Mr. Harris continued: “For instance, just yesterday Miss Sally asked me to accompany her to the West, . . . all the way to Devon, no less, . . . in search of something she calls ‘china clay.’”
“Chinese clay?” said the maid. “In Devon?”
“It’s a sort of coal, I think,” said Mr. Fletcher, ever eager to show off, especially to the maid. “No idea why they call it ‘china,’ but it is a stuff you pull out of a mine.”
“What’s it used for?”
“No idea.”
“There,” said Mr. Harris, shrugging. “That’s what I mean. I am happy to oblige, of course, not least because I can call in on my brother and his family in Somerset on the way, but I cannot say I understand the purpose of the trip.”
Cook put a pan of carrots and onions in the oven beside the roasting chicken, and then said, “One good thing though: while they were away in wild countries, we had no more visits from that . . . galder-fenny, the crafty man.”
All four crossed themselves again, especially as the dark was growing, making the candlelight seem smaller, feebler.
“Brrrr, wicked as Bishop Hatto, that one,” said the maid. “I hope he gets eaten by rats too.”
“Will take more than rats to end that one,” said the Cook. “At least so I hazard.”
“While you are escorting Miss Sally to the West Country,” said Mr. Fletcher to Mr. Harris. “I will be doing the same for Mr. McDoon, who travels again soon, only this time no further than to Edinburgh.”
“What’s his errand, Mr. Fletcher?”
“I do not rightly know, but—as he is Scots originally—it seems perfectly reasonable that he might want to go there. Me, I have never been farther north than Luton, so I confess to some excitement.”
“But there you are,” said Cook. “Barely home from years away, and already fitcheting off again. Edinburgh, my soul! He should be staying home, here on Mincing Lane, for a spell, get back to regular ways with regular people, rather than heading straight up to the far North.”
Talk turned to other topics—the high cost of wheat, the riots in the East End, the scandalous Prince of Wales—as the dinner cooked and night came on.
Taking the chicken out of the oven, moist under its bacon-wrappings, Cook said, “Oh, then I must say something about this Billy Sea-Hen who has come back with the McDoons. No Tom, but a Billy Sea-Hen instead! More London even than you, Mr. Fletcher. But that’s not the problem. Londoners are fine. No, it’s his preaching I wonder about. I have not been to his meetings, but I hear folks talking of it. The Bible, yes, but a whole lot more is how I hear it described. Makes that Southcott woman and the Muggletonians sound correct as Cocker, from what I hear. What’s this Billy got to do with the McDoons?”
No one having an answer, Cook fried on.
“No Tom come back, and the German miss dead (and she will be much missed!), but we get a preachin’ sea-hen and two Indian gentlemen instead. Very polite and all, most in particular the Indians, I have no complaints, always praise my cooking, most respectful of this house. Feel sorry for the Mr. Bunce, him with just one leg now, reminds me of Nelson at Trafalgar. And then Mr. Bammary, the most politest man I think I ever met. Attends very carefully on Miss Sally, so I can only think well of him.”
As she spoke, she took out the vegetables. She paused. When she spoke again, she emphasized each point she made by shaking the vegetable spoon; droplets of melted butter sprinkled her listeners.
“Lieutenant Bammary loves Sally, that much is plain as the eyes on my face. Like a great beagle, he is, lump lump lump after her, would fight all the wolves of Tartary to protect her, he would. I dare say he deserves our respect for that.”
The other three nodded their heads.
“But, not that it is any of our business, but one cannot help but care and wonder . . . does Miss Sally return the favour? Outwardly yes, no doubt. But I know our little smee. . . . She is wrestling inside over something. . . . Even now, has not eaten all day, shut up in her attic. . . . Well, no use speculating and, like I said, not our business to be speculating about.”
She emphasized this last point with a very sharp glance at her niece.
“One more thing, before I take ’em their dinner. The Mr. Sedgewick, who is here now with ’em. . . . He is a schemer, poking his lawyer nose into all sorts of sense and nonsense. His wife is even stranger! I hear mumblings from some of the Sedgewick servants.”
Seeing no demurral from her companions, Cook ended the conversation and took the chicken, carrots, and onions out to the partners’ room.
“Clever that lawyer is, no doubt,” she said, over her shoulder as she headed out of the kitchen. “He always finds a way to be here with Mr. McDoon and Mr. Sanford right around dinner time!”
“Take that as a compliment to your cooking,” said Mr. Harris as the door shut behind Cook.
“Huummpphh” could be heard clearly through the door.
Two days later, Maggie sat in the partners’ room in the house on Mincing Lane. She looked across a table—specially set with a blue-and-white porcelain tea service—at two men of middle age and a young woman (who clutched a large, golden cat on her lap), who sat beside Mr. and Mrs. Sedgewick.
“Oh Mama,” thought Maggie. “You told me that Tortoise says ‘always travel with your musical instruments because you never know when you will meet other musicians.’ Well, chi di, I think I just met the oddest musicians of all: the very ones who must sing with me.”
“. . . so, to conclude: Maggie, that is, the Miss Collins, is a cousin, omnibus rebus consideratus,” said Mr. Sedgewick. “Mag . . . Miss Collins, the McDoons are willing to accept you as such.”
“Rat,” thought Maggie. “Chubby little rat, clever okelekwu, mouth chattering while mind runs unseen elsewhere.”
“Well, ah, thank you Mr. Sedgewick,” said Barnabas, waving his hands about, sloshing tea from his cup and very nearly upsetting the cup from Sally’s hand entirely. “So then, Miss Collins. . . . That is, ha ha ha, . . . what I mean to say, . . . oh, Quatsch, here, try these pastries, the ones with the powdery sugar on top, Cook got them special. . . .”
“Mr. McDoon,” thought Maggie. “Roundish in the corners, but not soft. Strong I think under that bubbly-skittery front. Misplaces words but not their meanings. Bit of a popinjay! Mama, you would like the needlework on this man’s clothes.”
Everyone sipped their tea and nibbled on the pastries, searching for what to say.
Maggie scanned the room, slowly exploring it in her mind. She noted the porcelain figurines on the mantlepiece—the Four Continents, seemingly conversing, but what sort of conversation might Africa be having with Europe?—and the ornate clock, steadily marking the seconds, the minutes, the hours. She looked at each print framed on the wall, ran with Diana hunting Actaeon, sailed up the Trave to Luebeck and unloaded cargo on the quay at Riga, swam with the survivors of a shipwreck, hoisted a white boy out of the water and away from a shark’s jaws.
“What Mr. McDoon is trying to say, is ‘welcome,’ Miss Collins,” said Sanford.
“Not met anyone quite like you before, Mr. Sanford,” thought Maggie. “You guard your thoughts well. A ribbon of very deep spirit I sense, coiled and tucked in a weathered case, a burning coal kept in a cold chalice.”
“Thank you,” said Maggie. “This is the strangest turn of events . . .”
“Indeed, indeed,” interrupted Barnabas. “But, well, here it is: you are family, so unexpected, like . . . like something out of all those romances, where the heir turns up all unexpected and everyone is reunited. . . .”
“Yes,” thought Maggie. “But I wonder how many of those books have someone looking like me showing up in the parlour for tea. All the sugar in this bowl is white.”
Maggie spooned sugar into her tea and helped herself to more milk.
Mrs. Sedgewick gave a little half-gasp. Everyone turned towards her.
“My tarictic dove,” said Mr. Sedgewick. “Whatever is the matter?”
> Mrs. Sedgewick dabbed at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief and said, “Oh, nothing, it’s just that I am so overcome with sentiment at this miraculous event, tears being the sword of the Angel King, and, you Maggie, suddenly revealed as a McDoon, it is all too much. . . .”
“Ah, my mentor,” thought Maggie. “Ndo, the pigeon in the shade. . . . No, more the nnekwu ocha, the white hen. You quote Blake now (misquote actually, dear mistress) and send me his sunflower poem as a condolence on the death of my mother, yet can you stoop—madam—to the labour he prophesizes? You fancy yourself a Daughter of Beulah, but do you understand—mistress—what Blake means when he speaks of rebuilding Jerusalem? Do you hear, as he does, ‘the cry of the Poor Man, his Cloud over London in volume terrific low bended in anger?’ Do you know what the Wine-Press of Los represents and the Human Harvest? ‘Bring me my bow of burning Gold, my Arrows of Desire’—like the Huntress in the print on the wall over there!—I think I shall like this house very well.”
Several minutes passed before Mrs. Sedgewick’s tears subsided. One member of the company, at least, could not wait for Mrs. Sedgewick to compose herself; Isaak jumped down from Sally’s lap, marched over to Maggie and began nudging Maggie’s left leg.
“That’s Isaak,” said Sally. “Come to inspect you, I’m afraid. She’s the real owner of the house.”
Isaak sniffed at Maggie’s shoes. Isaak hopped up on an arm of the chair and looked at Maggie’s face.
“Here is a hunter, fearless like a leopard, small-sized nanwulu,” thought Maggie. “Her I will call cousin, if she will admit the connection.”
“I apologize, Miss Collins,” said Sally. “Isaak knows no boundaries, and my scolding her does no good at all.”
“And here is . . . what?” thought Maggie. “The white girl who sings, with her cat. Breathing in front of me as I saw her so often during my mind’s voyages. A hunter who is herself hunted. Came back—from where exactly?—looking for me, only I found her first. Doesn’t look like she has slept in a week, eyes sunk into the mask of a face. I need her voice, together we can sing down the Owl and drive the ship, selah, but I fear to depend too much on her. Strong but brittle, I deem her. And I wonder if she will follow my instruction.”
Isaak jumped down and went back to Sally, her tail a golden frond above the table top, sailing past the tea service, the pastries, the sandalwood box.
“So,” said Barnabas. “We’d like to invite you, Maggie—may I call you that? If we are to be family, then hardly seems right to keep saying ‘Miss Collins’ but we can do whatever you like, and please call me ‘Uncle’ because if you call me ‘Mr. McDoon’ I shall feel as if I am at the Exchange and not in my very own home, and now, beans and bacon, where was I?”
“Inviting Maggie to come live with us,” said Sanford.
“Precisely,” said Barnabas. “Thank you Sanford, that’s where I was heading. What say you Maggie? Would you come to us here at Mincing Lane?”
Maggie put her teacup down. Before she could respond to Barnabas, she was diverted by the pattern on the teapot: a blue pheasant advancing through a lacework of blue branches, twigs, leaves, on a gleaming white field.
“I know this,” Maggie thought, suddenly drawn into the picture. “A quail . . . no, that is not quite right. It’s—Mama, what is the word you used? The ogazi! The game-fowl, the . . . pheasant, that’s the word in English. A blue okuku. Steps lightly, sees with a sharp eye.”
“Maggie?” said Barnabas.
“The ogazi,” Maggie continued to muse, not hearing Barnabas, “Traveller between worlds, very hard to capture.”
“Miss Collins, Maggie?” said Sanford.
“The pattern the pheasant bestrides,” said Maggie to herself. “The tractix, the evolute of the catenary, the harmony of the nsibidi. Where I will pilot-sing the choral-boat!”
Maggie looked up from the porcelain.
“A thousand apologies,” she said, shaking her head slightly as if she had just stepped from moonlight into a bright dawn. “I too am overcome from sentiment at this moment.”
The McDoons and the Sedgewicks regarded Maggie with anticipation, uncertainty, suspicion, hope, and a dozen other emotions besides. Only Isaak seemed confirmed in full acceptance.
“Oh Mama, these are our—your and my—relatives, our kin,” thought Maggie. “You were right! Your mother was a white woman. That woman is one of our ndichie, one of the ancestors—and she was green eyes from Scotland, this man’s aunt!”
All eyes were on Maggie. All sounds faded away.
“Here is part of the choir for the abu oma, our great psalm of healing, our abu mmeli of victory,” Maggie thought.
Maggie nodded her head.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you . . . Uncle.”
“Hurrah,” said Barnabas, jumping up, his vest a mesh of Tiepolo pink and Wedgewood cream. He rounded the table and embraced a startled Maggie.
“Welcome home,” said Barnabas. “May the Old McDoon know of this and repent!”
Sanford smiled a fleeting cutlass-smile. Maggie noticed that over Barnabas’s shoulder; she smiled a similar smile back.
“Praise to Chineke,” she whispered. “God’s will be done.”
Interlude: Videnda
[An extract from Thetford’s Monthly Mirror, Reflecting Men and Manners, vol. XXXI, nr. 10]
A correspondent from Islington reports the following:
Last Thursday sennight a most remarkable, large and vivacious meeting—third in a series—took place in the Spa Fields near Finsbury and Clerkenwell, led by an itinerant preacher of no established denomination but mixing the words of many together in a palette of his own devising, who goes by the extraordinary and uncouth name of Billy Sea-Hen.
This Sea-Hen is, to judge by his accent and local knowledge, a Londoner by birth, though he has not been seen here until very recently, whereupon suddenly he is to be heard from and about on nearly every side. (Where might he have been until his recent eruption into our scope of vision?) He speaks of salvation and redemption in the usual ways but, by adding many unique flourishes and making a multitude of obscure references, he has caused a great stir. Indeed, it is fair to say, as Virgil has it in the Eclogues, he has put ‘the whole countryside in a state of turmoil.’
Most notable are the crowds he draws to himself. The Spa Fields meeting was said on good authority to be upwards of three thousand souls. The week before, he spoke to at least as many on the lawns of Dame Annis le Clare in Old Street, and to perhaps only a few hundreds less the week before that, at Black Mary Well on the Farringdon Road. Prevalent in the gathering are a great many of the meanest poor, including many Irish and not a few sons and daughters of Africa (it is startling to see how many of these latter have made their way to Albion’s fair shores!). Here are to be found labourers in our breweries, brickyards and barge-shoots, dockers, porters, draymen, carters, coal-heavers, and—among the girls and women whose numbers are not inconsiderable at the Sea-Hen meetings—maids and other servants of the lesser sort. All are esurient for the meal he provides, and clamour for more as soon as he is done.
Most alarming are their actions upon hearing Sea-Hen speak of righteous causes. The crowd, as it disperses back to the warrens and rookeries of greater London, has been seen to make rude gestures and to loudly interrupt the pastimes of gentlemen and ladies taking tea at Bagnigge Wells and similar locales in the more fashionable parts of the city. Sea-Hen must bear responsibility—in the same manner as the Wedderburns and Spences of the world—for any crimes against property and persons that he may incite amongst his auditors.
[Letter from Sanford in London to Barnabas in Edinburgh]
Dear B.:
I hope your efforts to raise funds in Edinburgh have been more fruitful than mine at home.
Sad to report that the Project remains under-subscribed.
Praeds and Rogers are in, but only for small capital, which is—to speak most candidly—a disappointment given our firm’s long relationship with
each of those houses.
Matchett & Frew have invested to the full limit of their capacity, for which we must be grateful. The Gardiners likewise.
A firm new to my acquaintance—Coppelius, Prinn & Goethals (Widow)—has shown interest. They are originally from Leipzig and have established an office here now that regular commerce between Great Britain and the Continent has resumed. They appear quite solid and respectable, but of course I will investigate further. Matchett & Frew have suggested that something may not be quite as it seems about Coppelius, Prinn & Goethals (Widow), but could not give more detail.
The Landemanns are—as expected—in close correspondence with our mutual friends in the Northern and Baltic trades. By my next writing I may have news to share from Hamburg, Luebeck, Gothenburg, Danzig, Koeningsburg, and Riga.
Most devastating though is the total lack of funds coming from the larger City houses. Barings and the other acceptance houses won’t have anything to do with our Project, to the extent of neither Sedgewick nor I gaining so much as a conversation with them. (!)
The pending loan to the Kingdom of Prussia preoccupies many of our other friends—it is for the sum of no less than five million Pounds Sterling, which surely must reduce the stock potentially available to us. I had never seriously entertained hopes that the Rothschilds would back us, but it is frustrating to see the Prussia business absorbing all the focus of Isaac Solly & Son and of Haldimand.
I also thought that the East India Company’s investment would signify and attract Reid, Irving and Hurst, Robinson, yet so far we make no headway with those firms.
Another blow this morning: though they wish us well and will speak kindly on our behalf, Thomas Wilson & Co. is too busy with its new Brazil business to enter ours.
I am beginning to feel apprehensive and look forward to putting our minds together immediately upon your return. McDoon & Co. is now completely invested in the Project, our credit fully extended.
The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 Page 8
