The Pox Party Read online

  Lord Cheldthorpe, 02-01, who had for some years given graciously to 03-01 so that he might continue his studies and publish them forth to the world, had died. The effect of this death, though in a bedchamber some three thousand miles away, was great, beyond the natural depression of spirits produced in the breast of any human creature endowed with sympathy at the news of another slipping from daylight, from the realm of reason and the theater of motion, back into the obdurate chaos of uncreated night, into which we all eventually shall tumble.

  The death of Lord Cheldthorpe came as a doubly heavy blow to the house of Gitney, the College of Lucidity, because on him did we all rely for a great many funds necessary for the continuance of our philosophical ventures. It was he who paid for various of the apparati, he who had overseen the publication of the findings of 03-01’s society, he who had circulated those findings among the members of the Royal Society in London and, in Paris, the Académie Royale des Sciences.

  Lord Cheldthorpe died without issue. His title would have lapsed, had His Highness the King not seen fit to name a nephew as the new Lord Cheldthorpe, and so create the title again anew.

  03-01 did not know this nephew. He importuned the man, however, to visit the Province of Massachusetts Bay and see what his late uncle had funded. 03-01 promised the new Lord Cheldthorpe that, upon coming to our shores, he should not simply have an opportunity to inspect the experimental facilities at the Gitney house; but he should also be introduced to various schemes that would assure him income equal to that taken from his sugar plantations in the islands.

  In writing his letter to this new Lord Cheldthorpe, 03-01 seemed most sanguine about the prospects of His Lordship’s acquiescence and imminent financial gain. Privately, however, the impending visit of this nobleman, upon which hung so many of the house’s fortunes, depressed 03-01’s spirits as much as it agitated his nerves. When he heard that Lord Cheldthorpe would be arriving a few weeks hence, he spent days rushing from room to room, his gown sweeping behind him, waggling his hands rapidly before him.

  He ordered that I be bought a new bag-wig, and my mother a whole series of costly dresses à la mode du beau monde.

  At dinner, he instructed all of us, “You shall all show the greatest deference to His Lordship the Earl of Cheldthorpe. He is a young and energetic person, and shall be most interested in our endeavors. For those of you enthusiastic about my system of organizing human families metrically, he is numbered 02-06.”

  The house was cleaned meticulously against his arrival: Fittings were shined; the front path was repaved.

  On the day that a runner finally came to the door to say that Lord Cheldthorpe had at last arrived in Boston-town, we were hurriedly dressed in our finery and brought down to the front hall to meet him.

  He was a tall, loose-jointed man, perhaps thirty years of age, baronial in his stride, with a nose that spoke of Roman blood and eyebrows so blond they were almost white against the red of his skin. He looked a patrician and an adventurer.

  When he entered, we all bowed low in courtesy.

  “Welcome, My Lord,” said 03-01, “to the Colonies.”

  “You are a man of deep science,” said Lord Cheldthorpe. His voice was young and potent. “One puts a question before you: One had, as a kind of pet aboard the ship, a one-legged seagull. One was charmed by its sense of balance when the ship rocked. Would there be a way that one could attract it to this house? It, specifically?”

  03-01 speculated, “Were we to . . . spread garbage upon the roof, we would likely attract quite a number of . . . seagulls . . . but there is no guarantee . . . My Lord . . . that one should be your especial friend.”

  “We tried to knock it over by throwing lead-shot and failed.” His Lordship made a hurling motion. “The bird was nimble.”

  “I see, My Lord.”

  “Could one attract it to one’s side, one could keep it upon one’s shoulder, and call it Hector, and it would be a fine, fine thing.”

  “Indeed, My Lord,” said 03-01. “My very thought. . . . Perhaps you might give me some time to consider a solution? In the meantime, allow us to conduct you into our company, so you might meet our academicians.”

  We went into the parlor, and the men gathered about His Lordship. I remained near the door, standing, my hands folded before me.

  He went immediately to my mother. He took her hand.

  “Princess Cassiopeia,” said 03-01, “may I present My Lord the Earl of Cheldthorpe?”

  Cheldthorpe kissed my mother’s hand. “Princess,” he said, meeting her eyes, and then, to 03-01, corrected him, saying, “By the ancient and excellent rules of heraldry, having been newly created Lord Cheldthorpe in my late uncle’s stead, I am to be referred to as Lord Cheldthorpe of the New Creation.”

  “My Lord of the New Creation, it is our pleasure to greet you,” said my mother, spreading out her dress and sitting. “And we welcome you to Eden.”

  Thus it was that almost in the first instant of their meeting, my mother and Lord Cheldthorpe began some flirtation, which I greeted with the same admixture of acceptance and incomprehension with which I observed most of the familiarities and designs of adults.

  My mother would play upon the harpsichord, and he would lie upon the sofa, tapping his hand out of time.

  My mother, with colors and an elaborate quill, would be sketching some fantastical bird that even the adoring eyes of a son could see looked like nothing so much as a sirloin steak with a drill for a head.

  Lord Cheldthorpe would stand by her, admiring over her shoulder. “Your Highness,” he would say, “it breathes. Stop my vitals — I fear if you make it any more lifelike, it will flit off the page.”

  “You flatter me, sir.”

  “Hardly, Your Highness. I am startled at the number of your accomplishments.”

  “My Lord,” she replied, “if, in your eyes, I seem accomplished, it is only because by your side, I reflect the luster of your own manifold achievements.”

  He laughed. “Oh — Princess.”

  “Milord?”

  “Oh, Princess.”

  “Oh, Milord. . . . Octavian,” said my mother, “stop breaking my crayons.”

  “I’m not breaking,” said I. “I’m drawing.”

  “‘Drawing’ is not snapping crayons and hurling them across the room.”

  I said, “It’s the volcano Vesuvius in the very height of its eruption. That’s how you draw magma.”

  “Now that is a demme fine volcano,” said Lord Cheldthorpe, squatting down by me.

  I said, “It rained ash upon the living and the dead. And gasses came out that were killing.”

  “Indeed,” said my mother, swatting my hand. “Killing my red.”

  “The Elder Pliny died of them.”

  Lord Cheldthorpe said, “Faugh! He is an astonishing child. The astonishing child of an astonishing mother.”

  “Oh,” said my mother, “there is no true substitute for a Classical education.”

  After a few such sessions as these, Lord Cheldthorpe concluded that he should like to extend his stay before moving down the coast to see the Carolinas. He and Mr. 03-01 and several other of our academicians spake about possible endeavors.

  They hit upon a plan. We saw that tents were purchased, and there was talk of provender, and transportation cases for the astronomical instruments. We did not know what these things signified.

  One night, 03-01 called together several of the most select among the College, and outlined the venture further: “My friends, as many of you are doubtless sensible, this summer, a most remarkable celestial conjunction shall occur . . . the Transit of Venus. It is an astrological phenomenon we have long wished to observe . . . for it provides us an opportunity to calculate the Earth’s distance from our sun. As Venus crosses the face of Sol, we may time its crossing and, by so doing, produce data for triangulation.

  “At this moment, we are granted a unique opportunity to pursue this observation, My Lord Cheldthorpe agreeing to fund a voy
age into the forests of northern New-York, that we might record a significant westerly account of the conjunction. Thus, first, we shall be able to observe clearly the Transit, which shall not occur again in our lifetimes. Second, My Lord 02-06, if I may call him so, is an avid sportsman, and in the wilds of New-York he shall find plenty of scope for unusual chases and kills. Finally, we may hope the charm and pleasure of such an excursion, in such excellent company, shall interest My Lord Cheldthorpe in our continuance.

  “We hope to triumph upon three heads, therefore, introducing His Lordship to opportunities in the New World for profit, for pleasure, and for unparalleled scientific progress.”

  Thus we headed off into the wilderness, a company of philosophers, painters, and poets, with but a few servants to carry our tents and our supplies. 03-01, fathoming how interesting was my mother’s presence to Lord Cheldthorpe of the New Creation, bade her come along as well; which invitation she was not at liberty to refuse, though the way would be rough for a gentlewoman and the provender indelicate.

  After we had traveled a week, and some hundred miles, we met Druggett, Mr. 03-01’s correspondent in the Indian territories; and he, with a few other guides drawn from his circle of acquaintance, led us onwards; halting the progress of the train only so that Mr. Druggett, who still wore the bandage wrapped around his skull, could endeavor to show Lord Cheldthorpe some sport with their fowling-pieces, bringing down ducks to be roasted by the company in the evenings.

  Mr. Druggett acted also as our envoy to the Iroquois, requesting passage from them and explaining that we came but to view the sun and the planets. This perplexed them somewhat, as they said that the sun shone in all quarters, and could be as well observed in Boston; but it was no more nonsensical than most of what the white man did; and so they bid us to pass to the place staked out by Mr. Druggett for our exercises.

  Two Iroquois rode with us to secure our safe passage. They did not speak much; the one, because he knew not our tongue; the other, because he did not have much he wished to convey.

  He did, one night, question Bono, the other whispering to him in their language. “He asks,” the man explained, “whether you know a valiant man of your hue named Cato Williams, who fought against us in the late war.”

  Bono shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Everyone is named Cato Williams.”

  The Iroquois nodded. “The likelihood was small.”

  Two mornings later, they were gone when we arose.

  At length, we reached our proposed camp near Lake Champlain, not without some slight mishaps not worth recording.

  The scene was such as could only inspire us with a greater sense of the remarkable majesty of Nature. The catalogue of trees alone was tremendous, lush in its variety: the white pine, the birch, the hemlock, the sumac, the elm . . . all of these situated on rocks and in hollows that, to a boy of my years, spake of great adventure — perhaps adventure executed while squinting and crawling on the belly. Down the slope from our encampment lay Lake Champlain, where I vowed I should learn to swim before we finished our business with the planet Venus and returned to the city.

  We erected our tents while Lord Cheldthorpe and Druggett rode about the paths through the wildwood, calling to one another and firing. Lord Cheldthorpe burst into the clearing and declared, “Mr. Gitney! Mark this, sir — mark this: I will down a bull moose for you and your academy before we strike camp.”

  Bono looked up from the tent stake we were driving into the ground. “Mercy in a jug,” he swore. “I never seen a man so taken with aim and velocity.”

  Dr. 09-01 agreed. “It must be delightful to be so pleased simply to have one thing hit another thing.”

  “Off we go, Druggett!” called Cheldthorpe. “These forests shan’t stay virgin for long!”

  Bono said, “Good to see a man who don’t need the Carnival in Venice, just so long as he’s got a live squirrel and a pile of squash to huck.”

  Mr. 03-01 and his colleagues soon set to work unpacking the astronomical instruments, and, once they had, they busied themselves taking the latitude and longitude of our situation so that they might better calculate the parallax described by the Transit of Venus across the face of the sun, and, following that, might with more accuracy triangulate with others’ observations of the same phenomenon, and arrive at last at a calculation of those awesome distances between our Earth and its roasting benefactor.

  When I was not laboring with Dr. 09-01 over my lessons or observing the calculations made by Druggett and Mr. 03-01 for the purposes of surveying the site, I sat with my mother, who strove even in this mean setting to retain some semblance of her royal bearing, though all of us were hot and beset upon by mosquito-flies. Bono, Dr. 09-01, and I took to slapping them in rhythm, and Bono, having slain one, ran about the tent, pinching it between his fingers and crying, “Mark this, Gitney! Mark this: Another trophy to hang in your academy! Post-haste, record the wingspan!”

  My mother laughed at his jest, and seemed to agree that Cheldthorpe was a prancing fool; yet she did not shun any opportunity to converse with His Lordship; nor did she make an unfavorable impression upon that lively individual, having all the graces of intellect, as well as the beauties of her person, at her command. She did not avoid him when he returned, slicked with sweat, from the hunt; she did not excuse herself when over wine by the campfire His Lordship told his tales of what the day had brought. I saw by her gaze that she did not find his person unattractive.

  I could well determine that Mr. 03-01, far from disapproving of this match — conducted though it was in a situation far removed from propriety — was desirous of its success, perhaps even more ardently than either of the actors in the drama.

  One evening when I passed by Mr. Gitney’s tent, I heard him speaking of this to my mother; and I paused, listening, as on the other side of the bare canvas, he said quietly, “I’ve been pleased to remark that you and His Lordship have struck up such a friendship.” There was a silence while he waited for my mother to respond. She did not. He continued: “What is the . . . nature of your friendship?”

  “It is a friendship, nothing more.”

  “Are the sentiments on your part genuine? Or do you entice him for gain?”

  She laughed. “This interrogation is absolutely outrageous.”

  “I have no objection to Your Highness using your charms and wiles for your own private ends. I only ask that you do whatever you can to foster his continued involvement in our philosophical household.”

  My mother said lazily, “There is a professional title for what you are doing.”

  “Touch his hand. The back of the wrist. Breathe too closely to his face. All marks of desire. We have found that affection causes the pupil of the eye to dilate involuntarily.”

  “Sir —”

  “I am not jesting. This flirtation is a boon, an unexpected gift. Foster it, Mademoiselle. Do you understand?”

  Something was dropped within the tent. They moved on the grass. Startled from my reverie, I slipped onwards.

  I wish she had spoke to me, and told me what it was that budded there in the clearing by the lake.

  When I was not near the clamor and drollery of Bono and Dr. 09-01, I found myself Observant, like an eye, and could feel no more than that — was sensible only of my gaze upon my mother and His Lordship as they met and bandied about their pleasantries. Each night, I lay awake, waiting until I heard her retire to her mattress to sleep before I allowed myself slumber. I listened through the canvas as she whispered long hours with His Lordship, though words I could not divine, merely the hissing sibilants of collusion and intimacy.

  I could not but note that Lord Cheldthorpe suffered my mother to address him not in the forms of humility, as a servant should, pleading, “Your Lordship”; rather she “My Lord”-ed him as might a princess. This was further mark of his regard.

  So anxious was Mr. 03-01 to secure Lord Cheldthorpe’s favor, that one evening, when the company had drunk a great deal, he invited the assembled to
dance, looking particularly to my mother and His Lordship of the New Creation. The two of them dancing could not have presented a more charming scene, turning as they did upon the greensward, with the blue gloaming seeping through the pines behind them and the empty sky above, lit by the frisking fireflies against the black trunks; they could not have performed their steps more elegantly, or spun more sweetly, even when the music sped to a furious pace, skittering wildly, so that it could not have offered a reasonable beat to any but a raging Corybante dance-horde, drugged and frenzied before rending the flesh of fleeing men.

  “Octavian,” said my mother. “My dear? Might you observe the beat? You rush.”

  I stopped playing and set the violin down from my chin.

  “You needn’t cease, dearest,” said my mother. “I merely request that you maintain an easier beat.”

  Lord Cheldthorpe took up her hands again. They waited. I played a few squawling fanfares. I said, “I fear the humidity has untuned me.”

  My mother turned to me. I watched to see the mask, and if it would lift. “Octavian,” she said coldly, “don’t be a child.”

  There was a silence.

  “But,” said 09-01, “he is a child.”

  “He has never been a child,” my mother said, “and I see no reason he should begin now.”

  And yet — I malign her. O vain, treacherous, self-anguishing heart: Recall instead how, on other evenings, she and you chased fireflies, Lord Cheldthorpe clapping.

  Recall her decorating cakes near the refracting telescope, her dress in the wind.

  Recall how she could draw the birds to her with butter and song.

  So we pursued our duties and pleasures while the end of May came. While in Boston, the Redcoats marched the streets and mustered on the Common; and washerwomen listened at doors for British plans; and boys bruited in the streets the names of those who consorted with the Crown officials; and merchants who sold British goods found their shops deserted of custom, or molested with rocks; while that hot summer first warmed the lakes and prompted the activities of flies, we reclined and disported ourselves by Lake Champlain.