Mason & Dixon (75 page)

"Animals whose Owners knew them, made the Transition along with them, to the fourteenth. 'Most all the dogs, for example. Fewer Cats, but plenty nonetheless. Any that remain'd by the third of September were wild Creatures, or stray'd into the Valley,— perhaps, being ownerless, disconnected as well from Calendars. I found one such Horse, a Horse no one would have known, as well as two Cows unmilk'd and at large. I rode past miles of Crops untended, Looms still'd and water-wheels turning to no avail, Apples nearly ripe, Waggons half-laded, the Weld not yet a-bloom, nor the Woad-mills a-stink, till at length from the last ridge-line, there lay crystalline Oxford, as finely etch'd as my Eyes, better in those days, could detect, nor holding a thread of Smoak in it anywhere—"

"You were making for Oxford... ?"

"Aye, with some crack'd notion I'd find Bradley there— Being a young Bradleyolator, as were all Lens-fellows of that Day, especially 'round Gloucestershire...tho' later, in my Melancholy, I might see more vividly his all-too-earthly connections with Macclesfield and Chesterfield, and beyond them, looming in the mephitic Stench, Newcastle and Mr. Pelham. At that Moment, in my Innocence, I believ'd that Bradley, our latter-day Newton, insatiately curious, must have calculated his way into this Vortex,— with the annoying Question of why he should, kept beyond the Gates of conscious Entertainment.”

"Did you find him there?"

"I found Something...not sure what. What surpriz'd me was the sensible Residue of Sin that haunted the place,— of a Gravity, withal, unconfronted, unaton'd for, lying further than simple Jacobite Persistence.... I'd of course collected, in some dim way, that Bradley had advis'd Macclesfield,— his great Benefactor, after all, perhaps even in partial return upon Milord's Investment,— as to ways of finding the movable Feasts and holy Days and so forth, under the New Style,— and that Macclesfield had taken credit for the philosophical labor, as Chesterfield for the Witticisms and Bonhomie, that it took eventually to bring the Calendar Act into Law. Yet, though Bradley seldom sought Acclaim, preferring to earn it, neither would he refuse credit due him, unless there were reason to keep Silence,— such as the unexpected depth of his complicity in an Enterprise so passionately fear'd and hated by most of the People."

Both reach for the coffee at the same time, Dixon elaborately deferring to Mason's over-riding need for any Antistupefacient to hand.

"I don't know that in the entire Cycle I caught a Wink of Slumber,— 'twere but a Devourer of precious Time, when all the Knowledge of Worlds civiliz'd and pagan, late and ancient, lay open to my Questions."

"Yet I guess I know this Tale,— 'tis the German fellow,— Faust isn't it?"

"But that he, at least, was able to live in the plenary World,— I, alas, was alone."

"Eeh...?"

"Well,...as it turn'd out, not alone, exactly...."

"I knew it,— some Milk-maid, out on a tryst, eeh! am I near it? stray'd too close to the Vortex? Whoosh! Pail inverted, Skirts a-flying,— So! how'd it go?"

"Pray you.—
 
'Twas something I never saw,— certainly not Mr. Bod-ley's Librarian, Mr. Wild,— and they were more than one. After Night-Fall, as I burn'd Taper 'pon Taper wantonly, only just succeeding in pushing back the gloom about me, would I hear Them rustling, ever beyond the circle of light, as if foraging among the same ancient Leaves as I."

"Mice, or Rats, maybe...?”

"Too deliberate. They seem'd to wish to communicate."

"And this was down among those Secret Shelves, where none but the Elect may penetrate?"

"You know about that?"

"Of course,— Emerson gave us a brief inventory. Aristotle on Comedy, always wanted to read thah',— all the good bits that Thomas left out of the Infancy Gospel... ? Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hypatia... ?"

"What sav'd me," impassively on, "was hunger,— an abrupt passage of indecipherable Latin returning my attention at last from lighted Page to empty Stomach. I recall'd that Pantries and Wine-cellars all over the Town lay open to my Hungers,— apprehensive, light-headed, I rush'd from the Library, too a-tremble to keep a taper lit, up ladders creaking in the absolute Dark, down corridors of high bookshelves,— Presences lay everywhere in Ambuscado. I dared not lift my eyes to what all too palpably waited, pois'd, upon the ancient Ceilings, wing'd, fatal— Then! a sudden great whir at my face,— scientifickally no doubt a Bat, tho' at the moment something far less readily nam'd,— provoking a cry of Fear, as at last I broke out into the open air of a Quadrangle, yellow in the Moonlight...."

"Wait! that's it! The Moon,— "

"Indeed, among any amateur Astronomer's first questions. How should the Moon behave, seen from inside this Vortex?"

"And, and?"

"Ever full,— ever fix'd upon the Meridian." An insincere Chuckle. "Yes, eleven days of Light remorseless, to be fac'd alone in a city of Gothickal Structures, that might or might not be inhabited, whilst from all directions came flights of the dark Creatures I hop'd were only... Bats."

"Tha don't mean,— "

"As the Timbres, nearly Human, of the ceaseless Howling I hop'd
came only from.. .Dogs
      
"

"Not,— "

"Oh, and more.—
 
'Twas as if this Metropolis of British Reason had been abandon'd to the Occupancy of all that Reason would deny. Malevolent shapes flowing in the Streets. Lanthorns spontaneously going out. Men roaring, as if chang'd to Beasts in the Dark. A Carnival of Fear.

Shall I admit it? I thrill'd. I felt that if I ran fast enough, I could gain altitude, and fly. I would become one of them. I could hide beneath Eaves as

well as any. I could creep in the Shadows. I could belong to the D——l,

— anything, inside this Vortex, was possible. I could shriek inside Churches. I could smash ev'ry Window in a Street. Make a Druidick Bonfire of the Bodleian. At some point, however, without Human prey, the Evil Appetite must fail, and I became merely Melancholy again."

"Thee abandon'd thy Studies of the Ancient Secrets? For a mere Tickling of thy Sensorium, done with how swiftly... ? Mason,— dear Mason."

"In fact," Mason unmirthfully, "I was prevented from ever returning. Exil'd from the Knowledge. As I cross'd into the Courtyard before Duke Humfrey's, I encounter'd a Barrier invisible, which I understood I might cross if I will'd, tho' at the Toll of such Spiritual Unease, that one Step past it was already too far. What that Influence was, I cannot say. Perhaps an Artifact of the Vortex. Perhaps an Infestation of certain Beings Invisible. I receiv'd, tho' did not altogether hear, from somewhere, a distinct Message that the Keys and Seals of Gnosis within were too dangerous for me. That I must hold out for the Promises of Holy Scripture, and forget about the Texts I imagin'd I'd seen."

"Tha didn't want to hear thah', I guess?"

Mason seizes, cradles, and hefts his Abdominal Spheroid. "Meditating upon bodily Resurrection, I arriv'd at the idea of this being resurrected, and without delay proceeded to a Bacchic interlude, in which you'd not be interested, being too prolong'd, and besides, too personal."

"Well...now...?"

"Gone was the Chance that might have chang'd my Life. It lay at the Eye of that Vortex,— to cross the Flow of Time surrounding it, was I oblig'd to aim a bit upstream, or toward the Past, in order to maintain a radial course to the Center—"

"And there, whilst with Taurean stubbornness tha kept at i'...?"

"Well now, odd as it may seem, soon as I'd penetrated the Barrier, I understood my Holiday was over,— I tried to pull back, but too late,— I

was in the vortickal Emprise.... To my Relief, some, at least, of the dark

Presences that had caus'd me such Apprehension, prov'd to be the Wraiths of those who had mov'd ahead instantly to the Fourteenth, haunting me not from the past but from the Future,— drawing closer, ever closer, until,— First I heard the voices of the Town, then at the edges of my Vision, Blurs appear'd, and Movement, which went suddenly a-whirl, streaking in to surround me, as in the mesh of prolong'd Faces, only hers stood firm.—
 
And when I join'd her again, before I could think of what to say, she kiss'd me and declar'd,— 'Somebody got in late last night.'

"The only proof I had that 'twas not a Dream was the Bite I receiv'd whilst in my Noctambulation of the City.—

"This Life," runs the moral he is able by now to draw for Dixon, "is like the eleven days,— a finite Period at whose end, she and I, having separated for a while, will be together again. Meanwhile must I travel alone, in a world as unreal as those empty September dates were to me then...."

" 'Bite,' Mason?"

"Nothing, nothing. Likely a Dog."

"How likely?"

"What else? If the People of Stroud, pursuing ordinary Lives eleven days ahead of me, could 'morphose to such sinister Beings, why not their Dogs?"

"Show me."

"Well that was the rum thing, Dixon, for about ten minutes later,—

"Eeh! I am the Sniffer sniff'd, as Parker said when he put his Head in the Bear's Den...?”

57

Early in 1766,— New Style,— reversing the Directions taken the year before, Mason sets off southward "to see the Country," whilst Dixon,— mention'd in the Field-Book only upon Mason's return, as having left Philadelphia, upon the eighteenth of March, to meet with the Commissioners at Chester Town,— in fact heads north for the lighted Streets of New-York.

At a Theater with no name, no fix'd address,— this night happ'ning to be upon Broad-Way,— printing no Handbills, known only by word of mouth, Dixon upon the advice of a Ferry-Companion attends a Stage performance of the musical drama The Black Hole of Calcutta, or, The Peevish Wazir. Before a backdrop of Fort William (executed with such an obsessively fine respect for detail, that during the Work's Longueurs, with the aid of a Glass, one may observe, pictur'd upon the Tableau, sub-ordinate Dramas as if in progress,— meetings of the Management, hands clutching throats or leveling Pistols, farewells by the landing, the steaming pale forever-unreachable Hooghly and the Ships waiting to go away, leaving behind the Unspeakable), a Corps of two dozen Ladies appear, strolling about in quasi-Indian Dress and singing, to the (as some would say) inappropriately lively Accompaniment of a small Orchestra,

In the Black Hole of Calcut-ta, One scarcely knows quite what t' Make of Things they groan and mut-ter, Why, 'tis cheerier in the Gut-ter.—

Being dark and ooh so stuf-fy, Little Su-gar for one's Cof-fee, And the Na-tives, rah-ther huf-fy,— And the Pil-lows far from fluf-fy,—

Ask of an-y, Bengal-i,

How's the Black Hole, to-night,—

Don't expect him, to be jol-ly,

For there's something, not-quite right! as

The Lamps begin to sput-ter, All will not be Scones and But-ter, When the door's at last been shut to That Black Hole of Cal-cut-ta! La,— la,— la-la, la-la, la-la...

The Story, as near as Dixon can make out, is about a British officer whose Rivalry with a comically villainous Frenchman for the Affection of a Nabob's Daughter, brings on the war in Bengal. There are some catchy Tunes, and an Elephant, promis'd in the first Act, which incredibly, at the very end of the Show, is deliver'd. The audience sits stunn'd in the vacuous Purity of not having been cheated. The Elephant, within its elaborate trappings of red, blue, and gold, watches everything carefully,— someone's Elephant, perhaps, but no one's Fool. Girls emerge from the Howdah in impossible numbers, wearing Costumes as variously hued as the Rainbow, and as diaphanous. They place their stocking'd Toes precisely upon Elephant pressure points, long known to Chinese Healers, strung along his Ear Meridians,— the Elephant rolls his eyes appreciatively. 'Tis this part of the Show that the Girls, as well, enjoy the most, or so they tell Dixon afterward, when he wanders back-stage to see what might be up, in all Innocence following the Scents of Womanly Exertion, to the Dressing-Room.

"Here he is!"

"Took him long enough, for a Kiddy got up so flash."

"Oh ye'll bore him, Fiona! Come over here m' Darling, you can sleep later.”

"Ooh! Cow."

"Anyone in here for a Turtle Feast? My foolish Lad has a Coach waiting?" Dixon is swept in a rush of Polonaises, Sacques, and Petticoats into the Vehicle, and with great cheering away they clatter, out the Greenwich Road to Brannan's and an unsequenc'd two days of Revelry, ever punctuated by someone rising to cry, "I haven't felt this excited,— " turning to the Others, who roar back, " - since Eyre Coote won the Battle of Wandiwash!"— being a famous Moment from the Comedy,— Party ending up back in the Town, at Montague's Tavern, upon Broad-Way, near Murray Street, which proves to be Head-quarters of the local Sons of Liberty, as well as thick with Intrigue, regardless of the Hour.

He is soon aware of Captain Volcanoe, who in the Year since Mason saw him has been well in the Crucible of the Troubles attending the Stamp Act. Some of the old gang have fled,— others have decided to gamble ev'rything, unto their Lives, to see the British gone,— tho' beyond this, there is little agreement. "Even if this Act is repeal'd or in practice never enforc'd, any ministry of this King, even one that somehow includes Mr. Pitt, will be certain to tax us. 'Tis our Duty to resist, tho' it take up all our Days, and Nights as well. The Communications are now well establish'd, despite British Interceptions. We do well. More and more are resolv'd,— our Numbers ever growing. For the first time, we had a trans-Provincial Congress here in October,— yet, the Expense, reckon'd so far, must be borne most heavily by the warmer Sentiments, for we are become a colder lot. Tell your co-adjutor he was lucky we caught him last Winter, and not this, or Blackie might have had his way."

"From what he'll be pleas'd to hope a safe distance, then, Mr. Mason sends his Compliments to your Niece."

"She ran off with an Italian Waggon-smith," the Captain shaking his head, "and they went to live in Massapequa, upon Long-Island. His mother is teaching her to cook."

"Mason will be perplex'd."

"How do you think we feel? A sort of Club, at whose Gatherings she might meet a possible Husband,— that's all the use we ever were to her. Politics? Poh. She may never care about any of this. The road's not for ev'ryone, 's all's it is.”