The Syme Papers (23 page)

This admission appeared to loosen his tongue, for he continued now in a kind of steady ramble, looking at the road before him as if entirely consumed by the experiments his horse attempted upon the four-legged gait. ‘I believe I myself would benefit now and then from a dose of Doubt.’ He spoke the word as a heathen might utter the name of some god,
in
whom he could summon no faith, yet
to
whom he did not wish to appear disrespectful. ‘Though, as for that, there is little enough in my circumstances to warrant such … seeing as I am what I am – a gentleman-farmer come down in the world – living upon what remains of his – inheritance – and his – luck. Some are born … idle, I believe, others have it thrust upon them … and a few achieve it, after much … deliberation.

‘No,’ he began again, rousing himself. ‘There is too little Doubt in this country, though much of what we have achieved is founded upon its absence. You see, sir – we are both a practical people and a faithful people, a powerful combination of attributes, both proceeding from our want of Doubt. The practical fellow has no use for Doubt. He sees a job to be done – knows quite well he can do it – and sets about it. If he don’t know how to begin with it, he reckons, he’ll figure it out upon the way. A great deal can be managed in this fashion – and, believe me, Mr Müller – we have managed a great deal. (Though I, for my own small part, have done my best to – as you might say – maintain the average.) Likewise, we are a faithful people – great believers in this and that – Gods and galvanism, sir – Progress and Persuasions. We approach the Great and the Small, equally, without Doubt. Only, you see, sir – sometimes between the two – our practicality and our faith – we come a cropper, as the saying is. When our practicality gets tangled up in the legs of faith – and we aim at the moon – upon small steps and – end up in the Mud.’

Indeed, as the sun beat upon the snow crusted in the ruts and the  road grew wet and thick with the slop of winter we seemed to have
 
strayed into the very difficulties Mr Scotch described. A fine spray of mud flew from the horse’s hoofs to the passengers in his charge; and imagine my despair at the brown mottle of drying flakes that appeared upon the shine of my shoes and the loose hem of my trouser legs. Still, I
reckoned
(to use Mr Scotch’s fine, manly word), for once, that I was a traveller in a far country – and a little mud – now and then, here or there – could only add to my Romantic … qualifications.

‘The trouble is’, Mr Scotch complained, ‘that some among us attempt to bring our faith to bear upon our practical affairs. Trusting, as you might say, to luck, and never doubting the upshot of it all. Of – these – am – I,’ he confessed slowly, tasting the painful words upon his tongue. ‘As you can see, somewhat down-at-heels, perhaps. Idle, yes. Shiftless, yes. Sunk, yes. Never doubting from daybreak today’s end … the position of my affairs. Quite secure in
that
knowledge, at least – though I shouldn’t mind, from time to time, a dram of Doubt, about This or That – otherwise known as – Hope. Do me good.’ And here he unpocketed and unscrewed and, tilting his head, unfilled a dram of something slightly sharper, which likewise seemed to do him – good.

Bucked by new spirit, he proceeded. ‘Yet I believe my state of affairs to be downright providential compared with
them –
that tries to bring their
practical
talents to bear upon the articles of their
faith.
That tries to climb, by the skill of their hands, to the stars. That tries to puzzle the way from America to Heaven – just as they might direct a fellow along the best road out of Pactaw, knowing the terrain you see like the back of their hand. For that’s the sin of your great American fools – of which we have plenty enough. The prophets and the preachers; the frontier folks; even some of our business tycoons, and the worst kind of soldier. Not knowing what
can
be solved by a good heart and head – and what
can’t.
The trouble, as I say, all beginning in the lack of Doubt, of one kind or another; though we grow pretty much everything else we can from the old countries, on native soil – and bigger, and better, too.’

Struck, and I confess somewhat downheartened by what seemed to me the aptness of this last remark – given the object of my present
journey – I observed the first signs of an approaching settlement. The road broadened into fields, covered in snow stippled by the stubble beneath, white and sparkling in the icy sunshine. At the side of the road a heap of rotting vegetables and picked bones, tattered cloth and occasional shoes, strangely sad and softened by their burial in fresh snow, announced the presence of mankind. At length, as my silver watch told three o’clock in the red palm of my hand, we reached a row of scattered houses (which could only loosely be described as a
street,
a desultory, irregular arrangement) – low wooden dwellings puffing bravely against the winter through their brick snouts. I heard the last shouts of the men as they shut up their wares for the day, bellowing against the cold of the lengthening shadows to keep their hearts and throats warm. And then I saw the market square itself, dirty with many feet and the remains of the day: loose rice and trampled flour, discarded corn-meal loaves, dried strips of beef, and the thick white skins of cheese.

I thanked Mr Scotch for his conveyance, and, clutching my portmanteau, stumbled into the square on bloodless legs. Mr Scotch himself, quickly and quietly, engaged a number of the departing farmers in small talk, pressing this small bottle or that from the little stock he transported in his cart into their frozen and grateful hands. He glanced at me once as I made my way, lifting an eyebrow and a small jar of some warm honey-coloured liquid in the air – as if to say, ‘Might I tempt you in a dram of This, or That, otherwise known, I believe, as Hope?” – but I declined his offer, and ventured into Pactaw itself, the home of Professor Samuel Highgate Syme, Napoleon of the New Science, and the end of one long journey, and the beginning of the next.

A bell rang, once, bright and light in the chill air, and I thought how hungry I was. The market lay in a bend of the river, and there were houses scattered along the bank on which I stood in some confusion – here or there as the fancy of the builder took him. Yet they offered a cheerful prospect to the traveller, suggesting solitude and neighbourhood in equal measure. They reminded me of nothing so much as a handful of gulls on a sandbank – an impression conveyed in part by their white wooden walls, and the plumes of grey smoke 
that drifted from their chimneys. Across the water, on the verge almost of the crumbling banks, stood a somewhat larger edifice – painted brown, boasting several chimneys, and an occasionally elaborated gable, to distinguish it from its fellows across the Potomac. A narrow bridge stretched and trembled from the market square to its side; and a low wooden dock broke the water at the foot of the front porch; a rowing boat, loosely moored, knocked against its post. Looking up, I saw a perfect fury of smoke pouring from the rooftops and blowing downriver, tearing into thick strips before it vanished on the wind.

Idly conjecturing as to the nature of its occupants, I wandered into the heart of town. There I discovered at last what I took to be the High Street: a somewhat more orderly row of houses, some few of which hung from their eaves gaudily painted wooden signs, ridged by snow and creaking in the wind that swept down the broad road. These indicated: several general stores (‘McSweeney’s Foods etc.’, ‘Jacks Corner’); an apothecary’s; a junk-shop, ‘Simmons’; the offices of at least three lawyers (much to my surprise, each bearing the wonderfully optimistic motto ‘Legal Solutions’); the derelict windowless shell of what seems to have housed the
Pactaw Racing Times,
portrayed by a bright red horse flying over a pot of gold; and, at last, the Dewdrop Inn, displaying upon its frontispiece a drop of a very different nature than the example in its name.

To this last I directed my weary steps, and pushed clattering (beating my snow-crusted shoes against the step) through the front door into the grateful warmth of the parlour, where the concentrated heat of an old fire settled and crashed in the grate. A somewhat elderly gentleman rose from his seat by the blaze, and, leaning upon a cane, enquired my business.

‘Dr Müller,’ I replied, ‘come from Norfolk. I believe my box has been sent on.’

Mine host, Mr Barnaby Rusk – a truly fine specimen of old age, as tall nearly as myself, and though slightly hunched, nevertheless suggesting, by the breadth of jaw and shoulder, the shadow of a once powerful physique – insisted upon accompanying me to my room, and, moreover, bearing my fat portmanteau up the stairs, which, in 
combination with his walking stick, made for a very slow journey indeed. His fine pink face, mottled with age and completely hairless (barring the nose), grew bright red at my proffered assistance, and I was forced to succumb to his help. I halted beside him – as he – stepped – and stepped – and banged his stick – and wheezed – and stepped – and banged – up the first flight, though I was by this time eager to be on my way and encounter the object of my enquiry, the great Syme, without delay.

‘I was,’ Mr Rusk sighed, pausing for a minute on the fourth step, ‘you may be surprised to hear, a boxer in my youth – in Camberwell, outside London.’

‘Indeed?’ I declared, nudging him from behind and shifting the foot of his cane, an inch, towards the next stair.

‘Fought – and bested – in the eighty-fourth round,’ he grunted, at the landing, ‘George Jackson, who died, the next day, from excessive bleeding. Whereupon,’ he resumed, after a brief foray down the hall, ‘I took flight – and sailed to Virginia. Whereupon, two years later, I fought – and bested – the British at …’A fit of coughing, though obscuring the name of the battle, greatly suggested the memory of its violence and the heat of human conflict – upon which description he subsided, and led me on.

At last we had reached my room, a spacious chamber sparsely furnished, containing only the necessary bed, a rude chest of drawers, and a low table, pushed against the window overlooking the main thoroughfare. No fire had been lit, and my breath left little feathers upon the air. My chest stood at the foot of the bed, upon which Mr Barnaby Brawler (as he led me to believe his fighting name had been) deposited, with a sigh, my portmanteau.

‘Have you know,’ my guide explained, when he had recovered his wind and limped towards the door, ‘moved the box up myself. This morning. Fought and bested it, you know – two hours. Don’t worry about me,’ he grunted, snorting through his thin, bent nose – as if a grave concern for his future had brought me to his doorstep in the first place. Stepping and wheezing and banging down the hallway, he muttered more to himself than his new tenant. ‘Don’t worry about me, that’s all.’

Left to myself at last, I effected a rapid change of dress, donning a cream lace shirt, a rich blue coat and a pair of yellow breeches. The clothes make the man, after all, and I hoped to impress Professor Syme by the refinement of my manners, believing that a touch of the gentleman could persuade even – or rather, particularly – in a society conspicuous for their absence. ‘To impress Professor Syme’ – the phrase ran through my thoughts inadvertently, and I realized the fever of anticipation that long delay had roused in my blood. I flew through the parlour and into the dripping road, clattering the door behind me.

I took Syme’s petition out of my breast pocket and looked it over in the declining light. Two months before, beside another sunny river (now how distant!), I had lifted it from the envelope and marvelled at his braggadocio. Now that I stood in Virginia I read it for the address at its head: the Boathouse, Pactaw. The street stood mostly deserted, aside from the few stray animals that scavenged the rubbish in the snow; and a horse tethered at the door of the apothecary’s. A young boy sat on the door-stoop next to the harness post, and I called to him: ‘Can you tell me where the Boathouse lies, if you please?’

He looked at me a little queerly and pocketed the coin he had been projecting with his thumb into the air, to the faint ping of glasses chiming.

‘Boathouse,’ he repeated, ruminating, as if he had heard the name before, liked it sufficient, but was about to think of a better one.
‘Boat-house,’
he added, emphasizing a world of new meaning in each syllable in case I had missed an ounce of its significance before. ‘I’ll do one better,’ he condescended to explain at last, crossing his legs at the knee. ‘I’ll give you a piece of advice. I wouldn’t bother with the
Boathouse.’

‘Why ever not?’ I declared, exasperated and suddenly heart-sore, having come so far precisely to
bother with the Boathouse.
Perhaps I should have adopted a brisker tone with the boy, but the worst of being a stranger is this: part of you trusts everyone.

‘Why ever not?’ he echoed, mincing his words in a horrible fashion, and blowing them, as it were, into the air like bubbles – in some imitation of myself, I supposed. ‘I’ll tell you why not,’ he declared, 
swinging his leg to the ground and leaning both elbows confidentially upon his knees. ‘Because the folks at the Boathouse is all cracked up, you get me? Because there’s always a bang and flash at the Boathouse, and stinks coming over the river; because the Professor wanders round town with pistols in his pockets, taking pot-shots at the trees; because he’s got green hands most of the time, and when they’re not green, they’re blue; because they say he’s diggin’ a hole at the back of his house what’ll take him to China; because the river runs red when it goes by the Boathouse; because some folks say he can witch yer into thinking anythink he wants yer to think, and, contrariwise, bring you to disbelieve what you know for a fact to be true; because he casts spells on young men in particular, till they don’t come home no more, and never gets out of the Boathouse, and when they do, all the cry is, “The earth is hollow, mind where you step”; because – and this I seen with my own eye – they keep a metal dragon back there, clanking and hissing, and ready to swallow whatever come its way; because it’s my belief they’ll burn the town down before they through (folks is glad, I can tell you, they live over the water); because moreover and beyond anything else I’ve said, it’s gone four o’clock already and you’re too late.’