Mason & Dixon Read online

  “You’ve been Commended most warmly, Sir, by my dear brother-in-law, as largely having restor’d him to Reason, after his prolong’d Residence at St. Helena had somewhat diminish’d it. Horrid Station,— one good Volcanick Eruption, why ’twould solve ev’rything. . . . But,— as I was saying, I needn’t tell you, Nevil’s Sanity is important to me, as I’m sure it must be to Lady Clive as well. I wish I knew some better way to express . . .” But being Clive of India, alas, does not. The stiff cream Object approaching Mason’s Hand . . . “For preserving the Futurity of Astronomy in Britain . . .” Thus at the instant of first Exterior Contact, before Immersion of the Gift into a Coat-Pocket, all Honor Mason might take in the Moment is drain’d away, as even his Daydreams turn upon him, allowing among them Clive Anointing Maskelyne, as if in some particularly tasteless Painting destin’d to hang at the Greenwich Observatory,— “It has its Elements of Excess,” Maskelyne will admit, “Clive’s Tunick in partickular, and one or two of the attending Dignitaries’ Hats . . . yet, see how he’s drap’d me,—” Mason returns from these Excursions dejectedly mindful, like any moral Tumbler, that when Murder is too inconvenient, Self-sacrifice must do,— tho’ ’tis not possible for him, to imagine Maskelyne as quite ever blazing enough for any grand, or even swift, Immolation,— ’twould be a Slow Roast, Years in length, that awaited any who might come spiraling in his way. Gleefully, prefacing each with a whisper’d, “Of course, this is but Romance,” Mason then wallows in Reveries, more and more elaborate, of Mishaps for Maskelyne, many of them Vertical in Nature.

  And here it is, upon the Windward Side, where no ship ever comes willingly, that her visits begin. At some point, Mason realizes he has been hearing her voice, clearly, clean of all intervention. . . . ’Tis two years and more. Rebekah, who in her living silences drove him to moments of fury, now wrapt in what should be the silence of her grave, has begun to speak to him, as if free to do so at last, all she couldn’t even have whispered at Greenwich, not with the heavens so close, with the light-handed trickery of God so on display.

  He tries to joke with himself. Isn’t this suppos’d to be the Age of Reason? To believe in the cold light of this all-business world that Rebekah haunts him is to slip, to stagger in a crowd, into the embrace of the Painted Italian Whore herself, and the Air to fill with suffocating incense, and the radiant Deity to go dim forever. But if Reason be also Permission at last to believe in the evidence of our Earthly Senses, then how can he not concede to her some Resurrection?— to deny her, how cruel!

  Yet she can come to him anywhere. He understands early that she must come, that something is important enough to risk frightening him too much, driving him further from the World than he has already gone. She may choose a path, and to all others Mask’d, a Shadow, wait for him. She can wait, now. Is this her redress for the many times he failed to attend her whilst she lived,— now must he go through it and not miss a word? That these furloughs from death are short does not console him.

  Once, long before dawn, bidden he can scarce say how, Mason rises from his cot,— Maskelyne across the shelter snoring in a miasma of wine-fumes and an Obs Suit patch’d together from local sources, whose colors in the Gloom are mercifully obscur’d,— enters the Wind, picks his way ’cross Boot-slashing Rock up over the ridgeline and down onto the floor of a ruin’d ebony forest, where among fog-wisps and ancient black logging debris polish’d by the Wind, she accosts him shiv’ring in his Cloak. The Ocean beats past the tiny accidental Island. “I can’t have Maskelyne finding me out here.”

  “I imagin’d you miss’d me,” she replies in her own unmodified voice. Christ. The Moonlight insists she is there. Her eyes have broken into white, and grown pointed at the outer ends, her ears are back like a cat’s. “What are you up to here, Charlie? What is this place?”

  He tells her. For the first time since the Seahorse, he is afraid again.

  “For the Distance to one Star? Your Lie-by was alone here for Months. He manag’d. Why do you remain?”

  “Earth being now nearly an orbit’s diameter distant from where she was, the Work requires two,— and I must do as others direct.”

  “But wait till you’re over here, Mopery.”

  “You refer to . . . ,” he twirls his hand at her, head to toe, uncertain how, or whether, to bring up the topick of Death, and having died. She nods, her smile not, so far, terrible.

  Telling Maskelyne is out of the question,— Mason believes he would sooner or later use it to someone’s detriment. But when at last Dixon does come up the Sea-Steps at James’s Town, Mason will seize his Arm and whisk him off to his local, The Ruin’d Officer, to tell him as soon as he can.

  “Then She has come to me since . . . she came last night.” They are sitting in front of, but not drinking, two glasses of Cape Constantia.

  “Oh, aye . . . ?”

  Stubborn, heat in his face, “Damme, she was here. . . . Was it not her Soul? What, then? Memory is not so all-enwrapping, Dream sooner or later betrays itself. If an Actor or a painted Portrait may represent a Personage no longer alive, might there not be other Modalities of Appearance, as well? . . . No, nothing of Reason in it.— In truth, I have ever waited meeting her again.” Nodding as if to confirm it.

  He continues, tho’ not aloud,— There is a Countryside in my Thoughts, populated with agreeable Company, mapped with Romantick scenery, Standing-Stones and broken Archways, cedar and Yew, shaded Streams, and meadows a-riot with wild-flowers,— holding therein assemblies and frolicks . . . and each time, somewhere by surprize goes Rebekah, ever at a distance, but damme ’tis she, and a moment passes in which we have each recognized the other,— my breath goes away, I turn to Marble,—

  “Oh, Dixon. I am afraid.”

  Dixon, carefully, keeping back as far as he can get, stretches an arm and places his hand on Mason’s shoulder.

  Mason’s feet remain tranquil. “Then,” he is smiling to himself at the foolishness of this, of ev’rything, “what shall I do?”

  “Why, get on with it,” replies Dixon.

  “Easy advice to give,— how often I’ve done it. . . .”

  “Even easier to take, Friend,— for there’s no alternative.”

  “Do you believe what you’re saying? How has Getting On With It been working out for you, then? You expect me to live in the eternal Present, like some Hindoo? Wonderful,— my own Gooroo, ever here with a sage answer. Tell me, then,— what if I can’t just lightly let her drop? What if I won’t just leave her to the Weather, and Forgetfulness? What if I want to spend, even squander, my precious time trying to make it up to her? Somehow? Do you think anyone can simply let that all go?”

  “Thou must,” Dixon does not say. Instead, tilting his wine-glass at Mason as if ’twere a leaden Ale-Can, he beams sympathetickally. “Then tha must break thy Silence, and tell me somewhat of her.”

  16

  Here is what Mason tells Dixon of how Rebekah and he first met. Not yet understanding the narrative lengths Mason will go to, to avoid betraying her, Dixon believes ev’ry word. . . .

  ’Twas at the annual cheese-rolling at the parish church in Randwick, a few miles the other side of Stroud. And May-Day as well, in its full English Glory, Mason’s Baptismal day,— its own Breath being drawn again and again across the Brooksides, Copses, and Fields, heated, fragrant. Every young woman for miles around would be there, although Mason adopted a more Scientifick motive, that of wishing to see at first hand, a much-rumored Prodigy, styled “The Octuple Gloucester,”— a giant Cheese, the largest known in the Region, perhaps in the Kingdom.

  Some considered it an example of Reason run amok,— an unreflective Vicar, worshiping at the wrong Altar, having convinced local Cheesemen to pool their efforts in accomplishing the feat. Scaled up from the dimensions of the classic Single Gloucester, not only in Thickness, but actually octupled in all dimensions, making it more like a 512-f
old or Quincentenariduodecuple Gloucester,— running to nearly four tons in weight when green, and even after shrinkage towering ten feet high by the time it emerged from the giant Shed built at the outskirts of town especially for this unprecedented Caseifaction,— the extraordinary Cheese, as it slowly aged, had already provided material for months of public Rumor. In recent days, trying to contain their impatience, crowds had begun to gather outside the shed entrance, as if a royal birth were imminent. As gatherings of the People, in this part of England, often produc’d gastro-spiritual Distress among the Clothiers, there were also on hand a small body of Light Cavalry. When the Cheese was at last carefully rolled into publick View, those who were there remember a collective gasp, a beat of silence, then, “Well,— I knew it was going to be big, but—” . . . “How ever are they going to get it up to the Church?” . . . “Wonder what it tastes like?”

  Traditionally, the cheeses to be blessed and ritually rolled thrice ’round the churchyard, and thence down a Hill, ordinary-sized Double Gloucesters, were carried to the site in wheeled litters of some antiquity, though such clearly, for this Behemoth, would not do. Someone finally located a gigantic Cotswold Waggon, painted brick red and sky blue, as were the spokes and rims, respectively, of its wheels. The Cheese, an equally vivid orange-yellow, had then to be carefully rolled off a kind of dock and on into the bed of the Waggon, where, like some dangerous large animal, it was secured with stout Cables in an erect position. As the sides of the Waggon were of spindles and not planks, the Cheese was visible to onlookers in its full Circumference.

  The progress to Randwick Church was a Spectacle long to be remembered. Neighbor Folk of all conditions lined the route, at first, as the great Cheese swayed and loomed into view, silently in awe,— then, presently, as if strangely calmed by the Beams of a Luminary rising anew above each dip in the road, calling out to the Cheese and its conveyors, calls which after not too long became huzzahs and even Hosannas. Drinkers tumbled out of the alehouses and toasted the majestic food product as it passed— “Let’s have three cheers for the Great Octuple, lads!” Girls blew Kisses. Local youths from time to time would spring aboard, to help steady the cargo when the road-surface became difficult, able to tell one day of how they had escorted the great Cheese upon its journey, that famous first of May. Singing,

  Here’s to the great, Octuple boys! the

  Mon-ster Cheese of fame,

  Let’s cheer it with, a thund’rous noise,

  Then twice more of the same,—

  Oh the bells shall ring, and

  The guns shall roar,

  For the won-derful Octuple Glo’r . . .

  Aye, all the Lads, who push and who-pull,

  Ev’ry Master, ev’ry Pupil

  Single-ton and married Coople,

  Eye at Win-dow, Door and Looph’le,

  Ev’ry minim, dram and scruple

  Of their Praise is Thine, Octuple!

  Of course Mason was there hoping to see Susannah Peach, even if it had to be from a distance, surrounded by cousins and friends. She would appear, as always, in silk. Her father, Samuel Peach, was a silk merchant of some repute, and a growing Power within the East India Company. Mason imagin’d her brought bolts of it, by Indians queu’d up in bright Livery, Silks without limit from the furthest of the far Eastern lands, the house in Minchinhampton soon drap’d ev’rywhere in bright spilled, intriguingly wrinkl’d yards of silkstuffs,— an hundred mirror’d candles casting upon it the fatty yellow light of a tropical sun. Savage flowers of the Indies, demurer Blooms of the British garden, stripes and tartans, foreign colors undream’d of in Newton’s prismatics, damasks with epic-length Oriental tales woven into them, requiring hours of attentive gazing whilst the light at the window went changing so as to reveal newer and deeper labyrinths of event, Velvets whose grasp of incident light was so predatory and absolute that one moved closer to compensate for what was not being reflected, till it felt like being drawn, oneself, inside the unthinkable contours of an invisible surface. She could distinguish Shantung from Tussah and Pongee, being often quite passionate in her Preferences. “Would you like to learn Silk, Charles? It might mean Aleppo instead of India. Would that disappoint you?”

  “No, Miss.” He had visited her House when she wasn’t there. He had enter’d her room. He had knelt by her Bed and press’d his face to the Counterpane of Silk to inhale what he could of her Scent. In the Sewing-Room, from down at Surface-level, he imagin’d from the Silk strewn so carelessly, a Terrain steeply wrinkl’d into mountainsides and ravines, through which pass’d dangerous Silk-route shortcuts, down upon which with the patience of Reptiles bands of arm’d men in colorful costume gaz’d, and waited. Waited to kidnap and unspeakably mistreat beautiful young Silk Heiresses. . . .

  Today he felt more than usually glum. His father’s birthday gift to him had been a day off from duties at the Mill. All ’round him, ev’rybody else his age was flirting, chasing, and larking, whilst he trudged about, waiting at last only for the giant Cheese, which had been due to arrive, actually, some while ago. Susannah, as the daughter of a local dignitary, might be accompanying it upon its journey,— or might have stayed home altogether. He could see no one, withal, who was not by this point pair’d off. Not much use in staying, he suppos’d. . . . He started down the hillside by the church, planning at the bottom to pick up the road back in to Stroud, incompletely attentive to the slow Crescendo of cheering from the crowd above, and the wave of Children spilling down the Hill, and the first cries of Warning.

  As he’d learn later, the Vicar had decided for reasons of safety to roll nothing greater than a Double Gloucester down the Hill,— yet as if ordain’d by some invariance in the Day’s Angular Momentum, the Drag-Shoe on one side of the Octuple’s Waggon broke away, causing the conveyance to slew, and slip down the side of a Hummock, and at last tip over, launching the Cheese into the Air, just before the Waggon (its Catapult) fell over with a great creak and jangle, Wheels a-spin, as meanwhile the enormous Cheese was hitting the Slope perfectly vertical,— bouncing once, startlingly orange against the green hillside, and beginning to roll, gathering speed. The first peripheral impression Mason had of it was of course a star-gazer’s,— thinking, Why, the Moon isn’t suppos’d to be out, nor full, nor quite this bright shade of yellow, nor for that matter to be growing in size this way,— about then smoaking belatedly where he was, and what was about to happen.

  “Ahr! Mercy!” He threw his arms in front of his Face and succumb’d before the cylindrickal Onslaught, with a peculiar Horror at having been singl’d out for Misadventure . . . The Victim of a Cheese malevolent, being his last thought before abrupt Rescue by way of a stout shove, preceded by an energetick Rustling of Taffeta,— as he went toppling onto his face, grass up his Nose, hearing thro’ his Belly the homicidal Ponderosity roll by without the interruption of a flatten’d Mason to divert it from its Destiny.

  As he arose, slowly, holding his head, blowing out alternate Nostrils, her Voice first reach’d him. “Were it Night-time, Sir, I’d say you were out Star-Gazing.” She put upon her r the same vigorous Edge as his Father on a difficult day,— withal, “Star-Gazing” in those parts was a young man’s term for masturbating. He might have said something then to regret forever, but her looks had him stupefied. If she was not, like Susannah, a Classick English Rose, neither was she any rugged Blossom of the Heath. He found himself staring at the shape of her mouth, her Lips slightly apart, in an Inquiry that just fail’d to be a Smile,— like a Gate-Keeper about to have a Word with him. What shadow’d Gates lay at her Back? What mystick Residence?

  “My wish too intently these days,” he declares to Dixon when it is possible to do so, “is to re-paint the Scene, so that she might bear somehow her fate in her Face, eyes guarded, searching for small injustices to respond to because she cannot bear what she knows will befall her,— yet Rebekah’s innocence of Mortality kept ever intact
. . . oh, shall this divide my Heart? she saw nothing, that May-Day, but Life ahead of her.”

  (“There are no records of her in Gloucestershire,” interrupts Uncle Ives.

  “What, none? Shall none ever appear?”

  “With respect to your Faith in the as-yet-Unmaterializ’d, Mason was baptiz’d at Sapperton Church, as were his Children,— yet he and Rebekah were not married there. So mayn’t they have met elsewhere as well,— even at Greenwich?”

  “Unless ghosts are double,—” “— one walking, the other still,” the Twins propose.)

  Country Wife open and fair, City Wife a Creature of Smoke, Soot, Intrigue, Purposes unutter’d . . . her plainly visible Phantom attends Mason as if he were a Commissioner of Unfinish’d Business, representing Rebekah at her most vital and belov’d. Is this, like the Bread and Wine, a kindness of the Almighty, sparing him a sight he could not have abided? What might that be, too merciless to bear? At times he believes he has almost seen black Fumes welling from the Surface of her Apparition, heard her Voice thickening to the timbres of the Beasts . . . the serpents of Hell, real and swift, lying just the other side of her Shadow . . . the smell of them in their long, cold Waiting. . . . He gazes, at such moments, feeling pleasurably helpless. She occupies now an entirely new angular relation to Mercy, to those refusals, among the Living, to act on behalf of Death or its ev’ryday Coercions,— Wages too low to live upon, Laws written by Owners, Infantry, Bailiffs, Prison, Death’s thousand Metaphors in the World,— as if, the instant of her passing over having acted as a Lens, the rays of her Soul have undergone moral Refraction.