The Syme Papers (44 page)

‘The trouble, as I said,’ Sam repeated, lost in his own thoughts,
‘is that it cannot 
–
swallow itself Observe the little 
–
pit, as deep
as a grave – dug in the corner of the barn. A moment’s work, I
assure you, Phidy, what should have taken several men – an hour to
perform.
The trouble is
that at a certain depth – six feet, in fact –
the sweeping action of the spade – is starved by its own success. It
scrapes the air.
What we need’,
he added, rousing himself, ‘is a
more direct device – that bores a hole as straight as any plummet
–
and then, when it comes to an end, as all things must – swallows
itself, and begins from –
scratch
at the new depth. I have not
despaired,’ he said, his voice ringing shrill in the great barn, ‘I
promise you that much at least. All of this’
–
and he gestured
widely with his arm, so the shadow raced around the wall
–
‘is not
so hopeless as it seems. We are only a step or a – thought – from
triumph – or, rather, the next step and
–
the next thought.’

Then he stooped and lifted the lantern again, and said, reaching a
hand to my shoulder, ‘Come, Phidy – I believe you have seen
enough.’

Tom wore the same thin smile when we clattered in again; he had
shifted his seat to the fire, and spent the time companionably, it
seemed, prodding and stirring it to life. He looked up at our
entrance, and stretched his lips perhaps, an eighth of an inch on
each side, as far as they would go without parting. ‘Well?’ he said at 
last, as I hung my coat upon the hook. ‘What did you think? Or,
rather, what
do
you think?’

I did not reply, only knelt beside him in front of the fire, and
rubbed my hands against the thick heat. Sam stood in the doorway
still, neither in nor out, as if he had forgotten something, and could
not turn to look for it till he remembered
what.
We could hear the
river, flush with spring, surging past the bay window towards the
south and east, into the Chesapeake and thence to the Atlantic, till it
met, several thousand miles later, the Elbe again, which ran past my
home.

‘Well, Phidy,’ Tom said again, over the crack of the flames. ‘Are
you with us?’

‘Yes,’ I answered, without looking up.

I suppose I should explain myself, but I must confess that I equally
would like to hear a lucid account of my motives at this point. To be
certain, my faith in Sam – not only in his ingenuity, but in his
honesty,
for I had come over the course of these months to persuade
myself beyond doubt that at the least he was no
charlatan –
had
taken a heavy blow; and perhaps, stunned and robbed of wind, I was
too weak to turn from him then, in the same manner that a physical
attack (and this felt not unlike) enervates the very faculties that
should remove us from a second assault. Yes, this much is true – that
my faith in Sam, thus enfeebled, sought strength and consolation in
Sam –
and I felt obscurely that I must abide by him now. There was
also the consideration that my so doing would disappoint Tom, and
insinuate me further between them. This thought perhaps played no
small part in my decision to stay, though I could cast a kinder light
on
…
myself, and argue that I unshed only to prove Tom’s vague
suspicions of me false (which I signally failed to do) and justify
Sam’s …
interest
in me. Then there was Mrs Syme’s confession
–
that she did not trust Tom Jenkyns – and her consequent delight in
my association with her son. I thought of all these things.

And, strange to tell, the wreck of the double-compression piston
itself pointed my course forwards, forwards, to follow the road with
Tom and Sam. Considered thus: without any prize to return with, I
had no cause to return. That rusting creature, the mutilated iron
hydra that seemed to have turned upon and slain itself, symbol of
the extravagance and futility of Sam’s imagination (this above all
impressed me in the barn, the fact that Sam’s profusion of thought
and fancy resolved nothing and led nowhere and could never be
untangled), charmed me, indeed, by the very
hopelessness
of
Sam’s cause. It is sometimes easier to venture forth with a whole
doubt than half a hope. And I believe that in my heart of hearts I had
guessed already the upshot of all this … speculation.

The fact that my father’s fortunes had clearly suffered some reversal; the fact that he called me to his side; the fact that my
sister had fallen in with a fool; the fact that my country seemed to be
running to ruination, that my once-loved Prince led the way
–
these
likewise persuaded me to remain, for I had no stomach for such contemplations, have always been most particularly discomfited by the
vicissitudes visited upon my home. So I tore up my father’s account
of them, and dropped them in the grate, and watched them singe
and flare and crackle and rise in ash and smoke
–
and then I turned,
considerably relieved, expectant almost, to the world before me, and
my second home, and my new companions.

I awoke in the morning and straightway wrote a letter to my father.
I told him that I would come ‘soon, very soon, but not yet’. That I
was too deep in the business before me to withdraw at this point,
without a clearer reckoning of its possibilities. I told him to write at
once, to a cousin of Tom, our only fixed station in the travels ahead.
For the rest, I knew no more than himself what bed would hold me
from night to night. I was too tired and dull at heart to hear or heed
my own words as I wrote them, but the breath of love lay in them, as
plain and good as the air that passes our lips despite our notice. I sat
on my knees and composed this letter on top of my trunk in a grey,
wet dawn that hung over the trees like linen.

Such a bustle and fever I have never known. From that milky
dawn through a grey afternoon and into a pale, dank evening that
never quite fell to night, we worked. We dismantled our home on the
river until a houseful of things had shrunk squarely into three large 
wooden boxes and two trunks, my own among them. Afterwards,
Sam perched on top of one of the boxes with dirty hands and dusty
knees and remarked in a rare flight of whimsy, It is like sitting on
top of a year – a very small year.’

His instruments were a delicate business. The double-compression
piston could not be shifted from the barn, but the Potomac
Steamboat Company had agreed to let it to us at a reasonable rate.
(This, I need hardly say, over Tom’s vehement objections; but Sam
won out in the end; and housed under its roof, among other curious
mementoes – sorting like with like, I suppose – those fragments of
the world, left over from the disastrous experiment that introduced
him to me.) Tom wrapped the other, slighter, more fragile (that is,
less
broken)
contraptions
–
the glass flu’, for instance – in velvet
and then bundled them in linen. ‘Take them to Mrs Simmons for
safe-keeping,’ he said, and Sam listened meek as a child even to such
intimate advice. Tom loaded our arms with these rare works, till we
were stiff and rich as pharaohs in their tombs, and sent us off.
‘
I
have the papers to attend to,’ he said and sat down at the
tavern table to write.

A summer shower had fallen. Sam and I walked in slow swathed
steps across the river and through the empty market to Mrs
Simmons’ between puddles that sparkled like sequins in the
gloaming. ‘I feel I have been an evil omen to you, Sam,’ I said.

‘Nonsense, Phidy, you came at the end of something,’ he
answered in what seemed a kindly spirit, ‘and now stand in the
middle of it.’

We reached the shop. Sam tapped at the window and Mrs
Simmons peered at us through the curtains and then drifted slowly
to the door. ‘Maria,’ Sam said as she opened it, and I learned her
name for the first time. She had a slow smile that always delighted
my heart, for she tried to hide it as if it did not become her. She
turned it now on Sam as we walked inside, laden with delicate
devices. Maria had a tender hand for such things and set them in
cushioned boxes, as sweetly as one would lay a child to sleep. Then
she took Sam’s hand in her own, rich as wood with age, and I felt a
shock of envy that I had no one to bid me ‘fare well’.

‘You must not take him long, Phidy,’ she said, then added, as I
slipped embarrassed towards the door, ‘and I shall miss you.’

I left them to each other’s comforts, but lingered a minute in the
dooryard since the rain had come back. I heard Sam say in a tone I
did not think he possessed,
‘
I
do not know – if I have the heart for it,
Maria.’ Then rain or no, I set off and found Tom smiling at my solitary return.

Tom was a wonder. He stayed up much of the night writing letters
to book clubs and universities and scientific societies and even to
churches. I posted a sackful of them in the morning. He arranged an
auction that afternoon for some of the furniture and a few bits and
bobs Sam did not want to keep. He stuck a broadsheet to the garden
gate: ‘The Great Geognosist Opens His Cave!’ A townful of people,
curious as to Sam’s ways and the interior of the decayed mansion
across the river, wandered through our bare house in a dusty many-legged tide that left nothing untouched. They seemed surprised to find
no cauldrons or magic carpets, but a very decent table, some
serviceable chairs, and a number of perfectly acceptable pots. Kitty
proved to be the most practical creature among us, and managed to
collect a heavy purseful from our possessions.

At last the crowds had gone, having stolen what they did not buy.
‘Anything the wizard touched’, I heard one old church-going
matron declare, as she slipped a silver spoon in the bosom of her
dress, ‘will cure a cold, or send a ghost.’ Kitty and Tom and I sat on
the sill of the great bay window (all other
perches
having
flown),
with the windows flung wide and the river coursing behind us.

‘The gentleman from the steamboat company is coming tomorrow
morning for the keys,’ Tom said, ‘and to settle accounts. The post for
Baltimore leaves at noon. It was a foolish house, of course, much too
big for us, and given to draughts and damp; but just the sort of thing
for Sam to fix upon; and I must say, I won’t miss it the less for being
impractical.’ We sat, the three of us, with our legs hung down like
boys fishing. Our thoughts seemed empty as the house, our ears fol
lowed the hush and rush of the river, and our tongues said nothing.

‘I shall be glad to see the back of you,’ Kitty cried at last, when the
silence grew unbearable, ‘fools on a fool’s errand chasing a fool.’ Her 
words had nowhere to turn and rang strangely against the bare cupboards and swept grate.

‘That is unkind, Kitty,’ Tom answered gently.

‘But true,’ she said more softly and nuzzled her face in the crook
of his arm. ‘Do not look at me,’ she muttered in his shirt, 
‘
I
am an
ugly creature and will miss you.’

Once more, I left another man to his farewells.

The next day we shifted our quarters to Sam’s childhood home.
As the coach turned along the river towards Baltimore and passed
the grand old inn (which I did not think to see again), I reflected on
the odd fate of a man who takes his leave of no one, as all the compa
ny he loves travels with him – barring those that live too far away
for farewells. I was glad to have my companions to myself again.

Joy surprised me, as the three of us turned up the road to the
familiar farmhouse outside Baltimore where Sam grew up. ‘I
cannot see it for trees,’ I cried, running ahead of them up the path.
Summer was kind to Maryland, transformed it into a green palace
with chandeliers of leaves hung from the chestnut trees, and thick
emerald carpets strewn about our feet. The countryside rang with
the noise of life; bird and insect kept up a hidden beat, like the secret
whirring motions of a great clock. The air was heavy with green per
fume, and every breath of it filled my blood to my eyes. Somehow I
had left my father’s misfortunes behind me in Pactaw and was
embarked afresh on my journeys. I took the hand of Mr Syme with
real good fellowship.

I was given my old bed in Bubbles’ room and fell asleep that night
watching the moon fat against the window. This is a fitting start
ing-point, I reflected from that misty shore, with a foot each in the
waking and the dreaming world. My true partnership in our small
band had begun in that house five months before; there could be no
better spot from which to set forth.