Ran into them once at a Ridotto, actually," acknowledges Mr. LeSpark. "Must've been that first year or two."
"John!"
"Ages before we met, my Treasure."
"But my Nonpareil, you know how I resent and begrudge even the least allusion to any Life of yours, before we met." At this the Revd blinks, and may be seen slightly to cringe, for he knows his Sister.
"Thus depriving me," LeSpark at least game, "of all but, what's it been now...ten years? twenty?"
"Fifteen, my stout Chestnut. As before me you had no Life, fifteen is your true Age, putting you yet in the Bloom of Youth—"
"Um, Zab," the Revd can't keep from inquiring, "you...regard your Husband, as some sort of...Sprout?"
She pretends to think about this for a while. "Zabby!" Mr. LeSpark in a hurt tone.
"Would this Ridotto, Sir, have been at Lepton Castle, by Chance?"
"The very Oasis, Wicks. We'd done some Business out that way, I and his Lordship,— I'd a standing Invitation from them to pop in whenever I wish'd."
"Didn't know I'd married Quality, did you?" Elizabeth chirps.
" 'Twas a part of the Expedition I miss'd, Zab, and, as the Surveyors were on about it for weeks after, was often to be reminded of,— the infa?mous Lepton Ridotto.”
In those days, out past the reach of civic Lanthorns, as of Nail-hung Lamps in Sheds, and Tallow Dips, and the last feeble Rush-Light,— beyond, in the Forest, where the supernatural was less a matter of Publick-Room trickery or Amusement, Mr. LeSpark, as he tells it, was us'd to visit with potential customers, as well as tour his sources of sup?ply,— Gunsmithies, Forges, Bloomeries, and Barrel Mills,— passing as in a glide, thro' the Country, safe inside a belief as unquestioning as in any form of Pietism you could find out there that he, yes little JWL, goeth likewise under the protection of a superior Power,— not, in this case, God, but rather, Business. What turn of earthly history, however per?verse, would dare interfere with the workings of the Invisible Hand? Even the savages were its creatures,— a merchant's Pipe-Reverie, and, if consider'd as a class of Purchasers-at-retail,— well,— more admirable even than Dutch housewives, in the single-minded joy with
which they brows'd and chose....
In his first Trips out, he engag'd local Guides, who kept to the shad?ows and did not speak, to show him the way to the well-guarded, and in the estimate of some, iniquitous, Iron-Plantation of Lord and Lady Lep-ton. Each time, 'twas like stepping across out of the difficult world and into that timeless Encyclopedia-Light, where Apprentices kept a monas?tic silence, entirely dedicated to the tasks at hand, did not fall asleep in mid-afternoon, nor moon about in states of Erection for hours at a time. All noxious smokes and gases were being vented someplace distant, invisible. The dogs loaf'd, well fed, in the alleyways. Iron in an hundred shapes was being produced, exactly to plan. The women chatted as they work'd in a small studio of their own, casting from small Crucibles spe?cially formulated Batches of Steel. Sunlight flooded thro' open'd win?dows, the faces of the workers remaining attentive, uninflected, eyes only upon the Work. This, LeSpark must remind himself, each time he rounded one particular unfolding of the Trail,— Hazel branches parting, river noise suddenly in the air, Dogs on route and at the Gallop,— this was how the world might be. To see with nothing but this Simplicity, to take only these unpolluted Breaths, to leave the shop after the last of the light, with a face as willingly free of Affliction as that presented at Dawn,— 'twas a moment, hard come by out here, of viewing things whole, and he grew with each Visit more and more to depend upon it.
It is something he cannot explain to many people,— he knows that few distinguish between the Metal itself, and the Forms it happens to end up in, the uses it is widely known for being put to, against living Bodies,— cutting, chaining, penetrating sort of Activities,— a consider?able Sector of the iron market, indeed, directed to offenses against Human, and of course Animal, flesh.... "All too true," he can imagine himself saying, "yet, once you have felt the invisible Grasp of the Mag?netic, or gazed, unto transport, as the Gangue falls away before the veined and billowing molten light, oh the blinding purity—"
"Oh, Mr. LeSpark," being the likely reply.
"What is not visible in his rendering," journalizes the Revd to himself, later, "is the Negro Slavery, that goes on making such no doubt exquisite moments possible,— the inhuman ill-usage, the careless abundance of pain inflicted, the unpric'd Coercion necessary to yearly Profits beyond the projectings even of proud Satan. In the shadows where the Forge's glow does not reach, or out uncomforted beneath the vaporous daylight of Chesapeake, bent to the day's loads of Fuel from the vanishing Hard?wood Groves nearby, or breathing in the mephitic Vapors of the bloomeries,— wordlessly and, as some may believe, patiently, they bide everywhere, these undeclared secular terms in the Equations of Propri?etary Happiness."
Mason and Dixon, happening to be lost at nightfall (as they will later tell it), in the last possible light come upon a cabin, hardly more than a shed, of weathered fragrant old wood, beneath a sagging roof, show?ing no lights, to Apparition, abandoned for years,— yet, its ancient doorsill once traversed, the Surveyors find more room inside than could possibly be contained in the sorrowing ruin they believ'd they were entering.
To their alarm, Light shines ev'rywhere,— Chandelier Light, silver Sconce and Sperm-Taper Light,— striking them both to an all-but-sympathetick Squint. The Plafond,— as their slowly unclenching eyes ascend in wonder,— runs to a full spectrum of colors, depicting not the wing'd beings of Heaven, but rather the Denizens of Hell, and quite busy at their Pleasures, too— "Yes yes very interesting indeed," Dixon hastily, "yet if it's all the same to thee, I think, having grasped the point, I, for one, am now arriv'd at the moment of D. Ahh. Oah,— and thee...?"
"There's no Moon," Mason reminds him. "Going out there now would be as dangerous as jumping into the open sea. We must shelter here, we've no choice." 'Tis only then that they hear the Music, though once acknowledg'd, it seems to've been playing all the time. Indeed it now emerges, that they have entered something long in Progress, existing without them, not for their Benefit, nor even their Attention. Some twenty or thirty musicians, by the sound of it,— new music, advanced music, as far from the Oboick Reveries of the Besozzis, as the Imperial Melismata of Quantz,— its modalities rather suggesting some part of the Globe dis?tant from Britain, a dangerous jangling that nonetheless acts as an hyp?notic Draught upon the Surveyors.
Cautiously, drawn, following a Gradient of loudness as best they can, they pass through doorways, cross anterooms filled with expensive sur?faces and knick-knack intricacies they are moving among too briskly to examine, beginning to pick up the murmur of a Gathering, peaks of falsetto insincerity,— suddenly a grand Archway, above which, carv'd in glowing pink Marble, naked Men, Women, and Animals writhe together in a single knotted Curve of Lustfulness. The Surveyors have been gaz?ing at it for somewhat longer than is considered sophisticated, when a Voice, from someplace they cannot see, announces them,— "Mr. Mason, and Mr. Dixon, Astronomers of London."
Mason snorts. "Congratulations."
Dixon pretends to look about for the Voice. "Really, I'm oahnly a county Surveyor... ? He's the Astronomer... ?"
"Overdoing the Rusticisms," Mason mutters. "And do try not to fling your head about so?"
Thus do they come stumbling into what, in London, is term'd an "Hurricanoe,"— a thick humidity of Intrigue and Masks realiz'd in locally obtain'd Fur and Plumage, clamorous with Chatter and what seems now more to resemble Dancing-Music,— dominated from one wall by a gigantic rococo Mirror, British Chippendale to the innocent eye, engrossing easily the hundredth part of an acre,— Dixon trying to stand his ground even as his partner has begun to walk away rapidly
backward, for an Eye-blink there having pass'd over his Face a look of Alarm that has not possess'd it since the Seahorse, during the worst of that encounter.
"I cannot explain," as Dixon overtakes him, " 'tis a sort of Moral Panick."
"Manners first,— we must go in, as we can't offend our Hostess,— there's sure to be a Hostess...?" Dixon frantically resorting to what he knows of Climbers' Discourse. "If we offend her, she will at best behave inconveniently to her Husband,— at but slightly worse, she will advise him to have us expell'd from the Province. Are you there? Sheriffs will be instructed to make our lives even more difficult,— Children will play rude hoaxes upon us,— Water-Men will contrive to put us in the Water...."
"My Wig," Mason grasping and shifting it frantically about, "it doesn't feel quite...symmetrick,— no, and the Coat,— the moment we arose, I said it, remember? 'Shouldn't I wear the blue brocade?' But, in that case, I should have had to change the Breeches,—
"Sir,— " a calm Voice at his elbow suggests, "take hold of yourself, lest another be obliged to."
"Aye? Another what?" Irascible Mason, known up and down the Churs of Stroud, on occasions like this, as a lightning Shin-Kicker, has actually begun shuffling to seek some purchase upon the gleaming floor, when he belatedly recognizes the notorious Calvert agent Captain Dasp, to smoak whose Dangerousness even those of an Idiocy far more advanc'd than Mason's require but an anxious few seconds.
"Gentlemen," advises this ominous Shadow, "— you have fallen, willy-nilly, among a race who not only devour Astronomers as a matter of habitual Diet, but may also make of them vile miniature 'Sandwiches,' and lay them upon a mahogany Sideboard whose Price they never knew, and then forget to eat them. Your only hope, in this room, is to imperson?ate so perfectly what they assume you to be, that instincts of Predation will be overcome by those of Boredom."
"I was just about to tell him thah'... ?" nods Dixon.
Lady Lepton has appeared,— the Hostess there is sure to be one of. "Captain, how pleasant." With a gaze, met calmly by that of the agent, that invitee at least Conjecture.
Dixon, ignoring the Captain's sensible advice, is giving her the once?over. "Eeh! Why, Lady, I've seen thee...?— years ago at Raby Castle, where tha came to visit. We were both about the same age... ? still children, it was nearly winter,— Thee in a riding-habit, a sort of Brunswick style? scarlet and blue, and gold buttons,"— which is about where the Captain throws up his hands and walks off, shaking his head,— "a full skirt, a pet?ticoat, and beautiful small boots of wine-colored Cordovan, with French Court heels.. .aye and a cocked hat with green Parrot feathers, all against a Winter Sky, and thine Hair, left loose, falling nearly to the saddle—"
Ordinarily their Hostess would have been expected to rejoin, "And you were the muddy boy at the side of the ditch with his hand upon his Willie," and everyone would have laughed gaily, except, of course, Dixon. Instead, she peers directly in his eyes, and whispers slowly, "Aye, you. At first I thought you were one of the Castle's Ghosts. Following me,— keeping just out of the Light. Even when I didn't see you, I felt you. They told me you were wild, poor, a Dissenter, an Outlaw, to pay you no attention. But I must have disobeyed, if, after all these years, I still remember you." Whereupon a golden Edge of Pleasure proceeds to bisect him upwardly all the way from his Ballocks to his Heart, which these days is a lengthy journey.
Tonight's Slave Orchestra includes the best musicians the Colonies, British and otherwise, have to offer,— for the melody-maddened Iron-Nabob has searched them out, a Harpsichord Virtuoso from New Orleans, a New-York Viol-Master, Pipers direct from the Forests of Africa,— and bought up their Contracts, as others might buy objects of art. The string instruments are from workshops in Cremona, the winds from France, and the music they are playing here for the guests at Cas?tle Lepton, tho' at the moment little more than a suite of airs of the Street and Day, is nonetheless able somehow, perhaps in the unashamed preva?lence of British modality,— that is, Phrygioid, if not Phrygian,— to lend weight to (where it does not in fact ennoble) even the most brainless con?versation upon the great Floor,— which can usually be heard in His Lordship's vicinity, though nowhere at the moment near Dixon, who is finding all this, to his delight, dangerously interesting.
When they were still that young, he'd thought her bold as a Boy, and proud, with what he had already remarked, at a distance, as the proud-
ess of Women. He'd stayed out, away from others, on a Lurk among the Towers and Gate-ways,— and in the shadows of Autumn, late-colored even in the mornings, had grown enjoyably obsessed. His Great-Uncle George, believing her a Witch, cast at young Jeremiah looks of sorrow and reproach. But the boy had watched her out on the Fell, riding so fast that her amazing hair blew straight back behind her, the same Wind pressing her Eyelids shut and her Lashes into a Fan, and forcing her
Lips apart Long on a personal basis with the horses the Earl had
given her to ride, Dixon sought their company now in the stables at night, stroking, feeding, talking it over gently with them. Indoors one day of early sleet, lurking in the damp and rodent smell of the mural passages, he looked out through the pierc'd paint Eyes of Nevilles and Vanes, cos?tumed as shepherds, before a Castle glorified with an afternoon light that never was, to see her kissing one of the Chamber-Maids, who stood as under a spell, whilst ice sought entry, lashing at the tall Windows. At nightfall he heard her in the corridors far away singing something in Ital?ian, "Bellezza, che chiama...," the sweet notes picking up from the stone Passages a barking Echo—
Somehow this fearlessly independent Girl had then gone on to marry the ill-famed, the drooling and sneering, multiply-bepoxed Lord Lepton, an insatiate Gamester who failed to pay his losses, forever a-twittering, even as he tumbled to ruin in one of the period's more extravagant Stock-Bubbles, summarily ejected from Clubs high and low, advised by friend and enemy that his only decent course would be to step off the Edge of the World.— Thinking they meant, "go to America," resolutely chirpy, he donn'd his sturdiest coat and breeches, took a false name and a pub?lic conveyance to the Docks, there indentured himself to a North Riding iron-master, and in good time sailed away (being kept with the other Slaves for the duration of the crossing, well below the ship's water-line) to far and fever-clouded Chesapeake, where he was brought up-country, to dig and blast in the earth, fetch and stoke in the service of the perpet?ual Fires, smell unriddably of Sulfur, drive the African slaves as basely as a creature of his Sort might be expected to do, be one day trusted with blasting-Powder,— an event that, given the state of his soul, counted as a major leap of Redemption,— and after three of these trans-Stygian Years, become Journeyman, and in two more, by then his own Master,
make his next Fortune, returning to England but once more, not to the Mansions that had spurned him but to dark-skied Durham, to carry back to America the Woman who, mysteriously having allowed it to happen, stands here now, Chatelaine of Lepton Castle, almost as Dixon might remember her upon one of the old battered towers of Raby, pretending yet, surveying below the intricate Deployment not of fancied men and horses of long ago, but of present-tense Brussels Lace and Mignonette, of Brocades and flower'd Gauzes and unkempt rainbows of Satin across her own Ladyship's Parquetiy, as the music complains inconsolably of loves at worst Hard-Labor, at best, impossible.
"...raving Lunatick of course," his Lordship fixing the Astronomers with a gleaming stare, "whatwhat?"
"Oh, aye," Dixon enthusiastically nodding whilst trying to kick Mason under cover of her Ladyship's Gown, whose elaborate Hem has somehow crept closer to his Person than he imagin'd etiquette to allow.
"Imbecile," Mason, he thinks amiably, suggests.
Lord Lepton reacts as though knifed. "Exactly the word he used,— or was it 'Idiot'? You, Dasp,— you were there, which was it?"
"If memory serves, My Lord, 'twas My Lord, that called him both of those." He pronounces each word separately, in a way that strikes the listener as unarguably foreign, tho' what strange Tongue may lie back of his English must remain a Mystery. He is gazing at Mason, and Dixon, too, so as to leave no doubt that this will be the last uncompensated Favor,— henceforth the Astronomers, unless the price be agreeable, are on their own.
"Tho', I say, look here," Lord Lepton has meantime been rattling, "everyone on about it, 'Great Chain of Being this, Great Chain of Being that,'— well frankly I'm first to say jolly good,— but,— now you see you have this rather lengthy Chain, don't you, and,— well damme, what's it for? Eh? What's it do? Is there something for example hang?ing?— dangling from its bottom end? Well! what happens if that some?thing fails to hold on? Obviously it falls, but where, don't you know, and,— and how far?"
"Perhaps," Captain Dasp sibilantly entering the Game, "it is not a straight vertical line at all. Perhaps it is a Helixxx," gesturing in the air for Lord L.'s benefit, "and wound about something,— keeping it, let US
say...chain'd in? Something not part of the Great Chain itself, but fully as enormous, something that must be kept in restraint. Which we pray may be only sleeping when, throughout the Chain's vast length, it is felt now and then.. .to stir."
"Yes!" cries his Lordship with a strange shiver, "flexing, writhing, perhaps beginning to snarl a bit, as one might suppose, deep within its Breast...."
"Well, 'tis a horizontal Chain for me," Dixon beamingly raising his Punch-cup in Lord L.'s direction, drawing from his Partner a quick turn of the head,— Why do you assist in this idiot's Folly?— "such as Sur?veyors use. Which shall go before, I wonder, and which follow,— aye and which direction shall it point in?" A newcomer might have imagined he was talking about the Line, and that the answer was West. But the Nabob was feeling personally assaulted.
"You sound like one of these Leveler chaps," he mutters.
Dixon has about decided to reply, "Circumferentor, actually," when
Lady Lepton interposes, sighing, "Ah, yet do recollect that Chain, more
imprisoning than the Captain's, more relentlessly fiduciary than Mr.
Dixon's." Her gaze fixing each, as she speaks his name,— then, mean?
ingfully, Lord Lepton, but to no avail,— the object of her insinuation
only continuing to nitter-natter.. .with a strange pointedness toward
Dixon. "There's Coal out where you're going, you see. Already a brisk
trade by way of the Indians, though they can't bring it in in volume, poor
chaps. Pretty, magickal black Stone, for all they know of it. Yet we're not
all Charcoal Hearths here, we've Coke as well. Produce our own,— Chambers and all here upon the Plantation "
Life for her in these forests has never prov'd altogether exhilarating, her Face, even with its Complexion still pale as a summer Moon just risen above the Staithes, having with the years form'd itself into an aspect of permanent disappointment. Thus, altho' like her husband she may laugh at anything, yet is the pitch of her voice as low, and its every inflection as bitterly preconsidered, as those of Milord are high and carelessly unre?strained. Sounding together, the two make a curious sort of Duetto.
'Twas alleged by wits of the day that she'd married him for his Mem?bership in that infamous Medmenham Circle known as the Hellfire Club, resting thereby assured at least of a lively Bed-chamber. But as
evidence that Milord's Tastes run to nothing much out of the ordinary, the Eye alert to the stirrings of a Gown, and adept at translating these into the true movements beneath the expensive surface and intervening Pet?ticoats, may detect a Rhythm, a Damask Pulse, that speaks of Desires to cross into the forbidden.
It is difficult, in these days of closer-fitting Attire, to imagine the enormous volumes of unoccupied Space that once lay between a Skirt's outer Envelope, and the woman's body far within. "Why, there may be anything!" Capt. Dasp as if genuinely alarmed, "stash'd in there,— contraband Tea, the fruits of Espionage, the coded fates of Nations, a moderate-sized Lover, a Bomb."
"Yet the present-day bodice," remarks Lady Lepton, "can conceal secrets only with difficulty. A single key, perhaps, or the briefest of love-notes. Indeed, 'tis but an ephemeral Surface, rising out of the Spaces that billow ambiguously below the waist, till above melting...here, into bare décolletage, producing an effect, do you mark, of someone trying to ascend into her natural undrap'd State, out of a Chrysalis spun of the same invisible Silk as the Social Web, kept from emerging into her true wing'd Self,— perhaps then to fly away,— by the gravity of her gown."
"Oh, pishtush," comments her Husband, "Pshaw. Bodices are for rip?ping, and there is an end upon it."
The servants in the hall tonight are whitely-wigged black slaves in livery of a certain grade of satin and refinement of lace,— black Major-domos and black Soubrettes. One of the latter now passes by with a tray of drinks. "Milord's own punch receipt," advises the pretty Bondmaiden, gazing at Dixon intently. "Knock you on your white ass."
"Why, Ah would have brought me blahck one, but no one told me... ?" She seems to know him. For a frightening moment, he seems to know her.
"Yes lovely isn't she, purchas'd her my last time thro' Quebec, of the Widows of Christ, a Convent quite well known in certain Circles, devoted altogether to the World,— helping its Novices descend, into ever more exact forms of carnal Mortality, through training as,— how to call them?— not ordinary Whores, though as Whores they must be quite gifted, but as eager practitioners of all Sins. Lust is but one of their Sacraments. So are Murder and Gluttony. Indeed, these two are combin'd most loathsomely in their Ritual of Holy Communion."
"Rest tha content with the way he's talking...?" Dixon whispers loudly into Mason's ear, and moistly as well.
"An Otick Catarrh was not in my day's Plan, Dixon?"
"Oh. Why, bonny. See if I confide anything to thee, anymore."
"Pray continue, Sir,— 'tis but his Idiocy again, recurs like an Ague, harmless, really.... And," Mason believes he must ask, "do they get...fat?"
"Fat? Ah," Captain Dasp assures him, "violent, greedy, treacherous. Needless to say, Men without number fall in love with them, pay them repeatedly enormous sums, becoming ruin'd in the process, whilst Las Viudas de Cristo continue to bloom and prosper."
In the instant, Mason later avow'd, he knew that the Captain was a French spy. The Peace of Paris has left a number of these adrift, the reduction of Canada having forced many of them South and West, to the Illinois and beyond. There be sightings of Pépé d'Escaubitte, and 2-A Lagoo, Iron-Mask Marthioly and the Boys from Presque Isle, too. Few but the foolhardy,— however admirably so,— have stay'd in Pennsylva?nia, and those ever within galloping distance of Maryland, with its Web of Catholic houses of Asylum,— not that anyone there looks forward to being ask'd.— "What, that bloody Frog again?"
"Chauncey, not in front of the C-H-I-L-D!"
"Oh Mamma, is that funny-talking man coming to visit again?"
"Yes but not a word or God will nail you where you stand, and proba?bly with your Mouth open just like that."
"We promise! and shall he cook for us?" Upon such frail expectations, fugitive as the smell of a Roast through an open window, do the lives of these Renegadoes often depend.
Somewhere beyond the curve of a great staircase. Gongs, each tun'd to a different Pitch, are being bash'd. "At last," mumble several of the Guests as they make speed toward yet another Wing of Castle Lepton, converging at the entrance to a great dom'd room, the Roof being a sin?gle stupendously siz'd Hemisphere of Glass, taken from a Bubble, blown first to the size of a Barn by an ingenious air-pump of Jesuit invention, then carefully let cool, and saw'd in half. The sister Hemisphere is some?where out in America, tho' where exactly, neither Lord nor Lady is eager
to say. As no one at the moment has anything but Gaming of one sort or another in mind, the Topick is soon let go of.
Here is a Paradise of Chance,— an E-0 Wheel big as a Roundabout, Lottery Balls in Cages ever a-spin, Billiards and Baccarat, Bezique and Games whose Knaves and Queens live,— over Flemish Carpets, among perfect imported Chippendale Gaming-Tables, beneath Chandeliers secretly, cunningly faceted so as to amplify the candle-light within, they might be Children playing in miniature at Men of Enterprise, whose Table is the wide World, lands and seas, and the Sums they wager too often, when the Gaming has halted at last, to be reckon'd in tears....
"John!"
"Ages before we met, my Treasure."
"But my Nonpareil, you know how I resent and begrudge even the least allusion to any Life of yours, before we met." At this the Revd blinks, and may be seen slightly to cringe, for he knows his Sister.
"Thus depriving me," LeSpark at least game, "of all but, what's it been now...ten years? twenty?"
"Fifteen, my stout Chestnut. As before me you had no Life, fifteen is your true Age, putting you yet in the Bloom of Youth—"
"Um, Zab," the Revd can't keep from inquiring, "you...regard your Husband, as some sort of...Sprout?"
She pretends to think about this for a while. "Zabby!" Mr. LeSpark in a hurt tone.
"Would this Ridotto, Sir, have been at Lepton Castle, by Chance?"
"The very Oasis, Wicks. We'd done some Business out that way, I and his Lordship,— I'd a standing Invitation from them to pop in whenever I wish'd."
"Didn't know I'd married Quality, did you?" Elizabeth chirps.
" 'Twas a part of the Expedition I miss'd, Zab, and, as the Surveyors were on about it for weeks after, was often to be reminded of,— the infa?mous Lepton Ridotto.”
In those days, out past the reach of civic Lanthorns, as of Nail-hung Lamps in Sheds, and Tallow Dips, and the last feeble Rush-Light,— beyond, in the Forest, where the supernatural was less a matter of Publick-Room trickery or Amusement, Mr. LeSpark, as he tells it, was us'd to visit with potential customers, as well as tour his sources of sup?ply,— Gunsmithies, Forges, Bloomeries, and Barrel Mills,— passing as in a glide, thro' the Country, safe inside a belief as unquestioning as in any form of Pietism you could find out there that he, yes little JWL, goeth likewise under the protection of a superior Power,— not, in this case, God, but rather, Business. What turn of earthly history, however per?verse, would dare interfere with the workings of the Invisible Hand? Even the savages were its creatures,— a merchant's Pipe-Reverie, and, if consider'd as a class of Purchasers-at-retail,— well,— more admirable even than Dutch housewives, in the single-minded joy with
which they brows'd and chose....
In his first Trips out, he engag'd local Guides, who kept to the shad?ows and did not speak, to show him the way to the well-guarded, and in the estimate of some, iniquitous, Iron-Plantation of Lord and Lady Lep-ton. Each time, 'twas like stepping across out of the difficult world and into that timeless Encyclopedia-Light, where Apprentices kept a monas?tic silence, entirely dedicated to the tasks at hand, did not fall asleep in mid-afternoon, nor moon about in states of Erection for hours at a time. All noxious smokes and gases were being vented someplace distant, invisible. The dogs loaf'd, well fed, in the alleyways. Iron in an hundred shapes was being produced, exactly to plan. The women chatted as they work'd in a small studio of their own, casting from small Crucibles spe?cially formulated Batches of Steel. Sunlight flooded thro' open'd win?dows, the faces of the workers remaining attentive, uninflected, eyes only upon the Work. This, LeSpark must remind himself, each time he rounded one particular unfolding of the Trail,— Hazel branches parting, river noise suddenly in the air, Dogs on route and at the Gallop,— this was how the world might be. To see with nothing but this Simplicity, to take only these unpolluted Breaths, to leave the shop after the last of the light, with a face as willingly free of Affliction as that presented at Dawn,— 'twas a moment, hard come by out here, of viewing things whole, and he grew with each Visit more and more to depend upon it.
It is something he cannot explain to many people,— he knows that few distinguish between the Metal itself, and the Forms it happens to end up in, the uses it is widely known for being put to, against living Bodies,— cutting, chaining, penetrating sort of Activities,— a consider?able Sector of the iron market, indeed, directed to offenses against Human, and of course Animal, flesh.... "All too true," he can imagine himself saying, "yet, once you have felt the invisible Grasp of the Mag?netic, or gazed, unto transport, as the Gangue falls away before the veined and billowing molten light, oh the blinding purity—"
"Oh, Mr. LeSpark," being the likely reply.
"What is not visible in his rendering," journalizes the Revd to himself, later, "is the Negro Slavery, that goes on making such no doubt exquisite moments possible,— the inhuman ill-usage, the careless abundance of pain inflicted, the unpric'd Coercion necessary to yearly Profits beyond the projectings even of proud Satan. In the shadows where the Forge's glow does not reach, or out uncomforted beneath the vaporous daylight of Chesapeake, bent to the day's loads of Fuel from the vanishing Hard?wood Groves nearby, or breathing in the mephitic Vapors of the bloomeries,— wordlessly and, as some may believe, patiently, they bide everywhere, these undeclared secular terms in the Equations of Propri?etary Happiness."
Mason and Dixon, happening to be lost at nightfall (as they will later tell it), in the last possible light come upon a cabin, hardly more than a shed, of weathered fragrant old wood, beneath a sagging roof, show?ing no lights, to Apparition, abandoned for years,— yet, its ancient doorsill once traversed, the Surveyors find more room inside than could possibly be contained in the sorrowing ruin they believ'd they were entering.
To their alarm, Light shines ev'rywhere,— Chandelier Light, silver Sconce and Sperm-Taper Light,— striking them both to an all-but-sympathetick Squint. The Plafond,— as their slowly unclenching eyes ascend in wonder,— runs to a full spectrum of colors, depicting not the wing'd beings of Heaven, but rather the Denizens of Hell, and quite busy at their Pleasures, too— "Yes yes very interesting indeed," Dixon hastily, "yet if it's all the same to thee, I think, having grasped the point, I, for one, am now arriv'd at the moment of D. Ahh. Oah,— and thee...?"
"There's no Moon," Mason reminds him. "Going out there now would be as dangerous as jumping into the open sea. We must shelter here, we've no choice." 'Tis only then that they hear the Music, though once acknowledg'd, it seems to've been playing all the time. Indeed it now emerges, that they have entered something long in Progress, existing without them, not for their Benefit, nor even their Attention. Some twenty or thirty musicians, by the sound of it,— new music, advanced music, as far from the Oboick Reveries of the Besozzis, as the Imperial Melismata of Quantz,— its modalities rather suggesting some part of the Globe dis?tant from Britain, a dangerous jangling that nonetheless acts as an hyp?notic Draught upon the Surveyors.
Cautiously, drawn, following a Gradient of loudness as best they can, they pass through doorways, cross anterooms filled with expensive sur?faces and knick-knack intricacies they are moving among too briskly to examine, beginning to pick up the murmur of a Gathering, peaks of falsetto insincerity,— suddenly a grand Archway, above which, carv'd in glowing pink Marble, naked Men, Women, and Animals writhe together in a single knotted Curve of Lustfulness. The Surveyors have been gaz?ing at it for somewhat longer than is considered sophisticated, when a Voice, from someplace they cannot see, announces them,— "Mr. Mason, and Mr. Dixon, Astronomers of London."
Mason snorts. "Congratulations."
Dixon pretends to look about for the Voice. "Really, I'm oahnly a county Surveyor... ? He's the Astronomer... ?"
"Overdoing the Rusticisms," Mason mutters. "And do try not to fling your head about so?"
Thus do they come stumbling into what, in London, is term'd an "Hurricanoe,"— a thick humidity of Intrigue and Masks realiz'd in locally obtain'd Fur and Plumage, clamorous with Chatter and what seems now more to resemble Dancing-Music,— dominated from one wall by a gigantic rococo Mirror, British Chippendale to the innocent eye, engrossing easily the hundredth part of an acre,— Dixon trying to stand his ground even as his partner has begun to walk away rapidly
backward, for an Eye-blink there having pass'd over his Face a look of Alarm that has not possess'd it since the Seahorse, during the worst of that encounter.
"I cannot explain," as Dixon overtakes him, " 'tis a sort of Moral Panick."
"Manners first,— we must go in, as we can't offend our Hostess,— there's sure to be a Hostess...?" Dixon frantically resorting to what he knows of Climbers' Discourse. "If we offend her, she will at best behave inconveniently to her Husband,— at but slightly worse, she will advise him to have us expell'd from the Province. Are you there? Sheriffs will be instructed to make our lives even more difficult,— Children will play rude hoaxes upon us,— Water-Men will contrive to put us in the Water...."
"My Wig," Mason grasping and shifting it frantically about, "it doesn't feel quite...symmetrick,— no, and the Coat,— the moment we arose, I said it, remember? 'Shouldn't I wear the blue brocade?' But, in that case, I should have had to change the Breeches,—
"Sir,— " a calm Voice at his elbow suggests, "take hold of yourself, lest another be obliged to."
"Aye? Another what?" Irascible Mason, known up and down the Churs of Stroud, on occasions like this, as a lightning Shin-Kicker, has actually begun shuffling to seek some purchase upon the gleaming floor, when he belatedly recognizes the notorious Calvert agent Captain Dasp, to smoak whose Dangerousness even those of an Idiocy far more advanc'd than Mason's require but an anxious few seconds.
"Gentlemen," advises this ominous Shadow, "— you have fallen, willy-nilly, among a race who not only devour Astronomers as a matter of habitual Diet, but may also make of them vile miniature 'Sandwiches,' and lay them upon a mahogany Sideboard whose Price they never knew, and then forget to eat them. Your only hope, in this room, is to imperson?ate so perfectly what they assume you to be, that instincts of Predation will be overcome by those of Boredom."
"I was just about to tell him thah'... ?" nods Dixon.
Lady Lepton has appeared,— the Hostess there is sure to be one of. "Captain, how pleasant." With a gaze, met calmly by that of the agent, that invitee at least Conjecture.
Dixon, ignoring the Captain's sensible advice, is giving her the once?over. "Eeh! Why, Lady, I've seen thee...?— years ago at Raby Castle, where tha came to visit. We were both about the same age... ? still children, it was nearly winter,— Thee in a riding-habit, a sort of Brunswick style? scarlet and blue, and gold buttons,"— which is about where the Captain throws up his hands and walks off, shaking his head,— "a full skirt, a pet?ticoat, and beautiful small boots of wine-colored Cordovan, with French Court heels.. .aye and a cocked hat with green Parrot feathers, all against a Winter Sky, and thine Hair, left loose, falling nearly to the saddle—"
Ordinarily their Hostess would have been expected to rejoin, "And you were the muddy boy at the side of the ditch with his hand upon his Willie," and everyone would have laughed gaily, except, of course, Dixon. Instead, she peers directly in his eyes, and whispers slowly, "Aye, you. At first I thought you were one of the Castle's Ghosts. Following me,— keeping just out of the Light. Even when I didn't see you, I felt you. They told me you were wild, poor, a Dissenter, an Outlaw, to pay you no attention. But I must have disobeyed, if, after all these years, I still remember you." Whereupon a golden Edge of Pleasure proceeds to bisect him upwardly all the way from his Ballocks to his Heart, which these days is a lengthy journey.
Tonight's Slave Orchestra includes the best musicians the Colonies, British and otherwise, have to offer,— for the melody-maddened Iron-Nabob has searched them out, a Harpsichord Virtuoso from New Orleans, a New-York Viol-Master, Pipers direct from the Forests of Africa,— and bought up their Contracts, as others might buy objects of art. The string instruments are from workshops in Cremona, the winds from France, and the music they are playing here for the guests at Cas?tle Lepton, tho' at the moment little more than a suite of airs of the Street and Day, is nonetheless able somehow, perhaps in the unashamed preva?lence of British modality,— that is, Phrygioid, if not Phrygian,— to lend weight to (where it does not in fact ennoble) even the most brainless con?versation upon the great Floor,— which can usually be heard in His Lordship's vicinity, though nowhere at the moment near Dixon, who is finding all this, to his delight, dangerously interesting.
When they were still that young, he'd thought her bold as a Boy, and proud, with what he had already remarked, at a distance, as the proud-
ess of Women. He'd stayed out, away from others, on a Lurk among the Towers and Gate-ways,— and in the shadows of Autumn, late-colored even in the mornings, had grown enjoyably obsessed. His Great-Uncle George, believing her a Witch, cast at young Jeremiah looks of sorrow and reproach. But the boy had watched her out on the Fell, riding so fast that her amazing hair blew straight back behind her, the same Wind pressing her Eyelids shut and her Lashes into a Fan, and forcing her
Lips apart Long on a personal basis with the horses the Earl had
given her to ride, Dixon sought their company now in the stables at night, stroking, feeding, talking it over gently with them. Indoors one day of early sleet, lurking in the damp and rodent smell of the mural passages, he looked out through the pierc'd paint Eyes of Nevilles and Vanes, cos?tumed as shepherds, before a Castle glorified with an afternoon light that never was, to see her kissing one of the Chamber-Maids, who stood as under a spell, whilst ice sought entry, lashing at the tall Windows. At nightfall he heard her in the corridors far away singing something in Ital?ian, "Bellezza, che chiama...," the sweet notes picking up from the stone Passages a barking Echo—
Somehow this fearlessly independent Girl had then gone on to marry the ill-famed, the drooling and sneering, multiply-bepoxed Lord Lepton, an insatiate Gamester who failed to pay his losses, forever a-twittering, even as he tumbled to ruin in one of the period's more extravagant Stock-Bubbles, summarily ejected from Clubs high and low, advised by friend and enemy that his only decent course would be to step off the Edge of the World.— Thinking they meant, "go to America," resolutely chirpy, he donn'd his sturdiest coat and breeches, took a false name and a pub?lic conveyance to the Docks, there indentured himself to a North Riding iron-master, and in good time sailed away (being kept with the other Slaves for the duration of the crossing, well below the ship's water-line) to far and fever-clouded Chesapeake, where he was brought up-country, to dig and blast in the earth, fetch and stoke in the service of the perpet?ual Fires, smell unriddably of Sulfur, drive the African slaves as basely as a creature of his Sort might be expected to do, be one day trusted with blasting-Powder,— an event that, given the state of his soul, counted as a major leap of Redemption,— and after three of these trans-Stygian Years, become Journeyman, and in two more, by then his own Master,
make his next Fortune, returning to England but once more, not to the Mansions that had spurned him but to dark-skied Durham, to carry back to America the Woman who, mysteriously having allowed it to happen, stands here now, Chatelaine of Lepton Castle, almost as Dixon might remember her upon one of the old battered towers of Raby, pretending yet, surveying below the intricate Deployment not of fancied men and horses of long ago, but of present-tense Brussels Lace and Mignonette, of Brocades and flower'd Gauzes and unkempt rainbows of Satin across her own Ladyship's Parquetiy, as the music complains inconsolably of loves at worst Hard-Labor, at best, impossible.
"...raving Lunatick of course," his Lordship fixing the Astronomers with a gleaming stare, "whatwhat?"
"Oh, aye," Dixon enthusiastically nodding whilst trying to kick Mason under cover of her Ladyship's Gown, whose elaborate Hem has somehow crept closer to his Person than he imagin'd etiquette to allow.
"Imbecile," Mason, he thinks amiably, suggests.
Lord Lepton reacts as though knifed. "Exactly the word he used,— or was it 'Idiot'? You, Dasp,— you were there, which was it?"
"If memory serves, My Lord, 'twas My Lord, that called him both of those." He pronounces each word separately, in a way that strikes the listener as unarguably foreign, tho' what strange Tongue may lie back of his English must remain a Mystery. He is gazing at Mason, and Dixon, too, so as to leave no doubt that this will be the last uncompensated Favor,— henceforth the Astronomers, unless the price be agreeable, are on their own.
"Tho', I say, look here," Lord Lepton has meantime been rattling, "everyone on about it, 'Great Chain of Being this, Great Chain of Being that,'— well frankly I'm first to say jolly good,— but,— now you see you have this rather lengthy Chain, don't you, and,— well damme, what's it for? Eh? What's it do? Is there something for example hang?ing?— dangling from its bottom end? Well! what happens if that some?thing fails to hold on? Obviously it falls, but where, don't you know, and,— and how far?"
"Perhaps," Captain Dasp sibilantly entering the Game, "it is not a straight vertical line at all. Perhaps it is a Helixxx," gesturing in the air for Lord L.'s benefit, "and wound about something,— keeping it, let US
say...chain'd in? Something not part of the Great Chain itself, but fully as enormous, something that must be kept in restraint. Which we pray may be only sleeping when, throughout the Chain's vast length, it is felt now and then.. .to stir."
"Yes!" cries his Lordship with a strange shiver, "flexing, writhing, perhaps beginning to snarl a bit, as one might suppose, deep within its Breast...."
"Well, 'tis a horizontal Chain for me," Dixon beamingly raising his Punch-cup in Lord L.'s direction, drawing from his Partner a quick turn of the head,— Why do you assist in this idiot's Folly?— "such as Sur?veyors use. Which shall go before, I wonder, and which follow,— aye and which direction shall it point in?" A newcomer might have imagined he was talking about the Line, and that the answer was West. But the Nabob was feeling personally assaulted.
"You sound like one of these Leveler chaps," he mutters.
Dixon has about decided to reply, "Circumferentor, actually," when
Lady Lepton interposes, sighing, "Ah, yet do recollect that Chain, more
imprisoning than the Captain's, more relentlessly fiduciary than Mr.
Dixon's." Her gaze fixing each, as she speaks his name,— then, mean?
ingfully, Lord Lepton, but to no avail,— the object of her insinuation
only continuing to nitter-natter.. .with a strange pointedness toward
Dixon. "There's Coal out where you're going, you see. Already a brisk
trade by way of the Indians, though they can't bring it in in volume, poor
chaps. Pretty, magickal black Stone, for all they know of it. Yet we're not
all Charcoal Hearths here, we've Coke as well. Produce our own,— Chambers and all here upon the Plantation "
Life for her in these forests has never prov'd altogether exhilarating, her Face, even with its Complexion still pale as a summer Moon just risen above the Staithes, having with the years form'd itself into an aspect of permanent disappointment. Thus, altho' like her husband she may laugh at anything, yet is the pitch of her voice as low, and its every inflection as bitterly preconsidered, as those of Milord are high and carelessly unre?strained. Sounding together, the two make a curious sort of Duetto.
'Twas alleged by wits of the day that she'd married him for his Mem?bership in that infamous Medmenham Circle known as the Hellfire Club, resting thereby assured at least of a lively Bed-chamber. But as
evidence that Milord's Tastes run to nothing much out of the ordinary, the Eye alert to the stirrings of a Gown, and adept at translating these into the true movements beneath the expensive surface and intervening Pet?ticoats, may detect a Rhythm, a Damask Pulse, that speaks of Desires to cross into the forbidden.
It is difficult, in these days of closer-fitting Attire, to imagine the enormous volumes of unoccupied Space that once lay between a Skirt's outer Envelope, and the woman's body far within. "Why, there may be anything!" Capt. Dasp as if genuinely alarmed, "stash'd in there,— contraband Tea, the fruits of Espionage, the coded fates of Nations, a moderate-sized Lover, a Bomb."
"Yet the present-day bodice," remarks Lady Lepton, "can conceal secrets only with difficulty. A single key, perhaps, or the briefest of love-notes. Indeed, 'tis but an ephemeral Surface, rising out of the Spaces that billow ambiguously below the waist, till above melting...here, into bare décolletage, producing an effect, do you mark, of someone trying to ascend into her natural undrap'd State, out of a Chrysalis spun of the same invisible Silk as the Social Web, kept from emerging into her true wing'd Self,— perhaps then to fly away,— by the gravity of her gown."
"Oh, pishtush," comments her Husband, "Pshaw. Bodices are for rip?ping, and there is an end upon it."
The servants in the hall tonight are whitely-wigged black slaves in livery of a certain grade of satin and refinement of lace,— black Major-domos and black Soubrettes. One of the latter now passes by with a tray of drinks. "Milord's own punch receipt," advises the pretty Bondmaiden, gazing at Dixon intently. "Knock you on your white ass."
"Why, Ah would have brought me blahck one, but no one told me... ?" She seems to know him. For a frightening moment, he seems to know her.
"Yes lovely isn't she, purchas'd her my last time thro' Quebec, of the Widows of Christ, a Convent quite well known in certain Circles, devoted altogether to the World,— helping its Novices descend, into ever more exact forms of carnal Mortality, through training as,— how to call them?— not ordinary Whores, though as Whores they must be quite gifted, but as eager practitioners of all Sins. Lust is but one of their Sacraments. So are Murder and Gluttony. Indeed, these two are combin'd most loathsomely in their Ritual of Holy Communion."
"Rest tha content with the way he's talking...?" Dixon whispers loudly into Mason's ear, and moistly as well.
"An Otick Catarrh was not in my day's Plan, Dixon?"
"Oh. Why, bonny. See if I confide anything to thee, anymore."
"Pray continue, Sir,— 'tis but his Idiocy again, recurs like an Ague, harmless, really.... And," Mason believes he must ask, "do they get...fat?"
"Fat? Ah," Captain Dasp assures him, "violent, greedy, treacherous. Needless to say, Men without number fall in love with them, pay them repeatedly enormous sums, becoming ruin'd in the process, whilst Las Viudas de Cristo continue to bloom and prosper."
In the instant, Mason later avow'd, he knew that the Captain was a French spy. The Peace of Paris has left a number of these adrift, the reduction of Canada having forced many of them South and West, to the Illinois and beyond. There be sightings of Pépé d'Escaubitte, and 2-A Lagoo, Iron-Mask Marthioly and the Boys from Presque Isle, too. Few but the foolhardy,— however admirably so,— have stay'd in Pennsylva?nia, and those ever within galloping distance of Maryland, with its Web of Catholic houses of Asylum,— not that anyone there looks forward to being ask'd.— "What, that bloody Frog again?"
"Chauncey, not in front of the C-H-I-L-D!"
"Oh Mamma, is that funny-talking man coming to visit again?"
"Yes but not a word or God will nail you where you stand, and proba?bly with your Mouth open just like that."
"We promise! and shall he cook for us?" Upon such frail expectations, fugitive as the smell of a Roast through an open window, do the lives of these Renegadoes often depend.
Somewhere beyond the curve of a great staircase. Gongs, each tun'd to a different Pitch, are being bash'd. "At last," mumble several of the Guests as they make speed toward yet another Wing of Castle Lepton, converging at the entrance to a great dom'd room, the Roof being a sin?gle stupendously siz'd Hemisphere of Glass, taken from a Bubble, blown first to the size of a Barn by an ingenious air-pump of Jesuit invention, then carefully let cool, and saw'd in half. The sister Hemisphere is some?where out in America, tho' where exactly, neither Lord nor Lady is eager
to say. As no one at the moment has anything but Gaming of one sort or another in mind, the Topick is soon let go of.
Here is a Paradise of Chance,— an E-0 Wheel big as a Roundabout, Lottery Balls in Cages ever a-spin, Billiards and Baccarat, Bezique and Games whose Knaves and Queens live,— over Flemish Carpets, among perfect imported Chippendale Gaming-Tables, beneath Chandeliers secretly, cunningly faceted so as to amplify the candle-light within, they might be Children playing in miniature at Men of Enterprise, whose Table is the wide World, lands and seas, and the Sums they wager too often, when the Gaming has halted at last, to be reckon'd in tears....
