My only comfort was the strange Mrs Simmons, the lady from the nautical shop, and (so Tom insinuated) Sam’s mistress. She came from time to time and sat at the foot of my bed, bringing steaming pots of lemon soup to smoke and sour the cold out of my eyes and nose. ‘You need light,’ she said, ‘anything alive needs light, even if it is only grey and wet and the sun don’t show his head.’ Then she looked at me and added coyly, ‘Perhaps you are not alive.’ But when I was well enough to be shifted, she bade Sam build a kind of divan for me in the old tavern room, and once settled there before the fire I never moved. Our growing acquaintance induced her at last to speak to me in our native tongue, and we spent many cheerful afternoons talking of nothing and watching the sun and rain in their spring duet upon the window. My heart beat more busily when she came, for she surprised in me a latent longing for home, which had been buried, like Sam’s gases, beneath the beautiful snow.
I had time then to reflect on the strange nature of their attachment. Mrs Simmons must have been a lovely girl once, and she was lovely still after a fashion, with a curious underwater quality, a melodious slowness. But she was odd company for a man of Syme’s youth on the one hand and energy on the other. I think her self-reliance drew him to her in the first place. For though Sam could concentrate with a fury, he often preferred to spend his strength on more restless and trivial affairs. The confidence of others attracted his powers as a bed of earth draws weeds to it. Especially when, as in Mrs Simmons’ case, there seemed so little cause for assurance: a middle-aged widow in a foreign land, keeping a trinket shop, to put it unkindly. She had few friends. She once explained to me that friendship involved too much fudging, and I laughed at first but puzzled over the word for some time. When Sam began to do business at her shop, and carped at prices and mishaps and delays, he must have sensed her poise. She seemed as untouched by his complaints as an underwater swimmer by rain. (An unhappy thought.) Her indifference tempted Sam as a red rag maddens a bull.
That is one account of their odd love. Perhaps I have painted Syme too grand for the second. He possessed an enormous sense of certainty, regardless of the matter at hand. It was undeniable, unavoidable, like a monument. Beside his, an ordinary confidence looked as big as a house at the foot of a palace. Yet in which would you choose to dwell? His confidence was magnificent, true, but it required endless repairs and small jobs. It required more work than common faithlessness and doubt, for Syme was the most faithful of men. It sapped his strength and robbed him of sleep. If he turned to Tom, Tom only pricked him to new efforts. But Mrs Simmons was a natural Penelope, a waiter. She made even homecoming seem unimportant beside her waiting. She accepted Syme to her bed and heart, and refused to worry over him. Even Syme came, as we all do, like a lover to his insignificance.
‘Have you ever woken Sam,’ Tom once asked me in his wicked way, as he brought me a cup of tea one morning before they set forth, ‘so fond of waking men himself? Snuck upon them when he sleeps late in his mistress’s bed?’ He perched a minute, at the edge of my head, and looked out of the window. ‘How he clasps her,’ he continued, staring at the river, ‘snuggles in the crook of her back, and swallows her with his arms, as if he might fall off should he let go. While she wriggles to escape and cannot and consigns herself to a late morning; until you appear, and she gives you a grateful look, and prods him till he stirs.’ But Sam called him then, and Tom left me to another lonely morning, free to ponder what prompted this strange confidence.
Perhaps I have dwelt too long on the strange Mrs Simmons, but I found her a fascinating creature and a keyhole into Sam’s heart. She meant the world to him, I fancy, even more than Tom did. When I grew well enough to go out, I visited her in the gleaming shop and she put a chair for me by the window. She called it ‘your perch, Phidy’. From there I watched the customers move silently among telescopes and chronometers, their faces reflected brassily at every angle, with distended noses and enormous hats. I watched the sun shine longer and brighter on the street outside. We grew intimate after a fashion – what fashion remained to be seen. She was a most consoling woman. And I grew well, slowly at first, and then well enough; then well altogether, just as summer, like a circus, began to pitch its tents in Virginia.
“This is no season for commerce, Frau Simmons‚’ I declared one day, proud and preening myself, in a fine red coat and a sky-blue cravat. ‘Shut up your shop and come play, for these are the rites of spring!’ – taking her hands, you see, and spinning round.
‘I am an old fool‚’ she said, laughing and gasping, ‘and you are a young one, Herr Müller.’
There was an awkward moment when we tumbled over a chair, a thin-legged, elderly, mahogany creature on velvet tiptoes. We landed plump on the settee, arm in arm, and her hair fell thick as grapes over my face. We untangled each other, rather slowly, and sat there quite demurely after that, all laughter fled, a presage of the awkwardness to come.
*
And so I sat on the porch steps one fine afternoon in May, waiting for Tom and Sam to return. On my left, the fields fell away from the river. Even across the water the land lay green again, clothed in woods that surrounded the loose streets, except where the highway cut a muddy brown through their swathe. In the market, ladies strolled in twos and threes under the jaunty haloes of their parasols, dipping their heads now and then, and inspecting. Birds tumbled about the air like boys in afresh lake, scattering and screaming in the sky. I noted a tremble in my gaze and looked round to see the postman crossing the footbridge – a thin, upright shape bobbing above the river – before he walked up our path with a lengthened stride, knocking his bag against his knees, a tall, sweating gentleman in high boots.
‘Sir Postman,’ I cried, sunning myself, in gallant spirits. ‘Mein Herr Mercury. What bird is that, there in the sycamore, the brown one with the dirty red breast, looking up, as it were, for rain – the gloomy fellow?’
‘That’, said the postman, an Irishman, intoning his words as a miser counts coins, one by one, ‘bird is – a robin!’
‘Don’t be a fool, man, a robin’s a chit of a bird, red as apples, no bigger than thumb and forefinger. That brute could hire blackbirds to polish his beak.’
‘If that bird ain’t a robin,’ said the postman, working out the impossibility of it in his entire body, a contortion that began with his knees and developed alarmingly in his elbows, ‘I ain’t a postman’ – he could think of no greater absurdity – ‘and that’, he added, throwing a bundle at my feet, ‘ain’t post!’
‘Pity then,’ I said, scratching the side of my nose, quietly. ‘Robins have always meant bad luck to Müllers – I mean, the German kind,’
So out of a blue sky, the bolt fell.
The postman had not budged, stood above me, casting a long, thin shade. He liked to see his handiwork enjoyed. ‘I could do with shade myself, just a spot,’ he said, as I broke the seal.
His left arm scratched the small of his back without bending. He wanted a moment to breathe in peace and talked to me as I read, in a soft buzzing brogue like flies in the afternoon sun. ‘To think of the long way that’s come. A man brought that to the post who don’t even speak our language. I doubt he rightly knew where Pactaw was, even if he had heard of Virginny. A thousand such-like passengers rode with that letter to Baltimore to unload in a country that don’t understand ‘em. Then to find its way here, to a man such as yourself taking his ease on a sunny afternoon. It’s a miracle of sorts, a long shot.’
I did not answer, for the shot had found its mark. It was a letter from my father.
My dear son,
I have news to give you that grieves me most in that it touches somewhat on yourself. The Prince, as I believe I mentioned to you, has taken a great fancy for the ‘old ways of the court’ and begun to build and develop and unearth his little palace, to plant groves where no groves grew, and in short, to commit a thousand foolish amendments to the beauties of nature and of architecture, which were never wanted, and shall be regretted w
hen complete. (To say nothing of the great disfiguring mess in the meantime, when the mud runs over the cobbles and the gaping pits like graves stare out of the once gorgeous gardens.) He prances about on a new Arabian charger (purchased at ruinous expense from the public coffers), dresses in battle-gear for ordinary Mondays, and waves a very sharp and very silly crested blade above his head when the spirit takes him. Moreover, I am informed, by Hespe of all people, who calls himself now Lieutenant (a title I am happy to grant him, as he commands exactly no one and certainly not myself), that the Prince desires an army! To protect I suppose the little ruined hill where a pretty house used to sit, that in great kindness and humility, we used to term his court.
(Ruth I should say protests that I am unkind, and that Hespe has got on wonderfully, and deserves at least our sympathy and respect, if not our blessing, for the lengths he has travelled already to improve his station in life … et cetera. I never saw the great merit, by the by, of improving stations when so much else wants mending, but I let it go.) Of course, I have no doubt that the Prussians are somewhere behind this; and that the Prince, who travelled lately to Berlin (with his Lieutenant), has begun to give himself airs to match those of his cousins at court, who are for the most part just as foolish but (and this is far worse) not nearly so ridiculous, and greatly to be feared. They seem to have put some nonsense in his head regarding the liberal menace and such stuff (I wish it weren’t nonsense, my son), not to mention the threat from Austria and the confusion over a German nation, and the rival swelling and posturing of what amount to little better than packs of brigands (though perhaps I am being unkind to Vienna, we shall see). As it is, the best of us have little hope for a German people, never mind nation, and I believe that until the former rises, the latter shall remain ‘in bits’, as they say.
All of which means, I’m afraid, that the public purse has been given over entirely to organizing a military worthy of Kolwitz- Kreminghausen (as Hespe puts it) – I should have thought a couple of shepherds and an angry goat should do the trick, but I am, of course, no ‘soldier’ (Hespe once again – who seems to have confused a titular lieutenancy with a battle-tested decoration). Believe me, steps will be taken – and I trust your humble father will know where to put his feet. But in the meantime, you are recalled, as the saying is (not to mention warmly recollected), at once, and required to return with the plans of this miraculous double-compression piston, which Hespe trusts will open that vein of coal in the hillside, and pour wealth into the public coffers (which means, of course, the Prince’s pocket, where Hespe keeps a hand warm). With said wealth he hopes to put Kolwitz-Kreminghausen ‘on the map’ (he takes the English as a model of mercantile progression, and has begun to ape them in other ways as well, the worst of them sartorial). I replied that I had always thought the great virtue of a map was that a town required no special merit to be included upon it – but he brushed this aside as foolish pedantry. (Believe me, Son, that even a foolish pedantry is a kind of safeguard against far greater evils; and the moment the pedant is cast from court, never mind the fool, bad times are at hand.)
Well, you have guessed the upshot already, I am sure. Among the evil consequences of this, I trust, temporary development is the fact that the funds for your American expedition, which appeared so promising, have been withdrawn. My only comfort lies in the knowledge that, if no other good comes of it all, the Prince’s foolishness shall at the least return my son to my side again – where he has been sorely missed.
Your loving father,
F.
P.S. I trust the double-compression piston is practicable?
A cloud flew across the sun and the long nose and dim eyes of the sweating Irishman fell into clear relief. A fly drank from a crack in his cheek and I wished he would go away. ‘That’s grateful to us‚’ he said, wiping his brow. ‘Not bad, I hope?’
‘Pressing,’ I answered shortly, without moving.
‘It’s never as pressing as it seems,’ he said, and after a period of rude silence on my part bent his long legs to the road again. An hour passed and I did not shift from my seat, in that empty space around a grieving heart as vast as the sky around the sun. The ink smudged in my damp hands as I read the letter again and again. I knew my father would make light of even the gravest misfortunes; and that this touched him deeper than he let on, and upset certain plans he had nursed, secret even from his son, I also guessed. But, like Tom, he had a head for heights (or so I consoled myself) that was proof against low concerns and swarming irritations. And shall I tell you a most curious notion that lay uppermost in my thoughts as I waited for my companions to return? That somehow I had been caught out, like a schoolboy, for playing truant, and must return now, heavy-hearted, to receive my beating. That the game was up, and had proved little more than a game, after all. The shadows grew great as trees and the tired feet of Tom and Sam, limping beneath their heavy packs, trudged up the path from the fields before I raised my head.
Sam was in a black mood; I could see that at once. Tom put a finger to his lips, a sign of caution more than silence. I presumed the usual causes: the day’s tests had gone badly; Tom’s patience had stung him; his shoes fitted ill and he was weary of the heat … Sam needed no great reason for a rage that would satisfy an army of injustices. I was about to give him ample room for a windy grief.
‘A good day’s hunt?’ I asked, as they left their packs at the foot of the porch and sat beside me. I could taste the sour smack to my voice, like spit on silver or cheer on misery. Sam said nothing, and Tom answered, provoked himself perhaps, ‘A perfectly foul bright blue summer day.’
‘If you will make a fool of yourself – do it in your own affairs, Tom – if you have any,’ Sam replied with warmth. ‘And the first trick is this – let a woman come.’
‘Kitty, the baker’s daughter, is a pretty girl, as you know,’ Tom explained to me calmly. ‘With a neat hand. As the business was close by, I thought she could meet us with a picnic and ease the time. Even make herself useful, which she did. Sam had the misfortune to spill a cup of cider on her notes, so that the ink ran, and we have to start from scratch in the morning.’
‘Only a fool would set a cup in the grass – an inch away from a long day’s work.’ I guessed his anger had another and deeper fear behind it, perhaps of losing Tom.
‘She did not expect elephants to come by, as we are only in Virginia,’ Tom said.
‘This is not a game for schoolboys and their sweethearts – or picnics in the sunshine. It is my life’s work and if you cannot make it yours, Tom, I do not need you. I asked you not to bring her; enough. You know well that if Kitty had not met us – a day’s work would not have been lost.’
‘A day more or less should not matter‚’ I broke in at last. ‘We are bankrupt.’
Tom, in fact, took the news best, with a heart attentive to my private grief Perhaps he was glad of it, and wished me gone and Syme to himself again, but the gift of consolation requires a subtle eye as well as a warm hand, and Tom had both. ‘You say that your father would never breathe a word if he could help it, Phidy. But he cannot you see. As the case affects us, he must tell us, though it were nothing but a dip in fortune.’
‘There is more,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘and worse, I am sure.’
Sam had stormed off, remarking, ‘It needed only that,’ in a dry tone. My anger rose against him, until I learned pity from Tom.
‘He does not have the stomach for disappointment‚’ Tom offered by way of apology. ‘If he had, we should not love him, though he might love the rest of us the better. To be plain, I have had enough of Sam Syme myself today, but now is not the time to turn from him.’
Sam was in a rage in good earnest that evening. The night was cold under a clear sky, and Tom lit a fire for comfort. Syme drank too much at supper and the fumes of wine and the close hot air inflamed his temper, dry already, and he began to talk. He railed at Tom, at my father, at Kitty and me, at Mrs Simmons. ‘Stuck here in this hole – the pl
aything of a sailor’s widow – and not the only one by all accounts.’ He railed at himself. I think in every great man there is a kind of underground movement, a seditious sect that clamours for failure like a radical for the government’s downfall It is the trembling of revolution. ‘Only this would be a fitting injustice!’ he seemed to cry – misery, scorn, imprisonment, betrayal, not the simple disappointment of being stony-broke. These black moods sharpened his sense of life. For Tom and me, they were as good as a high wind. Syme had such powers that even his anger could restore our faith, and his rage pricked my spirits to new life, after the blow they had taken at my father’s news.
The two were closeted for over an hour after supper in Sam’s bedroom, a broad, bare chamber across the hallway from what we called ‘the tavern’. I sat in the latter, listening to Sam shout and Tom (for once) match him word for word. Some of these reached me, muffled by the wall: ‘bad luck’ several times, and ‘useless’ too, then ‘I’ll be the judge of that’; at last from Tom, and this repeated, ‘Well, then, you must show him’ – show him or tell him, both came up. There is nothing as dreadfully lonely as a great argument in another room. My only comfort at hand lay in the company of those two men, who scarcely thought of me, I suppose. My father was an ocean away and I could only guess the position of his affairs. Sam’s predicament surrounded me and his anguish roused my blood.
The Syme Papers Page 33
