Mason & Dixon (49 page)

The weather continues to worsen. Taproom Regulars come in to voice openly Comparisons to the Winter of '63 and '64, the freezing and Floods. New casks of peach Brandy are open'd daily. The Knockwoods begin to raise their voices. "But I was saving that one."

"For what? The Book of Revelations? These are cash customers.”

The Assembly Room is not Bath. Here congregate all the Agentry of the Province, Land-jobbers and Labor Crimps, Tool-Mongers and Gypsy Brick-Layers, as well as the curious Well-to-do from further East, including all the Way back across the Ocean. The Waggoners keep together, seeking or creating their own Snugs, and the Men of Affairs arrange for Separate Rooms. Those that remain, tend to run to the quarrelsome.

"Where may one breathe?" demands one Continental Macaroni, in a yellow waistcoat, "— in New-York, Taverns have rooms where Smoke is prohibited."

"Tho' clearly," replies the itinerant Stove-Salesman Mr. Whitpot, drawing vigorously at his Pipe, "what's needed is a No-Idiots Area."

The youth at this makes a motion, less threatening than vex'd, toward the Hanger he wears habitually at his side,— tho' upon which he happens, at the moment, to be sitting. "Well, and you're a Swine, who cares what a Swine thinks?"

"Peevish Mr. Dimdown," coos Mrs. Edgewise, reaching behind the youth's ear and underneath his Wig to produce a silver pistole she has no intention, however, of offering to him, "do re-sheathe your weapon, there's a good young gentleman." Mistress of a diverting repertoire of conjuring tricks with Playing-Cards, Dice, Coins, Herbs, Liquids in Flasks, Gentlemen's Watches, Handkerchiefs, Weapons, Beetles and Bugs and short Excursions up the Chain of Being therefrom,— to Pigeons upon occasion, and Squirrels,— she has brought, to the mud courtyards of trans-Susquehannian inns, Countryfolk from miles about to gather into a crepuscular Murmur, no fabl'd Telegraph so swift as this Diffusion among them of word that a Magician is in the Neighborhood. In this Autumn cold, out in the Rain, beneath the generally unseen rising of the Pleiades, has she been trouping on, cheerfully rendering subjunctive, or contrary to fact, familiar laws of nature and of common sense.

Despite her Skills in Legerdemain, her Husband seldom, if ever, will allow her to accompany him upon his gaming Ventures. Ever subject to Evaporations of Reserve, she will now and then inquire why not, receiving the dyspeptic equivalent of a Gallant Smile. "Madam, to visit yea

 
even gaze upon such Doings would I fear my honey'd Apiary prove no easy burden to Sensibilities as finely rigged out as your own, therefore must I advise against it, with regret yet vehemence as well, my tuzzy-muzzy."

"I know your 'vehemence.' It is of little account with me."

"Among my acquaintance," remarks Mr. Dimdown, fondling his Hanger, "no woman would dare address her Husband in that way, without incurring a prolonged chastisement."

"As the phrase, scientifickally, describes Life with Mr. Edgewise, your Acquaintance need not, on this Occasion at least, suffer disappointment."

In a distant corner, Luise and Mitzi are engag'd in a Discussion as to Hair. "I want it all different lengths," fiercely, "I don't want to fasten it close to my head. I don't want to cover it. I want people to see it. I want Boys to see it."

" 'Tis a brumal Night, for behold, it sweepeth by," announces Squire Haligast from the shadows, resuming his silence as everyone falls silent to attend thereupon,— for the gnomic Squire, on the rare occasions he speaks, does so with an intensity suggesting, to more than one of the Guests, either useful Prophecy or Bedlamite Entertainment.

This is the Room Mason and Dixon descend into, where all is yet too new for the scent of hops and malt to've quite worked in,— rather, fugitive odors of gums and resins, of smoke from pipes and fires, of horses upon the garments of the company, come and go, unmix'd. The winter light creeps in and becomes confus'd among the glassware, a wrinkl'd bright stain.

"You're the Astronomers," Mr. Knockwood greets them. "The Revd has been speaking of you." When they come to explain about the two Transits of Venus, and the American Work filling the Years between, "By Heaven, a 'Sandwich,' " cries Mr. Edgewise. "Take good care, Sirs, that something don't come along and eat it!"

His pleasure at being able to utter a recently minted word, is at once much curtailed by the volatile Chef de Cuisine Armand Allègre, who rushes from the Kitchen screaming. "Sond-weech-uh! Sond-weech-uh!," gesticulating as well, "To the Sacrament of the Eating, it is ever the grand Insult!”

Cries of "Anti-Britannic!" and "Shame, Mounseer!"

Mitzi clutches herself. "No Mercy! Oh, he's so 'cute!"

Young Dimdown may be seen working himself up to a level of indignation that will allow him at least to pull out his naked Hanger again, and wave it about a bit. "Where I come from," he offers, "Lord Sandwich is as much respected for his nobility as admired for his Ingenuity, in creating the great modern Advance in Diet which bears his name, and I would suggest,— without of course wishing to offend,— that it ill behooves some bloody little toad-eating foreigner to speak his name in any but a respectful manner."

"Had I my batterie des couteaux" replies the Frenchman, with more gallantry than sense, "before that ridiculous little blade is out of his sheath, I can bone you,— like the Veal!"

"Stop it," admonishes the Revd, "both of you,— not all the Sensibilities here are grown as coarsen'd as your own. The Eponym in dispute," he continues to point out to the Macaroni, "better known these Days as Jemmy Twitcher, withal, is a vile-mouthed drunkard, a foolish gambler, and a Sodomitical rake, who betrayed his dear friend for the sake of,— let us say, a certain Caress, from the feeble hand of Georgie, Jack Bute's pathetic Creature."

"By Heaven, a Wilkesite!" cries Mr. Edgewise, "right here among us, imagine it, my Crown of Thorns!"

"The Lord's long Night of gaming draws to a close," pronounces Squire Haligast, "— the Object in its Journey, comes nigh, among the excursions of Chance, the sins of ministers, the inscriptions upon walls and Gate-posts,— the birth of the 'Sandwich,' at this exact moment in Christianity,— one of the Noble and Fallen for its Angel! Disks of secular Bread,— enclosing whilst concealing slices of real Flesh, yet a-sop with Blood, under the earthly guise of British Beef, all,— but for the Species of course,— Consubstantiate, thus... the Sandwich, Eucharist of this our Age." Thereupon retracting his head into the recklessly-toss'd folds of his neck-cloth, and saying no more.

"Precisely so," blares Mr. Edgewise, striking his wife smartly upon the Leg,— "oh, beg pardon, m' dear, thought it was meself I was thumping upon, well well a long night of gaming for us all isn't it? even if it is

usually in the daytime, day after quo-not-to-mention-quid-tidian day now ain't that correct, my cheery Daw!"

At table next morning, instead of the gusts of grease-smoke she expected venting from the kitchen, Luise Redzinger is agreeably surpriz'd to find Fragrances already familiar from her own cooking, and withal strange deviations,— what she later will identify as Garlick, for one, and a shameless over-usage of Butter in place of Lard, for another. "Do you not consider it a sin, even in the English church?" she accosts Revd Cherry-coke. "You could not find this even in Bethlehem at Christmastide." The object is a Croissant,— "a sort of ev'ryday Roll among the French, who put Butter in all they cook, Madam," the worldly Mr. Edgewise instructs her,— half a dozen more of which her Daughter, less scandalized, has already accounted for,— though no fingers in the room go altogether ungreased by these palatable pastries, which keep arriving from some distant oven, one great steaming platter-ful after another. "More likely the Devil's work," sniffs the beauteous Sectarian, "than any Frenchman, so." But with a strange,— what indeed is later thought to be hopeful,— Lift, at the end of it.

"Well then," bustles their host, "how'd you like to meet him in person?"

She gasps. Whenever she tells the story after that, she will put in, "My heart stopped, almost,— for I thought he meant the Devil." But he means his newly-hired Chef, the diminutive and athletic Monsieur Armand Allegre, whose white Toque, "half again as tall as he," she has noticed once or twice flashing in the kitchen doorway, even thro' pipe-murk and this dark Daybreak,— more brightly, in fact, than there is light to account for. "Here, Frenchy! Venayzeesee! One of our Guests wishes to present her compliments!" He winks at the eaters at nearby tables, Lord Affability.

"Gentle Sir," Frau Redzinger fixing him with a gaze whose calmness is precarious at best, "he may cook whatever he pleases,— I will not preach him a sermon."

"Oh, he's a good sort, you needn't worry, he's not all that French! Here then,— “

Introduced by their jocund host, the Frenchman sweeps off his Toque, causing a trio of Candles nearby to gutter for a moment, and stands before her exposed in his true altitude, hardly taking breaths, as she, meantime, 'tis clear to one or two of the Company, sits likewise trans-fix'd, the croissant in her posed hand shedding flakes, as a late flower its petals. By the unabated noise in the room, it would seem the moment has passed unremark'd. She, as if becoming aware of the (as it now turns out) already half-eaten Article she holds, shakes it slowly at him in reluctant tribute. "How...did you do this?"

"Madame,— I am even now about to begin a new batch of the Croissant Dough.. .I would be honored, if you would care to observe our little Kitchen at work—" From somewhere producing a simple turned hickory cylinder, some twenty inches long and perhaps two across,— "My Rolling-pin,"— urging her to take it in her hesitant hands, appreciate the weight, the smoothness, and give it a sample roll or two upon the table.

Frowning, curious, she complies. Presently, her voice lower, "It pays well, this Job, net?" He shrugs, his thoughts elsewhere. "Were it Thousands," sighing as if they were the only two in the room, and forcefully grasping his own face by the cheeks, "yet would you behold...the face of Melancholy. Alas. Once the most celebrated chef in France,— now alone, among foreign Peasants and skin-wearing Primitives, with no chance of escaping. And even if I could, where would I go? when all civilized,— I mean, of course, French,— soil is forbidden to my foot, even in the Illinois, even in the far mountains of Louisiana, It would seek me out, and remain, with motives too alien for any human ever to know."

" 'It'! How dreadful. Who dislikes you so much?"

' 'Who,' alas.. .a human pursuer, I perhaps could elude."

Fascinated herself, she has miss'd completely his effect upon Mitzi, who is sitting there flush'd and daz'd, with as clear an incipient case of the Green Pip as Mrs. Edgewise has met with since her own Girlhood. She leans from an adjoining Table. "Do you wish to faint, child?" Courteously the girl's eyelids and lashes swing downward, at least for as long as she can bear it, till presently in a weightless Languor sweeping up

 
again for another quick glance at Armand. The older Woman straightens again, shaking her head with a smile in which ordinary Mirth, though present, is far from the only Element,— as meanwhile M. Allègre proceeds, before a room-ful of what, to his mind, must seem unfeeling barbarians, to recite his Iliad of Inconvenience.

37

"I was the youngest of four brothers. Each of us, one by one, was well placed in life, until my turn came,— when, our Father's Fortunes' having experienc'd an unforeseen reversal, there remain'd only money enough to send me to Paris and apprentice me to the greatest chef in France,— which is to say, in the World.—

This is greeted with cries of, "Really, Mounseer!" "The world of Amphibia, perhaps," and "Here Frenchy,— try a nice British Sausage Roll!" "Oh dear," murmurs Mr. Knockwood, awaiting the ominous scrape of chair-legs along his new floor-planking.

For years (the Frenchman goes on), I grunted 'neath Loads of water and firewood, Sacks of Flour, Tubs of Butter. Everything the Maître considered below standard I got to eat, thus learning in the most direct way, the rights and wrongs of the Food. 'Twas another year before I was permitted to hold a Whisk. No one offer'd to teach me anything. Learning was to be all my responsibility. Year by year, sleepless and too often smileless, I acquir'd the arts of la Cuisine,— until, one day, at last, I had become a Chef. And presently, as these things unfold, Paris was at my feet.

I'll say it for you,— poor Paris! Here were great Houses getting into
violent feuds over my pates, the Queen commenting upon my Blanquette
de Veau. I quickly grew too self-important to understand that it was my
Novelty they were after, not my cooking,— a realization I delay'd for
longer than prov'd wise
     
I was visited one day by a certain well-known Gentleman-Detective of the Time,— let us call him Hervé du T.,— whilst in the most critical Passage of a very demanding Sauce. The man had no idea of what he had put in jeopardy. In the Kitchen, one of the most useful Skills, is knowing when best, and when not, to deploy un Accès de Cuisinier, which properly executed has been known to freeze entire arm'd Units in their Tracks. The Obsession lighting the Eyes of my Visitor, however, far outshone anything I knew how to summon,— I was intrigued,— God help me, Madame, I listened.—

At this point Armand catches sight of Mason and Dixon, who are attempting to bring their Breakfast to an undisturb'd corner of the Saloon. "Ah! how curious that this Instant, Gentlemen, I was about to advert to your Brother in Science, whom perhaps you have even met, the immortal Jacques de Vaucanson."

Mason squints thoughtfully, Dixon shifts his Hat about till presently nodding, "Why aye, thah's it,— the Lad with the mechanickal Duck... ?"

"Too true, alas. A Mechanician of blinding and world-rattling Genius, Gentlemen, yet posterity will know him because of the Duck alone,— they are already coupl'd as inextricably as...Mason and Dixon? Haw-hawhawnnh. The Man Voltaire call'd a Prometheus,— to be remember'd only for having trespass'd so ingeniously outside the borders of Taste, as to have provided his Automaton a Digestionary Process, whose end result could not be distinguish'd from that found in Nature."