Mason & Dixon (21 page)

"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,— Flag-
less, 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 solem
nity 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 six
pence,— more substantial Sums going into side-Wagers, and the
Percentages of Widows' Shares being ever negotiable,— and thus con
vert 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 South-easter 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 unwit-ness'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,—

"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, "dive'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?"