Mason & Dixon (25 page)

 
the Peaches' in the Country,— yet they might have been Buzz-men as easily, having some difficulties with the English Tongue, which, given my own, I may not judge."

"Where were ye wed?"

"Down near the East India Docks. 'Clive Chapel,' as they styl'd it then, a Nabob's Day-Dream, made to seem a Treasure-Cave of the East, with Walls of Crystal, Chandeliers of Lenses Prismatick, that could make the light of but a single Candle brighter than a Beacon, Prie-Dieux of Gold, Windows all of precious Gems instead of color'd Glass, depicting Scenes from the Wedding of Lord Clive and Miss Maskelyne,— her Gown entirely of Pearl, his Uniform Jacket of Burmese Ruby, their Eyes painstakingly a-sparkle with tiny Sapphires and Zircons."

"Heavenly.. .and their Hair?"

"Amber,— in its many shades— And the Dignitaries attending, and their Ladies, each in a different Costume, each out-dazzling each,— the Clergy officiating,— the Views of Bombay in the Background,— well, it seem'd to go on forever. You could gaze and get lost. Perhaps I did."

"Or he might have."

"He got lost among the Stars. Years before he met me."

"Papa is like that. I know. They just... drift off, don't they?"

Bradley had reported upon the Comets of '23 and '37, but not, apparently, that of '44, one day to be term'd the finest of the Century. What came sweeping instead into his life that year, was his Bride, Susannah Peach. Did he make any connection at the time between the Comet, and the girl? Or again, in '57, another Comet-year, when she departed from his life?— though Mason would seem to be the one up there most ready to connect the fast-moving image of a female head in the Sky, its hair streaming in a Wind inconceivable, with posthumous Visitation,— hectic high-speed star-gazing, not the usual small-Arc quotinoctian affair by any means. It would have been Mason, desperate with longing, who, had he kept a Journal, would have written,—

"Through the seven-foot Telescope, at that resolution, 'tis a Face, though yet veil'd, 'twill be hers, I swear it, I stare till my eyes ache. I must ask Bradley's advice, and with equal urgency, of course, I must not."

First Susannah, then Rebekah. The nearly two years separating their deaths were rul'd by the Approaching Comet of Dr. Halley, which

 
reach'd perihelion a month after Rebekah died,— dimming in the glare of the Sun, swinging about behind it, then appearing once more— Whereupon, 'twas Mason's midnight Duty to go in, and open the shutters of the roof, and fearfully recline, to search for her, find her, note her exact location, measure her. On his back. And when she was so close that there could remain no further doubt, how did he hold himself from crying out after the stricken bright Prow of her Face and Hair, out there so alone in the Midnight, unshelter'd, on display to ev'ry 'Gazer with a Lens at his disposal? He could not look too directly...as if he fear'd a direct stare from the eyes he fancied he saw, he could but take fugitive Squints, long enough to measure the great Flow of Hair gone white, his thumb and fingers busy with the Micrometer, no time to linger upon Sentiments, not beneath this long Hovering, this undesired Recognition.

Up late between Stars, Mason listen'd downhill to the Owls as they hunted, and kill'd, himself falling into a kind of stunn'd Attendance but a step and a half this side of Dream.... In the Turning-Evil of this time, awaiting her sure Return, he seem'd one night to push through to the other side of something, some Membrane, and understood that the death-faced Hunters below were not moaning that way from any cause,— rather, 'twas the Sound itself that possess'd them, an independent Force, using them as a way into the Secular Air, its purposes in the world far from the Rodents of the Hill-side, mysterious to all.

The pitch of Lust and Death in the Observatory was palpable to, if seldom nameable by, those who came up there. "Phoh! beginning to doubt we'd ever get away again."

"In the Tales I was brought up on, they eat people in places like that. What is going on between those two?

Mason more than once had caught the old Astronomer watching Susannah with a focus'd Patience he recogniz'd from the Sector Room...as if waiting for a sudden shift in the sky of Passion, like that headlong change in Star Position that had led him to the discovery of the Aberration of Light,— waiting for his Heart to leap again the way it had then, after Night upon Night of watching a little Ellipse, a copy in miniature of how the Earth was traveling in its own Orbit, enacted by London's own Zenith-star, Caput Draconis, the Dragon's Head, looking for the

Star's Parallax, as had been Dr. Hooke before him. When the Star inex-

 
plicably appear'd to be moving, it took him some time to understand and explain the apparent Disorder of the Heavens he was observing. ''I thought 'twas meself,— all the Coffee and Tobacco, driving me unreliable." He also saw at the Time a Great Finger reaching in from the Distance, pausing at Draco and,— gently for a Finger of its size,— stirring up into a small Vortex the Stars there.

By the time Mason went to work for him, he was known and rever'd thro'out Europe, and in the midst of compiling a great Volume of Observations Lunar, planetary, and astral,— to interested Parties priceless, yet to their Lawyers pricey enough to merit Disputing over. By Warrant of Queen Anne, "Visitors" from the Royal Society were entitl'd annually to a Copy of all Obs,— now,— so Mason had heard being shouted in another room during his late moments with the Peaches,— as Queen Anne was dead these many years, so must be her Warrant, and as the Obs had ever belong'd to Bradley personally, so now did they to his Heirs and Assigns.

Had Susannah been but a means of getting those Obs into the Peach family, and the eager Mittens of Sam Peach, Sr.? Were they the Price of a Directorship in the East India Company? Once there was a child, having done her Job, would the little Operative have been free to return to Chalford, back into the Peach Bosom, whilst her Doting Charge fidgeted about with his Lenses and screw-Settings, at distant Greenwich?

Even Mason's Horse looks back at him, reproachful at this. An ungentlemanly Speculation. Who has not been an indulgent Husband? "Who ever set out to be an old fool with a young Wife?" Mason argues aloud. "Of course he ador'd her, his Governess in all things. How shall I speak?"

Sam could've told Tales'd chill any Father's Blood. His affections, as ever, with the Doctor, nonetheless, when they wed, did he welcome the Relief. Now may he welcome the Obs, too. Yet Mason, as Bradley s Assistant, perform'd many of them. Shall he put in a Claim for these? He thinks not, as he was really giving them to Bradley, all, for nothing more than, "Thank you, Mr. Mason, and well done.”

19

In the bar of The George, what should he find, as the Topick of vehement Conversation, but Bradley again.

"I don't care how much glory he's brought England, he'll still have to pay for his Pints in here."

"Not likely now, is it? Poor Bugger."

"Howbeit,— he was in, don't forget, with Macclesfield and that gang, that stole the Eleven Days right off the Calendar. God may wait, for the living God's a Beast of Prey, Who waits, and may wait for years.. .yet at last, when least expected, He springs."

"Thank you, Rev,— now when do I get to sell Ale in your Chapel? Sunday be all right?"

"Nay, attend him,— the Battle-fields we know, situated in Earth's three Dimensions, have also their counterparts in Time,— and if the Popish gain advantage in Time's Reckoning, they may easily carry the Day."

"Why, that they've had, the Day and the Night as well, since 'fifty-two, when we were all taken over onto Roman Whore's Time, and lost eleven days' worth of our own."

Mason pretends to examine his shoe-buckle, trying not to sigh too heavily. Of the many Classics of Idiocy, this Idiocy of the Eleven Days has join'd the select handful that may never be escap'd. Some have held this Grudge for ten years,— not so long, as Grudges go. Now that misfortune has overtaken Bradley's life, do they feel aveng'd at last? He listens to the weary Hymn once more, as he has from his father, at this moment but walking-miles distant, still asleep, soon to wake—

"So what the D——l is yerr dear Friend Dr. Bradley up t', he and his

Protectors? Stealing eleven Days? Can that be done?" It seem'd his Father had really been asking.

"No, Pa,— by Act of Parliament, September second next shall be call'd, as ever, September second,— but the day after will be known as 'September fourteenth,' and then all will go on consecutive, as before."

"But,— 'twill really be September third."

"The third by the Old Style, aye. But ev'ryone will be using the New."

"Then what of the days between? Macclesfield takes them away, and declares they never were?" With a baffled Truculence in his Phiz that made Mason equally as anxious to comfort the distress it too clearly sig-nal'd, as to avoid the shouting it too often promis'd.

"We can call Days whatever we like. Give them names,— Georgeday, Charlesday,— or Numbers, so long as ev'ryone's clear what they're to be call'd."

"Aye Son, but,— what's become of the Eleven Days? and do you even know? you're telling me they're just.. .gone?" Would he not give this up? The shins of both men began to prickle with unmediated memories of violent collisions between Leather and Bone.

"Cheer ye, Pa, for there's a bright side,— we'll arrive instantly at the fourteenth, gaining eleven days that we didn't have to live through, nor be mark'd by, nor age at all in the course of,— we'll be eleven days younger than we would've been."

"Are you daft? Won't it make my next Birthday be here that much sooner? That's eleven Days older, idiot,— older."

"No," said Mason. "Or...wait a moment,—

"I've people asking me, what Macclesfield will do with the days he is stealing, and why is Dr. Bradley helping him, and I tell them, my son will know. And I did hope you'd know."

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking." He now began to quiz himself insomniac with this, wond'ring if his father had struggl'd thus with Mason's own earlier questions about the World. He invested Precious Sleep in the Question, and saw not a Farthing's Dividend.

Mr. Swivett, approaching a facial lividity that would alarm a Physician, were one present, now proclaims, "Not only did they insult the God-given structure of the Year, they also put us on Catholic Time. French Time. We've been fighting France all our Lives, all our Fathers' Lives, France is the Enemy eternal,— why be rul'd by their Calendar?"

"Because their Philosophers and ours," explains Mr. Hailstone, "are all in League, with those in other States of Europe, and the Jesuits too, among them possessing Machines, Powders, Rays, Elixirs and such, none less than remarkable,— one, now and then, so daunting that even the Agents of Kings must stay their Hands."

"Time, ye see," says the Landlord, "is the money of Science, isn't it. The Philosophers need a Time, common to all, as Traders do a common Coinage."

"Suggesting as well an Interest, in those Events which would occur in several Parts of the Globe at the same Instant."

"Like in the Book of Revelations?"

"Like the Transit of Venus, eh Mr. Mason?"

"Yahh!" Mason jumping in surprise. "Thankee, Sir, I never heard that one before."

"Mr. Mason," appeals Mr. Swivett, "you work'd beside Dr. Bradley, at Greenwich,— did the Doctor never bring the matter up? Weren't you personally curious?"

The George is clearly the wrong place to be tonight,— no easier than at Bradley's Bed-Side,— so remains he stunn'd at having been sent away, and with such unspeakable Coldness. Yet the spirited expedition into the Deserts of Idiocy Mr. Swivett now proposes, may be just the way for Mason to evade for a bit the whole subject of Bradley's dying without ever resolving what yet lies between them. A Gleam more malicious than merry creeps into his eyes. "Years before my time, tho' of course one was bound to hear things...," producing his Pipe, pouring Claret into his Cup, and reclining in his Chair. "Aye, the infamous conspiracy 'gainst th' Eleven Days,— hum,— kept sequester'd, as they say, by the younger Macclesfield,— intern'd not as to space, but rather.. .Time."

'Twas in that Schizochronick year of '52, that Macclesfield became President of the Royal Society, continuing so for twelve more Years, till his unfortunate passing. Among the Mobility, the Post was seen as a

 
shameless political reward from the Walpole-Gang, for his Theft of the People's Time, and certain proof of his guilt.

"My Father required but four years as Earl of Macclesfield to bring the Name down," he complain'd to Bradley, around the time the Bill was in Committee, "descending thro' Impeachment, thro' Confinement in the Tower, into a kind of popular Attainder,— for the People are now all too ready to believe me a Thief as well. Would that I might restore to them their Days, and be done! Throw them open the Gates of Shirburn Castle, lay on the Barrels of Ale, and Sides of Beef, appear upon a Battlement with mystickal Machines, solemnly set back two hundred sixty-four Hours the hands of the Castle Clock, and declare again the Day its ancient Numbering, to general Huzzahs,— alas, with all that, who in G-d's Name among them could want eleven more Days? of what? the further chance that something else dreadful will happen, in a Life of already unbearable misfortune?"

"Yet we are mortal," whisper'd Bradley. "Would you spit, my Lord, truly, upon eleven more Days?" He laugh'd carefully. His eyes, ordinarily protuberant, were lately shadow'd and cowl'd. Macclesfield regarded his Employee,— for they were master and servant in this as in all else,— briefly, before resuming.

"My people are from Leek, in Staffordshire. For a while, during the summer, the sun sets behind one edge of Cloud Hill, reappears upon the other side, and sets again. I grew up knowing the Sun might set twice,— what are eleven missing days to me?"

Bradley, distracted, forgot to laugh at this pretty Excursion. "What happen'd when you discover'd the rest of the World accustom'd to seeing it set but once, Milord?"

Macclesfield star'd vacantly, his face gone in the Instant to its own Commission'd Portrait,— a response to unwelcome speech perfected by the Class to which he yet aspir'd. Bradley might never have spoken.