom residence at Dawn, all but carrying an equally, tho’ perhaps not likewise, exhausted Cornelius. Ev’ryone is up. The Daughters run about, regarding Dixon out of the corners of their Eyes. What enchanted Mason about these Girls, Dixon comes to realize, with some consternation, is their readiness to seek the Shadow, avoid the light, believe in what haunts these shores exactly to the Atom,— ghosts ev’rywhere,— Slaves, Hottentots driven into exile, animals remorselessly Savage,— a Reservoir of Sin, whose Weight, like that of the atmosphere, is borne day after day unnotic’d, adverted to only when some Vacuum is encounter’d,— a Stranger in Town, a Malay publickly distraught, an hour at the Lodge,— into which its Contents might rush with a Turbulence felt and wonder’d at by all. The Vroom Girls and their counterparts all over town are Daughters of the End of the World, smiling more than they ought, chirping when needful, alert to each instant of the long Day as likely as the next to hold a chance of Ruin. In their Dreams they ever return to Prisons of Stone, to Gates with Seals ’tis Death to break, the odor of soap and Slops, the Stillness of certain Corridors, the unchallengeable Love of a Tyrant, Yellow Light from unseen Watch-Fires flickering upon the Wall, and unexpectedly, rounding a particular Corner, to the tall Clock from Home, ringing the Quarter-Hour.

  One by one the girls have grown up believing the Vroom Clock, a long-case heirloom brought from Holland, to be a living Creature, conscious of itself, and of them, too, with its hooded Face, its heartbeat, the bearing of a solemn Messenger. It stands deep in the House, in a passageway between the Front and the Back,— the two Worlds,— witness to everything that transpires within hearing-range with but its one Hour-Hand, and two Bells, a Great and a Small, for striking the Hours and Quarter-hours. They call it ‘Boet,’— the traditional name, here, for an elder Brother.

  When Mason and Dixon arriv’d with the Ellicott Clock, the Girls assum’d it was a Traveling Companion of the Englishmen. Later, when Dixon return’d with a different Clock, Mr. Shelton’s, no-one notic’d but Greet. “Please go carefully,” she takes him aside to whisper. “They think Charles and you’ve something to do with the Longitude. After you were gone, they came to believe, that the Royal Society’s Clock, which you had with you, was able to keep Errorless Time at Sea,— a British State Secret,— we are apt to believe anything here. The East India Company is about to present two fabulous Clocks, of Gold encrusted with Diamonds, with tiny Clock-Work Birds and such, to the Emperor of China. ’Twould be far wiser of you, to hide this new Clock, and pretend that you are back for . . . some other reason.”

  “The Transit’s run, Lass, all that remains is to find the Going of the Clock, and,— eeh,— why Greet, the very idea.”

  “They all know I’m in here with you.” She seizes the two sides of her Bodice and tears it apart. A young Bosom appears, pale and pink. “Did you just do that? Shall I call out that you did? Or was it a Spontaneous Seam Separation, apt to happen to any Bodice, really?”

  “Thou did it, Lass.”

  “They won’t believe that.”

  “So they may say. But they know thee.”

  “Brutal Albion, you are making it difficult for me to love you.” She presses together a few hidden Snaps, and the Bodice is once again complete. “Mr. Mason was never so cold.”

  “Mason is naturally affectionate. Tho’ he appears not to know one end of a Woman from another, yet ’tis all he thinks about, when he has a moment to think. Would tha denounce me to the Company Castle, then?”

  “Go carefully.”

  Down in the Castle, however, they are facing a Dilemma. There is an unpremeditated wave of Enthusiasm for two-handed Clocks currently sweeping over the Dutch, both here and back in Holland. Soon, during an interrogation, someone will wish to note the precise time that each question is ask’d, or action taken, by a clock with two hands,— not because anyone will ever review it,— perhaps to intimidate the subject with the most advanc’d mechanical Device of its time, certainly because Minute-Scal’d Accuracy is possible by now, and there is room for Minutes to be enter’d in the Records. Any new Clock in their Neighborhood is thus eligible for the Honor.

  Word has finally reach’d them, however, of Dixon’s connection with Christopher Le Maire. They assume, without Reflection, that the Jesuit must belong to some branch of the Dutch Le Maires, fam’d among whom were Jacob, navigator and explorer of the southern seas, and Isaac, the East India Company Director and speculator, notorious for having introduced to the Dutch Stock Exchange the practice of trading in Shares one did not actually own. And the Priest is currently teaching in Flanders, is he not? Accordingly, Dixon’s Dossier is flagg’d in Yellow, which means, “Caution,— may be connected dangerously,” allowing him to go on as ever at the Cape, running before any wind of Sensory delight, as the Church-Faithful carouse, Slaves conspire their Freedom, and Functionaries flee the Castle, and head for open Country.

  15

  Mason, convinc’d that he has been set upon a Pilgrimage by Forces beyond his ability at present to reach,— a Station of the Cross being his preferr’d Trope,— finds much to Puzzle in Maskelyne’s insistence that they move to the other side of the Island, from enclosure to exposure, from Shelter to an unremitting and much-warn’d-against Wind. “The Attraction of Mountains,” Maskelyne Jobates, whilst slowly ’round him The Moon becomes a Dormitory, “— according to Newton, these Peaks may hold enough Mass to deflect our Plumb-lines, thereby throwing off our Zenith Obs. We must therefore repeat these Obs at the other side of the Island, and take the Mean Values betwixt ’em.”

  “The Other Side,”— it does give Mason a Chill. If the Cape of Good Hope be a Parable about Slavery and Free Will he fancies he has almost tho’ not quite grasp’d, then what of this Translocation? That Maskelyne’s Obsessedness in the Article of Plumb-lines, may be a factor in the change, will not become apparent till too late. Days in a row now
pass in which Maskelyne speaks of little but the faulty Suspension of the Sisson Instrument. “My career, my Life,— hanging from a damn’d Pin!” He takes to accosting strangers in The Moon and then in other taverns, subjecting them to long wearying recitations describing the malfunction in numbing detail, and what he has instructed be done to correct it, and how others have complied, or not,— a history without sentiment or suspense (save that in which the Plumb-line, as it proves faultily, hangs upon its Loop, and that upon its Pin).

  “How did Waddington like it over there?” Mason inquires.

  “He wouldn’t go. Not even a Day-Excursion to Sandy Bay. ‘I know the Score,’ he said, again and again, ‘I’ve seen them come in to Town from the Windward Side, I see what the Wind does to ’em, it is no condition I care to enter,’ was how he put it.”

  “It doesn’t sound all that appealing to me, either,” allows Mason. “Yet, to cancel Error when possible,— it’s like turning the Instrument, isn’t it? An Obligation, not easily neglected.”

  “Ah, Neglect. Ah, Conscience.”

  Flank’d by the D—— l’s Garden and the Gates of Chaos, the Company Fort at Sandy Bay commands that inhospitable, luminously Turquoise Recess in the Shore, representing the level of Daring that John Company is expecting one day in its ideal Enemy,— the silent Windward-Side companion to the great Fort at James’s Town, which ever bustles with Sentries, and martial Musick, whilst this one appears deserted,— Flagless, Walls unpierc’d, as if drawn in against the Wind. The Discipline here, tho’ Military in name, is founded in fact upon a Rip-Rap of Play-Acting, Superstitions, mortal Hatreds, and unnatural Loves, of a solemnity appropriate to the unabating Wind, that first Voice, not yet inflected,— the pure Whirl,— of the very Planet. The Gunfire here is at Sunset, and aim’d full into the Wind, as if to repel an Onslaught. Years ago the Soldiers set up, and now continue as a Tradition, various Suicide-Banks and Madness-Pools, into which one may put as little as a sixpence,— more substantial Sums going into side-Wagers, and the Percentages of Widows’ Shares being ever negotiable,— and thus convert this Wind into Cash, as others might convert it to a Rotary Impulse upon a Mill-Stone. Fortunes certainly the equal of many a Nabob’s are amass’d, risk’d, and lost within a Night. “We are the Doings of Global Trade in miniature!” cries the Post Surgeon, who tries never to stir too far from the deepest rooms of the Fort, where the Wind may oppress him least, and is careful to include it in each daily Prayer, as if ’twere a Deity in itself, infinitely in Need, ever demanding. . . .

  Pois’d at length upon the last Cliff, with the eternal Southeaster full upon them, Mason, knowing he cannot be heard, says, “Well,— Waddington may have had a point.” Maskelyne nevertheless plucks from the Wind his Meaning, and later, indoors at Sandy Bay, replies, “It is not to all tastes, here. ’Tis said those who learn to endure it, are wond’rously Transform’d.”

  “Oh, aye, that Farmer last night who ran about barking, and bit the Landlorrrd’s Wife,— verry diverting, Sir,— yet perhaps upon this Coast they be merely mad, finding as little welcome at James’s Town, where Sobriety is necessary to Commerce, as those Folk might upon the Windward, where, against such helpless Exposure as this, a vigilant Folly must be the only Defense,— two distinct nations, in a state of mutual mistrust, within ten Miles’ Compass, and the Wind never relenting, as if causing to accumulate in the Island yet another Influence that must be corrected for. Perhaps, if discover’d, ’twould be as celebrated as the Aberration of Light.”

  Maskelyne flushes darkly and seems to change the Topick.

  “I was out upon the Cliffs today and fell in with one of the Company Soldiers here. German fellow. Dieter. Came out that he’s in something of a spot. Enlisted in ignorance that anyplace like this could exist.”

  “Now he wants out,” suggests Mason.

  “A strangely affecting Case, nonetheless. I cannot explain it. He seem’d to know me. Or I him. Had you been there,— ”

  “He might have seem’d to know me as well?”

  “Am I so unwary? Your Innuendo is not new to me,— yet, he has ask’d for no money. And what matter, that he knows of my connection with Clive?”

  “Oh Dear. How’d that happen?”

  “I told him.”

  “Ah.”

  “He was quite distraught, and but a Pace or two from the Edge of the Precipice. ‘No one can help me,’ he was crying, ‘not Frederick of Prussia, nor George of England, nor the great Lord Clive himself,’ and so forth,— and I being the only one within earshot able to say, ‘Well, actually, as to Clive, you know,—’ What would you have done?”

  “Were I in a position to offer Clive’s Services to the Publick? Why, I don’t know, Maskelyne. Determine first of all what percentage to take, I suppose. . . .”

  The German had stood there, in the late Sunlight, his Eyes enormous and magnetick, fixing the Astronomer where he stood, the Sea roaring below them, and in the Wind, Stock-ends, Kerchiefs, Queue-Ribands, all coming undone and fluttering like so many Tell-tales. “You . . . could really help?”

  “I’ve been living over in James’s Town,” Maskelyne deferent, attempting to speak calmly. “This is the first time I’ve pass’d more than a Day over here,— yet I find already, that the Wind is having an Effect, upon my Nerves. Causing me to imagine things, that may not be so? Have you notic’d that?”

  “The Wind owns this Island,” Dieter inform’d him,— “What awful Pride, to keep a Station here. Who would ever invade, by way of this mortal Coast? If they surviv’d landing upon a Lee Shore, they must get inland in a day,— once into those Mountains, oblig’d to cross all that width of Purgatory, before descending upon James’s Town. . . . Are the Dutch that crazy? ravening, lost to the world? The French? Three of their Men o’ War, only the year before last, station’d themselves out there, lounging to windward, just in the middle of the Company’s sea-lane, like village ne’er-do-wells hoping for a fight. They manag’d to intercept and chase four of the Company’s China ships, who at last made a run for South America, finding refuge in the Bay of All Saints. We watch’d it all, as we had ev’ry day, day and night. The Sails, the Signals thro’ the Glass . . . we swore to shapes in the Darkness, creeping ashore in the terrible Moon-Light . . . and what do your Hosts over there at James’s Fort expect to see, coming down out of their Ravine? What last unfaceable enemy? When one night, out of habit, someone will look up at the Watch-fire upon the Ridge, and find there all black as Doom.— Overrun? all gone mad and simply walk’d away? How much time elaps’d, and how much remaining to the Town?

  “The Company promis’d travel, adventure, dusky Maidens, and one Day, Nawabheit. . . . A silken Curtain opening upon Life itself! Who would not have been persuaded? So I enlisted, and without time to catch a breath was I posted here, to the Windward Side of St. Helena, God who hath abandon’d us. . . . We are spiritually ill here, deprav’d. You are Clive of India’s Brother-in-Law. A word from you would set me free.”

  “Well, I’m, I haven’t that much influence with the Company . . . and Clive has but recently return’d to England, whilst I,” he shrugg’d, “am here. I suppose.”

  “And Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nabob Wazir of Oudh, is out there,— with an Army. Bengal, Sir, is a Magazine waiting to explode,— no time for your Schwager to be in England, when perhaps already too late it grows.”

  “His enemies among his own,” Maskelyne supposed, “being inveterate as any Hindu Intriguer, and Leadenhall Street no simpler than the Bagh Bazaar, England is a Battle-Field to him, ’pon which he must engage. Since the Court of Directors’ election, he has been lock’d in a struggle with Mr. Sullivan for the Soul of the Company. I am not sure how many favors he may command right now, even of the dimension you suggest.”

  “Sobald das Geld in Kasten klingt,” Dieter recited, sighing, “Die Seele aus dem Fegefeuer springt.”

  Later, talking it over with
Mason, “Tho’ there be no escape from this place for me, the Logic of the Orbit, the Laws of Newton and Kepler constraining,— yet could I ransom at least one Soul, from this awful Wind, the Levy Money would not be miss’d.”

  “You said he asked for none.”

  “Not he. The Company. So they are paid the twenty pounds they paid him to enlist, it matters little who replaces him.”

  Does Maskelyne mean more, when he speaks of “the Wind”? May he be thinking of his own obligations to the East India Company, and the unlikelihood that anyone would ever ransom him? “We may sail with the Wind,” he said once, “at the same speed, working all its nuances,— or we may stand still, and feel its full true Course and Speed upon us, with all finer Motions lost in that Simplicity.”

  The incident of the German Soldier, in Maskelyne’s life, seems like St. Helena itself, the visible and torn Remnant of a Sub-History unwitness’d. None of what Maskelyne says about it quite explains the Power over his Sentiments, that Dieter exerts.

  “You’ll pay the money yourself?” Mason only trying to be helpful.

  “I can’t go to Clive, can I. Not for this.”

  Mason is almost unsettl’d enough by the Wind to ask, “For what, then, will you go to him?”

  Some last Flinching of Sanity prevents him,— for where might the Discussion go? “What do you desire in the world? Is it in Clive’s Power to bestow? How appropriate is it in Scale, for a Brother-in-law? What balance shall you owe him then?”

  None of the words need ever be spoken,— tho’ given the Wind, and its properties of transformation, there are no guarantees they will not be. Yet if Mason but remains silent, keeping his Wits about him and his Arse out of the Wind, who’s to say that one day when this too has pass’d, back in England, among Colonnades, Mirrors, Uniforms and Ball-Gowns, Medals and Orders, Necklaces and Brooches incandescent,— and the Applause of Philosophickal Europe,— Lord Clive may not approach discreetly bearing an emboss’d Envelope,—